It was early evening, and she was on the schoolroom verandah, watching the young moon rise over a distant chimney. Every moment she expected the prayer-bell to ring, and meanwhile, as it was not ringing, she filled up the time by counting how many more evening prayer-bells would ring before the end of term.

She counted on her fingers, out aloud, and found there were just twenty-nine--twenty-nine without Fridays, Sat.u.r.days, or Sundays.

Twenty-nine days, and then came the end of term, and the end of her school-days.

It would then be Betty's turn--larrikin Betty's! The moon sailed over the chimney, and Dot put her head down on the verandah railing and began to cry. She did not cry in the vigorous whole-hearted way in which Betty cried, but she sighed heavily, and sobbed gently, and allowed two or three tears to run down her cheek before she brought out her dainty handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes.

And at that precise moment Mona was crossing the schoolroom floor, and she saw her darling Thea in tears! She was not given to light impulsive movements at all, but this time she really did _spring_ forward and kneel at Dot's side.

"Dear, darling Thea!" she whispered, "what is the matter? Miss Cowdell has been bullying you for the silly old French? That's it, isn't it dear?"

"Oh, no!" said Dot hopelessly, "nothing _half_ as small as that."

"You've lost the new sleeve-links Alma gave you? Never mind--there are plenty more. Not that? What then? Tell your own Mona--tell your own old Mona."

Two more tears ran down Dot's cheeks.

"It's--it's nearly the end of term," she said.

Mona nodded.

"And I'm going to leave school," she said.

Again Mona nodded and waited.

"I've to go home," said Dot, and she put her head down on Mona's shoulder heavily.

"I've to go home too," said Mona, and she sighed, "right away to the Richmond river, where you girls never come."

"My home," said Dot, "is like a little plain, hedged round with p.r.i.c.kly pear, and put on the top of a mountain. No one ever comes in, and we never go out."

"Poor little Thea," said Mona.

"And we're very poor," went on Dorothea with strange recklessness; "we ought to be rich, but we're not, and the house is full of children, and there's never any peace from morning till night."

Mona grew crimson. She wanted to say something very much, and she lacked the courage. Instead she asked how old were the children, as if she did not know!

"There's Betty," said Dot, "she's to come here when I leave, and she won't enjoy it a bit--she's such a romp--and there's Cyril, they're both about twelve. And there's Nancy, she's six, and the baby."

"I wish," said Mona, "I _wish_ they belonged to me."

"How can I practise with them everywhere about. How can I read, how can I paint even, write my book, do anything, with them everywhere?" asked Dot dismally. "They just fill the house."

Again Mona stumbled to what she wanted to say, and stopped. Dot would say she was "lecturing." It would never do.

"You're rich," said pretty Dot pouting; "you can have everything you want, do anything, go anywhere."

A few puckers got into Mona's high forehead.

"Once," she said, "I had four sisters, all younger than myself, and they all died. I told you, didn't I?"

"But it's long ago," said Dot. "Three years ago since the baby died. You must have forgotten."

"I'd promised my mother, when she was dying, to be a mother to them.

Father and aunt _made_ me go to school, and all the time I was counting on when I should leave, and be an elder sister."

Dot opened her eyes very wide.

"Why did you want to be an elder sister?" she asked.

Mona still looked red and ashamed.

"You should read _The Flower of the Family_," she said, and "_The Eldest of Seven, Holding in Trust_. You'd know then."

Dorothea had read the last, and she began to see and understand.

"You've got your mother and sisters," said Mona shyly.

And then for the first time it occurred to Dorothea that she herself was an elder sister, that she was the eldest of five, and that infinite possibilities lay before her.

"There's only my father and my aunt and brother when _I_ go home," said Mona. "And I've only twenty-nine days, too, and then, oh! Thea darling, I have to lose you."

"We'll write twice a week always," whispered Dot, twining her arms round her friend's waist.

"And always be each other's bosom friend," said Mona.

Then the prayer-bell rang, and the four intimate friends scanned Thea closely, seeing that she had been crying, and feeling angry with "that"

Mona Parbury for letting her.

CHAPTER X

RICHES OR RAGS

Captain Carew and John Brown--big John Brown in Betty's parlance--sat at dinner together.

Although not an elegant dinner table it was very far removed from being a poor one. The linen, silver and gla.s.s were all of the best, the very best; the man-servant was decorous and swift of eye, foot and hand, and the menu was beyond any that had entered into John Brown's knowledge, before he came to Dene Hall. Yet he was out of love with it all.

Captain Carew had his gla.s.s of clear saffron-coloured wine at his right hand. His silver fork was making easy journeyings from a slice of cold turkey on his plate, to his mouth, and his eyes were now and again running over a long type-written letter that lay before him.

He was well pleased, well fed, and interested, and he had no reason to suppose John Brown was in any other humour than himself.

He had heard that the thoughts of youth were of vast length, and perhaps he believed it. But he did not think John's had reached quite as far as wishing to be a cobbler in a country village.

And it must be confessed that few, seeing the appet.i.te the boy brought to his plate of cold turkey and "snowed" potato, would have suspected him of longing for a "crust of bread and a drink of cold water."

The truth was, he had been of late ransacking his grandfather's library and had found besides sea-stories and stories of wrecks, and foreign lands and pirates and deep sea treasure--what interested him more than all, a volume of biographies of self-made men.