“How long shall I have to go on like this, Aldith?” she asked once faintly, after a French lesson that she had scarcely been able to sit through.

And the older girl answered carelessly, “Oh, you mustn’t leave it off, of course, but you don’t feel it at all after a bit.”

With which assurance Meg pursued her painful course.

Esther, the only person in a position to exercise any authority in the matter, had not noticed at all, and, indeed, had she done, so would not have thought very gravely of it, for it was only four years since she, too, had been sixteen, and a “waist” had been the most desirable thing on earth.

Once she had said unwittingly,

“What a nice little figure you are getting, Meg; this new dressmaker certainly fits better than Miss Quinn”; and foolish Meg, with a throb of delight, had redoubled her efforts.

Lynx-eyed Judy would have found her out long ago, and laughed her to utter shame, but unfortunately for Meg’s constitution she was still at school, it being now the third month of her absence.

Aldith only lived about twenty minutes’ walk from Misrule, so the two girls were always together.  Twice a week they went down to town in the river-boat to learn how to inquire, in polite French, “Has the baker’s young daughter the yellow hat, brown gloves, and umbrella of the undertaker’s niece?” And twice a week, after they had answered irrelevantly, “No, but the surgeon had some beer, some mustard, and the dinner-gong,” Aldith conducted her friend slowly up and down that happy hunting-ground of Sydney youth and fashion—­the Block.  “Just see how many hats I’ll get taken off,” Miss Aldith would say as they started; and by the end of the time Meg would say longingly, “How lovely it must be to know crowds of gentlemen like you do.”

Sometimes one or two of them would stop and exchange a word or two, and then Aldith would formally introduce Meg; often, however, the latter, who was sharp enough for all her foolishness, would fancy she detected a patronizing, amused air in these gentlemen’s manners.  As, indeed, there often was; they were chiefly men whom Aldith had met at dances and tennis in her own home; and who thought that young lady a precocious child who wanted keeping in the schoolroom a few more years.

One day Aldith came to Misrule brimming over with mysterious importance.  “Come down the garden, Marguerite,” she said, taking no notice whatever of Baby, who had, with much difficulty, beguiled her eldest sister into telling her the ever delightful legend of the three little pigs.

“Oh, no, by the hair of my chiny-chin-chin, then I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house in,” had only been said twice, and the exciting part was still to come.

Baby looked up with stormy eyes.

“Go away, Aldiff,” she said.

“Miss MacCarthy,—­Baby, dear,” Meg suggested, gently, catching Aldith’s half-scornful smile.