Mavis and Merle walked into the dining-room just in the nick of time to satisfy Mrs. Tremayne's sense of propriety. She was a dear, nervous, old lady, who had never had any daughters of her own, and had rather a hazy notion of girls in general, and was indeed a little frightened of schoolgirls; but she tried to be very kind to her great-nieces, and had told Jessop to be sure and look after them. Jessop did not need any telling. It was she who had arranged their bedroom, and had put the little table in the window, and the two basket-chairs, and the bookcase full of tales of adventure and bound volumes of The Boys' Own Paper. The iced soda-cake was of her making, and so was the plateful of delicious treacle toffee.

"It's twenty years since the boys used to come home from boarding-school for their holidays, but I haven't forgotten what young folks like," she explained to Mavis and Merle, as she helped them to unpack. "It's more like a boys' bedroom than a girls' perhaps, but I just collected anything of Master Richard's and Master Cyril's that I could find about the house. If you don't care about them we'll take them out."

"But we love boys' things," declared Merle, admiring the pictures of dogs and horses on the walls, opening the drawers of the cabinet of birds' eggs, and touching the whip and the cricket bat with friendly fingers. Mavis was already deep in Coral Island, and temporarily deaf to the outside world, but she had just sufficient sense of manners left to grunt "It's a gorgeous bookcase!" before she lost herself in the South Seas among the palm trees.

"Two very nice young ladies, and to have them here is like old times," Jessop had confided to Tom, the factotum. "The house has always seemed dull since Master Cyril went away. Miss Mavis reminds me of him, with her blue eyes and that gentle little voice of hers. Now, Miss Merle is like Master Percy. He'd a way with him! I never knew what was going to happen next when he was at home. 'Jessop' he'd say, 'you're a wonderful woman!' Then I knew he meant to coax me to let him keep his rabbits in his bedroom, or do something of that sort. Girls are quieter than boys, but these two will cheer us up a little, I dare say. We all seem to have grown old here lately."

And Tom, the factotum, polishing boots by the back door, agreed with her. Twenty years ago he had been the coachman, and, immaculate in his grey livery and silver buttons and top hat with the cockade at the side, had driven the high gig about the country lanes. It had nearly broken his heart when his master decided to give up the horses and take to motoring instead. There were tears in his eyes when he groomed Czar and Ruby for the last time. But, though Dr. Tremayne might march with the century, and visit his patients more quickly in his new automobile, he had no intention of parting with his old coachman, and determined to turn him into a chauffeur instead. So Tom learnt to drive the car, learnt almost too well, indeed, for, determined not to show the white feather, he waxed foolhardy, and would career round corners with one wheel off the ground, or dash down hills at such breakneck speed that the doctor, not usually a nervous subject, would gasp with relief to find himself alive at the bottom. Something plainly had to be done, or Tom would soon have broken the family's bones, and the question was how to shelve him without giving him offence. The riddle, fortunately, solved itself by the retirement of Dalton, the factotum-gardener. Dr. Tremayne decided to retrench and to keep only one man-servant. In future he drove his own car, and Tom was installed in Dalton's place, to weed the walks, clip the grass, polish the knives, and carry the coals. He made friends at once with Mavis and Merle, or rather he merely transferred to them the friendship he had given to their mother twenty-five years ago, when she used to spend her holidays at Bridge House, and rode Cobs, the white pony, whose grave lay at the bottom of the paddock. To Tom, motoring was the sign of a degenerate age, and he would descant to the girls about the good old days, when people were not in such a frantic hurry and could wait for the doctor until he drove up behind a well-groomed horse, and made such a case for the past times that Merle, in spite of her ambition to drive a car, began to wish Czar and Ruby and Cobs were still in the stable, and she herself could be clad in Mother's old riding-habit and flourish Cousin Percy's discarded whip as she ambled along the lanes on pony-back.

That, however, was before she had had a run in the little, yellow Deemster car. After the first trip to Chagmouth she completely changed her mind.

