Sholto, on the other hand, dreamed Imperial dreams which wavered constantly between Canada and Australia. He loved open air, the exercise of his muscles, and all handicrafts. As soon as he left the Academy he was going to the Agricultural College, after which, before leaving the country he would apprentice himself to some farmer in the Lowlands. Meanwhile he spent his leisure in a shed in the back-green where he had a carpenter’s bench. He made stools, and medicine-cupboards, and little tables, and afterwards poker-worked them to his immense satisfaction. And though Joanna from her Art School heights despised such a facile mode of decoration, she couldn’t help growing interested when he asked her for designs. At Christmas-time especially, they turned out between them heaps of “blotters” and photograph-frames; and in return for his sister’s help, Sholto would gladly devote a whole Saturday afternoon to her when she was trying to turn the shed stove into a furnace for enamel-work.

But after Bob’s kisses there was no more savour for Joanna in her brothers’ companionship, and she had a miserable summer. She was glad of one thing only, that Mabel had gone back to stay with Aunt Ellen.

She was too dispirited even to protest against the small and hideous villa which Juley took for two months on one of the Clyde lochs. And although the boys enjoyed the sea-fishing and knocking about in boats, all five got badly on each other’s nerves during the holiday. Georgie resented not having been consulted in the choice of a place. They might at least have remembered that she hated the Clyde, and felt ill there. A cold and rainy season did not help. Georgie criticized unceasingly, and unceasingly practised her fiddle in the only sitting-room. Her diligence, as Janet the cook said, was “something awful.” Now and then Georgie would demand of the others if they didn’t notice the extraordinary difference in her tone, due to Dresden; and if the answer was doubtful, she argued the point till a definitely favourable reply was forthcoming. Once when Sholto stuck to his guns and insisted that it sounded the very same as before, she said, “Well, it can’t be helped what you think; I know it’s quite different!” Absence had made her very sensitive too to the failings of her family, and she girded particularly at her mother. Then Sholto, who could be as inimical to his mother as any of them would step out as her champion. Georgie and he had always been peculiarly capable of irritating each other, and now they squabbled maddeningly over trifles. Linnet took to mooning. Joanna was quiet and wretched. Juley with many tears prayed for guidance and forgiveness.

Yet were there hours when for a quiet breathing-space the five seemed to regain something of their forgotten early harmony.