"Is she your sister?"

Morland and Claudia both laughed and looked at each other, and the latter explained:

"No, she's our stepmother, but she's so young that all of us call her Violet. She's not such a bad sort on the whole, but we have squalls sometimes, don't we, Morland?"

"Rather!" nodded the boy.

"Constable and Lilith used to sleep through anything and everything,"

added Claudia, "but Perugia's a fidgety child, and she wakes up and yells when she hears the piano."

"I play the violin a little," admitted Lorraine modestly. "I wonder if you two would come down some day and try a few things over with me. I've n.o.body to play my accompaniments since Rosemary went away. I know Mother would be pleased to see you."

"We'd just love it! You bet we'll come!"

Lorraine, pouring out the account of her adventures when she reached home, sought confirmation from her mother for the invitation she had given to the young Castletons.

"They're the _most_ fascinating family! I saw them all as Claudia was taking me back through the garden. I think each one's more perfectly beautiful than the others. They're absolutely romantic. You _will_ let me ask Morland and Claudia to tea, won't you, Muvvie?"

"I will in this case, because I know something of Mr. Castleton from the Lorrimers, but you mustn't go giving broadcast invitations again without consulting me first."

"I won't! I won't! You're a darling to let me have them. Muvvie, I'm so thankful you're not our stepmother!"

"So am I," returned Mrs. Forrester humorously. "I find my own family quite a sufficient handful, and what I should have done with another woman's in addition, I don't know. It would have been quite too big a burden."

"We can play the piano here," said Lorraine, "because there isn't any baby to wake up and cry."

"If there were, you'd have to reckon with me, for I shouldn't let it be disturbed when I'd successfully hushed it to sleep. I haven't forgotten my own struggles with you and Richard. You were the naughtiest babies of the whole tribe."

After this rather unconventional introduction, Lorraine's attraction to the Castletons ripened fast into intimate friendship. They were such an unusual family, so clever and interesting, yet with Bohemian ways that were different from those of any one she had yet known.

In the case of Morland and Claudia their father's artistic talent had cropped out in the form of music. Claudia cared nothing for painting, but was just beginning to discover that she had a voice. Morland, hopeless as far as school work was concerned, had learned to play the piano almost by instinct. He was a handsome, careless, good-tempered boy, decidedly weak in character, who drifted aimlessly along without even an ambition in life. He was seventeen and a half, and for nearly a year had been lounging about at home, doing nothing in particular.

Spasmodically his father would realize his existence and say: "I must really do something with Morland." Then he would get absorbed in a fresh picture, and his good intentions on his son's behalf would fade to vanishing point. In another six months the lad would be liable for military service, so until the war should be over it seemed scarcely worth while to start him in any special career. Doing nothing, however, is a bad training, and even Mr. Castleton's artistic friends--not p.r.o.ne as a rule to proffer good advice--tendered the occasional comment that Morland was "running to seed". Morland himself was perfectly happy if he was left alone and allowed to sit and improvise at the piano; he never troubled his head about his future career, and was as unconcerned as the ravens regarding the sources of food and raiment.

He played Lorraine's accompaniments easily at sight, with a delicacy of touch and an artistic rendering such as Rosemary had never put into them. It inspired Lorraine, and yet half humiliated her; she was a painstaking but not a very clever student of the violin; no touch of genius ever flowed from her fingers. To listen to Morland was to gain a glimpse of a new musical world in which he flew on wings and she stumbled on crutches. She sighed as she threw down her violin, for she had all the ambition that he unfortunately lacked.

CHAPTER V

A Question of Discipline

At school Claudia rapidly became one of Lorraine's best allies. She made no undue fuss, but she could always be depended upon for support. Being a new girl, she was more ready to take up new ways than were the other monitresses, who remembered the regime of Lily Anderson, and were inclined to judge everything by former standards. The chief bone of contention was the bar between seniors and juniors. Hitherto it had not been etiquette for the upper and lower school to mix more than was absolutely necessary; the elder girls had held themselves aloof, and even in the too numerous guilds and societies had insisted upon senior and junior branches.

