School Stories For Girls

Vol 1

by

Angela Brazil

Book Index

The New Girl at St. Chad's (1911)

The Youngest Girl in the Fifth (1913)

For the Sake of the School (1915)

The Luckiest Girl in the School (1916)

A Harum-Scarum Schoolgirl (1919)

The New Girl at St. Chad's

First Published 1911

A Chance For Retaliation

Contents

I.  Honor Introduces Herself

II.  Honor's Home

III.  The Wearing of the Green

IV.  Janie's Charge

V.  A Riding Lesson

VI.  The Lower Third

VII.  St. Chad's Celebrates an Occasion

VIII.  A Mysterious Happening

IX.  Diamond cut Diamond

X.  Honor Finds Favour

XI.  A Relapse

XII.  St. Kolgan's Abbey

XIII.  Miss Maitland's Window

XIV.  A Stolen Meeting

XV.  Sent to Coventry

XVI.  A Rash Step

XVII.  Janie turns Detective

XVIII.  The End of the Term

I. Honor Introduces Herself

"Any new girls?"

It was Madge Summers who asked the question, seated on the right-hand corner of Maisie Talbot's bed, munching caramels. It was a very small bed, but at that moment it managed to accommodate no less than seven of Maisie's most particular friends, who were closely watching the progress of her unpacking, and discussing the latest school news, interspersed with remarks on her belongings.

Maisie extricated herself from the depths of her box, and handed a pile of stockings to Lettice, her younger sister.

"What's the use of asking me?" she replied. "Our cab only drove up half an hour ago. I feel almost new myself yet."

"So do I, and horribly in the blues too," said Pauline Reynolds. "It's always a wrench to leave home. I'm perfectly miserable for at least three days at the beginning of each term. I feel as if——"

"Oh, don't all begin to expatiate about your feelings!" broke in Chatty Burns. "We know Pauline's symptoms only too well: the first day she shows aggressively red eyes and a damp pocket-handkerchief; the second day she writes lengthy letters home, begging to be allowed to return immediately and have lessons with a private governess; the third day she wanders about, trying to get sympathy from anyone who is weak-minded enough to listen to her, till in desperation somebody drags her into the playground, and makes her have a round at hockey. That cheers her up, and she begins to think life isn't quite such a desert. By the fourth morning she has recovered her spirits, and come to the conclusion that Chessington College is a very decent kind of place; and she begins to be alarmed lest her mother, on the strength of the pathetic letter, should have decided to let her leave at once, and should have already engaged a private governess."

"You're most unsympathetic, Chatty!" said Pauline, smiling in spite of herself. "You don't know what it is to be home-sick."

"I wouldn't parade such a woebegone face, whatever might be the depths of my misery," returned Chatty briskly.

"I'm always glad to come back," declared Dorothy Arkwright. "I like school. It's fun to meet everybody again, and arrange about cricket, and the Debating Society, and the Natural History Club. There's so much going on at St. Chad's."

"No one has answered my question yet," remarked Madge Summers. "Are there any new girls?"

Chatty wriggled herself into a more comfortable position between Adeline Vaughan and Ruth Latimer.

"I think there are about a dozen altogether. Vivian Holmes says there are four at St. Bride's, three at St. Aldwyth's, two at the School House, and two at St. Hilary's. I saw one of them arriving at the same time as I did, and Miss Cavendish was gushing over another in the library; and Marian Spencer has brought a sister—she introduced her to me just now."

"But what about St. Chad's?"

"We've only one, I believe, though Flossie Taylor, the Hammond-Smiths' cousin, has moved here from St. Bride's. She was always destined for a Chaddite, you know, only there wasn't room for her till the Richardsons left."

"She's no great acquisition," said Dorothy Arkwright. "I hate girls to change their quarters. When once they start at a house, they ought to stick to it."

"Well, she wants to be with her cousins, I suppose," put in Madge Summers. "Who's our new girl?"

"I don't know. I haven't heard anything about her."

"Perhaps she hasn't arrived yet."

"Sh! Sh!" said Pauline Reynolds, squeezing Madge's arm by way of remonstrance, and pointing to the closely-drawn curtains of the cubicle at the farther end of the room. "She's here now."

"Where?"

"There, you goose!"

"What has she shut herself up like that for?"

"How should I know?"

"Perhaps she's unpacking," suggested Dorothy Arkwright.

"If she is, she'll finish it quicker than Lettice and I can," returned Maisie Talbot. "Why can't you be hanging up some of those skirts, instead of sitting staring at me? Yes, this is a whole box of Edinburgh rock, but you shan't have a single piece, any of you, unless you get off my bed at once."

"Poor old Maisie, don't grow excited!" murmured Ruth Latimer, appropriating the box and handing it round, though no one attempted to move.

"But look here! what about this new girl?" persisted Madge. "Hasn't anybody seen her?"

"No. She's been in there ever since she arrived."

"Don't talk so loud; she'll hear you."

"I don't care if she does."

"I want to know what she's doing."

"I can tell you, then," said Chatty Burns, in a whisper that was more audible by far than her ordinary voice.

"What?"

"Crying! New girls always cry, and some old ones too, if you take Pauline as a specimen."

"I'm not crying now!" protested Pauline indignantly. "And how can you tell that the new girl is?"

"I'm as certain as if I'd proved a proposition in Euclid. Why should she have drawn her curtains so closely? If she's not lying on her bed, with a clean pocket-handkerchief to her eyes, I'll give you six caramels in exchange for three peppermint creams!"

"Then you're just mistaken!" cried a voice from the end cubicle. The chintz curtain was pulled aside, and out marched a figure with so jaunty an air as to banish utterly the idea of possible homesickness or tears.

It was a girl of about fifteen, a remarkably pretty girl (so her schoolmates decided, without an instant's hesitation), and rather out of the common. She had a clear, olive complexion, a lovely colour in her cheeks, a bewitching pair of dimples, and a perfect colt's mane of thick, curly, brown hair. Perhaps her nose was a little too tip-tilted, and her mouth a trifle too wide for absolute beauty; but she showed such a nice row of even, white teeth when she laughed that one could overlook the latter deficiency. Her eyes were beyond praise, large and grey, with a dark line round the iris, and shaded by long lashes; and they were so soft, and wistful, and winning, and yet so twinkling and full of fun, that they seemed as if they could compel admiration, and make friends with their first glance. The girl walked across the room in an easy, confident fashion, and stood, with a broad smile on her face, beaming at the seven others seated on Maisie's bed.

"Why shouldn't I pull my curtains?" she asked. "If I'd been pulling faces, now, you might have had some cause for complaint. You look rather a nice set; I think I'm going to like you."

The girls were so surprised that they could only stare. It seemed reversing the usual order of things for a new-comer, who ought to be shy and confused, to be so absolutely and entirely self-possessed, and to pass judgment with such calm assurance upon these old members of St. Chad's, some of whom were already in their third year at Chessington College.

"Perhaps I'd better introduce myself," continued the stranger. "My name is Honor Fitzgerald, and I come from Kilmore, near Ballycroghan, in County Kerry."

"Then you're Irish!" gasped Chatty Burns.

"Quite right. First class for geography! County Kerry is exactly in the bottom left-hand corner of the map of Ireland. It's a more hospitable place than this is. I've been here nearly two hours, and nobody has offered me any refreshments yet. I'm simply starving!"

She looked so humorously and suggestively at the Edinburgh rock that Madge Summers promptly offered it to her, regardless of the fact that the box belonged to Maisie Talbot.

"Come along here," said Ruth Latimer, trying to make a place for the new girl on the bed by pushing the others vigorously nearer the end.

"No room unless I sit on your knee, while you get up and walk about," declared Honor. "There! I knew you would!" as Madge Summers fell with a crash on to the floor.

"Seven little schoolgirls, eating sugar sticks;

One tumbled overboard, and then there were six!"

"Thank you. I think I prefer to 'take the chair', as the dentist says. There only seems to be one in each cubicle, but as I'm the visitor——"

"Take care!" screamed Maisie. "My clean blouses!"

"What am I doing? I declare, I never saw them. There, I'll nurse them for you while I eat this delicious-looking piece of pink rock."

The new girl was so utterly different from anybody else who had ever come to St. Chad's that the others waited with curiosity to hear what she would say next.

"Well?" she enquired coolly at last. "I suppose you're thinking me over. I should like to know your opinion of me. They tell me at home that my nose turns up, and my tongue is too long. But I didn't turn up my nose at the Edinburgh rock, did I?—and as for my tongue, it fits my mouth, as a general rule, though it runs away sometimes."

"When did you come?"

"What class are you in?"

"Have you seen Miss Cavendish yet?"

"How old are you?"

"Have you been to school before?"

"Do you know anyone here?"

"Why did you come to St. Chad's?"

The questions were fired off all together from seven pairs of lips.

"One at a time, please!" returned Honor. "I'm older than I look, and younger than I seem. You mayn't believe me, yet I assure you I've only had three birthdays."

"Rubbish!" said Chatty Burns.

"It's a fact, all the same."

"But how could that be?" demanded Pauline Reynolds incredulously.

"Because I was born on the twenty-ninth of February, and I can't have a birthday except in a leap year. That accounts for anything odd there is about me; so if you find me queer, you must just say: 'She's a twenty-ninth of February girl', and make excuses for me. As for the other questions, I've never been to school before; I've seen Miss Cavendish, but I haven't heard yet what class I'm to be in; five minutes ago I didn't know anybody here, but now I know—how many are there of you?—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine!"

"Have you unpacked yet?" asked Maisie, returning to her box, which Lettice had been steadily emptying.

"Only about half."

"I think we had better come and help you, then."

"Better finish our own first!" grunted Lettice, for which remark she was promptly snubbed by her elder sister.

"Miss Maitland will be up at eight o'clock to look at our drawers," said Chatty Burns. "She'll expect you to have everything put away, and your coats and dresses hung in the wardrobe."

"We have to be so fearfully tidy here!" sighed Adeline Vaughan. "A warden comes round each morning, and woe betide you if you leave hairs in your brush, or have forgotten to fold your nightdress!"

"It's just as bad at St. Hilary's," said Madge.

"And worse at St. Bride's," added Ruth Latimer.

"My father wanted me to be at the School House," said Honor, "but Miss Cavendish wrote that it was full, so I was entered at St. Chad's instead."

"Yes, you generally need to have your name down for two years before you can get a vacancy at the School House," said Dorothy Arkwright. "It's the popular favourite with parents, because Miss Cavendish herself is the Head; but really, St. Chad's is far nicer. We all stand up for our own house, and I know you'll like it."

"There's the tea-bell! Come along! we must go at once," interrupted Chatty Burns.

"Won't they wait for us?" enquired Honor, beginning to wash her hands with much deliberation.

"Wait! She asks if they'll wait!" exclaimed Adeline Vaughan.

"One can see you've never been to school before!" commented Maisie Talbot. "No, you certainly haven't time to comb your hair now. You had better follow the rest of us as fast as you can."

St. Chad's could accommodate forty pupils, and Honor found a place assigned to her in the dining-hall near the end of a long table, which looked very attractive with its clean white cloth, its pretty china, and its vases of flowers in the middle. She had a good view of her schoolfellows, more than half of whom seemed of about the same age as herself, though there were tall girls, with their hair already put up, and a few younger ones who had apparently only just entered their teens. Grace was sung, and then the urns began to fill an almost ceaseless stream of cups, while plates of bread and butter circulated with much rapidity.

"We're late to-day," explained Honor's neighbour, "because the train from the North does not get in until five. Our usual tea-time is four o'clock, after games; then we have supper at half-past seven, when we've finished evening preparation. Did you bring any jam? Your hamper will be unpacked to-morrow, and the pots labelled with your name. I expect you'll find one opposite your plate at breakfast. Jam and marmalade are the only things we're allowed, except plain cakes."

Tea on the first afternoon was generally an exciting occasion at St. Chad's. There were so many greetings between old friends, so much news and such various topics to be discussed, that conversation, in a sufficiently subdued undertone, went on very briskly. The girls had enjoyed their Easter holidays, but most of them seemed pleased to return to school, for the summer term was always the favourite at Chessington College.

"Have you heard who's in the Eleven?" began Madge Summers. "They've actually put in Grace Shaw, and she bowls abominably. I think it's rank favouritism on Miss Young's part. She always gives St. Hilary's a turn when she can."

"She was a Hilaryite herself," returned Adeline Vaughan. "That's the worst of having a games mistress who's been educated at the school; she's sure to show partiality for her old house."

"And yet in one way it's better, because she understands all our customs and private rules. It would be almost impossible to explain everything to a new-comer."

"What about the house team?" asked Ruth Latimer. "Is anything fixed?"

"Not yet. There's to be a practice to-morrow, and it will go by our scores."

"I shall stick to tennis," declared Pauline Reynolds. "One gets a fair chance there, at any rate, and we must keep up the credit of St. Chad's in the courts. I don't know whether we've any chance of winning the shield. I wish we could get a real champion!"

"You should see Flossie Taylor play!" burst out Edith and Claudia Hammond-Smith, who were anxious to bring their cousin forward, and to ensure her popularity among the other girls.

"I've not heard that she made any record at St. Bride's," remarked Dorothy Arkwright, who resented Flossie's removal to St. Chad's.

"She hasn't had an opportunity. She only came to school last Christmas, and it wasn't the tennis season. Wait till you see her serve!"

"Miss Young will have to be judge, not I," replied Dorothy coldly.

"Flossie is in your bedroom, Dorothy," announced Claudia. "She has the cubicle near the fireplace."

"If you're sleeping in the bed next to mine," said Flossie, eyeing Dorothy across the table with a rather patronizing air, "I sincerely hope you don't snore."

"Of course not!" responded Dorothy, in some indignation.

"At St. Bride's," continued Flossie, "one of my room-mates snored atrociously. I used to have to get up and shake her, and pull the pillow from under her head, before I could go to sleep."

"You'd better not try that on with me!"

"I would, in a minute, if you kept me awake."

"It is a shame she's not in our room," interposed Edith. "We've asked Miss Maitland to let her change with Geraldine Saunders, and I think perhaps she may. We want Flossie all to ourselves; I do hope she'll let us!"

"So do I!" retorted Dorothy feelingly. "The Hammond-Smiths are welcome to their cousin, so far as I'm concerned," she whispered to Chatty Burns; "I don't like her. She's trying to show off. Edith and Claudia are making far too much fuss over her."

"They always gush," commented Chatty. "Still, I dare say Flossie will need taking down a little."

"It would do her all the good in the world," replied Dorothy. Then, turning to the Hammond-Smiths, she remarked aloud: "There's a new girl here who may be just as good as your cousin, for anything we know. Honor Fitzgerald, do you play tennis?"

"I can play, but how you'll like it is another story," answered Honor. "We two," nodding at Flossie, "had better try a set by ourselves, and then you can choose the winner."

"I'm sure I don't care about it, thank you." Flossie's tone was supercilious.

"All right! We don't force ourselves where we're not wanted in my part of the world."

"Is that Ireland? Then I suppose your name is Biddy?"

"Certainly not!"

"I thought all Irish girls were called Biddy; are you sure you're not?"

"My name is Honor Fitzgerald."

"Really! I'm astonished it isn't Mulligan, or O'Grady."

The Hammond-Smiths giggled, and poked Effie and Blanche Lawson.

"Isn't Flossie funny?" they whispered delightedly.

"I think she's very rude," observed Dorothy Arkwright. "I call that an extremely cheap form of wit."

"Irish names are often rather peculiar," drawled Claudia Hammond-Smith.

"They're quite as good as English ones, and sometimes a great deal more ancient and aristocratic," returned Honor.

"One for Claudia, and for Flossie Taylor too!" said Dorothy to Chatty Burns.

"Paddy, for instance," interposed Flossie, who saw that the Lawsons were listening, as well as her cousins. "St. Patrick and pigs always go together, in my mind. I suppose you keep a pig in Ireland?"

"Don't answer her!" whispered Honor's neighbour. "They're only teasing you because you're new. They want to see how much you'll stand."

But poor Honor was unaccustomed as yet to schoolgirl banter, and could not abstain from replying:

"Does it matter whether we do or not?"

She spoke quietly, but there was a gleam in her eye, as if her temper were rising.

"Not in the least! I only thought all Irish people cultivated pigs."

"It's no worse than keeping a cat, or a dog."

"My dear Paddy, of course not! Still, I shouldn't care to have the creatures in the drawing-room. Take a little more bread and butter. I'm sorry we've no potatoes to offer you."

The Hammond-Smiths and the Lawsons tittered, and Dorothy Arkwright was about to state her frank opinion of their behaviour when Honor's pent-up wrath exploded.

"We don't keep pigs in the drawing-room," she exclaimed. "There's a saying that it takes nine tailors to make a man, so if your name is Taylor you can only be the ninth part of a lady!" Then, realizing that her upraised voice had drawn upon her the attention, not only of all the girls, but also of Miss Maitland, she flushed crimson, scraped back her chair, and fled precipitately from the room.

Miss Maitland looked surprised. It was an unheard-of thing for any girl to leave the tea-table without permission. Such a breach of school decorum had surely never been committed before at St. Chad's! There was a very complete code of etiquette observed at the house, and to break one of the laws of politeness was considered an unpardonable offence.

"She's made a bad beginning," whispered Ruth Latimer to Maisie Talbot. "It's most unfortunate. It was really the fault of Flossie Taylor and the Hammond-Smiths. They needn't have teased her so."

"Still, it was silly of her to lose her temper," replied Maisie. "She stalked out of the room like a queen of tragedy. Miss Maitland can't bear girls who give way to their impulses; she despises what she calls 'early Victorian hysterics', and I quite agree with her."

"Yes, we must learn to be stoics here," said Ruth; "and as for teasing, the wisest thing is to take no notice of it."

A monitress had been dispatched to fetch Honor back, but in a short time she returned alone, and reported that she could not find her. Miss Maitland made no comment, and as the meal was now over she gave the signal of dismissal. Most of the girls went to the recreation room, but Maisie Talbot, who had not yet quite concluded her unpacking, ran straight upstairs. Noticing something move behind a curtain in the corner of the bedroom, she pulled it aside. There was Honor, sitting in a queer little heap on the floor, and rubbing her eyes in a very suggestive manner. She jumped up in a moment, however, and pretended that she was only arranging her boots.

"I'd finished tea," she remarked airily, "so I thought I might as well empty my box, and put my dresses away in my wardrobe."

"You'll have to ask Miss Maitland's leave next time, before you march out of the room, or you'll get into trouble," said Maisie. "If it weren't your first evening, you'd be expected to make a public apology. Of course, Flossie Taylor and the Hammond-Smiths were aggravating, but you should just have laughed at them, and then they'd have stopped. We don't behave like kindergarten children here."

Maisie spoke scathingly. She was a girl who had scant sympathy with what she called "babyishness", and disliked any exhibition of feeling. And, after all, she only voiced the general opinion of the school, which, by an unwritten law, had established a calm imperturbation as the height of good breeding.

"I don't care in the least what any of you think!" retorted Honor, and she hung up her skirt with such a jerk that she broke the loop.

Yet, although she spoke lightly, she evidently did care. She was very quiet indeed all the rest of the evening, and hardly spoke at recreation. Chatty Burns sat down next to her and tried to begin a conversation, but Honor answered so briefly that she very soon gave up the effort in despair, and moved away; while the other girls were so interested in their own affairs that they did not trouble to remember their new schoolfellow. At nine o'clock prayers were read, and everybody went upstairs to bed.

When the lights were out, and the room was in perfect silence, a strange, suppressed noise issued from Honor's corner. It might, of course, have been snoring; and Honor explained elaborately next morning that Irish people often have a peculiar way of breathing in their sleep—an affection from which she sometimes suffered herself.

"All the same, I don't quite believe her," confided Pauline Reynolds, who occupied the next cubicle, to Lettice Talbot, a more sympathetic character than her sister Maisie. "I know what it is to feel home-sick, and to smother one's nose in the pillow! If that wasn't sobbing, it was as like it as anything I've ever heard in my life."

II. Honor's Home

For a full understanding of Honor Fitzgerald we must go back a few weeks, and see her in that Irish home which was so far away and so utterly different from Chessington College. Kilmore Castle was a great, rambling, old-fashioned country house, built beside an inland creek of the sea, and sheltered by a range of hills from the wild winds of Kerry. To Honor that was the dearest and most beautiful spot in the world. She loved every inch of it—the silvery strips of water that led between bold, rocky headlands out to the broad Atlantic; the tall mountain peaks that showed so rugged an outline against the sky; the brown, peat-stained river that came brawling down from the uplands, and poured itself noisily into the creek; the wide, lonely moors, with their stretches of brilliant green grass and dark, treacherous bog pools; and the craggy cliffs that made a barrier against the ever-dashing waves, and round which thousands of sea birds flew, with harsh cries and whir of white wings.

Its situation at the end of a long peninsula made Kilmore Castle an isolated little kingdom of its own. On the shore stood a row of low, fishermen's white-washed cabins, dignified by the name of "the village"; but otherwise there was no human habitation in sight, and Ballycroghan, the market town and nearest postal, railway, and telegraph station, was ten miles off.

Trees were rarities at Kilmore; a few stunted specimens, all blown one way by the prevailing gale, grew as if huddled together for protection at the foot of the glen, but they were the exception that proved the rule; nevertheless, under the sheltering walls of the Castle Mrs. Fitzgerald had managed to acclimatize some exotic shrubs, and to cultivate quite a beautiful garden of flowers, for the temperature was uniformly mild, though the winds were boisterous. Brilliant St. Brigid's anemones, the poet's narcissus, tulips, jonquils, and hyacinths bloomed here almost as early as in the Scilly Isles, and made patches of fragrant brightness under the sitting-room windows; while in the crannies of the walls might be seen delicate maidenhair and other ferns, too tender generally to stand a winter in the open.

Born and bred in this far-away corner of the world, Honor had grown up almost a child of nature. Her whole life had been spent as much as possible out-of-doors, boating, fishing, or swimming in the creek; driving in a low-backed car over the rough Kerry roads; galloping her shaggy little pony on the moors; following the otter hounds up the river, and sharing in any sport that her father considered suitable for her age and sex. She was the only girl among five brothers, and in her mother's opinion was by far the most difficult to manage of the whole flock. All the wild Irish blood of the family seemed to have settled in her; the high spirits, the fire, the pride, the quick temper, the impatience of control, the happy-go-lucky, idle, irresponsible ways of a long line of hot-headed ancestors had skipped a generation or two, and, as if they had been bottling themselves up during the interval, had reappeared with renewed force in this particular specimen of the Fitzgerald race.

"She's more trouble than the five boys put together," her mother often declared, and her friends cordially agreed with her. Mrs. Fitzgerald herself was a mild, quiet, nervous, delicate lady, as much astonished at her lively, tempestuous daughter as a meek little hedge-sparrow would be, that had hatched a young cuckoo. Frankly, she did not understand Honor, whose strong, uncontrolled character differed so entirely from her own gentle, clinging, dependent disposition; and whose storms of grief or anger, wild fits of waywardness and equally passionate repentance, and self-willed disobedience, alternating with sudden bursts of reformation, were a constant source of worry and anxiety, and the direct opposite of her ideal of girlhood. Poor Mrs. Fitzgerald would have liked a docile, tractable daughter, who would have been content to sit beside her sofa doing fancy work, instead of riding to hounds; and who would have had more consideration for her weak state of health. She appreciated Honor's warm-hearted affection to the full, but at the same time wished she could make her realize that rough hugs, boisterous kisses, and loud tones were hardly suitable to an invalid. Suffering as she was from a painful and incurable complaint, it was sometimes impossible for her to admit Honor to her sick-room, and for weeks together the girl would hardly see her mother. It was through no lack of love that Honor had failed to give that service and tenderness which, in the circumstances, an only daughter might so fitly have rendered; it was from sheer want of thought, and general heedlessness. Some girls early acquire a sense of responsibility and care for others, but in Honor these qualities were as undeveloped as in a child of six.

Many were the governesses who had attempted to tame the young rebel, and bring her into a state of law and order, but all had been equal failures. She had learnt lessons when she felt inclined, and left them undone when she was idle; and she had managed to make life in the schoolroom such a purgatory that it had been difficult to persuade any teacher to stay long at the Castle, and cope with so thankless a task as her education.

It had been of little use to complain to her father, the only person in the world whose authority she recognized; he was proud of his handsome daughter, and, except when her temper crossed his own, was apt to indulge her in most of her whims. Matters had at last, however, come to a crisis. An act of more than usual assumption on Honor's part had aroused Major Fitzgerald's utmost indignation, and had caused him suddenly to decide that she was spoiling at home, and that the only possible solution of the difficulty was to dispatch her to school as soon as the necessary arrangements could be made for her departure.

The incident that led to this resolution was very characteristic of Honor's headstrong, impulsive nature. She was passionately fond of horses, and for some time had been anxious to possess a new pony. It was not that she loved Pixie, her former favourite, any the less; but he was growing old, and was now scarcely able to take a fence, or carry her in mad career over the moors, being only fit for a sober trot on the high road, or to draw her mother's Bath chair round the garden. To obtain a strong, well-bred, fiery substitute for Pixie was the summit of Honor's ambition. One day, when she was with her father at Ballycroghan, she saw exactly the realization of her ideal. It was a small black cob, which showed a trace of Arab blood in its arching neck, slender limbs, and easy, springy motion. Though its bright eyes proved its high spirit, it was nevertheless as gentle as a lamb, and well accustomed to carrying a lady. Its owner, a local horse-dealer, was anxious to sell it, and pressed Major Fitzgerald to take it as a bargain. Honor simply fell in love with it on the spot. She ascertained that its name was Firefly, and begged and besought her father to buy it for her. But on this occasion he would not yield, even to her utmost coaxing. He did not wish to keep another pony in the stable, and he considered the price asked was excessive, and entirely beyond the present limits of his purse.

"No, Honor, it can't be done," he said. "You must be content with poor old Pixie. I have quite enough expenses just now, without running into such an extravagance."

"But couldn't I have it instead of something else?" pleaded Honor.

"There's nothing we could knock off, dear child," replied her father.

"I could do without a governess," suggested Honor hopefully. "I'd set myself my own lessons, and learn them too. Oh, Daddy, darling, if we gave up Miss Bury, wouldn't you have money enough to buy Firefly?"

Major Fitzgerald laughed in spite of himself.

"I consider Miss Bury a necessity, and not a luxury," he replied. "A governess is the very last person we could dispense with. I should like to see you setting your own lessons! Remarkably short and easy ones they would be! No, little woman, I'm afraid Firefly is an impossibility, and you must just try to forget his existence."

Unfortunately, that was exactly what Honor could not do. She thought continually about the beautiful black cob, and the more she dwelt on her disappointment the more keenly she felt it. She considered, most unreasonably, that her governess was the alternative of the pony, and that if she were without the one she might possibly acquire the other. Her behaviour had never been exemplary, but on the strength of this grievance she grew so unruly, so disrespectful, and so absolutely unmanageable that Miss Bury at length refused to teach her any longer, and, after an interview with Major Fitzgerald in the library, packed her boxes and returned home to England.

Honor viewed her exodus with keen delight. It seemed the removal of an obstacle to her plan. She went in to luncheon determined to broach once more the subject of Firefly, hoping this time to meet with better success. She saw at once, however, from her father's face, that he was not in a suitable mood to grant her any favour. He was much annoyed at the governess's departure, for which he had the justice to blame Honor alone; and he was worried with business matters.

"That tiresome agent has not sent the telegram I expected," he announced. "I shall be obliged to go over to Cork, to consult my solicitor. Tell Murphy to have the trap ready by two o'clock, and let Holmes pack my bag. I shall probably be away until Friday evening."

As soon as her father had started for the station, Honor sauntered out in the direction of the stables. It was one of her mother's bad days. Mrs. Fitzgerald was confined to her room, therefore Honor, released from Miss Bury's authority, felt herself her own mistress. Finding Fergus, the groom, she ordered him to saddle Pixie, and make ready to accompany her on a ride. Fergus was devoted to "Miss Honor", and would never have dreamt of disputing any command she might give him; before three o'clock, therefore, her pony was at the door, and, dressed in her neat blue habit, she was ambling away in the direction of Ballycroghan. It was a leisurely progress, for poor Pixie's gait was slow, in spite of his best endeavours, and Honor loved him too well to urge him hard.

She was determined to call at the horse-dealer's, and to ascertain if Firefly were still for sale. Perhaps, when her father returned home, she might catch him at a favourable moment, and be able to cajole him into changing his mind and buying the cob. Mr. O'Connor, the horse-dealer, lived at a large farm on the way to the town, and, to Honor's intense delight, the first object that met her eyes on approaching the house was Firefly, feeding demurely in a paddock to the left of the road. By an equally lucky chance Mr. O'Connor happened to be at home, and came hurrying out at once when he saw "one of the quality", as he expressed it, drawing bridle at his door.

"Good afternoon! I see you still have the black cob," began Honor eagerly.

"Yes, missy," replied the horse-dealer, "and I was thinking of sending a message to your father about him this very day. It's the good fortune to see you here! I've had a man over from Limerick who's anxious to take him—a tradesman who'd run him in a light cart—but I didn't close the bargain at once. I said to my wife: 'Firefly is too good a breed to carry out groceries. I'd rather be for selling him to the Castle. Miss Fitzgerald took the fancy for him, and I'll not be parting with him till I've had word again from the Major.' Maybe his honour will be wanting him, after all? But sure I must know at once, for the Limerick man will be here at noon to-morrow, and I've promised to tell him one way or another."

"Could you possibly wait until Saturday?" asked Honor.

The dealer shook his head.

"I can't afford to miss a sale," he replied. "I've had the cob on my hands for some time; it's just eating its head off, and it's anxious I am to get rid of it."

Honor was in a fever of excitement. Firefly, so spirited and so aristocratic, whose delicately shaped limbs looked only fit for leaping brooks, or cantering over the short grass on the uplands, to be sold to a tradesman, and to run between the shafts of a cart that delivered groceries! It seemed a degradation and an outrage. She could not dream of allowing it; she must save him at any cost from such a fate.

"Must you absolutely have an answer to-day?" she asked.

"Yes, missy. I fear I couldn't put off Sullivan any longer than noon to-morrow. He's a touchy man, and ready to carry his business elsewhere."

"Very well, then, that settles the matter. We will take the cob. You may send him over to the Castle this evening."

Honor Concludes the Purchase of Firefly

Honor spoke in such a high-handed manner that the dealer never guessed she was acting on her own authority. As she had made a special visit to the farm, accompanied by her groom, he imagined she must have been entrusted by Major Fitzgerald with full powers to buy the pony if she wished.

"Many thanks to you, missy! It's the fine mistress you'll make for Firefly. My respects to his honour, and the price shall be the same as I was asking him before."

The price! Honor had quite forgotten that. Weighed against Firefly's possible future, it had seemed an unimportant detail. She remembered now, however, that her father had considered it extravagant, and declared he could not afford it. The thought was sufficient to check her joy suddenly, and to send her home in a sober frame of mind that was well justified by the sequel.

Major Fitzgerald's wrath, when he arrived on the Friday and found the black cob installed in the stable, was more serious than his daughter had ever experienced before.

"It was a piece of unwarranted presumption!" he declared. "I shall not allow you to keep the pony. It must be sent back to O'Connor's, and resold at the first opportunity. As for you, the sooner you are packed off to school the better. We have indulged you too much at home, and it is time indeed that you learnt to submit to some kind of discipline."

The proposal to send her away to school was a terrible blow to Honor. At first she appealed to her mother, begging her to plead with her father and try to persuade him to alter his resolution. But Mrs. Fitzgerald, while regretting to part with her troublesome daughter, was so convinced of the wisdom of the proceeding that, instead of interceding, she applauded her husband's decision.

"I can't ever like England!" sobbed Honor. "I'd rather have our mountains and lakes and bogs than all the grand streets and houses. I'm Irish to the core, and I don't believe any school over the water can change me. There's no place in the world like Kilmore. I love even the cabins, and the peat fires, and the pigs, and the potatoes! I shan't forget a single stick or stone of it, and I shall never know a moment's happiness till I'm home again."

After considerable hesitation, and the examination of a large number of prospectuses, Major and Mrs. Fitzgerald had determined to send Honor to Chessington College. It had a wide and well-deserved reputation, and Miss Cavendish, the principal, was understood to give much individual attention to the characters and dispositions of her pupils. Added to this, it was situated within a few miles of the Naval Preparatory School where Dermot, Honor's younger brother, had been for the last two years; so that they knew from experience that the neighbourhood was bracing and healthy.

"It's a comfort, at any rate, that I shall be near Dermot," said Honor, as she sat watching while her mother superintended the maid who was packing her boxes.

"I'm afraid you won't see much of him, dear, during term-time," replied Mrs. Fitzgerald. "He will not be able to visit you, I'm sure; neither will Miss Cavendish allow you to go out with him."

"Why not?" demanded Honor.

"Because it would be against the rules."

"Then the rules are absurd, and I shan't keep them."

"Honor! Honor! Don't speak like that! You have run wild here, but at Chessington College you will be obliged to fall in with the ordinary regulations."

"They'll have hard work to tame me, Mother!" laughed Honor, jumping up and dancing a little impromptu jig between the boxes. "I don't want to go, but since I must, I mean to get any enjoyment I can out of it. After all, perhaps it may be rather fun. It's deadly dull here sometimes, when the boys are at school, and Father is busy or away."

Mrs. Fitzgerald sighed. In her delicate health she could scarcely expect to be a companion for Honor, yet when she thought of how few years might be left them together, the parting seemed bitter, and she was hurt that her only daughter would evidently miss her so little. Young folks often say cruel things from mere thoughtlessness, and unintentionally grieve those who love them. In after years Honor would keenly regret her tactless speech, and blame herself that she had not spent more hours in trying to be a comfort, instead of a care; but for the present, though she noticed the look of disappointment that passed over the sensitive face, she did not fully realize its cause, and the words that might have healed the wound went unspoken.

At length the preparations were concluded, and the time had almost arrived to bid farewell to Kilmore Castle and the surrounding demesne. Honor's friends in the village mourned her approaching departure with characteristic Irish grief.

"Miss Honor, darlint, it's meself that will be hungerin' for a sight of yez!" cried old Mary O'Grady, standing at the doorway of her thatched cabin, from which the blue peat smoke issued like a thin mist.

"And it's grand news entoirely they'll be afther tellin' me too, that ye're lavin' the Castle, and goin' over the seas!" put in Biddy Macarthy, a next-door neighbour of Mary's. "It's fine to think of all the iligant things ye'll be seein' now!"

"Bless your bright eyes, it's many a sad heart ye'll lave behind yez!" added Pat Conolly, the oldest tenant on the estate.

"England can never compare with dear Ireland, in my opinion," replied Honor, with a choke in her voice. "There's no spot so sweet as Kilmore, and all the while I'm away I shall be wishing myself back in the 'ould counthree'!"

"Will ye be despisin' this bit of a present, Miss Honor?" said old Mary, producing a cardboard box, from which, out of many folds of tissue paper, she proudly displayed a large bunch of imitation four-leaved shamrock. "My grandson Micky brought it for me all the way from Dublin city, and I've kept it fine and new in its papers. Sure, I know it's not worthy of offerin' to a young lady like yourself, but I'll take it kindly if ye'll deign to accept it."

"Of course I'll accept it!" returned Honor heartily. "It's very kind of you to give it to me. It shall go to school with me, as a remembrance of Ireland, and of you all."

"The four-leaved shamrock brings good luck to its wearer, mavourneen; may it bring it to you! And whenever ye look at the little green leaves, give a thought to the true hearts that will be ay wishin' ye a speedy return."

The last day came all too soon, and Mrs. Fitzgerald, with tears in her eyes, stood at her window, watching the disappearing carriage in which Honor sat by her father's side, waving an energetic good-bye.

"Surely," she said to herself, "school will have the influence that we expect! The general atmosphere of law and order, the well-arranged rules, the esprit de corps and strict discipline of the games, all cannot fail to have their effect; and among so large a number of companions, and in the midst of so many new and absorbing interests, my wild bird will find her wings clipped, and will settle down sensibly and peaceably among the others."

III. The Wearing of the Green

Chessington College stood on a breezy slope midway between the hills and the sea, and about a mile from the rising watering-place of Dunscar. It was a famous spot for a school, as the fresh winds coming either from the uplands or from the wide expanse of channel were sufficient to blow away all chance of germs, and to ensure a thoroughly wholesome and bracing atmosphere. The College prided itself upon its record of health; Miss Cavendish considered no other girls were so straight and well-grown as hers, with such bright eyes, such clear skins, and such blooming cheeks. Ventilation, sea baths, and suitable diet were her three watchwords, and thanks to them the sanatorium at the farther side of the shrubbery scarcely ever opened its doors to receive a patient, while the hospital nurse who was retained in case of emergencies found her position a sinecure.

The buildings were modern and up-to-date, with all the latest appliances and improvements. They were provided with steam heat and electric light; and the gymnasium, chemical laboratory, and practical demonstration kitchen were on the very newest of educational lines. The school covered a large space, and was built in the form of a square. In the middle was a great, gravelled quadrangle, where hockey could be practised on days when the fields were too wet for playing. At one end stood the big lecture-hall, the chapel, the library, and the various classrooms, the whole surmounted by a handsome clock tower; while opposite was the School House, where Miss Cavendish herself presided over a chosen fifty of her two hundred pupils. The two sides of the square were occupied by four houses, named respectively St. Aldwyth's, St. Hilary's, St. Chad's, and St. Bride's, each being in charge of a mistress, and capable of accommodating from thirty to forty girls. Though the whole school met together every day for lessons, the members of each different house resembled a separate family, and were keenly anxious to maintain the honour of their particular establishment. Miss Cavendish did not wish to excite rivalry, yet she thought a spirit of friendly emulation was on the whole salutary, and encouraged matches between the various house teams, or competitions among the choral and debating societies. The rules for all were exactly similar. Every morning, at a quarter to seven, a clanging bell rang in the passages for a sufficient length of time to disturb even the soundest of slumbers; breakfast was at half-past seven, and at half-past eight everybody was due in chapel for a short service; lectures and classes occupied the morning from nine till one, and the afternoon was devoted to games; tea was at four, and supper at half-past seven, with preparation in between; and after that hour came sewing and recreation, until bedtime. It was a well-arranged and reasonable division of time, calculated to include right proportions of work and play. Mens sana in corpore sano was Miss Cavendish's favourite motto, and the clean bill of health, the successes in examinations, and the high moral tone that prevailed throughout pointed to the fulfilment of her ideal. Most of the girls were thoroughly happy at Chessington College, and, though it is in girl nature to grumble at rules and lessons, there was scarcely one who would have cared to leave it if she had been given the opportunity.

It was to this new, interesting, and exciting world of school that Honor unclosed her eyes on the morning after her arrival. She opened them sleepily, and, I regret to say, promptly shut them again, and turned over comfortably in bed, regardless of the vigorous bell that was delivering its warning in the passage. Punctuality had not been counted a cardinal virtue at Kilmore Castle, and she saw no special necessity for rising until she felt inclined. She had just dropped off again into a delicious doze when once more her peace was rudely disturbed. The curtain of her cubicle was drawn back, and three lively faces made their appearance.

"Look here! Don't you know it's time to get up?" said Maisie Talbot, administering a vigorous poke that would have roused the Seven Sleepers of legendary lore, and caused even Honor to yawn.

"You'll be fined a penny if you're late for breakfast," added Lettice, "and that's a very unsatisfactory way of disposing of one's pocket-money."

"And makes Miss Maitland particularly irate," said Pauline Reynolds.

"Honor Fitzgerald! do you intend to get up, or do you not? Because if you don't, we shall have to try 'cold pig'!" Then, as there were no signs of movement, Lettice carried out her threat by dabbing a wet sponge full in Honor's face, while at the same moment Maisie wrenched back the bed-clothes with a relentless hand.

"We're doing you a real kindness, so you needn't be cross, Miss Paddy Pepper-box!" said Lettice. "Just wait till you've seen Miss Maitland scowl at a late-comer, and you'll give us a vote of thanks."

"I'm not cross," said Honor, laughing in spite of the violation of her slumbers. Lettice spoke so merrily, it was impossible to take offence, even at the nickname. "But I think you use rather summary measures. The sponge was horribly cold and nasty."

"It's the only way to get people to bestir themselves," said Lettice complacently. "I've had experience with sleepy room-mates before."

"We always try the water cure at St. Chad's," added Maisie. "We've given you quite mild treatment, as it was a first case; we might have used your bedroom jug, instead of a sponge."

Owing to her companions' efforts, Honor was in time for breakfast—a fortunate circumstance for her, as, after the episode at the tea-table on the preceding evening, her house-mistress would not have been ready to overlook any deficiency in punctuality.

There was always a short recess between breakfast and chapel, which the girls called a "breathing space", and during which they could revise exercises, sharpen lead pencils, and take a last peep at lessons. This morning everybody seemed to be assembling in the dressing-room for this brief interval, and there Honor repaired with the others.

"I hear you've been put in the Lower Third, Paddy," said Lettice Talbot. "Vivian Holmes told me so just now. It's my form. Maisie and Pauline are in it too."

"Isn't Maisie above you?" asked Honor, looking at the sisters, the elder of whom overtopped the younger by nearly a head. "She is in inches, at any rate."

"I'm only a year older than Lettice, though I am so much taller," explained Maisie. "I suppose I ought to be in a higher form, but she always manages to catch me up. I make up my mind every term I'm going to win a double remove and leave her behind, yet somehow it never happens to come off. I'm much better at cricket and hockey than at French and algebra. But after all, it's rather convenient to have her in the same form: she's sure to remember what the lesson is when I forget, and I can borrow her books if I lose my own."

"Yes, I have to work for both," complained Lettice. "Maisie won't even copy her exercise questions; she always relies on me."

Maisie certainly made her younger sister useful. She expected her to fetch and carry, tidy both their cubicles, and generally maintain a very subservient and inferior position. On the other hand, though she tyrannized over Lettice herself, she would not allow anybody else to do so, and was ready to take her part and fight her battles against the whole school.

"I'm glad we're in the same class," remarked Honor, with an approving glance at Lettice's round, smiling face. "Perhaps I shall ask you to copy the exercise questions too. My memory is not particularly good where lessons are concerned. Who else is in the Lower Third?"

"Ruth Latimer, my greatest chum."

"We allow ourselves chums," put in Maisie, "but we're not at all romantic at Chessington. We don't swear eternal friendships, and exchange locks of hair, and walk about the College with our arms clasped round each other's necks, and write each other sentimental notes, with 'sweetest' and 'darling' and 'fondest love' in them. That's what Miss Maitland calls 'early Victorian'. We're very matter of fact here. Still, when we choose a chum we generally stick to her, and don't go in for all that nonsense of 'getting out of friends', or not speaking, as they do at some schools."

Honor was about to ask more questions, but at that moment Vivian Holmes, the monitress and head girl of the house, came bustling into the room.

"You haven't got your sailor and jersey yet, Honor Fitzgerald," she said. "Miss Maitland asked me to give them to you. Here they are, both marked with your name, so that they needn't be mixed up with anybody else's. You're to take this hook, and this compartment for your shoes, and this locker to keep your books in. I've put labels on them all."

Honor looked without enthusiasm at the knitted woollen coat, and with marked disfavour at the white sailor hat, with its band of orange ribbon.

"I can't wear that!" she ejaculated.

"Why not?" enquired Vivian, in surprise.

"There's an orange band round it."

"Orange is the St. Chad's colour," explained Vivian. "We all have exactly the same hats at Chessington, but each house has its own special ribbon—blue for the School House, pink for St. Aldwyth's, scarlet for St. Hilary's, and violet for St. Bride's. I thought you knew that already."

"If I had, I'd have insisted upon going to another house," declared Honor tragically. "You ask me to wear orange? Why, the very name of 'Orangeman' sets my teeth on edge. I'm a Nationalist to the last drop of my blood; we all are, down in Kerry."

Vivian smiled.

"Don't be absurd!" she said, in rather an off-hand manner. "Our hats have nothing whatever to do with politics. Here are two long pins, but if you prefer an elastic you can stitch one on," and without deigning to argue further she walked away.

Honor stood turning the hat round and round, with a very queer expression on her face. She was a devoted daughter of Erin. Her country's former glories and the possible brilliance of its future as a separate kingdom could always provoke her wildest enthusiasm; to be asked, therefore, to don the colour which in her native land stood as the symbol of the union with England, and for direct opposition to national independence, seemed to her little short of an insult to her dear Emerald Isle. There were still five minutes left before she need start for chapel, so, making up her mind suddenly, she rushed upstairs to her bedroom. She would show these Saxons that she was a true Celt! They might compel her to wear their emblem of bondage, but it should be with an addition that would proclaim her patriotic sentiments to the world.

Hurriedly hunting in her top drawer, she produced a yard of vivid green ribbon and the bunch of imitation shamrock that old Mary O'Grady had given her as a parting present. Then she set to work on a piece of amateur millinery. There was little time to use needle and thread, but with the aid of pins she managed to twist the ribbon into several loops, and to fasten the shamrock conspicuously in front. She looked at the result of her labours with great approval.

"One could almost imagine it was St. Patrick's Day," she said to herself. "Nobody could possibly mistake me now for a Unionist. I'm labelled 'Home Rule' as plainly as can be." Then, hastily pinning on her hat before the mirror, she ran downstairs, humming under her breath:

"So we'll bide our time; our banner yet

And motto shall be seen,

And voices shout the chorus out,

'The Wearin' o' the Green'!"

The girls at Chessington College were all dressed exactly alike, in a uniform costume of blue serge skirts, with blue or white cotton blouses for summer, and flannel ones for winter. On Sundays they wore white serge coats and skirts, and for evenings white muslin or nuns' veiling. They were allowed a little latitude in the way of embroideries with respect to best frocks, but their everyday, ordinary clothes were required to be of the school pattern, with the addition of sailor hats and knitted coats, for use in running across the quadrangle on wet or cold days. Miss Cavendish considered that this rule encouraged simplicity, and provided against any undue extravagance in the matter of dress. She did not allow rings or bracelets to be worn, and the sole vanity permitted to the girls was in the choice of their hair ribbons.

Punctually at twenty-five minutes past eight each morning the bell in the little chapel began to give warning, and by half-past every member of the school was expected to have taken her seat, and to be ready for the short service held there daily by the senior curate of the parish church at Dunscar. In twos and threes and small groups the girls came hurrying in answer to the call of the tinkling bell. Though they laughed and talked as they ran across the quadrangle, they sobered down as they neared the door, and, each taking a Prayer Book from a pile laid ready in the porch, passed silently and reverently into the chapel. Every house had its own special rows of seats, and the sailor hats that mingled like a kaleidoscope in the grounds were here divided into their several sets of colours, though sometimes varied by a gleam of ruby or amber falling from the stained-glass windows above. The singing was musical and the responses hearty, while into his five minutes' explanation of the lesson for the day the clergyman generally managed to compress much helpful thought, sending away some, at least, of his hearers braced up for the duties that awaited them.

On this particular morning anyone accustomed to the ordinary atmosphere of the place might have been aware that something of an unusual character was in the air.

There was an undercurrent of unrest, a turning of heads, a subdued rustling, even an occasional whisper; and the head mistress, realizing at last that some outside cause must be distracting the minds of her pupils, glanced up, and, following the direction of all eyes, saw a sight that filled her with unfeigned astonishment. Among the neat rows of orange-banded sailor hats in the benches marked "St. Chad's" was one trimmed with large and obtrusive knots of emerald-green ribbon, which drooped over the brim, while a bunch of imitation shamrock finished the front. It seemed to stand out so conspicuously from its fellows that it resembled a succulent palm tree growing in the midst of a sandy desert, and could not fail to attract the attention of the whole school. How such an irregularity had crept in amongst the uniforms of the college Miss Cavendish could not comprehend; it must form the subject of an after enquiry, and in the meantime, stilling with a reproachful glance a faint whisper in her vicinity, she joined in the singing of a psalm with her usual clear intonation. When the service was over, however, and the girls began to file away in orderly line, she spoke a few, rapid words to a monitress, who at once passed quickly out by a side door.

As the extraordinary green hat made its appearance in the quadrangle it was greeted with quite a buzz of excitement by the girls assembled outside. Only a few of them, comparatively, knew Honor by sight, and the rest were asking who she was, and to which house she belonged. The common feeling was distinctly unfavourable. Apart from the unseemliness of such an exhibition in a sacred place, new girls were not expected to make themselves conspicuous, or to introduce innovations; either was considered an impertinence on their part: so the general verdict was that Honor had done a dreadful thing, and public opinion was dead against her. She, however, held up her head as proudly as though her absurd hat had been the latest creation from Bond Street.

"It's a tribute to my native land!" she said airily, in response to a chorus of questions. "Sorry you don't like it, but it's my first attempt at hat-trimming, and I flattered myself it wasn't bad for a beginner. St. Patrick for ever! I made up my mind before I started that I'd keep up the credit of the shamrock on this side of the water, and I've done my best. Hurrah for old Ireland!" Then, as if her feelings were absolutely too much for her, she took her skirt in her hands, and began to dance an old-fashioned Kerry hornpipe, humming a lively Irish tune to supply the music.

The girls stared in amazement at the mad performance. "She's showing off!" declared some, but others laughed, and watched with a kind of fascination, for the dance was striking and original, and the movements were unusually graceful.

Honor's triumph, however, was short-lived. Vivian Holmes forced her way through the crowd, and, laying her hand on the shoulder of the obstreperous new-comer, told her to report herself at once in Miss Cavendish's study. The lookers-on scuttled away to their classes without being told; they were half-ashamed of having taken so much notice of a new girl. Lettice Talbot, turning round, caught a glimpse of Honor walking blithely away, with a jaunty smile on her face.

"As if a visit to the head mistress meant nothing at all!" she gasped.

"She'll soon find out her mistake," replied Ruth Latimer grimly. "Miss Cavendish can reduce one to a quaking jelly when she feels inclined."

Honor was in one of her wildest, most reckless moods, and the prospect of a passage of arms with the principal of the College was as the call of battle to a knight of old. In her conflicts with her governesses at home she had invariably come off best, and it pleased her to think she had now the opportunity of trying her will in opposition to that of the ruler of this little kingdom.

Miss Cavendish's study was a beautiful and unusual room. It was built in accordance with an old-world design, and in shape resembled an ancient chapter-house. The richly carved chimney-piece, the dark panelling of the walls, and the straight-backed oak chairs helped to carry out the prevailing note of mediaevalism, which was further enhanced by a large, stained-glass window, filled with figures of saints, that faced the doorway. To enter was like going into the peace and serenity of some old cathedral, and, notwithstanding her defiant frame of mind, a feeling of something akin to reverence crept over Honor as she crossed the threshold. Her impressionable Celtic temperament could not fail to be influenced by outward surroundings: she had a great love of the beautiful, and this room satisfied her æsthetic tastes.

An Interview With Miss Cavendish

The head mistress was standing beside the hearth, which, though devoid of fire at this season of the year, was piled up with newly cut logs. In her long, clinging black dress, the light from the halo of St. Aldwyth in the window falling on her regular Greek features, and touching with a ruddier gleam the pale gold of her rippling hair, Miss Cavendish looked an imposing and commanding figure. Born of a good family, the daughter of a high dignitary of the Church, she was by nature a student, and after a brilliant career at Girton she had for a time devoted herself to scientific research, arousing much interest by her clever articles in various periodicals; but feeling that her true vocation was teaching, she had turned her attention to education, and, gaining a reputation in the scholastic world, had in course of time been elected as the principal of Chessington College, a post which she filled with dignity, and greatly to the satisfaction of both governors and parents. Not a remarkably tender woman, she was perhaps more respected than loved by her pupils; but she had great powers of administration, and managed to impress upon her girls a strict sense of duty and responsibility, a love of work, a fine perception of honour, and a desire to keep up the high tone and prestige of the school.

She turned her clear, cold blue eyes on Honor, as the latter entered the room, with a scrutinizing gaze, so comprehensive and so full of authority that, despite her intention of showing a bold front, the girl involuntarily quailed.

"Come here, Honor Fitzgerald," began Miss Cavendish, in a calm, measured tone. "I wish you to explain to me why you have taken it upon yourself to alter the costume which, you are well aware, is obligatory for all attending the College."

"I can't wear orange," replied Honor, plucking up her courage for the battle; "it's against my principles."

"There are right principles and wrong principles; we will decide presently to which class yours belong. On what grounds do you raise your objection?"

"I'm Irish," said Honor briefly, "so I prefer green."

"That is no reason. We have many nationalities here, and do you imagine that every girl can be permitted to carry out her individual taste? Tell me why you suppose such a rule was framed."

"I don't know," returned Honor rebelliously.

"Then you must think, for I require an answer."

Honor stared at the fireplace, at the bookcase, with its richly bound volumes; at the window, where the red robe of St. Hilary made such a glorious spot of colour; at the table, covered with books and papers; and finally her glance went back to the head mistress, whose eyes were still fixed on her with that steady, embarrassing gaze.

"Was it to make everybody look alike?" she replied at last, almost as if the words were dragged from her lips.

"Exactly! Then, to return to my original question, why, knowing this fact, did you presume to break the rule?"

Honor was again silent. Somehow her intended bravery seemed to desert her.

"I met your father, Major Fitzgerald, yesterday," continued Miss Cavendish. "I understand that he held a command in the Royal Munster Fusiliers, and did splendid service in the Boer War. Kindly tell me what explanation he would have given to his general if he had appeared at church parade minus his uniform."

"Oh, but he wouldn't have done that!" exclaimed Honor in horror.

"Why not?"

"Why! because he is a soldier. How could he? The uniform is part of the service."

"And what is the first duty of a soldier?"

"To obey orders," answered Honor, with a spark of apprehension in her eyes.

"You are right. Now, what would happen to a regiment if each individual, instead of obeying his superior officer, were to follow his own inclinations?"

"It would go to pieces."

"And what occurs when a soldier commits any breach of regulations?"

"He is court-martialled and punished."

"Is that just?"

"Yes."

"But why?"

"Oh, because—because—it's the Army, and they must! There couldn't be any discipline without."

"Exactly! You are an officer's daughter, and you evidently appreciate the vast importance of good discipline. Now, we are a little army here. Every girl, as a member of this community, is bound to preserve its rules, which have been wisely framed, and deserve to be faithfully kept. You have been guilty of a very grave breach of our regulations, and by your own showing you merit punishment. Do you consider this to be just?"

"Yes," returned Honor, meeting the head mistress's look firmly.

"We have an esprit de corps at the College," continued Miss Cavendish, "which makes each girl anxious to keep up the credit and prestige of the school. When you have been here a short time, and have learnt the tone of the place, I believe and trust that you will be truly ashamed of the remembrance of your appearance in chapel this morning. It is for this reason I shall not punish you, though you have yourself acknowledged that punishment would be only an act of justice. As for the matter of principle to which you referred, so far from advancing the good fame of your country, you were bringing it into disrepute. If you imagine it was a particularly patriotic deed to flaunt the shamrock in a wrong place you are much mistaken. We have had Irish girls here before, and I have always been able to rely upon them for the maintenance of our high standard. You may go now, Honor, and remove that foolish trimming from your hat; and remember that, as you have been christened 'Honor', I shall expect you to live up to your name."

Honor left the room more subdued than she would have cared to acknowledge. The calm, well-balanced arguments had completely disarmed her. She had entered in a reckless mood, almost anxious to be scolded, that she might have the chance of showing how little she cared; and now, for perhaps the first time in her life, she had been compelled to think seriously and sensibly upon a subject.

Very few teachers would have taken the trouble to reason thus with a pupil, but Miss Cavendish had her special method of education, and believed in paying particular attention to each girl's individuality. "Different plants require different cultivation, if you are to obtain good results," was one of her axioms. "You cannot successfully grow roses and carnations with the same treatment." She had seen at once, partly from her own observation and partly as the result of a talk with Major Fitzgerald, that Honor was an unusual and difficult character; and she wished to obtain a hold over the girl's mind from the very outset. It was part of her system to train her pupils to keep rules rather from a recognition of their justice and value than from a fear of punishment; therefore she regarded the ten minutes spent in the study as, not wasted time, but an opportunity of sowing good seed on hitherto neglected ground.

Vivian Holmes was waiting for Honor outside the door of the study. After conducting her to the school dressing-room, she produced a pair of scissors and ripped the offending green trimming from the hat in stony silence.

"May I keep them?" Honor ventured to ask, for it went to her heart to see her bunch of cherished shamrock torn ruthlessly from its place and flung aside.

"As you like," replied Vivian, "so long as they are not seen here again." Then, with a look of utterly crushing scorn, she burst out: "You needn't think that what you have done is at all clever. It's not the place of a new girl to show off in this way, and you'll gain nothing by it. I am responsible for St. Chad's, and I don't mean to have this kind of nonsense going on there; so please understand, Honor Fitzgerald, that if you give any more trouble, you may expect to find yourself thoroughly well sat upon!"

IV. Janie's Charge

The four-leaved shamrock having so far belied its reputation, and brought bad luck instead of good upon its wearer, Honor put it away in her drawer, with the resolve not to test its powers again until she was back in her own Emerald Isle, where, perhaps, it could exercise its magic more freely than in the land of the stranger.

Her first day at school was satisfactory, in spite of its bad beginning. She took her place in her new class, and made the acquaintance of Miss Farrar, her Form mistress, and all the seventeen girls who composed the Lower Third Form.

After the quiet and solitude of Kilmore Castle, to be at Chessington College seemed like plunging into the world. It was almost bewildering to meet so many companions, all of whom were busily occupied with employments into which she had not yet been initiated. It was an especially fresh experience for Honor to belong to a class, instead of learning from a private governess, and she much appreciated the change. It interested her to watch the faces of her schoolfellows, and to listen to their recitations, or their replies to Miss Farrar's questions. The strict discipline of the place astonished her: the ready answers, the total lack of whispering, the way in which each girl sat straight at her desk, giving her whole attention to the subject in hand; the prompt obedience, even the orderly manner of filing out of the room for lunch, all were as unusual as they were amazing to one who had hitherto behaved as she liked during lessons. She felt for the first time that she was a unit in a large community, and began to have some dim perception of that esprit de corps to which Miss Cavendish had referred during their interview in the study.

In spite of her previous laziness and neglect of work, Honor was a very bright girl, and she contrived even in that first morning to satisfy Miss Farrar that she was capable of doing well if she wished. Perhaps, after all, the four-leaved shamrock had sent her a little luck, for she happened to remember a date which the rest of the Form had forgotten, and won corresponding credit in consequence. When one o'clock arrived she arranged her new textbooks and notebooks in the desk that had been allotted to her next to Lettice Talbot.

"Did you get into a fearful scrape with Miss Cavendish, Paddy?" whispered the latter eagerly. "Do tell me about it!"

But Honor pursed up her mouth and looked inscrutable. She was unwilling to divulge what had passed in the study, and Lettice's curiosity had perforce to go unsatisfied.

On her arrival at St. Chad's Honor had been given a spare cubicle in the bedroom occupied by the Talbots and Pauline Reynolds. On the following afternoon, however, Miss Maitland sent for Janie Henderson, a girl of nearly sixteen, and informed her that a fresh arrangement had been made.

"I am going to put you and Honor Fitzgerald together in the room over the porch," she said. "I hope that you will get on nicely, and become friends. I want you, Janie, to have a good influence over Honor, and help her to keep school rules. She does not yet know our St. Chad's standards, and has very much to learn. I give her into your charge because I am sure you are conscientious, and will try your best to make her wish to improve and turn out a worthy Chaddite. You may carry your things into your new quarters during recreation-time."

"Yes, Miss Maitland," answered Janie, with due respect. She dared not dispute the mistress's orders, but inwardly she was anything but pleased. She did not wish to leave her present cubicle, and looked with dismay at the prospect of having to share a bedroom with this wild Irish girl, towards whom as yet she certainly felt no attraction.

Janie Henderson had a painfully shy and reserved disposition. Hitherto she had made no friends, invited no confidences, and "kept herself to herself" at St. Chad's. She was seldom seen walking with a companion, and during recreation generally buried herself in a book. Slight, pale, and narrow-chested, her constitution was not robust; and though a year and a half at Chessington College had already worked a wonderful improvement, she was still far below the ordinary average of good health. She was a quiet, mouse-like girl, who seldom obtruded herself, or took any prominent part in the life of St. Chad's—a girl who was continually in the background, and passed almost unnoticed among her schoolfellows. She had little self-confidence and a sensitive dread of being laughed at, so for this reason she rarely offered a suggestion, or an opinion, unless invited. She often felt lonely at school, but her shyness prevented her from making advances, and so far nobody had offered her even the elements of friendship. It sometimes hurt her to be thus entirely ignored and left out, but she had grown accustomed to it, and, shutting herself up in her shell, she followed the motto of the Miller of Dee:

"I care for nobody, no, not I,

Since nobody cares for me."

She was obliged to share in the daily games, which were compulsory for all; but she never joined in the voluntary ones unless she were specially asked to do so, to make up a side, and then she played with an utter lack of enthusiasm. "Moonie", as the girls called her, was a bookworm pure and simple. She had read almost every volume in the school library; it did not matter whether it were biography, travels, poetry, essays, or fiction, she would devour any literature that came her way. She lived in an imaginary world, peopled by heroes and heroines of romance, who often seemed more real to her than her schoolmates, and certainly twice as interesting. Half the time she went about in a dream, and even during lesson hours she would let her thoughts drift far away to some exciting incident in a story, or some mental picture of her own. It appeared as if Miss Maitland could not have picked out two more opposite and unsuitable girls to share a bedroom than Honor Fitzgerald and Janie Henderson; but she had good reasons for her choice. Not only did she hope that Janie's sober ways would steady Honor, but she also thought that Honor's high spirits would have a leavening effect upon Janie, who was sadly in need of stirring up.

"I wish I could shake the pair in a bag!" she confided to a fellow-teacher. "It would be of the greatest advantage to both."

There was at least one compensation to Janie for being obliged to change her quarters. No. 8, the room over the porch, was a special sanctum, much coveted by all the other Chaddites. It was arranged to accommodate only two, instead of four, and was the beau-ideal of every pair of chums. It had a French window opening out on to a tiny balcony, and, having been originally intended for one of the mistresses, was furnished rather more luxuriously than the rest of the bedrooms. There was a handsome wall-paper, a full-length mirror in the wardrobe, a comfortable basket-chair, and also what appealed particularly to Janie—a large and inviting bookcase, with glass doors. She conducted her removal, therefore, with less dissatisfaction than she had at first anticipated.

"I call you lucky," declared Lettice Talbot. "I only wish I could go instead. Everyone on our landing is envying you. I shall be rather sorry to lose Paddy—I think she's a joke."

"Especially as we're to have Flossie Taylor instead," said Pauline Reynolds. "It's a poor exchange. I can't stand Flossie; she gives herself airs."

"She needn't put them on with us," observed Maisie. "I've had a quarrel with her already. She was actually trying to make Lettice pick up her balls for her at tennis!"

"Lettice always picks up yours," suggested Pauline.

"That's a totally different matter," declared Maisie.

"I wish Miss Maitland would have let Flossie join the Hammond-Smiths," said Lettice. "I can't imagine why she is making such changes. Oh, here's Honor! Do you know, Paddy, you have got notice to quit?—in fact, you're going to be evicted from No. 13."

Honor had already been informed of the fact by the house-mistress herself. She appeared to take the news with the utmost sangfroid.

"I don't care in the least which room I have," she replied. "All I bargain for is a room-mate who doesn't use 'cold pig' in the mornings. I haven't forgotten your wet sponge."

"You ungrateful Paddy! It was for your good."

"If you call me Paddy I shall call you Salad!"

"You can if you like. It's rather a pretty name, and has a juicy, succulent sound about it."

"Make haste, Honor, and clear your drawers," grunted Maisie. "Here's Flossie Taylor coming down the passage with her arms full of under-linen."

No. 8, like all other bedrooms at St. Chad's, was divided by a curtain that could be drawn at pleasure. At present, however, this was pulled aside for the mutual convenience of the occupants of both cubicles. To Janie the burning question to be decided was the possession of the bookcase. She tried to imagine that it was nearer her bed than Honor's, but justice forced her to come to the conclusion that it stood exactly in the middle, between the two. With heroic self-denial she offered her companion the first choice of its shelves before she put away her own little library.

"But I haven't brought any books with me," declared Honor. "You're welcome to the bookcase, so far as I'm concerned. We can take turns at this luxury," sinking into the basket-chair.

"Don't you ever read?"

"Very seldom."

Janie went on arranging her volumes in silence, the poets on the top shelf, by the side of her edition of Scott's novels, and the miscellaneous authors below. She touched each book tenderly, as though it were an old and dear friend, opening one occasionally to glance at a favourite passage; and she became so absorbed in her occupation that she utterly forgot Honor's presence.

"There! I've stowed away all my possessions," remarked the latter at last. "I don't know whether Miss Maitland judges a room by a tidy bookcase. She said she was coming up presently, to see if we had put our things straight."

Janie started guiltily. She, who was expected to be the mentor and to keep her companion up to the mark, was certainly the defaulter in this instance. Her bed and the chairs were strewn with various articles, and nothing seemed as yet in its right place.

"I couldn't help dipping into that book," she confessed. "It's a collection of old Irish fairy tales and legends. It was given me yesterday, before I left home, and I've scarcely had time even to look at it."

"Are they nice?"

"Lovely, to judge by the one I've just sampled!"

"Then do tell it to me! I hate reading, but I'm an absolute baby for loving to be told old tales."

"I? Oh, I couldn't!" exclaimed Janie.

"Yes, you can—while I'm helping you to put all these things into your drawers. Do, mavourneen! I want to hear the Irish story."

When Honor's grey eyes looked pleadingly from under their long, dark lashes, and a soft blarney crept into her voice, there were few people who could resist her. Janie flushed pink; she was so seldom asked to do anything for anybody! She had no natural gift for narrative, but she made an effort.

"There was once an Irishman called Murtagh O'Neil," she began, "and he was walking over London Bridge, with a hazel staff in his hand, when an Englishman met him and told him that the stick he carried grew on a spot under which were hidden great treasures. The Englishman was a wizard, and he promised that if Murtagh would go with him to Ireland, and show him the place, he would gain as much gold as he could carry. Murtagh consented, so they went over to Bronbhearg, in Kerry, where there was a big green mound; and there they dug up the hazel tree on which the staff had grown. Under it they found a broad, flat stone, and this covered the entrance to a cavern where thousands of warriors lay in a circle, sleeping beside their shields, with their swords clasped in their hands. Their arms were so brightly polished that they illuminated the whole cave; and one of them had a shield that outshone the rest, and a crown of gold on his head. In the centre of the cave hung a bell, which the wizard told Murtagh to beware of touching; but, if at any time he did so, and one of the warriors were to ask: 'Is it day?' he was to answer without hesitation: 'No, sleep thou on!' The two men took as much as they could carry from a heap of gold pieces that lay amidst the warriors, and Murtagh managed accidentally to touch the bell. It rang, and one of the warriors immediately asked: 'Is it day?' when Murtagh answered promptly: 'No, sleep thou on!' The wizard told him that the company he had seen were King Brien Borombe and his knights, who lay asleep ready for the dawn of a new day. When the right time should come the bell would ring loudly, and the warriors would start up and destroy the enemies of Erin, and once more the descendants of the Tuatha di Danan should rule the isle in peace. When Murtagh's treasure was all finished, he went back to the cave and helped himself to more. On his way out he touched the bell, and again it rang; but this time he was not so ready with his answer, and some of the warriors rose up, took the gold from him, beat him, and flung him out of the cave. He never recovered from the beating, but was a cripple to the end of his days."

"And serve him right, too!" declared Honor. "Brien Borombe was a great hero of Ireland."

"Yes, there's one of Moore's Irish Melodies that begins: 'Remember the glories of Brien the brave'," said Janie.

"Are there any more stories about him in that book?"

"I'm not sure, but there are tales about fairy raths and changelings and leprechauns and pookas and banshees, and all kinds of extraordinary creatures."

"Then we'll have one every day, please! I think you're a first-rate story-teller. You're almost as good as old Mary O'Grady. I've often sat by her peat fire and heard about the banshee and the leprechaun; only, she believes in them. I'm so glad I've moved into this bedroom! I like you far better than those girls in No. 13."

When Miss Maitland came upstairs to inspect No. 8, she found Honor and Janie already on a more favourable footing than she had dared to hope, the latter chatting with a vivacity that no one at St. Chad's had hitherto imagined she possessed. Once she had broken the ice of her shyness, and had broached her beloved topic of books, Janie had plenty to say; and, as Honor was also in a communicative mood, the pair seemed well started on the high road to friendship.

It was fortunate for Honor that she had found a congenial room-mate, as her first days at Chessington proved rather a time of trial. She was woefully and terribly home-sick. It seemed an absolute uprooting to have been torn away from Kerry, and she considered that nothing in her new surroundings could make amends for the change. Her pride upheld her sufficiently to prevent her from showing any outward signs of misery before the inquisitive eyes of her schoolfellows, but every now and then the yearning for Kilmore would rise with an almost unbearable pain, and she would have to fight hard to keep her self-control. Maisie Talbot, she was sure, would regard home-sickness as "early Victorian", and consequently worthy of contempt; and she was determined not to give either Maisie or any of the others an opportunity of laughing at her.

She felt very keenly the confinement and restraint of school life. To be obliged to study lessons and play games at specified hours, all within a certain limited area, seemed an utter contrast to the freedom in which she had hitherto revelled; and she would long for a scamper with Bute and Barney, her two terriers, or a sail with her father down the creek and out into the Atlantic. She would pour enthusiastic descriptions of her home into Janie's ears, until the latter felt she knew Kilmore Castle and its demesne, and the little fishing village, with its peat smoke and its warm-hearted peasants; and the rocks and the moors and the stream, and the green, treacherous bogs, almost as well as Honor herself.

Notwithstanding her former reputation for unsociability, Janie, at the end of three days, had completely lost her heart to this wayward, impulsive daughter of Erin. It was true, Honor was apt to be trying at times. Her gusts of hot temper, petulance, or utter unreasonableness were rather disconcerting to anyone unaccustomed to the Celtic disposition; but they never lasted long, and Janie soon found out that her friend rarely meant what she then said, and was generally particularly lovable after an outburst, with a winsome look on her face and a beguiling, endearing tone in her voice that would have gained forgiveness from a stone.

With the rest of the members of St. Chad's Honor was also on good terms. She could be very amusing and full of racy Irish humour when she liked, and would send the girls into fits of laughter with her quaint sayings and funny stories. Her nickname of "Paddy Pepper-box" stuck to her, and she certainly justified it occasionally.

"She's like a volcano," declared Lettice Talbot. "Sometimes if you tease her she starts with a bang, and lets off steam for five minutes. Then it's all over, and she's quite pleasant again, until next time."

"I'd rather have that than sulking, at any rate," said Dorothy Arkwright. "A storm often clears the air."

"It's not much use chaffing her, either," said Madge Summers, "for she always seems to get the best of it."

"Yes; if she's down one minute she'll bob up again the next, like a cork."

Honor's humours were apt to overflow into the region of practical jokes. These were generally played on such genial recipients as Lettice Talbot and Madge Summers, but occasionally she would venture on more dangerous ground. One afternoon, at the end of her first week at Chessington, she was in the dressing-room, changing her shoes in preparation for cricket, when Ruth Latimer interposed.

"I forgot to tell you, Paddy! Games are off to-day."

"Why?" asked Honor in astonishment, for the hour and a half in the playing-fields was as strict a part of the college curriculum as the morning lessons.

"Because it's the Health Testing."

"What's that?"

"A kind of medical examination," explained Dorothy Arkwright. "We always have it at the beginning of each term, to make sure that, as Miss Cavendish expresses it, we are 'physically fit for the duties of school life'."

"Oh!" said Honor, looking rather aghast at the prospect.

"You needn't pull such a long face, Paddy," said Lettice. "We none of us mind; indeed, we think it's a joke."

"We have a lady doctor, you see," said Ruth, "and she's so jolly, she keeps one laughing all the time."

"What does she do?"

"Oh! weighs us, and sounds our lungs, and tests our eyes, and measures our chests."

"You'll have to draw a deep breath, and to put out your tongue, and to let her look at your teeth," added Lettice.

"And if any girl is really very much below standard," said Dorothy, "she is 'turned out to grass'. That means that she only does half-lessons."

"Of course, she has to be rather bad for that," remarked Ruth.

"It's never been my luck yet!" lamented Lettice.

"I should think not, with those fat, red cheeks! You couldn't look delicate, however hard you tried."

"It happened to Janie Henderson, though, in her first term. How little did you weigh, Moonie?"

"I'm sure I forget," returned Janie, who had joined the group.

"But you had to be fed up on cream and beaten eggs and all kinds of things. I remember how we envied you."

"Are you weighed in stones or pounds here?" asked Honor.

"In stones. It's very puzzling to some of the Colonials, because they're accustomed to American machines that register in pounds. They have to do a sum before they can calculate the result."

"When does this exam. come off?"

"Some time this afternoon. We go up in relays. It's St. Chad's turn to-day. On Wednesday it was the School House, and on Thursday, St. Aldwyth's. Then on Saturday it will be St. Hilary's and St. Bride's. It takes nearly a week to get through the whole school."

The medical examination was to be conducted at the sanatorium, and Dr. Mary Forbes was already installed there, and busily employed, when Honor and her classmates arrived.

"She begins with monitresses, and then works downwards," explained Dorothy. "I don't expect it will be our turn for half an hour yet, but we're obliged to stay here, to be ready in case we're called."

"It's not nearly so alarming as the dentist's," said Ruth.

The waiting-room was full of girls, who were beguiling the time with jokes and banter and lively chatter. Lettice, Ruth, and Dorothy soon mingled in the crowd, and forgot all about their Irish companion until the voice of Vivian Holmes was heard announcing:

"Next—Ruth Latimer, Chatty Burns, Madge Summers, and Honor Fitzgerald."

"Where's Honor?" asked Lettice. "She was here just now."

"Why, she's there!—actually outside in the garden," replied Dorothy.

"What's she doing, dodging about the rockery?"

"Someone call her—quick!"

Honor came running in, looking rather flushed and hot, and with a curious, bulgy appearance about her blouse.

"Where have you been?" demanded Ruth, but her question went unanswered, for Vivian whisked the four girls with scant ceremony into Dr. Mary Forbes's consulting-room. Time was too precious to be wasted, and the monitress was something of a disciplinarian. Honor sat watching with deep interest while first Ruth, then Chatty, and finally Madge were duly examined and passed as "sound". She was called then, and after her name and age had been entered on her chart, and her height taken, she was told to step on to the weighing machine. Round swung the pointer, and stopped at 8 stone 4 lb. Dr. Mary looked at the dial almost incredulously. She thought there must be something wrong with the machine.

"Stand off for a minute," she said, "while I examine the weights. I must have made a mistake."

Honor obeyed, with a very solemn face. She appeared to be taking the matter with unusual seriousness. Dr. Mary readjusted the lever, and even oiled the machine; but when Honor stepped on to it again it registered exactly the same.

"It's most extraordinary!" exclaimed the lady doctor. "For a girl of your height and slight build I have never known such a record," and she gazed at Honor's rather slender proportions in amazement.

"I expect it's bones," volunteered Honor. "The Fitzgeralds are a big-boned family."

"Your bones would have to be of cast iron, to bring you up to eight stone odd," cried Dr. Mary. "The machine must be at fault. It's absurd, on the face of it—a small, slim girl like you!"

"Perhaps it's the change of air since I arrived," said Honor innocently, but at the same time she looked at Madge Summers with a very mischievous expression on her face.

"She's up to something!" thought Madge, and nudged Ruth, though she dared not venture to whisper.

"Of course, we eat a great deal over in Ireland," continued Honor. "There is nothing like potatoes for making one grow. I saw in the British Almanac that they were twice as nourishing as anything, except herrings and oatmeal; and we have those too in Kerry."

"I think, in that case, we must try Banting," said Dr. Mary, who must have caught Honor's glance, for she suddenly took hold of her, and began feeling her carefully.

"Ah!" she exclaimed; "so these are the extra bones, are they?" and diving into her patient's pocket, she drew out stone after stone, and as many more again that had been tucked down in the front of the white flannel blouse.

The doctor was a good-tempered woman, with a strong sense of humour, and, instead of scolding, she laughed heartily at having been taken in by such a trick.

"I've had patients who shammed ill before," she declared, "but never such a scandalous case of imposition as this."

"Well, the girls told me the weight was to be reckoned by stones," said Honor, with a twinkle in her eye, "so I thought I'd better come well provided. I'm not at all sorry to be rid of them, if they're not wanted."

"Get on to that machine again immediately!" commanded Dr. Mary, with an effort to be severe. "Ah! 6 stone 5 lb. is rather a difference. It's lucky for you I didn't put you on starvation diet to reduce you. Don't try to be so clever again, or I shall have to perform an operation to get rid of your cheek!"

Madge, Ruth, and Chatty had sat chuckling with subdued delight during the interview, and the moment they were out of the room they published the story abroad, for the edification of the others.

"She thinks of such funny things!" laughed Madge, "things that nobody else would ever dream of doing."

"I was afraid she'd get into a fearful scrape," confessed Chatty.

"Oh, Dr. Mary Forbes is too jolly to mind!" said Ruth. "She was far more amused than cross. If it had been Miss Maitland, or Miss Cavendish, now! But I should imagine that even Honor Fitzgerald would scarcely dare to play a practical joke upon either of them!"

V. A Riding Lesson

The College had reopened on a Tuesday, so that by her first Sunday Honor had been at school five days. In her own estimation it seemed more like five months, but as she had left home on 24th April, and the Shakespeare calendar in the recreation room (a leaf of which was torn off punctually each morning by the monitress) only recorded 29th April, she was obliged reluctantly to acknowledge the evidence of the almanac, and realized that twelve whole weeks must intervene before the joyful termination of what she considered her banishment from Erin.

Sundays were made very pleasant at Chessington. In the morning the girls attended the parish church at Dunscar. In the afternoon they might read, or stroll about the grounds where they pleased, an indulgence not permitted on weekdays. During the summer term they were allowed to carry their four-o'clock tea into the garden. All was laid ready by the servants in the dining-hall, and each girl might pour out her own cup, and, taking what bread and butter she wished, retire with a few select companions to some nook under the trees, or a seat in an ivy-covered arbour.

From half-past four to half-past five was "silence hour", which everyone was required to devote to reading from a special library of books carefully chosen for the purpose by Miss Cavendish.

"I won't call them Sunday books," she sometimes said, "because I consider our religion would be a very poor thing if it were only kept for one day in the week. What we learn in this quiet time we must apply in our busy hours, and let the helpful words we read influence our ordinary life and go towards the building of character, which is the most invaluable of all possessions."

At half-past six there was a short service in chapel; and the rest of the evening, after supper, was given up to the writing of home letters.

All the routine of the school was still new to Honor, and she felt very strange and unusual as, precisely at ten o'clock, she took her place among the lines of Chessingtonians marshalled in the quadrangle preparatory to setting off for church. Miss Cavendish gave the signal to start, and the two hundred girls filed along two and two, all dressed alike in white serge coats and skirts and best sailor hats, with their house colours, the blue ribbons of the School House leading the way, followed by the pink of St. Aldwyth's, and the orange, violet, and scarlet of St. Chad's, St. Bride's, and St. Hilary's, respectively.

"I believe it's considered one of the sights of the neighbourhood to see us parade through the lich-gate," said Lettice Talbot, who happened to be walking with Honor. "Visitors stand in the churchyard and try to count us. They make the most absurd remarks sometimes; I suppose they think we shan't overhear what they say. Really, they seem to look upon us as a kind of show, and I quite expect we shall be put down in the next edition of the guide-book as one of the attractions of Dunscar. Of course, we take no notice. We walk along with our noses in the air, as if we weren't aware that anyone was even thinking of us; but all the same we feel giggles inside when we catch a whisper: 'They look like angels dressed in white!' or, 'What a pile of washing they must make!'"

Honor had been looking forward immensely to this Sunday morning, for she hoped she might have an opportunity of seeing her brother Dermot, who was at Dr. Winterton's school. Dermot was her favourite among her five brothers, and the thought that Orley Grange and Chessington stood only a mile and a half apart had so far been her one thread of comfort. To catch even a distant glimpse of Dermot would be like a peep at home, and she felt that a moment's talk with him would be sufficient to send her back to St. Chad's rejoicing.

The students of the College occupied the whole of the left aisle of the church, and the right aisle was reserved for Dr. Winterton's pupils. As a rule, the girls arrived early and took their seats first; and they always passed out by a side door, so that they seldom met the boys in the churchyard. Should they happen to do so, however, it was etiquette to take no notice of them, even though some might be relations, or intimate friends. Honor was unaware of this rule, which her classmates, not knowing she had a brother at the Grange, had not thought of mentioning to her.

On this particular Sunday either Miss Cavendish or Dr. Winterton had slightly miscalculated the time, for the two schools arrived at exactly the same minute. As there was not room for all to march in together through the lich-gate, the boys were drawn up like a regiment, and waited for the College to go by. The girls sailed past with well-bred unconsciousness, their eyes fixed discreetly upon the Prayer Books and hymn-books that they carried—all except poor impulsive, unconventional Honor, who made a sudden dart out of the line, and snatched rapturously at a brown-faced, curly-headed boy, by his coat sleeve.

"Dermot! Dermot! I am glad to see you!" she exclaimed, in a voice that could be heard from end to end of the ranks.

"Oh, I say, Honor! Stow it!" murmured the boy in an agonized tone, turning as red as fire, and trying to back away from her.

Naturally Honor's unexpected and unprecedented act caused a great sensation. Lettice Talbot stopped when deserted by her partner, and the girls behind her were obliged to halt too. All wondered what had happened, and, in spite of their excellent training and good discipline, their curiosity got the better of them, and they craned their necks to look. Miss Farrar saved the situation by hurrying to Honor, seizing her by the shoulder, and forcing her back into her place; then the long line once more moved forward, and the Chessingtonians, slightly ruffled, but trying to carry off the affair in a dignified fashion, marched with admirable coolness into the church. If Honor had a little, surreptitious cry behind her Prayer Book, she managed to conceal the fact from the neighbours on either side of her in the pew; and if her eyes looked suspiciously red, and there was a slight tendency to chokiness in her voice as she walked home after service, Lettice Talbot, at any rate, was tactful enough to take no notice, though she seized the opportunity of explaining the school code of decorum, and was severe in her censure.

"You ought to have told me before," said Honor. "How could I know that I mustn't speak to my own brother?"

"I didn't even know you had a brother," returned Lettice; "and I never dreamt you'd do such an idiotic thing as rush at him like that. He evidently didn't appreciate it."

"No! I thought he'd be more glad to see me," gulped Honor, not the least part of whose trouble had been Dermot's cold reception of her enthusiastic greeting.

"How silly you are! Does any boy care to parade his sister before his whole school? I expect he'll get tremendously chaffed about this, poor fellow! Really, Paddy, you ought to know better!"

Considerably chastened by Lettice's crushing remarks, Honor subsided into silence, and only reopened the subject when, in company with Janie Henderson, she had retired after dinner to a spot overlooking the playing-fields. It was a warm, beautiful afternoon, a day when you could almost hear the buds bursting and the flowers opening. The two girls spread their jerseys on the grass, and sat basking in the sunshine, watching a lark soar up into the blue overhead, or the seagulls flapping leisurely round the cliffs; or listening to the caw of the jackdaws that, in company with a flock of starlings, were feeding in a neighbouring ploughed field. The sea lay a sparkling sheet of pearly grey, and Honor looked wistfully at its broad expanse when she remembered that its farther waves washed the rocky shores of Ireland.

Janie was the only girl at St. Chad's to whom she cared to mention her home. With the others she could exchange jokes, but not confidences; and though she returned their banter with interest, she did not look to them for sympathy. Janie seemed altogether different from the rest; she never laughed at Honor, and even if she remonstrated, it was in such a gentle, apologetic way that the most touchy of Celtic natures could not have taken offence.

Miss Maitland had not overlooked the episode of the morning. She had had a few words to say after their return from church, and Honor, in consequence, was feeling rather sore, and ready to pour out her grievances into her friend's ears.

"It's too bad!" she declared. "If you can't speak to your own brother, to whom may you speak, I should like to know? It seems absurd that Dermot should be living at the Grange, not two miles off, and yet we're never to see one another. I thought I should at least meet him once a week, and now I mayn't even say, 'How do you do?' without being scolded as if I had committed a highway robbery."

"Is he your favourite brother?" asked Janie.

"Yes; he's the nearest in age to me, and we're great chums. We have the wildest fun during the holidays—we dare each other to do the maddest things we can think of!"

"What kind of things?"

"Well, one day, when old Biddy Macarthy was ill with quinsy, we got up early and took her cart to Ballycroghan market, and Dermot sold all her chickens for her. He talked away like a Cheap Jack, and made such fun, people nearly died with laughing. You see, most of them knew who he was, and it seemed so absurd to hear him proclaiming the virtues of Biddy's fowls. Then we filled the cart with seed potatoes, as a present for her; and tore home so fast that the traces broke, and the donkey ran straight out of the shafts. We fell on the road, nearly buried in potatoes, but luckily we weren't hurt. We managed to catch the donkey, and to mend the traces with a piece of string; then we had to put all the potatoes back. Biddy laughed so much when we told her about the adventure that it cured her quinsy; and she said she never had such a splendid crop of potatoes as from those we brought her that day from Ballycroghan. That was Dermot's joke; but I think mine was quite as much fun."

"What was yours?"

"I saved up my pocket-money to get a little pig, to give to old Micky, the cobbler. Dermot and I walked over to Ennisfellen fair to buy it, and drove it home with a string tied to its leg. As fast as we pulled one way it ran another, and just as we got to Micky's cabin the string snapped, and off the pig bolted down the village, and ran straight into the open door of the school. The children chased it round and round beneath the forms, and caught it at last under the master's desk. Oh, we have lively times at Kilmore! Then once Dermot and I ran away, and went to see Cousin Theresa at Slieve Donnell. Nobody knew where we were for two days, and people were hunting all over the country for us. They thought we must have been drowned, or have fallen into the bog."

"But weren't your father and mother fearfully anxious?" asked Janie, who had listened almost aghast to the recital of those wild escapades.

"Well, Father was rather cross about that, certainly. He was never really very angry, though, until the last time, when I——"

But here Honor stopped. On the whole, she decided she would not relate the story of Firefly. She could not quite understand the expression on Janie's face, and she began to doubt whether her friend would altogether sympathize with her. Instead, she plunged into a detailed description of her elder brothers, telling how two were preparing for the Army at Sandhurst, how another was at Oxford, and the fourth was studying law.

"I suppose you are nearly always with your mother, as you are the only girl," said Janie.

"Well, no," admitted Honor. "She's so delicate, and so often ill. I'm afraid I give her a headache."

"My mother is delicate too," confided Janie. "She has most dreadful neuralgia sometimes. I bathe her head with eau-de-cologne, mixed with very hot water, and it always does her good. She calls me her little nurse. Have you ever tried hot water with eau-de-cologne for your mother's headaches?"

Honor had never dreamt of offering any help or assistance to anyone in sickness. The idea was quite new to her, and that Janie evidently expected her to be her mother's companion and right hand surprised her. She had already met with many astonishments at St. Chad's, where most of the views of life seemed different from her old standards. She scarcely liked to confess that she was of so little use at home, and hastily turned the conversation back to her brother Dermot.

"Do you think if I were to ask Miss Cavendish, she would let him call to see me?" she suggested.

Janie shook her head.

"I'm quite sure she wouldn't," she replied. "The rules are so strict about visitors. Nobody but our parents is allowed, except an occasional uncle or aunt—never a brother. You'd better not suggest it."

"Then I shall have to go and see him."

"How could you, Honor? Don't be so unreasonable!"

"I thought I might find an opportunity some day," said Honor reflectively. "One never knows what may turn up. Dear old Dermot! It would be hard luck to be within two miles of him for a whole term, without exchanging a single word."

"Well, if you do, you'll get into a far bigger scrape than you'll like. You'd much better wait until the holidays, when you'll probably both travel home together," advised Janie.

There certainly were no opportunities at Chessington College for paying calls. Except on half-holidays, the girls seldom went beyond the school grounds, the large playing-fields providing a wide enough area for exercise. The members of the Fifth and Sixth Forms were allowed to go out occasionally, within specified bounds, if they went three together; but the younger ones had not attained to such a privilege.

"We mayn't even put our noses through the gate of the quad," said Lettice Talbot, in reply to a question from Honor, who chafed sorely against the rule; "not unless we can get a special exeat from Miss Cavendish, and that's only given once in a blue moon. It's no use looking volcanic, Paddy! You'll have to grin and bear it."

"It's as bad as being in prison," grumbled Honor.

"Nonsense!" snapped Maisie Talbot. "You have cricket or tennis for nearly two hours every afternoon. What more can you want? I'd rather play games myself than do anything else."

"You can't expect to do just as you like at school," remarked Dorothy Arkwright, who sometimes joined with Maisie in "squashing" Honor.

"The riding lessons begin next Thursday," said Lettice, with an attempt at consolation. "They are very jolly. Mr. Townsend always takes the class a trot over the Tor. You said you were to learn riding?"

"It's the one lesson I begged for," replied Honor. "I could have dispensed with Latin, or German, or mathematics."

"Maisie and I are to begin this term; we're looking forward to it tremendously!"

"You are lucky," said Pauline Reynolds enviously. "I'd give all I possess to be going with you. I've never ridden anything more interesting than a rocking-horse, or a donkey on the sands; and one doesn't get much of a canter for six-pence!"

"I believe I'm horribly nervous, and I don't mind confessing it," declared Lettice. "The idea of being perched on a great, tall horse makes me shake in my shoes. When it begins to trot I shall drop off—I know I shall!"

"Don't be so silly!" protested Maisie. "You can stick on to Teddie at home all right. Honor Fitzgerald, can you ride?"

"Bareback, if you like," said Honor. "Dermot and I used to take our old pony and practise what we called 'circus performances'. Pixie quite entered into the spirit of the thing, and would walk along gently while we stood on his back."

"I hear Mr. Townsend brings very fresh horses," said Lettice, with a shiver of apprehension. "I do hope he'll choose me a quiet one!"

"The fresher the better for me," said Honor. "I'm just longing for a good gallop."

"But suppose it runs away?"

"Then it will have to take me with it. If it's any kind of a beast with four legs, I'll undertake to make it fly."

"I heard that Mr. Townsend's horses aren't worth the fag of riding," observed Flossie Taylor, who had joined the group.

"There speaks the voice of envy! You wouldn't say so if you were taking the lessons," retorted Maisie.

"People who are accustomed to hunt at home don't care about hired hacks," drawled Flossie, in her most supercilious manner.

"It all depends on the sort of hunting," returned Honor, who was never at a loss. "If it's only 'hunt the slipper', I'll admit it's not much of a training, and you might be afraid of your seat."

The riding course was a special feature of the summer term at Chessington. It was an "extra", not part of the ordinary school curriculum, as were the games. A master came from Dunscar, and would escort select little parties of girls for a trot upon the Tor, a stretch of moorland not far from the College. Mr. Townsend did not care to take out many pupils at once, so on the following Thursday afternoon only seven horses were waiting in the quadrangle. The Talbots, Ruth Latimer, and Honor represented St. Chad's, while two girls from St. Hilary's and one from St. Bride's completed the party. Lettice confessed to a very superior and elated feeling as the reins were laid in her hand and the cavalcade began to move, particularly as Flossie Taylor and the Hammond-Smiths were just setting off for tennis, and could not help witnessing the start, though they resolutely looked the opposite way.

"Flossie always tries to be extremely grand herself, and make other people seem small," whispered Lettice.

"Fortunately, one needn't take people at their own estimate," replied Maisie, whose downright nature much disliked Flossie's habit of bragging.

To all the seven girls it was a delight to find themselves passing under the archway of the big gate, and away along the road towards the Tor. A chestnut called Victor had fallen to Honor's share, and though he was very tall in comparison with her old favourite Pixie, she nevertheless sat him well.

"She looks just like the picture of Diana Vernon in our Rob Roy," remarked Lettice to Maisie, gazing with admiration at the upright, graceful figure of her schoolmate, who seemed perfectly at home in the saddle.

Lettice was getting on much better than her modest protestations beforehand would have led her friends to expect. Violet Wright, the girl from St. Bride's, was quite a beginner, and Mr. Townsend held her horse by a leading rein; while Gwen Roby, from St. Hilary's, looked rather solemn, as if she were not altogether sure that she was enjoying the experience.

"I've ridden before," she explained, "but only on a small pony, and this feels so very different."

At first the party went at a walking pace, but on coming to a good, level stretch of road the master gave the order to trot, and his pupils were able to test the capacities of their steeds. Honor, at least, was most unwilling to pull up when Mr. Townsend called out "Halt!" I am afraid she did not want a lesson, only a scamper through the fresh air; and she listened impatiently while the master explained the right position of the whip, the hold on the snaffle, and the principle of rising elegantly in the saddle.

"It's all very well to talk of principles," said poor Violet, who happened to find herself next to Lettice; "I expect a little practice will be of more use to me. At present I jog up and down like a sack of flour, and it's all I can manage to stick on anyhow. I know I shall be as stiff as a board to-morrow!"

"When we reach the Tor we may manage a short canter," said Mr. Townsend, "but for the present I wish you to keep together. Now then, young ladies, please, elbows in and heads up! Hold the reins rather short in the hand, and take care not to bear on the curb!"

"It's no fun, is it?" remarked Honor, as she passed Ruth Latimer. "Are we only going to walk in a stupid row, and then trot for about ten yards? I thought we should be flying along, like a hunt. I'd rather be on Pixie at home; I could always make him go when I tickled his ears. If we don't hurry up a little more I shall try it on this horse, and see if he won't break into something more interesting than a snail's pace."

"Oh, Honor, do take care!" remonstrated prudent Ruth.

But Honor did not stop to listen, and pushed on ahead of the others, swishing her whip about in a manner that drew instant reproof from the master. They had left the highway, and were now on a road leading across the open moor. On one side the cliffs descended steeply to the sea, and on the other rose bare, rolling hills, covered with short, fine grass, the sails of a windmill or an occasional storm-swept tree alone breaking the line of the horizon. It was a very suitable place for a canter, and after a few preliminary remarks Mr. Townsend started his flock on what seemed to most of them a rather mad career, following closely himself in their wake, to continue his instructions:

"Courage, Miss Roby! Miss Talbot, you are leaning over in your saddle! Miss Lettice, your elbows again! Miss Wright, you must learn not to grasp the pommel. Don't drag the rein! Miss Latimer, keep a light hand! What, tired already? Well, I won't work you too hard just at first."

A little shaken and agitated by the unwonted exercise, the girls checked their horses to a walk. They were none of them practised riders, and all were glad that no more was expected from them for the present. Honor, however, was some way on in front, and, instead of pulling up, as she was told, she gave her horse a switch across the flank and a tweak on the ear, such as she had been accustomed to bestow on her old pony at home. The effect was magical. Seaside hacks are not generally prone to run away, but this one had a little spirit left in him; he resented his rider's liberties, and, feeling the soft grass under his feet, fled as if he were on a racecourse.

"Miss Fitzgerald! Miss Fitzgerald!" shouted Mr. Townsend, but he might as well have spoken to the wind. Honor had found her opportunity, and was quick to seize it. Instead of attempting to pull up Victor, she let him have his head. She had no desire to check his pace, the motion was so exhilarating; and she could not resist the temptation to display her horsemanship before the rest of the class. The unfortunate master dared not desert his other nervous and inexperienced pupils to give chase, and in a few minutes she had left the remainder of the party a mile behind. They could see her tearing past the coastguard station, where an old man with a telescope yelled wildly to her to stop; past a windmill, where children and chickens scrambled in hot haste out of her path; and away over the moor, until she quite disappeared from sight.

The girls were in a panic of alarm. Mr. Townsend turned rather white, but preserved his presence of mind, and, leading his little company straight to the coastguard station, made all dismount, and tied up the horses. Then he set out himself in pursuit of the runaway.

Honor, meanwhile, continued her "John Gilpin" galop. On and on she flew, her hair, as the fairy tales say, "whistling in the wind". It occurred to her at last that she might be going too far, and she made an effort to pull up. But it was of no avail; Victor had got the bit firmly between his teeth, and nothing could hold him. Luckily, the girl did not lose her nerve, but waited until she could tire him out, and get him in hand again; and I verily believe she would have succeeded in mastering him, and turning him safely on his homeward course, had not the way been unexpectedly barred by a fence. The poor old horse must have been a hunter during some period of his life; he went at the fence like a greyhound, and cleared it nimbly: but there were a trench and a rough bank on the farther side, and as he alighted he stumbled, flinging Honor violently from the saddle. Mercifully, her foot came clear of the stirrup, and she rolled safely into a bed of nettles, while Victor, scrambling up again, made off without her over the crest of the hill.

Honor picked herself out of the nettles as quickly as she could. No bones were broken, and, except for some painful stings, she was none the worse for her adventure.

Nevertheless, the situation was awkward. There she was on the open moor, many miles away from Chessington, and obliged to make her way home to St. Chad's as best she could. She climbed over the fence, and, holding up her habit, set out to walk back in the direction in which she had come.

It seemed slow progress compared with riding, and she began to wonder how long it would take her to retrace her steps. She had not gone more than half a mile, however, when she met Mr. Townsend, who had at last succeeded in reaching her. His relief at finding her alive and unhurt was almost too great for words. He put her quietly on his own horse, and led it by the bridle back to the coastguard station, where the rest of the girls were waiting, very anxious to know what had become of Honor, and very rejoiced when they saw she was safe.

There was no further riding lesson that day. As Maisie Talbot explained afterwards to a select company of interested friends: "I'm sure Mr. Townsend was frightfully angry, but he scarcely said a word. He only took us straight home at once, in a kind of solemn procession. He had to walk himself, leading Honor's and Violet's horses, so of course we went horribly slowly; and he looked so savage that nobody dared to speak."

"What possessed you, Paddy?" asked Lettice.

"I had an idea of going to see Dermot," confessed Honor. "I thought if I rode straight up to the Grange, and asked leave from Dr. Winterton, perhaps he'd let us have half an hour together."

"Well, you are the silliest goose! Why, the Grange is in exactly the opposite direction! Will you never learn sense?" and Lettice collapsed with laughter.

"Mr. Townsend is having a long talk with Miss Maitland at this present moment," announced Ruth Latimer.

"Then I'm glad I'm not you, Paddy!" chuckled Lettice.

Nobody ever knew the details of Mr. Townsend's interview with the house-mistress, or what explanation he gave of the affair. Though he was perfectly persuaded that it was Honor's own fault, it was difficult for him to blame her for what might, after all, have been a mere accident; so, beyond a few words of warning about the danger of whipping her horse without proper orders, she did not on this occasion receive the scolding that she certainly merited.

Victor was found on the hills six miles away from Chessington, gently cropping the grass, and allowed himself to be caught by a passing farmer. He was not used at the riding lessons again. Honor was in future given the tamest and least-spirited of the mounts, and for the next two lessons was even kept strictly to the leading rein.

"She's fearfully disgusted about it," said Lettice, "and it certainly is a humiliation, when she can ride so well. It's quite the worst punishment Mr. Townsend could possibly have given her, and I expect he knows it!"

VI. The Lower Third

The Lower Third Form at Chessington College numbered seventeen pupils, eight of whom were members of St. Chad's. In addition to Honor, these included Maisie and Lettice Talbot, Ruth Latimer, Pauline Reynolds, Janie Henderson, Effie Lawson, and Flossie Taylor. The teacher, Miss Farrar, was rather a favourite with her class. Though she could well uphold her authority, and maintain the good discipline that was universal in the school, she was not so strict as some of the other mistresses. She had a very pleasant, genial manner; she was a capital tennis player, and no mean figure at hockey and cricket; she was a prominent supporter of the Debating Society and the Natural History Union; and was altogether so cheerful and brisk that "jolly" was the word generally applied to her. Honor liked Miss Farrar, and, according to her lights, really made a heroic effort in the direction of good behaviour. Her conduct was certainly immeasurably superior to what it had been with her governesses at home, and yet, judged by Chessington standards, it was frequently irregular and unorthodox. With her best endeavours, she could not grasp the fact that education is a very solemn affair, and a school-room about the last place in the world where one should try to be funny. She never seemed able to be absolutely serious, and at the least opportunity her Celtic humour would flash out, and not only upset the gravity of the class, but sometimes even cause Miss Farrar to have a difficulty in keeping her countenance.

She was a slightly disturbing element in the Form. When it was her turn to answer there would be an air of general expectancy in the room; the didactic language of the textbooks was often paraphrased by her lips into something of a more racy description, and even her mistakes were as delicious as her quaint methods of stating facts. Miss Farrar occasionally suspected her of intentionally giving wrong replies, for the sheer satisfaction of causing amusement; but it was difficult to prove the charge, since, however ludicrous her statements might be, she never under any circumstances laughed at them herself, and all the while her large, grey Irish eyes would be fixed upon her teacher with the innocence of a baby.

Thanks to Janie Henderson's assiduity, Honor conformed tolerably well to the ordinary rules. Mindful of Miss Maitland's charge, Janie considered herself responsible for Honor, and was continually ready to jog her memory about what exercises must be written, what lessons learnt, and what books brought to class, all of which were details that her friend would not have troubled about on her own account; but in spite of her exertions the poor girl often saw her protégée in trouble.

"The worst of it is," she admitted to herself, "that one never knows what to expect. Honor is a darling, but she does such peculiar and extraordinary things, she almost takes one's breath away. If I could be prepared for them beforehand, and warn her, it might be of some use; but I can't, so she's bound to get into scrapes."

Undoubtedly, very unprecedented happenings took place in the Lower Third—happenings such as had never occurred before Honor's advent. Who but she would have thought of tilting two books together and emptying the inkpot on the top of them, when asked to describe a watershed? Yet she looked genuinely astonished when the vials of Miss Farrar's wrath descended upon her, and said almost reproachfully that she was only trying to give a practical illustration.

One day she smuggled Pete, the kitten from St. Chad's, into class, and shut him inside her desk, where he settled down quite comfortably, and slept peacefully through the French lesson. But in the middle of algebra, Honor, who hated mathematics, managed to give him a surreptitious pinch, with the result that a long-drawn, impatient, objecting "miau" suddenly resounded through the room. Miss Farrar gave quite a jump, and looked round, but could see nothing. Honor sat bolt upright, with arms folded and eyes fixed attentively on the blackboard, as if she were sublimely unconscious of any noise in her vicinity.

"What can it be? It sounds like a cat," said Miss Farrar, peering about on the floor, and even peeping into the cupboard where the chalk and the new books were kept.

The girls jumped up, and pretended to look under their desks. Most of them had an inkling of the situation, but they were human enough to enjoy an interruption in the midst of difficult equations.

"Perhaps it's a mouse in the wainscot that's not feeling quite well this morning," suggested Honor, though it would have needed an absolute giant of a mouse to give vent to the unearthly yowl in which Pete had indulged. She said it, however, rather too innocently on this occasion. Miss Farrar was not dull, and had suspected from the beginning who was at the bottom of the mischief; indeed, it was easy enough by this time to trace the noise to the right spot, for the kitten had begun to scratch, and lifted up its voice in a series of emphatic wails, evidently protesting vigorously against solitary confinement.

Miss Farrar walked straight to Honor's desk and opened it, when out jumped Pete, purring with satisfaction, and arching his back as if in expectation of petting. The teacher seized him by the scruff of the neck and gave him to Janie Henderson, at the same time quelling the unseemly mirth of her class with a withering glance.

The Liberation of Pete

"Carry this kitten back at once to St. Chad's," she commanded. "Honor Fitzgerald, you will learn two pages of Greek chronology, and repeat them to me before school to-morrow morning. Lettice Talbot, take a forfeit! Girls, I am astonished at you! Open your books instantly, every one of you! Gwen Roby, read out your answer to Example 37."

Though Honor was popular with most of the members of her Form, she was never on very good terms with Flossie Taylor. Flossie had a sharp tongue, and liked to make sarcastic remarks; and though Honor would promptly return the compliment, and often "squash" the other completely, continual bickering did not promote harmony between the pair. Flossie was occasionally capable of certain dishonourable acts, which always drew upon her Honor's utmost indignation and scorn. The latter could not tolerate cheating or copying, and spoke her mind freely on the subject.

"Well, I'm sure I'm not nearly as bad as you!" Flossie retorted once. "You do the most outrageous things. I never mixed the French and history exercises, nor dipped the chalk into the red ink!"

"It's worse to crib someone else's work," protested Honor, "because that's sneaky and underhand. What would Miss Farrar say if she knew you wrote dates on a slip of paper and put it inside your dictionary, and then copied them when you pretended you were only looking how to spell a word?"

"Miss Farrar won't find out, and what the eye doesn't see the heart doesn't grieve for!"

"But it's so mean!"

"You turning Mentor!" sneered Flossie. "Really! I wonder what we may expect next? Come, girls, and hear our most righteous and well-conducted Paddy preach a homily on 'How to be the pattern pupil'!"

"Paddy is quite right," declared Maisie Talbot, taking up the cudgels for once on Honor's behalf. "There's a difference between her way of breaking rules and yours. She mayn't be exactly a shining example to the class, but, at any rate, she's always square and above-board, and that's more than I can say for you!"

"We're none of us saints," added Lettice, "but we've never gone in for cribbing at Chessington. No other girl in the Form ever does it."

It was not only as regards the question of fairness in her work that Flossie failed to reach the standard of honour current in the Lower Third. She had many little meannesses, so small in themselves as to be hardly worthy of notice, yet enough in the aggregate to exhibit her character unfavourably.

One morning, just as the girls were going to their desks, Maisie Talbot suddenly remembered that it was Miss Farrar's birthday.

"We ought to say something about it," she whispered to Lettice. "I wish we had thought of it before, and bought her some flowers. How stupid we were to forget!"

"Are you sure it's her birthday? How do you know?" asked Flossie, who was standing near, and overheard.

"I'm absolutely certain. I have her name in my birthday book," replied Maisie.

Flossie said no more just then, but the moment Miss Farrar came into the room she stood up and wished her "Many happy returns", in the name of the whole Form, before either Maisie or Lettice had the opportunity to say a word.

They were most annoyed to be thus forestalled.

"It was our idea," protested Lettice afterwards. "You didn't even know it was Miss Farrar's birthday before we mentioned it."

"And yet you calmly took all the credit, and made yourself the mouthpiece of the class!" exclaimed the equally indignant Maisie.

"I suppose I had as good a right as anybody else to offer congratulations," laughed Flossie. "You should have brought yours out a little quicker."

Flossie might be appreciated by her cousins, the Hammond-Smiths, and their particular friends, the Lawsons and the Palmers, but she was certainly not a favourite in her own Form. Nearly everybody had a squabble with her upon some pretext. Even Janie Henderson, whose retiring disposition involved her in few disputes with her schoolfellows, found a cause for complaint. It was one of the ordinary regulations that the girls should each take the office of warden for a week in turn, the duties being to give out any necessary books, clean the blackboard, distribute fresh pens and blotting-paper, and collect any articles that might be left in the room after lesson hours. By general custom all pencils, india-rubbers, or other stray possessions were put into what was known as the forfeit tray, whence their owners might reclaim them by paying the penalty of the loss of an order mark. Each girl had her pencil-box, in which she was expected to keep her own property; but many things were usually left lying about, and the warden always made a careful search at one o'clock.

The most cherished object in Janie's desk was a little, pearl-handled penknife, which she greatly valued. She guarded it zealously, lending it as seldom as she could, and taking good care that it was always returned to her immediately. One unfortunate day, however, she had been sharpening her pencil at the close of the arithmetic lesson, and in the preoccupation of correcting her answers she laid her treasure down, and forgot all about it. She remembered it after dinner, and ran back to the schoolroom to rescue it, but it was nowhere to be found.

"It must have been put in the forfeit tray," she said to herself. "I shall get it to-morrow, though it will cost me an order mark, worse luck!"

She looked eagerly next morning when Miss Farrar produced the tray, but her penknife was not among the lost property. She made a few enquiries in the class, but nobody professed to have seen it, and she was obliged to abandon it as hopelessly gone.

It must have been quite a week after this that one evening, when the St. Chad's girls were sitting in the recreation room, Flossie pulled her handkerchief from her pocket, and in so doing whisked out a pearl-handled penknife. She stooped in a hurry to recover it, but it had fallen under a little table, close to where Pauline Reynolds was sitting, and the latter picked it up instead.

"Hello! This is Janie Henderson's knife," exclaimed Pauline. "Look here, Janie! Isn't this the one you lost?"

"Of course it is," affirmed Janie. "I can tell it by the small blade. There's a tiny piece broken off at the end."

"Where did you get it, Flossie?" enquired

"I found it when I was warden," replied Flossie. "How should I know it was Janie's?"

"You might have asked whose it was," said Maisie. "You've no right to pocket things when you're warden!"

"I wrote a 'Found' notice about it," declared Flossie.

"I never saw any notice," put in Janie.

"Where did you pin this wonderful paper?" asked Pauline.

"On the dressing-room door."

"Where nobody would ever dream of looking!" returned Maisie. "Why couldn't you put the knife on the forfeit tray?"

"I really don't know! What's the use of making such an absurd fuss about trifles?" said Flossie, linking her arm in Norah Palmer's, and turning away.

"I call them principles, not trifles," murmured Maisie; "it's just on the same lines as the cribbing, not quite open and square. I wish Flossie had stayed at St. Bride's; I certainly don't consider her a credit to St. Chad's."

The quarrels between Honor and Flossie occasionally rose to the level of a miniature war. The latter never lost any opportunity of flinging ridicule and contempt on all things Irish, and Honor, who resented a slur on her native land more than a personal injury, could not keep her hot temper within bounds. It was, of course, very foolish to take any notice of Flossie's taunts, and so her friends reminded her.

"The more you blaze up, the more she'll tease, of course," said Maisie.

"Why can't you keep calm, and pretend you don't hear her?" said Pauline. "She doesn't try it on with us."

"You're such a set of stolid Anglo-Saxons!" declared Honor. "You never get roused about anything."

"It's bad form, my dear girl! Hysterics are out of fashion. We don't go in for them at Chessington."

"But you really are entertaining when you're aggressively Celtic, Paddy!" said Lettice. "I own I can't resist taking a rise out of you myself sometimes, just for the fun of seeing you explode."

"You ought to have been born Red Indians!" retorted Honor. "I like people with a little fire. What's the good of having feelings, if one's not to show them?"

"You show them so hard," laughed Lettice, "you make yourself quite ridiculous! I'm sure I shouldn't think one of Flossie's silly jokes was worth making any fuss about."

This was very excellent and practical schoolgirl wisdom, but unfortunately Lettice preached a philosophy of stoicism to which Honor had not yet attained. At the least provocation her fiery Irish blood always asserted itself, and she would flare up, albeit she was conscious that, by so doing, she was affording her enemy the keenest satisfaction, and was providing amusement for the other girls, who enjoyed "hearing Paddy break out".

One morning the feud came to a crisis. When Honor opened her desk she found inside a neat little collection of new potatoes, and on the top, pinned to the biggest, a paper in Flossie's handwriting, bearing these lines:

Honor's Wish

Oh, Erin, moist Erin, how damp are thy showers!

I would I were back 'mid thy pigs and thy rills!

The "tater" to me is more dear than thy flowers,

And I relish the rain on thy ever-wet hills.

Honor could not help laughing at this, in spite of the aspersion on the climate of her country. Such a quip, however, could not go unrequited, and she sought for means of retaliation. She decided that Flossie deserved a "booby trap", and fled back early to the classroom after lunch, to set it for her. It was a rather difficult and delicate operation, for she did not wish to catch anybody else by mistake. She balanced a big dictionary so that it rested on the top of the door and the lintel of the doorway; then, stationing herself inside the room, she held the handle firmly, lest someone should disturb her arrangement by flinging back the door, which was just sufficiently wide open to allow a single person to enter. She peeped every now and then into the passage, on the look-out for Flossie, and admitted each returning girl with caution and due warning.

"Here she is at last!" whispered Lettice, who was naughty enough to enjoy practical jokes, and, after admiring the preparations, had offered to act scout.

"Is she really coming in next?"

"Yes; she's walking in front of May Thurston and Dorothea Chambers."

"Are you certain?"

"Absolutely."

"Then tell me when!"

"Now!"

Honor pulled open the door, and down crashed the dictionary, tumbling full on the head, not of Flossie Taylor, but (oh! horrible miscarriage of justice!) of Miss Farrar herself. At exactly the wrong moment the teacher had popped out of the next classroom, and, as Flossie had stood politely aside to give her precedence, she had walked straight into the trap destined for her pupil.

The dictionary was heavy, and in its fall its sharp corner caught Miss Farrar on the cheek. She stopped, almost dazed by the sudden blow, and, pressing her handkerchief to her face, drew it back marked with a red stain. At the sight of the blood Honor uttered a shriek, and, rushing from the room, fled down the passage, as if to escape from the horror of what she had done. In almost a state of panic she ran across the quadrangle, and, turning into the garden, sought refuge inside the tool-shed. Here she was found some time afterwards by Janie, who had been sent to look for her, and had vainly searched St. Chad's and every other likely spot of which she could think.

Honor never did things by halves; if she wept, she wept, and at present she was a perfect Niobe, almost drowned in tears. When she saw Janie she gave her streaming eyes a hasty mop with a very wet pocket-handkerchief.

"Have I killed her?" she asked, in a tragic whisper.

"Of course not!" replied Janie. "It was only a small cut on the cheek. It's all right now it has been bathed with cold water."

"I was afraid they'd bring it in murder," groaned Honor. "Oh, the ill luck of it, that it should have been Miss Farrar! And the dictionary came down with such a frightful bang! I can never look her in the face again."

"You'll have to!" said Janie. "I was sent to fetch you back at once. You needn't be afraid, Miss Farrar has taken it so nicely."

Poor Honor's apologies and the depths of her genuine remorse would have melted the hardest of hearts, much more that of her teacher.

"We'll say no more about it," declared Miss Farrar. "All the same, remember that I cannot allow such things to happen in the classroom. You might have hurt Flossie very seriously. No, my scratch is nothing! It will be healed directly. But if you are really sorry, Honor, you must give me your most solemn promise that you will never play such a dangerous practical joke again."

VII. St Chad's Celebrates an Occasion

During her first few days at Chessington, Honor had considered the College as little better than a prison; but as time went on and she grew more accustomed to the routine, she began to reverse her opinion. After all, it was pleasant to have companionship. The various fresh interests, the many jokes, amusements, and constant small excitements inseparable from a large community of girls seemed to open out a new phase of existence for her.

"I'd no idea what school was like before I came," she confided to Janie. "Of course, the boys were always talking of the things they did, and of the fagging and bullying and ragging that went on, but I was sure they were piling on the horror for my benefit, and that it wasn't really as bad as they pretended."

"Why, no one bullies at girls' schools," said Janie.

"I know they don't; but Derrick and Dermot stuffed me with all kinds of ridiculous tales, just for the sake of teasing. They said that Chessington was exactly on the model of a boys' college, and that if girls learnt Latin and mathematics, and played cricket and hockey, and had a gymnasium and a debating society, it put such a masculine element into them that they couldn't refrain from using brute force, instead of any other means of persuasion. They declared it was a natural sequence, and I must make up my mind to it. Derrick even offered to teach me to box before I came, as a useful accomplishment!"

"Did you accept?"

"No, thank you!—not after the way I'd seen him knock Brian about. I suppose brothers are always teases."

"I've no experience, because I haven't any brothers. I've nobody except Mother; but she's as good as a whole family combined." When Janie mentioned her mother her eyes always shone, and her face would light up. It was evident the two were everything to one another, and that the separation during term-time was a hardship.

"I didn't want to go to school at all," continued Honor; "not, of course, because I believed Derrick's absurd stories, but simply because I was so fond of home that I hated to leave."

"That's just how I felt. Mother and I had such a delightful time together, I was sure Chessington couldn't be half so nice."

"What used you to do? You've scarcely told me anything about your home, though I often talk about Kilmore."

"We live in quite a quiet place," began Janie, "though it's not so out-of-the-world as Kerry. Our house is at Redcliffe, a village a few miles from Tewkesminster. It's a beautiful country. There are lovely farms, with red-tiled roofs and big orchards and picturesque barns; and there's a splendid old castle overlooking the river. And then the trees! You ought to see our trees! These about Chessington look the most wretched, stunted things, after our grand oaks and elms. It's a great fruit-growing neighbourhood; we have heaps and heaps of apples and pears and plums and apricots in our garden. They're simply delicious when they're ripe. Then Tewkesminster is so quaint! There are all kinds of funny little side streets, with cottages built at odd angles; and there's a market cross and several old churches, as well as the Minster. Mother is extremely fond of painting, and sometimes she takes me out sketching with her. I can't draw very well yet—most of my attempts are horrid daubs! but Mother is such a good teacher, she always makes one want to try."

"Hadn't you a governess?" asked Honor.

"Yes. Miss Hall used to come every day from Tewkesminster; but I had a few lessons from Mother as well, in drawing, and Greek history, and English literature. We used to read books aloud in the evenings—Shakespeare, or Dickens, or sometimes Tennyson or Wordsworth. We got through a tremendous amount of poetry in the winter, when it was dark early, and we had nothing else to do, except sit by the fire. We read all Marmion and the Idylls of the King and Lalla Rookh, as well as shorter pieces. Mother reads aloud most beautifully; it's delightful to listen to her. Then in summer-time we used to go country walks, and find wild flowers, and bring them back and hunt out their names in the botany book. I kept a Nature Calendar, and put down everything I noted—when the first violets were out, and when I heard the cuckoo, or saw a swallow for the first time in the year; and what birds' nests I found, or butterflies, or moths, or caterpillars. Sometimes I drew pictures of them as well. I had a whole row of specimen sheets pinned round the school-room at home. Then one day a wretched doctor told Mother that Tewkesminster was too relaxing a place for me, and recommended Chessington. I begged and implored not to be sent away, but Mother said the doctor was quite right, and that I was far too grown-up for my age, and an only child ought to have young companions, so I must certainly go to school at once. I was absolutely miserable my first term. I'm a little more used to it now, but I begin to count the days to the holidays directly I get back to St. Chad's. There are still eight weeks before we break up!"

Janie spoke of home with the intense longing of a girl who is not naturally fond of the social side of life. She was out of her element at Chessington, and the strenuous bustle and stimulating whirl of the place, which began to mean so much to Honor, were repugnant to her quiet, reserved disposition. In every big school there are Janies, isolated characters not quite able to run the pace required by the inexorable code of public opinion, interesting to the one or two who may happen to discover their good points, but to the mass of their companions merely names and faces in class. Some of them do fine work in the world afterwards, yet the very qualities that help them to future success are not those to bring present popularity. They are not for the many, but for the few, and only show their best to an occasional friend whose sympathy can overstep the wall of shyness that fences them round.

With Honor alone Janie was at her ease, and she would chat away in their bedroom with a sprightliness that would have amazed the other members of St. Chad's, if they could have heard her. The two girls got on well together. Their opposite dispositions seemed to dovetail into one another, and so to cause little friction; and Miss Maitland, whose observant eyes noticed more than her pupils imagined, was well satisfied with the result of her experiment. Janie kept Honor up to the mark in the way of work; she would generally go over dates or difficult points in the lessons while they were dressing each morning, and it was chiefly owing to her efforts that Honor held a tolerably high place in her class. The latter often wished that she could have performed a like service for her friend in respect of athletics, but Janie was hopeless at physical sports, and endured them only under compulsion.

Every afternoon, from two o'clock till a quarter to four, all the girls were required to take part in organized games, under the direction of Miss Young, the gymnastic mistress. They were allowed their choice between cricket and tennis, but during the specified hours they must not be absent from the playing-fields, as this systematic outdoor exercise formed part of the ordinary course of the school. Now and then it was varied by a walk, and occasionally by an archery or croquet tournament; but these were reserved for insufferably hot days, and the time, as a rule, was devoted to more active pursuits. The cricket pitch lay to the west of the College, a splendid, level tract of ground, commanding a glorious prospect of low, undulating hills, cliffs bordering a shingly beach, and the long, blue stretch of the Channel beyond. All the healthy moorland and sea breezes seemed to blow there, filling the lungs with pure, fresh air, and well justifying Miss Cavendish's boast that Chessington was the most bracing place in the kingdom for growing girls. Even Janie's pale cheeks would take a tinge of pink as she ran, unwillingly enough, in chase of a ball; and the majority of the school would come in at four o'clock flushed and rosy, and very ready indeed for the piles of thick bread and butter that awaited them in the various dining-halls.

Honor took to the games with enthusiasm. Having served an apprenticeship in the Beginners' Division at cricket, and having shown Miss Young her capacity in the way of batting and bowling, she was allowed a place in the St. Chad's team.

It happened that on the very day of her promotion her house played St. Hilary's, and there was great excitement about the match, because the latter was generally considered the crack team of the College. That afternoon, however, the Hilaryites did not quite justify their reputation. Perhaps the St. Chad's bowling had been extra good; at all events, the St. Hilary side was dismissed for sixty-seven.

Honor's heart was beating fast when at length her innings arrived, and, taking her bat, she walked to the wicket. Every eye, she knew, would be fixed upon her play. A new girl, she was standing her trial before the school, and on the result of this match would largely depend her position during the term. She had played cricket during the holidays with her brothers, and all Derrick's rules came crowding into her mind as she tried to imagine that she was on the dear, rough old field at home, with Brian to bowl, and Fergus for long-stop, and Dermot and Osmond to field, and criticize her strokes afterwards.

She held her bat well, keeping her left shoulder to the bowler and her eye on the ball. The bat was a light, new one, which the boys had given her as a parting present, and she felt she could wield it easily. During the first over she played steadily, but did not attempt to score. It was one of Derrick's pet maxims that it was folly to try to do so until you had taken the measure of your opponent, and she wished to gain confidence.

In the next over her partner, Chatty Burns, made a single, which brought Honor to the opposite wicket. Gertrude Humphreys's bowling was more to her taste; it might be described as fast and loose, and Honor, unlike most girls, did not object to swift bowling, having been accustomed to it from Brian and Derrick. The first ball she received came down at a good pace, but well on the off side of the wicket. This was just the chance she had been waiting for, and a well-timed cut sent it flying to the boundary for three. The rest of the over was uneventful, Chatty having evidently made up her mind to be careful. Winnie Sutcliffe now took up the bowling at the other end, but her first ball, being a wide, served to increase the confidence that Honor had felt in breaking her duck. The next ball, though straight on middle stump, was a half-volley; Honor stepped out to it with a feeling of exultation, and a moment later it was soaring over the bowler's head for four.

"Good!" "Well hit, Honor!" "St. Chad's for ever!" "Hurrah!" ejaculated the Chaddites.

Success like this often turns the batter's head, but Honor remembered in time the many cautions she had received from her critical brothers, and the next ball, being of good length, she played quietly to long off for one. Chatty now received the bowling, and, encouraged by Honor's success, made what the girls afterwards described as the finest leg hit they had ever seen. Certainly it was a good stroke, taken quite clean and square, and as it cleared the boards it was marked down six amid rapturous applause. After that runs came more slowly for a time, and neither girl appeared inclined to take any risks. This careful play, however, began to wear down the bowling, especially Gertrude Humphreys's, which became decidedly loose. Honor, seeing her chance, suddenly began hitting about her with a spirit and vigour that almost sent the Chaddites delirious with delight, while even Miss Young was seen laughing and smiling with Miss Maitland in a manner that seemed to imply no small self-congratulation on her choice for the last vacancy in the team.

The Hilaryites were looking decidedly glum at this marked change in the fortunes of the game. Grace Ward, their captain, at the end of the over quietly rolled the ball to Ida Bellamy, famed for her slow "twisters". Her first essay pitched well to the leg side, and Honor, who rather despised "slows", made a mighty stroke at it, not allowing for the break, and missed it altogether. With her heart in her mouth she glanced rapidly round at the wicket, expecting to see her bails fly; but luck was on her side, for the break had been a little too great, and the ball just cleared the off stump.

"A good thing Derrick isn't here," said Honor to herself. "I should never have heard the end of that!"

It was very hard to resist the temptation to hit out, dangerous though she knew it to be, and it was with a sensation of relief that she saw the ball travelling off for a single to long field, thus leaving the rest of the over to Chatty, who, neither so ambitious nor so impatient, played it out without giving the much-longed-for chance of a catch. By this time sixty was up on the board, of which Honor had contributed twenty-eight, to the great satisfaction of all concerned.

But Grace had not played her last card. She had evidently decided on a double change of bowling; for, when the fielders had crossed, Irene Richmond was seen at the wicket. Irene's bowling was peculiar; it was left-handed, which is quite uncommon in a girl, and the more difficult on that account. The Chaddites looked at one another with smiles that were less spontaneous.

Certainly Irene might with advantage have been put on before. Her style, though by no means swift, was most awkward to play. Chatty received the first ball, which beat her completely, though luckily it did not touch the wicket. A minute later she made a single, and Honor felt rather blank, as it was now her turn to face the bowling. One of Derrick's pet rules, however, came into her mind: "When you're in doubt, watch each ball carefully, till you get your eye in"; and by dint of adherence to this, she played out the over with safety.

The slow bowling at the other end, though it looked so simple, was full of weird pitfalls, into one of which Chatty fell an easy victim. She played too soon at a short-pitched ball, and spooned a catch to mid-on, who took good care not to drop it. Chatty retired rather ruefully, but was consoled by the applause she received from the pavilion, her twenty-three runs being regarded as a handsome contribution.

Maisie Talbot came in next. Being tall and athletic for her age, she had a long reach, which she employed successfully in driving the first ball she received right along the ground into "the country" for three. This seemed to disconcert the bowler; the next one she sent down was an easy full pitch. Honor waited till just the right moment, and then, with a fine swing of her bat, sent the ball clean over the boundary for six, a performance that quite "brought down the house", even the Hilaryites joining in the cheering. For a moment no one seemed to have realized how the score was going, but when seventy went up on the board there was a wild rush for the pavilion, for the match was won.

Honor's friends were loud in their congratulations, and Janie, who had been an excited spectator, was almost as proud as if the success had been her own. Vivian Holmes herself actually expressed approval.

"Well played, Honor Fitzgerald!" she said. "I expect some day you'll be a credit to St. Chad's."

As Vivian was generally more ready to "squash" new-comers than to encourage them, this was indeed high praise, and Honor felt inspired to continue her exertions, having the white ribbon of the College team as the object of her ambition.

Great were the rejoicings of the Chaddites at their triumph over St. Hilary's. Something in the way of a celebration seemed necessary to immortalize the occasion, and that evening, after a hurried conference among the elder girls, it was given out that, with Miss Maitland's permission, an impromptu fancy-dress ball would take place in the recreation room at 8.30 precisely.

"We're just to come in any kind of costumes we can manage to contrive," said Lettice Talbot, who, wild with excitement, had carried the thrilling tidings to the younger contingent. "Miss Maitland is going to dress up, and so is Miss Parkinson. The cook is making some lemonade; I hope it will be cold in time, but even if it isn't it will be rather nice hot. Oh, would you advise me to go as a flower-girl, or do you think Queen Elizabeth would be better?"

"I should suggest a Merry-andrew at the present moment," said Ruth Latimer, as Lettice, unable to contain her glee, went hopping round the room. "You could easily put a different coloured stocking on each leg, cut sheets of tissue paper to make a short, frilled, sticking-out skirt, borrow the toasting-fork from the kitchen and hang it with ribbons for your bauble, and there you are!"

"Jolly!" exclaimed Lettice. "I'll do it. Will you lend me your scarlet sponge-bag? It would make the very cap I want."

It was fortunate that Vivian Holmes and her fellow-workers had reserved the announcement of the proposed fête until after preparation, otherwise very few lessons would have been learnt at St. Chad's. The girls finished supper with record speed, and filed out of the dining-hall at least ten minutes earlier than usual, all anxious to flee upstairs and begin the delightful but arduous task of robing themselves in character.

Miss Maitland was the owner of what she called a "theatrical property-box". It held a store of most invaluable possessions, which she had collected from time to time and put by to serve for charades or tableaux. There were old evening dresses and cloaks, feathers, shawls, a few hats, artificial flowers, bright-coloured scarves, beads, bangles, and cracker jewellery, even some false moustaches and beards, a horse pistol, and a pair of top-boots. These she placed entirely at the disposal of the girls, telling Vivian Holmes to distribute them so as to allow as many as possible to have a share. Vivian was strictly impartial, and doled out the treasures with the stern justice of a Roman tribune. They did not go very far, however, among forty Chaddites; so, of necessity, at least half of the costumes had to be composed hastily of anything that came to hand.

The apparelling was a lively process, to judge from the sounds of mirth that issued from the various cubicles; and so many different articles were borrowed, lent, and exchanged that it was a wonder their respective owners ever managed to claim them again. Strict secrecy was observed, the occupants of each bedroom denying even a peep to their next-door neighbours, who, though full of their own preparations, could not fail to exhibit curiosity when such exclamations as, "Oh, how lovely!" or, "It's simply screaming!" were wafted down the passage.

Nowhere was the excitement keener than in No. 8, though Honor and Janie had the fun all to themselves. The latter had decided to go as a friar. She had contrived a capital monk's habit out of her waterproof, tied round the waist with the cord that held back the window curtains. The hood formed the cowl, a dictionary made a very passable breviary, and a hockey stick served as a pilgrim's staff.

"You're just like a palmer returning from the Holy Land," declared Honor.

"Or the 'Friar of Orders Grey'," said Janie, "who—

"'Walked forth to tell his beads,

And he met with a lady fair

Clad in a pilgrim's weeds!'

"I ought to have a rosary, but there isn't anything that would do in the least for it."

"Never mind! One must imagine it is in your pocket. Even palmers couldn't tell their beads all day long. You look a most unsuitable figure to dance! I'm afraid they would turn you out of your monastery, if they caught you."

Honor was determined to enact the part of Dick Turpin. She had corked herself the most ferocious moustaches, and made a cocked hat out of brown paper; and was now only waiting for a certain cloak, the horse pistol, and the pair of top-boots, which Vivian had promised to bring her if Barbara Russell, one of the elder girls, did not want them.

"I heard Barbara say she meant to be a shepherdess," she said, "so she couldn't possibly wear top-boots. I don't believe anybody else has thought of a highwayman. I wish Vivian would be quick!"

She was in a ferment of excitement. A festivity such as this was an event in her life. She could hardly bear to wait, and would have been down the passage in search of the missing properties, only she did not wish to exhibit her beautiful moustaches before the right time.

"Vivian won't be long," Janie assured her. "She is the most dependable person I know; when she says she'll do a thing, she does it. Oh, here she is now!"

Honor sprang to the door, but her face fell as she saw the monitress arrive empty-handed.

"I'm dreadfully sorry!" announced Vivian. "Barbara decided, after all, to be Oliver Cromwell, so of course she wanted the cloak, boots, and pistol. I've brought you a few bangles and a wreath of flowers, if they'll be of any use to you; I've nothing else left. I must fly! I've to get into my own costume."

Poor Honor! It was a bitter disappointment. She had counted so much on representing Dick Turpin that to have to forgo the part seemed little short of a tragedy.

"I can't do a highwayman in nothing but a pair of corked moustaches!" she exclaimed dolefully.

"It is a pity," sympathized Janie, "but of course it can't be helped. If we're very quick we shall just have time to think of something else. Could you manage a fairy, with the bangles and the wreath and a white petticoat?"

"A fairy! No! Do I look like a fairy? I'm so cross, it would have to be a goblin. I know what I'll do; I shall go as an Arab."

"With the towels wound round you, I suppose?"

"They're not big enough; I must use my sheets," and Honor, suiting her action to her words, ruthlessly disarranged her bed.

If the towels were too small, the sheets proved too large. In spite of Janie's efforts (much hampered by her cassock and cowl) they refused to drape elegantly. Honor lost all patience at last, and, seizing her scissors, ripped the offending sheets in halves with uncompromising fingers.

"Oh, Honor, what have you done? How could you? Oh, what will Miss Maitland say?" shrieked Janie, almost in tears.

"I don't care!" declared Honor recklessly.

In her present excited state she would have torn up her best dress with equal readiness. She was elated with her success in the cricket field—what the Scotch call "fey"; and so long as she gratified her present whim, she had no thought at all for the future.

"I must have some costume," she continued, "and we ought to go downstairs at once. They're my own sheets, so what does it matter? It isn't as if they were school property; I brought them from home with the rest of my linen—they're marked 'H. Fitzgerald' in the corner."

"You'll get into a shocking scrape, all the same," said Janie, who was horror-stricken at her friend's lawlessness.

There was no time, however, to think about consequences. The gong was giving the signal for the parade to begin, and various gigglings and exclamations in the passage warned them that the other girls were already issuing from their rooms. Honor hastily finished her Arab toilet, and without further delay the pair joined the rest of the masqueraders in the hall.

Here a brilliant scene awaited them. Considering the scanty materials at command, quite marvellous results had been accomplished. The costumes were most gay and varied, and many of them showed extreme ingenuity on the part of their wearers. Lettice Talbot had carried out Ruth Latimer's idea for a Merry-andrew with great success, and was evidently endeavouring to sustain the character by firing off bad puns, or facetious remarks on the appearance of her friends. Dorothy Arkwright, in a blue evening dress and a black velvet hat with feathers, made a dignified Duchess of Devonshire; and Pauline Reynolds, whose long, golden hair hung below her waist, came arrayed as Fair Rosamond. There were several Italian peasants, a Cavalier, a Roundhead, and a matador. Agnes Bennett, one of the elder girls, impersonated the Pied Piper of Hamelin. By pinning two dressing-gowns (one of red and one of buff) together, she had well imitated the "queer long coat from heel to head, half of yellow and half of red", worn by the mysterious stranger; and, with her pipe, hung with ribbons, at her lips, seemed ready to charm either rats into the Weser, or children into the hillside. Edith Hammond-Smith was a fairy, and Claudia a pierrot; while Flossie Taylor, in an Eastern shawl, and with bangles tied on for ear-rings, looked a gorgeous Cleopatra.

Chatty Burns, in a tartan plaid, made a typical "Highland lassie". Effie Lawson, with her hair plaited in a tight pigtail, and her eyebrows corked aslant, had, with the aid of a coloured bedspread and a Japanese umbrella, turned herself into a very creditable "Heathen Chinee"; and Maisie Talbot, who found materials waxing scarce after she had finished arraying Lettice, had flung a skin rug over her shoulders, painted her face in streaks of red and black, and come as a savage. Adeline Vaughan had an original and rather striking costume. She called herself "Scholastica", and had decorated herself with a double row of exercise books, suspended by ribbons round her waist. Pencils, india-rubbers, pens, and rulers were fastened to all parts of her dress; and a College cap, borrowed from Miss Maitland, completed the effect.

The funniest of all, however, was Madge Summers, who represented a sausage. She had been elaborately got up for the part by her room-mates. They borrowed a coloured table-cloth from the kitchen, the reverse side of which was a pinky-fawn shade; then they padded Madge carefully all over, so as to make her the right shape, swathed her in the table-cloth, and fastened it down the back with safety-pins, tying it tightly round her neck and ankles. She could scarcely manage to walk, much less dance; and she was so hot in her many wrappings that her face burnt—so she assured her friends—as if she were already on the frying-pan: but if she could not take an active part in the proceedings, she had the satisfaction of attracting an immense amount of attention.

The girls chose partners in the hall, and marched in procession into the recreation room, where Miss Maitland (a stately Marie Antoinette) acted hostess, and received her guests with the assistance of Miss Parkinson (a Spanish gipsy) and Vivian Holmes (hastily attired as a troubadour).

"It is indeed a carnival," said Miss Maitland. "The costumes are splendid, and all deserve hearty congratulations. We shall have to take votes as to which is the best. We haven't thought of the music yet; it seems almost presumptuous to ask Queen Cleopatra to play a waltz for us, but perhaps she will condescend thus far. We can't ask the sausage, for she hasn't any arms! The troubadour and the Pied Piper ought to do their share, and the Merry-andrew must give us a pas seul."

Everybody declared the evening to be the greatest success. The lemonade, fortunately cold, was delicious, and so were the biscuits that Miss Maitland, through lack of any other dainties, had provided as refreshments. Half-past nine came far too soon, and the dancers, hot, flushed, and excited, were forced reluctantly to abandon the festivities and betake themselves upstairs to tear off their grandeur.

Honor slept between the blankets that night, and her slumbers were haunted by a vision of Miss Maitland, as an avenging spectre, arrayed in the mutilated sheets. The dream was certainly prophetic, for the house-mistress was extremely angry on discovering the damage done, and gave Honor a lecture such as she richly deserved.

"You will stay in from cricket to-day, and mend the sheets," she decreed, at the conclusion of the scolding. "You will find them ready fixed by two o'clock. I shall expect the seams to be neatly run, and the edges turned over and hemmed."

Honor groaned. After the excitement of yesterday's match, she had been looking forward to the cricket practice; moreover, she hated sewing. But there was no appeal. Each house-mistress had authority to suspend games, if necessary, so she was compelled to pass a weary afternoon at a most uncongenial occupation.

"It's hard labour!" she exclaimed, when Janie ran in at four o'clock. "Finished! No! I've only run one seam, and hemmed about six inches. I feel like the 'Song of the shirt' (only it's the song of the sheet instead). 'Stitch, stitch, stitch', and 'work, work, work'! My fingers are getting quite 'weary and worn'. There's one comfort, at any rate: Miss Maitland won't be likely to keep me away from preparation, and as the clothes go to the wash to-morrow, perhaps she'll let one of the maids do the rest of this, and give me some other penance instead. I'd rather learn five chapters of history, or a scene from Shakespeare; and I'd welcome a whole page of equations—I would indeed!"

"I'm afraid it's a vain hope," said Janie. "Miss Maitland always sticks to her word."

She proved right; Miss Maitland was inexorable. The discipline at Chessington was strict, and any mistress who gave an order was accustomed to enforce it rigorously. Honor was obliged to forgo the triumphs of the playing-fields until the very last stitch had been put in her sheets—a punishment which was severe enough, if not entirely to work a reform, at any rate to sober her considerably for the present.

VIII. A Mysterious Happening

"I wonder how it is," philosophized Ruth Latimer, "that one always seems to like some girls so much, and detest others? There are certain people who, no matter what they do, or even if their intentions are good, always rub one up the wrong way."

"Natural affinity, or the reverse, I suppose," answered Maisie Talbot. "I'm a great believer in first impressions. I can generally tell in five minutes whether I'm going to be friends with anyone or not; and I find I'm nearly certain to be right in the long run."

"I suppose I must have a natural antipathy, then, against Flossie Taylor," confessed Honor candidly. "It didn't take me as long as five minutes to discover my sentiments towards her."

"I don't wonder," said Lettice. "Flossie is a bounder!"

"What's that?"

"Oh, Paddy! You've lived at the back of beyond! A bounder means—well—just a bounder; putting on side, you know."

"How particularly lucid and enlightening!"

"It means someone who tries to make herself out of more consequence than she really is," explained Maisie. "Flossie is continually dragging into her conversation the grand things she has at home, and the grand people she stays with."

"She doesn't mention them naturally, as anyone might do without being offensive," said Ruth Latimer. "She parades them just to show off, in a particularly obtrusive and objectionable manner."

"And we think that very bad taste at Chessington, because, of course, almost all of us have quite as nice homes and friends, only we don't care to boast about them."

"It looks as if you hadn't been accustomed to decent things, if you're always wanting to let people know you possess them," added Lettice.

"The worst of it is," continued Maisie, "that she's having a bad influence at St. Chad's. The Hammond-Smiths and the Lawsons and the Palmers follow her lead implicitly, and she's completely spoiling Rhoda Cunliffe and Hope Robertson. They used to be quite different before Flossie came. I don't think Jessie Gray and Gladys Chesters have improved either lately. It seems such a pity, because we've always prided ourselves that St. Chad's was the best house in the College, and we don't want this kind of element to creep in."

"What can we do?" asked Ruth Latimer.

"Suppose we form a league against it! All the nicer girls would join, and if Flossie and her set see that we really vote them bad style, perhaps they'll have the sense to drop it."

"All right. Put me down as your first member. What's the name of the Society?"

"We might call it the 'Anti-Bounders'. It has a brisk, rolling sound that's rather jolly."

"The A.B.S. for short," suggested Honor.

"And the rules?" asked Ruth.

"Those could be short and sweet—something on these lines:

"1. No member is to make an unnecessary or ostentatious display of wealth or valuables.

"2. No member is to brag constantly of high connections or titled friends.

"3. Members are to consider, not money, but culture, as the standard of public estimation at St. Chad's; and to remember that the essence of good breeding is simplicity.

"4. Any member transgressing any of these rules will be blackballed."

"Excellent!" said Ruth. "It puts what we mean in a nutshell. Now, we must write that out, and try to get signatures. We might add a fifth rule, about not doing sneaking tricks; it's decidedly necessary."

"And our motto could be Noblesse oblige," proposed Honor.

The "Anti-Bounders" met with favour among a large proportion of the Chaddites, but with much derision from Flossie and her friends, who lost no opportunity of ridiculing the league, nicknamed its members "The Pharisees", and threw open scorn upon its rules. Nevertheless, in spite of their opposition, the society was strong enough to work a decided improvement, particularly among a certain section who were ready to trim their sails according to the prevailing wind, and to follow blindly the general consensus of public opinion. In future any girl guilty of inordinate bragging was christened "Chanticler", and a warning "Cock-a-doodle-doo!" would advise her of the fact without further explanation.

"It's quite enough!" said Maisie. "We don't want to rub it in too hard, but just to let them see that we notice. Jessie Gray is better already, and although Flossie and Claudia make so much fun of us they're really extremely nettled, because they thought themselves the absolute perfection of good style, and it has been a great blow to them to discover that three-quarters of the house consider them bad form."

It was a constant annoyance to Maisie, Lettice, and Pauline that Flossie should occupy the fourth cubicle in No. 13 bedroom, and they often wondered why Miss Maitland had placed so uncongenial a companion in their midst—"especially when Adeline Vaughan is with the Hammond-Smiths in No. 10," said Lettice. "If we might only make an exchange, everybody would be satisfied."

Miss Maitland, however, had reasons for her arrangements, which she did not care to explain. She knew far more of the inner life of the house than the girls suspected, and hoped that by a judicious sandwiching of different elements certain undesirable traits might be eliminated, and the general tone raised. Though she was often aware of things that were not entirely to her satisfaction, she was wise enough not to interfere directly, but by careful tactics to allow the reformation to work from within, experience having taught her that codes fixed by the girls themselves were twice as binding as those enforced by the authorities.

The bedrooms at St. Chad's were on two floors, Nos. 9 to 16 being on the upper story, and Nos. 1 to 7 on the lower. No. 8, occupied by Honor and Janie, was the higher of two small rooms built over the porch, and occupied a position midway between the two floors, being reached by a short flight of steps from the landing below. In No. 4 slept Evelyn Fletcher, the youngest girl in the house. She shared the room with an elder sister and two cousins, all three members of the Sixth Form. Though Evelyn was thirteen, she was very small and childish for her age, and was treated rather as a pet by the Chaddites. She was a pretty little thing, with appealing blue eyes, fluffy hair, and a helpless, dependent manner. It was the great trial of her life that she was obliged to go to bed more than an hour before the other occupants of No. 4. She had a morbid horror of being alone in the dark—a horror that, through a sensitive dread of being laughed at, she had so far confessed to no one, but which, all the same, was very real and overwhelming. Night after night she would lie with the curtain of her cubicle half-drawn, and the door ajar so as to catch a gleam of light from the landing, listening with every nerve on the alert for she knew not what, and enduring agonies until the welcome moment when her sister Meta came upstairs. It was, of course, very foolish, but her terror was probably due to a dangerous illness from which she had suffered some years before, and which had left a permanent delicacy.

One evening the younger girls had retired as usual, and everything was very quiet in the upper stories. Evelyn lay wideawake, sometimes straining her ears to catch a sound from the ground floor below, and sometimes burying her head in her pillow. Suddenly she sat up in bed, with wide-open, terror-stricken eyes. On the opposite wall there gleamed a strange, dancing light, which appeared and disappeared and reappeared again, flickering faintly from floor to ceiling. There seemed no explainable origin for it, and Evelyn's mind at once turned to the supernatural. A silly maidservant at home had been accustomed to ply her with ghost stories, all of which now recurred to her memory. What was it, that unnatural, luminous halo on the opposite wall? It was moving nearer to her, and had almost reached the curtain of her cubicle, when, with a choking little gasp, she sprang out of bed, and darting into the corridor ran shrieking upstairs, her one idea being to escape from the mysterious apparition.

Her screams not only roused all the girls on the higher rooms, but brought up Vivian Holmes, who had been crossing the hall at the moment, and felt it her duty as monitress to go and investigate.

"What's all this noise about?" she asked. "Evelyn, what's the matter? Has anything frightened you?"

"It's something on my wall," panted Evelyn; "something white, that moves."

"What was it like?"

"I don't know—I can't describe it."

"Perhaps it was a ghost," said Honor, in a hollow voice; "they come softly, this way," and, pulling a horrible face, she moved slowly forward with a gliding motion, her white night-dress completing the illusion.

Trembling from head to foot, Evelyn turned and clung to the monitress.

"Stop that, Honor!" exclaimed Vivian sharply. "It's a wicked thing to frighten anybody. Come along, Evie! I'll go with you to your room, and we'll try to find out what this mysterious 'something' is. Go back to bed at once, all the rest of you!"

After making a thorough inspection of No. 4, Vivian found that the uncanny light was, after all, very easy of explanation. It was nothing but the reflection from a lamp outside, and the swaying of the blind had been responsible for the movement. Having shown Evelyn the unromantic origin of her spectre, the monitress left her, apparently pacified, and went downstairs.

In the upper rooms all was soon in absolute stillness. The girls took Vivian's advice and retired to bed again, laughing at having been disturbed for so trivial a cause.

"Evelyn Fletcher is a goose!" said Flossie Taylor. "She'd run away from her own shadow."

"She is rather silly," agreed Maisie Talbot. "I've no patience with people who imagine ghosts!"

Maisie's own nerves were of the stoutest. She certainly could not sympathize with superstitious fears, and neither flickering lights nor possible spectres would have distressed her in the least.

"When people shriek at nothing and rouse the whole house, they deserve to have something to shriek at," remarked Flossie.

But Maisie was in the act of hopping into bed, and only grunted in reply, while Pauline and Lettice were already half-asleep. Flossie lay for a minute or two pondering over the affair, then got up again very softly. First, she felt on her washstand for her tooth powder, and dabbed her face plentifully with it till she was sure it must be white all over; then she took the towel, and arranged it over her head, to hide her hair. In every bedroom at St. Chad's there were a candle and a box of matches, in case the electric light should suddenly fail; Flossie groped for these and found them, and, taking them in her hand, left the room on tiptoe.

"Where are you going?" asked Maisie drowsily, but receiving no reply, she did not even trouble to open her eyes.

Once outside the door, Flossie lighted her candle. She was determined, in spite of Vivian's warning, to play a trick upon Evelyn.

"She needs teasing out of such rubbish," she said to herself. "Vivian Holmes always makes an absurd fuss of her—quite spoils her, in fact. I think the best way to cure people is to laugh at them."

Creeping softly downstairs, she switched off the electric light at the end of the lower landing, and, shading her candle with her hand, passed along in the darkness to No. 4. Without pausing a moment she entered, holding up one arm in a dramatic attitude, and making her eyes glare wildly from her whitened face. The effect was beyond all that she had anticipated. Such a scream of agonized fear came from the bed in the corner that, alarmed at what she had done, Flossie turned and fled. As she ran through the door she realized that somebody was hastening along the dark passage, and, afraid of being discovered, she turned suddenly and rushed up the short flight of steps that led to Honor's bedroom, blowing out her candle as she went. She crouched for a few moments outside the door of No. 8, then, hearing no footsteps pursuing her, she ventured to steal down again and make a dash for the stairs and the upper landing, where she whisked into No. 13 with all possible speed.

"It was a narrow shave!" she said to herself. "If that was Vivian, and she had caught me, I expect she'd have made herself uncommonly disagreeable."

In the meantime, Vivian had returned to the recreation room, and told the story of Evelyn's groundless fears to the elder girls assembled there.

"A shock of this kind is extremely bad for Evie," said Meta. "She had a nervous fever four years ago, and has been so fragile and highly-strung ever since. She was sent to Chessington because we hoped the bracing air might do her good. I remember she used to have night terrors when she was a wee child, but we thought she had quite got over them."

"She looks very white and delicate," said Vivian. "She's all eyes. If she were my sister, I should like to see her less 'nervy'."

"Perhaps I had better run upstairs to her," said Meta, rather anxiously. "Now I think of it, I remember she always seems most relieved when May and Trissie and I make our appearance at nine-thirty."

Meta found the landing in total darkness, a most unusual occurrence, as the electric light was always left on there. She felt her way along by the wall, and as she did so she was aware of somebody coming towards her from the opposite end of the long corridor. Whoever it was carried a light in her hand, so small as to make only a faint glimmer, but enough to allow Meta to perceive that she turned into No. 4. The next moment a cry of frantic fear issued from the room. Meta hurried forward, her heart throbbing wildly, while the figure, rushing from the room, and showing in its hasty flight a white-veiled head, darted up the steps to No. 8, and disappeared, light and all.

It did not take Meta more than three seconds to reach her sister's bedside. Strangled sounds issued from under the clothes, where Evelyn lay cowering in mortal terror; and again, as Meta placed her hand on the bed, came that convulsive, half-stifled cry.

"Evie! Evie dear! Don't you know me?" exclaimed Meta.

Realizing at last who stood near, Evelyn sat up and flung her arms round her sister. She was in a most agitated, hysterical condition, trembling and quivering with sobs. Meta soothed her as well as she could, and requested Vivian, who had followed to see that all was right, to switch on the bedroom light, and also the one in the passage.

"Someone must have intentionally turned it off," she said, "on purpose to play this trick."

"I know I'm silly!" choked Evelyn, more reassured now that the room was no longer in darkness, "but I can't help it. I really thought it was a ghost."

"Who is responsible for this?" asked Vivian indignantly.

"Honor Fitzgerald," replied Meta, without hesitation.

"Are you sure?"

"Whoever it was ran back into No. 8. Janie Henderson would never dream of doing such a thing, so it must have been Honor."

"She certainly was pretending to be a ghost upstairs," said Vivian. "I shall go and tell her my opinion of her," and she departed with a very grim expression on her face.

Janie and Honor were half-asleep when Vivian, like an avenging angel, entered No. 8.

"Look here, Honor Fitzgerald!" she began, "if you try any more of those senseless practical jokes, I shall report you to Miss Maitland. I'm monitress here, and I don't intend to have this kind of thing going on at St. Chad's."

"What's the matter?" asked Honor, rubbing her eyes.

"Matter, indeed! You know as well as I do. It was a cruel, mean trick to play upon a nervous, delicate girl like Evie Fletcher."

Honor was considerably astonished. She, of course, knew nothing of Flossie's escapade, and imagined that the monitress must be referring to the few words she had said on the upper landing.

"Why, Evie didn't seem to mind all that much!" she retorted.

"You've frightened her most seriously, and I consider it so dangerous that I'd rather you were expelled from the school than that it should happen again. I don't want to get you into trouble at head-quarters if I can help it, so I'll say nothing if you'll promise me faithfully that this is absolutely the last time you'll ever act ghost."

"Of course I'll promise. I didn't intend to upset Evie. I think both you and she are making a great fuss about nothing," replied Honor, lying down once more.

"I'm disgusted with you, Honor Fitzgerald! If you can't realize the mischief your thoughtlessness has done, you might at least have the grace to be sorry for it! To amuse yourself by playing on the fears of a timid girl, younger than you, is the work of a coward—yes, a coward! That's what I consider you!" and Vivian turned away, full of righteous wrath, and wondering whether she had adequately fulfilled her monitorial duty, or whether she ought to have said even more.

IX. Diamond Cut Diamond

Honor was both amazed and indignant at Vivian's stern rebuke. She appealed to Janie in self-justification.

"I don't understand it," she declared. "I only screwed up my face, and said ghosts glided. I stopped at once when Vivian asked me. How could Evelyn have been so fearfully frightened just at that?"

"I can't imagine," said Janie, "except that she's such an extremely nervous girl."

"It's too bad to blame me on that account."

"Vivian is generally very severe."

"She's always down on me! I'm continually in hot water, and half the time I don't know exactly why."

It was not until the next afternoon that Honor learnt of the practical joke that had been practised upon her schoolfellow. As she was washing her hands in the dressing-room she chanced to overhear a few remarks between two or three girls who were discussing the affair, and at once questioned them about it.

"Of course Meta knew it was you, Honor!" said Ruth Latimer, rather reproachfully.

"Why of course?" asked Honor.

"Because it couldn't be anyone else. You're always playing tricks upon someone."

"It's a case of 'give a dog a bad name', then. I'm innocent for once."

"But the ghost ran up the steps to No. 8!"

"That's only 'circumstantial evidence'. I certainly didn't do it. Janie can tell you that I never left the bedroom."

"Yes, I could take my oath in a law court, as a reliable witness," vouched Janie.

"Then who was it?"

Honor shook her head.

"Ask me a harder!" she said briefly.

Flossie, who was standing near, looked rather conscious, but volunteered no explanation.

"It's a most peculiar thing," said Ruth. "Somebody must have been the ghost, I suppose."

"Unless it were a real one!" suggested Flossie. "It might——"

"What nonsense! Nobody believes in ghosts, except, perhaps, Evelyn," interrupted Ruth scornfully. "Of course, it was a girl playing a trick. The only question is, who?"

"Could it be May or Trissie Turner?" suggested Flossie.

"Impossible! Evelyn's own cousins—and in the Sixth Form, too!"

"It's very extraordinary!"

"It ought to be properly cleared up," said Lettice Talbot.

"Suppose we ask every girl in the house if she knows anything," proposed Dorothy Arkwright.

"No; Meta begged us to let the matter drop," replied Ruth. "She says Evelyn is extremely sensitive about it, and can't bear the subject alluded to."

"Evelyn looked very ill this morning," observed Dorothy.

"Yes; Meta says she has had a severe shock, and the least reference to it might upset her again."

"So it will have to remain unexplained?"

"I suppose so," said Flossie. "It seems a complete mystery."

"Why, Flossie!" exclaimed Maisie Talbot suddenly, "didn't I hear you get up last night, after Vivian had gone downstairs and we had marched off to bed again? I remember I called out to you, but I was too sleepy to wake up properly. I verily believe it must have been you who frightened Evelyn. Honestly now, was it?"

Flossie turned very red. She would have continued to shield herself at Honor's expense if it had been any longer possible, but she was not prepared to tell a direct falsehood. There was no way out of it but to confess.

"What a storm in a teacup!" she replied, shrugging her shoulders. "It's absurd if one can't play the least joke without a monitress interfering and making a ridiculous fuss. It was only meant for fun; I should have laughed if anybody had done it to me."

"It's no laughing matter," said Maisie gravely. "In the first place, though Evelyn may be silly, you had no right to frighten her; and in the second place, you deliberately let the blame rest on Honor's shoulders."

"Vivian ought to be told of this," declared Dorothy.

"Yes, she must know at once," added Ruth.

"Oh, please don't go sneaking to the monitress on my account!" interposed Honor. "If Meta wants the affair to drop, it shall. Both she and Vivian took it for granted last night that I had acted the ghost in No. 4; they never asked me, or gave me a chance of denying it, so I shan't trouble to undeceive them. If Vivian has such a poor opinion of me already, she shan't think me a tell-tale in addition. As for Flossie, she's not worth noticing."

"But telling a monitress isn't like telling a teacher," objected Ruth.

"It savours of sneaking, and I prefer to leave it alone. What does it matter? I don't care about anybody's opinion!"

Honor was on her high horse. She had been much hurt by Vivian's injustice, and all the Fitzgerald pride was roused within her. Notwithstanding the girls' remonstrances, she would not allow herself to be cleared of the false charge.

"The whole thing is altogether beneath me," she remarked, as she stalked haughtily away.

"It's no good trying to persuade her," said Lettice. "When she puts that set look on her face, arguments are absolutely useless."

"On the whole, I think I rather admire her for saying nothing," commented Maisie. "It's more dignified than making a fuss. I can't tolerate tale-bearing myself. It would have got Flossie into a terrific scrape with Vivian, and probably with Miss Maitland as well."

"Flossie doesn't deserve to go scot-free," said Ruth, with a glance at the flaxen head that was discreetly disappearing through the door.

"She won't!" asserted Lettice. "Honor is the most contrary, queer, impossible, perverse girl I've ever met. She'll let Flossie off easily now, but she'll make her pay for it in some other way. I could see it in her eye. She was as cool as a cucumber outside, but I'm sure that was only the crust over the crater, and that there was the usual volcano inside. It's bound to find a safety-valve, so Flossie had better look out for squalls!"

Lettice was right. Honor was certainly in a most unenviable frame of mind. She considered that Vivian had treated her unfairly in assuming her to be guilty without making any proper investigation.

"It's the first time a Fitzgerald has ever been called a coward!" she said to Janie.

The word rankled in her memory even more than the monitress's high-handed manner.

"Then you must use every opportunity of showing that you're the reverse," replied Janie. "You'll have to live the thing down. I expect the truth will come round to Vivian's ears in course of time, and I'm sure that she'll think far better of you than if we had gone at once to her with a long accusation against Flossie. If Flossie herself had offered to tell, that would have been different; but she didn't rise to such a pitch of heroism."

"One wouldn't expect it from Flossie Taylor!" said Honor contemptuously, as she hurried off to her music lesson.

I am afraid Honor's scales that day were anything but a satisfaction to Fräulein Bernhardt, the piano teacher. Her mind was so abstracted that she kept continually playing wrong fingering, or even an occasional wrong note in the harmonic minors. Her study was little better, and her piece a dead failure. The mistress, with characteristic German patience, set her to work to try to conquer a couple of difficult phrases, through which Honor stumbled again and again, each time with the same old mistakes, until the end of the half-hour.

"I find you not yet fit to take share in ze evening pairformance!" sighed poor Fräulein, whose musical ear had been much distressed by this mangling of her favourite tarantella. "Zere must be more of improvement before ve render ze piece to Mees Maitland. You say you not vish to play in publique? Ach, so! Zat is vat zey all say; but it is good to begin young to get over ze fear—vat you call ze 'shyness'—is it not so?"

Fräulein Bernhardt was an excellent teacher—patient, conscientious, and enthusiastic. She tried to inspire all her pupils with her own love for music, and with some indeed she succeeded, though with others it proved a more difficult task.

"I'm almost impossible!" avowed Lettice Talbot. "I believe I'm nearly as bad as the old fellow who declared he only knew two tunes—one was 'God Save the King', and the other wasn't."

"You certainly have a particularly leaden touch," agreed Dorothy Arkwright. "The way you hammer out Mendelssohn is enough to try my nerves, so I'm sure it must be an offence to Fräulein."

"I think it's stupid to be obliged to learn the piano when you've absolutely no taste for it," yawned Lettice. "I'm going to ask Father to let me give it up next term."

"Don't!" interposed Vivian Holmes, who happened to overhear Lettice's remark. "I went through that same phase myself, when I was fourteen. I implored my mother to allow me to stop music, and she had nearly consented when I met a lady who advised me most strongly to go on. She said she couldn't play herself, and regretted it immensely now she was grown-up, and would be thankful if she could manage even a hymn tune. So I did go on, and now I'm very glad. I'm certain you'll like it better, Lettice, when you've got over more of the drudgery."

"Perhaps it will never be anything but drudgery for me!"

"Oh, yes, it will! We shall have you taking part in the 'Friday firsts' yet."

On the first Friday in every month Miss Maitland held a "Mutual Improvement Evening", at which all who were sufficiently advanced were expected to contribute by playing, singing, or reciting. These were quite informal gatherings, only Chaddites being present. Miss Cavendish considered it good for teachers and pupils to meet thus socially, and a similar arrangement obtained at each house. To many of the girls, however, it was more of an ordeal to be obliged to perform before their schoolfellows than it would have been to play to strangers.

"I'm always nervous, in any case," said Pauline Reynolds; "but strangers don't criticize one openly afterwards, whatever they may think in private. I feel it's perfectly dreadful to have Fräulein and Miss Maitland and Miss Parkinson sitting on one side, and all of you in a row on the other!"

"But we're very polite," urged Lettice. "We say, 'Thank you!'"

Honor had not yet been considered proficient enough to take an active part in the monthly entertainment, but Flossie's name was one of the first on the list. She played the violin remarkably well, better than almost anybody else at Chessington; and as she was seldom nervous, her pieces were generally very successful. The day following Evelyn Fletcher's fright happened to be "Mutual Improvement Friday". The girls only spent a short time at preparation, and then went upstairs to change their dresses. The meetings were always held in the drawing-room, and were rather festive in character. Miss Maitland tried to make them as much as possible like ordinary parties; she received the girls as guests, encouraged them to converse with herself and the other teachers, and had coffee served to them during the evening.

On this particular occasion Flossie made a very careful toilet, and she certainly looked nice in her pretty, embroidered white muslin dress, her fair hair tied with big bows of palest blue ribbon. She took a last glance at herself in the looking-glass, then, seizing her violin, which she had brought to her cubicle, she prepared to go downstairs.

In passing Miss Maitland's bedroom on the lower landing, she noticed that the door stood open, and that no one was within. There was a large mirror in the wardrobe, and, catching a glimpse of her own reflection as she went by, she stopped suddenly, and could not resist the temptation to run in for a moment and take a full-length view of herself as she would appear when she was playing her piece. She raised her violin and struck a suitable attitude, and was immensely pleased with the result that faced her—the dainty dress, the blue bows, the coral cheeks, flaxen hair, and bright eyes all made a charming picture, and the position in which she held her instrument was particularly graceful. She drew her bow gently over the strings, to observe the curve of her slender wrist and well-shaped arm. It was gratifying to know that she would make such a good appearance before her schoolfellows. Once again she played a few notes, for the sheer satisfaction of watching her slim, white fingers in the glass.

Alas for Flossie! That single bar of Schubert's Serenade was her undoing. Honor chanced to be passing the door at the identical moment, and, hearing the strain of music, peeped inside. She grasped the situation at a glance.

"Oho, Miss Flossie! So I've caught you prinking!" she said to herself. "You're evidently practising your very best company smile for this evening. What a disappointment it would be to you, now, if you were not able to play that piece after all!"

Honor had a resourceful mind. Very gently she put her hand inside the door and abstracted the key, which, with equal caution, she fitted into the keyhole on the outside; then, quickly shutting the door, she locked it, and ran away before Flossie had even discovered that anybody Was there. The latter naturally noticed the slight noise and turned round, but she was too late; and though she rattled the handle, and knocked and called, it was of no avail. Honor, as it happened, had been the last girl to go downstairs, and there was nobody left on either landing to hear even the most frantic thumps. Flossie rushed to the electric bell, hoping to bring a servant to her assistance; but it was out of order, and would not ring. She was in a terrible dilemma: if she made too much noise one of the teachers, or even Miss Maitland herself, might come upstairs to see what was the matter; on the other hand, there she was locked up fast and secure, missing the "evening", and with an equal chance of being found out in the end, and asked to give some explanation of her presence in the mistress's room.

In the meantime, Honor went downstairs chuckling. She entered the drawing-room in the highest of spirits, paid her respects to Miss Maitland, and found a seat close to the door. The musical part of the performance, she ascertained, was to come first, and after coffee there were to be recitations, and a dialogue in French. A neat programme had been written out and was laid on the top of the piano, so that it could be referred to by Vivian Holmes, who was conductress of the ceremonies.

It was late already, and the proceedings began immediately. The room was crowded, and amongst the forty girls nobody seemed to have particularly remarked Flossie's absence, and no enquiry was made for her, until the close of the song that preceded her violin solo.

"Where is Flossie Taylor?" whispered Vivian then, with a look of marked annoyance on her face. "Her Serenade comes next. She ought to be standing by the piano. Has anybody seen her? Please pass the question on."

She paused a moment or two in great impatience; then, as no Flossie put in an appearance, she turned to Meta Fletcher and May Turner, who followed on the programme, and asked them to begin their duet.

"I can't wait for anybody," she remarked. "If Flossie isn't ready, I must simply miss her out. We've almost too many pieces to get through in the time."

The rest of the music went off successfully. Nobody broke down, or even made a bad stumble, a subject of much self-congratulation to several nervous performers and of great relief to Vivian, who, as monitress of the house, always arranged the little concerts as a surprise for Miss Maitland, the latter preferring that the girls should settle all details amongst themselves, instead of leaving matters to a teacher.

Coffee was brought in at eight o'clock, after which the recitations began immediately. At this state of the entertainment Honor felt magnanimous. She did not want to involve Flossie in serious trouble, so, slipping quietly away, she ran upstairs, unlocked the door of Miss Maitland's bedroom, and released her prisoner.

The disappointed violinist emerged looking decidedly glum.

"It's a nasty, mean trick you've played me, Honor Fitzgerald!" she burst out.

"No meaner than you played on Evelyn Fletcher—not half so bad, in my opinion. I'm sorry to say you're too late for your solo. The music's over long ago, and they're hard at work reciting Shakespeare at present."

"Just what I expected! And it's all your fault!"

"You're very ungrateful! You ought to be most relieved to be let out before Miss Maitland caught you," retorted Honor. "What an opportunity to point a moral on the fatal consequences of vanity!" Then, as Flossie flounced angrily away: "You've never thanked me for unlocking this door yet. I thought we were supposed to cultivate manners at St. Chad's. If Vivian asks where you've been, I suppose you'll tell her?"

"I certainly shan't! And you'll be a sneak if you do."

"All right, all right! Keep your little temper! You may make your mind easy; I don't intend to do anything of the sort," called Honor, watching Flossie's back as her victim hurried out of earshot down the passage. "It has been a delightful evening," she continued to herself; "really quite the jolliest since I came to Chessington. I'm afraid I've had the lion's share of the enjoyment, but that couldn't be helped. It certainly is a most immense satisfaction to feel that Flossie Taylor and I are now exactly quits!"

X. Honor Finds Favour

Honor was undoubtedly finding Chessington College a totally different place from Kilmore Castle, and in the six weeks she had spent there she had already learnt many lessons quite apart from textbooks. The wildest bird cannot fly with its wings clipped, and at school Honor was so bound round with conventionalities and restrictions that she never dreamt of raising such turbulent scenes as had sometimes been her wont at home. The calm, firm administration of Miss Cavendish, Miss Maitland's wise control, and Miss Farrar's brisk authority, all seemed indisputable; and even the regulations of Vivian Holmes might not be defied with impunity. The Fitzgerald pride could not tolerate a low place in class, therefore Honor prepared her work carefully, so that she might be above Flossie Taylor and Effie Lawson, emulation urging her to efforts which love of learning alone would not have effected. She did not indulge so frequently as before in either "tantrums" or bursts of temper, for these provoked such ridicule from the other girls that she felt rather ashamed of them; and even her overflowing spirits began to be modified to the level of what was considered "good form" at Chessington.

There is a vast power in public opinion, and Honor, who at Kilmore had lived according to a model of her own choosing, now found herself insensibly falling in with the general tone of the College, and acquiring the mental shibboleths of her schoolfellows. Naturally all this was not accomplished at once, and "Paddy Pepper-box", as she was still nicknamed, had many outbreaks and relapses; but by the time the half-term arrived, Miss Maitland, in a long talk with Miss Cavendish, was able to report that "Honor Fitzgerald was marvellously improved".

"She has the elements of a very fine character," said the house-mistress, "though at present it is like a statue that is still in the rough block of marble: it will take much shaping and carving before the real beauty appears. There is sterling good in her, in spite of certain glaring faults. She is at a most critical, impressionable age, and will require careful management. Everything depends upon what standards she forms now."

Though the whole atmosphere of St. Chad's had its effect upon Honor, she owed more than even Miss Maitland guessed to the influence of Janie Henderson. Janie seemed to have the power of drawing out all that was best in her friend's disposition. In some subtle fashion she appeared to demand the good, and, by presupposing it was there, to bring it actually into existence. Many new ideas of duty, consideration for others, and self-restraint, that had never before occurred to Honor, now began to take root and grow—feebly at first, but the seed was there, and the fruit would come afterwards. It was Janie who put the first suggestion into her mind that life was more than a mere playground, and that other people have paramount claims on us, the fulfilling of which can bring a purer joy than that of pleasing ourselves; Janie who, by implying what a comfort an only daughter might be to father, mother, and brothers, made her realize how utterly she had so far failed to be anything but a care; and Janie whose high ideals and aspirations raised future possibilities of helpfulness of which she had not hitherto dreamt, for until she came to St. Chad's Honor had not heard of girls taking up careers, or fitting themselves for any special work.

"I don't mean earning one's own living," said Janie. "Neither you nor I will probably ever have to do that, and Mother says it is hardly right for women who have independent incomes to overcrowd professions, and drive out those who are obliged to keep themselves. What I want is to settle on some useful thing, and then to do it thoroughly. I've a large family of cousins in town, and they all are so busy, each in a different way. One has trained as a Princess Christian nurse, and now goes three days a week to give help at a crèche. She took me once to see the babies; they were the very poorest of the poor, but were beautifully clean, and so good. Beatrice simply loves them. Then Millicent, the second girl, has learnt wood-carving and metal-work, and takes a class at a Lads' Recreation Club. One of her boys has turned out so clever that he has been sent to the Technical Schools to study 'applied arts'. Milly is tremendously proud of him, particularly as he comes from such a wretched, lost, drunken home. Barbara is very musical—she teaches singing at a Factory Girls' Club; and Mabel helps with a Children's Happy Evening Society."

"But can you do those kinds of things in the country?" asked Honor.

"I'm going to try, when I leave school. I thought if I could learn ambulance work I could have a 'First Aid' class for the village girls. Most of them don't know how to dress a burn, or bind up a wound. I have another scheme too."

"What's that?"

"It's so ambitious, I'd better not talk about it. Perhaps the ambulance work will be enough for a beginning, and the other could follow. Well, if you insist upon my telling you, I should like to get up a lace-making industry among the girls in our village. I read an article in a magazine about someone who had revived the old Honiton patterns at a place in Devonshire."

"A few of the women make lace in our neighbourhood," said Honor.

"How splendid! Then you could start the same at Kilmore, and we could keep comparing notes, and get specimens sent to exhibitions—the 'Irish Industries', you know, or 'Peasants' Handicrafts'. It's such a pity that everything should be done by machinery nowadays! Why, you might have quite a thriving colony of lacemakers at Kilmore—the women could be working at their 'pillows' while the men are out fishing. If I begin at Redcliffe, will you promise to try the experiment too?"

Such a proposal as introducing a new occupation for the tenants on her father's demesne almost took Honor's breath away; yet to her active mind it was rather attractive, and she drew a rapid mental picture of the little barefooted colleens of Kilmore seated at their cabin doors, plying the bobbins with deft fingers. Janie's ardour was infectious, and if Honor were not yet ready to agree to all her plans, at least she caught enough enthusiasm to be interested in the subject, and to admit that it was a dream worthy some day of realization.

In the meantime, the ordinary school course gave ample scope for the energies of both girls. Janie, though a great reader, was backward in many subjects, and was obliged to study hard to keep up with the rest of the class; while Honor, naturally far more clever, had not been accustomed to apply her brains in any systematic fashion. The work of the Lower Third was stiff enough to need constant application, unless the girls wished to earn the reputation of "slackers", a distinction which neither coveted. Besides their mental exertions, Honor, at any rate, wished to maintain her credit in the playing-fields. Janie had long ago given up all hope of becoming a good cricketer, or even a moderate tennis player. She was not fond of exercise. To use her own phrase, she "hated to be made to run about". Her ideal of bliss was to be left to wander round the grounds with a book; but as this was permitted only on Sundays, she was forced on weekdays, much against her inclination, to take her due part in the games. She even went the length of envying Muriel Cunliffe, whose sprained ankle did not allow her to hobble farther than the garden for five weeks; and hailed with delight the occasions when the school filed out for a walk on the moors, instead of the usual routine of fielding, batting, or bowling, all of which she equally detested.

During the latter part of the summer term, when the weather was sufficiently warm, swimming was included among the outdoor sports. There was a large bath behind the gymnasium, and here every girl was obliged to learn her strokes, and to be reported as "proficient", before she was allowed to venture on a dip in the ocean. Those who reached the required stage of independence were taken in classes of about twelve to practise under the critical superintendence of Miss Young. The bathing-place was a sheltered cove among the cliffs, not far from the College, and reached by a footpath and a flight of steps cut in the rock. On the strip of shore stood a big wooden hut, partitioned off into small dressing-rooms; and a causeway of flat stones had been made down to the water, to avoid the sharp flints of the shingly beach.

Janie, though not an expert swimmer, had passed her novitiate, and thoroughly enjoyed a leisurely round of the bay, with as much floating included as Miss Young would allow. To Honor the sea was as a second element. She had been accustomed to it from her babyhood, and was as fearless as any of her brothers. She soon gave proof of her ability in the bath, and was straightway placed among those Chaddites who were privileged to visit the sea.

It was a glorious afternoon in the middle of June when she started for her first trial of the waves of the Channel.

"It can't be anything like so rough as the Atlantic," she declared. "I've swum out sometimes when there was a swell on, and it was quite difficult to get back."

"Of course, we're not allowed to go when it's rough," said Janie. "To-day I expect it will be as smooth as a millpond. I'm so glad you're not a beginner, and only learning to struggle round the bath!"

"So am I. To judge from Madge Summers's achievements yesterday, it doesn't look like a pleasant performance. She appeared to be trying to drown herself."

"Madge is horribly clumsy! I don't believe she'll ever manage to keep afloat properly. She always flounders unless she has one foot at the bottom. Pauline Reynolds wouldn't venture into the water at all at first; Miss Young had to push her in. I shall never forget how she shrieked; and she was so frightened, she actually swam three strokes!"

"Poor old Pauline! It was hard luck on her."

"Yes, it couldn't have been particularly nice. I didn't altogether appreciate learning myself, with a row of horrid Hilaryites sitting on the diving-board and jeering at my best efforts. However, 'those bright days are o'er', and now 'I hear the ocean roar', as the poem says."

Each Chaddite was required to carry her own bathing costume and towel, and to wait in the quadrangle for Vivian Holmes, who was to escort the party down to the cove. Miss Young was already on duty, superintending a batch of Aldwythites, who were to have the first half-hour in the water, and who must vacate the dressing-hut before the second contingent arrived.

"I wonder if there'll be any trippers to-day," said Lettice Talbot, winding her towel artistically round her hat, and letting the ends fall like a pugaree. "Sometimes excursionists from Dunscar walk along the beach, and insist upon stopping to look at us."

"Are they allowed?" asked Honor.

"We can't help it. The beach is common property, and though the College got permission to put up a wooden shanty, it has no power to prevent anybody who likes from coming past. Some people are the greatest nuisance. They bring cakes and bags of shrimps, and sit down on the rocks to eat them while they watch us."

"What cheek!"

"Yes; we glower at them in as withering a manner as we can, but they don't seem to mind in the least. I suppose they think we're part of the seaside amusements, like the niggers, or the pierrots."

"Fortunately, that doesn't happen often," said Ruth Latimer. "We've only been really annoyed once or twice; Lettice loves to exaggerate. The cove is about the quietest spot on the whole shore. Here's Vivian; it must be time to set off."

Honor was in her liveliest spirits as they walked along the cliffs. She was overflowing with Irish blarney and nonsense, asking absurd riddles and making bad puns, and sending the other girls into such fits of laughter that Vivian called them to order.

"Don't be so horribly noisy!" she said. "Honor Fitzgerald, I wish you were more sensible."

"I'm very contrite," replied Honor cheerfully. "You see, I've never been taught to be serious-minded. I'm quite ready to learn, though, if you'll set me someone to copy. Would this be better?" and she put on an expression of such lugubrious gloom that the rest could not suppress their mirth.

Vivian did not seem to appreciate equally the humour of the situation. She was rather jealous of her position as monitress, and not unwilling to show her authority. Moreover, she was responsible for the conduct of the girls, who were expected to comport themselves discreetly on a public footpath.

Honor was not a favourite of hers. Vivian considered her too forward, and thought she made a troublesome element at St. Chad's. In her opinion, a new-comer in her first term ought not to attempt to obtrude herself, but should follow the lead of those who had been some years at the school. She told her rather sharply, therefore, to come and walk with her, and made the others go two and two, in a due and orderly fashion.

"I see some people coming along the cliffs," she said, "and I should be most ashamed if it were reported that the Chessington girls don't know how to behave themselves."

"I wonder whether she's taking the opportunity to try to improve Paddy's mind on the way," laughed Lettice to Ruth Latimer.

"She'll have a difficult task, then," remarked Ruth. "I can't imagine Paddy engaged in very deep and serious discourse."

By the time the St. Chad's party had climbed down the rocky steps on to the beach, the Aldwythites were just emerging from the hut, a lively, bareheaded little company, spreading their hair to dry in the wind and sunshine.

"It's simply delicious in the sea to-day," they called out; "quite warm, and as calm as possible."

The Chaddites had soon donned their bathing costumes, and went scampering down the causeway to take the coveted plunge into the waves.

"I don't know anything more glorious than the first few strokes of one's swim," said Lettice, floating for a moment or two by Honor's side. "I'm sure a frog couldn't enjoy it more, and a duck simply isn't in it!"

Honor seemed as much at home in the water as the fishes, and Miss Young, after watching her progress near the shore, gave her permission to go with the more advanced members of the class for a tour of the bay.

"I shall not be far off myself," she remarked, "and of course you must come back the instant I call to you."

"Miss Young generally stays close to the girls who aren't so much used to it, in case they should get cramp, or turn giddy," explained Lettice. "Beatrice Marsden and Ivy Ridgeway are only beginning, so I expect she'll paddle about with them in four feet of water. Janie Henderson never ventures very far either."

Once out in the bay, Honor began to distinguish herself, greatly to the delight of her admiring friends. She swam on her side and on her back, dived to pick up stones, and even contrived to make a wheel.

"How plucky you are!" exclaimed Lettice. "I should never dare to attempt such feats; but then, I haven't the sea to practise in at home. Look at Chatty; she's trying to do a wheel too. I know she'll come to grief. Chatty! Do you want us to have to practise life-saving?"

"No, thank you," said Chatty; "I was only seeing what I could manage. Look here! suppose we swim right round the bay. We can take a rest every now and then by floating and towing each other along."

Though there were no excursionists on the shore that day, the girls noticed a small boat bobbing about near the point of the cliffs. It contained three people, who were evidently visitors from Dunscar. A young man in his shirt sleeves, with a pocket-handkerchief tied over his head, was rowing in a very awkward fashion, as if it were the first time he had handled a pair of oars; while his companions, girls of about sixteen and seventeen, kept jumping up and changing places, or leaning suddenly over the side to catch pieces of seaweed.

"Vivian might complain of their laughing," said Lettice. "Just listen to them! Aren't they fearfully vulgar?"

"Cheap trippers come over for the day, no doubt," said Chatty. "Look! One of the girls is pretending to throw the young man's hat overboard, and he's trying to clutch it."

"The silly things! They're making that boat heel over far more than I should appreciate, if I were inside her," remarked Honor. "I don't believe they know there's any danger."

"I wonder they were allowed to go out without taking a boatman. I'm sure it's not safe," said Lettice.

The three young excursionists were still struggling and fighting over the hat when round the corner of the headland came the steamer from Westhaven, steering much closer to the shore than was her custom. She had started late, and her captain was trying to make up for lost time; and, in consequence, she was going at top speed. Her screw made such a tremendous wash that in a moment the sea was as rough as if there had been a storm. The bathers felt themselves tossed about like corks, and struck out as hard as they could for the shore, trying to keep abreast of the waves that threatened to overpower them. The next moment there was a chorus of wild, agonized shrieks, and the little cockle-shell of a boat whirled rapidly past, upside down, the young man and one girl clinging desperately to it, with white, terror-stricken faces. The other girl was nowhere to be seen. She rose in a few seconds, however, struggling violently, and sank again; then, when she came up for the second time, she had drifted a good distance farther on, and was strangely quiet.

The Chaddites had been separated by the sudden shock of the unexpected occurrence. Lettice found it as much as she could manage to keep her head above water, and Chatty acknowledged afterwards that she had never before felt in such danger of her life. Honor, however, was swimming fast in the direction of the drowning pleasure-seeker, and seized her just as she was on the point of going down for the third time. Luckily the poor girl had lost consciousness, and so did not grip her rescuer, or it might have ended fatally for them both. As it was, Honor was able to put her arm under her and keep her afloat while she called loudly for help.

But no one could come immediately. The heavy sea had got Ivy Ridgeway into difficulties, and Miss Young dared not leave her while she was still out of her depth; and the others were only able to save themselves: so Honor was obliged to do her best alone. By this time the steamer had stopped and was lowering one of its boats, but it took several minutes before the latter could be launched.

"Hold on a bit!" the sailors shouted encouragingly to Honor; and once they were clear of the vessel, they rowed with a will.

They reached the pair at last, and lifted the unfortunate girl, insensible and helpless as a log, over the gunwale.

"Better let us take you in too, miss!" said the coxswain to Honor.

"No, thanks; I'm all right," she replied, and, turning round, she swam straight back to the shore.

The passengers on the steamer gave cheer after cheer as they watched the little figure making its way so pluckily; and more than one person heaved a sigh of relief when it arrived in shallow water, and walked out on to the beach.

Meanwhile, the boat had picked up the young man and the other girl, who had clung to their upturned craft till they were in the last stage of exhaustion.

Poor Miss Young actually shed tears when she saw all her class safe and sound on dry land once more—a weakness of which her pupils never knew her to be guilty before or after.

"I'm not sure if I don't feel a little bit weepy myself," said Maisie Talbot. "Lettice is not a remarkably strong swimmer, and when I saw her so far out in the bay I thought—But there! it's over now, and I won't imagine horrible tragedies."

"It was a near shave for several of us," said Chatty soberly.

Honor took the whole affair with the utmost coolness; indeed, she insisted upon treating it almost as a joke.

"One doesn't always have the luck of picking up a mermaid," she declared. "I may find Father Neptune, or the Sirens, if I go a little farther; or perhaps I might drag back the sea serpent, as a neat little specimen for the school museum. If the trippers are often going to provide us with such entertainment, we shall have very lively times at bathing."

"All the same, I'm sure she's more upset about it than she pretends," said Lettice. "Her hands were trembling so much when she was dressing, she could scarcely button her blouse. It's just like her, though; she'd rather say something funny any time, than look serious."

Miss Young praised Honor highly for her "splendid bravery and presence of mind", and Miss Maitland added warm words of commendation. As for the Chaddites, they could scarcely make enough of her.

"No other house can show such a record," said Maisie enthusiastically. "We've beaten St. Hilary's hollow!"

"And even the School House," added Chatty, "though their monitress once stopped a runaway donkey on the shore."

"Paddy, we're proud of you!" said Lettice.

"Please don't say any more about it!" protested Honor. "I was only enjoying myself. I feel a great deal prouder when I've finished a sum in cube root, because I simply hate arithmetic. Swimming is as easy to me as walking, and I'm sure you'd each have done the same if you could."

Naturally, Honor was the heroine of the school, especially as the affair got into the newspapers, and the Royal Humane Society wrote to say that she would be presented with a medal in recognition of her courage. The father and mother of the girl whose life she had saved called with their daughter at the College, and begged to be allowed to express their gratitude, so Honor was sent for by the head mistress. She would have been glad to avoid what seemed to her an embarrassing interview, but there was no escape.

"These people have come on purpose to see you," said Miss Maitland; "it would be not only discourteous but unkind if you were to refuse to speak to them."

Honor had not been in Miss Cavendish's study since the memorable occasion when she had so injudiciously sported the shamrock, and as she entered the beautiful, old-world room again she could not help a feeling of wonder at how much had happened since she had first set foot there, and of relief that this second summons should be for approbation, instead of blame.

She would give no account afterwards of what took place, or what the girl's parents said to her, though Lettice was full of curiosity and pressed her for particulars.

"Look here!" she exclaimed; "if anybody says another word to me about this business, I shall leave St. Chad's and go across to St. Hilary's. I should be sorry to desert you all, but I'm sick of the very sound of 'life-saving'! As for the medal, I'm thankful to say it will be sent to me by post during the holidays, so there'll be no dreadful ordeal of presentation. Now, I've told you as much as I intend, so please go away, and let me do my preparation in peace!"

XI. A Relapse

Towards the end of June there was a burst of very warm weather, so sultry and hot as to make games, or any form of violent exertion, almost an impossibility. Ruth Latimer fainted one day when she was fielding, after which Miss Cavendish absolutely prohibited cricket in the blazing sun, and set to work to devise other means of occupation. The girls themselves would have been ready enough to lounge about all the afternoon in the grounds, chatting and doing nothing, but of that the head mistress did not approve; she considered it might tend to encourage habits of gossip and idling, and much preferred that everyone should have some definite employment. She temporarily altered the hours of work, setting preparation from two until four, so that in the evening the school might be free to go out and enjoy the breeze that often rose towards sunset. In the circumstances, this really seemed a better division of time, for during the early afternoon it was actually cooler in the house, with sunblinds drawn to protect the windows, than out-of-doors; and though there were many groans at having to learn lessons and write exercises immediately after dinner, on the whole the change was regarded with favour. General public opinion would have decided on swimming as the most suitable occupation in the state of the thermometer, but since the events related in the last chapter Miss Cavendish would not allow more than eight girls to go into the sea at once.

"It is as many as Miss Young can undertake to be responsible for," she said. "Steamers are frequently passing between Westhaven and Dunscar, and they seem to take a course nearer the coast than formerly. The wash from them is so exceedingly strong that it is wiser to run no risks."

Bathing, therefore, was conducted in small detachments, and though fresh relays went each day to the cove, it took so long to work through the whole school that nobody seemed to have the chance of a second turn. Miss Cavendish, however, was never at a loss. Everyone with the slightest aptitude for drawing was provided with paper and pencil, and taken out to sketch from nature. Those who possessed paint-boxes were encouraged to work in colours, and the head mistress, who had herself no little skill, gave many useful hints on the putting-in of skies and the washing of middle distances. Janie Henderson, who was naturally artistic, and had been accustomed to try her 'prentice hand at home, found herself at a decided advantage, and won more credit in a single week than she had hitherto gained in a whole year at Chessington.

"You've scored tremendously, Janie," said Honor, who revelled in her friend's brief hour of triumph. "Vivian Holmes was most impressed by your sketch of the cliffs. I heard her telling one of the Aldwythites about it. She said you were quite an artist. There, don't blush! I'm particularly rejoiced, because Vivian is so superior, and always does everything so much better than everybody else, and yet her picture wasn't half as good as yours, and she knew it."

"Vivian paints rather well, though."

"Oh, yes, tolerably! But she hasn't your touch. She muddles her greens, and her trees get so treacly! She's not really clever, as you are."

Honor had not brought a paint-box to school, but Janie lent her a brush and a tube of sepia and a china palette that she had to spare, so that she was able to attempt studies in monochrome, if she could not try colour.

"They're horrid daubs," she declared. "I don't pretend to have the least atom of talent; I only drew these because Miss Cavendish said I must. It's art under compulsion."

"Like the man who painted the pictures for some Moorish sultan," said Janie. "I've forgotten the exact facts of the story, but I know he was taken prisoner, and was marched with a long line of other wretched captives to learn his fate. The sultan asked the first on the list: 'Can you paint?' and when he answered 'No', ordered his head to be chopped off. Seven more were asked the same question, and given the same doom. Then, when it came to an Englishman's turn, he said 'Yes', although he knew as much about drawing as the man in the moon. The sultan spared his life, and ordered him to begin at once to decorate the walls of the palace, so he was obliged to try. I believe the pictures are still there, and people go to look at them because they're so extraordinary. I wish I could remember where the place is!"

"I should certainly like to see it," said Honor. "My productions would have been unique. I think I should have represented battle scenes, and put smoke to hide everything, and then have said it was impressionistic! The sultan was as bad as the Queen in Alice in Wonderland, who cried, 'Off with her head!'"

"They're absolute autocrats," said Janie. "I read a story of another who had a pet donkey, and sent for a philosopher and commanded him to teach it to talk. The poor old sage expected his last hour had come, but luckily an idea occurred to him. He said he would do so, but it would take seven years. He thought that in the meantime either the sultan might die, or the donkey might die, or he himself might die."

"And what happened?"

"Oh, I don't know! Like all good stories, it ends there."

"How disappointing! I want to hear the sequel. I suppose the philosopher might have poisoned the donkey."

"Or, perhaps, somebody poisoned the sultan. It was an amiable little way in those days of getting rid of an unpopular monarch. By the by, to go back to the subject of drawing, Miss Cavendish says there's to be an exhibition of all the sketches at the end of the term. They're to be pinned up round the gymnasium, and she'll ask an artist friend to come and judge them, and mark them first, second, and third class. Perhaps she may even set a special competition for a prize."

"You'll win, then, if she does. I'm certain Marjorie Parkes's painting is no better, though the St. Bride's girls have been crowing tremendously over her."

"Don't pin your hopes to me! I'm a broken reed. If I want to do a thing particularly nicely, I never can. All my most successful hits have been made when I wasn't trying."

"Yes, that's often the way. I always say my highest scores at cricket are really flukes. Here's Lettice coming to criticize. Don't look at my sketch, Lettice, it's abominable! You may admire Janie's as much as you like."

"I think you've both been very quick," said Lettice. "I've only drawn in about half of mine yet. But I can generally manage to make a little work go a long way! I came to tell you that it's time to pack up. And I have a piece of good news as well; it has been so much cooler to-day that Miss Cavendish says we may be more enterprising to-morrow. I don't know what's arranged for the other houses, but St. Chad's is down for a botany ramble. Isn't it jolly? I shall like it much better than sketching. Miss Maitland is to take us, and we're to walk along the hills towards Latchfield. There's to be an archery tournament as well, and we may go to that instead, if we like, only we must put our names down to-night. The lists for both will be hung up in the hall. I know which I shall choose."

"So do I," said Janie. "I've never hit the target yet, so it's not much use my entering against Blanche Marsden and Trissie Turner and Sophy Williams. A ramble sounds lovely. Honor, do come! I'm sure you're not keen on bows and arrows!"

"I haven't tried, so I can't tell. A tournament doesn't seem exactly the place, though, to make one's first wild shots, and I've no time even for an hour's practice. If it's to be botany versus archery, I think I'll put my valuable autograph on the side of science."

No one could be more capable of leading a botanical ramble than Miss Maitland. She was a close student of nature, and not only loved plants and flowers herself, but could make them interesting to other people. The beautiful collection of pressed specimens in the school museum was mostly her work, and she was regarded as the best authority on the subject in the College.

"I'm often so glad we're at St. Chad's," said Janie. "Miss Maitland is a thousand times nicer than any of the other house-mistresses. The Hilaryites are very proud of Miss Hulton because she writes for the Scientific World, the Aldwythites plume themselves on Miss Paterson's double first, and the Bridites worship Miss Daubeny since she did that splendid climb in the Alps last summer; but Miss Maitland is so jolly all round, I like her by far the best. Of course, the School House girls say the very cream of Chessington is to be with Miss Cavendish, but I think a head mistress is pleasanter at a distance, one always feels so much in awe of her."

"Yes; I'm afraid I should never feel quite at ease with Miss Cavendish," avowed Honor. "At St. Chad's we seem almost like a big family."

The College stood in the midst of a pretty country, and there was no lack of walks in the neighbourhood. At exactly half-past four on the following afternoon a party of sixteen Chaddites set off under the wing of Miss Maitland, and turned at once in the direction of the woods that led to Latchfield, by a deliciously green and shady path. The warm sun, pouring between the thick leaves, made little radiant patches of golden light among the deep shadows under the trees; the whole air seemed alive with the hum of insects; and here and there rang out the sharp tap of a woodpecker, or the melancholy "coo-coo-coo" of a wild pigeon.

"The birds are generally very silent in such sultry weather," said Miss Maitland. "They sing at dawn and again at sunset, but you hear little of them in the heat of the day. Those doves probably have a nest at the top of that tall ash. I think I can see some sticks among the leaves on that big bough."

Some pieces of honeysuckle twined round the low undergrowth of bushes, and tall foxgloves reared their purple spikes in every small, open glade. The girls gathered these as their first specimens.

"I wonder why they're called foxgloves?" said Lettice. "They've nothing to do with foxes."

"It's simply a corruption of 'good folks' gloves', meaning 'fairies' gloves'," said Miss Maitland. "People gave the plants much more romantic names in olden days than modern scientists do. I confess I like 'Queen of the Meadows' better than Spiræa Ulmaria, and I think 'poor man's weather-glass' a far better description of the scarlet pimpernel than Anagallis arvensis. We shan't find many flowers here, among the trees; but I'm hoping we may come across some orchids when we get on to the moors."

They had been walking uphill all the time, and, as soon as they were clear of the woods, found they had reached a high table-land, covered with pastures, through the midst of which flowed a stream, whose rushy banks were gay with purple loosestrife, Ragged Robin, and yellow spearwort. It was a famous place in which to botanize, and the girls were allowed to disperse and hunt about for specimens, and came back every now and then to show their finds to their teacher.

"Adeline Vaughan is the only one who knows much about the natural orders, or the proper scientific terms," said Lettice. "It seems rather funny, because she's a Londoner, and doesn't belong to the country."

"Country people aren't always the best authorities on the subject," said Miss Maitland. "I know some who go through life with deaf ears and blind eyes, and never hear or see what is all around them. The main thing is to have enthusiasm, and then, it doesn't matter where your home is, you'll manage to enjoy nature, even if it is only at second-hand, from books."

"And there are always the holidays," said Adeline. "We went to Switzerland last August, and I found twenty-seven different specimens just in one walk."

"Before I came to St. Chad's," confessed Lettice, "I used to think daisies were the flowers of grass, and not separate plants—I did indeed!"

"You certainly know better now," laughed Miss Maitland. "We can get so much pleasure from things when we have learnt even a very little about them. Every leaf or blade of grass becomes a marvel, if we begin to examine its structure, and look at it through the microscope. There is nothing so wonderful as the book of nature, and it is always there, ready to entertain us when we wish to read it."

It was much cooler and breezier up on the hills, though even there the air had a sultry feeling, and a dull, heavy haze was creeping up from the sea.

"It looks like thunder," said Miss Maitland. "I should not be surprised if we were to have a storm to-night. We had better turn towards home now; but we'll go back by the cliffs above Sandihove, instead of through the woods."

It was rather a difficult matter to get the girls along, so many interesting discoveries were made on the way—first a patch of pink-fringed buck-bean, growing at the edge of the stream; then a clump of butterfly orchis; and last, but not least, a quantity of the beautiful "Grass of Parnassus", the delicate white blossoms of which were starring the boggy corner of a meadow. Miss Maitland was kept quite busy naming specimens, and everybody had a large bunch of treasures to carry home. Janie Henderson and Adeline Vaughan, being the two chief enthusiasts of the party, walked on either side of the teacher, discussing matters botanical; and the others straggled in little groups behind. Honor found herself walking with Lettice Talbot, who was in a more than usually sprightly frame of mind, bantering and teasing, and turning everything into fun.

"I've learnt the names of so many new flowers," she declared, "that I'm sure I shall get a bad mark for history to-morrow. My brain is small, and only capable of holding a certain amount. When fresh things are put in, out go the old ones, or else I mix them completely up. I shall probably say that Oliver Cromwell was born at Marsh Cinquefoil, and that Charles the First belonged to the family of Ranunculaceæ. Paddy, you look rather glum! What's the matter? Don't you like botany? Or are you longing for your native wilds in Kerry? Is that a surreptitious tear trickling down your cheek?"

"Surreptitious rubbish!" laughed Honor. "I wasn't thinking of anything so romantic. I was looking at that little white village below us, and wondering if it can boast of possessing a shop."

"Then I can satisfy you on that point. It does—a very small shop, where they sell tea, and red herrings, and tinned provisions."

"Do they sell peppermint humbugs, or raspberry drops?"

"I dare say. I believe I remember some big bottles in the window."

"Then let us go and buy some. I haven't had any sweets since I came to St. Chad's. I'm simply yearning for butter-scotch or chocolates!"

"Don't talk of them! So am I! There's only one slight drawback, and that is, that we're not allowed!"

"Why not?"

