The Project Gutenberg eBook of Schoolgirl rivals

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Title: Schoolgirl rivals

Author: Brenda Page

Illustrator: P. B. Hickling

Release date: December 16, 2024 [eBook #74919]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Cassell and Company, Limited, 1927

Credits: Al Haines

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCHOOLGIRL RIVALS ***

"'Good game, Kitty, wasn't it?'" (see page 44)
"'Good game, Kitty, wasn't it?'" (see page 44)

Schoolgirl Rivals

By

BRENDA PAGE

With Frontispiece in Colour and
Three Black and White Illustrations
By P. B. HICKLING

CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED
London, Toronto, Melbourne, and Sydney

First Published 1937

Printed in Great Britain

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

1. First Impressions
2. The Seniors of Carslake's
3. The P. Squareds
4. The Richoter Science Prize
5. Trial by Jury
6. The Richoter ResultS
7. Sports Day
8. Carslake's v. The Rest
9. The Cycling Expedition
10. A Night on the Downs
11. The Truth of it All

ILLUSTRATIONS

"'Good game, Kitty, wasn't it?'" ... Frontispiece

"She swung round quickly as the Principal said sharply: 'Has someone been interfering with your balances, Constance?'"

"'What rubbish is all this?' Duane asked"

"Crouched in a forlorn heap upon the floor, they found the runaway"

Schoolgirl Rivals

CHAPTER I

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

"Good-Bye, my dear child. You are quite sure you will be all right and have everything you want? It's a straightforward run now to Easthampton."

"Oh yes, I shall be quite all right, Mrs. Wade, and thank you very much for all the trouble you've taken with me. I'll sure never forget it."

Mrs. Wade nodded and waved as the train moved out of the junction. She had arrived in London off an Australian boat only the day before and had been in charge of the Australian girl during the voyage over. She had not seen her native country for twenty-five years, and so was naturally feeling rather excited. She turned away with her conscience at rest, having successfully fulfilled her obligation. To be sure, her charge was a very sensible and practical girl, with a mind and will of her own, and had given her no trouble. Now she was safely in the train that would carry her straight to her destination, and Mrs. Wade could leave off worrying about her, and turn her attention to the relations she had not seen for twenty-five years.

Left "on her own" for the first time in her life, Kitty Despard, Australian born and bred, settled herself in her corner seat with an inward feeling of mingled excitement and trepidation, but outwardly with firmly set lips and resolute air. She was a stranger in a strange land, but Australians are not noted for either nervousness or backwardness.

Staring out at the flying green landscape with unseeing eyes, she was wondering for the hundredth time since her departure from home what an English boarding-school would be like. In the old-fashioned story-books they were the most awful places; they had "crocodiles" and "backboards" and lessons in "deportment." But schools had changed in later years. She knew that English girls, as a whole, were fond of sports, and in that, at any rate, she could hold her own, for she had been brought up with half a dozen brothers and sisters in a bush "township," where opportunities for tennis and cricket were unlimited.

There was the question of lessons, of course. Kitty had gone daily by the school train to the High School in a neighbouring town. She had dodged as much work as she could, it is true, but she had one strong point. Jim and Billy always declared that she was as good as they were at mathematics.

No doubt there would be some "snobs" at Easthampton, for Mrs. Wade's sister, who had recommended the school to Kitty's father, had said that all the scholars were the children either of well-to-do or well-born families. But there were sure to be some good sorts, too.

The train was a slow one, stopping at every station. One of these was apparently a junction of a small kind, for there was quite a little bustle as a crowd of passengers from another train swarmed across the platform. Kitty's carriage was invaded by five or six girls who clambered noisily in with the happy air of owning the whole train. Kitty realized with a start that they were evidently Easthampton College girls, for they wore the same scarlet hatband badge as she did.

"Van's further down," remarked one who was craning her neck out of the window.

"We pick up Salome at the next station," added the tallest of the party. "Oh, here comes Paddy, late as usual, tearing down the steps like mad. She'll never do it."

The girl at the window had flung open the door and was shouting, "Hi, hi, Paddy!" at the top of her voice, and gesticulating frantically. As the train began to move, the late-comer rushed up to the carriage door. Half a dozen helping hands seized hold of various parts of her person and she was hauled in, collapsing in a heap in the middle of the carriage. She picked herself up and subsided panting into the seat next to Kitty.

"Your usual method of catching trains, Paddy!" remarked the tall girl.

"Never mind. I did catch it, and that's all that matters, sure," returned Paddy cheerfully. "Cheer-oh, girls, how d'you like coming back to the grindstone? Never ye mind; summer's before us, and cricket and tennis. Oh, the merry, merry month of May!" she began to sing in a tuneless voice.

"Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" sang somebody else; and there was a general chorus, "Oh don't, Paddy!"

"Always optimistic. You're very refreshing, Paddy, my child," remarked the tall girl when the hubbub had subsided. "I came down on the other line with Van, and she could talk of nothing but matriculation."

"When every prospect pleases, and only man is vile," sighed Paddy. "Hallo!" as her sharp eyes caught sight of Kitty's school hat resting on the rack. "Here's a new girl. You are a new girl, aren't you? I'm sure I've never seen your face before."

Kitty replied in the affirmative, and the tall girl broke in:

"Are you really? I'm so sorry I didn't notice it. My name's Eileen Gilbert, and as I happen to be a prefect it's very reprehensible conduct on my part. Do you come from far?"

"From Australia," replied Kitty.

There were exclamations from the listening girls.

"Begorrah!" said Paddy. "But there's a way to come to school for you! Have you been in England long?"

"I only landed at Tilbury yesterday. I came over in charge of a friend of ours. She saw me safely in the train for Easthampton and has promised dad she'll keep an eye on me while I'm here."

"Poor thing," said Paddy sadly, "and won't she be feeling the loss of it now!"

"The loss of what?" Kitty's wits were not quite so sharp at that moment as they usually were.

"Her oie, to be sure."

"Stop ragging, Paddy," interrupted Eileen. Paddy, a girl with bright black eyes, a merry face and untidy dark hair, merely laughed and turned again to Kitty, who had already taken a great fancy to her.

"I don't believe we've ever had an Australian girl at Easthampton before. How old are you?"

"Sixteen—and a half."

"A little older than me. I am only just sixteen."

"Do tell us your name," interrupted one of the smaller girls.

"Kitty Despard."

"Are you fond of sports?" asked Paddy eagerly. "I've heard all Australians are."

"Yes, very much," replied Kitty.

"Oh, good! What house are you in?"

"Miss Carslake's."

"Oh!" Paddy's tone expressed volumes.

"That mouldy show! What an impression of Easthampton you'll get! Now, it ought to have been Sheerston's——"

"Or Prince's," said Eileen quickly.

"Well, Prince's isn't so bad, though it's not up to Sheerston's——"

"Yes, it is. It'll be top house this term, you'll see."

"No, it won't. But—Carslake's! It's a filthy hole."

"What do you mean?" inquired Kitty, feeling a little startled.

"Well, it's easily bottom house, and has got a most awful reputation for slacking—which it deserves."

Eileen nodded. "Yes, and it used to be top house once. Now it's out of the running even for third place. Only two senior and a few junior prizes went to it last year."

"And only one colour in the whole house," added Paddy. "That's Duane, of course, for hockey. I should think she's safe to get her tennis and cricket colours too, this term. But just think of it! Only one in the whole house! Slackers isn't the word for that lot. Miss Carslake sets the example and the girls follow the sheep."

"Of course you heard the rumour that Doreen was leaving?"

"Not really? Won't it be funny if she does! What with Betty leaving suddenly at the beginning of the year, and now Doreen—why, there won't be one sixth-former left in the house this term. It's the queerest thing I ever heard of. What'll they do about a head prefect?"

"Here's the next stop," said Eileen.

"Look out for Salome. We'll ask her if Doreen really has left. She's sure to know."

At the next station another addition was made to the party, a tall girl with delightful hair, dark and wavy and bobbed, an active-looking figure and eyebrows that were noticeable for their straightness. A remarkable girl—and she certainly had a remarkable name, unless it was a nickname. Paddy was obliging enough to whisper to the new girl:

"That's Salome Hope, the head prefect of my house, Sheerston's; frightfully clever at lessons and a triple colour—hockey, cricket and tennis. There isn't a girl to touch her in the school."

The whisper was a very audible one, like all Paddy's whispers. Salome heard it quite plainly, and looked across at Kitty with a laugh.

"One of the school celebrities, in fact. Paddy is too, though she refrains from mentioning it. Are you a new girl?"

"Yes," answered Eileen. "Kitty Despard, from Australia. They've put her into Carslake's. Isn't it a shame!"

"Well, Carslake's is in need of seniors, it seems," said Salome.

"Is it true that Doreen has left?"

"Yes, unfortunately. It puts the house into an unprecedented position, having to descend to the Upper Fifth for a head prefect."

"Quite unprecedented. Fortunately it'll only be for a term. But surely there are only a few seniors of any sort in Carslake's now?"

"Let me see. Margaret, Sonia and Bertha in the Lower Fifth; Duane, Hilary and France in the Upper—that's all."

"It's a pity Hilary is so delicate, and of course France would be hopeless as head prefect. I suppose it'll be Duane."

"Yes. She's been chosen already."

"The best of the three," remarked Eileen, "and rather clever in her way, I should think. But a bit of a slacker, isn't she?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so. But she's got her hockey colour. That's always a help."

"Rather," put in Paddy. "And I remember her at tennis last year. If she had bucked up a bit she might have got her tennis colour as well. She could bat too, in cricket. Only she's so beastly erratic."

"That's it," agreed Salome, "you can't depend on her. She's a queer sort."

"Anyway, Carslake's can't come down any lower," said Eileen philosophically. "That'll be one comfort to her."

Then the conversation turned on other subjects, and a few minutes later the train began to draw up.

"Easthampton!" cried Paddy, who thought she had been silent long enough. "Tumble out, everybody. I'll look out for the school truck. All light luggage is here, being only Easter vac.—except Kitty's, of course."

Eileen, as a prefect, took the new girl under her wing.

"Run down to the luggage van and have your trunks brought up here. Then they can go up to the school with ours. There's plenty of time. Paddy will be some while fetching Orpheus along with the truck; he always crawls about like a snail."

As Kitty obediently went off down the platform with her long strides, many of the girls turned round to stare after her as she passed, for she was far from being an insignificant girl. She was tall, long-legged, and at a rather bony and angular stage of growth. Her face was very tanned after the sea voyage and, like the majority of Australian girls, her complexion was nothing to boast about; she had cropped, bright brown hair and alert grey-blue eyes; there was something in her carriage and the active swing of her walk that betrayed an outdoor life with plenty of exercise.

"This is yours, miss," said the porter obligingly. "For the school, miss? Here's another one for the school. Take them both up the platform, Tom."

The second trunk, as Kitty noticed with a quick observant glance, was very smart and expensive looking; and painted in white very conspicuously across the top, in great contrast to Kitty's humble initials, were these words: "The Hon. Duane l'Estrange Estevan."

Kitty was immensely tickled.

"My gracious!" she said to herself. "What a name! If it were mine I should want to drown it. An Honourable, too. I sort of think, if I run across her, I shan't hit it off with the Hon. Duane l'Estrange Estevan. That is to say, if she's anything like her trunk, or her name."

Australians are far less tolerant in their criticisms than the English, and Kitty was no exception, you see.

Returning to Eileen and her party, she found that a little shambling man was loading a truck with the girls' hand luggage.

"Come along now," said Paddy. "We can leave these things to Orpheus. We call him Orpheus," she explained to Kitty, "because he blows the chapel organ. He's got an undeveloped cerebrum, you know, poor chap."

"Please, Paddy," remonstrated Salome. "We're not in school yet!"

"Well, dippy on the dome then, if that's more suited to your intelligence," retorted Paddy recklessly.

They set off from the station, Salome and Eileen leading the way, Paddy and Kitty following, and the younger ones trailing along behind. They passed through the small town of Easthampton and after half a mile's walk they arrived at Easthampton College. Kitty's first glimpse of that famous school was an imposing pair of iron gates with a view beyond of trim shrubberies and lawns, a curving drive, a pleasant red-bricked house, and a background of green fields. The gates were open.

"Easthampton is quite a little colony of itself," said Salome, turning to Kitty with a smile. "There are nearly three hundred girls in the school, quite two hundred being yearly boarders."

"How many houses are there?"

"Four. This is Sheerston's near the gate, my house and the biggest. Carslake's is a little farther on down the drive. Prince's and Green's are the other side of the quadrangle, side by side. The school building is at the back of the quad, and beyond are the playing-fields and the kitchen garden. We have two big fields. We call them Big Side and Little Side, because one is used by the seniors and one by the juniors. The swimming-bath and gym are in the playing-fields."

"Will you take Kitty along to Carslake's, Salome?" asked Eileen. "No Carslake's prefects came down in our train."

"Right-oh," replied Salome. "It's not so far for me. Come along, Kitty."

They went off down the drive, past Sheerston's, till they came to a somewhat smaller though similarly built building.

"Now, I'll hunt you out a senior and leave you in her charge," said Salome. "Your luggage will arrive presently and will be put in the vestibule. Then you unpack and carry your things up to your dormitory. Hi," seizing hold of a small girl who was in the vestibule unpacking; "run up to the dormitories and unearth a senior of some sort. Isn't your head prefect knocking around somewhere?"

"I don't think she's come yet," replied the child.

"Then she ought to have," said Salome, "to look after her troublesome young charges. Never mind. Anybody will do."

The girl disappeared, returning in a few minutes with the desired senior.

"Hallo, Salome!" the new-comer exclaimed. "What brings you in this direction so soon?"

"A new girl. Kitty Despard, all the way from Australia. Kitty, this is Hilary, one of your seniors," and after exchanging a few more words Salome departed.

Kitty's new acquaintance was a rather small, slight girl with soft, fair hair, pale, irregular features and dark, hazel eyes. Her manner, as she showed Kitty her cubicle and told her where to put her things, was courteous and considerate, but quiet and self-contained. Kitty had hardly finished unpacking before a bell rang and they went down to tea in a big, cheery room, containing four or five long tables. The new girl was rather dazed by the chatter and laughter and crowd of new faces. She gathered little save that most of the girls were smaller than herself, but that there was either a mistress or a senior girl at the head and foot of each table. She herself sat next to Hilary, who presided at the foot of one of them.

The rest of the evening seemed still more dreamlike. There was a brief interview with the house mistress, Miss Carslake, who welcomed her kindly, shook hands rather limply, asked her a number of questions in a pleasant voice, and gave her hints on what she might expect to find in her new life.

At eight o'clock another bell rang, and she was astonished when somebody remarked, "Chapel." She thought vaguely of Wesleyans and Baptists, and looked to see what the others were doing. Everybody made for the vestibule and donned hats and wrappers of some sort. Hilary considerately took Kitty in charge again.

"Get your hat. It's chapel. We only have morning chapel usually—just a short service—but we always have evening chapel the first and last night of term."

They crossed the quad with the others to the pretty little chapel that adjoined the school building, meeting converging streams of girls from the other houses. Kitty, as if in a dream, knelt, rose, and sat with the rest of the two hundred and fifty girls, but there was something strangely impressive in the hearty chanting of the solitary psalm, "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills ... the Lord shall preserve thy going out, and thy coming in," and the still heartier rendering of the hymn:

Lord receive us with Thy blessing,
Once again assembled here.

