"Well, why should I?" returned the other. "You wouldn't, if you were in my place."
CHAPTER III.
THE REBEL RECLAIMED.
"'I think he will grow up pretty, and perhaps be smaller; he has remained too long in the egg, and therefore his figure is not properly formed;' and then she stroked his neck and smoothed the feathers."—The Ugly Duckling.
Towards the end of June, Queen Mab wrote asking the two boys to come over for their usual half-term holiday.
"I'm not going," said Jack.
"Why not?" asked Valentine, astonished that any one should decline an invitation to Brenlands. "Why ever not? You'd have a jolly time; Aunt Mabel's awfully kind."
"I daresay she is, but I never go visiting. I hate all that sort of thing."
It was no good trying to make Jack Fenleigh alter his mind; he stuck to his resolution, and Valentine went to Brenlands alone.