‘If we go to the Castle, we shall want more money to buy dresses,’ said Olive.

’La mer a toujours son ecume pour habiller ses deesses,’ replied Milord; and he got into his carriage amid pearly peals of laughter from Mrs. Barton, intermingled with a few high notes from Olive, who had already taken to mimicking her mother.

V

Mr. Barton, or Arthur, as he was usually called, always returned to his studio immediately after breakfast, and, as Mrs. Barton had domestic duties to attend to, the girls were left to themselves to appreciate their return home from school and look forward to their entry into the life of the world.

The two girls descended the stairs with their summer hats and sunshades, and Alice stopped at the door of the schoolroom.  It was here that, only a few years ago, she had interceded with the dear old governess, and aided Olive to master the difficulties against which the light brain could not contend singly—­the hardships of striving to recall the number of continents the world possesses, the impossibility of learning to say definitely if seven times four made twenty-eight or thirty.

At the end of the passage under the stairs the children used to play for hours, building strange houses out of boxes of bricks, or dressing dolls in fantastic costumes.  Olive had forgotten, but Alice remembered, and her thoughts wandered through the land of toys.  The box of bricks had come from an aunt that was now dead; the big doll mother had brought from Dublin when she went to see the oculist about her eyes; and then there were other toys that suggested nothing, and whose history was entirely forgotten.  But the clock that stood in the passage was well remembered, and Alice thought how this old-fashioned timepiece used to be the regulator and confidant of all their joys and hopes.  She saw herself again listening, amid her sums, for the welcome voice that would call her away; she saw herself again examining its grave face and striving to calculate, with childish eagerness, if she would have time to build another Tower of Babel or put another tack in the doll’s frock before the ruthless iron tongue struck the fatal hour.

’Olive, is it possible you don’t remember how we used to listen to the dear old clock when we were children?’

’You are a funny girl, Alice; you remember everything.  Fancy thinking of that old clock!  I hated it, for it brought me to lessons when it struck eleven.’

’Yes, but it brought you out to play when it struck twelve.  See! the hands are just on the hour; let us wait to hear it strike.’

The girls listened vainly for a sound; and Alice felt as if she had been apprised of the loss of a tried friend when one of the servants told them the clock had been broken some years ago.