Having broken the ice with the social gathering, at which every one alike showed exhibits, Lorraine began to run all her organizations on more popular lines. She persuaded a few volunteers to superintend the little girls' games; she set aside two special pages for their efforts in the ma.n.u.script magazine, and allowed them to vote for their own captain in their basket-ball club. These fresh departures did not pa.s.s without opposition. Some of her colleagues hinted broadly that Lorraine was making a bid for popularity.

"Monitresses should be loyal to the Sixth!" sniffed Vivien. "We don't want to mix with d.i.c.k, Tom and Harry!"

"Don't you?" laughed Patsie, who never could resist a shot at Vivien. "I should have thought it was just d.i.c.k, Tom and Harry you wanted to mix with, and you're disgusted because it's only Maud, Gertie and Florrie!

Honestly, you'd be far happier in a boys' school. You'd better get your mother to send you to one!"

"There's such a thing as co-education!" retorted Vivien.

"So there is!" chuckled Patsie.

She chuckled thoughtfully, for Vivien's remark had given her an idea.

She confided it to Audrey, who was rather a chum of hers.

"I'm a little fed up with the d.u.c.h.ess," she remarked, "and I want to play a rag on her. I _must_ play a rag on somebody, for things have been _so_ dull lately, and the school wants livening up. She said something about co-education."

"What's co-education?" asked Audrey vaguely.

"Why, boys and girls going to school together. I believe they do it in America, and at just two or three places in England. I'm going to pretend that Miss Kingsley's taken it up, and that some boys are coming here. Vivien would be so _fearfully_ excited. Oh! and I'll tell you what"--Patsie's eyes danced--"the most topping notion's just come to me!

Let me whisper it!"

Audrey bent a wavy brown head with a pale pink hair ribbon to receive the communication, then exploded into ripples of laughter.

"Gracie and Sybil! They've got short hair!" she hinnied. "Oh, it will be an absolute stunt!"

The confederates did not publish their plans beforehand. Patsie was an experienced joker, and knew that the point would be lost if any hint were to leak out. It was noticeable, however, that in recreation time she paraded round the gymnasium arm-in-arm with Gracie Tatham and Sybil Snow, two tall Fifth Form girls. The fact was commented upon by Vivien herself.

"Another of Patsie's sudden friendships!" she remarked. "She doesn't generally have two going at the same time. What's come to her?"

"She's weighed down by her responsibility as a monitress, and is trying to spread culture through the school," explained Audrey, with a grave mouth, but an irrepressible twinkle in her eyes.

"Culture! Great Minerva! I'm sorry for the school if it takes Patsie as a model!"

Vivien, like most of us, was a mixture of faults and virtues. One of her strong points was punctuality, and on this Patsie counted. She was nearly always one of the first to enter the cloak-room in the mornings.

She liked to look over her lessons and set her books in order. On the following Thursday she turned up as usual at about a quarter to nine, and found, to her surprise, that Patsie and Audrey had already taken off their hats, and were tidying their hair in front of the mirror.

"_You_ here! Wonders will never cease! What's brought you out so early?

Dear me, there's a large amount of t.i.tivating going on! Is all that for Miss Turner's benefit?"

Patsie deliberately fluffed out her hair, twisted a kiss-curl round her finger, and readjusted her slide before she answered:

"Haven't you heard the news?" she said abstractedly, pushing aside Audrey, who was trying to edge her from the mirror.

"What news?"

"Miss Kingsley's trying a new venture. I think you'll get a surprise when you go into our cla.s.s-room!"

"Of course some boys' schools have really had to be given up for lack of masters, so what else can be done while the war's on?" added Audrey.

"What d'you mean?"

"I won't exactly tell you, but I can give you a hint. Look over there!"

and Patsie nodded in the direction of the window.