In the length and breadth of England there could hardly have been found a more lovely little property than Maze Court. There were larger houses in the neighbourhood, with more extensive grounds; but as Brenda Dixon stood on the terrace and gazed down towards the good old English park she felt a real glow of pride and pleasure in belonging to such a place. It was the sort of feeling she had whenever she brought a new school friend home for the holidays.

Beside her stood Herbert—long, lean, and very gentlemanly in his flannels. It was one of his sister's great joys that he always looked a gentleman in everything.

She was a striking-looking girl herself, with features a little too pronounced for accurate beauty; but this very fault had the effect of making her handsome. She had little personal vanity—mere features she cared nothing for—but pride of birth and of the old home were deeply rooted in her.

"I think Nesta and Eustace ought to be surprised," she was thinking; "they won't have seen anything like it. It will seem so big and splendid to them after the kind of life they have had."Brenda was never very sure how to picture the Orbans' existence in Queensland. There was a touch of pettiness about it—a feeling of poverty and "hugger-muggerness," if one may coin such a word. The thought of her uncle going daily to his work in his shirt-sleeves; of her aunt helping in the housework; her cousins brought up just anyhow, without a governess or any schooling, shocked her sensibilities and gave vivid local colouring to her ideas about the Orbans. Those were the sort of details she would never have referred to at school.

And now she and Herbert were waiting for the arrival of the travellers, whom their grandparents had driven to the station to meet.

"Oh dear," she said with a sigh, "how I wish I didn't wish they weren't coming! If they are fearfully eccentric, all the neighbourhood will be talking about it in a week, and thinking it funny we have such relations. One can't explain to every one that they really are ladies and gentlemen gone to seed, can one?"

"Not exactly," said Herbert. "I jolly well hope you won't try; it would be beastly bad form. Of course if one had a fellow staying in the house one might have to explain."

"I simply couldn't ask any one," Brenda said. "It would be all over the school next term my uncle was a common labourer, and my cousins savages—or something!"

"Nice sort of friends you seem to have," said Herbert. "Is that a girl's usual way?"

"Well," said Brenda, with some asperity, "boys aren't any better, if you should have to explain matters to a chum of yours.""That's different," Herbert said; "one doesn't want to give a bad impression. What I hope is that Eustace isn't an awful little muff. I expect he is, though—can't help being when he has never been amongst any boys. It will have to be knocked out of him."

"Aunt Dorothy said he was a very nice little chap," Brenda quoted, and then her voice broke, so that she could not go on.

It was the beginning of the summer holidays, and both she and Herbert were feeling the death of Miss Chase most dreadfully. It had been bad enough when she left before the end of the winter holidays. Again at Easter the dullness of the house without her had known no bounds. But now, when they knew she would never be with them again, her very name choked them; they could scarcely speak of her, because her absence proved at every turn all that her presence had meant to them and to every one. How they had hated Australia when she left! How much more they hated it now and everything to do with it—even the coming of the cousins! Australia seemed the root of all evil—the cause of Aunt Dorothy's death.

"Aunt Dorothy was a brick," said Herbert jerkily; "she saw niceness in people whatever they were like. But girls don't really know when fellows are muffs."

"I don't know about Eustace," said Brenda, "but Nesta looked fearfully long-legged and queerly dressed in those snapshots Aunt Dorothy did."

"I hope she won't want to kiss me when she says 'How-do-you-do,'" said Herbert; "that is all I mind about her. But if that kid Eustace fancies he is going to hang around with me perpetually, he will find himself mistaken. I couldn't be bothered."

"But we shall have to look after them properly, and treat them just as we would any other visitors," Brenda said anxiously; "we can't sort of leave them to themselves, you know."

"Of course," said Herbert rather testily; "what do you take me for? I hope I shan't behave like a cad in my own house! But that is just the nuisance of it: they'll be visitors without being visitors, and they'll be here such an awful time. Thank goodness, there will be term time to look forward to!"

"If only Aunt Dorothy—" began Brenda.

"Oh, shut up," said Herbert roughly. Then added more gently, "I think the carriage has just turned in at the park gate. Listen."

All through the voyage Eustace and Nesta had been picturing this very day—this very hour. The parting with Bob and the farewell to home necessarily dropped into the background of their thoughts; the foreground was full of expectations. Now that they could realize they were on their way to the fulfilment of what had originally been the dream of their lives, all the old feeling of longing possessed them. At last they would see England! At last they would know what real "home" was like—their mother's old home, to which she had given them such a sense of belonging by all the tales they knew so well!

That England was not what they expected was natural enough. Mrs. Orban had never pretended to describe England, but simply her own particular corner of it on the borders of Wales. Leaving the ship was all bustle and rush, but during the long train journey there was plenty of time to look about, and English scenery struck all three children as most peculiar.

"Why, it's just like a map!" exclaimed Peter, as he knelt up at a window. "I'm certain if I was up in a balloon it would look like a map with all those funny little hedges."

