A harum-scarum schoolgirl Part 33

"Will it be enough to send me to a horticultural college?" she asked Miss Todd.

"Ample, my dear. It ought to bring you sufficient for a thoroughly good training in any career you want to take up."

This was news indeed--so splendid that it seemed almost too good to be true. Hilary's essay, which, as everybody expected, easily won the prize, had indirectly made Loveday's fortune after all.

"I bless the day when I was a prisoner in the attic," rejoiced Diana.

"If I hadn't knocked that door in, the furniture might still have been lying there in the dust."

"I wonder if _this_ was the discovery that gentleman wanted to tell Father about," surmised Loveday.

Surprise came on surprise, for the very morning after this happy solution of Loveday's future, Diana received a telegram from Paris. Mr.

Hewlitt had succeeded in getting three pa.s.sages (thrown up at the last by a family who were taken ill with "flu" and unable to travel); he and Mrs. Hewlitt were crossing the channel post-haste, and Diana must start from school and meet them in Liverpool. Loveday helped her to pack her boxes. It was an excited, fluttered, tearful little Diana who clung to her at the last.

"Sissie! I can't say 'Good-bye!' It's not 'good-bye' to _you_--only 'au revoir'."

"We'll meet again some day, darling!"

"We'll just jolly well have to, or I'll know the reason why! If you don't come out to see us in America I shall come over here and fetch you. Write very often, and let me know how the baby goes on, and if it has been taken into the Home. I haven't quite finished its frock. Will you do it? Oh, thanks! I'm leaving the Abbey in as big a hurry as I came here. Dad always uses his 'lightning methods'. But I shan't forget any of you, ever--not you, Wendy, or Jess, or Vi. Write to me, won't you? As for you, Loveday mine, I haven't words left. Let me give you one more good hug! Yes, Miss Todd, I'm really coming. No, I don't want to miss my train. Good-bye, everybody and everything! Good-bye! Good-bye!"