Free The Manor House School by Angela Brazil Page A

such a tempting prospect, and anxious to be the chosen favourite.
    "I wish I could take you all," replied Irene, "but unfortunately the invitation is only for one. Miss Russell says this will be the best way to arrange it. The girl who is nearest to Rhoda's age must go. Will you each tell me the date of your birthday, and then I shall be able to decide. Rhoda's is on the twentieth of March."
    It certainly seemed the fairest way of settling the question, and one against which there could be no appeal.
    "Miss Russell is a modern Solomon," declared Cicely. "I'm afraid I haven't the slightest chance, because I'm only eleven and a half, and so is Nora."
    "I'm almost thirteen," wailed Beryl. "I wish I were a few months younger. Effie, I shall be horribly jealous if the chance falls to you."
    "No such luck! I am a Christmas child," returned Effie. "I believe Marjorie is nearer."
    "The twenty-seventh of February. Can anybody do better than that?" asked Marjorie hopefully.
    "Mine is the sixth of April," said Lindsay.
    "About as much after Rhoda's as Marjorie's is before," said Irene. "We must count it up exactly. Somebody give me a pencil and a piece of paper. Let me see, the twenty-seventh of February to the twentieth of March is twenty-one days, and the twentieth of March to the sixth of April is only seventeen. Then Lindsay is nearer by four days."
    "Hurrah!" cried Lindsay, clapping her hands, "I'm glad I wasn't born a week later. How dreadfully sorry I am for you all, especially Marjorie!"
    "My aunt says she will send the trap for us on Friday afternoon," continued Irene. "And we are to stay until Tuesday morning, so that will give us three whole days at Linforth. I'm sure you'll like Rhoda, and my other cousins too. There are eight of them altogether. Meta, the eldest, is seventeen; she's going to study music in Germany next September. Ralph and Leonard are fifteen and fourteen; they go to the Appleford Grammar School, and ride there every day on their bicycles. Then comes Rhoda, and there are four little ones. They do lessons with a governess, but perhaps some time Rhoda is to be sent to Winterburn Lodge. Aunt Esther says she shan't treat us as visitors; we must make ourselves at home amongst the others."
    The visit seemed an event worth looking forward to, not only on its own account, but because Monica was to be one of the party. Lindsay could hardly believe her good fortune, and rejoiced again and again over the happy date of her birthday. She was in a state of great excitement on the Friday afternoon, when the phaeton arrived with Monica already installed on the front seat. To drive away in such company was indeed a matter for congratulation, and she felt much sympathy for the disconsolate five who were perforce left behind, especially for poor Cicely, who would miss her more than anybody, and whose eyes were full of tears at the parting.
    "Never mind," she whispered to the latter, "perhaps it will be your turn next time for something nice. At any rate, I shall have heaps to tell you when I come back."
    Linforth Vicarage was a long, rambling stone house, the flagged roof and mullioned windows of which proclaimed it as belonging, equally with the Manor, to a period of the past. It was a delightful, roomy, almost medieval kind of a place, so picturesque, in its old-world fashion, that one could forgive the lowness of the rooms, the narrowness of the passages, the steepness of the stairs, and the inconvenience of the fact that the front door opened directly into the dining-room, and the bedrooms nearly all led into one another. None of these drawbacks seemed to distress the young Greenwoods, who thought their home the nicest spot in the world. They were a particularly jolly, merry, happy-go-lucky family, full of jokes and noise. Rhoda, for whose benefit Lindsay had been invited, received her visitor with enthusiasm.
    "I'm so glad Miss Russell let you come!" she said. "You see, Meta will monopolize Irene and Monica, and I should