‘Nonsense, nurse,’ said Gillian.  ’I’m much better pleased to go and be of some use!  Val, you naughty child, how dare you make such a fuss?’ for Valetta was crying again.

’I hate school, and I hate Rockstone, and I don’t see why Mysie should always go everywhere, and wear new frocks, and I go to the butchers and bakers and wear horrid old ones.’

‘I wish you could come too,’ said Mysie; ’but indeed old frocks are the nicest, because one is not bothered to take so much care of them; and lords and ladies aren’t a bit better to play with than, other people.  In fact, Ivy is what Japs calls a muff and a stick.’

Valetta, however, cried on, and Mysie went the length of repairing to her mother, in the midst of her last notes and packings, to entreat to change with Val, who followed on tip-toe.

‘Certainly not,’ was the answer from Lady Merrifield, who was being worried on all sides, ’Valetta is not asked, and she is not behaving so that I could accept for her if she were.’

And Val had to turn away in floods of tears, which redoubled on being told by the united voices of her brothers and sisters that they were ashamed of her for being so selfish as to cry for herself when all were in so much trouble about papa.

Lady Merrifield caught some of the last words.  ‘No, my dear,’ she said.  ’That is not quite just or kind.  It is being unhappy that makes poor Val so ready to cry about her own grievances.  Only, Val, come here, and remember that fretting is not the way to meet such things.  There is a better way, my child, and I think you know what I mean.  Now, to help you through the time in an outer way, suppose you each set yourself some one thing to improve in while I am away.  Don’t tell me what it is, but let me find out when I come home.’  With that she obeyed an urgent summons to speak to the gardener.

‘I shall!  I shall,’ cried little Primrose, ’write a whole copy-book in single lines!  And won’t mamma be pleased?  What shall you do, Fergus? and Val? and Mysie?’

’I shall get to spin my peg-top so as it will never tumble down, and will turn an engine for drawing water,’ was the prompt answer of Fergus.

‘What nonsense!’ said Val; ’you’d better settle to get your long division sums right.’

‘That s girls’ stuff,’ replied Fergus; ’you’d better settle to leave off crying for nothing.’

‘That you had!’ said several voices, and Val very nearly cried again as she exclaimed:  ’Don’t be all so tiresome.  I shall make mamma a beautiful crewel cushion, with all the battles in history on it.  And won’t she be surprised!’

‘I think mamma meant more than that,’ said Mysie.

‘Oh, Mysie, what shall you do?’ asked Primrose.

’I did think of getting to translate one of mamma’s favourite German stories quite through to her without wanting the dictionary or stumbling one bit,’ said Mysie; ’but I am sure she meant something better and better, and I’m thinking what it is—–­Perhaps it is making all little Flossie Maddin’s clothes, a whole suit all oneself—–­Or perhaps it is manners.  What do you think, Gill?’