"Francis dear!" Pauline cried. "Don't you think it's unfair?"
"Pauline," said her mother. "You must not call your father Francis in the dining-room."
The Rector oblivious of everything continued to turn slowly the pages of his catalogue.
"Oh, bother going to Oxford," said Monica looking out of the window to where Janet with frozen breath listened for the omnibus under gathering snow clouds.
"Now, really," Pauline exclaimed, diverted from her complaint of Margaret's behaviour by another injustice. "Isn't Monica too bad? She's grumbling, though it was she who made the plan to stay with the Strettons. And though they're her friends and not mine, I've been made to go too."
"Well, I hate staying with people," Monica explained.
"So do I," said Pauline. "And you accepted the invitation for me that day you were in Oxford buying Christmas presents, when you forgot to buy the patience-cards I wanted to give poor Miss Verney, so that I had to give her a horrid little china dog though she hates dogs."
"Now I'm sure it'll be charming, yes, charming, when you get there," Mrs. Grey affirmed hopefully.
"Oh, how glad I am I'm not going," said Margaret.
"I think you ought to go instead of me," Pauline told her.