"How can I say why? It's one of the rules: 'No girl to enter any shop, or make purchases, without special permission from her house-mistress'."

"Then run on and ask Miss Maitland if we may. She's in a particularly good temper tonight, so she'll probably say 'yes'. I have some pennies in my pocket."

"All right. One can but try!" replied Lettice, and hurrying after the teacher, who was a little distance in front, she made her request.

She came back to Honor shaking her head gloomily.

"As I thought!" she announced. "Miss Maitland says 'No'. We're not to pass the shop at all; we're to keep to the upper road that skirts above the village."

"How disgusting!" grumbled Honor. "It would only have taken a minute longer. I'm sure there's no need to be in such a tremendous hurry. Lettice! Suppose we were to dash down this lane, we could go to the village and catch the others up at the crossroads. I can see the path quite plainly from here. We couldn't possibly miss it, and we could run all the way."

"Whew! But how about breaking rules?"

"Bother rules! Miss Maitland shouldn't make so many, and then they'd be better kept. It is ridiculous if girls of our age mayn't walk five yards by themselves. We're not infants in arms!"

Lettice hesitated, glanced to see if anyone in front was looking, or whether anybody was close behind, then yielded to the voice of the temptress.

"It's horribly risky, but it would be a joke!" she said.

Honor was in one of her self-willed moods that evening, ready to dare or do anything. In her heart of hearts she was offended because Janie should have walked on with Adeline and Miss Maitland, and left her behind. She was of a jealous temperament, and had enjoyed keeping her friend as her own private and particular property. It seemed quite a new state of affairs for Janie to be conversing in so animated a manner with anybody but herself, and the change was the reverse of pleasant.

"They're so interested in their talk, they've completely forgotten me!" she thought. "Very well; so much the better! They won't notice what we're doing. I'm not going to keep all these silly regulations. One might be in the nursery, to have to ask leave for such an absurd little thing as buying a pennyworth of sweets."

The two girls ran as fast as they could along the lane, Honor looking reckless and rather stubborn, and Lettice decidedly guilty. It was certainly a most deliberate act of disobedience, and one that, if they were caught, would involve them in very disagreeable consequences. The discipline at Chessington was so perfect that it was seldom any pupil ever dreamt of even questioning a mistress's orders; and Lettice, in her two years at St. Chad's, had never done such a naughty thing before. She felt almost frightened at her own daring, but very excited, and ready to follow Honor to the end of the adventure. They hurried into the little shop and made their purchases as quickly as possible, though the old woman who served them did not understand the meaning of the word "haste", and weighed out butterdrops and caramels with exasperating deliberation. The pair stood by almost dancing with impatience, and when the packets were at last ready, snatched them up and rushed off with all speed.

"This way!" cried Honor, turning sharply to the left through an open gate. "I noticed the path particularly when we were on the hill above, and this is a short cut back to the road."

"It looks as if we were going into an orchard," objected Lettice.

"No; I'm sure I'm right. We shall get out through those apple trees at the top of the bank."

The pathway, however, merely seemed to lead to a field, and ended at a gate that was securely fastened by a piece of wire.

"I believe there's a stile across there," panted Honor, hot and out of breath with running. "Don't bother to undo that wire! We'll climb over. Here, take my hand!"

It was a vain hope. On closer examination the supposed stile proved to be only part of a fence. The meadow was surrounded by a quickset hedge, so thick as to be an insuperable barrier.

"I must have taken the wrong turning, after all," said Honor blankly. "What a fearful nuisance! We shall have to go back."

"It's all very well to say 'go back'!" exclaimed Lettice, turning and clutching at Honor's arm. "Look at what is in front of us!"

Honor stopped short as suddenly as her companion. Directly facing them was a large bull: it had been feeding in the ditch when they entered the field, and thus they had not perceived its presence; but now it had walked across, and was standing exactly opposite the gate, completely cutting off their return to the footpath.

"Perhaps it mayn't be really savage," said Honor, with a slight quiver in her voice. "Shall we walk a little nearer, and see if it takes any notice of us?"

"No! No! Don't!" implored Lettice. "I'm terrified even of cows, and this is a monster. I'm sure it's dangerous—it has a ring in its nose!"

Honor looked round the pasture in dismay. She felt as if they were caught in a trap. How were they to make their escape while that huge beast stood between them and safety?

"We'd better go to the hedge again," she said. "Perhaps there may be some little hole where we can scramble through into the next field."

They beat a cautious retreat, not daring to run from fear that they might attract the bull's attention. But the farmer had mended his fences only too well; they did not find the smallest opening, search as they would.

"What are we to do?" demanded Lettice distractedly. "We can't stay all night in the field, yet if we call for help that creature will come rushing at us. Oh, Honor, look! It's seen us now!"

The bull had certainly become aware of their proximity. It was gazing at them in an uneasy fashion, sniffing the air, and pawing the ground restlessly. It gave a roar like the growling of thunder, and began to walk slowly in their direction. With white faces, the girls backed nearer the fence. Perhaps the heat, or the flies, or the unusual appearance of two strangers in its meadow irritated the animal, for again it gave a loud, rumbling bellow, and, lowering its horns, made straight for the intruders. Shrieking with fright, Honor and Lettice plunged into the hedge, scrambling anyhow through quickset and brambles, scratching their hands and faces and rending their dresses in the struggle, their one object being to escape from the horror behind them. With torn blouses and fingers full of thorns they issued from the opposite side, and rolled down a bank before they were able to stop themselves.

Honor sprang up promptly, and looked anxiously back. Fortunately, the bushes were far too thick and high for the bull to leap over.

"We're quite safe now!" she exclaimed, with a gasp of intense relief.

Lettice, sitting on the bank, indulged in a private little cry. She was very agitated and upset, and was trembling violently.

"I thought we were going to be gored to death," she quavered. "Oh! has it gone away? It's dreadful to feel it's still so near us!"

"We'd better get on as fast as we can, and put another field between it and us," said Honor, pulling her companion to her feet. "There are some hurdles over in that corner that we can climb, and then we shall be absolutely out of danger."

Honor's short cut proved a very long one before the two girls once more found themselves on the high road. There was not a sign of the rest of the party to be seen, so they began to walk home as briskly as their shaken nerves would allow. They had not gone far, however, before they met Miss Maitland, who, with Janie Henderson and Maisie Talbot, had come back to look for them.

"You naughty girls! Where have you been?" the house-mistress exclaimed, in righteous wrath, as the dilapidated pair made a conscience-stricken approach.

There was nothing for it but a full confession, and a very disagreeable ten minutes followed for both. Miss Maitland knew how to maintain discipline, and would not overlook such a flagrant breach of orders.

"I had distinctly forbidden you to go," she said. "I am extremely disappointed, for I thought I could have depended on your sense of honour to behave as well behind my back as if you had been walking in front. You may be most thankful to have escaped from a danger into which your own disobedience led you. I am sorry that our pleasant ramble should have ended so unfortunately; it will be very difficult for me to rely on either of you again."

XII. St. Kolgan's Abbey

"After what happened on Latchfield Moors," remarked Vivian Holmes, one afternoon about a week later, "I think it is extremely good of Miss Maitland to allow Honor Fitzgerald and Lettice Talbot to go to the picnic to-morrow. I shouldn't have been in the least surprised if she had left them both out, and I should certainly have said it served them right."

Vivian was at an age when stern justice appears more attractive than mercy. She kept rules rigidly herself, and had scant patience with those who did not, serving out retribution in her capacity of monitress with an unsparing hand. She was perhaps too hard on prodigals, but her influence and authority undoubtedly did much to maintain the high standard of St. Chad's; and if she were not altogether popular, she was, at any rate, greatly respected.

Honor's last delinquency had placed her more than ever on Vivian's bad list. The monitress considered that it completely cancelled the bathing episode, and regarded "that wild Irish girl" as the black sheep of the house, ready to lead astray such innocent lambs as Lettice Talbot who were impressionable enough to be influenced by her example. Miss Maitland, though grieved at such a relapse from the marked improvement that Honor had shown, was fortunately a better judge of character. She knew that old habits are not overcome all at once, and that it takes many stumblings and fallings and risings again before any human soul can struggle uphill. She did not want Honor to be discouraged, and hoped that if the girl felt herself trusted she would make an effort to be more worthy of confidence.

"I put you on your parole," she said to her. "It would be impossible for me to take you to Baldurstone if I imagined you were capable of a repetition of what occurred last week. I think, however, that I need feel no anxiety on that score."

"I promise faithfully," said Honor, and she meant it.

Vivian's opinions largely led popular feeling, and as Honor did not hold a high place in her estimation, the other Chaddites also, in consequence of the affair on the moors, slightly ostracized "Paddy", letting her understand that they did not altogether approve of her. Lettice Talbot suffered a severe snubbing from her elder sister, in addition to Miss Maitland's censure.

"It was such shockingly bad form!" declared Maisie. "Why, you might have been two little Sunday-school children, running away from your teacher to buy common sweets at a small village shop! I'm utterly ashamed of you. We don't do such things at Chessington. No wonder Miss Maitland was amazed and disgusted. Yes, I know Honor Fitzgerald is listening; I'm very glad, because she'll hear what I think of your fine adventure."

Honor undoubtedly felt much crestfallen to find that what she had regarded as spirited independence was labelled "bad form" at the College. On reflection it struck her that, apart from all rules, it had perhaps been scarcely polite to rush away, in direct opposition to the expressed wishes of one who had been taking so much trouble to make their walk interesting. In common with all the Chaddites, she keenly appreciated both Miss Maitland's personality and her knowledge of nature lore, and had enjoyed the expedition on the hills immensely.

To be left out of the picnic would have been a bitter disappointment. It was the great event of the summer term. Each house took its excursion on a separate day, as Miss Cavendish considered that the whole school made too formidable an invasion for any place. St. Hilary's and St. Aldwyth's had already respectively visited Weyland Castle and Eccleston Woods, and it was now the turn of St. Chad's to choose a destination. Miss Maitland had made a list of several interesting spots, which were well worth seeing, and had put the matter to a general ballot, with the result that by a majority of eight the votes fell in favour of St. Kolgan's Abbey at Baldurstone.

"It's the nicest of all, and Miss Maitland's favourite," announced Lettice.

"I chose it for three reasons," said Honor: "first, because it's the farthest off, and I like to have a long journey; secondly, because we're to go most of the way by steamer, and I love being on the sea; and thirdly, because Flossie Taylor wanted Haselmere Hall."

"What a very intelligent and desirable motive!" sneered Vivian Holmes, who happened to overhear. "You evidently go on the principle of pig philosophy. As a matter of fact, Miss Maitland said she had no preference."

"I was speaking to Lettice," retorted Honor. "I suppose my motives are my own business?"

"Oh, certainly! They're not of the slightest interest to me."

"Vivian's rather snappy this evening," whispered Lettice, as the monitress stalked away. "I believe she voted for Haselmere herself."

"Then I'm doubly glad it's to be Baldurstone. Even if people are monitresses, they've no need to think it's their mission to squash everybody else perpetually. I can hardly make the least remark without Vivian sitting upon me."

"You always answer her back, you see, and she thinks that's cheek in a new girl."

"I'm not new now."

"Yes, you are—you're not through your first term yet. Vivian says it takes a whole year to become a full-blown Chaddite, and until you've thoroughly assimilated Chessington ideas you oughtn't to presume to air outside opinions."

"What bosh!"

"No, it's not bosh. You see, we all think that Chessington is the only girls' school in England, and that St. Chad's is the one house at Chessington. One must keep up the traditions of the place, and it wouldn't do to let every fresh comer take the lead. You'll have to knuckle under, Paddy, and eat humble pie. Vivian has been here for five years—she's simply a 'Chaddite of the Chaddites'. That's why she was chosen monitress. You'll have your chance when you get to the Sixth Form."

"Shall I ever climb so high up in the school? If I were head of the house, though, I'd be rather less hard on new arrivals."

"Oh, no, you wouldn't! By the time you've gone through the mill yourself you'll want to grind everybody else. There's an attraction about the St. Chad's code; you'll like it better when you're more used to it, and when you've forgotten any pettifogging notions you may have brought from anywhere else."

"You're outspoken, at any rate!"

"Certainly! I believe in plain, unvarnished truths."

Honor had already discovered that fact, and also the further one that whatever a girl's position might be at home, it made no difference to her standing at the College, where each was judged solely and entirely on her own merits. She had once unfortunately alluded with a touch of pride to her family pedigree, but she rued her mistake in a moment, for Vivian, with uplifted eyebrows, had enquired in a tone of cutting contempt: "Who are the Fitzgeralds?"

A large public school is indeed a vast democracy, and members are estimated only by the value they prove themselves to be to the commonweal: their private possessions and affairs matter little to the general community, but their examination successes, cricket scores, or tennis championships are of vital importance. All, to use an old phrase, must find their own level, and establish a record for themselves apart from home belongings. Honor was beginning to realize that among two hundred girls she was a mere unit, and that her opinions and prejudices counted as nothing against the enormous weight of universal custom. It was quite a new aspect of life, so new that she was not sure whether she liked or disliked it; although, if she had been given her choice of remaining at the College or returning to the old, slipshod, do-as-you-please régime of her schoolroom at Kilmore, she would have decided most emphatically, despite strict rules, scoldings, snubs, and unwelcome truths, in favour of Chessington.

Nobody wished to lie in bed on the morning of the picnic; even Honor, to whom early rising was still one of the greatest banes of existence, actually woke up before the bell rang, and had the triumph of rousing her sleeping companion, a reversal of the customary order of things that afforded her much satisfaction.

"It's delightful to think that St. Chad's is going off for a jaunt, while all the other houses will have lessons just as usual," she remarked. "I'm sure I shall enjoy it twice as much when I think of Christina Stanton and Mary Nicholls toiling through equations and physics."

"It will be their turn to chuckle next week, when St. Bride's has its holiday," said Janie. "You'll feel rather blue then."

"No, I shan't—not if we've had our fun first. I shall turn philosophical, and say: 'You can't eat your cake and have it', and 'Every dog has his day', or any other little platitude I can think of. In the meantime, it's our day, and I'm glad to see it's a particularly fine one."

At precisely nine o'clock, just when the rest of the Chessingtonians were filing into classes, the Chaddites were assembled in the quadrangle, and at a signal from Miss Maitland started off, two and two, to walk to Dunscar, where they were to catch the steamer to Avonmouth, the nearest point for Baldurstone. Everything seemed delightful—the brisk march in the fresh morning air, the bright sunshine, the glinting, sparkling sea, the foam churned up by the steamer's revolving screw, the cries of the seagulls, and the steady motion of the vessel as she headed out of the bay. The breeze in the Channel was exhilarating, and so cool as to make the girls appreciate Miss Maitland's wisdom in having insisted upon all bringing wraps.

"I thought it seemed as foolish as carrying one's winter fur and muff on a broiling day like this," commented Lettice, "but I really think I should have been cold without my coat. It's marvellous what an enormous difference there is when you get well away from land."

Lunch was taken on the steamer, and they did not arrive at Avonmouth until half-past one. They were landed in small boats, for there was no pier, and vessels of any considerable size could not cross the harbour bar. Miss Maitland counted up her forty pupils as they stood on the jetty—a precaution that seemed more of a formality than a necessity, as everyone had taken good care not to be left behind.

"We have exactly three and a half hours here," she said. "The steamer will be back at five o'clock. That gives us plenty of time to walk to the Abbey, and enjoy the ruins. I have ordered tea to be ready for us as soon as we return on board. We shall be very hungry by then, I'm afraid, but there is nowhere to buy refreshments in this tiny place."

Avonmouth was, indeed, only a little fishing village, composed of an irregular row of cottages, huddled together on the beach, and a small, not-too-clean inn, which looked as if it would be quite incapable of providing even seats for a party of forty-three, to say nothing of cups and saucers.

"We're such an army!" said Vivian. "If we were to have tea here we should clear the whole place of provisions. I don't suppose there'd be enough milk and bread and butter to go round."

"Couldn't they have been ordered beforehand?" asked Lettice, who had a leaning towards picnic meals. "We might have sat on the grass outside the inn."

"Yes, no doubt. But suppose the day had been wet and we hadn't come, then all the things would have been wasted. A steamer is generally prepared to cater for any number of people."

St. Kolgan's Abbey stood about two miles from the village, on a headland overlooking the sea. It was a steady toil uphill the whole way, but the glorious view at the top was ample reward for the hot climb between high walls. The beautiful old ruin faced the Channel, and commanded a wide prospect of blue waves, flecked here and there with little, foamy crests.

"I wonder if that's the coast of Ireland, on the other side?" remarked Honor, shading her eyes with her hand to gaze over the dancing water.

"I'm afraid the wish is father to the thought," said Ruth Latimer. "I don't honestly see anything that can possibly be construed into a distant coast line, and I've about as long sight as anybody in the school. Don't you want to come and listen to Miss Maitland? She's going to tell us a story about St. Kolgan, who founded this place."

Honor followed to the corner of the fallen transept, where Miss Maitland was installed on a fragment of broken column. The girls, in various attitudes of comfort, had flung themselves on the grass within earshot, prepared to listen lazily while revelling in the calm, tranquil beauty and the old-world atmosphere of the scene. It seemed so peaceful, so far removed from the bustle and noise of our hurrying, pushing age, that they could almost throw their minds back through the centuries, and imagine they heard the vesper bell tolling from the tower overhead, and the slow footfalls of the monks pacing round the cloister to those carved seats in the choir of which the very remains were so exquisite.

"Yes, Baldurstone is a wonderful spot," began Miss Maitland. "I don't believe any place in the neighbourhood has older traditions. St. Kolgan was a British saint, and his legend has come down to us from the very earliest times. You know that there was a thriving and orthodox Celtic Church in Britain long before St. Augustine's 'introduction' of Christianity—a Church that was so important and vigorous that it contributed three bishops to the Council of Arles in a.d. 314, and several to the Council of Nicæa in 325, thus showing that it formed a part of united Christendom. It sent missionaries both to Ireland, where St. Patrick preached the Faith, and to Scotland, where St. Ninian spread Christian teaching in the north. Then came the invasion of the heathen Norsemen, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes of history, who burnt and plundered every sanctuary they could find, slaying the priests at the altars, destroying both prelates and people, and forcing the Britons to take refuge in the woods and mountains. Though driven westward, the Celtic Church did not perish, and every now and then some devoted monk would try to establish himself among the worshippers of Thor and Odin. Such a mission was extremely dangerous, for so intense was the hatred of the pagan conquerors for the religion of the New Testament that it was almost impossible for a Christian teacher to show himself among them and live.

"At about the beginning of the seventh century, when the Saxons had spread so far westward as Dunscar and Avonmouth, and were practically masters of all the country round, a monk called Kolgan came over from Ireland with a little band of brethren, and prevailed upon Osric, the chief, or 'under king', of the district, to allow him to settle at Baldurstone. Those Celtic pioneers built a small monastery, and worked very earnestly among the people, some of whom they persuaded to become adherents of the Cross. Osric, though a pagan himself, tolerated them for the sake of his British wife, Toura, and for a while they went unmolested. When Osric died, however, the chiefdom fell to Wulfbert, a fierce warrior, who was determined to annihilate by fire and bloodshed any faith that had taken root among his subjects. In daily peril of their lives, Kolgan and his monks stayed on, knowing that if they deserted their post the last light of Christianity in the district would flicker out. One day a cowherd, who had been cured of a dangerous wound at the little settlement, came running to warn the brethren that Wulfbert and a band of armed men were advancing against them; and he besought them at once to flee into the woods. Kolgan marshalled his trembling companions, and, giving them the altar vessels to carry into a place of safety, sent them straightway to seek refuge in the vast forest that stretched ever northward and westward beyond the dominion of the Saxons.

"He himself was determined to remain. He knew that many of those who were coming with Wulfbert had, in Osric's time, been converts, either openly or secretly, of the Church; and he hoped, even at the eleventh hour, that he might recall their lost allegiance. Alone, with a cross uplifted in his hand, he stood at the door of the monastery to meet the Norsemen. The fierce band paused in amazement at the sight of his temerity; it was something those savage men had not known before. The swift rush through the battlefield of the warrior who hoped by slaughter to gain Valhalla, they could understand; but this calm courage in the face of death was beyond their experience. Kolgan seized the opportunity of the moment's respite to appeal to them in the name of the Trinity, and thundered out a denunciation against those who forsook the Faith. A few trembled, but Wulfbert, rallying his ranks, cried: 'Cowards! Are ye afraid of the empty words of an unarmed priest?' and rushing forward, he struck the first blow with his battle-axe.

"Kolgan fell where he stood, the little settlement was plundered and ravaged, and for the time it seemed as though his work had been of no avail. But brighter days were in store for the Church; slowly and gradually Christianity had begun to spread, not only from Celtic, but from Saxon sources, and before many years were past Wulfbert himself had accepted baptism. The monastery was by his special desire rebuilt in honour of St. Kolgan, and became afterwards one of the greatest centres of learning in the west country. For nine hundred years it flourished, till at last it was suppressed in the reign of Henry VIII, and the buildings, untended and neglected, fell into the state that we see now."

"And is this actually the place built by Wulfbert?" asked Ruth Latimer.

"Oh, no! That must have been a very rude and primitive erection; probably it had wattled walls, and a thatched roof. The Abbey was reconstructed more than once, and the present ruins are the remains of fourteenth-century work."

"What a shame that it should have been destroyed!" said Dorothy Arkwright.

"Yes and no. One much regrets the ruin of so lovely a place, but the monks had grown idle and self-indulgent, and were as different from the founders of their order as could well be imagined. The old, self-sacrificing spirit had passed away; and the days were gone, too, when the monastery had stood as the sole centre of light in a dark age, at once the substitute for school, college, hospital, and alms-house, as well as the home of painting, literature, music, and all the refined arts. When any custom or institution, however beautiful, becomes effete, the ruthless hand of progress sweeps it away, and supplants it with something else, leaving us only ivy-covered ruins to show us what our forefathers loved and valued."

"How grand St. Kolgan was!" said Vivian. "I think it was simply splendid the way he stood at the door and braved the Saxons!"

"Yes; but to me the truest part of his heroism was not his death, but his life. It needed far greater self-denial and true courage to spend each day in trying to teach a wild and hostile people, making long and fatiguing journeys, and suffering the loss of every joy that earth could offer him, than it did to summon up the supreme spirit to meet martyrdom. It is just the same in most of our lives," continued Miss Maitland, with a glance in Honor's direction; "it takes more real and strenuous effort to do plain, ordinary things, obeying rules and keeping our tempers, than one occasional very brave thing; and, though I would not for a moment depreciate the latter, I think that in the aggregate the others are of greater importance. Anybody, however, who can do a courageous deed is capable of living up to it every day, and thus rising to a still higher level. We must consider ourselves as failures unless we are trying to develop the very best that is in us."

When Miss Maitland and the girls had dispersed to explore the ruins more thoroughly, Honor lay still on the grass, gazing hard at the wide, shining expanse of sea. Janie stayed too, and sat abstractedly plucking daisy-heads and pulling them to pieces, or crumbling little pieces of mortar from the wall. For a long time neither spoke.

"I believe Miss Maitland was having a shot at me," said Honor at last; "only, I don't understand exactly what she meant."

"I do," returned Janie. "She thinks that you're capable of very much more than ordinary people."

"I can't imagine why!"

"Because it's in you. You've brains, and pluck, and 'go', and all kinds of things that other folks haven't. You might do such a splendid amount in the world some day!"

"I, my dear girl!" cried Honor in amazement. "Why, I'm sure I'm not up to much!"

"You could be, if you tried."

"There are some things that aren't possible, however hard one tries. I can no more be really and truly good than you could win the Atalanta race at the sports!"

The colour flushed into Janie's thin cheeks. Her lack of physical prowess was sometimes rather a sore subject to her. Though she did not enjoy games, she would, nevertheless, have dearly liked the credit of excelling in them. For a moment or two she did not reply. She was considering hard, and making up her mind on a difficult point. When she spoke, it was with a touch of diffidence and hesitation in her voice.

"Suppose I could win the 'Atalanta', would you think it possible to be what Miss Maitland wants you?"

"Indeed, I'd think anything possible!" replied Honor, with more truth than politeness.

"Then shall we make it a bargain—if I win the race, you're going to try your very hardest?"

"Turn over a new leaf, in fact?"

"Yes."

"All right; I've no objection. I should like to see you flying round the quad!"

"And I should like to see you doing other things! Will you promise, then?"

"On my honour, if you want."

"Very well. Give me something as a pledge."

"You can have this small compass," said Honor, rummaging in her pocket. "It's rather a treasure. Brian brought it me from Switzerland, and it's made of agate."

"All the better, because you'll want to have it back. I'll give you my silver fruit-knife, which I'm equally loath to part with. We must each keep each other's token until after the sports."

"And then?"

"Ah! that remains to be seen," said Janie, as she rose and strolled leisurely away.

All the Chaddites agreed that the visit to Baldurstone was one of the most interesting excursions they had ever taken, and that the ruins were the most picturesque in the neighbourhood, far exceeding Weyland Castle, favoured by the Hilaryites; and Clayton House, the destination of St. Bride's. The memory of their delightful day was sufficient to carry them through the ordeal of recapitulation that always preceded the examinations, necessitating an extra half-hour of preparation in the evenings, and, as Lettice described it, "concentrating one's unfortunate brains to absolute splitting point".

Whether Lettice's mental exertions were sufficient to bring her to such an unhappy crisis was a question on which her class mistress might have expressed some doubt, though she herself thought she had proof conclusive one afternoon during the week following the picnic. She ran in from the grounds in quite a state of excitement, and hailed a group of friends assembled in the recreation room.

"Girls!" she exclaimed, "I've seen a vision, a most extraordinary and peculiar sight! You wouldn't believe what it was! I happened to be at the bottom of the garden, and in that quiet path behind the laundry I actually saw Janie Henderson tearing up and down, as if she were doing the last spurt of a Marathon."

"Janie Henderson! Impossible!" cried everybody.

"Just what I said. I rubbed my eyes, and came to the conclusion that I'd been overstudying, and must be suffering from a delusion. Do I look queer?"

"Not in the least; your cheeks are as red as peonies."

"Well, my eyesight must be defective, then, for I certainly thought I saw her."

"You've been dreaming!"

"It's about as likely as seeing Miss Cavendish performing with a skipping rope."

"Yes, it's absurd on the face of it. It must have been somebody else."

"A case of mistaken identity."

"There are heaps of girls the same height, and with long, light hair."

"No doubt. I was a fairly good distance off too. And yet," added Lettice to herself, as she went to change her cricket shoes, "I verily believe it was Janie Henderson, after all!"

XIII. Miss Maitland's Window

While the weather continued to be so hot and close, Miss Maitland allowed the girls to spend their evening recreation in the garden, so that they might have a blow of fresh, cool air before they went to bed. They enjoyed sitting under the trees with books or fancy work, though as a rule their tongues wagged so fast that there was little display of industry with their needles.

"I hate sewing," confessed Honor, "and it's no use pretending I like it."

"This piece of embroidery has lasted me three terms, and it isn't finished yet," said Maisie Talbot, leisurely snipping off a thread, and pausing before she chose another piece of silk.

"I don't have to look at my knitting," said Chatty Burns; "but then, I'm Scotch, and every Scotchwoman knits."

"You're getting on so fast, it will do for me as well," said Honor, lying comfortably on the grass with her hands clasped under her head, and watching Chatty's rapidly growing stocking. "It's a 'work of supererogation', and that always leaves a little virtue over, to count for somebody else."

"I didn't say I'd hand the extra merit on to you," retorted Chatty.

"You can't help it. If there's so much to spare it must go somewhere, and I'm the idlest person; it will naturally fly to make up my deficiencies."

"What a fallacious argument!" declared Maisie.

"Do you know," interrupted Ruth Latimer, "that it's exactly a fortnight on Friday to the end of the term?"

"Know! I should think we do know!" replied Lettice. "I expect each one of us is counting the days, and longing for the time to come, if I'm any sample of the rest of the school. I say, 'One more day gone', every night when I get into bed."

"It's glorious to think the breaking-up is so near," said Pauline Reynolds. "What are you all going to do in the holidays?"

"We're starting for the Tyrol at the beginning of August," said Ruth. "We want to have a walking tour. We shall leave our heavy luggage at Botzen, and then tramp off up the mountains with just a few things in knapsacks on our backs, and stop at chalets and little inns ('guest-houses', as they are called there) on the way. We shall feel most delightfully free, because we can go any distance we like, and shall not be bound to arrive at any special place by any special time. That's the beauty of a walking tour."

"How far can you go in a day?" asked Honor.

"It just depends. If one is in the hot valleys, quite a short distance knocks one up; but when one gets the real mountain air, one can march along without feeling the least scrap tired. I once did twenty miles in Switzerland, but that's my record."

"And a pretty good one," said Pauline, "particularly as one oughtn't to reckon miles in Switzerland; one counts mountain climbing in hours."

"Yes, I've sometimes been deer-stalking at home," said Chatty, "and it's a very different affair toiling uphill over the heather from walking on a flat road. We're not going away this summer. Father has taken some extra shooting, and we're to have a big house-party instead. It's great fun! I like helping to carry the lunch in the little pony trap on to the moors; and we have jolly times in the evening—games, and music, and dancing. Have your people settled any plans yet, Pauline?"

"They talk of Norway. It would be glorious to see the midnight sun, and the lovely pine forests. I've wanted to go ever since I read Feats on the Fiord."

"You won't find it so romantic as that," laughed Ruth Latimer. "Things have changed since the time Harriet Martineau wrote about it. There are no pirates nowadays, to try to kidnap bishops and burn farms. You might, perhaps, find Rolf's wonderful cave, but I'm sure there isn't a peasant left who believes in the water sprite, and the Mountain Demon, and Nipen, and all the rest of the spirits of which Erica was so afraid."

"Perhaps not; but the country's just as beautiful, and I shall see the fiords, if I haven't any adventures there. I didn't say I wanted to meet pirates among the islands; on the whole, I should prefer their room to their company."

"Well, I wish you just one adventure, to keep up the element of romance. Perhaps your boatman will row you into the middle of the fiord, and demand your purse before he consents to take you back to the vessel; or you may be shipwrecked on a sunken rock, and left stranded in the Arctic Circle, dependent on the hospitality of the Laplanders!"

"No, thanks! I believe their tents are disgustingly dirty. I hope I may see a Lapp settlement, all the same, and also a few seals. I'm afraid a whale, or an iceberg, is too much to expect."

"Where are you going, Lettice?" enquired Chatty.

"Nowhere in particular, unless Maisie and I are asked to our aunt's. But we shall have jolly fun at golf and tennis. When one has been at school the whole term, one likes to be at one's own home, and to meet all one's friends again. It feels such ages since one saw them."

"Yes; the middle part of the term always seems to drag dreadfully, and then the last comes with a rush, and the exams. are on before one knows what one is doing."

"Don't talk of exams!" cried Pauline. "I expect I shall fail in every single one. I'm completely mixed up in chemistry, and I never can remember dates and names properly. My history paper will be a series of dashes: 'War with France was renewed in ——, when the English gained the decisive battle of ——, in which the Prince —— was slain and the Duke of —— taken prisoner. By the Treaty of —— a truce was concluded', &c."

"Perhaps Miss Farrar will think it's a guessing competition," remarked Honor.

"I dare say she will. I wish we needn't have exams., or marks, or any horrid things, to show whether we've done well or badly."

"I can get on tolerably with facts," said Lettice, "but I'm always marked 'weak' for composition. Miss Farrar says I use tautology and repeat myself, and that my grammar is shaky and my general style poor. She told me to take Macaulay as a model, but I can no more copy other people's ways of writing than I could improve my features by staring at the Venus de Medici."

"Poor old Salad! You're not cut out for an authoress."

"I'm certainly not; I'd rather be a charwoman! I don't aspire to be editress of the school magazine, I assure you, nor even a contributor. By the way, Honor, why don't you send something? I'm sure you could."

"I did think of it," replied Honor. "I was going to make a nice little series of acrostics on all of your names. I did one about Chatty, and showed it to Janie; but she said that it was far too slangy, and Vivian would never pass it, so I tore it up, and felt too squashed to go on."

"Oh! what was it?" exclaimed the girls. "Can't you remember it?"

"I'll try. I believe it went this way:

"C hatty Burns is just a ripper!

H air's the colour of a kipper;

A nd her face so round and red is

T hat you'd think her cheeks were cherries.

T hough we often call her 'Fatty',

Y ou depend we're nuts on Chatty."

"What a shame!" cried the indignant original of the acrostic. "My hair's auburn, it's not the colour of a kipper!"

"We certainly call you 'Fatty', though," laughed Lettice. "I think the poem is lovely!"

"It's a good thing you tore it up, all the same," said Ruth. "Vivian would have been simply horrified. We have a crusade against slang at Chessington, and 'ripper' is one of the words absolutely vetoed. We only say 'jolly' by stealth."

"I'm sure 'jolly' ought to be allowable. I saw it in a book in the library: 'as jolly as a sandboy', was the expression."

"What is a sandboy?" asked Lettice. "The phrase is always quoted as the high-water mark of bliss."

"I've never been able to find out," said Ruth. "I suppose it's either one of those wretched little urchins who dive for pennies, or an ordinary donkey boy. But this is what Miss Farrar calls 'a digression from the subject'. I want to hear if Honor has written any more acrostics."

"I made one on Lillie Harper," replied Honor. "It had an illustration, too, done very badly, in just a few crooked strokes, like little children draw:

"L illie is a dab at cricket;

I depict her at the wicket.

L ook how tight her bat she's grasping,

L eaving all the fielders gasping!

I have done this sketch in woggles,

E specially to show her goggles.

"It ought to have the picture to really explain it," said Honor regretfully; "I'm sorry now that I tore it up. I began a piece on the exams. too; it was a parody of 'The boy stood on the burning deck', but I can't get beyond the first verse:

"The girl sat at the hard, bare desk,

Whence all but she had fled;

Her fingers they were stained with ink,

And aching was her head."

"Oh, go on! It would be so nice!"

"It's impossible to think of any more."

"The time rolled on, she could not go

Without her teacher's word,"

improvised Ruth.

"That teacher, taking tea below,

Her sighs no longer heard,"

finished Honor. "Only, Miss Farrar wouldn't be taking tea in the middle of an exam. No, it can't be done!"

"Then we must put 'To be continued'," said Ruth.

"Make another acrostic, Paddy!" urged Lettice.

"Acrostics are too hard, because one is hampered by keeping to the letters of the girls' names," objected Honor. "Limericks are much easier. How would this do for Vivian Holmes?—

"There was a head girl of St. Chad's,

Who was subject to fancies and fads;

When we tried to talk slang,

She declared it was wrong,

And said she considered us cads."

"Good!" laughed Ruth. "Only, of course, Vivian wouldn't dream of using such a word as 'cad'. Now, I've got one about you:

"There's a girl at our house we call 'Paddy':

She's not 'goody-goody', but 'baddy';

She loves practical jokes,

Or to play us a hoax,

Though we tell her such tricks are not 'Chaddy'."

"Very well, Miss Ruth Latimer! I'll return the compliment," said Honor. "How do you like this?—

"There's a girl at our house who's called Ruth:

She is fond of an unpleasant truth;

She says she is seeking

To practise plain speaking,

But we think she is merely uncouth."

"I don't mind in the least," declared Ruth; "in fact, I'm rather flattered than otherwise."

"Make one about Maisie or me," implored Lettice. "You can say as nasty things as you want."

"Nothing could possibly rhyme with Lettice," announced Honor after a moment's cogitation, "or with Salad either. I might do better with Maisie. Let me see—crazy, hazy, daisy, lazy—I think those are all. Will this suit you?—

"There's a girl in this garden called Maisie;

At lessons she's horribly lazy,

But she's splendid at sports,

And at games of all sorts,

While o'er cricket she waxes quite crazy."

"What are you all laughing at?" enquired Flossie Taylor, sauntering up to join the group, and taking a seat on the grass.

"Limericks. Honor is winding them off by the yard. Now, Paddy, let us have one about Flossie! Quick, while your genius is burning!"

"It's only flickering," laughed Honor, "but I'll try:

"There's a girl at St. Chad's who's named Flossie;

She tries to be terribly 'bossy',

She sets us all straight

(Which is just what we hate),

And makes us exceedingly cross(y)."

"Oh, what a fearfully lame rhyme!" said Lettice.

"I know it is, but I couldn't think of any other word. If you're offended, Flossie, you can go away."

"I'm not silly enough to care about such trifles," replied Flossie loftily.

"You've quite left out Janie," said Lettice, "and there she is sewing all the time, and as usual never offering a single remark. Janie Henderson, why don't you talk?"

"You don't give me a chance to put in a word," protested Janie. "Perhaps I'm like the proverbial parrot, which couldn't talk, but thought all the more."

"You mean that I do the talking, and not the thinking?"

"I didn't say so."

"But you implied it. You deserve a horrid Limerick, and I shall make one myself. Wait a moment, while I rack my brains. Oh, now I've got it!—

"Miss Henderson, otherwise Jane,

May think very hard with her brain,

But it never comes out,

So she leaves us in doubt

If there are any thoughts to explain.

"There! You can't retaliate, because, as Honor says, there isn't a rhyme for Lettice."

"It's a good thing, for we might get too personal," interposed Chatty. "I think we've been over the margin of politeness as it is. Suppose we change the subject. Do you know, the honey dew is dropping from this lime tree overhead and making my knitting needles quite sticky!"

"It would be a lovely tree to climb, the boughs are so regular," said Honor, gazing into the green heights above.

"I don't believe I could go up a tree if a mad bull were after me," asserted Pauline. "I should just collapse at the bottom, and be gored to death, I know I should!"

"It isn't difficult," declared Honor. "You've only to catch hold of the branches, and keep swinging yourself a little higher. I've climbed ever so many trees in our garden at home."

"I should like to see you do it here, then."

"Very well! I'll show you, if you don't believe me."

The lime tree in question stood close to the house—so near, in fact, that some of its boughs brushed the windows. Miss Cavendish had several times decided to have it cut down, thinking it interfered with the light; but Miss Maitland had always begged that it might be spared a little longer, saying she loved its cool shade.

Honor swung herself quite easily from branch to branch, while the group of girls below watched her with admiration.

"You look like a middy going up the main-mast," said Ruth.

"Or a monkey at the Zoo," added Lettice.

"That's the voice of jealousy," remarked Chatty. "Lettice is green with envy because she can't do it herself."

"A squirrel would be a happier simile," suggested Ruth.

An Unlucky Escapade

"She's getting along very quickly," said Pauline.

Half-way up the tree Honor paused and looked down.

"Hallo!" she cried, "I'm just by Miss Maitland's study. I shall go in, and pay her a call. Ta-ta!" and she disappeared suddenly through the open window.

"What will Miss Maitland say if she's there?" exclaimed Lettice.

"I don't believe she'd be cross," said Maisie. "She'd be amused to see anybody come in so funnily."

Honor was absent only about a minute, then her beaming face peeped from the window once more.

"Miss Maitland's not at home," she announced. "I've left my card with the footman, and said I'd call again another day, in my aeroplane. Keep out of the way down there—I'm coming!" and down she came, with a rush and a scramble, arriving quite safely, however, with only her hair ribbon untied and her hands a little grazed.

"You see, it's really a very easy matter," she explained; "we do far harder things in the gym."

"Can you find a good foothold?" asked Flossie.

"Oh, yes! There are heaps of places that seem made on purpose to put your toe in. It's almost like a ladder."

"Here's Vivian!" said Chatty. "I'm afraid she's come to call us in."

"What a nuisance! I don't want to go to bed."

Chatty had accurately guessed the monitress's errand.

"It's nearly nine o'clock," proclaimed Vivian. "Didn't you hear the bell? I rang it at the side door."

"We didn't hear a sound," replied Lettice. "But then, we were all laughing so much. Honor Fitzgerald has just been climbing the lime tree, and she went right through the window into the study."

"Honor Fitzgerald is a hoyden, then," said Vivian. "And what business had she to go inside Miss Maitland's room? It was a piece of great impertinence."

"I'm sorry I told you," said Lettice ruefully.

"I wish Vivian could have heard the verse you made about her!" whispered Pauline to Honor. "Is hoyden a dictionary word, or not? I'm afraid I should have said 'cheek' instead of impertinence, but I'm not a monitress."

The girls had entered the dressing-room, and were putting away books and sewing materials in their lockers, when Maisie exclaimed:

"Oh, what a bother! I've left my work-basket on the grass. It was open, too, and if there's a heavy dew my scissors and crewel needles will be covered with rust. Lettice, do go and fetch it for me!—there's just time."

Lettice was so accustomed to wait upon her elder sister that she did not even remonstrate, but turned straightway and ran into the garden to fetch the lost property. It had grown suddenly very dusk, almost dark. The lime tree stood out tall and black by the side of the house, and the bushes were dense masses of shadow. Lettice had to grope for the basket, but found it at last, and began to retrace her steps along the hardly-discernible path. She was about twenty yards away from the lime tree when a slight noise made her look back, and she noticed the figure of a girl swinging herself down by the branches in the same way as Honor had done. Whoever it was alighted on the ground gently, and rushed off into the bushes before Lettice could see her face, though it would have been too dark, in any case, to distinguish her features. It was all done very quickly, and so silently that, except for the first sound, there was scarcely a rustle.

Lettice was in a great hurry, and did not stop to make any investigation; indeed, she did not trouble to give the matter a thought. It seemed a trifling little incident, not even worth mentioning to the others; yet it was one that she was to remember afterwards, in view of certain events that followed, for it was destined to make a link in the strangest chain of circumstances that ever occurred at St. Chad's.

XIV. A Stolen Meeting

Honor had hurried with the other girls from the garden, laughing and joking as she went, and was almost in the act of running into the house when quite unexpectedly something happened, something utterly amazing and out of the common, and which was to be fraught with entirely unlooked-for consequences. As she put her foot on the first of the steps that led to the side door a figure moved silently from under the shade of a lilac bush close by, and, tapping her upon the arm, drew her aside with a whispered "Sh-sh!"

Honor suppressed an exclamation of astonishment, and, peering through the dusk to see who thus accosted her, recognized Annie, an under-housemaid who had only lately come to St. Chad's.

"I've been waiting to catch you alone, miss," whispered the girl, "and a difficult matter it's been too. I didn't dare speak to you before the other young ladies. I'm to give you this letter, safe into your own hand. I'd never have done it if I hadn't promised so faithful—it's almost as much as my place is worth!"

"What is it? Who sent it?" asked Honor, taking the note.

"It's from one of the young gentlemen at Orley Grange, and I was to be sure you got it secretly. Put it in your pocket, miss, and run indoors! I must be off to the kitchen," and without another word Annie turned and fled, as if relieved to have accomplished her errand. Full of curiosity, Honor entered the house. The clock had not yet struck nine, so, seeing that the light was on in the dressing-room, she peeped inside. Fortunately, nobody was there, and she was able to go in and read her letter free from all observation. Its contents appeared to occasion her no little perplexity and dismay, for she knitted her brows and shook her head as she replaced the envelope in her pocket. She went, however, to the recreation room, where the rest of the girls were assembled waiting for the bell that always rang to proclaim bedtime; but she was in such an absent and abstracted frame of mind that several of her friends noticed and remarked upon it.

"What's wrong with Paddy?" asked Lettice. "She's shut up suddenly, like an oyster. I can't get a word out of her."

"I can't imagine," said Pauline. "I spoke to her just now, and she didn't seem to hear me."

"It's most unlike her," commented Ruth. "She generally goes to bed with so many jokes and parting shots."

To-night Honor walked upstairs with unwonted staidness and gravity. She went quietly into her cubicle and drew the curtain, and answered so briefly when her room-mate spoke to her that the latter was almost offended.

"Perhaps she's only tired though," thought Janie charitably. "This hot weather is enough to wear anybody out. I don't always care to talk myself."

Janie was certainly not a girl to push conversation where it was evidently not wanted, so the pair undressed in absolute silence. From Honor's cubicle came sounds that suggested that its occupant was fumbling with a key and unlocking a box, but as she did not volunteer any explanation, her room-mate made no comments. When Vivian arrived at half-past nine to switch out the light, both girls were in bed.

Next morning Janie woke suddenly just as the grey dawn was growing strong enough to show faintly the various objects that were in the room. Some unusual noise had disturbed her, and she lay listening intently. She could hear stealthy movements in the next cubicle, and wondering what her friend was doing, she popped out of bed and peeped round the curtain. There was Honor, fully dressed, and in the act of putting on her hat.

"What's the matter?" asked Janie anxiously. "Honor! where are you going?"

"I hoped I shouldn't waken you," replied Honor in a whisper. "Hush! Don't talk loud, because with all the windows so wide open the girls in No. 6 can hear quite plainly when we speak in this room."

"All right. But do tell me why you're getting up at this extraordinary hour?" said Janie, in a subdued tone.

"I'm in a dreadful fix! I must meet Dermot down on the beach soon after five o'clock."

"Meet Dermot! Your brother? But why?"

"He's in such a scrape, and I have to get him out of it."

"How do you know?"

"One of the servants slipped this note into my hand last night, as we came in from the garden. You can read it if you like."

Janie took the letter, which was written in a scrawling, boyish hand on a piece of paper apparently torn out of an exercise-book. It ran thus:—

"Orley Grange,

"Tuesday.

"Dear Honor,

"I am in the most awful row, and if I can't get a sovereign by to-morrow morning I shall be done for. I owe it to Blake. I haven't time to tell you the whole affair, but I have been an absolute idiot. Blake wants the money, and he's a mean sneak. He says if I don't pay up he'll let on about something that I'm trying to keep dark. He really means it, too, and if it gets to the Head's ears I shall be expelled. Can you possibly lend me anything? I'd have written to the Mater, but I hear she has one of her bad attacks, so it wouldn't do to upset her. As for the governor, he'd be furious if he knew. He told me last term that if I ran into debt I needn't trust to him to get me out of it, for he wouldn't stir a finger to help me, and would give me a thrashing for my pains. He must not know on any account. It is of no use writing to Brian or the others, because it is so near the end of the term they're sure to have no money left. Have you spent all yours? I am going to get up before five o'clock to-morrow and climb out through the dormitory window, and go along the shore to the beach below Chessington, just by your bathing-place. Can you manage to do the same, and bring me any cash you can gather? Perhaps Blake might take something on account, if you haven't the whole. The janitor has promised to go with this letter to St. Chad's; he says he thinks he can get it smuggled in through his niece, who is a servant there. But he won't have time to wait for an answer, so the only way to give me the money is to meet me on the shore. I am awfully sorry to have to ask you to do this, but it is the one chance I have left, and if you knew what a hole I am in I think you would be sorry for me. I must stop now. The bell is ringing.

"Your loving brother,

"Dermot."

"Oh, Honor! Are you going?"

"Of course I am. I wouldn't fail Dermot at such a pinch. Luckily I have the money too. I shall let myself out by the dressing-room window, and climb over the fence at the end of the cricket field. It won't take very long. I shall be back before any of the servants are stirring."

"But it's such a frightfully risky thing! Suppose you were caught, you'd certainly get into a scrape."

"I shall have to take the risk. Dermot will get into a far worse scrape if I don't go. I couldn't bear to think of him waiting for me on the shore, and finding I never came. Hush, Janie! Please don't ask me any more. I've made up my mind."

Honor had put on her tennis shoes, and now stole very softly out of the room and down the passage. Janie went to bed again, though certainly not to sleep. She heard the stairs creak, and wondered if anyone else were awake in the house, and would notice the compromising sound.

"Oh, dear! What is to be done?" she thought anxiously. "It's fearfully naughty of Honor, yet I sympathize with her wanting to help Dermot. I believe I should have gone myself, if I'd had a brother of my own in trouble. Major Fitzgerald must be a very stern man; they both seem too frightened of him to tell anything, and their poor mother is so ill she mustn't be disturbed. I'm sorry for Honor. I hope she won't be long away; I shall be wretched till she comes back. Somebody might see her from a window, even if no one hears her in the passage, and then—I don't like to think of the consequences!"

Honor was indeed determined to do her utmost for Dermot. Of all her five brothers, he was the dearest. Rather younger than herself, he had been her inseparable companion in nursery days, when the pair had shared everything, from sweets to scoldings, with strictest impartiality. Honor had never forgotten the terrible parting when her father had decreed that Dermot was old enough to go to school—how she had cried herself sick, and how absolutely lonely and deserted the Castle had seemed when she was obliged to wander about and amuse herself alone. She had grown accustomed in time to solitary rambles, but she had always looked forward to her brother's return with keenest anticipation, and regretted bitterly that holidays were so short.

That Dermot was in trouble and wanted her was now the one thought uppermost in her mind, and rules were entirely ignored in her desire to see him and speak with him. Though she was determined to carry out her project she knew, however, that it was a most unorthodox and unwarrantable proceeding to leave St. Chad's at such an hour, and on such an errand, and she had no desire to be caught and prevented from going.

She stole along the landing, therefore, as softly as possible, pausing every now and then to listen if all were quiet. The whole house seemed to be sound asleep, and not a door opened as she passed. Once down the stairs and in the hall she felt safer, and hurrying quickly into the dressing-room, she easily unbolted a French window that led into the garden.

Was that a step on the stairs? Honor was not sure. She dared not go back to ascertain, but, rushing outside, fled as fast as she could round the corner in the direction of the cricket pitch.

"Whoever it was will find the bird flown," she said to herself. "Perhaps I was mistaken, though, and only imagined I heard somebody."

A glance at the little watch pinned to her blouse told her that she had not much time to lose. She did not wish to keep Dermot waiting, for she knew he would be in a fever of anxiety until she made her appearance.

"I hope he has managed to get off safely," she thought. "It must be more difficult to leave a large dormitory than a small bedroom; still, I don't suppose any of the other boys would try to stop him, or would tell afterwards."

She had now reached the playing-fields, and she climbed over the fence that separated them from a neighbouring pasture. A few hundred yards, and a stile brought her to a path along the cliffs that led to the bathing-place.

Dermot was first at the tryst. Even before Honor began to descend the flight of steps she caught sight of his familiar figure on the beach below. He was pacing impatiently up and down, glancing first one way and then another, until at length he happened to look upwards in the right direction, and saw her. He waved his hat, and came eagerly along the shingle to meet her.

"All right, Dermot! I've brought you the sovereign!" she cried, anxious to relieve his mind at once.

"Really? Oh, I say, Sis, it is good of you!"

There was no long line of grinning schoolboys to jeer, nor sedate Chaddites to disapprove, so Honor hugged her brother this time to her heart's content. It seemed so delightful to see him again that she almost forgot for the moment upon what errand she had come, only realizing that he was there, and that she had him all to herself. The remembrance of his trouble, however, quickly returned to her.

"Come and tell me everything," she said, drawing him towards the bathing-hut. "We can sit on these steps and talk."

"I was rather doubtful whether my letter had reached you," began Dermot; "I'd to settle with the janitor, and at first he said that the College was so strictly kept, it would be quite impossible. Afterwards he gave way and said he'd try, but I couldn't see him again to ask if he'd really managed the affair; I had just to come to the cove on chance. I can tell you I was glad when I saw you coming down the rocks. Oh, Honor, I've got myself into the most awful mess!"

"How is it? I don't understand. Who is this Blake?"

"He has a place in Dunscar, a kind of second-rate veterinary surgeon's business; and he sells dogs, and rats, and rabbits, and even does a little mole-catching, I believe—rather a low-class sporting chap, in fact. Roper took me to the kennels one day, to see a spaniel. Some of our fellows keep dogs there, and Blake looks after them. Well, I liked the spaniel; it was a perfect beauty! Roper said Blake only wanted ten shillings for it, and it was an absolute bargain. He advised me to buy it and keep it at the kennels. I'd run through all my cash by then, but Blake said I could go on tick if I cared; and I thought it was a pity to miss the chance, because if I didn't have the dog, Jarrow was going to take him."

"I suppose you mayn't keep dogs at school?" said Honor.

"Rather not! You'd have liked this one, Honor! His name was Terry, and he was as jolly as poor old Doss used to be. He got to know me directly, and he'd come jumping and trying to lick my face. He was clever, too; he could do all kinds of tricks—trust for a biscuit, and lie down and die, and give three barks for the King. I grew so fond of him, and I meant to take him home with me in the holidays. Well, I hadn't been able to go to the kennels for several days, and when at last I managed to run down there Blake told me that Terry was dead and buried. He looked so shifty when he said it that I had my suspicions at once. I don't believe Terry died at all; I'm sure Blake sold him to somebody else, who has taken him away."

"Oh, what a shame!" exclaimed Honor.

"It's just like the fellow, though—he's an atrocious cad! Of course, I couldn't prove anything. I could only say that Terry had looked all right when last I saw him, and it seemed a queer thing for him to pop off so suddenly; but then Blake rounded on me with all sorts of medical terms, and said he'd made a post-mortem examination, and could give me a written certificate. As if that would have been of any use! Well, the long and short of it was, we had a quarrel, and Blake turned nasty. He said he wanted the money I owed him for the dog, and he gave me an immense bill for its keep. It was quite ridiculous; he made out it had eaten pounds and pounds of Spratt's biscuits every week, and that he'd bought fresh meat for it too. I'm sure he hadn't! I disputed every item; but he said if I wasn't satisfied I could refer the matter to the Head. The whole affair came to exactly a sovereign. I couldn't possibly pay it—I hadn't more than a few shillings left in the world. I tried to get him to give me tick for a little longer, but he was as surly as a bear, and threatened that if I didn't turn up with the money by Wednesday, he'd send in the bill to the Head."

"I suppose that would mean a big row?"

"Simply terrific! You see, the kennels are out of bounds; besides which, we've all been warned we're to have nothing to do with Blake. The Head said he was a rascal, and any fellow who went to his place would do so at the risk of expulsion. I was an idiot to let myself get mixed up in such a business, but Roper, and Graveson, and several others had dogs, and I was so taken with that black spaniel! I thought and schemed how I could find a way out of it. I didn't dare to write home to the Mater: if she's well enough to read her own letters, she'd be in quite a nervous state of mind about it; and if she's ill, then the governor will open them all for her, and you know what he'd say!"

"It would be as bad as when I bought Firefly," replied Honor. "He was most fearfully angry that time."

"And he'd be harder on me than on you, because you're a girl. He couldn't thrash you, however much he might scold you. I've had a little experience of his hunting-crop before, and it's not exactly pleasant."

"Yes, I remember—when you took the cartridges out of his gun cupboard."

"Well, I say, Honor, I mustn't stay here too long; I've got to be back before anyone's about the place, you know."

"Did you get off all right?"

"Oh, yes! I dropped out of the dormitory window on to a piece of roof near, and let myself down by the spout. It was quite simple."

"How about climbing up again?"

"Easy as A B C."

"Well, here's the pound, at any rate."

"Thanks immensely! How is it you're so flush of cash?"

"I'm not. I've hardly any of my pocket-money left. This is my Jubilee sovereign."

"Not the one Uncle Murtagh gave you?"

"Yes."

"Oh, Honor, I am sorry! I scarcely like to take it."

"Don't be absurd! You must!"

"But you had the thing as a locket, and vowed you'd never part with it."

"It can't be helped. Vows are sometimes better broken. Uncle Murtagh told me to keep it until I happened to want it very badly, and I'm sure we need it to-day."

"Well, I do, at any rate, though it seems rather a swindle to commandeer your particular, pet treasure. I'll have to borrow it now, I'm afraid; but I'll get you another some time, I promise you faithfully."

"I don't care in the least, so long as you get out of this scrape," protested Honor.

The sun was already so high that its bright rays, reflected in a little pool near their feet, warned the pair that it was no longer safe to delay their parting.

"It's a quarter to six!" exclaimed Dermot, looking at his watch. "I must absolutely fly. I'll run all the way to Dunscar. I hope you'll get back quite safely into the College. You were a perfect trump to come. Good-bye; I'm off!"

Honor stood watching him until he had disappeared round the rocks at the end of the cove, then half-regretfully she climbed up the steps again on to the headland. She returned to St. Chad's the same way as she had come, walking across the pasture and climbing the fence of the cricket ground. She found the French window in the dressing-room still ajar, and bolted it on the inside before she went upstairs. All was still quite quiet in the hall and on the landing, and she was able to regain her room without any alarms.

Janie looked up nervously as the door opened. She had been lying awake, suffering far more anxiety on her friend's behalf than Honor had experienced for herself, and she gave a sigh of intense relief on hearing that the interview was successfully accomplished.

"I've been thinking it over," she said, "and I really believe it would have been much the best to go straight to Miss Maitland and tell her about it. She's very kind and sympathetic; perhaps she would have let you meet Dermot, and then you could have gone openly, and without all this dreadful stealing up and down stairs."

"I daren't risk it," replied Honor. "Suppose she had said 'No'? I should have been far worse off than if I hadn't asked. Besides which, she might have insisted upon telling Dr. Winterton. That's quite within the bounds of possibility; and then I should have given poor old Dermot away."

"On the whole, wouldn't it be more satisfactory for Dr. Winterton to know?"

"Janie! How can you suggest such a thing?"

"Well, if, as you say, this man Blake is a scamp, and has really sold the dog, it ought to be enquired into. If it were all exposed, perhaps he would be obliged to leave Dunscar and go to some other place, and that would be much better for the boys at the Grange."

"But in the meantime Dermot would be the scapegoat."

"I don't believe Dr. Winterton would expel him, if he went and owned up himself. He'd be rather angry, I dare say, but then the thing would be over, and there'd be no more fear of being found out. If Blake is such a dishonest man, he may send in the same bill again."

"Dermot said he should make him give a receipt for the money. No, Janie! You don't quite grasp the case. You've no brothers of your own, so how can you understand boys?"

"Then couldn't you have asked your father?" pleaded Janie desperately. "It seems—please don't be offended!—not quite straight to be suppressing the whole affair like this."

"You don't know my father, or you wouldn't suggest it. He can be very stern, particularly with the boys. They always say he's more of a martinet at home than ever he was in the Army. Yes, I know you tell your mother everything, but mothers are much more lenient than fathers. I'd tell mine, if she weren't ill. It's no use arguing, Janie! I'm sorry if it isn't all on the square, but Dermot was in a very tight place, and I felt bound to help him, even if I had to do something rather wrong."

XV. Sent to Coventry

Though Honor had seen nobody, either in leaving or re-entering St. Chad's, her morning adventure had not been so entirely unobserved as she imagined. Vivian Holmes, who was a light sleeper, had awakened by the unfortunate creak that had been made by the stairs. Always mindful of her duties as monitress, she had jumped up and cautiously opened her door, and was just in time to peep over the banisters and catch a glimpse of Honor's back disappearing down the hall. She hurriedly returned to put on her dressing-gown and bedroom slippers, then followed as rapidly as she could. When she arrived downstairs, she found the French window leading into the garden open; but Honor was well round the corner, and running fast towards the cricket field. Vivian was very much disturbed and distressed. She scarcely knew what she ought to do. She ventured a little way into the grounds, but not a trace of any truant was to be seen, so she thought it useless to search far. One of the girls must have gone out; on that point she was absolutely certain.

"I'm almost positive it was Honor Fitzgerald," she said to herself. "It looked exactly like her, although I only saw her back for a moment."

Vivian was extremely conscientious, and felt personally responsible for all under her charge at St. Chad's. She was apt to err on the side of severity, but she honestly strove to do her duty, and to see that the rules were duly kept. In this case, however, she was in a difficulty. There was no rule to prevent a girl getting up early and going into the garden, because it had never occurred to Miss Maitland that anyone would wish to rise before the usual dressing-bell. Vivian knew that Honor had been accustomed to much liberty in her Irish home, and that she greatly chafed against the constraints of school life. What was more probable than that, waking at dawn, she had longed for a breath of the cool morning air, and was taking a stroll round the grounds?

"She may have a headache, or have slept badly," thought the monitress, with an endeavour to be charitable. "These hot nights are very trying, even with both one's bedroom windows wide open."

After all, it was not a very desperate offence, and there seemed no need to report it to Miss Maitland. Vivian determined to listen for Honor's footsteps and catch her on the stairs as she came back, or, at any rate, to tax her with the affair later during the day, and point out that in future such early rambles could not be allowed. In the meantime, she went back to bed, and, in spite of her resolution to intercept the returning wanderer, fell asleep again, and heard nothing until the bell rang at a quarter to seven. In the busy whirl of occupations that followed, there was no opportunity for any private conversation with Honor, either before or after morning school; and immediately dinner was over, all the Chaddites rushed off to watch a croquet tournament between mistresses and monitresses, in which Vivian herself was taking part. The day, therefore, passed exactly as usual, and it was not until after tea, when the girls were just going to preparation, that anything particular occurred.

At precisely half-past four o'clock Janie Henderson chanced to be walking down the passage when she saw the door of Miss Maitland's study suddenly open, and Vivian Holmes come out, looking so greatly agitated and upset that Janie stopped in amazement.

"Why, what's the matter?" she exclaimed, for she was on sufficiently friendly terms with the monitress to venture the enquiry.

"A great deal's the matter!" replied Vivian. "The worst thing that has ever happened at St. Chad's, or in the whole College. I'd give all I possess in the world to have nothing to do with it! I wish I weren't monitress! Where's Honor Fitzgerald? I have to find her."

"She's practising," said Janie. "Shall I fetch her?"

"Look here!" returned Vivian. "Honor sleeps in your room; did you hear her get up very early this morning and go out?"

Janie's tell-tale face betrayed her at once, though she would not have attempted to deny the fact, in any case.

"Then I'm sorry, but you'll have to come to Miss Maitland too," said Vivian. "It's a hateful business altogether, and after our splendid record at St. Chad's, and the way we have all tried so hard to keep up the standard, it hurts me more than I can tell you. I can't bear to get Honor Fitzgerald into trouble! I simply couldn't have believed it of her, though I'm afraid it's only too plain. She's been very naughty sometimes, but she always seemed extremely straightforward, and I never dreamt she could be capable of an affair like this. We shall have to tell the exact truth, Janie; there's nothing else for it, and she must clear herself as best she can. I'm afraid she's bound to be expelled. It's a terrible disgrace to the house. Yes, go and fetch her now; the sooner we get it over the better."

Janie walked down the passage in the utmost perplexity. She could not account for Vivian's excited diatribe. What had Honor done to bring disgrace upon St. Chad's? It was, of course, a very irregular thing to run away at daybreak to meet her brother, but it was no worse than many of her other scrapes, and did not seem an offence of sufficient gravity to warrant such an extreme measure as expulsion from the school.

"Vivian is always hard on Honor," thought Janie. "Perhaps, after all, she's making an unnecessary fuss, and it won't turn out to be so dreadful as she says. Tell the truth! Of course I shall do so; Vivian needn't remind me of that!"

Janie called her friend as quietly as possible from the piano. There were several other girls in the room, and she did not wish them to know anything about the affair. She only whispered therefore that Honor was wanted in Miss Maitland's study at once, and did not add any explanation, thinking it better not to mention Vivian's remarks, as she had not understood them herself. Honor put her music away calmly enough, and closed the piano. She knew that the summons must have reference to her morning adventure, and anticipated a scolding; but it was not the first she had received at St. Chad's, and she thought the punishment would probably not exceed two hundred lines, or, perhaps, a few pages of poetry to be learnt by heart.

The two girls hurried to the study, and, after knocking at the door, entered in response to Miss Maitland's "Come in". The house-mistress was seated at her writing-table, talking to Vivian, and turned round at their approach. She looked worried, and had a sterner expression on her face than they had ever seen there before.

"Honor Fitzgerald," she began, "I have sent for you because a very unpleasant thing has occurred, which I hope you may be able to explain to me. Last evening I was sitting writing at this table, and laid a sovereign down just at this corner. I was called away, and left the room for about ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour. When I returned, I found to my astonishment that the money was gone. I searched everywhere, and it had certainly not fallen on to the floor, nor was it amongst my papers; so I can only conclude that someone must have come in and taken it. I have made careful enquiries as to who was seen near my study last night, and I hear that you climbed up the lime tree and entered the room by the window shortly before nine o'clock. Is that so?"

"Yes, Miss Maitland," replied Honor, without any hesitation. "I did come in, but I only stayed a minute. I didn't go near the table, and I didn't see the sovereign. If I had, I certainly shouldn't have touched it."

Miss Maitland sighed.

"I was afraid you would say that, Honor! My dear child, it would be better to tell me the truth, and confess at once. We have the clearest proof that you, and only you, must have taken it, so it is no use denying it any more."

"I should like to know what proof you mean, Miss Maitland?" said Honor, in a strained voice.

"This letter," replied the mistress, producing Dermot's note. "It was found on your bedroom floor this morning by the upper housemaid, who brought it at once to me. It was given you, I find, by one of the under servants, who much regrets now that she was persuaded to deliver it secretly. It shows me, of course, your motive for taking the money."

"But I did not take it!" said Honor. "I said before that I didn't see it, and I mean it."

For answer Miss Maitland turned to Janie.

"Janie Henderson, did Honor Fitzgerald leave her bedroom before five o'clock this morning?"

Poor Janie whispered, "Yes", though the word almost choked her. That she, of all people, must be a witness against her friend seemed too cruel to be endured.

"Did Honor mention to you where she was going?"

"To the bathing cove."

"And her errand?"

"To meet her brother."

"Did she say that she meant to take him the money he needed?"

"I believe—yes—I remember she did," stammered Janie, almost bewildered by this cross-questioning.

"Did she seem to you in any way conscious that she was doing wrong?"

Janie paused. She recalled only too plainly Honor's words: "I'm sorry if it isn't all on the square, but Dermot was in a very tight place, and I felt bound to help him, even if I had to do something rather wrong".

"I am waiting for your answer, Janie."

"I—I—think she seemed—sorry!"

"Did she mention to you where the money came from that she was taking to her brother?"

"No, she said nothing about it."

"That will do for the present, Janie. Now, Vivian, I wish you to tell me if you saw Honor Fitzgerald go along the hall early this morning?"

"It looked like Honor; I could be nearly certain," faltered Vivian, rather hesitatingly.

"It was, so you needn't mind saying so!" interrupted Honor, who had been listening attentively to this evidence. "I admit that I went out, and ran down to the beach, and met Dermot. I never wanted to deny that. But I certainly didn't even see the sovereign, much less take it."

"Let us have the truth, Honor," urged Miss Maitland. "I believe that you yielded to a sudden temptation, and I am very sorry for you, since I think you did it entirely for your brother's sake. If you will confess now, I will promise to deal leniently with you."

"I can't confess what I haven't done," said Honor. She had turned very white, but she did not flinch in the least.

"Nevertheless, you handed money to your brother on the shore?"

"Yes. I gave him a sovereign, but it was my own, and not yours."

"Honor! Honor! It is no use holding to such a palpably false story. Where could you get a sovereign? You banked your pocket-money with me at the beginning of the term, like the rest of the girls; it was only a small amount, and you have spent it weekly."

"I had a sovereign, all the same," answered Honor. "It was a Queen Victoria's Jubilee one, with a hole in it, which my uncle had given me. I wore it as a locket, and kept it inside my green work-box. Last night I took it off the chain. That was the piece of money I gave to Dermot."

"Did Honor ever show you this locket?" asked Miss Maitland, turning to Janie.

The latter shook her head sadly. How she wished that she could have replied in the affirmative!

"Then the only way in which your words can be proved, Honor, is to trace your sovereign. Possibly your brother has not parted with it; or we could find the man to whom he paid it. A Jubilee gold coin with a hole in it is so uncommon that it could easily be identified. I am personally acquainted with Dr. Winterton, so there will be no difficulty in calling and asking his co-operation in the matter."

"Oh, don't ask Dr. Winterton—please don't!" implored Honor in much agitation. "I'd rather leave things as they are than that!"

Terrible as was the indictment against her, she felt she would not clear herself at her brother's expense. To allow Miss Maitland to call at Orley Grange would expose Dermot's peccadillo to his headmaster, and involve him in as serious a trouble as her own. If one or other must be expelled, she would rather it were herself. She, of the two, had less to fear from her father's anger; and, besides, there was a further reason. Dermot was destined for the Navy, and was very shortly to take the entrance examination for a cadetship; were he expelled from his training school, he would be prohibited from competing, and by another year he would be above the required age, and therefore no longer eligible as a candidate. To put any hindrance in the way of his success might ruin his whole future career. At all costs she must shield him, come what might.

"Then you wish me not to pursue the enquiry, Honor?" continued Miss Maitland. "Remember, it is the only way of clearing up this most unfortunate affair."

"I can't help it! The sovereign mustn't be traced. It was my own, all the same. Indeed I am telling the truth!" blurted out Honor, in great distress.

"I am sorry I cannot believe you," returned Miss Maitland coldly. "I thought better of you than this. You have given much trouble during your term here, but I considered you at least to be strictly honourable. I am most bitterly disappointed, and even now I will offer you a last chance. I perhaps took you by surprise, and you were not prepared to acknowledge what you had done. I will let you think the matter over until to-morrow morning. If you come to me then, before chapel, and confess the truth, I will forgive you; but if you still persist in denying it, I shall be forced, though sorely against my will, to take sterner measures. For the credit of our house and of our school, we cannot allow such things to happen at St. Chad's."

"I have told you the truth now, Miss Maitland," answered Honor, with a certain dignity in her manner. "I can only say the same to-morrow and every day. I don't know who has taken your money. I may do naughty things sometimes (indeed, I often do), but if you knew us Fitzgeralds at home I think you would scarcely have accused me of this."

Honor walked into preparation outwardly calm, but inwardly she nursed a burning volcano. She had great pride of race, and had often gloried in the honourable name which she bore. That a Fitzgerald should be suspected of so despicable a crime as stealing a sovereign seemed little short of an affront to her whole family. It was a blot on their good repute such as had never been placed there before. In days gone by her ancestors had fought duels for far less insults; now, however, she was obliged to submit to that horrible charge without making any attempt to defend herself. The one means of proving her innocence was closed to her. For Dermot's sake she must endure to be thought a thief! Yes, a thief! She repeated the word under her breath, and the very sound of it seemed to sting her. A Fitzgerald a thief! Oh, it was impossible to bear the reproach! Surely even Dermot's future could not compel her to such a sacrifice? Yes, it must and should. She knew it was the dream of his life to become a Naval cadet, and that her father and mother also cherished hopes for their youngest son's success. She seemed, like the Argonauts of yore, "'twixt Scylla and Charybdis". Which was the worse she could hardly decide, for Dermot to miss his examination, or for herself to be sent home under the slur of such a false accusation. Both seemed equally bad, but she reasoned that the former would involve more disastrous consequences, and, therefore, was the greater evil of the two.

She sat with her French grammar before her, mechanically looking at the pages; but her thoughts were so busy that she did not take in a single word of what she was reading, and would scarcely have known, if asked, whether she was studying French or geometry. What must she do? Some answer must be given to Miss Maitland to-morrow morning, and only one was possible. At all costs she would persist in her determination not to allow the affair to be mentioned to Dr. Winterton.

Janie, meanwhile, was in a hardly less disturbed state of mind. Never for a moment was her faith in her friend shaken. The mass of evidence was certainly strong, but it did not convince her. She knew Honor too well for that, and would have taken her word against all the world. Though she could not understand the particular reason for screening Dermot at such an enormous cost, she appreciated the fact that Honor was prepared to brave anything sooner than allow enquiries to be made at Orley Grange.

"It's that that looks so bad," thought Janie. "Of course, Miss Maitland thinks she made up the tale about her own sovereign, as she seems so afraid of having to produce the proof. Oh, dear, what a terrible tangle it all is! I wish that Honor had trusted me more at the very beginning, when she first received the letter. She didn't even want to let me know she was stealing out to meet her brother, only I happened to wake. I was so taken by surprise I didn't say half what I should have liked! If I could have persuaded her last night to go and tell Miss Maitland, she couldn't have been suspected. It's too late now, unfortunately, and I can't imagine how the affair will end."

Vain regrets were futile, so Janie with an effort concentrated her mind upon her lessons, and the two hours of study dragged slowly to a close. The evening was wet, and it was impossible to go into the garden, therefore all filed into the recreation room, with the sole exception of Honor, who lingered behind, putting away her books. Ill tidings fly apace, and within two minutes of the close of preparation every girl in the house had heard that Honor Fitzgerald had taken a sovereign from Miss Maitland's room, and refused to "own up". The news made the greatest sensation. Such a thing had not occurred before in the annals of the College. It seemed a stain on St. Chad's that could never be wiped out, and for which no amount of tennis shields, champion cups, or other triumphs would ever compensate. How could the Chaddites hold up their heads again? They, who had ranked in reputation next to the School House, would now sink to a lower level than St. Bride's! A hush fell over the whole community, as if some dreadful calamity had taken place. The girls stood in little groups, whispering excitedly; consternation and dismay were on all faces, for the honour of the house appeared a personal question to each. Maisie Talbot suddenly voiced the universal verdict.

"Anyone who's capable of bringing this disgrace upon us deserves to be sent to Coventry, and cut dead!" she announced, loudly enough to be heard by everybody.

There was a common murmur of assent, which stopped instantly, however, for the object of their opprobrium walked into the room. As she entered the door, Honor became aware of the hostile feeling against her. All eyes were turned in her direction, but there was recognition or welcome in none. It was a terrible thing to meet the cool stare of nearly forty companions, and feel herself thus pilloried for general contempt, yet not for a moment did she flinch. White to the lips, but with her head held up in silent self-justification, she moved slowly down the room, running the gauntlet of public disdain. Did I say all had abandoned her? No, there was one who remained faithful, one who was, not merely a fair-weather friend, but ready to believe in her and stand by her through the severest ordeal. Janie, the shyest girl at St. Chad's, who never as a rule raised her voice to venture an opinion or a criticism on any subject, came boldly to the rescue now. Stepping across to Honor, she took her firmly by the arm; then, almost as white and haggard as her friend, she turned and faced the rest.

"I think you will be very sorry for this afterwards," she began, in a voice that astonished even herself by its assurance. "It is not right to convict anybody without a trial, and Honor has not yet been proved guilty. I'm absolutely certain she is innocent, and that in time she'll be able to establish her good name. We've known her for a whole term now at St. Chad's, and she has gained a reputation for being perfectly truthful and 'square'. The charge against her is so entirely opposite to her character that I wonder anyone can credit it."

"Let her clear herself, then!" replied Maisie Talbot. "It ought to be easy enough, if she is really innocent. In the meantime, the honour of St. Chad's is being trailed through the dust!"

Excited comments and indignant accord greeted these words. All evidently were in agreement with Maisie, and determined to blackball Honor as a vindication of their zeal for the credit of their house. The supper-bell fortunately put an end to the unpleasant scene, and nobody was surprised when Honor, instead of walking into the dining-hall with the others, marched straight upstairs to her cubicle. Miss Maitland noticed her empty place at table, but made no remark. Perhaps, like the girls, she felt her absence to be a relief.

When Janie went to No. 8 at nine o'clock she found her friend already in bed, and feigning sleep with such persistence that she evidently did not wish to be disturbed. Always tactful and thoughtful, Janie drew the curtain again without attempting any conversation. She knew that Honor's heart must be too full for speech, and that the truest kindness was to leave her alone.

XVI. A Rash Step

Honor's sleep was undoubtedly of a very pretended description. She lay still in bed, pressing her hand to her burning head, to try to calm the throbbing in her temples and allow herself to think collectedly. She must decide upon what course she meant to take, for matters could not go on thus any longer. Before nine o'clock to-morrow morning she must again face Miss Maitland, and take her choice between betraying Dermot and her expulsion from St. Chad's. In either case, the danger to her brother seemed great. If Miss Cavendish wrote to Major Fitzgerald, asking him to remove his daughter from the College, he would naturally come over to Chessington and make full enquiries as to the reason. She would not be able to face her father's questions, and Dermot's secret would come out, after all. How might this most fatal consummation be avoided?

"If I were only at home, instead of here, then Father wouldn't be able to go and call at Orley Grange," she said to herself.

It was a new idea. She wondered she had not thought of it before. She would solve the problem by running away! She would thus meet her father at Kilmore Castle, instead of in Miss Maitland's presence at St. Chad's; and could avoid many awkward questions, simply saying she had been accused of taking a sovereign, and leaving out Dermot's part in the story altogether.

The prospect was immensely attractive. She felt scarcely capable of once more confronting the cold scorn of her companions. Home seemed a haven of refuge, an ark in the midst of a deluge of trouble, the one place in the wide world where she could fly for help. Perhaps her mother might be better, and well enough to see her, and she could then pour out her perplexities into sympathetic ears. But how to get to Ireland? It was impossible to travel without money, and she had less than a shilling left in her purse. She knew, however, that a line of steamboats ran from Westhaven to Cork; if she could walk to the former place she thought she could persuade the captain of one of the vessels to take her to Cork by promising that her father's solicitor, who lived there, would pay for her when she arrived. Mr. Donovan had often been on business at Kilmore Castle; she knew the address of his office, and was sure that he would advance her sufficient to pay for both the steamer journey and her railway ticket to Ballycroghan.

The first thing, therefore, to be done was to leave the College as early and as secretly as she could. She did not dare to go to sleep, but lay tossing uneasily until the first hint of dawn. Sunrise was at about four o'clock, so soon after half-past three it was just light enough to enable her to get up and dress. Miss Maitland had sent a glass of milk and a plate of sandwiches and biscuits for her supper the night before, but she had left them untouched on her dressing-table. Now, however, she had the forethought to drink the milk and put the biscuits and sandwiches in her pocket. The face which confronted her when she looked in the glass hardly seemed her own, it was so unwontedly pale, and had such dark rings round the eyes. She moved very quietly, for she was anxious not to waken her room-mate.

"Janie mustn't know what I intend, or she'll get into trouble for not stopping me," she thought. "It's a comfort that she, at any rate, doesn't believe I've done this horrible thing, and that she'll stand up for me when I'm gone."

She listened for a minute, till the sound of her friend's even and regular breathing reassured her; then, drawing aside the curtain, she crept into the next cubicle. Janie was lying fast asleep, her head cradled on her arm. With her fair hair falling round her cheeks, she looked almost pretty. Honor bent down and kissed the end of one of the flaxen locks, but too gently to disturb its owner; then, with a scarcely breathed good-bye, she left the room. She had laid her plans carefully, and did not mean to be discovered and brought back to school; so, instead of going downstairs, and thus passing both Vivian Holmes's and Miss Maitland's doors, she went to the other end of the passage, where the landing window stood wide open, and, managing to climb down by the thick ivy, reached the ground without mishap. She crept through the garden under the laurel bushes, and, avoiding the cricket field, scaled the wall close to the potting shed, helped very much by a large heap of logs that had been left there ready to be chopped. Once successfully over, she set off running in the direction of the moors, and never stopped until she was quite out of sight of even the chimneys of St. Chad's. Then, hot and utterly breathless, she sat down on the grass to rest.

It was still very early, for the sun had only just risen. The air was fresh and pleasant. Behind her lay green, round-topped hills, and in front stretched the sea, smooth as glass, with a few small, white sails gleaming in the distance. Innumerable rabbits kept scuttling past. One small one came so near that she almost caught it with her hands, but it dived away into its burrow in a moment. She brought out her sandwiches and biscuits, and began to eat them. She was hungry already, and thought wistfully of breakfast. The bread had gone rather dry and the biscuits a little stale, but she enjoyed them, sitting on the hillside, especially when she remembered all she had escaped from at St. Chad's. She felt that, once back in dear old Ireland, her difficulties would be nearly at an end, and she registered a solemn vow never to cross the Channel again, except under the strictest compulsion. The last fragment of biscuit having vanished, she got up and shook down the crumbs for the birds; then, turning towards the hills, she struck a footpath which she thought must surely lead in the right direction. Westhaven, though twenty-five miles away by the winding coast road, or the railway, was only twelve miles distant if she went, as the crow flies, over the moors. The authorities at the College, she imagined, would never dream of looking for her there. When they discovered her absence they would probably suppose she had gone to Dunscar, and would enquire at the station, and search the main road; but, of course, nobody would have seen her, and there would be no clue to her whereabouts.

She was so pleased to have such a good start that she felt almost in high spirits, and strode along at a fair pace, keenly enjoying the unwonted sense of freedom. It was very lonely on the moors, and not even a cottage was to be seen. The path was hardly more than a sheep track, sometimes nearly effaced with grass, and she had to trace it as best she could. After some hours she began to grow tired and desperately hungry again. She wondered how she was to manage anything in the way of lunch; then, hailing with delight the sight of a small farm nestling in a hollow between two hills, she turned her steps at once in that direction. She had a sixpence and two pennies in her pocket, and thought that she might perhaps be able to buy some food.

The farm, on nearer acquaintance, proved a rather dirty and dilapidated-looking place. Honor picked her way carefully through the litter in the yard, and was about to knock at the door, when a collie dog flew from the barn behind, barking furiously, showing his teeth, and threatening to catch hold of her skirt. Much to her relief, he was called off by a slatternly, hard-featured woman, who, hearing the noise, came out of the house with a pail in her hand, and stood looking at her visitor in much amazement.

"I want to know," said Honor, "if you can let me have a glass of milk and some bread and butter, and how much you would charge for it."

"We don't sell milk here," replied the woman, shaking her head. "I've just put it all down in the butter-pot, so I'm afraid I can't oblige you."

"Oh!" said Honor blankly. Then, "I should be so glad of a little bread and butter, if you can let me have it."

"Are you out on a picnic?" asked the woman. "Where are the rest of you?"

"No, I'm by myself," answered Honor. "I'm walking across the moors to Westhaven."

"To Westhaven? You're on the wrong road, then. That path will lead you out at Windover, if you follow it."

Poor Honor was almost dumbfounded at such unexpected bad news.

"Have I gone very far wrong?" she faltered. "I must get on to Westhaven as fast as I can. Perhaps you can tell me the right way?"

"Aye, I can put you on the path, if you want," replied the woman; "but you'll have a good long bit to go."

"Is there any village where I could buy something to eat? I've had nothing since breakfast," said Honor, returning again to her first and most pressing need.

"No, there ain't," said the woman; then, apparently softening a little, "Look here, I don't mind making you a cup of tea, if you care to pay for it. The kettle's boiling. You can step in if you like."

Glad to get a meal in any circumstances, Honor entered the squalid kitchen, and tried not to notice the general untidiness of her surroundings, while the woman hastily cleared the table and set out a teacup and saucer, a huge loaf, butter, and a pot of tea. The dog had made friends, and crept up to Honor, snuggling his nose into her hand; and a tabby cat, interested in the preparations, came purring eagerly to join the feast. Honor did not know whether to call it late breakfast, dinner, or tea, but she told Janie afterwards she thought she must have eaten enough to combine the three, though she only paid sixpence for it all. She finished at last, and got up to go; then, remembering the long walk still in store for her, she gave the farmer's wife her remaining twopence for some extra slices of bread and butter to take with her.

"It's a tidy step for a young lady like you, and a-going quite alone too," said the woman, eyeing Honor keenly as she led her round the side of the cottage, to point out the right path. "You've come from over by Dunscar, I take it?"

"Oh, I'm a good walker!" replied Honor, who did not wish to encourage enquiries. "I shall soon get along. Thank you for coming so far with me."

"You're welcome," said the woman. "I hope you'll keep the path, and reach there safe; but if you'll take my advice, you'll turn round the other way and go straight back to school. You'd just get there by tea-time."

Honor started at this parting remark, and hurried on as fast as she could. How did the woman guess she had run away from the College? Of course!—she had forgotten her hat. Everyone in the neighbourhood of Chessington knew the unmistakable "sailors", with their coloured ribbons and badges. She might have remembered they would easily be recognized, and blamed her own stupidity and lack of forethought. She hoped no message would be sent to Miss Cavendish, and looked round carefully to see if she were being followed. Yes, she could certainly see the woman now, calling a boy from a field, and pointing eagerly in her direction. They would perhaps try to take her back against her will, and she would be marched ignominiously, like a prisoner, to St. Chad's.

"That they shall never do!" she thought, and choosing a moment when the pair were passing round the front of the house, she turned from the path and scrambled up the bed of a small stream on to the hills again. She decided that so long as she knew the right points of the compass, it would be quite easy to find her way, as she could walk in a line with the path, only higher up on the moor, where she would be neither seen nor followed. She flung her hat away, determined that it should not betray her again; and, on the whole, she liked to have her head bare, the wind felt so fresh and pleasant blowing through her hair. For a while she went on briskly, then, coming across a spring, which rose clear and bubbling through the grass and sedges, she took off her shoes and stockings, and sat dabbling her feet in the water, watching a pair of dragon flies, and plaiting rings from the rushes that grew around.

She stayed there so long that when she happened to look at her watch she was startled to find it was nearly half-past four.

"I must push on," she said to herself. "I've a long way to be going yet. I wonder what time the steamer starts for Cork, and if I shall find it waiting in the harbour?"

She was quite sure that she had come in exactly the same direction as the path, but somehow she did not seem to be getting any nearer to civilization. On and on she wandered, hour after hour, seeing nothing before her but the same bare, grass-covered hills, till she began to grow alarmed, and to suspect that after all she had completely missed her way. The sun was setting, and as the great, red ball of fire sank behind the horizon, her spirits fell in proportion. What was she to do, alone and lost on the hills? Even if she could reach Westhaven in daylight, she would not like to be obliged to go to the quay in the dark; and suppose there were no night boat, like the mail steamer in which she had crossed from Dublin to Holyhead, where could she go until morning? She had not foreseen any of these difficulties when she set out, it had all appeared so easy and simple; but she saw now what a risky adventure she had undertaken. She was almost in despair, when luckily she came across a track sufficiently trodden to indicate that it probably led to some human habitation. It was growing very dusk indeed now, but she could just see to trace the path, and she hurried hopefully on, till at length the lights of a farm-house window shone out through the gathering gloom.

At first Honor thought of knocking boldly at the door and asking for food and shelter; but then, she reflected that the people of the house would think it most strange for a nicely dressed girl to present herself so late in the evening with such a request, and would be sure to ask awkward questions, and might possibly send a messenger to the College to tell of her arrival, detaining her there in the morning until Miss Cavendish or Miss Maitland arrived to fetch her. Even supper and a bed, welcome though they might prove, would be too dearly bought at such a price; and she determined, instead, to spend the night in a barn, the door of which stood conveniently open. It was half-filled with newly made, sweet-smelling hay, on to which she crept in the darkness; and flinging herself down, she drew some of it under her head for a pillow. A strange bed indeed, and very different from the one in her cubicle at St. Chad's! But at least she was free to go when she pleased; she meant to be up at daybreak, before anyone on the farm was astir, and to-morrow she would surely reach Westhaven and the steamer, and be able to start for that goal of all her wanderings—home.

It is easy enough before you go to sleep to resolve that you will rouse yourself at a certain time, but not quite so simple to carry it out, especially when you happen to be dead tired; and Honor's case was no exception to the rule. Instead of waking at dawn, she slept peacefully till nearly eight o'clock, and might even have slept on longer still if the farmer and his son had not chanced to stroll into the barn on their way to the stable. The boy was walking to the far end to hang a rope on a nail, when he suddenly ran back, with his eyes nearly dropping from his head with surprise.

"Dad!" he cried. "Dad! Come and look here! There's a girl sleeping on the hay!"

Honor, newly aroused, was just raising herself up on her elbow; she had not quite collected her senses, nor realized where she was. Startled by the voices, she jumped up, with the instinctive impulse to run away; then, seeing that two strangers stood between her and the open door, she sat down again on the hay and burst out crying.

"Startled By the Voices, She Jumped Up"

"There! There!" said the farmer. "Don't you take on so, missy; we ain't a-goin' to hurt you. Tom, you'd best run in and fetch Mother hither!"

"Mother", a stout, elderly woman, arrived panting on the scene in a few moments. No lady in the land could possibly have proved kinder in such an emergency. She kissed and soothed poor Honor, took her indoors and gave her hot water to bathe her face and wash her hands, and finally settled her down in a corner of the delightfully clean farm-kitchen, with a dainty little breakfast before her.

Honor felt sorely tempted to unburden herself of her story to this true friend in need, but the dread that she would be sent back to St. Chad's kept her silent, and she only said that she had been lost on the moor, and was anxious to get to Westhaven, and to go home as speedily as possible, all of which was, of course, absolutely true. Mrs. Ledbury, no doubt, had her suspicions; but, seeing that questions disturbed her guest, with true delicacy she refrained from pressing her, and suggested instead that, as her husband was driving into Westhaven market that morning, he could give her a lift, and save her a walk of nearly seven miles.

Honor jumped at the opportunity; she felt stiff and worn out after her yesterday's experiences, and much disinclined for further rambles; so it was with a sigh of genuine relief that she found herself seated in the high gig by the side of the old farmer.

"Good-bye, dearie!" said Mrs. Ledbury, tucking a shawl over Honor's knees, and pressing a slice of bread and honey into her hand, from fear that she might grow hungry on the road. "You run straight home when you get to Westhaven! They'll be in a fair way about you, they will that! It gives me a turn yet to think of you sleeping in the barn all night long, with rats and mice scrambling round you, and me not to know you was there!"

Mr. Ledbury was evidently not of a communicative disposition; he drove along without vouchsafing any remarks, and Honor was so lost in her thoughts that she did not feel disposed to talk to him. Her great anxiety now was to catch the steamer to Cork; she wished she had some idea of the time of its starting, and only hoped that it did not set off early in the morning, for to miss it would seem almost more than she could bear. The gig jolted slowly on over the uneven road, till at length the moor gave way to suburban villas and gardens, quickly followed by streets and shops; and they finally drew up in the busy market-place of Westhaven.

Mr. Ledbury helped Honor to dismount, and having thanked him and said good-bye, she turned round the nearest corner; then, once safely out of his sight, she set off as fast as she could for the harbour. Partly, perhaps, because she enquired chiefly from children, whose directions were not very clear, and partly because it is generally difficult to find one's way in a fresh place, it was a long time before she saw the welcome gleam of the water and the masts of the shipping; and then, after all, she found she had come to the wrong quay, and it was only by dint of continual asking that at last she arrived at the particular landing-stage of the Irish steamers.

"Want the boat to Cork, miss?" said the weather-beaten seaman to whom she addressed her question. "Why, she's bin gone out an hour and a half ago. She was off at eleven prompt. When will there be another, did ye say? Not till eight to-night, and she's only a cargo."

Honor's hopes, which had managed to sustain her spirits so far, dropped to zero at this bad news. There she was, penniless, in a strange town; and how could she get through all the long, weary hours until the evening? Gulping down a lump in her throat, she asked the sailor if the cargo vessel were already in the harbour, and if it were possible that she might go on board now, and wait there till it should be time to set sail.

"We're expecting of her in every minute," said the man, looking at Honor curiously. "You can speak to the captain when she comes. Maybe he'd let you, maybe he wouldn't; I shouldn't like to give an opinion"—which, to say the least, was not consoling.

Honor walked on a little farther down the landing-stage, trying to wink back her tears. She was in a desperate strait, and almost began to wish she had never left St. Chad's. Suppose the captain would not take her without the money for her passage? Possibly he might not know Mr. Donovan's name, and would think she was an impostor; what would she do then? She turned quite cold at the idea, and had to sit down on a bulkhead to recover herself, for she felt as though her legs were shaking under her.

She did not remember how long she sat there. A noise and bustle behind presently attracted her attention, and turning round, she saw that a steamer was arriving, and that the sailors were busy catching the thick cables and fastening the vessel to the wharf. The gangway was thrown across, and a few passengers stepped on shore. They had evidently travelled steerage—two or three women, with babies and bundles, and a party of Irish labourers come over for the harvest, with their belongings tied in red pocket-handkerchiefs; but after them strode a tall figure, with a grey moustache, at the sight of whom Honor sprang up from her seat with a perfect scream of delight, and raced along the quay like a whirlwind, to fling herself joyfully into the gentleman's arms.

"Father! Father!" she sobbed. "Oh, is it really and truly you?"

XVII. Janie turns Detective

Honor being safely in her father's charge, we must leave her there for the present, and return to Chessington, to see what was happening in the meantime at St. Chad's.

Janie's slumbers had been quiet and undisturbed until half-past six, when she woke with a start, feeling almost ashamed of herself for being able to sleep when her friend was in trouble. She got up at once, and peeped round the curtain into the other cubicle, only to discover, too late, that the bird had flown. She looked on the dressing-table to see whether a note might have been left, but to her disappointment there was nothing. Honor had vanished mysteriously, leaving not the least sign or clue behind her. Where had she gone? Janie could scarcely venture a guess. Such a daring scheme as a return to Ireland did not even suggest itself to her less enterprising mind. Perhaps, she thought, Honor might have set out to try to find the man Blake, and ask him to come and show the Jubilee sovereign to Miss Maitland; but this seemed so at variance with her determination of last night that Janie could hardly consider it probable. She wondered if it were her duty to go and tell Miss Maitland immediately, but came to the conclusion that, as the bell would ring in a few minutes, she might put off giving the information until she had dressed.

Her news naturally caused the greatest consternation at head-quarters. Steps were taken at once to institute a search for the runaway. Miss Cavendish communicated with the police, who, exactly as Honor had anticipated, enquired at the railway station and the pier at Dunscar, in case she had taken the train or the steamer; and caused the high roads to be watched. It did not occur to anybody that she would have ventured on such an undertaking as to cross the moors, and she had the advantage of several hours' start, so that, from her point of view, her plan was a success.

"You should have come to me instantly, Janie, when you made the discovery that she was gone," said Miss Maitland reproachfully. "We have lost at least three-quarters of an hour through your delay."

Poor Janie burst into tears. It had been very hard to be obliged to reveal the fact of her room-mate's flight at all. She felt that, utterly against her will, she had the whole time been the principal witness in Honor's disfavour, and that every word she had spoken had helped to confirm unjust suspicion. She would have made an attempt to plead her friend's cause if Miss Maitland had looked at all encouraging, but the mistress was anxious to waste no further time, and dismissed her summarily from the room.

Janie had taken the affair as much to heart as if the disgrace were her own. It seemed so particularly unfortunate that it should have happened, because, since their talk at St. Kolgan's Abbey, she had thought that Honor was making increased efforts, and that Miss Maitland had noticed and approved the change. Now all this advance appeared to be swept away, and in the opinion of both teachers and girls her friend was not fit to remain any longer on the roll of Chessington.

Although the Chaddites tried to keep their shame hushed up, the news leaked out somehow, and very soon spread through the entire College, where it instantly became the one absorbing topic of conversation. Owing to her prowess at cricket, and her friendly, amusing ways, Honor had won more notice than most new girls among her two hundred schoolfellows; but, in spite of her undoubted popularity, she was universally judged to be guilty. The general argument was that the money was missing, that somebody must have taken it, that Honor was known to have needed it desperately, and that her action in running away showed above everything that she dared not stay to have the matter investigated.

Janie thought that no day had ever been so long. The hours seemed absolutely interminable. Her lessons had been badly prepared the night before, and won for her a reproof from Miss Farrar; and her thoughts were so constantly occupied with wondering where Honor had fled that she could scarcely attend to the work in class, and often answered at random. Her head was aching badly, and her eyes were sore with crying, neither of which was conducive to good memory, or lucid explanations; so she was not surprised to find at the end of the morning that her record was the worst she had had during the whole term.

The afternoon was cool after the rain of the previous evening, and games were once more in full swing. Dearly as she would have liked to shirk her part in them, Janie was not allowed to absent herself; but she played so badly that she drew Miss Young's scorn on her head, to say nothing of the wrath of the Chaddites.

"You missed two catches—simply dropped them straight out of your hands! You're an absolute butter-fingers!" exclaimed Chatty Burns indignantly.

Janie was too crushed by utter misery to mind this extra straw. She retired thankfully to the pavilion as soon as she was allowed, feeling that missed catches or schoolmates' scoldings were of small importance in the present state of general misfortune.

"If I could only find out who took the sovereign!" she thought. "Honor certainly did not, so somebody else must have. Who? That's the question. I wish I were an amateur detective, like the clever people one reads about in magazines. They just get a clue, and find it all out so easily, while the police are on quite a wrong tack. The chief thing seems to be to make a beginning, and I don't know in the least where to start."

Neither tea nor preparation brought her any nearer to solving the difficulty. After supper she went into the garden, taking her work-basket and crochet with her. She was in the lowest of spirits, and blinked away some surreptitious tears. Weeping was not fashionable at St. Chad's, being classed as "Early Victorian", and she wished to hide her red eyes from the other girls; for this reason she hurried down the long gravel path behind the rows of peas and beans, and found a snug place by the tomato house, where there was a convenient wheelbarrow to sit upon. She had not been there more than five minutes when, to her surprise, she was joined by Lettice Talbot.

"I've been hunting for you everywhere, Janie!" announced Lettice. "I shouldn't have found you now, only I caught a glimpse of your pink hair ribbon through a vista of pea-sticks. Is there room for two on this barrow? Thanks; I'll sit down then. Look here! I want to tell you how glad I am that you stuck up for Honor last night. I know Maisie and all the rest think she took that wretched sovereign, but I declare I don't. Poor old Paddy! I'm certain she never could; I would as soon have done it myself."

"I'm so thankful to hear you say this," exclaimed Janie. "I was afraid I was the only one who believed in her."

"A few of our set are beginning to come round; Ruth Latimer is certainly wavering, and so is Pauline Reynolds. But naturally they all say: 'If Honor didn't take it, who did?'"

"That's exactly what I should like to find out," sighed Janie.

"Miss Maitland is absolutely certain that she left it on her table, and that it was gone when she came back within a quarter of an hour; also, that it hadn't fallen down anywhere in the room," said Lettice, with the air of a judge weighing evidence. "Where is it, then?"

"I've thought and thought," replied Janie, puckering up her forehead, "but I can't get any nearer. If we could prove, now, that someone else had been in Miss Maitland's room, it might quite alter the case."

"Why, what an idiot I am!" exclaimed Lettice, suddenly bouncing up from the wheelbarrow.

"What's the matter?"

"It's only just occurred to me! I suppose a really clever person would have thought of it at once. I'm afraid my brains don't work very fast. Oh, what a jubilee!"

"Lettice Talbot! Have you gone mad?"

"Not quite, but a little in that direction."

"Do explain yourself!"

"Well, you recollect when Honor climbed up to the window? We all went into the house afterwards, and then I ran back to fetch Maisie's work-basket. I saw a girl climb down the lime tree, and run away into the bushes."

"Are you sure?"

"I could not be mistaken."

"Then this is most extremely important."

"I know it is. I can't imagine how I never remembered it before. They may well call me 'Scatterbrains' at home! I certainly shouldn't have done for a barrister, if I'd been a boy."

"Could you tell who it was?"

"No, I wasn't near enough. I only saw her for a moment. If I had caught a glimpse of her face, it might have been of some use; but everybody wears the same kind of blue skirt and white blouse at Chessington, so it's quite impossible to recognize any particular girl when you see nothing but her back."

"Unless you could find somebody else who happened to have seen her too."

"No one else was there at the time."

"We must make enquiries," said Janie excitedly. "It really seems a clue. We won't leave a stone unturned, if we can help it."

"I should be very glad to get poor Paddy out of trouble," replied Lettice. "The slur on our house will be just the same, though, whichever Chaddite may be the culprit. It's only moving the disgrace from one person to another."

"We must see that the blame is put on to the right pair of shoulders, though; it's not fair for Honor to bear it unjustly."

"Indeed it isn't. What would be the best way to begin?"

"We need a witness. I wonder if Johnson was about at the time, and noticed anything?"

"A good idea! We'll go and find him. I believe I saw him just now, shutting up the greenhouse."

After a rather lengthy search, the girls at last discovered the old gardener putting away his tools in the potting shed.

"Johnson, please, we want to ask you a question," began Janie. "Were you near St. Chad's at nine o'clock on the night before last; and did you happen to see anyone climbing the lime tree that stands close to the house?"

Johnson stroked his chin reflectively.

"It couldn't have been last night," he replied, after a few moments' consideration. "I was in Dunscar then. It must 'a been the night afore that. Aye; I did see one of you young ladies go up that lime tree. I remember it, because she climbed that smart you'd have thought she was a boy. In at the window she gets, and I watches her and thinks it's well to have young limbs. It's not much climbing you'll do when you're nigh sixty, and stiff in the joints with rheumatism besides!"

"What was she like?" enquired Janie eagerly.

"Had she long, dark hair?" added Lettice.

"Nay, it was fair hair. There was a light in the room, so as she comes back through the window I sees her as plain as I sees you now. I knows her in a minute. It was the young lady as every Sunday morning pesters my life out of me to cut her a rose for her buttonhole: Miss Taylor, I think she's called."

"Flossie!" exclaimed Janie. "I know she always begs for roses."

"Then it was Flossie!" said Lettice. "I had an uneasy feeling in the back of my mind all the time that it was she—it looked like her figure. It seemed too bad to suspect her, though, when I had absolutely no proof."

"There can be little doubt about it now."

"Shall we go straight to Miss Maitland, at once?"

"I don't know. I'm not sure if it wouldn't be better to ask Flossie herself about it. She may be able to explain it; and, at any rate, I think we ought to warn her before we say anything, and then we shan't seem to have told tales behind her back."

"She doesn't deserve any consideration," grumbled Lettice.

Janie's conscience, however, required her to be scrupulously fair. She could not bear to take an advantage, even of one who must be shielding herself at the expense of another.

"We'll give her a chance," she decided emphatically.

The next step evidently was to search for Flossie. She was not in the garden, but after a diligent quest through the house they eventually found her in her own cubicle, engaged in the meritorious occupation of tidying her drawers. It was an unpleasant task for the two girls to voice their suspicions, but one that nevertheless had to be done.

Somewhat to their surprise, Flossie sat down on the edge of her bed, and burst out crying.

"Oh, I knew it would come! I knew it would!" she sobbed. "What am I to do? Oh, I've been so wretched all day! I believe I'm quite glad it has come out at last."

"Flossie, did you take that sovereign?" asked Janie.

"Yes—no—at least—yes! Only, I didn't know I was taking it!" groaned Flossie, trying in vain to find her handkerchief, and mopping her eyes in desperation with a corner of the sheet instead.

"What do you mean?"

"I'll tell you. Oh, it's such a relief to tell somebody! Of course, I was there when Honor climbed up the lime tree, and after you had all run indoors I thought it would be fun to see if I could go up too. It was quite easy, and I jumped through the window without any difficulty. There was nobody in the study, but the electric light was turned on. I walked over to the writing-table, and I remember noticing the sovereign lying at the corner, on the top of a pile of letters. There were ever so many papers strewn about, and some of them were our house conduct reports for the term, which Miss Maitland was evidently just beginning to fill in. I was so anxious to see if mine was there that I stretched over and took some of them in my hand, to look at them. Then I thought I heard a step in the passage, and I didn't want to be caught, so I popped them quickly back, and went down the tree a good deal faster than I had gone up. I took off my blouse as usual that night, and put it away in my middle drawer, and next day I wore a clean one. Then this morning, when I was dressing, I looked at the first blouse, to see if it were really soiled and ready for the laundry. To my horror, out tumbled a sovereign on to the floor! I can only suppose it must have slipped inside my turnover cuff, when I reached across the table; I certainly hadn't the least idea it was there. I couldn't think what to do! I hoped I might be able to smuggle it back on to the table, and I've been watching all day, but there has never been the slightest opportunity to go into the study. I didn't dare to tell Miss Maitland, from fear she would think I'd taken it on purpose. She wouldn't believe Honor, so I thought she wouldn't believe me either. Oh! isn't it all dreadful?"

"It is indeed," said Janie; "especially as Honor has had to bear the blame. It isn't the first time she has acted scapegoat for you!"

"I know what you mean," sobbed Flossie. "Vivian thought it was she who shammed ghost that night when I played a trick upon Evelyn Fletcher. I didn't intend to get Honor into trouble. I was very sorry about it; still, what could I do?"

"Do! Why, you ought to have told Vivian at once. Any girl with a spark of honour would have known that."

"You'd better make a clean breast of everything now," suggested Lettice.

"I daren't! I daren't!" cried Flossie, in an agony of alarm.

"I don't believe you need be afraid of Miss Maitland," said Janie. "You've only taken the sovereign by accident. She would be far more angry with you for not owning up."

"If you don't tell her, I shall go to her myself," threatened Lettice.

It was dreadfully difficult to screw Flossie's courage up to the required point. She declared she could not and would not make the necessary confession.

"I'll write to my mother to send for me to go home, and it can come out after I'm gone," she declared.

Lettice lost her temper and indulged in hard words, which, so far from altering Flossie's decision, only made her more obstinately determined. Fortunately, Janie had greater patience.

"I'm sure you'll be brave enough to do it for Honor's sake," she said. "You'll feel far happier and more comfortable when it's over. I know it's hard, but it's right, and we shall all think so much better of you afterwards than if you shirked telling, and went home. You could hardly come back again here if you did that. Be a true Chaddite, and remember our house motto: 'Strive for the highest'. I'll go with you to Miss Maitland, if you like."

In the end, Janie's counsel prevailed, and Flossie, very tearful and apprehensive, allowed herself to be led to the study, to return the sovereign and explain how it came into her possession. Miss Maitland proved kindness itself. She was immensely relieved to find that the whole affair was due to a mischance, and that none of her girls had been capable of committing a dishonest act. It wiped a blot from St. Chad's, and restored the house to its former high standing.

"If we could only find Honor Fitzgerald," she declared, "my mind would be at rest."

XVIII. The End of the Term

Major Fitzgerald's astonishment at meeting his runaway daughter on Westhaven Quay was great, but he was extremely thankful to find her safe and sound. He had received a telegram from Chessington informing him of her flight, and had started immediately for the College, coming from Cork to Westhaven by a night cargo vessel, as he thought that a quicker route than by the ordinary mail steamer from Dublin to Holyhead.

He at once took Honor to a hotel, where he engaged a private sitting-room and ordered luncheon; then he set to work to demand an explanation of what was still to him an absolute puzzle and mystery. In spite of her determination to suppress all mention of Dermot's embarrassments, Honor speedily found herself pouring out the whole of her troubles into her father's ears. She was no dissembler, never having been accustomed to concealment, and possessing naturally a very open character; so, with a few skilful questions, the Major easily drew from her the entire story.

She had prepared herself to expect a stern rebuke, but to her surprise her father seemed far more pained than angry.

"I thought my children could have trusted me!" he said. "You will find, Honor, as you go through life, that no one has your interest at heart so truly as your own father. Perhaps I have erred on the side of severity, but it is no light responsibility to keep five high-spirited lads under control, to say nothing of a madcap daughter. My father brought me up on the rule of 'spare the rod, spoil the child', and I thought modern methods produced a less worthy race, so I would stick to his old-fashioned principle. I have taken far harder thrashings in my boyhood than I have ever bestowed on Master Dermot. All the same, I believed you knew that, though I might sometimes appear harsh, I meant it for your good, and that I was the best friend you had in the world."

"You are, Daddy, you are!" cried Honor, clinging round his neck.

"Well, little woman, you must have more confidence in me another time, and come boldly and tell me your scrapes. I would rather forgive you a great deal than feel that you kept anything back from me. You've been a very foolish girl, and have got yourself into sad trouble. Your mother is wild with anxiety about you."

"How is Mother? Is she still so ill?" quavered Honor.

"She was much better until yesterday, when we received Miss Cavendish's telegram. Naturally, that upset her very much. I have wired to her already, to say that you are safely here with me."

"Oh, Daddy, let us go home to Mother at once!"

"No, my dear!" said Major Fitzgerald decidedly. "I couldn't let you return to Kilmore with such an accusation resting against your name. We must face that, and get it cleared up. I shall have a talk with both Miss Maitland and Miss Cavendish. Don't you see that by running away you are practically admitting yourself to be guilty? It was the silliest thing to do! Come, don't cry! We'll get to the bottom of the matter somehow."

"But you won't tell Dr. Winterton?" implored Honor, whose tears were more for her brother than for herself.

"I won't promise. It may be necessary to do so. You needn't fear Dermot will miss his exam.; I should of course stipulate that he must take it. I don't believe, however, that he would be expelled. It is so near to the end of the term, and if he secures a pass he will be leaving the Grange in any case, to join his training ship. The young rascal! He certainly deserves his thrashing. He's always up to some mischief! There, dry your eyes, child, I won't be too hard on him! In the meantime, we must think of getting back to Dunscar. We can just catch the 2.40 train. The sooner we arrive at the College and ease Miss Cavendish's mind, the better. I must buy you a hat as we walk to the station, and then perhaps you'll look more respectable."

It seemed to Honor as if an immense weight had been lifted from her mind. She began for the first time to understand her father, and to realize how much he thought of and cared for his children's welfare. The knowledge drew her nearer to him than she had ever been before. Her troubles seemed over now that he had taken the responsibility of them; she wished she had trusted him sooner, and felt that he was indeed, as he had said, her best and truest friend.

Miss Maitland was greatly relieved that afternoon when her missing pupil was restored to her, and congratulated herself that the mystery had been solved, and that she was able to give a full explanation to Major Fitzgerald of what had occurred.

The latter listened with close attention to her account.

"Pray don't apologize for having accused Honor falsely," he said. "As house-mistress, it was your plain duty to act as you did, and the evidence seemed overwhelming. I don't exonerate my little girl altogether; she had no right to take the law into her own hands and meet her brother in defiance of rules, and, still worse, to run away from school; neither had she any business to climb through the window into your study. She deserves a thorough scolding, but I think she is truly sorry, and that the consequences of her foolishness have been punishment enough."

"We will say no more about it," replied Miss Maitland; "it is an unpleasant episode, which we shall be only too glad to consign to oblivion. Honor has shown us already that she is capable of better things, and I shall expect much from her in the future."

The runaway received a warm welcome from the Chaddites, who much regretted their hasty action in condemning her without sufficient proof.

"I'm afraid I misjudged you before, Honor," said Vivian Holmes. "Flossie has told me that it was she who shammed ghost. It's a pity there have been so many misunderstandings, but I'm glad you weren't responsible for Evelyn's fright."

Vivian spoke kindly, but without enthusiasm. She was ready enough to acknowledge Honor's innocence, but she still did not altogether approve of her, and considered that there was much room for improvement before she became a worthy member of St. Chad's. The monitress had no sympathy with lawlessness, and preferred girls who upheld the school rules, instead of breaking them. Undue exuberance of spirits during a first term was in her eyes presumption, and not to be countenanced by a monitress who did her duty.

She need not have been afraid, however, that the black sheep of her flock was going to indulge in any more lapses from the strict path of convention. Honor had returned in a very subdued frame of mind, and gave no further occasion for reproof.

She took the girls' apologies for sending her to Coventry in excellent part.

"If you really believed I'd stolen the sovereign, you were quite right," she remarked briefly. "Anyone who'd done such a thing would have richly deserved that, and worse. I care quite as much as you all for the honour of the house."

To Janie alone, the one friend who had taken her part and stood up for her when the whole school was against her, could Honor turn with a sense of absolute confidence; the bond between them seemed closer than ever, and she felt she owed a debt of gratitude that it would be difficult to repay. Janie's joy at this happy ending to what had appeared a scholastic earthquake was extreme; and, though she gave Lettice the credit that was due, she could not help experiencing a little satisfaction at her own share in elucidating the mystery. She had worked hard to clear her friend's name, so it was delightful to reap her reward.

The sensation caused by the events of the last few days was soon forgotten by the majority of the girls in the excitement of the examinations. For the next week the whole College lived in a whirl of perpetual effort to marshal scattered facts, or recall forgotten vocabularies. The classrooms, given over to pens, ink, and sheets of foolscap paper, were the abodes of a silence only disturbed by the occasional scratching of a pen, or the sigh of a candidate in the throes of attacking a stiff problem. To Honor the experience was all new. She tried her best, but found it difficult to curtail her statements sufficiently to allow of her answering every question, in spite of Miss Farrar's oft-repeated warning against devoting too much time to one part of the paper. She was, of course, at a great disadvantage, as she had spent only one term at Chessington, and the examinations were on the work of a whole year; but she nevertheless acquitted herself creditably, and actually gained higher marks than several girls who had come to school the preceding September.

"I feel as if I'd been in a battle!" she announced, when at length the ordeal was over and the last set of papers handed in. "My fingers are soaked with ink, for my fountain pen leaked atrociously; but it wrote so much quicker than an ordinary one that I didn't dare to abandon it."

"You'll soon get the ink off," said Lettice. "Miss Maitland always puts plenty of pieces of pumice stone and slices of lemon in the dressing-room at examination time. I'm sure I've failed in geometry, and I shall be very much surprised if I find I've scraped through in physics."

"I feel just as doubtful over English language," said Chatty Burns. "But it's no use worrying ourselves any more; we can't correct mistakes now, whatever stupid ones we may have made."

"And we can just have a few peaceful days until the sports," added Lettice.

The end of the term was always celebrated by a gathering of parents and friends, at which the girls gave exhibitions of their skill in running, jumping, or some of the physical exercises that they had learnt with Miss Young. This year the programme was to include military drill and flag signalling. The latter was a new departure in the school, but one that everybody had taken up with enthusiasm. Little bands of the most expert performers had been selected, and these practised diligently in the playing-fields, waving their messages with great accuracy and dispatch.

"It might come in useful if there were a war," said Lettice; "and, at any rate, it will be very convenient at home. I mean to teach some friends who live at a house close by, and we shall be able to stand at our bedroom windows and talk with our flags."

"It will be fun out yachting," said Madge Summers. "We can signal any vessel we pass, and ask her name, and where she is going, and all kinds of questions."

"I wish Miss Young would teach us heliography next term," said Honor. "I should like flashing messages with looking-glasses."

"We'll ask her; but we shall have to wait nearly a year. We only have hockey in the winter term, with gymnasium work when it's wet. Are any of your people coming over on Thursday?"

"I'm afraid not—it's such a long way from Kerry! My mother is still ill, and my father is busy."

"That's a pity!" said Lettice. "We all like our parents to turn up for the sports. There's generally an absolute crowd."

As Lettice had indicated, a large number of visitors made their appearance on breaking-up day. The quadrangle and playing-fields were gay with summer dresses and parasols, and everywhere girls might be seen conducting little parties of friends over the College buildings.

"The whole place seems topsy-turvy," remarked Honor. "You can go where you like, and actually speak in the laboratory without forfeits! Even the library is turned into a tea-room!"

"Yes, there are no rules this afternoon," replied Janie.

The sports were held in the cricket ground, and began punctually at half-past four. Forms had been brought from the school, to make seats for the spectators and for those of the girls who were not taking part in the proceedings.

"I like a large audience," said Chatty Burns; "it's rather inspiring. Of course, it makes one nervous, but, at the same time, it puts one on one's mettle. I always do better when there are plenty of people to watch."

"Especially when one feels that one is working for the credit of one's own house," said Ruth Latimer. "We all want to see the orange ribbon to the fore to-day."

"I'm afraid we've very little chance of winning anything," groaned Madge Summers. "The Hilaryites are almost sure of the long jump. Mona Richards beats the record. They call her 'The Kangaroo'!"

"And the School House will get the high jump," said Lettice. "We haven't anybody so good as Lois Atkinson."

"How about the Atalanta race?"

"Doubtful. I expect it will go to Aldwyth's, or Bride's. They've been training their champion runners the whole term, while we were concentrating our energies on cricket. No Chaddites have even entered, I believe! Chatty, you ought to be in it."

"It seemed no use putting down my name. I was practising last week—you remember, we had a general trial of all the houses?—and I soon found I hadn't a ghost of a chance."

"Well, St. Chad's must content itself with its cricket laurels. We've got the cup for this year, at any rate."

The first portion of the programme consisted of military drill and physical exercises, in which the whole school took part, showing a readiness and promptitude of action worthy of a regiment. Miss Young had prepared a little surprise for the visitors. At the end of the display, the girls suddenly ranked themselves so that their sailor hats, viewed from a distance, formed the College motto: "United in effort"; then, at a sign, they moved again, and the greeting, "Welcome to Chessington" appeared instead. Naturally, this caused much applause, and many congratulations were offered to Miss Cavendish on the excellent discipline prevailing throughout.

The flag signalling was confined to a picked band, so the greater portion of the girls now joined the spectators, only those who had entered for the various competitions remaining in a separate corner of the field.

"I'm glad we have five Chaddites at flag work," said Chatty Burns; "it's a larger proportion than any other house. But there our triumphs are likely to end."

"We won't give up too soon," said Lettice. "There's an old proverb: 'You're never killed till you're dead'. We might manage to score, after all."

In spite of Lettice's sanguine anticipations, St. Chad's did not appear likely to win any triumphs on this occasion. The long jump, as everyone had expected, fell easily to Mona Richards, who thoroughly justified her nickname of "Kangaroo", and caused the Hilaryites to hold up their heads with the proud consciousness of victory. The high jump seemed at first of more doubtful issue; both Dorothy Saunders, of St. Bride's, and Rachel Foard, of St. Aldwyth's, ran Lois Atkinson very close, and the School House had almost made up its mind to a beating when the luck suddenly turned, leaving Lois mistress of the event.

The next item was the "Atalanta Race", so called because each competitor was obliged to pick up three apples during its course, and present them duly at the winning post—not an easy feat to accomplish, as it was possible to drop the first and second in the hurry of snatching at the third.

"There are eleven in for it," announced Lettice, as the candidates began to take their places at the starting-point. "Five scarlet ribbons, two pinks, three violets, and one blue. Not a single Chaddite, alas! Yes, I believe there actually is! Look, there's an orange hat walking up, to make a twelfth!"

"Who can it be?" asked several of the girls, straining their eyes to catch a glimpse of the last comer, who was rather hidden behind the others.

"She's about Pauline's height," said Lettice. "No; Pauline is over there, with Madge and Dorothy. It's not tall enough for Effie Lawson, nor fat enough for Claudia Hammond-Smith. Can it possibly be Adeline? Why, girls, by all that's wonderful and marvellous, it's Janie Henderson!"

Janie's appearance among the trained runners in the Atalanta race was indeed sufficient to cause the most unbounded astonishment. Her general dislike of active exercise was proverbial. It was well known that she only played games under the strictest compulsion, and throughout her school course she had earned the not unmerited reputation of a "slacker". That she, the most unathletic and altogether unlikely girl in the College, should have calmly taken her place as the sole champion of St. Chad's in so difficult a race seemed nearly incredible.

"I wonder Miss Young let her!" gasped Ruth Latimer in horror. "She's bound to fall out immediately."

"And it will bring more discredit on the house than if no one had tried," added Chatty Burns. "I'd have gone in for it myself, only Vivian begged me not to."

"I call it a regular swindle!" said Maisie Talbot. "Honor, did she tell you of this mad scheme?"

"Not a word!"

There was a curious expression on Honor's face as she answered, a look of mingled surprise and enlightenment. She had not forgotten the talk at St. Kolgan's Abbey, and she alone of the whole school knew the motive that had prompted Janie to such an amazing action, and could account for this apparent inconsistency of conduct.

"I never dreamt of her really doing it!" she murmured, under her breath.

"Someone ought to stop her in time!" exclaimed Lettice indignantly.

So far, however, from placing any hindrance in the way of Janie's attempt, Miss Young, on the contrary, appeared to be giving her a few words of encouragement and final advice.

The course was to be three times round the cricket ground, an apple to be picked up in each circle. Heaps of early green codlins from the orchard had been disposed at regular intervals, and competitors might select from which pile they wished, so long as they took neither more nor less than the one required specimen in every round, the object being to prevent a general scramble. There were to be no handicaps, so the twelve girls were drawn up in even rank, each girl with one foot on the white line, and her eyes fixed on Miss Young, in readiness for the signal to start. It was an anxious moment.

"One! Two! Three—off!"

They were gone, a row of young athletes, each bounding forward in the ardent hope of outstripping the rest, and gaining the coveted silver cup of victory. The race was always a great feature of the Chessington sports, but to-day, to the members of one house at any rate, it afforded a spectacle of more than ordinary interest. The eyes of all the Chaddites seemed riveted upon Janie, and they watched with frantic excitement to see how she would conduct herself in the struggle.

"She's keeping well up with the rest," whispered Lettice.

"And has a very light, swinging pace," replied Ruth.

"She's actually ahead of Connie Peters already!" said Chatty.

"And gaining on Christina Willoughby!"

"There! She's picked up her first apple!"

"And passed Blanche Hedley!"

"If she only goes on at this rate, St. Chad's may begin to hope."

"Too good to last, I'm afraid."

"She's begun the second round!"

"She's flagging a little!"

"No, she isn't! She's saving herself for a spurt. There! I told you so! She's passed Christina now!"

"I can hardly believe it's Janie Henderson who's running. It doesn't seem possible!"

"Well, of course, she's extremely light; that gives her a great pull over most of the others."

"But I didn't know she could run at all!"

"Perhaps she didn't either, until she tried."

"She's picked up her second apple!"

"And Alice Marsh has nearly knocked her over, through rushing to the same heap."

"Never mind! it hasn't really hindered her."

"She and Nettie Saville are almost equal now!"

"How well she keeps up!"

"There she goes, past the post again!"

"This is actually the last round!"

"And that's her third apple!"

"She'll let it fall!"

"No, she won't; she's got them quite tight!"

"She's up to Nettie!"

"No—Nettie is spurting, and gaining fast!"

"Janie must push on!"

"Hurrah! Nettie has dropped an apple, and she'll have to stop, and pick it up."

"Janie is ahead of everyone!"

"If she wins, it will be a triumph for the orange ribbon!"

Thus the girls, with continuous anxiety, followed the events of the race, all unknowing that Janie was playing for a far higher stake than they realized, and that on the result of that race hung, not only the honour of St. Chad's, but the future of a human soul, capable of infinitely so much more than it had yet achieved.

"They're all putting on steam! Oh, look! Alice Marsh is almost even!"

"And so is Christina!"

"And Connie Peters has gained what she lost at first!"

"Janie mustn't fail now!"

"Nettie has passed her!"

"Then she'll lose, for a certainty!"

"Oh, dear! I hardly dare look!"

"She won't! She won't! She's making a last dash! She's in front of Nettie! She's gaining—three feet—four feet! Well done, Janie! Go on! Go on! You're safe! Don't flag now!"

"Oh! Hurrah for St. Chad's! She's actually won!"

The wild delight of the Chaddites at this most marvellous and unexpected achievement was beyond all bounds. They cheered themselves nearly hoarse, and waved their handkerchiefs in the exuberance of their joy. To have gained the Atalanta race was a score for their house which, added to their previous cricket successes, would place it on the highest pinnacle of the athletic records of the year.

"And to think that my delicate Janie should be capable of such a feat!" exclaimed Mrs. Henderson, who had watched the contest with hardly less excitement than the Chaddites themselves. "Chessington has been the making of her, and I cannot thank you enough, Miss Cavendish, for your care of her general health. She is another girl from what she was two years ago. The doctor always told me that plenty of exercise would be her salvation, but I could never persuade her to run about at home."

"I am as delighted as you at the change," declared Miss Cavendish. "Janie has shown us quite a new phase to-day, and we shall take care that she keeps up to this standard."

Janie herself, panting and flushed with victory, heard the applause almost as in a dream. It was sweet to her ears, yet it was not the reward for which she had striven. Her eager gaze searched down the long line of clapping girls till she found Honor's face. For a moment their eyes met, but in that one swift glance she read all she wished to learn, and could interpret without the medium of language her friend's unspoken thoughts: "It was a bargain. You have kept your part of it, and I will keep mine."

The Honor who returned to Ireland next day was indeed changed from the one who had left home in disgrace only thirteen weeks before—so much more thoughtful, sympathetic, and considerate, with such higher ideals and nobler aspirations, that she scarcely seemed the same: an Honor who could tread softly in her mother's room, and give the required tenderness to that dear one who was to be spared so short a time to her; an Honor who, while keeping all her old love of fun, could forget self, and turn her merriment into sunshine for others. Character is a plant of slow growth, and she was not yet all she might be; but she had set her foot on the upward ladder, and whether at school, or at home, or in after years, life to her would always mean a conscious effort towards better things.

It seemed to her as if she had been away years, instead of only three months, when she and Dermot (who had passed his examination for a Naval cadetship) drove from Ballycroghan along the well-known road to Kilmore. The villagers stood at their cabin doors waving a greeting; her father, and actually her mother too, were waiting for her on the Castle steps when she arrived; and her four elder brothers had collected all the dogs of the establishment to join in a warm, if somewhat uproarious reception.

"I believe everything looks glad to see me," said Honor, "the very house, and the trees, and the birds, and the flowers in the garden! I'm going to have the most glorious holidays, and enjoy every hour of them. It feels almost worth while to have been thirteen weeks at Chessington, for the joy of such a coming home again!"

THE END

The Youngest Girl in the Fifth

First Published 1913

Gwen Is Caught By the Storm

Contents

I.  An Unexpected Remove

II.  The Gascoyne Girls

III.  A False Step

IV.  A Delicate Transaction

V.  Trouble in the Fifth

VI.  A Casting Vote

VII.  Dick Chambers

VIII.  Gwen Receives a Letter

IX.  Keeping Christmas

X.  A Prodigal

XI.  A Prize Essay

XII.  Gwen Turns Henwife

XIII.  The Shoe Pinches

XIV.  Gwen meets Trouble

XV.  Storm Clouds

XVI.  First Aid

XVII.  A Pressing Account

XVIII.  Gwen's Bright Idea

XIX.  A School Gymkhana

XX.  A Day of Reckoning

XXI.  Retribution

XXII.  The Tennis Tournament

XXIII.  Gwen to the Rescue

XXIV.  The Senior Oxford

I. An Unexpected Remove

"Gwen! Gwen Gascoyne! Gwen! Anybody seen her? I say, have you all gone deaf? Don't you hear me? Where's Gwen? I—want—Gwen—Gascoyne!"

The speaker—Ida Bridge—a small, perky, spindle-legged Junior, jumped on to the nearest seat, and raising her shrill voice to its topmost pitch, twice shouted the "Gwen Gascoyne", with an aggressive energy calculated to make herself heard above the babel of general chatter that pervaded the schoolroom. Her effort, though far from musical, at any rate secured her the notice she desired.

"Hello, there! Stop that noise! It's like a dog howling!" irately commanded a girl in spectacles who was cleaning the blackboard.

"And get down from my desk this minute! Who said you might climb up there?"

"Look here, you kid, what are you doing in our classroom?"

"Take yourself off at once! Fly! Scoot!"

The "kid", however, stood her ground.

"Shan't move till you've answered my question," she replied with aggravating impudence. "I want Gwen Gascoyne."

"Why, there she is all the time!"

"Where?"

"Under your very nose, you stupid baby! Get down from my desk, I tell you!"

The Junior cast what was intended to be a withering glance before she descended.

"Gwen Gascoyne, why couldn't you answer when I called you?" she demanded abruptly.

Gwen paused in the act of sharpening a lead pencil, and eyed the intruder.

"Who asked you to come in here?" she retorted.

"You babes must keep to your own classrooms! Hey, presto! Vanish! And be quick about it!" interposed Myra Johnson.

"Shan't! Not till I've spoken to Gwen."

"Cheek!"

"Suppress that kid!"

"But I've got a message!" squeaked the babe, as sundry arms of justice thrust her summarily in the direction of the door. "Oh, I have really—a message for Gwen from Miss Roscoe! She's to go to the library—now!"

"Then why couldn't you say so at first?"

"You never gave me a chance!"

Gwen threw the half-sharpened pencil inside her desk and banged down the lid.

"What does Miss Roscoe want with me?" she asked in some consternation. "Are you sure she meant me?"

A summons from the headmistress rarely boded good fortune to the recipient, and the girls stared at Gwen with interested sympathy.

"What have you been doing?" murmured Eve Dawkins.

"Glad I'm not in your shoes!" proclaimed Daisy Hurst.

"Oh, Gwen, I am sorry for you!" bleated Alma Richardson.

"I've not been doing anything!" protested Gwen indignantly. "You've no need to look at me as if I were a cross between a criminal and a martyr! Here, you babe, what did Miss Roscoe say?"

"Only that you're to go to the library; and you'd better be quick, because she said: 'Tell her to come at once!' Said it in her snappiest way, too! I shouldn't be a month about going if I were you. Hello! There's the bell. Ta-ta, I'm off! I wish you luck!" and Ida Bridge fled to the region of her own classroom, with a grin on her impish face.

Though she might rail at the impudence of the small fry, Gwen was not above taking a hint—headmistresses do not lightly brook being kept waiting—so she started at a run up the passage, turning over in her mind every possible crime which she might unwittingly have committed.

"Can't remember using the front gate, or not changing my boots, or talking on the stairs, or—oh, wow! Here I am at the library! Well, whatever I've done, I suppose I'm in for it now! I hope she won't absolutely wither me up!"

So far from looking withering as Gwen entered the room, the Principal wore an unusually encouraging and benign expression. She was a handsome, large, imposing woman, with a stern cast of features, and was held in great awe by the whole school. As a rule, Seniors and Juniors quailed alike under the glance of her keen dark eyes.

"Come here, Gwen," she said blandly, as her pupil stood hesitating near the door. "I want to have a little talk with you. I've been looking over your reports for the last few weeks, and I find that you've done well—so well, that I consider the standard of the Upper Fourth is too easy for you. I think you ought to be able to manage the work of the Fifth Form, and I'm going to move you there."

Gwen stared at Miss Roscoe, too surprised to answer. Such a proposal as a change of Form was absolutely the last thing she could have expected. In the middle of a term it was surely an unprecedented happening. For the moment she scarcely knew whether to be alarmed or flattered at the honour thus thrust upon her.

"You may find the mathematics a little difficult," continued Miss Roscoe; "but Miss Woodville shall coach you until you've caught up the rest of the class. She can also go over the arrears of Latin translation with you. With that help you shouldn't be so far behind. I've spoken to both Miss Slade and Miss Douglas about it, and they fully agree with me. Do you think yourself you'll be able to manage the work?"

"I don't know, I'm sure," stammered Gwen. "I expect I'm behind in maths.—but—"

"But you must try your best. I shall trust you to make a great effort. I should be very sorry to have to put you down again. Come with me now, and I'll take you to your new Form."

Gwen followed the Principal with her head in a buzzing whirl. It seemed like a dream to be suddenly translated from the Lower School to the Upper. She wished she could have had a little time to get accustomed to the idea: she would have liked a day's preparation at least, so as to think the change over and discuss it at home. Miss Roscoe, however, always did things in a hurry; she never had a moment to waste, and at present she whisked her pupil along the corridor and into the Fifth Form room with almost breathless energy.

"Here's Gwen Gascoyne, Miss Douglas," she announced. "We'll try if she can manage the work, and I've arranged with Miss Woodville to give her the extra coaching we spoke about. She can bring her books from her old classroom at eleven."

Thus saying, she bustled away to take a history lecture, leaving the new member of the Fifth standing in much embarrassment. The eyes of every girl in the room naturally were glued upon Gwen, who felt herself twitching with nervousness under the scrutiny; but Miss Douglas motioned her to an empty desk in the back row, and went on with the lesson as if nothing had happened. I am afraid Gwen was too agitated to absorb much knowledge that morning. She had not brought notebook or pencil with her, and though at Miss Douglas's request her neighbour rather ungraciously lent her a sheet of paper and a stump of pencil, the notes which she took were scrappy and inadequate. She kept stealing peeps at the other girls, but turning away when she met the anything but friendly glances directed at her. The teacher asked her one or two questions, then, seeing that she did not quite grasp the subject, kindly ignored her.

"Talk of a fish out of water," thought Gwen; "I feel like an eel in a frying pan. I believe these girls are going to be detestable. I shall have to look out for squalls."

Nor was she mistaken. At eleven o'clock the storm broke. Directly Miss Douglas had left the room for the interval the seventeen members of the Fifth turned upon the newcomer.

"What are you doing here, Gwen Gascoyne, I'd like to know?" demanded Edith Arnold, opening the attack.

"We don't want any Fourth Form girls foisted on us!" proclaimed Rachel Hunter.

"You don't belong to the Upper School!" urged Charlotte Perry hotly.

"I didn't yesterday, but I do now," retorted Gwen. "Miss Roscoe's moved me up. Yes—and I mean to stay here, too!" she added, facing her opponents stubbornly.

"Miss Roscoe must be mad!"

"What can she be thinking of?"

"Better go and ask her yourself," said Gwen, "if you think she's likely to listen to you. She isn't generally very ready to enter into explanations."

"But this is monstrous! It's an unheard-of thing!" exclaimed Louise Mawson excitedly. "A chit like you to be brought into the Fifth! Why, how old are you?"

"Exactly fourteen and a quarter—birthday on July 16th, if you want exact date," returned Gwen smartly.

"Oh!" "What a shame!" "We shan't stand it!" rose in such a chorus from all sides that Gwen took the opportunity to make her escape and go to the dressing-room for her lunch. The interval was only ten minutes, and she wished both to break the news to her old classmates and to fetch some necessary books from her former desk before the bell rang.

The other members of the Fifth lingered behind in perturbed consultation. They considered they had a just and most pressing grievance. In all the annals of the school such a case had never occurred before. It had been hitherto an inviolable though unwritten law that no one under the age of fifteen should be admitted to the Fifth Form, a law which they had believed as strict as that of the Medes and Persians, and here was the headmistress actually breaking it, and in favour of a girl only fourteen and a quarter. If Miss Roscoe had not brought her herself into the room they would not have credited it.

"It's abominably unfair!" broke out Rachel Hunter, a tall girl of sixteen. "Because my birthday comes on October 4th I had to stop a whole year longer in the Lower School. Yes—though my mother came and begged Miss Roscoe to let me go up!"

"Well, you couldn't get moved up on your work, at any rate, Rachel!" chirped Joan Masters. "It would have had to be favour in your case."

"That's not the point! It's a different question. If Miss Roscoe makes a rule she ought to stick to it. Why, half the girls in the Form might have come up sooner if it hadn't been for the age limit."

"You're right, and I can't see why Gwen Gascoyne should be so specially noticed."

"She's supposed to be clever, I believe."

"She doesn't look it! Besides, what do we care whether she's clever or not? It's the injustice of the thing that makes me angry. A kid like her amongst us seniors! The idea!"

"Miss Roscoe may send Gwen up," declared Louise Mawson, "but she can't make us accept her as one of ourselves. I vote we send her to Coventry."

"We will! She's nothing but a Lower School girl, and we won't tolerate her being imposed upon us!"

"She'll be so conceited at finding herself a Senior!"

"We'll soon take her pride down, then!"

"She'll meet with a few snubs here, I'll undertake to say!"

"If Miss Roscoe is going to bring up all the rank and file like that there's no credit in being in the Fifth!"

"It's a positive insult to the rest of us!"

So decided Gwen's new classmates, jealous for the prestige of their Form, and annoyed at the indignity which they considered they were made to suffer in admitting a younger girl among their number. To Gwen or her feelings they gave not a thought. If she met with an unpleasant experience all the better; it might deter Miss Roscoe from repeating the experiment. That the remove was not Gwen's fault, and therefore that it was scarcely fair to visit the headmistress's act upon her innocent head, did not enter into their calculations. Where they consider their rights are concerned schoolgirls rarely hold mercy before justice.

Meantime Gwen, who had gone to break the important tidings to the Upper Fourth, did not find her old friends as responsive as she had expected. They received her communication with marked coldness.

"Why should you have been moved up, Gwen Gascoyne, and not Daisy, or Aileen, or I?" enquired Alma Richardson, with a distinctly aggrieved note in her voice.

"Miss Roscoe always favoured Gwen!" said Eve Dawkins enviously.

"You're six months younger than Viola Sutton, so it seems absurd you should be put above her."

"You'll be so grand now, I suppose you won't care to know us!"

"It's not fair to the rest of the Form!"

"Oh dear! I'm between two fires," thought Gwen, as she hastily cleared her possessions from her old desk. "The Fifth don't want me, and the Fourth are horribly jealous. You're going to have a bad time, Gwen Gascoyne, I'm afraid! I see breakers ahead! Never mind. It's a great honour to be moved up, and Father'll be glad and sympathize, if nobody else does. The work will be pretty stiff: I expect it'll be all I can do to manage it. But I mean to have a jolly good try. I'll show those girls I can do something, though I am the youngest! Oh, I say! I've only just remembered that Winnie'll be the under-mistress. I'll have to call her 'Miss Gascoyne' whenever I speak to her. How perfectly idiotic! I'm sure I shall laugh. I wonder if Miss Roscoe's told her yet? What a surprise it would be for her to come into the room and find me there!"

"I wish you'd be quick, Gwen Gascoyne," said Eve Dawkins; "I'm to have your desk as soon as you've moved out. It's a nicer seat than mine."

"Right-o!" answered Gwen, piling her books on top of her big atlas. "You're welcome to it, I'm sure. I think you might all have seemed a trifle more sorry to lose me! I don't see any display of pocket handkerchiefs. No, I can't say I'm shedding tears myself unless they're crocodile ones. Please to recollect in future, my dears, when you speak to me, that you're addressing a member of the Upper School! You're only little Junior girls! Ta-ta!" and with a mock curtsy, in process of which she nearly dropped her pile of books, Gwen retired laughing from the Fourth Form to take her place and try her luck among the Seniors.

II. The Gascoyne Girls

At fourteen and a quarter Gwen Gascoyne was at a particularly difficult and hobbledehoy stage of her development. She was tall for her age, and rather awkward in her manners, apt at present to be slapdash and independent, and decidedly lacking in "that repose which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere". Gwen could never keep still for five seconds, her restless hands were always fidgeting or her feet shuffling, or she was twisting in her chair, or shaking back a loose untidy lock that had escaped from her ribbon. Gwen often did her hair without the aid of a looking-glass, but when she happened to use one the reflection of her own face gave her little cause for satisfaction.

"I'm plain, and there's no blinking the fact," she confessed to herself. "Winnie says I'm variable, and I can look nice when I smile, but I'm afraid no one would trouble to look at me twice. If only I were Lesbia now, or even Beatrice! People talk about the flower of a family—well, I expect I'm the weed, as far as appearances go! I haven't had my fair share in the way of good looks."

It certainly seemed hard that Nature, which had been kind to the Gascoynes in that respect, should have dowered her brothers and sisters so liberally, and have left poor Gwen out in the cold. Her bright little face had an attraction all of its own, of which she was quite unconscious, but she was entirely accustomed to stand aside while strangers noticed and admired her younger sister Lesbia. To do Gwen justice, though she might lament her own plainness, it never struck her to be jealous of the others. She was intensely proud of the family reputation for beauty, and even if she could not include herself among "the handsome Gascoynes", it certainly gave her a reflected satisfaction to be aware of the epithet.

"I'm like Daddy," she said sometimes; "nobody ever calls him handsome, but he's a dear all the same—the dearest dear in the world!"

The Reverend Maurice Gascoyne was curate-in-charge of the church of St. John the Baptist in the little fishing village of Skelwick Bay, on the coast of the North Sea. He was rich in the possession of seven children, but there his luck ended, for his income, as is often the case, was in exactly inverse ratio to the size of his family.

"The fact is, we're as poor as church mice," said Beatrice one day. "Indeed, I think we're poorer, because the mouse we saw in church last Sunday, that scared Winnie so, was very fat and sleek and prosperous looking, and didn't bear out the old saying at all."

For the last four years, ever since pretty Mrs. Maurice Gascoyne had gently laid down the burden that had grown too heavy for her, Beatrice had been the clever, energetic "mother" of the establishment. She managed the house, and the children, and the one maid, and the parish, and her father, all included, with a business-like capacity far in advance of her twenty years. She was a fine-looking girl, tall and straight-limbed and ample, with blue eyes and dark brows, and a clear creamy skin, and that air of noble strength about her which the Greek sculptors gave to their statues of Artemis. Though she did her best both for home and hamlet, Beatrice often chafed against the narrowness of her limits. It was a sore point that she had been obliged to leave school at sixteen, and devote herself to domestic pursuits, and while not regretting the sacrifice, she often lamented the two years lopped off her education.

"I'm so behind, I never could go in even for the matric. now," she sighed sometimes. "If I could have realized my ambition, I'd have studied for a lady doctor."

Since the profession of medicine was utterly and entirely out of the question, Beatrice often consoled herself by planning that when the children were old enough to do without her, she would go as a nurse to a big London hospital, and rise to be a ward sister, or perhaps—who knew?—even a matron. In the meanwhile her talent for administration had to confine itself within the bounds of the Parsonage and the parish, where it was apt to become just a trifle dictatorial and overbearing. It is so hard for a young, keen, ardent nature, anxious to set the world right, to remember that infinite patience must go hand in hand with our best endeavours, and that the time of sowing is an utterly different season from that of harvest.

Between Gwen and Beatrice there was often friction. The former resented being ordered about by a sister of only twenty, and would prove rebellious on occasion. Really, the two girls' dispositions were much alike, but Beatrice's early position of responsibility had turned into strength of character what was at present mere manifestation of independence and often bravado in Gwen.

Winnie, a sweet-tempered, pretty girl of eighteen, had just been made an under-mistress at "Rodenhurst", Miss Roscoe's school, which she and Gwen and Lesbia attended daily. Teaching was not at all Winnie's vocation, she hated it heartily, but as her services cancelled her sisters' school fees, she was obliged to accept the unwelcome drudgery for the sake of the help it gave to her father's narrow income. If it was Beatrice's ambition to go out into the world and carve a career for herself, it was certainly Winnie's ideal to stop at home. She was a born housekeeper, and loved sewing and cake-baking and jam-making, and dusting the best china, and gardening, and rearing poultry and ducks. It seemed a great pity that she could not have changed places with her elder sister, but Beatrice's education had been stopped too soon for her to be of any use as a teacher, while Winnie, though not clever, had been carefully trained in Rodenhurst methods. Fortunately she had a very cheerful, sunny disposition, that was prone to make the best of things, so she struggled along, taking Miss Roscoe's many suggestions and reproofs so amiably that the Principal, often irate at her lack of capacity, had not the heart to scold her too severely. Of her own choice, I am afraid, Winnie would never have opened a book, but she managed to get up her subjects for her classes, and was a conscientious, painstaking mistress, if not a brilliant one.

After Gwen came the beauty of the family, twelve-year-old Lesbia, a dear, delightful, smiling, lovable little lazybones, usually at the bottom of her Form. Lesbia never attempted to work hard at school. She scraped through her lessons somehow, generally with Gwen's help at home, and took life in a happy-go-lucky fashion, with as little trouble to herself as possible. Lesbia's chief virtue was an admirably calm and unruffled temper: she would laugh philosophically over things that made Gwen rage, and though she had not half the character of the latter, she was a far greater general favourite. She was much petted at school, both by her own Form and by the Seniors, for she had sweet, coaxing little ways, and a helpless, confiding look in her blue eyes that was rather fascinating, and her lovely fair flaxen hair gave her the appearance of a large wax doll, just new from a toy shop. Lesbia had one great advantage: she was always well dressed. She possessed a rich cousin of exactly her own age, whose clothes were passed on to her. Irene grew rapidly, so her handsome frocks and coats were scarcely worn when they reached Lesbia, and as Aunt Violet invariably sent them first to the cleaners, they would arrive wrapped in folds of dainty tissue paper, and looking like new. It seemed rather hard that Lesbia should always be the lucky recipient of the parcels, and Beatrice, with a strict sense of justice, had often tried to adapt some of the things for Gwen. It was quite impossible, however—Lesbia's neat, dainty little figure exactly fitted into the clothes, while Gwen, tall and big-boned even for her extra two and a half years, was so many sizes too large that she had to resign all hope of "fineries", and content herself with plain blouses and navy-blue serge skirts that could be lengthened easily. Not that Gwen troubled much about dress at this period of her existence; indeed she was apt to throw on her garments in a haphazard fashion that greatly excited Beatrice's wrath, and would raise a remonstrance even from Winnie. Life was so full of different things, and so many fresh interests and new plans were crowding continually into her brain, that she never had time to think whether her tie was neatly knotted or her belt properly fastened; it is a sad admission to make, no doubt, but then Gwen was no ideal heroine, only a very faulty, impetuous, headstrong, human girl.

Three little brothers completed the Gascoyne family—Giles, Basil, and Martin, aged respectively ten, nine, and five, bonny mischievous urchins, who were alternately Beatrice's pride and despair. By vigorous measures she managed to keep them in tolerably good order, but she could never be sure what pranks they would play next, and was generally prepared for emergencies. She always had supplies handy of arnica, sticking plaster, and rags for cut fingers, and would toil away patiently mending long rents in small knickerbockers or darning holes in stockings and jerseys. Giles and Basil went daily to a branch establishment of Rodenhurst, kept by Miss Roscoe for boys under twelve; and Martin learnt his letters at home, and trotted about the house and parish in Beatrice's wake. He was a sweet little scamp, and the apple of her eye, for she had brought him up from babyhood, but she sometimes felt it would be an intense relief when he was old enough to go to school with the others.

For seven years the Gascoynes had lived at the little parsonage at Skelwick Bay. It was a small, low, creeper-covered place, built behind a sheltering spur of hill, to protect it from the fierce winter gales and the driving spray of the sea. Four latticed bedroom windows caught the early morning sun, and a stone porch shielded the front door, which opened directly into the sitting-room. There was nothing at all grand about the house, but, thanks to Beatrice, it was neatly kept, and had an air of general comfort. All articles likely to be broken by small fingers were wisely put away, or placed in father's study, a sanctum where no one might intrude without express permission; but books, paint boxes, &c., were freely allowed, and each member of the family had a special shelf on which to keep his or her particular possessions. Beatrice had many excellent rules, and though in the enforcement of these she was strict to the verge of severity, in the main she was just, and had her father's full sanction for her authority.

The garden at the Parsonage was a great joy, with its thick hedge of fuchsias, and its beds of fragrant wallflowers, and its standard roses growing among the grass, and its clumps of Czar violets under the sheltered wall. Here Winnie toiled early and late, getting up sometimes with the sun that she might put in an hour's work before breakfast, weeding, replanting, pruning, raking, and tying up. It was chiefly owing to her exertions that the show of flowers was so good, though Gwen was her ally in that respect, and even Lesbia gave a little desultory help. There was a thick, bowery lime tree under whose shade it was delightful to have tea in summer, or to lie reading books on hot Sundays; and there was a fascinating corner of the old wall, which the girls called "the rampart", from whence it was possible to command an excellent view of the main road—a great convenience sometimes to the younger ones, who would keep watch, and beat a hasty retreat if they saw an unwelcome visitor arriving, leaving Beatrice to offer hospitality alone.

Gwen was the worst sinner in this respect. She was bashful, and hated to have to say "How do you do?" to callers. In spite of Beatrice's efforts to train her in social ways, she would fly at the very approach of a flower-trimmed hat or a white parasol.

"You scuttle off like a rabbit into its burrow," said Beatrice indignantly on one occasion; "and if you're caught, you behave in such a silly, awkward way that I'm ashamed of you. People will think you haven't been properly brought up, and blame me. It's not my fault that you've got no manners."

"I feel as if I don't know where to look when people speak to me, and as if my hands and feet were too big," protested Gwen. "I can't help shuffling and wrinkling up my forehead—I can't indeed! You're awfully hard on me, Bee!"

"Perhaps she'll grow a little more accustomed to her hands and feet when she's older," suggested Winnie, the peacemaker.

"They're useful for catching chickens at present, and that ought to be enough for you, Win," laughed Gwen. "You'd have lost those white Leghorns if I hadn't rescued them."

Winnie was considered chief "henwife" at the Parsonage. She could not give as much time to the poultry as she wished, and had to delegate many of her duties to Beatrice, or Nellie, the maid, but nevertheless held herself responsible for the welfare of her feathered flock. On Saturdays she delighted to array herself in an overall pinafore and carry out improvements in the hen-yard. Armed with hammer, nails, and pieces of wire netting, she would turn old packing-cases into chicken coops and nesting boxes, or make neat contrivances for separating various fussy matrons with rival broods of chicks. Winnie was really wonderfully handy and clever, and albeit her carpentry was naturally of a rather rough-and-ready description, it served the purpose for which she designed it, and saved calling in the services of the village joiner, an economy which her father much appreciated. Winnie was determined to run her poultry systematically. She kept strict accounts, balancing the bills for corn and meal against current market prices for eggs and chickens, and being tremendously proud if her book showed a profit. On the whole she did well, for the fowls had a free run on the common at the back of the house, and could thus pick up much for themselves. With the help of the poultry, and a good vegetable garden, Beatrice was able to make her small housekeeping allowance supply the needs of the family, but there were no luxuries at the Parsonage. The girls possessed few or none of the pretty trifles dear to their sex, their pocket money was scanty almost to vanishing point, and they had early learnt the stern lesson of "doing without things". Adversity may be a hard task-mistress, but she is an excellent teacher in the school of life, and their Spartan upbringing had given the Gascoynes a certain resourcefulness and grit of character that they might possibly have lacked in more affluent surroundings. They were not a perfect family by any means, and had their squabbles and their cross moods like many another; but on the whole they were ready to give and take, make sacrifices for each other, and to try day by day to live a little nearer to that wonderful high standard that Father ever set before them, and which he himself followed so faithfully and truly.

III. A False Step

The morning following Gwen's promotion to the Fifth Form was wet, one of those hopelessly wet October days when the grey sky and the dripping trees and the sodden grass and the draggled flowers all seem to combine to remind us that summer, lovely, gracious summer, has gone with the swallows and left her fickle stepsister autumn in her stead. It had been raining heavily all night, and it was pouring hard when Nellie placed the coffee pot and the porridge on the table and rang the breakfast bell.

"It's an atrocious, abominable morning!" grunted Gwen, peering disconsolately through the window into the damp garden. "It's sheer cruelty to be expected to turn out and tramp two miles through the mud. We oughtn't to have to go to school when it rains."

"Wet at seven, fine at eleven!" chirped Beatrice at the coffee pot.

"It's all very well for you to be cheerful and quote proverbs—you haven't to go out yourself, Madam Bee!" grumbled Gwen. "I wonder how you'd like it if—"

"Oh, Gwen, don't whine! Come and get breakfast," interrupted Winnie. "It's five-and-twenty to eight, and I've a strong suspicion the clock's late."

"It is," remarked Lesbia calmly, pausing with her porridge spoon suspended midway between plate and mouth. "Stumps put it back ten minutes last night when Father wasn't looking. I saw him."

A chorus of united indignation followed her information, each member of the family trying to bolt breakfast and scold the offender at the same time.

"We've only five minutes. Oh, you naughty boy!" shrieked Winnie.

"I didn't want to go to bed—I meant to put it on again this morning first thing—I did, honest," protested Giles, otherwise known as "Stumps".

"Lesbia, why couldn't you say sooner?" fretted Gwen.

"Only just remembered."

"And the porridge is so hot I've burned my mouth!" wailed Basil.

"You haven't a moment to waste!" urged Beatrice. "Have you all got your boots on? I shall tell Father what you've done, Giles, as soon as he comes downstairs."

Even the loss of ten minutes was a serious consideration to those members of the Gascoyne family who were bound for school. Skelwick was such an out-of-the-way place that they had quite a journey to get to Stedburgh, the seaside town where Rodenhurst was situated. First they had to walk two miles along a very exposed country road to the village of North Ditton, where they could catch the motor omnibus that would take them the remaining four miles into Stedburgh, and then there was a further walk of at least ten minutes before they reached the school. The bus always started with the utmost promptitude, so it was a daily anxiety to leave home punctually and not be obliged to run the last half mile. On this particular morning there was more than the usual scramble to get off. At the last moment Gwen could not find her galoshes, and remembered that she had broken the rib of her umbrella some days before, and had forgotten to mention the fact and ask Beatrice to have it mended.

"You're the most tiresome girl!" scolded the harassed elder sister. "Why couldn't you tell me and I'd have sent it to Johnson's last night? Now I suppose I shall have to lend you mine, and very likely you'll go and break that too!"

"I don't want yours!" snapped Gwen, tucking her hair inside her mackintosh and putting on her "stormy-weather" cap. "I wouldn't risk smashing it for a five-pound note. I'll go without!" and snatching her satchel of books she rushed after the others, who had already started.

The rain was driving furiously, and the road was full of little running rivers of yellow mud. The strong wind made Gwen's eyes smart and water, and she was obliged to hurry to make up for lost time; so when she arrived at North Ditton she was a breathless, rather pitiful object, and most decidedly cross. The omnibus was so full that she was compelled to take Lesbia on her knee and to sit wedged between a very fat wheezy old farmer and a market gardener, who nursed a parcel of plants.

"It's rather fun, isn't it?" laughed Lesbia, graciously accepting the rose that her neighbour offered her. (Somehow people always gave things to Lesbia.)

"More fun for you than for me!" growled Gwen. "I wish you knew how heavy you are!"

A bad start does not make a good preparation for the rest of the day, and Gwen marched into the Fifth Form room that morning in no conciliatory frame of mind. She was quite prepared to be ill received, so she thought she would meet possible coldness by showing a defiant attitude. It was an extremely foolish move, for it brought about the very state of affairs she anticipated. Several of the nicer girls in the Form had half repented their wrath of yesterday, and were ready not only to treat her kindly, but to influence the others in her favour. When they saw her enter, however, with a "don't care" scowling air and walk to her desk, without even looking in their direction, they decided that she was an ill-conditioned, disagreeable girl, and that they would not trouble their heads about her. Instead, therefore, of going and speaking to her as they had intended, they let her severely alone. As a rule, if we go through life expecting slights and dislike, we get what we look for: the self-made martyr can find stake and faggots waiting round every corner. Gwen raged inwardly at the neglect of her classmates, but she did not realize in the least that it was partly her own fault. She sat all the morning with a thundercloud on her face, hurrying out of the room at the interval and eating her lunch alone in a corner of the gymnasium.

"How are you getting on in the Fifth?" whispered Lesbia, who ran up for a moment to sympathize.

"Badly," groaned Gwen. "They're boycotting me. Of course the Fourth won't have anything to do with me now; so I'm like Mahomet's coffin, swung between heaven and earth! It's not pleasant, I assure you."

"I should think not. I wish I could do anything."

"You can't. Go back and play basket-ball."

It was not Rodenhurst etiquette for Seniors to talk to Juniors, so Gwen, mindful even in her forlorn state of her new dignity as a member of the Upper School, could not indulge in the luxury of a chat with Lesbia. She wandered down the corridor, read the time sheets and the announcements on the notice boards, peeped into several empty classrooms, and was glad for once when the bell rang. At one o'clock things were no better. She was given a new place at the dinner-table and had to sit between Rachel Hunter and Edith Arnold, both of whom behaved as if unaware of her presence, and talked to each other across her as though she were non-existent. When she asked for the salt (rather shortly, certainly) Edith only stared and did not pass it. By the end of the meal Gwen began to feel the situation was getting on her nerves. She had been fairly popular in the Upper Fourth, so the change was the more unpleasant.

"I'm not going to give in, though," she thought. "I believe what they want is to make me ask Miss Roscoe to move me down again. Well, they'll find themselves mistaken, that's all! I'll stay in the Upper School if nobody speaks to me till next midsummer, and if I have to stop up half the night slogging away at my work!"

"How cross that Gwen Gascoyne looks!" whispered Hilda Browne to Iris Watson.

"Yes, she doesn't seem to want to know us, does she?"

"She needn't, I'm sure. I think she's horrid!"

It was still raining and impossible to go into the playground, so Gwen strolled into the empty classroom, and for lack of anything else to do began arranging and rearranging the contents of her desk. She had not been there more than five minutes when the door opened and Netta Goodwin, one of her new form-mates, entered, humming a tune. She glanced at Gwen, went to her own desk, made a pretence of trying to find a book, sat whistling for a moment or two, then finally turned towards Gwen.

"Well, how do you like being a Senior?" she asked half mockingly.

"Too soon to tell yet," replied Gwen cautiously. "I shall know better at the end of a week."

"You've not had a very charming reception so far, have you? I saw how Rachel and Edith were behaving at dinner."

"I don't care!" snapped Gwen. "I don't want to talk to them, thanks! The Form can please itself whether it's friendly or leaves me alone as far as I'm concerned."

Netta whistled softly. There was a rather inscrutable expression on her face.

"All the same I suppose you don't always want to go on being a kind of leper and outlaw? Not very interesting, I should say, to come to school every day and speak to nobody!"

Gwen was silent. She had no argument to advance.

"They're annoyed with you just at present for being moved into our Form, but they can't keep it up long. In a little while they'll feel accustomed to you and you'll get on all right. Then the question is, are you going to belong to the Saints or the Sinners?"

"What do you mean?" asked Gwen.

"We're all one or other here. We call Hilda Browne and Iris Watson and Louise Mawson and Rachel Hunter and Edith Arnold and a few more 'the Saints'."

"Nothing very saintly about them that I can see!" sniffed Gwen.

"Well, it depends on your standards. Perhaps they thought they behaved like saints at dinner."

"More like Pharisees! Which are you?"

Netta's brown eyes twinkled.

"I leave you to guess!" she replied sagely. "I'm not stiff and stand-off like some of them are, at any rate. If you'd care to take a walk down the corridor, I'll go with you."

A stroll with anyone was better than sitting alone in the classroom; it was still only two o'clock, and there was half an hour to get through before afternoon school began. Gwen was not averse to exploring the upper corridor, for as a Junior it had been forbidden ground to her. She and Netta went into the Sixth Form room, the Senior French and German room, and even looked inside the teachers' room, finding nobody there.

"Miss Roscoe's private sitting-room is at the end of the passage," said Netta. "She's down in the library, so if you like to take a peep, you can."

The spirit of curiosity strongly urged Gwen to see what a headmistress's private study was like, and thinking themselves perfectly safe, the two girls entered, and began eagerly to scan the pictures, the ornaments, the photographs, and the various objects which were spread about on desk and tables. It was a pretty, tasteful room, with choice prints from the old masters in carved oak frames, and pots of ferns and flowers, and handsomely bound books, and curios from foreign lands. The girls moved softly about, examining first one thing and then another with increasing interest.

"Oh, do look at this exquisite little case of butterflies! I never saw anything so perfect!" said Netta.

Gwen was standing absorbed in contemplation of a stained-wood blotter. She wheeled round, and as she did so her elbow knocked a parcel that had been placed on the corner of the desk, and sent it flying on to the floor. There was a smashing sound like the breaking of china, and at that exact moment somebody entered the room. Hopelessly caught, the two girls turned to face the newcomer. It was not Miss Roscoe—that was one thing to be thankful for—but it was Emma, the housemaid, which was quite bad enough. She looked at them as if she knew herself to be mistress of the situation, then waxed eloquent.

"I should just like to know what you two's doing here?" she demanded. "You've no business in this room—none at all. And you've gone and smashed that parcel as is only come five minutes ago from the china shop. I could hear it break. My word! What will Miss Roscoe say to this?"

"She mustn't know!" gasped Netta. "Emma, you must promise us faithfully not to tell you've found us here."

"Me not tell? And what for, please? Why should I screen you?"

"We shall get into such an awful scrape!" pleaded Gwen.

"You should have thought of that before you came!"

"Oh, Emma!" urged Netta. "We can't, we daren't let Miss Roscoe know. She'd be so fearfully angry. She might even expel us!"

"And what am I to say about this parcel you've broken? You don't suppose I'm going to take the blame of that on my shoulders! No, thank you!"

"The cat," murmured Netta.

"Cat, indeed!" repeated Emma scornfully. "That's too old a story to take in Miss Roscoe; besides which, there's not a cat in the house. She hates 'em. You'll just have to own up, and serve you both right for meddling."

"Is it badly broken, I wonder?" sighed Gwen, feeling the unfortunate parcel carefully. "It seems to be a box."

"Yes, but what's inside the box is smashed. You can hear the bits rattle when you shake it," returned Emma smartly. "It's her new afternoon tea set, I'll be bound. She told me she was going to order one from Parker's."

"There's Parker's name on the label," agreed Gwen despondently.

"Yes, and if you think—"

"Look here, I've got an idea," interrupted Netta. "You said the box only arrived about five minutes ago, so Miss Roscoe can't possibly know that it's come yet. If we could get it taken back to the shop and ask Parker's to send some more, and we pay for it, she need never know."

"A pretty idea!" snorted Emma.

"Oh, it would be grand!" exclaimed Gwen, grasping at any way out of the dreadful predicament.

"You'll help us, Emma, won't you?" entreated Netta.

"Not I! It's none of my business."

"But suppose it were worth your while? Wouldn't half a crown buy you something nice?"

"Nothing I'd care for."

"Five shillings, then?"

Emma's face showed signs of yielding.

"I don't want to get you into trouble if I can help it," she replied more gently. "I dare say Parker's would replace the things if you was willing to pay for them, and nothing need be said. I'm not one for wanting scenes, and a scene there'd be if Miss Roscoe found her set broken. She's a sharp tongue, as I know to my cost."

"Then, Emma, will you take away the box now, and hide it somewhere, and we'll meet you in the pantry at four o'clock, and you can give it to us, and we'll take it ourselves to Parker's, and ask them to send some more china to-night. We'll bring you the five shillings to-morrow morning. It shall be a present from us both, and thank you so much for helping us! You promise you won't tell? Well, that's a weight off our minds! Come, Gwen, we'll scoot!"

IV. A Delicate Transaction

Gwen had stood by, listening to Netta's proposals, and offered no opposition. She was thankful to find any means of escape from the terrible prospect of braving Miss Roscoe's wrath. The Principal was a stern, even a severe woman, who never made allowances or admitted excuses, and greatly resented any liberties. How would she regard such an extreme liberty as an unauthorized visit to her private sitting-room, to say nothing of the accident to the tea service? Gwen shivered at the bare idea. She was aware that she and her sisters were received on rather special terms at Rodenhurst. Winnie's teaching scarcely compensated for the two younger ones' school fees, and did not include the daily board for the three girls, which was given in by Miss Roscoe, who knew of Mr. Gascoyne's poor circumstances. For this reason Gwen had been urged to work her hardest, so as to be a credit to her Form, and in some degree repay Miss Roscoe's generosity. The Principal had shown an interest in her, particularly in relaxing an old-established rule in her favour, and moving her up right in the middle of a term. If she were detected in such a grave breach of discipline, Miss Roscoe might consider her unworthy of any further kindnesses, might even ask her father to take her away altogether from Rodenhurst. To take her away! Why, the world would come to an end! At home she was already regarded as the troublesome one of the family, and if she suffered this disgrace, she could never hold up her head again. Father—dear, patient, self-sacrificing Father—would be grieved and worried beyond expression; he hoped great things, she knew, from her schooling, and how could she bear to disappoint him?

Then there was Beatrice, who always seemed ready to find fault, and think the worst of her. She would almost as soon let Miss Roscoe know as Beatrice! No, at all costs the episode of that afternoon must be kept a strict secret. She dared not confide it even to Winnie or Lesbia. She must take the burden on her own shoulders, and get out of the scrape as best she could alone. Netta had assumed the leadership of the affair, so to Netta she turned for counsel and comfort.

"What's the next move?" she asked.

"Why, we must go to Parker's directly school's over, and take the parcel with us."

"I shall miss the bus!"

"You can't help that; you must catch the next."

"I shall have to dodge Winnie and Lesbia."

"Dodge them, then, and make up some excuse for missing the bus. You can say I kept you."

"How much do you think the china will cost?"

"I haven't the least idea; it depends how much is broken."

"Netta, you won't tell a soul about this, will you?"

"Tell! Am I likely to tell? No, you and I are in the same boat, and we must shield each other. I wouldn't trust anybody in the school. One never knows how things are talked about and get round from the most unlikely quarters. Whatever happens, this mustn't reach Miss Roscoe's ears."

The motor omnibus started at 4.20, and as a rule the Gascoynes had quite a scramble to rush off and catch it. To-day Gwen managed to avoid Winnie and Lesbia, and waiting until they were safely off the premises, she went with Netta to the pantry. Emma was not there, but they found the parcel behind the door and appropriated it, Gwen hiding it carefully under her waterproof. Parker's china store was in the principal street of the town, nearly a quarter of an hour's walk from Rodenhurst. When the girls arrived there, several customers were in the shop, so that they had to wait a little before anyone could attend to them.

"You speak to him—I don't know what to say!" whispered Gwen, thrusting the parcel into Netta's hand, as an assistant at last came to serve them.

Netta had any amount of presence of mind, and did not at all object to be spokeswoman. She rapidly explained that they had had an accident, and were anxious to replace some broken articles at their own expense. The shopman opened the box, and pulling out the shavings in which the china was packed, laid the various pieces upon the counter. The girls were aghast at the extent of the damage. Several cups were smashed to atoms, the teapot had lost its lid, and the cream jug its handle.

"Have you any more like them?" asked Netta anxiously.

"Fortunately we have, miss," replied the assistant. "It is a pattern we usually keep in stock, and—yes, I can match them all. I can repack the box and send it out by the six-o'clock van."

Gwen heaved a great sigh of relief. Miss Roscoe would receive her parcel that night, and would be no wiser for what had happened.

"We shall be very glad if you will do that," she said. "And will you please tell us what we have to pay extra?"

The man took the bill which had been enclosed in the box and rapidly glanced over the items.

"Let me see—teapot, cream jug, three cups, four plates—the sugar basin is all right—ah! but this saucer is cracked! Sixteen and six, seventeen and nine—it will be exactly one pound two and sixpence, please."

Gwen felt ready to sink through the floor. She had very little notion of the value of things, and could hardly believe that china cost so much. She looked blankly and helplessly at Netta, who after a moment's pause met the emergency.

"We haven't the money with us this afternoon, I'm afraid, but we'll bring it to-morrow without fail. Will that do?"

"Yes, thank you, miss, I dare say it will be all right if you give me the name."

"Miss Gwen Gascoyne," said Netta promptly.

"At Rodenhurst, I suppose?"

"Yes."

That ended the transaction, so the two girls left the shop.

"Well, Gwen, my child, you've let yourself in for a nice little bill!" laughed Netta, when they found themselves in the street.

"It's impossible! I can't pay it!" gasped Gwen, with hot tears trickling down her cheeks. "What am I to do?"

"Turn along this quiet road immediately, and don't stand mopping your eyes in the middle of High Street! Everybody's staring at you. I believe the policeman's going to ask if you're lost!"

And seizing her schoolmate by the arm, Netta hustled her away from the unwelcome attention which she was attracting. The road led to the promenade, where the girls found an unoccupied bench, and sat down to talk matters over.

"One pound two and sixpence!" ejaculated Gwen, with a sob between the words.

"And five shillings we promised Emma, so that makes twenty-seven and six," agreed Netta briskly. "Of course it was you who broke the china, so it's your business to pay for it, but I'll go shares in squaring Emma."

"I can't—I can't ever pay it! Oh, I wish I was at the bottom of the sea!" wailed Gwen.

"Don't be an idiot! It must be managed somehow. How much have you got at home?"

"I've about fifteen shillings in my money-box."

"Well, look here, I'll lend you ten, and that will just do it. We'll each give Emma half a crown to make her hold her tongue, and we'll settle up Parker, and then the thing will be done with. You may pay me back as soon as you can."

"You're a white angel!"

"No, I'm not. I'm anything but a saintly person. I'm ready to help a chum out of a hole, though. I'll bring the money to school with me to-morrow morning. And now, for goodness sake, do wipe your eyes, and put your hat on straight, and try and make yourself look respectable enough to walk down the promenade. I want to go home."

"So do I," said Gwen. "What's the time? I mustn't miss the next bus."

"It's twenty past five."

"Oh, horrors! And the bus goes at half-past! Can I possibly catch it?"

"I'll say goodbye if you're going to pelt along the promenade. I hate rushing."

"Goodbye! And thank you a hundred thousand times!"

It was only as Gwen was scurrying along the asphalted walk that it struck her that, after all, Netta was getting rather easily out of the scrape. Of course she, Gwen, had knocked over the box of china, but it was Netta who had taken her into Miss Roscoe's room, and who was therefore in a sense responsible for the whole affair. Well, she was glad enough to find help on any terms; she did not know how she was going to repay Netta the money, but that might wait. It was sufficient for the present that the tea set could be replaced without any fear of discovery. She hurried breathlessly on, fearing to miss the omnibus; taking any short cuts she knew, and breaking into a run when she reached the Ditton Road. She could see the omnibus standing at its starting-place, and hoped it might be just possible to arrive in time. As she tore along the footpath, she noticed a boy a few yards in front of her who was running equally quickly, or even faster.

"I wonder if he's trying to catch it too?" she thought, and envied his longer legs and freedom from hampering skirts. "Oh! it's actually going! What a shame!"

The boy made a spurt, and shouted and whistled after the retreating omnibus, but it was not of the slightest avail; neither the conductor nor the driver took any notice. Realizing the hopelessness of his efforts, the boy stopped and saw Gwen, who came panting up.

"No use, it's gone too far!" he exclaimed. "It's an atrocious swindle! Those men never look. I suppose you were trying to catch it too?"

"Yes. I always go by the 4.20."

"So do I; so it's a nuisance to miss this. We're out of luck to-day."

Gwen knew the boy quite well by sight, as for the last few weeks he had been a fellow passenger morning and evening in the omnibus. He was a jolly-looking fellow, about her own age or perhaps a little older, with a brown skin and very twinkling, brown eyes. He wore a grammar-school cap, and carried some books, so she could guess his occupation in Stedburgh.

Gwen Meets Dick

"I believe the next goes at half-past six," he remarked ruefully. "But you won't catch me waiting for it I shall walk."

"So shall I," agreed Gwen. "Walking's better fun any time than standing waiting," and she suited her action to her words. The boy kept by her side, evidently not unpleased to have a companion to talk to.

"You're one of the Gascoyne girls, aren't you?" he began. "I see the whole lot of you every day cramming into the bus. Aren't you the one they call Gwen?"

"I believe I am."

"It's you who's generally left something behind, or lost something, or got yourself into some kind of a pickle; then the one with her hair turned up scolds."

"That's Winnie," chuckled Gwen.

"Those two youngsters are cheeky imps. Tell them they'll get their heads smacked some day!"

"They often do at home."

"Serve 'em right. I'm glad to hear it. How many more are there of you at home?"

"Only two."

"Quite enough, I should think!"

"Thank you! You've asked all about my family, but you haven't told me who you are."

"Why, I thought you knew. My name is Dick Chambers. My father is Dr. Chambers, who's just taken Dr. Harrison's practice."

"At North Ditton?"

"Yes, we only came six weeks ago. Dr. Harrison has gone to London."

"I knew Dr. Harrison," said Gwen. "He came to see us when we had scarlatina, and gave us some loathly medicine!"

"Dad can do a little in that line!" laughed Dick. "He once made me drink asaftida when I was a kid, to cure me of sampling bottles in the surgery."

"Is it nasty?"

"It smells like a defunct rat, so you can imagine the taste."

"Ugh!"

"He doesn't give such bad things to his patients, though. There's some quite decent stuff in the dispensary, and sometimes the bottles are coloured pink, especially if they're for girls. I'm going to be a doctor when I grow up."

"I suppose you'll help your father. Have you any brothers and sisters?"

"Not a single one."

"Oh, I should think that's rather slow!"

"I don't find it so. There's always plenty to do."

"Do you like North Ditton?"

"Oh, yes, pretty well! It's nicer than Essington, where we lived before."

"Do you like the Grammar School?"

"Fairly. The chaps are rather a rotten set, and the Head's unspeakable."

Chatting thus, Gwen found the four miles to North Ditton wonderfully short ones, but when she had said goodbye to her new friend, and was trudging along the road to Skelwick by herself, she had time for many unpleasant reflections. At one blow this afternoon, she had sacrificed not only all the money in her savings box, but had got into debt as well—a debt which she had no present prospect of paying. It was most aggravating to have to empty her private bank; the contents were the accumulation of several little gifts that had been sent by her uncles and aunts on her last birthday, and even so far back as last Christmas. How would she explain, if Beatrice asked what had become of her money? She groaned as she splashed, recklessly through the puddles left by the morning's rain. She could foresee many difficulties ahead, especially at Christmas time.

The family had finished tea when she reached home, and Beatrice, grown uneasy at her absence, greeted her with upbraidings.

"Where have you been, Gwen? Why didn't you come with the others? Winnie nearly lost the bus with going back to look for you. You know quite well you mustn't stay behind like this. Answer me at once! Where were you?"

"I went along the promenade with Netta Goodwin, then I missed the 5.30 and had to walk all the way home. That's where I've been, and you may scold as much as you like—I don't care."

"Oh, Gwen!" exclaimed Winnie.

"I don't. I'm not going to be ordered about by Beatrice, and treated as if I were a baby. I'm surely old enough to manage my own affairs!"

Gwen was tired out with her six-mile tramp, and hungry, and very miserable, or I think she would not have talked in so lawless and foolish a strain.

Beatrice gazed at her in amazement. Gwen had often been naughty, but had never before ventured thus to wave the flag of defiance.

"I shall have to get Father to speak to you," she replied gravely. "He's gone over to Hethersedge to take the temperance meeting. He started at five o'clock. You'd better have tea now. Nellie has made you some more, in the little blue pot, and we kept you a potato cake, though you don't deserve it. Father will be very astonished and sorry when I tell him what you've said."

Gwen ate her meal with a big lump in her throat. She had not meant to rebel openly, but she had lost her temper, and the words had flashed out. Beatrice's threat alarmed her. Through all the tangled skein of Gwen's character there ran, like a thread of pure gold, the intense passionate love for her father, and the desire to preserve his good opinion. She could not bear to see the grieved look that came into his eyes when he was forced to reprove her. What indeed would he think of her when he heard Beatrice's account? She pushed the potato cake away, feeling as if she could not swallow a morsel.

Beatrice was putting Martin to bed. Better follow her now, and try to patch up peace. She ran upstairs and met her sister coming out of the little fellow's bedroom, candle in hand.

"Bee! I'm awfully sorry for what I said just now! I didn't really mean it I can't think what possessed me!" gulped Gwen.

"I try to do my best for you all. It's hard work sometimes to be eldest," said Beatrice, and there was a quiver in her voice too. "If only Mother were here."

"Don't!" said Gwen huskily. "I miss her so dreadfully still. Oh, Bee! If only you wouldn't tell Father about this!"

"If I don't, will you promise faithfully always to come straight home from school with Winnie and Lesbia, and never go anywhere without asking?"

"On my honour!"

"Then I won't trouble him. He's enough worries, poor darling, without adding any more to them! I only wish I could save him some of those he already has!"

Early next morning, long before Lesbia was awake, Gwen got up very quietly, and unlocked her savings box. It seemed dreadfully hard to have to take her treasured fifteen shillings; pocket money was such a scarce article at the Parsonage that she did not know when she would have the chance of accumulating so much again. There were only two threepenny bits and a penny left to rattle when she shook the box, so she sighed ruefully as she locked it, and put it back in its place on the top shelf of the bookcase. She hoped Netta would not forget to bring the half-sovereign she had promised to lend, though how the loan was ever to be repaid she could not imagine. For to-day it seemed enough if she had avoided Miss Roscoe's anger, and spared casting an added worry on Father's already overburdened shoulders.

Netta was faithful to her word; she came to school with both the ten-shilling piece and the half-crown which was to be her share of the "hush money" for Emma. The two girls held a long whispered conference together during the interval.

"I can't possibly go and pay Parker's myself," said Gwen. "You've no idea what a row I got into last night for missing the bus. Winnie'll keep an eye on me to-day at four o'clock, I can assure you. Could you go?"

"Very sorry, but I've got to go straight home too. Some cousins are coming to tea, and I have to ask Miss Evans to let me out of the drawing class ten minutes earlier. Why not get Emma to go? We shall have to see her to give her her tip."

"A good idea," said Gwen. "Emma understands all about it."

They found the housemaid when she was helping to lay the tables for dinner, and managed to draw her aside for a private talk.

"Did the fresh china come last night?" they asked eagerly.

"Oh, yes! it came all right, and Miss Roscoe never said a word, so you may think yourselves lucky," replied Emma.

"Here's the little present we promised you," said Netta, slipping the five shillings into her hand.

"I hardly like taking it!" protested Emma, though she popped it hastily into her pocket all the same.

"Could you do something more for us?" begged Gwen. "Will you call at Parker's and pay for the broken china? Here's the money—it's one pound two and six. Neither Netta nor I can possibly go."

"Oh, yes, I don't mind doing that!" returned Emma. "It's my night out this evening, and I shall be down High Street, so I can easily call at Parker's on my road. They don't close till eight o'clock."

"And you promise you'll never breathe a single word to anybody about this?"

"Not likely!" declared Emma, as she turned away to finish laying her table.

"Well, I'm thankful that's done with," thought Gwen. "It might have been an awkward affair, and I've come out of it uncommonly well. I feel as if I'd laid a ghost, and popped a stone on its grave."

It was all very well for Gwen to congratulate herself, but she quite forgot that ghosts have an awkward habit sometimes of disregarding tombstones, and rising from their graves to haunt those who have interred them. The matter of the broken china was not to be so easily disposed of as she had imagined, and though for the present her secret seemed safe, there was trouble ahead for her in plenty.

V. Trouble in the Fifth

The direct result of Gwen's transaction about the china was to fling her into the arms of Netta Goodwin. With such a secret between them it was impossible not to be friendly, and though Netta was hardly an ideal chum, there seemed no choice in the matter. Moreover, she was the only one in the Fifth who had offered advances; the other girls, still indignant at the promotion of a Junior, turned the cold shoulder. This unfortunate intimacy caused Gwen to be banned the more.

"I see Gwen Gascoyne has taken up with Netta Goodwin," said Hilda Browne.

"Then that stamps her," replied Edith Arnold. "I wouldn't touch Netta with a pair of tongs myself. I thought better of the Gascoynes!"

Netta was a type of girl that can be found in every school and almost every Form. Rather deficient in moral fibre, and badly trained at home, her influence was always on the wrong side. She was clever enough, as a rule, just to avoid getting into open trouble with the authorities, but under the surface she was a source of disturbance. She had a certain following of gigglers and slackers, who thought her escapades funny, and were ready to act chorus to her lead, and though she had never done anything specially outrageous, her reputation at headquarters was not good. Every teacher realized only too plainly that Netta was the firebrand of the Form, and that while she might preserve a smug exterior it was really she who was responsible for any outbreaks of lawlessness among the others.

As Junior Mistress of the Fifth no one had more reason to be aware of this than Winnie Gascoyne. Teaching was uphill work to Winnie. She had not Beatrice's commanding disposition and capacity for administration, consequently it was the more difficult for her to keep order and enforce rules. She did her conscientious best, but girls easily find out a governess's weak point, and at present Netta was trying how far she could go. "Ragging Miss Gascoyne" was a favourite pastime of hers, and one which afforded much sport to her applauders, if not to the victim of her jokes.

A few mornings after Gwen's introduction to the Fifth there was a class for memory map drawing with the assistant teacher. Each girl was supposed to come prepared to make a map of India, and to mark in a large number of places, a fairly difficult task, and one over which many of them grumbled in unison.

"It's not fair! It takes such heaps of time to go over it at home, one hasn't a second for anything else!" wailed Minna Jennings.

"I'd a raging headache last night, and my mother said she thought Rodenhurst was getting too much for me," bleated Millicent Cooper.

"Poor frail flower! You look as if you'd wither at a breath! Better pack you off to a sanatorium!" laughed Netta.

"And you to a lunatic asylum, you mad thing! Don't you ever get headaches with all this over-swatting?"

"No, my child, for I know a dodge or two! N. G. is no infant in arms, I assure you."

"Deign to explain, O commander of the faithful!" begged Annie Edwards.

"Well, as I told you, I'm up to a thing or two, and I flatter myself I know just exactly how to tackle Grinnie."

"Who's Grinnie?" asked Gwen rather sharply.

The others roared.

"My sweet babe, my dear ex-Junior, let us initiate you into the shibboleths of the Fifth! Yes, Seniors indulge in their little nicknames as well as the Lower School, though perhaps we are rather more cultured in our choice of them. Be it known to you then that our respected Head, vulgarly called The Bogey by ill-trained Juniors, is among our elect set yclept Lemonade, partly owing to her habit of fizzing over, and partly to a certain acid quality in her temper, otherwise hard to define. Miss Douglas, our honoured Form mistress, being a canny Scot, goes by the familiar appellation of Thistles, intended also to subtly convey our appreciation—or shall I say depreciation?—of her prickly habit."

"And Grinnie?" continued Gwen.

"Your sister, by her perpetual smile, courted the title."

"It's no good exploding, Gwen!" said Annie Edwards. "If you've got a sister who's a teacher you'll just have to hear her called nicknames. You don't suppose we're going to shut up on your account?"

"And you needn't go sneaking, either, or it'll be the worse for you," added Minna Jennings.

"We'd soon know who'd told tales," snapped Millicent Cooper.

"Peace, turbulent herd!" said Netta, holding up her hand. "Our friend Gwen, being of a sensible disposition, and a lover, like ourselves, of all wholesome jests, fully realizes the exigencies of her peculiar situation. Though in the seclusion of her home she may be bound by many natural ties, family obligations cease entirely in the classroom. If her sister is a mistress, she is a pupil, and therefore bound to side with her Form through all those trials of tact known as 'thick and thin'. Have I not put the thing in a nutshell, O Gwendolen mine?"

Gwen could not help laughing, for there was undoubted truth in Netta's argument. Winnie would, she knew, treat her with the utmost impartiality, probably even more strictly, owing to their relationship. It would certainly never do if she were to be regarded as a sneak in the Form, ready to report misdoings and make mischief; such a character would be intolerable to her. Winnie must fight her own battles, and she would throw in her luck with her peers.

"You needn't be afraid of me!" she protested. "I'd be the very last to blab; and I like fun as well as anybody."

"I knew it, oh, altogether-wise-in-judgment! Have I not proved thee?" returned Netta, with a meaning look in her eyes which only Gwen understood. "Now, having established thy reputation, I will return to my original thingumgigs."

"Oh, Netta, stop being a lunatic, and tell us how you mean to tackle Grinnie!" interposed Minna.

"Well, my little dears, it's extremely simple, but a work of genius all the same. Genius always is simple, I believe! Behold my mapping book with its virgin page. Behold also this spotless piece of blotting paper. I turn it over, and hey, presto! a transformation. Here's my map, nicely done in pencil, with all the names marked. Nothing to do but copy it, you see. At the least approach of danger I turn it with its most innocent side up."

The girls sniggered their admiration. Gwen could not approve, but she did not protest. It was not her business to preach, so she told herself. As long as she did her own work honestly, she could not begin her career in the Fifth by assuming the very character she had just denied. Minna and Annie, inspired by Netta's brilliant idea, were copying the map on to pieces of blotting paper as fast as they could.

"It wouldn't be a bad plan to trace it the wrong way, and then rub it off like a transfer," suggested Millicent.

"Just a little too clever, most astute one! Grinnie comes round to look, and she'd think you'd got on too quickly, and want to know the reason why. You're bright, Millicent Cooper, but you're not far-seeing."

"You'll get caught yourself some time," said Millicent.

"True, O Queen! But I'll have somewhat in the shape of a run first," laughed Netta.

Gwen felt rather indignant as she began her map drawing. She hated cheating, and it seemed very unjust that Netta and the others should win credit for what was not fairly their own work.

"Winnie's not half sharp enough," she thought. "If it were Beatrice, now, there isn't a girl in the room would dare to try any tricks."

Possibly even Winnie had her suspicions. She kept a watchful eye on the Form, and made an occasional tour round the desks. Netta was extremely cautious, but all the same her attention to her blotting paper was rather conspicuous.

"Netta Goodwin, hand me your mapping book!"

Netta started in some confusion at the abrupt order, and dropped both mapbook and blotting paper on to the floor. Gwen, equally startled, moved her hand hastily and sent her book spinning after the other. It was a complete accident, but one by which Netta did not hesitate to profit. Under the shelter of the desk she rapidly substituted Gwen's piece of blotting paper for her own, then passed up the book with an air of sangfroid truly heroic in the eyes of Annie, Minna, and Millicent. Miss Gascoyne examined the pages carefully, but finding nothing incriminating, supposed she had been mistaken. Netta might be the chief sinner of the Form, certainly, but she was not invariably at fault.

"She thought I was as innocent as Mary's little lamb!" laughed that damsel afterwards. "You were a trump, Gwen, to help me. It was a smart notion of yours to drop your book too. You did it so promptly!" Then putting her arm round Gwen's neck she whispered: "I helped you when you were in a tight hole, and I'm glad to see you're going to stand by me. I shall always count upon you in future."

So thus it happened that almost in spite of herself Gwen became Netta's ally, pledged to support her on all occasions. She was afraid to risk a quarrel lest Netta should press for the return of the ten shillings she had lent. The debt felt a millstone round her neck, from which there was no immediate chance of relief. Netta's particular clique of friends, proving Gwen safe, included her in their special set, a compromising arrangement which seemed nevertheless inevitable. The girls did not really mean much harm, but they were silly and flippant, and enjoyed evading rules simply for the fun of the thing. Netta loved to show off before the others, and because she found Miss Gascoyne an easier victim than Miss Douglas, she kept most of her sallies for the junior teacher. She could estimate to a nicety the fine distinction between giving trouble and open defiance. She never actually overstepped the line, but she contrived to make matters very unpleasant for poor Winnie. It was her boast that she could always raise a spark out of Miss Gascoyne, and her admirers were ready to titter in sympathy.

Winnie, mindful of her position as teacher, never mentioned school affairs to Gwen; but one day Beatrice tackled the latter on the subject.

"I hear you've struck up a friendship with Netta Goodwin," she began. "I'm very surprised, for she doesn't seem a nice sort of girl."

"She's the only one who's been kind to me," returned Gwen, up in arms at once at Beatrice's tone.

"Indeed! Well, I wouldn't be too much with her if I were you. I'm afraid she's anything but desirable."

"Who said I was much with her? Has Winnie been telling tales about me?"

"Don't be nasty, Gwen. You know Winnie never tells."

"There's no particular harm in Netta," protested Gwen, taking up the cudgels for her schoolmate out of sheer contrariness. "She's only rather lively and funny. I suppose that's no great crime."

"Are you sure Father would like her?"

"Dad doesn't know her, so I can't pretend to say what he'd think of her," retorted Gwen, shuffling out of the matter with what she knew was a lame excuse.

VI. A Casting Vote

Gwen had not been prepared to find the Fifth exactly a bed of roses, therefore she was hardly surprised at the thorns which beset her new path. In spite of the extra teaching from Miss Woodville, she found the work of the Form extremely difficult, especially in mathematics. There was a whole book of Euclid theorem which she had not been through, and the consequence was that every other problem had some little point proved by a theorem of which she had never heard. It was a most decided stumblingblock. It is possible to sit and look at a problem for hours without getting any further if there is just one statement of whose existence one is not aware. More than once Gwen had to hand in a blank page, and felt very humiliated at the meaning glances which passed between Rachel Hunter and Edith Arnold. Neither of these was yet reconciled to Gwen's presence in the Form. Rachel, mindful of her own delayed promotion to the Upper School, persisted in regarding her as an "intruding kid", and Edith could not forgive her intimacy with Netta Goodwin. Manifold small slights and snubs fell to Gwen's share, and though she affected to make light of them, they hurt all the same. She knew that under happier auspices she might have been friendly with Hilda Browne, Iris Watson, Louise Mawson, and several others of whom Father would have approved, and whom, with his entire sanction, she might have invited occasionally to the Parsonage. She was aware that she was in the worst set in the Form, and that not one of her new chums would pass muster if judged according to her home standards.

"I can't ever ask them, that's all," she declared. "Annie's giggles would give Beatrice a fit, Millicent puts on side horribly, Minna would probably make fun of everything, Claire Harris is absolutely vulgar, and as for Netta—no! Dad mustn't see Netta on any account."

Another not unexpected trouble had fallen to Gwen's share. As a member of the Upper Fourth she had, at the beginning of the term, been chosen Junior Basket-ball Captain, to arrange Lower School team games and matches, and she had worked very hard to get things going. On her promotion, however, it had been a greatly discussed point whether she should resign or finish the season. Some of the Upper Fourth, knowing how much was due to Gwen's exertions, had been anxious for her to retain her post, but on the whole the popular verdict was against her. To Gwen's disgust, her old friends, Eve Dawkins and Alma Richardson, were the loudest in her disfavour, and it was chiefly owing to their eloquence that she was requested to resign. She had been proud of her captaincy, and to give it up was a wrench. There seemed nothing at all in her new Form to compensate for the loss, and sometimes she wished heartily that she had never been moved.

The present excitement in the Fifth was a "Literary and Dramatic Club", the members of which intended to act a piece at Christmas. It was a rather cliquish society, worked with more favour than fairness, and was principally among those girls whose homes lay near to the school.

"They stay behind at four o'clock to rehearse," explained Netta. "It's really only among about half a dozen."

"Are you in it?" queried Gwen.

"I, my dear child? Hardly! You don't imagine the high and mighty Iris Watson would ask yours truly? Saints and sinners don't mix in this Form, if you please!"

"Do you mean to tell me the whole thing is in the hands of Iris and a few others?"

"With your usual astuteness you've hit the nail on the head."

"But that's monstrously unfair!" exclaimed Gwen indignantly. "A Dramatic Club ought to be for the whole Form. Everybody ought to have an innings, in the name of common justice."

Netta shrugged her shoulders.

"I don't want to act with Iris and Edith and Louise, thank you! A pleasant performance it would be! They may keep their precious piece to themselves, so far as I'm concerned."

"But that's not the point," persisted Gwen. "It's the fairness of the thing I'm talking about. One set has no right to monopolize everything."

"It is sickening, certainly."

"It's worse than sickening, it's intolerable, and I'm going to make a stand against it."

"You can try if you like, but you needn't expect success."

When Gwen had a cause to champion, she was ready for a fight, even on the losing side. One of her characteristics was a strong sense of justice, and here, she considered, was a distinct case of oppression. She thought over her plan of campaign, and decided that she would ask to be admitted to the Dramatic Club. Next morning, accordingly, she approached the five or six girls who constituted that society.

"Want to join our Dramatic Club!" exclaimed Louise Mawson almost incredulously. "I dare say you do!"

"But you won't!" said Hilda Browne quickly.

"Cheek!" ejaculated Rachel Hunter.

"Why shouldn't I join?"

"On the other hand, why should you?"

"Because a society ought to be open to the whole Form, and not just kept amongst a few. We didn't manage things like that in the Upper Fourth."

"How very kind of you, fresh from the Juniors, to come and give us Seniors a lesson in managing our affairs! Perhaps you'd like to be President? Would that content you?" enquired Hilda Browne sarcastically.

"I don't want to be President, but I claim the right to have some say in the matter. The thing ought to be properly constituted, and every girl in the Form ought to vote for officers."

"Well, of all cool proposals!"

"Look here, Gwen Gascoyne, you need suppressing!"

"She's not worth noticing!"

It was only what Gwen had expected, but she felt she had at any rate opened fire. She did not mean to retire vanquished after a first attempt. She now directed her energies to another quarter. She canvassed the entire Form, asking each girl separately if she did not consider the Dramatic Club ought to be put upon a general basis. Everybody, except those who were already members, agreed. Many had thought the present arrangement unfair, and had grumbled loudly, though nobody had had the initiative to start a revolt. Now Joan Masters and Elspeth Frazer took the matter in hand seriously, tackled the clique, and argued the question.

"You may run a private club if you like for your own amusement," said Elspeth, "but if you're going to call it 'The Fifth Form Dramatic', and give a performance before the other Forms at Christmas, then it must be a fair and open thing. Everyone must be eligible for membership, and officers should be chosen by ballot."

"Half of you wouldn't be able to join," declared Hilda Browne.

"That's our own lookout. The point is that we ought to be able to do so if we want. If you persist in keeping it all to yourselves, you may act without an audience, for none of us will come to see you, and we'll tell the other Forms what the quarrel is."

"I know they'd back us up," said Joan Masters.

Very unwillingly the clique gave way. They knew they had no just ground for their position, but they had hoped it would not be called in question.

"It's all the fault of Gwen Gascoyne, with her Lower School notions," said Rachel Hunter.

"She needn't think she's going to act!" asserted Edith Arnold.

"Don't want to!" rapped out Gwen, who happened to overhear. "I should miss the bus if I stayed behind after four. I only wanted to see things made fair and square."

Though the new arrangements were really owing to Gwen's enterprise, nobody was willing to accord her any thanks. Joan Masters and Elspeth Frazer received all the credit for having righted the wrong; and though a few might remember that Gwen had started the movement, they were almost ready to agree with Rachel Hunter that it was rather pushing of an ex-Junior to have taken so much upon herself. They had not yet forgiven her translation to the Fifth, and only the utmost humility on her part would have reconciled them. Humility was certainly not Gwen's characteristic, so she still went by the epithet of "that cheeky kid" in the Form.

"So much for their gratitude," confided Gwen to Lesbia. "I don't want to act, but some of those who have got into the play might at least acknowledge what I've done for them."

"They seem a hateful set!" sympathized Lesbia.

"Detestable!" said Gwen with unction.

One thing had not been settled by the Dramatic Society, and that was their choice of a President. Names were canvassed freely in the Form, and finally Hilda Browne and Elspeth Frazer were put up as candidates. Voting was to be by ballot during the interval, but while the papers were being given out Gwen bolted. She was feeling cross and forlorn, and sick of the whole affair.

"I don't mind who's chosen President," she thought "It makes no difference to me. They may elect whom they like."

So she went a solitary little walk round the playground, whistling a tune, and trying to look as if she didn't care about anything. She had not been there very long before she saw Betty Brierley and Ida Young signalling to her from the gymnasium door. She took no notice of their beckonings, whereupon they ran after her, and seizing her one by each arm, began to drag her towards the house.

"You're wanted most particularly, Gwen Gascoyne!" said Betty excitedly.

"We've been sent to fetch you quick!" chimed in Ida.

"Hello! Hands off!" cried Gwen, dragging herself from their grasp. "What do you want with me, I should like to know?"

"It's the others who want you."

"What for? Didn't know I was so popular!"

"You've not voted for a President yet."

"No, and I don't mean to, either."

"But, Gwen, you must! We've taken the ballot, and the votes are exactly even. You've got the casting vote!"

"Have I, indeed? No, thank you! It's rather too great an honour!"

"But look here, Gwen, it's the only way to decide it. We've got to choose either Elspeth or Hilda."

"Then you may fight it out amongst you. You don't suppose, when you've all voted by ballot, that I'm going to take the responsibility of a casting vote. It's a most unfair proposal. Why, the rejected candidate and all on her side would never forgive me!"

"We might have the ballot again," suggested Betty. "Then you need only put your cross."

"As if everybody wouldn't know who was responsible for the extra cross! I might as well write Gwen Gascoyne on my paper at once! It's no use pulling my arm; I'm not coming in to be made a cat's paw. You may go and tell the others so if you like."

Betty and Ida departed, grumbling loudly at Gwen's "unaccommodatingness", as they called it, and Gwen stayed in the playground until the bell rang, fuming with indignation. Every fresh little episode seemed to serve to make her more of an alien in the Form than ever. But here her decision was absolutely justifiable; not one of the girls would have cared to accept the unenviable role which they had wished to thrust upon her. Perhaps for that very reason they were all the more annoyed at her action. She was received with black looks when she re-entered the classroom. Elspeth Frazer whispered something to a friend, and turned away. Gwen could not quite hear, but it sounded painfully like "beast!"

"Have they settled it?" she asked Netta.

"Yes; Elspeth and Hilda drew lots, and Hilda won. I'm fearfully sorry she did. Elspeth says it's all your fault, and that you ought to have voted for her when you'd made such a fuss about the clique."

"Would you have given a casting vote yourself?"

"Well, no; but if you'd only stayed and voted by ballot like everyone else, then nobody would have known who'd given the odd one. It was most stupid of you to rush away. You're rather an idiot, Gwen Gascoyne!"

"'Et tu, Brute! Then fall, Cæsar!' I'm like the old man and his ass in Æsop; I seem to end by pleasing nobody."

"Do you wish to compare yourself with the old man or the quadruped, my child? The latter's the more apt, certainly!"

"Oh, good night!" said Gwen, who was getting the worst of it "I wish sometimes I'd never come into your wretched Form."

"You'd be far more at home among the Juniors!" snapped Netta, rather out of temper.

A few days after this was the Rodenhurst Annual Distribution of Prizes. It was always held in the beginning of November, rather an unusual date, to be sure, but Miss Roscoe found it convenient in many ways to have it in the middle of the autumn term. It gave plenty of time to receive examiners' reports, and to chronicle successes in the July examinations, but on the other hand it did not interfere with Christmas celebrations.

The function took place in the Town Hall at Stedburgh, and there was invariably a large gathering of parents and friends. To the whole school it seemed an important occasion, and both Gwen and Lesbia were full of excitement when the afternoon arrived.

"Not that I need alarm myself that I shall be called upon to walk up and receive a prize!" said Lesbia. "Never got one in my life, and never shall!"

