"It was too bad, wasn't it," she said, "to be caught out first thing like that?"
"Much too bad!" replied Isobel. "But I think they were horrid balls."
"So they were. Hugh always sends the most mean ones. Weren't you in the train with us yesterday?"
"Yes. I saw you first at the bookstall at Tiverton."
"Didn't you think the people in the carriage detestable? I nearly died with the heat and stuffiness."
"Noisy! I don't know which was worse--the baby or the banjo! You were better off sitting by the window, though that fat old man would keep talking to you."
"He was rather kind," said Isobel; "I didn't mind him."
"I suppose you're staying at Silversands, aren't you?"
"We're in Marine Terrace too, at No. 12. We have the upstairs suite. They're not bad rooms for a little place like this, but they don't know how to wait. Mother says she wishes they'd build a hotel here. What's it like at No. 4?"
"It's quite comfortable," replied Isobel. "We have a nice landlady."
"Are there only just you and your mother?"
"He's dead. He was killed in the Boer War."
"Yes; he was a captain in the Fifth Dragoon Guards."
"My father is dead too. Have you any brothers and sisters?"
"Neither have I. I only wish I had. It's so lonely without, isn't it?"
"It is, rather; but I'm a great deal with mother."
"So am I; still, when she's at home she's out so much, and then I never know what to do."
"I'm not fond of reading. I only like books when there's really nothing else to amuse myself with."
"You were buying a book at Tiverton. Which one did you get? Is it nice?"
"It's just a school story. I forget its name now. I haven't looked at it again."
"Then you didn't choose 'The Red Cross Knight' after all?"
"Oh, that's too like lessons! I've had all that with my governess, and about King Arthur too. I'm quite tired of them. Have you a governess?"
"No," replied Isobel; "I do lessons with mother."
"How jolly for you! I wish I did. I'm to be sent to school in another year, and I don't think I shall like that at all. When are you going?"
"And mine is on the tenth of October, so you're nearly a month older than I am. You haven't told me your name yet?"
"What!" cried the other, opening her blue eyes wide in the greatest astonishment. "That's _my_ name!"