"Sophy must make up her mind to stay at home," she soliloquized. "It is her papa's fault, and I shall tell her so, if she's rebellious over it, as she is sure to be. This gives one advantage, however: there will be more room in the carriage for me and Charlotte. I wondered how we should all three cram in, with new white dresses on."
About the time that she was hugging this idea complacently to herself, the college clock struck one; and the college boys came pelting, pell-mell, down the steps of the schoolroom, their usual mode of egress. Travice Arkell, the senior boy of the school now—and the senior of that school possessed great power, and ruled his followers with an iron hand, more or less so according to his nature—waited, as he was obliged, to the last; he locked the door, and went flying across the grounds to leave the keys at the head master's. Travice Arkell was almost a man now, and would quit the school very shortly.
Bounding along as fast as he could go when he had left the keys—taking no notice of a knot of juniors who were quarrelling over marbles—Travice made a detour as he turned out of the grounds, and entered the house of Mrs. Peter Arkell. He was rather addicted to making this detour, but he burst in now at an inopportune moment. Lucy was in tears, and Mrs. Arkell was remonstrating against them in a reasoning, not to say a reproving tone. Henry, who had got in previously, was nursing his leg, a very blank look upon his face.
"What's the matter?" asked Travice, as Lucy made her escape.
"I thought Lucy had more sense," was the vexed rejoinder made by Mrs. Peter. "Don't ask, Travice. It is nothing."
"What is it, Harry, boy?" cried Travice, with scant attention to the "don't ask." "She can't be crying for nothing."
"It's about the concert," returned Henry, ruefully, his disappointment being at least equal to Lucy's. "Mamma has given away the tickets, and Lucy can't go."
"Whatever's that for?" asked Travice, who was as much at home at Mrs. Peter's as he was at his own house. "Who has got the tickets?"
"Mrs. Arkell."
"Mrs. Arkell!" shouted Travice, staring at the boy as if he questioned the truth of the words. "Do you mean my mother? What on earth does she want with your tickets?"