"You might get the Sewing or the Holiday Competitions," said Gwen, trying to be encouraging.

"No fear! One genius is enough in a family! I'll go prepared to clap you!"

All the girls wore white dresses and blue hair ribbons, and made quite an imposing array as they sat in the central aisle of the large room at the Town Hall.

"There seem to be far more of us when we're in white!" said Gwen. "We don't look half so many in the lecture hall at school. Have a few little angels crept in unawares?"

"You're not one of them, at any rate," laughed Netta, who was sitting next to her.

To Gwen the great feature of the occasion was that Father was seated on the platform, in company with several other clergymen and the Mayor, who was to distribute the prizes. Beatrice was amongst the audience, and had brought Martin with her, and Giles and Basil had come with the Boys' contingent. All her family were present, and if she were to get a prize, how pleased they would be!

The proceedings began with the usual speeches from the chairman and others. Gwen had heard these every year, and they were always pretty much on the same theme. It is hard to be original at prize-givings, and the gentlemen who had been asked to "say a few words" might be forgiven if their remarks were somewhat hackneyed. Miss Roscoe read the examiners' report on the school, and the successes in the Matriculation and the Senior and Junior Oxfords. These the girls knew already, so, though they clapped heartily, it did not cause much excitement. Everyone was waiting in suspense for the prize list.

Miss Roscoe always began with the lowest Form, so the first to walk up to the platform was a small kindergarten child, who had won honours for "general improvement". Neither Giles nor Basil had any luck; they were too erratic to be serious students, but when it came to the turn of the Middle Second, Lesbia Gascoyne was awarded the prize for plain sewing. A perfect storm of clapping greeted pretty Lesbia as she returned down the hall to her place. She was a tremendous favourite at Rodenhurst, and Seniors and Juniors alike applauded. It was the first time she had ever distinguished herself in any way, and though it was only for plain sewing, the girls were ready to give her an ovation. At last the Upper Fourth was reached, and Gwen knew that as she had taken her exams with her old Form (the Middle Fourth it had been in July) her name would be still on that list.

"First prize for Mathematics, Gwen Gascoyne," read Miss Roscoe.

Gwen's heart thumped, for a moment she did not move, till Netta gave her an admonishing push, then she walked up the hall. The Mayor handed her a volume of Coleridge's poems, handsomely bound in calf, and emblazoned with the school arms; he smiled pleasantly as he did so, and added a word of compliment. Gwen murmured "Thank you", and turned away. Father was clapping his loudest on the platform, and there was a nervous little applause from the rest of the family and from Netta, but that was all. Not a single girl in either Gwen's old Form or her new one gave her the least sign of appreciation. The colour flamed into her face as she made her way back to her seat. It is hard at any time to be unpopular, but it is a cruel thing when the lack of favour is displayed before a public audience. Gwen stuck her nose in the air, and put on the most defiant, don't care expression she could assume, but she felt the slight deeply, especially when she heard the hearty reception given to Iris Watson, who had won the Languages medal.

"Never mind, childie!" said Mr. Gascoyne, when at "good night" time that evening, in the safe sanctuary of Father's study, she broke down, and burst out crying; "you did your best, and you deserved your prize. That's the main thing!"

"I shall hate the prize now!" sobbed Gwen. "I can't bear to look at it; it will always remind me of this horrid afternoon. Why should they have been so nasty to me? They clapped Lesbia!"

"Gwen, you're not jealous?" Father's voice was just a trifle anxious.

"No, no!" gulped Gwen emphatically. "Lesbia's a darling; I don't wonder people are fond of her. But oh, Dad, it is hard sometimes to be left out in the cold!"

"Very hard. Many older and wiser people than you have felt that. Yet to bear neglect well is one of the bravest things in life. Don't worry about not being appreciated; your own self-respect is worth more to you than the opinion of other people. If you're quite sure you're doing your duty, you can afford to ignore what the world thinks."

"I don't know why I should be so unpopular," sighed Gwen, squeezing Father's hand tightly, and rubbing her cheek against his coat sleeve, as if there were something comforting in the very feel of the cloth.

"You must live it down. It may take a long time, and a great deal of patience, but I'm sure you'll win, and the girls will be proud of you yet."

"Proud! They may get to tolerate me, but I don't believe I'll ever make them like me, Daddy!"

"Courage! We never know what we can do till we try. If you want to be liked, make yourself wanted. Good night, childie! Cheer up! The world's not such a bad place, after all."

"Not while you're in it!" said Gwen, kissing the dear, plain face that was so like her own.

VII. Dick Chambers

Since the afternoon when Gwen had stopped behind in Stedburgh to arrange about the broken china, and had been obliged to walk home, she had seen nothing more of Dick Chambers. She looked out for him every morning on the bus, but he was not there, and she was just wondering what had become of him when he turned up in the most unexpected quarter. It was the Saturday morning after the prize-giving. Saturday was a whole holiday, and therefore a blissful day, every moment of which was appreciated. Gwen was returning about ten o'clock from an errand she had been sent to do in the village, and as she opened the Parsonage gate she saw in the middle of the front walk a boyish figure that looked familiar.

"Hello! What are you doing here?" she exclaimed.

"Come on business of a rather particular character," grinned Dick. "Didn't you know your Father's coaching me?"

"He never said so!"

"He is, though. I'm to come three days a week, from nine to ten, and I've just made a start this morning. I say, he's a ripping chap!"

"I agree with you there," remarked Gwen. "But why aren't you going to school?"

"Thereby hangs a tale! I happened to do an idiotic thing one afternoon—fainted in the lab, and had to be picked up in the midst of fragments of glass that I'd smashed to smithereens. Then Dad got some wretched specialist to come down and see me, and the fellow said I must stop school for this term at any rate."

"Oh, I'm so sorry! Do you feel ill?"

"No. I'm all right—but it's rather rotten, for I'm knocked off 'footer'."

"How sickening for you! I know how wild I should be if I mightn't play hockey. What may you do?"

"Only just loaf about—not even golf."

"May you go walks?"

"Oh, yes! but it's rather slow mooning about on the moors by oneself."

"Have you been to see Stack Head, where the sea-birds build? Or the chasms? Oh! you ought to go there! I'll show you the way if you like!"

"I wish you would!"

"There'd be heaps of time this morning—that's to say if I may go," added Gwen, suddenly recollecting that she had promised Beatrice on her honour not to go anywhere without leave. "Oh, here's Dad, so I can ask him."

"Yes, by all means take Dick to Stack Head, the walk will do him good," replied Mr. Gascoyne. "Be careful, and don't scramble about too much, that's all—those cliffs are dangerous, remember!"

"We'll go as cautiously as two pussy-cats," said Gwen.

"Hardly an apt simile!" laughed Mr. Gascoyne, pointing to Pluto, the black Persian, that was careering madly up a tree at the moment. "However, you're used to Skelwick rocks, and Dick will have to learn his footing. Only please don't learn it at the expense of your neck, Dick! We haven't gone far enough with the Latin prose yet!"

"You needn't be afraid for me, sir, though I came a cropper over old Cicero this morning," laughed Dick.

It was a beautiful, sunny day in early November; one of those late autumn days when a little crisp hoar frost lingers in the hollows, but in the full sunshine it is almost as warm as summer. Gwen fetched a favourite stick, her indispensable companion on the moors, and, discarding her jacket, set forth joyously for a five-mile tramp. She loved the great bare headland that rose behind the Parsonage; there was a sense of freedom in leaving the houses of the village, and seeing only sea and sky around, and feeling the short, fine grass under her feet. It was a stiff climb to the top of the plateau, but once up there was a tolerably flat walk of about a couple of miles to the jagged rocks that formed the end of the promontory.

"Isn't it glorious?" said Gwen, when, the scrambling part finished, they sat for a moment or two on a rock to take breath. Below lay the clear, grey, even, shimmering surface of the sea, a little hazy at the horizon, and changing to deepest green as it neared the cliffs, where the sea-birds wheeled round screaming in sheer joy of life. "Don't you feel as if you could take a jump from the edge and just go sailing down like a gull, and land gently on the water, and float off?"

"Better not try the experiment unless you provide yourself with a parachute! An aeroplane could make a good start up here. Do you ever get any guillemots' eggs? Or puffins'?"

"Not often; though sometimes the lighthouse men bring us a few. Are you collecting eggs?"

"Rather! I've got nearly five hundred. I could do with a razor-bill's or a puffin's."

"You'll have to wait till next summer. June and July are the best months. I can show you where the birds sit, though. They haven't proper nests, they just squat on the rocks, packed as close together as sardines. It's wonderful to see them. And the noise they make! No, it isn't here, it's over by the chasms; we shall get there soon."

Half an hour's brisk walking brought them to what must have seemed to the ancient inhabitants of these islands the end of the world. The headland descended in a sheer precipice into the water, while wicked-looking rocks showed a black point here and there among the surf as a warning to any vessel to give them a wide berth. The cliff was hardly less dangerous than the rocks below, for its surface was torn into great rugged chasms, each as deep as the sea level, though often only a few feet in breadth. These curious natural rents wound in tortuous course to the edge of the precipice, sometimes crossing one another, and thus leaving islands stranded between, or long promontories, from the ends of which there would be no escape except by a jump. Gwen and Dick picked their way carefully along. There was scarcely need for Mr. Gascoyne's warning; each felt the entire necessity for extreme caution. Peeping over the edges of the chasms they could see green ferns growing in splendid clumps in clefts of the rock, and farther down darkness or a glint of water.

"Ugh! It would be horrible to tumble there!" declared Gwen, shivering as she gazed into the dim depths. "You don't feel as if you'd ever come up again, do you? Why, what's that? Did you hear?"

"Nothing but the gulls."

"It's like someone shouting. There it is again—behind us."

"By Jove! it is someone calling. Has anybody slipped down one of these holes? We'd best go and see, but do be careful. Hello, there! We're coming!"

Walking, as Gwen had said, like cautious cats, they threaded their way along the narrow strips of land till they reached the particular chasm whence the shouts issued. Looking over, they could see on a ledge about six feet down a little corduroyed, blue-jerseyed figure, and a frightened, freckled face that peered upwards. Gwen recognized the urchin in a moment: it was Johnnie Cass, the scapegrace of a family of fisher folk who lived in the village, and the naughtiest boy in Winnie's Sunday School class. He was in no immediate danger, for the ledge was wide, but the wall of rock above him was too steep to admit of his climbing up.

"Johnnie, what are you doing down there?" she called.

"Oh! boo-hoo-hoo!" wailed the scared voice from below. "I were reachin' after a sea-gurt with a broke wing and down I cooms!"

"Serve you right, too! How do you intend getting back?"

"I don't know—I wish my mother was 'ere!" and again he broke into a howl of woe.

"I'm glad she's not—she'd make a worse noise than you, from my experience of her," murmured Gwen. "Look here!" she continued, turning to Dick, "I suppose we've got to fish this little wretch up somehow."

"If I reach down can you catch hold of my hand and let me pull you?" shouted Dick to the snivelling Johnnie.

"Nay! I durstn't stir an inch—oh! where's my mother?"

"He's lost his nerve—that's what's the damage. If I go down for him could you give me a haul back?"

Gwen shook her head.

"You're too heavy. Better do it the other way. I'll go down, hand up the kid, and then you shall pull me back. Nonsense! I'm not bothered with nerves. Shan't mind in the least!"

It seemed the more feasible plan, for the six feet of rock that sheered down to the ledge was so steep and smooth of surface as to render it impossible for anyone to climb it without assistance; and it would be comparatively easy for Dick to drag Gwen's lighter weight to the top, though a difficult matter for her to pull him. If her heart went into her mouth as she let herself over the edge, Gwen did not show it. She was not given to exhibiting the white feather, and both at school and at home kept up a well-deserved reputation for pluck. Five seconds landed her by Johnnie's side, and once there she tried not to look into the gulf below. After some amount of cajoling, she persuaded the young rascal to take his dirty little fists out of his eyes, and allow himself to be hoisted up within reach of Dick's firm grip; then a successful heave did the rest. Johnnie was soon in safety, but it was much harder work for Gwen to follow; there was nobody to boost her, and not an inch of ledge on the rock to make a foothold.

"It's good practice for Alpine climbing!" she gasped, as with dishevelled hair and grazed face she at last scrambled back. "I thought my arms were being dislocated."

Dick was rubbing his own arms ruefully, but he did not complain. He had turned very white. Perhaps the effort of pulling up two people had been rather too much for him. Gwen suddenly remembered with compunction that he was ill, and not even allowed the exertion of golf, much less "footer". She wished she had thought of it before and gone to the lighthouse for help.

"I'm an idiot," she told herself. "It was I who suggested he should do the hauling part. I hope he hasn't done himself any harm."

Meantime Johnnie Cass stood surveying Gwen with the grin of Puck.

"Yer face is bleedin', and yer hair's all over yer eyes. Aye, yer do look a sight!" he volunteered.

Gwen shook him! She really couldn't help it; it relieved her feelings so very much. After all, it is rather nervy work to go down a chasm; and though she wouldn't own that she had minded in the least, her legs seemed weak and queer, and her hands were hot and trembling, and there was a funny buzzing sound in her head. She was rather ashamed of herself for losing her temper, however, and tried suddenly to be dignified.

"Johnnie Cass," she protested solemnly, "you ought to be grateful to me for saving your life instead of making impertinent remarks!"

Dick burst out laughing.

"Bravo!" he said. "Look here, you kid, if you don't want your head punched as well you'd best obliterate yourself."

Johnnie took the hint and fled away over the moor, bolting for home with all possible speed and lifting up his voice as he went in a melancholy howl. Dick and Gwen sat down on a rock to recover themselves.

"You've got some pluck—for a girl," said Dick, throwing a pebble into the chasm. "I didn't expect you'd really go down there and fetch him. Girls generally stand by and shriek."

"Not modern girls," affirmed Gwen. "They used to do the shrieking business in oldfashioned novels. It's gone out of fashion since hockey came in."

"I thought ladies were supposed to scream and wring their slim, fair hands!"

"Shows you haven't got any sisters! Do my hands look slim and fair?"

"Well, no, they're a good deal more like a boy's," admitted Dick.

"I often wish I were a boy," sighed Gwen regretfully.

"Don't! You're a jolly sight nicer as you are," returned Dick, getting up to go.

The pair did not reach the Parsonage until after one o'clock, and Beatrice and Mr. Gascoyne were beginning to wonder what had become of them.

"I hope Dick's none the worse," said Father rather anxiously when Gwen poured out the tale of their adventure. "I'm afraid it's been a tiring morning for him. He had better stop to lunch and have a good rest afterwards before he attempts to walk home. I'll go and telephone to his father from the post office and say we're keeping him. Perhaps Dr. Chambers will say he mustn't come here again if we let him do rash things!"

The family laughed at the humorous account of the rescue of Johnnie Cass which Dick and Gwen gave at the dinner table.

"You needn't have expected gratitude from that imp!" said Winnie, who had suffered many hard experiences in Sunday School. "Possibly his mother may thank you, but I doubt even that."

"All the same Gwen did her best, and that's a satisfaction," said Father. "Johnnie's a clever little lad in spite of his naughtiness, and may turn out better than we expect Some day he may even thank you for having saved his life. Gwen must keep her eye on him. He owes her so much it ought to make a bond between them."

"Well, I wish her joy of her protégé," said Winnie, with a dubious shake of her head.

After that Dick spent many Saturday mornings at the Parsonage. His father would not allow him to invite his own friends as they always proved rather too much for him, but the boy was lonely, and found the Gascoynes pleasant companions. Gwen especially, who was nearest his own age, became his particular chum, and the two carried out many experiments together in the way of photography, amateur bookbinding, and one or two other hobbies in which they were mutually interested. Dick's lessons with Mr. Gascoyne were over by ten o'clock, and he generally stayed an hour or two longer, adapting himself so well to the household that he soon seemed to be almost one of the family. Giles and Basil adored him, and haunted his footsteps as much as they were allowed, but their mischievous young fingers generally worked such havoc among slides and specimens that Gwen was often forced to turn them out and lock the door upon them.

"Monkeys from the zoo are tame and well-behaved compared with Stumps and Bazzie," she declared. "If one wants one's things ruined commend me to two small brothers!"

Gwen was delighted to have found so congenial a friend. Beatrice and Winnie, being both older, were naturally companions for one another and were inclined to treat her entirely as one of the younger ones, forgetting how fast she was growing up, and it was difficult to make childish little Lesbia interested in anything. Here at last was somebody who appreciated birds' eggs, and butterflies, and collections of shells, and pressed flowers; someone who did pen-and-ink drawings a great deal better than herself, and who knew exactly how to make lantern slides, and could even manage to mend the toy printing press that Giles had broken.

Dick was clever with his fingers, and as he was not allowed to read very much he spent long hours at home constructing wonderful boxes for birds' eggs, or stretchers for butterflies and moths, or preparing slides for the microscope.

"I'm going to be a doctor when I grow up," he confided to Gwen, "so microscopic work will be a help to me. Dad's teaching me a little scrap of dispensing now, just to amuse me."

"I hope he doesn't let you make up the bottles of medicine!" laughed Gwen. "I pity the patients."

"Rather not, but I see what goes in them. If you'll come over to the surgery some day I'll make you taste something for laughing!"

"We should be lost without Dick now," said Gwen one day at tea. "What shall we do when he goes back to school?"

"I'm afraid that won't be just yet," said Mr. Gascoyne. "He doesn't get strong as fast as his father hoped. He's a nice lad, not brilliant, but very painstaking over his work. It's quite a pleasure to teach him."

VIII. Gwen Receives a Letter

After her talk with Father on the evening of the prize-giving Gwen went back to school determined, if she could not feel cordial just at present towards her classmates, she would at least bury the hatchet and take no notice of the unkindness they had exhibited. It seemed much the most dignified course, for Gwen was far too proud to look injured, or to show even to Netta that she had felt hurt. Perhaps the girls were a little ashamed of themselves. Iris Watson and one or two others spoke to her with quite an approach to friendliness, and Elspeth Frazer asked her opinion about the costumes for the play. Gwen was not taking a part, so she was rather a free lance in that respect, and her advice was likely to be disinterested. Each Form got up its own particular act with a secrecy worthy of the Freemasons. It was a point of honour not to betray the least tiny hint of what was going to happen, in order that the performance should be a complete surprise to the rest of the school.

Now the Fifth had decided to give the trial scene from the Merchant of Venice—rather an ambitious and decidedly a hackneyed piece to select. The Dramatic Society was influenced in its choice, however, by several considerations; the Form was studying The Merchant, and had learnt the principal speeches for recitations, which would save a great deal of trouble to the performers in the matter of studying parts. Then Hilda Browne's father was a barrister and would lend his wig for the occasion, and Louise Mawson could bring a gown that would do excellently for Shylock's gaberdine, also two sets of tights and doublets and feathered caps, all of which were invaluable assets in the way of stage properties.

"We must manage the rest of the costumes as best we can," said Elspeth. "Charlotte Perry knows of a dressmaker who makes fancy dresses very cheaply. She does them for other schools. The chief question is the scheme of colour: Hilda wants us to copy exactly from some celebrated picture, and Louise says it doesn't matter as long as everything looks very bright and gay. Here's a book of costumes. Tell me what you think."

As Gwen turned over the pages of the little volume, with its illustrations of Bassanio, Jessica, &c., a horrible suspicion suddenly shot into her mind. Where had she seen that book before? And just lately too! Why, at home, of course! She had come into the sitting-room suddenly and found Winnie and Beatrice discussing it over the fire. Winnie had suppressed it instantly, but not before she had caught a glimpse both of the illustrations and the title. She remembered them perfectly. Now Winnie, as well as being Junior Mistress for the Fifth, was a member of a class for higher mathematics composed of a few Senior girls and taught by a professor who came weekly from the University at Radchester. On the strength of this class she considered herself still one of the Sixth for special purposes, and licensed to take part in school performances. Was the Sixth going to act in the Merchant of Venice? It looked uncommonly like it. Why else should Winnie be studying that particular book of costumes?

Gwen was in a dilemma. She did not know what to do. Not only did the Rodenhurst code of honour regard Form secrets as being inviolable as those of the confessional, but further she had been continually warned by Father and Beatrice that, now Winnie was a mistress, she and Lesbia must be particularly careful never to repeat anything they heard at home which might be likely to compromise their sister at school. It was clearly impossible to betray the least hint of her suspicion, but on the other hand it would be an exceedingly stupid dénouement if both Forms were to act the same play. She decided to try finesse.

"Have you absolutely decided on The Merchant?" she said. "Don't you think it's rather stale to choose our Form subject? It's been done before too."

"Not for three years," objected Elspeth. "That's quite time enough for most of the girls to have forgotten it. Besides, I know the speeches."

"You could learn some fresh ones."

"Oh, I dare say! It sounds easy enough when you haven't to do it yourself. One's homework is quite enough just now without learning pages of blank verse. Then there are the costumes."

"Wouldn't they come in for The Rivals? You might do some scenes from that. We've never had it at school before, and it's simply ripping. Or part of She Stoops to Conquer would be gorgeously funny."

"You couldn't put Sir Anthony Absolute into Shylock's gaberdine, or Tony Lumpkin into a Venetian doublet and tights! And what about the wig? Hilda's had hard work to persuade her father to lend it, and she'd be fearfully offended if it wasn't used."

These arguments were so conclusive that Gwen sighed. Nevertheless she made a last appeal.

"Well, I think you're very silly to act The Merchant," she said. "You might choose something far more original and interesting. It's an opportunity wasted—and, if you'll only believe me, I'm quite sure you'll be sorry for it."

"It's you that's silly, Gwen Gascoyne!" retorted the indignant Elspeth. "We've chosen The Merchant, so why need you go trying to upset everything. I was asking you about the costumes, not the play."

"Like Gwen's cheek!" murmured Louise Mawson. "We don't want ex-Juniors interfering with our Dramatic!"

Gwen turned sharply away. It seemed most unfortunate that she always got across the rest of the Form. In this instance her motive was the purest, but as she could not explain, the girls naturally thought it was only her love of putting herself forward which caused her to suggest such a drastic measure as a change of programme.

"They never will understand me!" she thought bitterly. "Father said they would be proud of me yet, but oh, dear! the more I try to do, the more I seem disliked. They'll be fearfully sold when it comes to the performance. I wonder if I ought to give them just a hint! It's really too idiotic to have two Merchants. No, I won't! They'd probably only slang me for letting out Form secrets. I'm glad I'm not acting, at any rate. School's not exactly a terrestrial paradise at present. I wonder what other troubles are coming to me? I believe I'm one of those people who are born under an unlucky star!"

Gwen's words might almost have been prophetic, for the very next day something happened—something so unprecedented and overwhelming that she could never have anticipated it, even if she had been expecting general ill luck.

At the interval she received a summons to Miss Roscoe's study. She went at once, wondering why she had been sent for.

"Hope the Head's not going to put me into the Sixth!" she laughed to herself. "That would be rather too good a joke. I'm willing to be a prefect or even proctor if I'm asked!"

Gwen's reception at her last visit to the study had been so favourable, that this time she tapped lightly at the door, and entered confidently. One glance at Miss Roscoe's face, however, showed her that she was in dire disgrace. The Principal's rather handsome, heavy features seemed to cast themselves in a Roman mould when she was annoyed; her brows would knit, and her mouth assume a set, dogged expression of authority. All these storm signals being visible, Gwen quaked in her shoes. Miss Roscoe had an unopened envelope in her hand, and to this at once drew her pupil's attention.

"Gwen Gascoyne, a letter arrived this morning addressed to you at Rodenhurst. Now, it is one of our principal rules that no girls are allowed to have letters sent to them at the school. Tell your correspondent on no account to write to you here again. If I find anything further addressed to you, I shall enclose it in an envelope, and post it to your father. I will not have Rodenhurst made a vehicle for clandestine correspondence. You may go, but understand clearly this is never to happen again."

Gwen took the letter, and left the room in silence. She was too much astonished to defend herself. She could not imagine who had written to her and put the school address. As soon as she was in the corridor she tore open the envelope. It contained a bill from "Messrs. John Parker & Sons, Glass and China Merchants" for

"Replacing 10 articles in broken

Tea Service… £1 2 6"

And at the bottom was written in a business hand:—

"Messrs. Parker beg respectfully to request Miss Gascoyne's settlement of above. Should she prefer it, they will send the account to her father. They beg to assure her of their best attention at all times."

Gwen gasped.

"Why, I paid it!" she said almost aloud. "At least, I sent the money by Emma. Is it possible she can have pocketed it? Oh, the deceiving wretch! Where's Netta? I must tell her at once!"

She rushed into the gymnasium, and calling Netta aside, showed her the fatal document. The two talked it over, aghast.

"Whew! This is a bad job!" exclaimed Netta. "Certainly it looks as if Emma had decamped with the one pound two and six. She's left the school, you know."

"I didn't know," sighed Gwen.

"Yes, she went ten days ago. Haven't you noticed there's a new housemaid waiting at dinner? You must be as blind as a bat!"

"I'm afraid I am done for," said Gwen dramatically.

"Oh, I shouldn't give up too soon if I were you! I suppose, by the by, you wouldn't care to tell your father?"

"I'd rather die!"

"Then you'll have to go somehow to Parker's, and ask if they've made a mistake. If, as I strongly suspect, Emma really didn't pay it, then you might get them to take part on account now, and leave the rest till after Christmas. What could you give them?"

"I don't possess more than sixpence. I'm bankrupt, and in debt to you, too."

"But you're sure to get something at Christmas, aren't you?"

"I expect so."

"Well, I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll lend you another ten shillings. That will make a sovereign altogether, and you can pay me back when you've had your Christmas presents."

"Oh, Netta, how good of you!"

"Not so particularly. It's only a loan, and I expect you to give it back."

"Of course."

"You'd better go to Parker's this afternoon at four."

"I daren't!" said Gwen, who felt that she was floundering deeper and deeper into a morass of trouble. "You don't know what a scrape I got into at home for stopping behind that other time. Beatrice made me promise absolutely always to come home with Winnie and Lesbia. I should have to give all kinds of explanations."

"I'm supposed to go straight home too, on these dark afternoons. My mother's rather particular about it."

"Then what's to be done?"

"You'll have to make a bolt in the dinner hour. There's nothing else for it."

"Umph! It's risky."

"You must risk something, O my cautious philosopher! Nobody but Thistles is about just then, and I think we can outwit Thistles. I'll bring the half-sovereign to school with me to-morrow, and you can take it to Parker's, in case it's wanted. I'm afraid you'll find you'll need it."

"I should like to prosecute Emma—she richly deserves it!"

"Couldn't do that without giving ourselves away, so you'll have to restrain your righteous wrath, my child!"

Gwen spent the rest of the day feeling as if a black shadow had suddenly fallen over her life. She had believed the episode of the china was completely finished with, and here it had cropped up again like some horrible bogey prepared to haunt her. It was worse than ever, for she had lost her own fifteen shillings as well as the ten which Netta had previously lent her. Between Parker's and Netta she now owed thirty-two and sixpence. The largeness of the debt appalled her. How was she ever to refund it? She hoped she might get a little money at Christmas. Her grandmother and Aunt Violet generally sent postal orders for presents, telling the girls to buy what they liked; it was these welcome gifts that constituted most of her contributions to her savings box.

The hint which Parker's had given about sending the account to her father frightened her greatly. Father must not know. He would have quite enough Christmas bills to pay without adding an extra one. Besides, what would he think of her? Gwen liked to stand high in her father's estimation. Beatrice, too, would hear of it, and would not spare her.

"I'm always the black sheep of the family," thought Gwen. "None of them have ever done anything so dreadful as this. No! I simply shouldn't dare to tell at home."

Netta turned up next morning with the half-sovereign, according to her promise. She was not an ungenerous girl, and she had plenty of pocket money, for her father was well off, and liberal to his only daughter. She was willing to help Gwen out of a difficulty for which she knew she herself was partly responsible, and perhaps also she rather appreciated the sense of power that the debt gave her over her schoolfellow. Netta dearly loved to lead: she would have liked to be of importance in the Form, and was often annoyed that Hilda Browne, Iris Watson, and some of the others looked down upon her. It was pleasant therefore to feel that she had one satellite who was bound to revolve in her orbit, and could be reckoned upon to support her on all occasions.

Gwen had decided to commit a breach of school rules, and to rush out between dinner and afternoon school to pay her visit to the china shop. As she had said, it was a risky performance. If she were caught, she would be reported to Miss Roscoe, and the penalty would be severe. It seemed sailing 'twixt Scylla and Charybdis, but it was worth trying. The first difficulty was how to put on her outdoor things without anybody noticing. Girls kept strolling in and out of the dressing-room in the most tiresome manner and after waiting as long as she dared for the room to be empty, she was finally obliged to smuggle her hat and coat into the passage, and garb herself there.

"I've barely time," she said to Netta, who was acting scout. "For goodness sake tell me if you see Thistles about! Is the coast clear? Then I'll scoot."

At the end of the passage, however, she encountered danger. Winnie was standing by the gymnasium door, and Gwen only just drew back in time to avoid her. Chafing with impatience, she waited while Winnie leisurely examined some papers on the notice board. Was she going to stay there all the afternoon? At last she moved, and went inside the gymnasium, and Gwen plucked up courage to make a dash for the street door. She hurried along with such enormous strides that passers-by turned to look at her and smiled, but careless of the notice she was attracting, she even broke into a run as she caught sight of the Market Hall clock. She was panting and altogether out of breath by the time she reached the china shop, and not at all sure what she ought to say. She marched up to the counter, and produced the bill which she had received.

"Look here! You've sent me this," she began, "and I want to know whether it was really paid or not."

"I'll just enquire, miss," said the assistant, referring to his superior; then returning, after a whispered colloquy, he continued: "No, miss. Mr. Evans says it certainly never has been paid. You've no receipt for it?"

"I gave the money to the housemaid at school, and told her to take it," faltered Gwen.

"Have you asked her about it, miss?"

"She's left, and I don't know where she's gone."

The assistant shook his head.

"I'm afraid, in that case, she won't want to be found, though perhaps the police could trace her if you cared to prosecute."

"Would it not be simpler if we sent the account to your father, missy?" suggested the shopwalker, coming to join the assistant at the counter. "Ah! I forget whether we have your home address? Always best to refer bills to one's father, isn't it? Then there's no trouble."

His tone verged on the familiar and impertinent. Gwen drew herself up very straight.

"I prefer to manage it myself, thank you," she replied icily. "If you will take ten shillings on account now, I will pay you the balance after Christmas. Will you let it remain till then?"

"I dare say Mr. Parker wouldn't object—that's to say, if you don't mind giving me your home address as a reference."

"You can put 'c/o Miss Goodwin, The Thorns, Manor Road, Stedburgh'," said Gwen, who wished at any cost to avoid the chance of a letter being sent to her at her own home. She got a receipt for the ten shillings on account, and put it carefully away in her purse. She thought both the shopmen looked at her very inquisitively, but she took no notice. She did not mean to gratify their curiosity by explaining the details of how she had incurred the expense. She wished Netta were with her; it was so much harder to keep up her dignity alone. With a curt "Good afternoon!" she left the china stores and hurried back to school. She was only just in time, for the second bell was already ringing. Fortunately the dressing-room was empty, except for one agitated Junior, who was in too great haste to notice anything. Gwen scuttled into the Fifth exactly five seconds before Miss Douglas, and sat down at her desk, exhausted but congratulating herself. She contrived to write a surreptitious note to Netta, and to pass it, neatly rolled into a ball, on the waste-paper tray. Its tenor was calculated to be ambiguous to outsiders, but intelligible to the initiated.

"All hail, Protector of the Poor! This is to inform you that the deed is done—successfully. I thought I was within an ace of exposure, but things righted themselves, and lo! I triumphed. For the present the supplier of brittle goods is satisfied, and for the future—well, I leave it to luck. I feel like a warrior who has been through a campaign—I'm not sure if I haven't acquired some wounds. My head is swimming, and I'm a broken flower for the afternoon. Expect me to collapse in maths. My brains are capable of nothing more arduous than the three R's. I am living till four, when I can have the exhilaration of reciting my breathless experiences to your sympathetic ear.

"Yours in abject gratitude,

"G.G."

IX. Keeping Christmas

The end of the term seemed to arrive very rapidly—too quickly for the amount of work that had to be done, yet too slowly in the estimation of the three hundred and eleven girls who were looking forward to the holidays. Exam week came and went, leaving inkstained fingers and a crop of headaches; mistresses were busy correcting papers; "swatters" were daring to congratulate themselves, and "slackers" were bewailing the difficulty of the questions. Gwen, who had done pretty well on the whole, considering her handicaps, ventured to think she must be through in most subjects, and not such a disgrace to the Fifth as to necessitate her dismissal to the Lower School again, a consummation at which one or two of her detractors had occasionally hinted in times of irritation.

The few days left were chiefly occupied with what the girls called "scratch lessons", just something to keep them employed until the lists were out. A good deal of latitude was allowed to those rehearsing for the various performances, and though Gwen could not claim that excuse for exemption, she managed to make a little work spin out a long way without incurring reproof.

She was tired with the strain of the term; it had needed much effort to keep up with the rest of the Form, and the daily bus journey and walk to and from home were all extra exertion. She had grown enormously in the last few months—"grown out of all conscience", said Beatrice, who sighed ruefully over boots too small and skirts too short—and she had become so pale and lanky and angular in the process that Winnie unfeelingly compared her to a plant raised in a cellar. Her unlucky hands and feet seemed bigger than ever, and more inclined to fidget and shuffle, and to her bad habit of wrinkling up her forehead she had added a nervous blink of her eyes.

"Winnie Gascoyne is charming," confided Miss Douglas to a fellow mistress, "and Lesbia is about the loveliest child I've ever seen. I can't imagine why Gwen should vary from pretty to plain continually. But she does."

Unfortunately, Gwen's temper suffered in exact proportion to her increased inches. She was snappy at school and snarly at home, difficult to please, and ready to take offence at everything. Probably a week's rest in bed, on a feeding diet and a good tonic, was what her tired body and irritable nerves required, but nobody had the hardihood to make such a suggestion. Except in cases of dire necessity, the Gascoynes did not indulge in the luxury of medical advice or chemist's bills, so Gwen perforce did without a doctor, and the medicine he would most undoubtedly have prescribed for her. So far from thinking of rest, she was making plans sufficient to fill five holidays instead of one; even she herself laughed sometimes at the largeness of her projects compared with the brief month in which she was to carry them out.

Meantime the two days of the dramatic performances had arrived. The Seniors always had the first afternoon and the Juniors the second, the audience being composed of the rest of the school together with the mistresses. The outside public was not invited, as the little plays were only intended to be acted among the girls themselves. The Sixth naturally led off, and Gwen quaked as she sat with her Form in front of the heavy red curtains. She was afraid an unpleasant surprise awaited her comrades, and she wondered how they would take it. Exactly what she expected happened. The bell rang, the curtains were drawn aside to reveal—alas, alas, for the Fifth!—a very excellently got up trial scene from the Merchant of Venice. Bessie Manners, the head of the school, was a majestic Portia in a handsome scarlet robe; Winnie made an attractive Nerissa; while all the other characters were arrayed in slightly more sumptuous costumes than Elspeth and Hilda had been able to collect.

A shudder of cold horror ran through the unfortunate Fifth, the dramatic representatives of which listened with a kind of fascination to their own speeches, tripped off lightly and easily by their Seniors. It was more particularly galling as all realized that the whole thing was on a rather higher scale than theirs; it was better staged, much prompter, the actions were more appropriate, and the players less stiff and self-conscious, to say nothing of the superior dresses. In gloomy resignation they sat the scene out, and had the magnanimity to applaud heartily at the end. Then came the crisis.

"We can't possibly give the very same thing all over again," whispered Hilda to Elspeth. "We shall just have to announce that ours is 'off'."

Deeply humiliated and disgusted, the Fifth retired to its own classroom to discuss the untoward event.

"It's too sickening—when I'd borrowed the wig on purpose!" wailed Hilda. "You can't think how I had to pester Dad to lend it."

"And my Bassanio doublet and tights were made at a dressmaker's!" lamented Louise Mawson.

"Who'd have thought of the Sixth choosing that very scene?"

"Well, I tried to persuade you to take something else instead," declared Gwen, offering Job's comfort to the disappointed ones.

"Gwen Gascoyne, I verily believe you knew all the time what the Sixth were going to have."

"You must have known when your sister was in it."

"I wasn't sure, but I had an inkling," confessed Gwen.

"Then why didn't you tell?" howled the girls in chorus.

"Why? Because it didn't seem fair. Winnie hadn't said a word—I only guessed. You know we're all supposed to keep our own secrets."

"In this case you ought to have warned us properly. It was too bad to let us rehearse all that time, and get all the costumes together—for this!"

"We've made ourselves ridiculous, and it's your fault entirely."

"Couldn't you act it here, just among ourselves?" suggested Gwen humbly; but her proposal was squashed by an indignant and scornful majority.

"Act it here indeed! Who'd care to do that, I wonder? Don't be so idiotic. You've spoilt our performance, Gwen Gascoyne, when you might have saved it. Why couldn't you stay in the Lower School? You haven't sense enough to be a Senior."

It was not a very satisfactory ending to a first term, even though Gwen had done better in the exams than she expected, so that her place in her new Form was well assured. She still felt an outcast, and as she shut her desk for the last time on breaking-up day, she gave a sigh of intense relief to think that she was going to enjoy a whole month's freedom from the society of her classmates.

Home at present was the summum bonum of her wishes. She almost danced along the road from school, and behaved so jubilantly in the bus that Winnie had to interfere, and give her a hint to restrain her hilarity before the other passengers. She rushed into the Parsonage like a cyclone, and flung her satchel under the bookcase.

"There! That's done with! Hurrah! No more horrid, hateful, scrambly, early breakfasts, and tramping off through the mud. Every day's a Saturday, and I'm just going to have a glorious time."

"There's plenty for you to do," said Beatrice, fishing out the satchel and putting it tidily away on Gwen's special shelf. "I haven't finished those texts I was making for the church yet, and—"

"Oh, wow! Don't set me to work too soon! I've a heap of things of my own that want doing first. Winnie is far cleverer at cutting texts than I am."

"She's more to be depended upon, certainly," said Beatrice dryly.

Each member of the family was mysteriously occupied with special secrets. There were still five days before Christmas, time for an energetic person to get through a great deal, and Gwen hoped to accomplish wonders. She was in a sad quandary about her Christmas gifts. Her savings box, which ought to have contained over fifteen shillings, only held a threepennybit and two halfpennies; and she shook her head dismally as she reviewed her pauper condition.

"I must make presents, that's the long and short of it," she told herself. "They can't be handsome ones. And, oh dear! they'll all think me so horribly stingy and mean. Well, they'll have to, for I can't explain! It's absolutely sickening, but it's inevitable."

So Gwen shut herself up in her bedroom, locked out the injured Lesbia, who had plans of her own which she wished to pursue in privacy, put on a thick jacket and a pair of mittens to keep herself warm, and set to work bravely. It is rather hard to make bricks without straw, and her supply of materials, mostly purloined from Beatrice's piece-box, was decidedly scanty. She held a review of the articles when she had finished, and screwed up her face over them in expressive dissatisfaction.

"They're a shabby little lot, that's flat!" she decided.

She turned them over disconsolately—the needle-book for Beatrice, not too tidily sewn; the blotter for Winnie, with its brown paper cover, hastily painted with a spray of roses, and its one sheet of blotting paper begged from Father's writing-table; the pincushion for Lesbia, trimmed with a piece of washed ribbon; and the two postcard albums for Basil and Giles, made out of pieces of cardboard with slits cut in the corners.

"I can afford to spend the threepennybit on Father and Martin," she thought; "but I must leave the halfpennies to rattle in my box, so that it doesn't sound empty."

The village shop did not offer a very large selection of goods for an expenditure of threepence. Gwen was almost at her wits' end what to choose, and finally came away with a cake of oatmeal soap and a large red chalk pencil. Walking back up the village she met Beatrice.

"I've just been to see the Casses," said the latter. "They're in awful trouble. Thomas Cass has sprained his wrist and can't go out in his boat, and Mrs. Cass is in bed with bronchitis. Johnnie's running about with his toes all through his boots, and says he can't come to church or Sunday School because he hasn't another pair."

"Haven't you an old pair of Lesbia's or Stumps's?" suggested Gwen.

"Not one. We sold them all at the Rummage Sale."

"Then he'll have to go barefoot, I suppose."

"I was wondering," said Beatrice tentatively, "if we could manage to get him a pair ourselves. Winnie would give something, I'm sure, and so would I, and so would Father."

Gwen was silent.

"I thought perhaps as you'd rescued him you might feel interested in him, and you'd care—"

Beatrice did not finish the sentence, but looked at her sister hopefully.

Gwen stared at the ground and went very red, but she said nothing, and Beatrice, after waiting a moment, turned away and entered the post office.

"Of all absolute frauds, I feel the meanest!" groaned Gwen. "Beatrice will think me a perfect miser, hoarding up my money and not willing to spend a farthing on anybody! If she only knew the bankruptcy of my box! Was any wretched girl ever in such a fix? Oh! Gwen Gascoyne, you've got yourself into an atrocious mess altogether, and I don't see how you're ever going to climb out of it."

Gwen's one sheet anchor of hope, to which she clung in a kind of desperation, was the thought of the postal orders that Grannie and Aunt Violet almost invariably sent at Christmas. If these did not arrive, she could not pay Netta, and then—well, any kind of catastrophe might be expected to follow. She went about with a load of lead on her heart, and a consequent shortness of temper highly trying to the rest of the family. She was grumpy with the little boys, impatient with Lesbia, and so unaccommodating over doing the decorations in church that Beatrice finally begged her to go home, saying she and Winnie could finish alone.

"You two always want to get rid of me!" flared out Gwen as she stumped defiantly away.

It was not a very happy preparation for Christmas, and Gwen stood rather forlornly in the church porch, her hands in her pockets, watching a few snowflakes that were beginning to fall silently from the heavy grey sky and to whiten the tops of the gravestones and the outlines of the crooked yew trees near the gate. The peace and goodwill that ought to have been present everywhere to-day seemed to have vanished.

"Beatrice was just horrid," thought Gwen, quite oblivious of the fact that the quarrel was of her own making. We are so apt to forget that the world is like a mirror, and if we insist upon frowning into it, it will probably frown back. We sometimes expect other people to do all the forbearing, and then are astonished if our much-tried friends fail in the very point in which we ourselves are so deficient.

"Why, Gwen, what a woebegone face!" exclaimed Father, who hurried in for a moment to speak to the parish clerk. "You'd make a grand model for an artist who wanted to paint a picture of 'Misery'. Are the decorations finished?"

"Almost; at least my part of them."

"Then go home and open that parcel of Parish Magazines you'll find on my study table, and deliver those that belong to the village. You know where to find the list. Be sure to tick the names off. And don't go farther down the road than Marriott's farm; it's getting dark."

Gwen cheered visibly. She was always glad to do something for Father, if it were only distributing Parish Magazines, so she strode off with a swinging step, humming the carol that the school children had been practising with Winnie that afternoon.

"Show us, dear Christ-Child, Thy Christmas light,

Teach us the song of the Angels bright,

And the love of the Mother blest.

And help us this Christmas to learn of Thee

All we should do, and all we should be,

And how we can please Thee best."

Fortunately the Gascoynes were a forgiving family, and when they all met at tea-time nobody seemed to remember Gwen's ill humour. The evening was a busy one, for there were holly and ivy to be put up in the Parsonage now the church was finished, and the usual mirth over a bough of mistletoe which old Mr. Hodson, who owned the big farm by the mill, always cut off every year from an apple tree in his orchard and brought to them with his own hands. Gwen forgot her troubles and romped with the rest, accepting Martin's sticky kisses in the spirit in which they were intended. The Gascoynes did not hang up their stockings, but laid their presents on the breakfast-table, so that they could have the gratification of opening all their parcels together. It was a point of honour not to take the tiniest peep inside even the most tempting-looking package until the whole family was assembled. Gwen had tried to make up for the poverty of her offerings by the warmth of the greetings she wrote outside, but she did not feel proud of her collection as she carried it downstairs. She was the last, so she hastily made her distribution, and turned to her own plate. She had been well remembered: a book from Father; a nightdress case, beautifully embroidered, from Beatrice; a new purse from Winnie; a big bottle of scent from dear little Lesbia, who to buy it must certainly have gone without the blue-handled penknife she had coveted so much in Bayne's window; some pencils from Giles and Basil; and a piece of indiarubber from Martin, who had compassed seven presents on a capital of eightpence-halfpenny. Gwen looked rather anxiously as the others opened the packets she had addressed to them; but whatever they thought, they all had the niceness to hide their feelings, and thanked her as if she had given them the most expensive objects obtainable.

Father's humour, however, could not help twinkling out at the cake of soap: "To Darling Dad, with dearest and best love, from Gwen".

"I hope it isn't a hint I need washing," he said with mock seriousness.

"I thought you liked oatmeal soap!" protested Gwen, nearly crying.

"So I do, my dear; and I haven't had any for a long time. Like the man in Pears's advertisement, I shall now use no other."

"Here's the postman!" shouted Giles, rushing excitedly to the door, where that much-burdened official, with an extra man to help him, was sorting out what belonged to the Parsonage.

"Six letters for you, Gwen, and two parcels," said Beatrice, assuming command of the correspondence, and distributing it among the eager family.

Gwen snatched her share nervously. Would any of the letters contain the longed-for postal orders? No, they all had halfpenny stamps, and were clearly only Christmas cards.

Then she fell upon the parcels. The first contained a handsome knitted coat, and cap to match, "with love from Grannie", and the second, a beautiful little set of Wordsworth's poems in a cloth case, "with Aunt Violet's best wishes".

Gwen sat down on the sofa, feeling as if she had received a rude shock. That both Grannie and Aunt Violet should have sent presents instead of money was worse than she had calculated upon. She tried to pull herself together, and not show her disappointment too plainly, but the thought of what she owed was paramount. It only made it worse that the gifts were really acceptable, and that the rest of the family persisted in considering her extremely lucky.

"It was kind of Grannie to send that lovely coat: dark green will just suit you. Try it on, and the cap too," said Winnie.

"It looks swank!" declared the boys.

"They'll go with your dark green skirt," affirmed Beatrice.

"The Wordsworths are scrumptious!" said Lesbia. "You've done awfully well this Christmas!"

"Yes, but how am I going to pay my debts?" thought Gwen, as she ran upstairs to get ready for church.

X. A Prodigal

As the next term seemed likely to bring its own crop of troubles, Gwen, with a kind of grim philosophy, determined to enjoy herself while she could, and make the most of the holidays. She helped vigorously at the schools, where tea parties for children and grownups, concerts and other entertainments were in full swing, and she even wrung a few words of appreciation from Beatrice for her active services in the way of slicing up cake, cutting ham sandwiches, and pouring out innumerable cups of tea. Gwen liked the village festivities, she knew everybody in the place, and found it all fun, from listening to the comic songs of the local grocer, to playing Oranges and Lemons with the babies in the Infant School.

"We've three real parties too," she said on December 30th, "as well as going to the Chambers' this afternoon."

"I hardly think Mrs. Chambers will expect you," declared Beatrice, looking out of the window at the dark sky. "It's beginning to snow already, and I believe we shall have a heavy fall."

"Then it must keep off till to-morrow, for we've got to get to North Ditton somehow!" announced Gwen.

Dick's mother had asked the younger Gascoynes to tea, and amongst their various invitations it was to this that Gwen looked forward the most. She wanted to see Dick's home, and the collection of birds' eggs and butterflies which he had promised to show her, and his magic lantern, and his microscope, and all the Natural History books of which he had so often spoken. She watched the weather impatiently, and when the snow fell faster and faster, and Beatrice decided emphatically that the visit was impossible, she broke into open mutiny.

"It's too bad! We shouldn't take any harm. What an old mollycoddle you are, Beatrice!"

"I've a little more sense in my head than you have! With this wind the roads will be deep in drifts. It's quite unfit to go out, especially for you with that nasty cough. I should have you laid up with bronchitis."

"My cold's better," affirmed Gwen, trying not to sound hoarse; "snow doesn't hurt people. Father's gone out in it!"

"Father was obliged to go—it's quite a different thing for him. I'm sorry you're disappointed, but really, Gwen, don't be so childish! Look at Lesbia, she isn't making such a dreadful fuss!"

"Lesbia never worries about anything, so it's no virtue at all!" snarled Gwen, knowing perfectly well that she was unfair, for Lesbia undoubtedly added self-control to her naturally sweet disposition. "You always hold up Lesbia! You've no right to say we must stop at home, just because you're the eldest!"

Beatrice sighed. Sometimes she thought this turbulent cuckoo of a younger sister was the cross of her life.

"It's no use talking in this way, Gwen! Somebody must be in authority, and you'll have to do as you're told."

"I shan't! I don't care! You're only six years older than I am!"

And Gwen flounced out of the room in a rage. She ran upstairs, her eyes smarting with hot tears of temper. She was disgusted with the others for not taking the matter more to heart. How could Lesbia sit reading so calmly, or the boys amuse themselves with their absurd engine?

"They don't care like I do! I wish I could go without them!" she said aloud.

The idea was an excellent one. What fun it would be to go alone, and have Dick all to herself—no tiresome youngsters to claim his attention, finger his books, and perhaps break his birds' eggs; not even Lesbia to ask stupid questions about things any ordinary person ought to know. She could easily tell Mrs. Chambers that her sister had thought it too stormy for the little ones to venture, and probably Dr. Chambers would drive her back in the gig.

"After all, Father never told me not to go!" she thought, "and Beatrice is getting a perfect tyrant; I can't be expected to obey her as if I were an infant. A girl in the Fifth is quite old enough to decide things for herself, especially when she's as tall as I am!"

Gwen changed her dress, put on her best hair ribbon, her brooch, and her locket, then peeped cautiously down the stairs. Although she felt full of self-assertion, she had no wish to risk a further encounter with Beatrice. All seemed quiet, so, donning hat and coat, she crept to the cupboard where mackintoshes and galoshes were kept, and armed herself to defy the weather. It was quite an easy matter to slip out by the back door, and in less than ten seconds she was hurrying through the village, chuckling at her own daring and cleverness. Thick flakes were whirling everywhere: when she looked upwards they showed as little dark patches against the neutral-tinted sky, but when they passed the line of vision, each soft lump of crystals gleamed purest white as it joined the ever-deepening mass below. Every gate and stump and rubbish heap was a thing of beauty, glorified by the ethereal covering of the snow; the dead clumps of ragwort by the road side, the withered branches of oak, the shrivelled trails of bramble all seemed transformed by the feathery particles into a species of fairyland.

As Gwen left the village, and took the path that led across the moor, she seemed to walk into a cloud of whiteness that enclosed her and shut her out from all before or behind. She stood still for a moment, and drew in her breath with a sense of intense exhilaration. She was all by herself in the midst of this new-found world of snow, and the very solitude had a fascination. It is good sometimes for the spirit to be alone; strange vague thoughts, half memories, half imaginings, fill the brain like a full high tide; strong impressions, unfelt and unknowable in the distraction of human company, force themselves silently yet persistently upon us; the corporal and the tangible lose their hard outlines and begin to merge into the in visible—in such moments the soul grows. It is perhaps one of the disadvantages of a large family that the members are apt to lack what one might call spiritual elbow room, the constant close companionship, the fridging and rubbing of the continual, daily, hourly intercourse, though an excellent discipline for the temper, leaves scant opportunity for the development of the individuality. Gwen could not have explained this in the least, but as she stood in the still quiet of the falling snow, she felt as if all the little fretting cares and worries and squabbles and anxieties dropped away into a subordinate place, and she were viewing life with another range of vision, where the proportions of things were quite changed.

She walked on, almost as if she were in a dream, without even the sound of a footstep to break the intense silence. She was now on the open wold, where there were neither hedges nor walls, but only a few stones to mark the road from the sedgy, heathery expanse of moor that stretched on either side. Gwen knew the way so thoroughly that she thought she could have followed it blindfold. Every rock and boulder and bush were familiar, and as a rule were so many points along the daily path to school. Now, however, all the well-known landmarks seemed to have a strange similarity, and to be merging into one great white waste, in which tree stump was indistinguishable from stone or gorse clump. The light was fading rapidly, for the clouds went on gathering, and the flakes came down ever thicker and faster. So far Gwen had gone on with the utmost confidence, but now she stopped and entertained a doubt. She did not recognize the boulder on her right, and the juniper bush on her left was surely strange.

"I verily believe I've come wrong somehow," she muttered. "There's nothing for it but to turn back."

She could see her own footsteps in the snow behind, and for some hundreds of yards she traced them; then they began to get fainter and fainter, and presently they were hidden entirely by the new-fallen flakes. The road was completely obliterated, there was nothing round her but shapeless indefinite whiteness. Then it dawned upon Gwen's soul that she was lost, lost hopelessly on the bare wold, where she might wander for miles without seeing the gleam of a farmhouse window or hearing even the bark of a shepherd's dog. The solitude that before had seemed so inspiring, suddenly became oppressive loneliness. What was she to do? Tramp on and on, perhaps in a circle, till she could go no farther? Already it was heavy walking, and under the rocks and bushes the drifts were deepening. Yet it would never do to sit down in the snow. Tired as she was, she must keep moving, and while the faintest gleam of daylight lasted she must try and find some guide-post to civilization.

"I wish I'd brought Jingles. I never thought of him," she sighed, longing regretfully for the shaggy Irish terrier that acted watchdog at the Parsonage. "I wonder how soon they'll miss me at home? Not till tea-time, I expect, and then they'll probably think I'm at the Chambers'. Beatrice would guess where I'd gone. How furiously angry she'll be!"

For the first time a little awkward uncomfortable inward suggestion began to croak that elder sisters are occasionally right, and may even be wiser in their generation than tall girls who have entered the Fifth. Gwen's cough, which had been hacking all day, came on much worse, and began to hurt her chest: she wished she had brought her thick muffler. It was a subject of perennial dispute between herself and Beatrice, and she often discarded it simply because the latter told her to put it on. She hated to appear mollycoddlish, and sometimes indeed did very silly things out of sheer foolhardiness. At present she was bitterly cold. The snow had sifted inside her galoshes, and made her feet wet, and the chilly wind was creeping down her neck and up her sleeves, and whirling frozen flakes at her face. No cheery tea in the Chambers' drawing-room, and no delightful chat with Dick afterwards about photography and magic lanterns.

"The fact of the matter is that I've been an idiot!" she confessed to herself. "Anybody with an ounce of sense would have known it was too snowy to cross the wold. I ought to have gone round by the high road. I seemed to turn across here just out of habit."

Gwen could not tell how long she stumbled about. It felt like interminable hours as she wearily dragged herself along, watching the sky grow darker, and the landscape more and more blurred, till she could scarcely distinguish which was snow and which was sky. At last her aching limbs absolutely refused to carry her any farther, and she crouched under the shelter of a big juniper bush that overhung a piece of rock. Here at least she was out of the biting, freezing wind. The comparative warmth made her feel sleepy. She roused herself with an effort. To sleep in the snow, she knew, was fatal, so she fell to rubbing her hands and feet to try and restore the circulation. All at once she started up and shouted aloud.

In the distance she had heard a short, sharp yelp, and she reasoned that where there was a dog, a man might possibly be following. Again and again she called, till, to her intense relief, a "Hallo!" came in answer, and she made out a snowy form moving in her direction. The dog found her first; it bounded at her, whining and sniffing at her skirts, then rushed away barking loudly to inform its master of her whereabouts.

"Can you tell me where I am? I've got lost!" cried Gwen, wading through a drift in her eagerness to meet her rescuer.

"Why, you're close to our house—Rawlins' farm. Who is it? I can't see in the dark. Miss Gascoyne? Why, whatever are you doing here all alone?"

He might well ask, Gwen thought, but she ignored the question. She knew the man, for he was a parishioner, and two of his boys sang in the choir at church.

"Can you tell me how to get home?" she said, with chattering teeth and watering eyes.

"Better come and have a sup o' tea first; you look clemmed wi' the cold," he returned. "We'll tak' you back after wi' the lantern. It's nobbut a step to the farm."

He whistled to the dog and moved on, and Gwen stumbled after him, wondering how she had missed seeing the house when it was so near. She scarcely knew whether to pose in the light of a heroine or a culprit as she walked into Mrs. Rawlins' kitchen, but decided to give as guarded an account of the matter as she could. There would be explanations in plenty when she returned to the Parsonage. She was very glad to sit and thaw by the fire and drink hot tea, despite the difficulty of fencing with Mrs. Rawlins' questions, that good dame being consumed with curiosity, and not restrained by any feelings of delicacy from catechizing her guest.

"Yes. No, I wasn't coming back from school, it's the holidays—yes, I'm generally with one of my sisters—no, I wasn't delivering Parish Magazines, we sent yours by Charlie—yes, I expect my father will be missing me. Thanks very much for the tea; I think I must be going now," said Gwen, gulping her second cup and making a move.

"Here's the lantern, Jim," said Mrs. Rawlins to her husband, "and take Miss Gascoyne round by the road; 'tain't fit to venture over the moor. It's scarce a night for a Christian to be out—and her with that churchyard cough, too! Goodness, gracious, how it's blowing!"

Gwen reached home so spent and exhausted with her long tramp through the snow, that she had only wits enough left wearily to thank Mr. Rawlins for his escort, and to stumble in at the front door. Winnie ran forward with a cry of relief, and shouted to Beatrice the welcome news of the arrival.

"Don't ask me anything! Oh, I just want to go to bed; I'm done!" wailed Gwen, subsiding on to the nearest chair.

Beatrice took the hint, and refrained from any reproaches till she had tucked up the prodigal in warmed blankets, with a hot bottle at her feet, and seen her consume a basin full of steaming bread and milk. Then she observed:

"I suppose you know Father and half the village are out hunting for you with lanterns? They raised the Boy Scouts and broke up the Band of Hope meeting. They telephoned to the Police Station at North Ditton too. I expect you're rather proud of yourself!"

And Gwen turned her face to the wall and sobbed and coughed till she nearly choked.

Next afternoon a very miserable-looking object, with watering eyes and a swollen cheek sat wrapped in a shawl by the fire in Father's study. Gwen had made her peace with Beatrice and had been forgiven, but she was still "eating the husks" of her escapade in the shape of a thoroughly bad cold and a touch of toothache. She refused to stay in bed, yet the noise of the family sitting-room made her head throb, so finally Father had taken pity upon her, and allowed her to bring her troubles into his sanctum. He had said very little about the events of the day before, but Gwen knew exactly what he must be thinking. She mopped her eyes with her handkerchief, and tried to believe it was her toothache that was making her cry. After a long time she said huskily, à propos of nothing in particular:

"Things Go So Hardly With Me Somehow, Dad."

"Things always go so hardly with me, somehow, Dad! I don't know how it is. I generally seem unlucky, both at school and at home. I suppose it's partly me, but if things were easier, I'd be better. I should, really."

Father did not reply: he was busy addressing the motto-cards that he was sending to his parishioners for the New Year. He handed one to her silently.

And Gwen read:

"O do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come to you by the Grace of God."

—Phillips Brooks.

Gwen sat staring hard into the fire.

"I'll hang this up in my bedroom, Dad," she said presently.

"Do; you'll find it worth thinking about," replied Father, as he blotted the thirty-fourth envelope.

XI. A Prize Essay

Gwen went back to school feeling rather tamed and sober. The bad cold and face-ache, subsequent on her adventure in the snow, had seriously interfered with her plans for the holidays, and she had not accomplished half she intended to do in the time. Dick Chambers had been laid up in bed with an attack of rheumatism, so she had scarcely seen anything of him, and altogether the much-longed-for month had held its disappointments. She returned to her desk in the Fifth almost glad to begin a fresh term, though she knew many difficulties awaited her. First and foremost was the horrible fact that she owed a whole sovereign to Netta Goodwin, and had absolutely no prospect of paying it. She tried to avoid any private conversation with her chum, but the ruse was not successful for long. Netta was a girl who was accustomed to get her own way, and she followed Gwen round the school until she caught her alone.

"I say, you old slacker, what about that sov.?" she began. "I suppose you got your Christmas presents all right?"

"Oh, yes, I got my presents!" said Gwen, trying to pass things off airily. "Not quite what I expected, though."

"But you can pay me back?"

"I'm afraid I can't just yet."

Netta's rather pretty face changed its expression considerably.

"When can you, then?" she asked sharply. "I want to know."

"Could you wait a fortnight?"

"It's inconvenient, but I might."

Netta was still scowling. "Will you promise faithfully to bring it by the 1st of February?"

"I'll do my best," agreed Gwen, escaping from what was to both a very unpleasant interview.

She had mentioned a fortnight simply on the spur of the moment to put Netta off, but she knew that the 1st of February would bring no way out of her entanglement. It was something, however, to have even a respite of two weeks; it gave her time to think and to lay plans. She wondered what Netta would do if, as seemed most likely, the debt still remained owing. She did not suppose Netta would turn informer to Miss Roscoe, but she might very possibly mention the matter to Winnie, who would tell Beatrice, who would promptly tell Father.

"Only a fortnight!" groaned Gwen, feeling like a criminal in a condemned cell. "Unless 'something turns up', as Mr. Micawber says in David Copperfield. If I were the heroine of a novel, a forgotten uncle in America would suddenly die, and leave me a million just at the opportune moment. But I'm only a very unromantic, every-day kind of person, not the forget-me-not-eyed, spun-gold-haired, wild-rose-petal-complexioned, pearly-toothed sort of girl who gets fortunes; I'm solid fact, not fiction. Most things are nowadays, I suppose."

Certainly the Fifth Form did not offer scope for romance or sentiment. Its daily doings were most prosaic, a round in which Latin, mathematics, and chemistry were chiefly to the fore, and the only appeal to the imagination was the weekly lecture on English literature from the Principal. Gwen liked these; Miss Roscoe had the knack of making historical dry bones live, and encouraged the girls to read for themselves. All her lessons were interesting, but in this she was inspiring. She was accustomed to give themes for fortnightly exercises, and at the first lecture of this new term she announced as a special subject: "An Essay on any one of the Great Writers of the Victorian Era", promising a volume of Browning's poems as a prize.

"I had intended to offer it for Christmas," she said, "but I thought you were too busy preparing for examinations to be able to give time to such an essay. I hope you'll do justice to the subject now."

It was a large order, thought Gwen, when already their homework had about reached its outside limit. Miss Roscoe was quite unconscionable in her demands on their time and brains. She fixed the standard of the Form so high that only the very bright girls could possibly keep up to it. Many slacked off entirely, but Gwen could not, dared not slack. She knew Miss Roscoe was watching her work, and that very much depended upon her reports for the next year or two. Father had thrown out a few hints that had stirred her ambition and raised wild hopes for the future. She was aware that there were several good scholarships from Rodenhurst, and visions of College began to dawn on her horizon.

"'Gwen Gascoyne, B.A.', sounds no end. It would be worth the grind. I mayn't be the beauty of the family, but I believe I've got the best share of the brains. Beatrice would be proud of me if I took my degree. I must make something of this essay if I 'burn the midnight'. Miss Roscoe will expect me to turn up trumps. I'll toil like a navvy!"

So Gwen decided, and stuck to her resolution. She had an undoubted capacity for work, a power of application and of steady plodding that were of immense service, as well as more brilliant gifts. She attacked the question at once. The Victorian writers offered a fairly wide choice of subject. She hesitated at first between George Eliot and Dickens, and finally selected Thomas Carlyle. Something about the rugged old prophet attracted her, and she thought he would be a congenial theme for her pen. She spent every spare moment in reading his biographies or his works, till she felt she had him at her fingers' ends. Then, with a mass of notes as a foundation, she began her essay.

Most young writers undergo the same first agonies of composition: the vainly sought simile, the sentence that will not turn nicely, the tiresome word that crops up too often, yet for which there seems no adequate substitute; the sudden lack of ideas, or the non-ability to clothe those one has in suitable language.

Gwen wrote and burnt, and wrote and burnt again, till at last she managed something, not at all up to the ideal of her imagination, but the best her limited literary experience could produce. She refused to show it to anybody at home, and bore it off to school to read over and correct during the dinner hour. She was sitting at her desk, busy altering sentences and erasing words, when Netta came into the room.

"Hello, you old solitary hermit!" she exclaimed. "What are you doing here, with your nose buried in an exercise book? There's no getting at you nowadays. You'll grow old before your time, Gwen, my child! Come out this instant, and play basket-ball."

"Can't, so that's flat," responded Gwen. "Netta, if you love me, if you've any humanity in you, leave me alone. Basket-ball's off till I've finished this."

"Well, you've got to tell me what you're doing, at any rate. Let me look! No, Miss Modesty, you're not going to hide your light under a bushel. I insist! Oho! What have we got here now?"

Netta dragged the book from Gwen's reluctant hands, and sitting on a neighbouring desk, began hastily to skim through the essay, giving grunts of approval as she read.

"First rate! I say, this is immense! Gwen, my hearty, I didn't think you'd got it in you!"

"Will it do?" demanded Gwen anxiously. She had sat on metaphorical pins to hear Netta's verdict.

"Do? I should rather think it would! If Lemonade doesn't mark it A1, First Prize, I shall say she doesn't know her business, that's all! You're pretty safe for that book of Browning, in my opinion."

"Wish it were cash instead! But I shan't get it in any case," sighed Gwen. "If I did, I'd trade it for anything I could."

"You mercenary wretch!"

"I'm so hard up. I'm no nearer paying what I owe you, Netta. I literally haven't a penny in my pocket I wish you'd take it in kind instead of money."

Netta sat silent, drumming with her fingers on the desk.

"I've a rather decent locket, if you'd care for that—" continued Gwen.

"Hush! Be quiet! You've given me an idea, Gwen Gascoyne."

"Or I've a really jolly writing case—almost new—"

"I don't want your lockets or your writing cases; I've heaps of my own. I know one thing I do want, though, and if you like to trade, you can."

"Done! Only name it, and it's yours with my blessing."

"Well, I want this essay—"

"My essay! What do you mean?"

Gwen snatched back her exercise book as a mother clutches her first-born.

"I mean what I say. If you like to hand over 'Thomas Carlyle' to me, I'll take it instead of the sov., and call us quits. It would be a new experience to win a prize. How amazed everyone would be!"

"You surely wouldn't pass it off as your own?"

"Why not?"

"Why, Netta! That would be rather strong, even for you!"

"I told you long ago I was no saint. Besides, what's the harm? It's a business arrangement. You offered to pay me in kind, and this happens to be the 'pound of flesh', I fancy. It's perfectly fair."

"Um! Don't quite see the fairness myself."

"But it is!" protested Netta rather huffily. "I believe lots of popular authors don't do all their own writing themselves. They engage secretaries to help them. I've even heard of clergymen buying their sermons."

"Oh, oh! Father doesn't!" Gwen's tone was warm.

"Well, I didn't say he did, but I believe it's done all the same. And if a vicar can read somebody else's sermon in the pulpit as if it were his own, I may hand in somebody else's essay. Quod est demonstrandum, my child."

"Can't see it!" grunted Gwen.

"Look here, Gwen Gascoyne, you've got to see it! I've been uncommonly patient with you, but I don't quite appreciate the joke of being done out of that sov. I must either have it or its equivalent. You can please yourself which."

Netta's eyes were flashing, and her mouth was twitching ominously. She was a jolly enough fair-weather comrade, but she could be uncommonly nasty if things went wrong.

"I suppose you don't consider it unfair to keep me waiting all this time?" she added scathingly.

Gwen kicked the desk and groaned.

"Well, it just amounts to this: if you don't choose to come to terms, I'll tell Lemonade. Yes, I will! I don't care a scrap if I went into her room as well as you. You broke the china, and you'd get into the worst row. It wouldn't be pleasant for you. I think you'd better hand over Mr. Thomas Carlyle to me, my dear."

"And what am I to do, I should like to know?"

"Write another on a different author."

"There isn't time."

"Yes there is, heaps! I don't want it to be as good as this, naturally. Well, are you going to trade, or are you not? I can't wait here all day!"

For answer, Gwen held out the exercise book. She was in a desperately tight corner; everything seemed to have conspired against her. She knew Netta and her mad, reckless moods quite well enough to appreciate the fact that her threat to tell Miss Roscoe was no idle one. When her temper was roused, Netta was capable of anything.

"It's her fault more than mine if it's not fair. I really can't help it," thought Gwen, trying to find excuses for herself.

"Oh! Glad you've come to your senses at last!" sneered Netta, as she clutched the precious manuscript and stalked away, slamming the door behind her. There was no one else in the room, so Gwen laid her head down on the desk, and indulged in an altogether early Victorian exhibition of feeling. Her essay—her cherished essay, over which she had taken such superhuman pains, to be torn away from her like this! It was to have brought her such credit from Miss Roscoe, for even if it did not win the prize, it would surely be highly commended. And she had made herself a party to a fraud, for however much she might try to whitewash her act, she knew she had no right to allow Netta to use her work.

"Dad would despise me! Oh, what an abominable mix and muddle it all is! And I was going to start the New Year so straight!" wailed Gwen.

Netta in the meantime had put the essay away in her locker with the utmost satisfaction. She felt she had decidedly scored. Neither brilliant nor a hard worker, she had no opportunity of distinguishing herself in the Form under ordinary circumstances: here chance had flung into her hand the very thing she wanted. It would not take long to copy the sixteen pages of rather sprawling writing, then "Thomas Carlyle" would be her own.

"And a surprise for everyone!" she chuckled complacently. "Of course, it's rather dear—a whole pound! But—yes, most undoubtedly it's worth it!"

To Gwen, not the lightest part of the business was that she was faced with the horrible necessity of writing another essay. Only two days remained, so time pressed. It was impossible to look up any subject adequately, so she chose Dickens, as being an author whose books she knew fairly well, and by dint of much brain racking and real hard labour contrived to give some slight sketch of his life and an appreciation of his genius. She was painfully conscious, however, that the result was poor, the style slipshod, and the general composition lacking both in unity and finish. She pulled a long face as she signed her name to it.

"That isn't going to do much for you, Gwen Gascoyne," she said to herself. "It won't even get 'commended'. Bah! I'm sick of the whole thing!"

She felt more sick still on the day when Miss Roscoe returned the essays.

"I had hoped the average standard would be higher," commented the Principal. "Very few girls have treated the subject in any really critical spirit. There is only one paper worthy of notice—that on Thomas Carlyle by Netta Goodwin, and it is so excellent that it stands head and shoulders above all the others. I am very pleased, Netta, very pleased indeed, that you should have done so well. Your essay is carefully thought out and nicely expressed, and is evidently the result of much painstaking work. You thoroughly deserve the prize which I offered, and I have written your name in the book."

The Fifth Form gasped as Netta, with a smile of infinite triumph, marched jauntily up the room to receive her copy of Browning's Poems. Each girl looked at her neighbour in almost incredulous astonishment. Netta Goodwin, of all people in the world, to have won such praise!

Gwen drew her breath hard, and clenched her fists till her nails hurt her palms. At that moment, I am afraid, she hated Netta.

"Who was your author, Gwen? I chose Thackeray," said Louise Mawson afterwards.

"Dickens—and I only got 'fairly creditable'," responded Gwen. "It's just rotten!"

Which was a word utterly tabooed both at Rodenhurst and at home, but the sole one that seemed bad enough for the occasion.

"So I hear Netta Goodwin's was the prize essay," remarked Father that evening. "Well, we can't all of us win prizes, can we? It was a strange coincidence that she should have written on Thomas Carlyle too!"

"Most remarkably strange, and very unfortunate for me," admitted Gwen, drinking her cup of bitterness to the dregs.

XII. Gwen Turns Henwife

To Gwen the spring term seemed to pass much more rapidly than the autumn one had done. She was growing used to the Fifth Form; and the work, though certainly not easy, was now, thanks to the extra coaching that she had received, well within her compass. She did not feel so terribly harassed over her preparation, and instead of, as formerly, spending the whole evening until bedtime at her books, she was able to spare a chance hour or two occasionally for other things. The change of thoughts and the extra interests did her good; she lost her worried expression, and though she still could not help wrinkling up her forehead when trying to answer a question, some of her other bad habits began to drop away. Beatrice had not to correct her nearly so often, consequently there was less fridging of tempers between the two sisters, and a great increase of calm in the home atmosphere. It was a matter of tacit understanding at the Parsonage that Gwen raised most of the household storms. Winnie and Lesbia had peace-loving dispositions, and jogged along very evenly; and the boys, though apt to be mischievous, were always good-humoured little fellows, not much given to quarrelling unless they were teased. At present such a blessed tranquillity reigned at the breakfast and tea-tables that Beatrice really began to hope that the family volcano was quieting down, and that her eruptions and explosions would be things of the past.

Perhaps it was partly the pleasant spring weather that had such a beneficial effect on Gwen's temper. She loved the early growing season of the year, when every day was a little longer and lighter than the last, and the bulbs were pushing up in the garden, and the hazel catkins showering clouds of pollen in the lane, and the rooks cawing and building in the clump of elms near the mill, and great flights of screaming white sea-gulls, noisy, chattering jackdaws, and cheery, whistling starlings flew all together in mixed flocks to feed on the wolds. The morning walk to North Ditton across the heath, so bleak and wretched in December, was a daily delight now the sun was glinting over the sea and the gorse was in bud, and the stonechats, which had vanished during the cold weather, were back among the boulders, darting from stone to stone in short, jerky flight, with that sharp, jarring cry which is the prelude to their sweeter spring note. The moorland air at 8 a.m. was so fresh and pure and exhilarating that it seemed to blow away all the cobwebs, and Gwen often felt inclined to dance along the path for sheer joy of the sun and the wind, and the birds and the countless green things that were rapidly showing their heads through the brown skeletons of last autumn's heather and bilberry. The thrill of springtime is a totally different sensation from what we experience on even the most gorgeous day in October; there is a message of hope in the air, a foretaste of the coming summer, a glow of reawakened vitality, an exaltation half physical and half spiritual, as every year nature tells us afresh in her own fashion the miracle of the Resurrection.

Life was a busy round at the Parsonage. Winnie devoted each moment she could spare to the garden and the hen-yard, and Gwen, who at present had a craving for out-of-doors, lent a hand as often as she could. She whistled and sang over her work as she transplanted forget-me-nots, sowed seeds, or tidied up the rockery, and her stalwart arms made the lawn mower fly.

"There's some advantage in growing!" she declared, as she trundled away the wheelbarrow full of weeds. "My muscles have hardened since last year. I'll wheel you back up the garden, Martin, if you like. Tumble in!"

Gwen and Winnie had a great scheme between them of building a summer house, and every Saturday they managed to get on a little with their operations. There was a large pile of young felled trees in the yard which Mr. Gascoyne had bought for firewood, and some of these were admirable for the purpose. With considerable toil they dragged out half a dozen, dug holes in the ground, and planted them as posts to make a framework. Smaller boughs were nailed across and across, and then bunches of heather were tucked and tied securely into all the interstices. The roof was at first a terrible problem, till Winnie conceived the brilliant idea of using an old worn-out gate that lay in the orchard. It was heavy to lift, but with the aid of Father, Beatrice, and Nellie the maid, they managed to heave it up so that it rested securely upon the six posts. Then they thatched it neatly with heather and fir boughs.

"I don't suppose for a moment that it will be watertight," said Winnie; "but we shan't use it in wet weather. What I want is a nice shady place to sit in at the end of the tennis lawn. It will be perfectly lovely to have tea here. I believe I can make seats with some of those stumps."

"I'd back you to do anything in the joinering line," laughed Dick, who still came for lessons on Saturday mornings, and generally stayed to chat and help the gardeners, though he was yet debarred from any very violent exertions, greatly to his indignation. "You ought to be a Colonial. I believe you'd be equal to running up a shanty on your own and making the furniture out of old boxes."

"Perhaps I'll emigrate some day," nodded Winnie. "It would be more in my line than teaching. I'll leave University honours to Gwen, and try my luck in another hemisphere. Women are wanted in Canada if they're domesticated—and I flatter myself I'm that."

"Don't know that I won't join you when I've got my degree!" declared Gwen. "I've yearned to go to Canada ever since I saw those ripping pictures on the kinematograph—only Father'd have to promise to come and see me every fortnight."

"How particularly possible! Gwen, you're a rotter!" chirped Dick, throwing a piece of stick at her. "I thought your last idea was to study medicine and go to College with me."

"Perhaps I shan't be able to do either: scholarships don't grow on every bush like blackberries. Probably I'll just have to stay at home and 'wash dishes and feed the swine'. By the by, we haven't shown you our eleven little pigs! They're absolute darlings, as sweet as the Duchess's baby in Alice in Wonderland. Come along this instant, and I'll catch one for you to nurse. We've never had a pet pig before, but I declare I mean to tame one of these. They're the sharpest, cutest little scaramouches you ever saw: as funny as kittens, and twice as intelligent as puppies. Yes; I'm a pig enthusiast at present, and if you laugh I'll make you buy one for yourself!"

There was plenty of scope for Gwen's energy as spring came on and added hatch after hatch of fluffy chickens and downy ducklings to Winnie's hen-yard. She helped to arrange the coops, to make wired enclosures for the tiny chicks, and, hardest task of all, to collect the young pullets and cockerels that were allowed to roam on the common, and lock them up safely for the night.

"No one who hasn't tried henkeeping could possibly conceive the difficulty of getting in those wretched long-legged, half-fledged fowls," declared Gwen. "They know I'm going to shut them up, and they're so clever they come for the Indian corn when I call 'chuck, chuck', and eat it with one eye upon me. Then when I try to cajole them into the henhouse they fly all ways. Lesbia, you may come and act guard, but I won't have the boys; they only rush about and frighten the chickens. The last time I took Stumps the Buff Orpington with the black feather in its tail flew over the hedge into the turnip field. I didn't get him back till it was moonlight, then I caught him perching on a stump, and carried him round."

The particular pride of Winnie's heart was a clutch of little Partridge Wyandottes, mothered by a comfortable old Plymouth Rock hen. The setting of eggs had been given her by a farmer's wife in the neighbourhood; they were from a particularly good strain, and ten out of the dozen had hatched and thrived. She watched over them with more than ordinary zeal, leaving manifold instructions with Nellie for their diet during her absence at school, and visiting them the very first after her return each afternoon. On the evenings when she took the choir practice at church she entrusted them solely to Gwen's charge.

"Give them a last feed of 'Chikko', and see that they've got clean water, and don't let Jingles go near them, because the old hen gets excited, and stamps about and treads on them," urged Winnie one Wednesday as she started off with a roll of music in her hand. "Be sure you shut them up early, because Nellie says she saw a rat last night, and I noticed something had been burrowing near the shed."

Gwen promised complete accordance with all directions, and then went off to finish her Latin translation. It was a particularly stiff piece of Virgil, and she puzzled over it so long that she utterly forgot all about the chickens, and it was only the call of an owl waking up on the ivy-covered ash tree at the bottom of the garden that reminded her of her henwife's duties.

"Gracious! It's nearly dark!" she exclaimed, flinging down Virgil and making a rush for the hen-yard. "I hope to goodness those chicks are all right! What an idiot I am! Winnie will be ready to slay me if anything's happened to them."

It was growing very dusk indeed, and though none of the doors were yet shut, the feathered flock had all gone to roost. As Gwen crossed the hen-yard she suddenly saw something dark and shadowy creep from behind the shed and dart stealthily in the direction of the coops. It disappeared inside the very one where the cherished Partridge Wyandottes were cuddling under their foster-mother's wings. Gwen's heart almost stood still. She well knew the cunning and daring of rats, and how they would snatch the chicks or young ducklings from the wariest and most warlike hen. To leave this in the coop for even a minute while she went to call help would certainly result in the loss of one or more of Winnie's favourites.

Very cautiously she peered inside. The hen, who knew her well, clucked softly, and the chickens popped their little speckly heads out from the mass of encircling feathers and "peeped" gently. They were not yet aware of danger. Where was the rat? It appeared to have vanished into thin air. It certainly could not have left the coop. At the opposite end from where the hen was sitting there was a billet of wood, and on looking at this closely she saw a long tail dangling out underneath. Without doubt her enemy had taken refuge there and was hiding in the corner.

"These precious chicks have got to be saved somehow or Winnie'll never forgive me," muttered Gwen, clenching her teeth to brace her nerves.

Then she did a thing from which her whole spirit shrank. She took her handkerchief in her hand to give her a firmer grip and seized hold of the tail. She dragged the rat out of the coop and bore it off, hanging head downwards and whirling round and round in vain effort to escape, while it squeaked with wrath and indignation. Fortunately it could not raise its head sufficiently to bite her or she might have suffered a nasty wound. Gwen rushed towards the back door, shouting loudly for Nellie, but when that worthy domestic saw what she carried she uttered a yell of terror instead of offering help.

"Throw it down, Miss Gwen, it'll bite you!" she shrieked. "Oh! gracious goodness! throw it down!"

"Bring the poker! Where's Jingles?" screamed Gwen. Then, realizing that she could hold her wriggling burden no longer, she dropped the rat into the water-butt, and catching up the yard brush which lay handily near, held down the victim till it was drowned.

"Miss Gwen! How did you dare!" shivered Nellie.

"Ugh! It's a hateful, horrid, barbarous thing to have to do. I feel as if I'd committed a murder. It's made me quite sick," said Gwen. "Nellie, do go and shut up those chickens before any more rats get into the coop. I don't feel equal to catching another." Then she sat down on the pump-trough to recover.

"You're a heroine!" declared Winnie when she came back from the choir practice and viewed the interesting corpse. "I shouldn't have dared! No, nothing in this world would have induced me to seize the creature by its tail. It's a huge one too, with such wicked-looking teeth. What a wonder you weren't bitten! You shall have one of those Partridge Wyandottes for your very own. Choose whichever you like and I'll call it yours."

"I wish you'd help me to finish my Virgil," said Gwen. "I'm only halfway through and it's almost bedtime!"

"You're as good as a terrier, Gwen!" said Dick, when he heard the exciting story the next Saturday. "I wish you'd come ratting in our stable at home. I'd undertake to find you some sport."

"Don't be detestable! You talk as if I'd enjoyed it. I had to bury the thing afterwards, for Winnie wouldn't touch it. I made a mull of my Virgil in class next day, and I couldn't tell Miss Douglas the reason."

"You might have put the episode into Latin. It sounds quite Homeric. Did you keep the tail as a trophy? If we want to excite you we'll just say 'Rats'. Please let us know when you're on the warpath again and we'll come to see the fun;" and Dick dodged round an apple tree and fled.

"You've got to be here early next Saturday, mind, and help us to take things to the Agricultural Show!" Gwen shouted after him. "You may come to breakfast if you'll behave yourself."

"Right-o! I'll act beast of burden provided it's hens I'm to carry—not rats! Ta-ta!"

The Agricultural Show was the great event in the year at Skelwick. It was held in the big field beside the mill, and all the villagers for miles round made holiday to attend it. For days beforehand men were busy putting up pens and erecting a tent where eggs and butter and dressed fowls could be exhibited, while a few travelling caravans arrived with shooting galleries or cheap bazaars and set up a kind of fair in an opposite field.

There were many classes for poultry, so Winnie decided to send some of her best cockerels, a selection of Buff Orpington chickens, and a pair of big white Aylesbury ducks. She and Gwen got up very early on the Saturday morning to take a final review of their exhibits. They were determined to give the ducks a washing in order that they might show them with their plumage in an absolutely spotless condition. Armed with a tin bath, a can of warm water, some soap and a sponge, they shut themselves in a disused pig sty and commenced operations. It is no easy task to wash a large, struggling, flapping, protesting duck, and though Gwen held their wings down while Winnie did the scrubbing, both girls were splashed all over and drenched with water before they had finished.

"But the Aylesburys look gorgeous," said Gwen, flinging her dishevelled hair from her hot face. "They're clean to the very tips of their beaks. The drake looks as if you'd curled his tail feather with the curling tongs. They're fearfully upset and angry, poor dears; they think they've been half killed. Winnie, how are we going to get them to the Show?"

"That's what's puzzling me. We don't possess a basket big enough for them. I believe we shall have to carry them."

"In our arms? Yes, that'll be by far the best way. They'd knock their feathers about in a hamper and get dirty again. They've had one breakfast already, but I think they deserve a little scrap of Indian corn as a reward for what they've gone through."

All exhibits had to be delivered at the Show field by nine o'clock, and precisely at half-past eight a procession set off from the Parsonage: Lesbia carefully carrying a dozen beautiful brown eggs in a basket, the three boys with small hampers of chickens, Dick holding a little wooden crate containing Black Minorca cockerels, and finally Winnie and Gwen, each clasping a huge white Aylesbury in her arms. Dick had offered gallantly to be duck bearer, but the girls preferred to transport their own pets.

"They know us so well, you see," said Gwen, "so they won't struggle like they would with a stranger. Besides, we know just the dodge of holding down their wings so that they can't flap."

They decided to take the short cut to the mill, through two meadows, across a small stream, and over a stile that led them direct into the Show ground. Gwen and Winnie got on very well with Dick and the boys to open gates: it was rather perilous work crossing the stream on a single plank, but they accomplished that in safety, and Winnie, with infinite caution, climbed over the stile into the mill meadow, still hugging her burden. Gwen essayed to follow with equal skill, but the stile was a very steep and awkward one, and she needed both hands to hold the drake. She was stepping carefully over the top bar when somehow her foot caught and she stumbled; she put out one hand to save herself, and the cunning drake, quick to seize his opportunity, wriggled himself free and made a dash for liberty.

Off he went over the Show ground, flapping and fluttering like a white whirlwind and quacking his loudest, and the Gascoyne family, popping down hampers and baskets, followed hard behind; Winnie, much encumbered by her duck, shouting frantic directions. It was Dick who caught the runaway, and pinioned him cleverly until Gwen secured him, then with much triumph they shut him up with his agitated mate in the wire pen marked "No. 207".

"I thought we'd lost him," panted Winnie. "Oh, dear! It's no joke bringing one's beasties to a show. I'm glad we decided not to exhibit the pigs! Martin, you're not to open that hamper. We shall be having the chickens escaping next! Stop him, Stumps! I feel like the 'Old Woman who lived in a Shoe'. Gwen, you take charge of the cockerels while I find where the Black Minorcas have to go to."

The public was not allowed in the field while the judging was in process; so until twelve o'clock the Gascoynes were obliged to wait with what patience they could muster. As soon as the gates were opened they trooped into the Show.

"Hurrah! First Prize for White Aylesburys!" exclaimed Winnie ecstatically, gazing with rapture at the large pink card that decorated No. 207 pen. "It was worth washing them. The darlings! How nice they look!"

"And the chickens have got a third!" yelled the boys, who had taken a hasty round of the exhibits.

"The eggs haven't won anything, but the cockerels have 'commended'. Mrs. Hodges' have got the first."

"We haven't done badly," said Winnie, "considering I can't devote all my time to it like the farmers' wives. Gwen, you've helped loyally, and I'm going to give you half a crown out of the prize money. I shall save the rest to buy some really good White Leghorns; Mrs. Hodges says they lay better than any others in the winter. Oh, here's Father! We must go and tell him of our success."

XIII. The Shoe Pinches

The very first thing which Gwen did, when Winnie had given her the promised half-crown out of the prize money, was to go straight to the post office and buy a postal order for that amount and a penny stamp. She possessed a few odd coppers, but otherwise no funds had come her way for a long time, and she had been growing very uneasy about the bill which she still owed to Parker's for the broken china. She now sent them the postal order, with a note saying that she hoped very soon to settle the remainder of the account, and begging them to wait a little longer. She also asked them to return her a receipt addressed "c/o Miss Netta Goodwin, The Thorns, Manor Road, Stedburgh".

"I dare say Netta'll be angry, and call it cheek on my part, but I can't help it," thought Gwen. "I daren't get another letter sent to school after the rowing Miss Roscoe gave me, and if it comes home, Beatrice will want to know who's been writing to me. It's only fair that Netta should take a little of the bother on her own shoulders. She's certainly had the best of it in this affair. Oh, dear, I still owe Parker's ten shillings. I haven't the ghost of a notion how I'm to pay it!"

Gwen could not forgive Netta for appropriating her prize essay. She still felt indignant whenever she thought about it, especially as there was always an uneasy sensation of guilt on her own part. She knew it was not a straight transaction, and poor Gwen, with all her faults, loved straightness. For lack of other friendships at school she was forced into companionship with Netta, but she never whole-heartedly liked her. Lately, especially, Netta had taken a rather high-handed tone, and was apt to order her chum about in a manner that Gwen's independent spirit greatly resented. The friction between the two was sometimes hot, but neither cared to risk a quarrel, for each knew that the other, if turned into an enemy, might come out with some decidedly awkward revelations. So they went on in the old way, squabbling continually over trifles and making it up again, but on the whole ready to stand up for each other against the rest of the Form. Yes, alack!—the rest of the Form, for Gwen, in spite of her well-meant efforts, had not yet won popularity in the Fifth. She had tried to be genial and sociable, but nobody seemed to want her. If she joined in a conversation, Rachel Hunter or Edith Arnold would stare at her as if they thought it great impertinence on her part to intrude herself into their concerns. They never asked her opinion, or consulted her about anything, but simply ignored her, and left her to her own devices. Nearly all the girls lived in Stedburgh, and their talk was often of Stedburgh affairs, concerts, amateur dramatic performances, and entertainments in which Gwen, living far away at Skelwick, could have no possible part. Though she sometimes got in a word about school matters, her remarks were never well received, and she was always more or less conscious of being an alien and an outsider in her Form.

She tried to pretend that she did not care about the opinion of the others, but it was hard, all the same. Most of us like popularity, especially when we believe we have done nothing to deserve the reverse.

"If I'd been as pretty as Lesbia, they'd have made ever such a fuss over me," thought Gwen. "She's the pet of her form, and the darling of all the big girls. I'd have been a beauty if I could! They never even give me a chance to be nice to them—they just leave me alone. Yes, it's hard!"

But all the while, Father's New Year motto hung over the dressing table in her bedroom, and every morning she could not help looking at it. It seemed a stern gospel to pray for strength instead of ease, and yet it attracted her. After all, was it not a nobler conception of life to work away and not mind what people thought of you, than to be always caring whether you were popular? There was a certain joy in overcoming difficulties, and surmounting obstacles. She was already succeeding in mastering the lessons that had baffled her at first. Could she ever win a place for herself in the Form? It would undoubtedly seem almost a miracle if she did.

"I wonder if I should be happier at another school?" she sometimes thought. "Dad spoke once of the possibility of sending me to one of the Clergy Daughters' Schools; he said I might get a scholarship. But oh, dear! That would mean leaving home, and being a boarder! Suppose I didn't like it any better than Rodenhurst; then it would be perfectly awful to have to spend the whole term without once seeing Dad or any of the others. No, I won't suggest it. I'd better stick where I am, and peg along as best I can."

Gwen was a great home-bird. On the few occasions in her childhood, when she had paid visits at relations' houses, she had, after a few days, grown so intolerably homesick, and wept so hopelessly and inconsolably, that she had had to be packed back, rather in disgrace; and though she was now old enough to behave herself, she had not been asked again, nor was she very enthusiastic to receive invitations. She felt bashful, awkward, and badly dressed under the critical eyes of Aunt Violet or Aunt Christina, and much preferred the atmosphere of the Parsonage, and the society of her own family. To come back every evening from school, and spend Saturday and Sunday at home, seemed indispensable at present, though she supposed if she went to College later on, she would have to get used to being away.

Eastertide came, and brought welcome holidays. Gwen helped to deck the church with daffodils, and great boughs of pink almond blossom, and bunches of sweet-smelling wallflowers. She loved the Easter decorations far more than those at Christmas, and this time she had rather a free hand, for Beatrice was too busy to come, and Gwen was allowed to do the lectern and reading desk all by herself, while Winnie undertook the pulpit. She gave infinite pains to her work, and Father praised the result, which was a tremendous satisfaction. To do anything for Father was a joy. Gwen often wished she could play the organ like Winnie, but she was not clever at music. Beatrice had made a great effort to teach her the piano, with poor success, for she was not a docile or attentive pupil, and the lessons generally involved a wrangle between the two sisters, Beatrice losing her patience, and Gwen arguing hotly. Finally Father had put a stop to the lessons altogether, on the ground that it was sheer waste of time, and Gwen was better employed at something else. Lesbia, however, played rather nicely; she could manage the harmonium at the Sunday School, and was just beginning to practise the organ under Winnie's instructions. It was the one thing Lesbia did pretty well, for she did not distinguish herself at school. She was not a remarkably bright girl, and was very childish for her age. Though Gwen was fond of her younger sister, and petted her like everybody else, the two were not in any sense companions. Lesbia was far more on a level with the little boys, and generally amused herself with Giles or Basil; Gwen's schemes and projects were miles above her head.

The holidays, though very enjoyable, were quite uneventful. They slipped away much too swiftly, and the ordinary round of school and home work began again. It was the summer term, however, and to Gwen that meant a great deal. She took up tennis with hot enthusiasm, practising both at home and at school in any time she could spare. Her long arms and strong wrists stood her in good stead, and it began to be said in the Form that "Gwen Gascoyne's play was quite decent". She mowed and rolled the little lawn at the Parsonage vigorously, marked out the courts with a brush, and persuaded either Beatrice or Winnie to have a game every evening before bedtime, and Father whenever she could catch him.

"If only I'd a better racket!" she sighed one night, "it's impossible to do very much with a wretched old thing that's half sprung. You should have seen my serves when Netta lent me hers yesterday!"

"Why don't you buy a new one, then?" suggested Lesbia. "You're the Crsus of the family. Your money box must be bursting, for you've been hoarding up for ages. How much have you got in it?"

"Ah! Wouldn't you like to know!" returned Gwen, suddenly desirous of changing the subject.

"You really might get a new racket, Gwen," agreed Winnie. "It's a good idea of Lesbia's. We'd all borrow it on occasion."

"Oh, I dare say! Very nice for you all, no doubt. Rackets are rather expensive little luxuries, my dear girl. Otherwise I'd be happy to accommodate you."

"You're a perfect old miser! What are you going to do with your wealth? Invest it in an annuity?"

"Probably speculate on the Stock Exchange, or take up Mexican mines!" declared Gwen, trying to turn things off with a laugh.

"Well, you're the only member of the family who keeps any money."

"A good example in thrift to the rest of you, then!"

Gwen did not dare to complain again about the poorness of her racket, though it was a serious handicap in her games at school, where most of the girls came supplied with the very best. In spite of this impediment her play improved steadily, and she several times beat Louise Mawson, though she could not vanquish Hilda Brown or Charlotte Perry, the champions at present of the Form.

"I suppose you're going to take swimming, Gwen?" said Netta one day. "Miss Trent says we begin this afternoon."

"Haven't heard anything about it. Please condescend to enlighten my ignorance."

"Why, don't you know? We're going to the baths every Wednesday. It's clean-water day, and the whole school's to go in relays. They've a ripping teacher of swimming there now, a Miss Morris, who swam the Channel halfway, or did something else marvellous, I forget exactly what. Anyway, it's arranged we're to have a proper course of lessons. I expect every girl in the Form will join."

"It sounds—well, just idyllic!" said Gwen. "Whether I can take it or not is another question. I shall have to ask at home first."

"Oh, Mr. Gascoyne's sure to say 'yes'. Why shouldn't he? All girls ought to learn to swim."

It was impossible to explain to Netta that the fee for the course might prove an insurmountable barrier. Gwen was always too proud to plead poverty, and hid her father's narrow circumstances from her schoolmates as well as she could.

"You won't have time to ask before this afternoon," said Netta. "I advise you to go to the baths, though. I believe the lessons don't begin till next week, and this is only what you might call a trial trip, so you could see how you like it. Miss Trent says we can get bathing dresses there to-day, and bring our own afterwards."

The Rodenhurst girls had not before been taken to the public baths at Stedburgh, and the swimming course was a new departure of Miss Roscoe's. The idea proved extremely popular, and almost everybody wanted at least to sample the experiment.

"Oh, yes, you might go to-day," said Winnie, whom Gwen caught and consulted in the passage. "There's no great damage in that. You don't pledge yourself to take the course. Lesbia can go too. Miss Roscoe said it was to be a special afternoon."

"That's all right, then," said Gwen, rushing jubilantly away.

She was immensely anxious to learn to swim. The bay at Skelwick was so dangerous that Father would not allow any of them to bathe there, so as yet she had had no chance of testing her skill in natation. She loved all kinds of physical sports, they seemed a necessity of her active, fast-growing young body, and the prospect of trying a new element was alluring. In the very highest of spirits she joined the procession of Fifth Form girls that filed off at three o'clock, in charge of Miss Douglas.

The baths at Stedburgh had only lately been enlarged and re-opened, and in their improved shape were now quite a feature of the town. They were supplied with salt water, and could boast great conveniences in the matter of dressing-rooms, hair-drying apparatus, and plentiful hot towels. Gwen had never been inside before, so she gazed with delighted admiration, at the ladies' large bath, with its pale-green tiles, its flights of steps, and its diving board at the deep end. There was a cord across the middle, with a big notice that non-swimmers were to venture no farther, and must confine themselves to the shallow end; also that water wings could be hired.

"I hear Miss Morris won't let her pupils use those, though," said Netta. "She calls it an amateurish dodge. I should think we shall have to hold each other up while we practise our strokes!"

Gwen secured a bathing costume that fitted quite tolerably. She had no mackintosh cap, but she plaited her hair very tightly instead. She did not much care whether it got wet or not. It was most exciting to run down the steps and slip into the lovely clear green water. She had undressed with such record speed that she was actually the first, but she was very soon joined by a bevy of laughing, squealing maidens. It was an amusing, but not a picturesque sight. The Fifth Form attired in bathing costumes were about as different from the academy pictures of classical nymphs as a man in the street from a statue of Apollo. Instead of floating about in graceful attitudes, with the "amber dropping hair" of Milton's Sabrina, they "larked" like a school of porpoises, splashing each other and playing tricks. There was no attempt at a lesson that afternoon. The girls just enjoyed themselves in their own way, with many cautions from Miss Douglas not to trespass beyond the danger line. Gwen, held up by Netta, made frantic efforts to try her strokes, though her attempts invariably ended in a plunge from which she came up spluttering. Netta, with a very little help from Gwen, got on much better, for she had been to the baths before, and had had some practice. Several of the girls were already good swimmers, and after showing their prowess, were allowed to disport themselves at the deep end.

"I shan't be content till I can dive," declared Gwen, watching enviously as Elspeth Frazer took a header. "I shouldn't think it's difficult when you get the knack. It will be just having the pluck to try. I can float the least little scrap already, so I've learnt something this afternoon, and so have you."

"We shall both get on grandly at the lessons," assented Netta.

The whole Form agreed unanimously that the experiment was "ripping", and everyone was extremely anxious to come again. Gwen went home mad with enthusiasm, and Lesbia, whose Form had preceded the Fifth, was in equal ecstasies. Both besieged their father with wild entreaties to be allowed to take the course.

"You haven't told me the fees, and that's a very important point," said Mr. Gascoyne.

"I quite forgot to ask," admitted Gwen, brought down to the mundane side of the question. "Lesbia, do you know?"

Lesbia shook her head. She rarely knew anything; as a rule other people were ready to manage her affairs for her.

"Miss Douglas says the swimming course is to be half a guinea each, and admission to the baths threepence a time. There is a special arrangement for schools," said Winnie, supplying the needed information.

"Then I must think it over," returned Father. "Times are bad just now, chicks, and I don't know whether I can afford it. A curacy is not a fat living, remember, and there are seven of you!"

Very much sobered, the enthusiastic bathers betook themselves to their preparation.

"I wish everything nice didn't cost money!" sighed Gwen.

She broached the subject to Beatrice during the evening.

"I've been talking about it to Father," said the latter. "I'm afraid he can't manage it for you both, but he might possibly for one. It will be a choice between you and Lesbia."

"I'm the eldest!" urged Gwen quickly.

"Yes, I know you are, but on the other hand, it really is Lesbia's turn, because you took the St. John's Ambulance last winter at the Parish Room, and Lesbia didn't."

"Swimming's a million times nicer than ambulance!"

"It's not any more useful. Don't be selfish, Gwen! You know how hard up we are. We can't all of us do everything, and I think this time it certainly ought to be Lesbia."

Gwen kicked the orchard gate against which they were leaning, and tried to keep down a lump that rose in her throat. Beatrice's arguments were unanswerable.

"It'll be sickening to be the only one in the Form who doesn't take swimming," she said at last. "Every single girl will join except me. I shall have to stop behind and do prep. instead. I'll feel more utterly out of things than ever."

"You could pay for the course yourself, if you like," suggested Beatrice. "What have you done with all your money?"

Gwen's restless hands were hacking notches on the top bar of the gate. Her penknife slipped suddenly, and cut her finger.

"Your own fault, if you will be so clumsy!" said Beatrice. "Come indoors, and I'll tie it up for you. You'd better hold it under the cold-water tap first."

Gwen groaned in spirit as she went to bed that night.

"I shall never hear the last of that wretched fifteen shillings!" she thought "I feel like Mr. Caudle in the Curtain Lectures, when he'd lent a five-pound note to a friend. That money of mine was to have bought Christmas presents, and boots for Johnnie Cass, and a new tennis racket, and paid for the swimming, and I don't know what else, according to my family's ideas. Oh, dear! Being poor's a hateful business! I wish Dad were Archbishop of Canterbury, instead of only Curate-in-charge of Skelwick Bay!"

XIV. Gwen Meets Trouble

"There's a sickening author called Virgil,

Don't I wish I were chanting his dirge—ill!

As a door-nail he's dead

Yet his works live instead,

And to me they're a regular scourge—ill!"

So sang Netta, banging down her copy of Æneid I and II with a force that almost dissevered its cover and made the desk ring.

"I call it absolute sickening nonsense," she continued energetically. "Why in the name of all common sense should we girls in this modern twentieth century be expected to bother our precious heads over antiquated old rubbish that would be far better consigned to decent burial? What's the use of it, I want to know?"

"'An admirable training for the intellect', my dear! to quote Thistles," said Annie Edwards. "According to her theory you ought to feel your mind sprouting at every fresh page, and sending out shoots of wisdom."

"Sprouting, indeed! Just the other way!" grunted Netta. "Latin has a paralysing effect upon my brain. Instead of sharpening me it deadens my faculties. When I've been trying to construe a page of Virgil, my intellect feels a pulp."

"Then the obvious moral is, don't try!" yawned Millicent Cooper.

"I don't."

"No more you do, you old slacker!"

"Why should one try when one can scrape through without?"

"Not an easy thing if Thistles puts you on a difficult bit! Have you made any sense out of this part? It's uncommonly stiff."

"Not I—I shall throw myself as usual on Gwen's mercy. Come here, Gwendolen mine, that's a sweet angelic cherub, and interpret these abominable lines!"

Gwen came rather reluctantly. Of late Netta had grown into the habit of applying to her for help with her extremely ill-prepared work, and the habit was assuming proportions that Gwen did not like. At first it had only been a word or two, then an odd sentence, but it was rapidly developing into a demand for a translation of the whole lesson.

"Oh, I say, Netta, you make me a regular henchman!" she objected. "Why should I act as providence to you continually?"

"Because you know the lesson, my hearty, and I don't. Ergo, it is your duty and privilege to impart your information to me."

"Don't always see my privileges."

"Then you ought. If you're helped, you ought to help others."

"I'm not helped!"

"Oh, Gwen! I'm sure Grinnie helps you at home!" broke out Millicent Cooper.

"She doesn't! She doesn't, indeed! I do all my prep, by myself."

"Can you actually swear on your honour she's never once helped you?" said Annie Edwards.

"On my hon—" began Gwen, then stopped and stammered lamely. "Well, at least, there was once—"

The recollection had struck her of the evening when she had caught the rat in the hen-coop. She had been so upset and flurried on that occasion that she had certainly applied to Winnie for assistance with a passage that she could not have otherwise prepared.

"Once!" sneered Annie. "Oh, no doubt! Everybody in the Form knows how it is you get on so well with your work!"

"I get no help at home!" declared Millicent self-righteously.

"Oh, drop drivelling, and let Gwen alone! She's got to tell me these lines," said Netta. "What do I care how she prepares her work? Come, Gwen, ma-vourneen, be a real friend!"

As Gwen translated the passage Netta wrote it rapidly down in pencil, and even Annie and Millicent, in spite of their condemnations of assisted preparations, seized their books and followed the words carefully.

"A particularly nasty bit—I could never do it if I tried half a year. Thanks awfully!" said Netta, slipping the paper inside her Æneid.

"Netta, you're not going to—"

"Never mind what I'm going to do. My concerns are my own," returned Netta airily. "I'm an unlucky person, and I'm sure to get the worst piece if there is one. It's Kismet."

Gwen's desk was close to Netta's, and when the Virgil class began she could not help noticing the latter pop the scrap of paper on her knee under cover of a pocket handkerchief.

Miss Douglas followed no fixed order in the Form; she called on any girl she wished to translate, choosing from back or front desks with strictest impartiality. As Netta had predicted, the difficult passage fell to her lot. To the surprise of almost the whole Form she came off with flying colours. Though Annie and Millicent had strong suspicions, only Gwen had seen the little piece of paper hidden under Netta's handkerchief. At lunch time she flew out on the subject.

"Look here, Netta," she began grimly, "helping you a little is one thing, but I'm not going to act crib for you again; so just don't think it."

"What do you mean?" gasped Netta sharply.

"What I say. You'd better prepare your own Virgil next time."

"Aren't you going to help me any more?" There was an unpleasant look in Netta's eyes.

"Not when you write it out and crib."

"It was only one scrap. Don't be horrid, Gwen!"

"I like things square, and they've not been quite straight lately. I'm going to put a stop to it, so I give you warning."

"Won't you tell me just the hard bits?"

"Not a single sentence."

"Then you're a mean, stingy thing, Gwen Gascoyne! I don't know why you should have taken it into your head all of a sudden to be so sanctimonious. You've not been so remarkably square before that you need turn saint now. You promised you'd stand by me, and this is how you keep your word, is it? I'll know better another time than to help you. You may get out of your own scrapes as best you can. I'll pay you for this, Gwen Gascoyne! I'll catch you tripping some time, see if I don't—and then—" and with a significant nod Netta turned away.

"You can do anything you like; I don't care," grunted Gwen.

She was out of temper that morning, for it was swimming day, and the thought of the rest of the Form jaunting off to the baths without her filled her with despair. She did not speak to Netta during the dinner hour, nor did the latter seek her company.

"What have those two quarrelled about? I thought they were ever so chummy," said Charlotte Perry to Elspeth Frazer.

"I'm sure I don't know. It would be a good thing for Gwen Gascoyne if she did quarrel with Netta, in my opinion."

"Then she'd be in a set by herself! Perhaps she thinks 'better Netta than nobody'."

"Better nobody than Netta, I should say. Do you know, Charlotte, I don't believe Gwen's half bad by herself, if only Netta would let her alone. It's when they get together they're so silly."

"Um—perhaps you're right. Gwen's straight, whatever else she is, and one can't say that for Netta."

"Hardly! I vote we watch them, and if they really are out of friends, we'll see if we can do anything with Gwen. It's rather rough on her to be such an outcast."

"Pity she's not as nice as Lesbia."

"Do you know," said Elspeth reflectively, "I'm not sure that she mayn't be at bottom. Of course Lesbia's awfully sweet-tempered, but then she's made such a fuss of, and there's really nothing in her. Now, I think there is something in Gwen, if she were taken the right way. I didn't like her at all at first, I don't know that I even do very much now, but I fancy she's one of those girls whom one might get to like if one saw the other side of her—I'm certain she has another side, only it never comes out at school."

"It isn't nice of her to rag her own sister, though."

"That's Netta's fault; she starts all the ragging and throws it on to Gwen."

"I'd be glad if I could really think so," returned Charlotte, and there for the moment the matter ended.

That afternoon a joyful, jubilant, rejoicing crew of Fifth Formers set off for the baths, duly armed with their costumes and mackintosh caps, and from the window of the classroom one dejected, miserable girl watched them depart. Gwen thought she had never felt quite so forlorn in her life before. She was aggrieved with Fate, and kept muttering, "Hard luck! hard luck!" to herself as the last school hat whisked round the corner.

"I didn't see Netta," she thought, and then turned, for she heard Netta's indignant, protesting voice in the passage outside in loud altercation with Miss Trent.

"It's no use, Netta, I can't allow it," the mistress was saying. "With that sniffly cold in your head it would be folly to bathe, and as you say your mother is away from home, and you could not ask her permission this morning, I must be the judge, and I say most emphatically no."

"But, Miss Trent! If I just—"

"Not another word, Netta! Go into your own Form room at once, and do some preparation. Do you want me to report you to Miss Roscoe? Then go, this instant!"

A very sulky, angry, rebellious, disconsolate Netta flung herself through the doorway and flounced to her desk. She gave one stare at Gwen, and, frowning, began to get out her books.

"We're companions in misfortune!" ventured Gwen, but Netta took not the very slightest notice.

"Oh, very well, madam; if you're going to cut me I'll cut you!" thought Gwen, and she turned to the window again.

There was no mistress in the room, and Gwen knew that for the next hour she could practically do as she liked. She would begin her preparation soon and finish some of it before she went home, but there was no particular hurry. The window commanded a view of a side street and just a peep into the main street, and it amused her at present to stand watching the passers-by. They were not remarkably enthralling—an old gentleman in a Bath chair, a nursemaid wheeling two babies in a perambulator, a baker's boy, a young woman with a large parcel, a vendor of boot laces, and a man delivering circulars. Gwen looked at them with languid attention, drumming her fingers idly on the window sill; then quite suddenly an expression of keen interest flashed across her face and she leaned out over the protecting iron bars.

"Dick!" she called loudly and impulsively, "Dick!"

The boy on the pavement below stopped and gazed up.

"Hello! Why, Gwen, by all that's wonderful!"

"What are you doing in Stedburgh, Dick?"

"Come in to have my hair cut, Miss Inquisitive, if you must know!"

"Oh, what a shame! I like it curly best. Have you had it done?"

"The fatal operation has been performed," said Dick, uncovering his closely-cropped head for a moment.

"And what are you going to do now?"

"Go home again."

"I wish I could," sighed Gwen.

"Are you supposed to be in school?" queried Dick.

"Of course I am, silly! I'm in my own Form room."

"Must be a queer sort of school, then, if they let you talk at the window."

"They don't as a rule. But the others have all gone to the baths to-day and I'm left here to do prep."

"Hard luck!"

"Just what I've been saying to myself. It's simply sickening. You know what it feels like to be out of things."

"Don't I, rather!"

"Oh I Say, Well Caught!"

"I feel like a captive in a tower or a nun in a convent," continued Gwen plaintively.

"Not much of the nun about you!" grinned Dick. "I'd be sorry for the convent you were in. Look here, if I got you some sweets and chucked up the bag would you catch it or muff it?"

"Try me."

"If you muff it I'll expect you to throw it down again."

"Right-o!"

"Then wait half a mo. and I'll cut round the corner to Sherrard's and see what I can fish up for you. You really look like an object for charity."

"You philanthropist!"

"Better wait till you've caught your catch before you bless me!" chuckled Dick.

He was certainly not gone long; he returned almost immediately with a most interesting-looking paper bag in his hand.

"Oh, do tell me, is it chocolate or caramels?" asked Gwen eagerly.

"Find out, madam! Now we'll see if I'm a good shot and if you're a butter-fingers. Are you ready? All right then, here goes! Oh, I say, well caught! Good old girl!"

"Told you I'd do it. Thanks most awfully! Have you kept any for yourself? Then take—"

"Gwen Gascoyne!" said a stern voice suddenly at her elbow.

Gwen jumped as if she had been shot, and turning guiltily, found herself face to face with Miss Trent. By the door stood Netta in visible triumph.

"Gwen Gascoyne," said Miss Trent again, "is this the way you conduct yourself when you're left to do your preparation? You're a disgrace to the school—an absolute disgrace! We had thought our Rodenhurst girls could be trusted to behave themselves."

"I was only talking to Dick," urged Gwen in self-defence.

"Is Dick your brother?"

"No—but—"

"Then you ought to be utterly ashamed of yourself. Such an affair has never happened at Rodenhurst before. I sincerely hope nobody in the street or in the houses opposite noticed the occurrence. It would be enough to spoil the reputation of the school."

"I didn't know I was doing anything so dreadful!" retorted Gwen.

"Then it's time you learnt. Miss Roscoe will have to hear about this. Report yourself in the study at four o'clock, and go at once to your desk and begin your preparation. Put that paper bag on the mantelpiece, I can't allow you to keep it."

Miss Trent sat down on Miss Douglas's vacant chair, evidently with the intention of staying in the room to act Gorgon. Gwen walked to her desk in the depths of humiliation. She caught Netta's glance as she went by, and it seemed to add insult to injury.

"I know who sneaked," she thought. "Very well, Netta Goodwin, I've done with you. You may tell any tales of me you like now; nothing would ever induce me to be friends with you again. In for a penny in for a pound. I expect you'll cut up nasty about that china business, but I feel as if I don't care. I'm booked for an awful row with Miss Roscoe! Oh, Dick, your sweets were well meant, but you little know what they're going to cost me!"

Gwen had a very hazy remembrance of how she did her preparation that afternoon. She wrote a French exercise almost automatically, feeling the mistress's eye upon her the whole time. At four o'clock, with her heart somewhere in the region of her shoes, she reported herself in the study. Miss Trent had been beforehand; so when she entered Miss Roscoe was already aware of the nature and extent of her crime. The headmistress was not disposed to make light of the affair; like Miss Trent, she considered that the reputation of the school might be seriously compromised by Gwen's behaviour, and she did not spare the culprit. Gwen did not often cry at school, but on this occasion she left the Principal's room weeping like Niobe, and poor Winnie, who had been called in to hear the tail end of the lecture, followed blinking a little on her own account.

"You do such lunatic things, Gwen," said Winnie on the way home.

"I meant no harm," protested the still tearful Niobe.

"I dare say you don't, but they're stupid things all the same. You might have known you'd get into trouble. I shall scold Dick about it."

"It wasn't his fault."

"Well, it's been a silly business all round, and why Miss Roscoe should send for me and talk as if I were partly responsible I can't imagine," said the aggrieved Winnie. "It's bad enough to have to teach in class without being blamed for what no person in her senses could consider my fault."

"That's Miss Roscoe all over," gulped Gwen. "If she's angry she must fizz whether there's justice in it or not. I'm fearfully sorry, Win! It's too bad you were dragged in."

"Well, I suppose it can't be helped now," said Winnie, somewhat mollified. "Miss Roscoe's storms are soon over, that's one blessing. I expect by to-morrow she'll have calmed down. You'll be in disgrace for a while, but she'll forget about it."

"What became of the sweets?" asked Lesbia.

"Left them on the chimneypiece and I expect the housemaid will commandeer them. I daren't ask for them, I can tell you."

Next morning the lower sashes of the Fifth Form room windows were found firmly screwed down, and the glass had received a coat of white paint put on the outside, so that not even a peephole could be scratched from within. The girls whose desks had formerly commanded a view were savage; even Miss Douglas wore an air of plaintive resignation.

"Might have known it would be Gwen Gascoyne who would bring herself into such a mess!" said Charlotte Perry.

"Um—I've a notion Netta set the ball rolling," returned Elspeth Frazer.

XV. Storm Clouds

It was only a few days after this that a letter arrived for Mr. Gascoyne which almost turned the little Parsonage upside down. Gwen could tell from Father's manner that something had happened, he seemed so unusually agitated, so perplexed, and sometimes so absent-minded that he forgot all that was going on around him. Something was wrong, argued Gwen, and as she did not like to question Father himself, she plucked up her courage and asked Beatrice.

"Well, I suppose there's no reason why you shouldn't know, so long as you don't chatter about it," said the latter. "I think you can be trusted to keep a secret?"

"If it's Dad's secret," returned Gwen.

"Well, the fact is, Dad's had a living offered to him. You needn't jump and clap your hands, for it's nothing at all out of the way—indeed he hardly knows whether to accept it or not. It's a good deal better from a money point of view than this curacy, but there are objections."

"Where is it?"

"That's one of the chief objections. It's in a very poor part of a crowded manufacturing town, a place black with huge chimneys that send out clouds of smoke, where there's hardly a blade of grass, and the very trees are all blighted with the chemicals in the air. Father knows the place well; he was curate there for a short time just after his ordination. He called it Sodom-and-Gomorrah-mixed then, and it's probably worse instead of improved, for they've built more chemical works, he hears."

"Oh!" said Gwen, her enthusiasm very much damped. "But he's surely not going to accept it?"

"I don't know. There are many things to be considered. We're a big family, and the boys have got to be educated somehow. I don't know how it's to be done here."

"There's the Stedburgh Grammar School."

"Yes, but how are we to manage the fees? Winnie can't go and teach there to equalize their school bills! If we went to Rawtenbeck, they could all three be sent to King Edward's College. It's certainly an inducement."

"And we should have to leave the Parsonage, and the garden, and everything at Skelwick!"

"Yes; that's the terrible part. Father's simply torn in two. He's done so much for Skelwick. Think what it was when he came! And now there's the Mission Room at Basingwold, and the Lads' Club, and the Library, and the Men's Class, and the Temperance Union, and all the Guilds. Perhaps, if he went, another curate might come who took no interest in them, and they would all go to pieces."

"Dad would be fearfully missed if he went."

"Yes; but there's another side even to that. He's only curate here, and if Mr. Sutton were to die, and a new rector came to North Ditton, Dad would be expected to resign. Curates always do when there's a change of incumbent; it's clerical etiquette. Mr. Sutton is such an old man that, you see, this may happen any time, so Dad can't feel really settled here."

"I wish he were rector instead of only curate!" sighed Gwen.

"Ah, so do I! But Skelwick isn't a parish by itself, it's only a part of North Ditton. If Dad accepts the living of Rawtenbeck he'll be a vicar then, and he says there's any amount of work to be done in the place. The church has been fearfully slack! He hardly knows which needs him most, Skelwick or Rawtenbeck."

"When must he make up his mind?"

"Fortunately, not immediately. The Bishop has given him six weeks to think it over before he need decide."

"Then we've six weeks' reprieve," said Gwen.

She was extremely agitated at the news. She had often thought in a vague way how nice it would be if her father were appointed to a living, but she had never anticipated such a change as this. To remove to a smoky, dirty manufacturing town, where even the trees were blighted with chemicals! The proposition seemed intolerable. Gwen hurried out of the garden and climbed a little way up the headland at the back of the house. It was Saturday morning, and there were plenty of tasks to be done at home, but at the present she felt she must be alone with her thoughts. To leave Skelwick—to go away from all this and perhaps never see it again! She sat down on a rock, and took a long comprehensive look over the whole landscape.

There were the cliffs, and the headland, and the great wide stretch of rolling, shimmering sea, and the little red sails of the fishing smacks far out on the blue horizon; below her stretched the village, with its irregular red roofs and gay patches of flower gardens, and the shingly cove where some of the boats lay beached. She could just see the chimneys of the Parsonage, and the corner of the tennis lawn where Martin was playing with Jingles, and a scrap of the common where Winnie's hens were pecking in the coarse grass. Above the village, a conspicuous object against the sky, rose their little church of St. John the Baptist, standing on the high headland at the very edge of the bare wold, as Father often said, like a voice crying in the wilderness. Who would come there, she wondered, if Dad went? Skelwick was only a chapel-of-ease to North Ditton, and before Mr. Gascoyne's time the place had been much neglected. No resident clergyman had lived there, and though a curate had come from the Parish Church at North Ditton to take Sunday services, no attempt had been made to get hold of the rough fisher folk in the district. It had been uphill work, and with very little assistance or encouragement, for Mr. Sutton, the rector, was old and in delicate health, and quite unable to take any active part; indeed, for many years he had never visited Skelwick or the neighbouring hamlets.

"Everything worth having here is owing to Dad," thought Gwen. "I don't know how he'd ever bear to leave it."

She could not contemplate the idea of the smoky Vicarage at Rawtenbeck. Though she sometimes dreamt of how she would go out into the world and do things when she grew up, she had always imagined the Parsonage as a place that would still be there for her to come home to whenever she wished, even from the wilds of Canada. She loved every inch of the dear little house, and every clump of flowers in the garden was like a friend.

"As far as homes and houses go I'm a rank old Conservative. I hate being uprooted," said Gwen to herself.

She felt so unsettled she could not go back at present. Her preparation must wait, and she would take a walk higher up on the wold to try and recover her equanimity. The fresher air of the headland always calmed her when she was annoyed or irritable.

For some time she strolled on rather aimlessly among the heather and the gorse bushes, watching the birds or the grasshoppers, and sitting down every now and then to drink in a fuller enjoyment of the scene. She was quite alone, and to-day at any rate Gwen loved solitude. No—after all she had not the moor entirely to herself. Over a ridge of bracken loomed a funny little black figure, which seemed to be moving in her direction. As it came nearer she could make out that it was a little old gentleman, very small and thin and wizened, with a face as yellow as parchment, and a long, hooked nose, and eyes set in a mass of wrinkles. His clothes did not fit him particularly well, and were ill cut, and his hat was decidedly shabby. He walked along peering through his glasses as if he were shortsighted, and occasionally even feeling his way with a cane which he carried. When he saw Gwen he hastened towards her with an appearance of relief.

"I'm so glad to find somebody in this wild place," he began, in a funny little cracked voice that matched his face and figure. "Can you tell me if I am very far away from the village of Skelwick?"

"About two miles," replied Gwen, wondering who the stranger could be.

"Indeed! And in which direction may the place lie? I'm afraid I am rather out of my reckoning;" and he pulled a road map from his pocket and held it within two inches of his eyes.

"It's down there to the left, but the path's a little hard to find. You have to be careful you don't go through the wrong gap and walk over the edge of the cliff."

"Tut-tut-tut! Such spots ought to be marked 'Dangerous' on the maps. I shall write to the publishers and tell them so. As far as I understand now I am standing exactly here?" and he handed the rather dilapidated sheet to Gwen for verification.

"What a queer old crank!" she thought; but she answered civilly, and tried to identify the particular spot, as he seemed so anxious about it.

"Thank you! If you will put a cross at the point where you consider there is a dangerous gap I shall be obliged, and will endeavour to avoid the place," he remarked.

"Yes, You Can Easily Go Miles Out of Your Way"

"I am going back to Skelwick myself, and I could show you the way if you like," returned Gwen, moved with a sudden compassion for the frail little figure, a whole head shorter than her stalwart self.

"If it will not be incommoding you, I shall be glad to avail myself of your offer. I am a trifle shortsighted, and these moorland paths are confusing."

"Yes, you can easily go miles out of your way," agreed Gwen, wondering again who the stranger could be.

He did not look like an ordinary tourist, and as they walked together over the wold he began to make a number of enquiries about Skelwick and the people who lived there. He was an artful questioner, and Gwen, almost before she realized what she was doing, gave him a full and detailed history of the neighbourhood, including what it had been before Father came, and what it was now.

"Of course some of them still drink, but they're better than they were," she said. "Six years ago most of the fishermen wouldn't go near a service, and spent all Sunday with bottles of whisky in that little cabin on the shore, the very one Dad's made into a newsroom now. I don't know what the place would do without him if he really—" but here she stopped in great distress, remembering she was letting out the secret which Beatrice had strictly enjoined her to keep.

The blinking, shortsighted eyes did not seem to take any notice of her confusion. The old gentleman twitched his mouth hard, and then merely remarked:

"It's well to be a favourite in one's parish."

"I wish it were Dad's parish!" said Gwen, following up her private train of thought. "If Skelwick were a separate living of its own, quite apart from North Ditton, he could do so much more. It's fearfully hampering to be under another church that's such a long way off. It doesn't give Dad a free hand at all."

"Yes—yes—yes; exactly so," commented the stranger, wrinkling up his forehead into thick lines.

He was very silent after this, as if he were turning something over in his mind, and Gwen, who began to think she had chattered too much, walked along trying to remember what she had said. They had almost reached the village by now; the sun was glaring on the red roofs below them and on the white highroad which led to North Ditton.

"This is my short cut back to the Parsonage," said Gwen, stopping at a stile; "but if you want the 'King's Arms' you must go along that footpath to the right."

"Thank you! I shall get some lunch there, and then go on to North Ditton. By the by, what time is your evening service on Sunday?"

"Half-past six," replied Gwen, wondering as she turned away why a stranger who was evidently only passing through Skelwick should ask such a question.

"Mere curiosity, I suppose," she thought. "He seems an inquisitive old fellow."

She told her experiences to Beatrice and Winnie, but they had no more idea than herself of the identity of the little old gentleman.

"Some tourist on a walking tour, I expect," said Beatrice. "You were quite right to show him the way; but you really must be careful, Gwen, and not talk so freely to chance people whom you meet. I'd rather you didn't go on the moors quite alone. Take one of the boys next time."

"Stumps is a far worse blabber than I am!" laughed Gwen. "He'd have given the most intimate details of our household arrangements, and what we were going to have for dinner to-day. Perhaps have added an invitation!"

"Which would surely not have been accepted."

"I don't know! Such an eccentric old fellow might be capable of anything. I shall look out for him in church to-morrow evening."

And much to Gwen's surprise he was actually there. He turned up rather late—during the singing of the first Psalm, in fact—and left in the middle of the hymn after the sermon. He sat on one of the benches close to the door, and Gwen would hardly have known of his presence had she not recognized the peculiar way in which he cleared his throat, which attracted her attention to him.

"Who was that stranger, Robert?" she asked the clerk afterwards.

"Don't know at all, Miss Gwen. I never see him in my life before. Funny old chap, weren't he? But he put a half-crown in the plate before he left! We don't get many half-crowns at Skelwick; it's mostly pennies and threepennybits, with a few sixpences, as I collect."

"Perhaps he just came over from North Ditton for the walk; he seems to be fond of walking, and perhaps he wanted to see the village by sunset," said Gwen. "I wish he'd stayed five minutes longer and spoken to Father. He always likes to welcome strangers who come to the church."

"And those bean't a-many," returned the clerk as he locked the big door.

It was a little incident, and seemed quite unimportant at the time. Gwen dismissed it quickly from her mind, for she had very many other things to think about just then, things that seemed paramount and far more interesting and exciting than chance tourists who asked questions.

But she was to hear of the eccentric old gentleman again.

XVI. First Aid

Gwen's quarrel with Netta was so complete that the two were no longer on speaking terms. Gwen was very apprehensive lest her former chum should carry out her old threat and betray the secret of the broken china, and in the first heat of her anger Netta had been inclined to do so; on further reflection, however, she decided that the consequences might be too compromising to herself, and that it would be safer to preserve silence. She had already scored by fetching Miss Trent into the schoolroom during Gwen's conversation with Dick, and the trouble which had ensued was almost enough to satisfy her. Really Netta had been rather tired of Gwen before this, and she was not sorry to seize upon an excuse for breaking their friendship. She now took up hotly with Annie Edwards, and the pair were for the moment inseparable.

"I believe it's as I thought," said Elspeth Frazer to Charlotte Perry; "Gwen Gascoyne's quite off with Netta. Now, if she can only get into a better set she may be a different girl. I want to find out what she's really like, so I'm going to be nice to her to-morrow when we go the geological excursion."

"Perhaps we have been rather horrid to her," returned Charlotte thoughtfully.

"It was mostly her own fault for putting on airs when she first came up, and then making such friends with Netta. She couldn't expect any of us to have anything to say to her after that."

"Probably she didn't know Netta."

"I dare say not; but it shows she's a bad judge of character. All the same I've got Gwen a little on my conscience, and I'm going to try what I can do. She may improve now."

Elspeth spoke the truth when she said that she had Gwen on her conscience. It had occurred to her several times lately that perhaps she had misunderstood her schoolfellow, and that she might have done more to help her. "Am I my brother's keeper?" rose uneasily to her mind. She had an uncomfortable feeling that in happier circumstances Gwen might have made a better impression on the Form, and that she and Hilda and Edith and Louise were partly responsible for her ill reception.

"I'm very sorry if we've been Pharisees!" she thought. "Of course one wanted to keep to one's own set, and not have anything to do with the tag-end of the Form—but—Well, I mean to give Gwen Gascoyne a chance now, anyhow."

The geological excursion was rather an event of the term. The Form had been learning geology with Miss Roberts, who promised to take the girls for an afternoon to Riggness, a place a few miles away on the coast, greatly noted for its fossils, where they could have a practical demonstration to supplement the information in their textbooks. On the Friday afternoon chosen for the ramble everybody started armed with hammers of all varieties, from Miss Roberts's beautiful geological pick to stout tack hammers and even toffee hammers.

"One never knows—one might find an ichthyosaurus embedded in the cliffs!" declared Charlotte Perry, brandishing a wooden mallet and an iron wedge, as if she were prepared to clear away tons of rock in the pursuit of her researches.

"Don't I wish we could!" said Miss Roberts. "But I'm afraid a few ammonites and belemnites will have to content us; those are quite difficult enough to get out intact. We shall do very well if we can only bring back some really perfect specimens for the school museum."

Riggness was on the other side of Stedburgh from Skelwick, and Gwen had never been there before, so the excursion was new to her. It was great fun going with the whole Form; the girls had come well prepared to enjoy themselves, and Miss Roberts also was in a jolly frame of mind, and had even brought with her a box of chocolates, which she handed round impartially till the contents vanished. Three compartments seemed to overflow with Rodenhurst hats. Gwen had just been following Millicent Cooper and Minna Jennings when Elspeth Frazer gripped her by the arm.

"Come in here with us, Gwen," she said, and Gwen, too much astonished for words, complied. Why she should be invited into a carriage with Hilda Browne, Charlotte Perry, Iris Watson, Louise Mawson, and Edith Arnold, the most elect set in the Form, was beyond her comprehension, but it was a very pleasant circumstance all the same. To be sure, they did not take much notice of her, but they were not disagreeable, and Elspeth spoke to her more than once in quite a friendly fashion. It was so utterly different from their former attitude towards her that Gwen almost believed she was dreaming. Perhaps it was only because they were on a holiday this afternoon, she thought, and to-morrow they would be as usual again. Well, at any rate, she would take advantage of to-day, and make the most of her opportunities, so she chatted a little with Elspeth, and sat ruminating over this amazing change of front on the part of those girls whom Netta, in mockery, had nicknamed "The Saints". Riggness was reached in twenty minutes, the train stopped at the small wayside station, and the Rodenhurst party got out in a hurry. They were to descend to the beach, and walk along the shore to Linkthwaite Bay, a distance of about three miles, geologizing as they went. A steep zigzag path led down the side of the cliff to the sands, and when once her flock was all collected at the bottom, Miss Roberts improved the occasion by giving a short lecture on the formation of the rocks which formed the headland, then, leading the way, she showed them how to hunt about for the ammonites embedded in the face of the cliffs, or the long belemnites that could be seen in flat terraces of rocks at the water's edge.

"Miss Roberts is right—they're uncommonly difficult to get out whole," said Elspeth, tapping gingerly round a particularly fine specimen; "just when you think you've done it, they go smash."

"It's most aggravating," agreed Gwen, whose heavy hammer, borrowed from Winnie's hen-yard, had been rather too forcible in its effects. "I'd almost got the loveliest, biggest belemnite, and it broke into three pieces like a slate pencil."

"I like my toffee hammer best," said Charlotte, tenderly fingering one or two good specimens which she had managed to secure. "I mean to save up and buy a real geological one like Miss Roberts's."

Tapping the rocks was a fascinating occupation, and a fairly profitable one, for this part of the coast was rich in fossils. By the time the girls had walked a mile along the shore they had all been able to procure some souvenirs, though as yet nothing of very special importance. Miss Roberts looked about with a practised eye, and the pick end of her hammer would withdraw a specimen neatly, where clumsier blows worked havoc.

"We'll hurry on a little farther now," she said. "Those cliffs in the middle of the bay are a particularly good hunting ground, and if there's anything interesting to be found, we ought to find it there."

At the place in question the rocks were intersected by a narrow gorge, where a small stream trickled its way from the moorlands above. The shelving platforms of the cliff were here comparatively easy to climb, and the action of water and weather combined had carried down a mass of stones and debris that would be worth investigation. Miss Roberts was as active and enthusiastic as any of the girls; she jumped lightly from stone to stone, tapping likely spots with her hammer, and finally, seeing something protruding from a rock above, began to scale the face of the cliff.

"I believe I've got something here at last!" she called.

"Oh! what is it?" cried the eager girls.

"I can't tell yet till I've cleared it a little."

"Oh! Is it an ichthyosaurus, do you think?" cried Charlotte Perry.

"I'm going to send down a shower of stones—stand out of the way!" commanded Miss Roberts, and balancing herself nimbly on a narrow ledge, she swung her hammer vigorously.

Then exactly what happened nobody quite knew. Down came the stones, rattling like an avalanche, and down with them came Miss Roberts, falling with a heavy thud upon a piece of rock below. It was so utterly sudden and unexpected that the girls stood for a moment in speechless consternation, then Hilda, Elspeth, and one or two others ran to the teacher's assistance. Miss Roberts lay at first as if she were almost stunned, then she tried to rise, and fell back with a groan.

"Do you know," she said quite calmly, "I'm very much afraid I've broken my leg." And then she closed her eyes, and turned very white.

The girls stared at one another in helpless dismay. Miss Roberts, the leader and head of the expedition, who was accustomed to give orders which they promptly obeyed, to be lying there injured and half fainting! The situation was unparalleled. Hilda Browne looked at Elspeth Frazer for inspiration, and Elspeth shook her head and looked at Charlotte Perry, but Charlotte only began to cry, while Iris Watson, Louise Mawson, Edith Arnold, and Rachel Hunter stood in utter indecision. Not one of them had the least idea what to do.

Then Gwen stepped forward. Seeing the elder and more influential members of the party collected round the governess, she, the youngest girl in the Form, and the one whose opinion had been hitherto scouted, had not ventured to interfere, but as nobody seemed to be doing anything at all, she felt licensed to come to the front.

"I took the St. John's Ambulance Course last winter, and passed the examination," she said quietly. "I know how to give first aid. Perhaps I'd better try and find out where Miss Roberts is hurt. Can't any of you get some water?" and she knelt down by the mistress's side, and began very gently to feel for the extent of the injuries.

The girls were so relieved that anybody had a knowledge of what ought to be done, that they readily allowed Gwen to assume the responsibility. Louise Mawson flew to the stream, and fetched some water in her hat, while Iris helped to unbutton Miss Roberts's boot. The unfortunate teacher revived a little with the water.

"It's my left leg, below the knee—I felt it crack as I fell," she gasped painfully.

"I'm afraid it's rather a bad fracture, too," said Gwen, when she had finished examining her patient.

"Oh! what are we to do?" moaned Louise.

"Can we carry her back to Riggness?" suggested Hilda.

"We mustn't move her an inch till we've put her leg in splints," said Gwen. "I believe it's only a simple fracture, but it might become compound with the least jolt. Elspeth, will you take hold of her foot—yes, the left one, of course—and pull it very gently."

"I—I daren't touch her!" shivered Elspeth, who had turned almost as white as Miss Roberts.

"I will—I don't mind!" said Charlotte, and she did what was required under Gwen's directions.

"Now you must hold it like that till we get some splints," continued Gwen. "You see, if the muscles contract, the rough ends of the broken bone might pierce a blood vessel, or do dreadful damage. Some of you bring some sand and make a pillow under her head, then she'll be more comfortable. What we want next are the splints."

Many willing hands obeyed Gwen's orders. In less than a few minutes the sand was heaped under Miss Roberts's head and shoulders, while Louise constantly wetted her forehead and lips with water. Gwen, with a few assistants, had gone in quest of splints. She had spied some hazel bushes farther up the gorge, which she thought might suffice for her purpose. Up the steep bed of the stream the girls climbed, splashing recklessly in and out of the water, to save time being their main object.

"They'll have to be thick pieces, and long too," said Gwen. "They ought to go from above the knee to below the foot. Whose penknife is sharpest?"

Nobody's was very sharp, and the girls had to hack and hew away slowly and painfully before they could make the least impression on the tough hazel boughs. At last Gwen secured several lengths which satisfied her, and she returned to her patient.

"Now, I want all your handkerchiefs to make bandages. Thanks! Charlotte, pull her foot just a trifle more, no—her toes should be up—so! That's better. I'm sorry to hurt you so dreadfully, Miss Roberts! I shall very soon have finished. There! I think those bandages are right. Give her some more water, Louise, quick!"

Poor Miss Roberts had indeed nearly fainted again with pain, but she recovered herself, and even smiled as she thanked her helpers.

"I've spoilt the excursion!" she murmured.

"What's to be done next? Can we carry her?" asked Hilda.

"Better not try. The quieter that leg is kept the better. She ought to be lifted on a stretcher."

"There isn't even a farm near here."

"I know. I think for the present she's best where she is, while some of you go to the station at Riggness for help. Possibly they may have a railway ambulance, or at any rate they could bring a door."

"Is there a doctor there?"

"I'm afraid not, it's only a tiny village, but the stationmaster would telegraph to Stedburgh for one. Perhaps he could come by motor, if there's no train."

It was amazing what thoughtfulness and self-reliance had come to Gwen with the emergency. She made her plans and arrangements as calmly as if she were accustomed to deal every day with accidents. No one questioned her authority, and all were willing to do what she told them. Iris Watson and two others who were judged the quickest walkers volunteered to go to the station for help, and they listened attentively while Gwen gave instructions as to what they were to ask the stationmaster to send.

"It's such a comfort you know!" said Hilda. "I wish I'd learnt ambulance."

It seemed an interminable age to poor Miss Roberts and the girls before a railway porter and two labourers who had been working on the line, arrived with a stretcher, which fortunately was kept in the inspector's office at Riggness. It was a tedious slow journey along the shore, and up to the station. The patient was nearly worn out by the time they placed her in the waiting-room, and was thankful to have the cup of tea which the stationmaster's wife brought her. A doctor arrived from Stedburgh half an hour afterwards, armed with proper splints and bandages, and he carefully examined and reset the broken limb.

"I must thoroughly congratulate the young lady who contributed first aid," he said. "She managed most skilfully. This would have been a serious thing but for her prompt measures. If the bone had been jolted about before it was put in splints, the consequences might have been permanent lameness or even loss of life. I wish it were obligatory for everybody to study ambulance."

The doctor took Miss Roberts back to her home in Stedburgh in his own car, and the girls followed by the next train, all equally anxious to get away from Riggness. They were much distressed about their teacher; the excursion had been a fiasco, and the whole party felt limp and out of spirits, like sheep without a shepherd.

"I'm thankful to get the whole crew packed off safe," said the stationmaster to his wife. "My word! It was a nasty accident to happen, down there on the shore. Good thing one of those lassies had a head on her shoulders!"

"An ordinary enough looking girl, too," remarked his wife. "I wouldn't have guessed she'd be the one to come forward. But there, one never can tell!"

"There must be more in her than shows on the outside," agreed the stationmaster.

XVII. A Pressing Account

When Gwen took her place at her desk on the following Monday morning, she was aware of a subtle difference in the general attitude towards her. She had earned the respect of the Form, and though nobody gushed, she felt she was no longer regarded as an interloper and upstart. Especially was this noticeable in the case of the nicer girls, several of whom spoke to her in quite a pleasant manner, and included her in a discussion about the tennis tournament. To Gwen, who had so long been left out in the cold, it was a most welcome change; she had never expected popularity, but she had always hoped that in time she might be able to conquer the prejudice that existed against her. It was a new thing to be asked to lend her dictionary to Hilda Browne, to compare chemistry papers with Iris Watson, or to play a game of tennis with Elspeth Frazer, Edith Arnold, and Charlotte Perry. The ban which had hitherto excluded her from the better set in the Form seemed to have been suddenly removed, the girls were looking at her from a new standpoint, and were ready to allow that after all she was different from what they had previously supposed.

Naturally Miss Roberts's accident and consequent absence from her post made a great upset in the school: classes had to be rearranged, and lessons delegated to other teachers. It was particularly awkward, because the Fifth Form was working for the Senior Oxford, and though only a few girls were actually to take the examination, the preparation was the same for everybody.

"I call it too bad," said Betty Brierley, an acknowledged slacker, "to make the whole Form grind—grind—grind—like this, all on behalf of about four candidates. They ought to have a special class to themselves."

"There's method in the madness, though," said Joan Masters. "Miss Roscoe isn't going to tell till the very last who's to go in for it, so nobody knows if she mayn't be destined as a victim for the sacrifice, and her name already entered."

"Oh! Not me!"

"Don't alarm yourself. But there are one or two others who, I expect, are on the secret list. It depends entirely on our weekly reports."

"Then I'm safe, for mine are always bad. I wouldn't go in for a public exam, for the whole world, the school ones are quite enough for me, and too much, as a rule. Who's likely, do you think?"

"I'm not quite sure. Elspeth Frazer, for one, and—yes, I shouldn't be so very much astonished if Miss Roscoe's chosen Gwen Gascoyne."

"Gwen—yes. She's been bucking up no end lately in maths."

"And in Latin too. However, it's not our business. But I think there'll be some surprises."

Gwen, whether or not with the idea of the Senior Oxford in her head, had certainly been working hard. She had not only caught up, but even overstepped most of the Form, and her reports kept a steady average of improvement. Miss Roscoe, who was generally scanty in the matter of praise, said little, but there was an air of encouragement about her which urged Gwen to her best efforts.

"I made up my mind I'd let them all see I could do the work as well as anybody, though I am the youngest," she said to herself. "They don't sneer at me now."

Her translation from the Lower School was beginning to feel quite an old remembrance. Her thoughts went back sometimes to that first day in the Fifth, the day when Netta had taken her into Miss Roscoe's private sitting-room, and she had broken the box of china. That was a recollection which always stung, and which she would thrust away uneasily into the lumber-room of her mind. So far she had heard nothing more from Parker's, but the consciousness of the debt was there, and she knew that sooner or later she would be called upon to face the difficulty.

Nor was she mistaken. One Saturday morning, when she was taking a little vigorous exercise with the lawn mower before breakfast, she saw the postman coming in at the gate, and obeying a sudden impulse, ran to receive the letters, instead of allowing him to deliver them as usual at the door. There were four circulars for Father, a postcard for Beatrice, and one thin business envelope addressed to "Miss Gwen Gascoyne, c/o Miss Goodwin, The Thorns, Manor Road, Stedburgh," and re-directed in Netta's handwriting to "Skelwick Parsonage, North Ditton". Full of apprehension Gwen turned it over, and saw the name "J. Parker & Sons" printed on the flap. So it had come at last! Without even opening it she knew perfectly well what must be inside. She wondered they had waited so long before sending in the account again. What a mercy she had intercepted the postman that morning and taken the letters herself! If Beatrice had got hold of this it would have been impossible to conceal the matter any longer. Why had Netta sent the letter on by post instead of giving it to her at school? Surely it was a piece of spite on her part. Gwen turned quite hot as she thought of what Beatrice would have said. She hastily put the postcard and circulars on the breakfast-table, and ran down the garden to a retired place in the orchard, where she could open her ill-fated envelope in privacy.

Yes, it was just what she anticipated—a bill for ten shillings, and a polite but urgent request that the amount should be paid without further delay. She crushed it angrily in her hand, then stuffed it into her pocket and stood thinking. What was she to do? What could she do? All sorts of desperate schemes came running through her mind, and she gave each its due consideration.

"If I were a girl in a magazine story," she thought, "I suppose I'd disguise myself as a pierrette and go and sing on the promenade at Stedburgh. I dare say I'd get heaps of pennies. But—oh! I wonder if girls ever really do such things out of books? Father'd rather I owed pounds than went singing for pennies. He stopped the Sunday School children going round on Christmas Eve, but then they went into the public-houses, and of course I shouldn't. No, I couldn't risk it, and besides, I'd be too shy to sing, and somebody would be sure to find out. Shall I ask Dick to lend me half a sovereign? He would in a minute. No! I've not sunk to sponging on my boy friends, at any rate. I'd rather do a day's charing than that. A good idea! Why shouldn't I turn charwoman? If Beatrice would let me clean out the schools every Saturday, instead of Mrs. Cass, and pay me the money, I'd work off the bill in time. I wonder if I dare suggest it?"

The breakfast bell ringing loudly and clamorously at that moment put an end to Gwen's meditations, and she went indoors, but she was much preoccupied during the meal, so that she never noticed how Giles was peppering her piece of bread and butter till she incautiously took a bite and choked.

"You hateful boy! You're always up to some monkey tricks!" she exclaimed indignantly.

"'For she can thoroughly enjoy

The pepper when she pleases!'"

jeered Giles, adroitly dodging the smack she designed for him.

And the rest of the family laughed—yes, laughed, in a most heartless and inconsiderate manner.

"Your wits were wool-gathering, Gwen!" said Winnie, quoting a local proverb. "Stumps did it so deliberately and openly that anybody could have caught him who wasn't absolutely dreaming. We were all watching to see if you'd notice."

"The absent-minded beggar!" piped Basil.

"I think you're all very horrid and unkind!" complained the victim, still sneezing.

"Don't be grumpy, Gwen!"

"You must learn to take a joke, childie!" said Father, pushing back his chair and going away to his study.

Father so generally stood up for her that Gwen felt aggrieved. She had always flattered herself upon her capacity for accepting "ragging" with equanimity, but this, she considered, was beyond a joke.

"It might have got into my eyes and blinded me," she declared with plaintive dignity, and leaving the peppery remains on her plate, stalked off to the garden. She had certainly been too busy thinking during breakfast to notice her plate. It had struck her that if she really wished Beatrice to allow her to do charwoman's work at the school, she must give some proof of her capacity in that direction.

"Mrs. Cass never begins till one o'clock," she thought. "I'll go down this morning and get it all done before she comes, and then I can show Beatrice."

It seemed the only possible way of earning money open to her, so stealing one of Nellie's coarse aprons and a tin of soft soap from the kitchen, she hurried off to the school. She knew where Mrs. Cass kept the bucket and scrubbing-brush which she used for her cleaning operations; they were in a cupboard at the end of the passage. Being Saturday, the place was, of course, empty, and no one would disturb her. She had brought the Parsonage key to unlock the door, and after filling her bucket at the pump in the yard, she put on the apron, tucked up her sleeves, and set to work. And it was work! Gwen had never in her life before tried to scrub a floor, and though her arms were sturdy and strong at wielding a tennis-racket or the lawn mower, they soon began to ache at the unwonted exercise which she had set herself. The room seemed most enormously large, and she was sure it was abnormally dirty. The school children's boots must have been caked with mud. She began to have a wholesome respect for Mrs. Cass. She grew stiff and cramped with kneeling, and was obliged to stand up occasionally and take a rest.

"There are the two classrooms to do yet," she thought ruefully, "to say nothing of the passage. I'm getting rather fed up with scrubbing."

But she was only half through, so she set grimly to her self-imposed task again. She had very nearly finished the big room when the door softly opened, and who should appear but Beatrice! At the sight of Gwen and her occupation she nearly dropped the books she was carrying.

"Gwen! what's the meaning of this? You do look an object!" she exclaimed.

Gwen jumped up hastily, well aware that she thoroughly merited any aspersions on her appearance. Both her dress and the apron were soaked with water, her face had accumulated some of the dirt, her hair ribbon had fallen off, and her hair was dangling in her eyes. A more untidy young person could not have been found in the whole village. She flung back her hair with a wet, grimy hand, and finding her pocket handkerchief, tried to wipe her face.

"What freak is this, Gwen? Whatever will you do next?" continued Beatrice.

"I didn't expect you here till I'd finished," answered Gwen, sitting down exhaustedly on a form.

"You know I often come to practise the hymns, now Winnie takes the mission-room at Basingwold. That doesn't explain why you're washing the floor."

"I wanted you to see that I could do it. I thought perhaps you'd let me scrub every week, and pay me instead of Mrs. Cass," said Gwen, blurting out her scheme in the baldest outline.

Beatrice took another comprehensive glance at her sister's disreputable figure, then sat down hilariously.

"You needn't laugh so—I mean it seriously," protested Gwen. "I want the money."

"Oh! oh! You look so funny!" screamed Beatrice; then, suddenly sobering down, she changed her tone. "I couldn't help laughing," she continued, "but it was a good thing it was only I who came in and caught you in this dirty mess. What prompted you to be so silly?"

"I've told you already."

"Gwen, don't be idiotic! How could you scrub the school every week. Besides, we couldn't take the work away from Mrs. Cass. She'd be most indignant She needs the money badly, poor body, with that large family to keep."

This was an utterly new aspect of the case that had not before occurred to Gwen.

"I want money too," she groaned.

"So do I, and so does Dad, and so do we all, but we can't get it," replied Beatrice rather tartly. "We have to make up our minds to go without. You're no worse off than the rest of us."

Gwen paused. A half impulse was stirring within her to tell her sister her difficulties. If only Beatrice looked a little more sympathetic!

"How do you know I'm no worse off?" she began.

"I've no patience with you, Gwen! You're always thinking about yourself! You've done a silly, mad prank to-day, and I don't know what Mrs. Cass will say when she arrives. Really, at your age you ought to know better and remember your dignity. You're not a child now, though I'm sure you behave like one. Go and put that bucket and scrubbing-brush away, and wash your face before you walk home. I shall have to explain to Mrs. Cass, or she'll think I've been giving her work to another charwoman. It would be enough to make her leave the church! She's fearfully touchy. I wonder when you'll learn sense."

Very crestfallen, Gwen turned away. No, it was quite impossible to confide in Beatrice. Beatrice never understood, never even seemed to want to understand. In her superior, elder-sisterly position she simply condemned everything without hesitation.

"I wonder if she used to do silly things herself?" thought Gwen. "She's always been six years older, and preached to me since I can first remember. Shall I ever catch her up, or will she seem those six years ahead to the end of the chapter?"

And having performed some very necessary ablutions, she walked home, looking tired and woebegone.

Beatrice, with a sigh, opened the harmonium and chose her hymns for to-morrow's Sunday School, wondering on her part why this particular sister was so difficult to manage, and so utterly different in disposition from the rest of the family.

"I'm sure I do my best," she thought, "but Gwen has always been a trial. I can't imagine whom she takes after. If the ugly duckling's ever going to turn into a swan, it's time she began!"

All Sunday Gwen was haunted by a horrible black shadow. She kept Parker's letter in her pocket, and the remembrance of it never left her. Gwen generally enjoyed Sundays, but this particular day was like a nightmare. How to get out of her scrape she could not imagine. The debt felt like a heavy millstone tied round her neck. In the afternoon, when the others sat reading and chatting under the trees in the garden, she mooned about the orchard by herself, too miserable even to be interested in a book. How was the affair to end? She did not dare to go to Parker's and explain that at present it was impossible to pay the bill. She supposed she would simply have to let things drift and await further developments. What steps Parker's would take next, she could not foresee. They would probably wait a week or even more before further pressing the account, and any respite was welcome. Trouble was ahead, doubtless, but it was better ten days off than to-morrow, because there was always the faint hope that some circumstance might arise at the eleventh hour to smooth over the difficulty. On Monday morning Gwen seized an opportunity to catch Netta alone.

"I say," she began, "it was awfully mean of you to send that letter of Parker's on to me by post. Why couldn't you have brought it to school instead?"

"Why should I?" retorted Netta. "I'm not going to act postman for you, I can assure you! And look here, Gwen Gascoyne, you'll please not have any more letters directed to you at our house! We don't want to receive your bills, thank you! You must give your own address to the shops. Haven't you settled that affair with Parker's yet?"

"No, and I don't want it to be found out at home. Beatrice always takes in the letters and deals them round. It was by the merest good luck she didn't get hold of mine on Saturday. Netta, do let me use your address! You might do that much for me!"

"Why should I? I've done quite enough for you, and too much already. I'm tired of the whole business. I was silly to be mixed up with it in the beginning."

"But you started it! You took me into Miss Roscoe's room, and then you suggested going to Parker's and replacing the china."

"Are you trying to throw the blame on me?" flared Netta.

"Not altogether; but I think you were partly responsible, and that you got off cheaply."

"That's uncommonly fine," sneered Netta. "No, no, my good Gwen, that little dodge won't work. This child isn't going to be burden-bearer for your sins. If you get into scrapes you must get out of them yourself. I've lost a sovereign over you already."

"And for what?" exploded Gwen angrily. "What about my beautiful essay, that you took and used as your own?"

"Wasn't worth it! It was a freak of mine just then to win that prize, but I've never looked at the book since. I'm sorry I troubled about it. I'd rather have the sov. now."

"And I'm sorry too, because it wasn't fair and square, and I've felt vile about it ever since. I hate all these underhand things."

Netta smiled sarcastically.

"Of course you hate them when they don't turn out to your advantage. Pity you didn't pursue your course of virtue a little earlier! You were ready enough to trade the essay for the sov. at the time, so what are you grumbling about now?"

"Your meanness."

"Look here, Gwen Gascoyne, I've had enough of this! I won't hear another word about your wretched affair. As I told you before, you must get out of your own scrapes, and not expect other people to act Providence for you. If you mention the subject again, I simply shan't listen."

Gwen had scarcely expected either help or consolation from Netta, though she felt indignant that her old chum should show her so little sympathy in the matter. After all, it was only in accordance with Netta's character. Grapes do not grow on thistles; and a girl so destitute of all sense of conscience was not likely to prove a stanch and faithful friend. Gwen was learning by slow and painful experience that bright amusing manners may be worthless unless allied to more sterling qualities. She had been wont to admire Netta's easy style, and even to try to copy it; now it struck her as hollow and vapid. If only she could have started quite afresh, with no guilty memories to disturb her, she felt she had the chance of getting into a better set in her Form. But what would Elspeth Frazer, Hilda Browne, Iris Watson, or any of the nicer girls think of her conduct, both in regard to the broken-china episode or the transferred essay? She knew it would not accord with their code of honour.

"I wish I had the courage to tell Miss Roscoe everything," groaned Gwen. "It would have been the straightest course if I'd gone and confessed at once when I smashed the china. It would have saved a great many complications. Dare I possibly tell now?"

She walked along the passage to the study. The door was open, so she peeped cautiously in. Miss Roscoe sat correcting papers, and nobody else was in the room. If she wished to make her confession, here was certainly her opportunity. Her heart beat and thumped, and the words seemed to freeze upon her lips. Miss Roscoe looked so stern as she sat at her desk making pencil notes on the margins of the exercises; there was a hard, uncompromising expression on her face which Gwen knew only too well, and which did not tend in the direction of tenderness towards wrongdoers. Gwen was still smarting from the scolding she had received for her conversation with Dick out of the window. If Miss Roscoe viewed that peccadillo so seriously, what would she say to the tale which her pupil had to unfold?

"I daren't! I daren't!" thought Gwen. "No, I really can't screw up the courage. I loathe myself for a deceitful wretch, and yet—oh, dear!—there's nothing in this world I dread so much as being found out!"

She ran down the passage again with a sense of relief. One voice in her heart assured her that she had escaped a danger, though another upbraided her for her cowardice.

"If Miss Roscoe hadn't looked quite so severe I might have ventured," she sighed in response to the latter. "I don't believe I'll get even so far as the study door again."

So a golden opportunity was lost, and Gwen, who might even thus late have chosen the straighter, harder path, shirked the disagreeable experience, and was left perforce to reap the harvest of her own sowing.

XVIII. Gwen's Bright Idea

As Gwen went down the corridor she noticed a small crowd collected round the notice board, and, edging her way in among the crush, read an announcement which Bessie Manners, the head girl, had just pinned up.

"There will be a General Meeting of the Seniors at 2 p.m. in the Sixth Form room. Business—to consider what steps can be taken for an adequate celebration of the school anniversary. All are urged to attend."

"Hello! Whence this thusness?" exclaimed Gwen. "What have we got to do with the school anniversary? I thought Miss Roscoe engineered the whole of it!"

"So she does, ordinarily," answered Moira Thompson, one of the prefects. "But we want this to be a very special festivity; not just the usual picnic or garden party."

"But why?"

"Haven't time to explain now. Come to the meeting and we'll expound our views. I think it's a ripping notion of Bessie's myself."

"Do give me a hint!"

But Moira shook her head and passed on, leaving Gwen to curb her curiosity until two o'clock, for the prefects had not imparted their plans to anybody as yet, and none of her own Form could enlighten her.

At the hour stated nearly all the Seniors presented themselves in the Sixth Form room. Bessie Manners was voted to the chair, and at once began an explanation of why she had called the meeting.

"Girls," she said, "you all know that we're accustomed to have some kind of festivity on 1st June, the day of our school anniversary. Now it happens that this particular occasion is one of more than usual interest. Miss Roscoe has been Principal of Rodenhurst for exactly ten years, and it seems only fitting that due recognition should be made of the circumstance. The question that we have met to discuss is the shape and form in which we can adequately celebrate this event. We feel that the suggestion ought to come from the girls themselves, though we may need aid from the mistresses in carrying it out. I shall be glad if anyone who has a plan to lay before the meeting will propose it."

"I am sure," began Moira Thompson, rising in response to Bessie's nod, "that everybody would like to show Miss Roscoe how we value her as a headmistress. For my part I think there should be a testimonial, subscribed for in the school, and that we might have a public presentation of it."

"Hear! Hear!"

"What kind of a testimonial?" asked one of the girls.

"That remains to be discussed, and would, of course, depend upon how much was collected."

"A silver tea service, or something of that kind?" enquired Natalie Preston, one of the prefects.

"Probably: we shall have to find out what Miss Roscoe would like best."

"And where would the celebrations come in?" asked Iris Watson.

"That also must be talked over. So far, Miss Roscoe has always arranged a treat for the school on anniversary day, but we think this year it ought to be the other way, and the girls arrange a treat for Miss Roscoe and the mistresses. I'm sure they'd appreciate it."

"Each Form might have a collecting book. We ought to raise quite a handsome sum," said Bessie Manners. "Then there could be a garden fête for the presentation."

"Only for the school? Or would parents and friends be allowed to come?" asked one of the Sixth.

"I don't see why they shouldn't. It would make the affair seem of more importance. We could get up an extra fund to provide afternoon tea."

"Or get it catered for, and let people pay for their own."

"Like one does at a bazaar?"

"Exactly."

"The idea is feasible. Anybody any amendments to offer?" said Bessie.

Then a sudden and brilliant suggestion came to Gwen—one of those lucky flashes of inspiration that occasionally, in our happier moments, strike us.

"May I speak?" she cried impulsively, starting up.

"By all means," nodded Chairman Bessie.

"It seems to me," said Gwen, "that if we're going to do this thing at all, it might just as easily be on a large scale as a small one. Miss Roscoe, no doubt, would be very pleased with a silver tea service, but I know something I believe she'd like far better. Don't you remember how frightfully interested she is in the new Convalescent Home? She urged us all to help it if we could. Suppose we could raise enough money to found a cot, and call it the Rodenhurst Cot, wouldn't that be a nice memorial?"

"After Miss Roscoe's own heart!" gasped Bessie.

"Ripping!" agreed most of the girls.

"But what would it cost? Is it possible?" enquired Olga Hunter.

"I believe it is. We have some papers at the Parsonage about the Convalescent Home. I was looking at them only yesterday. Any donor of £100 is to be allowed to name a cot, and nominate the special children who occupy it. Now in this big school we ought to be able to raise £100."

"A large order," said Natalie Preston.

"Not if it's undertaken systematically. As it's for a charitable object we can ask subscriptions from outsiders."

"I see your point," said Bessie. "Yes, we could beg for the Convalescent Home when we couldn't ask for contributions for a personal testimonial to Miss Roscoe. But this would please her far more. A Rodenhurst Cot! She'd love it!"

"If each girl in the school could collect five shillings," continued Gwen, "that would be over seventy-five pounds. Then suppose on anniversary day we had a grand gymkhana, and charged a shilling admission. Surely every girl could persuade two people to come, which would make at least six hundred guests. Six hundred shillings mean thirty pounds, so there you are!"

"We could have tea extra and perhaps sell flowers," added Olga Hunter, as an amendment "I'm willing to second the proposal."

"It certainly sounds feasible on these lines. We might even raise more than the hundred pounds," said Bessie.

"In that case we could add a personal testimonial to Miss Roscoe."

"Hear! Hear!" shouted several.

"Put the motion in due form, Gwen."

"I beg to propose that in order to celebrate the tenth year of Miss Roscoe's headmistress-ship, and the seventeenth anniversary of the school, we should endeavour to collect £100 to found a Rodenhurst cot in the Convalescent Home," proclaimed Gwen.

"And I beg to second that proposal," said Olga Hunter enthusiastically.

"All in favour please signify!" murmured Chairman Bessie.

Such a chorus of "Aye!" came in response that the motion was carried unanimously, and nothing remained but to discuss details.

"We shall have to let the Juniors know about it, and start them collecting," said Natalie Preston.

"We'd better each collect as much as possible in our own district or parish," suggested Gwen. "Lesbia and I, for instance, can undertake Skelwick. I'm sure some of the people there would give towards a cot."

"Then we'll have cards or books to enter the amounts?"

"Of course."

"What about the gymkhana?"

"We must appoint a special committee to arrange a programme and competitions, and ask people if they'll offer prizes."

"I vote we appoint the prefects, then, as a committee."

"Right-o!"

Gwen came away from the meeting with flying colours. She had certainly made a proposition which nobody else had thought of, but which all acknowledged was exactly the most fitting to meet the circumstances. For the first time in her experience she found her remarks receiving the attention not only of her own Form, but even of the Sixth. The prefects, mindful of their dignity, generally held themselves aloof, so it was indeed a triumph for Gwen to be seized upon, after the meeting was over, by Bessie Manners, and consulted upon the general working of the scheme. To walk down the corridor linked arm in arm with the head girl was a distinction that fell to few, and Gwen, though she accepted the honour with apparent unconsciousness, knew perfectly well that it would make an enormous difference to her position in the school. For the moment she was talked about. Her plan for the cot was called "Gwen Gascoyne's scheme", and to her was given the entire credit for originating it. The more the idea was discussed, the more everybody liked it. The mistresses sympathized heartily, and the Juniors promised earnest co-operation. Gwen, for once, was appreciated to her heart's content. It was wonderful how gracious the prefects were towards her, and how the members of her own Form suddenly treated her with respect. After so long a period of unpopularity it was very sweet to find general opinion had thus veered round, and Gwen enjoyed her new character of organizer to the full. She threw herself heart and soul into the working of her scheme, and thanks partly to her parish experience at Skelwick, and partly to a practical element in her composition, she was able to give really good and helpful advice, both as to the collecting of the fund, and the arranging of the gymkhana. There was very little time before the day of the anniversary, so those in authority were obliged to push matters as fast as they could. Each girl in the school begged in her own circle most assiduously, and from the reports that began to be circulated the result seemed most encouraging.

"I believe we're going to get the £100 just by collecting, and that the gymkhana will be extra," said Bessie Manners exultingly. "By the by, Miss Roscoe wishes it to be known that she would much prefer not to be offered a private testimonial, but that everything should go towards the cot."

"Oh, we wanted to give her some remembrance, though," cried several of the girls, rather disappointed.

"I'd set my heart on her having a silver teapot at least," said Iris Watson.

"It's just like Miss Roscoe not to want anything personal," said Gwen. "I must say I admire her for it. She always reminds me of an ancient Roman—the State first and foremost in her estimation, and herself nowhere."

"Yes, she'd sacrifice a good deal for the sake of the school," agreed Bessie Manners.

It was decided to turn the anniversary into a kind of floral fête, to be held in the large cricket field. There were to be morris dances, a maypole dance, a procession of decorated bicycles, and numerous athletic competitions. Tea, coffee, and lemonade would be served at tables on the ground, and flowers and sweets could be carried round in baskets and sold during the afternoon. It was wonderful when once the ball had been set rolling how quickly offers of help flowed in. The girls' parents and friends approved of the idea of a "Rodenhurst" cot for the Convalescent Home, and were most kind in their contributions. Enough cakes were promised to provide amply for afternoon tea. Bessie Manners's mother undertook to send a supply of ices, and a generous store of sweets and flowers seemed forthcoming. To have such an excellent mutual object to work for seemed to unite all the members of the school, and especially to break down the barrier between Seniors and Juniors which had hitherto existed. While before it had hardly been considered etiquette for the Sixth and Fifth to talk to those in the Lower Forms, they might now be seen conferring on quite pleasant terms about the gymkhana, comparing notes on subscriptions, and making arrangements for flower selling and sweet vending.

Considering the large amount of home preparation that was expected from her in view of the forthcoming examinations, Gwen found she had set herself a task in undertaking any more work, but by arranging her time very carefully, she managed to perform one set of duties without neglecting another. She and Lesbia collected fifteen and ninepence for the cot among their friends in Skelwick, and wrote down the various items with much satisfaction in a notebook supplied for the purpose. The Gascoynes did not possess bicycles, so could not join the cycle parade, but Lesbia was to sing in one of the glees, and Gwen meant to enter for certain of the athletic sports. Her long arms and legs would, she hoped, stand her in good stead in a contest of running or jumping, and even if she did not win a prize, it was worth competing for the mere fun of the thing. Giles and Basil were scarcely less excited, for the Boys' Preparatory Department was to have its share in the celebrations, and they looked forward to showing their prowess in public. They spent much of their spare time in training for various Olympic games, an occupation of which Beatrice heartily approved.

"It keeps them out of mischief for the whole evening," she declared. "I bless the gymkhana."

"It's wonderful how it's drawn everyone together at school," observed Gwen. "Even Miss Roscoe isn't nearly as starchy as usual, and Miss Trent was quite jolly when we were talking over the programme. As for Upper and Lower School, we just ignore any distinction between the two when it's a question of the fête."

"I'm glad to hear it," said Beatrice, "I always thought the Seniors at Rodenhurst were much too stand-off. It will do them a world of good to forget their dignity for once, and mix freely with the rest of the school."

"Yes, it's quite a comfort to be able to talk to Lesbia in the gym. now," agreed Gwen.

"Do you mean to say you couldn't before?" exclaimed Beatrice. "Things weren't so bad as that when I was there."

"Etiquette's been getting stricter and stricter since you left. The prefects of about two years ago started the notion that Seniors must keep to themselves, and not have anything to do with Juniors, and you know when an idea like that gets broached how everybody takes it up and sticks to it. It's impossible to defy a rule of that kind just 'on one's own'."

"I know; rules the girls make for themselves are generally better kept than those made at headquarters. I agree that you couldn't break through the etiquette of your Form. Still, I'm glad the barrier is down at last, and hope it will never be raised again."

"I shan't be the one to plant a stake in the fence of division!" laughed Gwen.

Practising for the various items of the fête proceeded briskly at Rodenhurst. The younger girls, during the winter course of dancing lessons, had learned to plait the maypole, and to execute some lively morris dances. Though Miss Robins, their teacher, was not in Stedburgh during the summer, they remembered their steps quite well enough to enable them to give a performance, with the aid of a little supervision from some of their elders. Various members of the Seniors, who understood morris dancing, undertook to superintend rehearsals, and drill the small girls in any details they had forgotten. It was thought that this portion of the entertainment would form a great attraction of the fête, and give it somewhat the character of a May Day celebration. The Juniors who were fortunate enough to be taking part were immensely important, and keenly anxious to make their contribution to the programme a complete success. They turned up loyally for rehearsals, and were unwearied in practising any difficult bits where there was a likelihood of a hitch occurring.

One afternoon, about two o'clock, Gwen, with her Virgil in her hand, sauntered down the Rodenhurst garden into the playing field which lay at the back of the school. She was anxious to seize the half-hour for preparation, as she knew she would have scant time in the evening for all she was obliged to finish, and she hoped to find a quiet corner in the open air, where she might study in peace. As she walked along, seeking a shady spot, she was attracted by the sound of angry voices, and peeping over the hedge that divided the small playing field from the larger hockey and cricket field, she saw a selection of Second Form girls collected for a rehearsal. Netta Goodwin was the Senior in command, and with Netta these Juniors were evidently having an excited altercation.

"But Moira Thompson didn't do that!" shrieked an indignant voice.

"Do as I tell you!" ordered Netta tartly. "You lot go over there, and begin your dance, and Ida Bridge and Peggie Weston stop here and hold this rope."

"But I'm the leader!" wailed Ida. "They can't get on without me!"

"They'll have to, for once."

"But it's not fair! You've come to help us to practise—not for us to help you!"

"That's as I like to arrange it!"

"Oh, you are a beast!"

"Apologize for that word, or I'll spiflicate you! Where are your manners?"

"If you're not fair, we shan't mind manners, so there!"

"Ida Bridge, do you intend to hold this rope?"

"Shan't! I'd rather tell Miss Trent first."

"You miserable little sneak!"

"I'm not a sneak! It's your fault! Why can't you take our rehearsal properly, like the others did? We're wasting time."

"So we are! Get to business, you kids over there. Why don't you begin your precious dance?"

"We can't without Ida and Peggie—specially Ida!" fumed the performers.

"Well, I've told you I want them myself, and you'll just have to manage as best you can. Now then, off you go—one—two—three! Bother the lot of you! What are you waiting for?"

"For Ida Bridge."

"You won't get her!"

"Then the rehearsal's off!"

"No, it's not off, you lazy little wretches! You can manage all right if you like; I know perfectly well you can! It's just a piece of obstinacy. Pig policy doesn't pay with me, I assure you! I've been put in authority for this afternoon, and I mean to have my own way, so I give you warning. Start that dance instantly, and Ida and Peggie hold this rope."

Instead of obeying, the Juniors crowded round Netta uttering protests and reproaches in a perfect chorus of mutiny. Gwen, who could not quite grasp the cause of the quarrel, made her way through a gap in the hedge and entered the large field.

"What's all the shindy about?" she enquired. "You're like a set of wild Irishmen at a fair. I thought you were supposed to be rehearsing?"

"How can we rehearse by ourselves?"

"And without our leader?"

"Netta won't conduct!"

"She told us to go and dance by ourselves, while she practised her own jumping."

"And she wanted to make Ida and Peggie hold the rope for her."

"How can we do our morris dance without Ida and Peggie? It spoils the figures."

"Netta!" gasped Gwen. "Did you actually mean to practise jumping instead of taking this rehearsal?"

Netta shrugged her shoulders easily.

"The kids know their steps so well, they can do the thing perfectly," she replied. "What was the good of wasting my time drilling them? I thought I'd make them of some use, and let them hold a rope for me. They're an ungrateful little set of sneaks—won't do a thing for their seniors!"

"Why, I should think not, in this case, when you'd been specially told off by the Committee to superintend their dance. I sympathize with the kids. They've right on their side. It's you who are the sneak."

"Oh! Am I indeed, Miss Gwen Gascoyne? Thank you for nothing. It's a pretty name to have called me, and I shan't forget it."

"But it's true!" returned Gwen with warmth. "It's simply abominable behaviour to pretend to act dancing mistress and use the time for your own purposes. Why should these kids hold a rope for you?"

"And why should you take me to task, I'd like to know? You're not a prefect."

"I only wish I were."

"No doubt you do!" sneered Netta. "You've been so stuck up since your Cot scheme was adopted, that you seem to imagine yourself as good as the head of the school."

"Gwen, you take our rehearsal instead—we've wasted ten minutes or more over wrangling!" pleaded one of the Juniors.

"I will, if Netta will let me."

"Oh, I yield my place with pleasure to the all-important, all-necessary Gwen Gascoyne!" retorted Netta. "We humbler members of the Fifth don't get a look-in nowadays. But just let me give you one word of good advice, my lofty Pharaoh—pride occasionally comes before a fall!"

XIX. A School Gymkhana

Thanks to the vigorous efforts of the Committee and of the various organizers of the entertainment programme, everything was in good training by the first of June, and anniversary day seemed likely to prove a huge success. It was decided that the gymkhana should begin at three o'clock, and be held in the large cricket field, admission being either by ticket or gate money. There was a little discussion about the arrangements in that respect, some members considering the printing of the tickets an unnecessary expense, and others their sale beforehand an essential feature.

"It's far better to sell them in advance," urged Bessie Manners, "because people will often buy them, even if they're not certain of going. If it were a showery afternoon many might stay away—then if they hadn't taken tickets it would be so much loss to the funds."

"We'll accept money at the gate, though?" queried Olga Hunter.

"Yes, we must have a gatekeeper, and provide her with shilling and sixpenny checks. I think children ought to be half-price. So many of us have little brothers and sisters who would like to come, and a shilling seems too much to pay for a child."

"Right you are! Who'll be gatekeeper?"

"Oh, some sturdy Fifth Form girl. I propose Gwen Gascoyne."

"Yes, Gwen would do splendidly. She deserves some post of honour for evolving the scheme. Besides, she's got a head on her shoulders. She'd keep the gate like Horatio kept the bridge."

"One could trust Gwen, I know. Now Rachel Hunter or Edith Arnold would make mistakes in the change, and lose their presence of mind, and perhaps let half a dozen people push in free while they were reckoning up the sixpences."

"Gwen it shall be, then. I'll ask her to-day if she'll undertake it."

Gwen was only too proud to be invited to assume such a responsible position. She felt much flattered that it should have been offered to her instead of to Elspeth Frazer, Hilda Browne, Iris Watson, or other of the older members of the Form.

"I'm the youngest of all, and yet I'm to be trusted the most!" she said to herself with a sigh of gratification. "Gwen Gascoyne, I congratulate you! You're coming on!"

There was great excitement at Skelwick Parsonage on the day of the fête. Beatrice had made several boxes of sweets to be sold on the ground, and Winnie picked the very choicest flowers in the garden for the same object. Mr. Gascoyne, Beatrice, and Martin were to come to the gymkhana, and had promised to clap their loudest at Giles' and Basil's performances in the sports. Those two heroes kept examining the muscular development of their young arms like a pair of practised Roman gladiators, and ate quite a double allowance of breakfast on the strength of the trials that were in store for them. They were so eager to start for school, that for once Beatrice had no need to urge them to hurry, and they departed in excellent spirits, vaulting, for practice, over the orchard hurdles instead of going out through the front gate.

Morning school was held as usual at Rodenhurst, but ceased at twelve, so as to give time for preliminary arrangements to be completed. The classrooms were to be used as dressing-rooms for some of the performers, and the gymnasium was turned into a repository for the parcels of sweets, cakes, and flowers which kept arriving from the generous friends who had promised such gifts. To unpack these and apportion them to different tea tables or vendors' baskets was a task which needed all the energies of the members of the Committee, who were kept so busy at the work that they had scarcely more than ten minutes to spare for dinner. As a rule, unpunctuality at this meal was visited with direst penalties, but to-day Miss Roscoe only smiled as the prefects rushed in very late, hastily bolted their meat course, and fled minus the pudding. Their zeal and virtuous example had the desired effect. Everybody upon whom any responsibility devolved made an extra effort, so that by half-past two everything was in perfect order and readiness.

"Thank our lucky, lucky stars it's a decent day!" said Gwen, gazing up at a sky which, if not blue all over, held only clouds of an apparently harmless character. "I don't believe it intends to rain at all, and I expect everybody will come, and the audience be 'large and appreciative', as the newspapers say. If I don't clear a good sum of gate money, I shall be amazed."

"Are you ready, Gwen, to act Horatio?" said Bessie Manners, bustling up in a hurry. "You understand the business, don't you? Those with tickets you of course let in free. Everybody else must pay a shilling, or children under ten sixpence. Here are two rolls of checks, sixpenny and shilling ones. You must hand checks to all comers for the amount they have paid you, and they will present the checks at the entrance to the big field. You will stand at the gate that leads from the garden to the smaller field."

"I understand all right!" laughed Gwen. "I've brought a satchel to hold the money, and I'll undertake not a soul gets in without paying. It will have to be 'over my body' if they do!"

"Moira will be at the second gate, and she won't allow anyone through without handing her a ticket or a check, so I think we shan't lose anything there," replied Bessie, turning away satisfied.

Gwen took up her station at once, for visitors were already beginning to arrive at the school, and she was soon fully occupied in receiving coins and tearing off checks. She rather enjoyed being at the receipt of custom, and was particularly gratified at the amount that went into her satchel. The fine afternoon had tempted people to come to the gymkhana, old Rodenhurst girls and their friends had turned up, as well as parents and relations of present pupils, so the gathering was quite considerable. The many pretty summer dresses and bright parasols gave a most festive appearance to the ground, even before the performers arrived on the scenes. Various girls, furnished with tasteful baskets, had been chosen to sell sweets and floral buttonholes, and soon began to find customers for their wares, while the lemonade and ice-cream stalls were already doing a roaring trade.

Lesbia had been selected as a flower vendor, and looked absolutely charming in a white China-silk dress and Tuscan hat trimmed with daisies, which, by her usual good luck, she had received from Aunt Violet only the week before. Pretty Lesbia, with her pink cheeks and her lovely flaxen hair, really made quite a picture as she carried round her basket, and many people bought flowers from her, just because they could not resist the entreaty in her blue eyes, and the soft little voice that pleaded the cause of the Rodenhurst Cot.

"She's just twice as good at selling as I should have been," thought Gwen, watching her sister rather wistfully. "There's a fascination about Lesbia which I don't possess in the very least. She must be making a little fortune with those posies. Well, never mind. I'm keeping the gate. That's more important still. To business. Here's someone else coming. Hello! Why, Dick! This is awfully good of you!"

It was Dick Chambers who presented himself and paid his shilling. "I hardly knew whether I dared come," he grinned, "after the row I got you into that afternoon when you fished out of the window for sweets. Will any of the teachers seize upon me and turn me out as a pernicious character? I shall demand the return of my money if they do!"

"They're too busy," laughed Gwen, "and besides, I don't think anyone would recognize you. Miss Trent didn't see you, you know; she only caught me leaning out of the window."

"Then you think I may venture without fear of consequences? I feel rather like Romeo going into the Capulet mansion. Can you give me a watchword to use if I get into difficulties?"

"The Rodenhurst Cot and Coin of the Realm are our two watchwords this afternoon. Stick to those and you can't go wrong, even if you beard Miss Roscoe herself. She is over there if you'd like to shake hands with her."

"No, thanks! I've no wish to risk such an ordeal. In fact I'll give her as wide a berth as possible. Should you be allowed to negotiate an ice if I brought you one?"

"Not while I'm on duty. Look here: 'You are requested not to speak to the Woman at the wheel'. Here's a fresh batch of people arriving."

"Mayn't I tear off the checks?"

"Certainly not. Go along and buy some of Lesbia's flowers, if she has any left by now. If you don't scoot quick, I'll report you for impeding me in the performance of my work. Then they'd turn you out, with a vengeance."

"I'll be good," chuckled Dick, as he moved on to find Lesbia, and invest in her wares.

The cycle parade was about to begin, and those who meant to take part in it were wheeling their machines through a private door which led from the stable yard into the field. Not only had the competitors decorated their bicycles, but they themselves had donned fancy costumes, many of which were of quite an elaborate description. There was a Dutch maiden with white sleeves, velvet bodice, starched cap and wooden sabots, a sweet little Miss Jap-Jap-Jappy in gay kimono, a flower tucked into her dark hair, an Indian squaw with bead-embroidered garments and fringed leggings, several pierrettes, a Red Riding Hood, a Goody Two Shoes, and other characters of nursery fame or fairy-tale lore. But the best of all, so everyone agreed, was Rachel Hunter, who came arrayed as a cat. Her costume, cut on the pattern of a child's sleeping suit, was most cleverly contrived out of brown plushette, painted in bold bars to represent the stripes of a tabby. She wore a cat's mask on her head, and made such an excellent representation of a gigantic specimen of the feline race that the effect was quite appalling. The younger children squealed when she appeared on the field, especially as, to keep up her character, she made an occasional claw at one of them as she passed, or gave vent to a tremendous "Miau!" or "Fuff!" She had decorated her bicycle with chocolate mice, and halted now and then to eat one with great apparent gusto, hugely to the delight of the juvenile portion of the audience, who clapped her again and again. But the real triumph of her costume was her tail, a splendid appendage fully a yard in length. By a most ingenious contrivance of a strong wire spring, worked with a piece of elastic, she was able to curl and uncurl it, or to lash it to and fro in the most diverting fashion. Altogether Puss was a huge attraction, she acted her part capitally, and when on reaching the judge's stand she purred loudly, and pretended to wash her face with her tawny paw, the general cheering easily secured for her the first prize.

The second prize was won by a classmate of Basil's from the Boys' Preparatory Department, who came attired as a golliwog, with blackened face, fuzzy hair, and a selection of Dutch jointed dolls slung from his bicycle. His laurels were closely contested by a dainty Miss Butterfly and a picturesque Cavalier, but on the whole the funny costumes seemed to find greater favour with the majority.

Everybody voted the cycle parade an entire success, and the audience looked quite regretful as the long line of troubadours, Dolly Vardens, brigands, fairies snow queens, Italian peasants, Kate Greenaway rustics, and other interesting characters took their departure through the gate. But there were further items on the programme, and all eyes turned eagerly to the band of quaintly dressed little maidens who now ran out joyously hand in hand to perform the ancient ceremony of plaiting the Maypole. The children had been well drilled, and had practised assiduously, so each took her ribbon with confidence, and started off at the sound of the music, to tread the intricate steps required for the due twisting and combination of the colours. The affair went without a hitch, the maypole was plaited and unplaited, and the effect was so pretty that the audience encored the performance. Feeling that they had covered themselves with glory, the May-maidens retired to make room for the morris dancers, who were waiting anxiously to have their turn. The oldfashioned costumes, with their decorations of flowers, ribbons, and bells looked well with the green field for a setting, and when the band struck up, and the dancers began their lively yet graceful motions, everyone felt transported back to mediaeval days, when the world was young and joyous, and our country merited its title of "Merrie England". The Second Form girls, to whom had been assigned this portion of the programme, contrived admirably to convey the original spirit of the dance; their steps seemed so fresh and spontaneous and gay, their actions so prompt and appropriate, and all went in such excellent time to the music that the approving spectators accorded them an encore, much to their satisfaction, for they were anxious not to be beaten by their rivals the maypole plaiters.

After the dancing was finished there was an interval for refreshments before the sports began. Tea and coffee were served on tables which had been carried out from the school, the ices were much in demand, and lemonade and ginger beer bottles maintained a brisk series of pops. Gwen, whose duties had kept her by the entrance gate, had only been able to view the festivities from a distance, and she could not yet desert her post as late comers were still arriving.

"I've brought you a cup of tea, Gwen, if you can manage to drink it, and a slice of cake. It's rather hard you have to act sentry all the afternoon," said Iris Watson.

"I don't mind. It's prime fun taking the tolls. I feel like an ancient turnpike man. Thanks immensely for the tea! I'm more thirsty than hungry, but I shan't despise the cake. Isn't it a piece of the one your mother sent?"

"Sweets, sixpence a box! Peppermint creams! Chocolate caramels! Almond toffee! All home made! The best value for the money in all Stedburgh! Perfectly delicious! Buy a box and taste them!" called a well-known voice, and Lesbia marched up, smiling at her own eloquence.

"Why, you young Cheap Jack, I thought you were selling flowers!" exclaimed Gwen.

"So I was, but I completely cleared out my stock, and Miss Trent set me up in the confectionery line instead. I'm doing equally well, or even better. By the by, can you give me change for a two-shilling piece? Miss Douglas has just bought sixpenny-worth, and she has nothing but a florin. I've this moment handed my money to Miss Trent to take care of. I've no pocket in this dress, and I gave my bag to Miss Barton with the proceeds of the flowers in it. Here's the florin—I want a shilling and two sixpences for it, or else four sixpences."

"Right-o!" said Gwen, opening her satchel. "Oh, bother! Here are some more people arriving! You'll have to wait!"

"Do give it me, quick! Miss Douglas is in a hurry," pleaded Lesbia.

"Then take it out of my satchel yourself. Be sure you put in the florin."

Lesbia hastily complied and ran off, for Miss Douglas was beckoning to her impatiently, and teachers may not lightly be kept waiting.

"Have you managed to get change? That's right—give me three sixpences," said Miss Douglas, hurriedly putting the money in her purse. "I have to rush indoors now and help to dress the 'Elizabethan' girls for the final madrigal. The whole affair's going very well. We may all congratulate ourselves on what we're making."

"Hurrah for the Cot!" sang Lesbia, tripping away with a step that was meant to be in imitation of the morris dancers.

The athletic sports, open to all comers, were naturally a great feature of the afternoon. The prizes had been given by various friends who had responded so generously to the appeal made to them that the Committee had been able to place a large number of competitions upon the programme. The proceedings led off with a boys' flat race, in which Giles and Basil took part with great credit, though neither was fortunate enough to outstrip the winner, a fleet-footed little brother of Charlotte Perry. The obstacle races were voted immense fun, the humorous feature being the performance of such feminine tasks as needle threading or button stitching by the boys, and rapid bean sorting by the girls. Giles and Basil were successful in a three-legged race, and Martin, to his huge delight, won the sack race for visitors under seven. He bore away his prize—an indiarubber ball—with great pride to show to Beatrice. Long jumping and high jumping proved equally popular both with boys and girls, some of the records being excellent. Linda Browne a younger sister of Hilda Browne, particularly distinguished herself in this respect, and won laurels for the Lower Third. Vaulting over hurdles of varying heights made a graceful competition, and one in which Elspeth Frazer came off a victor. She was an athletic girl, and possessed a wonderful power of spring that caused her to clear the bars like a bird.

"Our Form hasn't done badly," said Iris Watson, running to Gwen to tell her of Elspeth's triumph. "Must you stick at this gate all the time? Can't you leave it and compete for the dart-throwing contest? It's always ripping. Surely nobody else will come now?"

"Don't suppose they will, and I'd love to try the darts. But what am I to do with this satchel? It contains solid wealth."

"I'd give it to Miss Roscoe if I were you and ask her to take charge of it. Can you lock it?"

"Yes, I have the key in my pocket. I'll put the unused checks inside with the cash. There! That's safely locked up. The bag is quite heavy! The gate has made a splendid contribution towards the cot I feel so jubilant I want to 'cock-a-doodle'!"

Miss Roscoe readily took charge of the precious satchel, leaving Gwen free to enter for any of the remainder of the sports in which she might care to try her skill. The dart-throwing contest was just about to take place, so she promptly joined the ranks of the competitors. Each in turn had to throw six darts at a target, the one obtaining the highest score securing the prize. It was a task that needed a true eye and a firm hand, and proved far more difficult than most of the girls anticipated. Some of them failed altogether to hit the target, and others only achieved a chance dart in the outside rings. One or two of the Sixth Form did fairly well, but did not secure a bull's-eye.

"They've fixed the distance too far. It's impossible to shy properly when one's such a long way off," declared Charlotte Perry, retiring disconsolately after a series of bad shots. "It's your turn now, Gwen. I wish you better luck than I've had."

Gwen took her six darts and advanced to the white circle which was marked on the grass as the throwing place. It was a game which she had played frequently at the Parsonage, where she had often matched her skill against that of her father and Beatrice. She had a strong arm and a very true aim, two great essentials for success, and though the number of paces was certainly greater than that to which she was accustomed at home the increased distance did not seem an insuperable difficulty.

"I must throw a little higher and harder, that's all," she said to herself. "Fortunately there's no wind blowing to speak of."

Gwen's first shot went wide, but her second lodged in the outer ring of the target. Profiting by the experience she regulated her aim, and sent her third dart into the second ring. Her fourth and fifth were nearer the centre still and the spectators began to cheer. Only one dart remained; it was the best feathered of the six, and she had purposely kept it until the last. She poised it carefully, calculated for the slight breeze, then with a neat turn of her wrist hurled it as swiftly as possible at the target. It whistled rapidly through the air and lodged full in the bull's-eye. A storm of clapping greeted her achievement. She was the last on the list of competitors, so she had gained a full and complete victory over her rivals in the contest. She beamed with satisfaction as she went up to receive her prize—a pretty little silver brooch.

She had no further good fortune, though she tried her luck in the potato race and the ball-catching competition, which concluded the sports. It was now after five o'clock, and a procession of girls in Elizabethan costume came on to the field to sing the final madrigal which was to wind up the fête. As the last strains died away and the band began "God Save the King", everybody joined in the National Anthem and gave three hearty cheers for the Rodenhurst Cot.

"It has been a splendid afternoon," said Miss Roscoe, as the crowd began to disperse and the sweet vendors and flower sellers came to hand over their gains. "I'm sure we shall have realized quite a large sum. It's too late to count our proceeds this afternoon. You must all go home now, but if you have each labelled your own bag I will lock them up in my safe until to-morrow. I think we may congratulate ourselves on the success of our anniversary. It has more than answered our expectations."

Gwen went home in high glee. She had enjoyed her part of the celebrations thoroughly, and the consciousness that she had originated the cot scheme gave an added degree of pleasure to the general sense of prosperous termination of the affair. As she walked with Lesbia round the orchard that evening she indulged in a little self-congratulation.

"It is nice to have engineered all this!" she admitted. "Miss Roscoe's pleased about it, I'm sure. She was so gracious to me when I took her my satchel. She actually called me 'dear'!—a thing she's never done in her life before. It's been a ripping day. School will seem quite flat again after it. I wish there were another fête to look forward to!"

"There's the tennis tournament," suggested Lesbia.

"Yes; but I shan't have much chance for that with my wretched old racket!" sighed Gwen.

"Suppose I'd a new one, and could lend it to you?" said Lesbia quickly. "A lovely half-guinea one!"

"You don't possess half a guinea to buy one, my child!"

"But I do! I've got the money, and I'm going to get the racket I shall go to Graham's to-morrow for it."

"I thought your savings box was empty again? How in the name of wonder did you come by ten and sixpence?"

"Never you mind—I've got it, and that's the main point," replied Lesbia, turning very pink.

"But how?"

"I shan't tell you! Leave me alone, Gwen! You've no right to pry into my affairs. I never bother about yours. Let go my arm!" and Lesbia, blushing even more furiously, wrenched herself free and fled towards the house.

Lesbia seldom had secrets, so her conduct was the more astonishing. Gwen gazed after her in great surprise, half inclined to follow her and press the point; but remembering that her Latin for the next day was still unprepared, she fetched her books instead, and buried the remembrance of her sister's strange behaviour in Virgil and a dictionary.

XX. A Day of Reckoning

Gwen went to school next morning in the jauntiest of spirits. She was satisfied with the part she had played both in organizing the fête and in helping to make it a success, and she fully expected approval from headquarters.

"This will set me all right with Miss Roscoe now," she thought. "She'll quite forgive me that business about Dick and the sweets on the strength of a 'Rodenhurst Cot'. I think I've scored considerably."

When at eleven o'clock, therefore, Gwen received a summons from the Principal, she was not at all dismayed, and presented herself in the study with a smiling face. To her surprise, however, she was hardly welcomed with the enthusiasm she expected. Miss Roscoe looked grave and annoyed, and greeted her more as if she were a culprit than a praiseworthy collector of money.

"Sit down, Gwen," she said coldly, motioning her pupil to a chair near her desk. "You can unlock your satchel and go over your accounts with me; then there is another matter that I wish to talk to you about afterwards."

Feeling decidedly chilled, Gwen produced her key. Miss Roscoe emptied the contents of the bag on to a tray, and proceeded to count the various coins. She reckoned them twice over, frowned, consulted a paper, then turned to Gwen.

"See how much you make it!" she said abruptly.

Gwen carefully went over the piles of half-crowns, florins, shillings, and sixpences, and added them together.

"I get thirteen pounds seven and six," was her conclusion.

"So do I, so we must both be correct," returned Miss Roscoe. "Now the checks that Moira Thompson received at the second gate register thirteen pounds seventeen shillings. How is it you are nine and sixpence short?"

"Am I that much short?" cried Gwen. "It can't possibly be!"

"Look for yourself," said Miss Roscoe. "The checks are all numbered. There are two hundred and fifty-one shilling admissions and fifty-two sixpenny ones. Examine the numbers on the rolls of checks left in your satchel; you will see they begin at Nos. 252 and 53. That means that you certainly issued 251 checks at a shilling and 52 at sixpence. The right amount ought to have been in your bag."

"Is there nothing left stuck in the corners?" asked Gwen, utterly dumbfounded at the defalcation.

"Nothing whatever. Look and satisfy yourself."

Gwen seized the satchel, and almost turned it inside out in her eagerness, but there was no remaining coin to be found.

"Did you give any people checks without receiving the money in return?" enquired Miss Roscoe.

"No, certainly not. I was most particular. I didn't let anybody in without paying. If they had no tickets I sold them checks. I don't see how I can be all that amount wrong."

"Unfortunately both our reckonings show the same deficit. What I want to know, Gwen, is what has become of this missing nine and sixpence?"

"I can't imagine."

"But it is your duty to account for it. You alone are responsible; and it is my duty to enquire where it has gone."

"Miss Roscoe! You surely don't think I've pocketed it?" broke out Gwen, the drift of the Principal's remarks suddenly dawning upon her.

"I say nothing except that it is a very strange circumstance that you cannot produce it. Was the satchel in your own possession the whole of the afternoon?"

"Yes—at least—yes, it was!" stammered Gwen, looking very red and confused. The remembrance had just struck her that she had allowed Lesbia to take some change from her bag, and at the same instant Lesbia's extraordinary behaviour of the evening before flashed across her mind. Could there possibly be any connection between the two incidents? The idea was so horrible that she blushed at entertaining it even for a moment.

Miss Roscoe glanced at her keenly.

"Do you assume the full responsibility for this?" she asked in a strained voice.

"Absolutely. Nobody except myself had anything to do with the gate money."

The Principal's face, which had been grave before, took a yet sterner expression.

"I am sorry, Gwen. Very sorry and most concerned. I thought I could have trusted you entirely. It pains me beyond measure to find you have betrayed my confidence."

"But I didn't take that nine and six! I didn't, indeed! I don't know where it has gone; but I haven't got it! How can you accuse me of such a dreadful thing?" blurted out Gwen indignantly.

"You can't deny the deficit," returned Miss Roscoe icily. "There is the evidence of the checks and the cash to prove it. As you are not able to account for it, I can only draw my own conclusions. As it happens, I was this very morning made aware of the reason which must have prompted your most dishonourable act."

"What do you mean?" cried Gwen with a choke in her voice.

For answer Miss Roscoe handed her a folded piece of paper. She opened it nervously. It was a bill from Messrs. Parker & Sons, Glass and China Merchants, to Miss Gwen Gascoyne, for ten shillings "to account rendered", and written at the bottom were the words: "Your immediate settlement will oblige". It seemed such a bolt from the blue that Gwen turned all colours, and her hand trembled till she nearly dropped the paper.

"Ah, you may well look conscious, Gwen! I have just learnt the full history of this most deceitful business. I have had a letter from Mrs. Goodwin, telling me that her daughter had confessed her share of it, and as another bill for the broken china had arrived for you, directed under cover to Netta, she considered it best to forward it on to me, with an account of what had occurred, as it was only right that I should know about it. She is most pained that her daughter should have been even slightly implicated in such an affair, and Netta herself seems truly to regret countenancing the deception and screening you. I had a talk with her before school this morning. I cannot exonerate her, but she is at least sorry for her conduct. With this knowledge of your debt, Gwen, and your reasons for concealing it, of course I realize plainly enough why you have been foolish and wicked enough to take some of the gate money. No doubt you yielded to a desperate temptation; you had much better make a clean breast of it."

Gwen was trembling so greatly that she could hardly utter a reply. Several times her white lips framed the words before she gasped out:

"I did break the china, and I owe the ten shillings for it, but I never took a penny from the satchel. I may be naughty, but I'm no thief!"

Miss Roscoe shook her head sadly.

"What's the use of persisting in denying a fact that's absolutely palpable?"

"But I didn't! Oh, I didn't!"

"It's little use arguing the matter at present, Gwen, if you take up this stubborn attitude. If you think things over, you will see it is much better to confess. I have probably startled you by springing the news upon you that I was aware of your substitution of my china tea service. When you are calmer you will be more ready to acknowledge what you have done. Go to the little music room at the head of the stairs—it is not in use this morning—and stay there until I come or send for you. Reflect seriously upon what I have said, and make up your mind to be brave enough to tell me everything."

With feet like lead, and a head that throbbed and burned, Gwen walked upstairs. The little music room was unoccupied. It only contained a piano, a stool, and a chair, and on the last-named piece of furniture she sank down wearily. Her thoughts flew so rapidly through her brain that she could scarcely regulate them. She felt as if a net had been spread for her, and had entangled her unawares. First and foremost was the sense that Netta had betrayed her. Netta, who had promised at all costs to keep her secret, had basely revealed it. She saw how cleverly her old chum had managed to whitewash herself by making a confession and feigning penitence, and how much darker this act caused Gwen's own share in the matter to appear by comparison. Naturally Miss Roscoe viewed Netta as the one with the tender conscience, and Gwen as the unrepentant sinner.