Kitty was sitting near the organ and could not help noticing the player, evidently one of the girls, for her bright chestnut hair hung in a heavy mass down her back. Kitty was so absorbed in examining her aristocratic profile and admiring the elegant way in which she wore her clothes, that she missed a considerable part of the lesson.

Afterwards came supper, an informal meal of hot cocoa and "pavement" (a slice of cake), then bed bell and lights out, for the seniors, at ten o'clock. In spite of the strangeness of being enclosed in the white-panelled walls of a daintily furnished cubicle, Kitty was so tired and drowsy that before long her eyelids closed and she was sound asleep.

CHAPTER II

THE SENIORS OF CARSLAKE's

With the clang of the everlasting bell in her ears Kitty awoke, wondering for a few minutes where she could be, and almost thinking she was back in her little bunk on board the Wallaroon.

Then she heard a yawn, and a sleepy voice, "Oh, bother! Was that rising bell?" and Hilary's voice in answer, "Yes, Peggy my child, it was. What's more, I can see it raining out of my window."

"Oh, blow!" said another voice. "Shan't get up then. Wake me by twenty to eight, somebody, please, if I fall asleep again."

"Get up, you lazy kids," said Hilary sternly. "It's disgraceful, the way you lie in bed when you might have a run round the field before breakfast or a turn in the gym. No wonder we never get represented in gym displays. You know it's the rule to turn out when rising bell goes."

"Bother the bell!" said the voice of Peggy. "And you can't make us, Hilary. Duane is head of this dormitory, not you."

"Well, you ought to have a mistress sleeping next door, like the other dormitories. You'd have to alter your ways a little then. Are you awake, Kitty?"

"I should hope so," replied Kitty promptly. "I couldn't very well stay asleep with all this talking going on."

"Bless you, there are plenty who do. Are you getting up?"

"Yes," answered Kitty, jumping out of bed with a spring.

"Good. I'll take you along to the gym for a look-round before breakfast. Be ready by a quarter to eight, won't you?"

"All right," answered Kitty at once. "Where do I get water from?"

"Oh, one of the juniors will get you hot water from the bathroom, if you put your jug outside your cubicle."

Kitty was quite ready when Hilary knocked for admittance. By that time, the rest of the dormitory, from the noise they were making, had evidently turned out.

"Half a tick," said Hilary. "I must perform my usual morning's task." She raised her voice.

"Duane, are you awake?"

A sleepy voice made reply:

"No. 'Tisn't time to get up yet."

"Yes, it is," replied Hilary firmly. "Hurry up and turn out."

"What's the time?" said the same drawling voice.

"A quarter to eight."

"Oh well, I can just do it in ten minutes. Call me at ten to."

"I'm just going. You'll be late one of these days. You know last term you were hardly ever properly dressed for breakfast."

"I'll count three and jump out on the 'three.'"

"Hurry up then."

"One——" began the speaker with the tired voice, and paused.

"Two——"

A still longer pause.

"Two and a half."

Another pause, then:

"Two and three quarters."

"Oh, go on," said Hilary. "Two and seven eighths! I'm going now, anyway," and patience evidently not being her strong point, she walked out of the dormitory, throwing a "Come along, Kitty," over her shoulder as she did so.

Now Kitty's cubicle was next to the one belonging to the tired individual. She had been listening to the conversation with a feeling of mingled pity and contempt, for slacking of any sort made no appeal whatever to the vigorous, active Australian girl. As Hilary walked out, Kitty's glance fell on her wet sponge, lying on the washstand. Catching it up, she sprang lightly on to the edge of the bed, caught hold of the top of the partition, and judging the whereabouts of the invisible speaker's face by careful guesswork, squirted the contents of the sponge over the partition. Apparently the shower of water found its mark, for there was the sound of a gasp and a violent creak of the bed. Kitty, judging discretion to be the better part of valour, hastily dropped the sponge and slipped swiftly out of the dormitory, catching Hilary up in the passage outside.

The two walked on together.

"Who's the girl you called Duane?" inquired Kitty, wondering why the unusual name sounded familiar, till, the next instant, she remembered the trunk at the station and its flaunting lettering. Wouldn't the boys at home laugh when she told them in her letter that one of her first acts in England was to squirt water over a member of the British aristocracy!

"Oh, you'll soon get to know who Duane is," replied Hilary. "She's just been appointed head prefect of our house. She's in my form, the Upper Fifth."

"Oh!" said Kitty, remembering the conversation in the train between Eileen and Salome. So this was the girl they had been discussing so freely! Somehow or other, though she had not seen her yet, Kitty was quite sure she was not going to like her head prefect.

When breakfast was over, Miss Carslake announced that the Principal wanted to see all the school prefects in her room that morning. "She also wishes to see all the senior girls of the house," the mistress added; "so those who are not prefects must also be ready after chapel."

Of course there was a certain amount of excitement at this unusual proceeding, and many reasons were suggested for it.

"Shall I have to go?" inquired Kitty.

"Oh, yes. Come along. You're sure to be in the Upper or Lower Fifth, so you must look upon yourself as a senior."

Consequently, about ten o'clock, Kitty found herself with the six other senior girls of her house in the sanctum of Miss St. Leger, Principal of Easthampton College. She was very popular with her girls, who were wont to declare that they could not imagine Easthampton without her.

The seniors sat gravely on chairs in a little semicircle. Kitty, through hearing them address one another, had already learned their names, and surveyed them interestedly, for these were to be her future companions. There was, first of all, the slight, fair Hilary, insignificant in appearance but ready of tongue and decidedly shrewd of brain. Then there were the Lower Fifth-formers sitting side by side. Margaret Batt was liked by everybody; she was a nice, simple, unaffected English girl, not brilliant in any way, but always ready to lend a helping hand to anyone who needed it. Sonia Edwards was a pretty, golden-haired, smartly dressed girl, inclined to be vain and rather empty-headed, though not ill-natured. Kitty rather sweepingly described her to herself as a "fluffy-haired, dressed-up doll." Bertha Salter was not very prepossessing in appearance. She had straight, carroty hair, a sturdy but stockily-built figure, and a rather heavy, sullen expression. Kitty fancied she looked rather sly, then quickly reproved herself for an unkind thought about a total stranger. The girl was very likely quite a decent sort. She couldn't help her looks.

There remained the other two Upper Fifth-formers. The second of the three prefects was the chestnut-haired girl who played the organ for chapel services. She was not exactly pretty, but there was something distinctive about her carriage and dress. Later, Kitty discovered that Francesca Kent had a natural taste for art, and was firmly and proudly convinced that she had what she called an "artistic temperament," though in reality she had the sweetest of tempers. She was quite a character in the school.

Last, but not least, was the Hon. Duane l'Estrange Estevan. Kitty decided that there was nothing insignificant about her looks, at least. She was as tall and long-limbed as Kitty herself, but there the resemblance stopped. She was rather broader of shoulder, and there was nothing awkward or angular about her. Her hair was black and thick and cut in a straight mediæval bob; her complexion was inclined to be sallow; her eyes were very grey and formed a curious contrast to her black hair and eyebrows, looking remarkably vivid and luminous in their dark setting. She lounged, rather than sat, in her chair and listened with a blasé, preoccupied indifference to what the revered Principal was saying. Duane's voice was curiously soft, with a decided drawl in it; her movements, too, were listless and deliberate. She was an English aristocrat from head to foot, Kitty told herself, and Kitty had all a self-respecting Australian's contempt for the English aristocracy.

Now the Principal was speaking to them, and Kitty's whole attention was fixed on her words.

"I wanted specially to say just a few words to the older girls in Miss Carslake's House. I expect you can guess what I want to say. To put it frankly, girls, I don't like to see one of the houses so hopelessly below all the others in both school work and sports."

"Well, somebody must be bottom, Miss St. Leger," remarked Frances Kent brightly. Francesca loudly and frequently proclaimed that she was not really interested in anything except art.

"True, Frances," replied Miss St. Leger, "but not always—nor in everything—nor so easily."

"Oh, but surely, Miss St. Leger," protested Duane in her tired voice, "it is not so bad as that."

Miss St. Leger smiled. "Perhaps I was exaggerating a little, for your own good. I want to see you girls rouse yourselves, and make up your minds that your house isn't going to take bottom place in everything. Let us look at a few facts fairly. Last year this house only carried off two prizes among the seniors, Frances first in drawing, and Hilary second in English. Neither did your juniors earn the number they could have done. You have plenty of intelligent juniors, if they would only make up their minds to try.

"Now look at sports. You are going to be bottom this year if you don't make a big effort this term. Are you going to win any cricket or tennis matches, or any of the events on Sports Day? As you are a long way behind the others at present, you will have to make a big effort to catch up."

"We are handicapped, Miss St. Leger," said Duane. "We are so few numerically."

"Yes, I know your house is smaller than Sheerston's or Prince's, but no smaller than Miss Green's, and they are making quite a plucky fight for scholastic honours and the House Sports Shield."

"I did not quite mean the number of girls in the house, Miss St. Leger," the head prefect defended herself. "I was referring to the number of seniors. After all, it is the seniors who form the backbone of the house teams. There are only seven of us; Sheerston's, for example, have over twenty."

"True again. Of course you have been unfortunate in losing three senior girls in the middle of the school year—a most unusual occurrence. That is why I put the only new senior girl this term in your house. But it is quality, as well as quantity, that counts." She looked at the listening girls, and a smile flashed over her face, smoothing out its lines and wrinkles. "You were studying Henry V last term in the Upper Fifth, weren't you, girls? Accept his point of view, then—the fewer fighters, the greater share of glory," and with a few more parting words of encouragement, she dismissed them.

Kitty found the rest of that day one whirl of "settling down." First of all, with half a dozen other new girls, all younger, she was put through a searching oral examination by Miss Sheerston, in order to be "placed." Kitty, whose nerves hindered her, acquitted herself more creditably than she had hoped.

Miss Sheerston was a queer, masculine-looking person, with a shirt blouse, high collar, and grey hair strained back from her face, but her manner was brisk, kindly, and invigorating in the extreme; her own girls thought the world of their house mistress. She praised Kitty's mathematics, declared her French to be appalling, and finally said, "You are sixteen, you say. Well, I don't see why you shouldn't make a shot for removal into the Sixth Form next term. Only you would have to give up any idea of taking extra classes, for the present, and devote extra time to your French."

Kitty, feeling that she would have quite enough to cope with in the Upper Fifth, and then in the Sixth, as it was, hastily disclaimed any desire to take special classes, and so it was settled that she should join the ranks of the most elevated members of her own house in the Upper Fifth.

In her few leisure moments she was busily arranging her part of the study she was to share with Hilary. All Sixth-formers were entitled to studies, of which they were very proud, sharing one between two. As there were now no Sixth-formers at Carslake's, the four studies were handed over to the Fifths, Upper and Lower.

Kitty rather wished she had been put in one of the other houses, not because Carslake's was the bottom house and bore rather a poor reputation, but because she was not particularly drawn to any one of her companions there. They were nice girls in their way, but there was not one of them whose tastes were sufficiently in common with Kitty's to make her desirable as a special chum. Hilary was quiet and reserved; besides, she was not allowed to play games, and half Kitty's enjoyment and interest in life came from games and outdoor exercises. Frances Kent was a being from another world altogether. So was the head prefect; her queer personality made no appeal to Kitty, who liked people who said what they meant and called a spade a spade and not a garden implement.

"If only jolly Paddy or that clever-looking Salome girl had been in this house," she thought, regretfully, "they would have made things hum between them. But these are evidently a hopeless lot."

On the evening of the second day, Hilary came into the study with the announcement, "All seniors to be in Cato's study at three-thirty to-morrow."

Afternoon lessons finished at three-fifteen, and from then till tea-time, at five, everybody was free to play games, go for a walk, or, if it were very wet, amuse themselves indoors.

"Who's Cato?" inquired Kitty, looking puzzled.

"Cato? Why, the Hon. Duane of course. Nearly everyone gets a nickname of some sort. The meeting is to talk over Prinny's little welcoming lecture."

"I don't see much good in talking," retorted Kitty. "It's doing that matters."

"Well, as far as sports are concerned, I don't see there's much we can do. Duane is the only one who is much good at them. I'm forced to be a looker-on, worse luck. Somebody wants to explode a bomb-shell in our midst and wake everybody up."

The seven seniors duly met. Hilary and Kitty were the first arrivals. They found Duane sprawling in the easy-chair with a book in her lap, and Frances, enveloped in an overall of bird-of-paradise hue, busily dabbing at a large sheet of paper mounted on an easel.

"Come in, come in," called out the head prefect, in her soft drawl. "I know France is taking up all the room with her horrible mess, but you'll just have to sit down where you can—so long as you don't sit down on tubes of paint. You see what I have to put up with every day! Lumps of putty—I mean clay—everywhere."

"Don't rot, Duane," said France. "Art's a serious matter. There's nothing funny about it, as some people seem to think."

"'Tisn't the art that's funny, my dear," returned Duane. "It's the artist."

"'But what is it supposed to be?" inquired Hilary, surveying the artist's work with puzzled face.

The others, who had now all arrived, proffered various suggestions.

"A storm at sea," said Margaret.

"A futurist—or is it a cubist?—portrait of a lady," suggested Bertha.

"No. I've got it!" exclaimed Hilary. "One of those puzzle thingummies. Little Red Riding Hood walking through the wood. Find the wolf."

"Don't talk rot," said the artist again. "You know it isn't any of those things."

"But seriously, France," argued Hilary, "it's like nothing on earth that I've seen, anyway."

"Of course it isn't," said France, impatiently. "You see, it's upside-down. It's a new idea; to paint a picture upside-down so that you can visualize upside-down. Don't you understand?"

"Well, who on earth wants to visualize upside-down?"

"Turn it up," said Duane, "so that we can see what it's meant to be."

France did so. They all gazed at it in silence, till at last Margaret said hesitatingly:

"Don't—don't you think you've got it a bit mixed up, France, and the—the other way was the right way up after all? That looked more as if it might be something than—than this does."

The artist's face was a study of mingled feelings. Everybody burst into a roar of laughter, so that in the noise nobody heard the sound of a knock, or became aware of Paddy's entry until they heard her voice behind them.

"I say, is this France's upside-down picture? Why couldn't you stand on your heads and look at it, instead of turning it round? 'Twould seem more worth-while painting it, if you did that."

Kitty could no longer hold herself modestly in the background, as became a new girl.

"Let's try," she cried excitedly, and proceeded to balance herself on her hands, feet in the air. Of course, Paddy tried to follow her example, till the indignant artist tumbled her over with a sounding thump. When the confusion had somewhat subsided Duane wanted to know what Paddy was doing "trespassing on hallowed ground."

"How unkind it is of you, Duane," said Paddy, reproachfully, "when I'm saving you a little journey. Salome's sent over a copy of the rules you head prefects drew up at the meeting."

"Same old rules, I suppose?" inquired Bertha.

"Oh yes," said Duane, carelessly. "They're practically unaltered, needless to say."

"Still," put in Paddy, "as you've a new girl here, I'd better read them out for her benefit."

"You can if you like," returned Duane, indifferently, but with a faint smile twitching the corner of her mouth. She knew Paddy of old.

So Paddy picked up the paper, cleared her throat and began:

"No. 1.—No junior is allowed blacking on her boots more than once a month.

"No. 2.—Juniors must wash at least once a day.

"No. 3.—Only members of house elevens allowed to wear carpet slippers at hockey.

"No. 4.—Juniors must shut their eyes properly at grace, but seniors can keep theirs open to see the juniors don't.

"No. 5.—Only members of the school first elevens allowed to wear their sports blazers unbuttoned.