For a week life went on with the greatest regularity at Durracombe. Every morning the girls were called by Jessop promptly at half-past seven. They started for school at twenty minutes to nine, returned home for lunch, rushed back to The Moorings by 2.30, did their preparation and practising in the evenings, and went to bed at nine o'clock. Uncle David was nearly always out, or busy in the surgery, and Aunt Nellie sat by the fire, knitting or taking little naps. She would ask very kindly about their lessons, then, hardly giving them time to answer, would plunge into reminiscences of her boys' schooldays. Life, for her, still centred round Percy, Richard, and Cyril. When the girls wanted to talk they went to Jessop. It was to her they poured out their experiences of their new school, and she listened with the flattering interest of one who really enjoys hearing. She never read any books, so perhaps the little adventures described humorously by Mavis or Merle took the place of chapters in a serial story. She was familiar directly with the names of all the girls and teachers at The Moorings, and most delightfully ready to "take sides", and like those whom they liked and agree about the iniquities of those who offended them.

For this first week had not been all plain sailing. It is often really easier to get on in a big school than a little one. There is more elbow-room among two hundred girls than among two dozen. Nobody except Iva Westwood had seemed particularly pleased to welcome them. Opal Earnshaw palpably resented their presence.

"Miss Pollard is only supposed to take twenty pupils," she remarked, on the day after their arrival. "I know she refused two other girls, so I can't think why she should have broken her rule."

"But those girls would have been boarders," objected Iva.

"Well, where's the difference?"

"A great deal when it means two extra beds in a dormitory."

"It means two extra seats in a room that's already overcrowded," declared Opal loftily. "If the school is going to take any more new girls it had better build an annexe and let them have classes there."

"Sorry to be on the earth!" said Merle sarcastically. "Perhaps you'd like us to sit inside the cupboard? We shouldn't crowd you out there."

Opal looked her up and down, from her velvet hair-band to the tips of her shoes, then she gave a kind of snort. "I suppose you think yourself ever so clever," she retorted. "Girls from big schools generally give themselves airs."

"Other people can give themselves airs," snapped Merle, warming to the battle. "Big schools teach manners at any rate!"

"Oh, we don't mean anything against this school," hurriedly put in Mavis, who generally tried to take the edge off her sister's cutting speeches. "We think it's going to be quite jolly. I'm sorry if we've taken the desks where you've had your museum, but where are we to keep our books and things?"

Opal, who was grudgingly removing the contents of two desks, which for a whole term had been devoted to a collection of natural history objects, had the grace to look rather ashamed of herself.

"Oh, it's all right," she temporized, "but what I'm to do with all our birds' eggs and butterflies goodness only knows! I daren't keep them in any of the other classrooms or those juniors would be fingering them and they'd be smashed to bits. I suppose I must pack them in boxes and get Miss Fanny to stow them away somewhere."

"Can't I help?" said Mavis, coming to the rescue.

Iva had just arrived on the scene bearing some large cardboard boxes, into which the three girls transferred the little collection. It seemed quite a pity to have to move it, for it had been so carefully set out. There were certainly grounds for Opal's ill humour, though even the most unreasonable of head girls can hardly expect a mistress to reserve desks for a museum when she can give them to two extra pupils. The fact was that Opal had been "first favourite" at The Moorings for too long. It would have done her all the good in the world to be sent to a large boarding-school and find there were people more important than herself. Miss Pollard and Miss Fanny, devoted friends of her mother, undoubtedly spoilt her, lent a ready ear to her complaints, but listened coldly to anybody who made accusations against her. The knowledge that she will receive support at all costs from head-quarters is a dangerous weapon for a girl in a position of authority. During the whole of last term Opal had done pretty much what she liked, and when others grumbled would declare: "Well, go and tell Miss Pollard and see which she'll believe, you or me!" an argument which was so unfortunately well founded that the luckless objectors preferred to suffer in silence.