"Why didn't I tell her myself that day I meant to, and got as far as the study?" wailed the unfortunate culprit. "Then I should have been spared all this!"

Why, indeed? How many of us mourn over our past follies and cowardices, bitterly regretting the wasted moment or the lost opportunity? Gwen's fault was indeed being visited heavily upon her shoulders. She had sown the wind and reaped the whirlwind. She felt keen resentment against Netta. It was a dastardly trick to have played upon her. Netta might at least have warned her that the bill was to be sent on to Miss Roscoe—then she could have been prepared for the worst. It was surely mere spite on the part of her friend, who, having quarrelled with her, was anxious to find some means of annoying her. Netta had been jealous of her new-found appreciation in the Form, and had taken this opportunity of trying to humble her. The deficit in the gate fund filled Gwen with surprise. There seemed only one way of accounting for it, and that was so painful that she shrank from facing it. Lesbia had taken change out of the satchel, and that same evening Lesbia had acknowledged the possession of ten shillings, but had refused to reveal how she came by the money.

Gwen groaned as she remembered her sister's conscious looks and evasive replies. Could it actually be possible that Lesbia had abstracted this money? She was rather silly, flighty, and irresponsible, but she had always been truthful and honourable. No, it was surely absolutely foreign to her character! Then where had she obtained half a guinea to buy a new tennis racket? And what was the reason of her extreme embarrassment? Gwen abandoned the question in despair.

"If she really did take it, I must shield her at any cost," she decided. "She'd get into such frightful trouble, and scolding Lesbia is like breaking a butterfly. I can bear things better than she can. But—oh, dear! What am I to say to Dad if he asks me? I can stand Miss Roscoe's wrath, but I can't face making Dad look sorry."

The Principal left Gwen until one o'clock to reflect upon her sins, then summoned her again to the study, and urged her in strong terms to confess.

"I will forgive you if you only acknowledge it, but if you persist in denying it, I shall have to go more deeply into the matter," she said sternly. "I cannot allow such things to happen at Rodenhurst. It is a very grave fault, Gwen. Do you wish me to send for your father?"

"No, no!" cried Gwen hastily.

"Then will you confess?"

"I can't! I didn't do it! Oh, I don't understand!" responded Gwen, torn in two between the desire to defend herself and the fear of involving Lesbia. She did not dare to tell Miss Roscoe that her sister had taken change from the satchel, yet by that circumstance only could she account for the loss.

"Miss Douglas is as distressed as I am," continued the Principal. "I was obliged to tell her, in order to explain your absence from your classes. Here she comes now. Perhaps she will be able to persuade you better than I."

"Oh, Miss Roscoe," exclaimed Miss Douglas, entering the study with a hurried step and a heightened colour, "I have just made the most astounding discovery! I happened to look in my purse, and to my amazement and consternation I found half a sovereign which certainly ought not to be there. I am sure I know how I came by it. Yesterday, just before I went into the house to dress the girls who were to sing the Elizabethan madrigal, I bought a box of sweets from Lesbia Gascoyne. I gave her a two-shilling piece, and as she had no sixpences, she ran to Gwen to ask change for my florin. She came hurrying back, and handed me, as we both imagined, three sixpences. I put them in my purse without looking at them. Now I am quite sure that one of these supposed sixpences must in reality have been half a sovereign, given by mistake. I undoubtedly had no ten-shilling piece in my purse. The difference of giving half a sovereign in lieu of sixpence would be exactly the nine-and-six that was missing from Gwen's satchel. Let us exchange the two coins, and the deficit will be made up."

It was such a natural, simple, and self-evident explanation of the situation that its truth could not be doubted. Miss Roscoe heaved a sigh of intense relief.

"I am grateful to you beyond words, Miss Douglas," she returned. "Gwen, I am most delighted that your honour is cleared, and regret I harboured so unjust a suspicion against you. I confess it was the affair of the broken china that prejudiced me in your disfavour. It supplied so strong a motive. Why didn't you come and tell me about that right away when if happened instead of trying to settle it in such a crooked fashion? It wasn't straight and square, was it? Have I heard the whole story?"

Gwen, who had not shed a tear before, was crying bitterly now. Miss Roscoe's present kindly tone hurt more than her former severity. Almost in spite of herself the girl began to blurt put her version of how she had accidentally broken the tea service, had intended to pay for it at once, and how Emma had absconded with the money. The housemaid's part in the drama was news to Miss Roscoe, and she hastened to ask for particulars.

"This must be investigated immediately," she declared. "I shall send for Emma Dalton this afternoon. I happen to know that she has a place as parlour-maid at a house not far away. If I had heard of this I could not have given her a character. Indeed she deserves to be prosecuted for theft. I must write a note to her present mistress."

Miss Roscoe never let the grass grow under her feet. In this case she acted with her usual promptitude, and by two o'clock Emma, in much alarm, and weeping like a waterspout, was ushered into the study and confronted with Gwen and Netta, who were both summoned for the occasion.

"Now, Emma, this is a serious charge. Have you anything to say for yourself?" enquired Miss Roscoe, seating herself at her desk with the air of a magistrate about to try a case.

"I didn't pay the money at Parker's, and I don't deny it," sobbed Emma. "I meant to, but I saw a coat and skirt I wanted, so I thought I'd borrow it, and the bill might just wait for a bit. I've intended to go and settle every month when I got my wages, but it's never seemed the right time. I didn't know Parker's were pressing for it. Oh, dear, I've been a bad girl!"

"You have indeed," said Miss Roscoe. "It was wrong of Miss Gascoyne to ask you to help her to deceive me, but worse for you to defraud her."

"It wasn't Miss Gascoyne that suggested sending back the broken china to Parker's and saying nothing about it; it was Miss Goodwin," declared Emma, pointing at Netta. "She planned the whole thing! Yes, I can tell you she did. She's a deeper one than the other. It was half her fault, I'll be bound!"

Netta's face was a study, especially as Miss Roscoe looked at her keenly, though she made no remark.

"I've brought the money with me," continued Emma, still sobbing, "if Miss Gascoyne will please take it and forgive me."

"You don't deserve any consideration, Emma," said Miss Roscoe.

"For the sake of my mother!" pleaded Emma. "Oh, don't prosecute me! It would brand me for life!"

"Don't send her to prison, please!" interposed Gwen.

"Well, we don't want to be too hard on you and ruin your life. Let it be a warning to you to be honest in future. I am sure Miss Gascoyne has no wish to prosecute you. I shall be obliged to let your mistress know about this, however. I gave you so good a character to her, that it is not fair she should remain in ignorance of so serious a slip. She must be the judge whether she keeps you in her service or not."

"I'll go home to my mother and work at dressmaking," snivelled Emma as she prepared to depart. "Here's the money, Miss Gascoyne; I'm sorry I took it, and thank you kindly for not prosecuting."

Netta fled from the study the moment Miss Roscoe gave her leave to go. She was anxious not to have to speak to Gwen, for she knew she had not behaved well towards her. Emma's unexpected accusation had given rather an awkward turn to the affair, and she had hardly come out of it with the credit she expected. Gwen lingered behind. She felt she could not leave without offering the apology which for seven long months she had wished to make.

"Please, Miss Roscoe, I'm most dreadfully sorry about all this. I know I ought to have come and told you at once when I knocked over the box of china," she blurted out abruptly. "I've been miserable the whole time about it."

"Well, Gwen, it's a lesson to keep square, isn't it? One little step from the straight road often sends us farther out of our way than we have any intention of going. I don't think you will descend to anything so underhand again, will you?"

"Never in all my life!" protested Gwen with energy.

"Then we'll say no more about it."

The news that Gwen had been suspected of appropriating some of the gate money had leaked out, as news always leaks out, and was received with great indignation by the rest of the Fifth.

"Gwen Gascoyne simply isn't capable of doing such an abominable thing!" declared Elspeth Frazer.

"No. Gwen's gauche and brusque, but she's unimpeachable," agreed Hilda Browne.

"I'd rather suspect myself!" said Charlotte Perry.

Much satisfaction was expressed in the Form when the report of the mistake in Miss Douglas's change was circulated, and Gwen's complete acquittal secured. Everybody congratulated her heartily when she returned to the classroom.

"You're the heroine of the hour," said Louise Mawson. "It was an uncommonly disagreeable thing to happen. But in a bag full of change it's very easy to confuse a half-sovereign and a sixpence. By the by, has Miss Roscoe added up all the accounts yet? How much have we made?"

"One hundred and fifty-three pounds altogether," replied Gwen. "We got a hundred and nine pounds by collecting, and the gymkhana has made forty-four."

"Hooray! Then the cot is an accomplished fact."

"We shall all have to pay a visit to the Convalescent Home and see it, as soon as the name is painted up over it," said Hilda Browne.

"Won't it look scrumptious to see 'Rodenhurst Cot' in black and white?" chuckled Charlotte Perry.

"We shall have to publish reports of our special convalescents in every number of the school magazine," suggested Iris Watson. "It will be so interesting to read about them."

At four o'clock, by Winnie's express permission, Gwen went to Parker & Sons and made a final settlement of their account. The relief of being free from her load of debt was very great, and she came out of the shop happier than she had been since the day she first entered it. As Emma had refunded the one pound two and sixpence in full, Gwen had twelve and sixpence in hand, and, in consequence, felt rich beyond the dreams of avarice. The vision of a new tennis racket began to dawn on her horizon. That evening she managed to cajole Father for a short stroll on the moor. It was seldom she could secure such a tête-à-tête walk, but she was longing so much to unburden her mind that she gave him no peace until she had got him all to herself. Once they were seated on the heather, with the wold behind and the sea in front, Gwen began to pour out the story in her usual abrupt, jerky fashion, not omitting the matter of the prize essay which she had sold to Netta.

"Why didn't you tell me all this before, Gwen?" asked Mr. Gascoyne when she had finished.

"Because—oh, Dad, I thought it would worry you! Beatrice said you were so dreadfully hard up."

"It would have worried me far more to feel that you owed money. How much did Netta Goodwin lend you?"

"A sovereign."

"Then I will make up your twelve and six to twenty shillings, and you shall pay her back. I don't like that transaction about the essay at all."

"Netta doesn't deserve it!" exclaimed Gwen.

"I dare say not, but your conscience demands it. Honour forbids you to expose Netta, but the affair was so discreditable that I want your part at least to be set straight. That sovereign was ill-gotten gains, Gwen!"

"Oh, Dad! Are you very angry with me?"

"No, not angry, but I wish you'd trusted me. The whole business, childie, hasn't been on the square."

"I knew it wasn't, all the time," confessed Gwen, scrubbing her eyes. "But—oh, Dad, it was so hard! Why do such hard places come into one's life?"

"To give one the opportunity to get strong. If everything were always pleasant and smooth and easy, we should be poor sort of creatures in the end, with no character worth having. I feel that every day myself, and give thanks for the hard things, and I've had my share of them."

Gwen looked at Father, and a sudden perception of his meaning swept over her. Young as she was, she knew something of the struggles and disappointments, the lack of appreciation, the mistrust, the misconstructions, the slights which had met him in his parish work, and the burden of poverty which he carried so bravely and uncomplainingly—somewhat, too, perhaps, she divined of the hopes he had left behind. Her own little struggles faded into nothingness in the shadow of his.

"Yes, you've had a hard life, Dad," she repeated slowly.

"Sentry duty. That's all! A hard life is the soldier's post of honour," said Father.

He looked far out over the sea as he spoke, and it almost seemed to Gwen as if his face shone.

There was still one point which Gwen was anxious to elucidate, and that was the reason of Lesbia's peculiar conduct in the orchard on the evening of the gymkhana, and where she had obtained the ten and sixpence of which she had spoken. Lesbia seemed very unwilling to discuss the subject, but when the two girls were in their bedroom that night, Gwen held her to the point.

"Oh, Gwen, you've got me in a corner!" protested Lesbia. "I didn't mean to tell a soul about it, except Kitty Macpherson! Well, if you must know, this is what happened. One day Kitty brought a copy of The Gentlewoman's World to school. It had a beauty competition in it, and she urged me to try my luck, so I sent up my photo—that one which Aunt Violet had taken of me when I was staying at Greylands. It actually won a prize, and the magazine sent me a postal order for ten and sixpence. I didn't dare to tell any of you at home, because I knew you'd all think me so terribly vain and conceited. Beatrice is fearfully down on me for that kind of thing, and I knew the boys would tease, and call me 'Proudie' and 'Madam Conceit'."

Gwen laughed long and heartily. She did not tell her little sister of the unjust suspicion she had for a short time harboured against her. The whole affair was so exactly like Lesbia, from the competing for a beauty prize to the careless taking of wrong change.

"How will you explain your new tennis racket?" she enquired. "Beatrice will ask where you got the money to buy it."

"I never thought of that. I suppose I shall have to confess, then, and be labelled 'Miss Vanity'," sighed Lesbia. "It's a ripping racket, Gwen. It's exactly the same that Kitty Macpherson has. I'll lend it to you whenever you want it. Are you cross with me for not telling you before?"

"No, dear; it wasn't such a fearful crime after all," returned Gwen, half sighing, for Lesbia's secret seemed so much more innocent a one than her own had been.

XXI. Retribution

Gwen took back the sovereign next morning to Netta, who received it with amazing coolness.

"An unexpected blessing," she remarked. "I'd put that sov. down as a bad debt. Better late than never. We're quits now, Gwen Gascoyne."

"Not altogether," returned Gwen. "I've set my part straight, but you've still got the credit for my essay. You haven't put that to rights."

"Catch me telling!" laughed Netta. "No, my good Gwen, that's a little too much to ask. Don't expect more than you're likely to get, and then you won't be disappointed. I'm afraid I must still consider Mr. Thomas Carlyle my special property. You really can't eat your cake and have it."

"That's exactly what you're doing," retorted Gwen. "You took my essay, and now you've got the sovereign as well."

"But I helped you out of a temporary difficulty. You forget that, and don't show as much gratitude as you might."

"Not much cause for gratitude," grunted Gwen.

"This is what comes of being too philanthropic. I won't help anybody out of scrapes again. One never gets thanked for it."

"Not when you give your help on such terms."

It was no use arguing with Netta, so Gwen turned away, glad to have closed the transaction, even though she had been decidedly the loser. There were plenty of other matters to occupy her mind, as this afternoon the tennis trials were to take place as a preliminary to playing for the Form trophy, and later for the County shield. Gwen had given in her name to Moira Thompson, the head of the games committee, and expected that she would be accepted at least for the trials. Nor was she mistaken, for when, at two o'clock, Moira pinned her paper on the notice board, the fourth couple down for singles were Gwen Gascoyne against Geraldine French. All the school was assembled to watch the play, since on this afternoon's victories would largely depend the future choice of champions.

"Here's my new racket. Do use it—it's a perfect beauty," whispered Lesbia, edging through the crowd, and pushing her treasured possession into her sister's hand. "It will just make all the difference to your play."

Gwen accepted the loan thankfully. Her old racket had been her greatest impediment, and she had not liked to borrow often from her classmates. As Lesbia had prophesied, it made all the difference to her serves, and she played up in a way that astonished everybody. Geraldine French, who was considered almost invincible by the Sixth, had not taken Gwen seriously, and was therefore most electrified and disgusted to find herself beaten by a Fifth Form girl of no particular reputation in the world of tennis. The Fifth were in a state of immense delight.

"Gwen's serves to-day were unique," declared Iris Watson. "If she can keep this up our Form may have a chance for the trophy."

"I'd no idea Gwen could do so well," agreed Elspeth Frazer. "She's suddenly developed into quite a crack player."

"And she's such long legs and arms, she seems all over the court, and scarcely misses a ball."

"She's shown up in a new light this afternoon. We shall have to think her over for a championship."

The match for the Form trophy was to be played in a week's time. At present the beautiful silver cup was in the possession of the Sixth, but the Fifth were not without hopes of winning it, and transferring it to the chimney piece of their own classroom. It was an old-established custom at Rodenhurst that after the trials had taken place each Form competing for the trophy should vote its own champions. The election was naturally a highly exciting event; all the points of the various candidates' play were carefully discussed, and the two who were considered the most likely to do credit to the Form were returned. On this occasion five girls appeared of such equal merit that the running between them would be very close. Hilda Browne and Charlotte Perry were last year's champions, and were steady players, though many thought that Charlotte had gone off a little in her serves. Betty Brierley was brilliant but unreliable, sometimes making more splendid scores than anybody in the school, and sometimes playing love games. Netta Goodwin had a special reputation for back work, in which she excelled, and this circumstance might very possibly cause her to be chosen in conjunction with a good net champion. Gwen's unexpected prowess had been a complete surprise to the Form, and had made such a favourable impression that many were inclined to vote for her. To none of the five girls did the vision of a championship appear more attractive than to Netta. She loved to shine, and it was a sore point with her that she was not more popular in her Form. Here, at any rate, seemed a chance to gain the applause of her schoolfellows. She was conscious of playing well, and though she was not a general favourite, she knew the girls did not allow individual preferences, as a rule, to bias their judgment when it was a question of winning or losing the trophy. She canvassed diligently, put any pressure she could bring to bear upon her particular friends, and began carefully to reckon up how many votes she could reasonably count upon. The result was not altogether reassuring. Both Hilda Browne and Gwen seemed powerful rivals to her pretensions, and the chances were that the election would return Hilda for first champion, and either Gwen or Charlotte Perry for second. The prospect of being beaten in an affair upon which she had set her heart filled Netta with dismay.

The voting was by ballot, and took place in the classroom immediately after morning school. When the bell rang the girls did not immediately leave their desks as usual, but sat still while Miss Douglas distributed to each a half sheet of notepaper and an envelope. All that was required was to write down the names of two champions, fold the paper and put it in the envelope. No signatures were allowed, so that even Miss Roscoe should not know who had voted for which candidate. The whole affair did not take more than a few minutes. The girls hastily scribbled the names of their favourites, many of them in feigned handwritings, fastened their envelopes, and then returning them to Miss Douglas, left the classroom.

"I wonder how soon we shall know the result!" said Netta, as the Form trooped downstairs.

"It depends upon how soon Miss Roscoe has time to count them," replied Iris Watson. "She may be in her study now, or she may be too busy to look at them until four o'clock."

"Too bad to leave us in suspense."

"I'm not going to think about it," said Charlotte Perry. "It will be time enough to rejoice or moan when one knows."

"Oh, bother the election!" said Betty Brierley. "Come and see if we can get a court and have a set before dinner."

Netta did not follow the others to the tennis grounds. She was much more anxious about the result of the ballot than they, and had no heart at present for playing. Instead, she walked into school again, and finding the door of Miss Roscoe's study open, she peeped in. The room was empty, and on the desk lay the nineteen envelopes, each marked solely with a large V, that represented the voting of the Fifth Form. Netta looked at them wistfully. How she longed to open them and learn their contents! Such a proceeding was, of course, impossible, and she turned away with a sigh. As her glance wandered round the room, she noticed a large parcel of stationery which had just been unpacked, and lay spread upon a side table. Miss Roscoe had evidently opened it to get the paper and envelopes needed for the election, and had not yet had time to put it away in the drawers of her secretaire. Then suddenly an idea occurred to Netta—an idea so original and daring that she almost laughed at her audacity in entertaining it. It was a scheme which no other girl in the Form would have dreamt of for a moment, but Netta was troubled with few scruples of conscience, and was never deterred by a question of honour from attaining her wishes. Very quickly she abstracted nineteen envelopes and ten sheets of notepaper, and fled with her spoil to her own classroom. She bolted along the passage and upstairs in such a tremendous hurry that she did not notice the impish face of Ida Bridge peering from the Second Form room as she passed.

"Oho, Miss Netta Goodwin! What's the matter with you?" thought Ida. "You have an uncommonly guilty look about you, almost as if you were committing a crime. What's up, I wonder? I think I'm just going to track you and see."

Since the stormy episode on the day when the Second Form girls were rehearsing for their morris dance, Ida Bridge had detested Netta. She felt she owed her a grudge, which she was most anxious to pay if a reasonable opportunity could only be found. She followed now post haste, and adopting the tactics of a scout, waited till Netta was safely inside the Fifth Form room, then peeped cautiously round the door. What she saw did not particularly enlighten her. Netta was busily tearing sheets of notepaper in half, was scribbling something on them, blotting them and putting them into envelopes. No one else was in the room, and there was nothing to suggest an explanation of this rather mysterious employment.

"I'm sure she's up to something, though," murmured Ida to herself, still keeping a watchful eye on the enemy's movements. Netta wrote away, and kept folding her pieces of paper with record speed; there was a complacent look on her face, and she chuckled occasionally, as if with deep satisfaction. At the sound of the dinner bell she started, and hurriedly swept her correspondence into her desk. Ida, with admirable presence of mind, bolted into the empty Sixth Form room opposite, and having seen Netta depart down the corridor, took the liberty of going to make an inspection of what she had been doing.

"Um—indeed! What have we here?" said Ida, opening the desk. "Envelopes marked with a V, and sheets of paper with names on. Let's take a look at them. 'Hilda Browne—Netta Goodwin.' 'Netta Goodwin—Gwen Gascoyne.' 'Betty Brierley—Netta Goodwin.' 'Charlotte Perry—Netta Goodwin.' All in such different styles of writing, too! I believe I begin to see daylight. Now, shall I go and call Miss Douglas at once to look at this? No—it's incriminating, but not sufficient evidence to convict. I must let things develop a little further first. I think I'd better have a witness, too. Miss Netta Goodwin, I believe you're going to be rather too clever for once, and that you'll find yourself outwitted by one of the despised Juniors."

Ida Bridge was late for dinner that day, but she took Miss Roscoe's reproof with a sangfroid at which her Form marvelled.

"I don't care if I have to write fifty lines as a punishment," she murmured to her neighbour and chum, Peggy Weston. "What I've just discovered is worth a thousand lines. I can't explain why now, but the moment dinner is over you and I must stalk Netta Goodwin, and, without letting her know it, never take our eyes off her till afternoon school begins."

Quite unconscious that two small spies had resolved to keep her movements under surveillance, Netta slipped away from her friends after dinner, and returned to the classroom. It did not take her long to finish her task; she had soon fastened her nineteen envelopes, then, concealing them in an exercise-book cover, she hurried downstairs. Miss Roscoe's study was still empty, and nobody seemed about, for Netta never noticed the cautious pair who were dodging and watching in her rear as cleverly as a couple of young detectives. After a hasty glance round the room she advanced to the Principal's desk, and deeming herself quite unobserved, rapidly exchanged the pile of envelopes there for those which she had brought with her. She gave one look of satisfaction at the substituted set—they were such an excellent imitation—and bore off the genuine ballot to the Fifth Form room. Ida and Peggie, with breathless interest, followed, and saw her putting the stolen goods into her desk; then, having witnessed as much as they considered necessary, they flew in hot haste to lodge the information with their own Form mistress. Miss Broughton, amazed at what they told her, sought Miss Roscoe, who summoned Ida and Peggie, and listened attentively to their story.

"This must be enquired into promptly," she declared. "Come with me at once to the Fifth Form."

The girls had just assembled for afternoon school when the Principal entered, bearing the substituted pile of envelopes, and accompanied by Ida and Peggie.

For Miss Roscoe to arrive at such a time was an absolutely unprecedented occurrence. A dead silence at once reigned. Everybody wondered what had happened, and why Miss Roscoe should have brought the two children with her. The headmistress walked straight up to Netta's seat.

"Netta Goodwin," she said, "such an extraordinary incident has just been reported to me that I feel it is my duty to investigate it immediately. I wish to see what you have here," and, throwing up the lid, she began to investigate the contents of the desk.

Netta gave a gasp as if an earthquake had opened at her feet, and turned deathly white. She did not venture to say a word. All in the room waited in mute suspense, realizing that the matter must be of vital importance. With a sad face Miss Roscoe drew out the nineteen envelopes and compared them with those which she held in her hand.

"I have a very serious charge against you, Netta Goodwin," she said sternly. "You were observed in the act of taking these letters from my study, and substituting a similar set which you had yourself written. Ida Bridge and Peggie Weston can testify that they themselves witnessed your deed. I have a strong suspicion of your motive, and I am going to open the envelopes to ascertain if I am correct."

Putting each pile separately, Miss Roscoe rapidly tore open the two ballot sets, and glanced over them.

"It is a peculiar circumstance," she remarked icily, "that in the original voting papers your name occurs only nine times, and in the substituted papers eighteen times."

A wave of indignation passed round the Form. The girls at last understood the point, and realized the full significance of Netta's action. The excitement was intense, though awe for the headmistress forbade anybody to speak.

"To make absolutely certain," continued Miss Roscoe, "we will take the voting again. Miss Douglas, will you kindly deal a sheet of exercise paper to each desk? Now I put everyone on her honour to repeat the names of the two candidates that she wrote this morning."

For a moment the girls scribbled, then folded the papers and handed them to Miss Douglas, who went round the room to collect them. Miss Roscoe examined them attentively, and compared them with some figures she had jotted down.

"They correspond absolutely with the papers which I have just found in your desk, Netta Goodwin! Ida Bridge, come here! It is only fair that Netta should hear your accusation. Tell me again, in her presence, exactly what you witnessed."

"Please, Miss Roscoe," began Ida in her high-pitched voice, "I saw Netta come out of your study before dinner, and come here. I peeped round the door, and she was writing something on half-sheets of paper, and putting them inside envelopes. Then I told Peggie, and afterwards we watched her go into your study again and put her pile of envelopes on your table, and take yours away and pop them into her desk."

"Do you endorse this statement, Peggie Weston?"

"Yes, Miss Roscoe, it's quite true," murmured Peggie nervously.

"Netta Goodwin, have you anything to answer in reply to this charge?"

But Netta kept her eyes on the ground, and did not reply. Miss Roscoe, who was still standing beside the open desk, began to turn over some of the loose pieces of exercise paper which it contained, and shook her head as she noticed the names of various candidates scrawled in different handwritings, evidently for practice. Determined to investigate the affair thoroughly, she pulled out yet more papers, and among them a small roll fastened by a brass clip. At this she glanced with attention, then with marked surprise. "Netta Goodwin," she continued, "this is an entirely different matter, but one which I should like explained nevertheless. Last term you gained a prize for an essay on Thomas Carlyle. How is it that there is a manuscript of this essay in your desk, signed 'Gwen Gascoyne'? Yes, and in Gwen's handwriting, too, which I know well."

Netta glanced hastily at Gwen, who had turned as red as fire. Perhaps feeling that she had already been so entirely exposed that an added circumstance would make little difference, and wishing to get Gwen also into trouble, Netta suddenly resolved to make a full confession.

"I suppose I may as well tell everything," she volunteered sulkily. "Yes—I did want to get the tennis championship, and I altered the names because I didn't think I had a chance otherwise. About that essay, it was Gwen Gascoyne's. She wrote it, but she sold it to me for a sovereign."

"And you passed it off as your own?"

"I'd paid for it, so I just copied it. I couldn't see where the harm came in!" said Netta doggedly.

"Netta Goodwin, have you absolutely no sense of right and wrong, or any vestige of conscience?"

"I can't see that I'm worse than some other people," replied Netta, with a spiteful glance at Gwen.

"Gwen Gascoyne, did you sell this essay to Netta?"

"Yes, Miss Roscoe," gulped Gwen, covered with shame, and too much embarrassed to offer any explanation.

"I shall have a word with you later on. Netta, by your own confession you admit appropriating a schoolfellow's work last term, and altering the voting papers this afternoon. Forgery is a very ugly word and one which I am sorry to use, but there is no other name for what you have done. In all the years of my headmistress-ship here such a thing has not occurred before. I have had unruly and disobedient girls occasionally, but in the whole of my experience never a girl so deliberately bad as you. It is well for the school that this has occurred, and that I have discovered your true character; your influence must have been most pernicious, and I can only hope that it has not already done harm. It is, of course, impossible for me to allow you to remain at Rodenhurst. It is the first time I have been obliged to expel a pupil, and I much regret the necessity, but I feel that to keep you would be to retain a source of moral infection. You will go home at once. Your books and any other articles belonging to you will be sent after you, and I shall write to your parents, informing them of the circumstances under which you have been sent away. I am grieved for the sorrow which I know it will cause them. Go!"

Miss Roscoe pointed peremptorily to the door, and Netta, all her jaunty, self-confident airs gone for once, with downcast eyes that did not dare to meet the scorn of her schoolfellows, and white lips that quivered with passion, slunk ignominiously from the room. The Principal waited a few minutes to allow her time to go downstairs, then she ordered Ida and Peggie back to their own classroom, and turned with a sigh to Gwen.

"You will come with me to the study," she said briefly. Gwen followed in a state of abject misery. Was she never to finish reaping that harvest of tares, the sowing of which she had already so bitterly repented. One initial slip had indeed plunged her into undreamt-of trouble.

"Well, Gwen, you had better tell me all about this unhappy business," said Miss Roscoe as soon as they were alone. "Let us get to the bottom of everything this time, and leave nothing concealed."

Hard though it was to make confession, Gwen was almost glad to have the opportunity of doing so, and of at last setting straight the last threads of the tangled web she had woven. She felt that she would have told before about the essay if Netta had not been implicated, but her father had agreed that she could not in honour expose her schoolfellow. By skilful cross-questioning Miss Roscoe soon gathered the facts of the case.

"I understand," she said thoughtfully; "I am glad you paid back that sovereign, Gwen! It gives me a higher opinion of you than I should otherwise have had. I judge that your own conscience and your father's disapproval have punished you so severely that I can add little more in the way of reproof. I can trust you not to do such a thing again. Do I now know absolutely the whole of that transaction?"

"Every scrap!"

"Then we will consider the slate wiped clean."

"Thank you just a thousand times!" said Gwen, as Miss Roscoe with a nod dismissed her from the study.

XXII. The Tennis Tourament

Netta's expulsion naturally made a great sensation in the school. To prevent misconceptions Gwen told her classmates the entire story both of the breaking of the china and the selling of her essay. They already knew so much, that she felt it was better for them to learn the whole; they could then form their own judgment of the case, and decide upon what terms they would receive her back amongst them.

"I'm fearfully sorry about it," she said in conclusion; "I know I don't deserve you to be decent to me."

"I'm extremely glad you've told us," said Hilda Browne, acting mouthpiece for the rest. "It explains so very much. We never could understand why you were friends with Netta, and it made us think badly of you that you seemed so chummy with such a girl. But of course this accounts for it. I won't whitewash you, but since you're sorry, I vote we all agree to drop the thing."

"Yes, anyone who refers to it will be a sneak," agreed Elspeth Frazer. "Gwen's made a fresh start, and it's not fair that any old scores should be raked up against her. Netta's gone, of which I'm heartily glad, and I hope now there'll be a better tone altogether throughout the whole Form."

Elspeth mentioned no names, but she looked meaningly at Annie Edwards, Millicent Cooper, and Minna Jennings, and the three reddened beneath her glance. They were not bad girls, but they were weak, and under Netta's sway they had been very silly, and sometimes dishonourable.

"We must all try and help each other to keep rules," said Hilda Browne quickly and tactfully. "I'm sure none of us like cheating, and that we'd every one be willing to promise to be absolutely square in our work, and in games and everything. Shout 'Aye!' those who agree."

Eighteen voices were raised in unison, Annie's, Millicent's, and Minna's among the heartiest.

"Carried unanimously!" said Hilda, with a sigh of satisfaction.

"Now the matter's thrashed out, let's talk about tennis," said Edith Arnold. "Do you know, Gwen Gascoyne, that you were elected one of our Form champions?"

"Oh! oh!" gasped Gwen.

"Yes, you and Hilda Browne were the pair chosen, and we look to you both to win the trophy."

"You take net, then, Hilda, and I'll take back," suggested Gwen.

"Netta was certainly very good at back-balls," began Minna Jennings, but Elspeth Frazer struck in immediately:

"Let us please agree that Netta Goodwin's name is not mentioned again in this Form. She's best forgotten. I think Hilda and Gwen will work together splendidly. They must practise as much as they can before Friday."

Thus forgiven and reinstated both by Miss Roscoe and the Form, Gwen felt she had at last started quite anew, with her bygones to be remembered only as danger signals for the future. Her elevation to the proud position of Form champion half elated and half weighed her down. It was an enormous responsibility to have to compete for the trophy, and she hoped her play would justify the girls' choice. Friday afternoon was to be given up to the match, the Forms allowed to take part being the Sixth, the Fifth, the Upper, Middle, and Lower Fourth, handicaps, of course, being arranged by the Committee. The event was one of the chief excitements of the term, and when Friday arrived the whole school turned out to act audience. The Fifth was drawn to play first with the Lower Fourth, and in spite of a heavy handicap scored an easy victory.

"Not much triumph in beating those kids," remarked Gwen. "They're simply not in the running."

"Our trials are all to come," agreed Hilda. "We're against the Upper Fourth now, and if we beat them, then we may expect our tussle with the Sixth."

"I'm shaking in my shoes already!"

"Don't make too sure; the Upper Fourth are better than the Lower, and need taking seriously. We may lose on this."

"I think the handicap's too big," grumbled Gwen.

As Hilda had prophesied, the Upper Fourth proved adversaries worthy of their skill. Eve Dawkins and Myra Johnson were both as old and nearly as tall as Gwen, and they played up with grim determination. At first the score went against the Fifth, and the spectators watched with keenest interest, but in the end Gwen's swift serving told, and Eve and Myra retired vanquished. The Middle Fourth had already been beaten by the Sixth, so it was now the Final between Sixth and Fifth.

"When Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug-of-war!" said Hilda.

"I found a four-leaved clover this morning on the wold, and I've pinned it on to my dress as a mascot," returned Gwen.

"May it bring us luck! though I believe in play more than in mascots. Keep as cool as you can, Gwen, and remember Olga's nasty balls."

"I'll do my best, though I'm afraid you'll all rue choosing me for a champion," said Gwen, as she took her place.

Geraldine French and Olga Hunter, their two opponents, were renowned players in the school, and very few of the lookers-on expected the Fifth to have any chance at all.

"I'm afraid we'll lose!" sighed Edith Arnold.

"Oh, we won't give up too soon!" declared Elspeth Frazer. "Geraldine is in form to-day, certainly, and Olga is serving swifter than I've ever known her before, but we haven't proved yet what Hilda and Gwen are capable of."

It was Olga's serve. She sent one of her famous invincible balls, which hardly rose from the ground, and Gwen missed it. A suppressed cheer rose from the adherents of the Sixth. Gwen clenched her teeth hard, and watched for the next ball with the expression of a Red Indian. It skimmed over the net as swiftly as its predecessor, but Gwen was prepared this time, and returned it.

"Well played!" cried the Fifth ecstatically.

All four champions were on their mettle, and the fight that ensued was of the keenest. Gwen was not a graceful player, but, as her friends observed, she seemed capable of being everywhere at once, she was so extremely lithe and quick.

"Very good! Excellent!" were the remarks that passed round at certain of the strokes.

"I'd no idea Gwen had it in her!" commented Miss Trent.

In spite of Gwen's exertions the first game fell to the Sixth. They were heartily clapped, and the Fifth began to look rather blue. Each side now played with extreme caution. They had taken one another's measure, and knew what they had to expect. Hilda Browne kept her nerve well, and her serves were acknowledged to be what the girls called "clinchers". As for Gwen, her arms seemed elastic. This time the Sixth were beaten, and the Fifth began to breathe.

"It would be just too ripping if we really won!" exclaimed Betty Brierley.

"We mustn't crow too soon, we're not out of the wood yet," returned Irene Platt.

The excitement had risen to high-water mark. Some of the school were for the Sixth, and some for the Fifth, and their rival claims were discussed eagerly.

"Try and think you don't mind, and then you'll be far less nervous," whispered Hilda to Gwen.

Gwen nodded. She had almost passed the stage of nervousness.

"We can't do better than our best," she replied.

Perhaps Olga and Geraldine were nervous too; they made one or two bad strokes which seemed to put them out considerably. Gwen, on the contrary, surpassed herself. Never in her life before had she played so well. She seemed able to take every ball in whatever awkward spot it landed. Thanks largely to her ubiquity, the set ended in the triumph of the Fifth. A tremendous clapping and cheering ensued. For three years the Sixth had held the trophy, so it was indeed an honour to have won it from their possession. Gwen and Hilda were absolutely fêted by their Form, and even the vanquished Sixth had the magnanimity to praise their play.

"Gwen Gascoyne is simply A1," was the general verdict. "She's a perfect surprise. We didn't know we'd anyone so good in the school."

"Look here, Gwen, you and Olga will have to enter for the shield. You and she have proved yourselves far and away the best champions this afternoon," said Bessie Manners.

"Compete for the shield!" cried Gwen, turning hot with pleasure at the bare idea.

She and Hilda were called up then to receive the trophy, and bore away the silver cup with much pride. All the Form marched into the school to see it put in its place upon the mantelpiece of their classroom.

"Well done, the old Fifth!" said Betty Brierley.

"And hurrah for its champions!" added Rachel Hunter.

To Gwen, though the winning of the trophy had been a wild delight, Bessie's hint was a cause of even greater excitement. Rodenhurst belonged to the County United Schools' Tennis League, which every year played a big tournament in Stedburgh. Ten different schools were in the league, four being from Stedburgh and the others from various places in the neighbourhood. Each sent their two best champions; the prize, a large brass shield mounted on oak, becoming for the year the property of the winners. Though Rodenhurst usually did fairly well, it had not been able to compete with some of the boarding schools in the district, and at each successive tournament had been obliged to see others bearing away the coveted honours. Last time the Radcaster High School had come off victorious, a circumstance particularly annoying to Rodenhurst, as they felt they had been beaten by day girls like themselves.

"Boarding schools get more time to practise, and have always more courts in proportion than we have," so they grumbled. "One expects a boarding school to have an advantage, but we mustn't let the Radcaster High score over us again."

The tournament always occupied a whole Saturday, and was held at the Stedburgh Pavilion Gardens, an excellent place for the purpose, for not only could the best-kept courts in the county be hired, but there was plenty of accommodation for spectators, and refreshments could be obtained at the restaurant, a consideration for those schools which came from a distance. It was necessary for entries to be sent in at once, and when, as Bessie Manners had suggested, Olga Hunter and Gwen Gascoyne were appointed champions, all Rodenhurst joined in approval of the choice.

"But it's to-morrow week!" quavered Gwen.

"You'll just have to practise like billy-ho!" said Betty Brierley, who was addicted to slang.

Nobody dared to indulge in any very particular hopes. It was one thing to gain a Form trophy, but quite another to win the shield of the league.

"I hear Miss Crawford's girls are in good form this year," said Rachel Hunter, who had a cousin at a school at the other side of Stedburgh. "Nell says they're pretty confident."

"They won't beat those twins from Appleton House. Their serves were ripping," returned Betty. "I forget their names, but I sometimes see them on the Parade."

"Unless they've gone off in their play."

"Yes, of course—people occasionally do. One can never tell from year to year. Do you remember Freda Harmon? She swept everything before her, and then she grew too fat and was a dismal failure."

"Would you like me to bant in case of accidents?" laughed Gwen. "You'd better weigh me daily, like they do jockeys."

"There's a great deal in luck," said Charlotte Perry. "If you draw the crack school you may be done for straight away."

Gwen practised her utmost during the brief week before the tournament, and congratulated herself that her play improved. She had her choice of rackets, for everyone was not only willing but anxious to lend her the best obtainable. She tried a selection, until she found the one that suited her best. It was the property of Natalie Preston, who gladly relinquished it in her favour.

"If it wins the tournament I shall be proud!" declared Natalie.

"'If' is sometimes an important word!" answered Gwen, with a dubious shake of her head.

On the eventful Saturday every member of the Fifth and Sixth and numbers of the Juniors turned up at the Pavilion Gardens to watch the contest. Miss Roscoe and most of the mistresses were there, and many friends who were interested in the fortunes of Rodenhurst. Most of the other schools were equally well represented, so that the audience was a large one. Olga Hunter, who was a pretty girl with chestnut hair, looked charming in a white dress, and large ribbon knots of pink and light blue—the Rodenhurst colours—pinned beside her badge. Gwen, in plain serge skirt and low-necked muslin blouse looked prepared for business, if not so ornamental as her companion. Winnie had made her a little bouquet of roses and forget-me-nots to match her colours, and Beatrice had lent her a pale-blue belt for the occasion.

"I haven't got a hobble skirt, at any rate!" laughed Gwen. "Do you remember that girl from Ravensfield last year, and how fearfully hampered she was?"

Gwen was most tremendously excited at the greatness thrust upon her. To represent Rodenhurst at the tournament seemed honour enough even if she were vanquished in the very beginning.

"I wish Dad could have been here!" she sighed.

But neither Mr. Gascoyne nor Beatrice could spare the time on this particular Saturday, so Winnie and Lesbia were the only members of the family present.

Rodenhurst had been drawn against Hetherby College for the first set, much to their relief, for Hetherby had no particular reputation. Gwen and Olga played carefully nevertheless, for, as Olga justly remarked, "You can never tell beforehand how a school may have improved." The Collegians were better, certainly, than last year, but their game was not up to much, and they were easily beaten. At the conclusion of the first round, Rodenhurst, being among the winning couples, drew again, and this time was matched against Appleton House. The twins of whom Betty Brierley had spoken were again champions, and proved no mean rivals. Gwen had an anxious moment or two when she thought the credit of Rodenhurst trembled in the balance, but by frantic efforts on her part and Olga's, the set was secured, and the twins conquered.

"You're getting on splendidly!" said Bessie Manners at lunchtime, plying the so-far victorious pair with ham sandwiches and lemonade. "Everybody says Rodenhurst is looking up. I feel so proud of you!"

"Too soon to rejoice! We haven't tackled Miss Crawford's girls yet, and then there'd be Radcaster," replied Gwen.

"It makes one wildly hungry!" declared Olga.

"You mustn't have more than four sandwiches and a bun, or it'll spoil your play," interposed Bessie, who considered herself in the light of a trainer for her special champions, and enforced her rules with Spartan severity.

Olga sighed humorously, but obeyed.

"There was a rumour that Ravensfield lost the shield one year on buns," she remarked. "I don't wish a like fate to befall Rodenhurst."

It was immensely encouraging to hear that their play had attracted notice; they felt braced up for the next contest, and went back to the fray in quite good spirits.

"One wants to strike the happy medium between faint heart and over confidence," said Olga.

"I prefer to strike the ball!" laughed Gwen.

There was no doubt that Rodenhurst was this year increasing its reputation by leaps and bounds. Instead of falling out among the early sets it had kept steadily on, and spectators began to speak of it as likely to carry off the prize. Radcaster had also done excellently, so when it came to a final struggle between those two rivals, the excitement of their respective adherents knew no bounds. The Rodenhurst girls could hardly keep still, and each held a handkerchief ready to wave in case of victory. That it would be a tremendous battle Gwen and Olga knew only too well. The Radcaster champions were the same girls who had won the tournament the year before, and many people deemed them invincible. They seemed inclined to hold that opinion themselves, for they glanced at their opponents with a rather superior and almost pitying smile. That look put Gwen on her mettle. "They shan't have it this time!" she murmured grimly as she took her place. Whether Gwen really excelled herself, or whether the Radcaster girls were a little tired or too secure of victory was a debatable point, but at the end of a splendidly played set Rodenhurst stood as the winner. The two successful champions turned to each other almost incredulously. The shield was theirs! A perfect storm of applause came from the crowd. The Rodenhurst girls were beside themselves with joy, and clapped and waved and hurrahed till they were hoarse.

"Well done! This is indeed a triumph!" said Miss Roscoe, who hurried up to congratulate her victorious pair, looking as pleased as any of her pupils. This afternoon's success would wipe away the former reproach of the school, and lift it to a point of importance in the tennis league.

"The shield will hang in the lecture hall!" rejoiced Bessie Manners. "It will be sent to us as soon as our name is engraved upon it."

"I wish we could erase Radcaster!" said Gwen.

"Oh! I like to see the names of the other schools upon it. It gives me all the more joy of present possession."

"Gwen, you were just splendid!" declared Olga. "How you managed it I can't imagine, but you seemed to jump at the balls and catch them."

"I'm a spread-eagle player, I know; not nearly so graceful as you," laughed Gwen. "Well, I've 'done my possible', as the French say. Now I shall have to drop tennis and grind, for Miss Douglas has been grumbling most horribly, and declares she'd have stopped my being champion if she'd known how my prep. was going to suffer. It's been Latin and maths. versus tennis this last week."

"She'll forgive you when she sees the shield!" chuckled Bessie Manners.

XXIII. Gwen to the Rescue

It was now the middle of June, and the weather, even at Skelwick, was hot and enervating. There was thunder about, and frequent rain. It was trying for everybody. The constant heavy showers necessitated carrying mackintoshes to school, as if it were winter; the lawn was too wet and sopping for tennis, and most outdoor plans had to be abandoned. The boys, overflowing with high spirits, chafed at confinement to the house, and their noise was a serious impediment to Gwen, whose evening preparation was a matter of vital importance at present. It was impossible to get out of earshot in the little Parsonage, and though she retired to her bedroom and stuffed her fingers in her ears, Latin translation and mathematical problems were sadly disturbed by the din below. Gwen was working tremendously hard just now. Miss Roscoe had not yet announced the names of those who were to take the Senior Oxford. It was rather a curious notion of hers to preserve silence on the subject, for she was obliged to send in the entry forms for her candidates early in May, and must therefore already have made her decision. Her motive was to spur on the whole of the Fifth to equal effort. Her past experience had shown her that when a few top girls only were taking an examination, the rest of the Form was apt to slack and lose interest, and she considered there were several who, though not actually candidates, would benefit by the special preparation, and would make efforts on the chance of having been selected. Gwen did not, of course, know whether her name was on Miss Roscoe's private list, but she secretly cherished the possibility. She knew her work had improved; indeed that it was equal to that of anyone in the Fifth. There was no age limit for the Senior Oxford, and though she was the youngest in her Form, her fifteenth birthday would fall on the first day of the examination. Gwen was very ambitious; to be chosen as a candidate, and to pass with distinction, seemed a goal worth all the hard work of the school year. It brought visions of other and higher examinations in years to come; honours and scholarships which were waiting for those who had the pluck and the ability to win them, a rosy dream of college and university success on a distant horizon.

"I'm going to be Gwen Gascoyne, B.A., somehow before I've finished," she thought. "I've made up my mind to that!"

It was just at this crisis that Beatrice caught a severe chill. She—the wisest at health precautions where others were concerned—did a series of exceedingly rash and foolish things, with the result that she was obliged most reluctantly to give in, and allow Dr. Chambers to be sent for. Though Beatrice tried to make light of her own illness, the doctor took a different view of the case, and greatly to her consternation ordered her promptly to bed.

"I can't stop in bed! It's impossible!" she protested indignantly. "What's to become of the household? Nellie can't do everything; besides, she's no head, and she'd forget to feed the chickens, or she'd burn the bread, and let Martin tumble down the well if nobody was there to look after her."

"Then one of your sisters must stop at home, for you've got to stay in bed!" commanded Dr. Chambers. "Yes, I insist, and if you won't obey me, I shall send for a hospital nurse to make you!"

At this awful threat Beatrice subsided into unwilling obedience, only stipulating that her enforced retirement should be as brief as possible, and that she might be allowed to direct domestic affairs from her bedroom.

"I suppose I can't stop you worrying over the household, but you're not to stir out of bed till I give you permission, and I'll probably keep you there for a fortnight. The rest will do you all the good in the world," replied the doctor. "As for managing without you, they'll just have to manage!"

Dr. Chambers's autocratic orders were, of course, to be followed to the letter, everybody realized that; the only difficulty was how it was going to be done. The family held an immediate conclave on the subject in the invalid's room.

"I suppose I shall have to stay at home," said Winnie, "though I hardly dare suggest it to Miss Roscoe. With Miss Roberts still away, it makes things doubly difficult. I'm already taking four extra classes, and who's to teach those, and my own as well? It's enough to disorganize the school."

"Miss Roscoe would be furious if you stopped away!" said Gwen. "I don't see how you can."

"I'll write to Cousin Edith, and ask if she can help us," suggested Mr. Gascoyne.

"No, don't!" groaned Beatrice. "If Cousin Edith comes, I shall get straight out of bed, in spite of Dr. Chambers. I warn you I will! She and I don't get on."

Nobody was anxious for Cousin Edith's presence, so the suggestion dropped.

"A charwoman wouldn't meet the want," sighed Winnie. "It must be somebody who knows all the ropes of the household, or she'd be no use. Lesbia's too young; but how about Gwen? She ought to be able to manage."

Gwen did not wait to hear Beatrice's reply, but bolted straightway to her own bedroom. The proposal was as unwelcome as it was unexpected. To stop at home now, for a whole fortnight, just when every moment at school was of such great importance! Why, such a proceeding might wreck every chance she had for the exam.! Of course she was not sure whether she was really a candidate, but she had a shrewd suspicion that she was one of the selected number. She wished Miss Roscoe had openly given out the names, then she would have known exactly what to do in the circumstances. Could anything be more exasperating? It was impracticable for Winnie to fill the breach; with one teacher short, Miss Roscoe could not possibly spare her, especially at such a busy time as the end of the term. Gwen realized that perfectly. Lesbia—little, childish Lesbia—would be about as much use as Stumps or Basil—why, she would be playing with Martin in the orchard while the fowls went hungry and Nellie burnt the bread. As for Cousin Edith, she was not a favourite with the Gascoynes, and the fact of her presence would be hardly conducive to the invalid's recovery.

"I verily believe Bee would get up if she knew Cousin Edith were poking about downstairs," thought Gwen. "I know I ought to stay—but I can't, I can't! It means so much to pass that exam. It would be horrid to stop at home, too, with Bee in bed directing everything. If she were going away, and would leave me to it, I shouldn't mind. It's not the work I'm dreading. But I know Bee only too well. She'll ring a bell and have me up to her room every five minutes to ask how things are getting on, and what I've done and what I haven't done, and she'll worry, worry, worry, and scold, scold, scold the whole time. There'll be no credit in my slaving, not the least. No, I don't think it can be expected from me. It's too hard."

Gwen made the last remark aloud, and she repeated it again emphatically, because she just happened to catch sight of the New Year motto that hung over her dressing table.

"Oh do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come to you by the grace of God."

"I thought it meant school work," she said to herself. "But after all I suppose it means home work as well, or any kind of work that comes uppermost. I wonder if I could. Look here, Gwen Gascoyne, it's rather a big sacrifice, but you've got to make it for once. With four daughters, Dad has a right to expect somebody to keep the house comfortable, and just at this critical moment you're the only one available. It's hard, but it'll have to be. Your little ambition, my dear, must take a back seat for the present, while you go and 'wash dishes and feed the swine'. You'd better make the plunge and get it over!"

Father and Winnie had adjourned to the garden, so Gwen hurried downstairs before she repented her resolution.

"Dad! I believe I can manage, if Bee will let me try," she blurted out, for Gwen generally did things abruptly.

Winnie drew a sigh of relief.

"I believe you could, too," she said hastily, "and I've been telling Beatrice so. Miss Roscoe will think I'm playing her a very nasty trick if I stop away. She'd never forgive me. You're strong, Gwen, and you know all about the hens and the pigs, and you can keep an eye on Nellie."

"Yes, try, childie. It will be a good practice for you—and there's nobody else," agreed Father.

Thus it came about that Gwen entered upon an entirely new experience. She had, of course, helped in the house before, but only under Beatrice's personal supervision; it was quite a different matter to have to take the responsibility of the whole establishment.

"Bother your sister as little as you can, I want her to have a complete rest," said Dr. Chambers. "You mustn't let her worry about what's going on downstairs."

It was easy enough for the doctor to give orders, thought Gwen, but a difficult matter to carry them out. She was determined, however, to do her best, and she made a most heroic effort to be patient with the invalid. The fact was that poor Beatrice, who never spared herself, was overworked, and the hot, damp weather had affected her nerves. Dr. Chambers knew his patient when he prescribed a fortnight in bed, and was well aware that it was the only way of persuading her to take the rest she needed. At first Gwen's anticipations of a trying time were literally fulfilled. Beatrice's bell was ringing constantly, and she had to keep running up and down stairs and listening to endless and minute directions, and to answer a perfect catechism of questions as to how affairs were progressing in the kitchen. Nellie also was in a grumpy mood, and difficult to conciliate. She did not like having instructions sent to her through Gwen, and showed her resentment by clattering about the kitchen and banging doors. It required more tact than Gwen had ever made use of in her life before to keep the peace. Then Martin was no slight anxiety, for the little scamp thought he could take advantage of Beatrice's absence to get into as much mischief as a magpie, and Gwen hardly dared trust him five minutes out of her sight. Between Martin, household tasks, and certain parish duties which could not be omitted, there was plenty to be done, and the days seemed full from morning till night.

Gwen had never before realized how very much lay in Beatrice's hands, and she began slowly to appreciate how heavy a burden her sister carried year in and year out, with scarcely ever a holiday to relieve the tension.

"It's far worse than any amount of lessons," she thought. "Going back to school will be quite a holiday after this."

One resolve Gwen had made, and stuck to with grim determination—to spend a certain time every day over mathematics and one or two other subjects in which she feared she was weak. She got Lesbia to bring her books from school, and every night, long after the latter was asleep, she would sit up in their joint bedroom studying. It was impossible to snatch five minutes during the day, but when the house was still and quiet it was easier to concentrate her thoughts, and she was surprised sometimes what progress she was able to make. Night after night she heard the clock strike twelve before she put out her lamp, and once even the early midsummer dawn stole in and caught her unawares. None of the family knew that she sat up working so late, or probably Father would have forbidden it, for it was certainly burning the candle at both ends. It was very difficult to rise at six o'clock and help to prepare breakfast when she seemed only to have had a few hours' sleep, and it was often a great temptation to ignore the alarum and turn over on her pillow. But having accepted the household drudgery, Gwen had enough grit to carry out her duties thoroughly, however unwelcome some of them might be, and to secure breakfast in time was a cardinal virtue at the Parsonage. To her credit she never once let the others start late for school, or forgot to place their packets of lunch ready, and Beatrice herself could not have been more solicitous about drying wet boots and stockings.

"You're getting quite grandmotherly, Gwen," laughed Basil. "You never used to care about damp feet before. You're nearly as big a fusser as Bee. You made my cricket flannels look no end, though. I will say that for you."

"I like Gwen's housekeeping, she puts so much jam in the tarts!" remarked Giles approvingly.

"Gwen lets me feed the chickens my own self," said Martin with a satisfied chuckle. "And she mended my kite, too."

"I wish you'd mend my blue print dress, Gwen," said Lesbia. "I tore it again at school yesterday. That last darn of yours was uncommonly neat."

"Are they really getting to appreciate me more now I do more for them?" Gwen asked herself. "I never thought they cared an atom about me before. I was always the odd one at home. It's hard work, and a fearful trouble to do all those extra things, but oh!—it is nice to feel one's wanted."

At the end of a fortnight Beatrice was decidedly better, but Dr. Chambers was still unwilling to allow her to come downstairs.

"Best complete the cure while we're about it, and take another week in your room," he decreed. "If you begin to bustle round the house too soon, it may undo all the good of this enforced rest.

"I feel such a slacker," groaned the invalid.

After the doctor had gone the family held another conference in Beatrice's room.

"I had a letter from Cousin Edith this morning," said Mr. Gascoyne. "She offers to come and take full charge, both of you and the household. What do you think, Bee? Had we better let her come for a while, just until you're fit to be about again?"

"It isn't worth it for a week—and I mean to be down then, doctor or no doctor!" announced Beatrice, with characteristic firmness. "In the meantime I'd rather have Gwen than anybody, if she doesn't mind staying at home a few days longer. She's a kind little nurse, and she's kept things going wonderfully. I'd never have believed she'd manage so well."

Gwen's eyes filled with tears. Beatrice, of all people in the world, to yield her so high a tribute of praise! Beatrice, who had been so captious and hard to please as she lay in bed giving elaborate directions, and whose fidgety ways had needed so much patience!

"I'm glad if I've been of any use," she faltered.

"Use! You've been a jewel. I don't know whatever we should have done without you," said Beatrice, catching Gwen's hand, and squeezing it hard. "Can you spare another week as general slavey? Miss Roscoe would quite understand."

"I'll do anything you like, Bee," said Gwen, returning the squeeze.

XXIV. The Senior Oxford

Gwen went back to school after three weeks' absence, fearing that every chance of the Senior Oxford must have faded into thin air. She had worked as well as she could at home, but it had not been the same as studying with a mistress, and she felt her deficiencies painfully.

"There's no time to make things up now, either," she thought. "The exam. begins on the sixteenth, and that's actually next Monday. Oh dear! If only I were better up in maths! I know the chemistry'll stump me too. That's to say if I'm even allowed to go in at all!"

On this last point her doubts were soon dispelled. At eleven o'clock she received a summons to the headmistress's study.

"Well, Gwen," said Miss Roscoe. "It has been very unfortunate that you were obliged to stay away so long, but you must do your best, notwithstanding. I entered your name as a candidate for the Senior Oxford, so you will, of course, take the examination. Miss Trent has arranged to give you some extra coaching in the dinner hour every day this week, and I think you ought to be able at least to secure a pass. You're fairly certain all round."

"Except in maths.," said Gwen.

"Well, you must give all the time you can spare to that. But don't overdo the cramming. It's sometimes a fatal mistake to work early and late till your brain's utterly exhausted. I did that once myself and missed a scholarship through it. Take an hour at tennis every evening before you go to bed. Exercise is an absolute necessity if you're to be in form for next week. You're looking pale, and you mustn't break down before Monday. Tell your father to buy you a tonic."

Miss Roscoe spoke kindly, more sympathetically indeed than Gwen ever remembered to have heard her before. She had a wide experience with girls, and could estimate their capacities to a nicety. She had chosen her candidates carefully, and would ensure that they were sent in well prepared. So far she had had few failures in public examinations, and every pass brought extra credit to the school.

Five members of the Form were to take the Senior Oxford; Elspeth Frazer, Edith Arnold, Louise Mawson, and Betty Brierly, being the other four, all of them considerably older than Gwen.

"We call you the five victims!" said Charlotte Perry. "I'm glad I'm out of it. I sang a jubilee last week when Miss Roscoe read the list and my name wasn't on it."

"There were eight girls sent in last year," said Hilda Browne.

"Yes, and two failed—Majorie Stevens and Daisy Wilson. I don't think Miss Roscoe has forgiven them yet."

"Oh, dear! I'm afraid she'll be very down on me then," wailed Gwen. "I'm a doubtful quantity!"

"You? Oh, you'll be all right! She'd never let you try if you weren't—trust her!" said Charlotte Perry, and the rest agreed.

In spite of her schoolmates' assurances Gwen did not feel at all certain of success, and it was in very blue spirits and a state of woeful apprehension that she betook herself on the fateful sixteenth of July to the Stedburgh Town Hall, which was the local centre for the examination. It was her fifteenth birthday, and it seemed a funny way of celebrating the day. She had been so agitated that morning that she had scarcely been able to realize her presents, except the fountain pen which Father and Beatrice and Winnie had clubbed together to give her, and which she had brought with her to the exam. room.

At her first paper, however, she cheered up a little. It was easier than she had expected, and though one or two questions were beyond her, the rest were well within her capacity. Her new pen flew over the sheets of foolscap, and if she was too nervous to do herself full justice she at least acquitted herself with credit. The time-table only allowed an hour between one and two o'clock for lunch, which was provided for the candidates in a room at the Town Hall. Gwen anxiously compared notes with Elspeth, Edith, Louise, and Betty, as they hastily demolished plates of beef sandwiches and drank tumblers of lemonade. On the whole she had done as well or even better than they, and she began to cherish hopes.

As the week went on, Gwen, though not daring to be too sanguine, could not help feeling that her papers had reached a fair standard even in her weakest subjects. She had grown so accustomed to the examination room that she was no longer nervous and was able to express the facts she knew at their best advantage.

"There!" she said, when she had at last handed in her final sheets. "It's a toss-up whether I'm through or not. I expect it depends on the temper of the examiner who reads my papers. I'll hope he'll get his dinner before he tackles them!"

"Your writing's clear at any rate," said Elspeth. "Mine's such a scrawl I'm afraid that will be against me. Aren't you thankful the thing's over?"

"Thankful hardly expresses my state of bliss."

"It's rather sickening to have school exams, next week, after all this!" said Louise.

"They'll seem a mere trifle compared with the Oxford!" declared Gwen.

After the ordeal they had passed through in common the candidates were on terms of good comradeship, and with Elspeth Frazer Gwen felt there was a prospect of permanent friendship.

The last days of the term passed rapidly away. To Gwen the great event of the school year was over. Though she did her best at them, Rodenhurst examinations were a matter of quite minor importance. She welcomed the breaking-up with intense relief. After the strain of the past few weeks the holidays seemed an imperative necessity. It was delightful to have a complete rest, to idle about in the garden or on the shore, or take long invigorating walks on the moors. It would be five or six weeks before she could hear the result of the Senior Oxford, so she was obliged to endure the suspense as best she could.

In the meantime something happened—something so very unexpected and extraordinary that for a time it almost put even her examinations in the shade. It was Beatrice who told her the good news. Lately Beatrice had begun to treat Gwen as one of the grown-up members of the household, and to include her in their discussions of family affairs.

"It seems almost too wonderful to believe," said Beatrice. "Old Mr. Sutton has resigned his incumbency of North Ditton, and do you know the living is to be divided, and Skelwick, Basingwold, Hethersedge, and Rigby are all to be one big new parish by themselves. And who's to be Vicar, do you think?"

"Not Dad?" gasped Gwen incredulously.

"Yes. It has been formally offered to him, and he's going to accept it. Oh! and, Gwen, the funny part is, do you know, that queer old gentleman you met upon the wold turns out to be Sir Benjamin Hazlett, the patron of the living."

"He didn't look like a Sir Anything!" exclaimed Gwen. "He was the oddest, shabbiest, crankiest old fellow, and so inquisitive!"

"I hear he's very eccentric, and of course one sees now why he asked so many questions. He'd actually never been at Skelwick before, although he's the patron, and nobody here in the village knew him. He told the bishop you'd suggested dividing the parish!"

"I!" shrieked Gwen, "I wouldn't have dared to suggest such a thing. I only said it would be nice."

"Well, you put it into his head, anyway. He said the idea had never occurred to him before, and he saw at once its extreme advisability. He talked it over with the bishop, and they both agreed it ought to be done. I suppose he came to church that evening to hear Dad preach, and judge for himself what he was capable of."

"He evidently liked him. But who wouldn't?" returned Gwen. "Then Dad has refused Rawtenbeck?"

"Yes; thank goodness we needn't go and live amongst chemical works and factory chimneys! The Diocesan Society's going to build an extra bedroom on to the Parsonage. Isn't that lovely?"

"It will be the Vicarage now, if you please!" declared Gwen, rubbing her hands with satisfaction.

That her father's hard work should be recognized and rewarded at last was indeed a triumph, and the thought that she had perhaps had an unconscious share in bringing this about added a special element of joy.

"It was like entertaining an angel unawares!" she chuckled. "Though anybody less angelic-looking than poor old Sir Benjamin one couldn't imagine! I'm glad I took that solitary walk on the wold, Bee!"

"So am I, as it happens, though it's the exception that proves my rule."

The appointment to the new parish was indeed an important event for Mr. Gascoyne in more ways than one. It not only gave him a better position and larger opportunities of carrying on the work he had begun, but it meant also pecuniary benefit. The living of Skelwick was to be worth treble his curate's stipend, and though he was an unworldly man, his children's future was a necessary consideration. He would not be opulent, but he would now at any rate be free from money troubles, and the family could carry out many precious schemes which before had seemed mere dreams. The boys could be educated in course of time at Stedburgh Grammar School, Lesbia could take music lessons, and Gwen's visions of college might actually some day see fulfilment. Winnie could give up the teaching she hated and become housekeeper at home, that her elder sister might be free to take her training at a great London hospital, for Beatrice's heart was still set on entering the nursing profession.

"You'll see me a matron yet!" she announced. "I warn you that I'm ambitious, and mean to get on!"

"I'll be a B.A. by then, and we'll shake hands over our mutual success!" laughed Gwen.

"Don't forget you promised to be a lady doctor and study at college with me!" put in Dick, who had become almost one of the family at the Parsonage.

"You'll have to look out then, or I'll get ahead of you!"

"You won't do that, madam! I'm going back to school next term, remember."

Dick was fortunately quite strong again. The specialist who had examined him before declared he had outgrown his temporary delicacy, and even gave him permission to play football when the season began, as well as to recommence his work at Stedburgh.

"I shall be sorry to lose my pupil," said Mr. Gascoyne. "The children will miss you here on Saturdays."

"I'll see them all every day in the bus," returned Dick cheerfully.

As the holidays wore on and it grew nearer and nearer to the time when she might expect to hear the result of the Senior Oxford, Gwen waxed impatient. The suspense was hard to bear, and seemed harder the longer she waited.

"I want to be put out of my misery," she declared. "If I've failed I'd like to know and have done with it."

"But you thought you'd done pretty well," said Winnie.

"How can I tell? Every day I think of something more that I left out in my papers, and it makes me less and less hopeful. I've borrowed one of Dad's big pocket handkerchiefs all ready to weep into! I warn you I shall cry gallons if I've not passed."

Miss Roscoe had arranged that a telegram should be sent to each of the candidates announcing the lists, and on the day when the news was likely to arrive the Gascoyne family haunted the rampart on the wall, watching eagerly for the advent of the telegraph boy. It was Basil who spied him first, and Giles who got to the gate quickest to meet him, and Beatrice who tore open the yellow envelope and read the message to the excited audience.

"'First-class Honours, and Geographical Society's Silver Medal!'"

Gwen nearly dropped on the grass.

"It Was Basil Who Spied Him First"

"Let me look at it!" she quavered. "Are you sure you haven't made a mistake, Bee?"

"Here it is in black and white. Look at it yourself, then, you sceptic, and be convinced! I do congratulate you!"

"Hip, hip, hooray!" yelled the boys with such vigour that their shouts aroused curiosity in the village, and several parishioners came to enquire the cause of the rejoicings.

Gwen had known that the Royal Geographical Society offered two medals, one of silver and one of bronze, to the two Senior candidates who gave the best answers to the geography papers, but in her wildest visions she had never contemplated winning one of them. To come out first in all England in geography seemed an honour almost above the flights of ambition.

"Miss Roscoe will be so rejoiced!" said Winnie. "She always thought you'd do well, Gwen. Why, you'll be a credit to the school. She'll boast about this silver medal for evermore. I expect it will go down in the prospectuses! You'll get coached up for a scholarship next, you'll see."

"I still can't quite, quite believe it—it's too absolutely, perfectly, deliriously scrumpshus!" bleated Gwen hysterically.

"Dad's big pocket handkerchief won't be wanted after all to dry your tears," laughed Lesbia. "Oh, there's Dad coming up the road now—go and meet him, Gwen, and tell him your own self!"

The next prize-giving at Rodenhurst was a more than usually special occasion, for not only had four girls matriculated, but five had passed the Senior Oxford, two of them in the Honours Division. Gwen's medal was acknowledged the triumph of the school, and both pupils and mistresses spoke of her as likely to win more laurels in the future.

"She's one of the best workers we have," said Miss Roscoe to the Mayor, who was acting chairman; "a very clever girl. I believe she has a career before her."

As Gwen went up to receive her prizes and certificate the girls clapped and clapped till, not content even with the noise they were making, they broke into ringing cheers. Half-dizzy with emotion, Gwen returned to her place—these were the very same schoolfellows who, only one short year ago, had allowed her to walk down the hall without a sign of recognition or appreciation. From being the outcast of her Form she had risen to the height of popularity.

"I always said, childie, that if you only bided your time and worked your very hardest, the girls would be proud of you in the end!" declared Father when the celebrations were over and the Gascoynes had returned to the Parsonage.

"Oh, it was ripping to hear them all clapping and cheering, Gwen! And after last year, too—it's like a miracle!" exclaimed Lesbia rapturously.

"Yes, that's just what it is—a miracle," said Gwen, thinking of the motto that hung on her bedroom wall.

THE END

For the Sake of the School

First Published 1915

TO THE

SCHOOLGIRL READERS

WHO HAVE SENT ME

SUCH NICE LETTERS

"I felt I must speak to you"

Contents

I. The Woodlands

II. A Friend from the Bush

III. Round the Camp-fire

IV. A Blackberry Foray

V. On Sufferance

VI. Quits

VII. The Cuckoo's Progress

VIII. The "Stunt"

IX. A January Picnic

X. Trespassers Beware!

XI. Rona receives News

XII. Sentry Duty

XIII. Under Canvas

XIV. Susannah Maude

XV. A Point of Honour

XVI. Amateur Conjuring

XVII. A Storm-cloud

XVIII. Light

XIX. A Surprise

I. The Woodlands

"Are they never going to turn up?"

"It's almost four now!"

"They'll be left till the six-thirty!"

"Oh, don't alarm yourself! The valley train always waits for the express."

"It's coming in now!"

"Oh, good, so it is!"

"Late by twenty minutes exactly!"

"Stand back there!" yelled a porter, setting down a box with a slam, and motioning the excited, fluttering group of girls to a position of greater safety than the extreme edge of the platform. "Llangarmon Junction! Change for Glanafon and Graigwen!"

Snorting and puffing, as if in agitated apology for the tardiness of its arrival, the train came steaming into the station, the drag of its brakes adding yet another item of noise to the prevailing babel. Intending passengers clutched bags and baskets; fathers of families gave a last eye to the luggage; mothers grasped children firmly by the hand; a distracted youth, seeking vainly for his portmanteau, upset a stack of bicycles with a crash; while above all the din and turmoil rose the strident, rasping voice of a book-stall boy, crying his selection of papers with ear-splitting zeal.

From the windows of the in-coming express waved seventeen agitated pocket-handkerchiefs, and the signal was answered by a counter-display of cambric from the twenty girls hustled back by an inspector in the direction of the weighing-machine.

"There's Helen!"

"And Ruth, surely!"

"Oh! where's Marjorie?"

"There! Can't you see her, with Doris?"

"That's Mamie, waving to me!"

"What's become of Kathleen?"

One moment more, and the neat school hats of the new-comers had swelled the group of similar school hats already collected on the platform; ecstatic greetings were exchanged, urgent questions asked and hasty answers given, and items of choice information poured forth with the utmost volubility of which the English tongue is capable. Urged by brief directions from a mistress in charge, the chattering crew surged towards a siding, and made for a particular corridor carriage marked "Reserved". Here handbags, umbrellas, wraps, and lunch-baskets were hastily stowed away in the racks, and, Miss Moseley having assured herself that not a single lamb of her flock was left behind, the grinning porter slammed the doors, the green flag waved, and the local train, long overdue, started with a jerk for the Craigwen Valley.

Past the grey old castle that looked seawards over the estuary, past the little white town of Llangarmon, with its ancient walls and fortified gates, past the quay where the fishing smacks were lying idly at anchor and a pleasure-steamer was unloading its human cargo, past the long stretch of sandy common, where the white tents of the Territorials evoked an outcry of interest, then up alongside the broad tidal river towards where the mountains, faint and misty, rose shouldering one another till they merged into the white nebulous region of the cloud-flecked sky. Those lucky ones who had secured window seats on the river side of the carriage were loud in their acclamations of satisfaction as familiar objects in the landscape came into sight.

"There's Cwm Dinas. I wish they could float a big Union Jack on the summit."

"It would be a landmark all right."

"Oh, the flag's up at Plas Cafn!"

"We'll have one at school this term?"

"Oh, I say! Move a scrap," pleaded Ulyth Stanton plaintively. "We only get fields and woods on our side. I can't see anything at all for your heads. You might move. What selfish pigs you are! Well, I don't care; I'm going to talk."

"You have been talking already. You've never stopped, in fact," remarked Beth Broadway, proffering a swiftly disappearing packet of pear drops with a generosity born of the knowledge that all sweets would be confiscated on arrival at The Woodlands.

"I know I have, but that was merely by the way. It wasn't anything very particular, and I've got something I want to tell you—something fearfully important. Absolutely super! D'you know, she's actually coming to school. Isn't it great? She's to be my room-mate. I'm just wild to see her. I hope her ship won't be stopped by storms."

"By the Muses, whom are you talking about?"

"'She' means the cat," sniggered Gertrude Oliver.

"Why! can't you guess? What stupids you are! It's Rona, of course—Rona Mitchell from New Zealand."

"You're ragging!"

"It's a fact. It is indeed!"

The incredulity on the countenances of her companions having yielded to an expression of interest, Ulyth continued her information with increased zest, and a conscious though would-be nonchalant air of importance.

"Her father wants her to go to school in England, so he decided to send her to The Woodlands, so that she might be with me!"

"Do you mean that girl you were so very proud of corresponding with? I forget how the whole business began," broke in Stephanie Radford.

"Don't you remember? It was through a magazine we take. The editor arranged for readers of the magazine in England to exchange letters with other readers overseas. He gave me Rona. We've been writing to each other every month for two years."

"I had an Australian, but she wouldn't write regularly, so we dropped it," volunteered Beth Broadway. "I believe Gertrude had somebody too."

"Yes, a girl in Canada. I never got farther than one short letter and a picture post card, though. I do so loathe writing," sighed Gertrude. "Ulyth's the only one who's kept the thing up."

"And do you mean to say this New Zealander's actually coming to our school?" asked Stephanie.

"That's the joysome gist of my remarks! I can't tell you how I'm pining and yearning to see her. She seems like a girl out of a story. To think of it! Rona Mitchell at school with us!"

"Suppose you don't like her?"

"Oh, I'm certain I shall! She's written me the jolliest, loveliest, funniest letters! I feel I know her already. We shall be the very best of friends. Her father has a huge farm of I can't tell you how many miles, and she has two horses of her own, and fords rivers when she's out riding."

"When's she to arrive?"

"Probably to-morrow. She's travelling by the King George, and coming up straight from London to school directly she lands. I hope she's got to England safely. She must have left home ever such a long time ago. How fearfully exciting for her to——"

But here Ulyth's reflections were brought to an abrupt close, for the train was approaching Glanafon Ferry, and her comrades, busily collecting their various handbags, would lend no further ear to her remarks.

The little wayside station, erstwhile the quietest and sleepiest on the line, was soon overflowing with girls and their belongings. Miss Moseley flitted up and down the platform, marshalling her charges like a faithful collie, the one porter did his slow best, and after a few agitated returns to the compartments for forgotten articles, everything was successfully collected, and the train went steaming away down the valley in the direction of Craigwen. It seemed to take the last link of civilization with it, and to leave only the pure, unsullied country behind. The girls crossed the line and walked through the white station gate with pleased anticipation writ large on their faces. It was the cult at The Woodlands to idolize nature and the picturesque, and they had reached a part of their journey which was a particular source of pride to the school.

Any admirer of scenery would have been struck with the lovely and romantic view which burst upon the eye as the travellers left the platform at Glanafon and walked down the short, grassy road that led to the ferry. To the south stretched the wide pool of the river, blue as the heaven above where it caught the reflection of the September sky, but dark and mysterious where it mirrored the thick woods that shaded its banks. Near at hand towered the tall, heather-crowned crag of Cwm Dinas, while the rugged peaks of Penllwyd and Penglaslyn frowned in majesty of clouds beyond. The ferry itself was one of those delightful survivals of mediævalism which linger here and there in a few fortunate corners of our isles. A large flat-bottomed boat was slung on chains which spanned the river, and could be worked slowly across the water by means of a small windlass. Though it was perfectly possible, and often even more convenient, to drive to the school direct from Llangarmon Junction, so great was the popular feeling in favour of arrival by the ferry that at the autumn and spring reunions the girls were allowed to avail themselves of the branch railway and approach The Woodlands by way of the river.

They now hurried on to the boat as if anticipating a pleasure-jaunt. The capacities of the flat were designed to accommodate a flock of sheep or a farm wagon and horses, so there was room and to spare even for thirty-seven girls and their hand luggage. Evan Davis, the crusty old ferryman, greeted them with his usual inarticulate grunt, a kind of "Oh, here you are again, are you!" form of welcome which was more forceful than gracious. He linked the protecting chains carefully across the end of the boat, called out a remark in Welsh to his son, Griffith, and, seizing the handle, began to work the windlass. Very slowly and leisurely the flat swung out into the river. The tide was at the full and the wide expanse of water seemed like a lake. The clanking chains brought up bunches of seaweed and river grass which fell with an oozy thud upon the deck. The mountain air, blowing straight from Penllwyd, was tinged with ozone from the tide. The girls stood looking up the reach of water towards the hills, and tasting the salt on their lips with supreme gratification. It was not every school that assembled by such a romantic means of conveyance as an ancient flat-bottomed ferry-boat, and they rejoiced over their privileges.

"I'm glad the tide's full; it makes the crossing so much wider," murmured Helen Cooper, with an eye of admiration on the woods.

"Don't suppose Evan shares your enthusiasm," laughed Marjorie Earnshaw. "He's paid the same, whatever the length of the journey."

"Old Grumps gets half a crown for his job, so he needn't grumble," put in Doris Deane.

"Oh, trust him! He'd look sour at a pound note."

"What makes him so cross?"

"Oh, he's old and lame, I suppose, and has a crotchety temper."

"Here we are at last!"

The boat was grating on the shore. Griffith was unfastening the movable end, and in another moment the girls were springing out gingerly, one by one, on to the decidedly muddy stepping-stones that formed a rough causeway to the bank. A cart was waiting to convey the handbags (all boxes had been sent as "advance luggage" two days before), so, disencumbered of their numerous possessions, the girls started to walk the steep uphill mile that led to The Woodlands.

Miss Bowes and Miss Teddington, the partners who owned the school, had been exceptionally fortunate in their choice of a house. If, as runs the modern theory, beautiful surroundings in our early youth are of the utmost importance in training our perceptions and aiding the growth of our higher selves, then surely nowhere in the British Isles could a more suitable setting have been found for a home of education. The long terrace commanded a view of the whole of the Craigwen Valley, an expanse of about sixteen miles. The river, like a silver ribbon, wound through woods and marshland till it widened into a broad tidal estuary as it neared the sea. The mountains, which rose tier after tier from the level green meadows, had their lower slopes thickly clothed with pines and larches; but where they towered above the level of a thousand feet the forest growth gave way to gorse and bracken, and their jagged summits, bare of all vegetation save a few clumps of coarse grass, showed a splintered, weather-worn outline against the sky. Penllwyd, Penglaslyn, and Glyder Garmon, those lofty peaks like three strong Welsh giants, seemed to guard the entrance to the enchanted valley, and to keep it a place apart, a last fortress of nature, a sanctuary for birds and flowers, a paradise of green shade and leaping waters, and a breathing-space for body and soul.

The house, named "The Woodlands" by Miss Bowes in place of its older but rather unpronounceable name of Llwyngwrydd (the green grove), took both its Welsh and English appellations from a beautiful glade, planted with oaks, which formed the southern boundary of the property. Through this park-like dell flowed a mountain stream, tumbling in little white cascades between the big boulders that formed its bed, and pouring in quite a waterfall over a ledge of rock into a wide pool. Its steady rippling murmur never stopped, and could be heard day and night through the ever-open windows, gentle and subdued in dry weather, but rising to a roar when rain in the hills brought the flood down in a turbulent torrent.

Through lessons, play, or dreams this sound of many waters was ever present; it gave an atmosphere to the school which, if passed unnoticed through extreme familiarity, would have been instantly missed if it could have stopped. To the girls this stream was a kind of guardian deity, with the glade for its sacred grove. They loved every rock and stone and cataract, almost every patch of brown moss upon its boulders. Each morning of the summer term they bathed before breakfast in the pool where a big oak-tree shaded the cataract. It was so close to the house that they could run out in mackintoshes, and so retired that it resembled a private swimming-bath. Here they enjoyed themselves like water-nymphs, splashing in the shallows, plunging in the pool, swinging from the boughs of the oak-tree, and scrambling over the lichened boulders. It was a source of deep regret to the hardier spirits that they were not allowed to take their morning dip in the stream all the year round; but on that score mistresses were adamant, and with the close of September the naiads perforce withdrew from their favourite element till it was warmed again by the May sunshine.

The house itself had originally been an ancient Welsh dwelling of the days of the Tudors, but had been largely added to in later times. The straight front, with its rows of windows, classic doorway, and stone-balustraded terrace, was certainly Georgian in type, and the tower, an architectural eyesore, was plainly Victorian. The taste of the early nineteenth century had not been faultless, and all the best part of the building, from an artistic point of view, lay at the back. This mainly consisted of kitchens and servants' quarters, but there still remained a large hall, which was the chief glory of the establishment. It was very lofty, for in common with other specimens of the period it had no upper story, the roof being timbered like that of a church. The walls were panelled with oak to a height of about eight feet, and above that were decorated with elaborate designs in plaster relief, representing lions, wild boars, stags, unicorns, and other heraldic devices from the coat-of-arms of the original owner of the estate. A narrow winding staircase led to a minstrels' gallery, from which was suspended a wooden shield emblazoned with the Welsh dragon and the national motto, "Cymru am byth" ("Wales for ever").

If the hall was the main picturesque asset of the building, it must be admitted that the unromantic front portion was highly convenient, and had been most readily adaptable for a school. The large light rooms of the ground floor made excellent classrooms, and the upper story was so lavishly provided with windows that it had been possible, by means of wooden partitions, to turn the great bedrooms into rows of small dormitories, each capable of accommodating two girls.

The bright airy house, the terrace with its glorious view of the valley, the large old-fashioned garden, and, above all, the stream and the glade made a very pleasant setting for the school life of the forty-eight pupils at The Woodlands. The two principals worked together in perfect harmony. Each had her own department. Miss Bowes, who was short, stout, grey-haired, and motherly, looked after the housekeeping, the hygiene, and the business side. She wrote letters to parents, kept the accounts, interviewed tradespeople, superintended the mending, and was the final referee in all matters pertaining to health and general conduct. "Dear Old Rainbow", as the girls nicknamed her, was frankly popular, for she was sympathetic and usually disposed to listen, in reason, to the various plaints which were brought to the sanctum of her private sitting-room. Her authority alone could excuse preparation, order breakfast in bed, remit practising, dispense jujubes, allow special festivities, and grant half-holidays. It was rumoured that she thought of retiring and leaving the school to her partner, and such a report always drew from parents the opinion that she would be greatly missed.

Miss Teddington, younger by many years, took a more active part in the teaching, and superintended the games and outdoor sports. She was tall and athletic, a good mathematician, and interested in archæology and nature study. She led the walks and rambles, taught the Sixth Form, and represented the more scholastic and modern element. Her enterprise initiated all fresh undertakings, and her enthusiasm carried them forward with success. "Hard-as-nails" the girls sometimes called her, for she coddled nobody and expected the utmost from each one's capacity. If she was rather uncompromising, however, she was just, and a strong vein of humour toned down much of the severity of her remarks. To be chided by a person whose eye is capable of twinkling takes part of the sting from the reprimand, and the general verdict of the school was to the effect that "Teddie was a keen old watch-dog, but her bark was worse than her bite."

Of the other mistresses and girls we will say more anon. Having introduced my readers to The Woodlands, it is time for the story to begin.

II. A Friend from the Bush

Ulyth Stanton was a decided personality in the Lower Fifth. If not exactly pretty, she was a dainty little damsel, and knew how to make the best of herself. Her fair hair was glossy and waved in the most becoming fashion, her clothes were well cut, her gloves and shoes immaculate. She had an artistic temperament, and loved to be surrounded by pretty things. She was rather a favourite at The Woodlands, for she had few sharp angles and possessed a fair share of tact. If the girls laughed sometimes at what they called her "high-falutin' notions" they nevertheless respected her opinions and admired her more than they always chose to admit. It was an accepted fact that Ulyth stuck to her word and generally carried through anything that she once undertook. She alone of six members of her form who had begun to correspond with girls abroad, at the instigation of the magazine editor, had written regularly, and had cultivated the overseas friendship with enthusiasm. The element of romance about the affair had appealed to Ulyth. It was so strange to receive letters from someone you had never seen. To be sure, Rona had only given a somewhat bald account of her home and her doings, but even this outline was so different from English life that Ulyth's imagination filled the gaps, and pictured her unknown correspondent among scenes of unrivalled interest and excitement. Ulyth had once seen a most wonderful film entitled "Rose of the Wilderness", and though the scenes depicted were supposed to be in the region of the Wild West, she decided that they would equally well represent the backwoods of New Zealand, and that the beautiful, dashing, daring heroine, so aptly called "the Prairie Flower", was probably a speaking likeness of Rona Mitchell. When she learnt that owing to her letters Rona's father had determined to send his daughter to school at The Woodlands, her excitement was immense. She had at once petitioned Miss Bowes to have her as a room-mate, and was now awaiting her advent with the very keenest anticipation.

There was a little uncertainty about the time of the new girl's arrival, for it depended upon the punctuality of the ocean liner, a doubtful matter if there were a storm; and the feeling that she might be expected any hour between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. made havoc of Ulyth's day. It was impossible to attend to lessons when she was listening for the sound of a taxi on the drive, and even the attractions of tennis could not decoy her out of sight of the front door.

"I must be the very first to welcome her," she persisted. "Of course it's not the same to all the rest of you—I understand that. She's to be my special property, my Prairie Rose!"

"All serene! If you care to waste your time lounging about the steps you can. We're not in such a frantic state to see your paragon," laughed the girls as they ran down the garden to the courts. After all, the waiting was in vain. Tea-time came without a sign of the new-comer. It was unlikely that she would turn up now until the evening train, and Ulyth resigned herself to the inevitable. But when the school was almost half-way through its bread and butter and gooseberry jam, a sudden commotion occurred in the hall. There was a noise such as nobody ever remembered to have heard at The Woodlands before.

"Thank goodness gracious I've got meself here at last!" cried a loud nasal voice. "Where'll I stick these things? Oh yes, there's heaps more inside that automobile! Travelling's no joke, I can tell you; I'm tired to death. Any tea about? I could drink the sea. My gracious, I've had a time of it coming here!"

At the first word Miss Bowes had glided from the room, and the voice died away as the door of her private study closed. Sounds suggestive of the carrying upstairs of luggage followed, and a hinnying laugh echoed once down the stairs. The girls looked at one another; there was a shadow in Ulyth's eyes. She did not share in the general smile that passed round the table, and she finished her tea in dead silence.

"Going to sample your new property?" whispered Mary Acton as the girls pushed back their chairs.

"What's the formula for swearing an undying friendship?" giggled Addie Knighton.

"Was it Rose of Sharon you called her?" twinkled Christine Crosswood. "Or Lily of the Valley?"

Ulyth did not reply. She walked upstairs very slowly. The nasal twang of that high-pitched voice in the hall had wiped the bloom off her anticipation. The small double dormitory in which she slept was No. 3, Room 5. The door was half-open, so she entered without knocking. Both beds, the chairs, and most of the floor was strewn with an assortment of miscellaneous articles. On the dressing-table was a tray with the remains of tea. Over a large cabin trunk bent a girl of fourteen. She straightened herself as she heard footsteps.

Alas! alas! for Ulyth's illusions. The enchanting vision of the prairie flower faded, and Rona Mitchell stood before her in solid fact. Solid was the word for it—no fascinating cinema heroine this, but an ordinary, well-grown, decidedly plump damsel with brown elf locks, a ruddy sunburnt complexion, and a freckled nose.

Where, oh, where, were the delicate features, the fairy-like figure, and the long rich clustering curls of Rose of the Wilderness? Ulyth stood for a moment gazing as one dazed; then, with an effort, she remembered her manners and introduced herself.

"Proud to meet you at last," replied the new-comer heartily. "You and I've had a friendship switched on for us ready-made, so to speak. I liked your letters awfully. Glad they've put us in together."

"Did—did you have a nice journey?" stammered Ulyth.

It was a most conventional enquiry, but the only thing she could think of to say.

"Beastly! It was rough or hot all the time, and we didn't get much fun on board. Wasn't it a sell? Too disappointing for words! Mrs. Perkins, the lady who had charge of me coming over, was just a Tartar. Nothing I did seemed to suit her somehow. I bet she was glad to see the last of me. Then I was sea-sick, and when we got into the hot zone—my, how bad I was! My face was just skinned with sunburn, and the salt air made it worse. I'd not go to sea again for pleasure, I can tell you. I say, I'll be glad to get my things fixed up here."

"This is your bed and your side of the room," returned Ulyth hastily, collecting some of the articles which had been flung anywhere, and hanging them in Rona's wardrobe; "Miss Moseley makes us be very tidy. She'll be coming round this evening to inspect."

Rona whistled.

"Guess she'll drop on me pretty often then! No one's ever called neatness my strong point. Are those photos on the mantelpiece your home folks? I'm going to look at them. What a lot of things you've got: books, and albums, and goodness knows what! I'll enjoy turning them over when I've time."

At half-past eight that night a few members of the Lower Fifth, putting away books in their classroom, stopped to compare notes.

"Well, what do you think of your adorable one, Ulyth?" asked Stephanie Radford, a little spitefully. "You're welcome to her company so far as I'm concerned."

"Rose of the Wilderness, indeed!" mocked Merle Denham.

"Your prairie rose is nothing but a dandelion!" remarked Christine Crosswood.

"I never heard anyone with such an awful laugh," said Lizzie Lonsdale.

"Don't!" implored Ulyth tragically. "I've had the shock of my life. She's—oh, she's too terrible for words! Her voice makes me cringe. And she pawed all my things. She snatched up my photos, and turned over my books with sticky fingers; she even opened my drawers and peeped inside."

"What cheek!"

"Oh, she hasn't the slightest idea of how to behave herself! She asked me a whole string of the most impertinent questions: what I'd paid for my clothes, and how long they'd have to last me. She's unbearable. Yes, absolutely impossible. Ugh! and I've got to sleep in the same room with her to-night."

"Poor martyr, it's hard luck," sympathized Lizzie. "Why did you write and ask the Rainbow to put you together? It was rather buying a pig in a poke, wasn't it?"

"I never dreamt she'd be like this. It sounded so romantic, you see, living on a huge farm, and having two horses to ride. I shall go to Miss Bowes, first thing to-morrow morning, and ask to have her moved out of my room. I only wish there was time to do it this evening. Oh, why did I ever write to her and make her want to come to this school?"

"Poor old Ulyth! You've certainly let yourself in for more than you bargained for," laughed the girls, half sorry for her and half amused.

Next morning, after breakfast, the very instant that Miss Bowes was installed in her study, a "rap-tap-tap" sounded on her door.

"Come in!" she called, and sighed as Ulyth entered, for she had a shrewd suspicion of what she was about to hear.

"Please, Miss Bowes, I'm sorry to have to ask a favour, but may Rona be changed into another dormitory?"

"Why, Ulyth, you wrote to me specially and asked if you might have her for a room-mate!"

"Yes, I did; but I hadn't seen her then. I thought she'd be so different."

"Isn't it a little too soon to judge? You haven't known her twenty-four hours yet."

"I know as much of her as I ever want to. Oh, Miss Bowes, she's dreadful! I'll never like her. I can't have her in my room—I simply can't!"

There was a shake, suggestive of tears, in Ulyth's voice. Her eyes looked heavy, as if she had not slept. Miss Bowes sighed again.

"Rona mayn't be exactly what you imagined, but you must remember in what different circumstances she has been brought up. I think she has many good qualities, and that she'll soon improve. Now let us look at the matter from her point of view. You have been writing to her constantly for two years. She has come here specially to be near you. You are her only friend in a new and strange country where she is many thousand miles away from her own home. You gave her a cordial invitation to England, and now, because she does not happen to realize your quite unfounded expectations, you want to back out of all your obligations to her. I thought you were a girl, Ulyth, who kept her promises."

Ulyth fingered the corner of the tablecloth nervously for a moment, then she burst out:

"I can't, Miss Bowes, I simply can't. If you knew how she grates upon me! Oh, it's too much! I'd rather have a bear cub or a monkey for a room-mate! Please, please don't make us stop together! If you won't move her, move me! I'd sleep in an attic if I could have it to myself."

"You must stay where you are until the end of the week. You owe that to Rona, at any rate. Afterwards I shall not force you, but leave it to your own good feeling. I want you to think over what I have been saying. You can come on Sunday morning and tell me your decision."

"I know what the answer will be," murmured Ulyth, as she went from the room.

She was very angry with Miss Bowes, with Rona, and with herself for her own folly.

"It's ridiculous to expect me to take up this savage," she argued. "And too bad of Miss Bowes to make out that I'm breaking my word. Oh dear! what am I to write home to Mother? How can I tell her? I believe I'll just send her a picture post card, and only say Rona has come, and no more. Miss Bowes has no right to coerce me. I'll make my own friends. No, I've quite made up my mind she shan't cram Rona down my throat. To have that awful girl eternally in my bedroom—I should die!"

After all her heroics it was a terrible come-down for poor Ulyth now the actual had taken the place of the sentimental. Her class-mates could not forbear teasing her a little. It was too bad of them; but then they had resented her entire pre-appropriation of the new-comer, and, moreover, had one or two old scores from last term to pay off. Ulyth began to detest the very name of "the Prairie Flower". She wondered how she could ever have been so silly.

"I ought to have been warned," she thought, trying to throw the blame on to somebody else. "No one ever suggested she'd be like this. The editor of the magazine really shouldn't have persuaded us to write. It's all his fault in the beginning."

Though the rest of the girls were scarcely impressed with Rona's personality, they were not utterly repelled.

"She's rather pretty," ventured Lizzie Lonsdale. "Her eyes are the bluest I've ever seen."

"And her teeth are so white and even," added Beth Broadway. "She looks jolly when she smiles."

"Perhaps she'll smarten up soon," suggested Addie Knighton. "That blue dress suits her; it just matches her eyes."

To Ulyth's fastidious taste Rona's clothes looked hopelessly ill-cut and colonial, especially as her room-mate put them on anyhow, and seemed to have no regard at all for appearances. A girl who did not mind whether she looked really trim, spruce and smart, must indeed have spent her life in the backwoods.

"Didn't you even have a governess in New Zealand?" she ventured one day. She did not encourage Rona to talk, but for once her curiosity overcame her dislike of the high-pitched voice.

"Couldn't get one to stop up-country, where we were. Mrs. Barker, our cowman's wife, looked after me ever since Mother died. She was the only woman about the place. One of our farm helps taught me lessons. He was a B.A. of Oxford, but down on his luck. Dad said I'd seem queer to English girls. I don't know that I care."

Though Rona might not be possessed of the most delicate perceptions, she nevertheless had common sense enough to realize that Ulyth did not receive her with enthusiasm.

"I suppose you're disappointed in me?" she queried. "Dad said you would be, but I laughed at him. Pity if our ready-made friendship turned out a misfit! I think you're no end! Dad said I'd got to copy you; it'll take me all my time, I expect. Things are so different here from home."

Was there a suspicion of a choke in the words?

Ulyth had a sudden pang of compunction. Unwelcome as her companion was to her, she did not wish to be brutal.

"You mustn't get home-sick," she said hastily. "You'll shake down here in time. Everyone finds things strange at school just at first. I did myself."

"I guess you were never as much a fish out of water as me, though," returned Rona, and went whistling down the passage.

Ulyth tried to dismiss her from her thoughts. She did not intend to worry over Rona more than she could possibly help. Fortunately they were not together in class, for Rona's entrance-examination papers had not reached the standard of the Lower Fifth, and she had been placed in IV b.

Ulyth was interested in her school-work. She stood well with her teachers, and was an acknowledged force in her form. She came from a very refined and cultured home, where intellectual interests were cultivated both by father and mother. Her temperament was naturally artistic; she was an omnivorous reader, and could devour anything in the shape of literature that came her way. The bookcase in her dormitory was filled with beautiful volumes, mostly Christmas and birthday gifts. She rejoiced in their soft leather bindings or fine illustrations with a true book-lover's enthusiasm. It was her pride to keep them in daintiest condition. Dog-ears or thumb-marks were in her opinion the depths of degradation. Ulyth had ambitions also, ambitions which she would not reveal to anybody. Some day she planned to write a book of her own. She had not yet fixed on a subject, but she had decided just what the cover was to be like, with her name on it in gilt letters. Perhaps she might even illustrate it herself, for her love of art almost equalled her love of literature; but that was still in the clouds, and must wait till she had chosen her plot. In the interim she wrote verses and short stories for the school magazine, and her essays for Miss Teddington were generally returned marked "highly creditable".

This term Ulyth intended to study hard. It was a promotion to be in the Upper School; she was beginning several new subjects, and her interest in many things was aroused. It would be a delightful autumn as soon as she had got rid of this dreadful problem, at present the one serious obstacle to her comfort. But in the meantime it was only Friday, and till at least the following Monday she would be obliged to endure her uncongenial presence in her bedroom.

III. Round the Camp-fire

It was the first Saturday of the term. So far the girls had been kept busily occupied settling down to work in their fresh forms, and trying to grow accustomed to Miss Teddington's new time-tables. Now, however, they were free to relax and enjoy themselves in any way they chose. Some were playing tennis, some had gone for a walk with Miss Moseley, a few were squatting frog-like on boulders in the midst of the stream, and others strolled under the trees in the grove.

"Thank goodness the weather's behaving itself!" said Mary Acton, who, with a few other members of the Lower Fifth, was sitting on the trunk of a fallen oak. "Do you remember last council? It simply poured. The thing's no fun if one can't have a real fire."

"It'll burn first-rate to-night," returned Lizzie Lonsdale. "There's a little wind, and the wood'll be dry."

"That reminds me I haven't found my faggot yet," said Beth Broadway easily.

"Girl alive! Then you'd better go and look for one, or you'll be all in a scramble at the last!"

"Bother! I'm too comfy to move."

"Nice Wood-gatherer you'll look if you come empty-handed!"

"I'd appropriate half your lot first, Lizzikins!"

"Would you, indeed? I'd denounce you, and you'd lose your rank and be degraded to a candidate again."

"Oh, you mean, stingy miser!"

"Not at all. It's the wise and foolish virgins over again. I shan't have enough for myself and you. I've a lovely little stack—just enough for one—reposing—no, I'd better not tell you where. Don't look so hopeful. You're not to be trusted."

"What are you talking about?" asked Rona Mitchell, who had wandered up to the group. "Why are some of you picking up sticks? I saw a girl over there with quite a bundle just now. You might tell me."

So far Rona had not been well received in her own form, IV b. She was older than her class-mates, and they, instead of attempting to initiate her into the ways of the Woodlands girls on this holiday afternoon, had scuttled off and left her to fend for herself. She looked such an odd, wistful, lonely figure that Lizzie Lonsdale's kind heart smote her. She pushed the other girls farther along the tree-trunk till they made a grudging space for the new-comer.

"I'm a good hand at camp-fires, if you want any help," continued Rona, seating herself with alacrity. "I've made 'em by the dozen at home, and cooked by them too. Just let me know where you want it, and I'll set to work."

"You wouldn't be allowed," said Beth bluntly. "This fire is a very special thing. Only Wood-gatherers may bring the fuel. No one else is eligible."

"Why on earth not?"

"Oh, I can't bother to explain now! It would take too long. You'll find out to-night. Girls, I'm going in!"

"Turn up here at dusk if you want to know, and bring a cup with you," suggested Lizzie, with a half-ashamed effort at friendliness, as she followed her chums.

"You bet I'll turn up! Rather!"

That evening, just after sunset, little groups of girls began to collect round an open green space in the glade. They came quietly and with a certain sense of discipline. A stranger would have noticed that if any loud tone or undue hilarity made itself heard, it was instantly and firmly repressed by one or two who seemed in authority. That the meeting was more in the nature of a convention than a mere pleasure-gathering was evident both from the demeanour of the assemblage and from the various badges pinned on the girls' coats. No teacher was present, but there was an air of general expectancy, as if the coming of somebody were awaited. To the pupils at The Woodlands this night's ceremony was a very special occasion, for it was the autumn reunion of the Camp-fire League, an organization which, originally of American birth, had been introduced at the instigation of Miss Teddington, and had taken great root in the school. Any girl was eligible as a candidate, but before she could gain admission to even the initial rank she had to prove herself worthy of the honour of membership, and pass successfully through her novitiate.

The organizer and leader of the branch which to-night was to celebrate its third anniversary was a certain Mrs. Arnold, a charming young American lady who lived in the neighbourhood. She had been an enthusiastic supporter of the League in Pennsylvania before her marriage, and was delighted to pass on its traditions to British schoolgirls. Her winsome personality made her a prime favourite at The Woodlands, where her influence was stronger even than she imagined. Miss Teddington, though it was she who had asked Mrs. Arnold to institute and take charge of the meetings, had the discretion to keep out of the League herself, realizing that the presence of teachers might be a restraint, and that the management was better left in the hands of a trustworthy outsider.

To become an authorized Camp-fire member was an ambition with most of the girls, and spurred many on to greater efforts than they would otherwise have attempted. All looked forward to the meetings, and there could be no greater punishment for certain offences than a temporary withdrawal of League privileges.

This September, after the long summer holiday, the reunion seemed of even more than ordinary importance.

The sun had set, the last gleam of the afterglow had faded, and the glade had grown full of dim shadows by the time everybody was present in the grove. The gentle rustle of the leafy boughs overhead, and the persistent tumbling rush of the stream, seemed like a faint orchestral accompaniment of Nature for the ceremonial.

"Is it a Quakers' Meeting or a Freemasons' Lodge? You're all very mum," asked Rona, whom curiosity had led out with the others.

"Sh-sh! We're waiting for our 'Guardian of the Fire'," returned Ulyth, trying to suppress the loudness of the high-pitched voice. "Mrs. Arnold's generally very punctual. Oh, there! I believe I hear her ringing her bicycle bell now. I'm going down the field to meet her."

Ulyth regarded Mrs. Arnold with that intense adoration which a girl of fifteen often bestows on a woman older than herself. She ran now through the wood, hoping she might be in time to catch her idol on the drive and have just a few precious moments with her before she was joined by the others. There were many things she wanted to pour into her friend's ready ears, but she knew it would be impossible to monopolize her as soon as the rest of the girls knew of her arrival. She fled as on wings, therefore, and had the supreme satisfaction of being the first in the field. Mrs. Arnold, young, very fair, graceful, and golden-haired, looked a picture in her blue cycling costume as she leaned her machine against a tree and greeted her enthusiastic admirer.

"Oh, you darling! I've such heaps to tell you!" began Ulyth, clasping her tightly by the arm. "Rona Mitchell has come, and she's the most awful creature! I never was so disappointed in my life. Don't you sympathize with me, when I expected her to be so ripping? She's absolute backwoods!"

"Yes, I've heard all about her. Poor child! She must have had a strange training. It's time indeed she began to learn something."

"She's not learned anything in New Zealand. Oh, her voice will just grate on you! And her manners! She's hopeless! Everything she does and says is wrong. And to think she's been foisted on to me, of all people!"

"Poor child!" repeated Mrs. Arnold. ("Which of us does she mean?" thought Ulyth.) "She's evidently raw material. Every diamond needs polishing. What an opportunity for a Torch-bearer!"

Ulyth dropped her friend's arm suddenly. It was not at all the answer she had expected. Moreover, at least a dozen girls had come running up and were claiming their chief's attention. In a species of triumphant procession Mrs. Arnold was escorted into the glade and installed on her throne of state, a seat made of logs and decorated with ferns. Everyone clustered round to welcome her, and for the moment she was the centre of an enthusiastic crowd. Ulyth followed more slowly. She was feeling disturbed and put out. What did Mrs. Arnold mean? Surely not——? A sudden thought had flashed into her mind but she thrust it away indignantly. Oh no, that was quite impossible! It was outrageous of anybody to make the suggestion. And yet—and yet—the uneasy voice that had been haunting her for the last four days began to speak with even more vehemence. With a sigh of relief she heard the signal given for "Attention", and cast the matter away from her for the moment. Every eye was fixed on their leader. The ceremony was about to begin.

Mrs. Arnold rose, and in her clear, sweet voice proclaimed:

"The Guardian of the Fire calls on the Wood-gatherers to bring their fuel."

At once a dozen girls came forward, each dragging a tolerably large bundle of brushwood. They deposited these in a circle, saluted, and retired.

"Fire-makers, do your work!" commanded the leader.

Eight girls responded, Ulyth among the number, and seizing the brushwood, they built it deftly into a pile. All stood round, waiting in silence while their chief struck a match and applied a light to some dried leaves and bracken that had been placed beneath. The flame rose up like a scarlet ribbon, and in a few moments the dry fuel was ablaze and crackling. The gleam lighting up the glade displayed a picturesque scene. The boles of the trees might have been the pillars in some ancient temple, with the branches for roof. Close by the cascade of the stream leapt white against a background of dim darkness. The harvest moon, full and golden, was rising behind the crest of Cwm Dinas. An owl flew hooting from the wood higher up the glen. Mrs. Arnold stood waiting until the bonfire was well alight, then she turned to the expectant girls.

"I've no need to tell most of you why we have met here to-night; but for the benefit of a few who are new-comers to The Woodlands I should like briefly to explain the objects of the Camp-fire League. The purpose of the organization is to show that the common things of daily life are the chief means of beauty, romance, and adventure, to cultivate the outdoor habit, and to help girls to serve the community—the larger home—as well as the individual home. In these ultra-modern times we must especially devote ourselves to the service of the country, and try by every means in our power to make our League of some national use. First let us repeat together the rules of the Camp-fire League:

"'1. Seek beauty.

2. Give service.

3. Pursue knowledge.

4. Be trustworthy.

5. Hold on to health.

6. Glorify work.

7. Be happy.'

"Seeking beauty includes more than looking for superficial adornment. Beauty is in all life, in Nature, in people, in the love of one's heart, in virtue and a radiant disposition. The value of service depends largely upon the attitude of mind of the one rendering it. Joy in the performance of some needed service in behalf of parent, teacher, friend, or country constitutes a part of the very essence of goodness, and multiplies the good already abiding in the heart. This is the third anniversary of the founding of a branch of the League at The Woodlands. So far the work has been very encouraging, and I am glad to say that to-night we have candidates eligible for all three ranks. It shall now be the business of the meeting formally to admit them. Candidates for Wood-gatherers, present yourselves!"

Six of the younger girls came forward and saluted.

"Can you repeat, and will you promise to obey, the seven rules of the Camp-fire law?"

Each responded audibly in the affirmative.

"Then you are admitted to the initial rank of Wood-gatherers, you are awarded the white badge of service, and may sign your names as accepted members of the League."

The six retired to make way for a higher grade, and eight other girls stepped into the firelight.

"Candidates for Fire-makers, you have passed three months with good characters as Wood-gatherers, and you have proved your ability to render first aid, keep accounts, tie knots, and prepare and serve a simple meal; you have each committed to memory some good poem, and have acquainted yourself with the career of some able, public-spirited woman. Having thus shown your wish to serve the community, repeat the Fire-maker's desire."

And all together the eight girls chanted:

"As fuel is brought to the fire

So I purpose to bring

My strength,

My ambition,

My heart's desire,

My joy,

And my sorrow

To the fire

Of human kind.

For I will tend

As my fathers have tended

And my fathers' fathers

Since time began,

The fire that is called

The love of man for man,

The love of man for God."

Mrs. Arnold said a few kind words to each as she pinned on their red badges. Only novices who had stood the various tests with credit were raised to the honour of the second rank. Those who had failed must perforce continue as Wood-gatherers for another period of three months.

There remained one further and higher rank, only attainable after six months' ardent and trustworthy service as Fire-makers. To-night three girls were to be admitted to its privileges, and Helen Cooper, Doris Deane, and Ulyth Stanton presented themselves. With grave faces they repeated the Torch-bearer's desire:

"That light which has been given to me I desire to pass undimmed to others."

Ulyth kissed Mrs. Arnold's pretty hand as the long-coveted yellow badge was fastened on to her dress, side by side with the Union Jack. She was so glad to be a Torch-bearer at last. She had become a candidate when the League was first founded three years ago, and all that time she had been slowly working towards the desired end of the third rank. One or two slips had hindered her progress, but last term she had made a very special effort, and it was sweet to meet with her reward. Torch-bearers were mostly to be found among the Sixth and Upper Fifth; she was the only girl in V b who had won so high a place. She touched the yellow ribbon tenderly. It meant so much to her.

Now that the serious business of the meeting was over, the fun was about to begin. The big camp-kettle was produced and filled at the stream, and then set to boil upon the embers. Cups and spoons made their appearance. Cocoa and biscuits were to be the order of the evening, followed by as many songs, dances, and games as time permitted. Squatting on the grass, the girls made a circle round their council-fire. Marjorie Earnshaw, one of the Sixth, had brought her guitar, and struck the strings every now and then as an earnest of the music she intended to bring from it later on. Everybody was in a jolly mood, and inclined to laugh at any pun, however feeble. Mrs. Arnold, always bright and animated, surpassed herself, and waxed so amusing that the circle grew almost hysterical. The Wood-gatherers, whose office it was to mix the cocoa, supplied cup after cup, and refilled the kettle so often that they ventured to air the time-honoured joke that the stream would run dry, for which ancient chestnut they were pelted with pebbles.

When at last nobody could even pretend to be thirsty any longer, the cups were rinsed in the pool and stacked under a tree, and the concert commenced. Part-songs and catches sounded delightful in the open air, and solos, sung to the accompaniment of Marjorie's guitar, were equally effective. The girls roared the choruses to popular national ditties, and special favourites were repeated again and again. Several step-dances were executed, and had a weird effect in the unsteady light of the waning fire. Mrs. Arnold, who was a splendid elocutionist, gave a recitation on an incident in the American War, and was enthusiastically encored. The moon had risen high in the sky, and was peeping through the tree-tops as if curious to see who had invaded so sylvan a spot as the glade. The silver beams caught the ripples of the stream and made the shadows seem all the darker.

It was a glorious beginning for the new term, as everybody agreed, and an earnest of the fun that was in store later on.

"We shan't be able to camp out next meeting, but we'll have high jinks in the hall," purred Beth Broadway.

"Yes; Mrs. Arnold says she has a lovely programme for the winter, and we're to have candles instead of fuel," agreed Lizzie Lonsdale, who had been raised that evening to the rank of Fire-maker.

"Trust Mrs. Arnold to find something new for us to do!" murmured Ulyth, looking fondly in the direction of her ideal.

"My gracious, I call this meeting no end!" piped a cheerful voice in her ear; and Rona, smiling with all-too-obtrusive friendliness, plumped down by her side. "You've good times here, and no mistake! I think I'll be a candidate myself next, if that's the game to play. You're a high-and-mighty one, aren't you? Let's have a look at your badge!"

"If you dare to touch it!" flared Ulyth, putting up her hand to guard her cherished token.

"Why, I wouldn't do it any harm, I promise you; I wouldn't finger it! It means something, doesn't it? I didn't quite catch what it was. You might tell me. How'm I ever to get to know if you won't?"

Rona's clear blue eyes, unconsciously wistful, looked straight into Ulyth's. The latter sprang to her feet without a word. The force of her own motto seemed suddenly to be revealed to her. She rushed away into the shadow of the trees to think it over for herself.

"That light which has been given to me I desire to pass undimmed to others."

Those were the words she had repeated so earnestly less than an hour ago. And she was already about to make them a mockery! Yes, that was what Mrs. Arnold had meant. She had known it all the time, but she would not acknowledge it even to her innermost heart. Was this what was required from a Torch-bearer—to pass on her own refinement and culture to a girl whose crudities offended every particle of her fastidious taste? Ulyth sat down on a stone and wept hot, bitter, rebellious tears. She understood only too well why she had been so miserable for the last three days. She had disliked Miss Bowes for hinting that she was not keeping her word, and had told herself that she was a much-tried and ill-used person.

"I must do it, I must, or fail at the very beginning!" she sobbed. "I know what Mother would say. It's got to be; if for nothing else, for the sake of the school. A Torch-bearer mustn't shirk and break her pledge. Oh, how I shall loathe it, hate it! Ulyth Stanton, do you realize what you're undertaking? Your whole term's going to be spoilt."

The big bell in the tower was clanging its summons to return, with short, impatient strokes. Everybody joined hands in a circle round the ashes of the camp-fire, to sing in a low chant the good-night song of the League and "God Save the Queen". Mr. Arnold, who had come to fetch his wife, was sounding his hooter as a signal on the drive. The evening's fun was over. Regretfully the girls collected cups, spoons, and kettle, and made their way back to the house.

On Sunday morning Ulyth, with a very red face, marched into the study, and announced:

"Miss Bowes, I've been having a tussle. One-half of me said: 'Don't have Rona in your room at any price!' and the other half said: 'Let her stop!' I've decided to keep her."

"I knew you would, when you'd thought it over," beamed Miss Bowes.

"Are all New Zealanders the same?" asked Ulyth. "I've not met one before."

"Certainly not. Most of them are quite as cultured and up-to-date as ourselves. There are splendid schools in New Zealand, and excellent opportunities for study of every kind. Poor Rona, unfortunately, has had to live on a farm far away from civilization, and her education and welfare in every respect seem to have been utterly neglected. Don't take her as a type of New Zealand! But she'll soon improve if we're all prepared to help her. I'm glad you're ready to be her real friend."

"I'll try my best!" sighed Ulyth.

IV. A Blackberry Foray

Having made up her mind to accept the responsibility which fate, through the agency of the magazine editor, had thrust upon her, Ulyth, metaphorically speaking, set her teeth, and began to take Rona seriously in hand. Being ten months older than her protégée, in a higher form, and, moreover, armed with full authority from Miss Bowes, she assumed command of the bedroom, and tried to regulate the chaos that reigned on her comrade's side of it. Rona submitted with an air of amused good nature to have her clothes arranged in order in her drawers, her shoes put away in the cupboard, and her toilet articles allotted places on her washstand and dressing-table. She even consented to give some thought to her personal appearance, and borrowed Ulyth's new manicure set.

"You're mighty particular," she objected. "What does it all matter? Miss Bowes gave me such a talking-to, and said I'd got to do exactly what you told me; and before I came, Dad rubbed it into me to copy you for all I was worth, so I suppose I'll have to try. I guess you'll find it a job to civilize me though." And her eyes twinkled.

Ulyth thought, with a mental sigh, that she probably would find it "a job".

"No one bothered about it at home," Rona continued cheerfully. "Dad did say sometimes I was growing up a savage, but Mrs. Barker never cared. She let me do what I liked, so long as I didn't trouble her. She was no lady! We couldn't get a lady to stay at our out-of-the-way block. Dad used to be a swell in England once, but that was before I was born."

Ulyth began to understand, and her disgust changed to a profound pity. A motherless girl who had run wild in the backwoods, her father probably out all day, her only female guide a woman of the backwoods, whose manners were presumably of the roughest—this had been Rona's training. No wonder she lacked polish!

"When I compare her home with my home and my lovely mother," thought Ulyth, "yes—there's certainly a vast amount to be passed on."

The other girls, who had never expected her to keep Rona in her bedroom, were inclined to poke fun at the proceeding.

"Your bear cub will need training before you teach her to dance," said Stephanie Radford tauntingly.

"She has no parlour tricks at present," sniggered Addie Knighton.

"Are you posing as Valentine and Orson?" laughed Gertie Oliver. Gertrude had been Ulyth's room-mate last term, and felt aggrieved to be superseded.

"I call her the cuckoo," said Mary Acton. "Do you remember the young one we found last spring, sprawling all over the nest, and opening its huge, gaping beak?"

In spite of her ignorance and angularities there was a certain charm about the new-comer. When the sunburn caused by her sea-voyage had yielded to a course of treatment, it left her with a complexion which put even that of Stephanie Radford, the acknowledged school beauty, in the shade. The coral tinge in Rona's cheeks was, as Doris Deane enviously remarked, "almost too good to look natural", and her blue eyes with the big pupils and the little dark rims round the iris shone like twinkling stars when she laughed. That ninnying laugh, to be sure, was still somewhat offensive, but she was trying to moderate it, and only when she forgot did it break out to scandalize the refined atmosphere of The Woodlands; the small white even teeth which it displayed, and two conspicuous dimples, almost atoned for it. The brown hair was brushed and waved and its consequent state of new glossiness was a very distinct improvement on the former elf locks. In the sunshine it took tones of warm burnt sienna, like the hair of the Madonna in certain of Titian's great pictures. Lessons, alack! were uphill work. Rona was naturally bright, but some subjects she had never touched before, and in others she was hopelessly backward. The general feeling in the school was that "The Cuckoo", as they nicknamed her, was an experiment, and no one could guess exactly what she would grow into.

"She's like one of those queer beasties we dug up under the yew-tree last autumn," suggested Merle Denham. "Those wriggling transparent things, I mean. Don't you remember? We kept them in a box, and didn't know whether they'd turn out moths, or butterflies, or earwigs, or woodlice!"

"They turned into cockchafer beetles, as a matter of fact," said Ulyth drily.

"Well, they were horrid enough in all conscience. I don't like Nature study when it means hoarding up creepy-crawlies."

"You're not obliged to take it."

"I don't this year. I've got Harmony down on my time-table instead."

"You'll miss the rambles with Teddie."

"I don't care. I'll play basket-ball instead."

"How about the blackberry foray?"

"Oh, I'm not going to be left out of that! It's not specially Nature study. I've put my name down with Miss Moseley's party."

The inmates of The Woodlands were fond of jam. It was supplied to them liberally, and they consumed large quantities of it at tea-time. To help to meet this demand, blackberrying expeditions were organized during the last weeks of September, and the whole school turned out in relays to pick fruit. A dozen girls and a mistress generally composed a party, which was not confined to any particular form, but might include any whose arrangements for practising or special lessons allowed them to go. Dates and particulars of the various rambles planned, with the names of the mistresses who were to be leaders, were pinned up on the notice-board, and the girls might put their names to them as they liked, so long as each list did not exceed twelve.

On Saturday afternoon Miss Moseley headed a foray in the direction of Porth Powys Falls, and Merle, Ulyth, Rona, Addie, and Stephanie were members of her flock.

"I'm glad I managed to get into this party," announced Merle, "because I always like Porth Powys better than Pontvoelas or Aberceiriog. It's a jollier walk, and the blackberries are bigger and better. I was the very last on the list, so I'd luck. Alice had to go under Teddie's wing. I'd rather have Mosie than Teddie!"

"So would I," agreed Ulyth. "I scribbled my name the very first of all. Just got a chance to do it as I was going to my music-lesson, before everyone else made a rush for the board. Porth Powys will be looking no end to-day."

Swinging their baskets, the girls began to climb a narrow path which ran alongside the stream up the glen. Some of them were tempted to linger, and began to gather what blackberries could be found; but Miss Moseley had different plans.

"Come along! It's ridiculous to waste our labour here," she exclaimed. "All these bushes have been well picked over already. We'll walk straight on till we come to the lane near the ruined cottage, then we shall get a harvest and fill our baskets in a third of the time. Quick march!"

There was sense in her remarks, so Merle abandoned several half-ripe specimens for which she had been reaching and joined the file that was winding, Indian fashion, up the path through the wood. Over a high, ladder-like stile they climbed, then dropped down into the gorge to where a small wooden bridge spanned the stream. They loved to stand here looking at the brown rushing water that swirled below. The thick trees made a green parlour, and the continual moisture had carpeted the woods with beautiful verdant moss which grew in close sheets over the rocks. Up again, by an even steeper and craggier track, they climbed the farther bank of the gorge, and came out at last on to the broad hill-side that overlooked the Craigwen Valley.

Here was scope for a leader; the track was so overgrown as to be almost indistinguishable, and ran across boggy land, where it was only too easy to plunge over one's boot-tops in oozy peat. Miss Moseley found the way like a pioneer; she had often been there before and remembered just what places were treacherous and just where it was possible to use a swinging bough for a help. By following in her footsteps the party got safely over without serious wettings, and sat down to take breath for a few minutes on some smooth, glacier-ground rocks that topped the ridge they had been scaling. They were now at some height above the valley, and the prospect was magnificent. For at least ten miles they could trace the windings of the river, and taller and more distant mountain peaks had come into view.

"Some people say that Craigwen Valley's very like the Rhine," volunteered Ulyth. "It hasn't any castles, of course, except at Llangarmon, but the scenery's just as lovely."

"Nice to think it's British then," rejoiced Merle. "Wales can hold its own in the way of mountains and lakes. People have no need to go abroad for them. What's New Zealand like, Rona?"

"We've ripping rivers there," replied the Cuckoo, "bigger than this by lots, and with tree-ferns up in the bush. This isn't bad, though, as far as it goes. What's that place over across on the opposite hill?"

"Where the light's shining? Oh, that's Llanfairgwyn! There's a village and a church. We've only been once. It's rather a long way, because you have to cross the ferry at Glanafon before you can get to the other side of the river."

"And what's that big white house in the trees, with the flag?"

"That's Plas Cafn. It's the place in the neighbourhood, you know," said Stephanie, fondly fingering her necklace.

"I don't know. How should I?"

"Well, you know it now, at any rate."

"Does it belong to toffs?"

"It belongs to Lord and Lady Glyncraig. They live there for part of the year."

"Oh!" said Rona. She put her chin on her hand and surveyed the distant mansion for several moments in silence. "I reckon they're stuck up," she remarked at last.

"I believe they're considered nice. I've never spoken to them," replied Ulyth.

"I have," put in Stephanie complacently. "I went to tea once at Plas Cafn. It was when Father was Member for Rotherford. Lord Glyncraig knew him in Parliament, of course, and he happened to meet Father and me just when we were walking past the gate at Plas Cafn, and asked us in to tea."

Merle, Addie, and Ulyth smiled. This visit, paid four years ago, was the standing triumph of Stephanie's life. She never forgot, nor allowed any of her schoolfellows to forget, that she had been entertained by the great people of the neighbourhood.

"He wasn't Lord Glyncraig then; he was only Sir John Mitchell, Baronet. He's been raised to a peerage since," said Merle, willing to qualify some of the glory of Stephanie's reminiscences.

"We don't grow peers in Waitoto, or baronets either, for the matter of that," observed Rona. "I don't guess they're wanted out with us. We'd have no place in the bush for a Lord Glyncraig."

"You'd better claim acquaintance with him, as your name's Mitchell too. How proud he'd be of the honour!" teased Addie.

Coral flooded the whole of the Cuckoo's face. She had begun to understand the difference between her rough upbringing and the refined homes of the other girls, and she resented the sneers that were often made at her expense.

"Our butcher at home is Joseph Mitchell," hinnied Merle.

"Mitchell's a common enough name," said Ulyth. "I know two families in Scotland and some people at Plymouth all called Mitchell. They're none of them related to each other, and probably not to Merle's butcher or to Lord Glyncraig."

"Nor to me," said Rona. "I'm a democrat, and I glory in it. Stephanie's welcome to her grand friends if she likes them."

"I do like them," sighed Stephanie plaintively. "I love aristocratic people and nice houses and things. Why shouldn't I? You needn't grin, Addie Knighton; you'd know them yourself if you could. When I come out I'd like to be presented at Court, and go to a ball where the people are all dukes and duchesses and earls and countesses. It would be worth while dancing with a duke, especially if he wore the Order of the Garter!"

"Until that glorious day comes you'll have to dance with poor little me for a partner," giggled Merle.

"Aren't you all rested? We shall get no blackberries if we don't hurry on," called Miss Moseley from the other end of the rock.

Everybody scrambled up immediately and set out again over the bracken-covered hill-side. Another half-mile and they had reached the bourne of their expedition. The narrow track through the gorse and fern widened suddenly into a lane, a lane with very high, unmortared walls, over which grew a variety of bramble with a particularly luscious fruit. Every connoisseur of blackberries knows what a difference there is between the little hard seedy ones that commonly flourish in the hedges and the big juicy ones with the larger leaves. Nature had been prodigal here, and a bounteous harvest hung within easy reach.

"They are as big as mulberries—and oh, such heaps and heaps!" exclaimed Addie ecstatically. "No, Merle, you wretch, this is my branch! Don't poach, you wretch! Go farther on, can't you!"

"I wish we could send the jam to the hospital when it's made," sighed Merle.

The party spread itself out; some of the girls climbed to the top of the wall, so that they could reach what grew on the sunnier side, and a few skirted round over a gate into a field, where a ruined cottage was also covered with brambles. They worked down the lane by slow degrees, picking hard as they went. At the end a sudden rushing roar struck upon the ear, and without even waiting for a signal from Miss Moseley the girls with one accord hopped over a fence, and ran up a slight incline. The voice of the waterfall was calling, and the impulse to obey was irresistible. At the top of the slope they stopped, for they had reached a natural platform that overlooked the gorge. The scene rivalled one of the beauty-spots of Switzerland. The Porth Powys stream, flowing between precipitous rocks, fell two hundred feet in a series of four splendid cascades. The rugged crags on either side were thickly covered with a forest of fir and larch, and here and there a taller stone-pine reared its darker head above the silvery green. Dashing, roaring, leaping, shouting, the water poured down in a never-ceasing volume: the white spray rose up in clouds, wetting the girls' faces; the sound was like an endless chorus of hallelujahs.

"Porth Powys is in fine form to-day. There must have been rain up in the mountains last night," remarked Ulyth. "What do you think of it, Rona?"

"It's a champion! I'm going to climb down there and get at the edge."

"No, you won't!" said Miss Moseley sharply. "Nobody is to go a single step nearer. You must all come back into the lane now, and get on with blackberry-picking. Your baskets are only half full yet."

Very reluctantly the girls followed. The fall exercised a fascination over them, and they could have stayed half an hour watching its white swirl. They did not wish, however, to earn the reputation of slackers. Two other parties had gone out blackberrying that afternoon, and there would be keen competition as to which would bring back the most pounds. They set to work again, therefore, with enthusiasm, counting stained fingers and scratches as glorious wounds earned in the good cause. Rona picked with zeal, but she had a preoccupied look on her face.

"Say, I liked that waterfall," she remarked to Ulyth. "One can't see anything of it down in this old lane. I'm going to get a better view."

"You mustn't go off on your own," commanded Ulyth. "Miss Moseley will report you if you do!"

"Don't excite yourself. I only said I was going to get a better view. It's quite easy."

Rona put her basket in a safe place, and with the aid of a hazel bush climbed to the top of the wall. Apparently the prospect did not satisfy her.

"I'm going a stave higher still. Keep your hair on!" she shouted down to Ulyth, and began swarming up the bole of a huge old oak-tree that abutted on the wall. She was strong and active as a boy, and had soon scrambled to where the branches forked. A mass of twisted ivy hung here, and raising herself with its aid, she stood on an outstretched bough.

"It's ripping! I can see a little bit of the fall; I'll see it better if I get over on to that other branch."

"Take care!" called Miss Moseley from below.

Rona started. She had not known the mistress was so near. The movement upset her decidedly unstable balance; she clutched hard at the ivy, but it gave way in her fingers; there was a sudden crash and a smothered shriek.

White as a ghost, Miss Moseley climbed the wall, expecting to find the prostrate form of her pupil on the other side. To her surprise she saw nothing of the sort. Near at hand, however, came a stifled groan.

"Rona, where are you?" shrieked the distracted governess.

"Here," spluttered the voice of the Cuckoo; "inside the tree. The beastly old thing's rotten, and I've tumbled to the very bottom of the trunk!"

"Are you hurt?"

"No, nothing to speak of."

"Here's a pretty go!" murmured the girls, who all came running at the sound of shouts. "How's she going to get out again?"

"Can't you climb up?" urged Miss Moseley.

"No, I can't stir an inch; I'm wedged in somehow."

What was to be done? The affair waxed serious. Miss Moseley, with a really heroic effort, and much help from the girls, managed to scale the tree and look down into the hollow trunk. She could just see Rona's scared face peeping up at her many feet below.

"Can you put up your hand and let me pull you?"

"No; I tell you I'm wedged as tight as a sardine."

"We shall have to send for help then. May and Kathleen, run as quickly as you can down the lane. There's a farm at the bottom of the hill. Tell them what's the matter."

"I hope to goodness they'll understand English!" murmured Merle.

"Will I have to stop here always?" demanded a tragic voice within the tree. "Shall you be able to feed me, or will I have to starve? How long does it take to die of hunger?"

"You won't die just yet," returned Miss Moseley, laughing a little in spite of herself. "We'll get you out in course of time."

"I guess I'd better make my will, though. Has anybody got a pencil and paper, and will they please write it down and send it home? I want to leave my saddle to Pamela Higson, and Jake is to have the bridle and whip—I always liked him better than Billy, though I pretended I didn't. Jane Peters may have my writing-desk—much she writes, though!—and Amabel Holt my old doll. That's all I've left in New Zealand. Ulyth can take what I've got at school—'twon't be any great shakes to her, I expect. You didn't tell me how long it takes to die!"

"Cheer up! There's not the slightest danger," Miss Moseley continued to assure her.

"It's all very well to say 'cheer up' when you're standing safe on the top," said the gloomy voice of the imprisoned dryad. "It feels a different matter when you're boxed up tight with tree all round you. It's jolly uncomfortable. Where are the girls?"

"Here's one," replied Ulyth, climbing the tree to relieve poor Miss Moseley, who gladly retired in her favour. "I'm going to stay and talk to you till somebody comes to get you out. Oh, here are May and Kathleen at last! What a fearful time they've been!"

The two messengers came panting back with many excuses for their delay. It was a long way down the lane to the farm, and when they arrived there they had considerable difficulty in explaining their errand. No one could understand English except a little boy, who was only half-able to translate their remarks into Welsh. They had at length made the farmer realize what had happened, and he had promised to come at once. In the course of a few minutes they were followed by David Jones and his son, Idwal, bearing a rope, an axe, and a saw, and looking rather dismayed at the task in store for them. It proved indeed a matter of considerable difficulty to rescue Rona without hurting her; a portion of the tree-trunk was obliged to be sawn away before she could obtain sufficient room to help to free herself, and it was only after an hour's hard work that she stood at last in safety on the ground.

"How do you feel?" asked Miss Moseley anxiously, fearing broken bones or a sprain from the final effort of extraction.

"Well, I guess it's taken the bounce out of me. I'm as stiff as a rheumatic cat! Oh, I'll get back to school somehow, don't alarm yourself! I'm absolutely starving for tea. Good-bye, you wood-demon; you nearly finished me!" and Rona shook her fist at the offending oak-tree as a parting salute.

"She called it demon to rhyme with lemon!" gurgled Addie, almost sobbing with mirth as she followed, holding Merle's arm. "The Cuckoo will cause me to break a blood-vessel some day. It hurts me most dreadfully to laugh. I've got a stitch in my side. Oh dear! I wonder whatever she'll go and do next?"

V. On Sufferance

"Scratch, scratch, scratch,

Scratch went the old black hen!

Every fowl that scrapes in the barn

Can scratch as well as your pen!"

So sang Rona, bounding noisily one afternoon into No. 3, Room 5, and popping her hands from behind over Ulyth's eyes as the latter sat writing at a table near the window.

"What are you always scratching away for? Can't you finish your work at prep.? Why don't you come downstairs and play basket-ball? You're mighty studious all of a sudden. What have you got here?"

Ulyth flushed crimson with annoyance, and turned her sheets of foolscap hastily over to hide them from her room-mate's prying eyes.

"You're not to touch my papers, Rona! I've told you that before."

"Well, I wasn't touching them. Looking's not touching, anyway. What are you doing? It's queer taste to sit scribbling here half your spare time."

"What I was doing is my own concern, and no business of yours."

"Now you're riled," said the Cuckoo, sitting down easily on her bed. "I didn't mean any harm. I always seem sticking my foot into it somehow."

Ulyth sighed. Nobody in the school realized how much she had to put up with from her irrepressible room-mate, whose hearty voice, extraordinary expressions, and broad notions of fun grated upon her sensitive nature. Rona did not appreciate in the least the heroic sacrifice that Ulyth was making. It had never occurred to her that she might be placed in another dormitory, and that she only remained on sufferance in No. 3. She admired Ulyth immensely, and was quite prepared to take her as a model, but at present the copy was very far indeed from the original. The mistresses had instituted a vigorous crusade against Rona's loud voice and unconventional English, and she was really making an effort to improve; but the habits of years are not effaced in a few weeks, and she still scandalized the authorities considerably. Ulyth could tolerate her when she kept to her own side of the bedroom, but to have meddlesome fingers interfering with her private possessions was the last straw to her burden of endurance.

"Do you understand?" she repeated emphatically. "You're not to touch my papers at all!"

"All serene! I won't lay a finger on them—honest—sure!" returned the Cuckoo, chanting her words to the air of "Swanee River", and drumming an accompaniment on the bedpost. "What d'you think Stephanie called me just now? She said I was an unlicked cub."

"Oh, surely she didn't! Are you certain?"

"Heard her myself. She said it to my face and tittered. You bet I'll pay her out somehow. Miss Stephanie Radford needs taking down a peg. Oh, don't alarm yourself, I'll do it neatly! There'll be no clumsy bungling about it. Well, if you won't go down and play basket-ball I shall. It's more fun than sitting up here."

As the door banged behind Rona, Ulyth heaved an ecstatic "Thank goodness!" She sat for a few moments trying to regain her composure before she recommenced the writing at which she had been interrupted. The manuscript on which she was engaged was very precious. She had set herself no less a task than to write a book. The subject had come to her suddenly one morning as she lay awake in bed, and she regarded it as an inspiration. She would make a story about The Woodlands, and bring in all the girls she knew. It was no use struggling with a historical plot or a romance of the war—she had tried these, and stuck fast in the first chapters; it was better to employ the material close at hand, and weave her tale from the every-day incidents which happened in the school. So she had begun, and though she floundered a little at the difficulty of transferring her impressions to paper, she was making distinct progress.

"I'd never dare to have it published, of course," she ruminated. "Still, it's a beginning, and I shall like to read it over to myself. I think there are some rather neat bits in it, especially that shot at Addie and Stephie. How wild they'd be if they knew! But there's no fear of that. I'll take good care nobody finds out."

When to make time to go on with her literary composition was the difficulty. It was hard to snatch even an occasional half-hour during the day. Where there is a will, however, there is generally also a way, and Ulyth hit upon the plan of getting up very early in the morning and writing while Rona was still asleep. The Cuckoo never stirred until the seven o'clock bell rang, when she would awake noisily, with many yawns and stretchings of arms, so Ulyth flattered herself that her secret was absolutely safe.

Where to hide the precious papers was another problem. She did not dare to put them in any of her drawers, her desk would not lock, and her little jewel-box was too small to contain them.

The fireplace in the bedroom had an old-fashioned chimney-piece that was fitted with a loose wooden mantel-board, from which hung a border of needlework. It was quite easy to lift up this board and slip the papers between it and the chimney-piece; the border completely screened the hiding-place, and, except at a spring-cleaning, the arrangement was not likely to be disturbed. Ulyth congratulated herself greatly upon her ingenuity. It was interesting to have a secret which nobody even guessed. She often looked at the chimney-piece, and chuckled as she thought of what lay concealed there.

The days were rapidly closing in now, and the time between tea and preparation, which only a few weeks ago was devoted to a last game of tennis or a run by the stream, was perforce spent by the schoolroom fire. It was only a short interval, not long enough to make any elaborate occupation worth while, so the girls sat knitting in the twilight and chatting until the bell rang for evening work.

One afternoon, when tea was finished, Ulyth, instead of joining the others as usual, walked upstairs to put away some specimens in the Museum. She passed V b classroom as she did so, and heard smothered peals of mirth issuing from behind the half-closed door.

"What are they doing?" she thought. "I believe I'll go and see." But catching Rona's laugh above the rest, she changed her mind, walked on, and bestowed her fossils carefully in a spare corner of one of the cases. Meanwhile, the group assembled round the fire in V b were enjoying themselves. The room was growing dusk, but, seated on the hearthrug, Addie Knighton could see quite sufficiently to read aloud extracts from a document she was perusing, extracts to which the others listened with thrilling interest, interspersed with comments.

"'The girls of the Oaklands'," so she read, "'were a rather peculiar and miscellaneous set, especially those in the Lower Fifth. Scarcely any of them could be called pretty—'" ("Oh! oh!" howled the attentive circle.) "'One of them, Valerie Chadford, imagined herself so, and gave herself fearful airs in consequence; she was very set up at knowing smart people, and often bragged about it.'" ("I'll never forgive her, never!" screamed Stephanie.) "'The twins, Pearl and Doris, were fat, stodgy girls, who wore five-and-a-halfs in shoes and had twenty-seven-inch waists.'" ("Oh! Won't Merle and Alice be just frantic when they hear?") "'But even they were more interesting than Nellie Clacton, who usually sat with her mouth open, as if she was trying to catch flies.'" ("Does she mean me?" gasped Mary Acton indignantly.) "'Florence Tulliver was inclined to be snarly, and often said mean things about other people behind their backs.'" ("I'll say something now!" declared Gertrude Oliver.) "'And Annie Ryton was——'" but here Addie broke off abruptly and exploded.

"Go on! Go on!" commanded the girls.

"It's too lovely!" spluttered Addie. "O—ho—ho! So that's what she thinks of me, is it?"

"Read it, can't you?"

"Here, give the paper to me!"

"No, no! I'll go on—but—I didn't know my eyes were like faded gooseberries, and my hair like dried seaweed!"

"Has she described herself!" asked Stephanie.

"I haven't come to it yet. Oh yes! here we are, farther on: 'Our heroine, Morvyth Langton, was an unusually——'"

But here Addie stopped abruptly, for a blazing little fury stood in the doorway.

"Addie Knighton, how dare you? How dare you? Give me that paper this instant!"

"No, no! It's much too interesting. Let go! Don't be silly! How can you? Oh, what a shame!" as Ulyth in her anger tore the manuscript across and flung it into the fire.

"Whew! Now you've gone and done it!" whistled Rona.

Ulyth was holding down the last flaming fragment with the poker. When it had expired she turned to the guilty circle. "Who took my papers from my bedroom?"

Her voice was sharp, and her eyes fixed full on Rona.

"I didn't touch them. I never laid so much as a finger on them," protested the Cuckoo.

"But you told someone where they were?"

Rona winked in reply. Yes, alas! winked consciously and deliberately. (It was well for her that Miss Moseley was not in the room.)

"I knew you'd got something there," she admitted. "Were you such an innocent as to think I never saw you scribbling away hard in the early mornings? Why, I was foxing! I used to watch you while I was snoring, and nearly died with laughing because you never found me out."

If eyes could slay, Ulyth's would have finished Rona at that moment. But Addie Knighton, whose suspension of mirth had been merely a species of temporary paralysis, now relapsed into a choking series of guffaws, in which the others joined boisterously.

"I can't—get—over—seaweed—and faded gooseberries!" crowed Addie hysterically.

"I don't catch flies with my open mouth!" shouted Mary Acton, suspending her knitting in her indignation.

"Will somebody please measure the twins' waists?" bleated Christine.

"I didn't say it was meant for any of you. If the cap fits, put it on. Listeners hear no good of themselves, and no more do people who read what isn't intended for them. It serves you all right, so there!" and Ulyth flounced out of the room.

She ran straight up to her bedroom, and burst into tears. It was such a tragi-comedy ending to her literary ambition. She would rather the girls had been more indignant than that they had laughed so much.

"I'll never write another line again," she resolved; and then she thought of the binding she had always intended to have on her first published book, and wept harder.

"Ulyth," said the Cuckoo, stealing in rather shamefacedly, "I'm really frightfully sorry if you're riled. I didn't know you cared all that much about those old papers. I told Addie, as a joke, and she went and poked them out. I think they were fine. It was a shame to burn them. Can't you write them over again?"

"Never!" Ulyth replied, wiping her eyes. "Rona, you don't realize what damage you've done. There! oh yes, I'll forgive you, but if you want to keep friends with me, don't go and do anything of the sort again, that's all!"

Ulyth felt a little shy of meeting her class-mates after their discovery of the very unflattering description she had written of them, but the girls were good-natured and did not bear malice. They treated the whole affair as an intense joke, and even took to calling one another by the assumed names of the story. They composed extra portions, including a lurid description of Ulyth herself, illustrated by rapid sketches on the black-board. The disappointed authoress took it with what calm she could muster. She knew they meant to tease, and the fewer sparks they could raise from her the sooner they would desist and let the matter drop. It would probably serve as a target for Addie's wit till the end of the term, unless the excitement of the newly formed ambulance class chased it from her memory. The Woodlanders were trying to do their duty by their country, and all the girls were enthusiastically practising bandaging.

"I wish we'd some real patients to bind up," sighed Merle one day, as V b took its turn under Nurse Griffith's instructions.

"I'd be sorry for them if they were left to your tender mercies," retorted Mavis, who had been posing as patient. "My arm's sore yet with your vigorous measures."

"What nonsense! I was as gentle as a lamb."

"A curious variety of lamb then, with a wolf inside."

"I believe The Woodlands would make a gorgeous hospital," suggested Addie hopefully. "When we're through our course we might have some real patients down and nurse them."

"Don't you think it! The Rainbow won't carry ambulance lessons as far as that!"

VI. Quits

Ulyth, brushing her hair before the looking-glass one morning, hummed cheerily.

"You seem in spirits," commented Rona, from the washstand. "It's more than I am. Miss Lodge was a pig yesterday. She said my dictation was a disgrace to the school, and I'd got to stop in during the interval this morning and write out all the wrong words a dozen times each. It's too sickening! I'd no luck yesterday. Phyllis Chantrey had my book to correct, and her writing and mine are such opposite poles, we daren't try it on."

"Try what on?" asked Ulyth, pausing with the brush in her hand.

"Why, the exchange dodge, you know."

"I don't know."

"Don't you take dictation in V b? Well, in our form we get it twice a week, and Miss Lodge makes us correct each other's books. We make it up to try and exchange with a girl whose writing's pretty like one's own; then, you see, we can alter things neatly, and allow full marks. It generally works, but it didn't yesterday."

Ulyth's face was a study.

"You mean to tell me you correct each other's mistakes!"

"Why not?" said Rona, not the least abashed. "Miss Lodge never finds out."

Ulyth collapsed into a chair. What was she to do with such a girl?

"Don't you know it's the most atrocious cheating?"

"Is it? Why, the whole form does it," returned the Cuckoo unconcernedly.

"Then they're abominable little wretches, and don't deserve to be candidates for the Camp-fire League. I'm thoroughly ashamed of them. Have they no sense of honour?"

The Cuckoo was looking perplexed.

"Ulyth Stanton, you're always rounding something new on me," she sighed. "I can't keep up with you. I keep my hair tidy now, and don't leave my things lying round the room, and I try to give a sort of twitter instead of laughing, and I've dropped ever so many words you object to, and practise walking down the passage with a book on my head. What more do you want?"

"A great deal," said Ulyth gravely. "Didn't you learn honour at home?"

"Catch Mrs. Barker!"

"But surely your father——?"

"I saw so little of Dad. He was out all day, and sometimes off for weeks together at our other block. When he was at home he didn't care to be bothered overmuch."

An amazed pity was taking the place of Ulyth's indignation. This was, indeed, fallow ground. Mrs. Arnold's comment flashed across her mind:

"What an opportunity for a Torch-bearer!"

"I don't want to be turned into a prig," urged the Cuckoo.

"You needn't. There's a certain amount of slang and fun that's allowable, but noblesse oblige must always come first. You don't understand French yet? Well, never mind. All that matters is that you simply must realize, Rona—do listen, please—that all of us here, including you, mustn't—couldn't—cheat at lessons. For your own sake, and for the sake of the school, you must stop it."

"You think a lot of the school!"

"And quite right too! The school stands to us for what the State does to grown-up people. We've got to do our best to keep the tone up. Cheating brings it down with a run. It's as bad as tearing up treaties."

"Go ahead. Rub it in," returned the Cuckoo, beginning to whistle a trifle defiantly.

She thought the matter over, nevertheless, and returned to the subject that night when they were going to bed.

"Ulyth, I told the girls exactly what you said about them. My gracious, you should have seen their faces! Boiled lobsters weren't in it. That hit about the Camp-fire Guild seemed specially to floor them. I don't fancy, somehow, there'll be any more correcting done in dictation. You've touched them up no end."

"I'm extremely glad if what I said has brought them to their senses," declared Ulyth.

Rona got on tolerably well among her comrades, but there was one exception. With Stephanie she was generally in a state of guerrilla warfare. The latter declared that the vulgar addition to the school was an outrage on the feelings of those who had been better brought up. Stephanie had ambitions towards society with a big S, and worshipped titles. She would have liked the daughter of a duke for a schoolfellow, but so far no member of the aristocracy had condescended to come and be educated at The Woodlands. Stephanie felt injured that Miss Bowes and Miss Teddington should have accepted such a girl as Rona, and lost no opportunity of showing that she thought the New Zealander very far below the accepted standard. The Cuckoo's undoubted good looks were perhaps another point in her disfavour. The school beauty did not easily yield place to a rival, and though she professed to consider Rona's complexion too high-coloured, she had a sneaking consciousness that it was superior to her own.

During the summer holidays Stephanie had taken part in a pageant that was held in aid of a charity near her home. As Queen of the Roses she had occupied a rather important position, and her portrait, in her beautiful fancy costume, had appeared in several of the leading ladies' newspapers. Stephanie's features were good, and the photograph had been a very happy one—"glorified out of all knowledge" said some of the girls; so the photographer had exhibited it in his window, and altogether more notice had been taken of it than was perhaps salutary for the original. Stephanie had brought a copy back to school, and it now adorned her bedroom mantelpiece. She was never tired of descanting upon the pageant, and telling about all the aristocratic people who had come to see it. According to her account the very flower of the neighbourhood had been present, and had taken special notice of her. A girl who had so lately consorted with the county could not be expected to tolerate a tyro from the backwoods. Stephanie was too well brought up to allow herself to be often openly rude; her taunts were generally ingeniously veiled, but they were none the less aggravating for that. The Cuckoo might be callow in some respects, but in others she was very much up-to-date. Though she would look obtuse, and pretend not to understand, as a matter of fact not a gibe was lost upon her, and she kept an exact account of the score.

One morning, early in December, Miss Teddington, who was distributing the contents of the postbag, handed Stephanie a small parcel. It was only a few days after the latter's birthday, and, supposing it to be a belated present, the mistress did not ask the usual questions by which she regulated her pupils' correspondence. The letters were always given out immediately after breakfast, and the girls took them upstairs to read in their dormitories during the quarter of an hour in which they made their beds and tidied their rooms. This morning, just as Ulyth was shaking her pillow, Rona came in, chuckling to herself. The Cuckoo's eyes twinkled like stars.

"D'you want some sport?" she asked. "If you do, come with me, and have the time of your life!"

Ulyth put down the pillow, and hesitated. Fifteen minutes was not too long an allowance for all she was expected to do in her room. But Rona's manner was inviting. She wanted to see what the fun was. The temptress held the door open, and beckoned beguilingly.

"All serene!" yielded Ulyth.

Rona seized her by the arm and dragged her delightedly down the passage.

"Now you're chummy," she murmured. "Whatever you do, though, don't make a noise and give the show away!"

Still in the dark as to the Cuckoo's intentions, Ulyth allowed herself to be led to Dormitory 2, No. 4, at the opposite side of the house. We have mentioned before that the bedrooms at The Woodlands were very spacious—so large, indeed, that each was partitioned into four cubicles divided by lath-and-plaster walls. A passage inside the dormitory gave access to the cubicles, which were in fact separate little bedrooms, except that the partition walls, for purposes of ventilation, did not reach the ceiling. At present the fourth cubicle in Dormitory 2 was unoccupied, but its furniture was rather curiously arranged. One of the beds had been pulled close against the partition, and a chest of drawers, with the drawers removed, had been placed upon it.

"I fixed it up last night, and it was a job," whispered the Cuckoo. "Good thing I'm strong. Now we've got to climb on that, and you'll see what you'll see!"

Ulyth had an uneasy consciousness that she ought not to be mixed up in such a business; but, after all, the girls often scrambled up and peeped into one another's cubicles for a joke, so her action would not be without precedent. She was a very human person, and liked fun as well as anybody. With extreme caution she and Rona mounted the chest of drawers, trying not to make the slightest noise. Their eyes were just on a level with the top of the partition, and they had a good view of the next cubicle. The occupants, Stephanie and her room-mate, Beth Broadway, were far too absorbed to think of looking up towards the ceiling. Their attention was concentrated on the parcel which had arrived by the post. It contained a small bottle, carefully packed in shavings, and also a typewritten letter, the purport of which seemed to electrify Stephanie.

"It's the most extraordinary thing I've ever heard!" she was saying. "Beth, just listen to this."

And she read aloud:

"66 Holborn Viaduct,

London.

"Dear Madam,

"Having seen your portrait, as a noted beauty, published in The Princess, The Ladies' Court Journal, and other leading pictorials, we venture to submit to you a sample of our famous Eau de Venus, an invaluable adjunct to the toilet of any lady possessing a delicate complexion. It is a perfectly harmless, fragrantly scented fluid, which, if applied daily after breakfast, produces a rose-leaf bloom which is absolutely incomparable. As it is a new preparation, we are anxious to submit it to a few ladies of influence in the fashionable world, feeling sure that, once used, they will recommend it.

"We shall esteem it a great favour if you will graciously try the enclosed sample. We do not ask for testimonials, but any expression of appreciation from one who figured so admirably as Queen of the Roses at the Barrfield Pageant would be to us a source of immense gratification.

"May we recommend that the preparation be applied immediately after breakfast, as its ingredients are more potent to the delicate pores of the skin if used at that period of the morning.

"With apologies for troubling you, and hoping you will condescend to give our Eau de Venus at least a trial,

"We remain,

"Faithfully yours,

"Renan, Mariette, et Cie,

Parfumeurs."

"How very peculiar!" gasped Beth, much impressed.

"It must be because they saw my photo in the papers," said Stephanie. She was trying to speak casually, and not to appear too flattered, but her eyes shone. "I believe that pageant made rather a sensation, and of course, well, I was the principal figure in it. I suppose I shall have to try this Eau de Venus."

"It's in a funny little bottle," commented Beth.

"Samples generally are. They never send you very much of a thing. They want you to buy a big bottle afterwards."

Stephanie carefully removed the cork. The preparation seemed to be of a pink, milky description.

"It smells of violets," she said, offering the bottle for Beth to sniff.

"I should certainly try it, if I were you," recommended the latter.

"It says it's quite harmless," continued Stephanie, referring to the letter, "and should be used immediately after breakfast. Well, there's no time like the present!"

If there was a curious agitation on the other side of the partition, neither girl noticed it. Stephanie poured some of the liquid into her hand and rubbed it over her face. Then she turned to the looking-glass.

"It seems very pink and queer! It's all in red streaks!"

"Perhaps you've put on too much. Wipe some of it off," advised Beth.

Vigorous measures with a sponge followed, and Stephanie anxiously surveyed the result.

"It won't come off!" she faltered. "Oh, what have I done to myself? I'm all red smears!"

Her dismay was too much for one at least on the other side of the partition. Rona broke into a loud, cackling laugh. One swift glance upwards and Stephanie realized that she was the victim of a practical joke. It took her exactly three seconds to reach the next cubicle.

"So it's you, is it?" she exploded. "Well, Ulyth Stanton, I am astonished! Evil communications corrupt good manners, and yours smack of the backwoods."

"Don't throw it on Ulyth; she knew nothing about it," retorted the chuckling Cuckoo belligerently. "It's my business, and I don't mind telling you so!"

"I might have known, you—you utter cad! You don't deserve to be in a school among ladies!"

"Go on. Pitch it as strong as you like. The cub's quits with you now for all your airs and your nastiness."

"Oh, don't!" protested Ulyth, interfering in much distress. "Rona, do stop! I'd no idea you meant to play such a dreadful trick on Stephie."

"You must have known something of it, or you wouldn't have come to look on. I expect you were at the bottom of it," sneered Stephanie; "so don't try to sneak out of it, Ulyth Stanton. Your precious joke has marked me for life."

"No, no! It's only cochineal and milk. I got it from the cook," put in the Cuckoo.

"It's stained her face all over, though," said Beth Broadway reproachfully.

"I shall go straight to Miss Bowes," whimpered Stephanie.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," said Ulyth. "Try some methylated spirit first. I'll give you some from my room."

The remedy proved efficacious. The stains yielded to gentle rubbing, and the four girls flew in a wild hurry to make their beds, three much relieved and one naughtily exultant.

"I've paid out Stephie," panted Rona, tucking in her blankets anyhow. "I felt proud of that letter. Made it up with the help of advertisements in the Illustrated Journal. Then I typed it in the study while Teddie was out. You didn't know I could type? Learnt how on the voyage, from a girl who'd a typewriter on board with her. I laid on the butter pretty thick. I knew Steph would swallow it to any amount. Oh, didn't she just look flattered? It was prime! The under-housemaid posted the parcel for me."

"Stephie'll never forgive you!"

"Much I care!"

VII. The Cuckoo's Progress

"Your bear cub still needs taming, Ulyth," said Gertrude Oliver. "She spilt her coffee this morning—such a mess on the tablecloth! I wish I didn't sit next to her. I felt like Alice at the March Hare's tea-party."

"It was half Maud's fault; she jerked her elbow," pleaded Ulyth in extenuation.

"Oh, you can't whitewash her, so don't try! I won't say she isn't better than when she arrived, but there's room for improvement."

"She's much slimmer. I suppose it must have been the voyage that had made her grow so fat in September."

"I wish, at any rate, you could get her out of using those dreadful backwoods expressions. It's high time she dropped them. She's been here nearly a full term."

Ulyth thought so too, and the next time she found a suitable opportunity she tackled Rona on the subject.

"You're too nice to speak in such a queer way. You've no idea how it spoils you," she urged. "You could be another girl if you'd only take a little trouble."

"What's the use? Who minds what I'm like?" returned the Cuckoo a trifle defiantly.

"I do," said Ulyth emphatically.

"Not really?"

"Indeed I do. I care very much. You came over here to be my friend, and there are many things I want in a friend."

"I didn't know you cared," replied Rona in a softened voice. "No one ever did before—except Dad, when he said I was a savage."

"Don't you want to show him what you can grow into?" asked Ulyth eagerly. "Think how surprised and pleased he'll be when he sees you again!"

"There's something in that."

"There's a great deal in it. I know I often make myself do things I don't want because of Mother; she's such a darling, and——" She stopped short, realizing too late the mistake she was making.

"I can't remember Mother," answered Rona, turning away with a suggestive cough. "It's all very well for you."

Ulyth could have bitten her tongue out. She said no more, for she knew her room-mate well enough by this time to have learnt that sympathy must be offered with the utmost discretion. The poor Cuckoo was only too well aware of the deficiencies in her home and upbringing, but the least hint of them from others immediately put her on the defensive. In her own way she was very proud, and though there was a vast difference between Stephanie's stinging remarks and Ulyth's well-meant kindness, anything that savoured of compassion wounded her dignity.

The conversation brought urgently to Ulyth a question which had been disturbing her, and which she had persistently tried to banish from her thoughts. Where was Rona going to spend Christmas? So far as anyone knew she had not a friend or relation in the British Isles. Miss Bowes and Miss Teddington always went away for the holidays, and The Woodlands was left in the charge of servants. Rona could not stay at the school, surely? Had Miss Bowes made any arrangement for her? Ulyth vacillated for at least five minutes, then took out her writing-case and began a letter home.

"Best-beloved Motherkins,

"I am such a nasty, horrid, selfish thing! In every one of your letters you have hinted and hinted and hinted that we should ask Rona for Christmas. You wouldn't say it outright until you were sure I wanted it. That was just the rub. I didn't want it. I'm afraid even now I don't quite. I've had her all the term, and I thought it would be so blissful to be without her for four whole weeks, and have you and Father and Oswald and Dorothy and Peter just to myself. But oh, Motherkins, she's such a lonely waif of a girl! I'm so dreadfully sorry for her. She seems always out of everything. I'm sure she's never had a decent Christmas in her life. I believe she's fond of her father, though I don't think he took very much notice of her—she let out once that he was so disappointed she wasn't a boy. But Mrs. Barker, the housekeeper, must have been a most terrible person. Rona had no chance at all.

"Motherkins, she's never seen a real English home, and I'd like to show her ours. Yes, I would, although in a way she'll spoil everything. May she sleep in the spare room, and let me have my own to myself? I could stand it then.

"Dearest darling, I really mean it; so will you write straight off to Miss Bowes before I have time to turn thoroughly horrid again?

"Your very loving daughter,

"Ulyth."

Having sent off the letter, and thus burnt her boats, Ulyth accepted the situation with what equanimity she could muster. Mrs. Stanton's invitation arrived by return of post, and was accepted with great relief by Miss Bowes, who had been wondering how to dispose of her pupil during the holidays. The Cuckoo received the news with such pathetic glee that Ulyth's heart smote her for not feeling more joyful herself.

"Are you sure you want me?" asked Rona wistfully.

"Of course we do, or we wouldn't ask you," replied Ulyth, hoping her fib might be forgiven.

"I'll try and not disgrace you," volunteered the Cuckoo.

A few days before the end of the term Rona received a letter from New Zealand. She rushed to Ulyth, waving it triumphantly.

"Dad's sent me this," she announced, showing a very handsome cheque. "I wrote to him three days after I got here, and told him my clothes looked rubbishy beside the other girls', and he tells me to rig myself out afresh. I suppose he forgot about it till now. How'm I going to get the things? There isn't time to ask Miss Bowes to send for them before the holidays. Can I buy them at the place where you live?"

"Very well indeed, and Mother will help you to choose. I know she'll get you lovely clothes; she has such exquisite taste! She'll just enjoy it."

"And shan't I just? I'll give away every rag I brought with me from New Zealand. They'll come in for that rummage sale Teddie was telling us about."

The last lesson was finished, the last exercise written, even the last breakfast had been disposed of. The boxes, packed with great excitement the day before, were already dispatched, and four railway omnibuses were waiting to take the girls to Llangarmon Junction Station. Much to their regret, Miss Bowes would not allow them to go by Glanafon—the picturesque route by the ferry was reserved for summer weather. In winter, if the day happened to be stormy and the tide full, there was often great difficulty in crossing, the landing-place was muddy and slippery, and even if the train was not missed altogether (as sometimes happened) the small voyage was quite in the nature of an adventure.

Miss Bowes' wisdom was thoroughly justified on this particular morning, for there was a strong west wind, and the rain was pouring in torrents.

"It would have been lovely fun in the flat. There must be big waves on the river," declared Merle Denham, half aggrieved at missing such an interesting opportunity.

"Why, but look at the rain! You couldn't hold up an umbrella for half a second. It would be blown inside out directly. You'd be as drenched as a drowned rat before you reached the train," preached her more prudent sister.

"And suppose you were blown off the stepping-stones into the river!" added Beth Broadway. "It would be a nice way of beginning the holidays! No. On a morning like this I'd rather have the omnibus. We shall at least start dry."

"I'm so glad you're taking Rona home with you," whispered Lizzie Lonsdale to Ulyth. "I should have asked her myself if you hadn't. It would have been a wretched Christmas for her to be left at school. I never saw anyone so pleased!"

The Cuckoo was indeed looking radiant at the golden prospect in store for her. Much to her surprise, everybody had been particularly nice to her that morning. Several girls had given her their addresses and asked her to write to them, Miss Bowes had been kindness itself, and even Miss Teddington, whose conduct was generally of a Spartan order, when bidding her good-bye in the study, had actually bestowed an abrupt peck of a kiss, a mark of favour never before known in the annals of the school. To be sure, she had followed it with a warning against relapsing into loud laughter in other people's houses; but then she was Miss Teddington!

Ulyth lived in Staffordshire, and the journey from North Wales was tedious; but what schoolgirl minds a long journey? To Rona all was new and delightful, and to Ulyth every telegraph-post meant that she was so much nearer home. The travellers had a royal reception, and kind, tactful Mrs. Stanton managed at once to put her young guest at ease, and make her feel that she was a welcome addition to the family circle. Oswald, Ulyth's elder brother, had come from Harrow only an hour before, and Dorothy and Peter, the two younger children, were prancing about in utmost enthusiasm at the exciting arrivals.

"Father hasn't come in yet?" asked Ulyth, when she had finished hugging her mother. "Well, it will be all the bigger treat when he does. Oh, Oswald, I didn't think you could grow so much in a term! Dorothy, darling, don't quite choke me! Peterkin, come and shake hands with Rona. Toby, do stop barking for half a moment! Where's Tabbyskins? And, please, show me the new parrot. Oh, isn't it lovely to be at home again!"

Almost the whole of the next day was spent by Mrs. Stanton, Ulyth, and their delighted visitor in a tour round various outfitting establishments—an exhilarating time for Rona, who was making her first acquaintance with the glories of English shops. Their purchases were highly satisfactory, and as Ulyth helped her friend to dress for dinner on Christmas Day she reviewed the result with the utmost complacency.

"Didn't I tell you Mother has good taste? Rona, you're lovely! This pale-blue dress suits you to a T. And the bronze slippers are so dainty; and your hair is so pretty. You can't think how it has improved lately."

"Do I look like other girls?" asked Rona, fingering the enamelled locket that had been given her that morning by Mr. and Mrs. Stanton.

"Rather! A great deal nicer than most. I'm proud of you. I wish they could all see you at The Woodlands."

"I'm glad if I shan't disgrace you. What a good thing Dad's cheque came just in time!"

In her new plumage the Cuckoo appeared turned into a tropical humming-bird. Ulyth had thought her good-looking before, but she had not realized that her room-mate was a beauty. She stared almost fascinated at the vision of blue eyes, coral cheeks, white neck, and ruddy-brown hair. Was this indeed the same girl who had arrived at school last September? It was like a transformation scene in the pantomime. Clothes undoubtedly exercise a great effect on some people, and Rona seemed to put away her backwoods manners with her up-country dresses. There was a dignity about her now and a desire to please which she had never shown at The Woodlands. She held herself straight, walked gracefully instead of shambling, and was careful to allow no uncouth expressions to escape her. Her behaviour was very quiet, as if she were watching others, or taking mental stock of how to comport herself. If occasionally she made some slight mistake she flushed crimson, but she never repeated it. She was learning the whole time, and the least gentle hint from Mrs. Stanton was sufficient for her. Miss Teddington need not have been afraid that the loud laugh would offend the ears of her friends; it never rang out once, and the high-pitched voice was subdued to wonderfully softened tones. For her hostess Rona evinced a species of worship. She would follow her about the house, content simply to be near her, and her face would light up at the slightest word addressed to her.

"The poor child just wanted a good mothering," said Mrs. Stanton to Ulyth. "It is marvellous how fast she is improving. You'll make something of your little wild bird after all. She's worth the trouble."

"I'd no idea she could grow into this," replied Ulyth. "Oh, Motherkins, you should have seen her at first! She was a very rough diamond."

"Aren't you glad to have a hand in the polishing? It will be such a triumph."

Two members of the household, at any rate, saw no fault in the visitor. Dorothy and Peter haunted her like small persistent ghosts, begging for stories about New Zealand. The accounts of her life in the bush were like a romance to them, and so fired their enthusiasm that in the intervals of playing soldiers they tried to emulate her adventures, and were found with a clothes-line in the garden making a wild attempt to lasso the much-enduring Toby.

"Rona's very good-natured with them," said Ulyth. "She doesn't mind how they pull her about, and Peter's most exhausting sometimes. I shouldn't like to carry him round the house on my back. Dorothy's perfectly insatiable for stories; it's always 'Tell us another!' How funny Oswald is at present. He's grown so outrageously polite all of a sudden. I suppose it's because he's in the Sixth now. He was very different last holidays. He's getting quite a 'lady's man'."

"The young folks are growing up very fast," commented Mr. Stanton in private. "It seems only yesterday that Oswald and Ulyth were babies. In another year or two we shall begin to think of twenty-first-birthday dances."

"Oh, don't talk of anything so dreadful!" said Mrs. Stanton in consternation. "They're my babies still. The party on Thursday is to be quite a children's affair."

Though "Motherkins" might regard the coming festivity as entirely of a juvenile character, the young people took it seriously. They practised dancing on the polished linoleum of the nursery every evening. Rona had had her first lessons at The Woodlands, and was making heroic efforts to remember what she had learnt.

"You'll get on all right," Ulyth encouraged her. "That last was ever so much better; you're dropping into it quite nicely. You dance lightly, at any rate. Now try again with Oswald while I play. Ossie, I'm proud of you! Last Christmas you were a perfect duffer at it. Don't you remember how you sat out at the Warings'? You've improved immensely. Now go on!" and Ulyth began to play, with her eyes alternately on the piano and on the partners.

"I suppose a fellow has to get used to 'the light fantastic' sometime," remarked Oswald, as, after a successful five minutes' practice, he and Rona sat down to rest.

"Perhaps you'll have to dance with princesses at foreign Courts when you're a successful ambassador," laughed Ulyth.

"Is that what Oswald's going to be?" asked Rona.

"I'd have tried the Army or the Navy, but my wretched eyes cut me off from both; so it's no use, worse luck!" said Oswald. "I should like to get into the Diplomatic Service immensely though, if I could."

"Why can't you? I should think you could do anything you really wanted."

"Thanks for the compliment. But it's not so easy as it sounds. I wish I had a friend at Court."

"We don't know anybody in the Government," sighed Ulyth. "Not a solitary, single person. I've never even seen a member of Parliament, except, of course, Lord Glyncraig sometimes at church; but then I've never spoken to him. Stephanie had tea with him once. She doesn't let us forget that."

"I wish you'd had tea with him, and happened to mention particularly the extreme fascinations and abilities of your elder brother," laughed Oswald.

"Could Lord Glyncraig be of any use to you?" asked Rona. She had grown suddenly thoughtful.

"He could give me a nomination for the Diplomatic Service, and that would be just the leg-up I want. But it's no use joking; I'm not likely to get an introduction to him. I expect I shall have to go into business after all."

"I think when I was ten I must have been the most objectionable little imp on the face of creation," said Rona slowly. "I am ashamed of myself now."

"Why this access of penitence for bygone crimes?"

"Oh, nothing!" replied the Cuckoo, flushing. "I was only just thinking of something. Shall we try that new step again? I'm rested now."

"Yours to command, madam!" returned Oswald, with a mock bow.

Rona's visit to the Stantons was a delightful series of new impressions. She made her first acquaintance with the pantomime, and was alternately amused and thrilled as the story of "The Forty Thieves" unfolded itself upon the stage. Not even Peter watched with more round-eyed enthusiasm, and Mr. Stanton declared it was worth taking her for the mere pleasure of seeing her face when Ali Baba disappeared down a trap-door. As everything in England was fresh to her, she was a most easy guest to entertain, and she enjoyed every separate experience—from a visit to the public library with Mr. Stanton to toffee-making in the nursery with Peter and Dorothy.

Although it was a quiet Christmas in some respects, friends were hospitable, and included her in the various little invitations which were sent to Ulyth and Oswald; so her pretty dresses had a chance of being aired. The great event to the young folk was the party which was to be given at the Stantons' own house, and which was to be a kind of finish to the holidays. The girls revelled in every detail of preparation. They watched the carpet being taken up in the drawing-room, the large articles of furniture removed, and the door taken off its hinges. They sprinkled ball-room chalk on the boards of the floor, and slid indefatigably until the polish satisfied Ulyth's critical taste. They decorated the walls with flags and evergreens. They even offered their services in the kitchen, but met with so cool a reception from the busy cook that they did not venture to repeat the experiment, and consoled themselves with helping to write the supper menus instead.

"I think I've seen to everything," said Mrs. Stanton distractedly. "The flowers, and the fairy lamps, and the programmes, and those extra boxes of crackers, and the chocolates, and the ring for the trifle. You've seen about the music, Gerald?"

"Violin and piano," replied Mr. Stanton. "I'm feeling a thorough-going martyr. Giving even a simple children's hop means sitting in rooms without doors and living on turkey drumsticks for a fortnight afterwards!"

"Oh, we'll get the house straight again sooner than that! And you needn't eat grilled turkey unless you like."

"I don't appreciate parties."

"We must amuse the young folks, and it isn't a grand affair. If the children meet together they may as well dance as play games."

"Daddikins, how nasty you are!" exclaimed Ulyth, pursuing him to administer chastisement in the shape of smacking kisses. "You know you're looking forward to it quite as much as we are."

"That I deny in toto," groaned her father as he escaped to his snuggery, only to find it arranged as a dressing-room.

Ulyth wore white for the great occasion, with her best Venetian beads; and Rona had a palest sea-green gauzy voile, with fine stockings and satin shoes to match. Dorothy was a bewitching little vision in pink, and Peter a cherub in black velvet. Oswald, having reached the stage of real gentleman's evening-dress, required the whole family to assist him in the due arrangement of his tie, over which he was more than usually particular. Ulyth even suspected him of having tried to shave, though he denied the accusation fiercely.

It is always a solemn occasion waiting in the drawing-room listening for the first peal of the bell announcing visitors. Mrs. Stanton was giving a last touch to the flowers, Ulyth sat wielding her new fan (a Christmas present), Oswald was buttoning his gloves. Dorothy, too excited to stand still for a moment, flitted about like a pink fairy.

"I'm to stop up half an hour later than Peter, Rona; do you hear that?" she chattered. "Oh, I do hope the Prestons will arrive first of anybody! I want to dance with Willie. Father let me have a cracker just now, and it's got a whistle inside it. I wish I had a pocket. Where shall I put it to keep it safe? Oh, I know—inside that vase!"

As she spoke, Dorothy jumped lightly on to the seat of the cosy corner that abutted on the fireplace, and reached upwards to drop her whistle inside the ornament. In her excitement she slipped, tried to save herself, lost her footing, and fell sideways over the curb on to the hearth. Her thin, flimsy dress was within half an inch of the fire, but at that instant Rona, who was standing by, clutched her and pulled her forwards. It all happened in three seconds. She was safe before her father had time to run across the room. The family stared aghast.

"Whew! That was a near shave!" gasped Oswald.

Dorothy, too much surprised and frightened to cry, was clinging to her mother. Mr. Stanton, acting on the spur of the moment, rushed to the telephone to try if any ironmonger's shop in the town was still open, and could immediately send up a wire-gauze fire-protector. The fireplaces in all the other rooms were well guarded, but in the drawing-room the hearth was so wide, and the curb so high, that the precaution had not been considered necessary.

"It only shows how absolutely vital it is to leave no chance of an accident," said Mr. Stanton, returning from the telephone. "Matthews are sending a boy up at once with a guard. If it hadn't been for Rona's promptitude—— Oh, there's the bell! Oswald, fetch your mother a glass of water."

Poor Mrs. Stanton looked very pale, but had recovered her composure sufficiently to receive her young guests by the time they were ushered into the drawing-room. Dorothy, child-like, forgot her fright in the pleasure of welcoming her friends the Prestons, and everything went on as if the accident had not occurred. Mr. Stanton, indeed, kept a close watch all the evening, to see that guards were not pushed aside from the fires, and Mrs. Stanton's eyes watched with more than usual solicitude a certain little pink figure as it went dancing round the room. The visitors knew nothing of the accident that had been avoided, and there was no check on the mirth of the party. The guests were of all ages, from Peter's kindergarten comrades to girls who were nearly grown-up, but it was really all the jollier for the mixture. Tall and short danced together with a happy disregard of inches, and even a thorough enjoyment of the disparity. Rona spent a royal evening. Her host and hostess had been kindness itself before, but to-night it seemed as if they conspired together to give her the best of everything. She had her pick of partners, the place of honour at supper, and—by most egregious cheating—the ring somehow tumbled on to her plate out of the trifle.

"I'm getting spoilt," she said to Oswald.

"The mater's ready to kiss your boots," he returned. "I never saw anything so quick as the way you snatched old Dolly."

All good things come to an end some time, even holidays, and one morning towards the end of January witnessed a taxi at the door, and various bags and packages, labelled Llangarmon Junction, stowed inside.

"I don't know how to thank you. I haven't any words," gulped Rona, as she hugged "Motherkins" good-bye.

"Do your best at school, and remember certain little things we talked about," whispered Mrs. Stanton, kissing her. "We shall expect to see you here again."

VIII. The "Stunt"

The general verdict on Rona, when she arrived back at The Woodlands, was that she was wonderfully improved.

"It isn't only her dresses," said Gertrude Oliver, "though she looks a different girl in her new clothes; her whole style's altered. She used to be so fearfully loud. She's really toned down in the most amazing fashion. I couldn't have believed it possible."

"I'm afraid it's only a veneer," declared Stephanie, with a slighting little laugh. "You'll find plenty of raw backwoods underneath, ready to crop up when she's off her guard. You should have heard her this morning."

"And she broke an ink-bottle," added Beth Broadway.

"Well, she's not perfect yet, of course, but I stick to it that she's improved."

"Oh, I dare say! But Ulyth's welcome to keep her cub. She'll always be more or less of a trial. What else can you expect? 'What's bred in the bone will come out!'"

"Yes, I'm a great believer in heredity," urged Beth, taking up the cudgels for her chum. "If you have ancestors it gives you a decided pull."

"Everybody has ancestors, you goose," corrected Gertrude.

"Well, of course I mean aristocratic ones. The others don't count. It must make a difference whether your grandfather was a gentleman or a farm-boy. Rona says herself she's a democrat. I'm sure she looked the part when she arrived."

"I don't know that she exactly looks it now, though," said Gertrude, championing Rona for once.

Everyone at the school realized that the Cuckoo was trying to behave herself. The struggles towards perfection were sometimes almost pathetic, though the girls mostly viewed them from the humorous side. She would sit up suddenly, bolt upright, at the tea table, if Miss Bowes' eye suggested that she was lolling; she apologized for accidents at which she had laughed before, and she corrected herself if a backwoods expression escaped her.

"Am I really any shakes smarter—I mean, more toned up—than I was?" she asked Ulyth anxiously.

"You're far better than you were last term. Do go on trying, that's all!"

"Will they take me as a candidate in the Camp-fire League?"

"I expect so, but we shall have to ask Mrs. Arnold about that."

Since the great reunion by the stream in September there had been no meetings of the Camp-fire League. Mrs. Arnold had been ill, and then had gone away to recruit her health, and no one was able to take her place as "Guardian of the Fire". She was recovered now, and at home again, and had promised to help to make up for lost time by superintending a gathering at the beginning of the new term. It was to be held in the big hall of the school, though the girls begged hard to have it out-of-doors, pleading that on a fine evening they could keep perfectly warm, and it would only resemble a Fifth of November affair.

"That may be all very well for you, but I'm not going to risk Mrs. Arnold's catching cold," returned Miss Bowes; which argument put a final stop to the idea.

"We'll have ripping fun in the hall, if we can't be outside," beamed Addie. "I always enjoy a stunt."

"What's a stunt?" asked Rona.

"A stunt? Why, it's just a stunt!"

"It's an American word," explained Lizzie. "It means just having any fun that comes. An impromptu kind of thing, you know. We sing, or recite, or act, or dance, on the spur of the moment—anything to keep the ball rolling, and anybody may be called upon at any moment to stand up and perform."

"Without knowing beforehand?" queried Rona, looking horror-stricken.

"Yes, that's the fun of it. We have a bag with all our names written on slips of paper, and we draw them out one by one to fill up the programme. Nobody knows who's to come next. You may be the very first, or you may sit quaking all the evening, and never be called at all."

"I hope to goodness—I mean, I hope very much—I shan't be drawn."

"You never know; so you'd better have something in your mind's eye."

Punctually at six o'clock on the appointed night the whole school filed into the hall, each girl carrying a candle in a candlestick. Saluting their leader, they ranged themselves round the room for the opening ceremony. At an indoor meeting this was of necessity different from the kindling of the camp-fire, but it had a certain impressiveness of its own. First the lamps were extinguished, and the room was placed in entire darkness. Then Mrs. Arnold struck a match and lighted her candle, which she held towards the Torch-bearer of highest rank, who lighted hers from it, and performed the same service for her next neighbour. In this way, one after another, the candles were lighted all round the room, every girl saying, as she offered the flame to her comrade: "I pass on my light!" After the "shining" song was sung, all the candlesticks were arranged on the large central table, taking the place the camp-fire would have occupied out-of-doors.

The business of the meeting came first, the roll-call was read, and the recorders gave their reports of the last gathering. Several members were awarded honours for knowing the stars, being able to observe certain things in geology and field botany, or for ability in outdoor sports or indoor occupations, such as carpentry, stencilling, or sewing. The ambulance work and the knitting done last term were specially noted and commended. A few new candidates applied for enrolment, and their qualifications were carefully considered by the Guardian of the Fire. Rona, after undergoing the League Catechism from Catherine Sullivan, the head girl and chief Torch-bearer, had submitted her name as candidate, and now waited with much anxiety to hear whether she would be accepted. After several others had been admitted, Mrs. Arnold at last called:

"Corona Margarita Mitchell."

Quite startled at the unaccustomed sound of her full Christian name, Rona saluted and stepped forward.

"You have passed only three out of the seven tests required," said Mrs. Arnold. "I'm afraid you will have to try again, Rona, and see if you can be more successful before the next meeting. No candidate can be accepted except on very good grounds. That is the law of the League."

Much crestfallen, the Cuckoo fell back into her place, and Mrs. Arnold was just about to read the next name when Ulyth interrupted:

"Please, Guardian, if a candidate has shown unusual presence of mind, may that not stand in place of some of the other tests?"

"It depends on the circumstances. How does that apply in this case?"

"Rona has saved a life," declared Ulyth, then explained briefly how Dorothy had fallen on to the hearth and had been caught back from the fire in the very nick of time.

"In her thin dress she would probably have been burnt to death but for Rona's quickness," added Ulyth, with a tremble in her voice.

"I had not heard of this," replied Mrs. Arnold. "Rona is very greatly to be congratulated on her presence of mind. Yes, I may safely say that it can cancel the tests in which she has failed, and that we may enrol her to-night as a candidate. Corona Margarita Mitchell, if for three months you preserve a good character in the school, and learn to recite the seven rules of the Camp-fire Law, you may then present yourself as eligible for the initial rank of Wood-gatherer in the League. There is your Candidate's Badge."

Immensely gratified, Rona received her little bow of blue ribbon. She had hardly dared to hope for success, as Catherine had been rather withering over her Catechism, and had warned her that she would probably be disqualified. It was pleasant to meet with encouragement, and especially to be commended before the whole school. She had never dreamt of such luck, and she looked her grateful thanks at Ulyth across the room.

She was the last but one on the list of applicants, and when Jessie Howard (alas, poor Jessie!) had been rejected the ceremonial part of the meeting was over. The girls smiled, for now the "stunt" was to begin. Catherine produced the bag, shook it well, and handed it to Mrs. Arnold, who drew out a slip of paper.

"Marjorie Earnshaw!" she announced.

"Glad it's one of the Sixth to open the ball," murmured some of the younger girls as Marjorie stepped to the circle reserved for performers in front of the table.

The owner of the one guitar in the school was always much in request at Camp-fire gatherings, so it seemed a fortunate chance that her name should be drawn first. She had brought her instrument, so as to be prepared in case the lot fell on her, and giving the E string a last hurried tuning she sat down and began a popular American ditty. It was a favourite among the girls, for it had a lively, rollicking chorus, which they sang with great gusto. Fifty voices roaring out: "Don't forget your Dinah!" seemed to break the ice and set the fun going.

Marjorie's E string snapped suddenly, but she played as best she could on the others, though she confessed afterwards that she felt like a horse that has lost its shoe. Except for this accident she would have responded to the enthusiastic calls of "Encore!"; as it was, she retired into the background to fix a new string. It lent a decided element of excitement to the programme that nobody knew what the next item was to be. The lot, as it happened, fell on one of the younger girls, who was overwhelmed with shyness and could only with great urging be persuaded to recite a short piece of poetry. By the law of the Stunt everybody was obliged to perform if called upon, so Aveline fired off her sixteen lines of Longfellow with breathless speed, and fled back joyfully to the ranks of the Juniors. Two piano solos and a step-dance followed, then the turn came to Doris Deane, a member of the Upper Fifth. Doris's speciality was acting, so she promptly begged for two assistants, and chose from IV b a couple of junior members who had practised with her before. Taking Nellie and Trissie for "Asia" and "Australia", she gave the scene from Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch where that delightful but haphazard heroine gets herself and the children ready to go to the opera. The zeal with which she ironed their dresses, her alternate scoldings and cajolings, her wild hunt for the tickets, which all the while were stuck in her belt, the grandeur of her deportment when the family was at last prepared for the outing, all were most amusingly represented. Doris was really a born actress, and so completely carried her audience with her that the lack of costumes and scenery was not felt in the force of the reality that she managed to throw into her part. Covered with glory, she gave place to her successor, who, while bewailing the hardness of her luck in having to follow so smart a performance, recited a humorous ballad which won peals of applause. Mrs. Arnold again dipped her hand into the bag and unfolded a twist of paper.

"Corona M. Mitchell," she read.

"Not me, surely! I can't do anything," objected Rona hastily.

"You'll have to," laughed the girls. "No one's let off."

"I can't, I tell you. I've no parlour tricks."

"Give us a story, Rona," suggested Ulyth. "One of those New Zealand adventures you used to tell to Peter and Dorothy. They loved them."

"Yes, yes! A camp-fire story. That would be spiffing!" clamoured the girls. "Sit on the floor, near the fire, and we'll all squat near you. We haven't had a story for ages and ages!"

"Tell it just as you did at home," urged Ulyth.

"I'll try my best," sighed Rona, taking a small stool near the fire, so as to be slightly above the audience clustered round the hearthrug.

"It happened about a year ago," she began; "that's summer-time in New Zealand, you know, because the seasons are just opposite. It was Pamela Higson's birthday, and I'd been asked to go over for the day. I saddled Brownie, my best pony, and started at seven, because it's a twelve-mile ride to the Higsons' farm, and I wanted to be early so as to have time for plenty of fun. Brownie was fresh, and he wasn't tired when I got there, so we decided to give him an hour's rest and then ride up into the bush and have a picnic. Pamela showed me her birthday presents while we waited. She'd had a box sent her by the mail, and she was very delighted about it.

"Well, at perhaps eleven o'clock I set off with Pamela and the rest of the Higson children. There was Jake, just my own age, and Billy, a little younger, and Connie and Minnie, the two smallest. Oh yes, we each had our own horse or pony: Everybody rides out there. We slung baskets and tin cans over our saddles and then started up by the dry bed of the river towards the head of the gully. It was very hot (January's like July here), but we all had big hats and we didn't care. It was such fun to be together. When your nearest neighbours are twelve miles off you don't see them often enough to get tired of them. Billy was always making jokes, and Jake was jolly too in a quiet kind of way. Sometimes we could all ride abreast, and sometimes we had to go in single file, and our horses seemed to enjoy it as much as we did. Brownie loved company, so it was a treat for him as well as for me. The place we were going to was a piece of high land that lay at the top of the valley above the Higsons' block. There were generally plenty of berries up there, and we thought they'd just be ripe. It took us a fairly long time to do the climb, because there was no proper road, only a rough track. It was lovely, though, when we got up; we had a splendid view down the gully, and the air was so much cooler and fresher than it had been at the farm. We tethered our horses and gathered scrub to make a fire and boil our kettle. In New Zealand no one thinks of having a meal without drinking tea with it. We'd the jolliest picnic. The Higsons were famous for their cakes, and they'd brought plenty with them. I can tell you we didn't leave very many in the baskets.

"'Best put out our camp-fire,' Jake said when we'd finished; so we all set to work and stamped it out carefully. Everything was so dry with the heat that a spark might easily have set fire to the bush. Then we took our cans and went off to find berries. There were heaps of them; so we just picked and picked and picked for ever so long. Suddenly, when we were talking, we heard a noise and looked round. There was a stampede among the horses, and two of them, Billy's and Connie's, had broken loose and were careering down the gully. We ran as quick as lightning to the others for fear they might also free themselves and follow. I caught Brownie by the bridle and soothed him as well as I could; but he was very excited and trembling, and kept sniffing. Then I saw what had frightened him, for a puff of wind brought a puff of smoke with it, and ahead of us I saw a dark column whirl up towards the sky. Even the youngest child who's lived in the bush knows what that means. When all the grass and everything is so dry, the least thing will start a fire. Sometimes campers-out are careless, and the wind blows sparks; sometimes even a piece of an old bottle left lying about will act as a burning-glass. We didn't inquire the reason; all we knew was that we must tear back to the farm as rapidly as we could. Bush fires spread fearfully fast, and this one would probably sweep straight down the gorge.

"With two animals gone, luck was against us. Billy took Minnie's pony, Connie mounted behind Jake, and I made Minnie come with me on Brownie, because he was so strong, and better able to bear the double burden than Pamela's horse. It was well for us we were good riders, for we pelted down that gully fit to break our necks. Brownie was a sure-footed little beast, but the way he went slithering over rocks would have scared me if I hadn't been more afraid of the fire behind. We knew it would be touch and go whether we could save the farm or not. If the men were all far away there would be very little chance, though we meant to do our level best.

"Well, as I was saying, we just stampeded down the gully, and our horses kept their feet somehow. I guess we arrived at the house like a tornado. We yelled out our news, and coo-eed to some of the men we could see working in the distance. They came running at once, and Mrs. Higson sent up the rocket that was used on the farm as a danger-signal. Fortunately the rest of the men had only gone a short way. They were back almost directly, and everybody set to work to make a wide ring of bare land round the farm. They cut down trees, and threw up earth, and burnt a great patch of grass, and we children helped too for all we were worth. We were only just in time. We could see the great cloud of smoke coming down the valley, and as it grew nearer we heard the roaring or the fire. It seemed to bear down on us suddenly in a great burning sheet. For a moment or two the air was so hot that we could scarcely breathe, then the flame struck our ring of bare land, and parted in two and passed on either side of us, leaving the farm as an island. We watched it go crackling farther down the valley, till at last it spent itself in a rocky creek where it had nothing to feed on. All the place it had passed over was burnt to cinders, a horrible black mass. Only the house and the buildings and a few fields round them were untouched. It was an awful birthday for poor Pamela."

"Was your own farm hurt?" asked the girls breathlessly, as Rona paused in her story.

"Not at all. You see it was in quite a different valley, and the fire hadn't been near. Jake rode home with me, to make sure I was safe. Dad hadn't even seen the smoke."

"Suppose you hadn't noticed the fire when you were up in the hills?"

"Then we should have been burnt to cinders, farm and all."

"I think Rona's most thrilling adventure will have to end our Stunt," said Mrs. Arnold. "It's nearly eight o'clock. Time to wind up and get ready for supper. Attention, please! Each girl take her candle. Where's our pianist? Torch-bearer Catherine, will you start the Good-night Song?"

"I'm a candidate now, thanks to you!" exulted Rona to Ulyth; "perhaps by Easter I may be a Wood-gatherer!"

"It's something to work for, isn't it?" said Mrs. Arnold, who happened to overhear

IX. A January Picnic

Winter in the Craigwen Valley, instead of proving a dreary season of frost or fog, was apt to be as variable as April. Sheltered by the tall mountains, the climate was mild, and though snow would lie on the peaks of Penllwyd and Cwm Dinas it rarely rested on the lower levels. Very early in January the garden at The Woodlands could boast brave clumps of snowdrops and polyanthus, a venturous wallflower or two, and quite a show of yellow jessamine over the south porch. The glade by the stream never seemed to feel the touch of winter. Many of the oak-trees kept their brown leaves till the new ones came to replace them, honeysuckle trails and brambles continually put out verdant shoots, the lastrea ferns that grew near the brink of the water showed tall green fronds untouched by frost, and the moss was never more vivid. The glen, indeed, had a special beauty in winter-time, for the bare boughs of the alders took exquisite tender shades of purples and greys, warming into amber in the sunshine, and defying the cunningest brush which artist could wield to do them justice. By the middle of January the tightly rolled lambs' tails on the hazels were unfolding themselves and beginning to scatter pollen, and a few stray specimens of last summer's flowers, a belated campion or hawkweed, would struggle out from the rough grass under a protecting gorse-bush. The days varied: rain, the penalty for living near mountains, often swept down the valley, bringing glorious cloud-effects, and sending the stream swirling over its boulders with a boom of myriad voices. Sometimes the sudden swelling of its tributaries made the Craigwen River overtop its banks, flooding the low-lying meadows till, augmented by the high tide, its waters filled the valley from end to end like a lake. This occasional flooding of the marsh was good for the fields, and ensured a rich hay-crop next summer, so the school felt it could enjoy the picturesque aspect without needing to deplore loss to the farmers.

On the 21st of January Miss Teddington had a birthday. She would have suppressed the fact altogether if possible, or treated it in quite a surreptitious and off-hand fashion, but with her autograph plainly written in forty-nine separate birthday-books the Fates were against her. She was obliged to receive the united congratulations of the school, to accept, with feigned surprise, the present which was offered her, and to say a few appropriate words of appreciation and thanks. She did not do it well, for her manner was always abrupt, and even verged on the ungracious, the greatest contrast to the bland and tactful utterances of Miss Bowes.

This year the annual ceremony was gone through as usual: Catherine, as head girl, proffered the good wishes and the volume of Carlyle; Lucy Morris, on behalf of the Nature Study Union, handed a bouquet of polyanthus, rosemary, periwinkle, pansies, and pink daisies culled from the garden, the earliness of which Miss Teddington remarked upon, as though she had not watched their progress for the last week.

"I'm very much obliged to you all," she said jerkily, looking nevertheless as if she were longing to bolt for the door.

But she was not yet to make her escape. There was another time-honoured ceremony to be observed. All eyes were turned to Miss Bowes, who rose as usual to the occasion.

"I think, girls," she said pleasantly, "that, considering it is Miss Teddington's birthday, we ought to take some special notice of the occasion. Suppose we ask her to grant a holiday, so that we may make an expedition in her honour. Who votes for this?"

Forty-nine hands were instantly raised, and forty-nine voices cried "I do!" Miss Teddington, who utterly disapproved of odd holidays during term-time, submitted with what grace she could muster, and gave a rather chilly assent, which was immediately drowned in a storm of clapping. The girls, who always suspected the Principals of an annual argument on the subject, felt they had scored for this year at any rate, and were certainly one holiday to the good.

There was no question at all as to where they should walk. Every 21st January, weather permitting, they turned their steps in the same direction. On certain portions of the marsh, near the river, grew fields of wild snowdrops, and to go snowdropping before February set in was as much an institution as turning their money when they first heard the cuckoo, or wishing at the sight of the earliest white butterfly. As a matter of fact, though the delicate fiction of asking for the holiday was preserved, it was such a sine qua non that the cook was prepared for it. She had baked jam tartlets and made potted meat the day before, and was already cutting sandwiches and packing them in greaseproof paper. Every girl at The Woodlands possessed a basket, just as she owned a penknife or a French dictionary. It was equally indispensable. She would carry out her lunch in it, and bring it back filled with flowers, berries, or nature specimens, as the case might be. Each was labelled with the owner's name, and hung in a big cupboard under the stairs. Some of the girls also used walking-sticks with crooked handles, which were found convenient weapons for hooking down brambles or branches of catkins.

Shortly after ten o'clock the school started, every Woodlander bearing her basket, containing sandwiches, two tartlets, an orange, and a small enamelled drinking-mug. There were to be no camp-fires to-day, so cold water from the stream would have to suffice, and would make tea all the more welcome when they returned home. It was quite a fine morning, with sudden gleams of sunshine that burst from the clouds and spread in long, slanting, golden rays over the valley; just the kind of sky the early masters of landscape painting loved to put in their pictures, with a background of neutral tint and a bright, scraped-out light in the foreground. The little solitary farms stood out white here and there against the green of the fields, the pine-trees on the hill-sides showed darkly in contrast to the bare larches. Cwm Dinas was inky purple to-day, but Penllwyd was capped with snow. Miss Bowes, who was not a good walker, had not ventured to join the expedition, but Miss Teddington strode along at the head of the party, chatting to some of the Sixth Form.

"I'm sure she's wishing she were giving a Latin lesson instead," said Lizzie Lonsdale. "She looks rather grim."

"Perhaps she's remembering she's a year older to-day," returned Beth Broadway.

"How old is she, do you think?" giggled Addie Knighton.

"That, my child, is a secret that will never be divulged. I dare say you'd like to know?"

"I should, immensely."

"Then you won't be gratified, unless you go to Somerset House and hunt her name up in the register of births. Even then you'd find it difficult, for you don't know her Christian name, only her initial."

"Yes; she never will write more than 'M. Teddington' in anybody's birthday-book. M might stand for Mary or Martha or Margaret or Millicent or anything. Doesn't even Miss Bowes know?"

"If she does she won't tell. It's a state-secret."

"Well, never mind; we call her Teddie, and that will do."

Many were the ingenious devices which the girls had adopted for trying to find out both Miss Teddington's Christian name and her age. They spoke of historic events that had happened before their parents had been born, fondly hoping she might betray some memory of them and commit herself. But she was not to be caught; she treated all events, however recent or old, from a purely impersonal standpoint, and left them still in the dark as to whether she was an infant in arms at the time or an adult able to enjoy the newspapers. On the subject of names she was indifferent, and would express no opinion on the relative merits of Mary, Martha, Margaret, Millicent, Marion, Muriel, Mona, or Maud.

"It's either plain Mary, or something so fearfully fancy she won't own up to it," decided the girls.

In whatever decade Miss Teddington's birthday placed her, this year she was certainly in the prime of life and energy as concerned the school. Her keen eyes noticed everything, and woe betide the slacker who thought to escape her, and dared bring an unprepared lesson to class. Her sarcasms on such occasions made her victims writhe, though they were apt to be witty enough to amuse the rest of the form. Though, like John Gilpin's wife, she was on pleasure bent to-day, she never for a moment forgot she was in charge, and kept turning to see that everybody was following, and nobody straggling far off in the rear.

It was a three-mile walk from The Woodlands to the snowdrop meadows—first along the high road, with an occasional short cut across a field or through a spinney, then down a deep, narrow lane past a farm, where the sight of a new-born lamb (the first of the season) caused great excitement. Some of the girls, who loved old superstitions, pretended to divine their luck by whether it was standing facing them or otherwise when they first caught a glimpse of it; but, the general verdict deciding that it was exactly sideways, they found it impossible to give any accurate predictions for the future.

"You'd better keep to something vague that can be construed two ways, like the Delphic Oracle or Old Moore's Almanac," laughed Ulyth.

Once past the farm the walk began to grow specially interesting. The deep lane, only intended for use in summer, when carts brought loads of hay from the marsh, was turned by winter rains into the bed of a stream. The girls picked their way at first along the bank, then by jumping from stone to stone, but finally the water grew so deep it was impossible to proceed farther without wading. They had been in the same emergency before, so it did not daunt their enthusiasm. One and all they scaled the high, wide, loosely built wall to their left. Here they could walk as on a terrace, with the flooded lane on one side and on the other the rushing Porth Powys stream, making its hurrying way to join the Craigwen River. It was not at all an easy progress, for the wall was overgrown with hazel bushes and a tangle of brambles, and its unmortared surface had deep holes, into which the unwary might put a foot. For several hundred yards they struggled on, decidedly to the detriment of their clothing, and rather encumbered by their baskets; then at last they reached the particular corner they were seeking, and scrambled down into the meadow.

This field was such a favourite with the girls that they had come to regard it almost as their own property. Miss Teddington had found it out many years ago, and its discovery was always considered a point in her roll of merit. It was an expanse of grassy land, bounded on one side by the Porth Powys stream and on the other by a deep dyke, and leading down over a rushy tract to the reed-grown banks of the river. The view over the many miles of marshland, with the blue mountains rising up behind and the silvery gleam of the river, was superb. The brown, quivering, feathery reeds made a glorious foreground for the amber and vivid green of the banks farther on; and the gorgeous sky effects of rolling clouds, glinting sun, and patches of bluest heaven were like the beginning of one of St. John's visions.

Near at hand, dotted all over the field, bloomed the wild snowdrops in utmost profusion, with a looser habit of growth, a longer stalk, and a wider flower than the garden variety. Lovely pure-white blossoms, with their tiny green markings, they stood like fairy bells among the grass, so dainty and perfect, it seemed almost a sacrilege to disturb them. The girls, however, were not troubled with any such scruples, and set to work to pick in hot haste.

"I'm going down by the stream," said Ulyth; "one gets far the best there if one hunts about, and I brought my stick."

Rona, Addie and Lizzie joined her, and with considerable difficulty scrambled down to the water's edge. For those who preferred quality to quantity, and who did not mind getting torn by briers, this was undoubtedly the place to come. In pockets of fine river-sand, their roots stretching into the stream, grew the very biggest and finest of the snowdrops. Most of them peeped through a very tangle of brambles; but who minded scratched arms and torn sleeves to secure such treasures?

"Look at these. The stalks must be nine inches long, and the flower's nearly as big as a Lent lily," exulted Ulyth. "I shall send them to Mother, with some hazel catkins and some lovely moss."

"Everybody will be sending away boxes to-night," said Addie. "The postman will have a load."