"I think it would look like a patchwork quilt," said Nesta. "Father, why do people mark their land out into such funny little bits?"

So spoke the children, used to wide tracts of land without boundaries, hundreds of acres without fence or railing—such country as England boasts of in miniature only on its wildest moors.

The twins were speechless and almost suffocated with excitement when the train at last ran into a little country station, and Mr. Orban said briskly,—

"Here we are!"

"There they are!" exclaimed Mrs. Orban, with a little sob in her voice.

"Who? who?" yelled Peter, dashing from the other side of the carriage.

"Grannie and grandpapa," answered Mrs. Orban.

"Oh, where?" said Peter, as the train stopped. The children knew Bob Cochrane's grandfather and grandmother—a very comfortable, homely old pair of the typical "grannyish" type, rather bent, rather deaf, and always referred to as "the old people." Trixy invariably rushed at them when they came, and called them "the dear old pets."

There was no one the least "grannyish" or cosy-looking on the platform. Only a very erect, elderly gentleman with silver hair, and a lady who might have been the Queen, so dignified, so stately was she. They were the sort of people the twins had read of but never seen.

A hush fell over the children as they scrambled out of the carriage after their mother, and waited till their grandparents were ready to notice them. Then they each received a kiss and a handshake which made them instantly feel that nothing would be more impossible than to rush upon this grandfather and grandmother and call them either "dear," "old," or "pets."

All through the drive in the old-fashioned waggonette the sense of unfamiliarity grew as the children stared—the twins furtively, Peter openly—at Mr. and Mrs. Chase.

It seemed to the twins such a queer arrival, and so different to anything they had expected, that they could scarcely believe it was real. "Why," thought Nesta, "the Cochranes make much more fuss over us when we go to see them for a day." But Eustace's thoughts were too confused for description.

The conversation was funny and jerky, and just the sort of things strangers say to each other. Mrs. Chase hoped they were not very tired, and that they had had a nice journey. And Mr. Chase said it was a hotter summer than there had been for the last ten years, and so on.

"Oh dear," thought Eustace wearily, as they drove into the park, "how different it would have been if Aunt Dorothy had been here!"

But still there was the place to be interested in, and when his mother said, "This is home, Eustace," he roused himself, and looked about him.

Even a Colonial child, accustomed to vastness, could not help admiring such a place as this, full of fine old trees spreading over the short cropped turf. The park was hilly, and swept away to right and left towards thick woods.

Then, as the carriage reached a bend and came into full view of the great house, standing gray, massive, and strong in the evening light, the children's hearts did thrill with pride. This was something better than their own slenderly-built, iron-roofed house in Queensland.

"There are Herbert and Brenda waiting for us," said Mrs. Chase, "but I don't see nurse. I have got you a charming woman as nurse for Becky and Peter. You can't be tied down to looking after the children, you know. I want you to be free to enjoy yourself."

Peter started as if he had been shot.

"Me have a nurse!" he exclaimed. "I don't want looking after."

Eustace and Nesta glanced quickly at their mother. Becky with a nurse! This was something extraordinary. And mother "not to be tied down to looking after the children." When had it ever been a tie to mother to look after them? Such a strange idea had never occurred to any of them before, and all in their own separate ways resented it.

Mr. Chase looked at Peter in surprise.

"When I was your age," he said gravely, "I had what was given me, no matter what I wanted."

"We've got to think about your mother's wants first," said Mrs. Chase, "and she deserves a holiday after all these years."

"Quite right," said Mr. Orban; "she needs one badly. I am thankful she should have it."

There was no time to say more, for just then the carriage pulled up under the fine old portico.

Again there was that sense of stiffness and awkwardness as the Dixons came forward to greet their cousins; there was no triumphant entry and welcome to the old home. Mrs. Chase drew Mrs. Orban in; Mr. Chase took Mr. Orban; Becky, sleepy and perfectly placid, was whisked away by a grave-faced, elderly woman who said, "Come along, sir," to Peter, and disappeared through a red baize door, whither the little fellow had to follow.

"We're to have meals with the little ones in the schoolroom," said Brenda, to whom this new rule was not pleasing. "Come and get ready."

Now that she was a schoolgirl, and only home for holidays, she had all her meals with her grandparents except late dinner; but the arrival of the Orbans put an end to this. It was felt that the perpetual presence of such a crowd of youngsters at meals would never do. To Brenda and Herbert the change was typical of the whole difference these unwelcome guests would make in their lives.

"Couldn't we just have one look round first?" said Nesta, staring about her in proprietary admiration at the walls of the great hall, where hung the horns and weapons, the family portraits and trophies, of bygone Chases. "I would like just to see the secret chamber. Let me see—it must be through that door and up some steps—"She stopped inquiringly.

"No, it isn't," Brenda said, with a look of surprise; "you go just the other way. But there isn't time now; Herbert and I will show you everything to-morrow."

Nesta looked taken aback.

