Page:Angela Brazil--the leader of the lower school.djvu/104

 Gipsy was accustomed to try to enjoy herself in any place where circumstances chanced to fling her, and though she had contrived to settle down fairly happily at Briarcroft, she nevertheless thought often of her father, far away on the opposite side of the Equator. He must long ago have arrived at the Cape, and it was high time that she received news from him, telling her of his whereabouts. Every morning she looked out anxiously for the post, but day after day brought the same disappointment. She was the only boarder who had no letters, and she often felt her isolated position keenly when she saw her schoolmates tearing open their welcome budgets. It would be nice, she thought, to have a mother and brothers and sisters to write to her, and a home to go to in the holidays. In her roving life she could not remember a real home; a log hut for a few weeks in a mining camp had been the nearest approach to it.

"But I've Dad, and he's better than a whole family; and it's fun to go about the world with him, though I do live mostly at hotels when I'm not at school," 96