laid towards Rockstone, would make regular havoc of the pneumatic
tyres."

Vera saw that this was prohibitive, and felt too much vexed to
mention Thekla's version of the same; but Magdalen asked, "Have you
learnt?"

"They were always going to teach me at Warner Grange, but it always
snowed, or rained, or skated, I mean we skated, or something,
whenever Hubert had time; but I am perfectly dying to learn."

"Well, before you expire, we may teach you a little on these smoother
paths; and hire one perhaps, by the time the stones are passable.
Just at present, I think our own legs and Pixy's are safer for that
descent."

Vera was pacified enough to look on with a certain degree of
complacency, while Thekla was enraptured at being set to take out the
eggs from the hens' nests.

But the conclave in the sitting-room on Vera's report decided,
"Selfish old thing, it is only an excuse! Of course we should take
care not to spoil it. It shows what will be the way with
everything."

No one knew of a still more secret conclave within Magdalen's own
breast, one of those held at times by many an elder, between the
claims of loyalty to the keepsakes of affection and old association
and the gratification of present desires. Magdalen thought of the
rules of convents forbidding the appropriation of personal trifles,