The Manor House School   By: Angela Brazil (1868-1947)

The Manor House School

BY

ANGELA BRAZIL

Author of "The Nicest Girl in the School" "The Third Class at Miss Kaye's" "The Fortunes of Philippa" &c.

ILLUSTRATED BY A. A. DIXON

BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY

Contents

CHAP. Page

I. NORA'S NEWS 9

II. AN INTERESTING STRANGER 22

III. A STRONG SUSPICION 36

IV. HAVERSLEIGH 50

V. AN UNEXPECTED DEVELOPMENT 67

VI. MONICA 80

VII. LINDSAY'S LUCK 94

VIII. PENDLE TOR 111

IX. THE PLOT THICKENS 127

X. UNDER THE HAWTHORN TREE 143

XI. SIR MERVYN'S TOWER 161

XII. AN ENIGMA 178

XIII. LINDSAY MAKES A RESOLVE 189

XIV. THE LANTERN ROOM 202

XV. HIDE AND SEEK 215

XVI. A SURPRISE 229

XVII. GOOD BYE TO THE MANOR 243

Illustrations

Page

GLORIOUS NEWS! Frontispiece 239

"SHE OPENED THE DOOR CAUTIOUSLY" 35

"I KNOW WHAT MONICA WAS GOING TO SAY" 93

AN UNFORTUNATE ACCIDENT 139

THE SECRET DOOR 202

CHAPTER I

Nora's News

It was the first week of the summer term at Winterburn Lodge. Afternoon preparation was over, and most of the girls had left the classroom for a chat and a stroll round the playground until the tea bell should ring. From the tennis court came the sounds of the soft thud of balls and a few excited voices recording the score; while through the open windows of the house floated the strains of three pianos, on which three separate pieces were being practised in three different keys, the mingled result forming a particularly inharmonious jangle.

On a bench in the corner by the swing two yellow heads and a brown one might be seen bent in close proximity over a rather dilapidated atlas. Their respective owners were apparently making a half hearted endeavour to hunt out a list of towns upon the map of England, and were amusing themselves between whiles with the pleasant, though somewhat unprofitable pastime of grumbling.

"I hate geography!" declared Lindsay Hepburn. "If we could be taken a picnic to each of the places, there'd be some sense in it; but to have to reel off a string of tiresome names that don't mean anything at all to you I call it stupid!"

"It's such a fearfully long lesson, too!" agreed Cicely Chalmers dolefully. "Miss Frazer might have set us a shorter one for the first! It's really too bad of her to make us begin with two pages and a half in a new book! I'm sure I shall never get it into my head, if I try till midnight."

"I wonder why things always seem so much harder to learn when one's just come back after the holidays?" propounded Marjorie Butler with a melancholy yawn.

"I don't know. I suppose because it all feels so horrid. It's perfectly dreadful to think what a huge time it is until we can go home again."