"I don't expect I shall need much showing," she said, with a little air of importance.

Her cousins both stared at her.

"You certainly will," said Herbert decidedly; "it isn't at all an easy house to find one's way about in, I can tell you. You would go blundering into all sorts of places you oughtn't to."

"Places we oughtn't to?" repeated Eustace in bewilderment.

"Yes, the servants' quarters, you know," said Herbert, as if he were talking to a child of eight.

"Aren't you allowed to go into the servants' quarters?" asked Nesta wonderingly.

"Oh, we're allowed, of course," said Herbert; "but one doesn't go. I dare say things were rather mixed out with you, though."

"What do you mean?" asked Eustace abruptly.

"Oh, you had to rough it rather, hadn't you?" said the elder boy. "I had a sort of idea you all had meals together."

"With the servants?" questioned Eustace.

"Yes," said Herbert, with perfect gravity.

Eustace flushed deeply.

"Oh, of course," he said, "coolies and every one had meals together. We all ate out of a trough."

"Eustace!" exclaimed Nesta in dismay, wondering what had happened to him all of a sudden.The cousins stared at him blankly, hardly realizing for a moment what he had said.

"Well, it is just as sensible as saying we had meals with the servants," said the boy, in such a tone of disgust that Herbert was left in no doubt as to his meaning.

"You needn't be cheeky, youngster," he said; "you can't expect me to know your habits, can you? I do know people in the Colonies can't pick and choose their company, and have to make friends with cowboys and bushrangers, if they want any society."

"What!" shouted the twins. "Who told you that?"

"Oh, I've read it somewhere," Herbert said carelessly. "It said 'there are no class distinctions in Colonial life. Men and women meet as equals.'"

"Then it is rot," said Eustace briefly. "I don't know how you could believe it. Our friends were all gentlemen and ladies. Australians are as particular as you are whom they have for friends."

"My good kid," said Herbert aggravatingly, "you don't know everything, and you haven't been everywhere in the Colonies, you know. But it really doesn't matter, does it? We were only saying one doesn't do that sort of thing in England. Come and wash for tea."

The small passage of arms left neither boy much pleased with the other. Herbert foresaw that Eustace was likely to be uppish and cheeky, and would want keeping in his place. Eustace thought Herbert gave himself airs, and more than justified the criticism he had long accorded his portrait. He did not look it in real life, for Herbert was manly and unaffected in appearance. "All the same," thought Eustace, "he's a silly ass."

Not so much what was said as the tone in which it was said left an unpleasant impression upon both new-comers. They had planned together that the very first thing they would do when they arrived would be to rush all over the house and see everything. Nesta declared she would not be able to sleep a wink for excitement if she did not. It had never occurred to them there would be barriers of any sort. Nothing in their own free lives hitherto had suggested baize doors through which they "ought not to go."

Somehow those baize doors were suggestive of everything irksome and disappointing; they were of a piece with all the other changes which the twins began to feel from the outset.

Before the evening was over Eustace and Nesta had grasped something of what coming to England really meant: it seemed a case of shut doors all round—there was no feeling of home about it. Rather, Eustace reflected bitterly, it was like prison, and all the freedom of existence was gone. It appeared that here the grown-ups lived in one part of the house, the children in another. There were certain times at which the drawing-room or dining-room might be visited, otherwise the grown-ups must not be interrupted. Becky and Peter were provided with a sort of jailer, whose business it also was to give all the young people their meals, and their mother seemed utterly ungetatable.

Life on the veranda always together, always in the thick of everything that was going on, with no shut doors anywhere, had ill-prepared them for this.

Then there were Herbert and Brenda.

Strange to say, Eustace and Nesta had not thought of them as anything but some one to play with—other children staying in the same house as themselves. That they were really the son and daughter of the place had never occurred to the new-comers. That they would play the part of host and hostess, and treat the Australians entirely as visitors, was a shock to Eustace and Nesta. Not thus did they expect to be received into their mother's old home, which she had always taught them to look on as their own.

Before the end of the day, however, they had realized this one thing very vividly—Herbert and Brenda had lived here all their lives, but the Orbans were outsiders, their very coldly-welcomed guests.

"It is delightful," said Mrs. Orban, as she dressed for dinner, "to think of the children getting to know each other at last. I do hope they will be happy."

"All the happier for being thrown so much together," said Mr. Orban. "We couldn't help it, of course, but ours have been thrown far too much with older people. This sort of thing is much healthier for them."

"It is all hateful," wept Nesta to her pillow that night. "Herbert is a bully, and Brenda is a stuck-up pig—and I wish we had never come."

And Eustace did not close his eyes for hours.

"Bob was quite right," he thought. "English people are horrid; they freeze you right up the minute you see them. But oh! I believe it would be better if only there was a veranda. They do live in such a queer way, all divided up like this."

Back into his mind there came the refrain of one of Bob's songs—the one he had sung to Aunt Dorothy the day of her arrival. He went to sleep with the tune ringing in his head,—

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