"What's that?" cried Lizzie, for a sudden rush and scuffle sounded on the other side of the stream, a rat leaped wildly from the bank, and a shaved poodle half jumped, half fell after it into the water.

The rat was gone in an eighth of a second, but the dog found himself in difficulties. It was a case of "look before you leap", and a fat, wheezy, French poodle is not at home in a quick-rushing stream.

"Oh, the poor little beast's drowning!" exclaimed Ulyth in horror.

Rona, with extreme promptitude, had flown to the rescue. Close by where they stood the trunk of a half-fallen alder stretched out over the water. It was green and slippery, and anything but an inviting bridge, but she crawled along it somehow, and, clinging with one hand, contrived to reach the dog's collar with the other and hold him up. What she would have done next it is impossible to say, for he was too heavy to lift in her already precarious position; but at that moment a gentleman, evidently in quest of his pet, parted the hazel boughs and took in the situation at a glance.

"Hold hard a moment," he called, and, scrambling down the bank, managed to make a long arm and hook his stick into the poodle's collar and drag the almost strangled creature to shore.

Until Rona had cautiously wriggled round on the bough, and crept back safely, the spectators watched in considerable anxiety. They need not have been alarmed, however, for after her many New Zealand experiences she thought this a very poor affair.

The owner of the dog shouted his thanks from the opposite bank of the stream and disappeared behind the high hedge. The whole episode had not taken five minutes.

"Do you know who that was? It was Lord Glyncraig," said Addie in rather awestruck tones.

"Was it? Well, I'm sure I don't care," returned Rona a trifle defiantly. "I'd have saved John Jones's dog quite as readily."

"What a pity he didn't ask your name! He might have invited you to tea at Plas Cafn, then you'd have scored over Stephie no end."

"I'm sure I don't want to go to tea at Plas Cafn, thank you," snapped Rona, rather out of temper.

"But think of the fun of it," persisted Addie. "I only wish they'd ask me."

"They won't ask any of us, so what's the use of talking?" said Lizzie. "Let's go back to the others; it must be time for lunch."

They found the rest of the girls seated on the wall, as being the driest spot available, and already attacking their packets of sandwiches. Some had even reached the jam-tartlet stage.

"It's a good thing we've each got our own private basket, or there wouldn't be much left for you," shouted Mary Acton. "Where have you been all this while?"

"Consorting with members of the Peerage," said Addie airily. "Oh yes, my dear girl! We've had quite what you might call a confidential talk down by the stream with Lord Glyncraig."

"Not really?" asked Stephanie, pricking up her ears.

"Really and truly! He's not your special property any longer. Rona has quite supplanted you."

"I don't believe it. You're ragging." Stephanie was rather pink and indignant.

"Ask the others, if you want to know."

No one was particularly sorry to take a rest after all the scrambling. The lunch tasted good out-of-doors, and the last tartlet had soon disappeared. Rona, perched on a tree-stump, began her orange, and tossed long yellow strands of peel on to the bank below her.

"Oh, stop that, before Teddie catches you!" urged Ulyth; but she was too late, for Miss Teddington had already spied the offending pieces.

"Who threw those?" she demanded. "Then, Rona Mitchell, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Go and pick them up at once, and put them inside your basket. What do you think the field will look like if more than fifty people strew it with orange-peel and sandwich-paper! We don't come here to spoil the beautiful spots we have been enjoying. I should be utterly disgraced if the school behaved like a party of cheap-trippers. Woodlanders ought to respect all natural scenery. I thought you would have learnt that by this time, but it appears you haven't. Don't forget it again."

Much crushed, Rona collected the peel, and, wrapping it carefully in her piece of sandwich-paper, put it in the very bottom of her basket, under a layer of catkins. The girls had brought bobbins of thread with them, and were making their snowdrops into little bunches, with ivy leaves and lambs'-tails from the hazel. A few lucky explorers had even found some palm opening on the sallows. Several had nature notes to contribute. Nellie Barlow and Gladys Broughton had seen a real weasel, and plumed themselves accordingly, till Evie Isherwood capped their story by producing the remains of a last year's chaffinch's nest she had found in a tree.

"If I said I'd seen a snake, should I be believed?" whispered Rona.

"Certainly not. Everyone knows that snakes hibernate; so don't try it on," returned Ulyth, laughing.

"Half-past two. We must be going back at once, girls, or there won't be time to send off your snowdrops," said Miss Teddington. "Pack your baskets and come along."

X. Transpassers Beware!

The girls left the snowdrop field with reluctance, though they realized the necessity for hurry. Nearly everyone wished to dispatch her spoils home, and unless the boxes were sent very early to the post-office the chances were that there would not be time for the postmaster to stamp them officially, and that they might languish somewhere in the background of the village shop until next day, and consequently arrive at their destination in an utterly withered condition.

The school scrambled back along the top of the wall, therefore, with what haste the brambles and hazel-bushes allowed them, splashed recklessly among the pools of the flooded lane, and regained the high road with quite record speed. Ulyth, walking with Lizzie Lonsdale, had left Rona in the rear. Rona, owing to her intimacy with Ulyth, tried to tag on to V b, often receiving snubs from some of its members. Her own form-mates were all considerably younger than herself. At first they had teased her shamelessly, but since the Christmas holidays, recognizing that she was gaining a more established position in the school, they had begun to treat her more mercifully. Some of them were really rather jolly children, and though twelve seems young to fourteen, the poor Cuckoo was still a lonely enough bird to welcome any crumbs of friendship thrown in her way.

At the present moment Winnie Fowler and Hattie Goodwin were clinging to her arms, one on either side. Their motives, I fear, were a trifle mixed. They found Rona amusing and liked her company, but also they were tired and found if they dragged a little she would pull them along without remonstrance.

"My shoes are ever so wet," boasted Winnie. "I plumped down deep in the lane, and the water went right through the laces at the top. It squelches as I walk. I feel like a soldier in the trenches."

"I've torn my coat in three places," said Hattie, not to be outdone. "It will be a nice little piece of work for Mrs. Johnson to mend it."

"Glad they don't make us mend our own coats here," grunted Winnie.

"Miss Bowes would be ashamed to see me in it if I did," Hattie chuckled, "but I've knitted a whole sock since Christmas, and turned the heel too. Cuckoo, aren't you tired?"

"Not a scrap," replied Rona, who was stumping along sturdily in spite of her encumbrances.

"Well, I am. I wish it wasn't three miles back."

"It's not more than two as the crow flies."

"But we're not crows, and we can't fly, and there are no aeroplanes to give us a lift. We've got to tramp, tramp, tramp along the hard high road. I begin to sympathize with Tommies on the march."

"Why need we stick to the high road?" said Rona, pausing suddenly. "If we struck across country we'd save a mile or more. Look, The Woodlands is over there, and if we made a beeline for it we'd cut off all that enormous round by Cefn Mawr. Who's game to try?"

"Oh, I am, if we can dodge Teddie!"

"Likewise this child," added Winnie.

"Oh, we'll dodge Teddie right enough! It will be good scouting practice," chuckled Rona. "Sit down on that stone and tie your shoelace, and we'll wait for you while the others go on; then we'll bolt through that gate and over the wall into the next field."

The idea that it was scouting practice lent a vestige of sanction to the proceeding. Winnie took the hint, and adjusted her shoelaces with elaborate care and deliberation.

"Don't be all day over that," said Miss Teddington, who passed by but did not wait.

The moment she was round the corner of the road, and the high hedge screened her from view, the three deserters were through the gate and running across the field. They scaled a wall without much difficulty, and found themselves on a wide gorse-grown pasture. Though they could not now see the chimneys of The Woodlands in the distance, there were other landmarks quite sufficient to guide them. They plodded on cheerfully.

"It would be prime to have our snowdrops all packed up before the others got back," ventured Hattie. "They'd be so surprised. They'd wonder how we'd stolen a march on them."

"If Teddie asks where we were, we can truly say 'at the front'," Winnie giggled.

"You'd better not pick up any nature specimens, though, or she'll want to know 'the exact locality' where you found them."

"Um—yes! That might be awkward. This toadstool shall stay on its native heath, in case it tells tales."

It was rather a fascinating walk, all amongst the gorse-bushes. None of the three had been there before, and instinctively the younger ones left Rona to lead the way. Her bump of locality had been well developed in New Zealand, so she strode on with confidence. But the ground shelved down suddenly, revealing a natural feature upon which they had not counted, a fairly wide brook, running between sandy banks. Here indeed was an obstacle. Winnie and Hattie stared at it with blank faces and groaned.

"We'd forgotten the wretched Llanelwyn stream. What atrocious luck! Don't believe there's the ghost of a bridge anywhere. Shall we have to go back?"

"I'm not going back," declared Rona sturdily. "There must be some way of getting over it some where. Come along and we'll prospect."

"Oh, for the wings of a dove!" sighed Hattie. "Even those of the raggedest sparrow would be welcome."

"Better wish yourself a fish, for you may have to try swimming," grunted Winnie.

"I can't swim—not a stroke! You'll suggest I shall jump it next, I suppose. Look here, we shall have to go back. There's nothing else for it. Rona! Corona Mitchell! Corona Margarita! Cuckoo! Where've you gone to?"

"Coo—ee!" came in reply from the distance, and presently Rona appeared beckoning vigorously.

"We're—going—back," shouted Hattie.

"No, no! Come along here."

Anxious to see if she had found any solution of the problem, the others pelted down a slope and joined her.

"Here's our bridge," said Rona proudly, as soon as they rounded the corner.

"That thing!" exclaimed Winnie, looking aghast at the decidedly slim pole, that was fixed across the stream as a cattle bar.

"I'm not a tight-rope dancer, thank you!" sneered Hattie rather indignantly.

"It'll be quite easy," Rona urged.

"Oh, I dare say! You won't find me trying to walk across it, I can tell you."

"I didn't ask you to walk. I'm going to sit on it cross-legged, like a tailor, and shuffle myself over. It's broad enough for that. I'll go first."

"Oh, I daren't! I'd drop in!" wailed the younger ones in chorus.

"Now don't funk. What two sillies you are! It won't be as hard as you think. Just watch me do it."

Fortunately the pole had two great advantages: it was firmly fixed in the bank on either side, so that it did not sway about, and, being the trunk of a fir-tree with the bark still left on, its surface offered some grip. Rona's progress was slow but steady. She worked herself over by a few inches at a time. When she reached the water's edge on the far side she dropped on to a patch of silver sand and hurrahed.

"Buck up, and come along," she yelled lustily.

This was scouting with a vengeance, and more than the others had bargained for; but the stronger will prevailed, and though they shook in their shoes they were persuaded to make the experiment.

"I'm all dithering," panted Hattie, as Winnie pushed her forward to try first.

It was not as bad as she had expected. She was able to cling tightly with hands and knees, and though she had one awful moment in the middle, when she thought she was overbalancing, she reached Rona's outstretched hand in due course.

"You squealed like a pig," said the Cuckoo.

"I thought I was done for. Wouldn't you like to feel how my heart's beating?"

"No, I shouldn't. Don't be affected. Come along, Win. We can't wait all day. I'll fish you out if you tumble in, I promise you. It isn't deep enough to drown you."

With many protestations, Winnie, really very much scared, followed the others' lead, and got along quite successfully till within a foot of the brink; then the sudden mooing of a cow on the bank startled her, and so upset her equilibrium that she splashed into the water, wetting one leg thoroughly.

"Ugh! My shoes were squelchy enough before," she lamented. "You can't think how horrid it is."

"Never mind, you've got across."

"But you might sympathize."

"Haven't time. We shall have to hurry up if we mean to be back before the others."

"Did you think the cow was Teddie calling you?" laughed Hattie, who, having got her own trial over, could afford to jest at other people's misfortunes.

"You'd have jumped yourself. Oh dear, I spilt most of my snowdrops, though I did tie the basket round my neck!"

"Never mind; you can't fish them out of the stream now. I'll give you some of mine. Here, take these," said Rona. "I've nobody to send them to," she added, half to herself, as she climbed the bank.

"Oh, thanks awfully! I always send Mother a big bunch. She looks forward to them. I've brought a cardboard box from home on purpose to pack them in, because the cook runs quite out of starch-boxes. Some of the girls last year had to wrap theirs just in brown paper. If you don't want yours, can you spare me a few more?"

"I'll keep just these to put in my bedroom, and you may have the rest if you like," replied Rona, stalking ahead.

Every now and then the sense of her loneliness smote her. She would probably be the only girl in the school who was not sending flowers away to-night. How different it would be if she had anybody in England who took an interest in her and cared to receive her snowdrops!

"It's no use crying for the moon," she decided, blinking hard lest she should betray symptoms of weakness before her juniors. "When a thing can't be helped it can't, and there's an end of it."

"Cuckoo! Corona Margarita! Do wait for us! You walk like the wind."

"Or as if a bull were chasing you," panted Hattie, overtaking her and claiming a supporting arm. "Do you see where we've got ourselves to? The only way out of this is to go straight through the Glynmaen Wood."

"Well, and why shouldn't we go through the Glynmaen Wood? Is it any different to any other wood?"

"No, only they're horribly particular about trespassing. They stick up all kinds of notices warning people off."

"What rubbish! Why, in New Zealand we go where we like."

"Oh, I dare say, in New Zealand!"

"Look, there's a notice up there," said Winnie, pointing over the hedge to a tree whereon was nailed a weather-stained board bearing the inhospitable legend: "Trespassers Beware".

Rona stared at it quite belligerently.

"I should like to pull it down," she observed. "What right has anybody to try to keep places all to themselves?"

"I suppose it belongs to Lord Glyncraig."

"All the more shame to him then. I shall take a particular pleasure in going, just because he sticks up 'Don't'."

"Suppose we're caught?"

"My blessed babes, you don't suppose I've come all this short cut and scrambled over a pole to be turned back by a trespass notice! Do you want to cross the stream again and trail home by the road?"

"Rather not!"

"Then I'll give you a boost to get over the fence there."

The property was well protected. It took Rona's best efforts to help her companions to scale the high oak boards. When they had all dropped safely to the other side they set off through the trees in the direction they judged would bring them out nearest to The Woodlands.

Three girls in thick shoes do not pass absolutely silently through a wood, especially if they indulge in giggles. Winnie and Hattie, moreover, could never be together without chattering incessantly. For the moment they had forgotten every principle of scouting. In that quiet, secluded spot their shrill voices rang out with extreme clearness. A rabbit or two scuttled away, and a pheasant flew off with a whirr. Presently another and heavier pair of boots might be heard tramping towards them, the bushes parted, and a dour-looking face, with lantern jaws and a stubbly chin, regarded them grimly. The gamekeeper glowered a moment, then growled out:

"What are you three a-doing here?"

"That's our own business," retorted Rona briskly.

" Indeed? Well, it happens to be my business too. You're trespassing, and you know it."

"We're doing no harm."

"Aren't you? I suppose it's nothing to scare every pheasant in the wood. Oh dear no!"

"What nonsense! It was only one," exclaimed Rona, standing up against the bullying tone. "You're making the most unnecessary fuss. What right have you to stop us?"

"More right than you've got to be here. I won't have anybody in these woods, schoolgirls or no schoolgirls, so just you get back the way you came, or——"

"That will do, Jordan," said a voice behind him.

The keeper started, turned, and touched his cap obsequiously.

"Beg pardon, my lord, but the trespassing that goes on here gets past bearing, and wants putting a stop to."

"Very well, I'll settle it myself," and Lord Glyncraig—for it was he—readjusted his glasses and stared reprovingly at the three delinquents.

"Ah! girls from The Woodlands—evidently out of bounds. I shall have to report you to your headmistress, I'm afraid. Your names, please."

"Winnie Fowler," "Hattie Goodwin," murmured two subdued voices.

Rona did not answer at all. She kept her head down and her eyes fixed on the ground.

"It's—it's surely not the same girl who did me such a service this morning on the marsh? Then I must repeat my thanks. Now, look here, you've been up to some mischief, all three of you. Get back to school as quick as you can, and I'll say nothing about it! There! Off you go!"

Without another word the sinners pelted along through the wood, never pausing till they reached the railing and climbed over on to the high road. Here, on free ground, they felt at liberty to express their indignation.

"He's a nasty, horrid old thing to turn us out!" panted Hattie.

"How he looked at you, Rona!" said Winnie. "He stared and stared and stared!"

"Wondering where he'd seen me before, I suppose. I expect the green stains on my coat reminded him. I got them hauling up his precious dog."

"It wasn't with him in the wood."

"Oh, it's sitting by the fire drinking linseed tea! It looked a pampered brute."

"We shall have to scoot to keep clear of Teddie."

"All right. Scooterons-nous. Thank goodness, there's the hedge of The Woodlands! We'll slip in through the little side gate."

The three certainly merited discovery for their misdeeds, but on this occasion they evaded justice; for, as luck would have it, they reached the house just a moment or two before the rest of the school, and Miss Teddington, who was in a hurry to pack her boxes of snowdrops, concluded that they must have been in front with Ulyth and Lizzie, and did not stop to remember that she had left them tying Winnie's shoelace by the roadside. It was seldom that such a palpable lapse escaped her keen eye and even keener comprehension; so they might thank their fortunate stars for their escape. Hattie and Winnie made great capital out of the adventure, and recounted all the details, much exaggerated, to a thrilled audience in IV b.

Rona did not mention the matter to Ulyth. Perhaps, knowing her room-mate's standards, in her heart of hearts she was rather ashamed of it.

XI. Rona receives News

Ulyth and Lizzie Lonsdale were sitting cosily in the latter's bedroom. It was Shrove Tuesday, and, with perhaps some idea of imitating the Continental habit of keeping carnival, Miss Bowes for that one day relaxed her rule prohibiting sweets, and allowed the school a special indulgence. Needless to say, they availed themselves of it to the fullest extent. Some had boxes of chocolate sent them from home; others visited the village shop and purchased delicacies from the big bottles displayed in the windows; while a favoured few managed to borrow pans from the kitchen and perform some cookery with the aid of friends. Lizzie had been concocting peppermint creams, and she now leant back luxuriously in a basket-chair and handed the box to Ulyth. The two girls were friends, and often met for a chat. Ulyth sometimes wished they could be room-mates. Though Rona was immensely improved, she was still not an entirely congenial companion. Her lack of education and early training made it difficult for her to understand half the things Ulyth wanted to talk about, and it was troublesome always to have to explain. In an equal friendship there must be give and take, and to poor Rona Ulyth was constantly giving her very best, and receiving nothing in return. Lizzie, on the contrary, was inspiring. She played and painted well, was fond of reading, and was ready to help to organize any forward movement in the school. She and Ulyth pottered together over photography, mounted specimens for the museum, tried new stitches in embroidery, and worked at the same patterns in chip carving. The two girls were at about the same level of attainment in most things, for if Ulyth had greater originality, Lizzie was the more steady and plodding. It was Ulyth's failing to take things up very hotly at first, and then grow tired of them. She was apt to have half a dozen unfinished pieces of fancywork on hand, and her locker in the carpentry-room held several ambitious attempts that had never reached fruition.

Lizzie, as she munched her peppermint creams, turned over the pages of a volume of Dryden's poems, and made an occasional note. Each form kept a "Calendar of Quotations" hung up in its classroom, the daily extracts for which were supplied by the girls in rotation. It was Lizzie's turn to provide the gems for the following week, and she was hunting for something suitable.

"I wish Miss Bowes had given me Shakespeare," she said. "I could have got heaps of bits out of my birthday-book, just suitable for the month, too. I don't know why she should have pitched on Dryden. No one's going to be particularly cheered next week with my quotations. I've got:

"'Monday

"'When I consider life, 't is all a cheat;

Yet, fooled with hope, men favour the deceit,

Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay;

To-morrow's falser than the former day.'

"'Tuesday

"'All human things are subject to decay,

And when Fate summons, monarchs must obey.'"

"That's dismal, in all conscience!" put in Ulyth.

"'Wednesday

"'Great wits are sure to madness near allied,

And thin partitions do their bounds divide.'

"That sounds quite as dismal, does it not? I wonder why Scott calls Dryden 'glorious John'? I think he's rather a dismal poet. Listen to this:

"'In dreams they fearful precipices tread,

Or, shipwrecked, labour to some distant shore,

Or in dark churches walk amongst the dead:

They wake with horror, and dare sleep no more.'

Shall I put it down for Thursday?"

"For goodness' sake don't! You'll give us all the creeps," laughed Ulyth.

"Well, it won't be a champion week."

"I'll tell you what you might do. Draw some illustrations round the mottoes. That would make them more interesting."

"Oh, I dare say! I haven't time to bother."

"Nonsense, you have! I'll do some of them for you. You needn't be original. It doesn't take long to copy things."

"Will you do four, then, if I do three?"

"All serene. I'll begin this evening if you'll give me the cards."

Ulyth dashed off quite a pretty little pen-and-ink sketch in ten minutes after tea, and put the cards by in her drawer, intending to finish them during "handicraft hour" the next day; but she completely forgot all about them, and never remembered their existence till Saturday, when she came across them by accident, and was much dismayed at her discovery.

"I'll have to do them somehow, or Lizzie'll never forgive me," she ruminated. "I must knock them off just as fast as I can. I could copy those little figures from the American Gems; they're in outline, and will be very easy. Oh, bother! It's cataloguing day, and one's not supposed to use the library. What atrocious luck!"

Twice during the term the books of the school library were called in for purposes of review by the librarian, and on those days nobody was allowed to borrow any of the volumes. It was most unfortunate for Ulyth that this special Saturday should be the one devoted by the monitresses to the purpose. She had failed Lizzie so often before in their joint projects that she did not wish to encounter fresh reproaches. Somehow three illustrations had to be provided, and that within the space of about half an hour. Ulyth was fairly clever at drawing, but she was not capable of producing the pictures out of her head. She must obtain a copy, and that quickly.

"Helen Cooper's librarian this month," she thought. "I wonder if she's finished checking the catalogue yet? I saw her walking down the stream five minutes ago with Mabel Hoyle. Why shouldn't I have the American Gems for half an hour? It wouldn't do any harm. It really is the merest red tape that we mayn't use the books. I shall just take French leave and borrow it."

Ulyth went at once to the library. Helen had evidently been at work there, for the list lay open, with a sheet of paper near, recording the condition of some of the copies. A glue-pot and some rolls of transparent gummed edging showed that Helen had been busy mending battered covers and torn pages. She probably meant to finish them after tea. The book of American gems was in its usual place on the shelf. The temptation was irresistible. Ulyth did not notice, as she was taking it down, that someone with a smooth head of sleek fair hair was peeping round the corner of the door, and that a pair of not too friendly blue eyes were watching the deed. If flying footsteps whisked along the corridor and out into the garden, she was blissfully unconscious of the fact. She took the volume to her own form-room and settled herself at her desk with her drawing materials, cardboard, pencil, india-rubber, fine pen, and a bottle of Indian ink. The little figures were exactly what she wanted, quite simple in outline, but most effective, and not at all difficult. They would certainly improve Lizzie's calendar for the week, and relieve the sombre character of the Dryden quotations. She worked away very rapidly, sketching them lightly in pencil, intending to finish them in ink afterwards. She grew quite interested, especially when she reached the pen part. That little face with its laughing mouth and aureole of hair was really very pretty; she had copied it without having to use the india-rubber once.

"Ulyth Stanton, what are you doing with that book?" said a voice from behind her desk.

Beside her stood Helen Cooper and Stephanie Radford, the former hugely indignant, the latter with a non-committal expression. Ulyth started so violently that the bottle of Indian ink overturned and spread itself out in three streams.

"Oh Jemima!" shrieked Ulyth in consternation.

"Now you've done it!" exclaimed Helen angrily. "Ink all over the page. What a disgraceful mess! For goodness' sake stop; you're making it worse. Give it to me."

Ulyth, who was frantically mopping up the black streams with her pocket handkerchief, surrendered the book to the outraged librarian. Nemesis had indeed descended upon her guilty head.

"You knew perfectly well that you weren't allowed to take it to-day," scolded Helen. "You sneaked into the library and got it while I was out."

"Someone else has been sneaking too," thought Ulyth, with a glance at Stephanie's face. "I fancy I know who turned informer." Then aloud she said: "I'm fearfully sorry. I'll buy a new copy of the book."

"I don't believe you can; it's one Mrs. Arnold gave to the school, and is published in America. I'll try sponging it with salts of lemon, but I'm afraid nothing will take out the stain. I thought better of you, Ulyth Stanton. One doesn't expect such things from V b. You'll borrow no more books till the end of the month. Do you understand?"

Ulyth responded with what meekness she could muster. She admitted that the monitress had reason for wrath, and that she had really no excuse worthy of urging in extenuation of her crime. It was hard to be debarred the use of the library for more than a fortnight, but, Helen, she knew, would enforce that discipline rigidly. The unfortunate motto-cards had come in for the bulk of the ink, and were completely spoilt. Ulyth carried the ruins to Lizzie's bedroom and pleaded peccavi.

"Well, I suppose it can't be helped. I've done my three cards with pictures of flowers, and the rest of the calendar will have to be plain," said Lizzie. "You were rather an idiot, Ulyth."

"I know. I'd have asked Helen for the book if she'd been anywhere near, and I meant to tell her afterwards that I'd taken it."

"Didn't you explain that to her?"

"No. It didn't come well when she'd just caught me."

"You let her think the worst of you."

"It couldn't be helped. I'm sure Stephanie hunted her up and told her."

"Stephanie doesn't like you."

"No, because I champion Rona, and Stephanie can't bear her."

"There's nothing so much wrong with the poor old Cuckoo now; she's wonderfully inoffensive."

"Yes, but she's not aristocratic. Stephie rubs that in to her continually. She calls her 'a daughter of the people'."

"Stephanie Radford can be uncommonly snobbish sometimes."

Stephanie from the very first had resented Rona's presence at The Woodlands, and since the practical joke which the latter had played upon her she had disliked her heartily. She lost no opportunity of showing her contempt, and of trying to make Rona seem of small account. She revived an ancient tradition of the school which made it a breach of etiquette for girls to go into other form-rooms than their own, thus banishing Rona from V b, where she had often been brought in by Ulyth or good-natured Addie to share the fun that went on. If obliged to take Rona's hand in figure-dancing, she would only give the extreme tips of her fingers, and if forced on any occasion to sit next to her, she would draw away her skirts as if she feared contamination.

"The Woodlands isn't what it used to be," she would assure a select circle of listeners. "When my eldest sister was here there were the Courtenays and the Derringtons and the Vernons and quite a number of girls of really good family. Miss Bowes would never have dreamt then of taking a girl she knew nothing about; she was so particular whom she received."

"The poor old Cuckoo has her points," volunteered Addie. "I'm afraid most of us aren't 'county'!"

"All schools are more mixed than they used to be," admitted Stephanie candidly; "but I'd draw the line at specimens straight from the backwoods."

Few of the girls really liked Stephanie, nevertheless her opinions carried weight. A school-mate who dresses well, talks continually of highborn friends, and "gives herself airs" can nearly always command a certain following among the more unthinking of her comrades, and such girls as Beth Broadway, Alice and Merle Denham, and Mary Acton were easily impressed by Stephanie's attitude of superiority, and ready to follow her lead on a question of caste. It gave them a kind of reflected credit to belong to Stephanie's circle, and they liked to pride themselves upon their exclusiveness.

Though Rona was many thousand miles away from her home, she evidently did not forget her New Zealand friends, and looked out anxiously for the thin foreign letters which arrived from time to time. She never showed them to anybody, and spoke little of old associations, but a word would slip out here and there to reveal that she cared more than she would give her schoolfellows to suppose. One afternoon, shortly before the New Zealand mail was expected, Rona was working in her portion of the garden, when Mary Acton brought her a message.

"Some visitors to see you. They're waiting in the practising-room," announced Mary.

"Visitors to see me!" exclaimed Rona, throwing down her rake. "Whoever can they be?"

"I'm sure I don't know," replied Mary stolidly. "They asked for Miss Mitchell, so I suppose that's you. There isn't anyone else in the school named Mitchell."

"It must be me!"

Rona's eyes were wide with excitement. Visitors for herself! It was such an utter surprise. For one moment a wild idea flashed across her mind. Her face suddenly hardened.

"What are they like? Do you know them?" she gasped.

"Not from Adam, or rather Eve. They're just two very ordinary-looking females."

Much agitated, Rona flew into the house to wash her hands, slip off her gardening-apron, and change her shoes. When this very hasty toilet was completed, she walked to the practising-room and entered nervously. Two ladies were sitting near the piano, with their backs to the window. They were not fashionably dressed, but perhaps they were cold, for both wore their large coat collars turned up. Their felt hats had wide floppy brims. One carried a guide to North Wales, and the other held an open motor-map in her hand, as if she had been studying the route.

"Miss Mitchell? How d'you do?" said the taller of the two as Rona entered. "I dare say you'll be surprised to see us, and you won't know who we are. I'm Mrs. Grant, and this is my cousin, Miss Smith. We live in New Zealand, and know some of your friends there. We're visiting England at present, and as we found ourselves motoring through North Wales, we thought we would call and see you."

"It's very good of you," faltered Rona. "Which friends of mine do you know?"

"The Higsons. They sent you all kinds of messages."

"Oh! How are they? Do tell me about them!"

Rona's cheeks were flushed and her lips quivering.

"Pamela has grown, of course. Connie and Minnie have had measles. Billy had a fall from his horse and sprained his ankle badly, but he's all right again now."

"And Jake?"

"Spends most of his time with the Johnson girls."

"Who are they? I never heard of them."

"They came after you left."

"To which farm?"

"Oh, not very far away, I believe!"

"I wonder Pamela didn't tell me all that in her letter. Which farm can it possibly be? Surely not Heathlands?"

"I believe that was the name."

"Then have the Marstons gone?"

"Yes, to the North Island."

"Oh! I'm very sorry. Why didn't they write to me? Did you hear any other news, please?"

"Pamela told me something about your home."

A shadow crossed Rona's face.

"Is it—is it Mrs. Barker?" she asked nervously.

"Yes, it's about her."

"What has she been doing?"

"Getting married again."

"Oh! Oh! Who would have her?"

"Your father."

"No!" shrieked Rona, her eyes ablaze. "It can't be! That dreadful, drinking woman! Oh, I can't—I won't believe it!"

"She's your stepmother now, whether you like it or not."

"Daddy! Daddy! It can't be! How could you? You knew she drank!"

"He's drinking himself—like a fish."

"No! My daddy?"

Rona, a moment ago furious, had turned white as a ghost. She put out a trembling hand and clutched the piano blindly; then, with a pitiful, broken cry, she fell, half-fainting, half-sobbing, on to the floor. At that moment Ulyth, with her music-case, entered the room.

"What's the matter? Rona! Rona, dear! Are you ill? Who are these—people?"

She might well ask, for the behaviour of the two strangers was most unprecedented. They were leaning on each other's shoulders and roaring with laughter. One of them suddenly threw up her hat, and turned down her collar, revealing the familiar features of Stephanie Radford.

"Done you brown!" she exploded. "Paid you back in your own coin for your precious Eau de Venus sell! I'm even with you now, Rona Mitchell! Come along, Beth." And the pair disappeared, guffawing.

Rona picked herself up shakily, and subsided on to a chair, with her face in her hands.

"It's not true then?" she quavered.

"What isn't true?"

"They told me Dad had married Mrs. Barker, and that he was—drinking!"

"Stephanie told you that?"

"Yes. Oh, I'm queer still!"

"Rona, darling, of course it's nothing but a black, wicked lie. Don't cry so. There isn't a word of truth about it. They were only ragging you. Oh, don't take it so hard! I'll settle with Stephanie for this."

Half an hour afterwards a very grim, determined Ulyth, supported by Lizzie Lonsdale, sought out the masqueraders and spoke her mind.

"She ragged me, so why shouldn't I turn the tables on her? It's nothing to make such a hullabaloo about!" yapped Stephanie.

"But it is. The trick she played on you was only fun after all. Yours was the cruellest thing you could think of to hurt and wound her. You may pride yourself on your family, Stephanie Radford, but I'm sure the very commonest person would have had nicer feelings than to do this. I can never think the same of you and Beth again."

"Oh, of course you take up the cudgels for your precious Cuckoo!" snapped Stephanie. "Don't make such an absurd fuss. I shall do what I like, without you setting yourself up to lecture me. So there! If you don't like it, you may lump it."

"Not a very aristocratic form of expression for a scion of the Radfords of Stoke Radford!" commented Lizzie, as she and Ulyth stalked away.

XII. Sentry Duty

The spring term wore slowly on. March winds came and went, taking the sweet violets with them, but leaving golden Lent lilies and a wealth of primroses as a legacy to April. The larch forest above Porth Powys was a tangle of green tassels, the hedgerows were starry with blackthorn, and the Pyrus japonica over the dining-room windows was a mass of rosy blossom. Spring was always a delightful season at The Woodlands; with the longer days came rambles and greater freedom. Popular opinion ran high in extolling country life, and any girl who ventured to prefer town pleasures found herself entirely in the minority.

Rona had several invitations for the Easter holidays, one from Mrs. Stanton among the number; but Miss Bowes, thinking it better for Ulyth to have a rest from her room-mate's presence, decided in favour of Winnie Fowler. Ulyth could not help feeling a sense of relief that the matter was thus settled. Rona was very little trouble to her now—indeed, she rather liked her company; but she would be glad to have her mother to herself for the few short weeks.

"I wouldn't for the world have tried to stop her coming, Motherkins," she wrote home; "but Miss Bowes said most emphatically that she must go to the Fowlers. I'm sure they'll give her a good time, and—well, I admit it will be a rest to me. Just at present I don't want to share you. Now you know the whole of your horrid daughter! Lizzie asked me if I would spend part of the holidays with her, but I managed to make an excuse. I felt I couldn't spare a single precious day away from you. I have so much to talk about and tell you. Am I greedy? But what's the use of having one's own lovely mother if she isn't just one's ownest sometimes? I tell you things I wouldn't tell anyone else on earth. I don't think all the girls feel quite the same; but then their mothers can't possibly be like mine! She's the one in a thousand! I'm sitting up late in my bedroom to write this, and I shall have to report myself to Miss Lodge to-morrow; but I felt I must write."

After the Easter holidays everybody returned to The Woodlands prepared to make the most of the coming term. With the longer evenings more time was allowed out-of-doors, and the glade by the stream became a kind of summer parlour. Those girls who had some slight skill in carpentry constructed rustic benches and tables from the boughs blown down by last autumn's storms, and those who preferred nature untouched by art had their favourite seats in snug corners among the bushes or on the stones by the water-side. With the first burst of warm weather bathing was allowed, and every morning detachments of figures in mackintoshes and tennis-shoes might be seen wending their way towards the large pool to indulge in the exhilarating delight of a dip in clear, flowing water, followed by a brisk run round the glade. These pre-breakfast expeditions were immensely appreciated; the girls willingly got up earlier for the purpose, and anyone who manifested a disposition to remain in bed was denounced as a "slacker".

One day, towards the end of May, when some of the members of V b were sitting with their fancywork on the short grass under an oak-tree, Addie Knighton came from the house and joined them. There was beaming satisfaction in Addie's twinkling grey eyes; she rubbed her hands ostentatiously, and chuckled audibly.

"What's to do, Addie, old girl? You're looking very smug," said Lizzie.

"Aha! Wouldn't you like to know? What'll you give me if I tell you now?"

"Never buy pigs in pokes. It mayn't be important at all," volunteered Merle.

"Oh, indeed! Isn't it? Just wait till you hear."

"It's nothing but one of your sells," yawned Gertrude Oliver, moving so as to rest her back more comfortably against Ulyth.

"Mrs. Arnold doesn't generally spring sells upon us."

Ulyth jumped up so suddenly that Gertrude collapsed with a squeal of protest.

"Mrs. Arnold here and I never knew! Where is she?"

"Don't excite yourself. She's gone by now. She only stayed ten minutes, to see Miss Bowes, but it was ten minutes to some purpose. Do you know what she's actually proposed?"

Addie's listeners were as eager now as they had been languid before.

"Go ahead, can't you?" urged Lizzie.

"Well, the whole school's to go camping for three days."

This indeed was news!

"Stunning!"

"Spiffing!"

"Ripping!"

"Scrumptious!" burst in a chorus from the elated four.

"Details, please," added Ulyth. "When and where, and how, and why?"

"Is it a Camp-fire business?" asked Lizzie.

"Of course it is or Mrs. Arnold wouldn't be getting it up. It's happened this way. The Llangarmon and Elwyn Bay detachments of Boy Scouts are to camp at Llyn Gwynedd for ten days early in June. Mr. Arnold has the arranging of it all. And Mrs. Arnold suggested that the tents might just as easily be hired a few days sooner, and we could use them before the boys came. It's such a splendid opportunity. It would be too expensive to have everything sent down on purpose just for us, but when they're there we can hire the camp for very little extra. It's the carriage and erecting that cost so much. Miss Bowes, I believe, hummed and ha-ed a little, but Teddie just tumbled to the idea and persuaded the Rainbow to clinch it."

"Good old Teddie! I believe it's the tragedy of her life that she can't live altogether in the open air. She adores Red Cross Work."

"The teachers are all to come to camp; they're as excited as you please about it. It was Miss Lodge who told me that Mrs. Arnold was here, and I rushed down the drive and caught her just for a second."

This indeed was an event in the annals of the school. Never since the Camp-fire League was started had its members found any opportunity of sampling life under canvas. They had practised a little camp cookery down by the stream, but their experiments had not gone much farther than frying eggs and bacon or roasting potatoes in hot ashes, and they were yearning to try their hands at gipsies' stews and gallipot soups. With Mrs. Arnold for leader they expected a three days' elysium. Even Miss Teddington, they knew, would rise to the occasion and play trumps. Llyn Gwynedd was a small lonely lake about six miles away, in the heart of the mountains beyond Penllwyd and Glyder Garmon. It was reached from The Woodlands by a track across the moors, but it communicated by high road with Capelcefn station, so that tents, camp-furniture, and provisions could be sent up by a motor-lorry. The ground was hired from a local farmer, who undertook to supply milk, butter, and eggs to the best of his ability, and to bring meat and fresh vegetables from Capelcefn as required. To cater for a whole school up in the wilds is a task from which many Principals would shrink, and Miss Bowes might be forgiven if she had at first demurred at the suggestion. But, with Mr. Arnold's practical experience to help her, she gave her orders and embarked (not without a few tremors) upon the proceeding.

"If the mountain air makes you so hungry you eat up two days' provisions in one, it means you'll have to fast on the third day," she assured the girls. "I'm sending up what I hope will be sufficient. It's like victualling a regiment. Of course we shan't go at all if it's wet."

Mr. Arnold, who very kindly volunteered to see that the camp was properly set up and in thorough working order before the school took possession, superintended the erection of the tents and reported that all was in apple-pie condition and only waiting for its battalion. On 2nd June, therefore, a very jolly procession started off from The Woodlands. In navy skirts and sports coats, tricolor ties, straw hats, and decorated with numerous badges and small flags, the girls felt like a regiment of female Territorials. Each carried her kit on her back in a home-made knapsack containing her few personal necessities, and knife, spoon, fork, and enamelled tin mug. A band of tin whistles and mouth organs led the way, playing a valiant attempt at "Caller Herrin'". The teachers also were prepared for business. Miss Teddington, who had done climbs in Switzerland, came in orthodox costume with nailed boots and a jaunty Tyrolean hat with a piece of edelweiss stuck in the front. Miss Lodge wore a full-length leather coat and felt hat in which she looked ready to defy a waterspout or a tornado. Miss Moseley, who owned to an ever-present terror of bulls, grasped an iron-spiked walking-stick, and Miss Davis had a First Aid wallet slung across her back. In the girls' opinion Miss Bowes shirked abominably. Instead of venturing on the six-mile walk she had caught the morning train to Capelcefn, and was going to hire a car at the Royal Hotel and drive up to the lake with the provisions. Mrs. Arnold, who, with her husband, had taken rooms at the farm for a few days, was already on the spot, and would be ready to receive the travellers when they arrived.

On the whole it was a glorious morning, though a few ill-omened clouds lingered like a night-cap round Penllwyd. Larks were singing, cuckoos calling, bluebells made the woods seem a reflection of the sky, and the gorse was ablaze on the common. The walk was collar-work at first, up, up, up, climbing a steep track between loose-built, fern-covered walls, taking a short cut over the slope that formed the spur of Cwm Dinas, and scaling the rocky little precipice of Maenceirion. Some who had started at a great rate and with much enthusiasm began to slacken speed, and to realize the wisdom of Miss Teddington's advice and try the slow-going, steady pace she had learned from Swiss guides.

"You can't keep it up if you begin with such a spurt," she assured them. "Alpine climbing has to be like the tortoise—slow and sure."

Once on the plateau beyond Cwm Dinas progress was easier. It was still uphill, but the slope was gentler. They were on the open moors now, following a path, little more than a sheep track, that led under the crag of Glyder Garmon. Except for an occasional tiny whitewashed farm they were far from human habitations, and the only signs of life were the small agile Welsh sheep, the half-wild ponies that grazed on these uplands during the summer months, and a pair of carrion crows that wheeled away, croaking hoarsely at the sight of intruders. On and on over what seemed an interminable reach of coarse grass and whinberry-bushes, jumping tiny brooks, and skirting round sometimes to avoid bogs, for much of the ground was spongy, and though its surface of sphagnum moss looked inviting, it was treacherous in the extreme. At last they had rounded the corner of Glyder Garmon, and there, far away to the right, like a sheet of silver, Llyn Gwynedd lay gleaming in the distance.

The sight of their destination, even though it was two miles away, cheered up those weaker spirits that were beginning to lag, especially as something white on the south side, when examined through Miss Teddington's field-glasses, proved to be the tents. Three-quarters of an hour's brisk walking brought them to the lake, and in ten minutes more they were announcing their approach to the camp in a succession of wild hoorays.

Mr. and Mrs. Arnold were waiting to do the honours, and, parading in their very best style, the League marched in and took possession.

By the time they had been two hours at Llyn Gwynedd all the girls felt like old, well-seasoned campers. Mrs. Arnold was no novice, and at once assumed her post as leader and captain in command. Miss Bowes, Miss Teddington, and the other teachers were assigned tents of honour, and every member of the League was placed on definite duty. Some were cooks, some water-carriers, some scullions, and some sentries, according to their qualifications and the rank they held in the League.

The field hired for the camping-ground had been carefully chosen. It was on the far side of the lake, away from the road, sheltered on the north and east by mountain ridges, and with a shelving beach of fine silvery sand where the waves lapped in gentle little ripples. A narrow brook, leaping from the heights above, passed through the centre and gave a quite uncontaminated water supply. All around rose peaks which had not been visible at The Woodlands, the rough, splintered crest of Craig Mawr, the smoother summit of Pencastell, and the almost inaccessible precipice of Carnedd Powys. It was glorious to sit by the lake and feel that they were not obliged to return to school before dark, but could stay and watch the sun set behind Pencastell and the gloaming creep quietly on. Of course everybody wanted to explore the immediate vicinity, and little bands, each in charge of a Torch-bearer, were allowed to skirt round the lake within sight of the camp. Each girl had her League whistle, and knew the signals which meant "Meal-time", "Danger", and "Return instantly to camp". These had been rehearsed in the glade at The Woodlands, and formed part of the examination of every candidate.

Ulyth, as a Torch-bearer, was able to head a party, and started off in quest of bog myrtle along the bank, returning with great armfuls of the delicious-smelling aromatic shrub to cast into the fire during the evening "stunt".

The gathering of the League that night was a memorable occasion. The ceremonies were observed with strictest formality, and as visitors were present a special welcome song was sung in their honour. The scene was immensely picturesque and romantic: the red sun setting between Craig Mawr and Pencastell threw a last glow on the lake, the blazing fire lighted up the camp and the rows of eager faces, and behind all was the background of the eternal hills.

Rona, having successfully passed through her probation, was admitted as a Wood-gatherer and awarded the white badge of service. Several younger girls also received initiation into membership. With the League ceremonial, songs, stories, and cocoa-making, the evening passed very swiftly away. At nine o'clock everybody was expected to turn in. A night under canvas was a new experience. The stretcher-beds and the clean blankets looked inviting. Strict military discipline was observed in the camp, and sentries were told off on duty. In as perfect order as a regiment the girls went to their tents. Ulyth was sharing quarters with Addie, Lizzie, and Gertrude. She tucked herself up in her blankets, as she had been taught at camp drill, and then lay quietly for a long, long time, watching the patch of sky through the tent door.

She seemed only to have been asleep for about an hour, when the patrol touched her on the shoulder. Instantly she sprang up, broad awake.

"Relieve sentry at west guard," was the order, and the patrol passed on.

It was too dark to see her watch, but Ulyth knew it must be nearly one o'clock. She hastily donned the warm garments ordered to be worn by sentries, and hurried away to relieve Helen Cooper. Her post was at the west end of the camp, where the field merged into a rushy swamp before it rose into the hill that led towards the farm.

"The password is 'Louvain'," said Helen, retiring, not at all sorry to seek the comfort of her bed. "One leg of the camp-stool is most rickety, so I warn you not to lean too hard on it. Good night."

Left alone, Ulyth sat down with extreme caution on the deficient camp-stool and surveyed the situation. There were clouds across a waning moon, and it was fairly dark. She could see the outlines of the tents in black masses behind her; in front the field lay dim and shadowy, with a mist creeping from the water. Up above, to her right, against an indigo sky, the Great Bear was standing almost on its head, with its tail in the air. One of the tests of a Torch-bearer was a knowledge of the stars, and Ulyth had learnt how to tell the time by the position of this particular constellation. She made a rapid calculation now, reckoning from the day of the month, and was glad to find it came out correctly. Cassiopeia's white arms were hidden by the mountains, but the Milky Way shimmered in the east, and overhead Arcturus blazed as he had done in the days when the patriarch Job recorded his brilliance. To the extreme north a patch of light lay behind Penllwyd, where the sun, at this season hardly dipping far out of sight, worked his course round to the east again. How quiet it was! The silence was almost oppressive. The gentle lap of the tiny waves on the lake was not equal to the rush of the stream at The Woodlands. Not even a night-bird called. The camp was absolutely still and slumbering.

Ulyth rose and paced about for a while. It was too cold to sit still long. She must only use the camp-stool when she needed a rest.

"Sentries ought to be allowed chocolates," she murmured, "or hot peppermints, just to keep up their spirits. Ugh! How weird and eerie it all is! There isn't a sound anywhere. It's not an enlivening performance to keep watch, I must say."

She stopped, suddenly on the alert. What was that noise in the darkness to her left? She distinctly heard a rustle among the gorse-bushes, and thought something moved in the deep shadow.

"Halt! Who goes there?" she challenged.

There was no reply, but the rustle sounded again, this time nearer to the camp. She listened with every sense strained to the uttermost. Something or someone was slinking in from the field and creeping cautiously towards the tents; of that she was nearly certain. Wild ideas of thieving tramps flooded her brain. A louder sound confirmed her suspicions. She could hear it quite distinctly in the direction of the kitchen. Her duty was plain. She blew her whistle promptly; it was answered by those of the three other sentries, from the north, east, and south quarters, and immediately torches began to flash, and voices to ask the cause of alarm. The guard was roused, and began an instant tour of inspection.

"Something crept past me, straight towards the centre of the camp," Ulyth reported.

The lights flashed away in the direction of the kitchen. The girls were on their mettle, and meant business. Whoever the intruder was, he should be run to earth and made to give an account of himself. They felt perfectly capable of taking him prisoner and binding his hands behind him with a rope. Indeed, they thought they should hugely enjoy doing so, particularly if he turned out to be a burglar. Numbers give courage, and a very martial spirit was in the air.

"If he's hiding in one of the tents we'll drag him out by the legs!" proclaimed Marjorie Earnshaw fiercely.

Everybody was sure it must be a "he". The news spread through the camp like lightning, and it was even rumoured that he wore a coat and top-boots. Miss Teddington herself had emerged, and was waving a lantern as a searchlight.

"This way," blustered Marjorie, heading for the kitchen quarter. "The sneaking cur! We'll have him!"

"Why aren't we allowed bayonets?" lamented Ruth White.

"Oh, I hear a noise! There's something there really," urged Kathleen Simpson, with a most unsoldierly squeal. "Oh, I say! Here he comes!"

There was a sudden scratch and scramble, and from out the larder rushed a dark object on four legs, with a white something in its mouth. Helen made a valiant dash at it, but it dodged her, and flew like the wind away between the tents and off somewhere over the fields in the direction of the farm. The guard with one accord burst out laughing.

"A thieving Welsh sheep-dog raiding the larder!" exclaimed Catherine.

"It's stolen a whole leg of mutton, the brute!" wailed Doris, who belonged to the Commissariat Department. "I didn't think it could have reached that. It must have jumped high. It doesn't deserve its prize."

"No wonder it wouldn't answer when I challenged it," observed Ulyth.

"Well, I'm glad it's no worse than a dog," said Miss Teddington. "We must take steps to-morrow to make the larder safer, or we shall be troubled again."

"We'll place a guard over it," replied Catherine promptly. "Jessie Morrison, you are on sentry duty at once to watch the larder. Maggie Orton will relieve you at three."

XIII. Under Canvas

After the scare in the small hours, everyone settled down again to slumber. Nevertheless the girls woke with the birds. Many of them had registered a solemn vow the night before that they would watch the sun rise, and each was pledged to arouse the others at all costs; so at the first hint of dawn heads began to pop out of tents, and the camp was astir. Addie Knighton, still half-dazed with sleep, was led firmly by Gertrude Oliver to the edge of the lake and forced to wash her face.

"You'll thank me when you're really awake," purred Gertie, ignoring her victim's protests. "It's only what I promised you faithfully last night. You told me to duck you in, if nothing else would do it."

"Oh, I'm awake now! I am truly. You needn't be afraid I'll go back to bed," bleated Addie, afraid her friend might proceed to extremities. "Hadn't you better haul up Alice next?"

"I left Chrissie doing that. She's going round the tents with a wet sponge. Look! Isn't that worth getting up to see?"

The grey of the sky had flushed into carnation pink, and up from behind the wall of the mountains rose the great ball of the sun, red at first through a veil of mist, but shining out golden as he cleared the cloud-bank. Everything was waking up. A peewit called by the water's edge, a cock crew from the farm-yard, and a dog barked lustily.

"Our thief of the night complaining of an attack of indigestion, I hope," said Ulyth, joining Addie and Gertie at the lake-side. "How much can a dog eat without feeling ill?"

"We had a collie that consumed three rabbits once," laughed Addie. "We didn't ask it how it felt afterwards. It got a good thrashing, I remember."

"We'll keep a stick handy to-night, in case of any more raids. Who's on breakfast duty? I'm getting wildly hungry. I hope the bacon hasn't disappeared with the mutton."

Although the three days' sojourn under canvas was in a sense a holiday, it was conducted in a very business-like spirit and with rigid discipline. All the daily duties were performed zealously by bands of servers, who polished tins, peeled potatoes, washed plates, or cleaned shoes, as the case might be. The League was putting to a practical proof the seven rules of the Camp-fire Law. Beauty was all around them, and knowledge to be had for the asking. They proved themselves trustworthy by their service, and glorified work in the doing of the camp tasks. Health was drawn with every breath of mountain air, and, judging from their faces, the seventh rule, "Be happy", seemed almost superfluous. Everyone looked radiant, even Mary Acton, who was a champion grumbler, and generally ready to complain of crumpled rose-leaves. After breakfast and service duty came drill, a more than usually formal affair, for Mr. Arnold himself reviewed them. He had great experience with the Boy Scouts, so the girls were anxious to do the utmost credit to their beloved Guardian of the Fire. The Ambulance Corps gave a demonstration of First Aid; another detachment took down and re-erected a tent; the juniors showed their abilities in knot-tying, and the seniors in signalling. Their inspector declared himself perfectly satisfied, and commended certain members for special proficiency.

"I shall tell the boys' battalions how well you can do," he declared. "It will put them on their mettle. They won't want to be beaten by a ladies' school."

When the display was over, all dispersed for a ramble round the lake while the dinner stewed; only the cooks on duty remained, carefully watching their pots. Ulyth, Rona, Lizzie, and Gertrude wandered past the farm and up the hill-side to the head of a crag, whence they had a glorious view down over the sheet of water below.

"Llyn Gwynedd looks so cheerful and innocent now, one wouldn't believe it could ever be treacherous and do dreadful things," remarked Gertrude.

"What things?" asked Ulyth.

"Why, I believe someone was drowned just down there a great many years ago. I heard Catherine saying so last night, so I suppose it's true."

"It's perfectly true, and I can tell you who it was," answered Lizzie. "It was the eldest son of Lord Glyncraig. He was fishing here, and the boat got upset. It was the most dreadful tragedy. He was such a fine, promising young fellow, and had only been married quite a short time. He was the heir, too, which made it worse."

"But there are other sons, aren't there?" asked Ulyth.

"Yes, but he was the flower of the family. The rest are no good. The second son, the present heir, is a helpless invalid, the third is in a sanatorium for consumption, and the fourth was the proverbial prodigal, and disappeared. If Lord Glyncraig knows where he is, nobody else does."

"Hadn't the one who was drowned any children?"

"Only a girl. The second and third aren't married."

"Then will the estate have to go to the prodigal in the end?"

"I suppose so, if he's alive, and turns up to claim it."

"Peers have their troubles as much as commoners," commented Ulyth. "I've never heard this before. I'm sorry for Lord Glyncraig. Plas Cafn is too good to go to a prodigal."

"Yet prodigals sometimes turn out better than elder brothers, if we accept the parable," remarked Rona, throwing stones into the water as viciously as if she were aiming at an enemy.

"Don't!" said Ulyth. "You'll disturb the trout, and Mrs. Arnold wants to fish this afternoon. Rona, do stop! Let's go down to the edge again, and try and find some bog bean. You'll get a proficiency badge if you can show twenty specimens of wild flowers and name them. Yes, I won mine last year, and so did Lizzie."

"I'd rather win a proficiency badge for shooting," grunted Rona. "Why can't Teddie let us get up a ladies' rifle corps?"

"Only wish she would, just! It would be prime," agreed the others.

Dinner was ready by twelve o'clock—not at all too early for a company that had breakfasted at seven. Despite the purloining of the leg of mutton there was enough to go round, and everybody decided that the cooks deserved proficiency badges. The servers also did their work promptly, and removed plates and dishes with the maximum of speed and the minimum of clatter. By half-past one everything was washed up and polished, and the kitchen department in apple-pie order.

"I'm afraid we may have rain," said Miss Teddington, looking anxiously at the sky, which was now completely overcast with clouds.

"One often gets a shower among the mountains when the valley escapes," commented Mrs. Arnold. "I don't think it will be much this afternoon, if there's rain at all. The patrols know what to do if it begins. This grey sky will be good for fishing."

Mrs. Arnold was an enthusiastic angler, and had brought her fishing-tackle with her to camp. She intended that afternoon to hire a boat from the farm and see if she could beguile some of the wily trout from the lake.

"I'll take four girls with me," she announced: "two to row, one to steer, and one to help with the landing-net."

Needless to say, she could have had dozens of volunteers, but her choice fell on Kathleen Simpson, Ruth White, Gladys Broughton, and Evie Isherwood, who, highly elated, went off to unmoor the boat. Then, Ruth and Kathleen rowing, and Gladys steering, they made gently down the lake towards the west end, where the stream flowed out.

Pretty Mrs. Arnold looked particularly charming in a blue-and-white boating-costume, with a little blue fisherman's cap perched on her fair hair. It was the fashion for the girls to adore her, and she certainly had four whole-hearted admirers with her that afternoon, ready to be at her beck and call, and to perform any service she wished. They followed her instructions to the letter, and watched her line and reel with tense eagerness.

"I hope we may catch some salmon trout," said Mrs. Arnold; "they're much more delicate than the ordinary ones. If we've luck we may get enough at any rate to give Miss Bowes and Miss Teddington a dish for supper. Row gently along there, I saw a fish jump; if it's hungry it may fancy my fly. Good biz! there's a bite. I'll have to play him gently; he feels a strong fellow. Are you ready, Evie, with the landing-net?"

It was frightfully exciting as Mrs. Arnold wound her reel, and the prey came within reach. Was he really hooked, or would he break away at the last moment and disappoint them?

"We've got him! We've got him! Quick, Evie! Oh, I say! Isn't he splendid?"

A silvery-grey, gleaming, glittering object was leaping in the landing-net at the bottom of the boat.

"Oh, what luck!" yelled Evie.

"He must be a patriarch!" cried the rowers.

"I can't see him. Oh, do let me look!" squealed Gladys, forgetting everything in her eagerness. "Ruth, you're in the way. I must look."

And up she sprang, trying to push past Ruth and Kathleen.

"Sit still!" shouted Mrs. Arnold frantically, but the mischief was done.

It all happened in two seconds. No one quite knew how, though Ruth declared afterwards that in trying to scramble past her Gladys stepped on the gunwale. Over toppled the boat, and almost before its occupants knew their danger they were struggling in the water. The girls could swim a little—a very little. Kathleen, gasping and spluttering, struggled valiantly towards the bank; Evie, with a certain instinct of self-preservation, turned on her back, and managed to keep herself afloat somehow. Ruth and Gladys clutched the upturned boat and, clung there screaming. Mrs. Arnold was in even more desperate straits. She could not swim, and she had fallen too wide of the boat to be able to grasp it. The few patrols left in charge of the camp stood for a moment paralysed, then tore along the side of the lake towards the scene of the accident. But someone else was quicker. Rona, hunting for botany specimens, had been watching the fishing from the bank close by. There was a rush, a splash, a swift little figure wildly ploughing a path through the lake, beating the water with short, impatient strokes.

"I won't clutch you," cried Mrs. Arnold, pluckily keeping her presence of mind. "I believe I can manage to float."

She lay still as Rona put a hand under her shoulder and towed her towards the shore, so still that she neither stirred nor spoke when Doris and Catherine, who had reached the spot, helped to drag her from the water.

"Oh, she's drowned!" shrieked Doris.

"No, no! Lay her down flat. She's opening her eyes."

Marion Harper and Madge Johnson, both tolerable swimmers, were plunging to help Evie; Kathleen was already struggling ashore. "Wait till we can come for you!" shouted Rona to Ruth and Gladys; "don't let go the boat."

Evie was pulled ashore first, not much the worse. Rona had trouble with Gladys, who had waxed hysterical, but with Marion's help she landed her safely and went back for Ruth. By this time the danger-signal, blown lustily from several League whistles, brought all who were anywhere within reach rushing to the rendezvous. Mrs. Arnold, with wet golden hair clinging round her white face, leaned against Catherine's shoulder, while Doris rubbed her hands.

"I'm glad my husband's gone to Capel Garmon to-day. Please let me tell him myself," were her first words. "It was good little Rona who saved me," she added, smiling faintly at Miss Bowes, who was down on her knees beside her on the grass.

"I wish I'd done it. I wish I'd done it. Oh, how I envy you, Rona!" cried Ulyth, regarding her friend with wide shining eyes of admiration.

Miss Teddington, pale but very self-controlled, had taken command of the situation. Eight people were thoroughly wet through and bedraggled, and must be hurried to camp and dried, and given hot drinks as speedily as possible. The rescuers needed cosseting as much as the rescued. Madge and Marion were shivering and trembling, and Rona, now the excitement of her sudden dash was over, looked more shaky than she would allow.

"We must tuck them up in blankets," said Miss Teddington. "First Aid Corps on duty, please! The difficulty is going to be how to get their clothes properly dried in a place like this."

Mrs. Arnold, with Miss Bowes to look after her, went to the farm to seek fresh garments. As for the girls, there was nothing for it but to go to bed for an hour or two, while a band of servers lighted a good fire, wrung the water from the drenched articles of clothing, and held them to the blaze. Blankets were commandeered freely from other beds, and piled round the seven heroines, who, propped up with pillows, each had a kind of reception as she sipped her hot cocoa.

"We all of us forgot about the boat," said Rona suddenly. "It's drifting upside down, and the oars are anywhere."

"Never mind. David Lewis will get it somehow, I suppose. It will drift towards the bank, and he'll wade for it."

"Where did you learn to swim like that, Rona?"

"In the lake at home. We had one nearly as big as this close to our farm."

"The Cuckoo's turned up trumps," murmured Alice Denham. "I didn't know she was capable of it."

"Then it only shows how extremely stupid and unobservant you are," snapped Ulyth.

The servers declared afterwards that drying clothes round a bonfire was the most exciting duty they had ever performed. Gusts of wind blew the flames in sudden puffs, necessitating quick snatching away of garments in the danger zone. Shoes were the most difficult of all, and needed copious greasing to prevent their growing stiff.

"I wonder if the Ancient Britons went through this performance?" said Winnie Fowler. "Did they have to hold their skin garments round camp-fires? Thank goodness, we've got these things dry at last! We're only in the nick of time. Here comes the rain."

It was a melancholy truth. The Welsh mountains have a perverse habit of attracting clouds, even in June; the sky, which had been overcast since midday, was now inky dark, and great drops began to fall. It was a calamity, but one for which everybody was fully prepared. The patrols rushed round the camp loosening ropes, lest the swelling hemp should draw the pegs from the ground, and took a last tour of inspection to see that no bed was in contact with the canvas.

"If you even touch the inside of the tent with your hand you'll bring the water through," urged Catherine in solemn warning; "so, for your own sakes, you'd best be careful. You don't want to spend the night in a puddle."

It was a new experience to sit inside tents while the storm howled outside. Rain up at Llyn Gwynedd was no mere summer shower, but a driving deluge. Servers in waterproofs scuttled round with cans of hot tea and baskets of bread and butter, and the girls had a picnic meal sitting on their beds. One tent blew over altogether, and its distressed occupants, crawling from under the flapping ruin, were received as refugees by their immediate neighbours. Fortunately the storm, though severe, was short. By seven o'clock it had expended its fury, and passed away down the valley towards Craigwen, leaving blue sky and the promise of a sunset behind. Glad to emerge from their cramped quarters, the girls came out and compared experiences. There was plenty to be done. The fallen tent had to be erected, and various cans and utensils which had been left outside must be collected and wiped before they had time to rust.

"This is the prose of camp-life," said Catherine, picking the gravy-strainer out of a puddle and rinsing it in the lake. "I hope we shall get the poetry to-morrow again."

"Oh, it's lovely fun when it rains!" twittered some of the younger ones.

Mr. Arnold came down from the farm to inquire rather anxiously how the camp was faring after the storm, and particularly to have news of the girls who had been in the lake. He had left Mrs. Arnold in bed, still rather upset with the shock of the accident.

"I feel responsible for bringing you all here," he said to Miss Teddington. "I shan't be easy in my mind now till the whole crew's safe back at The Woodlands."

"We've taken no harm," Miss Teddington assured him. "The girls kept dry, and they're as jolly as possible; indeed, I think most of them thoroughly enjoyed the rain."

Llyn Gwynedd, after showing what it could do in the way of storms, provided fine weather for the next day. The ground soon dried, and camp-life continued in full swing. Mrs. Arnold, herself again after a night's rest, took the morning drill, and led a ramble up the slope of Glyder Garmon in the afternoon. She was the heart and soul of the "stunt" that evening.

The girls, at any rate, were sorry to say good-bye to the lake on Friday morning, whatever their elders might feel on the subject.

"I hope the Boy Scouts will have as ripping a time as we've had," was the general verdict when, having left the camp in perfect order, the procession set out to tramp down to Aberglyn.

"Barring total immersions in the lake, please," said Mr. Arnold, as he returned the parting salute.

"But that was an opportunity," urged Ulyth. "I wish it had come my way. Rona, Madge, and Marion will all get special bravery medals at next quarterly meeting. I've no luck!"

XIV. Susannah Maude

The girls at The Woodlands, while they contributed to various charities, had one special and particular object of interest. For several years they had supported a little girl at an orphanage. She was called their orphan, and twice a year they received accounts of her progress. They sent her a Christmas present annually, and her neat little letter of thanks was handed round for everybody to read. Poor Susannah Maude was the daughter of very disreputable parents; she had been rescued from a travelling caravan at the age of ten, and the authorities at the Alexandra Home had done their best to obliterate her past life from her memory. When she reached school-leaving age the question of her future career loomed on the horizon. After considerable correspondence with the matron, Miss Bowes had at length decided to have the girl at The Woodlands, and try the experiment of training her as a kitchen-maid. So in February Susannah Maude had arrived, small and undersized, with a sharp little face and beady, black eyes, and a habit of sniffing as if she had a perpetual cold.

"Not a bit like the blue-eyed, flaxen-haired orphan of fiction," decided the girls, rather disappointed at the sight of their protégée.

Perhaps the cook was disappointed too. At any rate, many complaints of smashed dishes, imperfect wiping, and inadequate sweeping of corners reached Miss Bowes, who urged patience, harangued the culprit, and shook her head, half laughing and half sighing, over the domestic catastrophes. Though strictly confined to the kitchen regions, the orphan took the deepest interest in the young ladies of the school. Her keen eyes would peer out of windows, and her head bob round doors in continual efforts to gain some idea of their mode of life. A chance word from one of them wreathed her in smiles. She was a funny, odd little object with her short squat figure and round bullet head, and thin little legs appearing underneath her official white apron. Her official name was Susan, but every girl in the school called her Susannah Maude. At the instigation of Miss Bowes her patrons took the furthering of her education in hand, and each in turn bestowed half an hour a day in hearing her read history, geography, or some other suitable subject. A little bewildered among so many fresh teachers, the small maid nevertheless made what efforts she could, and read loud and lustily, even if she did not altogether digest the matter she was supposed to be studying.

"I believe she reads the words without taking in a scrap of the sense," laughed Ulyth, when her turn as instructress was over. "She was gazing at my dress, or my watch, or my handkerchief whenever she could spare an eye from her book. She thinks them of far more importance than Henry VIII."

"So she does," agreed Lizzie. "I tried to get her interested yesterday in the number of his wives—I thought the Bluebeard aspect of it might move her—but she only said: 'What does it matter when they're all dead?' I felt so blank that I couldn't say any more."

Nobody quite remembered whose idea it was that their orphan should be invited to the Camp-fire meetings. Somebody in a soft-hearted moment suggested it, and Mrs. Arnold replied: "Oh yes, poor little soul! Bring her, by all means." So Susannah Maude had come, and once there she apparently regarded herself as a member of the League, and turned up on every available occasion. How much she understood of the proceedings or of the scope of the society nobody could fathom. She sat, during the meetings, bolt upright, with folded arms, as if she were in school, her bright, beady eyes fixed unblinkingly upon Mrs. Arnold, whom she seemed to regard as a species of priestess in charge of occult mysteries.

"Would I be struck dumb if I told what goes on here?" she asked Ulyth one day; and, although she was assured that no such act of vengeance on the part of Providence would overtake her, she nevertheless preserved a secrecy worthy of a Freemason, and would drop no hint in the kitchen as to the nature of the ceremonies she witnessed.

One or two points evidently made a great impression upon her. During the spring months Nature lore was very much to the fore, and the members qualified for candidateship to the various grades by exhibiting their knowledge of the ways and habits of birds. Notes of observations were read aloud at the meetings, particulars recorded of nests that had been built in the school grounds, with data as to the number of days in which eggs were hatched and the young ones fledged. It was an unwritten law at The Woodlands never to disturb the birds. The girls were not allowed to take any eggs from the nests, and were taught not to frighten a sitting bird or to interfere with the fledge-lings. After several years of such consideration The Woodlands had become a kind of bird sanctuary, where the little songsters appeared to know they were free from molestation. That the fruit in the garden suffered rather a heavy toll was true; but, as Miss Bowes remarked: "One can't have everything. We must remember how many insects they clear away, and not grudge them a few currants and gooseberries. They pay us by their lovely songs in the spring."

Ulyth was a great devotee of Nature study, and had the supreme satisfaction of being the first to discover that a pair of long-tailed tits were building in a gorse-bush down the paddock. She was immensely excited, for they were rather rare birds in that district, and generally nested much higher up on the hills. This was indeed the only instance on record of their having selected The Woodlands for their domestic operations. As she had made the discovery, it was her particular privilege to take the observations, and every day she would go very quietly and cautiously and seat herself near the spot to note the doings of the shy little architects. It was a subject of intense interest to watch the globular nest grow, and then to ascertain, when the parents were out of the way, that eggs had actually been laid in it. Ulyth was so afraid of disturbing the tits that she conducted her daily observations alone, fearing lest even Lizzie's presence might frighten them. "When there are two of us we can't help talking, and an unusual sound scares them worse than anything," she decided.

One morning she started for her daily expedition to the paddock. The little hen had been sitting long enough to make Ulyth think the eggs must surely be hatched, and that probably the parents were both already busy catering for their progeny. She crept noiselessly round the corner to the hollow where the bushes were situated. Then she gave a gasp and a cry of horror. On the ground, quite close to the nest, knelt Susannah Maude, busily occupied in smearing some sticky white substance over the lower boughs and shoots of the gorse-bushes. She looked round with a beaming face as Ulyth approached. Her beady eyes twinkled with self-congratulation.

"Susannah! What are you doing, you young imp of mischief?" exclaimed Ulyth in an agony.

"Catching your birds for you, Miss," responded the orphan, a thrill of pride in her voice. "It's bird-lime, this is, and it'll soon stick 'em, you'll see. I knows all about it, for my father was a bird-catcher, and I often went with him when I was a kid. I'd a job to get the lime, I can tell you, but Bobby Jones brought me some from Llangarmon."

She looked at Ulyth with a smile, as if waiting for the praise that she deemed due to her efforts. Utterly aghast, Ulyth stammered:

"But, Susannah Maude, we—we don't want the birds caught."

The orphan appeared puzzled. A shade crossed her sharp little face.

"Not want to catch 'em? What's the use of 'em, then? Dad caught 'em and sold 'em."

Ulyth had to keep a strong curb over her temper. After all, how could this ignorant child know what she had never been taught? Miss Bowes might well preach patience and forbearance.

"It's very cruel to snare the birds with lime at any time, especially now, when they have young ones who would starve without them," she explained with what calm she could muster. "Promise me that you will never try to do such a thing again, and never interfere with any of the nests. Mrs. Arnold will be most grieved to hear of this."

The orphan's black eyes filled with tears.

"Will she mind? I thought she'd like 'em to keep in a cage as pets. I'd do anything in the world to please her."

"Then leave the birds alone, if you want to please her. Run now to the house and fetch me a basin full of hot water and a cloth. I must wipe all this horrible stuff off the bushes. Bring a knife, too, for I shall have to cut away some of the branches and burn them. I hope the tits won't desert."

Ulyth was late for school that morning, but the offence was condoned by Miss Teddington when she heard the reason.

"I hope you washed every scrap of the lime off?" she asked anxiously.

"I didn't leave it while there was enough to catch even a bumble-bee. The birds are back. They came directly I'd gone a dozen yards away."

"That shows the young ones are hatched. I hope Susan won't direct her energies into any other natural-history experiments."

"We shall be sorry we brought her to the Camp-fire if she does. She means well, but the worst of her is that you never can calculate in the least what she may do next. She's a problem."

During the summer term the Camp-fire Guild had many informal meetings by the stream. The girls were often allowed to take tea there, a permission which they highly appreciated. Mrs. Arnold had lent them a small camp-oven, in which they could bake cakes, and many culinary efforts resulted from the acquisition. On Saturday afternoon Gertrude Oliver and Addie Knighton were on the cooking-list as special scouts, and, having mixed some currant-buns, placed them carefully in the oven. They were in charge of the camp-fire and responsible for the preparation of the tea, to which that day all the mistresses were to be specially invited. The rest of the school were in the playing-field practising flag-signalling under the joint superintendence of Mrs. Arnold and Miss Teddington.

"It's a nuisance we can't leave the cakes," sighed Addie. "I did so want to see them send that message about the aeroplane."

"They're baking all right," said Gertrude. "We can't make them any quicker by looking at them. Couldn't we just run to the top of the gravel-pit and watch for a few minutes? There's Susannah Maude; she'd keep an eye on them. Hello! Susan!"

The orphan, in virtue of being a hanger-on of the Camp-fire, was wandering about by the stream in the wake of the proceedings. She came running up eagerly at Gertrude's call.

"I'll mind 'em for you, Miss. I've watched Cook dozens of times. I'll look after the kettle too. You leave it to me."

"I hope it won't be a case of King Alfred and the cakes."

Susan grinned comprehension.

"Standard V Historical Reader. Not me!" she chuckled. "I always thought the woman was a silly to trust a man to turn the cakes."

"Well, mind you show up better. You might as well put the milk-can in the stream to keep cool. We don't want it curdled, and I'm certain there's thunder about."

Addie and Gertie were sure they were not absent long. They just stood and watched a few messages being sent, then ran back promptly to their duties.

Susannah Maude was in the very act of trying to lift the big camp-kettle from its trivet.

"Hold hard there!" screamed Addie, running to the rescue. "You can't move that alone. Susan! Stop!" It was too late, however. The small busybody had managed to stir the kettle, but, her youthful arms being quite unequal to sustaining its weight, she let it drop, retreating with a wild Indian yell of alarm. The stream of boiling water fortunately escaped her, but nearly put out the fire. When the steam and dust had subsided, the rueful scouts picked up the empty kettle gingerly, as it was hot.

"We shall have to build up the fire again," lamented Gertrude. "Oh, Addie, the cakes!"

She might well exclaim. In a row among the ashes were the soaked, dust-covered remains of the precious currant-buns.

"I took 'em out of the oven because they were done," explained Susan hastily, justifying herself. "I thought you shouldn't blame me for letting 'em burn, anyhow; and I put 'em down there on some dock-leaves to keep hot. I couldn't tell the kettle would fall on 'em."

"They're done for," sighed Addie. "There isn't one fit to eat. Help us to fill the kettle again as soon as you can, and fetch some more sticks and gorse, you black-eyed Susan!"

"Where's the milk-can?" asked Gertrude uneasily.

"I put it in the stream as you told me," replied the orphan rather sulkily, indicating with a nod the location.

Decidedly anxious as to its safety, the girls ran to the water-side. They always put the can in a particular little sheltered corner fenced in by a few stones. Susannah had helped them to place it there many times, and had even named the spot "the dairy". They looked in vain. The milk was certainly not there now.

"What in the name of thunder have you done with the can, you wretched imp?" shouted Addie, thoroughly angry.

"You said it ought to keep very cool, so I threw it into the deep pool. 'Tain't my fault," retorted Susannah, who had a temper as well as her benefactresses.

"I've half a mind to throw you after it!" raged Gertie, her fingers twitching to shake the luckless orphan.

Perhaps Susannah's experienced eye gauged the extent of her wrath, and decided that for once she had gone too far. She did not wait to proffer any more explanations, but turned and fled back towards the house, resuming her neglected pan-scouring in the scullery with a zeal that astonished the cook.

Addie and Gertie replenished the camp-fire and refilled the kettle; but the cakes were hopeless, and the milk was beyond recall. Doris Deane, the champion swimmer of the school, dived for the can next morning and brought it up empty; the lid was never recovered, probably having been washed into a hole.

The Guild sat down that afternoon rather disconsolately to milkless tea. Addie had begged a small jugful from the kitchen, enough for their guests, the mistresses, but it was impossible to replace the big two-gallon can at a moment's notice.

"I begin to wish the school had never supported an orphan at the 'Alexandra Home for Destitute Children'," sighed Gertie, eating plain bread and butter, and thinking regretfully of her spoilt cakes. "I vote next term we ask to give up collecting for it, and keep a monkey at the Zoo instead. We could send it nuts and biscuits at Christmas."

"And currant-buns?" giggled Beth Broadway.

"You are about the most unfeeling wretch I ever came across!" snapped Gertrude.

XV. A Point of Honour

"Lizzie," announced Ulyth, sitting down on a stump in the glade, and speaking slowly and emphatically, "The Woodlands isn't what it used to be."

"So Stephanie was saying the other day," agreed Lizzie, taking a seat on the stump by the side of her friend. "She thinks it's a different place altogether."

"It is; though not exactly from Stephie's point of view. I don't care the least scrap that there are no Vernons or Courtenays or Derringtons here now. Stephie can lament them if she likes. I never knew them, so I can't regret them. There's one thing I can't help noticing, though—the tone has been going down."

"Do you think it has?" replied Lizzie thoughtfully. "Merle and Alice and Mary are rather silly, certainly, but there's not much harm in them."

"I don't mean our form; it's the juniors. I've noticed it continually lately."

"Now you come to speak of it, so have I. I don't quite know what it is, but there's a something."

"There's a very decided something. It's come on quite lately, but it's there. They're not behaving nicely at all. They've slacked all round, and do nothing but snigger among themselves over jokes they won't tell."

"They're welcome to their own jokes as far as I'm concerned, the young idiots!"

"Yes, if it's only just fun; but I'm afraid it's something more than that—something they're ashamed of and really want to hide. I've seen such shuffling and queer business going on when any of the monitresses came in sight."

"Have you said anything to Catherine or Helen?"

"No, and I don't want to. It's very unfortunate, but they've really got no tact. Catherine's so high-handed, and Helen's nearly as bad. They snap the girls up for the least trifle. The result is the juniors have got it into their tiresome young heads that monitresses are a species of teacher. They weren't intended to be that at all. A monitress is just one of ourselves, only with authority that we all allow. She ought to be jolly with everybody."

"Um! You can hardly call Catherine jolly with the kids."

"That's just it. They resent it; they've gone their own way lately, and it's been decidedly downhill. I'm persuaded they're playing some deep and surreptitious game at present. I wish I knew what it was."

"Can't Rona tell you?"

"I wouldn't pump Rona for the world. It's most frightfully difficult for her, a junior, to be room-mate with a senior. Her form always suspect her of giving them away to the Upper School. Rona's had a hard enough struggle to get any footing at all at The Woodlands, and I don't want to make it any harder for her. If she once gets the reputation of 'tell-tale' she's done for. Since Stephanie made that fuss about juniors coming into senior rooms I mayn't ask her into V b; so if she's ostracized by her own form too she'll be neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring. No; however I find out it mustn't be through Rona."

"Yes, I quite see your point. Now you speak of it, I believe those juniors are up to something. There's a prodigious amount of whispering and sniggering among them. 'What's the joke?' I said to Tootie Phillips yesterday, and she flared out in the most truculent manner: 'That's our own business, thank you!'"

"Tootie has been making herself most objectionable lately. She wants sitting upon."

"Catherine will do that, never fear."

"No doubt, but it doesn't bring us any nearer finding out what those juniors are after."

"They vanish mysteriously after tea sometimes. I vote we watch them, and next time it happens we'll stalk them."

"Right-O! But not a word to anybody else, or it might get about and put them on their guard."

"Trust me! I wouldn't even flicker an eyelid."

Now that Ulyth and Lizzie had compared notes on the subject of the juniors, they became more convinced than ever of the fact that something surreptitious was going on. Nods, hints, words which apparently bore a hidden meaning, nudges, and signs were the order of the day. All friendly advances on the part of seniors were repelled, the younger girls keeping strictly to themselves. This was the more marked as there had never been any very great division at The Woodlands between Upper and Lower School, the whole of the little community sharing in most of the general interests.

After tea there was a short interval before evening preparation began, and during the summer term this was spent, if possible, out-of-doors by everybody. One afternoon, only a few days after the conversation just recorded, the girls had filed as usual from the dining-hall, and were racing off for tennis, basket-ball, or a run by the stream. As Ulyth, down on her knees in the darkest part of the hall cupboard, groped for her mislaid tennis-shoes, two members of IV b came in for a moment to fetch balls. They were in a hurry and they evidently did not perceive her presence.

"Did you get the tip?" Irene Scott asked Ethel Jephson under her breath. "By the lower pool immediately."

"All serene! Tootie told me herself."

"Pass it on then; though I think most know."

As they ran down the passage, Ulyth, relinquishing her hunt for the missing shoes, rose to her feet.

"There's one here who didn't know," she chuckled. "This is a most important piece of information. Immediately, by the lower pool, is it? Well, I must go and find Lizzie. What are those precious juniors up to, I wonder?"

Lizzie was taking her racket for a game of tennis, but she readily gave up her place to Merle Denham at a hint from Ulyth.

"I told you they vanished after tea," she said, as the two girls sauntered into the glen. "We'll track them this time. Don't on any account look as if you were going anywhere. Sit down here and give them a few minutes' grace, in case stragglers come up. They probably won't begin punctually. I'll time it by my watch."

When five minutes had elapsed there was not a solitary junior to be seen in the glade, and Ulyth and Lizzie, deeming themselves safe, set out in the direction of the lower pool.

This was a part of the stream at the very verge of the grounds belonging to The Woodlands; indeed, the greater portion of it lay in the land of a neighbouring farmer, and to reach its pebbly bank meant a scramble round some palings and under a projecting piece of rock.

Ulyth and Lizzie were too wary to follow the juniors by this path, but scaled the palings at another point, and under cover of a thick copse of gorse-bushes approached the pool from the side that lay in the farmer's field. By most careful scouting they found a spot on the bank where they could see and hear without being seen.

Below them, seated on the rocks by the edge of the water, were practically almost the whole of the Lower School. They cuddled close, with their arms round each other, and to judge from their repressed giggles they appeared to be enjoying themselves. Tootie Phillips, a long-legged, excitable girl of thirteen, mounted upon a boulder, was addressing them with much fervour. Ulyth and Lizzie missed the beginning of her remarks, but when they came within earshot they realized that she was in the midst of a vigorous harangue against the seniors.

"Are we to be trodden down just because we're a little younger than they are?" urged Tootie. "Why should they lord it over us, I should like to know? They were juniors themselves only a year or two ago. I tell you the worm will turn."

"It's turned pretty considerably," guffawed Cissie Newall.

"It knows which side its bread's buttered," cackled Irene Scott.

"Buttered! You mean sugared, don't you?"

At this sally the whole party broke into a shout of laughter.

"Good for you, Ciss!"

"Sugared! Ra—ther!"

"Shut up, you sillies! Someone will hear us," commanded Tootie. "I was saying before, we're not going to be sat upon, either by teachers or monitresses or seniors. We'll take our own way."

"A sugary way," chirped Ethel Jephson.

The girls hinnied again. There was evidently something underlying the joke.

"When perfectly ridiculous rules are made, that never ought to have been made," continued Tootie, "then we've a right to take the law into our own hands and do as we please."

"Our pocket money's our own," grumbled a discontented spirit from the back.

"Of course it is, and we ought to be able to do what we like with it."

"And so are our brooches, if we want to——"

"Sh—sh!"

"Shut up, stupid!"

"Well, we all know."

"No need to blare it out, if we do."

"I wasn't blaring."

"Violet Robertson, remember your oath," commanded Tootie. "If you let a word of—we know what—leak out, you're sent to Coventry for the rest of the term. Yes. Not a single one of us will speak one single word to you. Not even your own room-mates. So there!"

"Well, you needn't make such a precious fuss. I'm sure I wasn't letting out secrets," retorted Violet sulkily. "But I think there ought to be some rate of value. My brooch was a far better one than Mollie's."

"Right you are, my hearty, and I'm going to speak about it. We mustn't let ourselves be done, even by—you know who!"

"And she's sharp."

"She's getting too sharp. We must stop it, even if we have to break off for a whole week."

"No, no!"

"Oh, not that anyhow!"

"Well, look here, if you're such sillies, you deserve——"

But at this most interesting point the loud clanging of the preparation-bell put a stop to any further argument. With one accord the girls jumped up, and fled back as fast as they could run in the direction of the school. Ulyth and Lizzie, at the risk of being late for evening call-over, gave the conspirators time to get well away before they ventured to follow.

"What's the meaning of all this?" queried Lizzie, as they scouted cautiously through the glade.

"I can't imagine. They're evidently doing something they oughtn't to, the young wretches! But they're keeping it very dark."

"We shall have to watch them."

"We must indeed," sighed Ulyth. "Lizzie, I loathe eavesdropping and anything that savours of underhand work, but what are we to do? Something is going wrong among the juniors, and for the sake of the school we've got to put it right if we possibly can. It's no use asking them their sweet secret, for they wouldn't tell us; and I'm afraid setting the monitresses on the track would only make things worse. If we can find out what they're doing, then we shall know our ground. I'm a Torch-bearer and you're a Fire-maker, and we must appeal to them to keep their Camp-fire vows. But we can't do that till we've some idea of which rule they're breaking. How can we say to them: 'I strongly suspect you're not being trustworthy'? We've got to prove our words."

"Prove them we will. We'll dodge about till we catch them in the act," agreed Lizzie.

To both the girls it was uncongenial though necessary work. As seniors and League officers they felt they owed a duty to the school, but that it would be far wiser to appeal privately to the juniors' sense of honour, and win them back to straight paths of their own free will, than to carry the matter to head-quarters. For the present, patience and tact must be their watchwords.

Several days went by, and nothing particular occurred. Either the younger girls were on their guard or they had suspended their activities. On Friday evening, however, as Ulyth was coming along the passage from practising, she accidentally cannonaded into half a dozen members of IV b who were standing near the boot cupboard. She evidently surprised them, for one and all they hastily popped their hands into their pockets. It was promptly done, but not so quickly as to prevent Ulyth from seeing that they were eating something.

"It's all right," gasped Bertha Halliwell, with apparent unconcern, in reply to Ulyth's apologies. "You nearly upset me, but I'm not fractured."

"I wish you'd take care, though," grumbled Etta Jessop, surreptitiously wiping a decidedly sticky mouth; "no one likes being tumbled over."

Ulyth passed on thoughtfully. What had they all been munching, and where did they get it from? Private supplies of cakes and sweets were utterly forbidden at The Woodlands. Their prohibition was one of the strictest rules of the school, to break which would be to incur a very severe penalty from Miss Teddington. Was this the explanation of Tootie's rather enigmatical remarks down by the stream?

"If that's their precious secret, and they're just being greedy, I'm too disgusted with them for words!" commented Lizzie, when informed of the discovery.

Saturday and Monday passed with quite exemplary behaviour on the part of the juniors. The keenest vigilance could discover nothing. But on Tuesday Lizzie came across another clue. She had been monitress for the afternoon in the drawing-class, and after the girls had left she stayed behind to put away various articles that had been used and to tidy the room.

As she worked along the desks where IV b had been sitting, collecting stray pencils and pieces of india-rubber, she noticed a book lying on the floor and picked it up. It was a French grammar, with "Etta Jessop" written on the fly-leaf and had evidently been accidentally dropped. She turned over the pages idly. In the middle was a scrap of paper torn from an exercise-book, and on this was scribbled: "Where will she be to-night?" while in a different hand, underneath, as if in answer to the question, were the words: "Side gate at 8. Pass, 'John Barleycorn'."

This was most important. It was the first, indeed the only definite, information they had to go upon. Lizzie replaced the slip of paper and laid the book on the floor just where she had found it. Etta would no doubt soon discover her loss, and come back to fetch it. In the meantime this very valuable piece of news must be communicated to Ulyth.

The chums talked the matter over earnestly.

"Something's happening at the side gate at eight o'clock, and they've got a password; that's clear," said Lizzie.

"Then I think it's our plain duty to go and investigate," returned Ulyth. "If the worst comes to the worst we could report ourselves, and tell Teddie why we went. She'd understand."

"I hope it won't need that," fluttered Lizzie nervously.

The girls were not allowed out of the house after preparation, so any excursions into the garden were distinctly against the rules.

Feeling very culpable at thus breaking the law of the school, Ulyth and Lizzie crept quietly from the cloak-room door soon after eight had struck. It was not yet dark, but the sun had sunk behind the hills, and the garden was in deep shadow. They passed the tennis-courts and the rose parterre, and ran down the steps into the herbarium. Just at the outskirts of the shrubbery a small figure was skulking among the bushes. At the sound of footsteps it gave a low, peculiar whistle, then advanced slightly from the shadow and stood at attention, as if in mute challenge of the new-comers. Irene Scott, for it was she, was evidently on sentry duty. No one with a knowledge of camp-life could mistake her attitude.

"We'll bluff it off," whispered Ulyth, and, taking Lizzie's arm, she marched quietly past, murmuring: "John Barleycorn".

The effect of the password was electrical. Irene looked immensely astonished. She had certainly not expected such knowledge on the part of seniors.

"Are you in it too? Oh, goody!" she gasped; then very softly she called: "All's well!" and, turning, dived back among the bushes.

Lizzie and Ulyth pushed on towards the side gate. It was open, and inside, under the shelter of a big laurel, stood a woman with a basket. She was a gipsy-looking person, with long ear-rings, and she wore a red-and-yellow handkerchief tied round her neck. As the girls approached she uncovered her basket with a knowing smile.

"I've brought plenty to-night, Missies," she said ingratiatingly. "Cheesecakes and vanilla sandwiches and coco-nut drops and cream wafers. What'll you please to have?"

"Are you selling them?" asked Ulyth in much amazement.

The woman glanced at her keenly.

"I've not seen you two before," she remarked. "Yes, dearie, I'm selling them. They're wholesome cakes, and won't do you any harm. Try these cream wafers."

"No, thanks! We don't want anything," stammered Lizzie.

"If you've spent all your money," persisted the hawker, "I'm always open to take a trinket instead. There's a young lady been here just now, and gave me this in place of a sixpence," showing a small brooch pinned into her bodice. "Of course such things aren't worth much to me, but I'd do it to oblige you."

At the sight of the little brooch Ulyth flushed hotly.

"We're not allowed to buy cakes and tarts," she replied. "I'm sure Miss Bowes doesn't know that you come here to sell things. It's not your fault, of course, but please don't come again. It's breaking the rules of the school."

The woman covered up her basket in an instant.

"All right, Missie, all right," she said suavely. "I don't want to press things on you. That's not my way. You won't catch me at this gate again, I promise you. Good night!" and, slipping out into the lane, she was gone directly.

Ulyth shut the door and bolted it.

"She mayn't come to this particular spot again," said Lizzie, "but she'll find some other meeting-place, the cunning old thing. I could see it in her eye. So this is their grand secret! What a remarkably honourable and creditable one!"

"It's worse than I thought," groaned Ulyth. "They must have been going on with this business for some time, Lizzie. Do you know, that brooch was Rona's. I recognized it at once. It's one she brought from New Zealand, with a Maori device on it."

"I thought better of Rona."

"So did I. She's improved so much I didn't think she'd slip back in this way."

"I believe Tootie Phillips is the ring-leader."

"There's no doubt of it. From all we've seen, the juniors have got a systematic traffic with this woman, and post scouts to keep watch while she's about. You heard Irene call: 'All's well!'"

"They'll be feasting in their bedroom to-night."

"Rona won't dare, surely. Lizzie, I shouldn't have thought much of it if they'd done it once just for a lark. We're all human, and juniors will be juniors. But when it gets systematic, and they begin to sell their brooches, that's a different matter."

"What are you going to do? Tackle the kids and tell them we've found out, and they've got to stop it?"

"Will they really stop it just at our bidding? Or will it only put them on their guard and make them carry the thing on with more caution?"

"Then give a hint to the monitresses?"

"I wonder if we ought. I wish Catherine and Helen were different."

"Well, what do you suggest?"

"There's only one other way. Mrs. Arnold is coming to The Woodlands on Friday afternoon. Suppose we wait, catch her alone, and tell her all about it. She's our 'Guardian of the Fire', and we ought to be able to ask her things when we're in difficulties. She doesn't belong to the school, so it isn't like telling a teacher or a monitress. We know we can trust her absolutely."

"Right-O! But it seems a long time to have to wait."

"It can't be helped," said Ulyth, as they hurried back through the garden.

She had decided, as she thought, for the best, though, as the result proved, she had chosen a most unfortunate course.

XVI. Amateur Conjuring

Ulyth went to her bedroom that evening in much agitation of mind. She was torn by conflicting impulses. At one moment she longed to tax Rona frankly with a breach of school rules, air the whole subject, and state her most emphatic opinion upon it. If Rona alone had been concerned in the matter she would have done so without hesitation, but the knowledge of the number of girls who were involved made her pause.

"I might do more harm than good," she reflected. "After the way Tootie has been inciting them to take sides against the seniors, they'd be up in arms at the least hint. It will be worse if they know they're discovered, and yet go on in an even more underhand fashion."

Ulyth's abstraction was so marked that her room-mate could not fail to notice it.

"What's the matter with you to-night?" she asked. "I've never seen you so glum before. Have you been getting into a row with Teddie?"

"I'm all right. One can't always be talking, I suppose," returned Ulyth rather huffily. "Some people go on like a perpetual gramophone."

"Meaning Corona Margarita Mitchell, I suppose? As you like, O Queen! I'll shut up if my babble offends the royal ears. There! Don't look so tragic. I don't want to make myself a nuisance. But all the same it's depressing to see you looking like a mixture of Hamlet and Ophelia and Iphigenia and—and—Don Quixote. Was he tragic too? I forget."

"Hardly," said Ulyth, smiling in spite of herself.

"Well, I get mixed up among history and literature, can't always remember which is real and which is make-up. It's a fact. I put down Portia as history in my exercise yesterday, and said the story of the Spanish Armada was told by Chaucer. Now you're laughing, and you look more like Ulyth Stanton. Sit down on this bed. There! Open your mouth and shut your eyes, and see what the king will send you!"

Rona was fumbling in her drawer as she spoke. She turned round, seized her friend boisterously and forced her on to the bed, then, holding a hand over her eyes, crammed a chocolate almond into her mouth.

"Rona! What are you doing?" protested Ulyth, shaking herself free. "Where did you get this chocolate?"

Rona pulled a face expressive of mingled secrecy, delight, and triumph.

"Rats!" she chuckled enigmatically. "Little girls shouldn't ask questions."

"But I want to know."

"That's not sporty! Take the goods the gods send you, and don't ask 'em what tree they picked them from."

"But, Rona——"

"Are you two girls still out of bed and talking?" said an indignant voice, as Miss Lodge opened the door and glared reproval. "Make haste. I give you three minutes, and if you're not ready by then I shall report you. Not another word! I'm astonished at you, Ulyth, for breaking the silence rule."

"I didn't hear the half-past nine bell," replied Ulyth, abashed.

"Then it's your business to hear it. It's loud enough. Everybody else on the landing is in bed."

Miss Lodge put out the light and walked away, with a final warning against further conversation. Rona was asleep in a few minutes, breathing calmly and peacefully as was her wont, but Ulyth lay awake for a long time watching a shadow on the wall cast from the beech-tree outside. Where had Rona got her chocolates? The answer was perfectly plain. With the little brooch for evidence there could be no mistake.

"She's not so bad as the others, because I really don't think she quite realizes even yet what school honour means. But Tootie and her scouts know. There's no excuse for them. Well, only two days now, and Mrs. Arnold will be here. What a tower of strength she is! I can tell her everything. Friday will very soon come now, thank goodness!"

But those two days were to bring events of their own, events quite unprecedented in the school, and unexpected by everybody. How they affected Ulyth and Rona will be related farther on in our story; but meantime, for a true understanding of their significance, we must pause to consider a certain feature of the life at The Woodlands. When Miss Teddington had joined partnership with Miss Bowes she had added many new ideas to the plan of education which had formerly been pursued.

She was determined that the school should not be dubbed "old-fashioned", and by all means in her power she kept it abreast of the times. So well did she succeed that the girls were apt to complain that their second Principal was a crank on education, and fond of trying every fresh experiment she could get hold of. The various enterprises added an atmosphere of novelty, however, and prevented the daily life from degenerating into a dull routine. No one ever knew what scheme Miss Teddington might suggest next; and even if each course was not pursued for very long, it did its work at the time, and was a factor in the general plan. All kinds and varieties of health exercises had had their day at The Woodlands—poles, dumb-bells, clubs, had been in turn discarded for deep breathing or for swimming motions. Slow minuets or lively tarantellas were danced, according to the fashion of the moment, and had the virtue of teaching stately dignity as well as poetry of motion. It was rumoured sometimes that Miss Teddington, with her eye on the past, contemplated a revival of backboards, stocks, and chest-expanders; but those instruments of torture, fortunately, never made their appearance, much to the relief of the intended victims, who had viewed their advent with apprehension.

Naturally, dancing and indoor P.T. went on mostly in the winter months, their place being taken by outdoor drill during the summer term. The Camp-fire movement had appealed to Miss Teddington. She would herself have liked to be "Guardian of the Fire" and general organizer of the League, but her better judgment told her it was wiser to leave that office to one who had not also to wield the authority of a teacher. She supported the League in every way that came within her province. As Camp-fire honours were given for nature study, astronomy, and geology, she took care that all had a chance to qualify in those directions; and lately, acting on a hint from Mrs. Arnold, she had made a special point of manual training. Since Christmas the studio had assumed a new importance in the school. It was a big glass-roofed room at the top of the house, reached by a small stair from the west bedroom landing. A carpenter's bench stood at one end of it, and wood-carving went on fairly briskly. The girls might come in at any time during their recreation hours, and the occupation was a great resource on wet days. Bookbinding, stencilling, clay modelling, and fretwork were included among the hobbies, and though there might not be definite lessons given, there were handy primers of instruction on the book-shelf, and it was interesting to try experiments.

"Do something on your own initiative. Take the book and puzzle it out, even if you make a few mistakes," urged Miss Teddington. "Nothing but practice can give you the right feel of your tools; you'll learn more from a couple of failures than from a week's work with a teacher at your elbow the whole time, saying 'Don't!'"

So the girls struggled on, making merry at each other's often rather indifferent efforts, but gaining more skill as they learnt to handle the materials with which they worked. If the mallet hit the chisel so vigorously as to spoil a part of the pattern, its wielder was wiser next time; and the experimenters in pyrography soon learned that a red-hot needle used indiscreetly can dig holes in leather instead of ornamenting it. Such "dufferisms", as the girls called them, became rarer, and many quite creditable objects were turned out, and judged worthy of a temporary place on the view-shelf.

Since Christmas a very special feature had been added to the handicraft department. Miss Teddington had caused apparatus to be fixed for the working of art jewellery. A furnace and a high bench with all necessary equipment had been duly installed. This was a branch much too technically difficult for the girls to attempt alone, so a skilled teacher had been procured, who came weekly from Elwyn Bay to give lessons. Those girls who took the course became intensely enthusiastic over it. To make even a simple chain was interesting, but when they advanced to setting polished pebbles or imitation stones as brooches or pendants, the work waxed fascinating. Some of the students proved much more adept than others, and turned out really pretty things.

There was not apparatus for many pupils to work, so the class had been limited to seniors, among whom Doris Deane, Ruth White, and Stephanie Radford had begun to distinguish themselves. Each had made a small pendant, and while the craftsmanship might be amateurish, the general effect was artistic. Miss Teddington was delighted, and wishing to air her latest hobby, she decided to send the three pendants, together with some other specimens of school handiwork, to a small Art exhibition which was to be held shortly at Elwyn Bay. Miss Edwards, the teacher who came weekly to give instruction, was on the exhibition committee, and promised to devote a certain case to the articles, and place them in a good light. Though small shows had been held at The Woodlands occasionally in connection with the annual prize distribution, the school had never before ventured to send a contribution to a public exhibition, and those whose work was to be thus honoured became heroines of the moment.

On the very evening after Ulyth's and Lizzie's excursion down the garden, a number of girls repaired to the studio to view the objects that Miss Teddington had chosen as worthy to represent the artistic side of the school.

"I wish I were a senior," said Winnie Fowler plaintively. "I'd have loved this sort of thing. To think of being able to make a little darling, ducky brooch! It beats drawing hollow. I'd never want to touch a pencil again."

"You've got to have some eye for drawing, though," said Doris, "or you'd have your things all crooked. It's not as easy as eating chocolates, I can tell you!"

"I dare say. But I'll try some day, when I am a senior."

"Are these the three that are to go to the exhibition?" asked Rona, pushing her way to the front. "Which is which?"

"This is mine, that's Ruth's, and that's Stephanie's," explained Doris.

"Why isn't Ulyth's to go? It's just as nice as Stephanie's, I'm sure."

"Miss Teddington decided that."

"How idiotic of her! Why couldn't she send Ulyth's? I think hers is the nicest, and it's just the same pattern as Stephie's—exactly."

"Do be quiet, Rona!" urged Ulyth, laying her hand on the arm of her too partial friend. "My pendant has a defect in it. I bungled, and couldn't get it right again afterwards."

"It doesn't show."

"Not to you, perhaps; but any judge of such things would notice in a moment."

"Well, your work's as good as Stephanie's any day, and I hate for her name to be put into the catalogue and not yours. Yes, I mean what I say."

"Oh, Rona, do hush! I don't want my name in a catalogue. Here's Stephie coming in. Don't let her hear you."

"I don't mind if she does. It won't do her any harm to hear somebody's frank opinion."

"Rona, if you care one atom for me, stop!"

Rather grumbling, Rona allowed herself to be suppressed. She was always ready to throw a shaft at Stephanie, though she knew Ulyth heartily disliked the scenes which invariably followed. She took up Ulyth's pendant, however, and, after ostentatiously admiring it, laid it for a moment side by side with Stephanie's.

"There isn't a pin to choose between them," she murmured under her breath, hoping Stephanie might overhear.

Ulyth was at the other side of the room, but Stephanie's quick ears caught the whisper. She looked daggers at Rona, but she made no remark, and Ulyth, returning, gently took her pendant away and placed it with the other non-exhibits on the bench. It had been a wet afternoon. No outdoor exercise had been possible that day, and the girls were tired of all their usual indoor occupations.

"I wish somebody'd suggest something new to cheer us up," yawned Nellie Barlow. "There's a quarter of an hour more 'rec.' It's too short to be worth while getting out any apparatus, but it's long enough to be deadly dull."

"Can't someone do some tricks?" asked Edie Maycock.

"All right, Toby; sit on your hind legs and beg for biscuits," laughed Marjorie Earnshaw.

"I mean real tricks—conjuring and fortune telling; the amateur wizard, you know."

"I don't know."

"Then you're stupid. Have you never seen amateur conjuring—coins that vanish, and things that come out of hats?"

"Yes; but I couldn't do it, my good child. Being in the Sixth doesn't make me a magician."

"We tried a little bit at home," pursued Edie. "We had a book that told us how; only I never could manage it quickly. People always saw how I did it."

"Rona's the girl for that," suggested Hattie Goodwin.

"Is she? Come here, Rona, I want you. Can you really and truly do conjuring?"

"Oh, not properly!" laughed Rona. "But when I was on board ship there was a gentleman who was very clever at it, and I and some boys I'd made friends with were tremendously keen at learning. We got him to show us a few easy tricks, and we were always trying them. I could manage it just a little, but I'm out of practice now. You'd see in a second how it was done, I'm afraid."

"Oh, do show us, just for fun!"

"What do you want to see?"

"Oh, anything!"

"The vanishing coin?"

"Yes, yes. Go ahead!"

"Then give me two pennies or shillings, either will do."

The audience who had clustered round looked at one another, each expecting somebody else to produce a coin. Then everybody laughed.

"We haven't got so much as a copper amongst us! We're a set of absolute paupers!" declared Doris. "Can't you do some other trick?"

"There is nothing else I could manage so well," said Rona disconsolately. "This was the only one I really learnt."

"Can't it be done with anything but coins?"

"Something the same size and round, perhaps?"

"My pendant?" said Ulyth, fetching the trinket from the bench. "It's just as big as a penny."

"Yes, I could try it with this and another like it. Give me Stephanie's."

"No, no! You shan't try tricks with mine!" objected Stephanie indignantly.

"I won't do it a scrap of harm."

"Oh, Stephie, don't be mean! She'll not hurt it. Here, Rona, take it!" exclaimed several of the girls, anxious to witness the experiment.

Stephanie's protests and grumbles were overridden by the majority, and Rona, in her new capacity of wizard, faced her audience.

"It'll be rather transparent, because you oughtn't really to know that I've got two pendants," she explained apologetically. "Please forget, and think it's only one. I must put some patter in, like Mr. Thompson always used to do. Ladies and gentleman, you've no doubt heard that the art of conjuring depends upon the quickness of the hand. That's as it may be, but there is a great deal that can't be accounted for in that way. Ladies and gentlemen, you see this coin—or rather pendant, as I should say. I am going to make it fly from my left hand to my right. One, two, three—pass! Here it is. Did you see it go? No. Well, I can make it travel pretty quickly. Now we'll try another pretty little experiment. You see my hand. It's empty, isn't it? Yet when I wave it over this desk Miss Stephanie Radford's pendant will be returned to its place. Hey, presto! Pass! There you are! Safe and sound and back again!"

Stephanie took up her treasure and examined it anxiously.

"This isn't mine!" she declared.

"Rubbish! It is."

"I tell, you it isn't! Don't I know my own work? This is Ulyth's. What have you done with mine?"

"Vanished under the wizard's wand," mocked Rona.

"Give it me this instant!" cried Stephanie angrily, shaking Rona by the arm.

Rona had been standing upon one leg, and the unexpected assault completely upset her balance. She toppled, clutched at Doris, and fell, bumping her head against the corner of the table. It was a hard blow, and as she got up she staggered.

"I feel—all dizzy!" she gasped.

An officious junior, quite unnecessarily, ran for Miss Lodge, magnifying the accident so much in her highly coloured account that the mistress arrived on the scene prepared to find Rona stretched unconscious. Seeing that the girl looked white and tearful, she ordered her promptly to bed.

"It may be nothing, but any rate you will be better lying down," she decreed. "Go downstairs, girls, all of you. Nobody is to come into the studio again to-night."

"Rona had my pendant in her hand all the time," grumbled Stephanie to Beth as she obeyed the mistress's orders. "She dropped it as she fell. I've put it back safely, though, and I don't mean to let anybody interfere with it. I shall complain to Miss Bowes if it's touched again."

XVII. A Storm-cloud

Rona woke up next morning without even a headache, in Miss Lodge's opinion "justifying the prompt measures taken", but according to the girls, "showing there had been nothing the matter with her to make such a fuss about". Breakfast proceeded as usual, and afterwards came the short interval before nine-o'clock school. Now on this day the contributions to the Art exhibition were to be packed up and dispatched by a special carrier, and Stephanie, as a budding metalworker, ran upstairs to the studio to take one last peep at her exhibit. She flew down again with white face and burning eyes.

"Girls!" she cried shakily. "Girls! Somebody's taken my pendant! It's gone!"

"Why, nonsense, Stephie; it can't be gone! It was there all right last night."

"It's not there now. Ulyth's has been put in its place, and mine's vanished. Come and see."

There was an instant stampede for the studio.

"It's probably on the bench," said Doris. "Some people are such bad lookers. I expect we shall find it directly."

"You can't find a thing that isn't there," retorted Stephanie with warmth.

Doris considered herself an excellent looker, and, in company with a dozen others, she searched the studio. Willing hands turned everything over, hunted under tables, on shelves, and among shavings, but not a sign of the pendant could they find.

"Are you sure this one isn't yours?" asked Ruth, coming back to the exhibits.

"Certain! I know my own work. This is Ulyth's; and there's the mistake she made that disqualified it."

"Yours was put back last night?"

"I saw it safe myself, after Rona'd been juggling with it. Where is Rona? I believe she's at the bottom of this."

"She's in the garden."

"Then she must be fetched."

"What's the matter? What are you making a bother about?" cried Rona, as an excited detachment of girls stopped her game of tennis and asked her a dozen questions at once. "What have I done with Stephanie's pendant? Why, I've done nothing with it, of course."

"But you must have hidden it somewhere."

"It's a mean trick to play on her."

"You and Steph are always at daggers drawn."

"Do go and put it back."

"I can't think what you're talking about!" flared Rona. "I've not even been inside the studio. If a joke's being played on Stephanie, it's somebody else who's doing it, not me. For goodness' sake let me get on with my game. Come, Winnie, it's your serve."

The girls retired, whispering to one another. They were not at all satisfied. The news of the loss spread rapidly over the school, and had soon reached the ears of the authorities. Miss Lodge, who heard it from a monitress, at once sought Miss Bowes' study. A few moments later she went in a hurry to summon Miss Teddington, and a rash junior who ventured within earshot was sent away with a scolding. Miss Bowes looked grave as she walked into the hall for call-over. She took the names as usual, then, instead of dismissing the forms, she paused impressively.

"I have something to say to you, girls," she began in a strained voice. "A most unpleasant thing has happened this morning. The pendant made by Stephanie Radford, which was to have been sent to the Elwyn Bay Exhibition, has disappeared, and Ulyth Stanton's pendant has been substituted for it. It is, I suppose, a practical joke on the part of one of you. Now I highly disapprove of this foolish form of jesting; it is neither clever nor funny, and is often very unkind. I beg whoever has done this thing to come forward at once and replace the pendant. She need have no fear, for she will not be punished or even scolded, though she must give me her word never to repeat such a prank."

Miss Bowes stopped, and looked expectantly at the rows of intent eyes fixed upon her. Nobody spoke and nobody moved. There was dead silence in the hall. The Principal flushed with annoyance.

"Girls, must I appeal to your honour? Is that necessary at The Woodlands? Have I actually one among you so lacking in moral courage that she dare not own up? I repeat that she will meet with no reproof. Nothing more will be said about the matter."

Still no reply. Each girl looked at her neighbour, but not even a whisper was to be heard.

"Girls, I am exceedingly pained. Such a thing has never happened here before. For the sake of the school, I make one last appeal to you. Will nobody speak? Then I shall be obliged to ask each of you in turn what she knows."

It was a dreary business putting the same question to forty-eight girls, receiving one after another forty-eight decided negatives. Miss Bowes sighed wearily as it came to an end, and turned to Miss Teddington, who had sat on the platform silent but frowning during the ordeal.

"We cannot let it rest here."

"Certainly not!" snapped Miss Teddington firmly. "The matter must be sifted to the bottom."

The two Principals conferred for a moment in whispers, then Miss Bowes announced:

"Girls, this affair must be very carefully inquired into. I hoped it was only a practical joke, but a circumstance came to my knowledge last night which, I fear, may lend a more sinister aspect to it than either Miss Teddington or I had imagined. I am most deeply disappointed that the code of honour which we have always upheld at The Woodlands seems by some of you to have been broken. I shall have more to say to you later on. In the meantime you may go to your classrooms."

Very solemnly the girls turned to march in their separate forms from the hall; but as IV b filed through the door there was a sudden outcry, a hustling, a rush of other girls, and an excited, aghast crowd.

"It's here! It's here, Miss Bowes!" shouted Doris Deane. "Rona Mitchell had it! It fell from her blouse pocket when she pulled out her handkerchief."

"It's Rona!"

"We saw it fall!"

"She had it all the time!"

"Oh, the sneak!"

"Silence!" thundered Miss Bowes, ringing her bell.

In the midst of the sudden hush the Principal walked down the hall and took the pendant from Doris's hand.

"What have you to say for yourself, Rona Mitchell?"

Rona was standing staring as if a ghost had suddenly risen up and confronted her. Her vermilion colour had faded, and left her face deadly white.

"Rona, do you hear me?"

Rona shivered slightly, glanced desperately at Miss Bowes, then cast her eyes on the floor. She did not attempt to reply.

"I give you one more chance, Rona."

"Oh, Rona," interrupted Ulyth, who was weeping hot tears of dismay, "remember the Camp-fire! For the sake of the school, Rona!"

She drew back, choking with emotion, as Miss Bowes waved her aside.

Rona gazed for a moment full at Ulyth—a long, long, searching gaze, as if she would read Ulyth's very soul in her eyes. Then the colour flooded back, a full tide of crimson, over brow and neck.

"Yes—for the sake of the school!" she repeated unsteadily, and, bursting into tears, hid her burning face in her hands.

Miss Teddington hastily dismissed the other girls, and, coming to the assistance of her partner, asked many questions. It was absolutely useless, for Rona would not answer a single word.

"Go to your bedroom," said the irate Principal at last. "This matter cannot be allowed to pass. If you had owned up at once nothing would have been said, but such duplicity and obstinacy are unpardonable. Until you make a full confession you must not mix with the rest of the school. We should be sorry to have to send you back to New Zealand, but girls with no sense of honour cannot remain at The Woodlands."

Still sobbing hysterically, Rona was policed upstairs by Miss Teddington and locked into her bedroom. An hour or two of solitude might bring her to her senses, thought the mistress, and break the stubborn spirit which seemed at present to possess her. A wide experience of girls had proved that solitary confinement soon quelled insubordination, and by dinner-time the culprit would probably volunteer some explanation.

Both Principals were greatly upset by the occurrence. Hitherto the little world at The Woodlands had jogged on without any more desperate happenings than the breaking of silence rules or the omission of practising. Never in all its annals had they been obliged to deal with a case of such serious import.

Ulyth, with the rest of V b, was obliged to march off to her form-room. The inquiry had delayed the morning's work, and Miss Harding began to give out books without a moment's further waste of time. Ulyth sat staring at the problem set her, without in the least taking in its details. She could not apply her mind to the calculation of cubic contents while Rona was crying her heart out upstairs. What did it, what could it, all mean? Had her room-mate only been intending to play a practical joke on Stephanie? If so, why had she not at once admitted the fact? Nobody would have thought much the worse of her for it, as such jokes had been rather the rage of late among the juniors. It seemed so unlike Rona to conceal it; lack of candour had not been her fault hitherto. She was generally proud of the silly tricks she was fond of playing, and anxious to boast about them. She could not have been deterred by dread of the Principals' displeasure. Only yesterday she had marched into the study, to report herself for talking, with a sangfroid that was the admiration of her form; and had come out again smiling, with the comment that both the Rainbow and Teddie were "as decent as anything if one owned up straight". No, there must be another and a much graver explanation.

A chain of circumstances flashed through Ulyth's mind, each unfortunate link fitting only too well. The evidence seemed almost overwhelming. Rona had been present at the meeting by the stream when Tootie incited the juniors to some secret act of rebellion against the school rules. What this act was the occurrence in the garden had plainly shown. That Rona had been implicated seemed a matter of certainty. Her brooch had been in the possession of the cake-vendor, and she had chocolates in her bedroom, the acquisition of which she had refused to explain. Did she intend to keep the pendant and exchange it for confectionery? Her pocket-money, as Ulyth knew, was exhausted, and she had hardly any of the trinkets that most girls wear.

"Ulyth Stanton, you are not attending to your work. Give me your answer to Problem 46."

Ulyth started guiltily. Her page was still a blank, and she had no answer to produce. She murmured a lame excuse, and Miss Harding glared at her witheringly. Thrusting her preoccupation resolutely aside, she made an effort to concentrate her thoughts upon the subject in hand.

The morning passed slowly on. To Ulyth each successive class seemed interminable. At recreation, the girls, in small clumps, discussed the one topic of the hour.

"I'm not surprised. I'd think anything of Rona Mitchell," said Stephanie. "What else could you expect of a girl from the backwoods?"

"But she was so much improved," urged Addie, who had rather a weakness for the Cuckoo.

"Only a veneer. She relapsed directly she got the chance, you see."

"But why should she take your pendant?"

"I can't pretend to explain her motive, but take it she did—stealing, I should call it. But we're too polite at The Woodlands to use such a strong word."

"What'll be done to her?"

"Pack her back to New Zealand, I hope—and a good riddance. I always said she wasn't a suitable girl to come to this school. She hasn't the traditions of a lady. You might as well try to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear as to get such a girl to realize the meaning of noblesse oblige. It's birth that counts, after all, when it comes to the test."

"There I think you're wrong, Stephie," put in Lizzie quietly. "Gentle birth is all very well if it involves preserving a code of honour, but in itself it's no hall-mark of character. Some of the humblest and poorest people have been the stanchest on a question of right, when those above them in station have failed utterly. A charwoman can have quite as high standards as a duchess, and often lives up to them much better."

"Oh, you're a Radical!"

"I want fair play all round, and I must say that Rona has been very straight and square so far. Nobody has ever accused her of sneaking."

"No; the bear cub was unpolished, but not a vicious little beastie," agreed Addie.

"And it had grown wonderfully tame of late," added Christine.

Rona did not appear at the dinner-table; she had been removed from her own bedroom to a small spare room on another landing. She still refused to answer any question put to her. Her silence seemed unaccountable, and the Principals could only consider it as a display of temper.

"She was annoyed at being caught red-handed with the pendant in her possession, and she won't give in and acknowledge her wrongdoing," said Miss Teddington to Miss Bowes.

"From a strong hint Cook gave me last night I fear there is something more behind it all," returned her partner. "I shall question every girl in the school separately until I get at the truth."

Beginning with the monitresses, Miss Bowes summoned each pupil in turn to her study and subjected her to a very strict catechism. From the Sixth she gained no information. They formed a clique amongst themselves, and knew little of the doings of the younger girls. V A were likewise absorbed in their own interests, and only classed Rona as one among many juniors. It was now the turn of V b, and Miss Bowes sent for Ulyth a trifle more hopefully. She, at least, would have an intimate knowledge of her room-mate.

"Have you ever known Rona mixed up in any deceit before? What is her general report among her form-mates?" asked the Principal.

"Very square. She used to annoy me dreadfully when first she came by turning over all my things, but she soon stopped when I told her how horrid it was. She never dreamt of taking anything. It was the merest curiosity; she hadn't been taught differently at home."

"Have you found her eating sweets or cakes in her bedroom lately?"

Ulyth hesitated and blushed.

"Ah! I see you have! You must tell me, Ulyth. Keep nothing back."

Very unwilling to betray her friend, Ulyth admitted the fact that chocolate had been pressed upon her one evening.

"Did Rona explain where she got it?"

"No, she wouldn't tell me anything."

Miss Bowes looked thoughtful.

"I put you upon your honour, Ulyth, to answer this question perfectly frankly. Have you any reason to suspect that some of the juniors have surreptitiously been buying cakes and sweets?"

Thus asked point-blank, Ulyth was obliged to relate what she had overheard; and Miss Bowes, determined to get at the root of the business, cross-questioned her closely, until she had dragged from her reluctant pupil the account of the occurrence in the garden and the conversation with the travelling hawker-woman.

"This is more serious even than I had feared," groaned Miss Bowes. "I thought I could have trusted my girls."

"I think most of them were ashamed of it," ventured Ulyth.

"It is just possible that Rona refuses to speak because she will not involve her schoolfellows."

"Oh yes, yes!" cried Ulyth, clutching at any straw to excuse her room-mate's conduct. "That's quite likely. Or, Miss Bowes, I've been thinking that perhaps it was a queer kind of loyalty to me. You know Rona's very fond of me, and she was quite absurdly angry because Stephanie's pendant was to go to the exhibition and not mine. She may have changed them, hoping it wouldn't be noticed and that mine would be packed up, and perhaps she intended to put Stephanie's back in the studio when the parcel had safely gone. Rona does such impulsive things."

Miss Bowes shook her head sadly.

"I wish I could think so. Unfortunately the other circumstances lend suspicion to a graver motive."

XVIII. Light

Ulyth walked from the study feeling that she had told far more than she wished.

"I've given Rona away," she said to herself. "Miss Bowes is thinking the very worst of her, I know. Oh dear! I wish she'd explain, and not keep up this dreadful silence. It's so unlike her. She's generally almost too ready to talk. If I could see her even for a few minutes I believe she would tell me. Perhaps Miss Teddington frightened her. Poor Rona! She must be so utterly miserable. Could I possibly get a word with her, I wonder?"

She talked the matter over with Lizzie.

"If I ask Miss Bowes, she'll probably say no," lamented Ulyth.

"Then I shouldn't ask," returned Lizzie. "We've not been definitely forbidden to see Rona."

"The door's locked."

"You've only to climb out of the linen-room window on to the roof of the veranda."

"Why, so I could. Oh, I must speak to her!"

"I think you are justified, if you can get anything out of her. She'd tell you better than anybody else in the whole school."

"I'll try my luck then."

"I'll stand in the garden below and shout 'Cave!' if I hear anyone coming."

To help her unfortunate room-mate seemed the first consideration to Ulyth, and she thought the end certainly justified the means. She waited until after the tea interval, when most of the girls would be playing tennis or walking in the glade; then, making sure that Lizzie was watching in the garden below, she stole upstairs to the linen-room. It was quite easy to drop from the window on to the top of the veranda, and not very difficult, in spite of the slope, to walk along to the end of the roof. Here an angle of the old part of the house jutted out, and the open window of Rona's prison faced her only a couple of yards away. She could not reach across the gap, but conversation would be perfectly possible.

"Rona!" she called cautiously. "Rona!"

There was a movement inside the room, and a face appeared at the window. Rona's eyes were red and swollen with crying, and her hair hung in wild disorder. At the sight of Ulyth she started, and stared rather defiantly.

"Rona! Rona, dear! I've been longing to see you. I felt I must speak to you."

No reply. Rona, in fact, turned her back.

"I'm so dreadfully sorry," continued Ulyth. "I've been thinking about you all day. It's no use keeping this up. Do confess and have done with it."

Rona twisted round suddenly and faced Ulyth.

"Rona! You'd be so much happier if you'd own up you'd taken it. Surely you only meant it as a joke on Stephie? Miss Bowes will forgive you. For the sake of the school, do!"

Then Rona spoke.

"You ask me to confess—you, of all people!" she exclaimed with unconcealed bitterness.

"Yes, dear. I can't urge it too strongly."

"You want me to tell Miss Bowes that I took that pendant?"

"There's no sense in concealing it, Rona."

The Cuckoo's eyes blazed. Her hands gripped the window-sill.

"Oh, this is too much! It's the limit! I couldn't have believed it possible! You, Ulyth! you to ask me this! How can you? How dare you?"

Ulyth gazed at her in perplexity. She could not understand such an outburst.

"Surely I, your own chum, have the best right to speak to you for your own good?"

"My own good!" repeated Rona witheringly. "Yours, you mean. Oh yes, it's all very fine for you, no doubt! You're to get off scot free."

"I? What are you talking about?"

"Don't pretend you don't understand. You atrocious sneak and hypocrite—you took the pendant yourself!"

If she had been accused of purloining the Crown jewels from the Tower of London, Ulyth could not have been more astonished.

"I——!" she stammered. "I——!"

"Yes, you, and you know it. I saw you."

"You couldn't!"

"But I did, or as good as saw you. Who came into our room last night, I should like to know, when Miss Lodge had sent me to bed, and slipped something into one of the blouses hanging behind the door? I'd forgotten by the morning, but I remembered when the pendant came jerking out of my pocket."

"Certainly I didn't put it there!"

"But you did. You came into the room, took off your outdoor coat, and threw it on your bed. I got up, afterwards, and hung it up in your wardrobe for you. Irene told me how you'd joined the cake club. She said you had the password quite pat."

Ulyth was too aghast to answer. Rona, once she had broken silence, continued in a torrent of indignation.

"You a Torch-bearer! You might well ask me not to expose you! 'Remember the Camp-fire,' you said. Yes, it's because of the Camp-fire, and for the sake of the school, that I've kept your secret. Don't be afraid. I'm not going to tell. It wouldn't be good for the League if a Torch-bearer toppled down so low! It doesn't matter so much for only a Wood-gatherer. I won't betray a chum—I've brought that much honour from the Bush; but I'll let you know what I think about you, at any rate."

Then, her blaze of passion suddenly fading, she burst into tears.

"Ulyth, Ulyth, how could you?" she sobbed. "You who taught me everything that was good. I believed in you so utterly, I'd never have thought it of you. Oh, why——"

"Cave! cave!" shouted Lizzie excitedly below. "Cave! Teddie herself!"

Ulyth turned and fled with more regard for speed than safety along the veranda roof, and scrambled through the window into the linen-room again. She was trembling with agitation. Such an extraordinary development of the situation was as appalling as it was unexpected. She must have time to think it over. She could not bear to speak to anybody about it at present, not even to Lizzie. No, she must be alone. She ran quickly downstairs, and, before Lizzie had time to find her, dived under the laurels of the shrubbery and made her way first down the garden and then to the very bottom of the paddock that adjoined the high road. There was a little copse here, of trees and low bushes, which sheltered her from all observation. Nobody was likely to come and disturb her, for the girls preferred the glade, and seldom troubled to enter the paddock. She flung herself down on the grass and tried to face the matter calmly. She had begged Rona to confess, and Rona in return had accused her of taking the pendant. This was turning the tables with a vengeance. How could her room-mate have become possessed of such a preposterous idea? And in what a web of mystery the affair seemed involved! One certainty came as an immense relief. Rona was not guilty. More than this, she was behaving with an extraordinary amount of courage and loyalty.

"She believes I took it, and yet she is bearing all the blame, and shielding me for the sake of the school," groaned Ulyth. "Oh, what must she be thinking of me! We're all at cross-purposes. Did she really fancy that when I said: 'Remember the Camp-fire', I was begging her to screen me? Somebody took the pendant and put it in her pocket; that's the ugly part of the business. It's throwing the blame from one to another. What we've got to do is to find out the real guilty person, and that's not going to be easy, I'm afraid."

Ulyth sighed and wiped her eyes. She had been deeply hurt at Rona's sudden attack. It is humiliating to find that where you occupied a pedestal you are now, even temporarily, a broken idol.

"She's right to scorn me if she imagines I'm such a sneak, but how could she suppose I would? And yet I thought her guilty. Oh dear, it's a horrible muddle! How shall we ever get it straight?"

Ulyth sat thinking, thinking, and was no nearer to a solution of her problem when she suddenly heard the brisk ringing of a bicycle-bell on the road below. Springing up eagerly, she rushed to the wall, and shouted just in time to stop Mrs. Arnold, whose machine was whisking past.

"Hallo, Ulyth! What are you doing there?"

"I'm coming over. Do please wait for me!"

And Ulyth, scrambling somehow across the wall, slid down a gravelly bank on to the road.

"You're the one person in the world I want to see," she added, hugging her friend impetuously. "Oh, Mrs. Arnold, the most dreadful things have been happening at school! Somebody took Stephie's pendant, and it fell out of Rona's pocket, and everybody thinks Rona took it, and Rona thinks it's me. What are we to do?"

"Sit down here and tell me all about it. Yes, please, begin at the very beginning, and don't leave anything out, however trivial. Sometimes the little things are the most important. Cheer up, child! We'll get to the bottom of it, never fear."

Sitting on the bank, with Mrs. Arnold's arm round her, Ulyth related the whole of her story, mentioning every detail she could remember. It was such a comfort to pour it out into sympathetic ears, and to one whose judgment was more likely to be unbiased than that of anyone connected with the school.

"You always understand," she said, with a sigh of relief, as she kissed the hand that was holding hers.

"It certainly is a tangled skein to unravel; but, as it happens, I really believe I can throw a little light upon the matter. You say Rona told you that somebody came into her bedroom last night, and presumably hid the pendant in her blouse pocket?"

"Yes; and she was sure that somebody was myself."

"Then what we have to do is to produce the real culprit."

"If we can find her."

"Just now I was wheeling my bicycle up Tyn y Bryn Hill, and I met one of the boys from Jones's farm. He stopped me and handed me a letter. 'A girl gave it to me five minutes ago,' he said. 'She asked me if I was going to the village, and if I'd post it for her; so I promised I would. But it's addressed to you, so I may as well give it to you as post it, and save the stamp.' I read the letter, and it puzzled me extremely. I hardly knew what to make of it; but since you've told me about the pendant I think I begin to understand its meaning. You shall see it for yourself."

Mrs. Arnold spread out the letter on her knee, so that Ulyth might read it. It was written on village note-paper, in a childish hand, with no stops.

"dear Mrs Arnold

"this comes hoping to find you as well as it leves me at present i am in dredful trubble and i cannot stay here eny longer dear Mrs Arnold after what cook said this afternoon i am sure she knows all and i daresunt tell miss Bowes but you are the camp fire lady and i feel i must say goodbye to ease your mind dear Mrs Arnold wen you get this letter I shall be Far Away as it says in the song you tort us by the stream and you will never see me agen but i shall think of you alwus and the camp fire and i wish i hadn't dun it only I was skared to deth for she said she wuld half kill me and she alwus keeps her wurd your obedient servant Susannah Maude Hawley."

"Susannah Maude!" exclaimed Ulyth. "I never even thought of her. Is it possible that she could have taken the pendant?"

"From the letter it looks rather like it. It is very mysterious, and I cannot understand it all; but the girl appears to have done something she shouldn't, and to have run away."

"Where has she run to?"

"She can't have gone very far. She evidently did not mean me to receive this letter until to-morrow morning, as she asked Idwal Jones to post it. He forestalled her intention by giving it to me now. It's a most fortunate thing, as we may be able to overtake her. She is probably walking to Llangarmon, and cannot have gone more than a few miles by this time. I shall follow her at once on my machine, and shall most likely come up with her before she even reaches Coed Glas."

"Oh, let me go with you!" pleaded Ulyth, starting to her feet and seizing the bicycle. "I could ride on the carrier. I've often done it before. Oh, please, please!"

"What about school rules?"

"Miss Bowes wouldn't mind if you took me. Just this once!"

"Well, I suppose my shoulders are broad enough to bear the blame if we get into trouble about it."

"Oh, we shan't! We must find Susannah Maude. Miss Bowes would want us to stop her running away."

"Come along then, and mind you balance yourself, so that you don't upset us."

"Trust me!" chuckled Ulyth delightedly.

Back along the road by which she had come sped Mrs. Arnold, past the lane that led to her own house, and away in the direction of Llangarmon. Ulyth managed to stick on without impeding her progress, and felt a delirious joy in the stolen expedition. To be out with her dear Mrs. Arnold on such an exciting adventure was an hour worth remembering. She could not often get the Guardian of the Fire all to herself in this glorious fashion. She would be the envy of the school when she returned. Susannah Maude was apparently a quick walker. They passed through the hamlet of Coed Glas, and were half a mile beyond before they caught sight of the odd little figure trudging on ahead. They overtook her exactly on the bridge that crossed the Llyn Mawr stream.

As Mrs. Arnold dismounted and called her by name, Susannah Maude started, uttered a shriek, and apparently for a moment contemplated casting herself into the stream below. The Guardian of the Fire, however, seized her firmly by the arm, and, drawing her to the low parapet, made her sit down.

"Now tell me all about it," said Mrs. Arnold encouragingly, seating herself by her side. For answer Susannah Maude wept unrestrainedly, the hot tears dripping down her hard little cheeks into her rough little hands.

Mrs. Arnold waited with patience till the storm had subsided, then she began to put questions.

"Did you take the young lady's locket, Susan?"

"Yes, I did; but I didn't want to. I wouldn't if I hadn't been so scared. I'm scared to death now as she'll find me."

"You needn't be afraid of Miss Bowes."

"I ain't. Leastways not so bad. It's her I'm feared of."

"Whom do you mean, child?"

"Her—my mother."

"I didn't know you had a mother. I thought you were an orphan," burst out Ulyth.

"I wish I was. No, my father and mother wasn't dead—they was both serving time when I was sent to the Home. When Mother come out she got to know where I was, and she kept an eye on me; then when I comes here to a situation she turns up one day at the back door and says she wants my wages. I give her all I got; but that didn't satisfy her—not much! She was always hanging about the place. She used to come and sell sweets and cakes, unbeknown-like, to the young ladies."

"Was that your mother? The gipsy woman with the basket?" exclaimed Ulyth.

"That was her, sure enough. She pestered me all the time for money, and then when she found I'd got none left she said I must bring her something instead. 'The young ladies must have heaps of brooches and lockets, and things they don't want, so just you fetch me one,' sez she; 'and if you don't I'll catch you and half kill you.' Oh, I can tell you I was scared to death! I don't want not to be honest; but she'd half killed me once or twice before, when I was a kid, and I know what her hand's like when she uses it."

"So you took something?"

"Yes. I waited till the young ladies was all at supper; then I got down one of their coats from the pegs in the corridor and slipped it over my black dress and apron, and I put on one of their hats. I thought if I was seen upstairs they'd take me for one of themselves. I went into the studio, and there, right opposite on a little table, was that kind of locket thing. I slipped it in my pocket, and looked round the room. If there wasn't another just like it on the bench! I took that, and put it on the table. It wasn't likely, perhaps, it would be missed as quick as the other. Then I thought I'd better be going. I was just walking down the landing when I hears a step, and darts into one of the bedrooms. 'Suppose they catches me,' thinks I, 'with one of the young ladies' coats and hats on and the locket in my hand!' There was a blouse hanging behind the door, with a little pocket just handy, so I stuffed the locket down into that; then I pulled off the coat and threw it on the bed, and flung the hat out of the window. I thought if anyone came in and found me I'd say I'd been sent to refill the water-jug. But the steps went on, and I rushed out and downstairs, and left the locket where it was. I was so scared I didn't know what I was doing."

"Gracie found her hat in the garden this morning," gasped Ulyth. "She wondered how it got there."

"But what made you run away?" asked Mrs. Arnold, returning to the main question. "Did you think you were suspected?"

"Not till this afternoon. Then the servants were all talking in the kitchen about how one of the young ladies was supposed to have taken what they called a 'pendon' or something, and Cook looked straight at me and says: 'If anything's missing, it's not one of the young ladies that's got it, I'll be bound.' And I turned red and run out of the kitchen. My mother'd said she'd be coming round this evening, and how was I going to meet her with no locket? So I says, there's nothing else for it, I'd best go back to the Home. Miss Bankes, she was good to me, and Mother daresn't show her face there. So I wrote a letter, and asked Jones's boy to post it. I didn't think you'd get it till to-morrow."

"Very fortunately I received it at once. You must come back with us now to The Woodlands, Susan. We shall all have to walk, for the bicycle won't take three."

"I'll wheel it," cried Ulyth joyfully.

"She'll half kill me to-night," quavered poor Susannah Maude. "Do let me go to the Home!"

"Your mother shall not have a chance of coming near you. You must tell all this to Miss Bowes; then to-morrow, if you wish, you may be sent back to the Orphanage."

No successful scouts could have returned to camp with more triumph than Mrs. Arnold and Ulyth, as, very late and decidedly tired, they arrived at The Woodlands to relate their surprising story. Miss Bowes sent at once for Rona, and in the presence of the Principals the whole matter was carefully explained to the satisfaction of all parties, even poor weeping Susannah Maude.

"I am very glad to find the motive for which Rona kept silence was so good a one," commented Miss Teddington. "She has shown her loyalty both to her friend and to the school."

Dismissed with honour from the study, Ulyth and Rona were hugging each other in the privacy of the boot cupboard.

"Can you ever forgive all the horrible things I said?" implored Rona. "I think I was off my head. I might have known it wasn't—couldn't be possible; you are you—the one girl I've been trying to copy ever since I came here."

"You've quite as much to forgive me, dear, and I beg your pardon. I'm so glad it's all straight and square now."

"You darling! I don't mind telling you it was Tootie who gave me those chocolates."

"Didn't you buy them from the cake-woman?"

"I never bought anything from her. I didn't join the cake club."

"Then how did she get hold of your New Zealand brooch? She showed it to me."

"Why, I'd swopped that brooch with Tootie for a penknife ages ago. We're always swopping our things in IV b."

"The whole business seems to have been a comedy of errors," said Ulyth. "Some mischievous Puck threw dust in our eyes and blinded us to the truth."

After all, it was the juniors that suffered most, for Miss Teddington, who had been very angry at the whole affair, turned the vials of her wrath upon them, and took them to task for their illicit traffic in cakes. This, at any rate, she was determined to punish, and not a solitary sinner was allowed to escape. Tootie, the original leader in rebellion, issued from her interview in the study such a crushed worm as to stifle any lingering seeds of mutiny among her crestfallen followers.

"What's to become of Susannah Maude?" asked everybody; and Miss Bowes answered the question.

"I am taking the poor child back to the Orphanage. I have told the police to warn her disreputable mother from this neighbourhood; but, as one can never be certain when she might turn up again, we must remove Susan altogether out of reach of her evil influence. A party of girls will be sent from the Home very soon to Canada, and we shall arrange for her to join them and emigrate to a new country, where she will be placed in a good situation on a farm and well looked after. She is not really a dishonest girl, and has a very grateful and affectionate disposition. I am confident that she will do us credit in the New World, and turn out a useful and happy citizen. Why yes, girls, if you like to make her a little good-bye present before she sails, you may do so. It is a kind thought, and I am sure she will appreciate it greatly."

"There's only one item not yet wiped out on the slate," said Ulyth to Lizzie. "Perhaps I ought to report myself for walking along the veranda roof. I'd feel more comfortable!"

"Go ahead, then! Teddie's at the confessional now."

"It's never been exactly forbidden," said Ulyth, with a twinkle in her eye, after she had stated the extent of her enormity to Miss Teddington.

"I would as soon have thought of forbidding you to climb the chimneys! It was a dangerous experiment, and certainly must not be repeated. I'm surprised at a senior! No, as you have told me yourself, I will not enter it in your conduct-book. Please don't parade the roofs in future. Now you may go."

"Got off even easier than I expected," rejoiced Ulyth to the waiting Lizzie. "Teddie's bark's always worse than her bite."

"We've found that out long ago," agreed Lizzie.

XIX. A Surprise

The storm-clouds that had gathered round the mystery of the lost pendant seemed to clear the air, and sunshine once more reigned at The Woodlands. The juniors were on their very best behaviour; they indulged in no more surreptitious expeditions and abandoned their truculent attitude towards the elder girls, who, while careful to preserve their dignity as seniors, were ready to wipe off old scores and start afresh. Some manuvres in connection with the Camp-fire League proved a bond of union, for here there was no distinction between Upper and Lower School, since all were novices to the new work and had to learn alike. None, indeed, had any time at present to get into mischief. As the end of the term, with its prospects of examinations, drew near, even the most hardened shirkers were obliged to put their shoulders to the wheel, and show a certain amount of intimacy with their textbooks. A nodding acquaintance with French verbs or the rules of Latin Grammar might suffice to shuffle through the ordinary lessons in form, but would be a poor crutch when confronted with a pile of foolscap paper and a set of questions, and likely to lead to disparaging items in their reports.

In every department, therefore, there was a flood-tide of effort. Nature-study diaries, roughly kept, were neatly copied; lists of birds and flowers were revised; the geological specimens in the museum were rearranged and labelled, the art treasures in the studio touched up, while pianos seemed sounding from morning to night. The school was on its mettle to appear at high-water mark. Miss Bowes had lately instituted an Old Girls' Union for The Woodlands, the first gathering of which was to be held in conjunction with the breaking-up festivity. Quite a number of past pupils had accepted the invitation, and people of influence in the neighbourhood were also expected to be present.

"You must show the 'old girls' what you can do," said Miss Bowes, who was naturally anxious to make a good impression on the visitors. "I want them to think the standard raised, not lowered. Some of our ways will be new to them, and we must prove that the changes have been for the better."

It certainly seemed a goal to work for. Even the most irresponsible junior would feel humiliated if the "old girls" were to consider that the school had gone down, and all took a just pride in keeping up its reputation.

"Noëlle Derrington and Phyllis Courtenay have accepted"—it was Stephanie who volunteered the information. "They have both been presented. And Irene Vernon has promised to come. She's been out two years now. I do hope those wretched kids in IV b will behave themselves. Manners have gone off at The Woodlands in my opinion, even if the work's better. When my sister was a junior, she says, they would as soon have thought of ragging the mistresses as of cheeking the seniors."

"O tempora! O mores!" laughed Addie. "When you're an old lady, Stephie, you'll spend all your time lamenting the good old days of your youth, and telling the children just how much better-behaved girls used to be when you were at school."

"I shan't say so of our juniors, at any rate," snorted Stephanie.

"Have you heard yet who's coming from the neighbourhood?" Beth enquired.

"Mr. and Mrs. Arnold, of course, and Colonel and Mrs. Hepworth, and the Mowbrays, and the Langtons."

"Lord and Lady Glyncraig have accepted; Miss Harding told me so just now," remarked Christine.

"Oh, what luck!" Stephanie's eyes sparkled. "It will just give the finishing touch to the affair."

"Did you say that Lord and Lady Glyncraig are coming to our breaking-up party?" asked Rona quickly. She had joined the group in company with Winnie and Hattie.

"So I understand; but you needn't excite yourself. It isn't likely they'll notice juniors, though they'll probably speak to a few seniors whom they already know."

"Including Miss Stephanie Radford, of course," scoffed Winnie. "We shall expect to see you walking arm in arm with them round the grounds."

"And hear them giving you a most pressing invitation to Plas Cafn," Hattie added. "You don't get asked there as often as one would suppose, considering you're so intimate with them."

"The cheek of juniors grows beyond all bounds!" declared Stephanie, stalking away. "I'm afraid I know what Irene Vernon will think of the school."

It was of course impossible for all the parents of the girls to come to the "At Home", but a certain proportion had promised to be present. There was a good hotel at Llangarmon, and they could put up there, and drive over for the occasion. The neighbourhood was so beautiful that several would take the opportunity of spending a few days in sightseeing.

"I've news to tell you," said Ulyth to Rona one morning, her face radiant as she showed a letter. "Who do you think are coming to the party? Motherkins and Oswald! Ossie'll just be home in time, so they're jaunting off to Elwyn Bay like a pair of honeymooners. Motherkins hasn't been very well, and Dad says the sea air will do her good—he can't leave business himself, more's the pity! Won't it be glorious to see them here! I could stand on my head, I'm so glad."

The prospect of meeting any members of the Stanton family again was a great pleasure to Rona, who treasured the memory of the Christmas holidays as her happiest experience in England. Mrs. Fowler was also to be present, so she would see the friend who had been kind to her at Eastertide as well.

"I'm glad my mother's coming," said Winnie. "When most of the other girls have somebody, its so horrid to be left out. Poor old Rona! I wish you'd got some relations of your own who could be here. It's hard luck!"

A shade crossed Rona's face. She hesitated, as if about to speak, then, apparently changing her mind, kept silence.

"What an idiotic duffer you are!" whispered Hattie to Winnie. "You needn't be always reminding her what a cuckoo she is."

"The Cuckoo's got its feathers now, and has grown a very handsome bird," said Winnie, watching Rona as the latter walked away.

The At Home was to be chiefly a gathering for the Old Girls' Union, but the present pupils were to provide a short programme, consisting of music and recitations, to occupy a portion of the afternoon. Only the brightest stars were selected to perform.

"The school's got to show off!" laughed Gertie. "It's to try and take the shine out of the old girls. Miss Bowes doesn't exactly like to say so, but that's what she means."

"No inferior talent permitted," agreed Addie. "Only freshwater oysters may wag their tails."

"Metaphor's a little mixed, my hearty. Perhaps you'll show us an oyster's tail?"

"Well, they've got beards, at any rate."

"To beard the lion with?"

"If you like. I suppose Lord Glyncraig will be the lion of the afternoon. We shall have to perform before him."

"Oh, I'm so thankful I'm not clever enough to be on the programme!"

After careful consideration of her pupils' best points, Miss Ledbury, the music-mistress, had at last compiled her list. She put Rona down for a song. Rona's voice had developed immensely since she came to school. For a girl of her age it had a wonderfully rich tone and wide compass. Miss Ledbury thought it showed promise of great things later on, and, while avoiding overstraining it, she had made Rona practise most assiduously. There was rather a dearth of good solo voices in the school at present, most of the seniors having more talent for the piano than for singing, otherwise a junior might not have obtained a place on the coveted programme.

"But of course Rona's not exactly a junior," urged Ulyth in reply to several jealous comments. "She's fifteen now, although she's only in IV B, and she's old for her age. She's miles above the kids in her form. I think Teddie realizes that. I shouldn't be at all surprised if Rona skips a form and is put into the Upper School next term. She'd manage the work, I believe. It's been rather rough on her to stay among those babes."

"Well, I say Miss Ledbury might have chosen a soloist from V b," returned Beth icily. She was not a Rona enthusiast.

"Who? Stephie's playing the piano and Gertie's reciting, Merle croaks like a raven, you and Chris don't learn singing, Addie's no ear for tune, and the rest of us, as Leddie says, 'have no puff'. I'm glad Rona can do something well for the school. She's been here three terms, and she's as much a Woodlander now as anyone else."

Rona herself seemed to regard her honour with dismay. The easy confidence which she had brought from New Zealand had quite disappeared, thanks to incessant snubbing; she was apt now to veer to the side of diffidence.

"Do you think I'll break down?" she asked Ulyth nervously.

"Not a bit of it. Why should you? You know the song and you know you can sing it. Just let yourself go, and don't think of the audience."

"Very good advice, no doubt, but a trifle difficult to follow," pouted Rona. "Don't think of the audience, indeed, when they'll all be sitting staring at me. Am I to shut my eyes?"

"You can look at your song, at any rate, and fancy you're alone with Miss Ledbury."

"Imagination's not my strong point. I wish the wretched performance was over and done with."

There were great preparations on the morning of 29th July. Outside, the gardeners were giving a last roll to the lawns, and a last sweep to the paths. In the kitchen the cook was setting out rows of small cakes, and the parlour-maid in the pantry was counting cups and spoons, and polishing the best silver urn. In the school department finishing touches were put everywhere. Great bowls of roses were placed in the drawing-room, and jars of tall lilies in the hall. The studio, arranged yesterday with its exhibits of arts and handicrafts, was further decorated with picturesque boughs of larch and spikes of foxgloves. Two curators were told off to explain the museum to visitors, and tea-stewards selected to help to hand round cups and cakes. A band of special scouts picked raspberries and arranged them on little green plates. Chairs were placed in the summer-house and under the trees in view of the lawn. The rustic seats were carefully dusted in the glade by the stream.

By three o'clock the school was in a flutter of expectation.

"Do I look—decent?" asked Rona anxiously, taking a last nervous peep at her toilet in the wardrobe mirror.

"Decent!" exclaimed Ulyth. "You're for all the world like a Sir Joshua Reynolds portrait. I'd like to frame you, just as you are, and hang you on the wall."

"You wouldn't feel ashamed of me if—if you happened to be my relation? I've improved a little since I came here, haven't I? I was a wild sort of goose-girl when I arrived, I know."

"The goose-girl is a Princess to-day," said her room-mate exultantly.

Ulyth thought Rona had never looked so sweet. The pretty white dress trimmed with pale blue edgings suited her exactly, and set off her lovely colouring and rich ruddy-brown hair. Her eyes shone like diamonds, and the mingled excitement and shyness in her face gave a peculiar charm to her expression.

"She's far and away the prettiest girl in the school," reflected Ulyth. "If there were a beauty prize, she'd win it."

Everybody was waiting in the garden when the guests arrived. The scene soon became gay and animated. There were delighted welcomings of parents, enthusiastic meetings between old school chums, and a hearty greeting to all visitors. Mrs. Stanton and Oswald had driven in a taxi from Elwyn Bay, and were received with rapture by Ulyth.

"Motherkins! Oh, how lovely to see you again! I must have you all to myself for just a minute or two before I share you with anybody—even Rona!"

"Is that Rona over there?" asked Oswald, gazing half amazed at the friend who seemed to have added a new dignity to her manner as well as inches to her stature since Christmas-tide.

"Yes, go and fetch her to speak to Motherkins."

"I hardly like to. She looks so stately and grown-up now."

"What nonsense! Ossie, you can't be shy all of a sudden. What's come over you, you silly boy? There, I'll beckon to Rona. Ah, she sees us, and she's coming! No, I'm afraid she can't sit next to us at the concert, because she's one of the performers, and will have to be in the front row."

The ceremonies were to take place in the hall, after which tea would be served to the company out-of-doors.

"Lord Glyncraig is to act as chairman," whispered Addie. "Stephie is so fearfully excited. She means to go and speak to him and Lady Glyncraig afterwards. I hope to goodness they won't have forgotten her. She'd be so woefully humiliated. She wants us all to see that she knows them. She's been just living for this afternoon, I believe."

Rona, her hands tightly clasped, watched the tall figure mount the platform. Lord Glyncraig, with his clear-cut features, iron-grey hair, and commanding air, looked a born leader of men, and well fitted to take his share in swaying a nation's destiny. She could picture him a power in Parliament. It was good of him to come this afternoon to speak at a girls' school. Lady Glyncraig, handsome, well-dressed, and aristocratic, sat in the post of honour next to Miss Bowes. Rona noticed her gracious reception of the beautiful bouquet handed to her by Catherine, and sighed as she looked.

There were no prizes at The Woodlands this year, for the girls had asked to devote the money to the Orphanage; but the examination lists and the annual report were read, and some pleasant comments made upon the scope of the Old Girls' Union. Lord Glyncraig had a happy gift of speech, and could adapt his remarks to the occasion. Everybody felt that he had said exactly the right things, and Principals, mistresses, parents, and pupils past or present were wreathed in smiles. These opening ceremonies did not take very long, and the concert followed immediately.

Marjorie's Prelude, Evie's Nocturne, Stephanie's Mazurka, and Gertie's recitation all went off without a hitch, and received their due reward of appreciation. It was now Rona's turn. For a moment she grew pale as she mounted the platform, then the coral flushed back into her cheeks. She had no time to think of the audience. Miss Ledbury was already playing the opening bars:

"Come out, come out, my dearest dear!

Come out and greet the sun!"

Mellow and tuneful as a blackbird's, Rona's clear rich young voice rang out, so fresh, so joyous, so natural, so full of the very spirit of maying and the glory of summer's return, that the visitors listened as one hearkens to the notes of a bird that is pouring forth its heart from a tree-top in the orchard. There was no mistake about the applause. Guests and girls clapped their hardest. Rona, all unwilling, was recalled, and made to sing an encore, and as she left the platform everybody felt that she had scored the triumph of the occasion.

"Glad the juniors weren't excluded. It's a knock-down for Steph," whispered Addie.

"Trust Miss Ledbury not to leave out Rona. She'll be our champion soloist now," returned Christine.

The rest of the little programme was soon finished, and the audience adjourned to the garden for tea. Stephanie, with a tray of raspberries and cream, came smilingly up to Lord and Lady Glyncraig, and, introducing herself, reminded them of the delightful visit she had paid to Plas Cafn. If they had really forgotten her, they had the good manners not to reveal the fact, and spoke to her kindly and pleasantly.

"By the by," said Lord Glyncraig, "where is your schoolfellow who sang so well just now? I don't see her on the lawn."

"Rona Mitchell? I suppose she is somewhere about," replied Stephanie casually.

"Do you happen to know if she comes from New Zealand?"

"Yes, she does."

"I wonder if you could find her and bring her here? I should like very much to speak to her."

Stephanie could not refuse, though her errand was uncongenial. She could not imagine why an ex-Cabinet Minister should concern himself with a girl from the backwoods.

"Lord Glyncraig wants you; so hurry up, and don't keep him waiting," was the message she delivered, not too politely.

Rona blushed furiously. She appeared on the very point of declining to obey the summons.

"Go, dear," said Mrs. Stanton quietly. "Perhaps he wishes to congratulate you on the success of your song. Yes, Rona, go. It would be most ungracious to refuse."

With a face in which shyness, nervousness, pride, and defiance strove for the mastery, Rona approached Lord Glyncraig. He held out his hand to her.

"Won't you bury the hatchet, and let us be friends at last, Rona?" he said. "I'm proud of my granddaughter to-day. You're a true chip of the old block, a Mitchell to your finger-tips—and" (in a lower tone) "with your mother's voice thrown into the bargain. Blood is thicker than water, child, and it's time now for bygones to become bygones. I shall write to your father to-night, and set things straight."

"How is it that you've actually been a whole year at The Woodlands and never let anybody have the least hint that Lord Glyncraig is your grandfather? Don't you know what an enormous difference it would have made to your position in the school? Stephie is quite hysterical about it. Why was it such a dead secret?" asked Ulyth of her room-mate, as they took off their party dresses, when the guests had gone.

"It's rather a long story," replied Rona, sitting down on her bed. "In the first place, I dare say you've guessed that Dad was the prodigal of the family. He never did anything very bad, poor dear, but he was packed off to the colonies in disgrace, and told that he might stay there. At Melbourne he met a lovely opera singer, who was on tour in Australia, and married her. That made my grandfather more angry than anything else he had done. I'm not ashamed of my mother. She was very clever, and sang like an angel, I'm told, though I can't remember her. When she died, Dad went to New Zealand and started farming. Mrs. Barker was hardly an ideal person to bring me up, but she was the only woman we could get to stop in such an out-of-the-way place. I must have been an awful specimen of a child; I don't like to remember what things I did then. When I was about ten, Father went away for a few weeks to the North Island, and while he was gone, Mrs. Barker went off in the gig to have a day's shopping at the nearest store. She left me alone in the house. I wasn't frightened, for I was quite accustomed to it. No one but a chance neighbour ever came near. Yet that day was just the exception that proves the rule. Early in the afternoon a grand travelling motor drove up, and a lady and gentleman knocked at the door, and enquired for Dad. I was a little wild rough thing then, and I was simply scared to death at the sight of strangers. I told them Dad was away. Then they asked if they might come in, and the gentleman said he was my grandfather, and the lady was his new wife, so that she was my step-grandmother. Now Mrs. Barker had always rubbed it in to me that if I was left alone I must on no account admit strangers. That was the only thing I could think of. I was in a panic, and I slammed the door on them and bolted it, and then ran to the window and pulled faces, hoping to make them go away. They stood for a minute or two quite aghast, trying to get me to listen to reason through the window, but I only grew more and more frightened, and called them all the ugly names I could.

"'It's no use attempting to tame such a young savage,' said the lady at last. Then they got into their car again and drove away.

"By the time Mrs. Barker arrived I was ashamed of myself, so I said nothing about my adventure, and I never dared to tell Dad a word of it. I suppose his father had come to hunt him up; but he was evidently discouraged at the reception he had received at the farm, and went back to England without making another attempt at a meeting. I don't believe he and Dad ever wrote to each other from year's end to year's end. I tried to forget this, but it stuck in my memory all the same. Time went by, my friendship with you began, and it was decided that I should be sent to The Woodlands. I knew my grandfather lived at Plas Cafn, for Dad had told me about his old home, but I did not know it was so near to the school. You ask why I did not tell the girls that I was related to Lord Glyncraig? There were several reasons. In the first place, I was really very much ashamed of my behaviour the day he had come to our farm. I thought he had cast us off completely, and would not be at all pleased to own me as granddaughter. I would not confess it to any of you, but I felt so rough and uncouth when I compared myself with other girls that I did not want Lord Glyncraig to see me, or to know that I was in the neighbourhood. Perhaps some day, so I thought, I might grow more like you, if I tried hard, and then it would be time enough to tell him of my whereabouts. Then, because he had disowned us, I felt much too proud to boast about the relationship at school. If you could not like me for myself, I wouldn't make a bid for popularity on the cheap basis of being his granddaughter. I'm a democrat at heart, and I think people ought to be valued on their own merits entirely. I'd rather be an outsider than shine with a reflected glory."

"You'll be popular now," said Ulyth. "Are you to spend the holidays at Plas Cafn?"

"Yes. Miss Bowes says I must, though I'd far rather have accepted your invitation. Lady Glyncraig was very kind and sweet; she kissed me and said she hoped so much that we should be friends. They have promised to ask Dad to come over for next Christmas and have a big family reunion."

"You won't let them take you away from The Woodlands? We don't want to lose you, dear. You must stay here now—for the sake of the school."

"For my own sake!" cried Rona, flinging her arms round her friend. "Ulyth, I owe everything in the world to you. I understand now how good it was of you to take me into your room and teach me. I was a veritable cuckoo in your nest then, a horrid, tiresome, trespassing bird, a savage, a bear cub, a 'backwoods gawk' as the girls called me. It's entirely thanks to you if at last I'm——"

"The sweetest Prairie Rose that ever came out of the wilderness!" finished Ulyth warmly.

THE END

The Luckiest Girl in the School

First Published 1916

"'Those aren't my papers,' Winona faltered"

Contents

I. A Great Change

II. An Entrance Examination

III. Seaton High School

IV. The Symposium

V. Aunt Harriet

VI. A Crisis

VII. An Autumn Foray

VIII. Concerns a Camera

IX. The School Service Badge

X. A Scare

XI. The Open-air Camp

XII. Captain Winona

XIII. The Hostel

XIV. The Hockey Season

XV. Winona turns Chauffeur

XVI. The Athletic Display

XVII. Back to the Land

XVIII. A Friend in Need

XIX. The Swimming Contest

XX. The Red Cross Hospital

XXI. The End of the Term

I. A Great Change

"There's no doubt about it, we really must economize somehow!" sighed Mrs. Woodward helplessly, with her housekeeping book in one hand, and her bank pass-book in the other, and an array of bills spread out on the table in front of her. "Children, do you hear what I say? The war will make a great difference to our income, and we can't—simply can't—go on living in exactly the old way. The sooner we all realize it the better. I wish I knew where to begin."

"Might knock off going to church, and save the money we give in collections!" suggested Percy flippantly. "It must tot up to quite a decent sum in the course of a year, not to mention pew rent!"

His mother cast a reproachful glance at him.

"Now, Percy, do be serious for once! You and Winona are quite old enough to understand business matters. I must discuss them with somebody. As I said before, we shall really have to economize somehow, and the question is where to begin."

"I saw some hints in a magazine the other day," volunteered Winona, hunting among a pile of papers, and fishing up a copy of The Housewife's Journal. "Here you are! There's a whole article on War Economies. It says you can halve your expenses if you only try. It gives ten different recipes. Number One, Dispense with Servants. Oh, goody! I don't know how the house would get along without Maggie and Mary! Isn't that rather stiff?"

"It's impossible to be thought of for a moment! I should never dream of dismissing maids who have lived with me for years. I've read that article, and it may be practicable for other people, but certainly not for us. Oh, dear! Some of my friends recommend me to remove to the town, and others say 'Stay where you are, and keep poultry!'"

"We can't leave Highfield! We were all born here!" objected Winona decisively.

"And we tried keeping hens some time ago," said Percy. "They laid on an average three-quarters of an egg a year each, as far as I remember."

"I'm afraid we didn't know how to manage them," replied Mrs. Woodward fretfully. "Percy, leave those papers alone! I didn't tell you to turn them over. You're mixing them all up, tiresome boy! Don't touch them again! It's no use trying to discuss business with you children! I shall write and consult Aunt Harriet. Go away, both of you, now! I want to have a quiet half-hour."

Aunt Harriet stood to the Woodward family somewhat in the light of a Delphic oracle. To apply to her was always the very last resource. Matters must have reached a crisis, Winona thought, if they were obliged to appeal to Aunt Harriet's judgment. She followed Percy into the garden with a sober look on her face.

"You don't think mother would really leave Highfield?" she asked her brother anxiously.

"Bunkum!" replied that light-hearted youth. "We always have more or less of a fuss when my school bills come in. It'll soon fizzle out again! Don't you fret yourself. Things will jog on as they always have jogged on. There'll be nothing done, you'll see. Come on and bowl for me, that's a chubby one!"

"But this time mother really seemed to be in earnest," said Winona meditatively, as she helped to put up the stumps.

Mrs. Woodward had been left a widow three years before this story opens. She was a fair, fragile little woman, still pretty, and pathetically helpless. She had been accustomed to lean upon her husband, and now, for lack of firmer support, she leaned upon Winona. Winona was young to act as prop, and though it flattered her sense of importance, it had put a row of wrinkles on her girlish forehead. At fifteen she seemed much older than Percy at sixteen. No one ever dreamt of taking Percy seriously; he was one of those jolly, easy-going, happy-go-lucky, unreliable people who saunter through life with no other aim than to amuse themselves at all costs. To depend upon him was like trusting to a boat without a bottom. Though nominally the eldest, he had little more sense of responsibility than Ernie, the youngest. It was Winona who shouldered the family burdens.

The Woodwards had always lived at Highfield, and in their opinion it was the most desirable residence in the whole of Rytonshire. The house was old enough to be picturesque, but modern enough for comfort. Its quaint gables, mullioned windows and Cromwellian porch were the joy of photographers, while the old-fashioned hall, when the big log fire was lighted, would be hard to beat for coziness. The schoolroom, on the ground floor, had a separate side entrance on to the lawn, leading through a small ante-room where boots and coats and cricket bats and tennis rackets could be kept; the drawing-room had a luxurious ingle nook with cushioned seats, and all the bedrooms but two had a southern aspect. As for the big rambling garden, it was full of delightful old-world flowers that came up year after year: daffodils and violets and snow-flakes, and clumps of pinks, and orange lilies and Canterbury bells, and tall Michaelmas daisies, and ribbon grass and royal Osmunda fern, the sort of flowers that people used to pick in days gone by, put a paper frill round, and call a nosegay or a posy. There was a lawn for tennis and cricket, a pond planted with irises and bulrushes, and a wild corner where crocuses and coltsfoot and golden aconite came up as they liked in the spring time.

Winona loved this garden with somewhat the same attachment that a French peasant bears for the soil upon which he has been reared. She rejoiced in every yard of it. To go away and resign it to others would be tragedy unspeakable. The fear that Aunt Harriet might recommend the family to leave Highfield was sufficient to darken her horizon indefinitely. That her mother had written to consult the oracle she was well aware, for she had been sent to post the letter. She had an instinctive apprehension that the answer would prove a turning-point in her career.

For a day or two everything went on as usual. Mrs. Woodward did not again allude to her difficulties, Percy had conveniently forgotten them, and the younger children were not aware of their existence. Winona lived with a black spot dancing before her mental eyes. It was continually rising up and blotting out the sunshine. On the fourth morning appeared a letter addressed in an old-fashioned slanting handwriting, and bearing the Seaton post mark. Mrs. Woodward read it in silence, and left her toast unfinished. Aunt Harriet's communications generally upset her for the day.

"Come here, Winona," she said agitatedly, after breakfast. "Oh, dear, I wish I knew what to do! It's so very unexpected, but of course it would be a splendid thing for you. If only I could consult somebody! I suppose girls nowadays will have to learn to support themselves, and the war will alter everything, but I'd always meant you to stop at home and look after the little ones for me, and it's very—"

"What does Aunt Harriet say, mother?" interrupted Winona, with a catch in her throat.

"She says a great deal, and I dare say she's right. Oh, this terrible war! Things were so different when I was a girl! You might as well read the letter for yourself, as it concerns you. I always think she's hard on Percy, poor lad! I was afraid the children were too noisy the last time she was here, but they wouldn't keep quiet. I'm sure I try to do my best all round, and you know, Winona, how I said Aunt Harriet—"

But Winona was already devouring the letter.

"10 Abbey Close,

"Seaton,

"August 26th.

"My Dear Florita,—You are quite right to consult me in your difficulties, and are welcome to any advice which I am able to offer you. I am sorry to hear of your financial embarrassments, but I am not surprised. The present increase in the cost of living, and extra taxation, will make retrenchments necessary to everybody. In the circumstances I should not advise you to leave Highfield. ("Oh, thank goodness!" ejaculated Winona.) The expense of a removal would probably cancel what you would otherwise save. Neither should I recommend you to take Percy from Longworth College and send him daily to be coached by your parish curate. From my knowledge of his character I consider the discipline of a public school to be indispensable if he is to grow into worthy manhood, and sooner than allow the wholesome restraint of his house master to be removed at this critical portion of his life, I will myself defray half the cost of his maintenance for the next two years.

"Now as regards Winona. I believe she has ability, and it is high time to begin to think seriously what you mean to do with her. In the future women will have to depend upon themselves, and I consider that all girls should be trained to gain their own living. The foundation of every career is a good education—without this it is impossible to build at all, and Winona certainly cannot obtain it if she remains at home. The new High School at Seaton is offering two open Scholarships to girls resident in the County, the examination for which is on September 8th. I propose that Winona enters for this examination, and that if she should be a successful candidate, she should come to live with me during the period of her attendance at the High School. The education is the best possible, there is a prospect of a University Scholarship to be competed for, and every help and encouragement is given to the girls in their choice of a career. With Winona off your hands, I should suggest that you should engage a competent nursery governess to teach the younger children the elements of order and discipline. I would gladly pay her salary on the understanding that I should myself select her.

"Trusting that these proposals may be of some service, and hoping to hear a better account of your health,

"I remain,

"Your affectionate Aunt

"and Godmother,

"Harriet Beach."

Winona laid down the letter with an agitated gasp. The proposition almost took her breath away.

"What an idea!" she exclaimed indignantly. "Mother, of course you won't even dream of it for an instant! I'd hate to go and live with Aunt Harriet. It's not to be thought of!"

"Well, I don't know, Winona!" wavered Mrs. Woodward. "We must look at it from all sides, and perhaps Aunt Harriet's right, and it really would be for the best. Miss Harmon's a poor teacher, and I'm sure your music, at any rate, is not a credit to her. You played that last piece shockingly out of time. You know you said yourself that you were getting beyond Miss Harmon!"

Whatever impeachments Winona may have brought against her teacher, she was certainly not prepared to admit them now. She rejected the project of the Seaton High School with the utmost energy and determination, bringing into the fray all that force of character which her mother lacked. Poor Mrs. Woodward vacillated feebly—she was generally swayed by whoever was nearest at the moment—and I verily believe Winona's arguments would have prevailed, and the whole scheme would have been abandoned, had not Mr. Joynson opportunely happened to turn up.

Mr. Joynson was a solicitor, and the trustee of Mrs. Woodward's property. He managed most of her business affairs, and some of her private ones as well. She had confidence in his judgment, and she at once thankfully submitted the question of Winona's future to his decision.

"The very thing for her!" he declared. "Do her a world of good to go to a proper school. She's frittering her time away here. Send her to Seaton by all means. What are you to do without her? Nonsense! Nobody's indispensable—especially a girl of fifteen! Pack her off as soon as you can. Doesn't want to go? Oh, she'll sing a different song when once she gets there, you'll see!"

Thus supported by masculine authority, Mrs. Woodward settled the question in the affirmative, and replied to her aunt by return of post.

Naturally such a stupendous event as the exodus of Winona made a sensation in the household.

"Well, of all the rum shows!" exclaimed Percy. "You and Aunt Harriet in double harness! It beats me altogether!"

"It's atrocious!" groaned Winona. "I'm a victim sacrificed for the good of the family. Oh! why couldn't mother have thought of some other way of economizing? I don't want to win scholarships and go in for a career!"

"Buck up! Perhaps you won't win! There'll be others in for the exam., you bet! You'll probably fail, and come whining home like a whipped puppy with its tail between its legs!"

"Indeed I shan't!" flared Winona indignantly. "I've a little more spirit than that, thank you! And why should you imagine I'm going to fail? I suppose I've as much brains as most people!"

"That's right! Upset the pepper-pot! I was only trying to comfort you!" teased Percy. "In my opinion you'll be returned like a bad halfpenny, or one of those articles 'of no use to anybody except the owner.' Aunt Harriet will be cheated of her prey after all!"

"If Win goes away, I shall be the eldest daughter at home," said Letty airily, shaking out her short skirts. "I'll sit at the end of the table, and pour out tea if mother has a headache, and unlock the apple room, and use the best inkpot if I like, and have first innings at the piano."

"You forget about the nursery governess," retorted Winona. "If I go, she comes, and you'll find you've exchanged King Log for King Stork. Oh, very well, just wait and see! It won't be as idyllic as you imagine. I shall be saved the trouble of looking after you, at any rate."

"What I'm trying to ascertain, madam," said Percy blandly, "is whether your ladyship wishes to take up your residence in Seaton or not. With the usual perversity of your sex you pursue a pig policy. When I venture to picture you seated at the board of your venerable aunt, you protest you are a sacrifice; when, on the other hand, I suggest your return to the bosom of your family, you revile me equally."

"You're the most unsympathetic beast I've ever met!" declared Winona aggrievedly.

When she analyzed her feelings, however, she was obliged to allow that they were mixed. Though the prospect of settling down at Seaton filled her with dismay, Percy's gibe at her probable failure touched her pride. Winona had always been counted as the clever member of the family. It would be too ignominious to be sent home labeled unfit. She set her teeth and clenched her fists at the bare notion.

"I'll show them all what I can do if I take a thing up!" she resolved.

In the meantime Mrs. Woodward was immersed in the subject of clothing. Every post brought her boxes of patterns, amongst which she hesitated, lost in choice.

"If I knew whether you're really going to stay at Seaton or not, it would make all the difference, Winona," she fluttered. "It's no use buying you these new things if you're only to wear them at home, but I'd make an effort to send you nice to Aunt Harriet's. I know she'll criticize everything you have on. Dear me, I think I'd better risk it! It would be such a nuisance to have to write for the patterns all over again, and how could I get your dresses fitted when you weren't here to be tried on? Miss Jones is at liberty now, and can come for a week's sewing, but she'll probably be busy if I want her later. Now tell me, which do you really think is the prettier of these two shades? I like the fawn, but I believe the material will spot. What have you done with the lace collar Aunt Harriet gave you last Christmas? She's sure to ask about it if you don't wear it!"

Having decided that on the whole she intended to win a scholarship, Winona bluffed off the matter of her departure.

"I've changed my mind, that's all," she announced to her home circle. "It will be a great comfort to me not to hear Mamie scraping away at her violin in the evenings, or Letty strumming at scales. Think what a relief not to be obliged to rout up Dorrie and Godfrey, and haul them off to school every day! I'm tired of setting an example. You needn't snigger!"

The family grinned appreciatively. They understood Winona.

"Don't you worry! I'll set the example when you're gone," Letty assured her. "I'll be as improving as a copy-book. I wish I'd your chance; I'd stand Aunt Harriet for the sake of going to a big High School. Younger sisters never have any luck! Eldests just sweep the board. I don't know where we come in!"

"Don't you fret, young 'un, you'll score later on!" cooed an indulgent voice from the sofa, where Percy sprawled with a book and a bag of walnuts. "Remember that when you're still in all the bliss and sparkle of your teens, Winona'll be a mature and passée person of twenty-two. 'That eldest Miss Woodward's getting on, you know!' people will say, and somebody'll reply: 'Yes, poor thing!'"

"They won't when I've got a career," retorted Winona, pelting Percy with his own walnut-shells.

"You assured us the other day that you despised such vanities."

"Well, it depends. Perhaps I'll be a lady tram conductor, and punch tickets, or a post-woman, or drive a Government van!"

"If those are careers for girls, bag me for a steeple jack," chirped Dorrie.

It was perhaps a good thing for Winona that such a short interval elapsed between the acceptance of Aunt Harriet's proposal and the date of the scholarship examination. The ten days were very busy ones, for there seemed much to be done in the way of preparation. Miss Jones, the dressmaker, was installed in the nursery with the sewing-machine, and demanded frequent tryings-on, a process Winona hated.

"I shall buy all my clothes ready made when I'm grown up!" she declared.

"They very seldom fit, and have to be altered," returned her mother. "Do stand still, Winona! And I hope you're learning up a few dates and facts for this examination. You ought to be studying every morning. If only Miss Harmon were home, I'd have asked her to coach you. I'm afraid she'll be disappointed at your leaving, but of course she can't expect to keep you for ever. I heard a rumor that she means to give up her school altogether, and go and live with her uncle. I hope it's true, and then I can take the little ones away with an easy conscience. I don't want to treat her badly, poor thing, but I'm sure teaching's not her vocation."

Winona really made a heroic effort to prepare herself for the coming ordeal. She retired to a secluded part of the garden and read over her latest school books. The process landed her in the depths of despondency.

"I'll never remember anything—never!" she mourned to her family. "To try and get all this into my head at once is like bolting a week's meals at a single go! I know a date here and there, and I've a hazy notion of French and Latin verbs, and a general impression of other subjects, but if they ask me for anything definite, such as the battles of the Wars of the Roses, or a list of the products of India, I'm done for!"

"Go in for Post-Impressionism, then," suggested Percy. "Write from a romantic standpoint, and don't condescend to mere facts. Stick in a quotation or two, and a drawing if possible, and make your paper sound eloquent and dramatic and poetical, and all the rest of it. They'll mark you low for accuracy, but put you on ten per cent. for style, you bet! I know a chap who tries it on at the Coll., and it always pays."

"It's worth thinking about, certainly," said Winona, shutting her books with a weary yawn.

II. An Entrance Examination

The Seaton High School was a large, handsome brick building exactly opposite the public park. It had only been erected two years ago, so everything about it was absolutely new and up-to-date. It supplied a great need in the rapidly growing city, and indeed offered the best and most go-ahead education to be obtained in the district.

It was the aim of the school to fit girls for various professions and careers; there was a classical and a modern side, a department for domestic economy, and a commercial class for instruction in business details. Art, music, and nature study were well catered for, and manual training was not forgotten. As the school was intended to become in time a center for the county, the Governors had offered two open free scholarships to be competed for by girls resident in other parts of Rytonshire, hoping by this means to attract pupils from the country places round about.

On the morning of September 8th, precisely at 8.35, Winona presented herself at the school for the scholarship examination. There were twenty other candidates awaiting the ordeal, in various stages of nervousness or sangfroid. Some looked dejected, some confident, and others hid their feelings under a mask of stolidity. Winona joined them shyly. They were all unknown to one another, and so far nobody had plucked up courage to venture a remark. It is horribly depressing to sit on a form staring at twenty taciturn strangers. Winona bore for awhile with the stony silence, then—rather frightened at the sound of her own voice—she announced:

"I suppose we're all going in for this same exam.!" It was a trite commonplace, but it broke the ice. Everybody looked relieved. The atmosphere seemed to clear.

"Yes, we're all going in—that's right enough," replied a ruddy-haired girl in spectacles, "but there are only two scholarships, so nineteen of us are bound to fail—that's logic and mathematics and all the rest of it."

"Whew! A nice cheering prospect. Wish they'd put us out of our misery at once!" groaned a stout girl with a long fair pigtail.

"I'm all upset!" shivered another.

"It's like a game of musical chairs," suggested a fourth. "We're all scrambling for the same thing, and some are bound to be out of it."

The ruddy-haired girl laughed nervously.

"Suppose we've got to take our sporting luck!" she murmured.

"If nineteen are sure to lose, two are sure to win at any rate," said Winona. "That's logic and mathematics and all the rest of it, too!"

"Right you are! That's a more cheering creed! It doesn't do to cry 'Miserere me' too soon!" chirped a jolly-looking dark-eyed girl with a red hair-ribbon. "'Never say die till you're dead,' is my motto!"

"I'm wearing a swastika for a mascot," said a short, pale girl, exhibiting her charm, which hung from a chain round her neck. "I never am lucky, so I thought I'd try what this would do for me for once. I know English history beautifully down to the end of Queen Anne, and no further, and if they set any questions on the Georges I'll be stumped."

"I've learnt Africa, but Asia would floor me!" observed another, looking up from a geography book, in which she was making a last desperate clutch at likely items of knowledge. "I never can remember which side of India Madras is on; I get it hopelessly mixed with Bombay."

"I wish to goodness they'd go ahead and begin," mourned the owner of the red hair-ribbon. "It's this waiting that knocks the spirit out of me. Patience isn't my pet virtue. I call it cruelty to animals to leave us on tenter-hooks."

Almost as if in answer to her pathetic appeal the door opened, and a teacher appeared. In a brisk, business-like manner she marshaled the candidates into line, and conducted them to the door of the head-mistress' study, where one by one they were admitted for a brief private interview. Winona's turn came about the middle of the row.

"Pass in: as quickly as you can, please!" commanded the teacher, motioning her onward.

As Winona entered, she gave one hasty comprehensive glance round the room, taking in a general impression of books, busts and pictures, then focussed her attention on the figure that sat at the desk. It was only at a later date that she grasped any details of Miss Bishop's personality; at that first meeting she realized nothing but the pair of compelling blue eyes that drew her forward like a magnet.

"Your name?"

"Winona Woodward."

"Age?"

"Fifteen."

"Residence?"

"Highfield, Ashbourne, near Great Marston."

"How long have you lived in the county of Rytonshire?"

"Ever since I was born."

Miss Bishop hastily ticked off these replies on a page of her ledger, and handed Winona a card.

"This will admit you to the examination room. Remember that instead of putting your name at the head of your papers, you are to write the number given you on your card. Any candidate writing her own name will be disqualified. Next girl!"

It was all over in two minutes. Winona seemed hardly to have entered the room before she was out again.

"Move on, please!" said the teacher, marshaling the little crowd round the door. "Will those who have seen Miss Bishop kindly go along the corridor."

Several girls who had been standing in a knot made a sudden bolt, and pushed their fellows forward. Somebody jogged Winona's elbow. Her card slid from her grasp and fell on to the ground. As she bent in the crush to pick it up, the ruddy-haired girl stooped on a like errand.

"Dropped mine too! Clumsy, isn't it?" she laughed. "Hope we've got our own! What was your number?"

"I hadn't time to look."

"Well, I'm sure mine was eleven, so that's all right. I wish you luck! Won't we just be glad when it's over, rather!"

At the further end of the corridor was a door with a notice pinned on to it. "Examination for County Scholarships." A mistress stood there, and scrutinized each girl's card as she entered, directing her to a seat in the room marked with the corresponding number. Winona walked rather solemnly to the desk labeled 10. The great ordeal was at last about to begin. She wondered what would be the end of it. Little thrills of nervousness seemed running down her back like drops from a shower-bath. Her hands were trembling. With a great effort she pulled herself together.

"It's no use funking!" she thought. "I'll make as good a shot as I can at things, and if I fail—well, I shall have plenty of companions in misfortune, at any rate!"

A pile of foolscap paper with red-ruled margins, a clean sheet of white blotting paper, and a penholder with a new nib lay ready. Each of the other twenty victims was surveying a supply of similar material. On the blackboard was chalked the word "Silence."

In a dead hush the candidates sat and waited. Exactly on the stroke of nine Miss Bishop entered and handed a sheaf of printed questions to the teacher in charge, who distributed them round the room. The subject for the first hour was arithmetic. Winona read over her paper slowly. She felt capable of managing it, all except the last two problem sums, which were outside her experience. She knew it would mainly be a question of accuracy.

"I'll work them each twice if I've only time," she thought, starting at number one.

An hour is after all only made up of sixty minutes, and these seemed to fly with incredible rapidity. The teacher on the platform had sternly reproved a girl guilty of counting aloud in an agitated whisper, threatening instant expulsion for a repetition of such an offense, but with this solitary exception nobody transgressed the rules. All sat quietly absorbed in their work, and an occasional rustle of paper or scratch of a pen were the only sounds audible. At precisely five minutes to ten the deity on the platform sounded a bell, and ordered papers to be put together. She collected them, handed them to another mistress, then without any break proceeded to deal out the questions for the next hour's examination. This was in geography, and here Winona was not on such sure ground. Granted that you are acquainted with certain rules in arithmetic, it is always possible to work out problems, but it needed more knowledge than she possessed to write answers to the riddles that confronted her. She had never heard of "The Iron Gates," could not place Alcona and Altona, was hazy as to the whereabouts of the Mourne Mountains, and utterly unable to draw an accurate map of the Balkan States. She scored a little on Canada, for she had learnt North America last term at Miss Harmon's, but with Australia and New Zealand she was imperfectly acquainted. She wrote away, getting hotter and hotter as she realized her deficiencies, winding up five minutes before the time allotted, in a flushed and decidedly inky condition.

At eleven a short interval was allowed, and the candidates thankfully adjourned. Outside in the corridor they compared notes.

"Well, of all detestable papers this geography one is the limit!" declared an aggrieved voice.

It was the girl who had said that she always mixed Madras and Bombay, and who had studied her text-book up to the last available moment. Apparently her eleventh hour industry had not sufficed to tide her over her difficulties.

"It was catchy in parts," agreed the owner of the swastika, "but I liked one or two questions. I just happened to know them, so I bowled ahead. That's what comes of wearing a mascot!"

"Don't crow too soon!" laughed the girl with the fair pigtail. "Remember, there are four other exams. to follow. Your luck may leave you at any moment."

"Don't mention more exams.! I feel inclined to turn tail and run home!" declared another.

"There's the bell! Don't give us much time, do they? Now for the torture chamber again! Brace your nerves!"

"I wonder if most of them have done better or worse than I have!" thought Winona, as she took her seat once more at No. 10 desk. "A good many were grumbling, but that sandy-haired girl in the spectacles said nothing. No more did the one with the red hair-ribbon. Of course they might be feeling too agonized for words, but on the other hand they might be secretly congratulating themselves."

It was not the moment, however, for speculation as to her neighbors' progress. The next set of questions was being distributed, and she took up her copy eagerly. Her heart fell as she read it over. Her knowledge of English history was not very accurate, and the facts demanded were for the most part exactly those which she could not remember. The dread of failure loomed up large. She could only attempt about half of the questions, and even in these she was not ready with dates. Then suddenly Percy's advice flashed into her mind. "Write from a romantic standpoint, and make your paper sound poetical." It seemed rather a forlorn hope, and she feared it would scarcely satisfy her examiners, but in such a desperate situation anything was worth trying. Winona possessed a certain facility in essay writing. Prose composition had been her favorite lesson at Miss Harmon's. She collected her wits now, and did the very utmost of which she was capable in the matter of style. Choosing question No. 4, "Write a life of Lady Jane Grey," she proceeded to treat the subject in as post-impressionist a manner as possible. The pathetic tragedy of the young Queen had always appealed to her imagination, and she could have had no more congenial a theme upon which to write, if she had been given free choice of all the characters in the history book.

"'Whom the gods love die young,'" she began, and paused. It seemed an excellent opening, if she could only continue in the same strain, but what ought to come next? Her thoughts flew to a painting of Lady Jane Grey, which she had once seen at a loan collection of Tudor portraits. Why should she not describe it? Her pen flew rapidly as she wrote a word-picture of the sweet, pale face, so round and childish in spite of its earnest expression; the smooth yellow hair, the gray eyes bent demurely over the book. Her heroine seemed beginning to live. Now for her surroundings. A year ago Winona had paid a visit to Hampton Court, and her remembrance of its associations was still keen and vivid. She described its old-world garden by the side of the Thames, where the little King Edward VI. must often have roamed with his pretty cousin Jane: the two wonderful ill-starred children, playing for a brief hour in happy unconsciousness of the fate that faced them. What did they talk about, she asked, as they stood on the paved terrace and watched the river hurrying by? Plato, perchance, and his philosophy, or the marvelous geography-book with woodcuts of foreign beasts that had been specially printed for the young king's use. Did they compare notes about their tutors? Jane would certainly hold a brief for her much-loved Mr. Elmer, who, in sharp contrast to her parents' severity, taught her so gently and patiently that she grudged the time which was not spent in his presence. Edward might bemoan the ill-luck of his whipping-boy, who had to bear the floggings which Court etiquette denied to the royal shoulders, and perhaps would declare that when he was grown up, and could make the laws himself, no children should be beaten for badly said lessons, and Jane would agree with him, and then they would pick the red damask roses that Cardinal Wolsey had planted, and walk back under the shadow of the clipped yew hedge to eat cherries and junket in the room that looked out towards the sunset.

Winona had warmed to her work. Her imagination, always her strongest faculty, completely carried her away. She pictured her heroine's life, not from the outside, as historians would chronicle it, a mere string of events and dates, but from the inner view of a girl's standpoint. Did Jane wish to leave her Plato for the bustle of a Court? Did she care for the gay young husband forced upon her by her ambitious parents? Surely for her gentle nature a crown held few allurements. The clouds were gathering thick and fast, and burst in a waterspout of utter ruin. Jane's courage was calm and hopeful as that of Socrates in the dialogues she had loved.

"… your soul was pure and true,

The good stars met in your horoscope,

Made you of spirit, fire and dew."

quoted Winona enthusiastically. Browning always stirred her blood, and threw her into poetical channels. She cast about in her mind for any other appropriate verses.

"Ah, broken is the golden bowl, the spirit gone for ever,

Let the bell toll—a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river.

Come, let the burial rite be read—the funeral song be sung,

An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young,

A dirge for her, the doubly dead, in that she died so young."

"So they finished their foul deed, and laid her to rest," wrote Winona, "the earthly part, that is, which perishes, for the true part of her they could not touch. Farewell, sweet innocent soul, of whom the world was not worthy. To you surely may apply Andre de Chénier's tender lines:

"'Au banquet de la vie à peine commencé

Un instant seulement mes lèvres out pressé

La coupe en mes mains encore pleine.'

Vale, little Queen! May it be well with thee! Ave atque vale!"

Winona glanced anxiously at the clock as with a hard breath she paused for a moment and laid down her pen. Her theme had taken her so long that she had only ten minutes left for the other questions. There was no romantic side to be expressed in these, so she scribbled away half-heartedly. Her uncertain memory, which had readily supplied quotations from Browning or Edgar Allan Poe, struck altogether when asked for such sordid details as the names of the Cabal ministry, or the history of the Long Parliament. The bell rang, and left her with her paper only half finished. At one o'clock the candidates were given an hour's rest, and a hot lunch was served to them in the dining-hall. At two they returned to their desks, and the examination continued until half-past four. Winona found the questions tolerable. She did fairly, but not at all brilliantly. Her brains were not accustomed to such long-sustained efforts, and as the afternoon wore on, a neuralgic headache began, and sent sharp throbs of pain across her forehead. It was so irksome to write pages of Latin or French verbs; she had to summon all her courage to make herself do it. The last hour seemed an interminable penance.

At half-past four, twenty-one rather dispirited candidates filed from the room.

"Well, thank goodness it's over! I never want to write another word in my life. My hand's stiff with cramp!" exclaimed the girl with the red hair-ribbon to a sympathetic audience in the passage.

"It was awful! I didn't answer half the questions. My swastika isn't worth its salt. I shall give it away!" mourned the owner of the mascot.

"They expected us to know so very much; we should be absolute encyclopaedias if we had all that pat off at our fingers' ends!" sighed the girl with the fair pigtail.

"How did you get on?" Winona asked the ruddy-haired girl, who was wiping her spectacles nervously.

"Oh, I don't know. It's so hard to tell. I answered most of the questions, but of course I can't say whether they're right or wrong. Wasn't the Latin translation just too horrible? I yearned for a dictionary. And some of the French grammar questions were absolute catches!"

"We went on too long," said Winona. "It would have been much better to spread the exam, over two days."

"Do you think so? I'd rather have 'sudden death' myself. It's such a relief to feel it's finished. It would be wretched to have to begin again to-morrow. I hardly slept a wink last night for thinking about it. I'm going to try and forget it now."

Winona nodded good-by to her fellow candidates, and took her leave. How many of them would she see again, she wondered, and which among all the number would have the luck?

"Certainly not myself," she thought ruefully. "I know my papers weren't up to standard. I believe that red-haired girl will be one. She looked clever!"

Winona had spent the preceding night with Aunt Harriet, who offered to keep her until the result of the examination should be published, but the prospect of spending a week of suspense at Abbey Close was so formidable, that she had begged to be allowed to return home, excusing herself on the plea that she would like to be with Percy during the remainder of his holidays. It was a very subdued Winona who reached Highfield next afternoon.

"Hello, Tiddleywinks! You've lost the starch out of you!" Percy greeted her. "Did they say they wouldn't have you at any price?"

"The result won't be out till the fifteenth, but I expect I've failed," answered Winona gloomily.

"Buck up, young 'un! Look at yours truly! I fail nine times out of ten, and do I take it to heart?"

Winona laughed in spite of herself. Percy's complacency over small achievements was proverbial. But she had higher ambitions, and the cloud of depression soon settled down again. Her temper, not always her strong point, displayed a degree of irritability that drove her family to the verge of mutiny.

"Really, Winona, I don't remember you so fractious since you were cutting your teeth!" complained her much-tried mother.

The days dragged slowly by. Winona had never before realized that each hour could hold so many minutes. On the morning of the 15th she came down to breakfast with dark rings round her eyes.

"I shall be glad to be put out of my misery!" she thought, as the postman's rap-tap sounded at the door.

Mamie made a rush for the letter-box, and returned bearing a foolscap envelope addressed to:

Miss Winona Woodward,

Highfield,

Ashbourne,

nr. Great Marston.

Winona opened it with trembling fingers. But as she read, her face flushed and her eyes sparkled.

"I have much pleasure in informing you" (so ran the letter) "that the Governors of the Seaton High School have decided to award you a Scholarship tenable for two years…"

In silence she passed the paper to her mother.

"Congratulations, dear child!" cried Mrs. Woodward, clapping her hands. "It's the unexpected that happens!"

"Oh, my goodness!" ejaculated Percy. "You never mean to tell me that Tiddleywinks has actually been and gone and won!"

III. Seaton High School

The autumn term at Seaton High School began on September 22nd. On the 21st Winona set forth with great flourish of trumpets, feeling more or less of a heroine. To have been selected for a scholarship among twenty-one candidates was a distinction that even Aunt Harriet would admit. In the brief interval pending her departure, her home circle had treated her with a respect they had never before accorded her.

"I hope you'll do well, child," said her mother, half proud and half tearful when it came to the parting. "We shall miss you here, but when you get on yourself you must help the younger ones. I shall look to you to push them on in life."

There is a certain satisfaction in the knowledge that you are considered the prop of the family. Winona's eyes glowed. In imagination she was already Principal of a large school, and providing posts as assistant mistresses for Letty, Mamie and Doris, that is to say unless she turned her attention to medicine, but in that case she could be head of a Women's Hospital, and have them as house surgeons or dispensers, or something else equally distinguished and profitable. It might even be possible to provide occupation for Godfrey or Ernie, though this was likely to prove a tougher job than placing the girls. With such a brilliant beginning, the future seemed an easy walk-over.

Mrs. Woodward was exulting over the fact that she had engaged Miss Jones when she did, and that Winona's school clothes were all made and finished. There had been a fluster at the last, when it was discovered that her mackintosh was fully six inches too short for her new skirts, and that she had outgrown her thick boots, but a hurried visit to Great Marston had remedied these deficiencies, and the box was packed to everybody's satisfaction. There was a universal feeling in the family that such an outfit could not fail to meet with Aunt Harriet's approval. The first sight of the nightdress case and the brush-and-comb bag must wring admiration from her. They had been bought at a bazaar, and were altogether superior to those in daily use. As for the handkerchief case, Letty had decided that unless one equally well embroidered were presented to her on her next birthday, she would be obliged to assert her individuality by showing temper.

Winona walked into the dressing-room of the High School on September 22nd with a mixture of shyness and importance. On the whole the latter predominated. It was a trifle embarrassing to face so many strangers, but it was something to have won a scholarship. She wondered who was the other fortunate candidate.

"I expect it will be that red-haired girl with the spectacles," she thought. "I believe she answered every question, though she was rather quiet about it."

She looked round, but could not see the ruddy locks, nor indeed any of the companions who had taken the examination with her.

"Hunting for some one you know?" asked a girl who had appropriated the next hook to hers.

"Yes, at least I'm not sure whether she'll be here or not. I believe her name's Marjorie Kaye."

"Never heard of her!"

"There are heaps of new girls," volunteered another who stood by.

"I wondered if she'd won a County Scholarship," added Winona.

"Ask me a harder! I tell you I've never heard her name before."

"I've won the other scholarship."

Winona's voice was intended to sound very casual.

"Indeed!"

Her neighbor was taking off her boots, and did not seem as much impressed as the occasion merited.

"Oh! so you're one of the 'outlanders,'" sniggered another. "It's a sort of 'go into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in' business."

"I suppose we shall be having Council School Scholarships next!" drawled a third.

They were friends, and went off together without another glance at Winona. She followed soberly, wondering what she ought to do next. She had a vague idea that the winner of a scholarship should present herself at the Head Mistress' study to receive a few words of encouragement and congratulation on her success. At the top of the stairs she met the mistress who had presided over the examination. The latter greeted her unceremoniously.

"Winona Woodward, you've been placed in V.a., first room to the right, round the corner. You'll find the number on the door."

Other girls were hurrying in the same direction. Winona entered with what seemed to her quite a small crowd. Everybody appeared to know where to go, except herself. She stood in such evident hesitation that one, more good-natured than the rest, remarked:

"You'd better seize on any desk you fancy, as quick as you can. They're getting taken up fast, if you want a front one!"

Winona slid into the nearest seat at hand, and appropriated it by placing her note-book, pencil-box, ruler, atlas and dictionaries inside the desk.

The room was filling quickly. Every moment fresh arrivals hurried in and took their places. Marjorie Kaye was nowhere to be seen, but in the second row sat the dark-eyed girl with the red ribbon in her hair. She turned round and nodded pleasantly.

"So she's got the other scholarship!" thought Winona. "I shouldn't have expected it. I'd have staked my reputation on the sandy-haired one. Well, I suppose her answers weren't correct, after all. I'm rather glad on the whole it's this girl; she looks jolly."

At that moment Miss Huntley, the form mistress, entered and took the call-over, and the day's work began. Each girl was given a time-table and a list of the books she would require, and after that, class succeeded class until one o'clock, with a ten minutes' interval for lunch at eleven. The conclusion of the morning left Winona with a profound respect for High School methods. After the easy-going routine of Miss Harmon's it was like stepping into a new educational world. She supposed she would be able to keep pace with it when she got her books, but the mathematics, at any rate, were much more advanced than what she had before attempted. As she walked down the corridor, the girl with the red hair-ribbon overtook her, and claimed acquaintance.

"So you're Winona Woodward? And I'm Garnet Emerson. We had the luck, after all! I'm sure I never expected to win. It was the greatest surprise to me when the letter arrived. Yes, five of the other candidates are at school, but they've been put in IV.a., and IV.b. Marjorie Kaye? You mean that girl in spectacles? No, she's not come. I heard her say that if she didn't win she was to be sent somewhere else. Where are you staying? With an aunt? I'm with a second cousin. She's nice, but I wish they'd open a hostel; it would be topping to be with a heap of others, wouldn't it? We'd get up acting in the evenings, and all sorts of fun. Well, perhaps that may come later on. I shall see you this afternoon, shan't I?"

"Yes, I'm coming for my books. It's too late to stop and get them now."

Afternoon attendance at the High School was not nominally compulsory. All the principal subjects were taken in the morning, but there were classes for drawing, singing or physical culture from half-past two until four, and practically very few girls had more than one free afternoon in a week. Any who liked might do preparation in their own form room, and many availed themselves of the permission, especially those who came from a distance, and stayed for dinner at the school. When Winona first examined her time-table she had not considered its demands excessively formidable, but before she had been a week at Seaton she began to realize that she would have very few spare moments to call her own. Miss Bishop believed in girls being fully occupied, and in addition to the ordinary form work, expected every one to take part in the games, and in the numerous societies and guilds which had been instituted. Winona found that she was required to join the Debating Club, and the Patriotic Knitting Guild, while a Dramatic Society and a Literary Association would be prepared to open their doors to her if she proved worthy of admission. So far, however, she considered that she had enough on her hands. The demands of her new life were almost overwhelming, and she lived from day to day in a whirl of fresh experiences. It took her some time even to grasp the names of the seventeen other girls in her form. Audrey Redfern, her left-hand neighbor, was friendly, but Olave Parry, at the desk in front, ignored her very existence. She gathered that Audrey, like herself, was a new-comer, while Olave had attended the school since its foundation; but she did not realize the significance of this in the difference of their behavior to her. The fact was that the three new girls in the form were on probation. The others, who had come up from the Lower School, and were well versed in the traditions of the place, were not willing to admit them too quickly into favor. They talked them over in private.

"Audrey Redfern seems a decent enough little soul," said Estelle Harrison. "There's really nothing offensive about her, to my mind. Garnet Emerson I rather like. I fancy she could be jolly. I'm going to speak to her in a day or two, but not too soon."

"What do you think of Winona Woodward?" queried Bessie Kirk.

"Much too big an opinion of herself. Began bragging about her scholarship first thing. She needs sitting upon, to my mind."

"She's pretty!"

"Yes, and she knows it, too!"

"Well, she can't help knowing it. I call her most striking looking. Her eyes are lovely, though I never can make out whether they're dark gray or hazel under those long lashes. Her hair's just the color of bronze, and such a lot of it! It beats Joyce Newton's hollow; besides, Joyce has absolutely white eyelashes."

"Like a pig's!" laughed Hilda Langley. "I agree with you that Winona's pretty, but I don't think she'll ever be a chum of mine, all the same."

The result of the stand-off attitude on the part of the rest of the form was the cementing of a close friendship between Winona and Garnet. It seemed natural for the holders of the two County Scholarships to become chums, also they found each other's society congenial. It marked a new epoch for Winona. She had had few friends of her own age. She had been the eldest pupil at Miss Harmon's small school, and her sisters were so much younger than herself that their interests were on a different plane to her own. Garnet, with her merry brown eyes, eager and enthusiastic nature, and amusing tongue, seemed a revelation.

The two girls spent every available moment together, and soon waxed confidential on the subject of their home affairs.

"We're all named after precious stones," said Garnet. "Pearl, my eldest sister, is classics mistress at a school; Jacinthe is studying for a health visitor, Ruby is at a Horticultural College, and Beryl is secretary at a Settlement. Aren't there a lot of us? All girls too, and not a single brother. I'm the baby of the family! I'd like to go to Holloway, if I can get a scholarship, but that remains to be seen. Meanwhile two years at the High's not so bad, is it? I expect I'm going to enjoy it. Aren't you?"

"Yes—perhaps. If the rest of the form were nicer, I might."

"Oh, they'll come round! We can't expect them to take us to their bosoms straight off! We're goods on approval."

