The daughters, Doris and Phyllis, aged sixteen and twelve years, were slim, fair-haired maidens. Doris, the elder, looked upon life with grave eyes, seeing only its serious side, and determinedly facing that aspect with resolute lips and somewhat pale cheeks, quaint and demure. Phyllis, on the other hand, while in no way boisterous—sharing, indeed, in some part her sister’s quietude of mind and demeanour—was rosily cheerful and a thorough child. It was quaint Doris’s aim to keep her thus; and odd it was to note the enforcement of the staid authority which the slender four years of seniority gave to the girl in the absence of their mother, or of their governess, Miss Manifold.
Miss Manifold—nicknamed "Sins and Wickedness" by Hugh and Teddie Le Mesurier—the daughter of a Lincolnshire squire, long since deceased, was a good woman, well liked by her two pupils, whose well-being she had sincerely at heart. At the present moment she was absent from The Beeches, being once more returned into the bosom of her family for the Midsummer holidays. This fact, meaning as it did freedom of will and action, combined with the pleasing circumstance that Hazel Le Mesurier’s impending visit was about to be realised, brought much rejoicing to the girls; for even sober Doris was not impervious to the delights of a few weeks’ unrestricted leisure, nor unmindful of the advantages of living for that short interval without the eye of supervision upon her every movement.
She and Phyllis were, for the fourth time this morning, taking a survey of the bedroom that had been allotted to their girl-guest—moving, changing, and rearranging articles of furniture or ornament to suit Hazel’s queer taste and odd fancy. The bed they had dragged before one of the windows, for Hazel had once confided to these two friends that she liked nothing better than to sleep with her head pillowed on the sill; only that it was not often that bed and sill chanced to stand in the necessary relative position one to the other. Also the bed must needs be wide enough to permit the full stretch of her limbs, when she had twisted herself to this crosswise position. She assured Doris and Phyllis that to gaze up at the stars until you fell asleep was conducive to the dreaming of the most lovely dreams, whilst the soft fanning of the summer night-air proved most pleasant and refreshing.
