"You're always talking to auntie, I think," grumbled Alice.

"_Always?_" asked Agnes, feeling as if that were the last worry, and she could not bear more.

"Well, not always; but, Agnes, I hope you will not let her persuade you to begin school with Minnie and me to-morrow because----"

"Well?" asked Agnes.

"I don't know exactly why, but it's horrid if you do, because I haven't had half enough time; and I never _thought_ we should begin when the boys did."

"I never thought anything else," answered Agnes; and then she had gone in next door with a sense of utter failure.

And so Aunt Phyllis was right when she advised her to raise her eyes heavenward.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XX.

_A SURPRISE._

"I say, John, 'this 'ere' is rather tiring; and when we've done there will be nothing to show for it."

"Only our possessions will be in order, and we shall start straight for the next term."

"I don't know about that. Look at my possessions, and see if you call that 'straight'?"

John picked his way over the drawers and boxes scattered everywhere, and surveyed his brother's treasures. There they were, lying in a heap--clothes, collars, neckties, papers, nails, string, knives, corks, ships, b.a.l.l.s, fishing tackle, all mixed up pell-mell.

"Is that your idea of tidying?" he asked.

"Yes; put 'em all together, and then you know what you have to do, and can act accordingly."

"I should think so! Act! all I can say is, I'd rather it was you than me."

"How do you do it then?" asked Hugh hopelessly, watching his brother step back to his own precincts.

"I take out one thing after another, and put those I want on the bed--so, and tear up and burn what I don't want."

"And a nice smell you make!" said Hugh, laughing.

"Eh? oh, well, that's what a fire's for, to air the room."

"With a vengeance. I wish Agnes could have found us a large rag of some sort."

"You'd have been for ever playing pranks behind it, and peeping through the holes of your 'rag;' I'm not sorry on the whole she could not."

"I shouldn't have. However, that's neither here nor there. I'm going up to the attics to find my hammer; I believe Agnes has put it away tidily."

He went off, and presently John heard him shouting for him to come up.

"What do you want?" he called in answer.

"You."

"What for?"

"A find; a grand idea."

John went up, expecting a hoax, but yet rea.s.sured by the earnestness of Hugh's tone.

"Look here," exclaimed a voice from the depths of a small attic where only a few boxes were kept, "if you don't think I've lighted on a splendid plan. Here's a room for you all ready, and we've nothing to do but carry up the bed, and there you are."

By this time John stood in the low doorway of the little room, and looked round.

His mind quickly placed a little furniture round it, and hung his pictures and text on its bare walls, and in a few moments it became his own little room, full of his own things.

"Or I could have it," broke in Hugh's voice.

"Oh, no," answered John hastily, "I should like it very much. But what will Agnes say?"

"_She_ won't mind so long as we do no mischief. Let's surprise her."

John looked dubious.

"It can't be any harm," said Hugh.

"I'll just go and tell her," answered John.

He ran down. "Where's Agnes?" he asked of Alice, who was still reading.

"In next door," said Alice, "at least she was, but I believe I saw her go along with grandmama just now."

"When will she be home?"

"I don't know."

"I say, Alice, you'll make yourself ill so near the fire. Where's Minnie?"

"She went in after Agnes."