They had been neighbours now for close on ten years and close friends for nine and a half of them. Noel and Honor were mischievous young things of eight when the Dares took The Red House, and in their adventurous prowlings they very soon made the acquaintance of Miss Victoria Luard, aged nine and also of an adventurous disposition, who lived at Oakdene, the big white house next door with black oak beams all over its forehead,—“like Brahmin marks only the other way,”—as Honor said, which gave it a surprised, wide-awake, lifted-eyebrows look.

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