"We've as much right here as they have!" grunted Winona.

"But they were here first, and of course that always counts for something. We shall have to show that we're worth our salt before we get any footing in the form. The question is how best to do it."

Winona shook her head. It was beyond her comprehension.

"I had a few tips from Jacinthe," ruminated Garnet. "She was Captain the last year she was at school, so she ought to know. You see, we've to steer between Scylla and Charybdis. We mustn't push ourselves forward too violently, or they'll call us cheeky, but on the other hand, if we're content to take a back seat, we may stay there for the rest of the term. Comprenez vous? It's a matter of seizing one's chance. I've an idea floating about in my mind. Do you happen to be anything extra special at singing, or reciting, or acting?"

"I haven't had much practice at acting, but I can play the guitar. Mummie taught me. She lived in Spain for three years when she was a girl, and learnt there."

"The very thing! How perfectly splendid! I play the mandoline myself, and the two go so well together. Did you bring your guitar with you?"

"No. I didn't think I should have any time for it."

"But you could write for it, couldn't you?"

"Oh, yes! Mummie would send it to me."

"Well, this is my idea. You know next week there's to be a big general meeting of the whole school to choose a Games Captain. So far the games department here is rather in its infancy. I've been making enquiries, and there isn't such a thing as a form trophy. There certainly ought to be, to spur on enthusiasm. I'm going to pluck up my courage, tackle one or two members of the Sixth, and suggest that after the meeting we hold a sing-song, and take a collection to provide a form trophy. I don't believe anybody's ever thought of it."

"Ripping! But what exactly is a sing-song?"

"Oh, just an informal concert. I thought if you and I played the mandoline and guitar together, it would make a good item. I see two of the prefects coming along over there, I believe I'll go and ask them."

"I admire your courage!"

Garnet returned in a few minutes, tolerably well satisfied with her mission.

"I believe the idea will catch on," she announced. "Of course I couldn't expect them to say 'yes' immediately. They were very cautious, and said they would put it to the form. I've sown the seed at any rate, and we must wait for developments."

Apparently Garnet's proposition proved acceptable to the Sixth, for the very next day a notice was pinned on the board in the hall:

"There will be a General Meeting of the School on Tuesday, October 4th, at 3 p.m., for the purpose of electing a Games Captain.

"The meeting will be followed by a Symposium, when a collection will be taken, the proceeds of which will be devoted to the purchase of a form trophy.

"Performers kindly submit their names without delay to M. HOWELL, as the program is being made up."

Garnet was one of the first to read the notice, and she started off at once to the Sixth Form room. She sought out Winona on her return.

"So my little scheme's come off!" she beamed. "You bet the Sixth will take all the credit for evolving it, but I don't care! I've put our names down for a mandoline and guitar duet, and said we'd be ready to help with any accompaniments they like. Meg Howell just jumped at that. It seems Patricia Marshall and Clarice Nixon are going to sing a Christy Minstrel song, and she thought our instruments would add to the effect no end. I tell you we shall score. Did you write for your guitar?"

"Yes, I expect it will be sent off to-day."

"Then we must begin and practice. I've got a topping duet that's quite easy. Can you come home with me after school to-morrow for half an hour or so? I know my cousins will be glad to see you. Then we might try over one or two things, and see how they go."

"It will be all right if I tell Aunt Harriet I shall be late," agreed Winona.

The instrument arrived the same evening, so she was able to keep her promise to Garnet next day. Fortunately they had only one class that afternoon, and were able to leave school at half-past three. Garnet's cousins lived within a short tramcar ride. They were musical people, and sympathized with her project. Garnet led Winona into the drawing-room, and began without waste of time.

"Let me look at your guitar! Oh, what a beauty! What's the label inside? Juan Da Costa, Seville! Then it must be Spanish. I suppose they're the best. My mandoline's Italian; it was made in Milan. We must tune them together, mustn't we? Can you read well? This is the book of duets. I thought this Barcarolle would be easy, it has such a lovely swing about it. Here's the guitar part."

IV. The Symposium

By the aid of diligent practicing in private, and several rehearsals at Garnet's house, the girls at last got their duet to run smoothly. Garnet was frankly pleased.

"The two instruments go so nicely together! A mandoline's ever so much better played with a guitar accompaniment than with the piano. I say, suppose we were to get an encore!"

"I don't suppose anything of the sort."

"Don't be too modest. It's as well to be prepared."

"I'm not going to practice anything more, so I warn you."

"Well, take something you know, from your own book. This song. I could play the air very softly on the mandoline, and we'd both sing it. That won't give you any extra trouble."

"It isn't the trouble so much as the state of my fingers. They're getting sore. If I let a blister come, I shan't be able to play at all."

"Then for goodness' sake don't play any more to-day, and soak your fingers in alum when you get home."

The general meeting on Tuesday was a very important event, for it marked the opening of the winter session of games and guilds. During the first week or ten days of the autumn term the girls had enough to do in settling into the work of their new forms, but now October was come everybody began to think about hockey, and to consider the advisability of beginning rehearsals for various Christmas performances.

"I always hate the end of September," proclaimed Grace Olliver. "It's so fine, and the geraniums are still so fresh in the park, that you're deceived into thinking it's still summer, yet when you try to play tennis, you find the courts horrible, and you cut up the grass in half an hour. I'm glad when the leaves all come off, and you know it's autumn, and you look up your hockey jersey, and think what sport you had last winter over 'The Dramatic.' I'm fond enough of cricket, but I'd really rather have winter than summer. On the whole, there's more going on."

"I'm glad Margaret Howell's head of the school," replied Evelyn Richards. "She's A1 at all the guilds, though I don't think she's much chance of being elected Games Captain."

"All the better. It's quite enough for Margaret to act head. She's good enough at that, I admit. Makes an ideal president. But a girl who's literary isn't generally sporty as well. It stands to reason she can't do both properly."

"Meg doesn't want to be Games Captain; it's not in her line," volunteered Beatrice, Margaret's younger sister. "She told me to tell you all to vote for Kirsty Paterson."

"Kirsty's topping!"

"What's this Symposium we're to have after the meeting?" asked Grace.

"Why, I don't exactly know," laughed Evelyn. "I looked 'symposium' up in the dictionary, and it said: 'literally a drinking together; a merry feast; a convivial party.' I don't know what we're going to drink, unless we bring lemon kali and pass it round, like they used to do the loving cup in the Middle Ages!"

"I suppose it'll be just a kind of concert. But how about the collection? What are we supposed to give?"

"Anything you like, from a penny upwards," replied Beatrice. "Meg calculated that two hundred and six pennies would be seventeen and twopence, and some girls will probably give more, so she thinks we're sure of a sovereign, and that ought to buy a decent trophy, something to begin upon, at any rate. One must make a start."

"Right you are! A penny won't break the banks of even the First Form babes, and millionaires can give their half-crowns, if they're so disposed!"

Punctually at 3 p.m. on the following Tuesday, the whole school assembled in the gymnasium. No mistress was present, for on occasions such as this Miss Bishop believed in self-government. She could trust her head girl and prefects, and had armed them with full authority. Winona anticipated the meeting with excitement and curiosity. It was altogether outside her experience. She had never in her life attended such a function. Garnet, whose elder sisters had been at large schools, had sketched an outline of what was likely to take place, but even Garnet's information was second-hand. Though she had now been exactly a fortnight at Seaton, Winona still felt more or less of a new-comer. She had hardly spoken to any one outside her own form, and knew the names of comparatively few of her two hundred and five schoolfellows. Without Garnet she would have been quite at a loss how to steer her course in this great ocean of school life; she thankfully accepted her friend as pilot, and for the present was content to follow her lead. The two girls presented themselves in the gymnasium in good time, and took their seats among the other members of V.a. The front bench was occupied by a row of ten-year-olds who had come up this term from the Preparatory, and who sat squeezing each others' arms, highly impressed with the importance of their remove. Behind them Form II., a giggling crew rather more au fait with the ways of the school, effervesced occasionally into excited squeals, and were instantly suppressed by a prefect. The Third and Fourth, which comprised the bulk of the girls from twelve to fifteen, occupied the middle of the hall, a lively, self-confident and rather obstreperous set, all at that awkward age which is anxious to claim privileges, but not particularly ready to submit to the authorized code. Every one of them was talking at the extreme pitch of her voice, and the noise was considerable. Patricia Marshall and Clarice Nixon looked at each other and frowned ominously, but as the hands of the big clock pointed almost to three, they judged it better not to interfere, and the din continued.

At the stroke of the hour, Margaret Howell strode on to the platform. She was a tall, fine-looking girl of seventeen, with bright hazel eyes, regular features, and a thick brown plait that fell below her waist. Her ready powers of speech, clear ringing voice, brisk decisive tone, and a certain personal magnetism showed her to be that rara avis, a born leader. It was fortunate indeed for the school that its headship this year should have fallen to Margaret. The need for a firm but judicious hand on the reins was great. During the two previous years of the school's existence the self-government had been in a state of evolution. For the first year, when everybody was new together, comparatively little could be done. The school must find itself before it began to form its private code of laws. In the second year ill-luck had raised to the post of honor Ivy Chatterton, a clever but most untactful girl, whose quick temper had brought her into constant collision with her prefects. Many were the squalls which had swept over the school, of so serious a nature sometimes as almost to wreck several of the guilds. The younger girls, following the example of their elders, had quarreled hotly, and indulged in an incredible amount of petty spite, and altogether the current tone had been anything but desirable. Miss Bishop, who had seen, to her sorrow, this downward trend, had welcomed the advent of Margaret, believing her to have the ability to cope with difficult situations, and at the same time to have the grit and self-control not to allow her head to be turned by her elevation to office.

"You will have a great responsibility: I am giving you unusual power, and I trust that you will make the highest use of it," she had said to the girl, during a certain quiet ten minutes' talk in her study, and Margaret had held herself very straight, and had answered: "I'll do my level best, Miss Bishop!"

All eyes were now fixed on the head girl as she stood in the center of the platform, ringing the bell for silence. The clamor subsided as if by magic, and in the midst of a dead hush she began her speech.

"Girls! We've been back now for a whole fortnight—time for most of us to shake down into our places, isn't it? The school year's fairly started, and we've met together this afternoon to talk about a number of things that are of very great importance to us all. You all know that a school—to be worth anything—has two sides. There's the inside part, with classes and prep. and exams.—what's generally called the 'curriculum'—that's managed by the mistresses. And there's the outside part, the games and sports and concerts and guilds—that's run by the girls themselves. Now I think, if we arrange well, we ought to be able to look forward to three very jolly terms. Everything depends upon making a good start. I've been getting to know how they manage in several other big schools, and I propose that we frame our code by theirs. What we want first of all is a feeling of unity and public spirit. Each girl must make up her mind to do all she can to push on the 'Seaton High.' We want to win matches, and have a good sports record, and generally build up a reputation. Slacking at games must be out of the question. Everybody must buck up all round. Those who aren't playing themselves can show their interest by attending the matches. It makes the greatest difference to an eleven to know that their own side is watching their play, and ready to cheer them on. There's nothing so forlorn and depressing as to see whole rows of the enemy's school hats on the spectators' benches, and only half-a-dozen of one's own—yet that's what happened when we played Harbury last spring. No wonder we lost! I'm going to ask you presently to elect a Games Captain, and then I want you to support her loyally for the whole of the year. Let her feel that she can depend upon you, and that instead of getting together scratch teams, her difficulty will be how to choose among so many crack players. But as you know, games are not the whole of our business to-day. We have our guilds to consider as well. I want to put these upon a good and firm basis. Last winter we didn't quite know where we were with them, did we? At present we have 'The Dramatic Society,' 'The Debating Club,' 'The Literary Association,' and 'The Patriotic Knitting Guild.' We might very well add a 'Photographic Union' and a 'Natural History League.' They ought all to be run on the same lines. Each must have a President, a Secretary, and a Committee of eight members, who will undertake the business of the Society, and settle all its events. Any difficulty or dispute must be referred to the Prefects' meeting, the decision of which shall be final. Each guild must draw up a list of its own rules; these must be submitted first to the Prefects, then, if passed as satisfactory, they must be written in the minutes book, and strictly adhered to. I want you all to realize that this school is still in its infancy. It's a baby of only two years! But a very promising baby! It's we who are going to make its history. So far we can't say it has had any annals; in the future it must show a whole splendid list of achievements and successes. Years afterwards, when it's the most famous school in the county, we shall be proud to have had the privilege of taking our share in pushing it on, and our names may be handed down to long generations of girls as those who founded its best traditions."

Margaret paused, quite out of breath with her long speech. A storm of applause rose from the audience; the girls clapped and stamped, a few even cheered. Margaret had touched the right string. The idea of making school history appealed to them, and they were ready to respond with enthusiasm to her appeal. Even the ten-year-olds were eager to show their zeal. Winona had never taken her eyes off the speaker. It was a new gospel to her that she was one of the great community, bound to help the common weal. The realization of it stirred her spirit; her imagination danced ahead, and performed prodigies. Suppose she could do something wonderful for the school, and leave her name as a memory to others? The vision gleamed golden. It would be worth living to accomplish that.

"Not half a bad speech!" murmured Garnet approvingly by her side.

Winona started, and came back from the clouds.

"I think it's—just immense!" she answered with a long sigh of admiration.

Margaret was again ringing the bell for silence.

"I'm glad to find you all agree with me," she announced. "Now I want us to get solidly to business, and elect a Games Captain. You remember I asked each to nominate a candidate, and I find that more than two-thirds have handed in the same name—that of Kirsty Paterson. I therefore put Kirsty up for election. It's only fair that I should first go over her qualifications for the office. She was our best center forward last year at hockey, and our best bowler at cricket. She's a thoroughly steady and reliable player herself, and—this is most important—she's able to train others. You know from experience that she's fair and just, and she's tremendously keen. I feel sure that in her hands the games would prosper, and we'd soon show some improvement. Will all those in favor of electing Kirsty kindly stand up?"

There was such a general rising among the girls that most presidents would have considered the matter settled. Margaret, however, liked to do things strictly in order.

"Thanks I Will you please sit down again. Now those against the election kindly stand."

A certain section in the school had intended to vote against Kirsty, but when they saw themselves so enormously outnumbered, they changed their minds. To belong to a minority often means to be unpopular, and it is wise to go with the stream. After all, Kirsty was a thoroughly eligible and desirable candidate. So though a few neighbors elbowed each other, nobody rose.

Margaret waited a moment.

"Do I understand that you're all in favor? Then the motion is carried unanimously. I'm very glad, for I think Kirsty will make an ideal captain. Let's give three cheers for her. Are you ready? Hip-hip-hip hooray!"

The girls responded with full lung power. Some even began to sing: "For she's a jolly good fellow!" and there was a general outcry of "Speech! Speech!" The blushing Kirsty—a bonny, rosy, athletic looking lassie—was seized by her fellow prefects, and dragged, in spite of her protests, to the front of the platform. Kirsty had been born north of the Tweed, and in moments of excitement her pretty Scottish burr asserted itself.

"It's verra kind of you to elect me," she began. "I'm afraid I'm no hand at making speeches. I preferr deeds to worrds. We'll all put ourr shoulderrs to the wheel, and win forr the school, won't we? I hope we'll have a splendid yearr!"

At that she retired amidst rapturous applause. Margaret again rang the bell for silence, and proceeded with the business of the meeting, which was to elect the officers for the various societies and guilds. This being satisfactorily settled, she turned to affairs of lighter moment.

"I'm sure you'll all agree that it is very desirable for us to have a form trophy, for hockey, at any rate. Perhaps by next summer we'll get one for cricket as well. It will spur us on to have a little wholesome competition amongst ourselves. As I announced on the notice board, we are now going to give a short entertainment, at the close of which a collection will be taken for the object I have just mentioned. I hate begging, so give what you like, but of course it depends on your generosity this afternoon what kind of a trophy we are able to buy. The first item on our program is a piano solo by Hester King."

Hester was one of the best music pupils in the school. She had a good crisp touch and considerable execution, and led off the concert with a sprightly tarantella. A violin solo followed, by Sibyl Lee, a member of V.b., who was rather nervous, but acquitted herself fairly well on the whole.

"I thought I'd break down," she confided to her friends. "The sight of all those eyes staring at me quite put me off. I don't wonder blind musicians are generally successes, they can't see the audience. Well, never mind, I've done my bit, at any rate!"

The next on the list was a song from Annie Hardy. She had chosen "Keep the Home Fires Burning," and rendered it with great effect, the whole room joining with enthusiasm in the chorus. It took so well that there were shouts of "Encore!" and Annie came back smiling to give "Khaki Boys," which roused her audience to an even higher pitch of patriotic fervor. A recitation, "Our Hockey Match," by Agnes Heath, was felt to be particularly appropriate to the occasion. It was a very good "school piece," humorous as well as exciting, and Agnes had enough dramatic ability to do justice to it. Her own form in particular stamped lustily. The prefects motioned her forward again, but she shook her head. The clapping redoubled. Agnes, escorted to the front by Margaret, bowed and announced:

"Fearfully sorry not to oblige, but this is absolutely the only thing I know, and it's too long to say all over again!"

There was a general laugh, and the audience settled itself to enjoy the next item on the program. Margaret was signaling to Winona and Garnet, and the pair slipped from their places, and made their way to the platform.

"I'm all upset! I hope I shan't break down!" whispered Winona.

"Nonsense! A duet's not so bad as a solo. You'll get on all right. Do for goodness' sake brace up!" implored Garnet. "If you muddle your accompaniment you'll spoil my part. You'll surely never go and fail me!"

The instruments had been put under the piano. Patricia Marshall handed them forth, and sounded the notes for them to be tuned. Clarice Nixon was placing chairs and music-stands. Garnet was tolerably composed, but Winona was suffering from a bad attack of that most unpleasant malady "stage fright." She would have given worlds for a trapdoor in the platform to open, and allow her to subside out of sight. No such convenient arrangement, however, had been provided for the use of bashful performers, the planks were solid, and guaranteed not to give way under any circumstances. There was nothing for it but to take her seat in full view of the audience. There were slightly over two hundred girls in the room, but to Winona's fevered imagination there appeared to be thousands. She wondered how she could ever have had the folly to place herself in such a public situation. Garnet was sounding a few notes and looking at her to begin. For one dreadful moment the room whirled. Perhaps Margaret saw and understood; she laid her hand on Winona's shaking arm, and whispered encouragingly:

"Go on! Don't mind the audience. Just remember that you're playing for the form trophy!"

A sudden revulsion of feeling swept over Winona. All the school patriotism aroused within her by Margaret's speech surged up to meet the crisis. She was no longer an isolated atom, a girl fresh from home, and on trial before the critical eyes of her new form, but a unit in the great life of the school, bound to play her part for the good of the whole, and specially pledged not to fail Garnet in this emergency. Self faded in the larger vision. The color flooded back into her face. She made a desperate effort, and struck the opening chords.

As her friend had reminded her, a duet was quite a different matter from a solo. Directly the mandoline part began, her confidence returned. She tried to think that she was only playing an accompaniment for Garnet. The piece was not difficult, it was in D, quite the easiest key for the guitar, with very few accidentals or high positions. She took courage, and struck her strings crisply, so that the tone rang out well. Her instrument was a good one, very true and mellow, and her mother had taught her the liquid Spanish touch which showed it to its best advantage. Garnet also was doing her best. Her plectrum vibrated evenly and rapidly, and the metallic twang, her gravest fault, was not nearly so evident as usual. The audience, unfamiliar with these particular instruments, was not hypercritical, and so long as the players kept well together, and sounded no discords, their skill was judged to be excellent. The Barcarolle had an attractive swing about it, and a romantic suggestion of gondolas and lapping water and moonlight serenades. As the last notes of the air on the mandoline died away, Winona swept her thumb over the strings of her guitar in a tremendous final chord. It had quite a magnificent and professional effect. There was no mistake about the applause; it was simply clamorous.

"Stand up and bow!" whispered Margaret, nudging the unaccustomed performers. "That's right! Bow again! It's most clearly an encore. Have you brought anything else with you? Good biz! Don't waste any more time, then. We're rather late."

The song that Winona had chosen was a bright little Irish ditty, with a catchy tune and lively accompaniment. Garnet played the air softly on the mandoline, and the two girls sang in unison, keeping strictly together, and pronouncing very plainly, so that the point of the amusing words should not be lost. The audience shrieked with laughter, and would have demanded a further encore, had not Margaret pointed to the clock, and shaken her head firmly. There were other items on the program and time was going all too fast.

Another violin solo, a recitation and a Highland fling followed; then the concert wound up with a Christy Minstrel song from several members of the Sixth. This last was the triumph of the afternoon. Patricia prided herself on her preparations. She had placed a newspaper inside the grand piano over the strings, and when the hammers struck against it the effect of the accompaniment was exactly that of a banjo. She had borrowed two sets of castanets, a pair of cymbals, and a triangle, and with these loud-sounding instruments she and her companions emphasized the chorus. Garnet and Winona helped with mandoline and guitar, so the general result was quite orchestral. During the performance of this chef-d'uvre some of the prefects went round with collecting bags, which were passed along the benches.

"Come, my dark-eyed honey,

And help to spend my money,"

chanted the minstrels lustily, and the audience smiled at the appropriateness of the words.

It was felt that the Symposium had been an enormous success. The girls were quite loath to leave, and dispersed slowly from the gymnasium. Many eyes were turned on Winona and Garnet as they carried their instruments down from the platform. "Who are they?" every one was asking, for so far their names were not known outside their own form. "The two County Scholarship holders," somebody replied, and the information was passed on.

Next morning, Margaret proudly posted up the result of the collection, which amounted to £2 13s. 7d.—a very substantial sum in the estimation of the school.

"It ought to be sufficient to buy a cup!" she triumphed. "Miss Bishop has promised to send for some catalogues, so that we can look up the prices. We shall start the season well, at any rate. Kirsty's almost ready to stand on her head! I never saw any one so elated!"

"Except yourself!" smiled Patricia.

"Cela va sans dire, camarade!"

Garnet and Winona, walking down the High Street together after the performance, also compared notes.

"It was fine! I do admire Margaret. Mustn't it be splendid to be head of the school?" sighed Garnet enviously.

"Do you think so? Yes, I suppose it is, but if I had my choice, I'd a dozen times over rather be Games Captain," answered Winona.

V. Aunt Harriet

It is high time now that we paused to consider a very important person indeed in this story, namely Miss Harriet Beach, but for whose invitation Winona would never have attended Seaton High School at all. Aunt Harriet was what is generally known as "a character," that is to say, she was possessed of a strong personality, and was decidedly eccentric. Though her age verged on sixty she preserved the energy of her thirties, and prided herself upon her physical fitness. She was tall, with a high color, keen brown eyes, a large nose, a determined mouth, and iron gray hair. In her youth she must have been handsome, and even now her erect figure and dark, well-marked eyebrows gave her a certain air of distinction. She was a most thoroughly capable woman, reliable, and strongly philanthropic: not in a sentimental way, however; she disapproved of indiscriminate almsgiving, and would have considered it a crime to bestow a penny on a beggar without making a proper investigation of his case. She was a tower of strength to most of the charitable institutions in the city, a terror to the professional pauper, but a real friend to the deserving. Her time was much occupied with committees, secretarial duties, district visiting, workhouse inspection and other public interests. She was apt indeed to have more than her share of civic business; her reputation for absolute reliability caused people to get into the habit of saying "Oh, go to Miss Beach!" on every occasion, and as she invariably proved the willing horse, she justified the proverb and received the work in increased proportions.

Like most people, Aunt Harriet had her faults. She was apt to be a trifle overbearing and domineering, she lacked patience with others' weaknesses, and was too doctrinaire in her views. She tried very hard to push the world along, but she forgot sometimes that "the mills of God grind slowly," and that it is only after much waiting and many days that the bread cast upon the waters returns to us. She prided herself on her candor and lack of "humbug." Unfortunately, people who "speak their minds" generally treat their hearers to a sample of their worst instead of their best, and their excessive truthfulness scarcely meets with the gratitude they consider it deserves. Miss Beach's many estimable qualities, however, overbalanced her crudities, her friends shrugged their shoulders and told each other it was "her way," "her heart was all right." Though she might give offense, people forgot it, and came to her again next time they wanted anything done, and the universal verdict was that she was "trying at times," but on the whole one of the most useful citizens which Seaton possessed.

If there was one person more than another who wore out Miss Beach's patience it was her niece and goddaughter, Mrs. Woodward. She had a sincere affection for her, but their two personalities were at absolutely opposite poles. She admitted that Florita was amiable, well-meaning, and thoroughly affectionate, but for the rest she considered her weak, foolishly helpless, liable to extravagance, a poor housekeeper, and a perfect jelly-fish in her methods of bringing up her family. In vain did Aunt Harriet, on successive visits, preach firmness, order, consistency and other maternal virtues; her niece would brace herself up to a temporary effort, but would relax again directly her guest had departed, and the children—little rogues!—discovered at a remarkably early age that they could do pretty much as they liked. The Woodwards always dreaded the advent of Aunt Harriet, her disapproval of their general conduct was so manifest. By dint of urging from their mother they made extra attempts at good behavior before the august visitor, but they were subject to awful relapses. Mrs. Woodward, on her side, considered she had her trials, for her aunt had a habit of arriving suddenly, giving only a few hours' notice by telegram, and she could not forbear the suspicion that her revered godparent wished to surprise her housekeeping and catch her unprepared. On one occasion, indeed, when the family came down—rather late—for breakfast, Aunt Harriet was discovered sitting on the rustic seat outside the dining-room window. She explained that she had taken the 5 a.m. workmen's train and had come to spend a long day with them, but not wishing to disturb the house at too early an hour she had remained in the garden enjoying the view until somebody arrived downstairs. In spite of her rather angular attitude, Miss Beach was a very kind and generous friend to her widowed niece, and she was the one person in the world to whom Mrs. Woodward naturally thought of turning in time of trouble. Aunt Harriet's advice might not always be palatable, but it was combined with such practical help that there seemed no alternative but to follow it.

Miss Beach, though not a rich woman, was possessed of very comfortable private means. She lived in an old-fashioned house just opposite the Abbey, and her windows looked out on a view of towers and cloisters and tall lime trees, with a foreground of monuments. To some people the array of tombstones would have proved a dismal prospect, but she declared it never distressed her in the least. She prided herself greatly on the fact that she had been born in the house where her father, grandfather and great-grandfather had also come into the world and spent their lives. Except for an occasional expedition to Highfield, she rarely left home. All her interests were in Seaton, and she became miserable directly if she were away from her native city.

The little Woodwards had never regarded it as much of a treat to go and stay at 10, Abbey Close. The restraint which the visit necessitated quite neutralized the afternoon at the cinema with which their aunt invariably entertained them. The fine old Chippendale furniture had to be treated with a respect not meted out to the chairs and tables at home, boots must be scrupulously wiped on the door-mat, bedrooms left tidy, and books and ornaments were to be held altogether sacred from the ravages of prying young fingers.

Winona had taken up her residence there with somewhat the feeling of a novice entering a nunnery. She was not quite sure how she and Aunt Harriet were going to get on. To her great relief, however, things turned out better than she expected. Miss Beach received her with unusual complacency, and the two settled down quite harmoniously together. The fact was that Winona, a visitor with nothing to do, and Winona a busy High School girl, were utterly different persons. It is one thing to wander round somebody else's house and feel bored, and quite another to hang up your hat, realize you are part and parcel of the establishment, and occupy yourself with your own business. Once she had fallen into the swing of work at school Winona began to appreciate the orderliness of her aunt's arrangements. It had never seemed to matter at home if the breakfast were late and she arrived at Miss Harmon's when the clock had struck nine, but at "The High" it was an affair of vital importance to be in her seat before call-over, and she daily blessed the punctuality of Aunt Harriet's cook. It was also a great boon to be able to prepare her lessons in quiet. Her family had never realized the necessity of silence during study hours, and she had been used to learn French vocabularies or translate her Latin exercises to a distracting accompaniment of Ernie's trumpet, Dorrie's and Mamie's quarrels, Godfrey's mouth organ, and Letty's strumming upon the piano.

"It would have been utterly impossible to do my prep. at home!" she thought sometimes. "I'd no idea what work was like before I came to Seaton 'High'! It would do those youngsters good to have a drilling! I wish they could have been in the Preparatory. No, I don't! Because then I should have had them here, and it would have been good-by to all peace. On the whole things are much better as they are."

Miss Beach was so extremely busy with her own multifarious occupations that she had not time to see very much of her great-niece. She made every arrangement for her comfort, however, and caused the piano to be moved into the dining-room for the convenience of her practicing. She had always had a tender spot for Winona, whom she regarded as the one hopeful character in a family of noodles. She talked to her at meal times about a variety of subjects, some of them within her intelligence, but others completely—so far—above her head. She even tried to draw her out upon school matters. This, however, was a dead failure. Winona, most unfortunately, could not overcome her awe for her aunt, and refused to expand. To all the questions about her Form, her companions, teachers, lessons or new experiences, she replied in monosyllables. It was a sad pity, for Miss Beach had really hoped to win the girl's confidence and prove a temporary mother to her, but finding her advances repulsed she also shrank back into her shell, and the intimacy which might have existed between them was postponed to future years. Young folks often fail to realize what an interest their doings may have to grown-up people, and how their bright fresh outlook on life may come as a tonic to older and wearier minds. It never struck Winona to try to amuse or entertain her aunt. At her present crude stage of development she was incapable of appreciating the subtle pathos that clings round elderly lives, and their wistful longing to be included in the experiences of the rising generation. Shyness and lack of perception held her silent, and the empty corner in Aunt Harriet's heart went unfilled.

Saturday and Sunday were the only days upon which Winona had time to feel homesick. Her mother had at first suggested her returning to Highfield for the week ends, but Miss Beach had strongly vetoed the project on the justifiable ground that even the earliest train from Ashbourne on Monday mornings did not reach Seaton till 9.30, so that Winona would lose the first hour's lesson of her school week. She might have added that she considered such frequent home visits would prove highly unsettling and interfere greatly with her work, but for once she refrained from stating her frank opinion, probably deeming the other argument sufficient, and willing to spare Mrs. Woodward's feelings.

Letters from Highfield showed little change in the usual conduct of family affairs. The children were still attending Miss Harmon's school, though they were to leave at Christmas.

"We are late nearly every day now you are not here to make Ernie start," wrote Mamie, almost as if it were an achievement to be proud of. "He locked the piano and threw the key in the garden, and we could none of us practice for three days. Wasn't it lovely? Letty pours out tea if mother isn't in, and yesterday she broke the teapot."

The chief items of news, however, concerned Percy. That young gentleman, with what Aunt Harriet considered his usual perversity, had sprained his ankle on the very day before he ought to have returned to school. He had been ordered to lie up on the sofa, but Winona gathered that the doctor's directions had not been very strictly carried out. She strongly suspected that the patient did not wish to recover too quickly. Whether or not that had been the case, Percy was now convalescent, and was to set off for school on the following Friday. Longworth College was not a great distance, and as Percy would have to pass through Seaton on his way, Aunt Harriet invited him to break his journey there and spend the night at her house. She had a poor opinion of the boy's capacity, but having undertaken a half share in his education she felt an increased sense of responsibility towards him, and wished to find an opportunity of a word with him in private.

Winona hailed her brother's advent with immense joy. Even so flying a visit was better than nothing. Letters were an inadequate means of expression, and she was longing to pour out all her new experiences. She wanted to tell Percy about the Symposium, and her friendship for Garnet, and the chemistry class, and the gymnasium practice, and to show him her hockey jersey which had just arrived. She had so long been the recipient of all his school news that it would be delightful to turn the tables and give him a chronicle of her own doings at the Seaton "High," which in her opinion quite rivaled Longworth College.

To the young people's scarcely suppressed satisfaction, Miss Beach went out after tea to attend an important meeting, leaving her nephew and niece to spend the evening alone together. They had never expected such luck. As it was Friday Winona had no lessons to prepare for the next day, and could feel free for a delightful chat. She flung herself into Aunt Harriet's special big easy chair by the fireside, and lounged luxuriously, while Percy, boy-like, prowled about the room.

"Well, I'm glad you're jogging along all right," he remarked when his sister's long account came to a pause. "Though please don't for a moment compare your blessed old High School to Longworth, for they're not in the same running! Aunt Harriet hasn't quite eaten you up yet, I see?"

"She's not such a Gorgon as I expected. In fact she's been rather decent."

"The dragon's sheathed her talons? Well, that's good biz. You went off as tragic as Iphigenia, heroically declaring yourself the family sacrifice."

"Did I?" Winona had almost forgotten her original attitude of martyr. Three weeks had made a vast difference to her feelings.

"If you can peg it out in comfort with the dragon so much to the good. Shouldn't care to live here myself though. It's a dull hole. Number 10, Abbey Close wouldn't be my choice of a residence."

"Well, it's not likely you'll ever have the chance of living here!" retorted Winona, taking up the cudgels for her adopted home.

"I don't know about that," returned Percy. "The house belongs to Aunt Harriet. She'll have to leave her property to somebody, I suppose, when she shuffles off this mortal coil. I'm the eldest son, and my name's Percy Beach Woodward. That ought to count for something."

"Aunt Harriet's not going to die yet," said Winona gravely. "I think it's horrid of you to talk like this!"

"Oh, I don't wish the old girl any harm, but one may have an eye to the future all the same," was the airy response. "D'you remember Jack Cassidy who was a pupil at the Vicarage? His aunt left him five thousand pounds."

"Yes, and I heard he's muddling it away as fast as he can. Mary James told me. Her father's guardian of part of his property until he's twenty-five, you know."

"He's a topper, is Jack! He's promised to take me for a day sometime to Hartleburn, when the races are on. Now don't you go blabbing, or I'll never tell you anything again!"

"Mr. Joynson said—"

"Oh, for goodness sake shut up! A boy of sixteen isn't going to be bear-led by an old fogey like Joynson. He has the mater far too much under his finger and thumb for my taste. If you want to be chums with me, don't preach!"

Winona was silent. Her brother's infatuation for the Vicar's scapegrace ward was the affair of a year ago. She had hoped he had forgotten it. His escapades at the time, in company with his hero, had caused his mother to seek the advice and guidance of her trustee.

"Some one was telling me the other day that old oak furniture is worth a tremendous lot of money now," continued Percy, his eye roving round the room with an air almost of future proprietorship. "If that's so these things of Aunt Harriet's are a little gold mine. There was an account of a sale in the newspaper, with a picture of a cupboard that fetched two hundred pounds. It was first cousin to that!" nodding at a splendidly carved old piece which faced him.

Miss Beach's household goods were inherited from her great-grandfather, and included some fine specimens of oak, as well as rare Chippendale. Winona was too young to be a connoisseur of antiquities, but she had the curiosity to rise from her chair and join Percy in his inspection of the article in question.

"I tell you they're as alike as two peas!" he declared. "Same shape, same sort of carving, same knobs at the end! The reason why I remember the thing is that the buyer found a secret drawer in it after he'd got it home, with some old rubbish inside, and there was a lawsuit as to who owned these. He claimed he'd bought the lot with the cupboard, but the judge made him turn them up to the family of the original owner. That was why there was a picture of the cupboard in the newspaper. It put an arrow showing the place of the secret drawer. I wonder if there's one here, too? I'm going to have a try! By Jove, there is!"

A vigorous pull had dislodged a drawer in a very unexpected situation. Winona would certainly never have thought of its existence, nor would Percy, if the newspaper had not given away the secret. He looked eagerly inside.

"No treasures hidden in here! Absolutely nothing at all, except this piece of paper."

"Perhaps Aunt Harriet has never found it out," ventured Winona.

Percy did not answer immediately. He was reading the writing on the paper.

"You bet she has!" he cried at last, flushing angrily. "I never thought she'd much opinion of me, but I call this the limit! It's going where it deserves!" and acting on a sudden impulse he flung the cause of offense into the fire.

For a moment Winona did not realize what he had done. By the time she reached the hearth the paper was already half consumed. She made a snatch at it with the tongs, but a flame sprang up and forestalled her. She had just time to read the words "last Will and Testament of me Har—" before the whole sank into ashes. She turned to her brother with a white, scared face.

"Percy! You've never burnt Aunt Harriet's will?"

Ashamed already of his impetuous act the boy nevertheless tried to bluff the matter off.

"It was an abominable shame! When I'm named Beach after her too! I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't read it myself!" he blustered.

"Read what?"

"I shan't tell you! Look here, Win, you must promise on your honor that you'll never breathe a word about this."

"Perhaps Aunt Harriet ought to know."

"She mustn't know: mustn't, I tell you! I say, Win, I'm not at all sure that what I've just done isn't a chargeable offense—I believe they call it a felony. You wouldn't like to see me put into prison, would you? Then hold your tongue about it! Give me your word! Can you keep a secret?"

"I promise!" gasped Winona (Percy was squeezing her little finger nail in orthodox fashion and the agony was acute). "I promise faithfully."

She was in a terrible quandary. Her natural straightforwardness urged her to make a clean breast of the whole affair. Had she been the actual transgressor she would certainly have done so and faced the consequences. But this was Percy's secret, not her own. He was no favorite with his aunt, and so outrageous an act would prejudice him fatally in her eyes. The hint about prison frightened Winona. She knew nothing of law, but she thought it highly probable that burning a will was a punishable crime. Suppose Aunt Harriet's rigid conscience obliged her to communicate with the police and deliver Percy into the hands of justice. Such a horrible possibility must be avoided at all costs. The sound of a latch-key in the door made her start. In a panic she rushed to the old cupboard and pushed back the secret drawer into its place. When Miss Beach entered the dining-room her nephew and niece were sitting reading by the fireside. Their choice of literature might perhaps have astonished her, for Percy was poring over Sir Oliver Lodge's "Man and the Universe," while Winona's nose was buried in Herbert Spencer's "Sociology," but if indeed she noticed it, she perhaps set it down to a laudable desire to improve their minds, and placed the matter to their credit. Percy took his departure next morning, and Winona saw him off at the railway station.

"Remember, you've to keep that business dark," he reminded her. "Aunt Harriet must never find out. She's been jawing me no end about responsibility, and looking after the kids and supporting the mater and all that. Rubbed it in hard, I can tell you! Great Juggins! Do I look like the mainstay of a family?"

As Winona watched his boyish face laughing at her from the window of the moving train she decided that he certainly did not. She sighed as she turned to leave the station. Life seemed suddenly to have assumed new perplexities. Percy's act weighed heavily on her mind. It seemed such a base return for all Aunt Harriet was doing on their behalf. She longed to thank her for her kindness and say how much she appreciated going to the High School, but she could not find the words. Theknowledge of the secret raised an extra barrier between herself and her aunt. So she sat at lunch time even shyer and more speechless than usual, and let the ball of conversation persistently drop.

"Fretting for her brother, I suppose," thought Miss Beach. "She can talk fast enough with friends of her own age. Well, I suppose an old body like myself mustn't expect to be company for a girl of fifteen!"

She was too proud to let the hurt feeling show itself on her face, however, and propping up the newspaper beside her plate, she plunged into the latest accounts from the Front.

VI. A Crisis

Winona had been more than a month, nearly five weeks indeed, at the Seaton High School. In the first few days of her introduction to V.a. she had told herself that the difficulty of the work consisted largely in its newness, and that as soon as she grew accustomed to it she would sail along as swimmingly as Garnet Emerson, or Olave Parry, or Hilda Langley, or Agatha James. Most unfortunately she found her theory acted in the opposite direction. Closer acquaintance with her Form subjects proved their extreme toughness. She was not nearly up to the standard of the rest of the girls. Her Latin grammar was shaky, her French only a trifle better, she had merely a nodding acquaintance with geometry, and had not before studied chemistry. Her teacher seemed to expect her to understand many things of which she had hitherto never heard, and was apparently astounded at her ignorance. Winona puzzled over her text-books during many hours of preparation, but she made little headway. The royal road to learning, which she had fondly hoped to tread, was proving itself a stony and twisting path.

"You seem to get on all right?" she said wistfully to Garnet one day.

"Why, yes. Of course one has to work," admitted her friend. "Miss Huntley keeps one up to the mark. But one must expect that in V.a. They don't put scholarship holders in the Preparatory."

"I was all at sea in math. this morning."

"You were rather a duffer, certainly. The problems weren't as difficult as the ones they gave us in the entrance exam. If those didn't floor you, why couldn't you work these?"

"But they did floor me. I barely managed half the paper. I reckoned I'd failed in it."

Garnet looked surprised.

"Then your other subjects must have been extremely good to make up for it. I was told that we should probably stand or fall by maths. You were ripping in everything else, I suppose? Scored no end?"

Winona did not answer the question. She was conscious that none of her papers could have merited such an eulogium. She envied Garnet's grasp of the form work. Try as she would, her own exercises and translations were poor affairs, and her ill-trained memory found it difficult to marshal the enormous number of facts that were daily forced upon it. Miss Huntley at first was patient, but as the weeks wore on, and Winona still wallowed in a quagmire of amazing mistakes, she grew sarcastic. The girl winced under some of her cutting remarks. Apparently the mistress imagined her failure to be due to laziness and inattention, and sooner than confess that she could not understand the work, Winona was silent. She never mentioned the long hours she spent poring over her books in Aunt Harriet's dining-room. After all, it was better to be thought idle than stupid. But it was humiliating to feel that she was counted among the slackers of the Form, while Garnet was already winning laurels. The contrast between the two scholarship holders could not fail to be noticed.

Miss Huntley (privately known to the Form as "Bunty") was a clever, but rather remorseless teacher. She had been on the staff since the opening of the school two years before, and she was determined at all costs to maintain the high standard inaugurated at its foundation. She was herself the product of High School education, and knew to the last scruple how much to require from girls in V.a. To those who appeared to be really trying their best she was ready to give intelligent help, but she had no mercy for slackers. She was possessed of a certain amount of dry humor, greatly appreciated by the form en bloc, though each quaked privately lest, through some unlucky slip, she might find herself the object of the smart but withering satires. Despite her strictness, "Bunty" was popular. She was an admirable tennis player, and a formidable champion in a match "Mistresses v. Girls." Her strong personality fascinated Winona, who would have done much to gain her approval. So far, however, she was entirely on Miss Huntley's black list.

Matters came to a crisis over a difficult bit of Vergil. Latin was, next to mathematics, the most painfully wobbling of Winona's shaky subjects. She had puzzled in vain over this particular piece of translation. The words, indeed, she had found in the dictionary, but she could not twist them into sense.

"Old Vergil's utterly stumped me to-day!" she mourned to Garnet, as they met in the dressing-room before nine o'clock. "If Bunty puts me to construe anywhere on page 21, I'm a gone coon. I'm feeling in a blue funk, I can tell you."

"Poor old bluebottle! Don't wrinkle up your forehead like that—you're making permanent lines! It's a bad trick, and just spoils you."

"I can't help it when I'm worried!"

"Then don't worry."

"Oh, it's easy enough for you; you don't have to receive the vials of Bunty's scorn."

Winona hoped against hope that the difficult page might fall to somebody else's turn. Miss Huntley took no particular order, but selected girls at random to construe the lesson. In a Form of twenty it was possible not to be chosen at all. Winona kept very quiet, so as not to attract the mistress' attention. Marjorie Kemp and Olave Parry had already translated half of the fatal page, with tolerable credit. Miss Huntley's eye was wandering in the direction of Irene Mills. Winona dared to breathe. Then, alas! alas! Some unlucky star caused the mistress to look back towards the middle of the room. In a spasm of nervousness, Winona jerked her elbow, and away went her pencil-box, clattering on to the floor, and dispersing its collection of pens, pencils, nibs and other treasures beneath the neighboring desks. There was a dead silence, and the culprit was instantly the center of attention.

"A clumsy thing to do! Leave those things where they are! You can pick them up after the lesson," observed Miss Huntley grimly. "Go on now with the translation."

Winona's hot face had been hidden under Audrey Redfern's desk. She rose reluctantly. Her confusion made the hard passage seem twice as difficult. Even the words which she had carefully looked up in the dictionary and learned by heart escaped her fickle memory. She stumbled and floundered hopelessly, getting redder and redder with shame. Miss Huntley preserved an ominous silence, and did not attempt to help her out.

"That will do!" she said, at the end of about eight lines. "After such a complete exhibition of incompetence we won't inflict any more of your bungling upon the form. We must see if we can find a way of sharpening your wits. Your brain seems to have been lying fallow since you came to school! You will report yourself to Miss Bishop at four o'clock this afternoon."

The rest of the morning passed like a bad dream to Winona. It was a rare event for a teacher to send a girl to the head mistress. The prospect of the coming interview made her cold with apprehension. She avoided Garnet at one o'clock, and hurried out of the dressing-room without speaking to any one. She had a wild project of pleading a headache, and begging Aunt Harriet to let her stop at home for the rest of the day. But then to-morrow's explanations would be infinitely worse. No, it was better to face the horrible ordeal and get it over. As it happened, Miss Beach had gone out to lunch, so that leave of absence was an impossibility. Winona ate her early dinner alone.

"Aren't you well, miss? Would you like me to make you a cup of tea?" asked Alice the housemaid, noticing that the pudding was unappreciated, and divining that something must be amiss.

"No, thanks! I'm in a hurry, and must fly off to school as quickly as I can. It's my early afternoon."

Winona had a music lesson at a quarter past two on Thursdays. It was always rather a rush to get back in time for it. She crammed her "Bach's Preludes" and "Schubert's Impromptus" automatically into her portfolio, and started. It was only when she was half-way down Church Street that she remembered she had left her book of studies on the top of the piano. Needless to say, her lesson that day was hardly a success. In the disturbed state of her mind she was quite incapable of concentrating her attention on music. Miss Catteral looked surprised at her wrong notes and imperfect phrasing.

"I shall expect to find some improvement in this 'Impromptu' next week," she remarked. "Have you practiced your hour daily? You must take these bars, which I have marked, separately, and play each twenty times in succession, slowly at first and then faster, and remember here that it is the left hand which gives the melody, and the right is only the accompaniment. I thought you had sufficient music in you to appreciate that! The way you thumped out those chords was painful. I am not pleased at all."

Miss Catteral so rarely scolded that Winona felt doubly humiliated. It was all a part and parcel of the general ill-luck of the day. She fetched her drawing-board, and went to the art class. Here at least she would have peace for an hour, though every one of the sixty minutes was bringing her nearer to her dreaded interview. At four o'clock, with a horrible sinking feeling in her heart, and a trembling sensation in her knees, she knocked at the door of the head-mistress's study, and entered in response to the "Come in!" which followed. Miss Bishop looked up from some papers, motioned her to a chair, and went on writing for several minutes. To Winona it seemed worse than waiting at the dentist's. The suspense was ghastly.

At last the Principal paused, laid down her pen, and blotted her pages.

"Come here, Winona Woodward," she said quietly. "I wish to have a straight talk with you."

Miss Bishop's eyes were her most striking feature. They were large and clear, but the pupils were unusually small, appearing mere black specks in the midst of a wide circle of blue. This peculiarity gave her a particularly intense and penetrating expression. Winona, standing at attention beside the desk, dropped her own eyes before the steady, searching gaze.

"Miss Huntley's report of your work is not at all satisfactory," began Miss Bishop. "I have been watching your progress since you joined the school, and I cannot think you are trying your best. At first, when you were totally new to your Form, I suspended judgment, but you have been here nearly half a term now—quite long enough to accustom yourself to our methods. I confess I am greatly disappointed. I had hoped for better things from the holder of a County Scholarship."

Winona remained silent. She could think of nothing to say in self-defense.

"It must be sheer lack of grit and effort," continued Miss Bishop. "I cannot understand how a girl who did so remarkably well in the entrance examination can rest content with such a low record. How long do you take over your preparation?"

"Until my aunt sends me to bed," replied Winona, in a very subdued voice. "I spend the whole evening at my lessons."

Miss Bishop looked puzzled.

"Then the work must be too difficult for you. If that is the case, I must remove you to V.b."

V.b. was notorious in the school as a refuge for incompetence. It was mainly composed of girls of sixteen and seventeen who could not reach the standard of the Sixth, and who went by the nickname of "owls" or "stupids." The prospect of being relegated to such an intellectual backwater spread palpable dismay over Winona's face. Miss Bishop smiled rather grimly.

"We can't win honors without paying the price! You must know that already by experience. I conclude that you studied hard for the Scholarship examination? Well, your Form work requires equally close application. Here is Miss Huntley's report: 'French, weak; Latin, beneath criticism; mathematics, extremely bad.' Yet in all these three subjects you gained a high percentage in the entrance examination. I have your papers here—yes, Latin 85, French 87, mathematics 92" (rapidly turning over the pages), "it is simply incredible how you have fallen off."

Winona was gazing at the sheets of foolscap in the Principal's hand.

"Those aren't my papers," she faltered.

"Certainly they are. They're marked with your number, 11."

"But I wasn't number 11, I was number 10."

Miss Bishop stooped, opened a drawer in her bureau, and took out a book.

"Here it is in black and white," she replied. "No. 11, Winona Woodward."

Winona's shaking hands clutched the edge of the bureau. In a flash the whole horrible truth was suddenly revealed to her. Until that moment she had almost forgotten how she and the ruddy-haired girl had collided at the door of the examination-room, and dropped their cards. In picking them up, they must have effected an exchange. She remembered that she had been too agitated to notice her number until after the accident had happened. She now related the circumstance as best she could. Miss Bishop listened aghast.

"What number did you say you took in the examination-room? Ten? That is entered in my book as Marjorie Kaye. I have the rest of the candidates' papers in this bundle. Let me see—yes, here is No. 10. Is this your handwriting? Then I'm afraid there has been a terrible blunder, and the scholarship has been awarded to the wrong girl."

The Principal's consternation was equalled by Winona's. To the latter the ground seemed slipping from under her feet. She tried to speak, but failed. A great lump rose in her throat. For a moment the room whirled round.

"This set of papers, No. 10, was marked so low as to be out of the running," continued Miss Bishop. "It is a most unfortunate mistake, and places the school in an extremely awkward position. I must consult with the Governors at once. Pending their decision, it will be better not to mention the matter to anybody. You may go now."

Winona managed somehow to get herself out of the study, to put on her hat and coat, and to walk home to Abbey Close. Her aunt was still absent, for which she was intensely thankful, and ignoring the tea that was waiting on the dining-room table, she rushed upstairs to her bedroom. Her one imperative need was to be alone. She must face the situation squarely. Her world had suddenly turned topsy-turvy; instead of being the winner of the County Scholarship, she was among the rejected candidates. In her heart of hearts she had always marveled how her indifferent papers could have scored such a success. She wondered this explanation had never occurred to her before. All this time she had been wearing another girl's laurels. What was going to happen next? She supposed the scholarship would be taken from her, and given to its rightful owner. And herself? She would probably be packed home, as Percy had prophesied, "like a whipped puppy." Possibly Aunt Harriet might offer to pay her fee as an ordinary pupil at the High School, but in either case the humiliation would be supreme.

Winona dreaded returning home. In spite of the difficulty of the work, the High School had opened a fresh world to her. She could never again be content with the old rut. Miss Harmon's dull lessons would be intolerable, and life without Garnet's friendship would seem a blank. The companionship of her three little sisters was totally inadequate for a girl who was fast growing up. She shrank from speculating how her mother would receive the bad news. Mrs. Woodward was one of those parents who expect their children to gain the prizes which they were incapable of winning for themselves. She had claimed a kind of second-hand credit in her daughter's triumph. Winona knew from past experience that so keen a disappointment would involve a string of reproaches, regrets and fretting. She would probably never hear the last of it. The family hopes had been pinned upon her success, and to frustrate them was to court utter disgrace. For the present she must live with this sword of Damocles hanging over her head, but she hoped the Governors would decide the matter speedily, and put her out of her misery.

There is one virtue in a supreme trouble—it dwarfs all minor griefs. Percy's secret, which had been felt as a continual burden, seemed to sink into comparative obscurity, and the worry of school work and the dread of Miss Huntley's sarcasm were mere flies in the ointment. Winona never quite knew how she got through the week that followed. It stayed afterwards in her memory as a period of black darkness, a valley of humiliation, in which her old childish self slipped away, and a new, stronger and more capable personality was born to face the future. She had resigned herself so utterly to the inevitable, that when at last Miss Bishop's summons came, she was able to walk quite calmly into the study. The Principal was seated as usual at her bureau; Winona's entrance examination papers lay before her. Her manner was non-committal; her blue eyes looked even more penetrating than usual.

"You will have been wondering what was going to happen about the matter of the scholarship," she began.

"Yes, Miss Bishop," answered Winona meekly. She did not add that she had spent eight days in a mental purgatory.

"I of course placed the facts before the Governors, and we at once communicated with the parents of Marjorie Kaye. We find, however, that in the meantime she has been elected a scholar of the Maria Harvey Foundation, and will therefore be unable to accept this scholarship. Her papers and those of Garnet Emerson were the only ones of outstanding merit. In re-examining the remaining eighteen we find a uniform level of mediocrity. As regards your set of papers, the general standard is low, with one exception. We consider that your essay on Lady Jane Grey shows an originality and a capacity for thought which may be worthy of training. On the strength of this—and this alone—the Governors have decided to allow you to retain your scholarship. In so doing they are perfectly within their rights. They did not undertake to grant free tuition to the candidate who scored the highest number of marks, but to the one who, in their opinion, was most likely to benefit by the school course. It was a matter to be settled entirely at their discretion. I have carefully re-read your papers, and compared them with your form record, and I come to the conclusion that you are backward and ill-instructed in many subjects, but that you are not idle or stupid. I shall make arrangements for you to have special coaching in mathematics, Latin and chemistry until you can keep up with the rest of the Form. I find your reports for history and English literature are good, which confirms my opinion that you do not lack ability. You will need to work very hard, especially at those subjects in which you are so deficient, but I trust you will soon show a marked improvement, and thus justify the decision of the Governors. Are you prepared to try?"

"I don't know how to thank you—I'll do my very best!" stammered Winona, quite overcome by this unexpected dénouement.

"Then that is all that need be said. Miss Lever will take you every day from 3.30 to 4.15 for private tuition. Mark that on your time-table, and go to her this afternoon in the Preparatory Room. You may tell Miss Garside that I am disengaged now, and at liberty to speak to her."

Winona left the study with very different feelings from those with which she had entered. Her spirits were so high that she wanted to dance along the corridor. She could hardly believe her good fortune. Those great and important gentlemen, the Governors, had actually approved of her essay to the extent of allowing it to stand as her qualification for the Scholarship! She blessed Lady Jane Grey, and Edgar Allan Poe, and Browning, and André de Chénier, and the happy chance that had made her combine them all. She was glad she had paid that visit to Hampton Court, and that she had seen Lady Jane Grey's portrait, and had been able to describe both. Life was going to be a very exhilarating business, now her position in the school was once more secure.

"I'll show them how I can work," she thought. "They shan't be sorry that they let me stay after all! Oh, I am in luck! Yes, I'm the luckiest girl in the school!"

VII. An Autumn Foray

Winona felt that she now started life at the High School on an entirely new basis. Miss Bishop and Miss Huntley understood her limitations and judged her accordingly. It was not by any means that they lowered their standard, but that they appreciated her difficulty in keeping up with the Form and gave her credit for her hard work. And hard work it undoubtedly was. She would get up early in the morning to revise her lessons before breakfast, and would sit toiling over books and exercises in the evenings till even Aunt Harriet—indefatigable worker herself—would tell her to stop, and wax moral on the folly of burning the candle at both ends. The coaching from Miss Lever was of inestimable value. It supplied just the gaps in which she was deficient, and gave her an adequate grasp of her three toughest subjects. Slowly she began to make headway, she saw light in mathematical problems that had before been meaningless formulæ, chemistry was less of a hopeless tangle, and Vergil's lines construed into understandable sentences instead of utter nonsense. It was only gradual progress, however. She had much ground to cover before she caught up the Form. She was plodding, but not a brilliant all-round scholar like Garnet. The fact was that Winona was only clever in one direction: in the realm of imagination her mind ran like a racehorse, but harnessed to heavy intellectual burdens it proved but a sorry steed.

It was fortunate for both her health and her spirits that head work did not represent the only side of school activities. Miss Bishop was wise enough to lay much stress on physical development. A ten minutes' drill was part of the daily routine, a gymnasium practice was held twice a week, and Wednesday afternoons were devoted to hockey. In addition to this the girls played tennis on the asphalt courts during the winter and spring terms, whenever the weather was suitable, and basket ball was constantly going on in the playground. Athletics was decidedly the fashionable cult of the school. Kirsty Paterson, as Games Captain, made it her business to see that nobody slacked without justifiable cause. She would break up knots of chatting idlers, and cajole them forth to "cultivate muscle" as she expressed it, while her keen eye was quick to note anybody's "points" and employ them for the general benefit. Kirsty's jolly, breezy manner and strict sense of justice made her an admirable captain. She was highly popular with juniors as well as seniors, for she took the trouble to organize the games of the little girls as carefully as those of their elders.

"It's insane short-sighted policy to neglect the kids," was her creed. "Now's the time to be training them. Get them thoroughly well in hand and make them understand what's expected from them, and in four or five years' time they'll be crack players. Yes, I know it's looking far ahead, and we prefects won't be here to see the result, but the school will reap the benefit some day and that's the main thing to aim at. I'm proud of my cadets and, in the future, when they're winning laurels for the Seaton High, perhaps they'll remember I started them on the right track. 'Keep up the standard all round' is going to be the motto while I'm Captain."

To Winona athletics and organized games came as a revelation. She had a slim wiry little figure and was a good runner, with a capacity for keeping her breath, and had also a considerable power of spring, all of which stood her in good stead both in the hockey field and in the gymnasium. Though Kirsty said little, she could feel her efforts were being watched and approved, and the knowledge gave her a tingling sense of satisfaction. It was delightful to feel that she was a factor in this big school, and that she was doing her bit—however insignificant—to help up the athletic standard. In physical agility Winona was superior to Garnet. She could beat her easily at tennis, and there was already a wide gap between their gymnastic achievements. It was a fortunate circumstance, for it just balanced their friendship, and put them on a footing of equality which would have been otherwise absent. Garnet, so manifestly first in Form work, possessed of greater confidence and savoir faire in school life and older in experience for her years than Winona, might have monopolized the lead too entirely, had she not been obliged to yield the palm of outdoor sports to her friend.

Garnet was, in truth, just a trifle inclined to "boss." She liked Winona, and wanted her for a chum, but she loved to lay down the law and to constitute herself an authority upon every possible subject. There was no doubt it was owing to her initiative that the two scholarship-holders were gaining a position for themselves in the school. As Garnet had foreseen, the part they had taken in the Symposium won them favorable recognition. To be singled out as soloists and to have the honor of playing an accompaniment for the prefects had raised them above the common herd, and though a few were jealous, more were ready to extend the hand of good fellowship. In their own Form they were living down the prejudice which had at first existed against them. Hilda Langley and Estelle Harrison were not very friendly and influenced Olave Parry and Mollie Hill against them, but these formed a minority, and the bulk of the girls seemed to have decided in their favor.

With the enormous demands made on her time by her home preparation, Winona did not venture to join many of the school guilds. She would have liked immensely to put her name down for election to the Dramatic Society, the Debating Club and the Literary Association, but these all required rather strenuous brain work from their members, and in the circumstances she knew it would be folly to take them up. At some future date, when her ordinary subjects proved less of a burden, she promised herself the pleasure of being numbered among that select clique known as "The Intellectuals," but for the present her motto must be "grim grind." The Patriotic Knitting Guild seemed more feasible. She paid her subscription, received her skeins of khaki wool, and started mittens to fill up odd moments. She found the knitting a soothing occupation, it could be taken up and laid down so easily; it often went to school with her, and would come out during the interval, or while she was waiting for a class. The Photographic Union was beyond her, for as yet she had no camera, but she thought she was justified in joining the Natural History League. This society did not for the present demand papers from its members, but contented itself with encouraging the collection of objects for the school museum. Its main activities would be during the summer term, though a weather record was kept throughout the year, and any nature notes that were worthy of being written down were duly chronicled in the Field Book. Linda Fletcher and Annie Hardy, two of the prefects, were the leading spirits in the League. Linda was great on entomology, and, having a brother who was interested in the subject, had been out "sugaring" in his company in August and September, and had secured some fine specimens of moths. She had boxes full of chrysalides which she fondly hoped would emerge in the spring into perfect insects, and she had made quite a good little collection of beetles. Annie was more interested in botany, she pressed flowers and leaves, dried fruits and seed vessels, and made praiseworthy efforts at preserving funguses in bottles, though these latter attempts were not always attended with the success they deserved, as they were apt to acquire a gamey odor, to which her mother very naturally objected, and she would be obliged disconsolately to turn them out into the dust-bin.

November happened to be a particularly fine month at Seaton. There had been little rain, and no high winds to blow the leaves away. Though the trees in the city were bare, those in the country round about remained almost in their October glory, and in sheltered woods some were still green. The persistent sunshine encouraged the Natural History League to plan an excursion for its members, and after a consultation with Miss Lever, the Botany mistress, Linda pinned up the following announcement on the school notice board:—

Natural History League. An Autumn Foray will be held on Saturday next, visiting Monkend Woods and Copplestone Quarry. Members will meet at station for the 12.45 train to Powerscroft, returning by the 5.30 from Chartwell. Tea at farm-house. Walking distance five miles. Leaders: Miss Lever, Linda Fletcher and Annie Hardy. Those intending to join kindly give their names to the Secretary on Wednesday at latest.

L. Fletcher,

Hon. Sec.

The prospect of a ramble was alluring. Winona was a country lover, so she forthwith secured Aunt Harriet's permission for the outing and placed her name upon the list.

"I don't think there'll be more than a dozen of us altogether," said Linda, "but really a small party's more manageable than a big one, and I'll undertake we enjoy ourselves. Miss Lever can get permission for us to walk through the private part of the woods—there's no shooting this autumn, you know—so that will be simply glorious, and she says we ought to find some fossils in the quarry, if we've luck. I hope the weather will keep up. Don't forget to take a vasculum or a basket, and a hammer for fossils, and be sure you put on strong boots. The tea will probably be eightpence a head. Miss Lever is writing beforehand to the farm to make arrangements."

Garnet also was to join the excursion and she promised to call for Winona, so that they might walk to the station together. The latter had an early lunch, and was ready dressed and waiting for her friend by twenty minutes past twelve. Garnet's tram was late, and by the time she reached Abbey Close the clock pointed to the half-hour.

"I'm frightfully sorry! You must think me a Juggins, but it wasn't my fault!" she apologized. "We shall have to sprint, but we'll just do it."

The girls set off at a tremendous pace along the Close and down the Abbey avenue, but it was difficult to keep the same speed through the town, where the streets were thronged with country people who had come in for the Saturday market. They got along as best they could, walking first on the pavement and then on the road, dodging round stout females bearing baskets, avoiding hooting motors, and finally making a dash down a back street that led to the railway bridge. They clattered down the steps to the booking office, secured their tickets and rushed on to the platform. The hands of the big clock were at 12.45 exactly, the guard was about to wave his green flag. They were too late to look for their party; they simply pelted towards the nearest carriage, a porter opened the door and they scrambled in just in the very nick of time.

"Oh, thank goodness! Thank goodness!" gasped Garnet. "I thought we'd miss it! I never had such a run in my life before! Oh! It's given me a stitch in my side!"

"They've put us in a first!" exulted Winona, breathlessly. "We have it all to ourselves! What luck! Hope they won't make a fuss about our tickets when we get out!"

"It was the porter's fault. He opened the door. We'll ask Miss Lever to explain. I suppose the others are further along somewhere in the train. I wonder if they saw us get in?"

"If they didn't, it will be a surprise packet for them when we turn up."

"Yes, they'll have made up their minds we're left behind."

The two girls leaned back, enjoying the luxury of traveling in a first-class compartment. They felt the excursion had begun well as far as they were concerned. Their satisfaction was short-lived, however. When they neared Barnhill, the train, instead of stopping, rushed through the station at thirty-five miles an hour. Garnet turned to Winona in utter consternation.

"Oh, good-night!" she ejaculated. "I verily believe we've gone and got into the express!"

They saw at once how it had happened. The 12.40 fast train to Rockfield must have been five minutes late. In their hurry they had mistaken it for the stopping train, which probably had been drawn up behind it in the station.

"Well, this is a pretty go!" agreed Winona. "We shall be carried on to Rockfield and have to come back."

"We shall miss the ramble! Oh, it's the limit of hard luck—to see ourselves whizzing through Powerscroft!"

"I say, I believe we're stopping after all!"

They let down the window and looked out. They were still about a mile from Powerscroft, but the train drew up, probably in obedience to an adverse signal. Then the girls did a terrible and awful thing. They never remembered afterwards which suggested it, probably the idea occurred to both simultaneously, but in defiance of the law of the realm and the rules of the railway company, they opened the door of the carriage and climbed down on to the line. There were some railings near, and they scrambled over these and dodged down an embankment into a coppice before anybody in the train had time to give an alarm. They hoped their flight had not been noticed, but of that they could not be sure. They hid behind some bushes until they heard the train rumble away.

"That was the smartest thing we've ever done in our lives!" chuckled Garnet. "I believe we could be fined about ten pounds each if they caught us!"

"Let us hurry on and try to find the road," said Winona, who was rather frightened at her own temerity, and had a nervous apprehension lest a guard or a signalman or some other railway official might even now be in pursuit and arrest them on a charge of breaking the law.

After crossing a field they struck a path which led them eventually into a by-lane.

"I know where we are," affirmed Garnet. "I bicycled this way once. Monkend Woods are in that direction, and if we turn to the left and through this village we shall get there sooner than the others, I believe, and be waiting for them when they arrive. Their train won't have reached Powerscroft yet."

"We'd better step out all the same," urged Winona.

Fortunately Garnet possessed the bump of locality. Her recollection of the district was correct, and after a brisk walk of about a mile they found themselves in the high road close to the wood, and sat down on a wall to wait. Their fast train and short cut had given them an advantage: it was nearly half an hour before they spied the rest of the party strolling leisurely up the hill with baskets and vasculums. The surprise of the League at seeing them was immense, and naturally there were many inquiries as to how they had thus stolen a march upon their friends.

"Oh, we came in an aëroplane!" said Garnet jauntily. "It just dropped us in the field over there. Very pleasant run, though a little chilly in the clouds!"

She was obliged to own up, however, in answer to Miss Lever's inquiries, give a precise account of their adventure, and cry "peccavi."

"Of course Dollikins had to be orthodox and preach a short sermon," she confided afterwards to Winona, "but I'm sure she'd have done the same thing herself in the circumstances. I could see admiration in her eye, although she talked about running risks and the possibility of broken necks."

Miss Lever, otherwise Dollikins, from the fact that her Christian name was Dorothy, held high favor among the girls. She was brisk and jolly, decidedly athletic, and a first-rate leader of outdoor expeditions. She had called at the gamekeeper's cottage en route and shown the letter of permission from the owner of the property, so that the party was able to explore the wood with a clear conscience, despite the trespass notice nailed on to the gate. And what a delightful wood it was! To enter it was like stepping into one of Grimm's fairy tales. An avenue of splendid pines reared their dark boughs against a russet background of beeches; everywhere the leaves seemed to have donned their brightest and gayest tints, as if bidding a last good-by before they fell from the trees. The undergrowth was gorgeous: bramble, elder, honeysuckle, briony, rowan, and alder vied with one another in the vividness of their crimson and orange, while the bracken was a sea of pale gold. There were all sorts of delightful things to be found—acorns lay so plentifully in the pathway that the girls could not help scrunching them underfoot. A few were already sending out tiny shoots in anticipation of spring, and these were carefully saved to take home and grow in bottles. A stream ran through the wood, its banks almost completely covered with vivid green mosses, in sheets so thick and compact that a slight pull would raise a yard at a time. Some resembled tufted tassels, some the most delicate ferns, and others showed the split cups of their seed-vessels like pixie goblets. Annie Hardy, whose experienced eyes were on the look-out for certain botanical treasures reported to grow at Monkend, was searching among the dead twigs under the hazel bushes, and was rewarded by finding a clump of the curious little birds-nest fungus with its seeds packed like tiny eggs inside. Some orange elf-cups, a bright red toadstool or two, and a few of the larger purple varieties that had lingered on from October made quite a creditable fungus record for the League, and specimens of wild flowers were also secured, a belated foxglove or two, a clump of ragwort, some blue harebells, campion, herb-robert, buttercup, yarrow, thistle, and actually a strawberry blossom. The leaders had brought note-books and wrote down each find as reported by the members, taking the specimens for Miss Lever to verify if there were any doubt as to identification. Animal and bird life was not absent. Shy bunnies whisked away, showing a dab of white tail as they dived under the bracken; a splendid squirrel ran across the path and darted up an oak tree, a wood-pigeon whirred from a pine top, a great woodpecker, scared by their approach, started from the bushes and flew past them so near that they could see the green flash of its wings and the red markings on its head, while a whole fluttering flight of long-tailed tits were flitting like a troop of fairies round the hole of a lichen-covered beech.

Miss Lever was as enthusiastic as the girls; she climbed over fallen tree trunks, grubbed among dead leaves, jumped the brook and scaled fences with delightful energy. It was she who pointed out the heron sailing overhead, and noticed the gold-crested wren's nest hanging under the branch of a fir, a little battered with autumn rain, and too high, alas! to be taken, but a most interesting item to go down in the note-books. The girls could hardly be persuaded to tear themselves away from the glory of the woods, and would have spent the whole time there, but Miss Lever had other plans.

"Come along! We've scared the pheasants quite enough," she declared. "My mind is set on fossils, and if we don't go on to Copplestones at once we shall be caught in the dark, or miss our tea or our train or something equally disagreeable."

The quarry was only half a mile away, and it proved as interesting as the wood. Being Saturday afternoon the men were not working, so they had the place to themselves, and wandered about examining heaps of shale, and tapping likely-looking stones with their hammers. Garnet and Winona knew nothing of geology, so they listened with due meekness while the instructed few discoursed learnedly on palæozoic rocks, stratified conglomerates and quartzites. They rejoiced with Miss Lever, however, when she secured a fairly intact belemnite. It was the only good find they had, though some of the girls got broken bits of fossil shells.

"The fact is one needs a whole day to hunt about in this quarry, and my watch tells me we ought to be going," said Miss Lever. "Who feels inclined for tea?"

Everybody felt very much disposed, so the procession started off cheerfully for the farm close by, and the nature-lovers were soon hard at work consuming platefuls of bread and butter, jars of jam, and piles of plum cake.

"Sixteen varieties of wild flowers, seven various specimens of fungi, nine different sorts of berries, twelve species of birds noticed, also rabbits and squirrel, one bird's nest and one perfect fossil—not a bad record for an autumn foray!" said Linda, proudly consulting her note-book.

"Especially when you remember we're well on in November!" added Annie. "It will be something to enter in the League minutes book."

"I'm afraid it's the last ramble we shall get this year," said Miss Lever, "but I've one or two nice little schemes on hand for the spring, so the League must look forward to next April. Will any one have any more tea? Then please make a move, for it's time we were starting."

"Good old Dollikins!" murmured Linda as the girls put on their coats. "She's A1 at a foray. Got something ripping for next season in her head. I can tell by the twinkle in her eye. She'll ruminate over it all winter, and drop it on us as a surprise some day. Oh, thunder! Yes, we ought to be starting! Come along, you slackers, do you want to be left standing on the platform with a couple of hours to wait for the next train? Then sprint as hard as you can!"

VIII. Concerns a Camera

Winona went home at Christmas with a whole world of new experiences to call her own. Her first term had indeed been an epoch in her life, and though the holidays were naturally welcome, she felt that she could look forward with pleasure to the next session of school. Her family received her with a certain amount of respect. The younger ones listened enviously to her accounts of hockey matches and symposiums, and began to wish Fate had wafted their fortunes to Seaton. They had left Miss Harmon's little school, and next term were expecting, with some apprehension, a governess whom Aunt Harriet had recommended. Winona, who after thirteen weeks at Abbey Close found the home arrangements rather chaotic, could not help privately endorsing Miss Beach's wisdom in instituting such a change. Poor Mrs. Woodward had been greatly out of health for the last few months, and kept much to her bedroom, while the children had been running wild in a quite deplorable fashion. Letty, who ought to have had some influence over the others, was the naughtiest of all, and the ringleader in every mischievous undertaking. Having occupied the position of "eldest" for thirteen weeks, she was not at all disposed to submit to her sister's authority, and there were many tussles between the two.

"You'll have to do as your governess tells you, when she comes!" protested Winona on one particularly urgent occasion.

"All right, Grannie!" retorted Letty pertly. "I'll settle that matter with the good lady herself, and in the meantime I'm not going to knuckle under to you, so don't think it! You needn't come back so precious high and mighty from your High School, and expect to boss the whole show here. So there!"

And Winona, who aforetime had been able to subdue her unruly sister, found herself baffled, for their mother was ill, and must not be disturbed, and Percy, who might have been on her side, would only lie on the sofa and guffaw.

"Fight it out, like a pair of Kilkenny cats!" was his advice. "I'll sweep up the fragments that remain of you afterwards. No, I'm not going to back either of you. Go ahead and get it over!"

Percy had grown immensely during this last term. He was now seventeen, and very tall, though at present decidedly lanky. The Cadet Corps at his school absorbed most of his interests. He held emphatic opinions upon the war, and aired them daily to his family over the morning paper. According to his accounts, matters seemed likely to make little progress until he and his contemporaries at Longworth College should have reached military age, and be able to take their due part in the struggle, at which happy crisis the Germans would receive a setback that would astonish the Kaiser.

"Our British tactics have been all wrong!" he declared. "I can tell you we follow things out inch by inch at Longworth, and you should just hear what Johnstone Major has to say. Some of those generals at the Front are old women! They ought to send them home, and set them some knitting to do. If I'd the ordering of affairs I'd give the command to fellows under twenty-five! New wine should be in new bottles."

The younger children listened with admiration to Percy's views on war topics, much regretting that the Government had not yet obtained the benefit of his advice. Godfrey even hoped that the war would not be over before there was a chance for precept to be put into practice, and already, in imagination, saw his brother in the uniform of a Field Marshal. Winona smiled tolerantly. She took Percy's opinions for what they were worth. If his school report was anything to go by, he had certainly not won laurels at Longworth this term, in the direction of brainwork, and the headmaster's comment: "Lacking in steady application," had probably been amply justified.

Winona was not altogether happy about Percy, these holidays. Jack Cassidy was spending Christmas at the Vicarage, and claimed much of his time, and the influence was not altogether for good. Young Cassidy had already given the Vicar, his guardian and former tutor, considerable trouble. At twenty-two he had run through a large proportion of the money which had come to him at his majority, though fortunately he could not touch the bulk of his property till he should be twenty-five. At present he was waiting for a commission, and amusing himself as best he could in the village until the welcome missive should arrive. For lack of other congenial companions he sought Percy's society. Neither Mr. James, the Vicar, nor Mrs. Woodward realized how much the two young fellows were together, or they certainly would not have encouraged the intimacy. Winona, who was just old enough to recognize certain undesirable features, tackled Percy in private.

"Mother wouldn't like your going into 'The Blue Harp,' and playing billiards with Jack!" she remonstrated. "You were there hours yesterday. Doesn't it cost a lot?"

"Oh, Jack pays for it! At least he settles with old Chubbs. I have a bit on the score, of course, but he says that can wait a while. I'm improving, and I'll beat him yet, and win my own back."

"You promised mother you wouldn't bet again, after what happened last Easter."

"Now don't you go jaw-wagging!"

"Well, I must say something! If Mr. Joynson—"

"Old Joynson may go and boil his head! I'm seventeen now. Look here, Win, if you're going to turn sneak—"

"Sneak, indeed! Do I ever tell your secrets? Think what you did at Aunt Harriet's!"

Percy changed color.

"You've not breathed a word about that?"

"Of course I haven't, but I'm always terrified that she'll find out."

"It was a rocky little business. I say, Win, I was looking up wills in 'Every Man his Own Lawyer.' If Aunt Harriet died intestate all her estate would go to her next-of-kin, and that's Uncle Herbert Beach out in China. The mater wouldn't have a look-in, because her mother was only Aunt Harriet's half-sister. Uncle Herbert would just get the lot. She ought to make another will at once."

"Had you better tell, then?" faltered Winona.

"Tell? Certainly not! But you might very well suggest it to her. You've plenty of opportunities, as you're living there. Bring the conversation round to wills, and ask casually if she's made hers."

"Oh, I couldn't!"

"Yes, you could. You ought to do it, Winona. The mater stands to lose everything as it is. It would probably make Aunt Harriet look inside the drawer, and then she'd see her paper was gone."

"And suspect us!"

"Why should she know we'd had anything to do with it? The servants might have been rummaging. I certainly think it's your duty, Win, to take some steps."

It was rather fine to hear Percy preaching duty on a subject in which he was so plainly a defaulter. Winona at first indignantly repudiated the task he wished to impose upon her. Nevertheless, the idea kept returning and troubling her. She was sure Aunt Harriet ought to know that the will had been destroyed, and if it was impossible to tell her outright, this would certainly be a means of putting her on the track. Winona's whole soul revolted from the notion of speculating upon possible advantages to be gained from a relative's death. She would rather let Uncle Herbert inherit everything than interfere for herself. But for her mother it was a different matter. Aunt Harriet might wish her goddaughter to receive part of her fortune, and to conceal the destruction of the will might mean depriving Mrs. Woodward of a handsome legacy. How to make Miss Beach realize the loss of the paper without getting Percy into trouble was a problem that might have perplexed older and wiser heads.

Meanwhile it was holiday time, and there were many more pleasant subjects to think about. Winona's Christmas present had been a small hand camera, the very thing for which she had longed during the whole of the past term. She contemplated it with the utmost satisfaction. Now she would be able to join the Photographic Club at school, to go out on some of the Saturday afternoon expeditions, and to have a few of her prints in the Exhibition. She could take snap-shots of the girls and the classroom, and make them into picture postcards to send to her mother, and she could make a series of home photos to hang up in her bedroom at Abbey Close. There seemed no limit indeed to the possibilities of her new camera. She guarded it jealously from the prying fingers of the younger members of the family.

"Paws off!" she commanded. "Anybody who interferes with this Kodak will quarrel with me, so I give you full and fair warning! Oh, yes, Dorrie! I dare say you'd just like to press the button! I'd guarantee your fairy fingers to smash anything! It's 'mustn't touch, only look' where this is concerned. No personal familiarities, please!"

December and January were scarcely propitious months for the taking of snap-shots, but Winona attempted some time exposures, with varying results. It was difficult to make the children realize the necessity of keeping absolutely still, and they spoilt several of her plates by grinning or moving. She secured quite a nice photo of the house, however, and several of the village, and promised herself better luck with family portraits when the summer came round again. She turned a large cupboard in the attic into her dark-room, and spent many hours dabbling among chemicals. She had urgent offers of help, but rejected them steadfastly, greatly to the disappointment of her would-be assistants. Her sanctum became a veritable Bluebeard's chamber, for to prevent possible accidents she locked the door, and kept the key perpetually in her pocket during the day time, sleeping with it under her pillow at night. In the summer she meant to try all kinds of experiments. She had visions of rigging up a shelter made of leaves and branches, and taking a series of magnificent snap-shots of wild birds and animals, like those in the books by Cherry Kearton, and she certainly intended to secure records of the sports at school. In the meantime she must content herself with landscape and still life. "I'll have one of the de Claremont tomb, at any rate," she resolved.

The de Claremont tomb was the glory of Ashbourne Church. It was of white marble, and beautifully sculptured. Sir Guy de Claremont lay represented in full armor, with his lady in ruff and coif by his side. Six sons and four daughters, all kneeling, were carved in has relief round the side of the monument. Long, long ago, in the Middle Ages, the de Claremonts had been the great people of the neighborhood. They had fought in the Crusades, had taken their part in the wars of the Barons, had declared for the White Rose in the struggle with the House of Lancaster, and cast in their lot for the King against Oliver Cromwell. The family was extinct now, and their lands had passed to others, but a few tattered banners and an old helmet still hung on the wall of the side chapel, above the tomb, testifying to their former achievements. From her seat in church Winona had a good view of the monument. She admired it immensely, and had often woven romances about the good knights of old who had carried those banners to the battle-field. She felt that she would like to secure a satisfactory photo. She started off one morning at about half-past eleven, when the light was likely to be best.

It was a sunny day, and wonderfully bright for January. She had meant to go alone, but the children were on the look-out, and tracked her, so she arrived at the church door closely followed by Letty, Mamie, Godfrey, Ernie and Dorrie. She hesitated for a moment whether to send them straight home or not, but the church was a mile from Highfield, and the mill weir, a place of fascination to Ernie, lay on the way, so she decided that it would be safest to let well alone.

"They're imps, but they'll have to behave themselves decently in church," she said to herself.

At present the conduct of the family was exemplary. They walked in on tip-toe, and talked in whispers. Mamie, indeed, cast an envious eye towards the forbidden ground of the pulpit, into which it was her ambition some day to climb, and wave her arms about in imitation of the Vicar, but she valiantly restrained her longings, and kept from the neighborhood of the chancel. Letty took a surreptitious peep at the organ, and was disappointed to find it locked, as was also the little oak door that led up the winding staircase to the bell tower. She decided that the parish clerk was much too attentive to his duties.

"Come along over here, can't you?" said Winona suspiciously. "Leave those hymn-books alone, and tell Dorrie she's not to touch the font, or I'll stick her inside and pop the lid on her. Go and sit down, all of you, in that pew, while I take the photo."

The family for once complied obediently, if somewhat reluctantly. It was better to play the part of spectators than to be left out of the proceedings altogether. In the circumstances they knew Winona had the whip-hand, and that if she ordered them from the church there would be no appeal. They watched her now with interest and enthusiasm.

It took her a long time to fix her camera in good position. It was difficult to see properly in the viewfinder, and she wanted to be quite sure that when the head of Sir Guy was safely in the right-hand corner, his feet were not out of the picture at the left, to say nothing of the ten kneeling children underneath.

"It's impossible to get the wall above if I'm to take the inscription on the monument," she declared, "and yet I mustn't leave out the old helmet on any account. I shall take it down, and put it at the bottom of the tomb while I photograph it. It ought to come out rather well there."

Rejecting eager offers of help from Mamie and Ernie, Winona climbed up on to the stately person of Dame Margaret de Claremont, and managed to take the helmet from the wooden peg on which it was suspended. She posed it at the foot of the monument, on the right hand side.

"There's a splendid light from this window—full sunshine! I think if I give it five minutes' exposure, that ought to do the deed. Now don't any of you so much as cough, or you'll disturb the air."

The family felt that five minutes the very limit of endurance. The moment it was ended they dispersed to ease their strained feelings. Letty and Ernie walked briskly up the nave. Mamie went to investigate the stove. Winona herself took the camera to the opposite side of the church to photograph a Jacobean tablet. Six-year-old Dorrie remained sitting on a hassock in the pew. She had a plan in her crafty young mind. She wanted to examine the helmet, and she knew Winona would be sure to say "Paws off!" or something equally offensive and objectionable. She waited till her sister was safely out of the way, then she stole from her cover, grabbed the helmet, and returned to the shelter of the pew. It made quite an interesting and fascinating plaything in her estimation. She amused herself with it for a long time, until she heard Winona's voice proclaiming that if they didn't trot home quickly they'd be late for dinner, whereupon she popped it under the seat, and joined the others. Winona, of course, ought to have replaced it on its peg on the wall, but her memory was far from perfect, and she completely forgot all about it.

The whole thing seemed a most trivial incident, but it had an amazing sequel. On Saturday afternoons Mrs. Fisher, the caretaker, always came to sweep and tidy up the church in preparation for Sunday. She was a little, thin, sharp-nosed, impulsive woman, and just at present her nerves were rather in a shaky condition for fear of Zeppelins. She lived in perpetual terror of bombs or German spies, and always slept with half her clothing on, in case she should be forced to get up in a hurry and flee for her life. On this particular Saturday afternoon Mrs. Fisher, as was her wont, washed the pavement of the nave, and then took her broom and her duster into the side chapel. Nobody sat there as a rule, so she did not give it very much attention. She flicked the duster over the monument, hastily swept the floor in front, and was just about to turn away, having done her duty, when she caught sight of something under the seat of a pew. She put her hand to her heart, and turned as white as her own best linen apron. She divined instantly what it must be. With great presence of mind she stole softly away on tip-toe. Once outside the church she indulged in a comfortable little burst of hysterics. Then she felt better, and went to tell the parish clerk. Before evening the news had spread all over the village.

"It was brought in a motor car," Mrs. Pikes at the shop informed her customers, "and Wilson's little boy says he heard them talking German."

"There was a foreign-looking sort of a chap rode past our house on a bicycle the other day," volunteered the blacksmith's assistant.

"You never know where you are with strangers in war time," said another.

Everybody agreed that it was a mercy Mrs. Fisher had seen it when she did, and they were glad the church was a goodish way from the village.

The Woodward family generally started off for service almost directly after the bells began to ring. On the following Sunday morning, however, they were considerably perplexed. The familiar "ding-dong, ding-dong" which ought to have been pealing forth was not to be heard. They listened in vain, and consulted all the clocks in the house.

"It's certainly after ten," said Mrs. Woodward. "I'm afraid something must have happened! I hope Mr. James isn't ill. Well, we'd better go at any rate, and see what's the matter."

So the family, which was ready in its best Sunday garments, sallied forth. Ashbourne Church stood a whole mile away from the village, in a lonely spot with only a couple of cottages near it. The Woodwards took a short cut across the common from Highfield, so that they did not pass any houses or meet any neighbors by the way. They arrived at the church to find the door locked, and the Vicar and his family standing in consternation outside. Mr. James hailed them with relief.

"So it is Sunday!" he exclaimed. "I began to think we must have mistaken the day! I can't understand what's the matter. Nobody's here except ourselves. What's becomes of Stevens?"

It was certainly an unprecedented circumstance to find choir, congregation, organist, organ-blower, bell-ringer and verger all conspicuous by their absence. Mr. James went to the cottages near to make inquiries as to the cause. The first was locked up, but by knocking long and loudly at the door of the second, he at last succeeded in rousing Jacob Johnson, a deaf old man of eighty-three.

"Nobody come to church!" he repeated, when after some difficulty and much shouting the situation had been explained: "Well, 'tain't likely there should be! I'm told there's a German bomb there, one of the dangerous sort for going off. Some men brought it yesterday in a motor car. Spies of the Kaiser, they were. It may explode any minute, they say, and wreck the church and everything near. The Greenwoods next door locked up the house, and went to their aunt's in the village. My daughter came over here asking me to go home with her, but I said I'd stay and risk it. At eighty-three one doesn't care to move!"

"Where is this bomb?" asked Mr. James.

"In a pew nigh the old monument, so I'm told." At this juncture Jack Cassidy, who when the church was first found to be locked had volunteered to run back to the Vicarage and fetch the Vicar's own key, now arrived after a record sprint.

"Give me a bucket of water, and I'll go and investigate," said Mr. James.

He came out of the church in the course of a few minutes, holding in his hand—the old helmet!

"This is the nearest approach to a bomb of any description that I've been able to discover," he announced. "I'm going to carry it to the village to convince the wiseacres there. Perhaps Stevens will pluck up courage to ring the bell for afternoon service. If not, I'll ring it myself."

Winona's share in the business might have remained concealed but for the indiscretion of Mamie, who by an incautious remark gave the show away entirely.

"You little silly!" scolded Winona afterwards. "What possessed you to go and say anything at all? Mr. James will never forgive me! I could see it in his eye. And Mrs. James was ice itself! I've never felt so horrible in all my life. If you'd only had the sense to keep mum, they might never have found out. You kids are the most frightful nuisance! If I'd had my choice given me when I was born, I wouldn't have been an eldest sister."

IX. The School Service Badge

Settling down at Abbey Close after a month at Highfield was like transferring oneself from a noisy farmyard to the calm of the cloister. The house was so near to the Minster that it seemed pervaded by the quiet Cathedral atmosphere. When Winona drew up her blinds in the morning, the first sight that greeted her would be the grey old towers and carved pinnacles, exactly opposite, where the jackdaws were chattering, and the pigeons wheeling round, and the big clock was going through the chimes and striking the hour of seven. There was a particular gargoyle at the corner of the transept roof which appeared to be grinning at her across the road, as if some imp were imprisoned in the stone image, and were peeping out of its fantastic eyes. Winona had grown to love the Minster. She would go in whenever she had ten minutes to spare after school. The glorious arches and pillars, the carved choir stalls, the light falling through the splendid rich windows on to the marble pavement, all appealed to the artistic sense that was stirring in her, and gave her immense satisfaction. But even the beauty of the Cathedral was as nothing when the organ began to play. Mr. Holmes, the organist, was a great musician, and could manage his instrument with a wizard touch. In the afternoons, between four and five o'clock, he was wont to practice his voluntaries, and to listen to these took Winona into a new world of sound. He was a disciple of the extreme modern school of music, and his interpretations of Debussy, César Franck, Medtner and Glazounow came to her as a revelation. The glorious weird harmonies, the strange, unaccustomed chords of these tone-poems stirred her like the memory of something long forgotten. As Anglo-Indians, whose knowledge of Hindustani faded with their childhood, yet start and thrill at the sound of the once familiar language, so this dream-music brought haunting elusive suggestions too subtle to be defined. It held a distinct part in Winona's development.

The girl was growing up suddenly. In the almost nursery atmosphere of Highfield, with nothing to stimulate her faculties she had remained at a very childish stage, but now, with a world of art, music, science and literature dawning round her she seemed to leap upward to the level of her new intellectual horizon. It is a glorious time when we first begin to reap the inheritance of the ages, and to discover the rich stores of delight that master minds have laid up for us to enjoy. Life was moving very fast to Winona; she could not analyze all her fresh thoughts and impressions, but she felt she could no more go back to her last year's mental outlook than she could have worn the long clothes of her babyhood. She was sixteen now, for her birthday fell on the 20th of January. Somehow sixteen sounded so infinitely older than fifteen! There was a dignity about it and a sense of importance. In another year she would actually be "sweet seventeen," and a member of that enviable school hierarchy the Sixth Form!

Winona could have made herself thoroughly happy at Abbey Close but for the shadow that existed between herself and Aunt Harriet. Percy's secret was a perpetual burden on her conscience. At meal times she would often find her eyes wandering towards the oak cupboard, and would start guiltily, hoping Miss Beach had not noticed. The more she thought about the subject the more convinced she became that she ought to give some hint of the state of affairs, though how to do so without implicating her brother was at present beyond her calculations. One day, however, a really hopeful opportunity seemed to arise. A case of a disputed will was being tried at the Seaton Sessions; the defendants were friends of Miss Beach's, and after reading the account of the proceedings, Aunt Harriet laid down the local paper with a few comments.

"I suppose people ought to make their wills very fast and firm," said Winona. It was seldom she ventured on an independent remark. As a rule she left her aunt to do the talking.

"Undoubtedly. Nothing causes more trouble than carelessness in this respect."

"Ought we all to make wills?"

"If we have anything to leave it's advisable."

"Ought I?"

"Well, hardly at present, I should say!"

"Ought mother?" Winona was growing redder and redder.

"No doubt she has done so."

"Have you made yours, Aunt Harriet?"

The horrible deed was done, and Winona, crimson to the roots of her hair, felt she had, metaphorically speaking, burnt her boats.

Miss Beach stared at her as if electrified.

"What do you want to know for?" she asked, suspiciously. "I think that's decidedly my business and not yours!"

Winona collapsed utterly, and murmuring something about preparation, fled to her bedroom.

"There! I've just gone and put my foot in it altogether!" she groaned. "I've no tact! I went and blurted it out like an idiot. She'll never forgive me! Oh, why can't I go and tell her the whole business, and then she'd understand! I do hate this sneaking work. Percy, you wretched boy, I'd like to bump your head against the wall! It's too bad to land me in your scrape! Well, I suppose it can't be helped. I've said it, and it's done. But I know I'll be in disgrace for evermore."

Certainly Aunt Harriet's manner towards Winona, after this unfortunate episode, was stiffer than formerly. She was perfectly kind, but the gulf between them had widened. They still discussed conventional topics at meal-times, or rather Miss Beach made leading remarks and Winona said "Yes," or "No," for such a one-sided conversation could hardly be termed discussion. The girl felt it a relief when, as often happened, her aunt took refugein a book. Occasionally Winona would pluck up courage to relate news from her home letters, but of her school life and all her new impressions and interests she scarcely spoke at all. Judging from the children's correspondence the new governess at Highfield, after a stormy beginning, was making some impressions upon her wild little pupils.

"I hated her at first," wrote Mamie, "but she tells us the most lovely fairy tales, and we're learning to model in clay. I like it because it makes such a mess. Ernie smacked her yesterday, and she wouldn't let him do his painting till he'd said he was sorry."

Winona laughed over the letters, picturing the lively scenes that must be taking place at home.

"Do the kids a world of good!" she commented. "They were running to seed. Even I could see that, as long ago as last summer, and I don't mind confessing, quite to myself, that I was fairly raw then. I didn't know very much about anything till I came to the 'Seaton High.'"

Winona's second term was running far more smoothly than her first. Thanks to Miss Lever's coaching she could now hold her own in her Form, and though she might not be the most shining light, at any rate she was not numbered among the slackers.

Her progress was marked in more quarters than she suspected. Margaret Howell had had the Scholarship winners under observation ever since their arrival. As head girl she made it her business to know something about every girl in the school. "The General," as she was nicknamed, was universally voted a success. She and Kirsty Paterson between them had organized a new era of things. Every one felt the "Seaton High" was waking up and beginning to found a reputation for itself. The various guilds and societies were prospering, and following Margaret's pet motto "Pro Bono Publico," had exterminated private quarrels and instituted the most business-like proceedings and the strictest civility at committee meetings. Already the general tone was raised immeasurably, and public spirit and school patriotism ran high. To encourage zeal and strenuousness, Margaret and Kirsty had laid their heads together and decided to found what they called "The Order of Distinguished School Service." Any girl who was considered to have performed some action worthy of special commendation or who had otherwise contributed to the general benefit, was to be rewarded with a badge, and her name was to be chronicled in a book kept for the purpose.

The very first to gain the honor was little Daisy Hicks, a Second Form child, who won 9,400 marks out of a possible 10,000 in the Christmas exams, so far the highest score known in the school. Agnes Heath, who wrung special praise from the doctor who conducted the Ambulance examination, and Gladys Vickcrs, whose photograph of the hockey team was published in the Seaton Weekly Graphic, were also placed upon the distinguished list, having substantially helped the credit of the school. The badge was only a rosette made of narrow ribbons, stitched in tiny loops into the form of a daisy, with a yellow disk, and white and pink outer rays. If meant very much, however, to the recipient, who knew that her name would be handed down to posterity in the school traditions, and every girl was immensely keen to earn it.

A new institution in the school this term was the foundation of a library. It had been a pet project of Margaret's ever since her appointment as head prefect. Just before the Christmas breaking up she had called a general meeting and begged everybody after the holidays to present at least one contribution.

"It may be a new book or an old one," she had explained, "but it must be really interesting. Please don't bring rubbish. Give something you would enjoy reading yourself and can recommend to your friends."

The response to her appeal had been greater than she anticipated. Nobody failed to comply, and some of the girls brought several books apiece. A start was made with three hundred and forty-one volumes, which was regarded as a most creditable beginning. For the present they were piled up in the prefects' room until shelves had been made to receive them. Miss Bishop had given the order to the joiner, but owing to the war it might be some time before the work was finished.

Meanwhile Margaret decided that the books ought to be catalogued and labeled, so that they would be quite ready when the bookcases arrived. She cast about for helpers in this rather arduous task, and her choice fell upon Winona, who happened to have a spare half-hour between her classes on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Winona, immensely flattered, accepted the responsibility with glee, and was put to work under the "General's" directions. She thoroughly enjoyed sorting, dusting, pasting on labels, and making alphabetical lists.

"I shouldn't mind being a librarian some day in a big public library," she assured Ellinor Cooper, her fellow-assistant.

"You'd have to be quicker than you are at present, then," remarked Margaret dryly. "They wouldn't think you worth your salt if you spent all your time reading the books. Buck up, can't you? and get on!"

At which Winona guiltily shut "Shirley" with a bang and turned her attention to the paste-pot.

While Margaret was cultivating the intellectual side of the school, Kirsty was carefully attending to her duties as Games Captain. Her work among the juniors prospered exceedingly. They were taking to hockey with wild enthusiasm and gave evidence of considerable promise. As most of them were free at three o'clock, they got the chance of playing almost every day. Kirsty was extremely anxious that these practices should be properly supervised. She was too busy herself to take them personally, so she was obliged to delegate the work to anybody who had the spare time.

"The girls I want most are all at classes or music lessons," she lamented. "Not a single one of the team's available. Winona Woodward, I've been looking at your time-table, and find you've two vacant half-hours. Wouldn't you like to help?"

"Like! I'd sell my birthright to do it!" gasped Winona. "But I'm fearfully sorry; I'm cataloguing for Margaret!"

"Then I mustn't take you away from the General! It's a nuisance though, for you'd have done very well, and I don't know who else I can get."

Winona considered it was one of the sharpest disappointments she had ever gone through.

"Oh, the grizzly bad luck of it!" she wailed to Garnet. "It would have been idyllic to coach those kids. And it would have given me such a leg up with Kirsty! To think I've lost my chance!"

"I suppose Margaret might get some one else to do cataloguing?"

"I dare say: but I couldn't possibly ask her, and I'm sure Kirsty won't. No, I'm done for!"

School etiquette is very strict, and Winona would have perished sooner than resign her library duties. She felt a martyr, but resolved to smile through it all. Garnet contemplated the problem at leisure during her drawing lesson, and arrived at a daring conclusion. Without consulting her friend she marched off at four o'clock to the prefects' room, a little sanctum on the ground floor where the minutes' books of the various guilds and societies were kept, and where the school officers could hold meetings and transact business.

As she expected, Margaret was there alone, and said "Come in" in answer to her rap at the door. The members of the Sixth kept much on their dignity, so it was rather a formidable undertaking even for a Fifth Form girl to interrupt the head of the school. Margaret looked up inquiringly as Garnet entered.

"Yes, I'm fearfully busy," she replied to the murmured question. "What is it? I can give you five minutes, but no more, so please be brief."

Thus urged, Garnet, though greatly embarrassed, did not beat about the bush.

"I've come to ask a frightfully cheeky thing," she blurted out. "Kirsty wants Winona to coach the kids at hockey, and Winona's cataloguing for you, so of course she can't—and—" but here Garnet's courage failed her, so she paused.

"Do you mean that Winona would prefer to help with the juniors?"

"She'd be torn in pieces rather than let me say so, but she's just crazy over hockey. I hope I haven't made any mischief! Win doesn't know I've come."

"All right. I understand. I'll see what can be done in the matter," returned the General, opening her books as a sign of dismissal.

Garnet was not at all sure whether her mission had succeeded or the reverse, but the next day Margaret sent for Winona.

"I hear Kirsty wants you for a hockey coach. Just at present I think games are of more importance in the school than the library, so please report yourself to her, and say I've taken your name off my list. You've done very well here, but I'm going to lend you to Kirsty for a while."

Winona was so astounded she hardly knew whether to stammer out apologies, gratitude, or regrets, and was intensely relieved when the head girl cut her short kindly but firmly, and sent her away. She lost no time in seeking out the Games Captain.

"Very decent of Margaret," remarked Kirsty. "It's got me out of a hole, for I couldn't find anybody else with that special time free. You'll do your best I know?"

"Rather!" beamed Winona ecstatically.

Under her tuition the children's play improved fast. Kirsty said little—she was not given to over-praising people—but Winona felt she noticed and approved.

Among the season's fixtures perhaps the most important was the match with the Seaton Ladies' Hockey Club that was to come off on March 7th. Their opponents possessed a fair reputation in the city, so it would behove the school to "play up for all they were worth," as Kirsty expressed it. It would be a glorious opportunity of showing their capabilities to the world at large, and demonstrating that they meant to take their due place in local athletics.

Three days before the event, Kirsty appeared in the morning with the air of a tragedy queen.

"What's the matter?" queried Patricia. "You've a face as long as a fiddle!"

"Matter enough! Barbara Jennings is laid up with influenza! What'll become of the match I don't know. It makes me feel rocky. Where's Margaret? I want to confab. Did you ever hear of such grizzly luck in your life?"

At five minutes past eleven, when Winona was eating her lunch in the gymnasium, Kirsty tapped her on the shoulder.

"I've something to tell you, Winona Woodward. You're to play for the School on Saturday instead of Barbara."

Winona swallowed a piece of biscuit with foolhardy haste. She could scarcely believe the news, so great was its magnitude. To be asked to fill a vacant place in the team was beyond her wildest dreams.

"Thanks most immensely!" she stammered, with her eyes shining like stars.

Through the next few days Winona simply lived for Saturday. To be able to represent the School! The glorious thought was never for a moment absent from her mind. She even ventured to tell Aunt Harriet the honor that had been thrust upon her, and was astonished at the interest with which her information was received.

On the Saturday afternoon the High School turned up almost in full force to view the match; juniors were keen as seniors, and the children whom Winona had coached were wild with excitement. The field was packed with spectators, for the Ladies' Club had brought many friends. It was even rumored that a reporter from the Seaton Weekly Graphic was present. The High School team in navy blue gymnasium costumes, bare heads and close-plaited pigtails, looked neat and trim and very business-like. "A much fitter set than we showed last year!" murmured Margaret with satisfaction. All eyes were riveted on the field as the two opponents stood out to "bully" and the sticks first clashed together. Winona, her face aglow with excitement, waited a chance to run. A little later her opportunity came: she dashed into the masses of the opponents' force, and with one magnificent stroke swept the ball well onward towards the goal.

"Oh! how precious!" shouted the girls.

Nobody had imagined Winona capable of such a feat. She at once became the focus of all eyes. It had not occurred to the High School that there was a real possibility of their winning the match. They had expected to make a gallant fight and be defeated, retiring with all the honors of war. Perhaps the Ladies' Club team, who had come to the field secure of victory, began to feel pangs of uneasiness under their white jerseys. The situation was supreme. The score had become even. Could the School possibly do it? That was the question. All looked to Winona for the answer. She was playing like one inspired. She had not realized her own capacities before: the wild excitement of the moment seemed to lend wings to her feet and strength and skill to her arm. One heroic, never-to-be-forgotten stroke, and the ball was spinning between the posts. It was a magnificent finish. Frantic applause rose up from the spectators. The High School cheered its champions in a glorious roar of victory. The Ladies' Club team were magnanimous enough to offer congratulations, and their captain shook hands with Winona.

"Glad to see how your standard's gone up!" she remarked to Kirsty aside. "That half-back of yours is worth her salt!"

Kirsty was literally purring with satisfaction. Last year the High School had been badly beaten in more than half its matches. This was indeed a new page in its records.

On Monday morning Winona received a message summoning her to the prefects' room. She found Margaret, Kirsty, and the other school officers assembled there.

"Winona Woodward," said the head girl, "we have decided to present you with the School Service Badge, in recognition of your play on Saturday. It is felt that you really secured the match, and as this is our first great victory we consider you deserve to have it recorded in your favor. Your name has been entered in the book. Come here!"

Winona turned crimson as Margaret pinned the daisy badge on to her blouse.

"I—I've been only too proud to do what I can!" she blurted out. "Thanks most awfully!"

X. A Scare

The Spring Term came to a close with a very fair number of hockey successes to be placed to the credit of the Seaton High School. Compared with last year's record it was indeed a great improvement, and Kirsty felt that though they had not yet established a games reputation, they at any rate showed good promise of future achievements. She hoped to do much in the cricket and tennis season, though she certainly acknowledged there was much to be done. The cricket so far had been such a half-hearted business that she doubted the advisability of making any fixtures.

"I believe we'd just better train up for all we're worth," she said at the committee meeting. "It'll take ages to lick an eleven into shape. What we want is to get a cricket atmosphere into the school. You can't develop these things all in a few weeks. You've got to catch your kids young and teach them, before you get a school with a reputation. I feel with all the games that we're simply building foundations at present at the Seaton High. This term especially is spade-work. I'll do all I can to get things going, but it will be the Games Captain who comes after me who'll reap the reward."

"Can't you stay on another year?" suggested Patricia.

"Wish I could for some things, but it's impossible. No, I'll do my bit this term, and then hand over the job to my successor. As I said before, what we want now is a good start."

Kirsty was a capital organizer. She soon recognized a girl's capacities, and she had a knack of inspiring enthusiasm even in apparent slackers. She worked thoroughly hard herself, and insisted that everybody else did the same. Her motto for the term was the athletic education of the rank and file. It was really very self-sacrificing of her, for she might have gained far more credit by concentrating her energies on a few, but for the ultimate good of the school it was undoubtedly far and away the best policy to pursue. The training of a number of recruits may not be as interesting as the polishing up of champions, but in time recruits become veterans, and a school in which the standard of the ordinary play is very high has a better general chance than one that depends on an occasional solitary star. So even the little girls were strictly supervised in their practices, and both cricket and tennis showed healthy development.

The Governors and the head mistress were anxious that the games department should prosper, and gave every encouragement. There were a larger number of tennis courts provided than fall to the share of most schools, and each form had its allotted times for play. Athletics were indeed compulsory, every girl being required to take her due part, unless she were excused by a medical certificate.

Winona worked with the utmost enthusiasm. As a Fifth Form girl she had, of course, to be rather humble towards the Sixth, but she felt that Kirsty approved of her. It was never Kirsty's way to praise, and she could be scathing in her remarks sometimes, but Winona did not mind criticism from her captain, and acted so well on all the advice given that she was making rapid strides. In pursuance of Kirsty's all-round training policy, she was not allowed to specialize in either tennis or cricket this summer, but to give equal energy to both. So she practiced bowling under Hester King's careful supervision, and played exciting sets while Clarice Nixon stood by to watch and score.

The games appealed to Winona more than any other part of the school curriculum. She did fairly well now in her Form work, but she knew she could never be clever like Garnet, and that it was extremely unlikely that she would win laurels on her books. She had promised Miss Bishop that she would try to do credit to the school in return for her scholarship, and to help to raise its athletic reputation seemed her most feasible method of success.

"I could never get a College Scholarship, however I tried," she thought, "but—I won't say it's probable, but it's just possible that I might do something some day in the way of winning matches. Miss Bishop would be pleased at that!"

The early summer was delightful at Seaton. The park opposite the school was full of tulips and hyacinths, and the long avenue of trees in the Abbey Close had burst into tender green foliage. Winona studied her home lessons sitting by her open bedroom window with a leafy bower outside, and an accompaniment of jackdaws cawing in the old towers of the Minster. She loved this window and the prospect from it. There was a romantic, old-world flavor about the gray pile opposite, its carvings and cloisters and chiming bells seemed so peaceful and so far removed from modern trouble. Sometimes indeed the whirr of a biplane would disturb the quiet as an airman flittered like a great dragon-fly over the city, reminding her that medieval times were past; while a bugle call from the neighboring barracks emphasized the fact that the world was at war. Not that Winona was likely to forget that! Every day in school the Peace Bell prayer was read at noon, and she might see regiments of recruits marching up or down the High Street on their way to their training grounds. Nearly every girl in V.a. had some relation at the front, and though Winona could not boast of anybody nearer than a third cousin serving "somewhere in France," she looked for news as eagerly as the rest.

"It must be glorious to get letters from the trenches," she said half wistfully one day to Beatrice Howell, who was exulting over a pencil scrawl written by her brother in a dug-out. "I half wish——"

"No, you don't!" snapped Beatrice. "It's a nightmare to have them in the firing line! Be thankful your brother's still safe at school."

On the subject of Percy, Winona was far from easy. He had let fall one or two hints during the Easter holidays which confirmed her previous suspicion that he had got into a wrong set at Longworth College. He had written to her twice already this term, wanting to borrow money, and suggesting that, without mentioning his name, she should ask Miss Beach to lend it to her. With such a request, however, Winona had utterly refused to comply.

"Aunt Harriet has been so decent to us I can't begin to sponge on her," she wrote back. "Besides, she'd want to know what I wanted such a lot for, and then all the mischief would be out!"

Apparently Percy was offended, for his usual weekly letter did not appear. Winona only laughed, expecting he would soon get over his fit of sulks. She was utterly unprepared for the sequel. One day she received a note from him written on Y.M.C.A. paper and headed "Horminster." It ran thus:

"Dear Win,—I'd got into such an altogether grizzly hole that there was only one way out, and I've taken it. I am at present a member of His Majesty's Forces, and if you want to write to me address: Private P. D. Woodward, 17th Battalion, Royal Rytonshire Fusiliers, Horminster.

"Your affectionate brother,

"Percy."

"P.S.—You can tell the mater if you like."

Winona, in a great state of excitement, showed the note to Aunt Harriet, who telegraphed the information to Mrs. Woodward. The latter had just heard from Percy's housemaster of his disappearance, and was greatly relieved to have news of his whereabouts. The runaway was below military age, and his mother's first impulse was to apply for his immediate discharge. But from this course her best friends dissuaded her. The headmaster of Longworth College and Mr. Joynson, her trustee, were unanimous in counseling her to leave the boy alone, and Aunt Harriet cordially agreed with them.

"Let the lad serve his country!" she wrote to her niece. "He is tall for his age, and if the Military Authorities have accepted him, well and good. It seems to me the one thing in the world that is likely to steady him and give him that sense of responsibility that hitherto he has so signally lacked. You will make the mistake of your life if you keep him back now."

It seemed funny to Winona to imagine Percy, so young and boyish, actually in His Majesty's uniform. He had not yet got his khaki, but he promised to have a photo taken as soon as ever he was in military garb, and she looked forward to showing the portrait of her soldier brother to the girls in her Form. She began a pair of socks for him at once. I regret to say that Winona's patriotic knitting had languished very much during the last two terms, but this personal stimulus revived her ardor. She even took her sock to the tennis court, and, emulating the example of Patricia Marshall and several other enthusiasts, got quite good pieces done between the sets. She would have taken it to cricket also, but Kirsty had sternly made a by-law prohibiting all knitting on the pitch since Ellinor Cooper, when supposed to be fielding, had surreptitiously taken her work from her pocket and missed the best catch of the afternoon, to her everlasting disgrace and the scorn of the indignant Games Captain.

Kirsty was keen at present upon each Form having its own Eleven, and had arranged some school matches as trials of skill. The first of these, Sixth v. Fifth, was fixed for the following Saturday afternoon. Winona, to her ecstatic and delirious delight, had been elected captain of the combined V.a. and V.b. Eleven, and she was looking forward to the contest as one of the events of her life. She was aware that on its success or failure might hang much of her future athletic career at school, and she was determined to show of what stuff she was made. She urged her team to make heroic efforts, and got all the practice in that was available. On the Thursday afternoon she gave everybody a final drilling. On Friday the pitch would be the property of the Lower School, so this was the last opportunity of play before the match.

"If any of you muff the ball or do anything stupid, I'll never forgive you!" she assured her Eleven. "The Sixth are A1 at fielding, so for goodness' sake don't disgrace our Form. Beware of Patricia's bowling. It looks simple, but it's the nastiest I know. I'd rather have Kirsty's any day, because at least you know what to expect from her, and you're on your guard. Don't try to be clever too soon; it's better not to score at all during the first over than to run any risks. Evelyn, you were a mascot to-day! I hope you'll play up equally well on Saturday. By the by, Joyce, I really can't compliment you on your innings. What were you thinking of to make that idiotic blind swipe?"

"I don't know!" returned Joyce dolefully. (She was sitting on the fence looking decidedly crestfallen.) "I'm afraid I'm rather rocky to-day, somehow."

"Got nerves? Girl alive! Do brace up!"

"No, it's not nerves. My head's been aching all the week, and I've a pain across my chest, and I keep shivering. I suppose I must have caught cold. It'll be a grizzly nuisance if I can't play on Saturday!"

"You must play!" urged Winona. "We've got to beat the Sixth or perish in the attempt! You go home at once, and get some hot tea, and go to bed afterwards if you don't feel better. You may stop in bed all to-morrow if it'll do you good!"

"Thank you, Grannie! Perhaps I will go home now. I really am feeling rather queer."

"She looks queer, too," said Bessie Kirk to Winona, as they stood watching Joyce's retreating figure. "I thought she was going to faint a while ago. It'll be a hideous nuisance if she has to be out of it."

"Our best bowler! It's unthinkable!" groaned Winona.

"It's hard luck, but I'm certain Joyce won't play on Saturday," said Mary Payne.

The team was feeling rather down at the prospect.

"We may throw up the sponge if Joyce is off!" mourned Olave Parry.

"Shut up, you bluebottle!" snapped Winona, decidedly out of temper. "Joyce may be absolutely well again by Saturday, and if she isn't Marjorie Kemp must take her place. Do be sporting! You'll never win if you make up your mind beforehand that you're going to lose!"

When Winona walked into V.a. on the following morning she looked anxiously in the direction of Joyce's desk, but the familiar check dress and amber pigtail were not to be seen. Little groups of girls were standing in clusters, talking in apparent consternation.

"Well! Have you heard the news?" asked Garnet, stepping forward to meet her friend.

"No. What's the damage? You're looking very down in the dumps!"

"Joyce Newton has developed small-pox!"

"Nonsense!" exploded Winona.

"It's perfectly true," said Garnet, with severe dignity in her voice. "One only wishes for Joyce's sake that it wasn't! The news has only just come. Helena Maitland knows about it. She lives next door, and saw the doctor's car at the Newtons' gate this morning."

"I told you Joyce looked queer yesterday!" said Bessie Kirk.

"Suppose we all catch it!" shuddered Freda Long.

"Don't! It's too horrible!"

There was a feeling of utter consternation among the girls as the bad news was discussed. They wondered what was going to happen.

"Miss Bishop is telephoning to the Medical Officer of Health," volunteered Olave Parry, who had been downstairs to seek fresh information.

Just then Miss Huntley came into the room, though it was not yet nine o'clock. She went at once to her desk and took the call over.

"What's going to happen about Joyce?" one or two of the girls ventured to ask her.

"I don't know yet. I expect we shall all be put into quarantine. Miss Bishop is making arrangements. In the meantime we will go on with our work."

It was wise of Miss Huntley to begin the English Language lesson, for though every one was of course very abstracted, it gave some ostensible occupation. Before the hour was over Miss Bishop sailed into the room. She looked pale and anxious, but spoke with her usual calm dignity.

"Girls," she announced, "you have heard of the very difficult situation in which the school is placed. I have rung up Dr. Barnes, the Medical Officer of Health, and he tells me that the whole of V.a. must be regarded as 'contact cases.' That means that as Joyce has been amongst you, it is possible for any of you to develop the disease. In order to avoid the spread of infection throughout the city, you will have to be most carefully kept apart. I have sent all the other girls home, and you will stay at the school during to-day. Dr. Barnes is coming this morning to re-vaccinate you, and this afternoon you are to be taken to the Camp at Dunheath, where you will stay until the period of quarantine is over. Go home? Most certainly not! No girl is to leave the school on any pretext whatever. I am communicating with your home people and requesting that they send you a few necessary things to take to the camp, but no personal interviews can be allowed. Dr. Barnes' orders are most emphatic. You need not be alarmed, for if you are all re-vaccinated it is highly improbable that you will be infected, and I think you will all enjoy yourselves at Dunheath."

When the Principal had gone the girls clustered round Miss Huntley to discuss the situation.

"Yes, of course I'm going with you," said the mistress. "I'm a contact case as much as anybody else! Miss Bishop tells me that Dr. Barnes will send a hospital nurse with us. It's a nuisance to be in quarantine, but it will be beautiful out in the country just now, and we'll manage to enjoy ourselves."

The girls took the matter in various fashions according to their respective temperaments. Some were nervous, while others regarded it as a joke. The latter rallied their more timorous companions with scant mercy.

"Oh, buck up, you sillies!" said Marjorie Kemp, to the tearful plaints of Agatha James and Irene Mills. "Vaccination doesn't hurt! It's nothing but a scratch. You might be going to have your arms cut off. For goodness' sake show some pluck! Suppose you were in the trenches? The Camp will be just topping. We'll have the time of our lives!"

"If we don't break out in spots!" wailed Irene.

"Well, wait till you do before you make a fuss. You're far more likely to catch a thing if you're afraid of it."

"Oh, I say!" said Winona, suddenly remembering Saturday's event. "The match to-morrow will be all off!"

"Hold me up! So it will! What a grizzly nuisance! Oh, the hard luck of it!"

"Well, it can't be helped! We must play the Sixth later on."

"Kirsty'll be as savage as we are!"

"Poor old Joyce, she's responsible for a good deal of damage!"

The rest of the day passed in an extraordinary fashion. V.a. had the whole of the school premises absolutely and entirely to itself. The Fourth Form room was turned into a temporary surgery, and Dr. Barnes installed himself there with tubes of vaccine and packets of new darning needles. Each girl in turn went first to Miss Bishop and had her arm thoroughly sterilized with boiled water and boracic lotion, and was then passed on to the medical officer for vaccination. The scratch with the needle really did not hurt, and the little operations were soon over. Sixteen maidens walking about waiting for their arms to dry before re-donning their blouses made a rather comical sight. The giggles that ensued raised the spirits of even Agatha and Irene.

"Glad it was done on our left arms! I expect we sha'n't be in much form for cricket after this, unless we play one-handed!" laughed Winona. "By the by, will there be any field we can practice on out at the camp?"

"I expect so," returned Miss Huntley. "You had better make a collection of bats, balls and stumps and a few tennis rackets, and also your school books. Put them all together, and Miss Bishop will have them sent to us."

The girls hastened to sort out the necessary impedimenta for cricket and tennis, but arranged piles of books with less enthusiasm, the general opinion being that it was rather stiff to be expected to do work at the Camp. They were each allowed to take a book from the school library, and Miss Huntley added a pile of foolscap paper, pens and a big bottle of ink, which the girls devoutly hoped might get broken on the way and thus save them the labor of writing exercises. They had dinner and a four o'clock tea at school, after which meal Miss Bishop, who seemed to have spent most of the day at the telephone, announced that arrangements were now completed, and that they must get ready to start. Great was the excitement when at five o'clock a motor char-à-banc made its appearance. The sixteen "contacts" and Miss Huntley took their places, their hand-bags, which had been sent from their respective homes during the course of the day, were stowed away with the rest of their luggage inside a motor 'bus, and the company, feeling much more like a picnic party than possibly infected cases, drove merrily away for their period of quarantine.

XI. The Open-air Camp

If this particular Friday had been an exciting day to the girls of V.a., it had certainly proved a most agitating one to the Medical Officer of Health for Seaton. Upon his energy and organization depended the prevention of a serious epidemic in the city, and he had shown himself admirably able to cope with the sudden emergency. The Corporation had lately set up a camp for children threatened with tuberculosis, and this was commandeered by Dr. Barnes as a suitable place for quarantine. It lay five miles away from Seaton, on the top of a hill in a very open situation in the midst of fields, so was excellently fitted for the purpose. The children under treatment there had been hurriedly taken back to their homes in Seaton, extra beds and supplies had been sent out, and a hospital nurse installed in charge, so that all was in readiness when the char-à-banc arrived.

The Camp consisted of a long wooden shelter or shed, the south side of which was entirely open to the air. The boarded floor was raised about three feet above the level of the field, and projected well beyond the roof line, thus forming a kind of terrace. Inside the shelter was a row of small beds, and a space was curtained off at either end, on one side for a kitchen and on the other to make a cubicle for Miss Huntley. Outside, under a large oak tree, stood a table and benches. Nothing could have been more absolutely plain and bare as regards furniture. The girls took possession, however, with the utmost enthusiasm. The idea of "living the simple life" appealed to them. Who wanted chairs and chests of drawers and wash-stands? It would be fun to sleep in the shelter, and spend the whole day out of doors.

"It's too topping for anything!" declared Marjorie Kemp, after a careful inspection of the premises. "We shall have to keep all our things inside our bags, and wash in an enameled tin basin, and drink our tea out of mugs!"

"It will be precious having meals under that tree!" agreed Bessie Kirk.

"What shall we do if it rains?" inquired Irene Mills.

"Go to bed with hot bottles, like the children did," replied Nurse Robinson. "They always thought that prime fun, so I expect you will too. You'll soon get into the life here."

The view from the shelter was most beautiful. In the far away distance they could see the towers of Seaton Minster and the spires of the churches, while all around lay lush meadows, fields of growing corn, and woods in the glory of June foliage. The Camp stood in the corner of a very large pasture, with hedges all covered with lovely wild roses and tangles of honeysuckle, while a wood close by showed a tempting vista of pine trees. The fresh country air and the smell of flowers and pines were delicious.

Life at the Camp was arranged according to a strict time-table. Every one rose at seven, and a certain number of volunteers helped to prepare breakfast. Then came bed-making, crockery washing and potato peeling, at which duties the girls took turns. From 9.30 to 12.30 they had classes with Miss Huntley, while Nurse Robinson superintended the cooking of the dinner on the large oil stove. With the exception of an hour's preparation the rest of the day was free from lessons. Tea was at four and supper at seven, and by half-past nine every one was in bed, well covered with blankets, and with a hot bottle if she liked, for the nights were apt to be chilly to those unaccustomed to sleeping in the open-air. The rules of quarantine were of course sternly kept. No girl might go outside the pasture without special permission. Sometimes Miss Huntley took her flock for a walk along quiet country roads and rambling by-lanes, but the vicinity of their fellow-creatures was carefully avoided.

"We're like the lepers in the Middle Ages!" laughed Garnet. "I feel as if I ought to wear a coarse white cassock, and ring a bell as I go about, to warn people to give me a wide berth!"

"It's amusing that the farmer has even driven his cows out of the pasture since we arrived," said Evelyn. "He let them feed here while the tuberculous children had their innings, and I should have thought consumption germs were as bad as small-pox ones."

"They weren't real consumptives though, only threatened!"

"Well, we're not small-pox patients, either, only contacts!"

"I'm sorry for those poor kids, sent suddenly back to their slum homes after being here for weeks," said Jess Gardner.

"Oh, the kids have had luck! There were only ten of them, and a lady at Hawberry has rigged up a tent in her garden, and has them all there, so Nurse told me this morning. They're living on the fat of the land, and gaining pounds and pounds in weight, by the look of them."

"Good! I don't feel so bad at having turned them out, then. It's great here!"

"Rather! On the whole, I feel thoroughly grateful to Joyce."

From the girls' point of view there really was matter for congratulation. None of them was ill, and all were having a most delightful and quite unexpected three weeks' holiday in idyllic surroundings. Their arms, to be sure, had "taken," and were more or less sore, but that was a trifling inconvenience compared with the pleasures of living in Camp. There was no anxiety to be felt about Joyce, she had the disease very slightly, and was being treated with such extreme care that her face would not be marked afterwards. It was ascertained that she had caught the infection from some Belgians who had come over lately from Holland, and who were now isolated by Dr. Barnes in a Cottage Hospital. The Seaton High School was undergoing elaborate disinfection, and as June was well advanced, the Governors had decided not to re-open until September, when all possibility of contagion would have passed away. This was the only part of the proceedings that did not please the girls.

"It's rather sickening to have no end to the term," groaned Marjorie. "Our matches are all off, and no swimming display or sports. It's rough on Margaret and Kirsty particularly. Do you realize that when we go back in September they'll both have left? All the prefects are leaving."

"Oh, hard luck! Who'll take their places?"

"Some of our noble selves, I suppose, if we're promoted to the Sixth."

"Who'll be General and Games Captain?"

"Ah! Ask me a harder, my intelligent child."

"I think I could put my finger on one of them, at any rate."

"So could I, perhaps, but I don't care to prophesy too soon," sighed Bessie.

Whoever might be destined to wear future laurels at school, Winona, as Captain of the V.a. team, assumed direction of the games at the Camp. Part of the pasture was sufficiently level to make quite a fair cricket pitch, while a piece in the opposite corner served as a tennis court. An old man from the farm was bribed to come and cut the grass with a scythe, but as no lawn-mower or roller was available, the result was decidedly rough. The tennis enthusiasts rigged up a tape in lieu of a net, and marked some courts with lime begged from the farmer. Their games, owing to the general bumpiness of the ground, had at least the charm of variety and excitement, and four umpires had to keep careful and continual watch in order to decide whether the balls went over or under the tape, which indeed collapsed occasionally, as the poles were only sticks cut from the hedge.

If the tennis was funny, the cricket was even funnier. Many of the girls could not use their left arms at all, consequently the batting was extraordinary, and sometimes the easiest catches were missed. It was very amusing, however, and perhaps for that reason provided more entertainment than the most strict and orthodox play under the critical eye of Kirsty might have done.

Really the quarantine party had a most idyllic time. In the warm June weather it was delightful to live out of doors. There were rosy-violet dawns and golden-red sunsets, and clear starry nights when the planet Venus shone like a lamp in the dark blue of the sky, and owls would fly hooting from the woods, and bats come flitting round the shelter in search of moths. One day, indeed, was wet, but the girls sat or lay on their beds, and read or talked, and played games, with intervals of exciting dashes in mackintoshes to fetch cans of water, or dishes from the larder.

On Sundays there was of course no church-going, but Miss Huntley read morning prayers, and in the evening they sang hymns, each girl in turn choosing the one she liked best. "All things bright and beautiful," "Nearer, my God, to Thee," and "Now the day is over" were prime favorites, but perhaps the most popular of all was the ancient Hymn of St. Patrick, which Miss Huntley had copied from a book of Erse literature, and had adapted to an old Irish tune. The girls learnt it easily, and its fifth century Celtic mysticism fascinated them. They liked such bits as:

"In light of sun, in gleam of snow

Myself I bind;

In speed of lightning, in depth of sea

In swiftness of wind.

God's Might to uphold me,

God's Wisdom to guide,

God's shield to protect me

In desert and wild."

* * *

"Christ with me, before me,

Behind me and in me,

O Threeness in Oneness

I praise and adore Thee."

"In Ireland it is sometimes called the Shamrock Hymn," said Miss Huntley, "because St. Patrick used the little green shamrock leaf to explain to the chiefs the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. The original is in a very ancient dialect of the Irish Celtic, and was preserved in an old manuscript book written on parchment. It always reminds me of the 'Benedicite omnia opera' of our prayer-book; the thought is the same in both: 'O ye spirits and souls of the righteous, bless ye the Lord' is about the sum of it all."

Except for the trifling trouble of vaccination, the effects of which in most cases were soon over, the quarantine party enjoyed radiant health. Dr. Barnes came twice a week to inspect, and Nurse Robinson kept a vigilant watch for headaches, back-aches, and sickness. None of these symptoms appeared, however, and all began to congratulate themselves that the infection had been avoided. There was a burst of warm weather at the beginning of July, which made the hill breezes of Dunheath highly acceptable. It was too hot during the daytime to play active games; the girls lounged about under the shade of the trees, and read the illustrated papers with which they were kept plentifully supplied.

"I've never really had time before to study the toilet hints," said Beatrice Howell one afternoon, poring over a certain page headed "My Lady's Boudoir." "It seems to me that we ought to take our complexions more seriously. We actually wash our faces with soap and water, and 'Lady Veronica' says here that that's an absolutely suicidal practice for delicate skins. She gives all kinds of recipes for what one should do. I wish I could have a few lessons in face massage. I wonder how hard one ought to rub? And why a downward movement all the time?" (Beatrice was stroking her cheeks contemplatively as she spoke.) "Why mayn't you rub upwards?"

"The Princess recommends gentle pinching," said Mollie Hill, who was studying the columns of a rival paper, "and then an application of Mrs. Courtenay's lavender cream. We ought to be careful not to get freckled or sunburnt. 'Lady Marjorie' gives some splendid prescriptions against both. I wonder how the papers always get the aristocracy to write their Beauty Hints? I shouldn't have thought they'd have condescended to reveal their secrets!"

"My good girl! Don't flatter yourself that either 'Lady Veronica' or 'Lady Marjorie' is a member of the aristocracy," chuckled Bessie Kirk. "They're probably most plebeian and dowdy-looking individuals living in Bloomsbury boarding-houses, with pasty complexions and freckled noses, and they get a percentage on the preparations they recommend. If you notice, they always tell you to use Mrs. Somebody's pomade or face cream, and it's generally very expensive."

"Oh, but this one's home-made!" declared Beatrice. "Look here! It says: 'Take an ounce of spermaceti, and melt it in a pan with a teacupful of rose water. When thoroughly mixed, add an ounce of Vodax, which may be obtained from any chemist, stir until quite cold, then put into pots.' I'm sure that sounds simple enough, in all conscience."

"What about the Vodax, though? If you went to the chemist's you'd find it is a patent preparation, and very expensive, and it would just knock the bottom out of the 'home-made' theory of the recipe."

"There must be something in all these hints, though," said Mollie plaintively, "or the paper wouldn't publish them every week."

"Well, perhaps there is, to a certain extent, but just think of the time it would take to carry them out, to say nothing of the expense of cosmetics. Here, give me the book a sec, and a piece of pencil. I want to make a calculation. Now, if you really follow 'Lady Marjorie's' advice, your day will run something like this. It's a kind of beauty time-table:

Face Massage, Morning 10 minutes

" " Evening 10 "

Hair Drill, Morning 15 "

" " Evening 15 "

Application of cloths wrung out in hot water to face daily 30 "

Breathing Exercises 15 "

Physical " 15 "

Manicure 5 "

Oatmeal applications 5 "

--------

Total 2 hours.

Now, if you're going to put in two hours every day at your toilet, it seems to me that you won't have much time left for games, unless you can get your prep. excused on the ground that you're studying beauty culture. I'd like to see Bunty's face if you asked her!"

"Don't be piggish!" said Mollie. "One has no need to cultivate a tough skin, just because one's fond of cricket and hockey. I hate to see girls with hard red cheeks and freckles."

It was certainly not possible to obtain Mrs. Courtenay's lavender cream or any other toilet specialties at the Camp. Beatrice and Mollie, however, impressed with the necessity of preserving their complexions, commandeered some of the buttermilk which was sent daily from the farm, and dabbed it plentifully over their faces before retiring to bed, following the application with massage to the best of their ability. They were emulated in these toilet rites by Agatha James, Mary Payne and Olave Parry, who also studied the beauty hints columns, and liked to try experiments. One day Agatha found an entirely new suggestion in a copy of "The Ladies' Portfolio." A correspondent wrote strongly advocating common salt as a hair tonic. It was to be rubbed in at night, and brushed out again in the morning.

Apparently nothing could be more simple. Beatrice, being on kitchen duty, had access to the salt-box. She purloined a good breakfastcupful, and divided the spoils with her four confederates. They all rubbed the salt carefully into the roots of their hair. Next morning, however, when they essayed to brush it out again, it obstinately refused to budge, and remained hard and gritty among their tresses. They were very much concerned. What was to be done? The only obvious remedy was to wash their hair. Now the one drawback of the Camp was its shortage of water. The daily supply had to be carried in buckets from the farm, and as, owing to the warm dry weather, the well was getting low, their allowance at present was rather small, and had to be carefully husbanded. The amount doled out for washing purposes certainly was quite inadequate for the due rinsing of five plentiful heads of hair.

"I suppose we shall just have to grin and bear it till we can get home and can mermaid properly in a bath!" sighed Mary.

"Oh, I can't! I'm going to wash mine somehow. Look here, suppose we sneak off quietly this afternoon, and go on a water hunt?"

"There isn't a stream or a pond anywhere near."

"We haven't tried the wood!"

"Well, we're not allowed there, of course."

"I don't see why we shouldn't go. The young pheasants must be all hatched, and running about by this time, so what harm could we do? Besides which, nobody's troubling about preserving game during the war. They're shooting Germans instead of birds this year."

"Very likely the gamekeeper has enlisted," suggested Beatrice, "in which case there'd be no one to stop us."

Now the strict law of the Camp confined the girls to the pasture, but as it was the last week of the quarantine, they were beginning to grow a little slack about rules. The five victims of the salt cure waited until Miss Huntley and Nurse Robinson were enjoying their afternoon siesta; then, without waiting for any permission, they climbed the fence into the lane, found a thin place in the hedge, and scrambled into the wood. It was a thrillingly exciting experience. Rather scratched and panting, they surveyed the prospect. Trees were everywhere, with a thick undergrowth of bramble and bracken. Apparently there was no path at all.

"I suppose we shall just have to wander about till we see a pond!" remarked Agatha.

"I believe some people can find water with a forked hazel twig," said Olave. "They hold it loosely in their hands, and it jerks when the water's near. I wish I knew how to do it!"

"Oh, water-finders are occult people," laughed Beatrice, "the sort that see spooks and do table-turning, you know. Besides, they find underground water, and tell where wells ought to be dug. We want a pond which any one can see with the naked eye, without being endowed with psychic powers. My natural reason tells me to go down hill, and perhaps we'll strike it in a hollow."

The girls rambled on, thoroughly enjoying the coolness of the shade and the beauty of the wood. As Beatrice had prophesied, when they reached the foot of the incline they came across quite a good-sized pool, with reeds and iris growing on its banks. They rejoiced exceedingly.

Now it is one thing to wash one's hair in a bath or a basin, but quite another to perform that operation in a pond with shallow muddy edges. The girls took off their shoes and stockings, tucked up their skirts and waded into the middle, where they made gallant efforts at dipping and rinsing their heads, and contrived to get uncommonly wet in the process. They wrung out their dripping tresses, mopped them with handkerchiefs (for nobody had dared to take a towel), and spread them out over their shoulders to dry. There was an open glade close by, where they could squat in the sunshine, and let the breeze help the process. Mary had had the forethought to put a comb in her pocket and she lent it round in turns. They were sitting in a row, like five mermaids, extremely complacent and satisfied with themselves, when footsteps suddenly crashed through the wood, and a middle-aged man approached them. For once Beatrice's calculations were wrong. The gamekeeper had not yet enlisted. No doubt he would have been far better employed in the trenches somewhere in France, but here he was, still in England, and looking extremely surly and truculent.

"You've no business to be in this wood," he began. "Can't you read the trespass notices? There's plenty of them about. What do you mean by coming in here, disturbing the pheasants?"

"We aren't doing any harm!" protested Olave.

"That's neither here nor there. You've no business here, and you know it! Are you from that camp up the hill?"

"Yes."

"Then take yourselves off at once—spreading small-pox!"

"We've none of us had small-pox!" returned Beatrice indignantly. "We've told you we weren't doing any harm. Still, if this will make things right——" and she slipped half-a-crown into his hand.

The gamekeeper's expression changed considerably, and his tone instantly became more respectful.

"Well, young ladies, I have to do my duty, and of course you understand the pheasants mustn't be disturbed anyhow. Perhaps you won't mind going back to the Camp now. I'll show you a path that will take you into the lane."

He led the way, and the girls followed in subdued silence, feeling rather crestfallen. Mollie was yearning to tell him that he ought to be doing his duty by his country instead of by the pheasants. If at that moment she could have found a white feather, I believe she would have presented it to him. The path ended in a small gate which he unlocked. He ushered them solemnly into the lane, pointed out a trespass notice that was nailed conspicuously on to a tree, and then retired into the fastnesses of the wood. The girls decided that, unless actually compelled, they would not divulge where they had been.

"It was a bit of hard luck to be caught!" giggled Olave. "Didn't you feel queer when he came up?"

"I thought he was a beast, and didn't deserve propitiating with a tip!" declared Agatha.

"But we washed our hair!" rejoiced Mary, plaiting her long dark pigtail.

XII. Captain Winona

To the entire satisfaction of themselves, their relations, and Dr. Barnes, the girls passed safely through their period of quarantine, and were certified as fit once more to take their places among the rest of the world. They left the Camp almost with regret. They had been such a jolly, merry party, and had enjoyed such high jinks there, that they felt their departure closed a pleasant episode. They were going straight home to holidays, however, which was a very different matter from returning to work. The remainder of July and the month of August passed very swiftly to Winona. She missed Percy, who was in training with his regiment, but since the advent of their new governess, Letty and Mamie had grown more sensible, and proved quite pleasant companions. Letty especially seemed suddenly to have awakened, so far as her intellectual capacities were concerned. She had begun to devour Scott and Dickens, took a keen interest in nature study, and tried—sometimes with rather comical effect—to be extremely superior and grown-up.

"She's far cleverer really than I am," thought Winona. "Pity she's not at the Seaton High! She'd be the star of her form directly. I wish she could get a scholarship some day."

With her school experience in coaching juniors, Winona was able to give her family some drilling in the matter of cricket, though she did not find that younger brothers and sisters proved such docile pupils as the members of III.a. and III.b. It was the usual case of "a prophet is not without honor, save in his own country," and while to High School juniors she preserved the authority and dignity of a senior, to Letty, Mamie, Ernie, Godfrey, and Dorrie she was "only Winona." She practiced tennis with the Vicarage girls, and was surprised to find how much her play had improved. Last summer they had nearly always beaten her, now it was she who scored the victories.

"I've learnt how to play games at 'The High,' even if my report was only moderate," she said to herself.

To make up for the long holiday caused by the small-pox scare, school was to commence at the beginning of September. Aunt Harriet, who had not been well, and was taking a rest in Scotland, wrote that her house in Abbey Close was shut up for the present, but that she was making other arrangements for her great-niece until her return. This term a hostel was to be opened in connection with the High School, and Winona was to be a boarder there for a few weeks. She was uncertain whether she liked the prospect or not, but she nevertheless left home in good spirits.

The hostel was under the superintendence of Miss Kelly. It was prettily furnished, and looked bright and pleasant. The girls had a common sitting-room, where they could read, write, paint or play games, and the bedrooms were divided into cubicles. So far there were only ten boarders, though there was accommodation for eighteen, but no doubt the numbers would be increased when the venture became better known.

The school seemed very strange without the familiar figures of Margaret Howell, Kirsty Paterson, Patricia Marshall and the other prefects. All of the Sixth had left except Linda Fletcher and Dorrie Pollock, and the members of V.a. were now promoted to the top form. Linda Fletcher was head of the school, the new prefects being Hilda Langley, Agatha James, Bessie Kirk, Grace Olliver, Evelyn Richards and Garnet Emerson. Linda, with her past year's experience, made an extremely suitable "Head." She understood thoroughly what ought to be done, and at once called a mass meeting of the whole school in the gymnasium. Everybody clapped as Linda stood up on the platform to open the proceedings. She had been a favorite as a prefect, so she was welcomed in her new capacity of "General."

"Girls!" she began. "I felt it was better to lose no time in calling this meeting to settle the affairs of the coming school year. I am in a difficult position, because I have to follow such an extremely able and efficient 'Head.' I'm afraid I can't hope to rival Margaret Howell (cries of "Yes! Yes!" and "You'll do!" from the audience), but at least I shall try to do my duty. During the past year we may fairly consider that the 'Seaton High' made enormous strides. Owing to the exertions of our former 'Head' and prefects a most excellent foundation has been laid. The Dramatic Society, the Debating Club, the Literary Association, the Photographic Union and the Natural History League all accomplished very satisfactory work, and may be considered in a most flourishing condition. Perhaps, though, our greatest improvement is in the direction of games. This may not appear on the surface, for though we won five hockey matches, it was impossible, for reasons well known to you, to have fixtures for hockey and tennis. We feel, nevertheless, that in spite of our inability to test our skill against that of other schools we are conscious of the enormous all-round improvement that has taken place in our play. It was Kirsty Paterson's policy to train recruits for the games so that every girl in the school might be a possible champion. How well she succeeded I hope our next season's matches may testify. Let us all work together for the good of the school, and try to establish the reputation of the 'Seaton High.' I need not remind you that everything in the coming year will depend upon the energy and efficiency of the Games Captain. As soon as I knew that I was 'Head,' I wrote to Kirsty, who is staying in Cornwall, and asked for her opinion upon this most important point. I want to read you an extract from her reply, which I received this morning. She says:

"'You ask me who is to be the new Games Captain. Well, of course it is a delicate matter to nominate my own successor, but from my knowledge of everybody's capacities I should most decidedly suggest Winona Woodward. She is a good all-round player herself, and has a particular aptitude for organization, which should prove invaluable. She thoroughly appreciates the advantage of having reserves to fall back upon, and is most keen on keeping up the standard. I do hope the dear old "High" will have a splendid year. I shall be frantic to hear how you get on. Send me a p.c. with the result of the meeting.'

"Well," continued Linda, "you've heard Kirsty's opinion. It coincides entirely with mine. Will some one kindly propose that Winona Woodward shall be elected Games Captain?"

"I have much pleasure in making the proposal," said Bessie Kirk, standing up promptly.

"And I have much pleasure in seconding it," murmured Grace Olliver.

"Will all who are in favor kindly hold up their hands? Carried unanimously! I'm extremely glad, as I'm sure Winona is 'the right man for the job,' and worthy to carry on Kirsty's traditions. I vote we give her three cheers!"

Winona flushed crimson as the hip-hip-hoorays rang forth. She had never expected such a complete walk-over. She had known that her name was to be submitted for the captaincy, but she had thought that Bessie Kirk and Marjorie Kemp held equal chances, and that the voting would probably be fairly evenly divided. That Kirsty should have written to nominate her was an immense gratification. Kirsty's praise at the time had been scant, and Winona had no idea that her former chief held her in such esteem. To Winona the occasion seemed the triumph of her life. She would rather be Games Captain than have any other honor that could possibly be offered to her. Glorious visions of successful matches, of shields or cups won, and a county reputation for the school swam before her eyes. And she—Winona Woodward—was to have the privilege of leading and directing all this! It was indeed a thrilling prospect. Her thoughts went back to the symposium of a year ago, when as a new and unknown girl, she had listened to Margaret Howell's inspiring speech. How unlikely it had seemed then that she would ever have a hand in making school history, but how her spirit had been stirred, and how she had longed to do her part! It was something to have realized her pet ambition.

"It was most awfully good of you to propose me," she said to Bessie Kirk afterwards. "You'd a splendid chance yourself."

"Not I!" returned Bessie lightly. "Kirsty's letter settled the whole business. I shouldn't have made nearly as good a Captain as you. I don't care to bother with the kids, and I'd hate all the business part of it, making the fixtures and that sort of thing, you know. You'll be A1, and we'll all play up no end. I believe we dare venture a fixture with Grant Park this season."

Winona fully realized the responsibilities of her important position, and began at once to pick up the threads of her new duties. She took possession of the Games Register, with its records of past matches, and began to make plans for hockey fixtures. The term had begun so early that the other schools in the county had not yet re-opened; that, however, was really an advantage, as it gave her more time for consideration. At present the September weather was hot as summer, and tennis and cricket were still in full swing. In order to spur on enthusiasm Winona organized a school tennis tournament. The result was highly satisfactory. Several new and unsuspected stars swam into view, and she determined to keep her eye upon them as possible champions for next summer.

"You never know what a girl's capable of till you try her!" she confided to Garnet. "Who would ever have thought that that stupid-looking little Emily Cooper could beat Ethel March? I was simply astounded. I've my plans for Emily, I can tell you! And I believe Bertha March is going to be a second Annie Hardy. She serves in exactly the same way. Oh, I've hopes for next summer. Brilliant, glorious hopes."

The school took every opportunity of using the fine weather while it lasted. The Photographic Union organized an outing to Linworth, a picturesque town six miles away, where an old castle, an Elizabethan mansion, a river and many quaint streets made subjects for their cameras, and promised to provide materials for an exhibition later on, when films were developed and prints taken. The Natural History League had another delightful ramble under Miss Lever's leadership, and secured additional specimens for the museum. On this occasion Winona and Garnet started in better time for the station, and did not get into the wrong train, as they had done on the expedition to Monkend Woods.

"Dollikins," as Miss Lever was affectionately nicknamed, was as great a favorite as ever among the girls. Owing to changes on the staff, she now had charge of IV.a. and taught mathematics throughout the junior forms, so that the seniors saw little of her in school hours. On a ramble she was as jolly as one of themselves.

The Sixth had a new mistress, Miss Goodson, who had only joined the staff this term. The form was rather uncertain whether to like her or not. It was rumored that she had been engaged specially to coach them for the matriculation. So far the High School had been laying foundations, and had not sent in any candidates for public examinations. This year, however, having a certain amount of promising material in the Sixth, Miss Bishop had decided that the time was ripe for trying to win the educational laurels towards which their training had been directed. Miss Goodson came from a High School in the north, and brought with her a reputation for successful coaching. She was well up in all her subjects, but she was a cold and not very inspiring person. She was apt to concentrate her energies on the clever members of her form, and leave the less brilliant to stumble along as best they could. Winona, who certainly belonged to the second category, did not like Miss Goodson, while Garnet was strongly in her favor.

In her new capacity of prefect, Garnet proved a success. She was as enthusiastic over the "bookish" side of the school as Winona over the athletic department. She was President of the Literary Association, a member of the Debating Club Committee, and head librarian. The school library had grown and prospered exceedingly since its installation by Margaret Howell. It now numbered nearly five hundred volumes, and its shelves almost filled the Prefects' Room. Garnet managed it systematically. She had special hours at which books were issued, and assistants whose business it was to be on duty at the specified times.

Among other improvements in the school welcomed by the girls was the advent of a fresh drilling mistress, and some new apparatus for gymnastics. Under Miss Barbour, "Gym" became highly popular, and it was felt that an athletic display would probably be held at Christmas. This was something to work for, and every one seemed much keener than formerly. Winona was naturally an enthusiast, and tried to keep others up to the mark. She had once seen an "Assault-at-Arms" at Percy's college, and the memory of it made her long for the Seaton High School to have a similar opportunity of showing its prowess. She and a select circle of friends practiced whenever possible. Altogether among the various athletic activities of the school, Captain Winona promised herself a very enjoyable year in the Sixth Form.

XIII. The Hostel

Aunt Harriet had intended to return home towards the end of September, but her health continued so unsatisfactory that her doctor ordered her to Harrogate to drink the waters, and advised a long period of rest and change before again taking up the many occupations with which she busied herself in Seaton. Miss Beach was a restive patient, and Dr. Sidwell knew that if he once allowed her to be within reach of committees, she would plunge herself into work, while to keep away from the scenes of her former activity was her only chance of recovery.

The house in Abbey Close was still shut up, and Winona for the present term was established at the Hostel. On the whole she liked it. She missed certain things, particularly her own bedroom, and the quiet dining-room where she had been accustomed to prepare her lessons, but life in a community had its compensations. It was a nuisance to have to sleep in the same dormitory with Betty Carlisle, who snored offensively, but, on the other hand, Winona's cubicle was next to the window, with the little balcony that overlooked the park, and every morning she could watch an aëroplane hovering and flitting like a beautiful dragon-fly over the city. Seaton possessed a Government aircraft factory, and each finished machine had to be carefully tested. All the girls in the school were extremely interested in the exploits of Lieutenant Mainwaring, a member of the Flying Corps, who might constantly be seen practicing. He was a cousin of Elsie Mainwaring, a Fifth Form girl. Elsie recorded his doings with immense pride, and provided up-to-date information of his whereabouts. He was a very daring young fellow, and was reported to have looped the loop. Winona had never witnessed the performance of this feat, so she looked out eagerly each day, hoping she might have the luck to see him do it. When the biplane came swooping over the park, she would wave her handkerchief to it from the balcony by way of encouragement. She was immensely patriotic, and she considered that our airmen deserved praise almost beyond any other branch of our forces. She often wished Percy were in the Flying Squadron. She cut out all the pictures of aëroplanes from the Seaton Graphic, and pinned them up in her cubicle. There was a portrait of Lieutenant Mainwaring among the number, and this she placed on her dressing-table, side by side with Percy's photograph. According to Elsie it was a very bad likeness, but as Winona had not seen the original, except at a distance, she had no means of judging. Curiosity led her to borrow a pair of field-glasses from Garnet. She was standing one morning on the balcony when the aëroplane came in sight, and hovered quite low down over the park, exactly opposite the hostel windows. Through her glasses Winona could plainly see the occupant. The impulse to smile and wave was irresistible. To her immense surprise the signal was returned. In frantic excitement she waved again, and shouted "Hooray!"

"What are you doing, Winona Woodward?" snapped a voice behind her, and turning guiltily, she found herself face to face with Miss Kelly.

"I—I was only looking at the aëroplane," stammered Winona.

"Come in at once! You know perfectly well that this sort of thing is not allowed. I am very much surprised and disgusted. If I find you signaling to gentlemen again from this balcony, I shall change your dormitory. Whose field-glasses are those?"

"Garnet Emerson's," said Winona sulkily.

"Then you must give them back to Garnet this morning. Remember, that such unladylike conduct must never happen again at the hostel."

Winona considered herself very much aggrieved. She had waved on the spur of the moment, and to have her innocent and impulsive act construed into "signaling to gentlemen," and reproved as "unladylike conduct," was highly aggravating. Miss Kelly was a disciplinarian, and of a very suspicious temperament. Her idea of duty was the French one of "surveillance." She never trusted the girls, or put them upon their honor; her mode of procedure was to keep an eye upon them, and to pop in suddenly and surprise them. They resented this attitude extremely.

"Miss Kelly always gives us credit for going to do the very worst!" grumbled Betty Carlisle.

"She puts ideas into our heads!" declared Doris Hooper indignantly.

The gist of the trouble was this: the girls at the hostel expected to have as much liberty as if they were in their own homes, while Miss Kelly, who had formerly been a mistress at St. Chad's, wished to enforce strict boarding-school rules. It was much more difficult to do this because the hostel only formed part of a large day school; the general atmosphere of the place was more free than at a college where all alike are boarders, and the girls naturally were infected by the prevailing spirit. A constant source of annoyance was the rule that they must report themselves in the hostel at 4.15. It was the fashion to linger after school, and chat in the "gym" or in the playground. It was a delightful little time, when everybody could meet every one else, and discuss school news and matches and guilds and other interesting topics. To be obliged, for no particular reason, to cut short their conversations and race back to the hostel was annoying. The boarders evaded the rule as far as possible, but Miss Kelly kept a roll-call, and they knew that their absences would be duly reported to Miss Bishop.

To Winona, in especial, many of the rules were extremely irksome. At more than sixteen and a half, she felt it ridiculous to be obliged to ask permission to go out and buy a lead pencil at the stationer's. "It's like living in a convent!" she fumed.

Another bone of contention was her preparation. She had been so accustomed to work in a room by herself at Abbey Close that she found the presence of others highly distracting. Though silence was enforced, the girls fluttered the leaves of their books, scratched with their pens, or even murmured dates under their breath, all of which sounds were most irritating. Winona begged to be allowed to take her books to her cubicle, but Miss Kelly would not hear of it.

"I cannot make an exception for one," she replied, "and it would be impossible to allow girls to work as they liked in the dormitories. There would be more talking than preparation! You'll stay here with the others, and I can see for myself what you're doing."

The hint that Miss Kelly suspected her of some ulterior motive for wishing to study upstairs enraged Winona, but she was obliged to submit, and to sit, close under the mistress' eye, at the long table, in company with her fellow-boarders. Her work suffered in consequence, and Miss Goodson's sarcasms descended on her head. Miss Goodson was not so patient a teacher as Miss Huntley, and Winona tried her temper at times. Winona was subject to curious fits of stupidity. Her brains were like a clock with a broken cog. Sometimes they would work easily, and on other days she seemed quite unable to grasp the most obvious problems. A lively imagination may be a very delightful possession, and of use in the writing of history and literature exercises, but it cannot supply the place of solid facts, nor is it of the least aid in mathematics, so Winona's form record was not high.

The hockey season would commence at the beginning of October, but during September, while the weather was still warm, the girls continued to play cricket on Wednesdays. The school was fortunate enough to possess large playing fields; these adjoined the public park, in itself a big area, so that quite a fine open space lay below the buildings. One afternoon, just as Winona was having her innings, Elsie Mainwaring uttered a cry, and pointed overhead. Far up in the clouds was the aëroplane, and it was gracefully looping the loop.

"It's Harry! He's showing off for our benefit!" squealed Elsie excitedly. "I told him we should be playing cricket to-day. Oh! didn't he do it cleverly? He went just straight head over heels in the air! Let's wave to him, and perhaps he'll come down a little."

Handkerchiefs fluttered out so briskly that the field resembled a washing day. Miss Barbour was signaling as vigorously as the rest. Evidently Lieutenant Mainwaring took the display for an invitation, the biplane descended like a hawk, and to every one's immense gratification alighted on the school ground. To see a real live airman at such close quarters was not an ordinary experience. Elsie promptly introduced her cousin to Miss Barbour and begged that they might all inspect the machine. Lieutenant Mainwaring good-naturedly explained the various parts; perhaps he rather enjoyed a visit to a Ladies' School! He did not stay long, however, but after a few minutes started his engine and went soaring up again into the blue of the sky, and wheeling over the towers of the old Minster was soon lost to sight behind some clouds.

"To see a real live airman at such close quarters was not an ordinary experience"

"It must be glorious to fly!" sighed Winona.

In spite of Miss Kelly's injunctions she could not help looking out of her window every morning for the aëroplane, and giving a surreptitious wave. She told herself that she was only acting patriotically in cheering on our aërial defenses. The back of the hostel opened into the school playground, and one day Winona, taking a run there for exercise before breakfast, heard the familiar whirring, and looking up, beheld the flying-machine poised just overhead. She heard a shout from the occupant, and something dropped into the playground. She ran to pick it up. It was a packet of chocolates! She tried to wave thanks, but the biplane had moved on, and was now far over the town, Lieutenant Mainwaring no doubt having enjoyed his little joke of innocent bomb-dropping.

Now most unfortunately for Winona, Miss Kelly's bedroom window overlooked the playground, and she had been a witness of the whole incident. She came out now in extreme wrath, confiscated the chocolates, and scolded Winona sharply.

"But it's not my fault! I'd no idea he was going to drop anything!" protested Winona indignantly.

"After what has happened before, I can only draw my own conclusions," returned the mistress icily. "You will change to Number 3 dormitory to-day."

"But, Miss Kelly——"

"Don't argue! I warned you that I should move you if I found any more signaling going on. Your aunt will have to hear about this!"

When Winona returned to the hostel that afternoon, and went upstairs, she found that all her possessions had been cleared out of Number 2 dormitory, and placed in Number 3, which being at the side of the house had no view except the school buildings. The contents of her drawers had been transferred intact; her brushes, books and home photos were placed on her new dressing-table, but all the pictures of aëroplanes and the portrait of Lieutenant Mainwaring, which she had cut out of the Seaton Graphic, had disappeared. Winona sat down on the bed and laughed. She was very much annoyed, but the humor of the situation appealed to her.

"It's too idiotic of Miss Kelly! Does she think I'm going to elope in an aëroplane? I never heard of anything so silly in my life! She may tell Aunt Harriet if she pleases. I don't care! Why, I don't suppose Lieutenant Mainwaring knows me from any other girl in the school. He just dropped those chocs. on spec. It was a shame I wasn't allowed to eat them!"

Miss Kelly, very keen on upholding discipline in her new hostel, considered that she had successfully squashed an incipient flirtation, and kept a stern eye on all the elder girls, and most particularly on Winona, for fear some repetition of the offense might occur. The boarders were justly indignant.

"Too bad!" was the general verdict. "Winona's not a scrap that sort of girl really, if Miss Kelly only knew. It's absurd to make such a fuss."

Out of sheer bravado and love of mischief, the remaining occupants of Number 2 dormitory waved not only handkerchiefs but towels from the balcony when they heard the whirring of the aëroplane overhead, enjoying the exciting sensation that any moment they might be pounced upon by Miss Kelly. No doubt in time they would have been discovered in the act, but at the end of three days Lieutenant Mainwaring was sent to the front, and his successor, not having a cousin at the Seaton High School, took no interest in school girls, and flew over the city oblivious of everything except his engines.

"I don't suppose he'd notice if we waved a sheet!" said Betty Carlisle disappointedly.

"The police might though, and they'd think you were signaling to Germans," replied Doris Hooper. "Come in, Bet, it's no use! Girl alive, quick! I hear the dragon's fairy footsteps in the passage. Do you want to get your head bitten off?"

In spite of occasional hostilities with Miss Kelly, Winona managed to have a good deal of fun at the hostel. The other girls were jolly, and in the evenings, when preparation was finished, they would play games together in their sitting-room. There were high jinks in the dormitories, and small excitements over little happenings, which, however trivial they might be, provided considerable entertainment to the participants. Only one really stormy incident occurred during Winona's term at the hostel, and that had nothing to do with Miss Kelly.

One Saturday morning, when Winona, Betty and Doris were in the town shopping, they happened to meet Clarice Nixon, who stopped to chat, and ask for school news.

"I feel fearfully out of things now I've left," said Clarice. "It'll be a stale winter without hockey."

"Why don't you join a Club?" suggested Winona.

"Shouldn't care to! It would be no fun to play with a team I don't know. The Seaton Ladies' Club is the only decent one, and I hear they're so cliquey. I wish we could get up an Old Girls' Hockey Club!"

"Why, that would be simply glorious! What a splendiferous idea! Oh, do let us try! Then we could have a Past versus Present match. Oh! wouldn't it be precious?"

"Have you settled up your fixtures?"

"Very nearly."

"Then we ought to get this thing in hand at once. You're Games Captain, so you ought to organize it. Write round to-day to all the old girls you know, and ask them to come to a meeting on Monday."

"Isn't that rather soon?" said Betty.

"Not a bit. No time must be wasted, if the club's to be a going concern for this season. Don't let the grass grow under your feet, is my advice."

Winona was naturally impulsive. The idea appealed to her so immensely, that she straightway bought a packet of postcards and a number of halfpenny stamps, and sent out her invitations. As she was bound to report herself in the hostel at 4.15, she decided to call the meeting there at 4.20. It could be held in the sitting-room, and there would be plenty of time to discuss matters before five o'clock tea. She wrote to Margaret Howell, Kirsty Paterson, and all the former members of the Sixth, and was already exulting over the success which she hoped would accrue. She was sure every one in the school would like the notion when they heard about it.

On Monday morning when she walked into her form room, she noticed several of the prefects talking together. They looked at her significantly as she entered, and Evelyn Richards made a movement as if about to speak. Grace Olliver, however, laid her hand on Evelyn's arm, and pointed to the clock, as if deferring the matter. At eleven "break," as the girls filed out of the room, Agatha James laid a paper on Winona's desk. It bore the words:

"Kindly report yourself at once in the prefects' room."

Rather mystified, Winona obeyed the summons. She found the prefects assembled in their den, looking dignified and perturbed.

"Winona Woodward," began Linda Fletcher, "are you responsible for this post-card?" showing one of the invitations which had been written on Saturday. "Beatrice Howell brought it to me first thing this morning, by Margaret's advice. Margaret couldn't understand why you had sent it to her."

"I explained on the card," replied Winona eagerly. "It was to try to get up an Old Girls' Hockey Club!"

"And who gave you authority to call such a meeting?" asked Linda icily.

"Why, I thought as Games Captain——" began Winona, then she stopped, for the faces of the prefects expressed a righteous wrath that staggered her.

"It was a most unwarrantable liberty!" continued the head girl. "As Games Captain you are responsible for the school play and for the fixtures, but you're certainly not to take upon yourself a matter of this kind. Why, you're not even a prefect! And no prefect would have dreamed of calling such a meeting on her own account without consulting her colleagues."

"I—thought—there wasn't time—to ask," stammered Winona, overcome with confusion.

"As a matter of fact the suggestion had already been placed before the prefects, and it was proposed to form an Old Girls' Guild, which would include several branches, a Hockey Club being among the number. An initial committee meeting is to be held next Thursday. Margaret Howell was perfectly well aware of this, and could not understand why you should have stepped in and called a meeting at the hostel, thus forestalling our arrangements."

"It's the most abominable cheek I ever heard of!" burst out Agatha James.

"What were you dreaming of?" demanded Grace Olliver.

Poor Winona! She suddenly saw her innocent, impulsive act in the light in which it must appear to the prefects. It had never struck her that she was exceeding her authority, and that she ought to have referred the matter to the head of the school. The urgency of getting the club started, so as to enter a Past v. Present in her list of fixtures, had been her uppermost thought. She had indeed made a most terrible blunder. The feeling against her was evidently one of general censure. Even Garnet looked grave, and Bessie Kirk was bridling. Linda's manner was coldly official. The stateliness of her speech was more cutting than Agatha's explosive wrath. Winona collapsed utterly, and groveled.

"I'm most fearfully sorry!" she apologized. "Indeed I'd never have done it if I'd thought about it. I was an utter idiot! I really don't know what possessed me! I just sent off those cards in a hurry. What shall I do? There isn't time to write back to everybody!"

"I think I can send messages to most of the girls, and if any turn up at the hostel this afternoon they must be told." Linda's tone was slightly mollified. "I hardly need impress upon you the necessity in future of referring everything to headquarters. No school can be run on the basis of individual enterprise."

Duly chastened, Winona left the prefects' room. She had the further annoyance in the afternoon of explaining the situation to several comers who turned up in answer to her invitation. Notwithstanding this preliminary disturbance, the Old Girls' Guild was started with thirty-five members on the roll. A Hockey Club and a Dramatic Society were formed, both of which promised to have a flourishing existence, and Winona had the satisfaction of fixing a Past v. Present match for the following March. The prefects were magnanimous enough to bear her no ill-will, so on the whole she came out of a very unpleasant dilemma much better than she expected.

XIV. The Hockey Season

When the hockey season commenced, Winona got to business. She was wildly anxious to prove an effective Games Captain, and win credit for the school. It would be no easy matter to follow so excellent a predecessor as Kirsty Paterson, but she determined to keep Kirsty's ideals well in mind, and try to live up to them. One change, which Kirsty had suggested, Winona at once carried out. The hockey badge was altered. The new one had the initials S.H.S. embroidered in the school colors on plain dark blue shields, and looked very imposing on the tunics. There was another point upon which Winona was resolved to effect a reform. The field was not in a thoroughly satisfactory condition, and certainly needed attention. The prefects had put the matter before Miss Bishop, who referred it to the Governors. Those august personages, mindful of war economies, decided that for the present it would do well enough, and would not vote the spending of any money upon its improvement. The bad news was received with indignation throughout the school.

"It's too stingy for anything! How can we possibly have decent practice on such a rough old place? I'd like to make them come and try it for themselves, the mean wretches!" protested Bessie Kirk.

Winona laughed. A vision of the Governors wildly brandishing hockey sticks flashed across her imagination. She seized her note-book and drew a fancy portrait of the delicious scene: old Councillor Thomson, very wheezy and fat, running furiously; bald-headed Mr. Crabbe performing wonderful acrobatic feats; a worthy J.P. engaged in a tussle with the Town Clerk; and various other of the City Fathers in interesting and exciting attitudes. The masterpiece was passed round for general admiration. The girls sniggered.

"Wish we could show it to them!" said Margaret Kemp. "Perhaps it might make them realize their responsibilities. It's too sickening of them to grudge keeping the field in order!"

"Look here, it's no use complaining!" said Winona. "Of course it relieves one's feelings, but it doesn't make any difference to the field. I've got a plan to propose. Let us ask Miss Bishop how much it would cost to hire somebody to do the rolling, and offer to pay for it ourselves. We could get up a Hockey Concert in aid of it."

"What a frolicsome notion! I'm your man!"

"Wouldn't it be setting a bad precedent?" objected Marjorie Kemp. "Suppose the Governors stop having the tennis courts cut, and say we may do it ourselves?"

"We'd put that to Miss Bishop first, and make it well understood."

"It would just make all the difference to the practices to have a roller at work, even once a week," urged Olave Parry. "Do ask about it, Win!"

Miss Bishop, on being appealed to, considered the suggestion favorably.

"Certainly there's no reason why you shouldn't improve the field, if you wish," she replied, adding with a smile: "I'll take care that the tennis courts don't suffer in consequence. It was a prudent thought to mention them. I expect when the war is over, the Governors may be persuaded to take the full expense of the playing field too. I'll get an estimate at once of what the rolling would cost."

Jones, the school janitor, who formerly kept the courts and cricket pitch in order, had gone to the war, and his place was occupied by a rheumatic old fellow who could do little more than carry coke and attend to the heating apparatus. When every able-bodied man seemed fighting or making munitions, it was difficult to find anybody to roll a hockey field, A volunteer was procured at last, however, who undertook the job at the rate of £1 per month, with an extra thirty shillings for putting the field in good order to begin with. Six or seven pounds, therefore, would cover the expenses of the season. Winona, mindful of the terrible offense she had given in connection with the Old Girls' Guild, very wisely took the matter to Linda Fletcher, who called a united meeting of Prefects and Games Committee to discuss the best way of raising the money.

"It will have to be done on a bigger scale than the symposium last year," said Hilda Langley. "If I remember rightly, that made exactly £2 13s. 7d., enough for a Form trophy, but not sufficient for this venture."

"We'd better issue tickets, and sell some of them to parents and friends," suggested Linda.

"How many will the hall hold?"

"Three hundred at a pinch, if the babes squash up tight."

"They won't mind doing that in a good cause."

"The Dramatic Society ought to take an innings, and provide at least half the program."

"They'll jump at the opportunity. I believe they have something quite prepared, and have been yearning for an audience."

"Then by all means let them have one."

"At sixpence a head," added practical Marjorie; "we ought easily to be able to sell sixpenny tickets."

Everybody took up the idea with enthusiasm. The difficulty was not so much to find helpers as to decide who was to have the honor of performing. There were many heart-burnings before the program was finally fixed. It was decided that a musical selection should be given first, followed by a piece by the Dramatic students. To cut these to reasonable limits needed all Linda's discretion, tact and firmness.

"You can't have an entertainment beginning at three, and going on till midnight," she urged, as the various desired items were submitted to her. "You'd have to hire ambulances to take your exhausted audience home! Very sorry, but we must keep some of the things for a future occasion."

Linda, being wise in her generation, and having an eye to the sale of tickets, insisted that the Lower School should take a share in the performance.

"Who wants to bother to hear the kids?" objected Grace Olliver, who, by the bye, was a member of the "Dramatic," and therefore not entirely disinterested.

"If we don't bother with the kids, they mayn't bother to come and bring friends, and we should look silly if we didn't sell all our tickets! Let them do their flag display, and sing their Empire song. That will content them and their mothers, and leaves quite time enough for other people."

Miss Bishop allowed a special Wednesday afternoon to be set aside for the entertainment; the tickets sold briskly, and expectation ran high. All concerned in the program kept their parts a dead secret, but items leaked out, and the wildest rumors were afloat. It was whispered that some of the Governors were to be present, and even that Miss Bishop would perform a sword dance, though not the most callow of juniors really consented to swallow such an astounding piece of information. The uncertainty as to what was in store, however, added largely to the pleasurable anticipation, and though the Dramatic Society rehearsed with locked door, and the keyhole carefully stopped up, juvenile spies, by hoisting one another up to the level of the windows, obtained brief and tantalizing peeps and spread news of gorgeosities in the way of costumes.

When the great afternoon arrived, the hall was crammed. The little girls were packed as tightly as sardines. A long line of them squatted on the floor in front of the first row, and others sat on the window sills, the latter positions having been scrambled for with enthusiasm.

Every one was at the tip-top of expectation. The concert opened with the inevitable piano solo which seems indispensable for the starting of any entertainment, and during the performance of which latecomers hurry to their seats, programs are sold, and the audience, with a tremendous amount of rustling and whispering, settles itself down to listen. This initiatory ceremony being over, more interesting items followed. The juveniles sang an Empire song, accompanied by a pretty flag drill; it was a taking tune, and as Linda had prophesied was immensely applauded by the visitors, who insisted on an encore. A violin solo came next, and was followed by a charming Russian dance given by two members of Form IV.a. Garnet played a piece on her mandoline, with piano accompaniment. She had suggested a duet for mandoline and guitar, but Winona had had no time to practice her instrument lately, and had begged to be excused. The fact was that Winona had been busy with a special item which she now brought out as a surprise to the school. She had composed some verses in praise of hockey, and set them to one of the tunes in the senior school song-book. The piece was sung by an eleven in full hockey costume, and they waved their hockey-sticks with appropriate actions to the music:

"When autumn returns, and the trees are all bare,

Our blue tunics are off to the field;

No team in excitement with ours can compare,

As our hockey-sticks wildly we wield.

For hockey's the game to play

When autumn has come to stay,

And this is the reason we love the cold season,

For hockey's the game to play.

"Hurrah for goalkeepers, for forwards and halves!

Hurrah for the clash of the sticks!

Hurrah for the rapture of scoring a goal!

(Who minds a few bruises or kicks?)

For hockey's the game to play,

When autumn has come to stay,

And this is the reason we love the cold season,

For hockey's the game to play.

"But a team that is set upon scoring its goal,

And winning a vict'ry or two,

Must see that its field it should carefully roll,

And that's what we're hoping to do!

Oh! hockey's the game to play,

When autumn has come to stay,

Yes, this is the reason we love the cold season,

When hockey's the game we play!

"Hurrah for Form trophies! Hurrah for our badge!

We'll make it an annual rule

To hold a 'Sports' Concert,' to wish all success

To the team of the Seaton High School!

Oh! hockey's the game to play,

And at Seaton we know the way!

Yes, this is the reason we love the cold season,

When hockey's the game we play!"

Winona's words would certainly not have passed muster as a literary composition, but their extreme appropriateness to the occasion, combined with the action of the hockey-sticks, completely brought down the house. The applause was thunderous, and the last verse was encored twice over. Undoubtedly it was the hit of the afternoon.

For the second part of the performance the Dramatic Society gave an amusing little play, and the concert wound up with a lusty rendering of certain patriotic songs.

Winona was highly gratified. Both artistically and financially the entertainment had proved a success. The committee would be well able to bear the expense of keeping the field in order. A gardener had been at work there, and already a marked improvement was noticeable. The Games Captain's enthusiasm was infectious. Under her leadership the girls became wonderfully keen. To Winona the thrill of struggle when a game seemed on the eve of being lost was one of the wildest excitements in life, and the joy when she struck the ball home straight and true the utmost triumph obtainable. During this autumn term she lived for hockey. The crowd of school girls, in thick boots and blue tunics, struggling and shouting in a somewhat muddy field might not be an altogether picturesque sight, but to the Captain it was Marathon and Waterloo combined. No colonel prided himself on a crack regiment more than Winona on her team. Sometimes, of course, a practice was off color; the day might be bleak or drizzly, or players might be penalized for "sticks," or grumblers might express their dissatisfaction audibly, but whatever went wrong, Winona emerged cheerful from the fray, remonstrated with "off-sides" and "sticks," and reminded growlers that it is unsporting to murmur. By Kirsty's advice she had sent out challenges to several good clubs in the neighborhood.

"While we were still in our callow infancy I should not have ventured," wrote Kirsty from Cornwall. "But one must begin some time to measure one's strength. After the work we did last season, I certainly think you might risk it. Nothing improves a team so much as playing plenty of matches; you see in time you get to know the strokes of everybody at the High, and you can calculate what others will do at certain turns of the game; it's far better for you to meet all sorts and conditions of opponents."

Winona had been afraid it was rather "cheek" to challenge the "West Rytonshire Club" or "Oatlands College," but she ascertained that both those august bodies had two teams, Number 1 and Number 2, and that while the first only met foes worthy of their steel (or rather sticks!) the second would graciously condescend to play a yet unknown High School. The match with Oatlands College was fixed for December 16th, and Winona looked forward to it with some anxiety. The last practice had not been altogether satisfactory. The day had been wretchedly cold, and everybody had been cross in consequence. The team, though proud of its fixture with so celebrated an opponent, was not very sure of itself.

"I hope to goodness Peggie'll play up!" groaned Marjorie Kemp. "The way she lost that last goal on Saturday was idiotic."

"She said she was cold!" commented Gladys Porter, witheringly. "She wanted to change at half-time. She said her feet were solid ice, and her nose was blue, and it was no fun watching the whole of the game being played right away at the other end of the field."

"Most unsporting!" moralized Marjorie. "Besides, when she got her chance, she hit the air! It will be very humiliating if the Oatlands team walk over us!"

"Oh, don't be a Jeremiah! We're not beaten yet! If anybody can pull us through, our Captain will!"

"Winona's a jewel!" agreed Marjorie. "And yet the best captain in the world can't make up for an only moderately good team. I feel my own deficiencies!"

Practically the whole of the High School assembled as spectators on the great day of the match. Things were very different now from the old times when a mere handful collected to cheer the Seaton team. Mistresses and girls were alike keen, and most desirous of witnessing the combat. They followed the game breathlesly.

"Oatlands isn't worth a toss!" commented Garnet exultantly.

"Don't make too sure!" replied Linda, looking with apprehension as the red jerseys of their rivals massed round the ball.

A familiar figure dashed forward, a hockey stick struck, and the ball swept out to safety. Linda heaved a long sigh of relief.

"Winona is just A1," she murmured. "Hello! Good gracious! what's that idiot doing?"

For Ellinor Cooper, whose arm was the strongest in the school, wielding her hockey stick with all her force, had hit Winona across the shin.

Instantly there was a commotion. Winona, white with the agony of the blow, leaned hard against Bessie Kirk, and clenched her fists to avoid crying out.

"Are you hurt?"

"What's happened?"

"You've had a nasty knock!"

There was quite a crowd round Winona, and a chorus of sympathy.

"Put in a substitute!" urged Bessie. "You're not fit to go on!"

"No, no! I'm better now," panted their captain, with a wan little smile. "I'll manage, thanks! Yes, really! Please don't worry yourselves about me!"

The game recommenced and Winona, with a supreme effort, continued to play. The pain was still acute, but she realized that on her presence or absence depended victory or defeat. Without her, the courage of the team would collapse. How she lived through the time she never knew.

Inspired by the heroic example of their captain, the girls were playing for all they were worth. The score, which had been against them, was now even. Time was almost up. Winona set her teeth. The ball seemed a kind of star which she was following—Following anyhow. As the French say, she "did her possible." The ball went spinning. Next minute she was leaning against a goal-post, trembling with the violence of her effort, while the High School hoorayed itself hoarse in the joy of the hard-won victory.

"I say, old girl, were you really hurt?" asked Bessie anxiously. "You're looking the color of chalk!"

"Never mind, it's over now! Yes, I am hurt. Give me your arm, and I'll go back to the hostel."

"You're an absolute Joan of Arc to-day!" purred Bessie.

Winona, with a barked shin and bad bruises, limped for more than a week, but she was the heroine of the school.

"I can't think how you ran, after that awful whack Ellinor Cooper gave you," sympathized Marjorie.

"It was easier to run then than after my leg grew stiff," laughed Winona. "I suppose it's the excitement that keeps one up. Don't make such a fuss, we've all had hard knocks in our time. Agnes Smith got a black eye last spring!"

As the result of her wounds in the hockey field Winona made friends with Miss Kelly. The latter was most prompt in applying lanoline and bandages, and proved so kind in bringing Winona her breakfast in bed, and making her rest on the sofa during preparation, that a funny little sort of intimacy sprang up between them.

"She's fussy on the surface, but nice when you know her," confided Winona to Garnet. "If I'd been staying at the hostel, I expect we should have got on capitally next term!"

XV. Winona Turns Chauffeur

After the Christmas holidays Winona returned to Abbey Close. Miss Beach was installed once more in her own home, though under strict orders from the doctor not to over-exert herself. During her stay at Harrogate she had bought a small two-seater car, and had learnt to drive it. She kept it at a garage in the town, and used it almost every day. It was invaluable to her as a means of getting about. She was anxious not to relinquish all her work in Seaton, but she could not now bear the fatigue of walking. In her car distance was no obstacle, and she could continue her inspection of boarded-out workhouse children, attend babies' clinics in country villages beyond the city area, visit the wives of soldiers and sailors, regulate the orphanage, and superintend the Tipperary Club. Miss Beach's energetic temperament made her miserable unless fully occupied, so, the doctor having forbidden her former strenuous round of duties, she adopted the car as a compromise, assuring him that she would limit her list to a few of her pet schemes only. It was probably her wisest course. It is very hard for elderly people to be laid on the shelf, and to feel that their services are set aside. Miss Beach had lived so entirely in her various philanthropic occupations, that to give everything up would have been a severe mental shock. As it was, she managed to obey medical orders, and at the same time, to a certain extent, keep her old place in the work of the city.

As the days became longer and lighter, she sometimes took her great-niece with her in the car. Winona had really very little time out of school hours; her duties as Games Captain were paramount, and hockey practices and matches absorbed most of her holiday afternoons. When she had an occasional free hour, however, it was an immense treat to go motoring. She loved the feeling of spinning along through the country lanes. It was delightful to see new places and fresh roads. Seaton was in the midst of a beautiful district, and there were charming villages, woods, and lovely views of scenery within easy distance.

One Saturday, when for a wonder there was no event at school, Miss Beach suddenly suggested that they should start in the car, take a luncheon basket with them, and explore some of the country in the neighborhood. It was a glorious spring morning, with a clear pale blue sky, and a touch of warmth in the sunshine that set winter to flight, and brought the buds out on the trees. On such a day the human sap, too, seems to rise, there is an exhilaration, physical and spiritual, when we long to run or to sing for the sheer vital joy of living, when our troubles don't seem to matter, and the future looks rosy, and for the moment we feel transferred to the golden age of the poets, when the world was young, and Pan played his pipes in the meadows among the asphodels. Winona, at any rate, was in an ecstatic frame of mind, and though Aunt Harriet did not openly express her enthusiasm, the mere fact of her suggesting such an outing proved that the spring had called her, and that she was ready to go out and worship at Nature's shrine. Do not imagine for a moment that Miss Beach, whatever her feelings, allowed any romantic element to appear on the surface. She fussed over the car, measured the amount of petrol left in the tank, debated whether she had better go to the garage for an extra can in case of emergencies, called out the cook to dust the seat, sent the housemaid flying to the attic for an air-cushion, inspected the lunch basket, gave half-a-dozen directions for things to be done in her absence, wrote last messages on a slate for people who might possibly call on business, scolded Winona for putting on her thin coat, and sent her to fetch her thick one and a rug for her knees, and finally, after a very breathless ten minutes got under way, and started forth. They drove slowly through the town traffic, but soon they had left streets behind, and were spinning along the high road in the direction of Wickborough.

Long as she had lived at Seaton, Miss Beach had never seen Wickborough Castle, and to-day she was determined to pay it a visit. It was a very ancient place, built originally by King Canute, in the days when red war was waged between Saxon and Norseman. Little of the old Danish tower remained, but successive generations had erected keep and turret, bastion and guard house, crumbling now indeed into ruins, but picturesque in their decay, and full of historical associations. Here proud Queen Margaret, hard pressed by her enemies, had found a timely shelter for herself and her little son, till an escort could convey her to a spot of greater safety; here Richard II. had pursued sweet unwilling Anne of Warwick, and forced her to accept his hated suit; Princess Mary had passed a part of her unhappy childhood within its walls, and Anne Boleyn's merry laugh had rung out there. The situation of the Castle was magnificent. It stood on the summit of a wooded cliff which ran sheer into the river, and commanded a splendid prospect of the country round, and a bird's-eye view of the little town that clustered at the foot of the crag.

"It's like an eagle's nest!" commented Winona, as leaving the car at the bottom of the hill they climbed on foot up the zigzag pathway to the keep. "It must have been a regular robber-baron's stronghold in the Middle Ages!"

Miss Beach had bought a guide-book, and rejecting the services of a persistent little girl who was anxious to point out the various spots of interest, with an eye to a tip, they strolled about, trying to reconstruct a fancy portrait of the place for themselves. Canute's tower was still left, a squat solid piece of masonry, with enormously thick walls and tiny lancet windows. It was rather dark, but as it was the only portion remaining intact, it was used as a museum, and various curiosities were preserved there. The great fire-place held a spit for roasting an ox whole, and had a poker five feet long; stone cannon-balls were piled up on the floor, and on the walls hung a medieval armory of helmets, gorgelets, breast-plates, coats of mail, shields and swords, daggers and lances. A special feature of the museum was a wax-work figure of a knight clad in full armor which gave an excellent idea of what Sir Bevis of Wickborough must have looked like somewhere about the year 1217. Another figure, dressed in rich velvet and fur, with flowered silk kirtle, represented his wife Dame Philippa, in the act of offering him a silver goblet of wine, while a hound stood with its head pressed to her hand. The group was so natural that it was almost startling, and took the spectator back as nothing else could have done to the ancient medieval days which it pictured. A small stair in the corner of the tower led down to a dungeon, where, lying among the straw, was an equally impressive wax-work figure of a prisoner, wretched, unkempt, and bound hand and foot with chains. A pitcher of water lay by his side, and a stuffed rat peering from the straw added a further touch of realism. Winona shuddered. It was a ghastly sight, and she was thankful to run up the stairs and go from the keep out into the spring sunshine. She had always had a romantic admiration for the Middle Ages, but this aspect of thirteenth-century life did not commend itself to her. "They were bad old times, after all!" she decided, and came to the conclusion that the twentieth century, even with its horrible war, was a more humane period to live in.

At the foot of the crag, close by the river, lay the remains of the old Priory Church, an ivy-covered fabric, whose broken chancel still gave a shelter to the battered tombs of the knights who had lived in the Castle above. Sir Bevis and Dame Philippa lay here in marble, their features calm and rigid, their hands folded in prayer, less human indeed, but infinitely grander than in their wax effigies of the tower. Seven centuries of sunshine and storm had passed over their heads, and castle and church were alike in ruins.

"Their bones are dust,

Their good swords rust,

Their souls are with the Saints, we trust,"

thought Winona, as she took a photograph of the quiet scene. It was deeply interesting, but on this glorious lovely spring day it seemed a little too sad. With all the birds singing, and the hedges in bud, and the daisies showing white stars among the grass, she wanted to live in the present, and not in the past. And yet, if we think about it rightly, the past is never really sad. Those who lived before us accomplished their work, and have passed onwards—a part of the world scheme—to, we doubt not, fuller and worthier work beyond. We, still in the preparatory class of God's great school, cannot yet grasp the higher forms, but those who have been moved up surely smile at our want of comprehension, and look back on this earth as the College undergraduate remembers his kindergarten; for the spiritual evolution goes ever on, working always Godwards, and when the human dross falls away, the imperfect and the partial will be merged into the perfect and the eternal. The broken eggshells may lie in the old nest, but the fledged larks are singing in the blue of the sky.

From the little town of Wickborough they drove along the old Roman road towards Danestone. Part of their way lay across Wickland Heath, and here, as it was now past mid-day, Miss Beach suggested that they should stop and take their lunch. It was a most glorious spot for a picnic. They were at the top of a tableland, and before them spread the Common, a brown sea of last year's heather and bilberry, with gorse bushes flaming here and there like golden fires. A sparrow-hawk, more majestic than any aëroplane, sailed serenely overhead, and a pair of whinchats, perturbed by his vicinity, flew with a sharp twitter over the low stone wall, and sought cover among the brambles. Beyond stretched the Roman road, broad and straight, a landmark for miles. Cities and civilization were far away, and they were alone with the moor and the peaty little brook, and the birds and the sun and the fresh spring wind. The joyous influence was irresistible; even Miss Beach dropped ten years' burden of cares, and waxed almost light-hearted. Winona had seldom seen her aunt in such a mood, and she seized the opportunity as a favorable moment to proffer a request which she had often longed, but had never hitherto dared, to make. It was no less a suggestion than that she might be allowed to try to drive the car. She put it in tentative fashion, fully expecting a refusal, but Aunt Harriet received the idea quite graciously.

"There's no reason why you shouldn't. The road's wide and straight, and not a vehicle in sight; you couldn't have a better place to learn on in the whole of the kingdom. Mind you do exactly what I tell you, that's all!"

Winona's face was shining. Ever since she had first seen the pretty little two-seater it had been her secret ambition to work its steering wheel for herself. She packed up the lunch basket in a hurry, for fear her aunt might repent. But Miss Beach seldom went back on her word, and was quite disposed and ready to act motor instructress. She began by explaining very carefully the various levers, and how to start.

"One golden rule," she urged, "is to take care the lever is at neutral before you begin, or the car will jump on you. Many motorists have had nasty accidents by omitting that most necessary precaution. Next you must see that the ignition is pushed back, or you'll get a back-fire in starting, and break your wrist. It must be just at this notch—do you see? Now you may swing round the handle."

The engine began to work, and Winona took her place in the driver's seat. Miss Beach, sitting by her side, showed her how to put the low gear in, then to put in the clutch. The car started off under Winona's guidance.

She gripped the steering wheel tightly, turning it to right or left at first according to her aunt's directions, but soon from instinctive comprehension. It was something like guiding a gigantic bicycle; she could not yet exactly estimate the amount of turn required, but she felt that it would come to her with practice. There was an immense exhilaration in feeling the car under her control. For a beginner, she really kept very steadily in the middle of the road; occasionally Aunt Harriet made a snatch at the wheel, but that was seldom necessary. They were going very slowly, only about ten miles an hour, but even that seemed a tolerable speed to a novice. The road was curving now, and Winona must steer round a corner; it was easier than she had expected, and her instructress ejaculated "Good!" The sense of balance was beginning to come to her. Such a tiny movement of the wheel sent the car to right or left; at first she had jerked it clumsily, now she could reckon the proportion with greater nicety. Was that something coming in the distance? "Sound your hooter!" shouted Aunt Harriet quickly, as a motor cycle hove in sight. In rather a panic, Winona squeezed the india-rubber bulb, making the car lurch as she took her hand momentarily from the wheel. "Keep well to the left!" commanded Miss Beach, and Winona, with her heart in her mouth, contrived to obey, and passed her first vehicle successfully. She heaved a sigh of relief when it had whizzed by, and the road was once more clear. Naturally, however, she could not expect to keep a thoroughfare all to herself. Further on, she overtook a farmer's cart full of little squealing pigs. As it occupied the exact center of the road she hooted (with great confidence this time), and, when it had swung to the left, she rounded it successfully on the right. A furniture van looked a terrible obstacle, but she passed it without assistance, and began to wax quite courageous. Three motor cars in succession tearing along one after another, and sounding ear-splitting electric hooters, left her nerves rather rocky. When houses and chimneys appeared in sight Miss Beach told her to stop.

"I daren't let a learner drive through a village. There are always too many children and dogs about the street. Change places with me now, and you shall try again when we come to a quiet road."

Rather thankful not to have to venture her 'prentice skill in the narrow winding street, Winona gave the wheel into her aunt's more experienced hands. It was only pro tem., however, for when they were once more in the open country Miss Beach continued the lesson, making her start and stop several times just for practice.

"I believe you know the routine now," she said. "It's the motorist's first catechism. Remember those cardinal rules, and you can't go so far wrong."

"Do experienced people ever forget them?" asked Winona.

"Sometimes, when they grow careless. Mr. Forster sprained his wrist the other day with a back-fire, which he ought to have avoided, and I heard of a horrible accident in Paris, when a chauffeur started his car with the clutch in gear, with the consequence that it dashed over a bridge into the Seine, and the occupants—a lady and two little children—were drowned before his eyes. There's no need to be nervous if you take proper care, but cars are not playthings to be trifled with."

They had reached a part of the country which Miss Beach had known as a child. She had not visited it since, and was interested to see again spots which had once been familiar.

"I remember the river perfectly," she said. "And that hill, with the wood where we used to get blackberries in the autumn. I wonder if the wild daffodils still grow in Chipden Marsh! It's fifty years since I gathered them! Shall we go and see? They ought just to be out now, and it's really not late yet."

Winona was only too delighted to prolong the day's outing, and would not have demurred if Aunt Harriet had proposed returning home by moonlight. She caught eagerly at the suggestion of finding daffodils. Though half-a-century had sped by Miss Beach remembered the way, and drove through many by-lanes to a tract of low-lying pasture land that bordered the river. She had not forgotten the stile, which still remained as of yore, so leaving the car in the road they walked down the fields. At first they were disappointed, but further on, beside the river, the Marsh might well have been called "Daffodil Meadow." Everywhere the lovely little wild Lent lilies were showing their golden trumpets in such profusion among the grass that the scene resembled Botticelli's famous picture of spring. Miss Beach said little, but her eyes shone with reminiscences. Winona was in ecstasies, and ran about picking till her bunch was almost too big to hold. The slanting afternoon sunlight fell on the water with a glinting, glistening sheen; the sallows overhanging the banks were yellow with pollen, the young pushing arum shoots and river herbs wore their tender early spring hue; the scene was an idyll in green and gold. They were loath to leave, but time was passing, so, very reluctantly, they walked up the fields again to rejoin the car. They had stowed their daffodils in the lunch basket, and Winona was peeping over the hedge to take a last look at the river, when an exclamation behind her made her turn round. Miss Beach was leaning heavily against the car, her face was ashen gray, her lips were white and drawn. She looked ready to faint. Winona flew to her in a panic.

"What is it, Aunt Harriet? Are you ill? Get into the car and sit down. Let me help you!"

Miss Beach sank on to the seat, and sat with half-closed eyes, moaning feebly. Winona was terribly alarmed. She had seen Aunt Harriet before with one of her bad heart attacks, and knew that restoratives ought to be given. In this lonely spot, with no help at hand, what was to be done? Suppose her aunt were to faint—die, even, before aid could be rendered? For a moment Winona shook like a leaf. Then, with a rush, her presence of mind returned. There was only one possible course—she herself must start the car, and drive to within reach of civilization. It would need courage! It was one thing to drive with an experienced instructor at her elbow to shout necessary directions, but quite another to manage alone, with Aunt Harriet half unconscious beside her. Suppose she were to forget part of her motorists' catechism, and make some horrible, fatal mistake! Well, it must be ventured, all the same! Every minute's delay was important.

With a nervous shiver she forced herself to action. She looked first that the clutch was out of gear, and that the ignition was pushed back, then swung round the handle to start the engine. It had cooled while they were picking daffodils, and she was obliged to repeat the process four times ere the welcome whirring answered her efforts. She sprang to her seat, took off the brake, and put in the low gear. Then she put the clutch in with her foot. But alas! in her tremor and hurry she had done it too suddenly, and stopped the engine! She could have cried with annoyance at her stupidity. There was nothing for it but to put the lever again at neutral, put on the brake, and climb out to re-swing the handle. This time the engine, being warm, was more amiable and condescended to start easily. Winona leaped into the car, adjusted her levers, put in her clutch more gradually, and the car glided slowly away. With a feeling of desperation she gripped the steering wheel. The lane was narrow and twisting, and not too smooth. Suppose she were to meet a farm cart—could she possibly pass it in safety? She had a feeling that she would run into any vehicle that might approach her. So far the lane was empty, but at any moment an obstacle might arise. What was that? There was a sound of baa-ing, and round a corner ran a flock of sheep, urged on by a boy and a collie dog. Here was the first human being she had seen, and for a second she thought of stopping to ask for help. But what could a stupid-looking young boy do for her? No, it were better far to push on. She managed to sound the hooter, and with a supreme effort kept in the middle of the lane, while the sheep scattered to right and left. She dared not go any slower, for fear of stopping her engine, but she expected every instant to feel a bump, and find that she had run over one of the flock. The collie did his duty, however, and in a whirl of barking, shouting, and baa-ing she steered safely through the danger.

She looked anxiously at every turning, for fear she might miss her way. Her object was to regain the main road, where she might find some passing motorist, and implore help. Yes, there was the sign-post where Aunt Harriet had halted, she must keep to the left by that ruined cottage—she remembered noticing its broken roof as they had passed it. How interminably long the lanes were! They had seemed far shorter when Aunt Harriet was driving! Oh! thank goodness, there was the big oak tree—it could not be far now. A few minutes more and Winona had reached the sign-post, and swung round the corner into the Crowland Road. She felt as if her nerves would not stand very much more. Would help never come? A distant hooting behind her made her heart leap. She stopped the car beside the hedge, and standing up, waved her handkerchief as a signal of distress. A splendid Daimler came into sight. Would the chauffeur notice and understand her plight? She shrieked in desperation as it whizzed past. Oh! It was stopping! A gentleman got out, and walked quickly back towards her. She jumped down, and ran to meet him.

"Winona stopped the car beside the hedge, and, standing up, waved her handkerchief as a signal of distress"

"Can I be of any assistance?" he asked politely.

"Oh, please! My aunt is very ill, and I don't know how to drive properly yet. How am I going to get back to Seaton?" blurted out Winona, on the verge of tears.

She never forgot how kind the stranger was. With the aid of his chauffeur he lifted poor Aunt Harriet into his own car, and told Winona to take her place beside her.

"Now tell me exactly where you want to go," he said, "and I'll run you straight home as fast as I can. My man shall follow with your car. You can manage this little two-seater, Jones?"

"Yes, Sir," grinned the chauffeur, inspecting the levers.

The stranger made his big Daimler fly. Winona never knew by how much he exceeded the speed limit, but it seemed to her that they must be spinning along at the rate of nearly fifty miles an hour. Aunt Harriet had recovered a little, though she still moaned at intervals. The hedges seemed to whirl past them, they went hooting through villages, and whizzed over a common. At last the familiar spires and towers of Seaton appeared in the distance. Their good Samaritan drove them to their own door, helped Miss Beach into the house, and volunteered to take a message to the doctor, then, evading Winona's thanks, he sprang into his car, and started away.

The chauffeur arrived later with Miss Beach's car, and considerately offered to run it round to the garage.

Aunt Harriet was laid up for several days after this episode, and Dr. Sidwell forbade any long expeditions in the immediate future. He encouraged the idea of Winona learning to drive.

"You could be of the greatest help in taking your aunt about," he said to her. "You must have a capital notion of it, or you couldn't have brought the car three miles entirely on your own. But of course you'll need practice before you can be trusted to mix in traffic. You'll have to apply for a license, remember. You'll be getting into trouble if you drive without!"

Winona looked back upon that outing as a most memorable occasion. She hoped to try her skill again as soon as opportunity offered. The charm of the wheel was alluring. She wished she knew the name of the stranger who had rendered such invaluable assistance. But that she never learnt.

XVI. The Athletic Display

The Easter term was passing quickly away. It had been a strenuous but nevertheless successful season. Out of nine hockey matches the team had lost only three—not a bad record for a school that was still in the infancy of its Games reputation. The Old Girls' Guild had got up its eleven, and had practiced with enthusiasm under the captaincy of Kirsty Paterson. A most exciting Past versus Present match had been played, resulting in a narrow victory for the school. Winona felt prouder of this success than of any other triumph the team had scored, for Kirsty had congratulated her afterwards, and praise from her former captain was very sweet. It had been the last match of the season, so it made a satisfactory finish to her work. She felt quite sentimental as she put by her hockey-stick. Next season there would be a fresh captain, and she would have left the High School! She wished she were staying another year, but her scholarship would expire at the end of July. She could hardly believe that she had been nearly two years at the school, and that only one term more remained to her. Well, it would be the summer term, which was the pleasantest of all, and though hockey was over, she had the cricket season before her. The Seaton High should score at the wicket if it were in her power to coach a successful team.

Towards the end of March Winona had an interlude which for the time took her thoughts even from the omnipresent topic of sports. Percy, who had been in training with his regiment at Duncastle, was ordered to the Front. He was allowed thirty-six hours' leave, and came home for a Sunday. Winona spent that week-end at Highfield, and the memory of it always remained a very precious one. Percy in his khaki seemed much changed, and though she only had him for a few minutes quite to herself, she felt that the old tie between them had strengthened. Her letters to him in future would be different. During the last year they had both slacked a little in their correspondence, each perhaps unconsciously feeling that the other's standpoint was changing; now they had met again on a new basis, and realized once more a common bond of sympathy. Percy, absorbed in describing his new life, scarcely mentioned Aunt Harriet. The episode of the burning of the paper seemed to have faded from his memory, or he had conveniently buried it in oblivion. Winona had never forgotten it. It remained still the one shadow in her career at Seaton. Now especially, since Miss Beach's recent ill-health, the secret weighed heavily upon her. She felt her aunt ought to know that the will was destroyed, so that she might take the opportunity of making another. More than once she tried indirectly to refer to the subject, but it was a tender topic, and at the least hint Miss Beach's face would stiffen and her voice harden; the old barrier between them would rise up again wider than ever, and impossible to be spanned. Winona would have been glad to do much for her aunt, but Miss Beach did not care to be treated as an invalid. Like many energetic people, she refused to acknowledge that she was ill, and the acceptance of little services seemed to her a confession of her own weakness. It is rather hard to have your kindly meant efforts repulsed, so Winona, finding that her offers of sympathy met with no response, drew back into her shell, and the two continued to live as before, on terms of friendship but never of intimacy. After almost two years spent in the same house Winona knew her aunt little better than on the day of her arrival. They had certain common grounds for conversation, but their mutual reserve was maintained, and as regarded each other's real thoughts they remained "strangers yet."

Miss Beach, however, took an interest in Winona's doings at school. She read her monthly reports, and scolded her if her work had fallen below standard. She expressed a guarded pleasure over successful matches, but rubbed in the moral that games must not usurp her attention to the detriment of her form subjects.