It was not in the nature of things that a disposition such as Merle Ramsay's could be in the same school with Opal Earnshaw without a clash. Merle loved fair play, and was always ready and willing to stand up for anybody's rights, including Mavis's and her own. Her first instinct had been to clear their new desks by tipping the unfortunate museum on to the floor. That was Merle all over. She preferred forcible methods to diplomacy. It generally needed all Mavis's tact to smooth over the difficulties roused by Merle's ardent partisanship and freedom of speech. Many were the squalls from which she had rescued her sister at the Whinburn High School, and apparently she would be required to perform the same office for her at The Moorings.

Opal calmed down and was fairly civil during the morning, but on that very afternoon arose another unfortunate occasion of dispute. The Ramsays had finished lunch early, and hurried back to school in order to have a little fun with the boarders before lessons began at 2.30. They liked Iva and Nesta, and also some of the younger ones, and meant to enjoy half an hour with them in the playroom. Merle was by nature a public entertainer. She could not spend ten minutes in the company of other girls without wanting to start games or organize a sing-song or in some way get up amusement. During the Christmas holidays she had been poring over an article on palmistry which she found in a magazine. As the result of her studies in that direction she offered to tell the fortune of anybody who liked to consult her. She was instantly besieged by an excited crowd, all thrusting forward their hands at once for inspection and trying to push one another aside.

"Cheerio! This won't do!" decreed Merle. "One at a time, my hearties! Take your places in an orderly queue and come up in your turns to the witch, or she'll fly away on her broomstick and tell you nothing! Iva first, then Nesta, then you others, and no squabbling. Anybody who tries to push in front will be turned to the end of the queue. That's kismet!"

Merle could always keep order among juniors. The small fry giggled, but formed into line and kept their places while Iva and Nesta consulted the oracle. The prophecies were rather startling but sufficiently exciting to make eight young heads bob up and down with eagerness to secure their turns before the bell rang for afternoon school. Iva had been sent away a little dubious between the attractions of "foreign travel" and a warning of "danger by sea", while Nesta was openly rejoicing over a prospect of "wealth and honours" in spite of the "accidents" scattered over her future path. It was now the turn of Mamie Drew, and that short-skirted damsel was just advancing with rather awed eyes and a nervous chuckle, when the door opened and Opal Earnshaw strolled into the room.

"Hello! What are you all doing here?" she exclaimed. "Fortunes! Oh, I say! I must have mine told. What can you make out of my hand?"

And, thrusting Mamie aside, she spread out her palm for Merle's inspection.

Now it was partly Merle's love of fair play and partly her antipathy to Opal, and partly a little bit of "katawampus", but the three feelings combined made her thrust away the hand in a very peremptory fashion, and brought an extremely tart note into her voice as she said:

"No pushing in front! Go to the end of the queue and take your turn with the others. It's Mamie next."

"I don't mind," volunteered Mamie, making way for Opal.

"But I mind!" snapped Merle. "It's I who's telling the fortunes and I'll do it as I like, and take you in order. If you don't want to come next, Mamie, get out of the way can't you, and let Joyce have her innings! Opal must wait like other people."

Opal, however, as head girl, considered herself highly insulted.

"You needn't think I'm going to wait at the end of a queue of kids," she retorted angrily. "I don't care about your old fortune-telling, thanks!" and she flounced out of the room.

She was very glum indeed all afternoon, and would not look at either of the Ramsays, though Mavis, to make amends, offered the loan of a new penknife, and even tendered a surreptitious chocolate.

"I took her down, didn't I?" smirked Merle, as the sisters walked home up the High Street, and watched the retreating figure of Opal, who had scuttled past them with averted eyes, hurrying towards her own front door.

Mavis sighed. Her naturally kind and peaceful disposition and her loyalty to Merle were always pulling her in opposite directions.

"I'm afraid Opal just detests us. Perhaps you might have let her take Mamie's turn as Mamie actually offered."

"Certainly not." (Merle's voice was firm.) "If you begin to let a girl like that butt in whenever she wants, you never know where you are. I think she's the limit. She'd no need to look so annoyed when we arrived at school. What does it matter to her? The Moorings isn't run for her private convenience!"

"She couldn't forgive us for taking those spare desks and turning out the museum."

"Bother her museum!"

"It's rather a nice one anyway. It seems a pity it has to be put by in cardboard boxes."

