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Rh come in to find out what her younger charges had been doing, were all three in convulsions. It might have warranted any one in thinking that Jane was right in considering the stage her vocation.

“Oh, me, oh, me!” sighed Mary, emerging from the sofa pillows into which she had helplessly fallen. “You do such mad things, Janie! And you are so wilful! You ought not to have started off alone on such an errand, to people you knew absolutely nothing about! Florimel is a headstrong child, but even she is more prudent. They must be kind people, if they are untidy, and flashy, and trashy! I’m glad they were so nice to you. Please, Jane, settle down and stop being restless-minded!”

“Can’t do it,” said Jane promptly. “I suppose there’s fire inside my head and the roots of my hair are in it. That’s why I’m always crackling off in explosions, and why my hair is red.”

“And I suppose we want you to be just what you are, if we tell the truth,” added Mary as she went out of the room. She could not bear to seem to criticise Jane or Florimel, being sensitively alive to a dread of hurting them, and conscious of the slight difference in their ages.