"Yes. First there was whooping cough here to destroy the summer holidays; then came the Milsoms' measles, and I could not go and carry infection. Oh! and then Freddy broke his leg, and his grandmother was too nervous to be left with him. And by and by some one told her the scarlatina was in the town."

"It really was, you know."

"Any way, it would have been sheer selfish inhumanity to leave her, and then she had a real illness, which frightened us all very much. Next came influenza to every one. And these last holidays! What should the newly-come little one from India do, but catch a fever in the Red Sea, and I had to keep guard over the brothers at Weymouth till she was reported safe, and I don't believe it was infectious after all! Still, I am tired of 'other people's stairs.'"

"It is nearly five years since you have been with them, except for that one peep you took at Weston."

"And that is a great deal at their age. Agatha was a vehement reader; she would hardly look at me, so absorbed was she in 'The York and Lancaster Rose' which I had brought her."

"She is rather like that now. I conclude that you will wish to take them away?"

"Not this time, at any rate till the house is fit to put over their heads. Besides, you have so mothered them, dear Sophy, that I could not bear to make a sudden parting."

"There will be pain, especially over little Thekla and Polly. But if George comes home this spring, and I go out to Queensland with him, perhaps I should have asked you to take this house off my hands. May be it would be prudent in you to do so even now, considering all things; only I believe that transplanting would be good for them all."

"I am glad you think so, for I have a perfect longing for that little house of my own."

"You will be able to give them a superior kind of society to what they have had access to here. There is a good deal that I should like to talk over with you before they come in."

"Agatha seems to be in despair at her failure."

"So is all the house, for we were very proud of her, and, of course, we all thought it a fad of the examiners, but perhaps our headmistress might not say the same. She is a good, hardworking girl though, and ambitious, and quite worth further training."

"I am glad of being able to secure it to her at least, and by the time her course is finished I shall be able to judge about the others."

"You thought of taking them in hand yourself?"

"Certainly; how nice it will be to teach my own kin, and not endless strangers, lovable as they have been!"

"It will be very good for them all to see something of life and manners superior to what I can give them here. You will take them into a fresh sphere, and--as things were--besides that, I could not-- I did not know whether their lives would not lie among our people here."