"No. 6.—Only girls with gym colours allowed to slide down the banisters.

"No. 7.——"

"Here, stow it," interrupted Hilary, laughing. "I should think Kitty is of the opinion that that's enough for one go."

"Quite enough to convince me that Paddy has a very fertile imagination," retorted Kitty, promptly.

"Sure," said Paddy, with a sigh. "I was afraid my efforts would be wasted on you. You've lived long enough in the world to know a little too much. Never mind," brightening up, "we've a couple of new juniors in our house, quite youngsters; I really think it's my duty to instruct them in the rules of the school. So I will, as sure as eggs is meat," and she departed, chuckling.

"What about our meeting?" said Duane, when Paddy had disappeared. "Seems to me we've got a pretty big job on, if we take on all Prinny's little hints."

"Too late to do much this year," said France. "If I take my first in art again, I shall be quite satisfied."

"What about you others?" said Hilary, slowly. "Let's see what we can muster up in the way of prizes."

"Precious little, I bet," returned Duane. "I'm in the running for second prize in science, but Salome will take the first. I can't beat her."

"And of course I'm in the running for an English prize again," remarked Hilary. "But one can never be certain."

Margaret declared she would try for a history prize and Bertha for an arithmetic prize, but neither really thought much of their chances of success.

"Lively, isn't it?" said Hilary, reflectively. "We shall have to stir up our juniors a bit if we want anything done."

"They're too busy squabbling amongst themselves," said Duane. "You know they have two rival societies on the go. The Budmushes and the something else—I forget what."

"The P. Squareds, whatever that may mean. Sounds like an algebraic formula. Can't we put an end to it and get them to join forces?"

"Put an end to their blessed societies, you mean?" said Duane. "They wouldn't hear of it. They're free to have as many secret societies as they like, so long as they don't break rules. By the by, there'll be our usual inter-house cricket and tennis matches this term. I shall soon have to see about drawing up our teams."

Another silence. The head prefect appeared on the point of dropping off to sleep, and as nobody seemed to have anything to offer in the way of suggestions or ideas, the girls made their departure in ones and twos. Kitty thought it had been a very feeble, ineffectual affair altogether. After the invigorating atmosphere brought into the room for a few minutes by Paddy, it had seemed very flat and lifeless. Hilary alone had made some attempt to get a definite plan fixed, and she had not succeeded.

Kitty hated the idea of belonging to such a slack house. Couldn't she do something herself? She knew she was a good tennis and cricket player, and later on she would play for all she was worth. But the playing of one girl wouldn't make such a great deal of difference unless well supported. As the week slipped by she turned things over in her mind, until suddenly an idea flashed into it. Of course, they would think it frightful conceit on her part, but she didn't care about that. At least, it would give Carslake's the shock that was necessary to wake up the house from its lethargy....

By the end of the first school week, Kitty was beginning to feel at home. She and Hilary were invariably the first to turn out in the mornings, while the head prefect was equally certain to be the last. Kitty never attempted to repeat her venture of the first morning, leaving it to Hilary to arouse her lackadaisical head prefect. She wondered at first if Duane were aware of the identity of the perpetrator of the outrage, but was not certain until one dinner-time half-way through the week. Dinner that day began with soup. In passing a plateful to the next girl, Kitty's arm was accidentally jolted, the plate tipped up, and a liberal half of its contents poured over the cloth and into the lap of her unfortunate neighbour. The girl gave a loud exclamation, which drew everybody's attention to Kitty's table, and there was a hush in the buzz of talk. In the silence, the voice of the head prefect, with its unmistakable drawl, was heard all over the room.

"It's all right. Merely a little accident with the soup. Our friend Kitty is evidently of the opinion that shower-baths are good for people. In fact, it has become quite a generous habit of hers to treat people to them gratis!"

There was a general laugh, especially from the girls of Dormitory A who remembered the previous incident. Kitty, blushing somewhat at finding the public amused at her expense, laughed also, to cover up her confusion, and mopped up the mess with her serviette. So Duane did know who it was! Well, she certainly didn't blame her for getting her own back when the opportunity occurred.

On Monday morning Hilary cheered up the dormitory with the information that for once it was not raining. There were more cheerful faces that day than there had been all the week. When morning school was over, as the girls were idling around waiting for the dinner bell to go, Carslake's, on looking at its notice-board, received quite a shock. There, boldly written for all and sundry to see, was a notice to the effect that Kitty Despard, as an Australian girl who had just come from the Dominion, challenged any English girl in the house who cared to accept, to a singles tennis match.

All through the dinner-hour the house, juniors and seniors alike, could think of nothing but this audacious move on the part of a new girl. The news spread rapidly to the girls in the other houses, and they were not slow to offer their criticisms when they all met at afternoon lessons. The Upper Fifth were really moved for once. A few gazed upon Kitty coldly; a few, who belonged to the other houses, treated it as a huge joke; the majority looked somewhat askance at the challenger. Of course, it was pure, unadulterated cheek on her part, but it required a good deal of nerve, and they rather admired her for possessing so much As soon as the interval came, Paddy agilely clambered over half a dozen desks to Kitty's side.

"Hallo, kid! You've started well, say with a regular flourish of trumpets. I do admire your nerve though. Carslake's wants shaking up a bit."

"That's why I've done it," Kitty confided upon a sudden impulse, for here was a kindred spirit. "But don't tell anybody. They think it's just showing off on my part."

"Bless you, they'll forget all about that you put up a good enough game to win your match," said Paddy consolingly.

Meanwhile others were attacking the Carslake girls.

"I say, Duane, I suppose somebody will accept the challenge, or else it will look as though you've nobody good enough."

"You'll have to do it yourself, Cato. There's nobody else who can play decently in your house, is there?"

"There's Francie. Now then, France, show what you're made of. You could stand on your head and serve, you know, and receive upside-down."

"I'm going to have a try, anyway," retorted France, with spirit. She was quite indignant at this conceit on the part of the new girl, and would not admit that in her inmost soul she rather admired her for it. But if Kitty hoped to move the head prefect, she was doomed to disappointment. That worthy was as imperturbable as ever, blinked lazily once or twice, then murmured, "Oh, I don't mind having a friendly game with her if she wants one. I dare say it will be quite a good match."

"We'll all be there to see the fun if it does come off," Paddy promised.

The sun continued to shine; a spell of fine spring weather had evidently set in, and by the following Wednesday summer sports had begun at Easthampton.

The first event in which everybody was interested was the playing of the challenge games between the new Australian girl and her own house. Carslake's decided that France and Duane, their two best tennis players, were sufficient to uphold the dignity of the house, and told themselves with satisfaction that if Kitty could beat them upon their own courts, she would indeed be a welcome acquisition to their ranks.

There was quite a crowd to see the first game, between Kitty and Frances. By mutual consent it had been agreed that both matches should consist of twelve games, unless there was a tie, when a decider should be played. Vanda West, head prefect of Prince's, and the school tennis captain, was umpiring.

The result was a foregone conclusion after the first two games. France played with elegance and style, and showed an astonishing fleetness of foot, but her strokes lacked force. She put up a gallant fight to the end, but she was helpless against Kitty's lightning movements, smashing strokes and accurate placing. She only succeeded in winning one game out of twelve, a fact which did not seem to trouble her in the least, for she smiled happily as she congratulated the winner, then hurried off to her organ practice.

The next day, Vanda, as she joined the waiting group by the court, said to Kitty, half jokingly, half earnestly:

"Play up, my child. I've got one or two empty places to fill in the school tennis eight, and Carslake's will have to supply me with somebody to fill one of them. You've a chance to get your tennis colour, like everyone else, you know."

Kitty's second match was a far harder struggle. Duane, who was a picture of elegance in her short white tennis frock and scarlet "colour," played with considerable skill, some of her strokes being extremely powerful, particularly her service. The spectators were kept interested, for Kitty's game—especially her volleying—was really spectacular. In spite of her ability to retrieve nearly everything Duane sent over the net, the first six games were ding-dong ones, each player winning her service. Duane, not so quick and dashing as Kitty, at first held her own, returning Kitty's deliveries by good anticipation and a wonderful reach. Then Kitty seemed to be playing on the very top of her form and gradually drew ahead. In the end her amazing vigour and lightning quickness gained the upper hand, and she finished the victor by seven games to five.

"Well played, Kitty," said Vanda appreciatively.

Duane donned her blazer and sauntered across to the winner. Kitty was hot and panting and flushed; Duane showed no signs of exertion, save that she was breathing more deeply than usual.

"Good game, Kitty, wasn't it!" she said, in her emotionless way. "You're a fine player. Can't think how you can fly about the court at the rate you do, though."

"Oh, I like plenty of exercise," returned Kitty, feeling a little shy and embarrassed at the congratulations showered upon her from all sides. She made her escape from the field as quickly as possible, while the spectators gradually drifted back to their own quarters, still discussing the match and the outstanding points of the play.

CHAPTER III

THE P. SQUAREDS

Kitty rolled over in bed and opened her eyes with a start. What was that? She was sure she had heard someone moving stealthily down the dormitory. The next instant she heard the sound of a smothered giggle and drew a breath of relief. Of course it was only those harum-scarum juniors up to some prank; and by the scuffling noise, thought Kitty, nearly the whole of the dormitory seemed astir.

Just as the sounds diminished Kitty heard a bed creak, as if someone had sat up suddenly, and a voice, which she recognized as Duane's, saying:

"Who's that? Is there anything the matter?" Kitty gave a little chuckle, then answered softly, "Couldn't say exactly, only I should guess most of the juniors of this dormitory are taking a little nocturnal airing."

"Oh, indeed! Well, I'll soon make sure of that."

The bed creaked once again as Duane turned out of it. Kitty, now wide awake, and feeling rather amused and curious, slipped quietly out too. The head of the dormitory, looking very tall and striking in a vividly-red dressing-gown, emerged at the same time, a lighted candle in her hand. She crossed to the opposite cubicle and, without ceremony, drew back the curtain. The cubicle was empty. Quickly she made a round of the dormitory; the nine cubicles occupied by juniors were all deserted. The only occupants of the dormitory at that moment were herself, Kitty and Hilary, who could be heard breathing deeply and steadily, soundly asleep.

"Shall we follow them, and see what they're up to?" asked Kitty eagerly, only too willing for an adventure.

"No fear!" replied Duane with a yawn. "Bed for me. They'll only be gorging themselves in the common-room, I expect. Little wretches! It'll do in the morning. Good night." Yawning again, she went off into her cubicle, carrying the light with her.

Kitty hesitated, disappointed, but not caring to switch on one of the lights, and at last decided that, under the circumstances, the most discreet thing to do was to follow Duane's example. In ten minutes, the latter was breathing as regularly and as evenly as Hilary. Kitty, lying awake, heard the delinquents return, and grinned to herself as she thought of their surprise in the morning. The head prefect, for once, evidently intended to exert her authority and enforce discipline.

Directly after morning lessons were over, at half past twelve, the nine juniors who slept in Dormitory A were summoned to their head prefect's study. Here they found Duane, Hilary and Kitty. The last named had much ado to refrain from smiling as the nine sheepish-looking juniors endeavoured to squeeze themselves into the little room. In the foreground was Peggy O'Nell, always the chief spokesman for the juniors. She was in the Fourth, an active, mercurial girl with a mop of thick black curls, sparkling blue eyes and a mischievous smile. She had won her position as leader of the juniors through sheer force of personality, and perhaps enjoyed a larger share of popularity than any other girl in the house. Close behind her was her faithful follower and shadow, little Erica Salter, Bertha's sister.

The friendship between the two was a curious one, for Erica was several years Peggy's junior and in the lowest form. She was a slim, fair-haired, fairy-like child, of rather a timid nature. In no respect did she resemble her sister Bertha. She adored the high-spirited, masterful Peggy with a slavish devotion; in her eyes Peggy could do no wrong. On the other hand, Erica was petted and made much of by the rest of the dormitory, because she was the youngest, the "baby."

"You'll find standing room, if there's nowhere to sit down," remarked Duane, in an affable drawl. "Would you mind shutting the door behind you? Thanks so much. Now we can get to business. I suppose you won't deny the fact that all nine of you left your dormitory in the middle of last night?"

"Wouldn't be much good, would it?" replied Peggy, somewhat impudently.

Duane ignored the impudence, and went on in the same tone:

"I also presume you are aware that, since a girl broke her leg last year at that same trick, it is one of the strictest house rules that girls are not to leave their dormitories after lights out, except in cases of necessity."

"Yes," said Peggy, "but I've heard you say yourself that rules are like piecrust—made to be broken."

"True, my child, but that was before I was made a prefect."

"Well, we're not prefects—yet."

"Then allow me to point out that, if you wish to indulge in rule-breaking you must so manage it that prefects don't get to know of it."

"Perhaps," interrupted Hilary, "you wouldn't mind enlightening us as to the reason for this midnight excursion?"

Silence!

The nine exchanged glances and glowered at the tall figure of their head prefect with sullen determination. Duane waited a few moments, then said, with bland deliberation:

"Of course, if you are going to refuse to make a clean breast of the whole affair the matter is beyond me. I shall simply have to report it to Miss Carslake and let her deal with you."

The juniors started, and exchanged frightened glances. Lines or order marks from prefects were not unusual punishments and could be put up with, but "reported to house mistress" was a far more serious affair, and a rare occurrence.

Duane crossed her arms behind her head and lounged back comfortably in her chair, with the agreeable sensation of being mistress of the situation.

"Well?" she said, serenely. "Peggy, you seem to be the leader of the party."

Peggy gulped. "We—we—were only having a supper down in the common-room."

"Oh, I see. That was what I surmised. There's generally some light refreshment attached to your little affairs. Most thrilling! Barbara, suppose you tell me what were the eatables in this repast of yours."

Barbara giggled. It seemed to be an incurable affliction with her. "Oh—er—sandwiches and cakes and—and lemon jelly. We took our soap dishes down to eat it from and made it in a Moab—I mean a wash-jug. And—and," here Barbara, rather singularly, hesitated and blushed furiously, "pork pies."

"H'm. Quite a feast! I almost wish I had been invited," murmured the head prefect. "Pork pies, too! Now, I wonder—" she paused, as a sudden thought struck her, and repeated again, "pork pies! Of course, there isn't any connexion between the—er—title of your society and that article of diet? I have often wondered what P. Squared stood for."

The faces of the juniors were a study. Peggy boiled over with rage.

"Yes, that's where we did get the title from," she flung out defiantly, "and—and—it's beastly mean of you to get it out of us like this. I half believe somebody told you."

"No, no, merely intuition—aided by Barbara's self-conscious blush," assured Duane. "I suppose the eating of pork pies at the beginning of each meeting constitutes a sacred ceremony. Oh well, I was young myself once. You do great credit to Miss Green's teaching. I must congratulate you on the intelligent way in which you have learnt algebra. Correlation of subjects, too, is one of the modern crazes."

She rose to her feet.

"Well, thank you for your frankness. I will think the matter over and decide on the sentence. There's dinner bell, so you'd better clear," and at the words of dismissal from the head prefect, who had become aware that the other two seniors were no longer able to control their merriment, the nine juniors gladly made their escape. As they disappeared Hilary's face sobered suddenly. She turned to Duane.

"You'll report 'em, I suppose? It's the only way to stop these silly societies. One wouldn't mind them, of course, but these kids are far more enthusiastic over a cricket match between P. Squareds and Budmushes than one between Carslake's and another house, and when they actually cut school matches because their blessed society is running a picnic or has a jape on against the other one, it's getting more than a joke."

Such was the point of view of the seniors.

