’Oh, it is all very fine for you to sit there and moralise, Ursula, like a sort of sucking Diogenes,’ grumbled Jill, ’when you know you are going to have your own way and live a deliciously sort of three-volume-novel life, not like any one else’s, unless it were Don Quixote, or one of the Knights of the Round Table, poking about among a lot of strange people, doing wonderful things for them, until they are all ready to worship you.  It is all very well for you, I say; but what would you do if you were me?’ cried Jill, in her shrill treble, and quite oblivious of grammatical niceties; ’how would you like to be poor me, shut up here with that old dragon?’

This was a grand opportunity for airing my philosophy, and I rushed at it.  To Jill’s amazement, I shook my hair back in the way she usually shook her rough black mane, and, opening my eyes very widely, tried to copy Jill’s falsetto.

‘How thankful I am Jocelyn Garston and not Ursula Garston,’ I said, with rapid staccato.  ’Poor Ursula!  I am fond of her, but I would not change places with her for the world.  She has known such a lot of trouble in her life, more than most girls, I believe; she has lost her lovely home,—­such a sweet old place,—­and her mother and father and Charlie, all her nearest and her most beloved, and she is so sad that she wants to work hard and forget her troubles.’

‘Oh dear!’ sighed Jill at this.

‘How happy I am compared with her!’ I went on, relapsing unconsciously into my own voice.  ’I am young and strong; I have all my life before me.  True, poor Ralph has gone, but I was only a child, and did not miss him.  I have a good father and an indulgent mother’ (’Humph!’ observed Jill at this point, only she turned it into a cough); ’if my present schoolroom life is not to my taste, I am sensible enough to know that the drudgery and restraint will not last for long; in another year, or a year and a half, Fraeulein, whom I certainly do not love, will go back to her own country.  I shall be free to read the books I like, to study what I choose, or to be idle.  I shall have Sara’s cheerful companionship instead of Fraeulein’s heavy company; I shall ride; I shall walk in the sunshine; I shall be a butterfly instead of a chrysalis; and if I care to be useful, all sorts of paths will be open to me.’

‘There, hold your tongue,’ interrupted Jill, with a rough kiss; ’of course I know I am a wicked, ungrateful wretch, and that I ought to be more patient.  Yes, you shall go, Ursula; you are a darling, but I will not want to keep you; you are too good to be wasted on me; it would be like pouring gold into a sieve.  Well, I did cry about it this afternoon, but I won’t be such a goose any more.  I will live my life the same way, in spite of all of them, you will see if I don’t, Ursula.  Who is it who says, “The thoughts of youth are long long thoughts”?  I have such big thoughts sometimes, especially when I sit in the dark.  I send them out like strange birds, all over the world,—­up, up, everywhere,—­but they never come back to me again,’ finished Jill mournfully; ’if they build nests I never know it:  I just sit and puzzle out things, like poor little grimy Cinderella.’