"You came here to learn something more than hockey!" she would remind Winona. "It's a splendid exercise, but I'm afraid it won't prove a career! I should like to see a better record for Latin and Chemistry; they might very well have more attention!"

Winona had tried to persuade her aunt to come and watch one of the matches, but Miss Beach had always found some engagement; she was concerned in so many of the city's activities that her time was generally carefully mapped out weeks beforehand. She consented, however, to accept Miss Bishop's invitation to the Gymnasium Display, which was to be given at the High School at the close of the Easter term.

This was a very important occasion in the estimation of the girls. It was their first athletic show since the advent of Miss Barbour, the Swedish drill mistress. Governors and parents were to be present, and the excellence of the performance must justify the large amount which had been spent upon gymnastic apparatus during the past year.

For two whole terms Miss Barbour had been teaching and training her classes with a view to this exhibition, and woe betide any unlucky wight whose nerves, memory or muscles should fail her at the critical moment! A further impetus was given to individual effort by the offer, on the part of one of the Governors, of four medals for competition, to be awarded respectively to the best candidates in four classes, Seniors over 16, Intermediates from 13 to 16, Juniors from 10 to 13, and Preparatories under 10. It was felt throughout the school that the offer was munificent. The Governors had been stingy over the matter of the hockey field, and had been reviled accordingly, but Councillor Jackson was retrieving the character of the Board by this action, and the girls reversed their opinion in his favor. They hoped that other Governors, warmed by his example, might open their hearts in silver medals or book prizes for future occasions.

"He's a dear old trump to think of it!" said Winona.

"You drew a picture of him floundering in the mud at hockey!" twinkled Garnet.

"Well, I forgive him now, and I'll draw another of him standing on the platform, all beaming with benevolence, and distributing medals broadcast. Look here, Bessie Kirk, you needn't be congratulating yourself beforehand with such a patently self-satisfied smirk, because I'm going to win the Senior Medal."

"No, you're not, my child! Take it patiently, and compose your mind. The medal's coming this way!"

"How about me?" put in Marjorie Kemp.

"You'll do well, but you're not a champion! You're too fat, Jumbo, and that's the fact. You're all right when it's a question of brute strength, but when agility matters, those superfluous pounds of flesh of yours are an impediment. I'd back Joyce sooner than you; she's as light as a feather!"

Hearing herself commended, Joyce fluttered up to the group, smiling.

"I did four feet six, yesterday," she announced, "and I'd have cleared four feet seven, I believe, only I had to stop. It's always my luck!"

"Why had you to stop?"

"My back ached!"

Instant apprehension overspread the faces of her friends.

"Joyce Newton!" exclaimed Winona, "you're never going to get small-pox again, and stop the athletic display?"

"You don't feel sick, or head-achy, or sore-throaty, do you?" implored Bessie. "For goodness sake stand away, if you're infectious! I don't want to be another contact case!"

"What pigs you are!" said Joyce plaintively, "One can't catch small-pox twice!"

"But you might be going to get scarlet fever, or measles, or even influenza!"

"Stop ragging! Mayn't I have a back-ache if I want? It's my own back!"

"Have as many back-aches as you choose, my hearty, but don't disseminate germs! If the athletic display doesn't come off, I'll break my heart, and you can write an epitaph over me:

"Here lies one who young in years,

Left this mortal vale of tears;

Cruel fate hath knocked her down,

Tom from her the laurel crown,

To win the gym display she sighed,

But as she might not jump, she died!"

"Look here!" said Marjorie. "I suppose the medal lies fairly well between us four. I vote that we make a compact—whoever wins treats the other three to ices! It would be some compensation for losing!"

"Good for you, Jumbo! I'm game!" agreed Bessie.

"If you'll undertake they'll be strawberry ices!" stipulated Winona.

"I mayn't eat ices, they disagree with me!" wailed Joyce, "but if you'll make it chocolates."

"Done! I won't forget. Ices for Bessie and Winona, and a packet of Cadbury's for Joyce. I'll go and be ordering them!" chirruped Marjorie, dancing away.

"Cheek! Don't make so sure."

"It's my medal, so be getting your handkerchiefs ready," maintained Winona.

Though Winona, just for the fun of teasing her friends, had pretended to appropriate the prize, she had really no anticipation of winning. She was fairly good at gymnasium work, but could not be considered a champion. She knew her success or failure would depend very much on luck. If she happened to feel in the right mood she might achieve something, but it was an even chance that at the critical moment her courage might fail her. In a match she was generally swept away by the intense feeling of cooperation, the knowledge that all her team were striving for a common cause buoyed her up, but in a competition where each was for herself, the element of nervousness would have greater scope. When she thought about it, she felt that she would probably be shaking with fright.

The great day came at last. The Gymnasium was decorated with flags in honor of the occasion, and pots of palms were placed upon the platform where the Governors and a few of the most distinguished visitors were accommodated with seats. Winona, marching in to take part in the senior drill, gave one glance round the building, and grasped the fact that Aunt Harriet was sitting on the platform next to Councillor Jackson, and only a few places away from the expert who was to act as judge. She was chatting affably with her august companions. Think of chatting with a Governor! Winona felt that it was some credit to have such a relation! She had not always been very sure how much she valued Aunt Harriet's opinion, but this afternoon she longed to shine before her. Yet the very wish to do so made her nervous. She glanced at her companions. Bessie was looking stolidity itself, Marjorie's usually high color had reached peony point, Joyce was palpably in the throes of stage fright. All were soon marching and countermarching, swinging Indian clubs, and performing the intricate maneuvers of Swedish drill. Fortunately they had practiced well, and it went without a hitch. They breathed more freely as they retired to the ante-room to make way for the babies who were to do skipping exercises to music.

"It's more awful to show off before Governors than I expected!" sighed Joyce. "I'm just shivering!"

"What'll you be at the rings, then?" asked Bessie.

"Silence!" urged Miss Lever, who was in charge of the ante-room.

The strains of "Little Grey Home in the West" and the regular thud of small feet were wafted from the gymnasium.

"Don't you wish you were a kid again?" whispered Joyce.

"No, I don't!" retorted Bessie, so imprudently loud that Miss Lever glared at her.

"It's horrid having to stay in here, where one can't see!" murmured Marjorie under her breath.

They knew by the music, however, what was taking place. The juniors were doing wand exercises, the intermediates followed with clubs.

"Our turn again soon," whispered Winona.

Olave Parry, from a vantage post near the door, could see into the gymnasium, and report progress. Her items of news passed in whispers down the ranks. The babies had skipped like a row of cherubs, and the Governors were wreathed in smiles. Kitty Carter had dropped one of her clubs, and it nearly hit a visitor on the head, but fortunately missed her by half an inch. Laura Marshall was performing prodigies on the horizontal ladder—she undoubtedly had a chance for a medal. Bursts of applause from the audience punctuated the performance. Olave continued her report, which Miss Lever, who took occasional excursions into the gymnasium, verified from time to time. The juniors were competing now. Natalie Powers was about to do the ring exercises. It was a swing and a pull-up in front, and she managed that neatly, but when it came to the swing and the turn, she lost her nerve, turned too soon and spun round helplessly in the air until Miss Barbour hurried to her aid. Natalie was done for, without doubt! It was a good thing she had not fallen and hurt herself. Her rivals were rope-climbing. Madge Collins had reached the top in six seconds, and was sliding down again, to the accompaniment of loud clapping. Lennie Roberts had beaten her, for she had performed the same feat in exactly five seconds. The juniors were in a ferment of excitement. The interest of the audience had waxed to enthusiasm point.

"Seniors!" announced Miss Lever briefly, and the row of waiting figures in the ante-room fell into line, and marched into the gymnasium for the special trials. The Swedish drill exercises, where all worked together, had not seemed half so formidable. A well practiced part is not easily forgotten even by a nervous girl, if it must be done in company with others. It was another matter, however, to perform single athletic feats before a big audience. For a moment Winona turned almost dizzy with fright. The big room seemed full of eyes, every one of which would be watching her when it came to her turn. She looked round with the feeling of a martyr in the arena, and for a moment met the calm steady gaze of Miss Beach. Winona said afterwards that Aunt Harriet must have mesmerized her, for in that second of recognition she felt a sudden rush of courage. The thrill of the contest took possession of her, and every nerve and muscle, every atom of her brain, was alert to do its best. She would let Aunt Harriet see that, though she might fail sometimes in form work, she could hold her own at gymnastics.

Contestants climbed, traveled on rings, and vaulted the horse. Winona seemed to herself as easy and agile as she had ever been. She had a possible chance of winning, and her heart exulted. Then came the ladders. Up and up she went, holding herself now by her hands and now by her feet swinging for her hold. She had thought she was light, but now she suddenly realized how heavy she was! She summoned every bit of strength as she went down the ladder. From one contest to another she passed, doing her best.

Last of all came the rings. Winona swung out, grasped the next ring, and so on down the line. Oh, how many there were! She had never before realized what it meant to weigh 7 st. 10 lbs. She held her breath as she reached for the next ring, but it slipped from her fingers. Only for a second, however, for she caught it on the next swing, and a moment later was waiting at the end. Bessie was just starting. Down the line she traveled, not so gracefully, perhaps, as Winona, but catching her ring on every swing. Joyce followed, but mid-way her courage deserted her, and she failed utterly. Marjorie came next. She was doing well surely! She was nearly through, reached for the last ring, missed it, and fell! There was an instant murmur of consternation from the audience. Was she injured? She sprang up unhurt, however, though deeply humiliated.

Thrilling in every nerve, Winona started back. Refreshed by her little rest, she swung lightly, steadily and unfalteringly, never missing a ring till she came to the end. She was almost too occupied to notice the cheers. Bessie reached mid-way, then missed a ring, caught it on the second swing, missed another, and reached for it three times before she caught it and finished her course.

The girls had been too much excited for comparisons. They scarcely guessed how their averages would stand. Winona had a general impression that Bessie had scored at vaulting, and Marjorie had undoubtedly cleared the rope at four feet eight. Her own performances seemed lost in a haze; she had noticed the judge jot down something, but she felt incapable of reckoning her chances.

The judge was conferring with Miss Bishop at the back of the platform, and while the room waited for their decision the school marched, singing an Empire song.

At last the judge stepped to the front of the platform. The singing ceased. Winona's heart beat suffocatingly.

"I have great pleasure in giving the results," announced the judge. "Preparatory prize, Elaine Jennings; Junior prize, Lennie Roberts; Intermediate prize, Laura Marshall; Senior prize, Winona Woodward."

The applause was ringing out lustily. Bessie, Marjorie and Joyce were pressing congratulations upon her. Miss Bishop (actually the Head!) was looking at her and smiling approval. Miss Lever was telling her to walk forward. In a delirious whirl, Winona climbed the steps on the platform. As Councillor Jackson pinned the medal on to her tunic, a storm of clapping and cheers rose from the school. Their Games Captain was popular, and everybody felt it right and fitting that this afternoon she should have proved herself the athletic champion.

"Don't forget the ices!" whispered Bessie, as Winona rejoined Marjorie and Joyce.

"We'll stop at the café on the way home, and you shall each choose what you like!" declared Winona, with spendthrift liberality.

XVII. Back to the Land

Easter fell late, so Winona spent the lovely early part of May at her own home. After so many weeks of town it was delightful to be once more in the country. She worked with enthusiasm in the garden, mowed the lawn, and with Letty and Mamie's help began to put up an arbor, over which she hoped to persuade a crimson rambler to ramble successfully. In the house she tried her hand at scones and cakes, entirely to the children's satisfaction, if not altogether to her own; she enjoyed experiments in cooking, for she had longed to join the Domestic Science class at school, and had felt aggrieved when Miss Bishop decided that her time-table was full enough without it. She found her mother looking delicate and worried. Poor Mrs. Woodward's health had not improved during the last two years; she was nervous, anxious about Percy, and inclined to be fretful and tearful. The increased income-tax and the added cost of living made her constantly full of financial cares; she was not a very good manager, and the thought of the future oppressed her.

"I don't know what's to be done with you, Winona, when you leave school!" she remarked plaintively one evening. "I feel that you ought to go in for something, but I'm sure I don't know what! I'd hoped you were going to turn out clever, and win a scholarship for College, and get a good post as a teacher afterwards, but there doesn't seem the least chance of your doing that. It's all very well this hockey and cricket that's made such a fuss of at schools nowadays, but it doesn't seem to me that it's going to lead to anything. I'd rather you stuck to your books! Yes, your future's worrying me very much. I've all these little ones to bring up and educate, and I'd hoped you'd be able to earn your own living before long, and lend the children a helping hand. I can't spend anything on giving you an expensive training, Percy has cost me so much out of capital, and it's Letty's turn next, besides which it's high time Ernie and Godfrey were packed off to a boarding-school. Oh, dear! I never seem free from trouble! It's no light anxiety to be the mother of seven children! I often wonder what will become of you all!"

To Winona her mother's tearful confidences came as a shock. Up to the present she had been so intensely interested in school affairs that she had given scarcely a thought to her future career. Life had existed for her in detail only to the end of the summer term, after that it had stretched a nebulous void into which her imagination had never troubled to penetrate. Now she took herself seriously to task, and tried to face the prospect of the time when she would have left the Seaton High School. There were many occupations open to girls nowadays besides teaching; they could be doctors, secretaries, sanitary inspectors, artists, musicians, poultry farmers. She knew however, that for any career worth taking up a considerable training would be necessary, and a certain amount of expense involved. What she would have liked very much would be to study at a Physical Training College, and qualify to become a Drill and Games Mistress, but this seemed as unattainable as taking a medical course or going to Girton or Newnham.

"I'm too young yet for a hospital nurse," she pondered, "and not clever enough to be an artist or a musician. Well, I suppose I can make munitions, or go on the land! Women are wanted on farms while the war lasts. I could earn my own living, perhaps. But oh, dear! That wouldn't be boosting on the children! I'm afraid mother's fearfully disappointed with me."

She seemed to be looking at things in a new light, and to see her position as it affected others. She was young and brave; surely it was her part to shoulder the family burdens, to shield the frail little mother who grew less and less able to cope with difficulties, to hold out a strong helping hand to the younger brothers and sisters, and so justify her existence on this planet. It had not before occurred to her how much her home people relied on her. The thought of it brought a great lump into her throat. She must not fail them. She could not yet see her way clearly, but somehow she must be a comfort and a support to them, that she was quite resolved.

She went back to school in a very thoughtful frame of mind. Her last term would be a full one in many ways. About half of the Sixth Form were to go in for their college entrance examinations, and Miss Bishop had decreed that Winona, as a County Scholarship holder, must certainly be among the number. She had little hope of passing, for most of her subjects were weak, but she meant to make an effort to try to pick up some of her lost ground. Her old enemies, Latin and Chemistry, still often baffled her, and her memory was only moderately retentive. She could not honestly believe that so far as her work was concerned she was any credit to the school. Games were another matter, however, and so long as they did not seriously interfere with her preparation for the matriculation, she meant to do her duty as captain. She arranged cricket fixtures and tennis tournaments, and though she could not devote as much of her own time as she would have liked to practice, she spurred on others who had more leisure than herself. She certainly possessed a gift for organization. There are some captains, splendid players themselves, who can never train their deputies. As Napoleon's genius was supposed to lie largely in his capacity for picking out able generals, so Winona proved her ability by choosing helpers who were of real service to her. With Audrey Redfern, Emily Cooper, and Bertha March to the fore, she hoped that both cricket and tennis would prosper, and that the school would score as successfully during the summer as it had done in the hockey season.

On the first Saturday after the beginning of the term, Miss Beach announced that she was going to spend the day with a friend who lived five miles out of Seaton, and that if Winona had leisure to accompany her she would be pleased to take her. No practices had been arranged for that afternoon, so Winona felt free to accept the invitation. She had been for several short runs in the car, but for no long expedition since the memorable outing to Wickborough, so the prospect of a day in the country was alluring.

They started at about eleven o'clock, and took a road that was new to Winona, consequently all the more interesting. Their way led through lovely woods, at present a sheet of blue hyacinths, the hedges were a filmy dream of blackthorn blossom, while the swallows wheeling and flashing in the sunshine testified to the return of summer.

Miss Carson, the lady whom they were going to visit, like most of Aunt Harriet's friends was engaged in very interesting work. She had taken a small holding, and with the help of a few women pupils was running it as a fruit, flower and poultry farm. The house, an old cottage, to which she had added a wing, was charmingly pretty. It was long and low, with a thick thatched roof, and a porch overgrown with starry white clematis. A budding vine covered the front and in the border below great clumps of stately yellow lilies drooped their queenly heads. The front door led straight into the house place, a square room with a big fire-place and cozy ingle nooks. It was very simply furnished, but looked most artistic with its rush-bottomed chairs, its few good pictures, and its stained green table with the big bowl of wallflowers.

Miss Carson, a delightfully energetic lady whose age may have been somewhere between thirty and forty, welcomed them cordially.

"I don't apologize for the plainness of my establishment," she remarked. "It's all part of a purpose. We have no servants here, and as we have to do our own house-work in addition to our farm-work, we want to reduce our labor to a minimum. You see, there's hardly anything to dust in this room: the books and the china are in those two cupboards with glass doors, and we have no fripperies at all lying about. The only ornament we allow ourselves is the bowl of flowers. Our bedrooms are equally simple, and our kitchen is fitted with the latest and most up-to-date labor-saving appliances. One of my students is preparing the dinner there now. She's a nice girl, and Winona will perhaps like to go and talk to her, unless she prefers to stay here with us."

Winona promptly decided in favor of the kitchen, so Miss Carson escorted her there, and introduced her to Miss Heald, a jolly-looking girl of about twenty, who, enveloped in a blue overall pinafore, was putting plates to heat, and inspecting the contents of certain boilerettes and casseroles. Like the sitting-room the kitchen contained no unnecessary articles. It was spotlessly clean, and looked very business-like.

"We go on kitchen duty for a week at a time," explained Miss Heald to Winona. "It's a part of the course, you know. We have dairy, gardening and poultry as well. Which do I like best? It's hard to say. Poultry, I think, because the chickens are such darlings. I'll show you all round the place this afternoon, when I've finished washing up. I'm going to lay the table now. You can help if you like."

Precisely at one o'clock the seven other students came in from their work. Each was dressed in her farm uniform, short serge skirt, woolen jersey, blue overall and thick boots. To judge from their looks, their occupation was both healthy and congenial, in physique they were Hebes, and their spirits seemed at bubbling point. Apparently they all adored Miss Carson. The latter made a few inquiries as to the morning's progress, and the capable answers testified to the knowledge of the learners. The dinner did credit to Miss Heald's skill; it was well cooked and daintily served. Winona was full of admiration; her culinary experience was limited so far to cakes and scones; she felt that she would have been very proud if she had compounded that stew, and baked those custards. When the meal was finished the students tramped forth again to their outdoor labor, while Miss Heald cleared away. Winona begged to be allowed to help her, and was initiated into the mysteries of the very latest and most sanitary method of washing up, with the aid of mop, dish-rack, and some patent appliances. It was so interesting that she quite enjoyed it. She swept the kitchen, filled kettles at the pump, and did several other odd jobs; then, everything being left in an absolutely immaculate condition, Miss Heald declared that she was ready, and offered to take her companion for a tour of inspection round the farm.

The little holding had been well planned, and was skillfully arranged. In front was the garden, a large piece of ground stretching down to the hedge that bordered the road. Miss Carson's original idea had been the culture of flowers, partly for the sale of their blossoms, and partly for the preservation of their seeds, but the national need of producing food crops during the war had induced her to plant almost the whole of it with fruit and vegetables. At present it somewhat resembled a village allotment. Patches of peas and broad beans were coming up well. Groups of gooseberry bushes were thriving. Strawberry beds were being carefully weeded, and two of the students were erecting posts round them, over which nets would be hung later on to protect the fruit from the birds.

"Birds are our greatest pest here," explained Miss Heald. "One may like them from a natural history point of view, but you get to hate the little wretches when you see them devouring everything wholesale. They've no conscience. Those small coletits can creep through quite fine meshes, and simply strip the peas, and the blackbirds would guzzle all day if they had the chance. I want to borrow an air gun and pot at them, but Miss Carson won't let me. She's afraid I might shoot some of the other students."

A row of cucumber frames and some greenhouses stood at the bottom of the garden. The latter were mostly devoted to young tomato plants, though one was specially reserved for vegetable marrows. The students had to learn how to manage and regulate the heating apparatus of the houses, as well as to understand the culture of the plants.

"I left a window open once," confessed Miss Heald. "I remembered it when I had been about an hour in bed, and I jumped up and dressed in a hurry, and went out with a lantern to shut it. Fortunately there was no frost that night, or all the seedlings might have been killed. It was a most dreadful thing to forget! I thought Miss Carson would have jumped on me, but she was ever so nice about it."

Despite the predominance of foodstuffs there were a few flowers in the garden, clumps of forget-me-not and narcissus, purple iris, golden saxifrages and scarlet anemones. There were fragrant bushes of lavender and rosemary, and beds of sweet herbs, thyme, and basil and fennel and salsafy, for Miss Carson believed in some of the old-fashioned remedies, and made salves and ointments and hair washes from the products of her garden. The orchard, full of pink-blossomed apple trees, was a refreshing sight. They opened a little gate, and walked under a wealth of drooping flowers to the poultry yard that lay at the further side. Everything here was on the most up-to-date system. Pens of beautiful white Leghorns, Black Minorcas and Buff Orpingtons were kept in wired inclosures, each with its own henhouse and scratching-shed full of straw. Miss Heald took Winona inside to inspect the patent nesting-boxes, and the grit-cutting machine. She also showed her the incubators.

"They're empty now, but you should have seen them in the early spring, when they were full of eggs," she explained. "It was a tremendous anxiety to keep the lamps properly regulated. Miss Nelson and I sat up all night once when some prize ducklings were hatching. It was cold weather, and they weren't very strong, so they needed a little help. It's the most frightfully delicate work to help a chick out of its shell! It makes a little chip with its beak, and then sometimes it can't get any further, and you have gently to crack the hole bigger. Unless you're very careful you may kill it, but on the other hand, if it can't burst its shell when it's ready to hatch, it may suffocate, so it's a choice of evils. We put them in the drying pen first, and then in the 'foster mother.' They're like babies, and have to be fed every two hours. It's a tremendous business when you have hundreds of them, at different stages and on different diets. We seemed to be preparing food all day long. It's ever so fascinating, though!"

"I love them when they're like fluffy canaries," said Winona.

"Yes, so do I. I had a special sitting of little ducklings under my charge, and they got very tame. I put them into a basket one day, and carried them into the garden to pick up worms. I put them down on a bed, and while my back was turned for a few minutes they cleared a whole row of young cabbages that Miss Morrison had just planted. I got into fearful trouble, and had to pack up my protégés and take them back to their coop in disgrace. I'd never dreamed they would devour green stuff! We have to learn to keep strict accounts of the poultry; we put down the number of eggs daily, and the weekly food bill, and the chickens sold, and make a kind of register, with profit and loss. Miss Carson runs everything on a most business-like basis."

Miss Heald showed Winona the store-room, where meal and grain were kept, the big pans in which food was mixed, the boxes for packing eggs, and the little medicine cupboard containing remedies for sick fowls. All was beautifully orderly and well arranged, and a card of rules for the help of the students hung on the walls.

From the poultry department they passed to the Dairy Section. The four sleek cows were out in the field, but in a loose box there were some delightful calves that ran to greet Miss Heald, pressing eager damp noses into her hand, and exhibiting much apparent disappointment that she did not offer them a pailful of milk and oatmeal. Winona inspected the cool, scrupulously clean dairy, with its patent churn, and slate slabs for making up the butter. She saw the bowls where the cream was kept, and the wooden print with which the pats were marked.

"Butter-making is the side of the business I don't care for," admitted Miss Heald. "I like the gardening fairly well, and I just love the poultry, but I don't take to dairy work. Of course it's a part of my training, so I'm obliged to do it, but when my time here is over, I mean to make hens my specialty, and go in for poultry farming. An open-air life suits me. It's a thousand times nicer than being a nurse at a hospital, or a secretary at an office. You're in the fresh air all day, and the chicks are so interesting."

A pen of young turkey poults, a flock of goslings, and a sty full of infant pigs were next on exhibition. Miss Heald showed off the latter with pride.

"They're rather darlings, and I own to a weakness for them," she admitted. "We put them in a bath and scrub them, and they're really so intelligent. Wasn't it the poet Herrick who had a pet pig? This little chap's as sharp as a needle. I believe I could teach him tricks directly, if I tried! Miss Carson says I mustn't let myself grow too fond of all the creatures, because their ultimate end is bacon or the boilerette, and it doesn't do to be sentimental over farming; but I can't help it! I just love some of the chickens; they come flying up on to my shoulder like pigeons."

A rough-coated pony formed part of the establishment. Twice a week he was harnessed to the trap, and Miss Carson and one of the students drove to Seaton to dispose of the farm produce. Miss Carson had undertaken to supply several hotels and restaurants with eggs, fowls and vegetables, and so far had found the demand for her goods exceeded the supply. Labor was at present her greatest difficulty. Her students accomplished the light work, but could not do heavy digging. She managed to secure the occasional services of a farm hand, but with most able-bodied men at the war the problem of trenching or of making an asparagus bed was almost impossible to solve.

At the end of the orchard, against a south hedge of thick holly, stood the hives. Bee-keeping was one of the most successful ventures of the holding. Last autumn had shown a splendid yield of honey, and this year, judging by the activity of the bees, an equal harvest might be expected. There was continuous humming among the apple blossoms, and every minute pollen-laden workers were hurrying home with their spoils. Miss Heald lifted the lid of one of the hives, to show Winona the comb within. She observed caution, however.

"They don't know me very well," she explained. "They have their likes and dislikes. Miss Hunter can let them crawl all over her hands and arms, and they never sting her. She must have a natural attraction for them. They recognize a stranger directly. No, I'm not particularly fond of them. I prefer pigs and chickens."

Miss Carson and Aunt Harriet had also been going the round of the farm, and came up to inspect the hives. Miss Beach was greatly interested in her friend's work, and full of congratulations.

"Such women as you are the backbone of the country!" she declared. "The next best thing to fighting is to provide food for the nation. England is capable of producing twice her annual yield if there is proper organization. I'm a great advocate of small holdings, and I think women can't show their patriotism better than by going 'back to the land.' You and your students are indeed 'doing your bit'! You make me want to come and help you!"

It was such a delicious warm afternoon that chairs were carried outside, and they had tea in the garden under a gorgeous pink-blossomed almond tree, with the perfume of wallflowers and sweet scented stocks wafted from the rockery above. Two cats and a dog joined the party, also an impudent bantam cock, who, being considered the mascot of the establishment, was much petted, and allowed certain privileges. He would sit on Miss Carson's wrist like a little tame hawk, and she sometimes brought him into the garden at tea-time to give him tit-bits.

At 4.30 all the fowls and chickens were fed, a tremendous business, at which Winona looked on with enthusiasm. She admired the systematic way in which the food was measured and distributed so that each individual member of the flock received its due share, and was not robbed by a greedier and stronger neighbor. She was very reluctant to leave when Miss Beach at last brought round the car.

"How I'd love to go and learn farming when I leave school!" she ventured to remark as they drove home.

"It needs brains!" returned Aunt Harriet, rather snappily. "You mustn't imagine it's all tea in the garden and playing with fluffy chickens. To run such a holding intelligently requires a clever capable head. Your examination's quite enough for you to think about at present. If you're to have any chance at all of passing, it will take your whole energies, I assure you!"

Winona, duly snubbed, held her peace.

XVIII. A Friend in Need

Under the coaching of Miss Goodson the Sixth Form had settled down to grim work. Twelve girls were to present themselves for examination for entering Dunningham University, and though the teacher naturally concentrated her greatest energies on this elect dozen, the rest by no means slipped through her intellectual net. There were stars among the candidates of whom she might feel moderately certain, and there were also laggers whose success was doubtful. In this latter category she classed Winona. Poor Winona still floundered rather hopelessly in some of her subjects. A poetic imagination may be a delightful inheritance and a source of infinite enjoyment to its owner, but it does not supply the place of a good memory. Examiners are prosaic beings who require solid facts, and even the style of a Macaulay or a Carlyle would not satisfy them unless accompanied by definite answers to their set questions. By a piece of unparalleled luck, Winona had secured and retained her County Scholarship, but her powers of essay writing were not likely to serve her in such good stead again. She often groaned when she thought of the examinations. Miss Bishop, Aunt Harriet, and her mother would all be so disappointed if she failed, and alas! her failure seemed only too probable.

"Miss Goodson doesn't tell me plump out that I'll be plucked, but I can see she thinks so!" confided Winona to Garnet one day.

"Then show her she is wrong!"

"Not much chance of that, I'm afraid, but I'm doing my level best. I get up at six every morning, and slave before breakfast."

"So do I, but I get such frightful headaches," sighed Garnet. "I've been nearly mad with them. My cousin took me to the doctor yesterday. He says it's my eyes. I shan't be at school to-morrow. I have to go to Dunningham to see a specialist."

"Poor old girl! You never told me about your headaches."

"You never asked me! I've seen so little of you lately;"

Winona's conscience smote her. She had rather neglected Garnet since they had entered the Sixth Form. During their year in V.a. they had been fast friends. As new girls together and scholarship holders, a close tie had existed between them, and they had shared in many small excitements and adventures. When Winona was chosen Games Captain, however, their interests seemed to separate. Garnet was not athletic, she cared little for hockey or cricket, and preferred to devote her surplus energies to the Literary Society or the Debating Club. Almost inevitably they had drifted apart. Winona, wrapped up in the supreme fascinations of hockey matches and gymnasium practice, had chummed with Marjorie Kemp, Bessie Kirk, and Joyce Newton, who shared her enthusiasm for games. She remembered with a pang of self-reproach that she had not walked round the playground with Garnet once this term. Winona admired fidelity, but she certainly could not pride herself upon having practiced that virtue of late.

Garnet was absent from her desk next day, but when she returned to the school on Thursday, Winona sought an opportunity, and bore her off for a private talk. Garnet was looking very pale.

"I'm dreadfully upset," she confessed. "I told you I had to see a specialist about my eyes? Well, yesterday we went to Dunningham, to consult Sir Alfred Pollard. He says there's very serious trouble, and that if I'm not careful, I may ruin my sight altogether. He absolutely forbids any home work in the evenings."

"Forbids home work!" gasped Winona.

"Yes, utterly! Just think of it! With the examinations only six weeks off! I begged and implored, but he said I might choose between my sight and my exam. I suppose I shall have to fail!"

"Oh, Garnet!"

"Yes," continued her friend bitterly, "to fail at the very end, after all my work! And I have worked! When other girls have been getting all sorts of fun, I've sat in my bedroom with my books. Oh, it's too cruel!… Don't think me conceited, but I thought I might have a chance for the Seaton Scholarship. It was worth trying for! If you knew how I long to go to College! It would be so glorious to write B.A. after one's name! Besides, I must do something in life. All my sisters have chosen careers, and I had, quite decided to take up teaching as a profession. I talked it over with Miss Goodson one day. She was so nice about it, and strongly advised me to go to College if I could possibly get the opportunity. Well, I suppose that dream's over now! Not much chance of a scholarship with one's prep knocked off!"

"Oh, Garnet, I'm so sorry! Will the doctor let you take the exams, at all?"

"Yes, I may attend school as usual, and go in for the exam., but I'm not to look at a book after 4 p.m. or before 9 a.m., so it's a very empty permission. How I shall rage all the evenings! I wish I had a gramophone to howl out my work into my ears, as I mayn't use my eyes!"

"Would that help you?" asked Winona eagerly.

"Of course it would! It isn't my brain that's wrong, only my eyes. I asked my cousin to read my prep. to me one evening, but it was beyond her, and we only got into a muddle. Oh dear, I could cry! To have worked to within six weeks of the exam., and then to have to slack like this! I'm the unluckiest girl in the world!"

Winona comforted her poor friend as best she could. She had an idea at the back of her mind, but she did not venture to confide it to Garnet until she had first consulted Aunt Harriet about it. It was no less a proposal than that they should do their preparation together, and that by reading the work aloud she could act eyes for her chum. It. would be difficult, no doubt, but not an utter impossibility, and it was absolutely the only way in which Garnet could receive help. It would necessitate their spending many hours daily in each other's company, and to arrange this seemed to be the difficulty. She explained the situation to Miss Beach, with some diffidence and hesitation. She was terribly afraid of receiving a snubbing, and being told that her own work was more than sufficient for her, without taking up her friend's burdens. To her surprise, however, Aunt Harriet proved sympathetic, and heartily acquiesced in the scheme. She indeed made the very kind proposal that for the six weeks until the exam. Garnet should sleep with Winona at Abbey Close, so that they might have both the evening and early morning preparation together.

Winona carried her friend to a quiet corner of the gymnasium to communicate her thrilling news.

"Win! You don't really mean it? Oh, you're big! I didn't think any one in the world would have done that for me. Do you realize what you're undertaking? It's the one thing that can save me! And only a girl who's in my own Form, and going in for the exams. herself, could do it. Nobody else understands exactly what one wants. Win! I'm ready to worship you!"

"Will your cousin let you come to stay with us?"

"I've no fear of that. She'll be as grateful to you as I am!"

Without any further loss of time, Garnet was installed at Abbey Close, and the friends began their joint preparation. Garnet, by the doctor's orders, sat with a black silk handkerchief tied over her eyes, so as to give them all the rest which was possible. Her brain was very alert, however, and her excellent memory retained most of what Winona read to her. At first there were many difficulties to be overcome, for each had had her own way of studying, but after a while they grew used to their united method, and began to make headway with the work. They thoroughly enjoyed being together. To Winona it was almost like being back at the hostel to have a companion in her bedroom, and her many jokes and bits of fun kept up Garnet's spirits. They set their alarm clock for 5.30, and began study promptly at six each morning, after eating the bread and butter and drinking the glasses of milk which, by Aunt Harriet's orders, were always placed in readiness for them. These early hours, when the day was cool, and a fresh breeze blew in through the open window, seemed the most valuable of all; their brains felt clearer, and they were often able to grasp problems and difficult points which had eluded them the evening before.

Except for the ordinary practices which formed part of the school curriculum, Winona was obliged for the present to appoint Bessie Kirk as her deputy-Captain. She had no time herself to train juniors, to act referee, or to stand watching tennis sets. It meant a great sacrifice to relinquish these most congenial duties, but she knew Miss Bishop and Miss Goodson approved, and she promised herself to return to them all the more heartily when the examination should be over. She would ask Bessie wistfully for reports of the progress of various stars who were in training, and managed to keep in touch with the games, though she could not always participate in them.

"Wait till June's over, and I'm emancipated! Then won't I have the time of my life!" she announced. "Thank goodness the match with Binworth isn't till July 21st!"

The weeks of strenuous work passed slowly by. The weather was warm and sultry, with frequent thunderstorms, not a favorable atmosphere for study. Garnet flagged palpably, and lost her roses. To Winona the time seemed interminable. The task she had undertaken of helping her friend was a formidable one. It needed all her courage to persevere. Sometimes she longed just for an evening to throw it up, and go and play tennis instead, but every hour was important to Garnet, and must not be lost. Winona often had to set her teeth and force herself to resist the alluring sound of the tennis in the next-door garden, where she had a standing invitation to come and play, and it took all the will power of which she was capable to focus her attention on the examination subjects. She tried not to let Garnet see how much the effort cost her; the latter was sensitive, and painfully conscious of being a burden. Miss Beach dosed both the girls with tonics, and insisted upon their taking a certain amount of exercise.

"Work by all means, but don't over-work," was her recommendation. "There's such a thing as bending a bow until it breaks. I don't like to see such white cheeks!"

The examination was for entering Dunningham University, and must be taken at that city. The Governors of the Seaton High School had offered a scholarship, tenable for three years, to whichever of their candidates, obtaining First Class honors, appeared highest on the list of passes. They had arranged with the examiners to place the names of the successful candidates in order of merit and on the receipt of the results they would award their exhibition. If no one obtained First Class honors, the offer would be withdrawn, and held over until another year.

Several of the girls were well up in their work, and seemed likely to have a chance of winning. Linda Fletcher had the advantage of two years in the Sixth, Agatha James was undoubtedly clever, and Beatrice Howell, though not brilliant, possessed a steady capacity for grind. With three such formidable rivals Garnet's heart might very reasonably fail her. The doctor's prohibition was a most serious handicap for invaluable as her chum's help proved, it was not so effective as being able to use her own eyes. Sometimes she lost courage altogether, and it needed Winona's most dogged determination to keep her mind fixed unwaveringly upon the end in view.

"It's like playing in a match," Winona assured her. "If you think the other side's going to win, you may as well throw up the sponge at once. Don't give way an inch until you absolutely know you're beaten. I'm just determined you're to have that scholarship!"

"If I could only think so!" sighed Garnet. "Oh, Win! what should I do without you? When I'm with you my spirits go up, and I've courage enough for anything, and when I'm by myself I feel a wretched jelly-fish of a creature, just inclined to sit in a corner and blub!"

"No blubbering, please! Worst thing possible for the eyes!" commanded Winona.

"Well, I won't! You've cheered me up tremendously. I'm glad you'll be in the exam. room with me. I shall feel twice as brave if I know you're there!"

The days sped on, and the very last one came. Miss Bishop and Miss Goodson had given their final coachings and their most valuable help. Winona and Garnet devoted the evening to mastering one or two doubtful points.

"We've done our best, and it depends now whether we've luck in the questions," said Winona. "I think we'd better put the books away. We shall only muddle ourselves if we try any more to-night. Aunt Harriet says we're not to get up at five to-morrow. We shall have quite a hard enough day as it is."

"It wouldn't be much use," said Garnet, thrusting back the hair from her hot forehead. "I feel I've taken in the utmost my brains can hold. There's no room for anything more. How close the air is!"

"I believe we're going to have another storm," replied Winona, leaning out of the widely opened window, to gaze at the lurid sky. "There's a feeling of electricity about. Ah! There it begins!"

A vivid flash behind the tower of the old Minster was followed by a long rumble of thunder. The atmosphere was painfully oppressive. Again a white streak ran like a corkscrew over the clouds, and a louder peal resounded. The storm was drawing nearer.

"Come from the window, Winona. It's not safe!"

Garnet was terribly afraid of thunder. The electricity in the air has a powerful effect upon some temperaments, and at the first sound of heaven's artillery she was crouching beside her bed, with her head buried in the pillow.

"Don't be a silly ostrich!" retorted her chum. "It's quite far away yet, and if it does come, the chances are a thousand to one against it hitting this particular house. Why, you weren't half so scared of Zeppelins! For goodness' sake don't get hysterical! Show some pluck!"

Winona's remarks might not be complimentary, but they were bracing. Garnet laughed nervously, and consented to sit upon a chair. In about half-an-hour the storm blew over, leaving a clear sky and stars.

"Come and put your head out of the window, and feel how deliciously fresh and cool it is!" commanded Winona. "Look at that bright planet! I think it must be Jupiter. I take it as a good omen for to-morrow. The storm will have cleared your brain, and your star's in the ascendant. Here's luck to the exam.!"

The city of Dunningham was about thirty miles away from Seaton. It was a big manufacturing city, with a highly flourishing modern university, which had lately come much to the fore, and had begun to make itself a reputation. The three days' examination was to be held in the University buildings, and all candidates were bound to present themselves there. Miss Bishop had decided that the contingent of twelve from the Seaton High School should travel to Dunningham each morning by the early express, under the charge of Miss Lever, who would take them out for lunch, and escort them safely back to Seaton again in the evening. The arrangement necessitated an early start, but nobody minded that.

The little party met at the railway station in quite bright spirits. It was rather fun, all going to Dunningham together, and having a special compartment engaged for them on the train. It was a difficult matter for thirteen people to cram into seats only intended for the accommodation of ten, but they preferred over-crowding to separation, and cheerfully took it in turns to sit on one another's knees.

"It's more like a beanfeast than the exam.!" laughed Mary Payne, handing round a packet of chocolates. "I feel I absolutely don't care!"

"I feel like a criminal on the road to execution!" groaned Helena Maitland. "Usedn't they to give the poor wretches anything they asked for? Oh, yes, thanks! I'll have a chocolate by all means, but it's crowning the victim with a garland of roses!"

"Rather mixed metaphors, my child! If you don't express yourself more clearly in your papers, I'm afraid you won't satisfy the examiners!"

"I wonder who corrects the papers?" asked Freda Long.

"Oh! some snarling old dry-as-dust, probably, who's anxious to get through the job as quickly as he can. It must be a withering experience to go through thousands of papers. Enough to pulverize your brains for the rest of your life!"

"I don't mind the examiners' brains. It's my own I'm anxious about. If they'll last me out these three days, I'll be content to exist at a very low mental level afterwards!"

"Right you are! Ditto this child! I'm going to read nothing but the trashiest novels during the holidays!" announced Mary aggressively.

"And I'm not going to read at all! I shall just lounge and play tennis," added Hilda.

"Poor dears! I used to feel like that, but one gets over it!" smiled Miss Lever. "Don't eat too many caramels, or you'll be so thirsty in the exam room. Malted milk tablets are the best thing; they're sweet, but sustaining. Plain chocolate is the next best. I shall think of you all the whole morning."

"You'll have a lovely time gallivanting round Dunningham and shop-gazing, while we're racking our brains!" said Garnet. "We're all envious!"

"Remember, I've had my purgatory before!" returned Miss Lever, laughing. "You must allow me a good time in my old age!"

Arrived at Dunningham station, they took the tramcar, and proceeded straight to the University. It was a very fine modern building, erected round three sides of a large quadrangle, the fourth side being occupied by a museum. They were directed to the Women Students' Department, and took off their hats and coats in the dressing-room. Miss Lever, who had herself graduated at Dunningham, knew the place well, and was able to give them exact directions. She escorted them across the quadrangle to the big hall where the examination was to be held.

"The place has a classic look," said Garnet, gazing at the Corinthian columns of the portico. "I'm afraid they won't consider my Latin up to standard. May the fates send me an easy paper!"

"You should have asked them before!" giggled Winona. "The papers are printed now, and not all the gods of Olympus could alter a letter. I accept my fortunes in the spirit of a Mahomedan. It's Kismet!"

The first set of questions was easier than the girls had dared to expect. They scribbled away eagerly. It was encouraging, at any rate, to make a good beginning. They compared notes at the end of the morning, and arrived at the conclusion that all had done fairly well. Miss Lever was waiting for them in the quadrangle when they came out, and announced that she had engaged a special table for the party at a restaurant, and had ordered a particularly nice little lunch, with coffee afterwards to clear their brains. Some of the girls were tired, and inclined to groan, others were exhilarated, but the enthusiasts cheered up the weaker spirits, and by the time the coffee course was reached, everybody was feeling courageous.

"Should I dare to suggest ices?" murmured Winona.

"All right, if you like. There's just time," assented Miss Lever, consulting her watch. "I passed my Intermediate on ices during a spell of intensely hot weather. I can allow you exactly five minutes, so choose quickly—strawberry or vanilla?"

The three days of the examination seemed to Winona like a dream. She grew quite accustomed to the big hall full of candidates, and to her particular desk. Garnet sat at the other side of the aisle, and Winona would sometimes pause a moment to watch her. To judge from her friend's absorbed appearance and fast moving pen, the papers appeared to suit her. To Winona's immense astonishment she herself was doing quite moderately well. The six weeks' coaching of Garnet had been of inestimable benefit to her own work. She had not then thought of this aspect of the matter, but she was certainly now reaping the reward of her labor of love. For the first time the possibility of gaining a pass occurred to her.

"If I do, it'll be the limit!" she reflected. "Miss Bishop will have about the surprise of her life!"

On the whole the girls quite enjoyed their three days at Dunningham. There were intervals between their various papers, which they spent partly in the University museum and partly in the City Art Gallery, where a fine collection of Old Masters was on loan. It was the first time Winona had seen paintings by world-famous artists, though she had often pored over reproductions of their works in The Studio or The Connoisseur. She felt that the experience added another window to her outlook on life.

"I wish I'd the talent to be an artist!" she thought. "There are so many things I'd like to do! Oh, dear! Painting and music (both beyond me utterly) and physical culture and poultry farming, and Red Cross nursing, and I probably shan't do any of them, after all! I want to be of solid use to the world in a nice interesting way to myself, and I expect I'll just have to do a lot of stupid things that I hate. Why wasn't I born a Raphael?"

"How do you think you've got on altogether?" Garnet asked Winona, as, thoroughly tired out, the two girls traveled homeward to Seaton at the end of the third day's examination.

"Um—tolerably. Better, perhaps, than I expected, but that's not saying much. And you?"

"I never prophesy till I know!"

But Garnet's dark eyes shone as she leaned back in her corner.

XIX. The Swimming Contest

Once the examinations were over, Winona's spirits, which had been decidedly at Il Penseroso, went up to L'Allegro. The strain of coaching Garnet had been very great, but the relief was in corresponding proportion. She felt as if a burden had rolled from her shoulders. There was just a month of the term left. The Sixth would of course be expected to do its ordinary form work, but the amount of home study required would be reasonable, quite a different matter from the intolerable grind of preparation for a University examination. The extra afternoon classes with Miss Goodson were no longer necessary, leaving a delightful period of leisure half-hours at school. Winona intended to employ these blissful intervals in cricket practice, at the tennis courts, in helping to arrange the museum, and in carrying out several other pet schemes that she had been forced hitherto to set aside. Bessie Kirk had made a good deputy, but it was nice to take the reins into her own hands once more, and feel that she was head of the Games department. She coached her champions assiduously. At tennis Emily Cooper and Bertha March stood out like planets among the stars. They had already beaten Westwood High School and Hill Top Secondary School, and hoped to have a chance against Binworth College, of hitherto invincible reputation. The match would not take place for a fortnight, which gave extra time for practice. In cricket, Betty Carlisle had come to the front at bowling, while Maggie Allesley and Irene Swinburne were heroines of the bat. It is inevitable that some girls should overtop the rest, but Winona would not on that account allow the others to slack. She knew the importance of a high general average of play, and urged on several laggers. She thoroughly realized the importance of fielding, and made her eleven concentrate their minds upon it.

"We lost Tamley on fielding," she affirmed, "and if we've any intention of beating Binworth, we've just got to practice catching and throwing in."

Of the two matches in which the school had so far taken part, the first, with Baddeley High School, had been a draw, and in the second, with Tamley, they had been beaten. It was not an encouraging record, and Winona felt that for the credit of the school it was absolutely necessary to vanquish Binworth. Its team had a fairly good reputation, so it would be no easy task, but after the hockey successes of last winter she did not despair. Apart from school she had a very pleasant time. Nearly every evening after supper Aunt Harriet would suggest a short run in the car before sunset. She generally allowed her niece to take the wheel as soon as they were clear of the town traffic, and Winona soon became quite expert at driving. She liked to feel the little car answering to her guidance; there was a thrill in rounding corners and steering past carts, and every time she went out she gained fresh confidence. She was not at all nervous, and kept her head admirably in several small emergencies, managing so well that Aunt Harriet finally allowed her to bring the car back down the High Street, which, as it was the most crowded portion of the town, was considered the motorist's ordeal in Seaton. She acquitted herself with great credit, passed a tramcar successfully, and understood the signals of the policeman who waved his hand at the corner. Aunt Harriet had taken out a driver's license for her, so having proved her skill in the High Street, she now felt quite a full-fledged lady chauffeur.

Winona immensely enjoyed these evening runs when the sky was aflame with sunset, and the trees were quiet dark masses of color, and the long road stretched out before her, pink from the glow above, and the lacey hemlocks and meadowsweets made a soft blurred border below the hedgerows. With an open road in front of her she was tempted sometimes to put on speed, and felt as if she were flying onwards into a dream country where all was vague and mysterious and shadowy and unknown. She was always loth to return, but Aunt Harriet was extremely particular that they must be home before lighting-up time, and would point remorselessly to the small clock that hung facing the seat. Perhaps Winona's greatest triumph was when, one evening, she managed without any assistance to run the car into its own shed in the garage, a delicate little piece of steering which required fine calculation, a quick hand, and a rapid turn. She was learning something of the mechanism, too, could refill the petrol tank, and was almost anxious for a tire to burst, so that she might have the opportunity of putting on the Stepney wheel, though this latter ambition was not shared by her aunt.

"When all the men have gone to the war, I'll be able to drive a taxi or a war van, and make myself useful to the Government! I believe I could clean the car perfectly well if Sam should be called up, and has to leave the garage. I'd just enjoy turning the hose on it. What would they give me a week to take Sam's place here?"

"They'd give you a snubbing if you asked them!" laughed Aunt Harriet. "Cleaning a car is uncommonly hard work. You might manage our small one, but by the time you'd done the whole round of the garage, you'd be ready to declare it wasn't a woman's job."

"I'd chance it!" retorted Winona.

She had her opportunity after all, for the garage attendant was taken ill, and remained off duty for several days. On the Saturday morning Winona set to work and cleaned, polished and oiled the car thoroughly. It was very dirty after a muddy day's use, so she had her full experience. It was certainly far harder than she had anticipated, and she felt devoutly thankful that she was not bound to attack the cars in the other sheds, and perform similar services for each.

"Sam earns his money," she assured Aunt Harriet, when she returned at lunch-time. "On the whole, I've decided I won't be a lady chauffeur. It's bad enough to have to clean one's bicycle, but if I had to go through this car performance every day, I don't think there'd be very much left of me."

"Ah! I told you so!" returned, Aunt Harriet triumphantly.

Motoring was not the only fresh form of activity which Winona had taken up this summer. The school had organized swimming classes, and on certain clean-water days detachments of girls were conducted to the public baths. Owing to her college entrance examinations, Winona had not been able to attend the full course, but she had learnt to swim last summer at the baths, and was as enthusiastic as anybody. Miss Medland, the teacher, was an expert from Dunningham; she was skillful herself, and clever at training her pupils. The girls soon gained confidence in the water, and began to be able to perform what they called "mermaid high jinks."

The Public Baths at Seaton were most remarkably good, so good indeed that many of the citizens had raised a protest against the Corporation for spending so much money upon them. The High School girls, who had not to pay the rates, did not sympathize with the grumbles of ratepayers, and rejoiced exceedingly in the sumptuous accommodation. They specially appreciated the comfort of the dressing-rooms, and the convenience of the hot-air apparatus for drying their hair. The restaurant, where tea or bovril could be had, was also a luxury for those who were apt to turn shivery after coming from the water.

"I can understand why the Romans were so enthusiastic about their public baths," said Audrey Redfern. "Just think of having little trays of eatables floating about on the water, so that you could have a snack whenever you wanted, and slaves to bring you delicious scent afterwards, and garlands of flowers. I wish I'd lived some time b.c. instead of in the twentieth century!"

"Be thankful you didn't live in the twelfth, for then you mightn't have had a bath at all!" returned Winona; "certainly not a public one, and probably not the private one either. An occasional canful of water would have been thought quite sufficient for you, with perhaps a dip in a stream if you could get it. The people who bathed were mostly pilgrims at Holy Wells, and they all used the same water, no matter what their diseases were."

"How disgusting! Well, on the whole I'm tolerably satisfied to belong to the poor old twentieth century. It might be better, but it might be worse."

"How kind of you! I'm sure posterity will be grateful for your approval."

"D'you want me to push you into the water, Winona Woodward? I will, in half a second!"

At the end of the course it was arranged that a swimming contest should take place among the girls, and that various prizes should be offered for championships. It was the first event of the kind in the annals of the school, so naturally it aroused much enthusiasm. About thirty candidates were selected by Miss Medland as eligible for competitions, the rest of her pupils having to content themselves with looking on. A special afternoon was given up to the display, and invitations were sent out to parents to come and help to swell the audience.

"Are you in for the mermaidens' fête?" Winona asked Marjorie Kemp.

"Mermaidens' fête, indeed! How romantic we are all of a sudden! The frog fight, I should call it."

"There speaks the voice of envy! You're evidently out of it."

"Don't want to be in it, thanks! It'll be wretched work shivering round the edge of the bath for a solid hour!"

"Sour grapes, my child!" teased Winona.

"Go on, my good girl—if you want to make me raggy, you just shan't succeed, that's all!"

"Now I should like to have been chosen!" mourned Evelyn Richards. "I don't mind confessing that I've had a disappointment. I thought I could swim quite as well as Freda, and it's grizzly hard luck that she was picked out and I wasn't. Rank favoritism, I call it!"

"Poor old Eve! Look here, I'll tell you a secret. You head the reserve list. I know because I saw it. If anybody has a cold on the day of the event, you'll take her place."

"You mascot! Shall I? Oh! I do hope somebody'll catch cold—not badly, but just enough to make it unsafe to go into the water. You can't think how I want to try my luck. I don't suppose I've a chance of a prize, but if I did get one, why I'd cock-a-doodle-do the school down!"

"I'm quite sure you would! Trust you to blow your own trumpet!"

"Winona Woodward, if you'd been properly and thoroughly spanked in your babyhood, you'd be a much more civil person now. I decline your company. Ta-ta!"

"Poor old Eve! Take it sporting!" said Winona soothingly.

On the afternoon of the great event, the ladies' large bath was specially reserved for the school. A goodly crowd of spectators filled almost to overflowing the galleries that ran round the hall; interested fathers and mothers, sympathetic aunts, and a sprinkling of cousins and friends made up the visitors' list, and the rest of the space was crammed with school girls. Each likely champion had her own set of supporters, who murmured her name as a kind of war cry, and were only restrained from shouting it at the pitch of their lungs by the sight of Miss Bishop, who stood below, talking to Miss Medland and the judge. The enthusiasm went perhaps more by favor than by actual prowess, and could hardly be taken as an augury of success, for Barbara Jones, who was popular, received much more encouragement than Olga Dickinson, who had distanced her every time at the practices. Juniors will be juniors, however, and the fourth and third forms stamped solidly for Barbara, ignoring the superior claims of her rival.

The bath, with its blue and white tiles, looked tempting. All the school envied the candidates as they came marching in in their costumes.

"Evelyn's got a place after all!" said Garnet, who was among the spectators, to Gladys Cooper, who sat next to her. "Some one else must be off, then. Who is it? Freda Long? Poor old Freda! Got toothache? It's hard luck on her! There's Winona. I don't believe she'll win, but I'll cheer her! Rather!"

Winona also did not think it likely that she would win. She had only had time for half the lessons, which put her at a serious disadvantage with girls who had taken the full course. It was unsporting, however, to go in confident of defeat, so she meant to do her best.

The first event was the Upper School Championship for the fastest swimmer. The candidates stood ready at the edge of the bath, then at the given signal they flung themselves into the water, and started. At first they were fairly even, but after a dozen yards or so several shot ahead. The irrepressible juniors lost all control in their excitement, and cheered on each as she appeared to be gaining.

"Audrey Redfern!"

"No, no! Jess Gardner!"

"Winona Woodward!"

"Elsie Parton's passed her!"

"No, no! Winona's making up!"

"She'll never do it, though!"

"It's a draw!"

As a matter of fact Winona and Elsie Parton touched the winning tape at the very identical moment. It was a great surprise for both of them. Winona had expected Jess or Audrey to be first, and never thought of Elsie as a possible champion. Elsie was in V.b. and had not been very long at the school. No one had taken much notice of her up to now, and the girls were rather staggered at her success. They did not even clap her as she climbed up from the bath. The judge wrote down the result, and called the next event. This was the Lower School Championship, and the juniors were soon screaming for Barbara Jones and Daisy James. The latter had it by a length, and walked away smiling, to be wrapped up in a towel by Miss Lever, for she was a chilly little creature, and apt to be taken with fits of shivers if she stood long out of the water.

Diving followed, both from the edge of the bath and from the diving board. In the Senior division Audrey and Jess secured the highest scores, neither Winona nor Elsie coming near them. Winona was not really very fond of diving, while Elsie staked her all upon extreme speed. The Juniors did almost better than their elders, Olga Dickinson's achievement quite carrying the enthusiasm of the hall.

The next competition was for style. The candidates swam first on their sides, then on their backs, and finally on their backs moving their legs only, their arms being placed on their hips. The judge put down marks for each according to what she considered their deserts; until the list should be made up, nobody knew who, in her expert opinion, had done the best.

It was now the turn of the Midnight Race, a most important event, to which the spectators were looking forward keenly. Only the best swimmers were allowed to take part, the other candidates had to content themselves with watching. The selected ten retired to the dressing-room, and in a few moments emerged, each clad in a long white nightdress, and holding a candlestick with a lighted candle in her hand. A roar of applause rose from the gallery as the white-robed figures formed into line. Every girl placed her candlestick on the edge of the bath, and getting into the water, held on to the rail at attention. When the judge gave the signal, each seized her candlestick and commenced to swim on her back to the other side of the bath, holding up the candle in her left hand. It was a feat that required steadiness and skill. Evelyn Richards tried to hurry too fast, and the draft caused by her over-quick passage blew out her flame. Mollie Hill caught her foot in her nightdress, and dropped her candle altogether. Jess Gardner pursued the original method of holding her candlestick in her teeth, and using both arms to swim. There was keen excitement as the candidates cautiously worked their way across. Each was required to place her candle for a second on the edge of the bath, and then to swim back to the original starting point. Only five competitors were in the running for the return journey—Winona, Audrey Redfern, Elsie Parton, Dora Lloyd (a Fourth Form girl), and little Olga Dickinson. The temptation to swim too fast was overwhelming, and Audrey fell a victim to it, her flame going out just in the middle of the bath. Olga Dickinson actually reached the starting point the first, but Winona and Elsie Parton were only a second behind her, placing their candlesticks down at the very same moment.

"I wonder how the score's going?" said Winona, as the Seniors stood watching the Junior Handicap Race.

"I've no idea," returned Audrey. "You see we don't know what marks Miss Gatehead has given for style, and several other things. She doesn't judge exactly like Miss Medland does. It's a pity Freda Long's out of it."

"What happened to Freda?"

"Got toothache. Can't you see her sitting up there in the gallery, holding her cheek? She's looking at you!"

"Poor old Freda! Beastly hard luck!" murmured Winona, waving a sympathetic greeting to her friend.

The Midnight Race had been intensely interesting, but the Obstacle Race proved an even greater excitement. Two thin planks of wood were placed across the bath, floating upon the water. The competitors started from the deep end, dived under the first plank, and then scrambled over the second. At the shallow end were a number of large round wash-tubs; each candidate had to seize upon one of these and seat herself in it, a most difficult feat of fine balancing, for unless she hit upon the exact center of gravity, the tub promptly overturned, and flung her into the water. It was a most mirth-provoking competition, candidates and spectators bursting into shouts of laughter as one after another the girls gingerly climbed into their tubs, and toppled over into the bath. Those who managed at last to preserve their equilibrium were given paddles, and had to navigate themselves to the nearest plank, where they invariably fell out, and were rescued and towed back by attendant nymphs told off for the purpose. Nobody succeeded in paddling to the plank and back again, and the competition resolved itself into a series of splashes, squeals and bursts of mirth. Even stately Miss Bishop was laughing heartily, and the girls in the gallery were in a state bordering on hysteria.

At last Miss Gatehead called order, and the dripping candidates retired from their water carnival to await the judging. The scores were rapidly added up, and the result was announced.

"Winona Woodward and Elsie Parton equal. They will therefore swim the length of the bath to decide the championship."

Planks and tubs were hastily cleared away from the field of action, and the rival candidates started on their final contest. The sympathies of the gallery went strongly with Winona; the girls wanted their Games Captain to win, and they cheered her vigorously. But Winona was tired, Elsie Parton was lithe and active, and had made fast swimming her specialty. Winona did her sporting best, but by the middle of the bath Elsie had distanced her, and reached the winning post a whole length ahead.

There was dead silence from the girls in the gallery. Their Captain had failed, and they did not mean to applaud her opponent. Winona, looking upwards, saw the popular feeling in their faces. All her generous spirit rose in revolt. She was standing close to Miss Bishop, Miss Gatehead and Miss Medland, and therefore it was certainly a breach of school etiquette for her to do what she did, but acting on the impulse of the moment she shouted: "Cheer, you slackers! Three cheers for Elsie Parton!" and waving her hand as a signal, led off the "Hip-hip-hip hurrah!" A very volume of sound followed, and the roof rang as Miss Bishop presented the winner with the cup for the Championship.

"Thanks awfully, Winona!" said Elsie, as the girls walked away to the dressing-rooms. "I'm afraid I've disappointed the school—but I did want to win!"

"Of course you did—and why shouldn't you? I hope I can take a beating in a sporting way! I think I made them ashamed of themselves. Fair play and no favoritism is the tradition of this school, and I mean to have no nasty cliquey feeling in it so long as I'm Games Captain, or my name's not Winona Woodward! That's the law of the Medes and Persians!"

XX. The Red Cross Hospital

Winona received constant letters from Percy in the trenches "somewhere in France," all, of course, carefully censored. They had arranged a cryptogram before he left England, however, and by its aid he was able to tell her the name of the place near which he was fighting. It was a tremendous excitement for her when his letters arrived to fetch her key to the cryptogram and reckon out the magic little word that let her know his whereabouts. She would find the spot on the big war-map that hung in the dining-room and would mark it with a miniature flag, feeling in closer touch with him now she knew exactly where he was located. She kept a special album in which she placed photos of him in khaki, all his letters and postcards, and any newspaper cuttings that concerned his regiment. The book was already half full; she looked it over almost daily, and kept it as, at present, her greatest treasure.

She sent parcels regularly to Percy. Campaigning had not destroyed his boyish love for sweetstuff, and he welcomed cakes, toffee and chocolate. "I share it with the other chaps," he wrote, "and they give you a vote of thanks every time. You wouldn't believe what larks we have in our dug-out!"

Percy's letters were in his old gay style, but every now and then Winona noticed a more serious vein running through them. He had sad news to tell sometimes. Two of his special chums were killed in action, the young doctor was shot while attending to the wounded, and their chaplain had been injured. "We never know when our turn will come," he finished, and Winona shivered as she kissed the letter and put it away.

She looked up sometimes at the calm clear globe of the full moon and thought how it was shining down alike on the far-away trenches of France and the great Minster towers of Seaton. How many battles had it seen in the earth's history, and how many still forms lying stiff and straight under its pale beams? Men fought and died, and the moon and the stars passed on their way, uncaring—but God cared, and at the back of it all His Hand was guiding the world, and even from seeming chaos would bring good out of evil at His own time. "God bless Percy, and bring him safe home!" prayed Winona passionately, but she felt in her heart of hearts that if the Great Captain called him, she could bend her head in the knowledge that He knew best.

With the hot July weather Aunt Harriet's health flagged. She seemed suddenly to have grown much older. The erect figure stooped a little, her high color had faded and her voice lost some of its energy and determination. She was not able to fulfill all her former public duties, and she fretted greatly at the enforced inaction. She was one of those characters who would rather wear out than rust out, and it required the utmost firmness on the part of her doctor to persuade her from over-exerting herself. Instead of being in a continual whirl of crèche committee meetings, workhouse inspections, and crèche management, she now spent long quiet afternoons in the shaded drawing-room learning that (to her) hardest of all lessons, how to rest! Winona, busy with the last exciting weeks of the school term, was too occupied to give much thought to her aunt, but could not help remarking that the latter's spirits had failed lately. Miss Beach was far gentler than of yore. She did not snap her niece up so suddenly, or give vent to excited tirades about subjects which irritated her. Sometimes she even looked at Winona with a wistfulness that the girl noticed. It puzzled her, for it was the same half-appealing glance that her mother often cast at her. She was accustomed to shoulder her mother's burdens, and loved her all the more for her helplessness and dependence. But Aunt Harriet, so strong and determined and capable, the oracle of the family, and the very epitome of all the cardinal virtues, surely she could not want any one to lean upon? The idea was unthinkable. Yet again and again it returned to her, and the consciousness of it stirred new chords.

One evening Winona came rather softly into the drawing-room. Her aunt, sitting by the window in the gathering twilight, did not hear her enter. Miss Beach was reading, and the last little gleam of the sunset fell on her gray hair. How worn she looked, Winona thought. It had never struck her so forcibly before. Was that a tear shining on her cheek? Miss Beach rose slowly, put down her book, took her handkerchief from her bag and deliberately wiped her eyes; then, still unconscious of her niece's presence, she went out through the French window into the garden.

Winona walked across the room, hesitated for a moment but did not venture to follow her. Almost automatically she took up the book which Aunt Harriet had been reading. It was a little volume of extracts, and one had been marked with a penciled cross:—

"Put your arms around me—

There, like that:

I want a little petting

At life's setting,

For 'tis harder to be brave

When feeble age comes creeping,

And finds me weeping,

Dear ones gone.

Just a little petting

At life's setting:

For I'm old, alone and tired,

And my long life's work is done."

The tears rushed to Winona's eyes. Did Aunt Harriet really feel like that? Oh, why could she not go and comfort her? She turned impulsively into the garden. The slow steps were coming back up the paved walk. She would have given worlds to walk up to her aunt and fling her arms round her, but the old sense of shyness and reserve held her back. Miss Beach was passing along the border, her dress brushing the flowers as she went by. It would surely be easy to join her, and at least to take her arm! Easy? No! She had never done such a thing in her life with her aunt. A peck of a kiss was the only mark of affection that they had hitherto exchanged. Winona looked and longed to express her sympathy, but the invisible barrier seemed strong as ever. Aunt Harriet turned aside and went towards the kitchen. The opportunity was lost.

"How horribly we live right inside ourselves!" thought Winona. "How few people know just what we're feeling and thinking, and how hard it is to let them know! The 'I' at the back of me is so different from the outside of me! When I want to say things I turn stupid and my tongue stops. I suppose most other people feel really the same, and we all live in our own little world and only touch one another now and then. Human speech is such a poor medium. Will it be dropped in the next life, and shall we talk with our hearts?"

It was on the very morning after this that Winona received an agitated letter from home. Her mother had bad news. Percy had been wounded, and was in the Red Cross Hospital at Prestwick. Mrs. Woodward wrote hurriedly, for she was on the point of starting off to see him, but she promised to send a bulletin directly after her visit. Winona spent a horrible day. Percy was never for a moment out of her thoughts. The insufficiency of the information made it harder to bear. She did not know whether the wound was slight or dangerous, and her fears whispered the worst. The next report, however, was more reassuring. Percy had had an operation and the doctors hoped that with care he ought to do well. A daily bulletin would be sent to his mother, and she promised to forward it punctually to Abbey Close.

"But I shan't get it till the day afterwards!" exclaimed Winona tragically. "Oh, how I wish he were at the Red Cross Hospital here instead of at Prestwick! If I could only see him!"

"Cheer up! Things might be worse!" remarked her aunt briefly.

Miss Beach said no more at the moment, but at supper time she announced:

"We shall have to breakfast early to-morrow morning, Winona. You and I are going to Prestwick for the day. I've asked Miss Bishop to let you off."

"To Prestwick?" gasped Winona. "To the Red Cross Hospital? Oh, Aunt Harriet, do you suppose they'll let us see Percy?"

"It's visitors' day, for I telegraphed to inquire. I wasn't going on a wild-goose chase, I assure you. I know the red tape of hospitals only too well. We may see him between two-thirty and four o'clock. It's a long journey, of course, and the trains are awkward from Seaton, but we can be back by nine."

"Oh, thank you! Thank you!" said Winona, with shining eyes.

She lay awake for hours that night thinking of to-morrow's expedition. Her brain seemed turning round and round in a whirl. To see Percy and assure herself that he was alive, and likely to recover! Oh, it was worth traveling to the North Pole! When at last she slept her dreams were a confusion of agonized escapes from Zeppelins, or rushing from trenches pursued by Germans. She was glad to wake, even though it was much too early yet to get up. The sun was only just rising behind the Minster towers. Never mind! It was morning, and to-day, actually to-day, she would see Percy!

By nine o'clock Miss Beach and Winona were speeding along in the express for Dunningham. Here they changed, and began a slow and tiresome cross-country journey, with a couple of hours to wait at an uninteresting junction.

"We shall get back a little quicker than we came," Aunt Harriet explained, "because we can take advantage of the boat express, which will save us an hour and a half. It's most wearisome to jog along in these local trains, stopping at every tiny little station."

"One longs to be in the car," said Winona.

"We might have gone in the car if it had been within reasonable distance. We couldn't possibly have motored to Prestwick and back in a day, though! Trains may be hot and stuffy, but they get one over the ground."

It was nearly two o'clock before they reached their destination. They had just time for a hasty lunch at a restaurant, and then Aunt Harriet hailed a taxi and they drove to the hospital. This was a large, fine house in the suburbs, given up by its patriotic owner to the use of the Red Cross. As they turned in at the gate they could see an attractive garden, where groups of Tommies in their blue invalid uniforms were lounging in deck chairs, or lying full length on rugs spread upon the grass. An orderly showed them to the office, where Miss Beach had a brief interview with the Commandant, and they were then escorted by a V.A.D. nurse to the Queen Mary Ward.

Winona had not been in a hospital before, so all was new to her—the large airy room with its polished floor and wide-open windows, the rows of beds, each with its little cupboard by the side, the table full of flowers in the center, the nurses in their neat Red Cross uniforms. She had no time, however, for more than a hurried glance round; her eyes were busy searching for the one particular bed that was the object of their journey.

"Private Woodward is in Number eleven," said the V.A.D., motioning them to the right-hand side of the room.

Percy lay on his back with a cradle over his injured leg. His face was very white and thin, and greatly changed. The old boyish expression had vanished, there were firm lines round the mouth and a resolute look in the eyes, which had not been there before. A few months in the trenches, and a baptism of fire, had transformed the careless, happy-go-lucky lad into a man. Tears glistened in Winona's eyes as she bent down to kiss him. It was hard to see her active brother lying helpless and suffering.

"Oh, I'm better now," he replied in answer to her inquiries. "I don't have pain all the time. I was pretty bad after the meds. had been doing their carving. I can tell you I welcomed the morphia! But I don't need it so often now, and my leg's going on splendidly. It'll be a first-rate job when it's finished. Old Jackson promises to have me out of bed on crutches before so long!"

"Crutches!" gasped Winona, in alarm.

"Why, just at first, of course!"

"We hope he won't need to use them for long," said Aunt Harriet. "The Commandant tells me they're very proud of your case at the hospital, Percy! They flatter themselves they've saved your leg where some surgeons would have amputated. You seem very comfortable here. It's a nice ward."

"Oh, yes, they're angelic to me. I'm a spoilt child, I can tell you. I was lucky to get into a 'Red Cross.' They're stuffing us here all day, and those chaps that can go about are having the time of their lives—motor drives, tea parties, concerts, and all the rest of it! The Prestwick people regularly fête them. One of our V.A.D.'s here has asked a dozen of us out to tea at her own home to-morrow. I wish I could go! It's the nurse who showed you in. She's ripping."

"I've always heard 'V.A.D.' stands for 'Very Attractive Damsel,'" laughed Winona.

"Don't lose your heart before you're twenty-one, Percy!" said Aunt Harriet, smiling quite indulgently. "You've two and a half years left yet!"

"When a chap's in the Army his age doesn't count!" declared Percy with dignity.

Most of the beds in the ward were empty at present, their owners being outside in the garden. Only four were occupied. Each of these Tommies had his own little group of visitors, and was too busy talking to them to take much notice of anybody else. Miss Beach spent a short time at Percy's bedside, then, thinking that the brother and sister would like to be left alone together she expressed her intention of looking over the hospital, and went to find a V.A.D. to show her round.

"It was ever so decent of Aunt Harriet to bring you, Tiddleywinks!" said Percy. "The mater said I mustn't expect you to come!"

"Aunt Harriet's a trump when you know her!"

"You used to call her a dragon."

"I don't now."

"Look here! I often wish I hadn't burnt that paper of hers. You know what I mean! I've kept thinking about it while I've been lying here. It was a blighter's trick to do, when she was paying my school fees. She ought to be told about it! I feel that now. You haven't breathed anything, have you?"

"Not a word! I promised, you remember."

"You can keep a secret, Win. I'll say that for you! Somehow I feel as if I want to make a clean breast of it. Aunt Harriet's done a lot for our family. I'd tell her now, only very likely when she comes back a nurse will be with her. It's just tea-time."

"Could you write to her?"

"A ripping idea! I never thought of that. I'll write to-morrow. I'll be glad to get it off my mind. Somehow, when one's been through all this, one feels quite differently about things."

The entrance of tea trays interrupted the conversation. Miss Beach returned in company with a nurse, and reminded her niece that if they wished to catch their train home they must be starting at once. It was hard to say good-by, but Winona went away infinitely comforted. Dearly as she had always loved the old Percy, she felt the new one whom she had met to-day had the makings of a stronger and finer character than she had ever dared to hope.

"The Commandant gives an excellent report of him," said Miss Beach as they drove away. "I asked her particularly if there were any likelihood of his remaining lame, but she says not. The surgeon declares he'll have him back in the trenches in the autumn."

"How glorious! Percy's just wild to go back. I believe he'll do something splendid, and get a commission, or perhaps win the Victoria Cross!"

Winona's face shone. She had been proud of Percy to-day.

The long journey home to Seaton was very tedious, though not quite so trying as the morning one, for they were able to catch the boat express to Lapton and have tea on the train. At Lapton Junction, however, they were obliged to change to a local line, and jog along at the rate of about thirty miles an hour in a particularly dusty compartment. It had been a hard day for Miss Beach. She looked very weary as she leaned back in her corner, so overdone indeed that Winona was afraid she was going to have one of her heart attacks. The threatened trouble passed, however, and as the evening grew cooler she seemed to revive. The trains were late, so it was nearly ten o'clock before they at last reached home.

"'Mighty pleased with our day's outing,' to quote Mr. Pepys," said Aunt Harriet. "It was worth going!"

"If it hasn't tired you too much!" Winona ventured to add.

On the following Sunday morning Miss Beach received a letter from Percy. She made no comment upon it at the time, but in the evening, after church, when she and Winona were walking in the garden in the twilight, she referred to it.

"I'm deeply touched by Percy's letter," she remarked. "I did not think the boy had such nice feeling in him. You understand, of course, what he has written to me about?"

"Oh, Aunt Harriet, has he told you?" burst out Winona. "Oh, I'm so very, very glad! I've been longing and yearning to tell you all these years, only I couldn't, because I'd promised—and—oh, I must tell you now—I asked you about your will—and you thought I was horrid and scheming—but it wasn't that at all—it was that I thought you ought to know the will wasn't there, and hoped that perhaps you'd look! Oh, please believe me that I didn't mean to hint that you should leave anything to me! I don't want anything! You've been so good to me! I owe you a thousand times more than I can ever pay back. I've always wanted to make you understand this, but somehow I couldn't. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all you've done for me! I shall be better all my life for having lived with you and known you. I'm a different person since I came to Seaton, and I owe it entirely to you!"

"The barrier was down at last"

The barrier was down at last. For once Winona spoke straight from her heart. Miss Beach took off her pince-nez, wiped them, and put them in their case. Her hand was trembling.

"I wish I had known this before, child!" she said, with a break in her voice. "Here for nearly two years I have been thinking hard things of you, and imagining that you were plotting and scheming to get my money. You hurt me beyond expression when you asked if I had made my will. As a matter of fact the document is safe at my lawyer's. The paper which Percy destroyed was only a rough draft. I had forgotten its existence."

"But you do believe me?" urged Winona. "You know I had none of those horrible plans? Oh, dear Aunt Harriet, money is nothing, nothing! It is you yourself I love, if you'll only let me!"

And in the dusk of the garden, Winona, for the first time in her life, flung her warm young arms round her aunt and hugged her heartily.

XXI. The End of the Term

"Look here, my hearties!" said Winona to the cricket team. "Do you realize that Seaton versus Binworth is on Wednesday week? If you don't, it's time you did, and you'd better buck up! My opinion of you at this present moment is that you're a set of loafers! What are you doing lounging about here, when you ought to be practicing for all you're worth?"

The little group sitting on the grass under the lilac bushes smiled indulgently.

"Go ahead! Lay it on thick!" twittered Betty Carlisle. "We knew when you hove into sight that we might expect some jaw-wag!"

"It's all very fine to sermonize," yawned Maggie Allesley, "but you'd oblige me very much by going indoors and inspecting the thermometer in the hall."

"One can't tear about in this heat!" added Irene Swinburne.

"What a set of dainty Sybarites you are! No one would ever win matches if they waited for the right kind of day to practice. It's always too hot or too cold or too wet, or too something!"

"Well, to-day it's decidedly too something! Don't roast us!"

"But I shall roast you! D'you mean to let Binworth have a complete walk-over? I'll tell you what—if you can't or won't play during the heat, will you all come back to school for an hour every evening, and practice then? I'd square it up with Miss Bishop. I'm sure she wouldn't mind."

"There's sense in your remarks now," admitted Irene, sitting up. "I'm game, if others are!"

"And so's this child!" agreed Betty Carlise. "I can put the screw on Cassie and Nell, and bring them along any evening."

"Then mind you do! I'm going to take an oath of the whole team to meet here at seven each night. I shall write it down on a piece of paper, and make you all put your names to it, like signing the pledge."

"Right you are, O She-who-must-be-obeyed!"

"Your humble servants, Ma'am!"

Their Captain's suggestion of an evening cricket practice was welcomed by the team, and approved by Miss Bishop. It was delightfully cool at seven o'clock; the girls, instead of being languid and half-hearted, were energetic and enthusiastic, and their play became a different matter altogether. Winona, who had been decidedly down about the prospects of the match, began to feel more confidence. Betty's bowling was improving daily, and Irene, who had been given to blind swiping, was gaining discretion. If they would continue to make progress at the same rate, Seaton would have a chance.

"It would be too bad if we lost the last match of the season!" fluttered Winona. "While I'm your captain I want to break the record."

"All right, old girl! It shall be a kind of Charge of the Light Brigade. 'Theirs but to do or die!' It will probably be a broiling hot day, but we'll play till we drop!" Betty assured her.

"Only have the Ambulance Corps ready with fans and stretchers to revive us and bear us from the field!" added Irene, giggling.

"I'll see there's lemonade for you!"

Though to Winona, as Games Captain, "Seaton v. Binworth" seemed the one event worth living for, there were plenty of other interests going on in the school. Linda Fletcher, the head girl, was arranging a program for the Parents' Afternoon, the efficient performance of which was, in her eyes, of infinitely greater public importance than the cricket match. She also required numerous rehearsals, and the conflicting claims on the girls' time became so confusing that after one or two struggles between rival "whips," who contended hotly for possession, the chiefs were obliged to strike a bargain, Winona releasing two members of the team in order that they might act, and filling up their places from her reserve, while Linda undertook to leave the rest of the eleven out of her calculations. After this there was peace, and Violet Agnew and Averil Walmer, who had been secretly burning to distinguish themselves in the dramatic line in preference to athletics, could meet Winona with clear consciences.

Among other items of the program, Linda had fixed upon a French Pastoral Play, which was to be acted in the garden among the trees and lilac bushes. The girls were really supposed to get up the whole of the little entertainment by themselves, but Mademoiselle was kind in this instance, and helped to coach them. The scene was to be a Fête Champêtre, and the costumes were to be copied from some of Watteau's pictures. There were tremendous consultations over them. A dressmaking Bee was held every afternoon from four to five o'clock in the small lecture-room, Miss Bishop generously lending her sewing machine for the purpose. Here a band of willing workers sat and stitched and chattered and laughed and ate chocolates, while pretty garments grew rapidly under their fingers. The dresses were only made of cheap materials, and were hastily put together, but they had a very good effect, for the colors were gay, and the style, with its panniers and lace frills was charming. The girls would hardly have managed the cutting out quite unaided, had not Miss Lever offered her assistance. "Dollikins" had large experience in the preparation of school theatricals, and possessed many invaluable paper patterns, so she was given a royal welcome, and installed at the table with the biggest and sharpest pair of scissors at her disposal.

On the afternoon fixed for the entertainment quite a goodly audience assembled to watch and applaud. Mothers were in the majority, with a fair number of aunts and elder sisters, and just a sprinkling of fathers. Forms had been carried into the garden and arranged as an amateur theater, a flat piece of lawn with a background of bushes serving as stage. The program was to be representative of the whole school, so the first part was devoted to the performances of the Juniors. Twelve small damsels selected from Forms I. and II. gave a classic dance. They were dressed in Greek costume with sandals, and wore chaplets of roses round their hair. They had been carefully trained by Miss Barbour, the drill mistress, and went through their parts with a joyousness reminiscent of the Golden Age. The Morris Dance which followed, rendered by members of Forms III. and IV., though hardly so graceful, was sprightly and in good time, the fantastic dresses with their bells and ribbons suiting most of their wearers. It was felt that the Juniors had distinguished themselves, and "Dollikins," who with Miss Barbour had worked hard on their behalf, felt almost justified in bragging of their achievements.

Meantime the Seniors had been making ready, and presently from behind the bushes tripped forth a charming group of Louis XV. courtiers, pattering the prettiest of French remarks. Dorrie Pollack as Monsieur le Duc de Tourville was a model of gallantry in a feathered hat and stiff ringlets (the result of an agonizing night passed in tight knobby curl papers!), while Linda, as Madame la Comtesse, quite outdid herself in the depth of her curtseys, and the distinguished grace with which she extended her hand for her cavalier to kiss. Nora Wilson tripped over her sword in her excitement, and Violet Agnew forgot her part, and had to be prompted by Mademoiselle, who stood with the book behind a bush; but these were only minor accidents, and on the whole the scene passed off with flying colors, and greatly impressed the parents and aunts with the high stage of proficiency in the French language attained by the pupils of Seaton High School.

Linda was so elated by the success of the afternoon that she sat up long after she ought to have been in bed that night, writing an account of the proceedings for the School Magazine. The manuscript, couched in antique language, was headed:

Ye Seaton Chronicle.

"Then whereas ye damsels at ye schule had laboured well and diligently during many days at ye tasks set them by their reverend elders, it seemed good to those that did govern to appoint unto them a day to make merry and rejoice. Therefore did they choose out certain among them, and arraying them in goodly fashion, did charge them to dance, to instruments of music before ye face of ye whole assembly of ye damsels, and likewise of some of their kindred, ye which were gathered together. Then did ye maids with no small skill tread ye dance, clad in fair garments with gauds and ornaments of silver upon them, at ye sight of which their kindred did raise cries of joy, and did further make great ado with clapping of ye hands. And when ye little maidens had duly presented their dances before ye company, then did ye elder damosels give a goodly masque, being decked forth in brave trappings, and speaking cunningly in ye tongue of ye fair lande of France, wherein all who heard them might well understand. And ye kindred and alle they that were gathered together for to look upon them did in kindness and with glad hearts commend them, and did of their charity vouchsafe to say that ye like had not aforetime been witnessed at ye schule, whereat ye maidens rejoiced greatly, as evenso it seemed unto them a reward for their diligent labour."

"We shall leave an account of our doings behind us," said Linda to some of her friends in the Sixth, "for the copies of the School Magazine are to be bound, and kept in the library for ever and a day. Future generations of girls will at least see our names and our Form photo, if they don't know anything else about us."

Winona was living for one event, the match with Binworth. This was not to take place on the playing grounds of either school, but on a very superior cricket ground hired for the occasion from a local club. Winona, as Secretary for Seaton, had made fullest arrangements, including the presence in the pavilion of a cheery little woman from a neighboring restaurant, who undertook the purveying of lemonade, ginger pop, cakes, and any fruit which might be obtainable for the occasion.

Tickets of admission to the ground were issued and distributed throughout the school, public opinion deeming attendance almost compulsory. The team were inspected and criticized beforehand almost as the Roman gladiators used to be reviewed by their patrons. Winona was on the whole proud of her eleven. Though not up to the lofty standard at which she had aimed, she felt that they realized a very respectable degree of merit.

The ground lay a few miles out of the city, and was reached as a rule by tramcar, but as the ordinary service would be utterly unable to cope with the large numbers who proposed going, special omnibuses and brakes had been put on for the occasion to accommodate the school, which turned out almost in full force to witness the show. Binworth also contributed its quota of spectators, so the stands of the cricket ground were rapidly filled.

Winona had a short preliminary talk with Dora Evans, who commanded the rival team, and as soon as the clock in the pavilion pointed to 2.30 the Captains stood out to toss.

"Heads!" cried Winona. "It's tails! Your choice!"

"We'll bat, then," decreed Dora.

Winona placed her field at once, and Dora, after a whispered word or two to her team, selected her first bats. One was a business-like looking girl who hummed a tune as she came, with ostentatious carelessness; the other, stout and dark, blinked her eyes nervously. It was manifestly impossible to judge their capacities beforehand. Betty Carlisle was to take the first over. She had a high overhand action, and sent the ball down the pitch at a good pace. Lottie Moir, the dark-haired damsel who faced the bowling, was cautious. She played the first ball respectfully back to the bowler. The next, being of good length, she played quietly to long-off for one. She was evidently not out to take risks, and the rest of the over she did not attempt to score. Her partner, Meg Perkins, was a fairly brilliant, but more reckless player. The first ball she received came down at a good pace, but well on the off-side of the wicket. A well-timed cut sent it flying to the short boundary for two. Perhaps the success turned her head a little. The next ball pitched well to the leg-side; she made a mighty stroke at it, not allowing for the break, and missed it altogether. Next moment she was walking ruefully back to the pavilion.

Phyllis Knight, the next bat, was evidently regarded by the Binworth team as a champion. She was tall, and decidedly athletic looking. Winona nodded to Irene Swinburne, celebrated for her twisters, and Irene went on to bowl. Phyllis had a long reach, which she employed successfully in driving the first ball she received right along the ground into "the country" for three. Seaton began to look rather glum. The next ball she stone-walled. Irene was growing desperate. Phyllis was waiting with her bat slightly raised. "Now if only I can drop the ball just under that bat, out she goes!" said Irene to herself, and sent the swiftest she knew how. Phyllis made a slash at it, evidently thinking it a half volley, but alas! her bails flew, and the Seaton contingent were roaring "Well bowled!"

None of the rest of the Binworth team approached to Phyllis' standard, though they played with caution, and their score mounted up steadily. At the end of their innings sixty was up on the board.

The Binworth Captain now arranged her field, and Winona sent in Bessie Kirk and Irene Swinburne to face the bowling of Meg Perkins at one end, and Phyllis Knight at the other. At first things did not go over well for Seaton. Bessie Kirk fell a victim to Meg's crafty slows. She played too soon at a short-pitched ball, and spooned a catch to mid-on. Irene at first scored merrily, but growing foolhardy was clean bowled by Phyllis Knight, to her huge discomfiture. Betty Carlisle and Maggie Allesley met with better luck, and the score began to creep up. The Seaton girls breathed more freely. Audrey Redfern and Lizzie Morris came up next. Lizzie broke her duck in the first over, and gaining confidence began to get her eye in, and with Audrey stone-walling with dogged persistence at the other end, and now and then making a single, the score reached fifty-three. There were only ten minutes left. Winona began to grow desperate. She came forth herself now, with a look of determination on her face. Dora Evans at once rolled the ball to Lottie Moir. Winona took her block composedly. Lottie might with advantage have been put on before. Her style, though by no means swift, was most awkward to play. Winona in the first over did not attempt to score. She wished to take the measure of her opponent. In the next over her partner made a single, which brought Winona to the opposite wicket. The first ball came well on the off-side, and she sent it flying to the boundary for four. Fifty-eight was now up on the board, and there were only five minutes left! Perhaps Lottie Moir was tired, or waxed a little careless. The next ball she sent down was an easy full pitch. Winona waited till just the right moment, and then, with a fine swing of her bat, sent the ball clean over the boundary for six. The match was won, and Seaton, in the ecstasy of victory, was cheering itself hoarse.

"I never thought we'd do it!" murmured Winona to Betty, as they drank ginger pop together in the pavilion.

"I reckoned our Captain wouldn't fail us!" chuckled Betty delightedly. "Linda must compose an epic on it for the School Magazine. It beats Marathon, in my opinion!"

"Well, I'm glad my last match at the old 'High' has been a success, anyway!"

"Seaton versus Binworth" had taken place on Wednesday, and the school had scarcely finished exulting over its triumph before another matter claimed its attention.

On Thursday morning the results of the examination arrived. Miss Bishop summoned the whole school into the lecture hall to hear the news. She was looking flushed and excited. She waited a few moments as if to give extra effect to her words, then announced:

"I have just received the results of the Entrance Examinations from Dunningham University. Out of twelve candidates who were entered from this school, ten have satisfied the examiners. Their names stand as follows in order of merit:

First Class.

Garnet Emerson.

Second Class.

Linda Fletcher.

Agatha James.

Helena Maitland.

Freda Long.

Third Class.

Mary Payne.

Hilda Langley.

Winona Woodward.

Dorrie Pollack.

Estelle Harrison."

Winona heaved an immense sigh of mingled amazement and relief. She had passed! Actually passed! She—Winona Woodward, whose form record had never soared above the most modest average. It was an unprecedented and altogether delightful finale to her school career. For the moment she could hardly believe that it was true. But Miss Bishop had not finished her speech; she held up her hand to stop the burst of clapping, and continued:

"As you are aware, the Governors of the School offered a three years' scholarship, tenable at Dunningham University, to whichever of the candidates should head the list, being not lower than second class. Garnet Emerson, who has secured a First Class, is therefore, at the desire of the Governors, awarded the scholarship. Now if you like to clap for her, you may do so!"

That Garnet, her dear Garnet, should have won the coveted scholarship, put the coping-stone on Winona's glee. She squeezed her friend's hand afterwards in an ecstasy of congratulation. Garnet said little, so little that her enthusiastic chum was almost disappointed. Winona, judging by her own feelings, expected her to be at delirium point. Beatrice Howell and Olave Parry, the two candidates who had failed, were receiving condolences with chastened resignation, the rest were in various stages of jubilee.

That evening, about six o'clock, a small packet was left at Abbey Close, directed to Miss Winona Woodward. She opened it eagerly. It held a small jewelers' box containing a beautiful little ring, and was accompanied by a letter from Garnet.

"Dear Win" (so the letter ran),—"You must have thought me slack this morning when you were congratulating me, but the fact was I was utterly overwhelmed. I'd hoped and hoped to win the scholarship, and then put the idea away, and when I knew my good fortune I just felt stunned. It's all owing to you, for if you hadn't helped me I could never, never even have passed. I don't know how to thank you. Words are quite inadequate. But will you believe that I shall never forget your kindness all the rest of my life, and will you accept this little ring and wear it for my sake? It is a garnet, and belonged to my grandmother, after whom I was named. I value it greatly, but I would far rather know you have it than keep it myself.

"Always your most grateful friend,

"Garnet Emerson."

There was a further surprise for Winona that evening. When supper was over, and she and Miss Beach were taking their usual twilight stroll round the garden, Aunt Harriet, who had been silent for a few minutes, suddenly spoke.

"I wish to say something to you, Winona. I'm very gratified indeed to hear that you have passed your college examinations. It has given me a better opinion of your capacity and perseverance than I possessed before. This result, combined with your conduct in coaching your friend through all these weeks, has decided me in a project that I was debating in my mind. I am going to send you either to a Physical Training College to qualify as a Games Mistress, or to a Horticultural College to prepare for a National Rural Economy diploma. Whichever career you decide to choose, I am resolved that you shall have the best training available."

"Oh, Aunt Harriet! Thank you! Thank you! I don't deserve it!" faltered Winona.

The end of the term had come at length. The next day was Winona's very last at Seaton High School. She was loth to leave, for the two years she had passed there had been the happiest and the fullest in her life. But though the past had pleasant memories, the future also held out fair hopes to her. As she entered Miss Bishop's study to say good-by, the head-mistress looked up kindly.

"I shall miss you, Winona. I have just been turning over your school record. It's not perhaps brilliant, but it has been persevering, and I am sure you've done your best. I am particularly pleased that you have passed your examination. As Games Captain you have been a decided asset to the school. I think I may safely say that you have justified the decision of the Governors in allowing you to hold the County Scholarship. Your aunt tells me that you are to go in either for Physical Training or Horticulture. Don't decide in a hurry. Get to know as much as you can about both, and think the matter over. Remember if ever you want a friend to come to me. Good-by!"

Outside in the playground the Juniors were hanging about rather shyly and awkwardly. As Winona came from the dressing-room, Daisy James, much nudged by the others, advanced and thrust a little parcel into her hand.

"It's a present from us Juniors," she said hurriedly. "Please take it! It's not much—only a birthday book—but we've all written our names in it, so that you mayn't forget us. You've been so awfully good all the year in coaching us at hockey and cricket. I don't know what we're going to do without you when you've gone! Now, girls, are you ready? One, two, three!"

And the ring of Juniors standing round shouted in one unanimous chorus: "Three cheers for our Games Captain! Hip-hip-hooray!"

THE END

A Harum-Scarum Schoolgirl

First Published 1919

"Could you do me a kindness, Miss?" she asked

Contents

I. A Pixie Girl

II. Stars and Stripes

III. A Penniless Princess

IV. The Rush-bearing

V. Diana Dares

VI. French Leave

VII. Land Girls

VIII. Armistice Day

IX. Diana's English Christmas

X. A Fit of the Blues

XI. Diana to the Rescue

XII. Diana Breaks Out

XIII. Crusoe Island

XIV. Spooks

XV. Joy-riding

XVI. A Family Crest

XVII. The Green-eyed Monster

XVIII. Diana's Foundling

XIX. Ambitions

XX. A Tangled Plot

I. A Pixie Girl

"If I'd known!" groaned Winifred Cranston, otherwise Wendy, with a note of utter tragedy in her usually cheerful voice. "If I'd only known! D'you think I'd have come trotting back here with my baggage? Not a bit of it! Nothing in this wide world should have dragged me. I'd have turned up my hair—yes, it's quite long enough to turn up, Jess Paget, so you needn't look at it so scornfully; it's as nice as yours, and nicer! Well, I tell you I'd have turned up my hair, and run away and joined the 'Waacs' or the 'Wrens', or have driven a motor wagon or conducted a tramcar, or scrubbed floors at a hospital, or done anything—anything, I say!—rather than stay at the Abbey without Mrs. Gifford."

"It's pretty stiff, certainly, for the Head to go whisking away like this," agreed Magsie Wingfield, sitting on the other shaft of the wheelbarrow. "And without any notice either! It leaves one gasping!"

"Stiff? It's the limit! Why didn't she give us decent warning, instead of springing it on to us in this sudden fashion? I feel weak!"

"There wasn't time," explained Sadie Sanderson, who, with Violet Gorton and Tattie Clegg, occupied, in a tight fit, the interior of the wheelbarrow. "It was all done at a day's notice. Geraldine's been telling me the whole history."

"Well?"

"Mr. Gifford got suddenly exempted, and was made Governor of some outlandish place with an unpronounceable name in Burma. He telegraphed to Mrs. Gifford to join him at Marseilles, and go out with him. So she went—that's the long and the short of it!"

"Went and left her school behind her," echoed Vi.

"I call it simply running away," commented Wendy. "Why couldn't she have stopped to arrange things—say till Christmas—and then followed him?"

"It's some tiresome red-tape business at the War Office. They'd give her a passport to travel out with him, but not to join him afterwards, so she thought she'd better take the opportunity and go out with him while she could. It must have been a terrific scramble for her to get off. I believe she just bundled her things together and bolted, and left the school to Miss Todd."

"Will she ever come back?"

"I shouldn't think it's likely now."

"Then we're left for evermore to the tender mercies of Toddlekins?"

"That's just about the size of it. Toddlekins has taken the whole thing over."

"She's been longing and yearning to seize the reins and drive the coach ever since she came," commented Tattie.

"Well, she's got her chance now."

"And she'll use it, too! You bet there'll be changes!"

"Changes! There are changes already, although Mrs. Gifford can hardly have reached Marseilles yet."

"It's going to be a queer term," grunted Wendy.

The five girls were sitting in a retired corner of the garden at Pendlemere Abbey. On one side, above the tops of the rhododendron bushes, they could see the tall, twisted chimneys and flagged stone roof of the old house; on the other side, below the lawn and across the paddock, gleamed the silver waters of the lake, with its banks of rushes and alders, and beyond lay a range of grey hills that seemed to melt away into more distant peaks that merged into the mists on the horizon. It was a beautiful view, and on this hazy September afternoon, with the hidden sun sending long shafts of light from behind radiant masses of cloud, it formed a prospect that should have afforded keen æsthetic satisfaction to anybody who cared to look at it. Usually the girls appreciated its changeful glories, but to-day—this first day of a new term—they were too much taken up with their own grievances to think about scenery. In fact, they sat huddled together in the wheelbarrow with their backs towards the view.

It had certainly been a considerable shock to the girls to find, on arriving after the holidays, that their popular Principal had deserted them in so sudden a fashion. It was not indeed the first surprise which she had given them. Two years before she had been Miss Housman, with a purely educational outlook in life, and a horizon bounded by her school; but Cupid, who plays strange pranks even with head mistresses, brought her fate along in the shape of a major from the temporary camp by the lake, and shot his arrows with such deadly aim that the whole romantic business—courtship, engagement, and war wedding—took place in the course of a few weeks, almost under the very noses of her interested pupils. They had gone home for their Easter holidays much thrilled about her engagement ring, and had returned to school to find her a war bride, with her husband already in the trenches. When the excitement of choosing her a wedding present was over, matters seemed to settle down pretty much as before. Except in an increased anxiety for news from the front, Mrs. Gifford had differed in no degree from Miss Housman. To the school the Major was a mere abstraction; his leave had always occurred during the holidays, and up to this time his existence—apart from the element of romance with which it invested their head mistress—had not affected the atmosphere of Pendlemere in the least. It had occasionally occurred to some of the girls to question what would happen when the war was over, but they generally ended by deciding: "He'll have to come and live here, I suppose, and turn the junior room into a smoke-room". Some of the more imaginative had even ventured the suggestion that he might teach drilling and Latin. It never struck any of them that instead of settling down at the school he would want to whisk away his bride to the other side of the world. The unexpected had happened, however. Pretty Mrs. Gifford had decided that the claims of matrimony outweighed all consideration for her pupils, and had gone without even a good-bye, leaving Miss Todd to reign in her stead.

There was no doubt that Miss Todd was admirably fitted to fill the post. Possibly, unknown to the girls, she had been gravitating towards it ever since her principal's hasty war wedding. Certainly she was ready, with the utmost calm, to take over the school at the critical moment, and transfer the connection from Mrs. Gifford's name to her own. She was a woman of decided character, at her prime intellectually and physically, tremendously interested in reconstruction problems, and longing to try some educational experiments. So far, her ambitious schemes had been much hampered by her Head. Mrs. Gifford, pleasant and popular both with girls and parents, had clung to old-fashioned methods, and had been very difficult to move in the matter of modern innovations. She had always put on the curb when the second mistress's fertile imagination had pranced away on Utopian lines. To an ardent spirit, steeped in new race-ideals, and longing for an opportunity of serving her generation, it was a proud moment when she suddenly found herself in a position to carry out her pet schemes unchecked. On this first day of the new term she moved round the school with the satisfaction of an admiral reviewing a battleship.

It was much to Miss Todd's credit that she was able to take her fresh duties quite calmly, and without any fuss or exhibition of nerves. She was not a nervy woman, to begin with, and she had made a great point of cultivating self-control. With her tall figure, clear grey eyes, bright complexion, and abundant chestnut hair, she made a very favourable impression upon those parents who had brought their daughters back to school in person. At the moment when Wendy, Sadie, Tattie, Magsie, and Vi were sitting grousing in the wheelbarrow, Miss Todd, in the drawing-room, was completing an arrangement which was largely to affect their future.

"It's very short notice, of course," she was saying. "But, as it happens, there's a vacant bed, and I can manage it perfectly well."

"That's just a real relief to me!" replied a pleasant American voice from the sofa. "We can't take Diana with us to Paris, and I don't want to burden my cousin with her, so I said to my husband: 'There's nothing for it but school, only it must be a good one'. Well, we motored along to the nearest clergyman, introduced ourselves, and asked him to recommend a real first-class, high-toned British school that would take in Diana, and he said: 'Why, there's one on the spot here—you needn't go any farther!' Time was getting short, so we brought her right along. I must say I'm satisfied with all I've seen, and the talk I've had with you, and I feel we're leaving her in good hands. My cousin, Mrs. Burritt, will send over the rest of her things from Petteridge, and if there's anything else she needs please get it for her. Well, Steve, if we've to catch that 4.30 train, we must be going."

The tall dark gentleman in the arm-chair consulted his watch and rose hastily.

"Just time if we put on some speed; but the roads are execrable," he vouchsafed.

The central figure around whom this conversation had revolved had been sitting in the window gazing at the view over the lake. She now turned her head sharply, with an inscrutable expression in her dark grey eyes, and, walking across to her father, linked her arm in his. He bent down and whispered a few rapid words into her ear. Her mother patted her on the shoulder reassuringly.

"You're going to have a good time, Diana. Why, I expect you won't be wanting us to come back, you'll be so happy here. Address your letters under cover of the American Embassy, Paris, till we send you the name of our hotel. Good-bye! Be a good child and a credit to us."

The leave-taking was perhaps purposely cut short. Mr. and Mrs. Hewlitt each bestowed a swift kiss upon their daughter, then made a hasty exit to their waiting car, and were whirled away in the direction of Glenbury Station and the 4.30 train, and their ultimate destination of Paris.

Ten minutes later Lennie Browne, one of the juniors, disturbed the quintette on the wheelbarrow with a message.

"Miss Todd's sent me to find you," she announced. "You've got to come and make friends with a new girl."

Sadie, Vi, and Tattie quitted their seats so suddenly that Magsie and Wendy, still resting on the handles, came croppers on to the grass. Wendy rolled over into a comfortable position, and did not trouble to rise.

"Bunkum!" she remarked incredulously. "Don't try to rag me, Lennie Browne, for it won't come off. As it happens, I asked Toddlekins half an hour ago, and she said there were no new girls. There!"

"Well, there's one now, at any rate."

Wendy looked at her pityingly, and shook her head.

"Lennie, you're a decent kid, but you're not clever. If you'd really wanted to have us on successfully, why didn't you try something more out of the common? You've a great lack of imagination. Anybody—yes, anybody—could have thought of inventing a new girl!"

"But I haven't invented her—she's really here! She walked with me as far as the sundial, and I left her sitting on the seat while I went to look for you. I said I wouldn't be a minute. Why, there she is!—come to see what's become of me."

The quintette turned hastily, to find themselves confronted with an absolute endorsement of the truth of Lennie's statements. A stranger of about fourteen was walking towards them, or perhaps "shambling" would be a better description of her method of progress. She stooped badly, swung her arms in an awkward fashion, and shuffled her feet along the grass; her eyes were vacant, her chin was retreating, and her mouth was set in a foolish smile. For a full ghastly minute she stood and stared at the girls, and they, in utter and amazed consternation, could not think of a single intelligent remark with which to break the silence. Magsie was the first to recover herself.

"You—you've only just come, I suppose?" she gasped, as politely as she could.

The stranger gave a sickly giggle.

"Are you my new schoolfellows?" she asked in a low creaking voice. "Miss Todd said you'd be pleased to see me, and I must make friends with you. I've been wanting a bosom friend, so I'll just pick one of you out. Let me see"—running her vacant eyes over the group and singling out Wendy—"I may as well choose you as anybody. Are you ready to be my chum?"

Wendy flushed scarlet, and, jumping up from the grass, brushed some dead leaves from her dress.

"It's too soon to think about chums yet," she returned. "You haven't even told us your name, and you don't know ours. Where do you come from?"

"That means, I suppose, that you don't want me for a friend!" rasped the creaking voice. "Don't you like the look of me? What's wrong with me now? Please tell me, for I'd really like to know. I'm just crazy to make friends."

In huge embarrassment Wendy and her companions stared at the extraordinary stranger. She bore their united gaze without flinching. She even turned round slowly, so that they might have an adequate view of her foolish profile, protruding lips, and retreating chin.

"Do tell me what's wrong with me?" she repeated.

No one volunteered a criticism, and for another whole minute there was dead silence. Then a brisk voice remarked:

"Would this style suit you better now, I wonder?"

The girls caught their breath in amazement. The stooping, slouching figure had suddenly straightened itself up, the protruding lips had set into a small, neat mouth, the receding chin had come forward, and the vacant eyes were twinkling with mirth. Instead of a half-idiotic, and wholly unattractive, specimen of girlhood, a very charming little personality stood before them. The transformation was so utter that at first the audience simply gaped, then with one accord they exploded into laughter and words.

"Oh, I say!"

"You fraud!"

"I really thought you were dotty!"

"How did you do it?"

"You looked too awful for words!"

"You haven't told us your name yet!"

"Can you do it again?"

The stranger curtsied, dropped her jaw, set her eyes in a glassy stare, and, resuming the creaking voice, bleated forth:

"Thank you! Thank you for welcoming me! I'm called Miranda Jane Judkins, and I come from Conic Section Farm, Squashville, Massachusetts. Which of you wants to chum with me? Don't all speak at once!"

"Oh, for goodness' sake drop that awful face! It absolutely gives me spasms!" hinnied Magsie. "It's the very image of a village idiot who used to terrify me when I was a kiddie. Don't look at me with those horrid eyes! I shall have a fit!"

"Look here, you mad thing!" said Vi. "Can't you tell us who you really are?"

"Miss Judkins."

"No, no! Your real name! Stop ragging!"

Once more the half-witted, shambling figure gave place to a sparkling, self-possessed, laughing young witch of fourteen, who with another mock curtsy introduced herself.

"Diana Hewlitt—quick-change artiste. Entertainments arranged at any moment. Reserved seats, five shillings. Proceeds to the Red Cross Fund. Oh, I believe at first I really did take you in!"

"You did," admitted Wendy; "because, of course, we weren't expecting it. We shall know you better now, and be prepared. I say, you're rather a sport! Where have you turned up from? Miss Todd said only an hour ago there weren't any new girls."

"No doubt she told the truth. There weren't then! Why, an hour since we were just half-way between Glassenrigg and Scawdale, pelting along at about double the speed limit. Miss Todd didn't even know of my existence. I've been dropped upon her like a bolt from the blue. I must say I admired the calm way she fixed up to take me, all in ten minutes. Most Britishers wouldn't have fallen in so quickly with Dad's lightning methods, but she seemed to understand right away."

"Are you American, then?"

"Rather! I was born under the Stars and Stripes. Never saw England till we crossed this summer. Dad's just been called over to Paris, and d'you know, they've let Mother go with him, but they wouldn't give me a passport. Wasn't it real mean of them? I do think the War Office is the limit! Well, of course, the question was: what could be done with me. I said: 'Leave me at Petteridge'. But Mother said: 'No; I'm not going to dump you on Cousin Coralie; she'd be down with nervous exhaustion at the end of a fortnight. School's the place for you, and we've got to rake round and find a school in double-quick time'. Dad nodded, and just rang up and ordered the car, and we started out with no more idea than the man in the moon where I was going to be landed. I'm glad fate tossed me here, though. It looks nice; kind of a real old-world flavour about the place, somehow. I'm crazy on old things—Scott's novels, you know, and castles, and all the rest of it. When I heard this was called Pendlemere Abbey, I said: 'That'll do! Take me there!' So here I am!"

"It takes one's breath away," commented Tattie. "I don't know that I'd like to be whisked off to school in such a precious hurry myself."

"It's rather as if the pixies had dropped you," laughed Vi.

"Right you are! I guess I'm a pixie sort of girl. Please don't expect 'prunes and prism' from me, for you won't get them!"

"I don't know that we want them," chuckled Wendy.

"That takes a weight off my mind, then," twinkled Diana. "I like mediæval abbeys and black beams and raftered roofs, and even ghosts; but I don't know that I exactly want mediæval schoolgirls."

"Don't alarm yourself," said Wendy, clapping her on the shoulder. "I assure you you'll find us all absolutely and entirely modern and up-to-date."

II. Stars and Stripes

If Diana was possessed with a passion for antiquities, she might certainly congratulate herself that a kindly fate had popped her into such an appropriate spot as Pendlemere Abbey. It offered every attraction to those in search of the romantic and picturesque. The Cistercian monks who had founded it in the thirteenth century had exhibited their proverbial good taste in the choice of a situation. It was built on rising ground above the lake, and commanded a glorious view across the fells. The garden, with its hill-side of rhododendrons, its clumps of sweet-smelling pines, and its borders of such hardy flowers as did not mind the nip of the northern air, ran steeply from a flat terrace towards the lake, where it ended in a landing-stage and a locked boat-house. Its orchard linked branches with the apple-trees of a neighbouring farm. The house itself, though preserving the name and the traditions of the Abbey, had been converted during Tudor times from religious to lay uses. Very little of the old monks' building remained intact, though evidences of it cropped up in unexpected quarters. There were the remains of a piscina in the pantry; a groined arch roofed the back kitchen; two carved stone pillars supported the fire-place in the dining-room; a Gothic doorway led into the courtyard, and the remnants of some ancient choir stalls were fitted as a window-seat on the stairs. The Tudor and Elizabethan periods had left more permanent traces, and, though later architects had played havoc with the simplicity of the style, they had not altogether destroyed its sixteenth-century appearance. The greater part was built of northern stone, with mullioned windows, twisted chimneys, peaked gables surmounted with stone balls, and a roof of flat slabs of the same yellow-brown stone that formed the walls. A section of black and white timbered Elizabethan work, a Queen Anne wing, and some early Victorian alterations made a strange conglomeration of styles of architecture; but the roses and ivy had climbed up and clothed ancient and modern alike, and Time had softened the jarring nineteenth-century additions, so that the whole now blended into a mellow, brownish mass, with large, bright windows enclosed in a frame of well-clipped greenery.

There was accommodation in the roomy old house for twenty boarders, and though no day pupils were supposed to be received a special exception had been made in the case of Meg and Elsie Fleming, the Vicar's daughters, who arrived every morning by nine o'clock, and Nell Gledhill, whose governess brought her each Friday afternoon for dancing-lessons. So far the school had jogged along very happily under Mrs. Gifford's mild regime. Fathers and mothers had sometimes shrugged their shoulders and hinted that her methods were old-fashioned, but they always added that the tone of the place was so excellent, and the health of the pupils so well looked after, that there was really no just cause for complaint. Miss Todd, sitting in her study, and writing twenty neat, well-thought-out letters to explain the sudden transfer of the school, assured parents that, while preserving all the traditions of her predecessor, she hoped to introduce a modern element of progress in keeping with the needs of the day. "I realize that we must march with the times," she wrote; and she meant it. She began her innovations on that very first day. Several disconsolate seniors congregated on the upper landing viewed change number one with dismay.

"But Mrs. Gifford promised that Geraldine and Ida and I might have the East room," urged Nesta Erskine. "It was all arranged last term, and we clubbed together to buy a bookcase. What are we to do with it if we're separated? It belongs to us all three."

"I can't help it; those are Miss Todd's orders," answered Miss Beverley briskly. "Your names are on cards pinned on to the doors of your new rooms. Pass along at once, and find your quarters and begin to unpack. Don't stand here blocking up the passage! Yes, Betty? Miss Hampson wants to speak to me? Tell her I'm coming now."

As Miss Beverley bustled away the seniors moved slowly and forlornly along the landing in quest of billets. It reminded them of finding their places in an examination-room. Their names were unquestionably on the doors in black-and-white, but their distribution called forth a storm of indignant comment.

"I'm actually put with Tattie Clegg and Jess Paget!"

"And I'm boxed up with Dorothy, and Nora Haddon, and Glynne Hamilton!"

"Why, we're all mixed up with the kids!"

"Look here, you know, we can't stand this kind of thing!"

"Somebody had better go to Miss Todd!"

"It's no use; I've just been," said Loveday Seton, joining the group of malcontents. "We had it all out in the study, and she listened quite kindly and politely, but she was firm as nails. She says it's an experiment for the sake of good tone, and she hopes it will work well. We seniors are sandwiched up with intermediates and juniors so that our influence may permeate through the school."

The five listeners groaned.

"Couldn't we permeate enough during the daytime?" sniffed Ida. "I don't see what influence I can have while I'm asleep. I call it a jolly nuisance to be saddled with three kids in one's room."

"Of course you have your curtains."

"What's the use of curtains? A cubicle's only semi-private after all. What it means is that we seniors are always on duty policing those juniors. What a life!"

"Where are you put, Loveday?" asked Geraldine.

"In the little ivy room upstairs. There are two beds, and I'm to act mentor to this new American girl who's just arrived."

"Poor you! What's she like?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen her yet, but I wish she were at Jericho."

In a decidedly ruffled frame of mind, Loveday passed along the landing, and climbed the stairs that led to the ivy room. She found her room-mate already in possession, and with her belongings half-unpacked. Photos adorned her dressing-table, a large American flag draped the mirror, and her bed was spread with odds and ends. She smiled broadly as Loveday entered.

"So here you are!" she greeted her. "Goody! What a relief! I've been worrying about what you'd be like, and just praying you wouldn't have spectacles and talk with a lisp. Miss Todd gave me to understand you were a peach, and I might think myself in luck to room with you, but you never can trust head mistresses till you see for yourself. She's told me the truth, though, after all. Yes, I like you right straight away, and I always make up my mind about people, slap bang off at once."

Loveday stared in surprise at the impetuous little figure kneeling beside the big trunk. Diana's dark-grey eyes shone like stars, her oval face, if not exactly pretty, was piquant and interesting, her light-brown hair curled at the tips. It was, of course, an unheard-of liberty for a new girl, and an intermediate to boot, thus to address a senior, but the greeting was spontaneous and decidedly flattering. The grey eyes, in fact, expressed open admiration. On the whole, Loveday decided to waive ceremony and tradition for the nonce.

"We've been put together for the term, so we must make the best of each other," she conceded, more graciously than she had intended to address the interloper. "I'm glad to see you've kept to your own side of the room, and haven't overflowed into mine."

"No fear!" chuckled Diana. "I've been at school before, and learnt not to spread myself out. We're on rather a short allowance of space, aren't we? Are these drawers all I've got? I shall have just to wedge my things in. There's my cabin trunk to come yet."

"You may have three pegs in the landing cupboard, and a locker in the cloak-room, but anything else will have to be stored in the box-room. I should think you had enough clothes there to last you a year, instead of wanting another trunk full."

Diana shook her head.

"They're all mixed up. We packed in half an hour. I just flung in the first things that came to hand. Cousin Cora promised to send on the rest of my luggage after me. If she doesn't, I'd best 'phone."

"You'd have a little difficulty to do that," said Loveday dryly.

"D'you mean to say there's no 'phone here, or"—looking round the room—"no electric light either?"

"Certainly not. We go to bed with candles."

"Well! I wanted mediæval ways, and it looks as if I was going to get them. It'll be rather a stunt to go to bed by candle-light. Are there any ghosts about this place? Or skeletons built into the wall? Or dungeons with rusting chains? Or mysterious footsteps? Oh! I thought there'd have been at least something spooky in a house that claims to be six hundred years old."

Diana's cabin trunk arrived in the course of a few days. She sorted out a selection of her numerous belongings, arranged them in her limited number of drawers, and consigned the surplus back to her boxes to be stored in the attic. This done, and a telegram received to announce the safe arrival of her father and mother in Paris, she seemed prepared to settle down. Her fellow intermediates, biased largely by her generosity in the matter of chocolates, gave her, on the whole, a favourable reception. Wendy even went further, and proffered friendship.

"You're just the jolly kind of girl I like," she explained. "I think we might have some topping times together, and wake up the school. Things are apt to get a little dull sometimes."

Diana nodded intelligently.

"I know. It was just the same at my last school. Everyone got into a sort of stick-in-the-mud mood, and one felt it was only kind to stir them up. I guess I did it!"

"I shouldn't wonder if you did," twinkled Wendy. "I vote we make an alliance, and, if one of us thinks of any rather ripping rag, she just tells the other, and we'll play it off together."

"Right you are! Let's shake on it!" agreed Diana, extending a small, slim hand, with a garnet birthstone-ring on the middle finger.

The little American did not fit into her niche at Pendlemere without encountering a certain amount of what her schoolmates considered necessary discipline for a novice. She had to go through an ordeal of chaff and banter. She was known by the sobriquet of "Stars and Stripes", or "The Yank", and good-natured fun was poked at her transatlantic accent. She took it good-temperedly, but with a readiness of repartee that laid the jokers flat.

"One can't get much change out of Diana," commented Magsie, after an unsuccessful onslaught of teasing.

"I think she's a scream," agreed Vi.

The baffling part of the new schoolmate was that her powers of acting were so highly developed that it was impossible to tell whether she was serious or playing a part. She "took in" her teasers times out of number, and in fairness they deserved all they got. Towards the end of the first week she came into the intermediate room one morning fondling a letter.

"From Paris," she vouchsafed. "Dad and Mother have got anchored at last. The journey must have been a startler. Paris is so full of Americans, it's like a little New York."

"Why do you call it 'Parr-is'?" sniggered Sadie.

"It's more like the French than your way of saying it, at any rate," retorted Diana smartly. "This letter's been four days in coming through."

"You might give me the stamp."

"Certainly not. You don't deserve it. I wish I were in Paris, too. Yes, I shall call it 'Parr-is'. I'm beginning to want some of my own folks."

"I've never met any Americans, except you," volunteered Vi. "What are they like?"

"What do you imagine they're like?"

"Like the pictures of 'Uncle Sam', with a limp shirt front, and a big tie, and a goatee beard. I want to meet some real out-and-out Yankees."

"Won't your cousins from Petteridge ever come over to see you, Di?" asked Magsie.

"Perhaps they may, sometime," replied Diana thoughtfully. "I should say it's quite within the bounds of possibility, considering they only live ten miles away."

"Gee-whiz! I guess I'd just admire to make their acquaintance!" mocked Vi. "I reckon they'll be some folks!"

Diana's eyes were fixed upon her with an inscrutable look, but she answered quite calmly:

"I'll take care to introduce you if they come."

It was in the course of the next few days that a parcel for Diana arrived from Petteridge Court. What it contained nobody saw except herself, for she did her unpacking in private. Judging from certain outbursts of chuckling, the exact cause of which she steadily refused to reveal, the advent of her package gave her profound satisfaction. The next Saturday afternoon was wet: one of those hopelessly wet days that are apt to happen in a land of lakes and hills. Banks of mist obscured the fells; the garden walks were turned to running rivers, the bushes dripped dismally, and cascades poured from the gutters. The school, which had been promised a country tramp, looked out of the windows with woeful disappointment. The seniors consoled themselves by holding a committee meeting, from which all but their elect selves were rigidly excluded. The juniors took possession of the play-room, and relieved their spirits by games which made the maximum of noise. Several of the intermediates peeped in, but, finding the place a mixture of a bear-garden and the Tower of Babel, they retired to the sanctuary of their own form-room, where they sat making half-hearted efforts to read or paint, and grousing at the weather.

"Is every Saturday going to be wet?" demanded Magsie in an injured voice.

"Seems like it!" mourned Jess Paget. "Of course it can be beautifully fine on Friday, when we have to stop in and do dancing; and it just keeps all the rain for Saturday. I call it spiteful! I wish I knew what to do with myself. I'm moping."

"Get a book out of the library."

"I loathe reading."

"Do some painting."

"You know I can't paint."

"Go and romp with the juniors."

"I'd as soon spend an hour in a monkey-house."

"Then I can't do anything for you, I'm afraid. You'll just have to mope."

"Where's Sadie?" asked Peggy Collins. "She promised to give me back my crochet-needle, and I can't get on without it."

"She went off with Diana and Wendy half an hour ago. I saw them running upstairs together. Don't flatter yourself she'll remember about your crochet-needle."

"I know she won't—the slacker! I shall just have to go and rout her up, and make her find it. Oh, kafoozalum! It's a weary world!"

Peggy rose languidly, stretched her arms, and strolled in the direction of the door, which at that identical moment opened to admit the missing Sadie.

"Here, you old blighter, where's that crochet-needle?" demanded Peggy impolitely.

"Bother your crochet-needle! I've no time to go and hunt for it now. I say, girls!" continued Sadie excitedly; "anybody know what's become of Diana? She's wanted. Those American cousins of hers have turned up. I told them she was in here, and they're waiting outside the door. Oh!"

Sadie's exclamation was caused by the door, which she had carefully closed suddenly opening, and nearly knocking her over. Apparently the visitors did not approve of being left to wait in the passage, and judged it expedient to make an entrance.

"Excuse me if we walk right in," said a nasal-toned voice; "but I was told we'd find Miss Diana Hewlitt in here."

The five girls, scattered about the room, stared for a second in blank amazement at the intruders. They were certainly unlike any other visitors who had ever come to Pendlemere. The speaker was a little, short, wiry man, in a slack-fitting, brown tweed suit, with a rather obtrusive striped tie. His raggy, grey beard straggled under his chin and up to his ears; his eyes twinkled through a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles; in defiance of European etiquette, he wore his hat over a crop of rough, grey hair. Clinging to his arm was a very stout lady in a green coat and a velvet turban adorned with feathers. She also was grey-haired, and her features were somewhat obscured by a thick, black veil. The most prominent thing about her was a large and obtruding tooth, which gave her somewhat the appearance of a good-natured walrus; she held a morocco-leather satchel in her unoccupied hand, and wore a large feather-boa round her neck.

Magsie, to her eternal credit, was the first to remember her manners, and offer some sort of a greeting to the extraordinary strangers.

"Er—good afternoon!" she stammered. "I'm afraid Diana isn't here. Shall—shall I go and fetch her?"

"Well, now, I'd call that real elegant of you," returned the stout lady heartily. "We can't stay long, and we don't want to waste time."

"Cora, I guess we'd best introduce ourselves," observed the gentleman, gently disengaging her from his arm. "We're Mr. and Mrs. Elihu Burritt of Petteridge Court. I reckon you're Diana's schoolfellows? Pleased to meet you, I'm sure."

"Did you have a wet drive?" asked Jess Paget, making a desperate and most gallant attempt to pump up some item of conversation.

The stout lady shook her head eloquently.

"I do say that in the matter of weather a British wet day just about takes the cake!" she replied.

Her voice was slightly tremulous and muffled; perhaps the weather agitated her. Moreover, her large tooth seemed to cause her some inconvenience—it wobbled visibly as she spoke.

"If Diana don't turn up, I guess we'll have to be getting on," ventured Mr. Elihu Burritt, pulling out a big watch and consulting it. "We've got to call at the drug store at Glenbury, and time presses."

"Magsie's gone to fetch her. Peggy, you go too, and hurry her up. Won't you sit down while you're waiting?" asked Jess, pulling forward two chairs.

The visitors seated themselves, that is to say, they sank heavily down, and planted their hands on their knees. Their eyes took an interested review of the embarrassed faces of the girls, then they suddenly collapsed into gurgles of laughter. An instant wave of comprehension swept through the room.

"Diana and Wendy!" exclaimed a chorus of voices.

Mr. Elihu Burritt was guffawing to such an extent that his hat, and the venerable locks stitched inside it, tumbled to the ground, revealing a crop of brown hair. Mrs. Cora had lost her tooth altogether, and her turban was tilted to a most disreputable angle. She slapped her partner on the back, and commanded, between sobs of mirth:

"Elihu—stop laughing! I guess we'd best wangle ourselves off!"

But the girls had crowded round to examine the details of the costumes.

"They're topping!" they approved. "Absolutely A1! Can't think how you did it! Diana, where did you get those togs?"

"Sent to Petteridge for them," exulted Diana. "They came in that parcel. It's an old suit of Cousin Hugh's. I told Cousin Coralie I wanted it to dress up in. The beard's just made out of tow, and so's Wendy's hair. Flatter myself I came up to your expectations of a real backwoods Yank. I wonder if I'd take in Miss Todd. I'd give a hundred dollars to try. But it might be rather a risky experiment. Don't you think my old girl is a peach? I'm nuts on her!"

"I simply shouldn't have known you, Wendy," said Jess. "How did you make yourself so fat?"

"I'm stuffed out with all sorts of things," laughed Wendy. "Vests, and nightdresses, and stockings, and anything we could lay our hands on. I'm specially padded over the shoulders. The toque is one of Diana's hats turned inside out with some feathers pinned on. The tooth? Why, that was a piece of india-rubber tucked inside my lip. It was fearfully difficult to make it stick, I can tell you. It kept jiggling about when I tried to talk. Elihu, old man, shall we dance a tickle-toe?"

"Stop, you mad creatures! If you make such a racket you'll be bringing Bunty down upon us," interposed Magsie, as the masquerading couple twirled each other round and round. "If you want to be ready in time for tea, you'd better go and get out of those weird garments."

"I'd like to go down to tea in them," declared Diana. "What a lovely sensation they'd make! Magsie, just peep out and see that the coast is clear before we make a dash for it along the passage. It might upset Bunty's nerves if she met us."

As it happened, during the very next week Diana received a visit from her cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Burritt of Petteridge Court. They arrived in their Daimler car, and lunched with the school. They were the very epitome of cultured and polished America, and the girls raved over them. After half an hour of their company, seven intermediates had determined to mould themselves absolutely on the lines of "Cousin Coralie", and to marry exact replicas of Mr. Burritt. It was felt that ambition could soar no higher.

"I'm glad you like them," said Diana, as she stood on the steps with some of her friends watching the Daimler pass out through the gate. "I thought you would—when they really turned up. That was why I wanted you to see 'Cousin Elihu' and 'Cousin Cora' first. They were more your idea of typical Americans, weren't they? Ah!"—shaking her head commiseratingly—"that's because you benighted Britishers just don't know anything about the real America."

III. A Penniless Princess

Miss Todd, sitting at her desk in her study, with a row of the very latest publications on the most modern theories of education in a bookcase so near that she could stretch out her hand for any particular one she wanted, rapidly reviewed some of her new experiments. First and foremost came the plan of sandwiching seniors and juniors together in their bedrooms. She hoped the influence of the elder girls would work like leaven in the school, and that putting them with younger ones would give them the chance of developing and exercising their motherly instincts. She tapped her book with her pencil as she mentally ran over the list of her seniors, and considered how—to the outside view of a head mistress—each seemed to be progressing.

"It's difficult to foster just the spirit one wants in them—it depends so largely on the girl," she decided.

And there she was right—the girl made all the difference. Hilary Chapman had listened to her remarks on "the mother instinct", and had walked straight into her dormitory, tow-rowed her young room-mates for their untidiness, snapped at their excuses, and sent them downstairs with a snubbing, returning to the bosom of the seniors ruffled, but with a strong sense of having performed her obvious duty. Betty Blane, Erica Peters, and Peggy Collins, comparing injured notes, viewed the matter from a different angle.

"Calls herself a mother, does she? Jolly more like a step-mother, I should say," objected Erica.

"Pretty grizzly to be boxed up with Hilary for a whole term," lamented Betty.

"I'm not going to be 'mothered' by her," proclaimed Peggy with energy. "She's only two years older than I am, and yet from the airs she gives herself you'd think she was Methuselah."

"You don't look like her daughter," remarked Betty, who was literal-minded to a fault.

Peggy made an eloquent grimace.

"I'm an undutiful one, at any rate," she laughed. "I'm afraid Hilary will find me somewhat of a handful."

Up in the little ivy room, however, matters were going somewhat better. Diana and Loveday, after a few minor differences, dovetailed both their possessions and their dispositions so as to admit of the least possible friction. It was fortunate for Diana, for she had a side to her character that would have bristled into porcupine quills had she been placed with Hilary. Loveday's particular temperament soothed her down.

"I'm falling in love with her," she admitted to Wendy. "I was taken with her, of course, the moment I saw her, but I believe now I'm going to have it badly. I think she's beautiful! If there were a Peach Competition, she'd win at a canter."

Such a pandering to the "pomps and vanities" as a Beauty Show was certainly not an item in the list of new experiments at Pendlemere, but there was a general consensus of opinion that Loveday held the palm in the matter of looks. She was a fair, slender girl, with delicate features, a clear complexion, and a quantity of long flaxen hair. She spoke prettily, but without affectation, and always gave an impression of great refinement. The wistful look that sometimes shaded her blue eyes was, on the whole, attractive.

"She's like a picture I once saw of Eve just turned out of Paradise," commented Diana, sitting with Wendy and Tattie in the window-seat on the stairs.

"Not half a bad shot," said Wendy. "In fact, it just about hits the mark. In 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 estate, and Rowland was only saved from the fury of the conquering party by the devotion of his nurse. She managed to hide him in a secret place in the tower till there was an opportunity to escape, and then she got him away to her father's house in the midst of a wild tract of forest. He lived there, disguised as a forester, for years and years, and helped to cut wood and to hunt, and only two or three people knew the secret of his birth. He used to go errands sometimes to the great Hall of the neighbourhood, and there he saw Lady Anne, the beautiful daughter of Lord Wharton, and fell desperately in love with her. One day when she was out riding he was able to save her from the attack of an infuriated stag, and I suppose she was very grateful, and perhaps showed her feelings too plainly, for her father shut her up in a turret-room, and ordered her to marry somebody whom she didn't like at all. I don't know what would have happened, but just then Henry VII came to the throne, and one of his first acts was to restore Sir Rowland Seton to his possessions and dignity. Lord Wharton must have thought him an eligible suitor then, for he was allowed to marry the Lady Anne, and take her away to his castle. Their tomb is in Dittington Church. He was killed at the Battle of Flodden, and one of his sons with him.

"There's a romantic story, too, about Sir Roderick Seton, who lived at the Abbey here in the days of Charles I. He had a stone seat made, and put just by the front door. The first person who sat on it was a lovely girl named Katherine, and he said to her: 'Katherine, you have sat on my seat, so you must give me three kisses as toll'. Not very long after he went away to London, leaving his brother William to look after the estate. Then civil war broke out, and he joined the Royalist forces, and followed the young King Charles into exile. After the Restoration he journeyed north, and came on foot to his old home. It was years and years since he had left there, and nobody had had any tidings about him, or knew whether he was alive or dead. He found his brother William, who was now married to Katherine, sitting with her and their two children on the stone seat by the door. He asked them for a night's lodging, and, though they did not know who he was, they took him in and treated him kindly. Next morning he asked his hostess to accompany him to the door, and, pointing to the stone seat, said:

"'It is many years since I had three kisses from the dame who first sat on it.'

"She recognized him then, and ran joyously to call the rest of the household. His brother at once wished to hand over the keys to him, but he would not accept them. 'I am old and childless,' he said. 'All I ask here is bed and board till you carry me to the churchyard.' He lived with them for some years, and devoted himself to study. The people of the neighbourhood venerated him as a sage, and after his death he was supposed on very special occasions to appear and give the family warning of future trouble. They say he was seen before the Battle of Culloden, and several times during the Napoleonic wars; but of course I can't vouch for that—it's only legend."

Diana, sitting up in bed with the curtains of her cubicle drawn aside to listen, gave a long-drawn, breathless sigh.

"O-o-o-oh! How gorgeous to belong to a highfaluting family that's got legends and ghosts. I'm just crazy to hear more. What about the house? Aren't there any dungeons or built-up skeletons or secret hiding-places? There ought to be, in a real first-class mediæval place like this."

Loveday was plaiting her flaxen hair into two long braids; she paused with the ribbon in her hand.

"I don't know—as you say, there ought to be. I've often wondered—especially since——" She hesitated.

"Since what?" urged Diana, scenting the beginning of a mystery.

"Since something that happened once."

"When? Oh, do tell me!"

"I've never told anybody."

Diana hopped out of bed, and flung two lace-frilled arms round her room-mate, clinging to her with the tenacity of a young octopus.

"Oh, Loveday! Ducky! Tell me! I shan't let you go till you promise. Please! please!" she entreated.

"If you strangle me I can't tell anything. Get back into bed, Diana! I don't know whether it was really important, but it may have been. It happened when I was quite a little girl. I had a slight attack of measles, and of course I was kept in bed. Mother was nursing me, and one afternoon she went out to do some shopping and left me to have a nap. I wasn't sleepy in the least, and it was horribly dull staying there all by myself. I remembered a book I wanted to read which was in the dining-room bookcase, so I did a most dreadfully naughty thing: I jumped up, put on my dressing-gown and bedroom slippers, and ran downstairs to fetch At the Back of the North Wind. I opened the dining-room door and marched in, and then I got a surprise, for seated in a chair by the fire was a stranger. He looked as much surprised as I was.

"'Hallo!' he said. 'We go to bed early in this part of the world, don't we? Or are we only getting up?'

"I walked to the fire and warmed my hands, and looked at him calmly. I was a funny child in those days.

"'It's neither,' I answered. 'I've got measles.'

"'Then please don't give them to me,' he laughed. 'I assure you I don't want them. Look here! I called to see your father, or, failing your father, your mother. They're both out, and I've been waiting half an hour for either of them to come in. I can't stay any longer. Will you give them a message from me? Say I've been over at Pendlemere Abbey, and that I've made a most interesting discovery there. If they care to communicate with me, I'll tell them about it. Here's my card with my address. Now I must bolt to keep an appointment. You'll remember the message?'

"O-o-o-oh! how gorgeous to belong to a high-faluting family that's got legends and ghosts!"

"He flung his card on the table, went out of the room, and I heard the hall door bang after him. I stood for a moment thinking. If I gave this message, Mother would know that I had been out of bed and downstairs, and I should be sure to get a tremendous scolding. I was a naughty little girl in those days; I took the card, flung it on the fire, seized At the Back of the North Wind from the bookcase, and tore upstairs again. Of course I caught cold, and had rather a serious relapse which puzzled everybody. No one except myself knew the reason, and I took good care not to tell. Only six months afterwards I lost both my father and mother, and went to live with my aunt at Liverpool. What became of the stranger I don't know. I didn't even remember his name."

"You weren't living at the Abbey then?"

"No, no! We never lived at the Abbey. It was sold before I was born. I believe at that time it was empty, and a caretaker used to allow tourists to look through it. I suppose that gentleman was a tourist."

"What had he found?"

"That's a question I've asked myself a hundred times. Was it a sliding panel or a secret door? Or was he simply some antiquarian crank who wanted to prove that the Abbey was of Norman origin, or built on a Roman foundation? How I wish I hadn't forgotten his name! When I heard that Pendlemere had been turned into a school I begged my aunt to send me here. For a long time she wouldn't, and I went to a day-school. Then two years ago she and uncle decided to send me to a boarding-school, so again I asked to come here, and after a great deal of urging they let me. I hoped I might find out something. I'm always hunting about, but I've never yet made the 'interesting discovery'."

"Where have you looked?" asked Diana, immensely thrilled.

"Oh, everywhere! I've tapped panels, and pushed bits of carving to see if they'd move, but they're all absolutely firm and solid. I've had no luck."

"I'll go exploring on my own."

"Well, if you do, don't tell the other girls. I hate to pose as a sort of turned-out heiress, and have them pitying me. If they knew I was hunting for hiding-places, I believe some of them would rag me dreadfully. I should never hear the last of it. They'd always be pretending they'd found something, just to tease me."

"And yet you ought to have been the heiress," mused Diana.

"It's no use talking about being an heiress when the place was sold before I was born," returned Loveday rather bitterly. "I've told you this, but I trust you not to go blabbing it all over the school. If you're ready, I'll blow out the candle. Miss Hampson will be round in a minute."

IV. The Rush-bearing

Among Miss Todd's modern principles of education was the sensible theory that if you can once get a girl interested in a subject she will learn without any labour, and that self-acquired knowledge is far more readily retained than facts which are crammed down one's throat. More especially she applied this to history. Instead of making it a dry catalogue of dates of kings and battles, she tried to show the gradual evolution of the British nation from the barbarism of the Stone Age to present-day civilization. She dwelt much on folk-lore, ancient customs and traditions, and especially encouraged the study of all local legends and observances. In this she found an ally in the new vicar who had lately come to the church at Pendlemere, and whose daughters, Meg and Elsie, attended the school as day-girls. Mr. Fleming was an enthusiastic antiquarian, and revelled in the history of the neighbourhood. He went round his parish collecting information from the oldest inhabitants with regard to vanished and vanishing customs, and took notes for a book which he hoped to write upon the folk-lore of the northern counties. In the heat of his ardour he suggested the revival of several quaint old festivals which had once held time-honoured places in the calendar of the year. First and foremost came the Rush-bearing. In ancient days it had been the custom of the parishioners to cut bundles of rushes, and, walking in procession to the church, to strew the floor thickly with them as a covering for the winter. They would be left till the spring, and cleared away in time for Easter. This old ceremony had long fallen into disuse, and was only remembered by village patriarchs as one of the yearly events of their far-away childhood.

Though it might not be desirable once more to strew the floor with rushes, Mr. Fleming suggested that it would be a pretty idea if the girls at Pendlemere School were to cut some bundles of them, tie them with ribbons, and carry them into the church on the date of the old festival, as a memorial of the past observance. Anything so interesting as going out to cut rushes appealed to the girls, and they readily adopted the suggestion. Miss Todd decided to turn the afternoon into a kind of natural history and antiquarian excursion.

"The rushes by the lake are not very easy to get," she explained, "but there are beauties growing on Fox Fell. We'll have a ramble there on Saturday, take our lunch, and bring back our bundles. Then we can plait our ribbons at our leisure on Monday, in time for the festival on Tuesday. Who wants to go? Anybody who likes may stay at home."

A rustle passed round the room, for nobody was anxious to be left out of the fun. Rambles were considered special treats at Pendlemere, and smiles decorated twenty faces at the prospect. At Geraldine's suggestion they did their Saturday prep. in Friday's recreation time.

"And get all your practising finished too," she urged. "If we can tell Miss Todd that our work's quite squared up, she'll let us stay out longer; but you know her. If there's a single girl who hasn't learnt her literature, or made up her music list, the whole crew of us will have to come trotting back. I'd be sorry for that girl!" Geraldine looked round the room grimly. "I should give her a very unpleasant time myself, and I expect the rest of you would, too. She'd richly deserve all she got."

Warned by the head girl's awful threat, tasks were completed in good time, and promptly by half-past ten the school, in a uniform of brown jerseys, brown tam-o'-shanters with orange tassels, strong boots, lunch-wallets slung over their shoulders, and sticks in their hands, were prepared, like a group of pilgrims, to make their start. Spot, the fox terrier, escorted them, barking his loudest. Meg and Elsie Fleming joined them in the village; so with Miss Todd and Miss Beverley they formed a party of twenty-four. They set their faces towards the fells, and stepped out briskly. They were not bound to walk in a crocodile, but, though some progressed in groups, most of the girls gravitated into pairs. Diana and Wendy linked arms as naturally as two pieces of mercury merge together in a box. Their spirits, usually high, were to-day at bubbling-over point: they laughed at everything, whether it was a joke or not.

"It's my first real mountain walk in England," announced Diana.

"Oh! I'm glad you allow they are mountains," said Sadie, coming up from behind. "You've been bragging so hard about America, that I thought perhaps you'd consider them hillocks."

"They are hillocks compared with the Rockies," flashed Diana. "I'm not going to give way an inch about America, so there!"

"All right, Uncle Sam, brag away. Everything over there is ten times bigger and better than here—the apples are the size of pumpkins, and the brooks are so wide you can't see across them, and it takes you years to ride round a single farm! We know! You needn't tell us again."

"I wasn't going to!" retorted Diana. "What's the use, when you can make it all up for yourself?"

"Oh! my invention's nothing to yours. I expect you're telling Wendy some startlers. I'm going to walk with Vi, she's more interesting than you two."

"What's the matter with Sadie?" asked Diana, as their schoolmate ran on to catch up Violet.

"Jealous!" said Wendy, shaking her head sagely. "She has these attacks sometimes, and I know the symptoms. She doesn't like to see you and me walking together. Last term she and I and Magsie and Tattie were in Dormitory 4. Magsie and Tattie did the 'twin cherries on one stalk' business all the time, so in self-defence Sadie and I had to chum, though we squabbled six times a day. I'm not going to be monopolized now, so she needn't think it. Let her chum with Vi if she likes, I'm sure I don't care. Hallo! Which stile do we go over here, I wonder?"

The two girls had lagged behind, so that the rest of the party, walking at the brisk pace set by Miss Todd, had passed on in front. Wendy mounted each stile in turn, and surveyed the prospect of fields and high hedges. There was not a solitary tam-o'-shanter to be seen from either of them. In much doubt she hesitated.

"It'll probably be to the left, because I know we have to go through that wood over there before we get out on to the fells," she conjectured.

"I can't help you," said Diana. "Is it any use tossing for it?"

They ventured to the left, and, after walking over three fields, found themselves in a narrow lane which terminated in a pond. It was such an evident cul-de-sac that there was nothing for it but to turn back. When they again reached the stiles they found Geraldine sitting upon the right-hand one. Her expression was thundery, and her greeting the reverse of cordial.

"Where have you been, you two stupids? Why can't you keep up with the rest of us instead of side-tracking like this? Here you're keeping the whole party waiting, and I've had to turn back to hunt you up."

"Sorry to be on the earth!" apologized Wendy; "but we missed our way."

"Then it's your own fault, for we left the gipsy trail for you as plain as plain could be. Some people have no eyes!"

"What gipsy trail?"

Geraldine pointed laconically to the grass.

There, just by the right-hand stile, lay two crossed sticks. They were placed in a most obvious position. It was a marvel how they had escaped notice.

"You may well stare!" commented Geraldine with sarcasm.

"I believe I did see them," said Diana, "but I didn't know what they meant."

"Didn't know! Why, Sadie told you! I sent her on purpose. Miss Todd said we were to leave the gipsy trail at every doubtful place."

"Sadie never told us. She never said a single word."

"You probably didn't listen. Well, I can't argue it out now, the others are waiting, and Miss Todd's furious. Come along as fast as you can."

Diana and Wendy considered that the summary scolding which they received from Miss Todd, who was in too big a hurry to listen to any excuses, was entirely Sadie's fault, and a point to be settled up with her later. At present she scuttled on ahead, conveniently out of their way.

"Just let her wait!" vowed Wendy darkly.

It was necessary to step along briskly if they meant to accomplish the walk which Miss Todd had in her mind's eye, and anybody who has ever acted leader to a party of twenty-four knows the difficulty of making everyone keep the pace.

"I believe Toddlekins would like to rope us all together as if we were Swiss mountaineers," giggled Magsie, "or a gang of prisoners clanking chains. It's rather weak if one can't even stop to pick a flower."

They had passed through the wood by now, and were on the open fells. The view was gorgeous. The October sun flooded the landscape and showed up the wealth of autumn colour: tree-crested crags, ravines with brawling brooks, stretches of heather-clad moor, banks of faded bracken, rugged rocks and stony hill-crests were spread on the one hand, while to the west lay a distant chain of lakes, embosomed in meadows green as emerald, and reflecting the pale autumn sky in their smooth expanse. At the top of the first fell, Miss Todd called a halt. They had reached number one of the objects she had set in the day's programme. It was a pre-historic cromlech—three gigantic stones reared in the form of a table by those old inhabitants of our island whose customs and modes of worship are lost in the mists of antiquity. The storms and snows of many thousand years sweeping round it had slightly displaced the cap stone, but it stood otherwise intact, a grey, hoary monument to the toil of the short, dark neolithic race who once hunted on these self-same fells. The girls crowded round the cromlech curiously. It was large enough for four of them to sit underneath, and several crammed in as an experiment.

"Was it an altar?" asked Stuart.

"The altar theory is exploded now," said Miss Todd. "It is generally recognized that they were burial-places of great chiefs. The body would be placed inside, with stone weapons and drinking-cups, and any other articles the man had loved when he was alive. Then a great heap of stones and earth would be piled over and round it, to keep out the wolves which were the terror of early man. The weather, and perhaps farmers, have taken away the mound, and laid bare the cromlech; but look! here is one that is almost in its natural position."

The girls turned, and saw close by a rocky mound that jutted from among the crags. In its side was a small opening, just large enough to squeeze through. Miss Todd had brought candle and matches, and personally conducted relays of girls into the chamber within. They went curiously or timorously as the case might be.

"Is there a skeleton inside? I don't know whether I dare," shivered Tattie. "It's like going into a grave, and I'm scared to death."

"Don't be silly!" said Geraldine, who, with Loveday and Hilary, was making her exit. "There's nothing inside it. It's only like a cave."

"You're sure bogeys won't catch my legs?"

"Stop outside, if you're afraid."

"It's like a fairy-tale, and going into the gnome's hill," fluttered Magsie.

Everybody was determined to have a peep, and even Tattie mustered up sufficient courage to screw through the narrow portal, though she squealed in the process, and clung tightly to Magsie's hand. Diana and Wendy were among the last to effect the investigation. By that time the piece of candle was guttering out, and Miss Todd, tired of acting show-woman, returned to the open air, and gave marching orders.

Diana and Wendy, rather fascinated with the "Goblin Hole", as they called it, lingered, poking their noses inside the entrance.

"I didn't go in," said a voice behind them. Turning, they saw Sadie's face, interested, and half-regretful.

"Then you've lost your luck," said Diana decisively. "If you go in and turn round three times inside, you can have a wish, and it's bound to come true. You'd better do it. You've just time."

"In the dark?" hesitated Sadie.

"Quick! Go on!" urged her companions, standing back to make way for her. "Here are the matches."

Sadie struck a match, and cautiously ventured forward. The moment she was well inside Diana motioned to Wendy, and, catching up a piece of wood that lay on the ground, tilted it like a door across the entrance, and piled some stones against it. Then the pair fled. They heard an agonized shriek behind them, but they turned deaf ears to it.

They were half-way down the heathery hill-side when a very ruffled and indignant Sadie overtook them.

"Hallo! I thought you'd gone to live with the goblins," exclaimed Diana cheerfully.

"You're a pair of BEASTS!" exploded Sadie.

"Don't mench! What kind of beasts, please? Young gazelles or kittens?"

"Pigs would be more like it!" snapped Sadie. "To think of shutting me up alone in that bogey-hole! I might have lost my reason."

"Didn't fancy you'd go stark staring mad as fast as all that," chuckled Diana. "It didn't take you very long to push that door down."

"If we see any symptoms of insanity cropping out in you, we'll know the reason," added Wendy smartly.

"And you see it's been very good for you to know what it feels like to be left behind," rubbed in Diana. "You never told us about that gipsy trail dodge. Tit for tat's my motto."

"I think you're the two horridest girls in the school! I sha'n't speak to you again. You may consider yourselves funny, but no one else does," said Sadie witheringly, as she flounced away to hang on to Geraldine's arm, and pour her woes into the head girl's not too willing ear.

It was a good hour's walk from the cromlechs to Birk Water, the lake where they intended to pick the rushes. The path was the merest track, and the tramp through the heather and over rough and rugged stones well justified the thick footgear upon which Miss Todd had insisted. Birk Water was a lovely little mountain tarn lying under the shadow of Fox Fell, a smooth, grassy eminence down which hurried a noisy stream. They found a sheltered place in the sunshine on the bank, and sat down to eat their lunch. Hard-boiled eggs and cheese sandwiches tasted delicious in the open air, and for a special treat there was an apple apiece. In normal times the supply of apples was liberal, but this year the crop had failed, and they were rare dainties.

"I sympathize with Eve," said Wendy, munching blissfully. "It must have been a very great temptation, especially with 'knowledge' thrown in. Just think of being able to eat an apple that would teach you all your dates and French verbs."

"There weren't any dates then, unless they counted the geological periods; and the Tower of Babel came later, so the French language wasn't invented," objected Tattie.

"Oh! don't be so literal-minded. I never meant that Eve sat at a desk and wrote exercises. I'm only telling you I like apples."

"Well, so do I, and yours is a bigger one than mine."

"It won't be long, don't you worry yourself. It's getting 'small by degrees and beautifully less'."

The slopes of the hill were slightly marshy, and grew a crop of remarkably tall and fine rushes. They were much easier to gather than those on the borders of the lake. The girls had brought knives, and, when lunch had vanished to the last crumb, they dispersed up the hill-side to reap their rush harvest.

"If they're not all wanted for the church, I vote we ask Miss Todd to let us put some down on the schoolroom floor," said Diana, hacking away cheerfully. "I'd just admire to know what they feel like under one's feet. It would take one back about five centuries."

"Spiffing! We'll ask her! Get as many as you can carry, and tell the others. They'd be far more interesting than linoleum. Think of being able to swish one's toes about in them. I hope the church won't want too many."

"It oughtn't to claim more than its tithe. I suppose it's entitled to a tenth of every harvest, if we stick strictly to the old customs," smiled Loveday, whose arms were already filled with a sheaf of green and orange.

On the open side of the fell the wind blew strongly, and it was a struggle to toil upwards. The school tacked instead towards the sheltered bank of the stream, and with one accord broke into Scotch songs. Geraldine, in a full contralto, was singing "Green grow the rashes, O". Betty Blane's chirpy voice proclaimed "I'm ower young to marry yet",—a self-evident proposition, as she was only thirteen. Stuart and Loveday were crooning "Flowers of the Forest" as a kind of soprano dirge, which was drowned by a chorus of juniors roaring "Auld Lang Syne".

"We twa hae paidled i' the burn

Frae mornin' sun till dine",

chanted Diana after them. "And that's just what I want to do. I've never had a chance yet to 'paidle' in a British burn."

"You won't to-day, then," said Geraldine, who chanced to overhear, and stopped her singing to interpolate a remark. "Shoes and stockings aren't allowed off, except in the summer term."

"Green grow the rashes, O!

Green grow the rashes, O!

The sweetest hours that e'er I spent

Were spent among the lassies, O!"

Diana stood frowning as Geraldine passed along, carolling at the pitch of her voice.

"What nonsense!" she growled. "Who made such a silly old rule? I'm not going to keep it."

"It's quite as warm to-day as it sometimes is in summer," agreed Wendy.

"I believe it's only 'swank' on Geraldine's part, because she's head prefect. I shall paddle! Just because she said I mustn't. Come on, Wendy! Let's scoot into this hollow and enjoy ourselves. Geraldine makes me feel real bad when she bosses. I want to go and break all the rules I can."

V. Diana Dares

If Diana—a modern Eve—hankered after the apples of new experiences, Wendy succumbed to her persuasions as readily as Adam. The little purling brook was attractive, mistresses and prefects were safely out of sight, and schoolmates, if they chanced to appear on the scene, might be bribed not to blab. In a twinkling laces were unfastened, and two stout pairs of boots stowed away among the stones, each with its stocking tucked inside; while two pairs of bare feet went splashing joyously into the brook. It was fun paddling in the little pools and scrambling over the rocks, waving a foot occasionally into a foaming fall, and dancing out on to the grass when the water grew too cold to be endured any longer. They wandered for some distance up the hill-side, supremely happy, though taking care not to allow their exuberant spirits to overflow into song. So far not a soul seemed to have noticed them—they were enjoying the sweets of undiscovered crime. Suddenly through the clear autumnal air rang out the shrill, bubbling call of the regimental whistle with which Miss Todd was wont, on country walks, to collect her scattered flock. The two sinners jumped so uneasily that Wendy slipped from a stone and splashed into a pool, with rather disastrous consequences to her skirt.

"We'd best go back and find our boots," she said, hurriedly wringing the water from the brown tweed.

They had not realized how far they had roamed up the stream, and the length of the way back surprised them. It is not an easy matter to hurry over slippery stones, though they made what speed they could, urged by another summons from the whistle.

"I think this was the place," declared Diana, at last arriving at landmarks that seemed familiar. "I left mine just over there."

Both girls sought their hiding-places, but, to their utter dismay, the boots were missing. They searched about here, there, and everywhere, but not so much as the tab of a lace could be found. Meanwhile the whistle sounded impatient blasts.

"What are we to do?" flustered Wendy. "Toddlekins will be furious if we don't go; and yet how can we go without our boots?"

"We must have mistaken the place," gasped Diana. "Perhaps it was farther down."

"No, no! I'm certain it was just here."

"Well, we're in a pretty fix, at any rate."

"T-r-r-r-r-ee-ee!" came again from the fell side. To disobey the summons deliberately was open mutiny. An agitated voice on the bank called to them.

"Wendy and Diana, can't you hear the whistle? Come this instant!"

It was Stuart Hamilton, who stood beckoning violently.

"We've lost our boots," wailed Wendy.

"Then come without them. Miss Todd has sent me to find you. Hurry up!"

It was a scratchy and painful performance to hurry through heather and over sharp stones to the spot where the school was assembled. Miss Todd stood staring at them as they approached, with her "report yourself in my study" expression. They felt their bare legs and feet most embarrassingly conspicuous, and wished that fickle fashion had clothed them in longer skirts.

"What is the meaning of this?" asked the Principal, eyeing their uncovered extremities severely.

"We've—we've—lost our boots," stammered Diana, speaking for both.

"And why were your boots taken off? You were aware of the rule, for I happen to know that you had just been reminded of it." (Here Wendy fixed a reproachful gaze on Geraldine, who coloured slightly.) "You've deliberately disobeyed orders, and you will be confined to 'bounds' for a fortnight. It's absolutely essential in our country rambles that discipline should be kept up, and any girl who breaks rules will stay at home next time. You deserve to walk back with bare feet, but Miss Beverley will give you your boots. Put them on at once!"

It was horrible to have to sit down upon the heather and pull on stockings and boots under the critical supervision of twenty-two pairs of eyes. Diana's lace broke, and Wendy's fingers seemed all thumbs. Miss Todd superintended till the last knot had been awkwardly tied, then she gave the signal for marching. Considerably crestfallen, the delinquents dropped towards the rear.

"Did Geraldine sneak?" whispered Wendy to Violet.

"No, it wasn't exactly her fault—it was Spot really. He routed out the boots, and began barking and worrying them, and Miss Beverley rushed up to see what he'd got—she thought he'd caught an otter or a water-rat. When she saw it was boots—well——"

"She knew she'd caught us," finished Diana.

"She took the boots straight to Miss Todd, and Toddlekins blew her whistle and counted us over like sheep to find who was missing. Then she asked who'd seen you last, and if anyone had given you leave to wade. She dragged it all out of Geraldine. I don't think Gerry would have told on her own."

"Spot!" said Diana, turning reproachful eyes on that panting specimen of the canine race. "I used to think you a dinky little dog, but I'm out of friends with you now. It's a real mean trick you've played us. Oh! you needn't come jumping up on me and licking my hand. What possessed you to unearth those boots? 'Bounds' for a whole fortnight! And I wanted to go to Glenbury on Wednesday. It's too disgusting for words! Vi, d'you think if I looked an absolute hallowed saint all Sunday, and Monday, and Tuesday, Miss Todd would let me go to Glenbury? My name's down for the exeat, you know."

Violet regarded Diana for a moment or two as if making mental calculations.

"You couldn't do it," she decided at last. "You couldn't look the least tiny, weeny atom like a saint if you tried till doomsday. Saints ought to be thin and wan, with straight noses and fair hair parted in the middle. You're rosy and substantial, and your nose isn't straight, and your hair's too brown, and as for your eyes—they've a wicked twinkle in them the whole time. No, my good girl, whatever else you may do, you won't succeed in looking saintly."

"Well, I guess I've got some bounce in me, certainly," agreed Diana. "But I thought perhaps if I went about on tiptoe and whispered, and"—hopefully—"I could keep my eyes half-shut, couldn't I?"

Violet shook her head decisively.

"That twinkle would ooze out of the smallest chink, and besides, even if you managed to look a saint, that wouldn't influence Toddlekins. You don't know her yet. Once she says a thing she sticks to it like glue. She calls it necessary firmness in a mistress, and we call it a strain of obstinacy in her disposition. In the old days we could get round Mrs. Gifford, but now Toddlekins rules the show, you may as well make up your mind to things and have done with it. What she says is kismet."

"Why do you want to go to Glenbury?" asked Jess.

"Oh! just a reason of my own," evaded Diana.

"You'll very likely get an exeat the week after," consoled Violet.

"It would be no use to me then," said Diana dismally.

The procession of rush-bearers, each carrying a good-sized sheaf in her arms, wound down the hill-side to go back to Pendlemere by a different route. This was a wild track over the moors, past the old slate-quarry, where rusty bits of machinery and piles of broken slates were lying about, then over the ridge and down by Wethersted Tarn to the gorge where the river took its rise. Here a stream of considerable force thundered along between high walls of rock. It was a picturesque spot; rowan-trees hung from clefts in the crags, their bright berries rivalling the scarlet of the hips and haws; green fronds of fern bent at the water's edge, and brilliant carpets of moss clothed the boulders. At one point a great tree-trunk, a giant of the fells, rotten through many years of braving the strong west wind, had fallen and lay across the torrent. It stretched from bank to bank like a rough kind of natural bridge, with the stream roaring and foaming only six feet below. The girls scrambled over its upturned roots, and stood looking at the straight trunk and withered branches that lay stretched before them.

"Shouldn't care to venture across there," said Loveday with a shiver.

"It looks particularly slippery and horrid," agreed Geraldine.

"The water must be so very deep down there," said Hilary.

"I don't believe there's one of us who'd go across for a five-pound-note," said Ida. "What offers? Don't all speak at once!"

The girls smiled, and were turning away to follow Miss Todd, when Geraldine stopped and held up a finger.

"What's that noise?" she asked.

"I don't hear anything but the stream," said Ida doubtfully.

"I do, though," said Diana, who with Wendy and Vi had joined the seniors. "It sounds like somebody whimpering."

"I'm going down the bank to see."

The others followed Geraldine, and swung themselves down to the water level. Sitting under the arch formed by the roots of the tree was a small boy of about seven, rubbing two swimming eyes with two grimy little fists and sobbing lustily.

"Hallo! What's the matter here?" said Geraldine briskly. "Where do you come from, and why don't you go home? Are you lost?"

At the mention of "home" the little fellow's tears redoubled, and the whimper rose to a roar. Ida sat down on the rock beside him, and tried to comfort him. It was a difficult process to get any coherent or sensible replies to her questions, but after considerable coaxing, and a last piece of chocolate which Wendy fortunately fished from her pocket, she managed to wring from him that his name was Harry, that he lived at a farm on the other side of the torrent, that he had come down to the river with several other boys, and that they had dared him to cross by the fallen tree. Once over, he was too frightened to go back, and, after waiting and calling to him for some time, the other boys had run away. How was he going to get home?

The situation was difficult, for there was no bridge across the river for many miles. Unless the child could go back the way he had come, it was a problem what was to be done.

"You were a silly boy ever to try to cross," said Geraldine sententiously.

"They said I durstn't!" sobbed the small sinner.

"Oh, don't scold him!" pleaded Diana. "I do know so exactly how he felt. I've often been dared to do things myself, and done them, though I shivered."

"Well, you'd surely never do such a silly thing as cross that tree?"

Two Pairs of Bare Feet Went Splashing Joyously Into the Brook

"Wouldn't I? I believe I'm going to do it now."

"Diana!"

"He's got to get home somehow. Look here, Harry!"—Diana knelt on the pebbles, and put her arm round the little blue-jerseyed figure—"suppose I were to go too, would you dare to cross again? We'd both crawl on our hands and knees."

The sobs stopped, while Harry took a swift survey of her face. Apparently he found it satisfactory.

"If you'll go first," he stammered.

"Then come along—we've no time to waste," said Diana, springing up and giving him her hand.

"Diana! You surely don't mean——" began Geraldine in eager remonstrance.

"Yes, I do!" interrupted Diana. "I've done worse things before, and I'm not scared. Come on, Harry! We'll have you home in forty cracks."

The girls did not attempt to interfere. They stood and watched while Diana hauled the little boy up the bank. Perhaps each secretly wished she were capable of such a piece of pluck. Though the tree was tall enough to span the stream, its bole seemed very narrow to form a bridge, and the rounded surface made it all the more slippery; the few branches here and there were of little help. Diana hoisted up her protégé, then going in front of him began to crawl across on her hands and knees, speaking to him all the time, so as to encourage him to follow her. Beneath them the water foamed and roared over the rocks: to slip would mean to be whirled into the depths of a dark pool below. It was a slow progress, but inch by inch they crept along till the most dangerous part was passed, and they had reached comparative safety. The girls cheered when at last Diana scrambled to her feet and lifted Harry on to dry ground. A path led up the side of the gorge, and along this he set off at full speed for home. His preserver stood looking after him for a minute or two, and then she turned to re-cross her perilous bridge. Six hands were stretched out to help her as she completed the venturesome journey.

"You're a trump, Di!"

"I daren't have done it!"

"You've been a guardian angel to that child!"

"Was it very awful?"

"I can't think how you managed it!"

"I nearly screamed when you reached the middle!"

"It felt worse coming back than going," said Diana, brushing her skirt, which had suffered considerably. "Somehow I minded it more. Well, it's over now! We'd better be getting on, hadn't we?"

"Yes, indeed; the others will think we're lost," agreed Geraldine.

The t-r-r-ee-ee of the whistle was sounding from the far distance, so the girls made a spurt and hurried along to catch up the rest of the party. Geraldine, in virtue of her office as head prefect, briefly explained to Miss Todd the cause of the delay.

"I shouldn't have let you do it, Diana, if I had been there," said the Principal. "But I've no doubt the little boy's mother is blessing you. We should have had to take him to Pendlemere with us, and have sent somebody from the village to take him home. There would have been no other way. Remember, though, that I'm responsible for you to your parents, and I really can't allow these harum-scarum tricks. Suppose there had been an accident!"

"Dad knows me, and he wouldn't have blamed you," said Diana cheerily. "He says I'm like a cat with nine lives, or a bad halfpenny that always turns up again. I've done worse things than this."

"Then you won't do them while you're at this school," returned Miss Todd firmly, motioning her to walk along in front with Geraldine.

On Monday afternoon, with the aid of some ribbons, the girls made their rushes into pretty little sheaves. They plaited bands for them, and twisted them securely. Miss Todd, much interested, superintended their operations.

"You may pick some flowers from the garden to-morrow, and put garlands round them," she suggested. "We're reviving a most ancient custom that dates back to the early days of Christianity in Britain. Pope Gregory IV recommended that on the anniversaries of the dedication of churches wrested from the Pagans, the converts should build themselves huts with the boughs of trees round their churches, and celebrate the day with feasting. The rush-bearing is probably the last relic of that ancient ceremony. At one time there was always a village feast in connection with it, though it degenerated at last into a sort of rustic saturnalia, and had to be suppressed."

"Old customs are very interesting," said Diana, staring at the Principal with wide-open, steady eyes.

"I'm glad you find them so."

"It's nice to see them all kept up. If we have the rush-bearing to-morrow, oughtn't we—just to revive an old ceremony—to have the feast as well?"

A rustle passed over the school at Diana's temerity. Miss Todd returned the steady gaze, then the corners of her mouth twitched.

"You've stated the case very accurately. As a matter of fact, I have ordered seed-cake and scones, and have invited the Vicarage people to tea."

VI. French Leave

The sheaves of rushes were duly carried into the church, and stacked artistically in the deep window-sills, where they gave somewhat the effect of a harvest festival. The girls were eager to lay bundles of them in the particular pews occupied by the school, but the verger, who looked askance at the whole business, and whose wife was hovering about with a broom to sweep up bits, vetoed the suggestion so emphatically that the Vicar, wavering with a strong balance towards ancient custom, hastily and regretfully decided in the negative. Neither would Miss Todd allow them to be strewn upon the schoolroom floor, although Diana ventured to suggest the advisability of practical study of mediæval methods.

"There are some things best left to imagination," replied the Principal dryly. "For instance, there would be no need to dispense with forks, and let you hold mutton bones with your fingers at dinner, in order to demonstrate fourteenth-century manners, nor to bleed you every time you had a toothache, to test ancient practices of medicine. If you're so very anxious to skip a few hundred years, I have, in an old Herbal, a prescription to cure 'swimming in ye heade and such like phantasies'. It consists mainly of pounded snail-shells, mixed with boiled tansy and snippings from the hair of an unbaptized infant born between Easter and Michaelmas. Any one who wishes has my permission to try it."

"No, thank you!" said Diana, screwing up her mouth. "Unless," she added hopefully, "I might go out and gather the tansy. We saw some growing on the way to Fox Fell."

"There's a fine clump at the bottom of the garden, so you needn't go out of bounds to get it," replied Miss Todd, glancing at her pupil with eyes that clearly saw through all subterfuges.

The Principal was determined that Diana and Wendy, having deliberately broken a rule, should suffer the just consequences, and she did not intend to remit one jot or tittle of the punishment she had inflicted. "Bounds" at Pendlemere were sufficiently extensive to allow ample exercise, and any farther excursions must be deferred till the end of the appointed fortnight.

Diana, looking at the exeat list which hung in the hall, shook her head at sight of her own name scored through with a blue pencil.

"Just to think that removing my boots and stockings for ten short minutes should have cut me off from going to Glenbury," she philosophized. "I was only 'laving my feet', as the poets say. Nymphs always did it in classical times. Indeed, I don't suppose they ever had boots and stockings to take off, so they could paddle as they pleased."

"They had a warmer climate in Greece," sniffed Wendy, who had a bad cold in her head as the result of her paddling; "and I suppose they were accustomed to it. If there is anything you want particularly in Glenbury, Magsie's going, and I expect she'd get it for you."

"I don't know whether she could."

"What is it you want?"

Diana hesitated, then whispered in Wendy's ear:

"Three packets of Turkish cigarettes."

"O-o-o-oh!"

Wendy's eyes were wide. Diana nodded determinedly.

"But what do you want them for?"

"That's my own business."

"You surely don't smoke!"—in a horrified voice.

"I don't want them for myself—I'll tell you that much."

"For whom are they, then?"

"I shan't tell you!"

"Magsie would never dare to bolt into a tobacconist's and buy cigarettes."

"I was afraid she wouldn't," said Diana sadly.

"And you'd better be careful yourself if you go to Glenbury next exeat day. Toddlekins would draw the line at cigarettes. You wouldn't like to get expelled?"

"I don't know that I'd very much care," sighed Diana.

She revenged herself for her enforced seclusion by clumping noisily about the passages, till Miss Todd, hearing the racket, dropped a significant hint as to the necessity of compulsory felt slippers for girls who had not learnt to walk lightly. So, fearing that the Principal might really carry out this threat, Diana betook herself to the garden, and expended her superfluous energy on a fast and furious set of tennis. Having lost three balls, she left Vi and Peggy to look for them, and, still in a thoroughly bad temper, strolled round the corner of the house. On the front drive she saw a sight that set her running. Exactly opposite the door stood the car of her cousin, Mrs. Burritt. It was empty, but the chauffeur, at the top of the steps, was in the very act of handing two envelopes to the housemaid.

"Anything for me, Thompson?" cried Diana eagerly.

"Yes, miss. Letter for you, and one for Miss Todd," replied the man, touching his cap.

Diana seized hers from Edith, the maid, devoured its contents, and clapped her hands.

"I'll be ready in five minutes, Thompson!" she exclaimed, and fled indoors.

Half-way down the corridor she nearly ran into Miss Todd, emerging from her study with an open letter in her hand.

"Where are you going, Diana?"

"Cousin Cora's asked me for the night! She's sent the car for me. My cousin Lenox is there on leave!" panted Diana.

"So I understand from Mrs. Burritt's letter, but I certainly cannot allow you to go."

"Not go?"

Diana's face was a study.

"I had no authority from your father and mother to allow you to accept invitations."

"But I know they'd let me! Oh, Miss Todd, I simply must!"

"That's for me to decide, Diana, not you, and I say 'no'."

Mistress and pupil looked at each other squarely. Miss Todd's mouth was set in a firm line. Evidently she considered that she was fighting a campaign against Diana, and she meant to carry this outpost. Diana had the sense to realize her defeat. She drooped her lashes over her eyes.

"May I send a note to Cousin Cora?" she asked in a strangled voice.

"You can if you wish, and I'll write to her myself, and explain that it is against our rules."

Murmuring something that sounded dangerously like "Strafe rules!" Diana darted upstairs for blotting-pad and fountain-pen. She frowned hard while she scribbled, thumped the envelope as she closed it, then ran down to give it into the personal charge of the chauffeur. She would have added some comments for his benefit, had Miss Hampson not been standing upon the doorstep.

"You're not coming, miss?" enquired Thompson civilly, but with evident astonishment.

"No!" grunted Diana, turning indoors and clumping down the hall past Miss Todd's study with footsteps heavy enough to justify the demand for felt slippers.

She was too angry at the moment to mind what happened, and the Principal, who was wise in her generation, allowed her to stamp by unchallenged.

At tea-time, at preparation, at evening recreation, and at supper Diana sat with a thunder-cloud on her face. When she went to bed it burst. She squatted in a limp heap on the floor and raged at fate.

"I'm sorry, but you're really making a most fearful fuss!" said Loveday, whose sympathy and sense of fitness were playing see-saw. "It's one of the rules of the school that we don't go away for odd holidays. We may have Friday to Monday at half-term, but even Mrs. Gifford never let anyone off in the middle of the week to stay a night. You're only served the same as everybody else. Why can't you take it sporting?"

"You don't understand!" wailed Diana, mopping her moist cheeks.

"Do get up from the floor, at any rate. It looks so weak to be huddled up like a bundle of rags. You haven't brushed your hair yet. Don't be a slacker, Diana!"

Thus morally prodded, Diana rose dejectedly, put on her bedroom slippers, and took the hair-brush which her room-mate handed. She did not like to be called a slacker, particularly by Loveday. The atmosphere was not altogether harmonious: she felt as if their thoughts were running round in circles, and had not yet met at a mutual angle of comprehension.

"Loveday doesn't understand me—she thinks me a spoilt cry-baby!" she kept repeating to herself, and the mere fact of realizing that attitude in her companion prevented her from trying to explain the situation. Hair-brush drill proceeded in dead silence, only broken by an occasional gasping sigh from Diana, which echoed through the room about as cheerfully as a funeral dirge. Loveday stared at her once or twice as if about to make a remark, but changed her mind; she dawdled about the room, opening drawers and rearranging her possessions. When at last she was ready to put out the light she paused, and turned to the other cubicle. Diana lay quietly with her nose buried in the pillow. Loveday bent over her and dropped a butterfly kiss on the inch of cheek visible.

"Poor old sport! Was I rather a beast?" she said; then, hearing Miss Beverley's patrol step in the passage, she dabbed the extinguisher on the candle and hopped hastily into bed.

All night long Loveday had uneasy and troubled dreams about Diana. They met and parted, and quarrelled and made it up; they did ridiculous and impossible things, such as crawling through tubes or walking on roofs; they were pursued by bulls, or they floated on rivers; yet always they were together, and Loveday, with a feeling of compunction and no sense at all of the ridiculous, was trying with a sponge to mop up Diana's overflowing rivers of tears that were running down and making pools on a clean table-cloth. She awoke with a start, feeling almost as if the sheets were damp. Stealthy sounds came from the next cubicle, and the candle was lighted there.

"What's the matter, Diana?"

"S-h-s-h!"

"Aren't you well?"

"Yes, I'm all right."

"What is it, then?"

As a grunt was the only answer, Loveday got up and drew aside the curtains. Her room-mate was ready dressed, and was in process of combing her light-brown locks and fixing in a slide.

"What the dickens are you up to, child?" ejaculated Loveday in amazement.

Diana turned quickly, pulled Loveday down on to the bed, flung an arm round her, and laid a fluffy head on her shoulder.

"Oh, do be a sport!" she implored.

"But what do you want to do?"

"Look here—it's like this! I'm such a duffer at explaining, or I'd have told you last night. My cousin, Lenox Clifford, has come over to England with the American contingent. He has just thirty-six hours' leave, and he rushed over to Petteridge to see the Burritts. Lenox and I were brought up together; I've stayed whole months with them when Uncle Carr had a ranch in New Mexico. It was Lenox who taught me to ride, and to fish, and to row, and to skate. There's no one in the world so clever as Lenox! It's his birthday to-day. It was for him I wanted to get those cigarettes—I thought he'd like them in camp. I couldn't think of anything else to send him that he could pack among his kit. Well, he's going off this week to the front, and, as likely as not, he'll be killed right away, and I'll never see him in this world again. It makes me crazy to think of it. He's only ten miles away, and I mayn't even say good-bye to him. Lenox, who's called me his 'little indispensable' ever since I was four! If he was killed, and I hadn't had one last word with him, I'd break my heart. Yes, I would! You English girls are so cold—you laugh at me because I feel red-hot about things."

"We're not cold really. I didn't understand," said Loveday. "You never told me all this about your cousin. Does Miss Todd know he's just off for the front?"

"Cousin Coralie said so in her letter. That's what made me so furious. I wouldn't have asked to go to Petteridge just for the sake of a holiday; but when it's a case of seeing Lenox, perhaps for the last time, I'm desperate. Rules are cruel things!"

"I do think Miss Todd might have made a special exception," said Loveday, hugging the agitated little figure that clung to her. "I'm sure Mrs. Gifford would have let you go. It's because Miss Todd is new, and also because, when once she's said a thing, she sticks to it. You were kept to 'bounds'."

"I know. But, Loveday, I'm going to break them this morning. I must say good-bye to Lenox whatever happens. I'm going to cycle over to Petteridge—now don't talk, for I've planned it all out. I can climb down the ivy, and I left Wendy's bicycle outside last night on purpose. I shall be back by half-past seven."

The audacity of the proposal nearly took Loveday's breath away.

"But—but——" she remonstrated.

"No buts," said Diana, getting up and putting on her tam-o'-shanter.

"But, you silly child, you'll never do it in the time, and they won't be up when you get to Petteridge."

"Won't they? I rather guess they will! I told Cousin Cora I was coming to breakfast at six o'clock, and they must send me back in the car, bicycle and all."

"Did you put that in the letter you sent by the chauffeur?"

"Yes. Miss Todd didn't ask to read it. I reckon they'll have a nice little meal waiting. If I can manage to slip in here before the gong sounds for prayers, nobody need know a word about it except you, Loveday, and I trust you not to tell."

"It's frightfully against my conscience," faltered Loveday doubtfully.

"Oh! Suppose you had a brother or a cousin of your own who was going out to the front, wouldn't you want to say just one word of good-bye? Especially when you hadn't seen him for a year! It isn't as if I were doing anything that Father and Mother would be angry about. And Cousin Cora will send me back in the car."

"It really is red-tape of Miss Todd," murmured Loveday yieldingly.

"Then you'll promise? Oh, good! What a sport you are! Help me on with my coat. No, I don't need a scarf—it's quite warm. I must take my watch, though."

The girls drew aside the curtains and looked out of the window. It was only about half-past four; the stars were shining, and there was a thin, horned moon hanging in the east, its radiant rim turned towards the spot where the day would break. No hint of dawn was yet in the air, though curlews were calling from the meadows by the lake. Bushes and garden paths were plainly distinguished in the starlight.

"It'll be light soon," said Diana, "and, at any rate, I can see quite well enough to ride. I shall just enjoy spinning along."

"Be careful going down hills," urged Loveday. "By the by, you're on the early practising-list this morning—had you forgotten?"

"Oh, kafoozalum! So I am! Suppose Bunty comes to see why the piano's silent? Well, I can't help it! I'm going! Do the best you can for me, won't you?"

The close ivy which grew up the side of the house had stems as thick as tent-posts. Diana let herself down over the sill, found a footing, and descended hand over hand with the agility of a middy. Wendy's bicycle was leaning against the wall at the bottom. She took it, and waved good-bye to Loveday, then walked along the side-path that led to the gate. A minute later she was free-wheeling down the hill that led through the village in the direction of Petteridge Court. Loveday, shaking her head, went back to bed.

"I'm thankful I'm not a prefect, or I should have felt bound to stop her," she reflected. "If I'd had a brother or a cousin whom I hadn't seen for a year, and who was just off to the front, I declare I'd have done it myself. I don't blame her! But there'll be a row if Bunty doesn't hear her scales going."

Exactly at a quarter to eight o'clock a Daimler car whisked through the village, and stopped by the gate of Pendlemere Abbey. A small figure hopped from it, and the chauffeur handed out a bicycle, then drove away at full speed. Girl and bicycle crept through the laurels to the side door, whence the former fled upstairs like a whirlwind. From the intermediates' room came the strains of the Beethoven sonata with which Loveday was at present wrestling. Diana, wrenching off coat and hat in her bedroom, paused to listen.

"Bless her!" she muttered. "She's actually gone and taken my place! What an absolute trump she is!"

It was not until morning school was over that the confederates had the slightest chance to compare notes.

"Well, did you see him?" asked Loveday, when at last they met in their bedroom to brush their hair for dinner.

Diana's eyes filled with tears.

"Yes, and Cousin Cora said she was glad I came. She lost her own boy, you know—he went out with the American Red Cross, and was killed when a Zepp. bombed the hospital. That's two years ago now. I wouldn't have missed saying good-bye to Lenox for worlds. I'd quite a nice ride to Petteridge. It got light directly, and the hills looked beautiful in the dawn. Loveday, you did my practising for me!"

"Not exactly for you! I took your half-hour, and you must take mine instead, from half-past four till tea-time."

"Right-o! But did Bunty come in?"

"Yes; and I told her I wanted to go out with Nesta this afternoon. So I do."

"You don't think anybody suspects?"

"Not a soul!"

Diana came close, and laid a hand on her room-mate's arm.

"Loveday, I'll never forget what you've done for me to-day—never! If I ever get the chance to do anything for you in return, you bet I'll do it, no matter what it costs me! You've been a real mascot. There isn't a girl in the school who'd have played up better, certainly not among the seniors. I do think you're just ripping! Did Bunty look very surprised to see you at the piano?"

"She did, rather; but I asked her if Nesta and I might have an exeat this afternoon to go to the Vicarage. Mrs. Fleming gave us an open invitation, you know, to come and see her sketches."

"What a brain! You really are too lovely!" chuckled Diana.

VII. Land Girls

With the bond of such a secret between them, Diana and Loveday cemented a firm friendship. To be sure, Loveday's conscience, which was of a very exacting and inquisitorial description, sometimes gave her unpleasant twinges like a species of moral toothache; but then the other self which also talked inside her would plead that it was only sporting to screen a schoolfellow, and that no one but a sneak could have done otherwise. She sincerely hoped that Diana had escaped notice both going and returning, and that no busybody from the village would bring a report to Miss Todd. If the matter were to leak out, both girls would get into serious trouble—Diana for running away, and her room-mate for aiding and abetting her escapade. That she was really in some danger on her account gave Loveday an added interest in Diana. She began to be very fond of her. The little American had a most lovable side for certain people, on whom she bestowed the warmth of her affection, though she could be a pixie to those who did not happen to please her. With the seniors in general she was no favourite. She had more than one skirmish with the prefects, and was commonly regarded as a firebrand, ready at any moment to set alight the flame of insurrection among turbulent intermediates and juniors.

"Diana's at the bottom of any mischief that's going!" proclaimed Geraldine one day, after a battle royal over an absurd dispute about the tennis-court.

"And the worst of it is, she makes Wendy just as bad!" agreed Hilary warmly.

"Wendy wasn't exactly a saint before Diana came," put in Loveday.

"Oh, you always stand up for Diana! I can't think what you see in her—a cheeky little monkey, I call her!" Geraldine was still ruffled.

"She has her points, though."

"She'll get jolly well sat upon, if she doesn't take care," muttered Geraldine, who held exalted notions as to the dignity of prefects.

It was at the beginning of the second week in October that Miss Todd, in whose brain ambitious projects of education for the production of the "super-girl" had been fermenting, announced the first of her radical changes. She had not undertaken it without much consultation with parents, and many letters had passed backwards and forwards on the subject. Most, however, had agreed with her views, and it had been decided that at any rate the experiment was to be tried. Pendlemere, which so far had concentrated entirely on the Senior Oxford Curriculum and accomplishments, was to add an agricultural side to its course. There was to be a lady teacher, fresh from the Birchgate Horticultural College, who would start poultry-keeping and bee-keeping on the latest scientific principles, and would plant the garden with crops of vegetables. She could have a few land workers to assist her, and the girls, in relays, could study her methods. Miss Todd, who in choosing a career had hesitated between teaching and horticulture, snatched at the opportunity of combining the two. She was bubbling over with enthusiasm. In imagination she saw Pendlemere a flourishing Garden Colony, setting an educational example to the rest of the scholastic world. Her girls, trained in both the scientific and practical side of agriculture in addition to their ordinary curriculum, would be turned out equipped for all contingencies, either of emigration, or a better Britain. She considered their health would profit largely. She explained her views to them in detail, painting rose-coloured pictures of the delights in store for them in the spring and summer. The girls, very much thrilled at the prospect, dispersed to talk it over.

"Is Pendlemere to be a sort of farm, then?" asked Wendy.

"Looks like it, if we're to keep hens and bees, and grow all our own vegetables! Bags me help with the chickens. I love them when they're all yellow, like canaries. Toddlekins hinted something about launching out into a horse if things prospered."

"A horse! Goody, what fun!" exulted Diana. "I just adore horses! Bags me help with stable-work, then. I'd groom it instead of learning my geography or practising scales. I say, I call this a ripping idea!"

"Don't congratulate yourself too soon," qualified Magsie. "You'll probably find the geography and the scales are tucked in somehow. All the same, I think it sounds rather sporty."

"It will be a change, at any rate, and we'll feel we're marching with the times."

"When does the 'back-to-the-land' teacher come?"

"On Friday, I believe."

Miss Chadwick, the graduate of Birchgate Horticultural College, who was to run the new experiment, arrived at the end of the week, and brought two students as her assistants. They were a fresh, jolly-looking trio, with faces rosy from open-air work, and serviceable hands which caused a considerable flutter among those of the school who went in for manicure. At tea-time they talked gaily of onion-beds, intensive culture, irrigation, proteids, white Wyandottes, trap-nests, insecticides, sugar-beets, and bacteria. Miss Todd, keenly interested, joined in the conversation with the zeal of a neophyte; Miss Beverley, the nature-study side of whose education had been neglected, and who scarcely knew a caterpillar from an earthworm, followed with the uneasy air of one who is out of her depth; the school, eating their bread-and-butter and blackberry jam, sat and listened to the talk at the top end of the table.

"It sounds rather brainy," commented Diana in a whisper.

"Yes," replied Wendy, also in a subdued tone. "Poor old Bunty's floundering hopelessly. Did you hear her ask if they were going to cultivate cucumbers in the open? I nearly exploded! I believe she thinks pineapples grow on pine-trees. She's trying so hard to look as if she knows all about it. I'll be sorry for the infant cabbages if she has the care of them."

"It wouldn't be her job, surely."

"I'd agitate for a 'Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Vegetables' if it were. I believe I'm going to adore Miss Chadwick! She looks so sporty. She wrinkles up her nose when she laughs, just like a baby does."

"The little dark student with the freckles is my fancy."

"Oh! I like the other, with the bobbed hair."

Miss Chadwick, with her assistants Miss Carr and Miss Ormrod, brought a new and decidedly breezy element into the school. They spent Saturday in reviewing the premises, and on Monday they set to work. The girls, who as yet were only in the position of onlookers, watched the operations, much thrilled. All sorts of interesting things began to arrive: portable hen-houses packed in sections, chicken-coops, rolls of galvanized wire netting, iron stakes, the framework of a greenhouse, and a whole cargo of tools. The three enterprising ladies seemed to have some knowledge of carpentry, and at once began to fit parts together and erect sheds. Their sensible land costumes excited admiration and envy.

"It's what I mean to do when I grow up," resolved Magsie. "Did you see the way Miss Carr ran up that ladder? And she's begun to thatch the roof so neatly. She does it far better than that old man from the village who potters about. I'm just yearning to try my hand at thatching. I wish Miss Carr would let me!"

While they were busy getting the place in order, Miss Chadwick and her assistants declined all offers of inexperienced help, assuring the girls that they would have their "jobs" given them later on, when there was time to teach them. This did not at all content the enthusiastic spirits who were burning to throw lessons to the winds and spend their days in mixing putty, lime-washing hen-houses, and fixing up wire netting. They hung about disconsolately, snatching at such opportunities of assistance as holding ladders or handing nails.

"You might let me tar the roof of the chicken-coop," begged Wendy. "I'd just love to let it all squelch on, and I adore the smell!"

But Miss Carr, who the day before had rashly allowed Diana the use of the lime-wash pail, was firm in her refusal.

"I haven't time to show you how, and I don't want things spoilt. Put down that tar-brush, Wendy! If you get smears on your skirt, you'll never get them off again."

"I don't see where we come in!" groused Wendy. "I thought we were to learn agriculture."

"You won't learn it by dabbing tar on the end of your nose," laughed Miss Carr.

In the course of a few weeks, however, the preliminary stages were over. Some fowl-houses and runs were finished, and their feathered occupants arrived and took possession. A consignment of spades, rakes, and hoes was delivered by the carrier, and arranged by the students in the new tool-shed. Miss Carr announced herself ready to begin her course of instruction. To the girls the crowning-point of the preparations was the opening of several large boxes posted from a London shop. They contained twenty land costumes in assorted sizes. The excitement of trying them on was immense. Twenty little figures in smocks and gaiters went capering about the school, wild with the fun of the new experiment, and feeling themselves enthusiastic "daughters of the soil".

"It was A1 of Toddlekins to let us have a 'land uniform'."

"Couldn't do any decent work without, I should say."

"I believe Miss Carr insisted on it."

"Sensible woman!"

"It feels so delightfully business-like."

"Shall we win green armlets?"

"I'm just dying to start and dig!"

"And I want to climb a tree!"

Miss Chadwick and her students set to work methodically. They gave classroom lectures on the principles of agriculture, and practical demonstrations in the garden. The girls learnt the constituents of soils, and also how to trench; the theory of scientific poultry-raising, and the actual mixing of the food. They prepared plots that would be sown in the spring, cleared and rolled paths, planted bulbs, and divided roots of perennials; they sawed wood, lifted rhubarb, and helped to prepare a mushroom bed. It was all new and exciting, and there was a spice of patriotism mixed up with it. They felt that they were training to be of some service to the community.

"It's fearfully weird," said Wendy, writing her essay on Insect Pests, "to have to find out whether your insect has a biting or a sucking mouth, so as to know whether you must spray the beastie direct, or apply poison to the plant. I'd feel rather like a dentist examining their jaws."

"I heard of an editor in America," laughed Magsie, "who got his 'answers to correspondents' mixed up, and in reply to 'how to kill a plague of crickets' put 'rub their gums gently with a thimble, and if feverish, administer Perry's Teething Powders'; while to 'Anxious Mother of Twins', he gave the advice: 'Burn tobacco on a hot shovel, and the little pests will hop about and die as dead as door-nails'."

"You always fix these yarns on America," pouted Diana. "It sounds a great deal more like one of your British editors."

To some of the girls the greatest event of all was the arrival of the horse and trap which Miss Todd had decided to add to her establishment. Pendlemere was some distance from the station and from Glenbury, the nearest town, and she thought it would be a great convenience to be independent of carriers and able to fetch supplies for themselves. Diana, keenly interested, was allowed by Miss Ormrod to make the acquaintance of "Baron", the pretty chestnut cob, and even to help in his toilet. Diana loved horses, and used the curry-comb with enthusiasm, talking to Baron in what she called "horse language"—a string of endearing terms that on the whole he seemed to appreciate.

"I'd just adore to drive him!" she sometimes hinted; but Miss Ormrod always ignored the hint, and, instead of offering her the reins, never even invited her into the cart. Diana would stand watching wistfully when Baron was harnessed, and the governess car would start out on a pilgrimage to the town. She considered that a practical part of her education was being obviously neglected.

"If we could each keep a pony and go for rides on the hills, it would be ripping!" she sighed.

"Goody! What a circus we'd look!" said Vi, who did not take so kindly to horsemanship, and preferred a car.

Early in November, Miss Todd, having some urgent business to transact, went up to London for a few days, leaving Pendlemere in the hands of Miss Beverley. The school jogged along without any mishaps during her absence. She was expected home upon the Thursday. On Wednesday afternoon, which was a holiday, Miss Chadwick, Miss Carr, Miss Ormrod, and Miss Hampson mounted bicycles, and rode away with a party of seniors to Glenbury. The juniors, by special invitation from Mrs. Fleming, went to tea at the Vicarage. Two intermediates were in bed with a mild form of "flu", and the remainder amused themselves as they liked best. Peggy sat indoors, doing pen-painting; Vi brought stones for a rockery; Sadie and Magsie played a set of tennis on the cinder court; Diana and Wendy, who had asked to join the cycle party, and had in consequence received a severe snub from Geraldine, wandered about the garden like unquiet spirits.

"It's the limit to be an intermediate!" groused Wendy gloomily. "Seniors and juniors get all the fun! Did you ever hear of our form being taken to do anything special while the others stopped at school? Of course you didn't, because we never are! The seniors get first innings, and we only have the crumbs that are left, and those juniors are treated like babies though they're nearly as tall as we are. I'm fed up with it!"

"We'd better have a demonstration—parade the corridor with a placard: 'Fair play for Intermediates! Equal treats for all!'" suggested Diana, who was always ready with ideas.

"Much good it would do us! We should only get sat upon by everybody. Hullo! Here's Peggy wandering down. What's the matter with you, chucky? You look disturbed."

"I hate coming out in a wind," said Peggy, holding her hands over her rumpled hair. "I say, did you, or did you not see Miss Chadwick, Miss Ormrod, and Miss Carr bike off to Glenbury? Are they all three gone?"

"Of course they're gone!"

"You saw them with your own eyes?"

"Helped to blow up their tyres, which we thought was really saintly, when we weren't asked to go with them," said the still injured Wendy.

"Well, it's a pretty go they're all off! Bunty's just had a telegram from Toddlekins. She's coming back this afternoon, and wants the trap to meet the four-thirty train."

"She should! She's in a precious hurry to leave her beloved London. Whence this thusness?"

"I don't know. She's coming, at any rate," said Peggy, rather crossly. "Bunty sent me to find out if everybody had really gone. Toddlekins will have to get a taxi, that's all. Whew! I'm being blown to bits! I want to get back to my pen-painting. I'm making a birthday present for my cousin. Ta-ta!"

Diana stood watching Peggy's retreating figure as the latter raced up the garden and into the house.

"Toddlekins will be rather savage not to be met," she commented.

"Yes; she's so keen on the trap, and the amount it saves in taxis and carriers."

"It does seem rough on her, especially when she's sent a telegram. Look here, old thing, let's take it to meet her ourselves!"

"What? You and me?"

"Why not? I can drive, and I know how to harness Baron. I have helped to put him in the trap heaps of times. Bunty? Best not tell her anything about it; she's always such a scared rabbit, and she'd only have fits!"

Wendy's eyes shone like stars.

"It would be a stunt! Fancy driving in state to the station and fetching Toddlekins! She'd be pleased to save a taxi."

"Bless her, she shall! We'll show her that her girls have some spirit and self-reliance at a crisis. It's only making a practical demonstration of our new agricultural course! What's the use of learning if you can't apply it at the right moment? Run and fetch our coats and hats and gloves, that's a cherub, while I go and tell Baron all about it."

Wendy, much thrilled, and fired with the excellence of Diana's notion, went indoors, and, taking elaborate precautions not to meet anybody, secured outdoor garments worthy of the occasion. She rolled them in a Union Jack for camouflage, and bore them off to the stable.

"I've brought 'bests'," she said. "Toddlekins wouldn't thank to be met by two Cinderellas!"

Diana was standing with her arms thrown round Baron's neck, whispering sweet nothings into his twitching ear. If he did not understand the substance of her remarks, he realized the force of her affection, and kept rubbing his nose against her shoulder in a sort of caress, very gently catching her jersey with his lips and pulling it.

"I've told him, and he's delighted to go," declared Diana. "He's just pining for a run. It's so dull for him standing here with no one to talk to. It takes away his appetite. He'll enjoy his supper twice as much when he comes back. Won't you, dear old man?"

"We mustn't be all day about starting. If you've finished making love to him, let's get out the trap."

"Right you are!"

Diana was perfectly capable of accomplishing what she had undertaken. She took down the harness, led Baron out into the yard, and proceeded to put him into the shafts in quite a professional fashion. She looked over all the straps, fetched the whip, donned the garments which Wendy had brought, and proclaimed herself ready.

"We'll go out quietly by the back way," she chuckled. "Open the gate; that's a mascot!"

There was nobody to say them nay, so in a few minutes they were trotting briskly along the Glenbury Road. Diana was a capital little Jehu, and held the reins with a practised hand. Baron, perfectly conscious of who was driving him, behaved admirably. The girls felt their spirits at high-water mark. They had certainly scored over the rest of the school, and secured a superior jaunt to anybody. Moreover, it was a pleasant afternoon to be out. The weather, which for some days had been damp, had changed to windy. Long, dappled mare's-tail clouds stretched across the pale November sky, and every now and then the sun shone out between them. The glory of the autumn tints had been blown away, but the infinitely intertwined, almost leafless boughs of the woodlands had a beauty apart from foliage. Bushes covered with crimson masses of hips or haws foretold a hard winter; birds twittered restlessly in the hedgerows; and the withered leaves came whirling along the road with a scurrying, rustling sound as of the little footsteps of innumerable fairies. A seed-vessel of the sycamore, flying like a miniature aeroplane, struck Diana full in the face. She picked it up as it fell on her coat, and put it in her pocket.

"I shall keep it as my mascot," she said. "It was evidently meant for me, so it will bring me luck. Do you believe in luck?"

"Very much, sometimes, but I don't often have any."

"We've got it to-day, though. Baron's going splendidly. I think the wind excites him. You wouldn't believe he'd been out every day this week. He's as fresh as a daisy. What's the time? I can't get to my watch."

"Quarter past four."

"Gee whiz! We must hurry ourselves. We've to be waiting at the station by half-past. Baron, can you put on a spurt?"

They were bowling along a good macadam road and down hill, so that Baron did not object to the extra strain put upon his legs. The spire of Glenbury Church loomed ahead; in a few more minutes they began to see the roofs of the houses. They crossed the bridge over the river, turned the corner by the King's Arms Inn, and were trotting at a good pace along Castle Street, when suddenly Wendy's side of the trap dipped down. There was a horrible jarring and grinding, and horse and governess car seemed to be trying to practise sliding. With great presence of mind, and also strength of arm, Diana pulled Baron up.

"We've lost our wheel!" she gasped.

A crowd immediately collected round the little carriage, which stood lop-sided in the gutter. One passer-by held the horse, another helped Diana and Wendy out; a boy came running up with the wheel that had danced across the street. People stood at shop doors and stared. Sympathetic voices asked if the girls were hurt. Several connoisseurs were feeling Baron's legs. In that most critical and agitating situation, who should be seen riding up from the town but a group of ten cyclists, led by Miss Chadwick, and displaying the familiar hatbands of Pendlemere School. Diana and Wendy turned the colour of boiled beetroot. The cyclists dismounted in a body, and Miss Chadwick, staggered at the amazing spectacle of the wreck before her, took over instant possession. She tilted her bicycle against a lamp-post, sent a boy for a blacksmith, and began to unharness Baron. When he was clear of the shafts, and being led away by a friendly ostler, she demanded explanations. Diana supplied them briefly. Miss Chadwick looked at her keenly, but forbore to comment before the crowd.

"Miss Ormrod and I will stay in town and come back with Miss Todd," she said, with compressed lips. "You and Wendy can ride our bicycles. Miss Carr, will you please go as quickly as you can to the station and explain to Miss Todd what has happened. The train must be in by now. I think, Miss Hampson, you'd better take the girls on."

It was ignominious to be thus dismissed, and to be forced to mount machines and cycle back to school, instead of having the proud distinction of driving the head mistress. Diana and Wendy felt their feathers fall considerably, especially when they contemplated the fuller explanations which must inevitably follow.

It was quite dark before Miss Todd arrived in the mended cart. She and Miss Chadwick and Miss Ormrod had tea together in the drawing-room.

Later in the evening Diana and Wendy received orders to report themselves in the study. They entered with sober faces. Outside, a band of thrilled intermediates, who had listened with bated breath to the account of the adventure, hung about and discussed possible punishments. Miss Todd was not a mistress to be trifled with, and the trap was her latest toy. It was nearly half an hour before the door opened, and two very subdued and crushed specimens of girlhood issued, mopping their eyes.

"She says Miss Chadwick knew the wheel wasn't safe, and had gone to get a fresh pin for it," volunteered Wendy with a gulp. "But how could we know that? She doesn't believe in practical demonstrations of our lessons, or in self-reliance; she says we've just to do what we are told. She got quite raggy when Diana mentioned it. We mayn't go near the stable for a week, and we've each to learn ten pages of poetry by heart."

"Ten pages! What an atrocious shame!" sympathized Vi. "It'll take all your recreation time this week."

"I know it will, and I wanted to do some sewing."

"She never said what poetry," put in Diana, her moist eyes suddenly twinkling. "I'll learn something out of the Comic Reciter—the very maddest and craziest one I can manage to find."

