"It gets horrider and horrider," Nesta said after two or three days of it.
But the secret treaty not to trouble their mother and disturb her enjoyment held good through everything.
"It will come to an end in a year," Eustace said bravely; "and we couldn't bear it after we got back if we had to remember we had spoiled mother's trip. She has been longing for it such a long time."
Because they saw so comparatively little of their mother, it was always possible to keep their grievances from her; and she was so certain her children must be sharing the pleasures with herself, it never occurred to her to suspect that anything was wrong.
"It wouldn't be us spoiling her trip," Nesta objected; "it would be Brenda's and Herbert's faults, because they are so disagreeable."
"It would be because of us," Eustace held out, "and I'll never forgive you if you go whining about it to mother or any one. We can bear it for a year, or we aren't worth anything."
But even Eustace's courage received a check one evening when he and Nesta were called into their mother's room for a talk before she dressed for dinner. Her face was aglow with some pleasant thoughts, yet she was very serious—a strange mixture that immediately struck the twins as portending something very big and out of the way.
"Chicks," she said, drawing them down on each side of her on the sofa, "I have got something very special to say to you to-day—something I scarcely know whether to be most glad or sorry about, for it cuts two ways. It fulfils the ambition of my life for you, and at the same time it costs me my twins."
There was a breathless, expectant silence.
"I think for you the happiness will outweigh the pain," she went on gently, "because it means new interests, new life, everything you must most desire. And, dears, we have to thank grandfather for it; he insists on sending you both to school."