Among the juniors there was great indignation when Miss Carslake called them together and, as a punishment for rule-breaking and rowdyism, forbade the formation of secret societies among themselves. Rarely did Miss Carslake arouse herself to such severity, but perhaps she also was beginning to realize the backslidings of her house.

The juniors were treated to a long lecture in which the house mistress advised them to devote their energies to more worthy and less childish objects, and especially to endeavour to raise the "tone" of the house and its prestige in the school. This could only be done by combining, with their seniors, to form a united house. Then complaints from form mistresses of careless preparation, reports from prefects of disciplinary troubles would cease, and both the work and the play of the house would reach a higher level.

She left behind her an audience simmering with indignation, wrath and outraged pride.

"Back up the prefects indeed!" cried Peggy. "Prefects like ours? No fear! Duane is a beastly sneak, that's what she is. Other prefects don't report little things like that. She did it on purpose to put a stop to the P. Squareds and Budmushes."

Daisy Carteret, leader of the Budmushes, was as indignant as Peggy. An indignation meeting was held until the descent of an irate mistress upon the common-room, demanding what their prefects were doing not to put a stop to the din, summarily put an end to the proceedings. Thus nothing came of the indignation meeting, but after Miss Carslake's drastic measures the atmosphere in the house was charged with a good deal of electricity.

Duane took no notice of the hostility of the juniors, apparently believing it the wisest—and easiest—plan to let their indignation burn itself out, as no doubt it would do in time. She said nothing, even when one evening, on passing through the common-room in the company of three other Upper Fifth-formers, there was an audible hiss from one of the juniors. Duane walked on with her usual leisurely gait, Hilary flushed crimson, and France, who had been thinking out a colour scheme for a design, looked round in a bewildered fashion.

But Kitty stopped dead, then swung round and spoke curtly and coldly. "May I ask who that was meant for?"

"It's all right, Kitty. That wasn't meant for you, nor for France. You're a sport all right."

"I'm glad of that—for your sakes," said Kitty, still curtly, "and I should be still more obliged if it wasn't meant for anyone else, not when she's in my company, at any rate," and she passed on, leaving the juniors a little taken aback.

As she caught the others up in the passage, she said involuntarily, lowering her tone, "if I were a prefect I'd never allow them to do that to me. Why do you, Duane?"

Duane looked at her. Kitty had quite a shock when she saw the unmistakable, and for once unconcealed, hostility in the other's sleepy grey eyes.

"You happen to enjoy their popularity, you see," Duane replied, coldly. "Besides, you're not a prefect. It isn't all jam to be head prefect—at least, the jam's only there to hide the bread underneath."

"A sort of gilded pill," laughed Kitty, to hide her discomfiture, but Duane walked on without reply. Kitty felt a little miserable as she brushed out her thick brown crop that night. "I was right from the beginning," she thought. "I knew the Hon. Duane and I would never hit it off. It's rotten having your own head prefect for an enemy."

Girls in the other houses raised expressive eyebrows when, next Wednesday afternoon, on the important occasion of the tennis match between Carslake's and Prince's, while there was a goodly proportion of the juniors of the latter house in attendance to support their players, the Carslake juniors were chiefly conspicuous by their absence.

"Sulking," explained France airily to Vanda. "Had a row with 'em last week. They'll come round in time."

"Seems to me you are always having rows in Carslake's," retorted Vanda, dryly.

Carslake's lost the match, but they put up a better fight than was expected. Kitty, indeed, played brilliantly again, and as a result received her first colour from the hands of Vanda. She was delighted at the honour of being chosen to represent the school, though her pleasure was rather spoilt when several of the juniors were heard to rejoice openly that she had been given the preference over Duane.

May passed in a blaze of sunshine and ended on a more hopeful note for Carslake's, the house gaining their first and most welcome cricket victory over Green's. They had previously lost to Sheerston's (who possessed a very strong side), leading into the field a team that had perforce to be composed largely of juniors, for Bertha was in bed with a severe cold, and Sonia was but a broken reed where games were concerned. After the dismissal of Duane and Kitty, except for a dogged stand by Daisy Carteret, the rest of Carslake's innings was a mere "procession," so that when the house next took the field against Green's, Paddy could be heard loudly propounding an original riddle to the scorers in the pavilion.

"Why is Carslake's cricket team like a tadpole?"

"Because one day it'll be a frog," hazily returned Hilary, who was in her usual post as scorer for her house.

"No, silly, because it's chiefly tail," retorted Paddy, triumphantly.

"You mean, 'and thereby hangs a tale,'" said Hilary, solemnly, refusing to see the point since it was made against her side.

However, although Carslake's only succeeded in making a moderate total themselves, Kitty's bowling was more successful this time. She not only bowled overhand with remarkable accuracy for a girl, but managed to make the ball break in a formidable fashion; and supported by some really smart ground fielding and catching on the part of the juniors, she dismissed Green's for a more moderate total still, leaving Carslake's victors by about a dozen runs.

This triumph acted as a badly needed tonic, and when, a week later, the house also defeated Green's at tennis, the seniors began to congratulate themselves that the "bad time" was over and the house was at last looking up. Alas! no one had the slightest presentiment of the trouble that Fate had in store for them before that term was ended.

CHAPTER IV

THE RICHOTER SCIENCE PRIZE

Everybody at Easthampton, new girls and old, knew all about the Richoter Science Prize. That and the Essay Medal were the "scholastic plums" of the year, as Hilary said. This year Salome, the head prefect of Sheerston's, was undoubtedly the favourite for the science prize. But a good deal of excitement was aroused when Duane, after returning from a rather mysterious interview with the Principal, announced somewhat lugubriously that Miss St. Leger strongly advised her to enter for the Richoter, and that Miss Vacher spoke highly of her natural ability at the subject and considered that she had a very good chance, if she did her best, of winning the prize.

The other Carslake heroes naturally thought this a brilliant notion on the part of the Principal. Their house would now have a candidate to represent it, and if, by any chance, Duane managed to win the prize, what a triumph for Carslake's! They solemnly assured their doleful-looking head prefect that they would help her as much as they possibly could.

The Upper Fifth, as a whole, freely gave their opinions on this new entry for the Richoter. Duane, they said, though a slacker, was undoubtedly clever at some things, and would be a worthy opponent for Salome and Eileen Gilbert and the other five or six candidates. Whereupon Kitty, her enthusiasm for her house catching fire from that of the girls of Sheerston's, Prince's and Green's, called out in her clear, decided way, a remark which she would afterwards have given worlds to have left unsaid, though it meant little or nothing at the time.

"Duane will be something more than a worthy opponent to your girls. She's going to win that prize, and we're going to use every means in our power to bring it off. You mark my words."

"I say, Kitty," remonstrated Hilary, a little later, "you needn't be so deadly certain that Duane will win the Richoter."

Kitty laughed. "When I hear the other houses boasting that one of their own girls is practically sure of the prize, I simply have to up and boast a bit for our poor old house. No one else will."

"Oh yes, that's all right. Only if Duane doesn't get it, you'll be twitted no end," warned Hilary.

"Pooh! I can stand that. Besides, Duane isn't going to lose. Why, this is Carslake's Great Opportunity!" Several other girls, passing by, caught the last two sentences and smiled, half amusedly, half curiously, at Kitty's emphatic words and tone.

There were only three weeks before the exam, but as all students know, quite a lot of swotting can be done in three weeks if it doesn't matter about neglecting other things. The Carslake seniors were as good as their word. "Even better," as Duane remarked dryly, to which Margaret said reproachfully, "Why, I do believe we're more enthusiastic over it than you are!"

"Especially Kitty," returned Duane, with a half-mocking, half-quizzical glance at Kitty that made her flush hotly.

The other prefects, Hilary and France, willingly took upon themselves disciplinary duties which usually fell to the head prefect's lot, in order to give her more time for study. Kitty industriously copied out lists of game practices, weekly reports, notices of sports or debate meetings, and similar things which were part of the head girl's routine, while much of Duane's ordinary preparation was excused. All this help was accepted by the head prefect readily enough, until it came to assistance in early morning rising. Hilary and Kitty held themselves responsible for seeing that she was out of bed ten minutes before rising bell, dressed by the time the bell rang, and ready for three-quarters of an hour's hard study before breakfast. To this Duane most strongly objected, using the passive form of resistance, and it says much for the patience and firmness of Hilary and Kitty that, right up to the exam itself, Duane was downstairs every morning soon after the rising bell.

It must be admitted, however, that to achieve this record, Hilary had to resort to a novel stratagem suggested by Kitty's fertile brain. This was the innocent plan of tying one end of a piece of cord round Duane's ankle after she was in bed, and letting the other end hang by Hilary's bedside. Thus a good strong pull from Hilary woke Duane effectually from slumber. This worked very well the first couple of mornings, but on the third Duane declined to get out of bed merely because her leg was jerked. Whereupon Kitty and Hilary attached another cord, to the victim's arm this time, with the satisfactory result that next morning an extremely vigorous pull on both cords jerked her right out of bed and landed her amid a heap of tumbled bedclothes upon the floor, where she was not allowed to remain for long.

Carslake affairs, however, though much improved, were not yet progressing with the smoothness of well-oiled machinery. The fiery Peggy and her devoted satellites were frequently coming into collision with the prefects, and after one such incident, Peggy, brooding over the lines she had been set that morning, was not mistress of her temper at cricket practice in the afternoon and disputed Duane's verdict of l.b.w. against her. The head prefect's temper was also strained by the unusual amount of work she was doing just before the Richoter, and her customary imperturbable indifference was ruffled and disturbed.

"I'm acting as umpire," she said sharply. "You had better get off the field if you don't agree with my decision."

Peggy looked at her, flushing with resentment. "What do you mean, Duane?"

"Mean? What I say. Either accept my verdict or else clear off the field."

Peggy's hot flush faded.

"If I go now I'll never, never play in a match again if you're captaining the team," she said, in a voice that trembled with anger and humiliation. Duane shrugged her shoulders indifferently.

"Please yourself. Your services aren't indispensable," she returned, coldly.

Peggy dropped her bat and walked off defiantly. Little Erica Salter, with a glance of mingled fury and reproach at Duane for treating her idol thus, rushed off the field after her retreating figure. The juniors looked at each other uncomfortably, several being obviously inclined to follow her example. Then Kitty sang out cheerily, "Come along! Who's going in next? It's my turn to bowl, and I hate wasting time, you know." The girls turned to her with relief, and for the rest of the time it was Kitty's personality which dominated the game, while Duane stood silently watching.

A little later, coming down the passage in her unhurried way, Duane nearly ran into Erica. The child's face was flushed and her eyes bright. She looked very pretty and childish as she planted herself in front of the head prefect. The latter had perforce to stop too.

"Why, Erica," she said, "do you want anything?"

"No," replied the child, fixing her bright eyes on the tall figure of the head prefect and clenching her little hands. "Only—only to tell you that I think you're simply hateful."

"And why, pray, this flattering opinion of me?" inquired Duane lazily, with a smile.

"Oh, you can laugh," said Erica, stamping her foot angrily. "But I think you were simply horrid to Peggy this afternoon and I hate you for it. I hope you'll have something nasty happen to you some day, and then p'r'aps you'll be sorry you've been so nasty to other people."

"Peggy will get over it all right in a day or two. She'll be quite a nice girl in a couple of years, when she's rubbed off the edges. Don't worry your head over her—or me either. Go along and play with your dolls."

"Dolls!" said Erica, scornfully. "I don't play with dolls now. I'm much too big."

Duane looked down at her with a sudden twinkle in her eyes. "You're not very big though. But I do believe you're the prettiest little kid in the school."

She stooped suddenly, caught the child impulsively in her arms and kissed her. Erica indignantly struggled free and ran off down the passage as hard as she could. Ten minutes later, Duane, with wrinkled brows, was plunged deep in a last skim through a chapter on chlorine, Peggy and such minor disturbances completely forgotten.

The examination opened with two written papers on the first day. The second day was devoted to the more important half of the exam, the practical work. The laboratory was given over entirely to the use of the candidates; balances had been carefully cleaned and adjusted, as all knew that accurate results depended very largely upon accurate weighing and measuring; everything else that would be required had been put in order.

Just after half-past twelve the candidates came trooping out in a body, Miss Vacher, looking intensely important, bringing up the rear and locking the door. They were met in the hall by a large crowd of girls who were eager to know what they had been doing, but inquiries for details only resulted in the victims walking off arm-in-arm with their own particular chums.

"Oh, don't ask any more questions," begged Eileen. "Give us a rest till we go back to it this afternoon. Yes, Gwen, we're working three at a bench. I'm at the one just inside the door, in the middle, with Salome on my right and Duane on my left. In good company, you see. No, we're only allowed to speak to Miss Vacher."

Meanwhile Duane, accompanied by the Carslake seniors, went off to her study, where she dropped into the easy-chair with an air of fatigue, while the others disposed themselves on the table and such chairs as the little room possessed.

"We don't begin again till half-past two, one comfort," said Duane dreamily. "Give us plenty of time to digest our dinners. I hope the analysis of my compound works out right."

"Let us know if it does, won't you?" said France eagerly.

"Oh, certainly," replied Duane. "I believe mine will come right," she added reflectively. "I've a sort of feeling it will."

"In your bones, I presume," suggested Kitty maliciously. Kitty was always rubbed up the wrong way by Duane's airy manner of treating even serious things.

"That's just it," assented Duane at once. "Only I hope," anxiously, "it won't turn out to be rheumatism after all."

Kitty laughed. "Scored off me there," she said frankly. "Hallo, who's this?"

"This" proved to be a junior from one of the other houses.

"If you please, Duane," she said, "I've come from Miss Vacher. She wants a pipette out of the laboratory at once. I think she's doing some experimental work in her room and she said, as you had the key, would you mind fetching a pipette for her? She hopes it won't be troubling you, and I'll take it back with me."

"Why on earth has Washer given the key to you, Cato?" asked France, looking surprised.

"To mind it for her," replied Duane, with a laugh. "You know what a bother there was last year when poor old Washer lost the key in the dinner-hour, and how eventually they had to break open the door and get in. Washer was dreadfully upset and didn't want a repetition of it this year, so she handed the key over to me after we got outside, and asked me to keep it till we went in again this afternoon."

There was a general laugh at Duane's explanation. Inside the laboratory Miss Vacher was as keen and as capable as Miss St. Leger herself. Away from science, she was the most hopelessly absent-minded person it was possible to imagine. She kept an army of small girls constantly employed looking around for her possessions.

However, everybody seemed to take the explanation for granted, though Kitty did think that the science mistress's eccentricities were responsible for a state of affairs that was not quite what it should be. Still, it was certainly not her place to say so.

Duane was eyeing the small messenger ruefully. "Oh, bother Miss Vacher! What on earth does she want a pipette for just before dinner! It isn't soup day. I'm so comfortably settled too, and having a few minutes' rest. I say, kid, if I gave you the key, couldn't you slip along and get it?"

The girl looked doubtful. "Better go yourself, Duane," advised Hilary. "You know the lab's out of bounds to-day for us folk. I shouldn't send a junior, in case of an accident."

"No, I suppose not," agreed Duane. "I shouldn't like to get anyone into trouble. Still, it's an awful bore," and she yawned as she spoke.

"I'll go if you like," Kitty volunteered. "I know where the pipettes are kept—over by the window—and it won't take me a minute."

"Thanks ever so much," said Duane. "You're a brick. Here's the key. Of course, there's no need to advise you to give a wide berth to our experiments."

