'Cleomenes is no laughing matter,' sternly interposed Bill.
'Cleomenes was not, but Lance was. Well, I was just making a study of his foot, never dreaming of anybody getting in but by the street-door, when of all things in the world, up comes Miss Pearson herself—Miss Pearson, senior! and three girls! They had met a mad ox in the street, or some trifle of that sort, had bolted into the shop nearly in fits, and this unthinking Felix had popped them through the office to be still more scandalized upstairs.'
'Poor Miss Pearson!' said Lance; 'I shall never forget her gentle "Do I intrude?" going off into the wildest scream. And I couldn't escape by the other door, for Cherry had her easel up against it. She could only shriek "He's sitting!" technically, you see, like an old hen, or a schoolmaster, for I wasn't sitting at all.'
'Well, you need have no such catastrophes here,' said Felix, when the laughter began to subside; 'but your progress has been long enough; now we have landed you. You younger fry, you must shake into your rooms as you choose.'
'I secure the octagon turret-room at the end of the corridor,' cried Angela.
'And I shall hold to my room with the rum ceiling,' said Bernard. 'It is as good as the barrack at home! Come and see, Lance.'
'I ordered tea at seven,' said Clement, 'that Felix might be ready to speak to the ringers after it. You must take us in hand, now, Cherry; that is my last domestic order.'
So Cherry was left with her little sister. There was a little bustle of unpacking at first; but by the time Cherry was ready, she missed all sounds of Stella, and looking into her room, saw the child standing by the window, gazing intently out in a kind of dream, which ended in her running up to Cherry with a gasp of ecstasy, and hiding her face against her. 'O Cherry!' she said, 'I did not know it could be so—so—so exquisite!' and her bosom heaved with the struggle of new emotion—she who had seen nothing but Bexley suburbs in her little life.