VIII. Armistice Day

Diana had a fairly retentive memory, and learned poetry without much trouble. By far the hardest part of her punishment was to be forbidden to visit the stable for a week. She was sure Baron would miss her, and that, though he might receive other offerings of bread and carrots, he would be looking out and pricking his ears in vain for the friend with whom he had grown to be on such intimate terms.

Miss Chadwick, much annoyed at the accident to the cart, treated Diana distantly. Instead of smiling at her when she came into the room, she would look round her or over her head, and flash recognition to somebody else. It was humiliating to find herself out of favour, especially as it was noticed and commented on by her form-mates, all of whom were candidates for Miss Chadwick's friendship. Wendy, toiling away at her punishment task and grumbling at its difficulty, was not at all a cheerful companion. Moreover, it rained—rained for two days and nights without stopping; rained as it only can rain in a northern and mountainous district in the month of November. The fells were covered with mist, rivers ran down the garden paths, and from the eaves came a continual and monotonous drip-drip-drip. Diana, whose letters from Paris had been delayed, and who was home-sick in consequence, vibrated between a fit of the blues and a wild outbreak of spirits. She had reached the stage when she must either laugh or cry. She wandered restlessly round the schoolroom on Saturday afternoon, while the others were amusing themselves with reading, painting, or sewing.

"What a quiet set you are!" she raged. "Anyone would take you for 'Miss Pinkerton's Academy for Young Ladies'! Why can't you wake up? This is the dullest hole I've ever been in in my life. Magsie, stop that eternal sewing, and be sporty! You look like a model for 'gentle maidenhood'. I want to stick a pin into you, to see what would happen."

"Draw it mild, Stars and Stripes," answered Magsie, biting off the end of her cotton. "And be careful about experiments with pins, or something more may happen than you quite bargain for."

"I don't care! Anything for an excitement! I want some fun, and there'll be a shindy if I don't get it. Wendy! Vi! Sadie! Do brace up and be sports! Let's go on the upper landing and let off steam. It's better than moping here."

Diana, by sheer force of will, carried the day, detached her friends from their several occupations, and bore them, three steps at a time, up the stairs to the top story. The upper landing was long, and had a polished oak floor; it looked gloomy on this wet afternoon, and the rain made a continual patter on the roof. In Diana's eyes, however, it afforded a field for enterprise.

"I've a gorgeous idea!" she purred. "We'll pretend the floor's a skating-rink. I've borrowed Loveday's roller skates, and we'll take it in turns."

That roller skates were hardly meant for indoor amusement did not occur to the girls. They agreed with enthusiasm. In order to share the pleasure Vi and Sadie each buckled one on, and began a series of glides, punctuated by pushes from the other foot. Wendy and Magsie, not to be outdone, began to slide down the polished floor, and Tattie, who had powers of invention, fetched a cake of soap and a sponge, and perfected their activities by making a slippery course along the boards.

"It's like Alpine sports," exulted Wendy, taking a turn with one of the skates, and skimming at top speed. "Can't you just imagine you're in Switzerland? I want to make snowballs. Oh! why can't we do some toboganning? I'd like to go tearing down a hill on a bob-sleigh. It would be priceless."

"You shall do next best to it, my child," said Diana cheerily. "Trust your granny to find the way for you. I've coasted indoors before now. Wait a second, and you'll see!"

She disappeared, and in a short time returned with her drawing-board.

"You just squat on this," she explained, "and you go skimming down the stairs like a water-chute. It'll be prime!"

"O-o-o-oh!"

"You are priceless!"

"Great is Diana of the Americans!"

The improvised bob-sleigh worked admirably, and if it happened to catch, there was always the banister to clutch at. Its popularity eclipsed even that of the soap-slide and the roller skates. The fun waxed fast and furious, not to say noisy. Bumpings and bursts of laughter began to echo downstairs on to the lower stories. Miss Hampson, coming to unlock the jam-cupboard in preparation for tea, stood for a moment in the corridor, listening like a pointer. Then she thrust the key into her pocket and dashed to the upper regions, just in time to behold Wendy, with scarlet cheeks and flying hair, coasting down the stairs on a drawing-board. For a moment Miss Hampson was without words. She stared, gasping, at Wendy, who hurriedly picked up both herself and the drawing-board, and stood at attention. The sporting party on the upper landing would gladly have melted away had there been any possible cover, but there was not. Vi and Sadie had not even time to kick off their roller skates. Miss Hampson's keen eyes took in every detail of the trails on the polished oak floor, and the soap-slide. Then they focused on Diana.

"I can imagine who's been the instigator of all this!" she said sharply. "We've never been accustomed to such doings at Pendlemere before. Miss Todd will be appalled at the damage you've done to the floor. Go downstairs to the schoolroom at once, and remember that this landing is prohibited in future. I'm astonished that all of you don't know better!"

It was on the following Monday that tidings of the armistice were proclaimed. The girls heard the church bells ringing when they were in the middle of morning lessons, and unanimously "downed books and pencils" and trooped to the front door, where Miss Todd was verifying the good news from the butcher boy. For five minutes the school went wild; everybody joined hands and danced in a circle on the drive, shouting "Hurrah!" After all the long suspense and anxiety the relief was stupendous. There was hardly a girl who had not some relation at the front over whose safety she might now rejoice. That the shadow of more than four years had at length been removed, seemed almost too good to be true. Miss Todd and Miss Beverley had gone indoors to find all the available stock of bunting; Miss Chadwick was already climbing on a ladder up the porch to hang the Union Jack over the threshold.

"We ought each to have a flag of our own," said Geraldine, who was intensely patriotic. "I'm going to ask Miss Todd if we may go and buy some."

Wild schemes for celebrating the day floated in the air, varying from a picnic to a bonfire.

"The ground is too wet yet for either," decreed Geraldine. "How could we tramp over the fells when everything's a quagmire? And if you think you can light a bonfire with damp wood, you're jolly well mistaken. We'll collect sticks, and have one when they're dry. I plump for a flag-hunt. There must be some in the shops."

Geraldine's suggestions were generally received with favour at head-quarters. Miss Todd felt that the school was fizzing over, and must find some outlet for its excitement. An expedition to Glenbury to buy flags seemed feasible. They could have an early lunch, and start immediately afterwards. Those who possessed bicycles could ride, and the rest could walk a mile to Athelton village and catch the motor-omnibus which passed there. Everybody was satisfied with the arrangement, and the cyclists dispersed to oil their machines and pump tyres. Miss Todd and Miss Chadwick were going in the trap; even Spot, with a bow of red, white, and blue ribbon tied to his collar, was to accompany the party.

Diana did not possess a bicycle, so Wendy, out of sheer good-fellowship, decided to lend hers to Sadie and to take the omnibus, so that she herself might go in company with her chum. Nine girls and a mistress started off in good time for Athelton, slightly in advance of the cyclists, who expected to meet them in Glenbury. Even in the village of Pendlemere and the little hamlet of Athelton people were making peace rejoicings: flags hung from windows, and children ran about blowing tin trumpets, whistles, and mouth-organs. A string of small urchins had improvised a band, and paraded proudly along, banging on tin trays and old kettles, and yelling the National Anthem. Men talked eagerly together outside the post office; women stood at their doors and watched, some radiant and excited, and some quieter, with a heartache behind the smile, as they thought of those lads who would not come marching home with the others.

The wild weather of the last few days seemed to have rolled away with the war clouds. The sky was flecked with blue, and the trees by the roadside were hung all over with drops that sparkled in the sun like jewels. The brook that ran down from the fells was tumbling along in a great brown stream, thundering under the bridge; robins, hopping in the wet hedgerows, twittered their plaintive little autumn song. A woman picked a marigold from her battered, rain-sodden garden, and handed it over the wall to Wendy. Everybody seemed to want to speak, even to strangers, and to tell how many of their relations had served in the war.

At last the omnibus, ten minutes late, came rumbling along, and stopped to pick up passengers. The school scrambled in, and with difficulty found places. It was a jolting journey, much crammed up among country people with baskets, but it was fun, even though the rattling almost shook them off their seats, for all the passengers seemed so good-tempered and jolly. On their arrival at Glenbury they found the town en fête, with bunting hanging across the streets, and large banners decorating the public buildings. The pavements were so full that the crowd overflowed into the road. The cyclist members of the Pendlemere party had arrived first, and had already bought flags, which they pinned in their hats. The motor-omnibus contingent rushed off immediately to secure any that were left, and to try to get some sweets. Miss Todd, who had put up the cart at the Queen's Hotel, met them as they were emerging from the confectioner's, sucking pear-drops and toffee.

"You're lucky, for sweets are scarce," she commented. "Thanks very much—I won't have one just now. Where are the others? Can you find them? I'm going to take you all up the church tower to get a bird's-eye view of the town. It will look nice to-day, with the flags out, and we ought to be able to see for miles round."

Glenbury Church was almost as large as a cathedral, and possessed a steeple which was a landmark for the neighbourhood. It was possible to ascend as far as the flying buttresses, and to walk round a stone causeway that encircled the tower just where the spire tapered up. The entrance was in the nave, through a small oak door studded with nails. The verger, aged, wheezy, and inclined to conversation, admitted them.

"You'll get a fine view," he said huskily; "you ought to be able to see the prison and the cemetery, and, with luck, the lunatic asylum as well. It's over amongst the trees to the east of Chatford. You can't miss it if the sun's shining on the roof. There's been a-many folks up to-day."

The narrow corkscrew staircase was old and worn, and seemed to twist round and round in an absolutely endless ascent as the girls toiled up its hundred-and-eighty-six steps. To add to their difficulties, parties of people kept coming down, and the problem of passing was difficult; it could only be accomplished by the school flattening itself against the walls while the descending sightseers gingerly made their way round the narrow centre of the staircase. Tiny lancet windows here and there let in streams of sunshine, but most of the pilgrimage was made in a decidedly "dim religious light". Everyone's knees were aching when at last they emerged through a small door on to the causeway. They were standing on a flat terrace edged by a stone parapet just tall enough to allow them to lean their arms on it and look over. Above them rose the spire, tapering thinner and thinner till its slender point ended in a weather-cock. Below, the town lay spread out like an architect's design. They could see the roofs of all the buildings, and the streets, and the lawns, and the pond in the park; all seemed viewed at an unusual angle, for they were gazing down on the tops of things. Round the town stretched miles of misty woods and fields, melting into the grey haze of the fells. The objects of attraction mentioned by the verger—the jail, cemetery, and lunatic asylum—were not particularly conspicuous, and nobody was very anxious to localize them. The girls walked all round the causeway, so as to get the view at every point.

"I suppose Pendlemere's over there?" said Diana, pointing a brown-gloved finger in the direction of the fells.

"Yes; you can see the road we came by in the 'bus," explained Stuart. "It winds round by Athelton. There's a much shorter way back, though, if we were walking. Do you see that white farm-house on the hill above the park? Well, you go through the fold-yard, across a field, and down a lane, then there's a straight path over the moor, right to Pendlemere. It saves two miles at least. Hilary and Nesta and I walked it once with Miss Todd."

"Dinky, I should guess."

"Nice in summer, but it might be pretty wet now."

Most of the girls agreed that coming down steps was rather worse than going up. Their ankles ached when they reached the bottom. The old verger was taking the sixpences of another party of tourists, and telling them, in his wheezy voice, to look out for the cemetery, the jail, and the lunatic asylum—to him evidently the three prime points of interest in the landscape. Spot, who had been fastened by his leash to the railings outside, greeted the girls with noisy enthusiasm. Diana untied him, and gave him a pear-drop.

"Bless him! He wants a bit of candy as well as the rest of us. He's a 'booful' dog with his patriotic ribbon on his collar. Stop barking, that's a cherub boy, or you'll drive your Auntie Diana crazy!"

There was a short interval of shopping after the excursion up the tower, and then Miss Todd pulled out her watch, compared it with the church clock, and declared it was time to be returning. The motor-omnibus, which started from Shipham, five miles away, was due in Glenbury at a quarter to four. Miss Hampson marched her contingent to the market-place, where it always stopped to pick up its passengers. Already quite a crowd was waiting for it—people who had come in from the neighbouring villages to see the peace rejoicings. There was no policeman to insist on an orderly queue, so when the great scarlet vehicle lumbered up, a wild scramble ensued. Some of the Pendlemere girls were pushed in amongst the jostling throng, and some were elbowed out. Wendy, Diana, and Miss Hampson, at the tail-end of the crush, tried to scramble on to the step. The conductress, a brawny woman in uniform, stopped them.

"Only room for one more," she shouted; "and I can't take that dog!"

"But we'd stand!" entreated Miss Hampson piteously.

"They're standing as it is! Can't take more than the 'bus is registered for, or we'd break down at the hills. Room for one! Which of you's coming? Be quick! I can't wait all day!"

It was a matter that had to be decided in a moment. Miss Hampson, knowing that seven of her girls were already packed in the omnibus, felt that she must go and escort them. She turned desperately to Wendy and Diana, and panted:

"Miss Todd won't have started yet. Run to the 'Queen's'. She'll take you back in the trap."

Then she allowed herself to be hustled inside by the impatient conductress.

The two girls left behind stood staring for a minute after the retreating omnibus. Spot, straining at his leash, barked his loudest.

"Well, I don't envy them their drive. They're packed like sardines," commented Wendy.

"I guess we've got the best of it," agreed Diana.

Evidently the next thing to be done was to walk to the Queen's Hotel and report themselves, to Miss Todd. Diana was even beginning to speculate whether she could advance any possible argument, such as a desire to save strain on her mistress's arm, whereby she might induce the Principal to allow her to take the reins and drive Baron home. They went along Westgate, and turned the corner of Hart Street; in another two minutes they would have been in Castle Street. Then fate interfered. From a narrow alley on the right came sounds resembling explosives, and three small boys, yelling gleefully, shot out into the road. Wendy, pausing to ascertain the cause of the excitement, ejaculated the one word, "Squibs!"

"Gee whiz! You don't mean to say they've got fireworks!" exclaimed Diana. "Then I'm not going back till I've bought some. Here, sonny!"—catching a bare-headed urchin by the shoulder—"tell me where you got those squibs, and I'll give you my last bit of candy. Mrs. Cobbes's in Beck Street? Where's Beck Street? Is it far? You ought to come and show us for that big bit of candy."

"Can't! Got to go 'ome to my tea," returned the youth, whose small teeth were already in the toffee. "Cobbes's is down there!" pointing an arm like a sign-post in the direction of a by-street.

Diana and Wendy did not even wait to discuss the expediency of thus side-tracking. The magic lure of fireworks drew them on, and with one accord they trotted off to seek Mrs. Cobbes's shop. It took a little hunting about and asking to find it; and then Mrs. Cobbes was stout and slow, and seemed to need an eternity of time to wrap up their purchases in an old piece of newspaper.

"We shall have to hurry!" said Diana, emerging at last, hugging her parcel, and dragging Spot away from the pursuit of an impudent and provocative tabby cat, with a torn ear, that was spitting at him from the railings.

They did hurry. They nearly ran up Jessamine Street and Vine Street, and clattered up the steps behind the post office into Castle Street, and tacked through the crowd into the yard of the Queen's Hotel. A whole row of conveyances was standing with shafts down, but the familiar governess car was not among them. Perhaps it had been put inside the coach-house.

"Miss Todd's trap, did you say?" replied the ostler, removing the fag-end of a cigarette from his lips. "Why, she's gone! I harnessed her only five minutes ago!"

Here was a blow indeed! They had never expected Miss Todd to drive away without them, though, considering that she did not know they had been left behind by the omnibus, she was scarcely to be blamed for doing so. The two girls looked serious as they walked into the street again. Somehow they felt aggrieved.

"If the rest haven't started, Magsie and Vi might take us behind them on their bicycles," suggested Wendy dubiously. "Hodson's would know if they've gone. They were to call for some parcels there."

It proved a forlorn hope. The girl behind the counter assured them that a party on bicycles, wearing brown tam-o'-shanters, had come and claimed their purchases, and ridden off up the street ringing their bells. The next motor-omnibus would come through at seven. It was always crowded, and no doubt would be particularly full to-night.

"There's nothing else for it, Di—we shall have to walk," said Wendy blankly.

"Whew! It's a pretty good step."

"Six miles."

"Je-hoshaphat!"

"Well, it's no use waiting for the 'bus. We should never get places."

"Let's take that short cut that Stuart was talking about. She said it saves two miles."

"What a brain wave! It's only a quarter past four. We'd be home long before dark. You can walk four miles an hour, can't you?"

"Ra-ther!"

So they turned across the park, and up the hill to the white farm, and through the fold-yard, and over the field, and along the lane on to the open moor. They felt decidedly pleased with themselves, for it was far nicer here than plodding along the high road. The ground was not so wet as Stuart had prognosticated; indeed the path was quite firm and well trodden, and in parts was even paved with stones. Spot, released from his leash, careered about like a mad creature. Diana could not help dancing a few steps, and Wendy, though she was growing hungry, stopped grousing to admire the view. The sun, a red ball among grey masses of mist, was sinking behind the fells, and a golden glow tipped the brown, withered heather. The whole atmosphere seemed to reflect peace. Overhead, little radiant clouds stretched themselves into the semblance of angels' wings moving lightly across the evening sky. To watch them was like gazing at the portals of a heavenly world.

The girls walked along as briskly as they could, but on the rough moorland path it was impossible to keep the pace at four miles an hour. They were going uphill, and, unless they went in single file, one of them, owing to the narrowness of the track, was obliged to keep stepping into the heather. At the top of the crest they dipped down again into a high, narrow valley between two fells. It was swampy here, and in places there were quite wide pieces of water to jump across. The path, which had been growing worse and worse, finally separated into a fork. The girls came to a halt, and stood looking first at one track, then at the other. They were in doubt which to choose, for each looked equally bad. They had turned so often that they had rather lost their sense of locality.

"I should think Pendlemere must be over there," said Wendy, pointing to the right, but looking frankly puzzled.

"Well, you know the place better than I do," answered Diana, following her lead.

So they went to the right, through a small thicket of hazel-bushes, over some rocks, and on up the bleak fell-side. The sun had disappeared, and the little golden angels' wings had given place to sombre, grey clouds. It was growing distressingly dark. A spot or two of rain began to fall. The path, degenerated into a mere sheep track, was increasingly difficult to trace. Though neither would admit it, both the girls felt uneasy. They could not recognize any familiar landmarks to show them their whereabouts. Suppose darkness came on, and found them still wandering about on the moor?

"Do you think we've come the right way?" asked Diana at last.

Wendy looked round in the fading light, hoping against hope to see the corner of Pendlemere gleaming below her in the valley. By now it certainly ought to be visible. Nothing in the shape of a lake, however, appeared in the landscape; only an interminable waste of brown heather under threatening rain-clouds.

"No." said Wendy, with a shake in her voice. "As a matter of fact, I believe we're lost."

Diana was plucky as a rule, but she was very tired now, and hungry as well. Two somethings that may have been rain-drops splashed down her cheeks; she turned her face away from Wendy as she wiped them off.

"What's to be done?" she asked huskily.

"Go back, I suppose. Goodness knows where this will lead to!"

"We ought to have taken that other turning."

"It's too dark to go that way now. We'd better get back to Glenbury, and try for the 'bus."

Very soon the girls realized that it was getting too dark even to distinguish the path at all. They stumbled blindly on through the heather, conscious only that they were going downhill, but whether they were really retracing their steps or not, it was impossible to tell. Spot, whose spirits had failed him, followed at their heels. Faster and faster fell the darkness; the girls linked arms to avoid getting separated. They were both thoroughly frightened. Would they be obliged to spend the night upon the moor? If there were only some means of finding the way back to Glenbury!

Suddenly, a long distance in front of them, a light flashed out, as though a candle had been placed in a cottage window. Hope revived. If only they could reach some human habitation, they could ask to be directed. They dragged their tired feet along, splashing in the dark through puddles, sinking in soft ground, or stumbling over stones. It seemed an interminable tramp before at last they struck the end of a wall, and, feeling their way with their hands, groped along till they reached a gate. The next moment they were rapping with their knuckles on a door.

It was opened by a thin, middle-aged woman, who stared at them in suspicious amazement as they asked to be directed to Glenbury; then, seeing that they were only girls with their hair down their backs, she cautiously invited them to come in. They accepted thankfully. After the dark and the damp outside, the farm-kitchen seemed a haven of refuge.

A little boy, who had been sitting by the fireside, sprang up at their entrance, and faced them with wondering eyes. Something in the small figure seemed familiar. Diana's mind galloped rapidly back to a day in late September when she had crawled along a tree-trunk across a racing torrent, with a frightened, blue-jerseyed atom of humanity creeping behind her.

"Gee-whiz! I guess you're Harry!" she exclaimed heartily.

The mental thermometer of the kitchen, which had stood at about freezing-point, suddenly thawed into spring. Harry, recognizing his former friend in need, hastily explained to his mother, who turned to the girls with a light in her face.

"I've always wanted to thank you," she said to Diana; "but I never knew who it was who'd helped Harry home that day. Sit you down, both of you, by the fire. You'll let me make you a cup of tea?"

Rest, warmth, and tea were what the tired girls craved. They sat on the settle, with a little round table in front of them, and ate the scones and blackberry jam that with true northern hospitality were piled on their plates. Harry's father came in presently, and, after a whispered conversation with his wife in the back-kitchen, offered to take a lantern and escort the girls back to Pendlemere.

"It's a goodish step, but you're rested now, maybe, and it's no use risking missing the 'bus at Glenbury, and having to walk it after all."

A very tired Diana, and an equally weary Wendy arrived at the school just when Miss Todd was getting absolutely desperate about their absence. She had sent Miss Chadwick to Athelton to meet the seven o'clock omnibus, and the teacher had returned to report that they had not come on it. Miss Todd forbore to scold two such limp wrecks, and sent them straight upstairs, with orders for hot baths, bed, and basins of bread-and-milk. Explanations were reserved for next day, and they did not get off scot free by any means. Miss Todd had an aggravatingly mathematical mind. She calculated the time the omnibus left the market-place, the exact moment when she herself started in the trap from the Queen's Hotel, the distance between these two given points, and in how many minutes at the rate of not less than three miles an hour two ordinary walkers should accomplish it. The answer left ten whole minutes to spare, and of that ten minutes of the afternoon she demanded a strict account from Diana and Wendy.

The sinners, whose bones still ached after their adventure, appeared in such crushed spirits that they did not receive the entire scolding their head mistress had intended, and were for once dismissed with a caution.

"She didn't say we mightn't go to the bonfire," sneezed Wendy, on their way down the passage. Wendy as usual had taken a cold in her head.

"I kept the squibs dry, thank goodness!" sighed Diana. "Nobody knows about them yet, so we'll let them off as a surprise. Won't they all just jump when they hear them? I'm looking forward to that bonfire as the event of my life!"

IX. Diana's English Christmas

Diana had fondly hoped that the armistice meant an immediate declaration of peace, that her father and mother would return post-haste from France, take her away from Pendlemere, and cross at once to America, so that they might spend Christmas in their own home. To her immense disappointment, nothing so nice happened. The peace conferences were lengthy. Mr. and Mrs. Hewlitt remained in Paris, and did not even speak of booking passages to New York. They wrote instead to make arrangements for Diana's holidays in England. It was at first decided that she should spend the time with her cousins, the Burritts, but influenza broke out so badly at Petteridge Court that all in a hurry the plans had to be changed. It ended in Diana passing Christmas with the Flemings at Pendlemere Vicarage. So far she had scarcely realized Meg and Elsie Fleming. They came to school daily, and she had seen them among the juniors, and remarked that they were "sweet kids". She was now to meet them at nearer acquaintance, and not only Meg and Elsie, but Monty, Neale, and Roger as well.

They were an interesting and lively family, and after a preliminary half-hour of painful politeness, they thawed over schoolroom tea, and adopted her into their midst. Monty, the eldest, was an eccentric, clever lad in spectacles, fond of making scientific and chemical experiments, which generally ended in odours that caused the others to hold their noses and open the schoolroom windows, top and bottom. He had a philosophical mind and a love of argument, and would thrash out questions for the sheer fun of debate in a growling sort of tone that was not really bad-tempered, only put on.

Neale, six months older than Diana, was a bright, jolly-looking boy, with a freckled nose and chestnut hair that rather stood on end. As regards book-learning, the less said about his attainments the better, and he had an unpleasant half-hour in his father's study, explaining details of his school report; but in all practical matters he was ahead of Monty. He was a thorough young pickle, up to endless pranks, and determined not to let time hang heavy on his hands during the holidays.

Roger, the youngest, a smart little chap of nine, followed in the wake of his brothers, poking interfering fingers into Monty's chemical messes, or acting scout for Neale's escapades. At the end of twelve hours Diana felt that she knew them perfectly, and had shaken down into a place of her own amongst them.

Six young people home for the holidays are apt to turn a house upside down, and it was fortunate for Mrs. Fleming that she had an easy-going and happy-go-lucky disposition, and could view with comparative equanimity the chaos that reigned in the schoolroom. To Diana it was delightful; she preferred a floor littered with shavings, a table spread with paints, plasticine modelling-clay, and other descriptions of mess, and chairs encumbered with books and papers, to the neatest, tidiest room where everything you want is put away out of reach in cupboards.

"When I heard I was coming to the Vicarage, I thought: 'My, I guess I won't have to bounce there!' But you're a real set of sports," she assured her new friends.

"Well, I don't think we're exactly what you'd call prim and proper," chuckled Meg.

There were still a few days before Christmas, and the energies of the whole family were focused on decorations. There were not many people in the village with leisure to help, so most of the work fell upon the Flemings. They tramped down to the church, bearing great armfuls of evergreens, strings of holly-berries, and texts cut out in paper letters. The girls sat in a pew and twisted garlands of yew and laurel, which the boys, with the aid of a short ladder, fastened round the pillars. Mrs. Fleming was fitting panels of cotton wool on to the pulpit, and sprinkling them with artificial frost.

"We ought to have lots of flags about the place this Christmas," said Monty, "to make it a sort of victory celebration as well. I'll put two or three over the organ, and stick some round the monuments. What I'd like would be to see our huge Union Jack hanging down over that blank wall there."

"Well, why don't you put it?" enquired Diana, looking up from her wreath-twisting.

"All very well, madam, but how am I going to get it there? That's a little detail which escapes your feminine observation. Please to note the height of our ladder and the height of that wall, and compare the difference."

"I'd get up on to that passage and fix it," nodding to the triforium.

"Would you, indeed, Miss America? I rather think I see you toddling along there, with a drop of thirty feet below you."

"Do you dare me to?"

"You're brave enough down here in a pew, but I don't believe any girl would have the head for that. Women aren't steeple-jacks!"

"You needn't speak so scornfully. There may be a few steeple-jennies among them!"

"No fear," laughed Monty, turning away.

Diana said nothing more, but as she went on with her wreath her thoughts were as busy as her fingers. She was more silent than usual at lunch, and slipped away quickly afterwards, leaving the family talking round the fire. First, she ran upstairs to the corner of the upper landing, where she knew the big Union Jack was kept. She rolled it into a tight bundle, tucked it under her arm, then tore off to the church. She found herself alone there, for none of the other decorators had returned. It was exactly the opportunity she wanted. The bunch of keys was hanging in the big door. She pulled them out, and carried them to the tiny door by the chancel steps. This she unlocked and flung open, disclosing a steep, winding stair. Almost on her hands and knees Diana scrambled up, and up, and up till she reached the triforium, the narrow stone gallery that ran round the church under the clerestory windows. The first few yards were safely protected with arches, pillars, and a balustrade, but after that came a stretch of about twenty feet with no parapet at all. The gallery was only twenty-four inches wide; on the one side was the wall, on the other a sheer drop of about thirty feet. Diana paused, and set her teeth. She did not dare to walk it, but she knelt down and crawled along till she reached the next piece of balustrade. Then she unrolled her Union Jack, and, tying it by its cords to the pillars, arranged it so that it hung down into the church and covered the exact spot of blank wall that Monty had indicated. She had just finished when she heard footsteps in the porch. Not wanting to be caught by the Vicar, she began to crawl back in the same way as she had come. Perhaps the sense that someone might be watching her from below unnerved her, for the return journey seemed far worse than the outward one had done. She did not venture to look down, but kept her eyes on the wall. Half-way she was suddenly seized with a horrible paroxysm of dizziness. For a moment or two she lay flat, too frightened to move, while her giddy head seemed to be spinning round. With a supreme effort she mastered the sensation, and crawled on, inch by inch, till she once again reached safety. With rather tottering knees she came down the winding staircase, and through the small door to the chancel steps. Mrs. Fleming, Meg, Monty, and Neale were standing by the lectern when she appeared. Mrs. Fleming was white as chalk; the others were staring open-mouthed, with a queer strained look in their eyes.

"Well, I've done it, you see!" said Diana jauntily.

The Flemings gazed at her without speaking. Monty went and locked the door of the staircase and put the keys in his pocket. The silence was embarrassing.

"I think it looks very nice hanging there," declared Diana, nodding at her Union Jack.

"My dear," said Mrs. Fleming in a shaky voice, "if you knew what I suffered when I saw you creeping along the triforium you couldn't speak so lightly. It isn't right to risk your life in this fashion."

Diana tried to carry the matter off airily, but the boys were grumpy and would not speak. Meg kept looking at her with a peculiar expression, as if she were recovering from a shock. Altogether, Diana felt that her deed of daring had fallen very flat. She was annoyed that no one congratulated her upon it. She considered that for a girl of fourteen it was rather a record. Monty would not be able to sneer at "Miss America" again. She strolled in a casual way past the font which he was decorating, and made a final effort to wring from him the appreciation she craved.

"There are some steeple-jennies in the world!" she remarked, staring upwards at the clerestory.

Monty picked up another piece of holly, placed it deliberately in position, and then turned his spectacles on Diana.

"And there are more jenny-asses in it too than I should have expected!" he answered pointedly.

When Diana had undressed that evening Mrs. Fleming came into her room to say good-night, and sat down for a minute on the edge of her bed.

"Have you thought, dear," she said, "what it would have meant to Mr. Fleming and me to have been obliged to write to your father and mother and tell them you were lying dead, or, worse still, a cripple with a broken spine; and what your father's and mother's feelings would have been at the news?"

Diana turned her face away.

"Thoughtlessness can sometimes amount to heartlessness in its lack of consideration for others."

"Monty dared me to do it."

"He never dreamed you actually would. Besides, are you going to do every idiotic, silly thing that every foolish person says you dare not? I thought you were more sensible, Diana! Remember, we are responsible for you during the holidays, and I wish to return you whole to your parents. We use every reasonable precaution to take care of you, but I can't calculate on safeguarding you as if you were a baby of three."

Diana drummed her fingers on the pillow. Mrs. Fleming waited a moment, then tried a different tack.

"I'm not very strong, Diana. My heart is weak, and I'm afraid for some days I shall feel the effect of the shock you gave me this afternoon. I don't believe you're the kind of girl who'd deliberately want to make me ill."

Diana wriggled round, but her head was bent down.

"Remember that we care about you, dear. It would grieve us very much if the slightest little accident were to happen to you. We want you to have jolly holidays here, and to go back to school safe and well, with, I hope, a happy remembrance of the Vicarage."

Two soft arms were thrown round Mrs. Fleming's neck.

"I'd do anything for you, though I hate to be a molly-coddle!" whispered Diana. "I'm most fearfully sorry if I've really made you feel ill!"

The decoration of the church was only one of the incidents of Christmas; there were other things to be done before the festival arrived. The Flemings liked to preserve old traditions, and finding that their little American guest was very keen on all the details of a genuine British Yule-tide, they did their best to satisfy her. Mrs. Fleming used the cherished half-pound of currants—which in the war-time shortage of dried fruits was all the grocer could send her—to make the frumenty and spiced cakes that from time immemorial had been eaten in that northern district to celebrate the feast of the Nativity. A Yule-log was sawn and placed upon the dining-room fire, and a huge bough of mistletoe hung up in the hall.

"We ought to have the Waits to make it just perfect!" said Diana.

"I believe some of the choir used to go round carol singing once," said Meg, "but it's been given up. The mothers said the girls caught cold, and they stayed out too late, so it was put a stop to. It's a pity in a way. Mrs. James was saying only the other day that she quite missed them, and so did Mrs. Holmes. They both said Christmas wasn't what it used to be."

The pupils of Diana's eyes were growing large and round and shining, as they always did when her fertile mind was evolving new ideas. She seized Meg's arm.

"Oh, I've got such a brain-wave!" she confided. "Look here! Why shouldn't we be Waits? We've learnt all those Christmas carols at school. Let's go round and sing them. It would be ripping fun!"

The idea appealed to Meg and Elsie, and, rather to the astonishment of the girls, the boys also took it up with enthusiasm, and volunteered their assistance. They enlisted the help of the village schoolmistress, and some of the most tuneful among her pupils, and all on the spur of the moment made up their company.

"What always spoils carol singing," said Monty sententiously, "is that everybody's generally so beastly out of tune. They don't seem able to keep the pitch without a harmonium."

"Pity we can't carry a harmonium with us!"

"Why shouldn't we?" suggested Neale. "I don't mean I'm going to haul the thing on my back, so you needn't grin. I've a better notion than that. We'll see if the Blackwoods will lend us a cart. Put the harmonium inside, hang up a lantern to see by, and there you are, with a movable concert platform ready to take round where we like."

The others looked at Neale with admiration. It was such a very brainy idea, they wondered they had never thought of it for themselves. Time was short, as the performance was to be that evening, so they dispersed to make their arrangements. Ted Blackwood, a member of the church choir, agreed to bring his father's cart.

"I'll take t'owd mare," he grinned. "Shoo's steady, and won't bolt when th' harmonium starts. Aye, I've a big stable lantern as 'ull do too."

Here indeed was an excitement for a young American visitor. Diana could hardly wait till tea was over and darkness fell. Fortunately it was a fine evening, with a hint of frost in the air, so the expedition would not be damped by rain. Mrs. Fleming insisted upon all the party being very warmly clad, and brought out an old picture of "The Waits" to demonstrate that the use of mufflers was an integral part of the ceremony. Diana, to her delight, was lent a Red Ridinghood cloak of Meg's, clad in which she felt that she had stepped back at least three centuries, and was walking in the days of the Stuarts.

"I might be one of the pilgrims in the Mayflower!" she exclaimed. "What would Dad give to see me? I wish you were coming too," she added to Mrs. Fleming.

"I'm too busy, child, to-night," said Mrs. Fleming, kissing the roguish little face framed in the red hood. "Enjoy yourselves, chicks! And, Diana,"—with a warning finger held up—"don't, please, do anything desperately amazing!"

"I'll be an absolute model of mild mediæval maidenhood," promised that damsel, with twinkling eyes.

They went first to the Blackwoods' farm, then, when Ted had harnessed "t'owd mare", they proceeded with the cart to the schoolhouse, and, after a good deal of heaving and hauling, lifted in the harmonium and a stool for Miss Simpson, the schoolmistress, to sit upon while she played. The rest of the party having joined them, they jogged along to the first house on their list, that of Mrs. Holmes at the Old Grange Farm. They drew up the cart outside the door, placed lanterns on the harmonium, and saw Miss Simpson settled at the instrument—a matter of some difficulty, as the cart sloped, and the stool was inclined to slide away. Ted held the old mare by the bridle, in case the music might revive her youthful spirits and cause her to bolt. The others grouped themselves round the cart. Miss Simpson struck up, and through the keen night air rang out the cheerful strains of "Christians, awake!" The Holmes family opened the door in quite a state of excitement, and listened with much appreciation while "Good King Wenceslas", "The First Nowell", and other old carols were sung. They insisted on bringing the party indoors for slices of Yule cake, and would have given them hot coffee as well, but Monty, who wished to visit other houses, declared they had not time to wait while it was made. So they tramped on to the James's farm, where they had an equally hearty reception, and were regaled with cocoa, currant bread, and cheese.

It was a unique experience, trudging along country lanes with a cart and lanterns, with hoar-frost under foot, and a few stars winking in a misty sky, then standing in the cold night air to sing their carols. Diana felt that she could never forget it, and that the shrill voice of little Jack Greenhalgh warbling

"Nowell! Nowell! Nowell! Nowell!

Born is the King of Israel!"

would always be associated with her idea of Christmas.

She had her fill of old-world customs, for she was allowed, by special favour, to go into the belfry and help for one brief minute to pull a bell. And after service on Christmas morning she stood in the church porch and watched the distribution of the "roth shillings", which, in accordance with the terms of an old charity, were handed over to "twelve worthy widows resident within the bounds of the parish". She helped in the afternoon at the schools, where a big tea-party and Christmas-tree were given to the children of the village, and joined nobly in the games that were played afterwards, tearing round at "Drop the Handkerchief", or pulling at "Oranges and Lemons", with unflagging energy.

"Have you had a nice Christmas Day, childie, away from all your own people?" asked Mrs. Fleming, holding Diana's face between her hands as she said good-night, and looking at her critically for signs of home-sickness.

But Diana's eyes were without a suspicion of moisture, and her voice was absolutely cheerful as she answered:

"Yes, thanks; just topping!"

X. A Fit of the Blues

The interest of experiencing a real old-fashioned English Christmas had kept Diana's spirits up at fizzling-over point, but directly the festival was over, her mental barometer came down with a run, and landed her in a bad fit of the blues. There were several reasons for this unfortunate plunge into an indigo atmosphere. First, the inevitable reaction after the over-excitement of breaking up, sending off presents and cards, and duly celebrating the Yule-tide feast. Diana was a highly-strung little person, whose nerves were apt to get on edge, and who made the common mistake of trying to live too fast. Her father's "lightning methods", which she much admired and imitated, were decidedly wearing to her vitality, and left her sometimes like a squeezed orange or an india-rubber ball that has lost its bounce. Then secondly, the French mails had been delayed, and, since the holidays began, Diana had not received a single parcel, letter, or even solitary picture post card from her parents in Paris. The blank was great, and though the Flemings assured her that foreign posts were irregular, and that the whole of her correspondence would probably arrive together in one big cargo, she nevertheless could not rid herself of the uneasy impression that illness or accident to father or mother might be the cause of the delay. Reason three, a hackneyed but very present trouble was the weather. The English climate had behaved itself during the first days of the holidays, and had shown Diana quite a story-book aspect of Christmas, with a light fall of snow on the fells, hoar-frost on all the plants and ferns in the garden, and the sun a red ball seen through a rime-tipped tracery of trees. After that, however, it revenged itself in rain, steady rain that came down from a hopelessly grey sky without the least glint of sunlight in it. It was very mild too; the air had a heavy languor that made everybody feel tired and disinclined for any exertion. Mrs. Fleming spread the table with sewing, and sighed at the largeness of the task which faced her. The Vicar shut himself in his study, and pinned a notice on the door stating that nobody must disturb him. Monty retired to develop photos; Neale, clad in a mackintosh, went out into the wet; Meg and Elsie buried themselves in books.

Diana, feeling that life was utterly drab, wandered from room to room doing nothing. She could not settle to sew, read, paint, write letters, or any normal employment, and had not even the patience to try to put together a jig-saw puzzle. She missed Wendy and her other chums amongst the intermediates, and was almost tempted to wish herself back at school. Her piquant little face with this new triste aspect was a sorry spectacle, and Mrs. Fleming watched her uneasily.

"I hope the child isn't going to be home-sick," she said to herself. "I shall be sorry we took her in if we can't make her happy."

It was evident that something must be done, and something beyond the ordinary resources of books and dissected puzzles. Mrs. Fleming cudgelled her brains. Her few days' acquaintance with her young visitor had taught her that Diana needed judicious handling. It was no use making palpable efforts to interest her. In her pixie moods she seemed almost to resent it.

"I believe the secret of Diana is to switch her thoughts off herself on to other people," ruminated Mrs. Fleming. "Instead of trying so hard to amuse her, I shall ask her to amuse us."

She waited till her guest, who had taken an aimless prowl round the house, returned once more like a wandering will-o'-the-wisp to the dining-room, then she tackled her.

"Diana, I want you to do something very kind. I'm in low spirits to-day, and feeling as stupid as an owl. I believe we all are—Meg and Elsie, and the boys, and even the Vicar! I'd give anything for something to buoy me up and to look forward to. Suppose, after tea, we were to make a circle round the fire and tell stories—really jolly stories that we'd prepared beforehand. We'd each take the rest of the day to think them out. If possible, they must be personal experiences; things that have actually happened to ourselves. You must have had adventures in America, I'm sure, that would interest us immensely. I'm just longing to hear about your life out there. Can't you write down a few notes, and give us a really good yarn? You've no idea how much I'd enjoy it."

Diana stopped whistling, and stood with her mouth screwed into a button. Her grey eyes were fixed on Mrs. Fleming speculatively.

"I didn't know grown-up ladies ever got bored stiff!" she remarked at last.

"They do horribly sometimes; indeed the more middle-aged they are the more they need cheering up, I think. They don't like 'getting on in years'."

"I guess you want me to act jester."

"That's exactly the role I'd like to assign to you."

The twinkle was slowly coming back to Diana's eyes, and the dimples to the corners of her mouth. The effect was like sunshine bursting through a rain-cloud.

"I guess I'll try if I can remember anything to startle you, if you're out for sensations. It's a kind of literary society, isn't it? Can you lend me a pencil, please, and some waste paper? I don't know what I've done with my blotter. Thanks! Now I'm going right up to my bedroom to sort of ruminate."

Mrs. Fleming's prescription for low spirits acted like a charm. Diana spent most of the rest of theday scribbling. She came down to tea looking quite elated. The others tried to question her, but she refused to be drawn. "Wait and see!" was all she would vouchsafe.

We Set Off and Rode All the Morning

It was cosy in the drawing-room when the family collected and made a circle round the log-fire. By unanimous vote Diana's story was given first innings, and, seated in a basket-chair near the lamp, she opened her manuscript.

"I thought I'd rather read it than tell it, if you don't mind," she said. "I'm a duffer sometimes at telling things. Before I start off, though, I'd best explain who folks are, or you won't understand. Uncle Carr Clifford had a ranch in New Mexico, and I used to go and stay there months. They always kept a special pony for me to ride. Her name was Darkie, and she was just a peach. I used nearly to live on her back. Lenox, my cousin, would take me all round the ranch. I'd great times. Well, it was when I was staying at Buller's Creek (that was Uncle Carr's ranch) that this happened. Have I made it clear?"

"Crystal! Bowl ahead!"

So Diana began:

"THE LOST PONY

"I had been staying some weeks at Buller's Creek, and one morning, when I came down to breakfast, Lenox ran into the veranda. He looked fearfully excited.

"'Do you know,' he cried, 'that Darkie's missing from the stable?'

"We all sprang up at the bad news, and Uncle Carr whistled. Darkie was my special pet, and, apart from that, she was the best pony on the ranch. How had she got out of the stable? Lenox had tied her up himself the night before. Either some malicious person must have let her loose or, worse still, some one must have stolen her.

"'I believe it's Lu Hudson!' declared Lenox and Uncle Carr nodded.

"Lu Hudson, whom most people called 'Spanish Lu', was the owner of the next ranch, and a very disagreeable neighbour. He was a big, rough, dark, hot-tempered fellow, with a bad reputation for picking quarrels and using his revolver. He and Uncle Carr were continually having lawsuits about the boundary of their ranches, and his sheep were constantly trespassing on the Buller's Creek ranges. He had the greatest admiration for Darkie, and several times had asked to buy her, but Uncle Carr had always curtly refused to part with her. The last time there had been trouble about the boundary, Spanish Lu had sworn that he would pay Uncle Carr out, and he was just the sort of desperate fellow to keep his word. Of course the first thing to be done was to ride round the ranch and see whether Darkie could be found anywhere.

"'I'm sorry I can't look after the matter myself to-day,' said Uncle Carr; 'but Jake and I have to get off to the mart at Louisville. She may have strayed, but it's not likely. I don't believe you'll find her.'

"As soon as Uncle and Jake, the herdsman, had started off in the buggy, Lenox saddled Whitefoot, his own pony, to go in search of Darkie. I begged and prayed and implored to go too, so finally they let me have my way, and saddled Jap for me, a brown pony, quiet and steady, though not so clever as Darkie. Coonie, a little half-caste boy, went with us.

"'The air feels heavy this morning,' said Aunt Frances, as we were starting. 'If a storm comes on, make for cover. Don't try to get home across the prairie till it's over.'

"The sun was shining, and we did not think the weather looked at all like a storm. I rather laughed at Auntie as she fastened a wrap on to my saddle, with instructions to wear it if I felt cold. Lenox had the lunch-basket, and also a small axe, which he always took with him when going round the ranch.

"We set off and rode all the morning, but never a trace of Darkie was to be found. We ate our lunch in a stony little glen, where a stream flowed down from the ridge above. I was very keen on getting wild flowers, and while our ponies rested, I wandered up the bank of the stream, gathering myself a posy. I went on and on, much farther than I intended. At the very head of the glen was a natural barrier of rock, with a few steep steps leading on to a kind of plateau at the top. This spot, I knew, marked the boundary between my uncle's ranch and that of Spanish Lu. The glen was the property of Buller's Creek; the farther side of the ridge belonged to the Hudson range, and the plateau was neutral ground.

"Something, I don't know what, impelled me, as I stood there, to give the long-drawn, peculiar whistle with which we always called Darkie. To my astonishment, a whinny came from the plateau above. In another moment I was scrambling up the rock steps. There, tied to a cedar-stump, was Darkie. She recognized me at once, and whinnied again. There was nobody in sight. I did not even stop to think of Lu Hudson. I just ran to Darkie and untied her, and took her by the bridle. It was a fearful business to lead her down the rock steps, but she was as surefooted as a mule, and together we managed it somehow. The boys nearly had a fit when I made my appearance with the missing pony. It was pretty plain, so they said, that Spanish Lu must have stolen her and taken her there for safety, intending to come back and fetch her. Where was he now? The answer came unexpectedly.

"'What's that smoke there?' asked Coonie.

"Lenox and I turned to look in the direction in which he pointed. A grey haze was mounting from the horizon.

"'It's more like dust than smoke,' said Lenox. 'I wouldn't mind betting it's sheep.'

"Who could have the impudence to be driving sheep on to the Buller's Creek range? It seemed more than probable that Lu Hudson had broken his pledge, and was again trespassing on his neighbour's property. Lenox and I looked at each other. If Spanish Lu were within short distance of us, the sooner we got Darkie safely home, the better.

"'I'll ride her, and you lead Jap,' I decided.

"We started off at once. As we got out of the glen and on to the prairie we could see in the distance an immense flock of sheep, herded by two men on horseback. We were too far from them to recognize faces, but the general appearance of one of them suggested Spanish Lu.

"'They're grazing east of the ridge, in spite of what the judge settled!' exclaimed Lenox angrily. 'If I hadn't to take care of you and Darkie, I'd go and tell them what I think of them.'

"It seemed no use running our heads into danger, and perhaps having Darkie wrenched from us, so we made off east towards home. We had only gone about a mile when suddenly the sky to the west behind us turned black. In a few minutes we were in the thick of a terrific blizzard. My first instinct was to give Darkie her head and fly for the ranch, but Lenox caught at my bridle.

"'Ride back to the glen!' he shouted.

"Lenox knew enough about prairie blizzards to prevent him from trying to find our way home through this one. On the open plains, where the wind has full sweep, a blizzard is a thing to be dreaded. Though we had to face the storm to ride back to the glen, it was the safest thing to do, for we were not far away, and we should find shelter there. With our heads down, and sharp scraps of ice beating on our saddles, we urged our ponies along. Suddenly we caught sight of a great moving mass coming on with the storm. It was the immense flock of sheep, that had stampeded before the blizzard, and were drifting along across the prairie. Lenox stood up in his stirrups, and shouted to Coonie:

"'Ride over there, and we'll turn them into the glen!'

"Coonie understood in a second, and so did I. Unless we could drive the sheep into shelter, undoubtedly the whole number would perish in the storm. Lenox thrust Jap's bridle into my hand, and dashed ahead. In a few minutes he and Coonie had succeeded in turning the leaders towards the entrance of the creek, and after them swept the rest of the flock. We followed into the sheltered glen, and, dismounting from our ponies, found a nook under a projecting piece of rock. There were some tree-stumps about, and Lenox set to work to chop them with his axe, and soon made a roaring fire. How glad I was that Aunt Frances had made me bring the wrap! I should have been frozen without it. Even by the fireside the air was bitter. What must it be like out in the open prairie, we wondered? We had not sat long in our sheltered nook before we heard voices, and two figures, covered with ice and snow, made their appearance leading horses. They staggered to our camp-fire, half exhausted by the violence of the storm. Though his hair and his beard were white with snow, we had no difficulty in recognizing Spanish Lu. He thawed for a little, and then spoke to his herdsman.

"'The sheep!' he gasped.

"'They're all here,' answered Lenox in triumph. 'We saw them, and turned them into the creek.'

"Spanish Lu stared at us as if he could hardly believe his eyes.

"'You kids! You turned the whole herd?'

"I expect he felt pretty grateful, for, if it hadn't been for Lenox and Coonie, several thousand of his sheep would certainly have been lost, and, as it was, they were safely grazing in shelter. When the storm was sufficiently over for us to venture home, he led out Darkie himself and helped me to mount. Neither he nor we said a word about her loss, though we were perfectly certain he must have taken her from the stable.

"After that day he kept his sheep to his own side of the ridge, and, though he was never a pleasant neighbour, Uncle Carr wasn't obliged to go to law with him again about the boundary of the two ranches. So we felt that Darkie had patched up peace, particularly as we didn't accuse Lu Hudson of taking her. Horse-stealing is a very serious crime in the West, so I expect he thought he had got off uncommonly well."

"And what became of Darkie?" asked Meg, as Diana's manuscript came to a rather abrupt end.

"Uncle Carr gave up the ranch when he went into Congress, and Darkie and all the other ponies were left at Buller's Creek. She wouldn't have been happy off the prairie, or I'd have begged to have her. Lenox? Why, he's still in France; but I suppose he'll be demobilized soon, and going back to Harvard. He wants to be a professor, not a ranchman. He's a fearfully clever boy. Now, I've read my story, and I'm waiting for yours. Who's going to come next?"

"After such excitements as horse-stealing and a blizzard, our poor little adventures would seem very tame," said Mrs. Fleming, voicing the general feeling of the family, each member of which was showing a plain desire to shirk. "Suppose we keep our stories for another evening, and play games now? Meg, get pencils and paper, and we'll have a round of 'telegrams'."

XI. Diana to the Rescue

Next morning the postman arrived quite laden with parcels and letters addressed to "Miss Diana Hewlitt". As Mrs. Fleming had prophesied, everything came at once, and her young guest spent a busy and ecstatic half-hour opening her various packages. Scent, French chocolates, Parisian embroideries, gloves, ribbons, and other dainty vanities such as girls love were raved over and spread forth on the table, while Diana devoured the contents of her letters. From one large envelope she drew forth a photograph of a lovely lady in evening-dress.

"It's Mother! Oh, how perfectly sweet! And the very image of her, too!" she cried, handing the photo to Meg for admiration.

Her fit of the blues had utterly vanished, and she was in a rose-coloured mood to-day. Meg, leaning over the table, deeply interested in the parcels, looked critically at the picture of the bright-eyed lady with the soft coils of fair hair.

"She's not like you, Diana."

"No. A thousand times better looking than I am!"

"I suppose you're like your father?"

"Yes, so people say, though I can't see it myself."

"How pretty she is—and how young! She might almost be your sister. And yet I suppose she must be middle-aged."

"What do you mean by 'middle-aged'?" demanded Diana sharply.

"Why, anything over thirty! I call my mother middle-aged."

"Do you?"

"Of course!" (Meg was still examining the photo.) "What a perfectly glorious dress to be taken in! And I adore her necklace. She's like the pictures one sees in The Queen. It must be lovely to have a pretty mother."

Diana was looking at Meg with an unfathomable expression in her grey eyes.

"Don't you call your mother pretty, then?" she asked.

"Oh, yes! she's a darling; but she's had her day. She's not a society beauty, is she?"

"N-n-n-o, I suppose not," said Diana thoughtfully.

The boys came into the room just then; the conversation was interrupted, and Meg probably forgot all about it. Diana, however, did not. At lunch-time she critically studied her hostess's features, and mentally compared them with those of the photo which had arrived that morning from Paris.

"I don't believe Mrs. Fleming is really any older than Mother," she decided. "She's been very pretty some time, but she's let herself go. It's a pity. All the same, I could shake Meg!"

An impression that had been gathering in Diana's mind ever since she arrived at the Vicarage now shaped itself into definite form. She did not like the attitude of her friends towards their mother. They were devoted to her, but their love lacked all element of admiration. Mrs. Fleming had made the common mistake of effacing herself utterly for the sake of her children. She had dropped her former accomplishments, even the music in which she had once excelled, and made herself an absolute slave to her household. So long as Meg and Elsie wore pretty frocks she cared nothing for her own dress; she never bought a new book or took a holiday; her interests were centred in the young people's achievements, and she had become merely the theatre of their actions. Going away seldom, and reading little, had narrowed her horizon. She often felt her ideas were out of date, and that she was not keeping up with the modern notions her children were imbibing at school. They always spoke with more respect of their teachers' opinions than of hers, and would allude to subjects they were learning as if they did not expect her to understand them. Sometimes they assumed little airs of patronage towards her. Among themselves they occasionally referred to her as "Only Mother!"

Diana, thinking it all carefully over, raged mentally. "I guess I've got to make those Flemings admire their mother!" she said to herself. "Just how to do it beats me at present, but I don't give up. I'd like to fix her hair for her if I dared. She strains it back till she looks like a skinned rabbit, and her dresses were made in the year one, I should say. She's a dear, all the same, though. If she could only be cured of feeling on the shelf, she'd grow ten years younger."

Having set herself the surprising undertaking of rejuvenating Mrs. Fleming, Diana went warily to work. It would certainly not do to reproach Meg, Elsie, and the boys for lack of appreciation of their mother; they would simply have stared in utter amazement. Somehow, by hook or by crook, she must be made to shine, so as to command their honest admiration. Diana catalogued her personal attractions:

1. A really quite classical nose.

2. A nice, neat mouth.

3. Good teeth.

4. A pretty colour when she gets hot or excited.

5. Quite fascinating brown eyes.

6. Hair that would be lovely if it were only decently done, instead of scooped away and screwed into a tight knob at the back.

Anybody with these points might make so much of them, if they only knew how to use them properly. Diana wondered if it would be possible to buy a book on the secrets of fascination. It was just the element that was lacking. Putting personality aside, she began probing into the extent of her friend's mental equipment. She induced her to bring out the water-colour sketches of former years, and even wrung from her a half promise that some day—when the weather was nice, and if she had time—she would paint a picture of the church.

"The boys would each like a sketch of their mother's to take to school with them," decreed Diana. "Monty would have his framed and hang it in his study, and show it to all his friends as your work."

"Why, so he might," said Mrs. Fleming, looking much surprised. The idea had evidently never occurred to her before.

From painting, Diana passed to other accomplishments. Mrs. Fleming rendered the accompaniments to Elsie's violin pieces and Meg's songs with a delicacy of touch that revealed the true musician.

"I wish you'd play something to me," begged Diana one day when the girls' practising was over and their mother was rising from the piano.

"I, my dear child! I never play now."

"Why not?"

"I gave up my music long ago, when I got married."

"You haven't forgotten it, though."

"Well, not altogether, of course. I'm a good reader still."

"Please!" urged Diana.

And, to content her impetuous visitor, Mrs. Fleming gave in. She pulled a volume of Chopin from the stand, and began the twelfth nocturne. It was years since she had played it, but as she touched the keys the old spirit crept back into her fingers, and the notes came rippling out delicately and easily. Diana, sunk back in the recesses of the long basket-chair, listened fascinated. She loved music when it was of a superior quality, and she did not often get the chance of hearing playing such as this.

"More! More!" she begged, when the nocturne came to an end.

The ice once broken, Mrs. Fleming, as much to her own astonishment as to that of the family, actually revived her interest in the piano. She hunted out her old pieces and began to practise them. She said it was to amuse Diana, but it was evident that enjoyment was mixed with her philanthropy. As a girl she had studied under a good master, and she had much natural talent. She would improvise sometimes, and even compose little things of her own.

"Why, my dear," said her husband, peeping into the drawing-room one evening just at the conclusion of the "Moonlight Sonata", "this takes me back to the time when we were engaged! I've been sitting listening in my study."

Diana, squatting on one foot in the corner of the sofa, clapped her hands softly. She liked the Vicar, but she thought his antiquarian researches monopolized the conversation at meal-times. It was quite nice to hear him express appreciation for some other line than his own. Diana had a scheme in her mind, and, when she judged the time was ripe, she proposed it suddenly and boldly in the face of the whole united family of Flemings. It was nothing more or less than that Mrs. Fleming should play a solo at the concert which was to be held at the schools on the 10th of January. In vulgar parlance, she "shot her bird sitting", plumped the idea upon her, and dragged forth an acceptance before—as the poor lady afterwards protested—she had time to realize what she was undertaking.

"Certainly. Why not?" confirmed her husband. "We badly want some more items on the programme. I shall put you down for two solos."

"But what can I play?" remonstrated Mrs. Fleming.

"Oh, Mother, you know heaps of things! Don't be absurd!" reproved Meg.

"I guess we'll have a rehearsal to-night, and choose your star pieces," said Diana, with shining eyes.

So far, so good. Her plot had answered admirably. The family took it almost as a matter of course that "Mother" was to perform at the concert, though it had never occurred to any of them to ask her to do so.

"She's a very good pianist," said Meg airily to Diana.

"Glad you think so!" rapped out Diana, with an emphasis that made Meg stare and whisper afterwards to Elsie that she couldn't quite somehow get at the back of "Stars and Stripes".

It was a mighty matter to select the two solos. Mrs. Fleming, flustered and bewildered at this unexpected dive into publicity, hesitated among many pieces. As she could not make up her own mind, Diana made it up for her.

"We want the 'Moonlight Sonata' for one, and Chopin's 'Ballade in A flat' for the other," she decided. "They're classical, but they're so exquisite that I guess even the old women will enjoy them. Then for the encores you could play——"

"Encores!" gasped Mrs. Fleming feebly.

"Why, of course there'll be encores! Schubert's 'Hedge Roses' for one, and that nocturne of your own for the other. It'll just about take the house!"

So Mrs. Fleming, with an extraordinary feeling that she had somehow been whisked back to her school-days, sat practising in the drawing-room, with Diana, curled up in the corner of the sofa for audience. It was a dream-world for them both. Diana had been reading Stories of the Great Composers, and now she knew the hearts of the musicians she could enter more fully into the meaning of their music. She had fallen, utterly and entirely, under the magic spell of Chopin; the lovely, liquid melodies thrilled her like the echo of something beyond her earthly experience, and seemed to go soaring away into regions she had not yet explored, regions of breathless beauty, though only entered by the gates of sorrow. She would read Alfred Noyes's poem on Chopin as she sat listening to the haunting, bewitching rhythm of the "Ballade in A", and the ring of the poetry merged itself into the glamour of the music, so that ever afterwards she connected the two.

"'Do roses in the moonlight glow

Like this and this?' I could not see

His eyes, and yet—they were quite wet,

Blinded, I think! What should I be

If in that hour I did not know

My own diviner debt?"

or

"Wrapped in incense gloom,

In drifting clouds and golden light;

Once I was shod with fire, and trod

Beethoven's path through storm and night:

It is too late now to resume

My monologue with God."

"I don't wonder Chopin had his piano carried out into the fields!" she commented. "I don't believe he could have composed in the house. You hear the wind blowing through his pieces, and see the tassels of the laburnum-tree he was sitting under swaying about in it."

The concert was an annual gaiety which most of the people in the neighbourhood attended, and was generally much above the average of village performances. North-country folk are musical, and this district of the Pennines had produced many voices that passed on to cathedral choirs. Instrumental music, also, was appreciated and understood, and before the war there had been quite a good little orchestra in the parish. When Mr. Fleming drew up his programme, he knew the audience for whom he was catering, and did not fill it entirely with coon songs and ragtimes. Diana, to whom the affair loomed as the main event of the holidays, discussed at the Vicarage the eternally feminine question of dress.

"No one ever comes very smart," Mrs. Fleming assured her.

"But one likes to see the performers in something pretty," pleaded Diana. "It makes it so much more festive, doesn't it?"

"Mother, you intend to go in evening-dress, don't you?" said Meg.

Mrs. Fleming had intended nothing of the sort, but urged on by the girls, she took a review of her wardrobe. She shook her head over the result.

"I haven't anything at all except that grey silk, and it's as old as the hills. Why, I got it for my sister's wedding, when Roger was a baby!"

"But fashions come round again," said Diana, who, with Meg and Elsie, had been allowed to watch what came out of the big ottoman in the spare bedroom. "Why, this dress is the very image of the picture of one in that magazine Mother sent me from Paris! It only wants the sleeves shortened and some lace put in, and the neck turned down to make it lower, and then a fichu put round. Here's the very thing! I'd fix it for you if you'd let me. I'd adore to do it."

No one knew exactly how Diana managed to work matters, but for this occasion she took over Mrs. Fleming's toilet, and that astonished lady resigned herself into her hands. She was a natty little person, with exquisite taste, and by the aid of some really good lace, which the ottoman yielded, she managed to transform the grey silk dress into a very creditable imitation of the Parisian fashion-plate. She even dared to venture a step further without offending.

"I often help Mother fix her hair when she's going out, and she calls me her little coiffeuse. I'm crazy to try yours, if I may."

"'In for a penny, in for a pound,' I suppose, you young witch!" acquiesced Mrs. Fleming, letting her enthusiastic guest have her way.

So on the evening of the concert Diana shut herself up in her hostess's bedroom with a pair of crimping-irons and some curling-tongs. She covered up the result with a light gauze veil.

"Don't let them see you till you get to the concert," she implored, helping her friend to put on her cloak. "I want them to get a real surprise. I guess it will make them sit up!"

The parish hall was quite full that evening, and the platform was prettily and appropriately decorated with flags and plants in pots. There was a sprinkling of local gentry on the front benches, and Miss Todd, who had returned after the holidays, and was entertaining some visitors at the Abbey, brought her whole house-party. The villagers had turned up in full force, thoroughly prepared to enjoy themselves. The Fleming family sat at the end of the second row, and watched as the audience filed in.

"Where's Mother?" asked Elsie.

"She's in the performers' room, talking to Miss Watson," vouchsafed Diana, chuckling softly to herself.

Then the concert began. There was a madrigal by the choir, and a glee for four male voices, and a duet for soprano and mezzo, and then came the item for which Diana was waiting:

The Moonlight Sonata,… Beethoven .

Mrs. Carisbrook Fleming.

The curtain at the back of the platform was drawn aside, and a lady entered—a lady who was palpably nervous, but oh, so pretty! Her brown eyes shone like two stars, and her cheeks were the colour of the knot of carnation ribbon that fastened the lace fichu of her dress. Her lovely bronze hair was parted on one side, and rippled lightly over her forehead; it looked the very perfection of glossy fluffiness. She wore a moonstone pendant set in dull silver that matched the shimmering grey of her dress. The piano had been drawn to the front of the platform, and she took her place. Then the magic music began. Diana knew her friend could play well, but she had never heard her reach this pitch before. The audience listened as if spell-bound, and, when the last note died away, broke into a storm of applause. There was no question about their enthusiasm, and an encore was inevitable. They stamped heartily, indeed, for a second encore, but Mrs. Fleming refused to return to the platform, and sent on the next performer instead. The "Ballade in A flat", in the second part of the programme, was an almost greater success, and produced shouts of "Brava!" from the back of the hall. Pendlemere people could appreciate good music, and showed their approval with north-country heartiness.

The Fleming family sat during the performance gazing as if they could scarcely believe the evidence of their own eyes and ears. Diana had calculated upon giving them a surprise, and she had certainly done so. Apparently it was a very pleasant one, to judge from the expression on their faces.

As the crowd filed out from the benches at the close of the concert, Diana found herself walking behind Meg, who was speaking to a friend.

"That 'Moonlight Sonata' was beautiful!" Ada Davis was saying. "And Mrs. Fleming looked so charming to-night! How nice to have such a pretty, clever mother!"

"I'm awfully proud of her!" agreed Meg, with unction.

"Humph! High time you were!" sniffed Diana behind.

At the door the Vicar was helping his wife into her cloak. He put it round her with quite a gallant little air, and offered her his arm as they stepped out into the starlight together.

"I hardly know you to-night, Sylvia. You excelled yourself!" he remarked.

"'Sylvia'!" Diana triumphed inwardly. "That's the first time I've ever heard him call her anything except 'Mother'. If I get married, I'll want my husband to call me 'Diana', even if I've a dozen children to be 'Mother' to! I guess Mrs. Fleming has hopped off the shelf to-day, and I just hope to goodness she'll never go back."

XII. Diana Breaks Out

Diana went back to school in the wildest and most rampageous of spirits. She felt that she just had to let off steam somehow. She seized Wendy's hand, tore with her to the very top of the house and down again, then careered along the corridor in such a mad, not to say noisy stampede, that Miss Todd issued from her study like a lion from its lair, and fixed the culprits with the full concentrated power of what the girls called her "scholastic eye".

"Winifred and Diana," she remarked in calm, measured tones, "if I have to remind you again about walking quietly in the passages, it will mean forty lines for you both, and I should be sorry to have to give punishments on the first day of term."

The tempestuous pair, very much sobered down, tip-toed away, and went to unpack their possessions in their separate dormitories. Diana found Loveday in the ivy room, and burst in upon her with as much of the bubbling-over spirits as she dared to exhibit, hugging her till she nearly choked her.

"I've missed you loads, Loviekins!" she assured her. "It felt queer to be in bed, and not have you on the other side of a curtain. I used to wake up in the night and begin to speak to you out of sheer force of habit. I wanted my 'little elder sissie' awful bad sometimes! Did you miss me the least tiny atom? Do you care that much for your 'pixie girl'?"

"Of course I missed you, darling! I'm just delighted to see you again! It's nice to be back. I haven't enjoyed the holidays very much. I never do——"

"I know," said Diana sympathetically, as Loveday hesitated. "I could read that between the lines, in your letters. You wrote me absolutely ripping letters! I loved them! You were a dear to write so often. It must have taken heaps of time."

"I'd nothing very much else to do," sighed Loveday, disengaging herself gently from Diana's arms. "Let me go, child! I haven't half finished my unpacking, and you haven't even begun yours yet."

"Bust the unpacking!" said Diana naughtily. "I don't feel inclined to be tidy; I shall just shovel armfuls of things out, and pitch them anyhow into the drawers. Yes, Loveday Seton, I feel like that! I'm 'fey' to-day, as the Scotch say, and must 'dree my weird'. Don't quite know exactly what that means; but I guess I've got a little pixie imp dancing around inside me, and he's going to make me do something crazy. There's no help for it! It's kismet!"

"And Miss Hampson is also kismet!" said Loveday, leaving her own box and coming to the rescue of Diana's garments, which were being literally pitched into the drawers with no regard at all for their condition. "Look how you're crushing your blouses! Go and sit on the bed, and let me do it. There! What a baby thing you are! You're more like four than fourteen!"

"It pays," said Diana serenely, squatting cross-legged on her bed, while Loveday's neat hands arranged her possessions. "If I were a sedate, goody-goody, 'old-beyond-her-years', staid sort of a person, you'd never spoil me as you do. I'll try to practise it if you like, though. Anything to please you! How would this do?"

Diana's mobile face suddenly underwent a quick change. The corners of her mouth were drawn down, her eyelids drooped, while her eyes were cast upward in a sort of sanctimonious squint.

"Don't!" implored Loveday, almost hysterically. "Oh, suppose your face were to stick like that! You'd look the most abominable little Pharisee. I'd hate you!"

"You like your pixie-girl best? Then, that settles it! Now, if you ever scold me again about anything, I'll put on the Pharisee face; so I warn you. You've got to choose between them. Yes, I know I'm a handful—I always have been—but, perhaps, it's good for you, Loveday mine: develops your character, and makes you more patient and persevering, and—and——"

"You're the cheekiest little imp on the face of the earth!" interrupted Loveday. "Get up, this minute, and come and finish your own work. I've something else to do besides unpack for you. If Miss Hampson comes and finds my box still half full——"

"She'll say how slow you've been, and what a nice, tidy child Diana is! Don't try to look 'proper', Loveday! It doesn't suit your style of beauty. Yes, put my collars away, too, or I shall only crush them. There! Very well done! First prize for order! I think you're absolutely topping, if you ask me!"

All that evening, and all the next morning, Diana's spirits continued to fizz. She might possibly have worked them off out-of-doors, but the British climate was against her; once more the fells were swathed in their familiar garments of mist, and the rain came pitter-pattering down on the roof of Pendlemere Abbey, and falling from the eaves in a monotonous drip, drip, drip. It was drawing afternoon, and promptly at half-past two intermediates and juniors would be due in the studio to go on with the various copies and models on which they were engaged. It was now shortly after two o'clock, and the school was amusing itself for the half-hour between meal-time and lessons. During that brief interval Diana, so to speak, "popped her cork".

"Hallo, America! You're looking rather weedy, standing on one leg like a marabou stork!" quizzed Sadie. "What's the matter with you?"

"Your beastly, abominable British climate!" retorted Diana. "It goes on rain, rain, raining till I'm fed up. I want to get away somewhere, and see something different from just school. I wasn't born for a convent!"

"I should think not!" chuckled Vi.

"But I'm in one, and I'm tired of it! I'm tired of you all! Yes, I mean what I say!"

"Draw it mild, Stars and Stripes!" warned Sadie.

"I don't care! School's dull, and I'm bored stiff. I'll wake things up somehow; see if I don't!"

"What'll you do, old sport?"

"Ah! Just wait and see!" nodded Diana, putting down the foot that had been twisted round her leg, and stamping to get rid of the pins and needles that followed her cramped position. "It's just possible I may turn philanthropist, and give you all a dinky little surprise," she added casually, as she strolled towards the door.

The studio was a large room on the upper story, with the orthodox north windows and top-light, in the shape of a skylight. It was fitted with desks and easels, and round its walls was a row of casts on pedestals. The girls liked drawing afternoon well enough, but they were not in any particular hurry to go upstairs and take out boards and pencils. It was not until twenty-five minutes past two that Wendy, Vi, Sadie, and Peggy came leisurely along the top landing. They opened the door of the studio in quite an every-day manner, and walked in. Then they all four stared and ejaculated:

"O-o-o-oh!"

"Jehosh-a-phat!"

"I say!"

"Good night!"

They might well exclaim, for a very startling and unanticipated spectacle greeted them. The classic heads of the casts had lost their dignity. Apollo wore a tam-o'-shanter cocked rakishly over his left ear; Clytie had on a motor veil; Juno and Ceres were fashionably arrayed in straw hats; a wreath of twisted paper encircled the intellectual brow of Minerva; Psyche peered through spectacles; Perseus was decked with a turban; and, worst of all, the beautiful upper lip of Venus sported a moustache. Armed with a pointer stood Diana, ready, like Mrs. Jarley of the famous waxworks, to act show-woman.

"Walk up! Walk up, ladies and gentlemen!" she began glibly. "This isn't funny at all, it's calm and classical. Greek art up-to-date is what I call it. If Apollo had lived in this British climate I guess he'd have needed a tammy to keep his hair in curl; and Psyche must have been short-sighted when she blundered about hunting for Cupid; she'd have found him in a decent pair of spectacles, poor girl! Clytie suffered from earache, and couldn't motor without a veil; as for Venus, it's giving her the vote that's forced a moustache; she's sent for a safety-razor, but it hasn't arrived yet."

More girls had come in during Diana's explanation, and they wandered round the room in explosions of laughter.

"Why has Perseus got a turban on?" demanded Tattie.

"Because his hair grew thin on the top, and even Tatcho didn't fetch up another crop of curls, and Andromeda so objected to seeing him bald that there was nothing for it but to turn Moslem and wear a turban. He did it in self-defence, because she threatened to buy him a dark wig, and he said it would make him look like a Jew."

"That's my hat!" objected Vi, pointing to the straw that decorated Juno.

"Excuse me—hers! The lady's gone on the land, working like a nigger digging the ground for the potato crop. You see, Jupiter hasn't got demobilized yet, and——"

The flower of Diana's eloquence suddenly withered and dried up as if electrocuted. In the doorway, above the heads of the giggling girls, appeared a vision in pince-nez—an avenging vision that passed rapidly through the several stages of amazement, consternation, and wrath.

"Di-ana Hewlitt!" snapped Miss Hampson. "Go down and report yourself instantly to Miss Todd. This is simply disgraceful! Girls, take your seats! Tattie and Vi, help to remove those—those——" The irate mistress paused for a word, but, failing to find one adequate to the occasion, began instead, her fingers trembling with indignation, to strip the turban from the classic head of Perseus.

Dead, awful silence reigned in the room. Not a girl dared to giggle; a few began nervously to sharpen pencils, but most sat and stared while the casts were denuded of their trappings. Miss Hampson removed the moustache from Venus as if she were apologizing to that deity for sacrilege, and, with her own handkerchief, wiped away from the lovely lip the seccotine which had attached the masculine appendage to the Queen of Beauty. She rolled up the hats in the towel which had served as turban, set her pupils to work at their copies, then marched sternly downstairs to lay the full enormity of the case before the justly-shocked ears of Miss Todd. Nobody ever heard exactly what happened in the interview; no coaxing or persuasion would induce Diana to disclose details even to Wendy or Loveday, but it was generally understood in the school that Miss Todd had "spoken her mind". One result loomed large, and that was the punishment. It was absolutely unique. Perhaps the Principal was tired of giving poetry to learn or lines to write, and considered that confinement to bounds was not very good for a girl's health, so she devised something else to act as a discipline. For a week Diana was condemned not to wear evening-dress. It was a far greater trial than it sounds. Each night before supper the school changed into pretty frocks, and, when the meal was over, spent a pleasant hour together at recreation. With everybody else in festive attire, it was terrible for Diana to be obliged to come downstairs in her serge skirt and jersey, the one Cinderella of the party. Most especially trying was it on Saturday, when chairs and tables were pushed back in the dining-room, and dancing was the order of the evening. Poor Diana, in her thick morning-shoes, stood forlornly in a corner, refusing all offers of partners, but watching wistfully as the others whirled by. Miss Hampson, whose wrath was of the short, explosive kind that quickly turns to softness of heart, was understood to murmur something to Miss Todd about the impossibility of waltzing in anything but dancing-slippers; but the Principal's mouth was set firm, and she would not remit the least atom of the sentence till it was paid to the uttermost farthing.

If Diana looked wistful, she nevertheless bore her punishment with dignity. She was a girl of spirit, and she did not mean to betray, even by the blink of an eyelid, how much she cared. Geraldine, Hilary, and Ida had rubbed in her ostracism, and certain impudent juniors had enjoyed themselves with witticisms at her expense. To these she must preserve an attitude of sang-froid. But up in the ivy room, when she went to bed, the mask fell off. The Diana that cuddled in Loveday's arms was a very different Diana from the don't-care young person of downstairs. Loveday—who understood her now—consoled and kissed where a term ago she would have scolded. There are some dispositions that can only be managed by kisses.

"It wasn't as if I'd taken a hammer and smashed the wretched old casts!" sobbed Diana. "I really didn't do them any damage; even the seccotine was easily sponged off Venus. But Miss Todd talked and talked as if I'd done something irreligious in church. I'd never do that, you know! Would I, now? She said I had 'an irreverent mind'. I don't believe she'll ever quite forgive me. And oh, Hilary has been so nasty! Thank goodness, dancing evening's done with! I've only Monday and Tuesday nights to go through now, then the whole wretched week will be over. I suppose I'm to be allowed to wear my Sunday clothes to-morrow? If I mayn't, I'll sham ill and stop in bed. I won't go to church in my brown coat and tammy, and have Mr. Fleming and everybody staring at me. I just couldn't! I'd die!"

"It's all right about that—don't you worry! I asked Miss Hampson, and she said: 'Certainly, Sunday clothes'. I'll speak to Hilary, and try to get her to leave you alone. As for those kids, just leave them to me; I'll tackle them, and tell them what I think of the way they behaved to-night—the young wretches! I fancy I'll make them squirm!"

"You mascot! Miss Todd says I've been utterly and entirely spoilt. Do you think I have?"

Loveday took the piquant little face between her two hands and looked a moment into the upturned grey eyes.

"Yes," she decided. "You're undoubtedly a spoilt darling—but you're a darling all the same," she added softly under her breath.

XIII. Crusoe Island

When the days grew a little finer, and it was possible to venture out of doors without being almost drowned, Miss Chadwick began to put the "Principles of Agriculture" into practical application. All through the winter she and her assistants—Miss Carr and Miss Ormrod—had worked in all weathers looking after the poultry, the pony, and the new greenhouse, but it was only at rare intervals that it had been possible for the school to turn out and do digging in the garden. The "Land Classes" had, however, been studying the scientific side of the matter. They had analysed soils, estimated the rainfall, and examined the germination of seeds; they understood such mysterious terms as bacteria, protozoa, cotyledons, trenching and ridging, cross-fertilization and spermatozoids, and had some elementary acquaintance with the theory of the rotation of crops. They felt like full-fledged farmers when Miss Chadwick wrote on the black-board such questions as:—

"How far apart should different kinds of orchard trees be planted to ensure enough sunlight?"

"Explain a method of testing seeds."

"What effect has transplanting on a seedling?"

"Describe the difference in structure between a corn-stem and a rose-stem. Make a cross-section drawing of each."

They tried experiments, such as planting in a box six beans with the scarred ends down, and six with the scarred ends up, and noted the results from day to day; they placed blotting-paper between two panes of glass, with seeds next to the glass, put the apparatus in water, and demonstrated the growth of roots; they started one plant in the dark, and another in a light place, grew identical peas in moist cotton or saw-dust, broke the seed leaves from specimen beans to observe what happened, and compared the results of distilled water and tap water as nourishment.

Everybody agreed, however, that it was much more interesting to put on their land costumes and work out-of-doors. Miss Chadwick, whose methods were on the newest lines, taught rhythmic digging, which is far less fatiguing than anyhow exertions, and was very particular about the position of the body and the action of the spade. Miss Todd, looking on with huge satisfaction, felt that she was cultivating girls as well as vegetables, and that her educational experiment promised elements of success. Certain special pupils were allowed to help to attend to the poultry—a coveted honour as soon as the fluffy chickens and ducklings began to be hatched; others were being trained to understand bee-keeping; it was rumoured in the school that Miss Todd's ambition even soared so high as buying a cow.

"Where would she keep it, though?" asked Tattie, who was practical.

"I don't know, unless on the lawn," ventured Jess.

"Whew! It would spoil the tennis-courts."

"Well, I suppose she could hire a field. It would be ripping fun to learn to milk."

"Don't flatter yourself you'd have the chance. The seniors get all that kind of fun, and we poor intermediates only get the spade work. I've never been allowed to feed the chickens once, no—not once—and I think it's jolly hard luck!"

"Well, after the way you stuck your fingers into the bee-hive, I should think Miss Ormrod would hardly trust you to feed a sparrow!"

"What nonsense! I was only investigating!"

"Oh, I dare say! It sounds very grand when you put it that way. Miss Ormrod called you 'Meddlesome Matty', and said you deserved to be stung!"

One great advantage of the farming operations, in the eyes of the younger girls, was that so many materials were left lying about, and it was quite possible to obtain a considerable amount of enjoyment from them. A plank placed over a tree-trunk made quite a good see-saw; the new back gate was a delightful one to swing upon; and, when Miss Ormrod's back was turned, it was a favourite amusement to place a ladder against the potting-shed wall, climb to the ridge of the roof, and then slide down and give a flying jump to the ground. There was an old bucket inside the potting-shed upon which Diana had her eye; she had schemes that centred round that bucket. It had holes drilled in its sides, and had been used during building operations to light a fire in. She was determined it should be used for that purpose again.

Down by the brink of the lake was a boat-house that belonged to the school. It was kept carefully locked, and Miss Todd had the key. Since she had taken over the school she had allowed no one to use the boat—a grievance at which the girls sometimes grumbled. There was a small landing-stage at the edge of the water, and only six feet away from this was a sort of island formed of some willow-stumps and a little soil. It was a tiny place, hardly worthy to be called an island, and yet for Diana it held an immense attraction. She wanted to get on to it. She went down one day with Wendy, Peggy, and Vi, and they took the plank which had been used for a see-saw, fixed it as a bridge from the landing-stage to a willow-stump, and then walked across and took possession. Their new property was only about as large as a good-sized dining-table, but they were immensely pleased with it.

"We'll bring down the Stars and Stripes and hang them up!" exulted Diana.

"The Union Jack, you mean!" corrected Wendy. "Can't run up even an Allied flag on British soil without first claiming it for the King! I'd like to have a picnic here!"

"That's exactly what's in my mind," agreed Diana, waiving the question of the colours. "And I've got a brain-wave. We'll carry the bucket over, light a fire, and cook something. Wouldn't it be rather ripping?"

"A1!" beamed Peggy and Vi.

"Crusoe Island", as the girls named their willow-clump, might certainly claim the doubtful distinction of being the smallest British possession in the world, but it was an important one in the eyes of its owners. They duly brought down the Union Jack and the American flag, and—as a concession to Diana—planted them side by side on its scanty soil. They decided not to tell seniors or juniors anything at all about it. Of course, in a vague way, the whole school knew of its existence, but nobody had troubled before to land on its few yards of surface. It was well hidden by the boat-house, so that any operations there were not visible from the garden or orchard. The rest of the intermediates, admitted with many cautions of silence into the secret, approved whole-heartedly; the form squatted in a circle on their territory, linked little fingers, and pledged themselves into a sort of Crusoe Society. Everybody felt that the first thing to be done was to hold an inauguration feast. They borrowed the bucket, filled it with coal and coke from the greenhouse, and carried it successfully over the plank to the island.

"So far so good!" purred Diana. "We've got our fire!"

"But not our feast!" qualified Wendy.

"We shall have to be jolly careful to dodge those juniors," advised Jess. "If they see us carrying out cups they'll be on the scent directly."

"We mustn't risk it. Besides, Barker would be sure to catch us in the pantry, and make a clamour if we took cups; we must manage without things from the house."

"There's a large biscuit-tin lid in the hen-yard," suggested Sadie. "If we washed it very well, it would do as a frying pan."

"Good biz!"

"What could we fry?"

The commissariat question was indeed the problem of problems. The village was unfortunately out of bounds, so that, except on stated occasions, when they were escorted by a mistress, the girls were unable to do shopping "on their own". There are ways, however, of crawling through even the most barbed-wire fence of rules.

"Toddlekins never told us we weren't to ask anybody else to do shopping for us," said Wendy demurely. "When you've not been told not to do anything, you're not disobedient if you don't do it—oh! I'm getting rather in a muddle, but you know what I mean."

They did, and they grinned approval.

"There's a little boy working on the next farm," continued Wendy. "I've smiled and waved to him over the hedge sometimes. I believe he'd do anything for me. If you can stump up some cash, I'll get him to run an errand for us. He's picking stones out of the field at this present moment—at least, to be absolutely truthful, he was, ten minutes ago, and I don't suppose he's stopped. If I go to the orchard fence I can call to him."

The circle looked at Wendy with admiration. They had not before realized the riches of her resourcefulness. Each promised to contribute sixpence, and told her where to find their purses, so that they need not arouse suspicion by visiting their dormitories in a body.

"We'll be lighting the fire while you get the prog," they assured her.

So Wendy departed on her foraging expedition, collected the necessary funds after much hunting in various drawers and coat pockets, hurried to the orchard, and climbed the fence. Freddie Entwistle was still steadily engaged in the rural occupation of ridding his father's field of superfluous stones, but he kept an eye on the horizon, and at the sight of Wendy's beckoning finger he flung duty to the winds.

"D'you want me?" he grinned, as he came panting across the newly ploughed earth.

"Yes," said his siren sweetly. "I want you badly. Will you go to the village and buy something for me?"

"I don't mind. What shall I get?"

"Half a pound of biscuits and something to fry."

"Bacon?" suggested her swain laconically.

"N-n-no. We had bacon for breakfast."

"Kippers or ham?"

"I don't think kippers; but really it must be anything you can get. Here's the money. If there's any change, take it out in sweets."

"Right you are! I'll be as sharp as I can."

"It's something to have a knight-errant who's prepared to relieve a maiden in distress," reflected Wendy, seating herself on the fence to await the return of her chivalrous squire.

He came back in course of time with his pockets bulging with parcels, evidently very proud of himself for having executed his lady's commands. Her thanks and a commission of sweets left him radiant. He returned to his stone-picking, living in a dream.

The party on the island received Wendy with enthusiasm. The fire was burning beautifully in the bucket, the tin had been scoured with sand and well washed, large ivy leaves had been picked to serve as plates, and the company had their penknives ready.

"It's sausages!" exclaimed Wendy, opening one of the parcels; "and he's actually bought some lard to fry them in. What a brain—and only twelve! That boy'll be a general some day, if he doesn't die of over-cleverness. Biscuits to eat with them, my children, and some chocs. for dessert. I beg to propose that we accord a hearty vote of thanks to Freddie Entwistle."

"For he's a jolly good fellow!

For he's a jolly good fellow!"

began Jess; but Diana promptly squashed her.

"Stop that noise! D'you want to give the whole show away, and have Lennie, and Nora, and Betty, and all the rest of the kids swarming down upon us? Anybody who can't keep quiet will be made to walk the plank. Yes, and splash into the river at the other end of it! We wouldn't pick you out either; we'd let you drown!"

"Then I'd sing 'For he's a jolly good fellow' as my 'dying swan song'," protested Jess. "The kids are far enough away. No one can hear us."

She took the hint, all the same, and did not allow her enjoyment to bubble over into music. Instead, she helped Wendy to prick the sausages with a penknife and place them on the temporary frying-pan. The biscuit-tin lid just fitted nicely over the bucket. In a few minutes there was a grand sound of fizzling, and a most delicious scent began to waft itself over the waters of the lake. The best of a bucket-fire is that everybody can sit round it in a circle and superintend the cooking operations. Eight penknives prodded the sausages so often that it was a wonder they were not all chopped to pieces before they were done. At last the connoisseurs declared they were brown enough, and they were carefully and mathematically halved and served on biscuits.

"Delicious!" decreed Tattie, critically.

"Couldn't have been better if Toddlekins had reared the piglets on our own farm," chimed in Peggy.

"Diana, you haven't taken a bite yet," commented Wendy.

"I'm not sure that I want any. I think I'll only have a biscuit, after all."

"Not want any? Not want the lovely sausages that I risked so much to get? Diana Hewlitt, what's the matter with you?"

"Oh, nothing—only——"

"Only nothing, I should say! Eat up that piece of sausage double quick, if you value my friendship."

"Suppose you eat it for me? That would be sentiment."

"No, it wouldn't; you must eat it yourself. There'll be a shindy if you don't. Our first feast! It's a sort of ceremonial!"

"Not 'the cup of brotherhood' but 'the sausage of sisterhood'!" hinnied Jess.

Diana looked doubtfully at the two inches of brown, porky substance on her ivy-leaf plate, and sighed.

"I feel like the elephant at the Zoo when they offered him his hundredth bun: It may kill me, but it's a beautiful death," she demurred. "Well, if you're all nuts on my having some, I guess there's nothing else for it. Here goes! What a life!"

"The Sisterhood of the Sausage," murmured Jess fatuously.

"Don't make such a fuss; you know you're enjoying it, old sport," said Wendy. "It isn't every day in your life you can come and have a blow-out on Crusoe Island."

On Thursday morning Diana, who had been restless and fidgety in the night, awoke with a rash all over her face and chest. Loveday, much alarmed, would not allow her to get up till the authorities had seen her, and fetched Miss Todd. The Principal, dismayed at the prospect of infection in the school, mentally ran over the gamut of possible diseases from scarlatina to chicken-pox, ordered Diana to stop in bed, and sent at once to Glenbury for the doctor.

Now it happened that Dr. Hunter was himself in bed, suffering from a severe attack of influenza, and, as it was extremely difficult for him, at a few hours' notice, to secure the services of a really competent medical man as locum tenens, he had been obliged to put up with a Hindoo doctor who was sent by the London agent in answer to his urgent telegram. It was a case of "any port in a storm", and though Dr. Jinaradasa's qualifications might be such as only just to satisfy the board of the Royal College of Surgeons, it was better to send him to look after the patients than to leave them utterly unattended. Therefore, when the neat little two-seater car drew up at Pendlemere Abbey it was not the bluff, rosy-cheeked Dr. Hunter who stepped out of it, but a foreign-looking gentleman with a very dark complexion. He explained his presence to Miss Todd, who gasped for a second, but recovered herself, received him gratefully, and conducted him upstairs to view his patient. Diana, I regret to say, behaved like the spoilt child she really was. She buried her head under the bedclothes, and at first utterly refused to submit to any examination. Miss Todd coaxed, wheedled, stormed, and finally pulled the clothes away by force and displayed the rash to the dark, lustreless eyes of Dr. Jinaradasa. He asked a few questions—which Diana answered sulkily—took her temperature, felt her pulse, and retired downstairs to talk over the case with Miss Todd, leaving a very cross and indignant patient behind him. Ten minutes afterwards the door of the ivy room swung gently open, and Wendy's interested and sympathetic face made its appearance.

"Di!" she whispered impressively; "I'm coming to see you, even if it's smallpox you've got. I'm supposed to be practising, but I just did a bolt. Well, old sport, you do look an object, I must say!"

Diana hitched herself higher in bed.

"You needn't be afraid. I'm not infectious," she remarked.

"They say you've got measles," ventured Wendy.

"Measles!" snorted Diana scornfully. "That's all they know about it. I've told them till I'm tired that it's nettle-rash. I've had it before. I always do get the wretched thing when I eat sausages. They sort of poison me. It'll go away all right if they only let me alone. What did Miss Todd want bringing that black doctor up to see me? I had nearly forty fits when he came marching into my room."

"Well, he says you've got measles at any rate, and Toddlekins is in no end of a state. Thinks it's going to spread all through the school. D'you know she's making arrangements to send you to the Fever Hospital? They're to come and fetch you away in the ambulance."

"What! The idiots! I tell you I haven't got measles. I won't go! Do you think I'm going to let myself be bundled off to the Fever Hospital just because an ignoramus of a Hindoo doctor doesn't know his business sufficiently to tell nettle-rash when he sees it? Rather not! I'd show fight first!"

"They'll roll you in blankets and carry you downstairs!" thrilled Wendy.

"They'll do nothing of the sort—I'll take good care of that. I wouldn't be easy to carry if I kicked, even inside blankets. I never heard of such an outrageous thing in all my life. I've some bounce left in me yet, and I'll use it—see if I don't! Measles, indeed! I wonder he didn't say it was hydrophobia."

"Well, whatever it is, you're to be taken to the Fever Hospital; they've ordered the ambulance. I'm awfully sorry, old sport! It's hard luck on you. I must scoot now, and go back to my practising, or I shall have Bunty on my track. Bye-bye!"

Wendy vanished, leaving Diana alone and most upset. She considered that she was being treated abominably. She longed to telegraph to her parents, but she knew that was impossible.

"Whatever happens, I'm not going to that wretched Fever Hospital," she said to herself. "I'm sure Cousin Cora wouldn't like me to be taken there. Why shouldn't I go to Petteridge? They're all well again from the 'flu'. What a brain-wave! I declare I will, and tell Cousin Cora all about it!"

Diana was nothing if not impetuous. She jumped up immediately, and began a hasty toilet. She was just three-quarters through with it when she heard footsteps on the stairs. She immediately whisked her nightdress on over her clothes, and popped into bed just three seconds before Miss Todd entered the room. The excitement of such a rush made her face more flushed than ever. Miss Todd came and looked at her critically.

"Yes, the rash is coming out very nicely," she observed.

"It's nettle-rash, not measles!" affirmed Diana defiantly.

"That's for the doctor to decide, not you. I'm afraid you must have caught it the day you went in the omnibus to Glenbury. It takes nearly a fortnight to incubate."

Diana shivered with anxiety lest Miss Todd should wish to inspect the progress of the rash on her chest as well as on her face, and thus discover that she was half clothed beneath her nightdress, but fortunately the head mistress did not descend so far in her investigations. Instead, she turned to Diana's drawers, and began filling a hand-bag with various necessaries. She did not mention the Fever Hospital, probably judging it better not to prepare the patient beforehand, but to wait until the ambulance arrived. Diana, of course, knew why she was collecting the garments, but feigned to ignore the matter, and made no comment. She wished Miss Todd would be quick and go. She was so terribly afraid that the ambulance might drive up before she had the chance to make her escape. Flight seemed certainly preferable to a struggle.

The mistress at last found a sufficiency of nightdresses and other garments, and, telling Diana to keep herself covered up and warm, took her departure.

The moment she was safely out of the way the invalid sprang up and resumed her interrupted toilet. Diana had suffered from nettle-rash several times before, and the treatment had not included stopping in bed or even staying indoors. Her complaint was really more in the nature of dyspepsia. She felt as if fresh air would do her good. She did not dare to walk downstairs in case she might meet anybody, so she decided to adopt the method she had found effective last autumn, and climb out through the window and down the ivy. Lessons were in progress, so nobody would be in the garden to watch her, except Miss Carr and Miss Ormrod, who would probably be engaged with the horse or the hens. She swung herself out, therefore, and let herself down by the thick stems. Then she dodged round the house to the bicycle-shed. She did not yet possess a machine of her own, but Wendy's stood handy, and she knew her chum well enough to borrow it. She wheeled it through the back gate, fortunately without meeting Miss Carr, and then set off at top-speed for Petteridge Court.

Mrs. Burritt was naturally much surprised to see her young cousin turn up in so unexpected a fashion, and with a rash on her face, but she did the most sensible thing in the circumstances: she put Diana to bed, and sent to Dunswick for a doctor. He arrived during the course of the afternoon, and, after a careful examination of his patient, pronounced her complaint to be nettle-rash.

"There's not a doubt about it!" he declared. "You need not be in the least afraid that it's measles."

Armed with a medical certificate to that effect, Mrs. Burritt motored over to Pendlemere Abbey to patch up peace with Miss Todd. Partly for reasons of health, and partly to let the storm blow over, she kept Diana at Petteridge until the rash had entirely disappeared and the girl seemed in her absolutely normal condition. Mrs. Burritt took her back on the understanding that bygones should be bygones, and a fresh start should be made without any reference to former delinquencies.

Miss Todd received Diana quite amiably, but insisted upon her having a carbolic bath, and herself washed her hair with strong disinfectant soap. The clothes she had worn disappeared mysteriously for some days, and were then returned from the stoving department of the Glenbury Sanitation Office. Diana made no comments at head-quarters, but laughed to herself.

"I'm sure Toddlekins believes I've had measles," she confided to Wendy.

"Of course she does. She said she hadn't the least doubt about it, and that you hadn't eaten anything which could have caused you to have nettle-rash."

"What would she say if she knew about the sausages?" queried Diana.

XIV. Spooks

March had come, and even in the northern mountainous region of the Pennines, where snow lingers long after it has melted in more favoured districts, winter had begun to make way for spring. The snowdrops—January flowers in Wales or Cornwall, fair maids of February in most counties—were late bloomers at Pendlemere, and were never in their prime till St. Patrick's Day. They made up for their tardy arrival by their luxuriance. They grew almost wild in the orchard, and spread like a white carpet over the grass, tossing fairy bells in the wind. Diana, promoted to help Miss Carr in the spraying of apple-trees, paused in her work to look round and revel in nature's re-awakening. She was a sun lover, and the long months of perpetual mist and rain had tried her very much. She had, to be sure, kept up her spirits in spite of weather; still, the sight of fleecy, white clouds scudding across a blue sky, and the sound of the missel-thrush tuning up on the bare branch of the plum-tree were particularly cheering. Hedge-sparrows twittered among the shrubs, and rooks were busy flying with large twigs in their bills to repair their nests in the elms near the church. In the March sunshine the lake glittered like gold.

"I wonder if it looked just like this when the old monks lived here," said Diana. "Did they see exactly what we do now?"

"Pretty much the same, I expect," answered Miss Carr rather abstractedly. "The lake and the fells would be there, and probably most of the farms, though the buildings would be different in those days. The lay brethren would attend to the land just as we do. I dare say they dug in this very orchard, and grew herbs in the same place where we're going to plant our potatoes."

"It's a pity we can't call up a vision of them!"

"No, thank you!" said Miss Carr, who was a practical person, and not given to romance. "I've not the slightest desire to see spooks. I'm quite content with modern life, and don't want fourteenth-century ghosts gliding about the place. Get on with your work, Diana! I'm more concerned with apple-trees than with the old monks."

When Diana got an idea into her head, however, it was apt to stick. She had a lively imagination, and she liked to picture what the Abbey had once been. She read the account of it in the local guidebook and in Chadwick's Northern Antiquities, which she borrowed from the library, and she further devoured Scott's The Monastery. Steeped in this mediæval atmosphere, she began to tell the girls such vivid stories of the doings of the brethren that they almost believed her. She invented several fictitious characters: Brother Amos, Brother Lawrence, Brother John, and Prior Andrew, and gave a most circumstantial account of their adventures.

"How do you know what they used to do?" asked Jess, much impressed.

"I guess I sort of feel it," said Diana. "It's almost like remembering."

"Some people think we come back to earth and live again. Were you one of the old monks, Di?"

"She must have been an unholy one, if she was!" interrupted Sadie. "Anybody less like a monk than 'Stars and Stripes' I couldn't think of!"

"There were all sorts, of course. I've told you Brother Lawrence was up to tricks sometimes, and got the discipline. The Prior used to be down on him, just as Toddlekins is down on us. He was more sinner than saint. That's why he can't rest quietly."

"Doesn't he rest?" Jess's voice held a note of uneasiness.

"No, I don't think he does. I've a kind of feeling that he haunts the place, coming back to find out what it's like now."

"An earth-bound spirit!" gasped Jess.

"Yes, he's got some sins to expiate, you see."

The conversation was growing creepy. Sadie, Tattie, Jess, and Peggy, who with Diana were squatting near the schoolroom fire in the gloaming, moved a little nearer together. There is comfort in physical contact. The fact that Brother Lawrence was entirely an invention of Diana's did not relieve the tenseness of the situation; she had talked about him so often that she seemed to have conjured him up. They could almost see his white habit gliding along the corridor, and his unsaintly eyes gleaming from under his cowl. They began to wish he had behaved better during his lifetime, or at any rate that he had not chosen to revisit the scenes of his old sins.

"If I were really to see him I'd have forty fits!" shivered Peggy, who was a superstitious little soul who threw spilt salt over her left shoulder, and curtsied religiously to the new moon.

"It isn't everybody can see ghosts," declared Diana. "You've got to have the psychic faculty. Some people can feel they're there, even when they can't see them."

"Oh, that would be far worse! It would be awful to know something was in the room, and not be able to see it!" exploded Jess. "Tattie, may I come and sleep in your bed to-night?"

"There's not much room, but you can if you like," conceded Tattie; "so long as Geraldine doesn't find out."

"I'll creep in when she's asleep."

It was all very well for Diana to people the corridor with imaginary monks; she knew they were images of her own creation; the more weak-minded of her form mates, however, were frankly frightened. Nothing spreads more readily than a ghost scare. Sadie, Jess, and Peggie were bolting squealing along the passage one evening, when they almost collided with Geraldine. She seized Jess by the arm, and pulled her into the radius of the lamplight, nodding to the other two to follow.

"I want a word with you," she said. "It's high time you stopped this ridiculous nonsense. I don't know who started it, but it's getting the limit. Oh, yes! I know you go creeping into Tattie's bed when you think I'm asleep, and you daren't walk upstairs alone. I'm not as blind or deaf as you seem to suppose. You're putting silly ideas into juniors' heads. Whoever heard of the Abbey being haunted? Such stuff! You'll be afraid of your own shadows next. Do try to be more strong-minded! I really shouldn't have expected——"

Geraldine stopped, because something like a whirlwind suddenly descended the stairs and stampeded towards them. It resolved itself into Diana—Diana with scarlet cheeks, shining eyes, and face simply bubbling over with excitement.

"Hallo! I say!" she jodelled, "What do you think?" Then she saw Geraldine, and halted dead.

"Come here!" commanded the head girl. "I want to talk to you too about this absurd spook scare. It's mostly among you intermediates, and the sooner you get it out of your silly heads the better. Pity you can't find something more sensible to talk about. Why don't you read, and fill up your empty brains? There are heaps of good books in the library, if you'd only get them out. You spend all your spare time gossiping."

"We do read!" retorted Diana, taking up the cudgels for the maligned intermediates. "I've just read The Monastery, and that's all about a ghost called 'The White Lady of Avenel'. It's grand where she rides the sacristan's mule down the river and sings:

'Merrily swim we; the moon shines bright.

Good luck to your fishing! Whom watch ye to-night?'

There are heaps and loads of ghost tales in the guide book and in Chadwick's Northern Antiquities, and those are all books Miss Todd told me I might read. She said they were 'educational'."

"She didn't mean you to take the ghosts seriously, though, any more than you'd believe in the gods of Greece because you were learning classical literature. Why, you'll tell me next that you expect to see the fairies."

"I'm not sure that I don't!"

"Then you're a bigger goose than I thought you. Really, at fourteen! I'm astonished at all of you. You don't see me running squealing away from supposed ghosts. Don't let me catch you being such little idiots again."

Having finished her harangue, and having, as she thought, thoroughly squashed the folly of the intermediates, Geraldine proceeded on her way, happily oblivious of the faces they were pulling behind her back.

"I'd like to see her squeal and run," grunted Jess.

Its Cowl Fell Back, and Disclosed a Well-known and Decidedly Mirthful Countenance

"So should I," agreed Sadie. "She's always very superior. By the by, Stars and Stripes, what were you just going to tell us?"

"Nothing particular."

Diana was looking preoccupied, as if her thoughts were far away.

"I'm sure it was," urged Sadie. "Don't be mean! Go on!"

"I've changed my mind. No, I'm not going to tell you. It's no use bothering me, for I just shan't."

"I think everybody's horrid to-night," said Sadie, turning away much offended.

It was on the very next evening that Ida Beckford, going to her bedroom in the gloaming, caught a glimpse of a white-robed figure with a cowl over its head gliding along the passage and up the stairs. Ida was not so strong-minded as Geraldine. She turned the colour of pale putty, and went straight downstairs again to relate her psychic experience to her fellow seniors. She did not meet with the sympathy she expected.

"Some silly trick of those intermediates," sniffed Hilary.

"I'll be down on them if they go shamming spooks," threatened Geraldine.

"If it happens again we'll set a watch and catch it," declared Stuart loftily.

Ida cheered up at this mundane view of the matter, and recovered her colour; but she abandoned the blotter she was going to fetch, and stayed in her form-room instead of walking upstairs again. The news began to creep about the school, however, that the Abbey was being haunted by a spiritual visitor. Many of the girls saw it glide along the landing in the dusk, and disappear up a certain narrow flight of stairs. Now herein lay the mystery. The stairs went up ten steps in full view of the passage, then they turned a sharp corner, rounded a yard of landing, and with four more steps ended in a locked attic door. Several of the most venturesome members of the school had tried to follow the figure, but when they came round the corner, to their immense surprise it had utterly disappeared. And there was absolutely no place in which it could possibly have concealed itself.

"Has it crept through the keyhole?" quavered Peggy.

"Or just vanished into thin air?" speculated Magsie.

"The door's really locked!" declared Vi, rattling the handle again to make sure.

"We certainly saw it go up, but it's not here now!"

"Flesh and blood can't disappear in a second!"

"It's most uncanny!"

"The old Cistercians wore white habits."

"I say, I don't like this!"

Brother Lawrence, as the girls began to call the apparition, showed himself frequently, but always with the same elusiveness. The phenomenon was invariably as before: his white monastic robes would glimmer through the darkness, glide up the stairway, and then seemingly melt into nothing. Geraldine herself pursuing hotly on the scent, found that she was utterly baffled.

A head girl, especially a prefect with a scorn for superstition, does not like to admit herself baffled. Geraldine thought the matter over, took Loveday into her confidence, and went to Miss Todd. As the result of her interview she resolved to set what she called "a very neat little spook-trap". She and Loveday said nothing about it to the rest of the school. They merely bided their time.

Brother Lawrence did not always show up when anybody was on the watch for him; he seemed to prefer displaying his supernatural powers to the unwary. For two whole days he did not put in an appearance; whether he was haunting elsewhere or expiating his sins in purgatory was a point for discussion. On the third evening, however, Tattie, Jess, and Magsie had screwed their courage to sticking-point, and strolled upstairs in the twilight, half hoping and half fearing to catch a glimpse of the now almost familiar apparition. They kept in the shadow of the big cupboard, and held each others' hands without speaking. A full moon was shining through the landing window, and lit up the narrow staircase with a silvery, ghostly gleam. Suddenly from the darkness of a doorway emerged the white robes, and passed rapidly upwards in the moonlight. Still clutching hands for moral support, the three girls tore after it. Surely this time they could manage to overtake it? But no; it had turned the corner before they reached the lowest stair, and by the time they had dashed up the ten steps it had made its usual disappearance. They halted on the yard of landing, breathing hard; then their hearts seemed to turn somersaults, for the attic door suddenly opened. It was no ghost who peered forth at them, but Geraldine and Loveday. The former had a candle in her hand; she struck a match and lighted it calmly.

"You needn't look so scared!" she said to the panting trio. "I'm just going to show you your precious spook. Stand back a little, will you? I assure you it won't bite you!"

She descended to the landing, turned round towards the four steps that led to the attic door, then, to the immense amazement of the girls, raised up the steps like the lid of a chest. There was a good-sized cavity below, and in this place of concealment crouched a white-clad figure. Geraldine took it by the arm and hauled it unceremoniously forth. It issued chuckling, and, as its cowl fell back, disclosed a well-known and decidedly mirthful countenance.

"Stars and Stripes!" ejaculated Jess.

"The game's up!" proclaimed Diana coolly. "You two"—nodding at the seniors—"have been too many for me."

"I always thought you were at the bottom of all this, Diana Hewlitt!" said Geraldine. "I was quite determined I'd catch you. Take those things off at once. What are they? Sheets? Fold them up properly; don't trail them on the floor. Do you know that if anybody in the school had had a weak heart you might have killed her by playing such a trick?"

"I knew you were all too strong-minded," twinkled Diana. "Of course, nobody believed in Brother Lawrence, any more than they believed in the fairies or the gods of Greece. I guess it's rather nice sometimes to make a sort of practical demonstration of one's reading. It shows one appreciates the books and takes an intelligent interest. There are heaps of good books in the library. I'm going to borrow Customs and Superstitions of the Celts."

"You may borrow what you like," said Geraldine grimly; "but if we've any more of this business Miss Todd will settle it herself; so I tell you."

"People who provide entertainment are rarely thanked," sighed Diana, as she folded the sheets. "I ought to receive a stipend for keeping the school amused."

"You'll receive something you don't bargain for, if you don't take care," warned Geraldine. "Go downstairs, all of you!"

That Brother Lawrence was identical with Diana did not very much surprise the school, but everybody went crazy over the discovery of the secret hiding-place under the stairs. Even Miss Todd had not known of its existence. Diana confessed that she had found it out quite by accident, had rushed downstairs to communicate the thrilling news, but had changed her mind as its obvious advantages flashed across her. She had not been able to resist making use of it to play a ghost trick. The little chamber which she had so unexpectedly brought to light was only just big enough to crouch in, and had probably been made in the troublous times of the Stuarts as a place of temporary concealment when the Abbey was searched by soldiers. Unfortunately it was quite empty.

"When I first opened it I expected to find a hoard of spade-guineas or silver punch-bowls," said Diana ruefully to Loveday—the two girls were discussing the great discovery as they went to bed. "I nearly howled when I found nothing but dust."

"I wonder," answered Loveday, "if this is what that gentleman found—the one, I mean, who came to see Father when I had measles. You know I've always been hunting about for hiding-places."

"Yes, I know."

"I thought somehow it would be rather better than this, though. It hardly seemed worth while his troubling to come and call; though, of course, it's interesting. Mr. Fleming will be very thrilled."

"I'd have been a great deal more thrilled if there'd been anything worth having inside. As I told you before, I expected spade-guineas. It's one of the disappointments of my life!" declared Diana, getting into bed.

XV. Joy-riding

The post at Pendlemere Abbey was distributed after breakfast, and the girls devoured their correspondence in the short interval before lessons began. One morning in April the usual weekly letter with the Paris postmark arrived addressed to "Miss Hewlitt", and, five minutes after receiving it, Diana came tearing down the corridor in search of Loveday. She looked the very incarnation of joy—her face was aglow, and her eyes shining.

"Such news!" she gasped. "What d'you think? I'll give you three guesses. Father and Mother are coming over to England for Easter. I haven't seen them since last September, and I'm simply off my head. Isn't it ripping? And that's not all, by any means. Come up to the ivy room, Loveday mine. I want to tell you all about it without those kids hanging about listening to every word one says. Come now!"

Linking her arm in Loveday's, Diana dragged her friend upstairs, away from the eyes and ears of inquisitive juniors, who were veritable little pitchers where their elders' affairs were concerned. It was only when they were in the safety of their own sanctum that she fully unbosomed herself.

"Somebody else is coming to England. It's my brother Giles. He's been made London correspondent of the Louisville Herald. He wanted most frightfully to join the army, but they wouldn't accept him because of his eyes. He'll be just standing on his head with joy at getting to Europe after all. Did I tell you he was in a newspaper office? He's crossing next week, and he's to go and see Father and Mother in Paris first, then come back with them to England, and have a holiday before he begins his new work. Dad's going to hire a car and take us a joy-ride, and Lenox is to get leave and join us. You know Lenox isn't demobilized yet. He's in a camp in Wales. But he expects they'll give him about five days. Think of seeing Britain in a car, with Father and Mother and Giles and Lenox! I want to shout!"

"You little lucker!" sympathized Loveday.

"But that isn't all yet. I haven't finished telling you," triumphed Diana, laying a fluffy head on her room-mate's shoulder, and poking a caressing finger into Loveday's dimples. "Mother said in her letter that she guessed I'd enjoy the tour so much more if I had a girl companion with me, and would I like to ask one of my school friends? You bet I would! Ra—ther! Do you know whom I'm going to ask?"

"Wendy?"

"Wendy! No! I'm very fond of her, but she's not the one for a tour like this. Besides, I know she's going to the seaside with her own home folks. There's only one person from Pendlemere I want, and that's Loveday. Will you come? I'd just adore to have you!"

"O-o-o-oh! If your mother really asks me."

"Of course she does! She says she's writing about it to Miss Todd."

Such a dazzling prospect as a joy-ride through England was hardly to be refused. In due course Loveday's aunt gave her permission, and the invitation was accepted. It was arranged for the motor tour to begin on Easter Tuesday, so as to allow Diana and her family to have a few quiet days together first. They were to spend them at Windermere, then call with the car at Liverpool for Loveday, and also to pick up Lenox, who would join them there from the American camp in Wales.

Loveday went about the school feeling as if her reason were rocking. She had never imagined that anything so nice could happen to her. Since the loss of her parents life had not been too bright. Sometimes she almost dreaded the holidays at her aunt's. She was shy and sensitive, and the impression that she was not altogether welcome there was a bitter one. It is very hard for a girl when she has no home of her own, and no one whose special prerogative it is to love and encourage her. Though her uncle and aunt saw that she had everything needful in the way of education and clothing, they never petted her, and she had grown up with the starved feeling of the child who lacks kisses. She had too much self-respect to parade her woes at school, and perhaps her fellow seniors mistook her shyness for pride; they were nice to her, but she had not a real confidante among any of them. It was Diana—Diana whom she had at first resented as an intruder in the ivy room—who had broken down the wall of her reserve and found the road to her heart.

The remainder of the term passed quickly; the spring days were so full with lessons and land-work that time at the Abbey literally raced along. Nevertheless, with characteristic impatience, Diana crossed off the calendar each evening, and counted the lessening dates in huge satisfaction. Then came the joyful afternoon when trunks were brought down from the box-room, and the school began its congenial task of packing. The accustomed term-end routine was gone through, and next morning three tired mistresses saw twenty excited pupils safely into their respective railway carriages.

"Only a week and we meet again," said Loveday to Diana, whose train started first.

"Just seven days," returned that damsel, leaning dangerously out of the compartment window. "Guess I'm about living for that tour. If we don't have the time of our lives, I'm much mistaken. Ta-ta till next Tuesday."

Diana enjoyed the quiet week at Windermere with father, mother, and brother, and though the little circle was not quite complete—for there was a brother of seventeen at school in America—it was delightful to be among her own family again. Mr. Hewlitt was very tired after his long spell of arduous work in Paris, and was glad to rest his brains, so they spent most of the time boating on the lake, or strolling in the woods, getting new-made-over in the fresh, bracing country air. The car they had hired was to meet them at Lancaster. They went thus far south by train, then motored to Liverpool. Loveday, ready with suit-case packed, was eagerly expecting them. From the window of her aunt's drawing-room she watched the big six-seater car arrive at the door. Giles—a masculine edition of Diana, in spectacles—was driving. Lenox—a beaming khaki-clad figure with twinkle-some brown eyes—sat by his side. Mr. and Mrs. Hewlitt and Diana were in the rear seat. A goodly pile of boxes and baskets was strapped on to the luggage-carrier behind. A change of places was effected, resulting in the two girls sitting with Giles in the front. Loveday's suit-case was stowed away, her aunt waved good-bye, the electric-starter was applied, and the car moved off on its eventful journey south.

It was a delightful way of travelling, to whiz along by road instead of by rail. The country was just in the blush of spring, the woods were bursting into tender leaf, plum blossom made fairy lace-work in wayside orchards, and wallflowers and cowslips bloomed in cottage gardens. Giles, who drove the car, had planned out their tour carefully. He was determined to see rural England to best advantage, and, instead of keeping always to the main roads, he intended to take by-ways, so as to pass through typical country villages. Once free from the suburbs of Liverpool, they avoided large towns as far as possible, as they made their way through Cheshire to the Midlands. Their first object was that Mecca of all American pilgrims—the Shakespeare country.

"In five days we haven't time to look at everything as we go along, so I guess we'd better just sprint till we get to Kenilworth, and start our sight-seeing there," decreed Giles.

He made an excellent chauffeur, and fortunately encountered no police traps, though he certainly exceeded the speed limit when he saw a clear road ahead. A lunch-basket with thermos flasks was packed in the car, and the party picnicked for their mid-day meal in a wood where primroses were opening their little pale-yellow flowers, and king-cups blazed in a marshy ditch. The air was fresh with spring, and cuckoos were calling from the fields by a river.

"When I was a small girl," said Loveday, "I thought there was only one cuckoo in the world. People used to say: 'Oh, have you heard the cuckoo yet?' so, of course, I thought there was only one. Nobody said: 'Have you seen the swallow yet?' when swallows returned. I was fearfully puzzled one day when I heard two cuckoos both cuckooing at once."

They reached Kenilworth just at sunset, when a crimson sky was flaming behind the old castle, and glowing on the windows of the picturesque cottages that faced the ancient ruin from the other side of the village green. Its grey walls, magnificent even in their decay, seemed teeming with historic memories, and, in the glamour of the sunset, they could almost, in imagination, restore the half-legendary splendour of its later days, and picture Queen Elizabeth arriving there on her famous visit to the Earl of Leicester. It was too late to do any exploring that evening, so, after a halt to admire the beauty of the scene, they went on to their hotel, promising themselves to make it the first object of their sight-seeing to-morrow.

"It seems so extraordinary," said Mr. Hewlitt at dinner, "that every little bit of ground we're passing over now has a history that dates right back to the Middle Ages. It's a wonderful corner of England, and so unspoilt. Half of the houses look as if they'd stepped straight out of an artist's canvas."

For the next few days the party lived with guidebooks in their hands. They thoroughly explored Kenilworth Castle, tried to call up a vision of the pageant that was presented before Queen Elizabeth there, and deplored the tragic fate of poor Amy Robsart. Then the car splashed through the ford at the foot of the wood, and carried them along the Warwick Road, past Blacklow Hill, where Piers Gaveston was executed, and where, it is said, his restless spirit still rides at drear midnight, to Guy's Cliff, with its old Saxon mill and romantic view of the Avon. Then on to Warwick, to look at the treasures of a castle fortunately untouched by the ravages of war, and the beautiful Beauchamp Chapel, with its tomb of the "King Maker". They could have stayed a long time in ancient, picturesque Warwick, admiring the quaint, old houses and the smooth stretches of the river, but the attractions of Stratford lay only eight miles away, and they had booked their rooms in advance at the hotel there. None of them ever forgot their first entry into Shakespeare's town. It was the season of his anniversary, and in his honour flags decorated the black-and-white houses, and dainty little maidens, with May garlands of flowers, came tripping down the sixteenth-century streets. Our pilgrims did their devoirs in orthodox fashion, beginning with Shakespeare's birthplace and its museum of relics, going on to the Grammar School where he learned his "little Latin and less Greek", to the remains of his house "New Place", and his tomb and monument in the glorious old church. They could hardly tear themselves away from Anne Hathaway's thatched, half-timber cottage at Shottery, with its carved, four-post Elizabethan bedstead, its garden full of rustic flowers, and its ingle-nook where perhaps Shakespeare sat to woo.

"If we could only take it just as it is, and carry it out to America," sighed Diana.

"But it would be nothing without its surroundings," said Loveday. "It's because Shakespeare seems associated with every corner of Stratford that the whole place is so fascinating. Wherever you go you feel as if you were following him round. I'd like to spend a month here, and do each separate spot leisurely and quietly."

If the whole of the projected tour was to be carried out, and the Shakespeare villages inspected, not to speak of Edgehill, Evesham, Broadway, and Gloucester, which they had also set their hearts on seeing, it was impossible to do more than rush through the various sights, so their boxes were once more strapped on to the luggage-carrier, and the car set off on its further travels.

They did not escape the usual accidents that delay motorists: a tyre exploded one afternoon with a terrific bang, and the ladies of the party had to sit for an hour by the roadside, while the men-folk fixed on the Stepney wheel. Giles's love for by-roads landed him sometimes in difficulties. He whisked them once down a charming primrose-starred lane, only to find that it ended in a ford. As you cannot run a car through even the shallowest river without stopping the engine, it was evidently a case of "thus far and no farther", and there was nothing for it but a return to the highway. There was no room to turn in the narrow lane, so the car had to back the whole distance to the road—a most difficult performance between high banks and round sharp corners, and one which required all Giles's skill as a chauffeur. Another time, trying a short cut across some fields, the car ran into soft earth and refused to stir. Her occupants got down and tried with their united efforts to push her out of her "slough of despond", but with no effect. Giles kept starting the engine, but the wheels, instead of gripping, simply turned round and round, and sank deeper into the soil. They were obliged to go to a farm for help, and have planks fixed under the wheels before the heavy car could move on to terra firma and proceed with its journey. These little accidents, however, all added a spice of adventure and fun to the tour; the young folks, at any rate, did not wish everything to be too plain sailing; they thoroughly enjoyed the romantic side of the trip, and liked to get off the beaten track into the wilds of the country. They had brought all sorts of wonderful contrivances for cooking the mid-day lunch, which they always ate out-of-doors. There was an apparatus with a spirit-lamp for making coffee, which whistled like a canary when the beverage was brewed; there was a marvellous double frying-pan, heated merely by strips of newspaper being lighted underneath it, which cooked eggs and sausages with surprising speed; and there was a neat canteen-basket with cups, plates, spoons, forks, and knives all ready to hand. In their enthusiasm the boys would have liked to sleep in the car had that been possible, and Lenox often regretted wistfully that they had not brought tents with them to pitch for the night.

"No, thanks," said Mr. Hewlitt. "You youngsters may enjoy that sort of thing; but I consider this British climate is too damp for camping out, and I much prefer a comfortable bed at a decent hotel."

"Besides which, the hotels are so delightfully old-world and quaint, I shouldn't like to miss them," added Mrs. Hewlitt.

"Rather too old-world sometimes," shivered her daughter.

Diana had had an unpleasant experience the night before. Generally she and Loveday slept together, but on this occasion they had been given separate rooms. Diana, who had a tiresome trick of waking, furiously hungry, in the small hours of the morning, put a couple of biscuits under her pillow before she got into bed, so as to be prepared for any emergencies of appetite. She woke suddenly in the night, with the horrible sensation that a hand was groping under her pillow. She switched on the electric light by her bedside, but nothing was to be seen. Thinking she must have been dreaming, she switched off the light and lay down again. Hardly was she settled, and sinking off to sleep, when once more came a most unmistakable movement under her pillow. Thoroughly scared, she switched on the light, only to find nothing. When this happened a third time she no longer dared remain in the dark, so lighted a candle which fortunately stood on the mantelpiece, and placed it on a table not far from her bed. She could not see everything in the room, and lay watching with wide-open eyes. For a few minutes all was absolutely still; then came a slight noise, and along the rail at the foot of the bed ran something with whiskers, either a young rat or the very biggest mouse she had ever seen.

"Sh-sh-sh-oo-oo!" cried Diana, sitting erect in bed with round frightened eyes. The intruder, equally terrified, took the hint to quit, and scuttled noisily away. The idea that it might return to seek her biscuits was too much for Diana.

"Even if I eat them it'll come back to see if they're there," she thought. "I'd have a fit if I felt it under my pillow again. I can't sleep another wink in here, that's certain. I'd as soon have spooks as rats or mice. I'm going to Loveday."

So, though the time was about 1 a.m., she jumped up, seized the candle, and managed to find her way along the passage to her friend's room. Loveday, much astonished to be thus awakened, took her into her bed, and they laughed over the little adventure.

"Oh, yes, it's all very fine to laugh," said Diana. "But if you were all alone you wouldn't like it yourself. Nothing will induce me to sleep by myself again in a strange hotel; so I warn you. You'll be saddled with your pixie girl for the rest of the tour. She's a scared baby at nights, and she doesn't mind confessing it. Rats—ugh! The very name of them makes me creep."

XVI. A Family Crest

After the joys of Stratford-on-Avon came the delights of the rest of the fascinating Shakespeare villages. "Piping Pebworth", "Dancing Marston", "Drunken Bidford", "Haunted Hillborough", "Hungry Grafton", "Papist Wixford", and "Beggarly Broom" were visited and rejoiced over in turn; then the car wended its way from Warwickshire to sample the glories of Gloucestershire. Here, too, our pilgrims found plenty to arouse their enthusiasm: the richness of the landscape, with orchards just breaking into bloom; the slow winding rivers, with their willowy, reedy banks; the beautiful half-timbered manors and farms and the thatched cottages set in a tangle of greenery, made an ideal picture of English country life. They saw it at the cream of the year, in all the glory of spring tints and blossoms, and even if showers came on they put up the hood of the car and whisked along wet roads, admiring the freshness of the rain-washed leaves and the effects of gathering storm-clouds over distant hills. They were a full day's journey beyond Stratford when suddenly there happened that most common misfortune to motorists, "something wrong with the car". Giles just managed to run her into the nearest village, then, stopping at the inn, he sent for the services of the blacksmith, who was somewhat of a mechanic, and with his aid set to work on repairs. Leaving Giles, with his coat off and his sleeves rolled up, crawling under the car and getting exceedingly oily and dusty in the process, the rest of the party set off to explore the neighbourhood on foot. The village was so charming that they could really hardly grumble at being held up there. Each cottage seemed a picture, with its thatched or red-tiled roof, black-and-white walls, creeper-covered porch, and gay little garden. So luxuriant were the flowers that they even strayed through the railings and made bright borders among the grass at the edge of the road; forget-me-nots were mixed up with dandelions, and wallflowers bloomed side by side with dead-nettles.

At the end of the village, on a rise overlooking the river, stood the parish church, a grey, old Early-English building whose priceless architecture had mercifully not been tampered with by the ruthless hand of the so-called restorer. With a little difficulty Lenox found the cottage of the caretaker, whose wife presently came up clanking the big keys and unlocked the west door for them. The interior was most beautiful: the graceful sandstone pillars, the interlacing arches, the delicate tracery of the windows with their old stained glass, the black oak roof, the carved choir stalls, the ancient rood-screen, the blazoned shields and faded banners, the Lancastrian tombs and the Elizabethan brasses, all combined to give that atmosphere which Milton expressed in his Il Penseroso; and as the afternoon sunlight flooded through the old stained glass, and cast blue and crimson gleams on the tiled floor of the chancel, the glorious building seemed like the prayers of many generations crystallized into stone.

Their guide, a young woman in a sun-bonnet, took them round to show them the various points of interest. It was when they had duly examined the banners and the Norman font, the carving on the miserere seats and the motto on the base of the lectern, and had listened rather wearily to the sing-song description of them poured out, like a lesson learned by rote, from the lips of their conductress, that in the side chapel they came face to face with an ancient tomb. It was an unusually beautiful one, carved in marble, probably by some Italian master-craftsman of the late fifteenth century. A knight clad in full armour lay stretched out in his last sleep; his clasped hands rested over the good sword whose handle formed a cross upon his breast; the attitude of the inclined head and the sculpture of the strong, lined, noble face in its utter repose were magnificent, and recalled the marvellous art that created the busts of the emperors in the days of Rome's zenith. Round the base of the tomb were small figures in the costume of the period, somewhat defaced and worn, with finely-carved pilasters between the panels. At the end was a coat of arms.

Lenox walked round with the others, admiring the beauty of the sculpture, though rather bored by the eloquence of their guide. At sight of the coat of arms, however, he stopped and whistled.

"By all that's wonderful, that's our family crest!" he exclaimed.

Here was an excitement! At once the whole party began to examine the ancient, worn escutcheon, on which was depicted a chained eagle with a crown on its head, three arrows, and the motto Manu et corde (with hand and heart).

"It's exactly the same!" declared Lenox. "Dad has a copy of the crest in an old book that his grandfather brought out from England more than a hundred years ago."

"It's the arms of the de Cliffords," said their guide, shaken out of her sing-song recitation into first-hand information. "You'll find the same crest on those monuments over there in the nave."

"Dad always said we were descended from an old family," rejoined Lenox, immensely thrilled.

That their young cousin should have discovered the tombs of his ancestors in the village church was certainly a matter of great interest to the Hewlitts. They besieged their guide with questions. She could not really tell them very much, except that from mediæval times the Cliffords had owned the soil, and that the Manor House was now in the possession of Mrs. Elliot, a daughter of old Squire Clifford who had died many years ago.

"It was before I was born, but I've heard my father speak of him," she added.

"Where is the Manor House?" asked Lenox eagerly.

"Two miles beyond the village. It's a beautiful old place too, with a moat round it, and big stone gates."

"Is it possible to look over it?"

The guide shook her head emphatically.

"No, Mrs. Elliot won't have anyone coming. She's an old lady and very infirm, and she can't bear to see strangers about the place. At one time she'd let people look round with a guide, but she found them so bothersome she stopped it. One day some Americans came and peeped through the windows when she was having her lunch, and wouldn't go away."

"I'm sorry they were Americans," put in Mrs. Hewlitt. "My countrymen don't often so forget their manners, I'm glad to say."

"Well, at any rate," smiled the guide, "both English and Americans made themselves nuisances, and she wouldn't let any more tourists come near. She has the great gates locked, and whoever wants to go in, no matter on what errand, must ring the lodge-keeper's bell, and it's only her own visitors, or the tradespeople with meat and groceries and such like as are admitted. They say she's gone almost queer in her head about it."

"What a pity!" sighed Diana.

"Still, you can hardly blame her," added Mrs. Hewlitt. "It must be very trying to live in a show place. I'm afraid, Lenox, you'll have to give up the idea of going over it. Is anything to be seen from the road?"

"Nothing of the house; it's all hidden by the trees. You can only see the great gates."

"It would hardly be worth a four-mile walk, just for the gates," decided Mrs. Hewlitt. "If the car's not ready yet we'll just take a conveyance and drive to Ratcliffe this afternoon."

The car repair proved a tougher job than either Giles or the blacksmith had anticipated, and, as it apparently could not be finished for many hours, the Hewlitts arranged to make an excursion in a wagonette, and, as the inn seemed comfortable, to return to the village, spend the night there, and proceed on their way the next morning. Though her mother had dismissed all question of visiting the old Manor House, Diana still harped on the subject. She and Lenox talked it over in private after dinner. They were sitting in the porch of the hotel, watching the lights begin to gleam in the windows down the village street. Mr. and Mrs. Hewlitt were writing letters; Giles and Loveday had disappeared into the garden to try to hear a nightingale reputed to sing there.

"Len," said Diana, "you oughtn't to leave this place without seeing your ancestral home. Think of having an ancient ancestral family home! It's an immense idea! Aren't you just crazy to go and look at it?"

Lenox rolled his cigarette carefully, and lighted it before replying.

"So crazy that I mean to go," he admitted at last. "Don't say anything about it to the others, but I'm planning to get up early, climb over the Manor House wall, and take a peep at the outside of the old place at any rate before anybody's about. That much won't do the old lady's nerves any harm. Besides, who's to find out?"

"What a ripping notion!" Diana drew her breath admiringly. "Oh, Len, I must go too! I simply must! I'd give everything in the world to see your family manor. That woman said it has a moat. I've never seen a real moated British manor."

"If you could be up by five?" suggested Lenox.

"Couldn't I? Just you wait and see! I'll be all dressed and ready and standing in the hall by five o'clock. Oh, what topping fun! Don't let us tell a soul about it. We'll just keep it to ourselves."

"Ra—ther! I'm not going prating about my plans, I can tell you."

Diana was almost sorry that her mouse scare had made her decide to sleep with Loveday. She did not want to be questioned beforehand about her expedition. Fortunately her room-mate was very sleepy next morning, and slumbered tranquilly on while the stealthy process of early dressing went forward. She did not lift an eyelid when Diana opened the door and crept downstairs. The big clock on the landing had not yet struck five, but Lenox was already waiting in the hall. He grinned as Diana joined him.

"You are a sport!" he whispered.

They let themselves out softly, and in another minute were walking down the village street. The clocks were at "summer time", an hour forward, so it was really only four o'clock. The sun had not risen yet, though it was quite light already. The air felt deliciously fresh, birds were singing, and cattle lowing. Here and there a cottage door opened, and a labourer came out, who looked at them with speculative curiosity as they passed by. They were soon through the village and along the road that led in the direction of the Manor. On either side lay pastures with clumps of yellow cowslips, the faint fragrance of which was wafted on the pleasant air. Diana could not resist scaling a fence and going to gather some, though she got her shoes soaked with the morning dew. Down a hill, along the river side, and up through a long avenue of elms ran the road, till at last a high oak fence took the place of the hedge; this in its turn gave way to a wall, and presently to the left loomed a pair of great ornamental iron gates, with a lodge at the side.

An archway across, surmounted by a stone escutcheon, bore the Clifford crest, so there was no doubt that they had reached their destination. The gates were padlocked together, and the blinds were drawn in the lodge; evidently the keeper was not an early bird.

"How are we going to get in?" asked Diana.

"Not here, certainly. We'll go back to that oak paling, and climb over. Don't you feel as if we were poachers?"

"Yes, or burglars! I guess we've got to burgle quietly. Hope the old lady hasn't set man-traps in her park."

"Or doesn't leave savage bloodhounds to roam at large and guard the premises. Well, we shall have to take our chance. It's rather like storming a fortress—isn't it?"

"I call it precious!" chuckled Diana.

The fence did not look too easy to scale. It was of solid oak pales set upright, and was about six feet in height. Its straight surface did not offer any foothold. For some distance they wandered along, rather discouraged, but at last an overhanging tree seemed to promise hope. Lenox lifted up Diana till she could catch hold of a branch, then, with considerable boosting and scrambling, she swung herself over. Lenox dropped after her directly, and the adventurous pair stood within the park.

So far, so good. They were certainly trespassing, but they considered that their errand justified the deed. Lenox had brought his hand camera, and hoped to get a snap-shot of the old place to take back to America to show his father. He had ascertained that no picture post cards of it were obtainable in the village. They could see the twisted chimneys rising over the top of a thick grove of trees and shrubs, so they turned their steps in that direction. Over some grassy park-like land they tramped, where rabbits were still scuttling about, and a few tame deer were grazing; then through a thicket of trees and under a belt of ornamental shrubs. All at once, as they scrambled from the shade of some rhododendrons, they caught their first view of the Manor. It was a glorious old mansion, built partly in half-timber and partly in grey stone, with an embattled tower for entrance, and a stone bridge crossing the moat that encircled the walls. The morning sun shone direct on its mullioned, diamond-paned windows, its twisted chimney stalks, ivy-clad walls, and smooth, green stretch of water. Nothing could have been more charming for a photograph, and, to make the picture absolutely perfect, a pair of stately swans came sailing along the moat. Lenox pulled his camera from its case, ventured forth from the cover of the bushes, and began to focus. Diana followed closely at his elbow. They were brimful of excitement. Here they were actually facing the "ancestral home" of the Clifford family.

"Don't you wish you lived here?" sighed Diana.

"Rather! But no such luck!"

"If the old lady has no children perhaps you'll turn out to be the heir," said Diana wistfully.

"She has nephews," said Lenox, dashing her hopes. "Besides, we must be a very far-off branch of the family tree. It's a hundred years since we settled in America. Now don't nudge me. I've just got the thing focused—swans and all."

Lenox pressed the button, and turned the film on to No. 2, then looked about him.

"I'm going to take the whole half-dozen," he announced. "Let's move on and get a different view."

There was not a soul to be seen. With the exception of the swans, the inhabitants of the Manor did not seem to be early risers. Lenox and Diana grew bolder, and ventured nearer. By degrees they got right to the edge of the moat. The view here was beautiful, for it took in the bridge and the embattled tower, with the coat of arms over the doorway. It was exactly what they wanted to carry home to America. Lenox snapped it with huge satisfaction, including the swans, which luckily swam into the scene at the psychological moment.

"I'd give worlds to be able to go inside and explore," said Diana. "I wish I could make myself invisible. D'you think we dare just toddle across the bridge, and perhaps peep in through a window? There's nobody watching. O-o-o-oh!"

She might well exclaim, for, in direct contradiction to her words, the door at that moment opened, and an elderly lady made her appearance. She walked slowly with the aid of a cane, but it was evident that she had seen the intruders on her property, and was coming to tackle them. Swift and hasty flight seemed the only way out of the difficulty.

"Quick, Lenox! Run!" gasped Diana.

She turned, as she spoke, to make a dash for the cover of the shrubs, but in her hurry and agitation she tripped on her dangling shoe lace, missed her footing, slipped, tumbled down the bank, and fell backwards with a splash into the moat.

It was not very deep, and Lenox hauled her out in a minute. There she stood upon the bank a dripping object, her nice dress all coated with duckweed and green slime. Her hat was floating away in the direction of the swans. The lady had crossed the bridge, and with the help of her cane walked painfully down the bank. Lenox and Diana felt like a pair of naughty school children caught stealing apples. The situation was most ignominious. Their faces would have made a study for a comic artist, especially Diana's, with smears of duckweed on her cheeks, and her moist hair hanging over her shoulders. They wondered what Mrs. Elliot was going to say to them.

She came slowly up, blinking her eyes rather nervously, looked Diana over from dripping head to muddy shoes, then made the obvious comment:

"You're very wet!"

"Ye-e-es!" shivered Diana, with chattering teeth.

"You'd better come indoors and have your clothes dried."

The relief of receiving such a charitable reception, instead of the stern rebuke they felt they deserved, was intense. Lenox suddenly burst into a flood of gentlemanly apologies. He explained rapidly that his name was Clifford, that he had seen his father's coat of arms in the church, and had been tempted to trespass in order to secure some photographs of the house that was probably the old home of their family. Mrs. Elliot listened till he had finished.

"I'd have given you permission if you had asked," she replied calmly. "Now it's time that your sister—cousin, is she?—took off those wet clothes, or she'll catch cold."

Diana marvelled at Mrs. Elliot's goodness. She was taken indoors, and lent some garments while her own were dried. The household was an earlier one than they had supposed, and in answer to the mistress's bell came servants who were too well trained to express surprise in their faces at the sight of a dripping visitor. An elderly maid showed Diana to a bedroom, rubbed her hair for her with a towel, helped her into a pink silk kimono dressing-gown, and brought her a cup of hot tea. These precautions against cold having been taken, Mrs. Elliot most kindly volunteered to show the young people over the house. It was a funny little procession: the elderly lady with her cane; Lenox, in his khaki, still blurting out apologies; and Diana trailing the pink kimono, which was much too long, and shuffling in bronze-beaded shoes that were two sizes too large. The glories of the old Manor left them gasping: the big banqueting hall with its armour and tapestries, the panelled oak boudoir, the library with its family portraits, the wide staircase, the drawing-room with its cabinets and priceless china, the state bedroom with the carved four-post bed where Queen Anne had slept, the courtyard and dove-cote where pigeons were strutting and preening their feathers, and the little chapel with its coats of arms in the stained glass, and chained Bible. Through a window they could see the garden, with clipped yew hedges and smooth lawn, and a peacock spreading its gorgeous tail to the morning sun.

"If your great-grandfather went to America a hundred years ago you are probably descended from either Guy, Charles, or Humphrey Clifford," said Mrs. Elliot, showing Lenox a family genealogical tree that hung in the hall.

"I know my great-grandfather's name was Humphrey," answered Lenox, "and the dates would seem to correspond."

Diana's clothes were dried at last, and brushed. Even her hat, by the aid of a fishing-rod, had been recovered from the moat. Though rather crushed and spoilt they were quite wearable. She felt herself again when she had put them on. Mrs. Elliot sent a servant to conduct the young people to the lodge, and order the gate to be unlocked for their exit. She received their renewed apologies and thanks in the same calm manner in which she had greeted them.

"I hope the photos will come out well," were her last words, as she stood at the door watching them walk across the bridge.

When Lenox and Diana returned to the inn, and burst upon the rest of the party, who were having breakfast, their extraordinary story was at first scarcely believed.

"Bunkum, my boy!" said Giles, shaking his head.

But the two witnesses gave such a circumstantial account of their adventure that incredulity turned to amazement, and then amusement.

"You cheeky young cubs!" declared Mr. Hewlitt. "I think Mrs. Elliot was far too good to you."

"You got more than you deserved; but I'm grateful to her for drying you, Diana," commented Mrs. Hewlitt.

"I wish we'd been with you," said Giles. "You've had all the luck."

As the car was now repaired, the party once more packed up their baggage, and set forth for the short remainder of their tour. Lenox's leave was nearly over; Giles would be due in London next week; and Mr. Hewlitt's business in Paris was not yet concluded. After another day's enjoyment they parted at Cheltenham, and sent the girls back to school by train.

"We shan't forget you, dear," said Mrs. Hewlitt to Loveday, as she saw them off. "You must come and see us again some time—perhaps in America. Take care of my little Diana for me—won't you?"

"I will—I will, indeed! Oh, I don't know how to thank you! It's been just the absolute time of my life!" said Loveday, leaning out of the carriage window as she waved good-bye.

XVII. The Green-eyed Monster

With the summer term came a period of great outdoor activity at Pendlemere. Miss Chadwick, Miss Carr, and Miss Ormrod were tremendously busy on the land, and gave the school a thorough initiation into the principles of gardening. The girls studied birds, noted what insects they ate, and how useful they were in a garden; they learned the life-histories of certain insects, and the causes of some plant diseases; they organized an amateur weather bureau, and kept charts of the progress of their crops. Everybody agreed that the new regime was much more interesting than that of the old days when the gardening had all been done for them, and they had only lounged about the lawn and played tennis. Each flower seemed twice as beautiful when they had helped to grow it, and the vegetables of their own cultivation were voted prize-winners.

Diana, in consideration of her great love for horses, was allowed to give some assistance in Baron's toilet, and even sometimes to drive him, a privilege (dependent on good behaviour) which made her supremely happy.

On the whole, though Miss Todd was undoubtedly rather strict, the girls decided that the school was jollier than in Mrs. Gifford's days. They did not forget their former Principal, who wrote to them sometimes from her new home and told them about her life in Burma, but they had accepted the changed conditions, and had grown to like them. The outdoor department seemed to bring a much wider current of life into Pendlemere. Miss Chadwick and her two assistants were thoroughly modern, and would discuss all sorts of up-to-date problems, so that the school kept in touch with the outside world instead of living in the narrow rut of its own little round of lessons and amusements. This term four elder students had come, principally to study gardening under Miss Chadwick. They were girls of eighteen and nineteen, who, instead of being placed among the school, took somewhat the position of the old-fashioned "parlour boarder" of sixty years ago, and were on terms of intimacy with the mistresses. Naturally they were the envy and admiration of those less fortunate beings who were still only ordinary pupils. They were good-natured to the schoolgirls, but held themselves a little aloof. Sometimes, in a rather superior manner, they would condescend to be friendly. Each had her own train of worshippers. The prettiest and most attractive of the four was Adeline Hoyle, a tall, fine-looking girl with dark eyes, a very fair skin, and thick coils of brown hair twisted into a classic knot. There was a calm dignity about her and a charm of manner that was exceedingly taking. It bowled over Diana's heart entirely. She took a sudden and most violent affection for Adeline. She would hang about to try to get a word with her, flush crimson at the slightest notice from her idol, and was ready to perform anything in the way of odd jobs. She even took up sewing—a much neglected part of her education—in order to embroider a handkerchief-case as a birthday offering. It is an exhilarating, but rather wearing process to be violently in love, especially when you are decidedly doubtful as to whether the loved object in the least appreciates your attentions. Adeline would accept Diana's sweets or flowers with a kind "Thank you", and then pat her on the shoulder and tell her to run away. She would sometimes allow her to link arms in the garden, but it was suffered with an air of amused tolerance. It was obvious that she very much preferred the society of Hilary, who was nearer her own age, and that she regarded intermediates as mere children. Diana, who was eccentric in her likes and dislikes, but very keen when she took a fancy to anybody, went through all the stages of longing, hope, elation, despair, and jealousy. When she saw Hilary received into supreme favour, the green-eyed monster swooped down and took possession of her. Loveday, who had watched the progress of the affair with some distress, offered what consolation she could in the sanctuary of the ivy room.

"Adeline's really very good to you," she comforted.

"Yes, but she doesn't care twopence," raged Diana. "I know she's nice and kind and all that, but she loves me with the love she'd give to a distressed negro or a starved cat. I want her to want me—and she doesn't one little bit! She just tolerates me sometimes, and that's all. What she can see in Hilary I can't imagine. I think Hilary's the most detestable girl in the school. I always have disliked her. I hate her now!"

"Some people say that hating anybody sends out 'thought-forms' like hideous daggers into the invisible world, and they do dreadful harm, and in the end they come back to their owners like curses. Can't you manage to send out some prettier thoughts?"

"No, Loveday Seton; I can't, and won't, and shan't!" said Diana emphatically, screwing up mouth and eyes into one of her ugliest faces. "I'm not going to pretend I like Hilary when I don't—that would be a fiblet and worse than red daggers. Yes, you can call me naughty if you like. I've got to the stage when I don't care."

Knowing by experience that Diana generally received suggestions in this way, but sometimes ruminated over her remarks afterwards, Loveday shelved the question of thought-forms and their possible ill effects, and petted her spoilt room-mate instead till she cajoled her into a better temper. The green-eyed monster still reigned, however, and Diana sat at tea-time flashing, if not red daggers, very obvious untoward glances, as she caught a smile of comprehension pass between Adeline and Hilary. Nobody had time to take much notice of her heroics.

Everyone was too busy discussing school affairs. The very latest news was that the boat-house was at last to be unlocked, the boat thoroughly overhauled and painted, and that mistresses and students would go rowing on the lake. A rumour even began to circulate that certain favoured members of the school might be taken as passengers.

"We used when Mrs. Gifford was here," said Wendy. "She often got Mr. Thwaites from the village to come and row us. It was top-hole. And once he let Tattie and me try to row, but I 'caught a crab' and dropped the oar. I'd soon learn though, if I'd another chance."

"We ought to have two or three boats," decided Sadie.

"One for each form," amended Vi.

"You bet it's only seniors who'll have any luck," groused Diana, who was still in the depths of despondency.

"There's no knowing," said Jess hopefully.

Though they might not be certain of sharing in the pleasure of navigating the lake, there was at least an element of anticipation in the matter. It was just possible that some fine day Miss Todd might say to one of them: "Put on your jersey and you may go for a row". They felt it was one of those sporting chances that sometimes turn up in a life. They hung about the boat-house wistfully when Mr. Appleton from Glenbury did his task of overhauling, and if he went away for a few minutes they took advantage of his absence to scramble in and sit inside the boat and imagine how delightful it would feel to be really on the water. They began to practise boat-songs, just to be ready for any emergency, and would sit on the landing-place singing "Row, brothers, row!" or "My barque is on the shore".

It was very exciting when repairs got to the painting stage, especially when Diana did not notice, and took a leap inside, with equal disaster to Mr. Appleton's nice coat of paint and her own serge skirt. Great was the day when the Peveril at last was dry, and Mr. Appleton launched her himself on the lake, and took Miss Todd, Miss Beverley, and Miss Chadwick for a trial trip. The school, watching enviously from the bank, decided that nothing but a steamer, or a small fleet of rowboats could satisfy its demands. They considered rowing ought to be a part of every girl's education.

As Diana had prophesied, the intermediates came in for no luck. Miss Chadwick and her assistants, with the four gardening students, monopolized the Peveril. They took Miss Todd, Miss Beverley, and Miss Hampson out for airings on the lake; occasionally a senior was invited, and once the four youngest girls in the school were given a brief treat. All the rest had just to look on and long. Diana, indeed, extorted a sort of half promise from Adeline that some time, when it was convenient, and if she was not too busy, and if nobody else wanted the boat, she would let her realize her ambition, but so far this promise had remained an empty one, a vague invitation that meant nothing. Diana, catching Adeline in the garden one afternoon, made a desperate effort to obtain its fulfilment.

Diana Called and Shouted To Them. They Took No Notice.

"Just for ten minutes," she pleaded.

"I'm so busy," evaded Adeline. "I've got seedlings to plant out, and really haven't time to take people on the lake. What a bother you are, Diana!"

"You said you would some time."

"Well, so I will; but the time isn't to-day. I've other things to do."

"May I help you to plant the seedlings?"

"No indeed! They need very delicate handling, and I'm responsible to Miss Chadwick for them. Why don't you go and help Miss Carr?"

With a decidedly snubbed feeling Diana strolled away, not to help Miss Carr, for it was recreation hour, and she felt at liberty to employ her leisure as she liked, but to find Wendy or some other congenial spirit. Wendy, Sadie, and Vi, however, had gone to the village with Miss Ormrod, and Tattie, Jess, Magsie, and Peggy occupied the tennis-court. Diana was the only one of the intermediates left out. She felt exceedingly aggrieved. She stood for a while watching the set; but looking on at tennis is never very amusing, so she wended her solitary way into the house to fetch a book. Down the corridor bustled Miss Hampson in a hurry.

"Diana! I was just wanting somebody, and you'll do. Will you go and tell Adeline that Miss Todd wishes to speak to her as soon as she's finished in the greenhouse?"

Miss Hampson, with her arms full of exercise books to correct, disappeared into the senior room, and Diana departed on her errand. Adeline was not in the greenhouse. She had not even begun to transplant the seedlings, though the pots and the soil were ready. Diana waited a few minutes to see if she would come, then went in quest of her. Bobbing briskly down the shrubbery path were two heads, a dark one with hair in a classic knot, and a fair one with a pig-tail. They could just be distinguished above the line of the laurels. Diana put her hands to her mouth and called:

"Ad—el—ine!"

The heads turned for a moment to look, then scuttled on with the utmost rapidity. Diana, following, caught a glimpse of two figures whisking past the boat-house to the landing-place. She stopped dead.

"So it's Hilary Adeline's taking with her. And they're going in the boat. Well, of all mean things this is the limit! Adeline hadn't time to take people on the lake, and wanted to plant seedlings. That's why she was so anxious to send me off to help Miss Carr. If she won't listen when I call to her I'm not going to bother to give her Miss Hampson's message. I don't suppose Miss Todd wants her about anything important. I'm fed up!"

A very disconsolate and indignant Diana once more walked up the garden; the green-eyed monster was sitting on her back and digging in his disagreeable talons pretty deeply; he was anything but a bright companion. She wandered aimlessly round the orchard, and finally came across Miss Carr and Loveday carrying out food to the chickens. They were chatting as she met them, and the words drifted to her between the apple-trees.

"So Mr. Appleton said it really wasn't safe at all, and Miss Todd had better let nobody take her out till he could come up. He'd try to come this evening, but he wasn't sure if he'd manage it because—why, Diana, what's the matter?"

"Is it the boat you're talking about?" demanded a breathless, excited little figure.

"Yes—but why? Diana! What is it? Di—an—a!"

Loveday spoke to the winds, for already her room-mate was half-way down the orchard. Diana's feet were trying to keep pace with her whirling brain. The boat was unsafe! That, no doubt, was the message that Miss Todd had intended for Adeline. If she had not already started it might be possible to stop her, or at any rate to call her back. She raced along the shrubbery and down the bank to the landing-place. But Adeline and Hilary had wasted no time, and were already quite a considerable way out on the lake. Diana called and shouted to them. They turned their heads to look, evidently laughed, and took no notice. It was plain that they thought Diana wished them to return and take her for a row, and that they had no intention of any such philanthropic course of action. On the landing-place Diana raged. If the Peveril were really unsafe every stroke of the oar was taking Adeline and Hilary into greater danger. How could she possibly make them understand? The more she called, the more they would row away.

Then a very desperate idea occurred to her, so desperate that only a harum-scarum like Diana would have thought of it. She would swim out towards them, and when they saw her in the water they would probably turn and come back. She pulled off her skirt and her shoes. Now Diana was not a very expert swimmer; it was indeed two years since she had had any practice, and that had been in the sea, which is easier than fresh water. She never thought of these particulars, however, but, putting her hands together, dived off the landing-place just as Loveday turned the corner of the boat-house. It was very cold, indeed, in the water, far colder than she had expected; it made her gasp for breath, and sent a numbness into her limbs. She struggled on, however, with brave strokes.

"Di—ana!" screamed Loveday's agitated voice behind her.

The girls in the boat were not even looking. How fearfully cold it was! It was difficult to hold up her head properly and see where she was going. She had thought swimming was so easy. A few more strokes and something seemed to be twining round her. She had dashed into some waterweeds, and their clammy stems clutched her like dead fingers. She made a desperate effort to free herself; down went her head, and next moment she was gulping, struggling, and shrieking for help. There was a splash behind from the landing-place as Loveday plunged to the rescue; the occupants of the boat also, at last looking and realizing the seriousness of the situation, began to row in her direction as fast as they could pull. They were some distance off, however, and Loveday won the race. She caught Diana just as she was sinking, and held her up until the boat arrived.

A very draggled, agitated pair of girls made their way up the shrubbery walk to the house, leaving a wet trail to mark their path. Adeline tied up the Peveril before she followed them.

"I'm sure nobody can blame us," she remarked to Hilary.

Loveday and Diana, warmed, dried, and clad in fresh garments, scolded by Miss Todd, and cosseted by Miss Carr, the heroines of a real adventure, and for the moment the centre of interest in the school, discussed the event in private.

"I've explained, but Adeline doesn't see it," said Diana. "She says the boat wasn't as bad as all that, and they were in no real danger, and that I did a very silly, idiotic, foolhardy thing. She doesn't understand I was trying to save her life. But I was!"

"I know," nodded Loveday. "I don't think somehow, though, that Adeline's the kind of girl whom you could ever make understand. Why do you lavish all this love on her, Di? She's not worth it."

Diana was plaiting her skirt into little gathers. She looked at her fingers and not at Loveday.

"I did like her so! But it's all ended now—drowned in the water, I think. She doesn't care twopence about me. Well! If she doesn't, no more do I! She may go to Hong-Kong as far as I'm concerned."

Loveday glanced anxiously at her friend. There was a suspicious tremble in the usually cheerful voice. Were those drops shining on the long eyelashes?

"It takes a good deal of riddling before we sort out the wheat and the chaff in our friendships," ventured Loveday.

"You're 'honest grain', at any rate!" said Diana, winking rapidly, as she rose and ended the conversation.

XVIII. Diana's Foundling

There was very little doubt in the minds of Miss Todd and of other mistresses at Pendlemere Abbey that Diana was a spoilt child. Her parents, far away in Paris, made up for their enforced absence by sending her a larger assortment of presents than usually falls to the lot of a schoolgirl. She had practically everything that she could want, and a great many things beside. There was one subject, however, upon which she had coaxed her father for a long time. In every letter she had written lately she had assured him that life was not liveable in the summer term without a pony. Diana had a passion for horses. She had ridden much in America, and her ideal of happiness was to be on ponyback. She was occasionally allowed to mount Baron, but, as Miss Todd would not permit her to take him into the lanes alone, she had to confine her gallops to the paddock, which she considered very poor sport. She thought the matter over till she evolved an idea; then she confided it to Miss Carr. Miss Carr was also an enthusiast about horses, and was secretly longing to ride Baron. Diana's scheme was that she should ask her father to allow her to hire a pony for the rest of the term, have it stabled at the farm near, and go with Miss Carr for rides. When she made up her mind to a thing she was apt to press the subject hotly. A series of such very urgent letters went to Paris that Mr. Hewlitt yielded, and wrote to Miss Todd asking her to be so kind as to arrange the matter. Very fortunately for Diana the idea appealed to Miss Todd; she wished to encourage riding amongst her girls, and was quite willing to allow the experiment to be tried. She commissioned Mr. Greenhalgh, a neighbouring farmer, to procure a suitable mount for a young lady of fourteen, and to take charge of it in his stable. Diana had to wait a week, in great impatience, while he made enquiries and interviewed horse-dealers; then one red-letter afternoon she was taken by Miss Todd to the farm, and introduced to the prettiest possible little white pony. "Lady" was getting on in years, but still had some spirit left in her, and she was accustomed to the saddle. Her owner, considering that she needed a rest, was glad to hire her out for such light work. Diana flung her arms round the pony's neck, and at once began the process of making love to her, cementing the new friendship with several lumps of sugar which she had brought in her pocket.

Then began a series of perfectly delightful rides. Miss Carr and Diana would start out after tea, and explore all the bridle-roads in the neighbourhood. Sometimes they would go up on the moors, and enjoy a canter over the soft grass, or ride alongside the beautiful little lakes that lay like gems among the hills. Diana did not much mind where they went, so long as she could be upon Lady's back. Her new possession naturally aroused wild longing in the breasts of a considerable number of her schoolfellows. If it had been possible Miss Todd would have arranged for a riding-master to bring horses to Pendlemere and give lessons to some of the girls, but matters had not yet adjusted themselves sufficiently after the war for such an ambitious scheme as that, so she did the next best thing, hired a second pony, and sent certain girls, whose parents wished them to learn riding, out in relays. These elect few were regarded as favourites of fortune, but they were obliged to take their luck in turns. They could only have one ride a week each, and that was not nearly enough to content them. They wanted at least two.

"If Miss Todd could hire another pony," sighed Wendy, "that would mean we each got in a second lesson a week."

"Mr. Greenhalgh has tried, and says he can't hear of one anywhere," lamented Tattie. "Horses are scarce since the war, and ponies seem particularly wanted in the summer. It's very difficult to get riding-ponies."

"Glad I secured Lady," chuckled Diana.

"I think it's very mean of you to keep Lady all to yourself," retorted Sadie, airing a grievance. "Why can't you let her be the second school pony, and take your turn with the rest of us? It would be far fairer."

"Give up Lady? Well, I like that! Coolest idea I've ever heard! Why, I thought of the whole thing, and wrote to Dad, and she was hired specially for me. Your riding lessons were only a copy of my idea. Get a third pony if you can, but I guess I'm not going to give up Lady to anybody. Why should I? Dad said she was to be mine."

"It's not sporty of you, though," grumbled Sadie. "You know perfectly well we can't get a third pony, and everybody in the school is saying how hard it is for you to monopolize one entirely to yourself. There are six other girls who'd be glad to learn riding if they could get a mount."

"Then let them write home to their fathers to send them ponies."

"As if they could! But their fathers would let them take lessons if there were a school pony for them. I know that for a fact."

"Well, they shan't have mine, at any rate," rapped out Diana defiantly. "You just needn't think it, so there!"

One afternoon it was Wendy's turn for the school pony. She and Diana and Miss Carr rode away together down the road to Chapelrigg. It was a gloriously fine day. Wild roses starred the hedgerows, and the beautiful blue speedwell bordered the lanes. Larks were singing, and, though the cuckoo had changed his tune, blackbirds still fluted in the coppices.

They had come out on an errand—not a particularly romantic one, as it happened, only to pay a bill for Miss Todd at a farm-house a few miles away. If the errand was prosaic the farm and its surroundings looked attractive; it stood on a hill with a beautiful group of birch-trees behind it, and a small stream came rippling down at the bottom of the garden. The path from the high road was blocked by a cart left standing with a load of straw, so it would be impossible to ride the horses up to the door. The three riders dismounted, and Miss Carr, tying Baron to the fence, said she would walk up the lane and pay the bill while the girls waited for her in the road. Allowing Lady and Topsy to crop the grass in the hedge bottom, Diana and Wendy sat on the bank lazily enjoying themselves. It was very pleasant that afternoon to be alive. In that northern district although summer came late she made up for it by the extreme beauty with which she clothed the landscape; the view from the hill-side was like one of Turner's pictures.

As the girls sat chatting, watching the ponies, and idly plucking flowers, they heard footsteps coming along the road, and presently a woman carrying a baby appeared round the corner. She was young and dark and gipsy-looking, and wore large ear-rings and a red cotton handkerchief knotted loosely round her brown throat. She stopped at the sight of Diana and Wendy and the ponies, and seemed to consider a moment. Then she walked boldly up to them, looked keenly in their faces, and evidently chose Diana.

"Could you do me a kindness, miss?" she asked. "I've to go up to the farm for a basket. I don't want to carry the baby with me; she's so heavy. If I leave her here on the grass would you keep an eye on her till I come back? I shan't be gone five minutes."

Now Diana was fond of babies, and the little dark-eyed specimen, wrapped up in the plaid shawl, was pretty and attractive and fairly clean. For answer she held out her arms, received baby, shawl, and feeding-bottle on to her knee, and constituted herself temporary nurse.

"She'll be good till I come back," said the woman, turning up the lane that led to the farm.

The small person with the brown eyes was probably accustomed to be handed about. She did not jib at strangers, as might have been expected, but accepted the situation quite amiably. She gurgled in response to Diana's advances, and allowed herself to be amused. Perhaps the vicinity of horses was familiar to her, and she felt at home. Diana, hugging her on her knee, freed her from the folds of the shawl and allowed her to kick happily. She was certainly a fascinating little mortal.

In the course of about ten minutes Miss Carr, who had been having a chat at the farm about gardening prospects, returned leisurely down the lane, and was electrified to find Diana sitting by the roadside nursing a baby.

"I didn't see any gipsy woman come up to the farm," she said, in answer to the girls' explanations. "You'd better go, Wendy, and see if you can find her, and tell her to come at once and fetch her baby."

So Wendy went up the lane to the farm, and asked at the front door and the back door, and looked round the stack-yard and the buildings, but there was never a trace of the gipsy girl. A little boy playing by the pond, however, declared that he had seen a woman crossing the field and climbing over the fence on to the road. Wendy returned with this report. Miss Carr looked annoyed.

"We must go along the road, then, and follow her. We can't wait here till she chooses to come back."

So Diana carried the baby, and Wendy led Lady and Topsy, and Miss Carr, with an anxious wrinkle between her eyebrows, followed with Baron in the direction that the small boy had pointed out. They walked a mile, and enquired at cottages and from passers-by, and from men working in the fields, but nobody had seen the gipsy woman. Then they went back to the trysting-place to see if she had returned, but she was not there. They asked again at the farm, and went back to the cottages, and Miss Carr begged to leave the baby there, because its mother would be sure to enquire for it and find it. The occupants of the cottages, however, shook their heads, and were not at all prepared to accept the responsibility. Neither were the people at the farm. They utterly refused to take it in. Then Diana realized that it is one thing to offer to nurse a baby, and quite another to get rid of it again. What were they to do?

"We can't dump the poor mite down by the roadside and leave it," said Miss Carr distractedly. "Whatever can have become of its mother?"

No answer was forthcoming to her question, and matters were urgent. She decided that the only thing to be done was to take the baby with them to Pendlemere, leaving messages at the farm and the cottages for the mother to follow on and claim it. Naturally it made a great sensation in the school when Diana arrived holding her foundling in her arms. Miss Carr explained at full length to Miss Todd, who was utterly aghast, but consented to take in the small stranger till it was claimed. Miss Chadwick, who had studied hygiene at the Agricultural College, and had once assisted at a crèche, constituted herself head nurse, mixed a bottle, and left Miss Ormrod to feed the fowls while she sat in a rocking-chair and soothed the foundling to sleep.

"Surely the mother'll turn up before dark," she said.

But nobody turned up, and Miss Chadwick, who had had to guess at the baby's age and requirements, and had mixed too strong a bottle, spent a wakeful night patting her small guest on the back and endeavouring to still her wails. Next morning Miss Todd reported the matter at the police station, enquiries were made, and it was ascertained that a girl answering to the description given had been in the company of a band of hawkers, but had disappeared and left no trace of her whereabouts. The baby was not hers, but belonged to a woman who had just been arrested on a serious charge and taken to Glenbury jail; the hawkers with whom she had associated disclaimed all responsibility for the child.

"The only thing to be done is to send it to the Union," said the police sergeant.

But by that time the school in general, and Diana in particular, had fallen in love with the poor little baby. They raged at the idea of sending it to the workhouse. They had borrowed clothes for it; and, nicely bathed and dressed and recovered from its fit of indigestion, it looked a sweet thing, and was ready to make friends with anybody and everybody.

"Bless her, she shan't go the workhouse!" declared Diana, kissing the small fist that clung round her finger.

There was a wild idea among the girls that the foundling might be kept as a "school baby".

"We're taught gardening, and poultry-keeping, and bee-keeping," said Wendy quite seriously, "so why not the care of children? We could learn to bathe her, and mix her bottle, and do heaps of things for her."

Miss Todd, however, thought otherwise. Theoretical hygiene of infants was all very well as part of the curriculum, but the practical side of it was disturbing to the school. Miss Chadwick had other duties besides that of nursing a baby. Rows of plants needed attention, and young chickens claimed her care.

"If the mother gets a heavy sentence," said Miss Todd, "I think the child would be received into a 'Home for Destitute Children'. In the meantime——"

"Not the workhouse!" pleaded Diana. "Isn't there anybody in the village who'd take her in?"

"Mrs. Jones would have her, but she would charge twelve and sixpence a week; nobody will take in a baby for less now."

"What's that in dollars? About three, isn't it? Dad will fix that up easily. I'll write to him to-night. It's as good as settled."

"Diana," said Miss Todd emphatically, "I shall not allow you to write to your father and ask him for anything more. If you care to give up your pocket-money for the baby's sake that's another matter; but you're getting into a bad habit of expecting your father to pay for every whim that comes into your head. It's cheap charity to suggest something that's to cost you nothing. You want to have all the credit of the generosity at your father's expense."

Diana flushed up to her hair, and down over her neck.

"Do you think me a slacker?" she asked.

"Yes; in this respect I certainly do. If you were prepared to deny yourself anything it would be different, but you're not. You like to call the child your foundling, but personally you've done nothing for her. It's Miss Chadwick who's had the wakeful nights."

Diana did not urge in self-defence that she would willingly have taken the baby to bed with her if she had been allowed; she knew it was useless to offer arguments or excuses. She was busy thinking. Miss Todd's reproaches stung her like a whip. She would let the school see that she was not the pampered, spoilt darling that they imagined. On that score she was determined. Sacrifices! She was quite prepared to make sacrifices if they were necessary. Nobody should again have the chance of telling her that she did her generosity at other people's expense. An idea swept through her mind, and she set her teeth.

"Does it cost more than twelve and six a week to keep Lady?" she asked.

"Considerably more; though I don't suppose you've ever concerned yourself about the cost," returned Miss Todd sarcastically.

"Might I hand Lady over to the school for the rest of the term, then, and pay for the baby instead? I'd square it up with Father. He wouldn't mind about the riding when I explained."

Miss Todd looked Diana squarely in the face. Pupil and mistress met each other's eyes. The Principal's voice softened when she spoke.

"Yes; if you like to do this, Diana, I could arrange it. We want another school pony. You could take your turn with Lady once a week, the same as the other girls. By the end of the term we should know whether the 'Home' would receive the baby. Meantime, Mrs. Jones would take good care of her."

"Then I guess it's fixed," said Diana rather hoarsely.

XIX. Ambitions

The poor little foundling, pending her mother's trial at the Assizes, was boarded out in the village with Mrs. Jones, and Diana had permission to see her twice a week. Miss Todd communicated with the "Home for Destitute Children", and received the reply that, should the mother be convicted, as seemed only too probable, they would be ready to receive the baby, and would apply to the judge for an order for entire charge, so that it should not be claimed and taken away to a possibly criminal life when the mother's term of penal servitude was over.

For the present, therefore, there was nothing more to be done except take an interest in their protégée. Diana set to work to make her a dress—a really heroic effort, for she hated sewing—and sat stitching at it on those afternoons when the other girls were riding Lady. It was typical of Diana that she would not discuss her arrangement about the pony with anybody, not even Wendy.

"I've done it for reasons of my own, and that's enough!" she said rather crossly. "You've no need to thank me—it wasn't particularly to please you! I suppose I can do as I like!"

"Of course you can, but you needn't flare up so!" retorted Sadie. "Most people would expect to be thanked. What a queer girl you are, Diana!"

At which remark Diana grunted and turned away.

It is a funny thing that a burst of self-sacrifice often leaves us in a bad temper. Diana was no model heroine, only a very ordinary and rather spoilt girl. The reaction after giving up her pony had sent her spirits down to zero, and if all her doings are to be faithfully chronicled, it must be confessed that for a day or two she did not display herself at her best. She was snappy even with Loveday, and matters came to an open quarrel with Hilary, who, as prefect, was inclined to be dictatorial. A war of words followed; Hilary threatened to appeal to Miss Todd, and Diana, defeated but unrepentant, retired vowing vengeance.

"I'll pay you out some day; see if I don't!" she declared hotly.

"You're not worth noticing!" retorted Hilary, shrugging her shoulders.

Diana retired to the ivy room, had a thoroughly good cry, and came down with red eyes, but feeling better. She did not speak to Hilary again, however, for days.

Meantime, examinations were drawing near. Although Miss Todd conducted her school on absolutely modern lines, she still clung to examinations as being some test of a girl's attainments. The seniors in especial were anxious to distinguish themselves. It was their last chance before they left, and all, with the exception of Stuart and Ida, who were to remain as gardening students, were leaving at the end of the term. The breaking up of her school-days meant an anxious time for Loveday. When they were alone in the ivy room she sometimes confided her troubles to Diana.

"I don't know what I'm to do next. Uncle Fred has told me plainly that the little sum of money my father left has been nearly all spent on my education, and that he himself can't do anything for me. I'd like to go and take a proper training for something—kindergarten, or horticulture, or domestic economy. But how can I when there's nothing to do it on? I suppose it'll end in my going out as a nursery governess."

"Oh, Loveday!"

"Well, what else can I do? I daresay I'd love the children, and be quite happy in a way, but the worst of it is, it's such a blind alley, and leads to nothing. It's all very well to be a nursery governess when you're eighteen, but I'd like to be something better at thirty-six. If you want to get anything decent in the way of a post you have to train."

Diana, to whom all these ideas were fresh and bewildering, was trying to adjust her brains to the new problems. She wrenched her mind from the near present, and took a mental review of Loveday's far future.

"But aren't you going to get married?" was the result of her cogitations.

Loveday, busy plying her hair-brush, shook her long flaxen mane dolefully.

"I don't say I wouldn't like to. But I don't think it's at all likely. I'm not an attractive kind of girl; I know that well enough. I'm so shy. I never know what to say to people when they begin to talk to me. They must think me a silly goose. You should see my cousin Dorothy; she's always the very life and soul of a party. If I were like that now! I don't suppose anybody'll ever trouble to look at me twice. I'm sure Auntie thinks so. No; I expect I've just got to make up my mind to be a nursery governess for the rest of my days."

Diana, still in a state of mental bewilderment, looked at pretty Loveday sitting on the bed brushing out her silky fair hair, and her memory switched itself back suddenly to the last evening of their motor trip. She had been sitting in the lounge of the hotel, and through the open door could see Giles standing in the hall. Loveday had come running downstairs. Diana would never forget the look that for an instant flashed across Giles's face. It contained something that she had not yet altogether grasped or realized.

"I wouldn't make up my mind too soon if I were you," she said slowly. "You might change it some day."

Whatever the future might hold in store, the present was the most immediate concern. Loveday wished to take back a good report to her uncle and aunt, and studied hard so as to obtain a fair place in the examination lists. She had just a faint hope that if they thought she showed any intellectual promise they might consider it worth while to have her trained. They had never made much of her attainments, but if she could come out third or fourth in the school she felt they would be pleased. It would be impossible to overstep Geraldine or Hilary, but her work was tolerably on a level with Ida's and Stuart's, and certainly above Nesta's.

It was just at this crisis that Miss Todd offered a prize for the best essay on "The Reconstruction of England after the Great War, and its Special Application to Women's Labour and Social Problems".

It was rather an ambitious topic for girls to tackle, but the seniors attacked it with the crude courage of seventeen. It is often easier at that age to state our opinions than later, when our minds wobble with first-hand experience of the world. At any rate, it gives a force and style to an essay to be absolutely sure that what you write in it is the final thing to be said on the subject. The girls scribbled away, tore up many sheets, showed bits to admiring friends, and felt themselves budding authoresses. Public opinion, surging round the school, had already fixed the laurel wreath on the head of Hilary. Hilary exhibited decided literary ability; she had quite a clever knack of writing, and had composed several short stories. When she read these aloud—in bed—her thrilled listeners decided that they were worthy of appearing in print.

"Why don't you send them to a magazine?" urged Peggy, who slept in Dormitory 4.

"Perhaps I may some day—but please don't tell anybody a word about it," said Hilary, putting the cherished stories away again inside her dispatch-case.

In the ivy room Loveday also wrote and burnt, and wrote and tore up, and wrote again. Composition was her strong point, and though she knew she could never rival Hilary in mathematics or languages, she might possibly match her in the matter of an essay. In imagination Loveday took home the prize and showed it to her uncle and aunt, who were so overcome with amazement that they at once decided to send her to college on the strength of it.

On Wednesday afternoon the school had planned a mountain walk; but the weather, with its usual northern perversity, turned on the water-tap, and sent down deluges of rain. July can be quite as wet as February, and through the steaming window-panes the disappointed girls watched little rivers racing down the walks, and black clouds driving over the fells. The pent-up energy that wanted to spend itself in walking must find some other vent. The seniors, with one accord, retired to their form-room to copy out their essays. Miss Chadwick charitably conducted the juniors, clad in mackintoshes and goloshes down to the stable, and let them climb the ladder on to the hay in the loft, where she sat and told them stories. She did not invite the intermediates, so they were left to their own devices.

Diana, suffering from a cold, annoyed with the weather, and cross that she was not allowed to go out into the rain, raged up and down the room, and finally, for lack of any other form of physical exercise, organized a jumping competition.

The girls scrambled over the desks and took leaps on to the floor. They squealed as they did so, and every now and then broke into hallos or bursts of song. It was certainly not a quiet occupation. In the midst of the riot the door opened, and Hilary, in a towering temper, made her appearance.

"I never heard such a disgraceful noise in my life!" she stormed. "It sounds like a menagerie or an infants' tea-party. Great girls of your age to be jumping about like babies. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves! Here are we all trying to copy our essays; and how d'you think we're going to write with that racket going on over our heads? If you don't stop I shall fetch Miss Todd. She'll hear it for herself very soon, if you don't take care, and then there'll be squalls. She's working in her study."

There was truth in Hilary's remarks. Though they would not acknowledge there was anything derogatory to the dignity of intermediates in indulging in the pastime of jumping, they knew full well that should the noise penetrate to the precincts of the study Miss Todd would issue forth like a dragon. But Diana was cross, and not disposed to take reproof lightly. She pulled one of her most impossible faces, and stormed back at Hilary.

"You seniors want to have the school all to yourselves! It's a holiday afternoon; and why shouldn't we do as we like? We've just as good a right to amuse ourselves in our own way as you have. I don't see why you should tyrannize over us. You're always interfering! What business is it of yours what we do?"

"Very much my business, Diana Hewlitt, considering I'm prefect," said Hilary grimly. "If I've any more cheek from you you'll march down and report yourself in the study. This noise must stop. I give you warning that if it begins again I shall go straight to Miss Todd."

"You'll be a sneak then," retorted Diana. "I've a great many scores to settle with you, Hilary. You'll have a very unpleasant surprise before long, so look out!"

Hilary did not deign to answer, but stalked away in majestic silence, leaving gloom behind her. The girls knew perfectly well that even for a holiday afternoon they had exceeded the noise limit. Visions of a surprise visit from Miss Todd kept them silent. Tattie brought out her sewing, and Peggy her painting. Sadie went down to the library for a book. Wendy and Jess began a game of halma. Even Diana, after staring disconsolately out of the window, settled to read Ivanhoe. Downstairs the seniors, in peace and quiet, finished copying out their essays.

"They look so neat now they're done," rejoiced Geraldine. "Shall you keep your old copy?"

"What's the use?" said Hilary. "Mine's all alterations and corrections. I shall just tear it up."

"Well, so shall I."

Most of the others followed suit, and made a bonfire in the empty grate with the originals of their essays. The fair copies they placed inside their desks. Hilary put hers away with the short stories she had written, and, happening to be in a rather communicative mood, she confided the secret of these literary efforts to Stuart. Stuart was much impressed.

"Why don't you try to publish them?" she asked.

"Well, I would if I could," admitted Hilary.

"I saw a little bit in the end of the Blue Magazine saying that the editor would be glad to consider contributions."

"Oh, did you? Where is it?"

"I'll find it for you."

Stuart hunted up the magazine, found the paragraph in question, and tendered good advice.

"I'd certainly send them if I were you. Why shouldn't you try as well as anybody else? They might be accepted. Just think of having a story in a magazine! I'd die of swelled head if it were mine."

"I suppose there's no harm in trying," fluttered Hilary. "It would be a joke to see one's own story in print."

"Send some of them off to-day."

"Shall I?"

"Why not?"

"I don't know which to choose."

"Oh, any of them!"

Thus urged, Hilary drew three of her manuscripts at a venture, put them inside a long envelope, wrote a short note offering them to the editor, enclosed it, fastened, addressed, and stamped her letter, and placed it in the post-box in the hall.

"What fun if you have some luck!" said Stuart.

"I drew a tiny little swastika inside the envelope, and I made three crosses over it with my right forefinger," confessed Hilary, "but I don't suppose it's any use; they'll probably come packing back."

"Well, if they do you must send them to some other magazine," said Stuart hopefully.

Diana felt a little cheered up after reading three chapters of Ivanhoe, but she was still angry with Hilary. She felt that she would like to play a trick upon her. It would really serve her right for being so generally disagreeable. There was no need at all for prefects to take advantage of their office and ride roughshod over the intermediates. How could she possibly pay her out and settle the score between them? She pondered for a while, then had a sudden brain-wave and chuckled. First, she ascertained that the senior room was empty, then she paid a surreptitious visit to the pantry and purloined a pepper-pot. Hiding this for safety in her pocket she went back to the senior room, opened Hilary's desk, and put a plentiful sprinkling of pepper inside.

"It'll make Hilary just sneeze her head off to-morrow!" triumphed Diana. "She'll think she's got a touch of 'flu', and she'll be in such a scare! I'd give worlds to see the fun. Only, of course, I daren't show myself, or she'll find out. No, that would never do."

Putting the pepper-pot back in her pocket, she was in the act of leaving the room, when in the dusk she collided with Geraldine. The astonishment was mutual.

"What are you doing here, Diana?" asked the head prefect sharply.

"Oh, nothing in particular. I was just taking a roam round the school, that's all."

"You've no business to roam into the senior room. Keep to your own quarters. We can't have juniors coming in here!"

"I'm not a junior!"

"Well, intermediates are quite as bad, if not worse!"

Diana beat a retreat, for the supper-bell was ringing. She marched into the dining-room with a defiant twinkle in her eyes, and meeting Wendy, could not refrain from whispering:

"Done 'em brown for once! Hilary'll get the surprise of her life to-morrow."

"Sh! Sh!" warned Wendy too late.

Geraldine, who was exactly behind, and who had evidently overheard, glared at the couple, but forbore to speak. Indeed there was not time for her to do so, for the girls were taking their seats, and Miss Todd was waiting to say grace. It is undignified for a head prefect to take too much notice of the chance remarks of intermediates, so Geraldine let the matter pass, and, whatever her private thoughts might be, did not revive the subject after supper.

XX. A Tangled Plot

Loveday and Diana went to bed that evening just as usual. They performed their customary hair-brush drill, twisted Diana's light-brown locks in curl-rags, and plaited Loveday's flaxen mane in two long braids, folded their clothes neatly, read their Bible portions, said their prayers, and blew out the candle. Then they lay chatting quietly till Miss Beverley came on her nightly round of dormitory inspection.

"Only a few weeks more and we shall be saying good-bye to the ivy room," said Loveday. "I shall be back in Liverpool; and where will you be, Diana?"

"Crossing the Atlantic, I hope. Dad's had our names down for passages for ever so long, and they told him our turn might come early in August. We're crazy to get home again."

"I don't wonder! But how I'll miss you! I shall want heaps of letters."

"Rather! And so shall I. I'll want to know what you're doing."

"Answering advertisements about posts as nursery governess," said Loveday bitterly. "No luck ever comes to me. I had a sort of wild idea that if I won the prize for that essay Uncle Fred might think it worth while sending me somewhere to train; but I know I shan't get it now. Hilary read us bits out of hers, and it's just splendid—far better than mine. I'm not in the innings."

"Oh, Loveday, what a shame! The prize means so much more to you than to Hilary."

"I know it does. She'll win the maths prize too, and the Latin one."

"It doesn't seem fair she should get everything. I wonder if she'd hold back her essay so as to give you a chance?"

"Not she!"

"But if——"

At that identical moment Miss Beverley opened the door, and, candle in hand, looked round the room to see that all was left tidy. Her inspection was swift; she said "Good night, girls!" shut the door, and went downstairs to drink cocoa in Miss Todd's study. After her evening round the silence rule was a point of honour in the dormitories. Loveday and Diana turned over and went to sleep.

Some time in the middle of the night Diana woke with a start, just in time to see Loveday in a blue dressing-gown, with their bedroom candle in her hand, disappearing through the door. Where could Loveday be going? Had she heard burglars? Was she ill? Why had she not roused her room-mate? Could she by any chance be walking in her sleep?

All these questions raced through Diana's brain, and, as the quickest way to solve them, she jumped up, fumbled in the dark for her bedroom slippers and dressing-gown, and hurried after Loveday. She could see by the glimmer of light that the candle was going downstairs. She followed, flopping along in her woollen slippers, for she had not had time to draw them on properly. She nearly lost one on the landing, and had to stop. When she reached the hall the light had gone into the seniors' room. Diana walked softly, and peeped cautiously in. She had rather an idea of saying "Boo!" suddenly, and giving Loveday a scare, but she wanted to reconnoitre first. Her friend's back was turned towards her; she was bending over a desk, not her own desk, but Hilary's. She quickly drew out a roll of manuscript, tore it across and across, carried it to the fire-place, put it inside the grate, and applied the candle. Diana, standing in the dark outside the doorway, watched her in utter amazement. So many questions began to rush into her mind that the hall did not seem the best place to answer them. She fled upstairs again, jumped into bed, and lay thinking. In a minute or two Loveday came quietly back, blew out the candle at the door, and, treading softly, also went to bed. Diana did not speak, or betray by any movement that she was awake. It was an hour, however, before sleep came to her. She was on the early practising list, so she went downstairs next morning before her room-mate was stirring.

Breakfast passed over as usual; the post-bag came in; Miss Todd sorted and distributed the contents, and the girls retired to read their letters. At ten minutes to nine something happened. Hilary, with wide open eyes and flushed cheeks, came running along the hall.

"Somebody's gone and taken my essay out of my desk!" she declared excitedly.

Her fellow-seniors wrenched their thoughts from home news.

"Impossible!" said Geraldine.

"You've misplaced it!" said Stuart.

"No, I haven't! I know just where I put it yesterday."

"Go and look again!"

"I've turned the whole desk out, I tell you, and it simply isn't there!"

"Where is it, then?"

"That's what I want to know!"

"Has anyone taken it for a joke?"

"I expect so, but I'll reckon with whoever has!"

"It's probably one of those intermediates," suggested Stuart.

"Anybody who's got it must just turn it up at once!" said Geraldine grimly. "We can't allow this sort of thing to happen. I'll ask who's taken it."

The head prefect made an instant tour of the school, proclaiming the loss, and demanding instant restoration. The school, as one girl, utterly denied the accusation.

"But look here!" persisted Geraldine. "Somebody must have taken it. It couldn't walk out of Hilary's desk by itself! She knows she left it there yesterday. If anybody's hiding it for a joke, please give it back at once. If it's not brought back by nine o'clock I shall tell Miss Todd. Yes, I'm in earnest! Dead earnest!"

Seniors, intermediates, and juniors, very much astonished, retired to their form rooms and talked the matter over; but nobody produced the missing manuscript. During the course of the morning Miss Todd entered the intermediate room.

"A disagreeable thing has happened, girls," she said. "Somebody has taken Hilary's essay from her desk. If it was done as a joke, I consider it a very sorry joke! Does anyone in this room know anything about the matter? If so, she must speak out at once and tell me."

Miss Todd looked searchingly at the faces before her, and waited for an answer; but nobody spoke. There was a flush of annoyance on her cheeks, and that firm set about the mouth which generally indicated a danger signal.

"I intend to get to the bottom of it. It can't possibly be overlooked," she remarked, as she left the room to go and catechize the juniors.

For the rest of the morning lessons went on as usual. Immediately after dinner, however, Diana received a message to report herself in the study. She went slowly. She was still thinking; she had been doing nothing else but think since that midnight excursion down the stairs. It was rather a white-faced, anxious-eyed little Diana who entered the study. Miss Todd was sitting at her desk, and Hilary and Geraldine stood near her. They looked half resentful and half nervous.

"Diana," began Miss Todd, "I've sent for you because I believe you're the only girl who can throw any light on this most distressing business. I'm going to ask you a straight question. Have you taken Hilary's manuscript? I expect a straight answer."

"No," breathed Diana, looking down on the floor.

"Look me in the face, Diana. Do you know where it is? Or anything at all about it?"

Diana's eyes raised themselves to the level of the Principal's knee, and then fell to the floor. She did not answer.

"Geraldine tells me that she saw you at Hilary's desk yesterday evening."

No answer.

"You are known to have threatened to play a trick on Hilary!"

Still no answer.

"Very well, Diana. Until you condescend to explain, I can't allow you to mix with the rest of the school. We have rules here, and I intend they shall be obeyed. I make no exception for any pupil. You're inclined to think you have licence to do as you like, and play any pranks you choose here. I'm going to teach you a lesson for once. You'll stay in the attic until you choose to answer my question. I've dealt with obstinate girls before. Come along with me!"

Miss Todd rose, and, taking a key from her desk, led the way to the attic at the top of the little narrow staircase. The room was very simply furnished, and was always kept in readiness as a hospital in case any girl should be suddenly taken ill. It was not a particularly cheerful apartment; it had a skylight window, there were no pictures on the walls, and the floor was of scrubbed boards. It looked, as it was intended to be, arranged with the main object of being easily disinfected if necessary. Miss Todd ushered in Diana, and pointed to a chair.

"You may sit there and think it over," she remarked. Then she shut the door, and locked it on the outside.

Left alone, Diana took a seat on one of the small iron bedsteads. Her face was a mixture of bewilderment and consternation.

"Diana Hewlitt, it seems to me you've got yourself into some fix," she said to herself. "What's puzzling me is that I can't believe the evidence of my own eyes. Did I dream I saw Loveday go downstairs and take a roll of papers out of Hilary's desk? Goodness, I was only too horribly awake! The queerness of the thing bothers me. It doesn't fit in, somehow. Loveday! Loveday's the last person in the world, as I should have thought, to do a trick like that. I can't understand it. It's the sort of stupid thing that girls do in books. I never believed they did it in real life. Well, one thing's certain. I'm not going to tell about her—not if Miss Todd keeps me shut up here till I'm a hundred. Loveday shielded me when I ran away to say good-bye to Lenox, and I vowed I'd do the same for her if ever I got the chance. Well, I've got it now, and no mistake. Only—Loveday! Loveday! I don't understand! You've toppled down somehow off a pedestal. I feel as if something I liked had got broken."

It was anything but a cheerful afternoon for Diana. The only literature in the room was a catalogue of the Stores and some reports of charitable institutions. She read the cost of tins of sardines, pots of jam, table linen, household china and hardware, and tried to take some faint interest in the annual statements of the "District Nursing Association" and "The Society for Providing Surgical Appliances for the Sick Poor". To amuse herself she was reduced to choosing a word at random and seeing how many other words she could make out of it, but as she had no pencil in her pocket to write them down, it was rather difficult to keep count, and the occupation soon palled. Shortly after four o'clock she heard a scrimmage on the little landing outside the door. A deep-toned voice, that sounded like Miss Beverley's, said, "Come away this minute!" and a high-pitched, excited voice—undoubtedly Loveday's—protested, "If you'd only let me speak to her, I'm certain——"

Then a sound followed like somebody sliding down three steps at once, and Loveday's voice, with words indistinguishable, but tone still highly indignant, grew fainter and farther away till it ceased altogether. Diana smiled rather bitterly.

"It's not much use her coming and talking to me," she thought. "If she wants to tell anybody, she can tell Miss Todd. She needn't think I'll give her away. Don't suppose she knows, though, what I saw last night. It's a queer world! I'll be glad when I'm back in America. If Dad gets those passages he'll come and cart me off, Miss Todd or no Miss Todd. I'd like to see his face if he found me locked up in an attic."

Diana's tea was brought to her at five o'clock, and an hour later she was visited by the Principal, who again urged confession.

"What's the use of keeping this up?" asked the mistress impatiently. "You'll have to make a clean breast of it some time, so you may just as well do it at once. It's perfectly evident that you know where the essay is. You don't even deny that. What have you done with it?"

And again Diana stood with the same unyielding look on her face, and stared at the floor, and did not answer a word.

There is nothing so irritating as a person who utterly refuses to speak. Miss Todd glared at her, then turned towards the door.

"Very well; you may spend the night here. I'm not going to waste any more time on you now. Perhaps by to-morrow morning you'll be in a different frame of mind. I intend to know the truth of this; so it's merely a matter of waiting. You can leave here the moment you decide to confess; so you're punishing yourself by staying."

Once more the key turned in the lock, and Diana was a prisoner. At eight o'clock Miss Beverley, in strict silence, brought in a tray with supper, placed it on the table, departed, and secured the defences. After that nobody else even came up the stairs.

"They might some of them have managed to push a note under the door," sighed Diana. "I guess I'd have got a message in somehow if it had been Wendy shut up here. What a set of thick-heads they are! There isn't one of them ever has a decent brain-wave. Wonder how long I'll have to stick in this attic? I've not lost my bounce yet. But I guess, all the same, I'll go to bed now."

Miss Beverley, with the supper tray, had also brought Diana's night-gear in a small bundle. As there was no candle in the attic, it seemed wise to disrobe while there was still light enough to see by. The little bed was rather hard, the pillow was a lumpy one, and the spring mattress squeaked when she moved. Diana watched the room grow gradually darker and darker till stars appeared through the skylight. It was a very long time before she slept. The early sunshine, however, woke her in the small hours of the morning. There was no blind to the window, and the room faced east. Diana sat up in bed. Her eyes fell on the pictureless walls. Perhaps the very fact of their bareness made her look at them more particularly. She did not admire the pattern of the paper. In places it had been badly fitted together, especially in that corner. Why, the magenta roses actually overlapped! They did it in a sort of curve, almost as if they were outlining the top of a door. Was it by any chance a door?

At this stage of her inspection she sprang out of bed, went over to the corner, and ran her hand along the portion in question. It certainly felt as if the edge of a door were beneath. She rapped, and there was a hollow sound, very different from that given forth from the wall when she tried it a few yards farther on.

"I'm going to solve the problem for myself," she decided.

There was a knife left on the supper-tray. She thrust it through the paper, and began to cut round the seeming door. And most undoubtedly it was a door, though only a small one, with a curved top that came to the height of her shoulder.

"It must lead somewhere!" she thought excitedly. "Suppose I could get out on to the leads, climb down the ivy, and go off to Petteridge. Cousin Coralie wouldn't let me be brought back here to be shut up in an attic, I know!"

She worked away laboriously, tearing at the paper to free the door. It flashed across her mind that Miss Todd might have something to say about the disfigurement of the wall, but as she had gone so far, that did not deter her.

"Might as well finish it now," she smiled.

More hacking and tearing, then a gigantic shove, and the door suddenly opened inwards. She was looking into another attic, a larger and much darker room, lighted only by a tiny little skylight in the corner. It seemed full of furniture—chairs and tables piled together, and something that looked like a small grand piano. They were so thickly coated with dust that it was difficult in the dim light to distinguish more than upturned legs and general outlines. There did not appear to be the least possibility of escape in this direction. The skylight was more inaccessible than the one in her own attic. She sighed, went back, washed her dusty hands, and got into bed again.

"I guess there'll be a fine old shindy when Miss Todd sees what I've done," she soliloquized.

Miss Todd, who was thoroughly out of patience with Diana, did not hurry to send her breakfast up early that morning. She decided that the prisoner might very well wait until the school had finished its meal. She even distributed the post first, and began to read her own letters. She intended to carry the tray upstairs herself, and have another talk with Diana. It was an unpleasant duty, and could be deferred for a few minutes. Meantime the school also read its letters. There were two for Hilary. One in the well-known home writing, and the other a long envelope addressed in a strange hand. She opened this first. It contained three manuscripts, and a printed notice to the effect that the editor of the Blue Magazine much regretted his inability, owing to lack of space, to make use of the enclosed, for the kind offer of which he was much obliged.

"My stories packed back by return of post. How disgusting!" groused Hilary. "He might have taken one of them. Are they all here, by the by? Yes; 'The Flower of the Forest', 'The Airman's Vengeance', and—Good Heavens! What's this? Why—why, it's actually my essay on 'Reconstruction'!"

Hilary was so utterly dismayed that at first she could only stare aghast at her recovered manuscript; then she tore straight off to Miss Todd.

"I must have put it in in mistake for my other story," she explained. "I can't imagine how I could; but evidently I did! I'm too sorry for words. Poor Diana!"

Everybody said "Poor Diana!" when the news—as news will—spread like wildfire over the school. Miss Todd ordered some fresh tea to be made, and an egg boiled for the breakfast-tray. She was a just woman, and ready to make damages good. She even asked Miss Hampson to get out the last jar of blackberry jelly; there was still one left in the store-room. Diana, in the attic, having dressed hours ago, sat hungrily by the table, listening for footsteps, and wondering if starvation were to be part of her punishment. She glanced guiltily at the torn wall-paper as the key turned in the lock. Miss Todd, however, was so full of the good news that she hardly looked at the attic wall.

"Why did you say, Diana, that you knew something about the essay?" she asked.

"I never said anything at all," replied Diana, which, of course, was literally true.

It was nice to eat a dainty breakfast at leisure and not hurry down to lessons. She felt herself the heroine of the school that morning as she strolled into the French class just when the disagreeable grammar part of the lesson was over. Later on in the day there were confidences in the ivy room.

"I knew you hadn't done it, darling!" declared Loveday. "It wasn't like you one little bit. I had a regular squabble with Miss Beverley. I tried to come and talk to you through the door, and she came and dragged me away. Why didn't you tell Miss Todd you'd never even seen the wretched essay?"

"Sissie," whispered Diana, "will you tell me what you were doing at Hilary's desk in the middle of the night?"

"Why—why, surely you never thought——"

"Yes, I did; and that's why I held my tongue," said Diana, burying her hot face on Loveday's shoulder. "Forgive me, please, for having thought it."

"It never struck me that anybody should think that," said Loveday, still amazed at the idea. "And how did you know about it? Did you follow me? Well, I'll tell you what I was doing. We seniors have a secret—not a very desperate one; it's only a little literary society. We make up stories for it, and fasten them together into a sort of magazine. Geraldine is president, and Hilary is the secretary. It was the night for giving in the stories, and I put mine with the others inside Hilary's desk. Geraldine and I haven't been quite hitting it lately; so I'd made a girl in my story exactly like her, only nastier, and written a lot of very sarcastic things. I thought they were awfully clever. Then when I got into bed I was sorry. It seemed a mean sort of thing to do. I made up my mind I'd go down first thing in the morning and tear up the story. But I'm such a sleepy-head in the mornings, and you know how early Geraldine generally gets up. I was afraid she'd come down first, and probably rummage the stories out of Hilary's desk and read mine. The more I thought about it the more ashamed I was of what I'd written. I couldn't go to sleep. I felt I shouldn't be easy till it was burnt; so at last I got up, and lighted the candle, and went downstairs and did the deed. That's how you saw me at Hilary's desk. By the by, Geraldine said she caught you there before supper. What were you doing?"

"Putting pepper among her books to pay her out and make her sneeze," confessed Diana.

"Why, she did say her desk smelled somehow of pepper!" exclaimed Loveday. "We were all so excited, though, about the essay being missing that we didn't take much notice of it. The whole affair's been a sort of 'Comedy of Errors'."

One substantial result remained from Diana's confinement to the attic, and that was the discovery of the door into the room beyond. Miss Todd explored, and carried some of the dusty chairs out into the light of day. She was enough of a connoisseur to see at a glance that they were Chippendale, and extremely valuable. She had the rest of the furniture moved out and cleaned, then sent for a dealer in antiques to ask his opinion about it. He said it made his mouth water.

"A set of ten Chippendale singles with two armchairs will fetch almost anything you like nowadays," he added.

"The question is, to whom do they legally belong?" said Miss Todd. "I'm only the tenant here. I must tell my landlord."

The owner of the Abbey, who had bought the property many years before from Mr. Seton, was a man with a fine sense of honour. Though, legally, the furniture in the forgotten attic might have been transferred to him with the house, he did not consider himself morally entitled to it.

"It certainly belongs to the heirs-at-law of the late Mr. Seton," he declared.

There was only one heir, or rather heiress-at-law, and that was Loveday. It was decided, therefore, to sell the furniture for her benefit. The collection included objects of great rarity, among them a genuine spinet and a beautifully inlaid bureau. At the present boom for antiques they would realize a very substantial sum, quite a windfall, indeed, for Loveday.

"Will it be enough to send me to a horticultural college?" she asked Miss Todd.

"Ample, my dear. It ought to bring you sufficient for a thoroughly good training in any career you want to take up."

This was news indeed—so splendid that it seemed almost too good to be true. Hilary's essay, which, as everybody expected, easily won the prize, had indirectly made Loveday's fortune after all.

"I bless the day when I was a prisoner in the attic," rejoiced Diana. "If I hadn't knocked that door in, the furniture might still have been lying there in the dust."

"I wonder if this was the discovery that gentleman wanted to tell Father about," surmised Loveday.

Surprise came on surprise, for the very morning after this happy solution of Loveday's future, Diana received a telegram from Paris. Mr. Hewlitt had succeeded in getting three passages (thrown up at the last by a family who were taken ill with "flu" and unable to travel); he and Mrs. Hewlitt were crossing the channel post-haste, and Diana must start from school and meet them in Liverpool. Loveday helped her to pack her boxes. It was an excited, fluttered, tearful little Diana who clung to her at the last.

"Sissie! I can't say 'Good-bye!' It's not 'good-bye' to you—only 'au revoir'."

"We'll meet again some day, darling!"

"We'll just jolly well have to, or I'll know the reason why! If you don't come out to see us in America I shall come over here and fetch you. Write very often, and let me know how the baby goes on, and if it has been taken into the Home. I haven't quite finished its frock. Will you do it? Oh, thanks! I'm leaving the Abbey in as big a hurry as I came here. Dad always uses his 'lightning methods'. But I shan't forget any of you, ever—not you, Wendy, or Jess, or Vi. Write to me, won't you? As for you, Loveday mine, I haven't words left. Let me give you one more good hug! Yes, Miss Todd, I'm really coming. No, I don't want to miss my train. Good-bye, everybody and everything! Good-bye! Good-bye!"

THE END