'No, spooning,' said Val. 'The dish ran after the spoon, you know.'

'Well, but you haven't told me about the schools,' said Gillian, in elder sisterly propriety, thinking the subject had better be abandoned.

'Jolly, jolly, scrumptious!' cried Fergus.

'Oh! Fergus, mamma doesn't like slang words. Jasper doesn't say them.'

'Not at home, but men say what they like at school, and the 'bus was scrumptious and splendiferous!'

'I'm sure it wasn't,' said Valetta; 'I can't bear being boxed up with horrid rude boys.'

'Because you are only a girl!'

'Now, Gill, they shot with--'

'Val, if you tell--'

'Telling Gill isn't telling. Is it, Gill?'

She a.s.sented.

'They did, Gill. They shot at us with pea-shooters,' sighed the girl.

'Oh! it was jolly, jolly, jolly!' cried the boy. 'Stebbing hit the girl who made the sour face on her cheeks, and they all squealed, and the cad looked in and tried to jaw us.'

'But that dreadful boy shot right into his mouth,' said Val, while Fergus went into an ecstasy of laughter. 'Wasn't it a shame, Gill?'

'Indeed it was' said Gillian. 'Such ungentlemanly boys ought not to be allowed in the omnibus.'

'Girls shouldn't be allowed in the 'bus, they are so stupid,' said Fergus. 'That one--as cross as old Halfpenny--who was she, Val?'

'Emma Norton! Up in the highest form!'

'Well, she is a prig, and a tell-tale-t.i.t besides; only Stebbing said if she did, her junior would catch it.'

'What a dreadful bully he must be!' exclaimed Gillian.

I'll tell you what,' said Fergus, in a tone of profound admiration, 'no one can hold a candle to him at batting! He s...o...b..lled all the Kennel choir into fits, and he can brosier old Tilly's stall, and go on just the same.'

'What a greedy boy!' exclaimed Val.

'Disgusting,' added Gillian.

'You're girls,' responded Fergus, lengthening the syllable with infinite contempt; but Valetta had spirit enough to reply, 'Much better be a girl than rude and greedy.'

'Exactly,' said Gillian; 'it is only little silly boys who think such things fine. Claude doesn't, nor Harry, nor j.a.ps.'

'You know nothing about it,' said Fergus.

'Well, but you've never told me about school--how you are placed, and whom you are under.'

'Oh! I'm in middle form, under Miss Edgar. Disgusting! It's only the third form that go up to Smiler. She knows it is no use to try to take Stebbing and Burfield.'

'And, Gill,' added Val, 'I'm in second cla.s.s too, and I took three places for knowing where Teheran was, and got above Kitty Varley and a girl there two years older than I am, and her name is Maura.'

'Maura, how very odd! I never heard of any one called Maura but one of the Whites,' said Gillian. 'What was her surname?'

This Valetta could not tell, and at the moment Mrs. Mount came up with intent to brush Miss Valetta's hair, and to expedite the going to bed.

Gillian, not very happy about the revelations she had heard, went downstairs, and found her younger aunt alone, Miss Mohun having been summoned to a conference with one of her clients in the parish room. In her absence Gillian always felt more free and communicative, and she had soon told whatever she did not feel as a sort of confidence, including Valetta's derivation of spooning, and when Miss Mohun returned it was repeated to her.

'Yes,' was her comment, 'children's play is a convenient cover to the present form of flirtation. No doubt Bee Varley and Mr. Marlowe believe themselves to have been most good-natured.'

'Who is he, and will it come to anything?' asked Aunt Ada, taking her sister's information for granted.

'Oh no, it is nothing. A civil service man, second cousin's brother-in-law's stepson. That's quite enough in these days to justify fraternal romping.'

'I thought Beatrice Varley a nice girl.'

'So she is, my dear. It is only the spirit of the age, and, after all, this deponent saith not which was the dish and which was the spoon. Have the children made any other acquaintances, I wonder? And how did George Stebbing comport himself in the omnibus? I was sorry to see him there; I don't trust that boy.'

'I wonder they didn't send him in solitary grandeur in the brougham,'

said Miss Ada.

Gillian held the history of the pea-shooting as a confidence, even though Aunt Jane seemed to have been able to see through the omnibus, so she contented herself with asking who George Stebbing was.

'The son of the manager of the marble works; partner, I believe.'

'Yes,' said Aunt Ada. 'the Co. means Stebbing primarily.'

'Is he a gentleman?'

'Well, as much as old Mr. White himself, I suppose. He is come up here--more's the pity--to the aristocratic quarter, if you please,' said Aunt Jane, smiling, 'and if garden parties are not over, Mr. Stebbing may show you what they can be.'

'That boy ought to be at a public school,' said her sister. 'I hope he doesn't bully poor little Fergus.'

'I don't think he does,' said Gillian. 'Fergus seemed rather to admire him.'

'I had rather hear of bullying than patronage in that quarter,' said Miss Mohun. 'But, Gillian, we must impress on the children that they are to go to no one's house without express leave. That will avoid offence, and I should prefer their enjoying the society of even the Varleys in this house.'

Did Aunt Jane repent of her decision on the Thursday half-holiday granted to Mrs. Edgar's pupils, when, in the midst of the working party round the dining-room table, in a pause of the reading, some one said, 'What's that!'--and a humming, accompanied by a drip, drop, drip, drop, became audible?

Up jumped Miss Mohun, and so did Gillian, half in consternation, half to shield the boy from her wrath. In a few moments they beheld a puddle on the mat at the bottom of the oak stairs, while a stream was descending somewhat as the water comes down at Lodore, while Fergus's voice could be heard above--

'Don't, Varley! You see how it will act. The string of the humming-top moves the pump handle, and that spins. Oh!'

'Master Fergus! Oh--h, you bad boy!'

The shriek was caused by the avenging furies who had rushed up the back stairs just as Miss Mohun had darted up the front, so as to behold, on the landing between the two, the boys, one spinning the top, the other working the pump which stood in its own trough of water, receiving a reckless supply from the tap in the pa.s.sage. The maid's scream of 'What will your aunt say?' was answered by her appearance, and rush to turn the c.o.c.k.