"I'm not going to Australia, Kit. I told you that and I told your mother."
"Mrs. Beatson," said Carrington, pricking up his ears. "Does she want you to go to Australia, Miss Tollart?"
"She wants to go herself."
"That's news to me," observed Hendle, with a start.
"It's news to all of us," put in Kit, dismally. "The worst of mother is that you never know what she'll be up to next. The other day she came to me and said that she soon hoped to inherit an annuity of two hundred a year and intended to go to Australia. She wants Sophy and me to come with her."
Hendle, Dorinda and Carrington exchanged glances. "Who is leaving this annuity to your mother?" asked Rupert, guessing the source of the windfall.
"She didn't say," replied Kit, "some old aunt, I fancy. But I don't want to go with mother. She and Sophy never get on well together."
"How can we when she wants everyone to bow down to her?" said Miss Tollart, who hated Mrs. Beatson thoroughly. "I'm not of the bowing-down sort. And when I marry, I want my house to myself."
"Natural enough," observed Carrington, who was listening eagerly. "And Mrs. Beatson wants you all to live together on her annuity?"
"Not exactly that," said Kit reluctantly. "She won't keep us, but hopes that in Australia I shall make more money out of motors."