CHAPTER I.
MAKING FRIENDS.
"Good onset bodes good end." SPENSER.
"Well ?" said Ralph.
"Well ?" said Sylvia.
"Well ?" said Molly.
Then they all three stood and looked at each other.

Each had his or her own opinion on the subject which was uppermost in their minds, but each was equally reluctant to express it, till that of the others had been got at.

So each of the three said "Well ?" to the other two, and stood waiting, as if they were playing the old game of "Who speaks first ?" It got tiresome, however, after a bit, and Molly, whose patience was the most quickly exhausted, at last threw caution and dignity to the winds.
"Well," she began, but the "well" this time had quite a different tone from the last; "_well_," she repeated emphatically, "I'm the youngest, and I suppose you'll say I shouldn't give my opinion first, but I just will, for all that.

And my opinion is, that she's just as nice as she can be." "And I think so too," said Sylvia, "Don't you, Ralph ?" "I ?" said Ralph loftily, "you forget.

_I_ have seen her before." "Yes, but not to _remember_," said Sylvia and Molly at once.