CHAPTER VIII

Which tells of Miss Priscilla, of peaches, and of Sergeant Appleby late of the 19th Hussars

Small Porges was at his lessons. He was perched at the great oak table beside the window, pen in hand, and within easy reach of Anthea who sat busied with her daily letters and accounts. Small Porges was laboriously inscribing in a somewhat splashed and besmeared copy-book the rather surprising facts that:

A stitch in time, saves nine. 9.

That:

The Tagus, a river in Spain. R.

and that:

Artaxerxes was a king of the Persians. A.

and the like surprising, curious, and interesting items of news, his pen making not half so many curls, and twists as did his small, red tongue. As he wrote, he frowned terrifically, and sighed oft betwixt whiles; and Bellew watching, where he stood outside the window, noticed that Anthea frowned also, as she bent over her accounts, and sighed wearily more than once.

It was after a sigh rather more hopeless than usual that, chancing to raise her eyes they encountered those of the watcher outside, who, seeing himself discovered, smiled, and came to lean in at the open window.

"Won't they balance?" he enquired, with a nod toward the heap of bills, and papers before her.

"Oh yes," she answered with a rueful little smile, "but—on the wrong side, if you know what I mean."