"Of course not," replied Kitty. "I shan't go near the benches. I'll be back in a tick." She disappeared with a nod, and in a few minutes returned and handed over pipette and key to Duane, who slipped the key into her pocket and gave the pipette to the junior. "Here you are. Trot it along—with Duane's love—and don't smash it on the way. Be sure you don't forget the love."

"Vacher was always rather smitten with you," remarked Bertha with a grin. "Now, any of the others would have handed the key over to Salome. She's your senior really."

"Yes, queer taste on Washer's part, isn't it?" returned Duane complacently.

"Very," said France, bursting into a laugh. "However, you make a very well-matched pair."

"Yes, I suppose you're thinking that opposites meet," replied Duane, undisturbed. "There's only one thing in which Washer and I are alike."

"What's that?"

"Our genius for science."

"Well, let's hope your genius will pull off the Richoter for you," put in Kitty. "Then Carslake's can crow for once in its life. There's the dinner bell. You'll see our Richoter candidate doesn't faint this afternoon through lack of nourishment, won't you, France?"

By two o'clock that afternoon the four houses were quiet and deserted, all except the Richoter candidates being in their classrooms. Little did they dream, as the clock hand pointed to the half hour and then crept onwards, of the drama that was being enacted even then in the science laboratory.

The nine candidates had assembled punctually at two-thirty; Duane had handed over the key to Miss Vacher and, Miss St. Leger also with them, they had entered the room and taken up their former places to continue their work.

There was several minutes' silence while the girls began to take their compounds from the midget furnaces, preparatory to weighing. Miss St. Leger and Miss Vacher were talking together in low tones when a sudden exclamation from Salome made them glance up quickly. With an expression of amazement on her face the girl was gazing at one of the pans which she had just removed from her balance; underneath the pan was a small gravel pebble attached to the pan by means of a piece of plasticine. She swung round quickly as the Principal's voice, from just behind her, said sharply: "Has someone been interfering with your balances, Constance?" (Constance was Salome's baptismal name.)

"'Has someone been interfering with your balances, Constance?' asked the Principal."
"'Has someone been interfering with your balances, Constance?'
asked the Principal."

"It—it seems so, Miss St. Leger," stammered Salome. "I tested my balances to see if they were correct before weighing, and was astonished to find one side much heavier than the other. Then I took off the pans to try and find the cause and discovered this piece of gravel underneath one of them."

The faces of the Principal and the science mistress were very grave, for it looked as if a deliberate attempt had been made to spoil Salome's results. Aware that the other girls in the room had paused in their work to listen in astonishment, Miss St. Leger said decidedly, "Continue your work, girls. Constance, I will inquire into this as soon as you have all finished your practical work. Go on now with your experiment."

The Principal stayed in the room till the time allotted for the practical work was over, then she called them all together round the bench where Salome, Eileen and Duane had been working and explained to them exactly what had happened. They looked at one another with mingled feelings of discomfort and amazement.

Miss St. Leger first questioned Salome. "When did you use your balances last—I mean before your discovery at the beginning of the afternoon?"

"This morning," replied Salome at once. "Not long before we left. We had to weigh our compounds before putting them into the midget furnaces to heat during the dinner hour."

"You are sure they were correct then?"

"Quite sure, Miss St. Leger. I always lift them before using, to test and correct them, if necessary. I distinctly remember testing them this morning."

"Then that means that someone has tampered with them between then and when we returned," interposed Miss Vacher.

"Exactly. But surely it was not possible for anyone to touch them while you were working in the room. Constance, what do you say? You should be the best judge of that."

Salome raised her eyes frankly to the Principal. "I have been thinking of that, Miss St. Leger. It seems quite impossible to me. I did not leave my place after the weighing till we went out about ten minutes later."

"And the nearest girls to you?"

"Eileen and Duane, and they were right at the farther ends of the benches. I am quite sure no girl in this room touched them then."

"Who was the last one to leave the room?"

"Eileen and I. We came out together with Miss Vacher."

"You are quite sure of that? No one was left behind, even for a half minute or so? It could have been done in a few seconds."

"I was the last out, Miss St. Leger," replied the science mistress, "and I locked the door after me."

"Most extraordinary," said the Principal, "and there is only one key to that lock in the school. We found that out last year. The key never left your possession during the dinner hour, I suppose, Miss Vacher?"

The science mistress was looking far from happy. "The key was not in my possession, Miss St. Leger. After last year—I mean, owing to my unfortunate absent-mindedness—I decided to entrust it to somebody else. Duane took charge of it for me."

"Oh!" Miss St. Leger's expression changed abruptly. No longer did she look puzzled, but keen and alert. "I am rather sorry for that. However, Duane will be able to answer that question for us."

Duane hesitated, looking across at the science mistress.

"Only once, Miss St. Leger. Miss Vacher sent a junior asking me to get a pipette out of the lab for her, as she wanted it for some private work she was doing in her room. I was—was feeling rather lazy, so another girl offered to fetch it for me."

"Who was the girl who fetched the pipette?"

"Kitty Despard."

Miss St. Leger nodded. "Ah yes, I remember. The girl from Australia, who came at the beginning of the term. When was this?"

"Just before dinner."

"How long was she gone?"

"Only a few minutes."

"She gave the key back to you on her return?"

"Yes."

"What did you do with it then?"

"I put it back into my pocket."

"And it stayed there till you handed it to Miss Vacher?"

"Yes, Miss St. Leger."

"No one could have taken it and put it back again unknown to you, I suppose?"

Duane shook her head decidedly.

Miss St. Leger turned to Eileen.

"Will you please see if you can find Kitty Despard for me, Eileen, and ask her to come here. She is probably down on the playing-fields, as afternoon lessons are over. Don't say anything to Kitty or anyone else about what is happening here."

While Eileen was gone, the Principal again turned to Duane.

"You are quite sure no one else had use of the key except yourself and Kitty?"

"Quite sure, Miss St. Leger."

"And—I am sorry to have to put this question to you, Duane, but under the circumstances I must. You yourself never went inside the laboratory during the time the key was in your possession, and you have no knowledge yourself of anyone who did so, except Kitty Despard?"

"No."

"You give me your word of honour that you have spoken the truth?"

Duane flushed, but replied:

"Yes, Miss St. Leger."

On Kitty's arrival in Eileen's wake, the Principal turned to her.

"I have sent for you to ask you a few questions. The matter is rather a serious one, and I want you to answer me very carefully."

Kitty looked in unmistakable astonishment at the circle of serious faces around her.

"You came to the laboratory during the dinner hour to-day to fetch a pipette for Miss Vacher?"

Kitty's look of wonderment became more marked.

"Yes, Miss St. Leger."

"You went straight in and fetched the pipette?"

"Yes."

"Did you touch anything else in the room?"

"No, I don't think so."

"You did not touch the girls' experiments or their balances, for instance?"

"Oh no. I was specially careful not to go near them."

"You did not see anyone else about?"

"No, the corridor was empty. In fact, the building seemed deserted."

"No doubt all the girls were in their houses waiting for the dinner bell. Are you quite sure you locked the door when you left the room?"

"Positive."

Here Miss Vacher interposed. "Yes, we found the door locked right enough when we returned in the afternoon, Miss St. Leger."

"One more question, Kitty. You took the key straight back to Duane? No other girl entered the laboratory while you had it?"

"No one, Miss St. Leger," replied Kitty, shaking her head.

Then Miss St. Leger explained to the puzzled senior what had happened, but Kitty, with absolute candour, declared firmly that she had not interfered with the balances and could offer no explanation of the matter. The other girls said exactly the same, and there the inquiry ended for the time being.

The Principal walked restlessly across the room and stared out of the window into the quad below. "One thing is certain," she remarked; "there are no ordinary means of entry into this room except through the door. Well, I shall probably call the whole school together for a public inquiry. Until then, I want you girls to understand that I do not wish the matter to go any farther. That will do, thank you, girls. I am sorry I have had to take up some of your time. Miss Vacher will take you into the Sixth Form room so that you can write out your results before tea-time."

Tea at Carslake's that day was the usual cheery meal, and if Kitty and Duane were unusually quiet and silent no one gave much heed to them. Consequently, it was quite a shock to all except Kitty and Duane when, directly tea was over, the house mistress gave the order to assemble at once in the hall.

"What on earth's up now?" exclaimed Hilary, as the little party of seniors made their way across the quad to the school building on the heels of their juniors. "Duane, do you know?"

The head prefect paused a moment before she answered, "Yes, I think so, but you'll know all about it in a few minutes."

As she spoke they entered the hall, finding it nearly full, with rank after rank of waiting girls, all talking in subdued murmurs that now and again broke into a clamorous buzz. Silence fell abruptly as Miss St. Leger entered and took her place on the dais at the farther end of the hall. The girls stood in their house places, Sheerston's and Carslake's on the right of the wide central gangway, Prince's and Green's on the left. The Principal then gave the signal for calling-over, a customary formality which only took place on special occasions, and the four head prefects began rapidly calling the names of the girls in their own houses, each girl answering, "Present." With the calling-over the interest in the proceedings increased, if possible, everyone being given the impression that the occasion was a serious one.

Amidst a breathless hush, the Principal began to speak.

"You will be wondering, I know, why I have assembled the whole school so suddenly. I am sorry to say that the reason is a very unpleasant one. It is this. A deliberate attempt was made to spoil the chances of one of the Richoter candidates in the practical examination which, as you all know, took place to-day. You will be still more surprised to hear," pausing as an amazed gasp ran round the room, "that the girl upon whom this despicable trick was attempted is one of the most well-liked and esteemed—perhaps the most popular girl in the school, the head prefect of Sheerston's." A low murmur was heard and all heads turned involuntarily towards Salome, who coloured all over her frank, open face, then paled as swiftly.

"That this silly, stupid attempt failed most lamentably does not, to me, make it any the less serious."

The Principal then proceeded to explain the nature of the experiment the candidates were working, and the apparatus being used. She gave the gist of the inquiry she had held in the laboratory that afternoon, and then went on to say:

"So you see, it certainly seems that the only two girls who can throw any light on this affair are Duane and Kitty. If those two girls will come forward I should like to question them again before the school. They have had a little time since my first inquiry to think things over and may have thought of something which did not then occur to them."

Conscious that the gaze of every soul in the room was on them, Duane and Kitty advanced to Miss St. Leger's dais. Of the two, Duane betrayed the least emotion; her calm imperturbability stood her in good stead now. Kitty was pale and trembling a little, but she looked the Principal straight in the face in her frank, fearless manner, and when she spoke her voice was clear and steady.

"Do you still assert, Kitty, that you did not touch the balances when you went into the laboratory this morning?"

"No, I did not touch them, Miss St. Leger," replied Kitty firmly.

"On your word of honour?"

"On my word of honour."

"You saw nobody near the laboratory when you were there?"

"No, Miss St. Leger," Kitty replied, and a kind of sigh rustled round the listening ranks. The Principal turned to Duane.

"The key did not pass out of your charge except when Kitty had it?"

"No, Miss St. Leger."

"Where were you after dinner when the rest of the girls had gone to afternoon lessons?"

"In my study, resting. I stayed until it was time to return to the laboratory."

"And during that time you did not go to the laboratory yourself?"

"No, Miss St. Leger."

"That will do, thank you. You may go to your places."

"Begorrah!" murmured Paddy under her breath to the next girl, "didn't she look right through them! I wonder they didn't sink through the floor."

The Principal had turned to the girls and was addressing the school again.

"If any girl here thinks she can throw any light on this affair, can tell us anything that we do not at present know, will she please come forward now."

There was silence. The girls looked from one to another, but no one spoke or moved out of her place.

"Someone in this room this evening is the culprit," continued the Principal, in her most impressive tones. "I will make my appeal to that girl, whoever she is. If she is sorry for an impulsive, unconsidered act, the finest way to show her repentance, and the way that calls for most moral courage, would be to come forward now in front of the whole school and confess her guilty intentions."

Again the Principal paused and swept the rows of upturned faces with earnest gaze. Many paled and looked uncomfortable and apprehensive, but no one stirred or spoke and the silence became so intense that one could have heard a pin drop.

Then the Principal turned with a brisk movement and the tension relaxed.

"I will not keep you any longer to-night, girls. I shall let the matter rest for a few days, so that the culprit may have a second chance. If she has not the courage to come forward and confess in front of the school, it is my earnest hope that she will come to me in private, remembering what I said a minute ago. In the meantime I will ask you all to behave quietly and sensibly and not start jumping to any rash or foolish conclusions."

The assembly then broke up, the girls returning to their own houses. The Principal and the mistresses lingered behind on the dais for a few minutes.

"A most distressing thing to happen," Miss Sheerston said in her incisive way. "I would have staked my head that there is not a girl in my house capable of such an act."

The other three house mistresses emphatically declared that they also would have placed undisputed trust in every one of their older girls. There was no character in the school who could be pointed out as flagrantly dishonest. Of course the younger girls were out of the question; they did no science and were incapable of thinking out such a plot.

But it was of Duane and Kitty that the mistresses were thinking chiefly. "It seems as if one of them must be guilty," Miss St. Leger said reflectively, "and one of them a head prefect, too. If only Duane could have accounted for that half-hour or so alone after dinner, then she would have been above suspicion. I hate the thought of suspecting her."

"Things look decidedly black against the other girl, Kitty Despard," Miss Green pointed out. "We know she did go to the laboratory. We have only her word that she didn't touch the balance."

"And yet I am loath to suspect the girl," said Miss St. Leger ruefully. "I liked her straightforward, fearless look, and I reckon myself a pretty good judge of character. If she is guilty, then she is the cleverest hypocrite for a girl I have yet come across. How have you others found her?"

"I like her," said Miss Carslake. "She is not clever, but always bright and open, full of high spirits but quite unassuming. I thought she had been doing a good deal to help the improvement in the house."

"And a real sport on the field," added Miss Bryce, the games mistress. "I mean a sport in the best sense of the word."

"What puzzles me," said Miss Sheerston, "is the motive behind it all. There must be a motive of some sort, that is certain. Constance told me herself she didn't know a single girl in the school who disliked her or who bore her a grudge. The plasticine and gravel offer no clue. There is plenty of the former in the lower form classrooms, used by the little ones for map modelling and that sort of thing, while the path outside is covered with small gravel."

Then Miss Prince proffered a suggestion. "Do you think it is a question, not so much of personal spite but of house rivalry, which as you know is very keen, over examinations as well as over games? That idea excludes Miss Sheerston's girls, of course."

"It might be," admitted the Principal. "I have always encouraged friendly house rivalry, because it raises the standard of work and play. But I should be extremely sorry and disappointed if it has resulted in anything like this."

CHAPTER V

TRIAL BY JURY

Kitty would have died rather than show fear when questioned before the whole school. But as she made her way back to her house after the inquiry her heart sank. She realized already that, unless something very unexpected happened, she would be enveloped in a cloud from which it might be impossible to escape. Suspicion rested upon her and Duane alone, and she knew that if it came to choosing between them, the unenviable choice of the girls would most certainly fall upon her. She had actually gone to the laboratory; no one could say that of Duane. One could only say she might have gone. Besides, the girls would not think lightly of doubting the word of one of the head prefects, whom they had known for years, while she, Kitty, was still little more than a stranger from a remote land.

"I declare, I believe Duane knows more of this affair than anyone else does, only she's got the knack of keeping cool and never turning a hair," thought Kitty to herself.

Instead of going straight to her study to do her prep she made for the gym, feeling she would like a few minutes' exercise before settling down to work. Just as she reached the quad she ran into the very girl who was occupying her thoughts.

"Hallo!" she exclaimed, "going to the gym?"