Mavis was really concerned about the little collection of curiosities that had been so neatly spread forth in the unoccupied desks. She cogitated for a long time as to how the difficulty could possibly be overcome. Finally she sought Tom, with whom she was already on terms of great friendship. She found him in the greenhouse, repotting some ferns.

"Oh, Tom!" she burst out eagerly. "Do you think there's anything about the place I might take to make a museum?"

Tom stroked the grey stubble on his chin reflectively.

"A museum?" he repeated. "That's a big order, Miss, isn't it? I went through the museum in the castle grounds at Taunton once. It must be ten years ago. Or will it be twelve now?"

"Oh, of course, I don't mean a museum like that," explained Mavis, "only a kind of box arrangement with some glass over it, to put butterflies and birds' eggs in, very like—" (her eyes wandered round the greenhouse) "very like what you grow seeds in."

The nice part about Tom was the alacrity with which he caught up suggestions. At his age it was really amazing.

"A very good idee, Miss," he agreed. "I know what you want. Master Cyril used to keep his butterflies in boxes like that. I'll hunt about and see what I can find for you."

"Smart-looking boxes and some pieces of glass to fit over them?" pleaded Mavis.

"You leave it to me," was all Tom would promise, but there was a twinkle in his eye as he stooped over his ferns again.

Every morning Mavis asked him for the boxes, and each time he either pretended to have forgotten or was ready with some excuse. At the end of four days, however, he took her into the old harness-room, where he had a joiner's bench and a variety of tools, for he acted handy man to the establishment.

"How will these suit you, Miss?" he enquired, in a would-be nonchalant tone.

Mavis gave an absolute bounce of surprise. There on the bench lay two most beautiful cases. Tom had planed the boxes and made lids for them, into which he had fitted the pieces of glass. They were stained brown and varnished, and were lined neatly with dark-blue cloth. The old man was evidently bursting with pride at his handiwork, though he affected an attitude of indifference.

Mavis made haste to congratulate him.

"It's the cleverest thing I've ever seen done in my life," she purred. "Oh, they're just too lovely for words—absolutely topping! Thanks, a thousand times over. You must have simply slaved to finish them so quickly." "Oh, I just worked at them in odds and ends of my time," said Tom casually, looking very pleased all the same. "That varnish is a bit sticky yet, but I dare say it'll be dry by the morning. If you want the boxes at school I'll carry them round for you to-morrow some time."

"Oh, thanks! Could you bring them at eleven o'clock 'break'? That would be scrumptious. I must fetch Merle to look at them at once, and Jessop too. You don't mind?"

Tom delivered the cases next day with admirable punctuality; indeed he was standing on the school doorstep exactly as Miss Fanny rang the big bell for break. The girls, pouring into the hall, saw him deliver the treasures into the safe custody of Bella, the housemaid. Naturally they crowded round to look.

"Hello! What are these for?" asked Opal. "What stunning cases!"

"They're for Miss Ramsay," proclaimed Bella.

Mavis, with rather a red face, stepped forward.

"If you think they'll do to keep the birds' eggs and butterflies and things in will you please have them as a museum for the school," she said quickly. "Tom, my uncle's coachman, made them on purpose."

"Jolly decent of him. They're A1," approved Opal. "Better than the desks really, because of the glass lids. I say, I'm going to bolt my lunch in two secs, and get down those boxes and spread out the collection again. The things will look no end on that dark cloth."

"Spiffing," agreed Iva, who was also inspecting the new acquisitions.

"Hurry up with your lunch then, and help me to arrange them. No, I can't have a dozen people's fingers interfering! I'm curator of the museum and I won't have it smashed. Three are quite enough. Iva and Mavis and I are going to do it, and we don't want anyone else, thank you! You can come and look at it when it's finished. I'll put the cases on the window-sill in the big schoolroom. Mavis Ramsay" (this last communication was whispered) "I don't mind telling you I didn't care for you before—it was mostly the fault of that sister of yours!—but I think now you're an absolute sport. You and Merle aren't a scrap alike. Nobody would ever take you for sisters."