A Harum-Scarum Schoolgirl Read Online Free PDF

a way, Loveday
is
turned out of Paradise. That's to say, I suppose, if her grandfather hadn't gambled, the Abbey would have belonged to her."
    "What Abbey?"
    "Why, this, of course, stupid!"
    "Do you mean to say Loveday's folks used to
own
this place?"
    "They did. Owned it for hundreds of years. They were an old Border family, and mixed up with the rebellion of 1745, and all sorts of interesting things. Loveday's grandfather was the regular old-fashioned sporting kind of squire you read about in books. He gambled the whole property away. I suppose it used to be a fine place in his day. I've heard he kept eight hunters, and always had the house full of guests while his money lasted. Then there was a grand smash up, and everything had to be sold--house, horses, furniture, and all. He went abroad and died of a broken heart--never smiled again, and all that sort of thing, you know."
    "How fearfully romantic!" gasped Diana. "Of course it was his own fault for gambling, but still one feels sorry for him. Did Loveday live here too when she was little?"
    Wendy shook her head.
    "I shouldn't think so. I believe it happened ever such a long time ago; before she was born, even."
    "Couldn't her father get it back?"
    "I suppose not. Besides, he's dead too. Loveday is an orphan. She's neither father nor mother."
    "Where does she live, then, when she's at home?"
    "With an uncle and aunt--her mother's relations. But she never talks very much about them, so we fancy they're not particularly nice to her. She has no brothers or sisters. I think she feels lonely, if you ask my opinion, but she's too proud to say so."
    "And Pendlemere ought to be hers! How romantic!" repeated Diana. "I wanted to stay in a real old-fashioned mediæval British house, and here I'm plumped into a story as well. It's most exciting! What's going to happen next? Is Loveday going to get it back? Will she marry the man who owns it? Or will somebody leave her a fortune? Or will she find a lost will? How do stories generally end?" continued Diana, casting her mind over a range of light literature which she had skimmed and half forgotten.
    Wendy disposed of each of the suggestions in turn.
    "There isn't anybody to leave her a fortune; and what's the good of finding a will when the place is sold? The present owner is a fat old fellow of fifty, with a wife already, and, even if
she
died, I shouldn't think Loveday would want to marry him. He has three daughters older than she is, and he's quite bald."
    Diana looked baffled. Her romantic plan of restoring the fortunes of the Seton family through matrimony certainly did not seem hopeful.
    "I'm fearfully sorry for Loveday," confided Tattie. "I know something about her, because some friends of ours live near her aunt. They say she gets very much snubbed; her cousins make her feel it's not her own home. She wants to go to college, but it's doubtful if she'll be able. Nesta Erskine says Loveday is just
counting
on a career. She wants to be independent of her aunt."
    "It must be horrible to be snubbed," commented Diana thoughtfully.
    She had admired Loveday before, but now she looked at her room-mate with new eyes. To Diana there was something fascinating about the idea of a "penniless princess".
    "Do your ancestors go right slap-bang back to the Conquest?" she asked interestedly, while she was undressing that evening.
    "Well, not quite so far as that," smiled Loveday, diligently brushing a flaxen mane ripply with plaiting. "But I believe there were Setons in the fourteenth century, long before they had the Abbey from Edward the Sixth's commissioners. There are all sorts of stories and legends about them, of course."
    "What kind of stories? Do tell me! I'd just admire to hear. I'm crazy on Border ballads and legends. Tell me, while I fix my hair."
    "Well, there was little Sir Rowland. When he was only six years old his father was killed in one of the battles of the Wars of the Roses. They were Lancastrians, and the Yorkists seized his