"Yes," replied Duane in her slow drawl.

"Right-oh! we may as well go across together, if you've no objection."

"Just as you like," replied Duane, though a kind of frigidity came over her face, and her grey eyes gazed coldly past, rather than at, the girl to whom she was speaking.

Kitty said nothing for a minute, though her sharp eyes noticed everything. "I do believe, in a way, she's afraid," she said to herself with a curious kind of exaltation. "Afraid of what I might say to her."

Then as she fell into step beside Duane she remarked quietly, "I wonder if it's dawned on you yet that we're both of us in a beastly awkward position?"

"Oh, you mean about that wretched key business?" returned Duane, looking bored.

"You know perfectly well I do," said Kitty, rather sharply. "So why pretend otherwise? You know it's between you and me. You didn't lend that key to anyone else, did you?"

"I thought I answered that question at the inquiry."

"Well, don't get your wool off. What I mean is, you didn't tell a lie to shield anyone?"

"No, I certainly did not," replied Duane, still very coldly. "I am not in the habit of telling lies to shield others from the consequences of their own acts. If people wish to do such things they must first make sure they have the courage to face it out afterwards."

Kitty thought to herself that Duane seemed to have nerve enough to face anything, despite, or perhaps because of, her lethargic temperament. But aloud she said, "Only, you see, I know I never touched the wretched balance. I never went near it. And if I didn't, who did?"

By this time they had reached the door of the gym. As she put her last query Kitty turned and faced Duane, looking her straight in the eyes. The head prefect's expression did not change; save for a slight curling of her lip, not a muscle in her face moved.

"What's the good of asking me? I was never clever at guessing riddles," and with that she pushed the gym door open and walked in without taking any further notice of Kitty.

"Failed dismally in the first round between us, Kitty, my child," muttered Kitty to herself. "I didn't get much out of her, did I? And yet, it only makes me more certain that she knows something about it, in spite of her denials. An absolutely innocent girl would have been decent over it and met me half-way. She was hardly polite to me, and our head prefect has such beautiful manners as a rule. Well, she evidently intends to let me pay the piper."

Changing her mind suddenly, she turned away from the gym without entering and went back to the seclusion of her own study. The rest of the evening passed very quietly in Carslake's, everyone being busy with prep, and there was little public discussion of the Richoter affair. Even in Dormitory A after bed bell had gone, Hilary summarily put a stop to a tentative attempt on the part of the juniors to raise the subject.

The next day, the Richoter candidates heard the pleasing intelligence that the Rev. R. Carstairs, who was keenly interested in the science prize and who always had a hand in its organization, had invited them all to spend the day at his house, punting on the river and picnicking on its banks, with his lovely garden and strawberry beds placed at their disposal. Naturally the nine girls in question, having received permission to go, did not hesitate in accepting this generous invitation.

With the absence of these senior girls, two of whom were head prefects and several others prefects, the houses felt themselves suddenly free from a good deal of the control exercised over them out of lesson hours. Sheerston's and Carslake's were without a head, and even Vanda West, at that disturbing time, felt the loss of Eileen's steady support. Consequently, the girls were a little out of hand that day, and Vanda and Phyllis Knight, of Green's, were powerless to check the conviction that ran like wildfire round the school, that Kitty Despard was known by the seniors to be the girl who had meddled with the balances. One rumour even said that she had been seen coming out of the First Form room on her way to the lab with a piece of plasticine in her hand.

Cold looks were cast at Kitty by the Upper Fifth in class that afternoon, and several cutting remarks addressed by girls to their near neighbours in her hearing made her cheeks burn. When, on the playing-field, it was her turn to bat, some of the juniors looking on hissed her as she walked towards the pitch. This was more than Kitty could bear. Throwing down her bat she turned and faced them, flushed and trembling with anger and indignation.

"What right have you to accuse me? I know I went into the laboratory, but that isn't proof that I did it. You may think what you please. I don't care. I can only say that I did not touch the balances, and if you won't believe me I can't help it," and Kitty, feeling nearly as desperate as her words, strode off the pitch and left the field, her head still defiantly erect. But once out of sight of the girls some of her defiant courage forsook her. She threw herself down in a solitary corner of the grounds, hidden from the players by the swimming-bath.

"I wish I'd never come to this hateful place. The girls here are perfectly horrid. As if dad and the boys at home would ever dream of doubting my word! Oh dear! how on earth shall I stick it here if they go on suspecting me! But I vow I won't. I'd rather go back home—or to another school."

When the Carslake seniors came out from tea, a fresh notice on the board caught Hilary's attention. It ran as follows:

"Seniors are invited to attend a Matter of Special Interest and Import to All, in the debating-room at 6.30 sharp.

"(Signed) Paddy, Sheerston's."

"One of Paddy's brilliant inspirations, I suppose," commented Bertha with a slight sneer. "Are you going, Hilary?"

"Of course," said Hilary with a laugh. "We had better turn up. 'Twouldn't do for Carslake's not to be represented. Margaret will come too, I expect, and France, if she's not too immersed in her latest Academy picture."

Paddy had intended that her little affair should be patronized by the head prefects if possible, and had written out personal invitations for their benefit. The Richoter candidates had just returned from their outing, laughing and talking light-heartedly, the shadow of yesterday's events forgotten for the time being, when a junior came up and presented Duane and Salome with a note each.

"Only one of Paddy's bright schemes," chuckled Salome. "I shall have to turn up to keep everyone out of mischief, I suppose. Coming, Duane?"

"I don't know. Six-thirty! There isn't much time, is there?" replied Duane doubtfully.

"Half an hour. Plenty of time to wash and change. We're let off prep, you know. Come along. Paddy and her confrères are rather good when they get on the entertaining stunt."

"All right. I shall probably be a bit late though, as I have to see Miss Carslake. However, I'll put in an appearance."

"By the by," one of the other seniors interjected, "I suppose nothing fresh has turned up about that beastly balance affair?"

Salome grimaced, then shook her head. "I asked Phyllis as I passed her just now by the gates and she shouted back, 'No.' I guess it will remain a mystery for ever. I wish to goodness I'd pulled off the gravel without Prinny or anyone seeing me."

Goodly numbers of seniors made their appearance punctually at six-thirty and took their seats. When the room was full, Paddy, clad in a tattered gown and a battered old mortar-board, vigorously rang the lesson bell for silence.

"Ladies and gentlemen," she began. "I see upon the smiling faces around me the predominant expression of curiosity. I do not wish to keep you on tenterhooks, my dear fellow-labourers, so I will get on with the business right away. It has come to my ears recently that a grievous crime against the justice of this country has been perpetrated. One of the members of this community has been cast into prison without a trial. Now, my dear friends, you may not have read for the Bar, like myself; you may not even have perused that delightful little text-book entitled 'Raleigh's Elementary Politics,' but at least you have all studied, with keen enjoyment, King John and Magna Carta in history lessons——"

Cheers and groans from the audience were followed by a strange and dubious silence as the meaning underlying Paddy's high-flown speech dawned upon them. The girls cast uneasy glances at each other, not liking the turn affairs had taken. Surely enough fuss had already been made over that Richoter affair, and anyway, there couldn't be much doubt but that Kitty Despard had done it. Paddy was carrying it a bit too far this time, they said to themselves. There might be trouble if Miss St. Leger got to know.

Someone voiced the opinion of the assembly by calling out, "What price the inquiry in the Hall last night? Don't you count that?"

There was silence.

Paddy gravely produced a huge pair of horn-rimmed spectacles and perched them on her nose, then gazed freezingly in the direction of the voice.

"The honourable gentleman over there is surely suffering from delirium tremens. If the honourable gentleman will wait until he hears the charge——"

There was a laugh from some of the girls. Salome, who had half risen from her seat, dropped back into it. The girls began to realize it was evidently only one of Paddy's jokes; there would be nothing serious and unpleasant happening, after all.

"As you have already guessed," went on Paddy briskly, "we propose holding a proper trial by jury this evening. The first step is to arrange the court. I will read out the names of the officers already appointed and they will kindly take their places at once. Having, as you will doubtless acknowledge, the keenest discernment and the readiest wit of you all, I have great pleasure in accepting the part of the Judge myself. Our learned friend, Mr. Frederick Lightfoot, K.C., and Mr. William Pimple will be counsel for the defence and the Crown respectively."

Amid general laughter Paddy's two chums, Flo Lessingham and Kathleen Morris, came forward and took their places, having been previously coached in the parts they had to play. Paddy had two objects in view in organizing this meeting. One was the sheer desire for fun; in Paddy's estimation, all things were legitimate objects for fun. Secondly, she sincerely wished to help Kitty by turning into ridicule much that was at present taken very seriously by the girls. She believed it would relieve the tension all round and make things a good deal easier for the Australian girl, whom she had always liked and whom she was loath to believe dishonourable.

Significant looks were again exchanged when Kathleen Morris brought an action against "a well-known desperado, known among his intimates as Kangaroo": glances, however, which ended in laughter as the charge was read out. The criminal was accused of entering Mrs. Mellish's shop and stealing two ounces of bull's eyes and a bar of Fry's chocolate. By this time some dim notion of Paddy's underlying purpose began to creep into Kitty's mind, for she knew that Paddy was one of the few who had championed her cause. At any rate, she would show them that she, Kitty Despard, was not afraid of facing any trial by jury, in farce or otherwise. Paddy would rely on her to do so. So it was with head erect and a smile on her lips that she walked up to the "dock," and faced the girls with a free, fearless mien.

It was just at this moment that Duane entered, subsided quietly into a seat by the door and glanced round the room in idle curiosity. A puzzled look crept into her face. What on earth were they all up to? Then, as she listened and gazed toward the "dock" with increasing attention, the puzzled look slowly changed to one of realization and at the same time another expression crept into her eyes—quite a different expression. It almost looked like horror.

The girls had been insensibly impressed by Kitty's fearless bearing. As she stood there she certainly looked the last kind of girl to be accused of anything dishonourable or despicable. Salome drew her straight brows together and her face became very thoughtful.

"Van," she murmured under her breath to the head prefect of Prince's, "I believe that girl's telling the truth when she says she didn't touch my balances. Don't you?"

"But Salome, if she didn't, it must have been——"

"Hush," said Salome with a quick gesture.

"No, I can't believe that either. Bother it all!"

"Prisoner at the Bar," Paddy was saying with awful solemnity. "Are you or are you not guilty of this terrible and most depraved crime?"

"Not guilty," replied Kitty, clearly and unhesitatingly.

"We will now call the first witness," resumed Paddy, who had her witnesses ready in the adjoining room and was confident of the effect of their absurd appearance upon the audience. "Constable——" She broke off abruptly.

There was a quick gasp from the audience; everyone became rigid. One of the listening girls had sprung to her feet, and now strode impetuously into the centre of the room. It was Duane, her face strangely pale, her habitual lazy, unemotional expression gone, giving place to a curious look of uncertainty, doubt, fear, even horror. One of the girls possessed with a vivid imagination afterwards described it with relish as a "sort of haunted look."

She had jumped to her feet as if impelled by some force outside her own volition; she spoke now, impulsively, stammeringly, the words breaking from her as if she hardly knew what she was saying, twisting her fingers together and looking from side to side.

"What are you doing? What rubbish is all this? I—it can't go on, Paddy. Kitty didn't do it, I tell you. I—you see, I know she didn't do it. I—I'm not quite such a cad as to—I can't tell you exactly." She broke off abruptly. Her glance crossed Kitty's. The Australian met hers steadfastly, unwaveringly. The prefect's pale face flushed crimson, and again words broke from her stammeringly.

"'What rubbish is all this?' Duane asked."
"'What rubbish is all this?' Duane asked."

"I—I'm sorry. I have done you an injustice." Again she broke off, checking herself as if she suddenly realized what she was saying, drew in her breath with a quick gasp and caught at the back of her chair to steady herself.

There was a dead silence for the space of ten seconds. The faces of the girls were a study. Duane had certainly betrayed herself this time. Her conscience must have been pricking her badly, or the shock of hearing Kitty arraigned, as she thought, for committing a crime of which she was innocent would not have made her give herself away so completely. But having been absent all day, she was probably unaware of the outbreak of feeling against Kitty, and was not prepared for the shock.

She was silent now, and had pulled herself together, regaining something of her usual composure, though her agitation was still betrayed by the nervous way she was biting her underlip.

But her guilt had been written unmistakably on her face during that half-minute or so during which she had lost control.

Paddy made a desperate and heroic effort to get back to the state of "as you were." Needless to say, it failed dismally. Nobody took any notice of her, everyone being too occupied in staring open-mouthed at Duane and Kitty.

The next minute Salome had pushed her way forward. She was one of the first to grasp all that Duane's few, incoherent, impulsive words must mean; certainly she was the first to act. She went up to Duane and took her by the arm.

"Look here, Duane, what on earth do you mean by this bomb-shell? If you can prove that Kitty is innocent, for goodness' sake hurry up and do so."

Duane looked at Salome. "Well, Salome," she said in a low voice and with a nervous little laugh. "To tell you the truth I hardly realize what I did say just now. I—I lost my head a bit, I think."

"I think you did," Salome agreed grimly. "Anyway, you've properly upset your own apple-cart, as far as the girls here are concerned."

"You mean——"

Salome was no shirker. "I mean everybody here is practically convinced now that you and not Kitty Despard were responsible for faking the balances. Personally, I'm beginning to think Kitty is innocent."

"Yes—yes, she is," said Duane hurriedly, and still in the same low tone. "I—I don't want her to suffer for something she never did."

"The question is," rejoined Salome curtly, "are you going to own up to all you know? You've said enough to convince everybody that you do know something more. We're all waiting to hear."

The indecision and doubt returned in full to the girl's face. "Oh no, not that," she said quickly. "I only wanted to stop the accusation against Kitty, you understand."

Salome's lip curled. "Be a sport, Duane. Don't keep anything back. You'll only do yourself harm. Honestly, it's your best policy."

Duane seemed to shrink a little. "No, I tell you I can't do that, Salome. Look here. I'm going to cut it."

"Wait a minute."

Salome turned round to face the seniors, from whom an impatient buzz had broken out. She held up her hand for silence and the noise subsided, as everybody looked eagerly at her.

"Girls, I think the first thing to be settled is this. Are you all so positive now that Kitty is guilty, or are you willing to give her the benefit of the doubt?"

"I guess we're giving it now," called out Paddy, and it was plain to see that the others were of the same opinion. Salome smiled across at Kitty, who stood rather dazed and white-faced. "It's all right, Kitty. You can sleep to-night with your mind at rest again, I think."

The girls swarmed round Kitty, generous in their apologies and proffers of friendship. Kitty laughed a little shakily. "It's all right. But I'm glad you believe me now. On my honour, I've told nothing but the truth."

Salome spoke a few hurried words to Vanda, then turned again and addressed the assembly. "Duane says she hasn't any more to say just now, girls. We'd be awfully obliged if you'd slip back to your own houses and leave it to us to settle this affair. I'll let you know what—what we decide, as soon as possible."

A few more persuasions and the girls, used to obeying their head prefects, began to file out of the room, though casting many disappointed and curious glances at the four who remained behind. They thought it rather a shame that Duane should not be cross-questioned and made to speak out in their presence. Still, being a head prefect did make a considerable difference—made the affair all the more serious, too.

Salome took the lead, as usual.

"Well, it isn't any good staying here and doing nothing. What have you got to say about it, Duane?"

"I'm not going to say anything more to-night, Salome. I must think it over. You must give me to-night to do that."

"I suppose you realize, Cato," said Vanda gravely, "exactly what your startling interruption this evening means to you? Probably by to-morrow morning the whole school will have made up its mind that it was you who were the culprit."

Duane looked at the floor.

"Yes; I do now. I didn't realize it at the time."

"No. I don't suppose you meant to give yourself away like that. There are two courses open to you. Either you must prove your innocence or else own up to your guilt—if you are guilty."

"Prove my innocence? And how can I do that, pray?"

"You should know best."

"But I don't."

"Anyway, it's plain enough that you know more about it than anyone else. You admitted Kitty didn't do it—and you had the key. Look here, Duane, did you lend it to another girl whom you don't like to give away? It's the only alternative solution I can think of."

"No," said Duane impatiently, "or I should have said so at the inquiry." Then with a successful return to her old airy flippancy, she added, "Well, good night, everybody. I really can't be held responsible for all the crazy conclusions the kids in this school jump to."

The three prefects looked at each other as the door closed upon Duane.

"And that's that," said Phyllis Knight. "Mark my words, Cato's getting her nerve back again rapidly. She'll have it all back by the morning and will choose to brazen it out. We shall only get airy nothings for our pains in future, if I know Cato. Well, I'm glad I don't belong to Carslake's. Good night, Salome, old girl. Don't lie awake worrying. Good night, Van."

CHAPTER VI

THE RICHOTER RESULTS

As Salome had foretold, by next morning public opinion, in its fickle fashion, had veered completely round and the majority of the girls were of the opinion that Duane, and not Kitty, was the culprit. It seemed to be a matter more of feeling than cold reasoning, with many. It occurred to a Lower Fifth-former that plasticine was particularly handy in Duane's case, for lumps of it were always knocking around the study she shared with Frances, the artist. Others agreed that, after all, the motive for spoiling Salome's results would be stronger in Duane's case than in Kitty's, for Duane would benefit personally and very practically if she succeeded in triumphing over her most feared opponent.

The other prefects were intensely annoyed by Duane's manner, for the next day she refused to reopen the discussion at all, declaring that she had no more to say than what she had already said. She refused, their kindly-meant offers of help, and, in fact, seemed so flippantly callous in her treatment of the affair that they left her alone in disgust.

But Duane was to find out pretty thoroughly that the way of transgressors is not an easy path to tread. A stiff restraint of manner in the Upper Fifth classroom was all the condemnation the seniors would allow themselves to show; anything in the nature of hooliganism was "bad form" and derogatory to their dignity. They left that to their juniors.

The Carslake juniors, however, had no intention of allowing the matter to drop so readily, and were far more willing to accept the belief that Duane, and not Kitty, was guilty for Kitty had always been more popular with them than their head prefect. After their usual indignation meeting, Duane received a somewhat smudged sheet of exercise-book paper requesting her resignation as head prefect of Carslake's, a request to which she returned a decided refusal.

Thereafter the juniors did all they could in hundreds of little ways to show their reluctance to acknowledge her authority, though they did not dare to rebel outright. The final inter-house cricket match had to be scratched at the last minute because the juniors refused to play in a team captained by Duane, while from the cricket committee came a politely worded request that she should resign her place in the school eleven. A few days later, from the hockey committee came the still politer intimation that with much regret they felt obliged to withdraw Duane's hockey colour. Cricket was practically over, it is true, but for the next two terms hockey would reign supreme at Easthampton.

Strange to say, Duane's own seniors were not so hard on her as the rest of the school, France declaring sturdily that she had been Duane's friend for the last six years and thought it would be disloyal to allow the recent trouble to make any difference; Bertha Salter, with a kind of defiance, was heard to declare that she even had a sort of admiration for Cato and her "nerve"; while kind-hearted Margaret could not refrain from proffering her sympathy to Duane for the loss of her hockey colour.

"Yes, I'm afraid I shan't be able to show my shining genius at hockey next term by scoring all the goals for the school," Duane agreed, rather cheerfully than otherwise. "However, I console myself with the thought that the school matches are not the only ones played."

At first the other three head prefects wondered if they should go further in the matter. They could do no more themselves if Duane continued obdurate. Should they or should they not take this new development to the Principal? But there were other even more important matters to engross their attention now. Examinations had begun. The Upper Fifth were in the throes of the Senior Cambridge, the Sixth departed "en bloc" to London for a week, to sit for matriculation, while even the juniors had their own class examinations to occupy their minds.

These were just finished when the Principal received the results of the Richoter exam and summoned the school together in the hall just after preparation to announce them publicly. Intense, if subdued, excitement prevailed when Miss St. Leger entered and took her stand on the dais.

After a few opening remarks on the Richoter itself, explaining what it was and that a yearly grant was awarded to the winner as well as the honour gained in securing top marks, she went on, "And now for the results themselves, which are very creditable. Miss Vacher and I were aware that two girls specially had particular talent for this branch of work; we thought these two stood the best chance of gaining most marks, but we were very curious as to which it would be. These girls, I may say, have run each other very close, heading the list with only a difference of two marks. Here are the marks of the leading five, out of a possible total of 300:

Duane Estevan   247
Constance Hope   245
Eileen Gilbert   239
Grace Felton   225
Florence Lessingham   201

"So you see that Duane has just beaten Constance by a very slender margin, and with an excellent total of 247."

The Principal paused, naturally, for the clamorous applause that should follow her announcement.

But there was no applause.

Instead, there was a dead silence that seemed to last for an eternity. "The most ghastly silence she had ever heard," Paddy afterwards remarked with one of her unexpected Irishisms. No one moved or spoke, but all seemed to be staring straight ahead with wooden countenances. One or two stole a glance at the Carslake head prefect. She stood in her place, her gaze fixed on the floor, her lips set tightly together. Salome was crimson, knowing full well that had her own name been read at the head of the list it would have been the signal for a deafening outburst of applause.

On the Principal's face dawned a look of astonishment as she waited for the applause which never came. Miss Sheerston's brows went up about half an inch, and the other members of the staff shifted uncomfortably in their chairs. Miss Carslake, who had entered beaming all over her face, looked alarmed and her smile gradually faded away. Then the Principal's face became expressionless and she went on in a matter-of-fact tone, as if nothing had happened.

"The other five candidates have all succeeded in gaining over half marks. I will read them out," and the tension relaxed with an audible sigh of relief from the rows of listening girls.

At the order for dismissal everyone filed off back to the houses. Salome wanted to seek out the winner and offer her congratulations, but somehow felt that such a course was now impossible. It would seem such a farcical proceeding after that dreadful silence in the hall. She felt still more uncomfortable when one of her own seniors said to her, "Hard luck, Salome! Duane Estevan ought to have been disqualified for her sneaking attempt at cheating."

Salome checked such remarks as well as she could, pointing out that, whether Duane had attempted to spoil her experiment or not, her own work must have been the best or she would not have gained the highest total.

"Oh, she's clever enough. We all know that," remarked one Upper Fifth-former rather bitterly. "In fact, she's a bit too clever sometimes."

Meanwhile Duane had returned to her own house with the Carslake seniors in an uncomfortable silence. She herself uttered no words and the others did not know what to say. The climax came when they entered the common-room. The girls were standing about in idle groups, though the supper bell had gone. The head prefect spoke as she passed through.

"You shouldn't be standing about like this, you know. You ought to be in the dining-room. The bell has gone."

Everybody stopped talking and looked up. No one moved, however; then someone hissed deliberately and one or two laughed sneeringly. Duane bit her lip and the colour ran up under her skin. For a moment she stood irresolute, then turned and walked off. The rest of the girls went in to supper, but the head prefect's place was vacant. After supper the seniors drifted upstairs together into Hilary's study where they conversed desultorily on the holidays, now very near. In a few minutes Duane appeared and sauntered into the room. The six girls looked up uncomfortably. It was Duane who spoke first, with a drawl that was more than usually pronounced.

"I've just given in to Miss Carslake my resignation of the head prefectship."

"You've resigned, Duane?" stammered Margaret.

"No, you haven't really!" cried France.

"Yes, I have. What else could I do? As matters are, it's a mere farce my being head prefect."

This was true enough. No one, indeed, could gainsay it.

"What did Miss Carslake say?" inquired Hilary.

"Not much. I think this evening enlightened her somewhat as to the state of affairs. She will leave it to the Principal to settle, of course."

Miss Carslake, much disturbed, went straight to Miss St. Leger. The Principal sent for Duane late that evening, and it was some time after bed bell when the prefect came up to her cubicle, though exactly what passed between them in that interview no one but the two concerned ever knew. Next morning after chapel, when just about to set out for morning lessons, the Carslake seniors received orders to go to the Principal's room. They found Salome, Vanda and Phyllis already there. The Principal, as was her wont, went straight to the point.

"Of course you know, girls, that Duane told Miss Carslake last night that she wished to resign her prefectship, giving as her reasons her unpopularity in the school, in particular among her own juniors, who seem to resent very much having to submit to her authority. She feels that under these circumstances she cannot properly discharge her duties as head prefect. Miss Carslake informs me that there was some feeling in the house against the prefects at the beginning of the term, chiefly owing to the suppression of rival societies amongst the juniors, societies which were doing them no good. This, I understand, however, was only a temporary phase and would doubtless have blown over in time—was in fact nearly forgotten—when the unfortunate incident in connexion with the Richoter exam occurred. I am right in saying, am I not, that the school as a whole has made up its mind to lay the blame on Duane?"

"Yes, that is true, Miss St. Leger," replied Salome, speaking for them all.

"I have been very much occupied with examinations lately," continued the Principal, "and hardly realized Duane's unpopularity and the reason for it, until yesterday evening in the hall. But, as far as I can make out, there are no further proofs of either Duane's or Kitty's guilt than those we discussed at the inquiry."

Salome tried to explain. "You see, feeling was at first against Kitty; then something Duane said—her attitude—I mean her manner, convinced the school that she, and not Kitty, was the one responsible."

"Ah, yes. I have heard about that too. The girls believe Duane was on the point of making a confession, but drew back from doing so. I questioned Duane herself about it last night, but she assured me she had never intended making a confession at any time."

"Yes, I believe she says that," assented Salome quietly. The others said nothing, realizing the futility of trying to explain satisfactorily what actually had happened on the evening of Paddy's mock trial.

"It appears, then, that it is a matter of 'feeling' in the school, rather than of actual proof. For my part, I still cannot see how one girl can be adjudged guilty any more than the other. Either might have done it; we cannot definitely prove that either did do it. It was because of this doubt in the matter, and also because both girls bore an unblemished record in the school, that I decided to let the matter rest. You know, girls, one should be very certain of guilt, before proceeding to inflict punishment."

"We have tried to be quite fair, Miss St. Leger," said Vanda gravely.

"Yes, I know that." Miss St. Leger smiled. "There isn't much I don't know about the characters of the girls in my school, believe me. But I wish you had spoken to me of this exceedingly strong tide of feeling in the school before, instead of taking the easier course and doing nothing. However, now I do know, I will tell you my decision. I have refused to accept Duane's resignation because, for the two reasons I have just given you, I do not see that there is sufficient justification for it.

"I want you to realize this also. In taking on the head prefectship in the third term of a school year and also in a house where the juniors had already shown themselves to be a particularly unruly and unbalanced set as a whole, Duane was accepting a far from easy task. I don't think you girls understood quite how difficult her position was."

"Oh, yes, we knew it was not an easy one," said Hilary earnestly.

"Then some allowances must be made for mistakes, for failures now and again. For one thing, it was an unprecedented happening for a Fifth-former to become head prefect—to be head and yet not the equal of the other head prefects. Again, there was an unfortunately large majority of juniors over seniors in Carslake's. I am confident, however, that there will be a great improvement after the holidays. The older juniors will be seniors and will realize the responsibility of their position more readily. I am hoping that much of this unpleasantness will be buried and put out of mind during the summer vacation. I would prefer, if the culprit cannot be discovered so as to settle the matter beyond all doubt, that the affair should be forgotten, or at any rate, laid entirely on one side. I am hoping, also, that Duane will have sufficient strength of character to live down this feeling in the school against her. You," addressing the Carslake seniors, "will, I hope, back up your head prefect as much as you can."

"We have always done that, Miss St. Leger," replied Hilary. "It isn't through us that Duane sent in her resignation. But supposing the juniors still refuse to acknowledge Duane's authority?"

"I do not think they will do that, with my authority behind the head prefect's. In fact, I shall see to it that they do not. I will speak to them about it, if necessary, but I think things will work more smoothly after the holidays. That is all I have to say to you just now, girls. I know I can rely on you always to do what you can to help."

That term at Easthampton, however, was destined to end in a manner befitting the rest of its troubled course. The day after the intervention of the Principal the baby of Dormitory A, little Erica Salter, was taken to the sanatorium with a high temperature, her illness being later diagnosed as a severe attack of 'flu. Hilary was the next one to fall a victim, and when, before the week was out, half a dozen girls in Carslake's and as many in the other houses joined them, Miss St. Leger decided that the best plan would be to close the school before the epidemic grew worse; in any case, it would only shorten the term by a bare week, and as examinations were over, the only event that was left was the Sports Day, and that she decided to postpone till early in the next term.

Great was the jubilation in the school when it was announced that girls might communicate with their people and leave for the summer vacation as soon as they could make arrangements to do so. All thoughts of lessons were abandoned and everyone commenced to pack feverishly. The dormitories and the vestibule presented a scene as animated and busy as a London terminus on August Bank Holiday.

"Never seen it done so quickly," remarked France. "Most new kids commence packing at least a week before breaking-up day. I remember my first vacation, like all new girls, I was so frightened I shouldn't get packed in time that I started three days beforehand. That night, after bed bell had rung I discovered I had packed all my nightdresses in the bottom of my trunk, which was downstairs already locked and corded. I was never in such a hurry to pack after that."

It was astonishing how quickly the school seemed to empty as party after party, some walking, some in taxis, set off for the station to catch their trains. The mistresses were busy taking the juniors to the station and seeing them safely off, or delivering them into the charge of the older girls. Kitty, who was spending the holiday with the Wades, departed with France and Margaret. At last, a strange silence settled over the school which had such a short time ago buzzed with life. The summer vacation had begun.

CHAPTER VII

SPORTS DAY

Sports Day had come and gone. Carslake's was feeling extremely pleased with itself, not to say jubilant; at last the house had distinguished itself. Perhaps the girls realized it really was time they "bucked up"; perhaps Fortune, for once, was on their side. Certainly they had done better than they had hoped for, and when the points were totalled up Easthampton stared in amazement.

When the new term began, there were some changes in the school, as was only natural. For one thing, most girls had moved up a form; this was specially noticeable in Carslake's, where the majority of the turbulent Fourth had attained the dignity of seniors. That change, at least, was decidedly one for the better. Of course, some of the old familiar faces were gone. Phyllis Knight had left and Green's had a new head prefect. Prince's mourned the loss of Eileen Gilbert and others of the Sixth, but everybody was glad to see both Salome and Vanda return and resume their old positions. They had matriculated well, but—as they both intended taking a university course and were barely eighteen—they had come back to study for a university scholarship, for which there was a special class at Easthampton.

Kitty had been very pleased to hear that she had succeeded in passing the Senior Cambridge, having been rather doubtful of success. Hilary had taken a Second Class, Duane a Third, while France and Kitty had each achieved a pass. The four girls were now Sixth-formers, their successes having entitled them to their remove, while Kitty had been exalted to the rank of prefect. She felt herself to be quite an important personage now.

Hilary unfortunately had not returned. She had had a relapse after reaching home, and her people had sent her away for a long holiday. But she wrote to her form companions in a cheerful spirit, saying she hoped to be back amongst them before very long, prepared for more hard work.

Hilary's absence made quite an important difference in the relations of the new Sixth at Carslake's—but that shall be explained later. It would not be right to pass over Sports Day without entering into the details of some of the Carslake triumphs.

They had made a good beginning in the high jump. Salome was the winner, beating the school record with a jump of 4 feet 6 inches, but Kitty gained a very valuable two points in securing second place. The obstacle race had fallen to Paddy, and Carslake's did not win a point, nor in the tortoise race that followed. But Peggy O'Nell won the junior 100 yards in brilliant style, and Daisy Carteret was second in the junior 220 yards. The first and second places in throwing the cricket ball were secured by Prince's and Green's respectively, but Bertha was a close third with a good throw.

When the senior flat race finals began, interest increased. The half-mile had fewest entries, for it was naturally regarded as the stiffest. In this, the final, there were only four competitors, two from Prince's, one from Sheerston's and one from Carslake's. Each house shouted encouragement to its own runners. Vanda West was generally reckoned to be the most likely winner, though several hockey colours declared that Duane might "pull it off."

"You know," one of them declared as they lined up, "she can get down the field before you can look round, when she's on the ball and there's a chance for a shot at goal."

"You're right," said Gwen Parker, the former school right wing, who had returned with several others to compete for her house, Sports Day being officially a last year's event. "I've found myself with all my work cut out to keep up with her when she gets on the move in a match."

"Still, Vanda can stay, and that's what counts in the half-mile."

"Yes, or else I should have had a shot at it," replied Gwen.

Then somebody shouted: "Mind you don't go to sleep in the middle, Cato, thinking it's bedtime!" And that fetched a general laugh.

The next minute the four were off, running with steady strides, Vanda and Duane side by side and a few paces behind the other two. At the end of the second lap the two rash ones who had rushed ahead at the beginning had dropped behind, panting and breathless. Now Vanda and Duane were in front, running neck and neck. The pace was already fast but Eileen increased it, hoping to gain the lead, and as they entered the last lap, Vanda leading but Duane refusing to drop behind by more than a yard, the yells of the Prince's girls increased in volume. The excitement was intense. Even France, who was wont to declaim emphatically that she had no patience with these "races and things," hopped wildly about at Kitty's side and yelled to Duane as she passed:

"Go it! Remember the match against Winthorpe last year!"

The critical moment had come. Duane quickened her long strides with a scarcely perceptible effort, drew ahead of Vanda, and passed her, despite her attempt at a spurt, increasing her lead all down the last half-lap, "running," so France declared excitedly, "just as if it were the hundred yards' sprint."

Kitty cheered with the rest, and as Duane, breathing hurriedly but otherwise looking the same as usual, strolled up in her leisurely fashion with her hands in her blazer pockets, she said impulsively, "By Jove! you can run, then, Duane."

Duane's glance met Kitty's quizzically. "Really think so?" she drawled. "Have I at last won a word of praise from you? I can hardly express my overpowering emotion."

Kitty's face flamed, and she fell back a step, feeling as if the other girl had slapped her in the face. "It was horrid of her to say that," she thought to herself, feeling hurt and resentful. "I really did mean it quite sincerely." Duane, meanwhile, went on after a short pause, "It's your turn next. Now show them that I'm not the only gifted one."

Kitty looked straight at her just for a moment and her eyes sparkled. "I'm going to," she snapped, and turned away, vowing that she would win the quarter-mile or die in the attempt. Strange to say, for once Kitty was not thinking of the honour of Carslake's; as she lined up for the race with lips set determinedly, the house was not even in her mind, only the house's head prefect.

The faces of the Carslake girls became even more seraphic when Kitty won the quarter-mile, by a bare half-yard. After that there was a short interval. The afternoon was drawing to an end, and only two events remained to be contested. The excitement mounted when the girls who were keeping account of the points scored, announced that Sheerston's was leading, with despised Carslake's only one point behind.

"We must win one of these last two," said Kitty desperately. "Another first would probably do it."

But in the relay race, their luck deserted them. All three girls ran well, but Peggy, who was shaking with nervous excitement, muffed taking the flag from Duane and lost a valuable three or four seconds and the start Duane had given her. Both she and Kitty made a desperate attempt to overtake the leader, but found it beyond their powers, and finished third. They were now two points behind Sheerston's, who had finished second.

There was still the 100 yards to be run. The unhappy Frances, who was Carslake's sole representative, found herself overwhelmed with exhortations, advice and admonitions.

"It rests with you now, France," said Duane. "Mind you run for all you're worth." France groaned. "For goodness' sake stop that. I wish I'd never entered for the wretched thing. You put my name down, Duane, and you must be responsible for the consequences. I don't pretend to be able to run races. I'm not an athlete, I'm an artist."

"Never mind what you are," said Duane. "Just pull up your stockings and run. I know you can sprint a bit, for I've seen you dash across the quad when you've been a bit late for class. Imagine someone in front is running off with your most prized picture. Cheer up! It's only a hundred yards, so it won't kill you."

"I'll pose for you if you'll do your very best," urged Kitty. "Next Wednesday afternoon."

"No," replied France, with a funny air of dignity. "I don't want any bribes. Though I've entered for this race under protest, I'll run my very hardest," and she nodded her head determinedly.

France took her place with a painful expression on her face. "Looks as if she were going to have a tooth out, doesn't she!" whispered Peggy O'Nell to her right-hand neighbour, with a chuckle.

The flag fell. For a few breathless seconds there was nothing to be seen but a flash of black-clad legs, then the runners threw themselves headlong at the tape and burst beyond it. There was scarcely an inch between the first three girls, or so it seemed to the watchers, but the judges gave out the results; France first, Gwen Parker second and Paddy third. Carslake's had gained three points and Sheerston's one; and the day ended in Sheerston's and Carslake's tying for first place.

So, strange to say, it was France who was the hero of the occasion. She found it decidedly a pleasant sensation, and began to plume herself complacently, remarking in a confidential tone to the other seniors: "You know, I always did rather fancy myself as a winger at hockey, if only it weren't such a waste of time using all one's spare minutes just to play a game."

"And that's where you're going to play in future," said Duane firmly. "A girl who can sprint like you can is wasted anywhere else. We'll make it a fair bargain. You come to practices regularly and we'll pose for your blessed Academy pictures, or National Gallery portraits, whichever it happens to be. I'll even," she ended, in a burst of generosity, "come now and again and blow your organ for you when Orpheus is indisposed."

France eyed her study-companion reflectively. "If you can summon up enough energy to come and blow the organ, I'll play in all the house matches; so there," she declared.

The results of Sports Day had certainly improved matters at Carslake's. There was no open rebellion against the head prefect's rule, though now and again there were little unpleasant moments which showed that the house would never quite forget the fact that their head prefect's reputation had a deep and ineradicable stain on it. There was not the same cheerful alacrity displayed in obeying Duane's wishes as in obeying those of the other Sixth-formers; obedience was shown, but it was a grudging obedience and would probably never be anything different.

The following evening Duane was alone in her study, seated in her favourite attitude—that is to say, leaning in the depths of an easy-chair with her feet across another chair—when Kitty entered.

"Hallo! What is it?" inquired Duane, looking up from her book.

"I hope I'm not disturbing you," said Kitty, politely.

"Not at all. I'm only finishing off that wretched paraphrasing set us for prep. Couldn't get it done before."

There was a pause till Kitty recollected she had not yet explained the reason for her visit. "Oh, by the way, France told me you had something to say to me. That's why I looked in."

"Oh, I see. It's nothing of much importance. Any time would have done. I thought, until Hilary returns, you might as well dig in here with France and me. It's lonely having a room all on your own."

Kitty flushed in surprise.

"Oh, but I don't mind that. I don't want to cause you any inconvenience."

"Not at all. There's heaps of room for three here, if we clear some of France's litter."

Kitty looked uncomfortable. "Was it you or France who thought of this?"

"Does it matter who thought of it?" returned Duane, carelessly.

Kitty was silent again, feeling still more uncomfortable.

"Thanks all the same," she said, at last, "but I don't think I will."

"Why not?" Duane, not unnaturally, wanted to know.

Kitty felt herself turning crimson and blurted out, "Well, you see, it might be rather awkward."

"Awkward? How?"

"What I mean is that you and I aren't exactly friends."

Duane lifted her glance now, and kept it fixed on Kitty, but merely remarked coolly:

"Aren't we?"

"You know we are not," replied Kitty, a little impatiently. "We never have been. We felt—felt antagonistic the very first moment we met each other."

"You did, I suppose," rejoined Duane. "I don't know that I felt anything at all. However, that's no reason why we need go on being antagonistic, is it?"

"What do you mean?" demanded Kitty, bluntly.

Duane leaned back in her chair and smiled lazily at Kitty.

"Why shouldn't we be friends now?"

Kitty flushed again, and moved uneasily, her agony of embarrassment mounting. Duane tilted her chair back and went on cheerfully:

"You don't seem in a hurry to speak. After all, there's no reason why we shouldn't be friends, is there?"

"I'm sorry," Kitty blurted out. "I'd rather not. You see——" she stopped.

"Well? Out with it!"

"It's the Richoter," poor Kitty went on, growing hotter and hotter, and angry with herself for feeling so uncomfortable under Duane's lazy, quizzical glance. "I—you see—I couldn't be friends with—with anyone who——"

"Oh, that's it, is it?" said Duane. "You're mighty particular."

"I don't want to seem a prig. If it had been anything else—but—but that kind of thing——"

"Then, the Richoter affair aside, your only prejudice to admitting me to your—your circle of friends, would be gone?"

"I don't know," replied Kitty, frankly. "You can't make yourself be friends with anyone, you know. At any rate, I don't think so. We're so utterly unlike, aren't we?"

"Are we? Then do you think that people must be alike to be friends?"

"They must have tastes in common," replied Kitty, firmly. "At least, so it has always seemed to me."

"Why not give it a trial?" suggested Duane.

Kitty stood irresolute, conscious that in some curious indefinable way she was attracted by the other girl's proposal and yet repelled at the same time. The affair was settled by the abrupt entrance of France.

"Oh, hallo, Kitty! I suppose Duane's told you about digging in with us till Hilary returns? What's that? Doesn't want to? Why not?"

"She says we're antagonistic," replied Duane.

"What nonsense!" said France, very firmly. "What on earth does she mean? You bring your things along, Kitty, and I'm sure we shall enjoy each other's company while we're here," and Kitty rather reluctantly gave way.

CHAPTER VIII

CARSLAKE'S v. THE REST

France stepped back and surveyed her plasticine model of Duane's profile with an air of satisfaction.

"I say, girls," she remarked, conversationally, "I really think Carslake's is being treated with due respect at last. I don't think the other houses have yet recovered from the shock we gave them on Sports Day."

Kitty looked up from her book, as if relieved to find an excuse for so doing. "If only we can keep our new reputation," she said seriously. "We mustn't get slack again."

"We must give them another shock," said Duane, sleepily. "A real startler this time. I'll think something out." She yawned with a muffled, "Goodness, how sleepy a fire makes one!" and silence settled down again in the study. A little later, however, there was a message from Miss Carslake, "Would Duane please bring along her weekly report. It should have been brought earlier in the evening." This report was a record of lines or punishments of that description imposed by any of the prefects during the week.

"Oh, hang!" exclaimed Miss Carslake's disgusted head prefect. "She was out when I went before, and of course she must start bothering when I'm comfortably settled down. D'you think I might send the book along for once without going myself?"

"I shouldn't advise you to," replied Kitty, in a discouraging tone. "I don't suppose for a minute that would satisfy Miss Carslake."

"Cut along and get it over," advised France, grinning. "It won't take very long."

With much grumbling the head prefect lowered her long legs to the ground, pulled herself up and took her departure. When she returned a little later it was in the company of the other three Sixth-formers, and there was an unusual air of animation about her.

"I say, girls, an idea!" she announced, when they were all inside. "Why not take a leaf out of Kitty's book! I suggest challenging the rest of the school to a hockey match—Top House v. the Rest."

"That practically means," said Margaret, judicially, "Carslake's against the school first eleven. It sounds quite mad to me. What do you say, Kitty?"

"Well, I certainly agree with Duane that it would cause a sensation in the school," replied Kitty, shrewdly. "However, the weak point in the idea, as far as I can see, is that we shall get such a licking that we shan't be able to lift up our heads again."

"I don't see why we should," from Duane.

"But you don't really think we should stand the slightest chance against the school eleven?" protested Bertha.

"Oh, come, Bertha," remonstrated Duane, "you and Kitty, of all people, to be so faint-hearted over a hockey match when both of you are practically certain of getting your hockey colours before the end of the season!"

"But three can't beat eleven."

"I'm not proposing they should. Leave it to me to get up an eleven. This house has been so used to holding humble opinions about itself that it can't get out of the habit. You forget one or two things: that there are sixteen seniors now, where last year there were only six; as that quite half of the old school eleven left last term and there will have to be a big proportion of new colours in it. I will guarantee to get quite a respectable line of forwards from our Lower Fifth, if we older ones can manage the defence."

"And supposing they refuse to accept our challenge, as being beneath their dignity?" said Sonia.

"They won't do that. We should be able to say they were afraid to accept it. A challenge is a challenge."

Silence, while everybody looked at each other. "Well, what about it?" asked Duane. "Will you do it or not, if the Lower Fifth are willing?"

Kitty was the first to respond.

"I'm on," she said, impulsively. "Though I believe we haven't the slightest chance of winning. All the same, the idea's a gorgeous one and for pure cheek takes the biscuit. I wish I'd thought of it myself."

Carslake's hockey challenge certainly did cause a sensation in the school. Some girls treated it with ridicule, a few were angry, all agreed that it was awful cheek on the part of the much-despised Carslake's. The challenge was accepted, however, with the firm resolution that the challengers should be punished for their cheek by such a beating as had never yet been seen on the school playing-fields. Carslake's tried to assume a careless, confident, nonchalant air, but the only one of them who really succeeded was their head prefect and that because the pose was a natural one. Inwardly they were all quaking at their temerity, even such bold spirits as Kitty and Peggy O'Nell, and looking forward to the match with feelings of apprehension.

Duane, with an undue amount of deliberation, had drawn up her team. "I've put Bertha and Edith in their usual positions at right back and goal," she explained. "Kitty, I want you to be the other back. Halves—Margaret, myself, Mary. Forwards, wings—France and Peggy. Yes, France, you must play, and what's more you'll have to run as you've never run in your life before, not even on Sports Day."

"I'll do it," said France heroically, "for the honour of the house. Even if it means dropping dead half-way through the match."

"Dropping dead! Rubbish!" returned Duane, with unusual energy for her. "Daisy, you must take centre-forward. I'll help you all I can. Inners—Barbara and Rosalie. That's the best we can do, I think!"

The match was fixed for Wednesday, and the Carslake girls practised diligently in their team positions whenever they had the chance. Kitty enjoyed these practices immensely and played left-back with great vigour—perhaps, sometimes, with more vigour than skill. Duane's attitude towards these practices amused her very much. She did not play herself, but, wrapped in her coat with its high fur collar, stood by the side of the ground, leaning gracefully upon her stick and giving advice and criticism on the play by means of a remarkable flow of cutting remarks, directed chiefly against the forwards and halves. According to her, they were slow and hesitating, they used neither their sticks nor their feet properly, their shooting was miserably feeble and their passing most inaccurate.

At any rate, Kitty reflected, Duane certainly seemed to know all there was to know about the theoretical side of hockey. She also seemed to have the knack of surprising everyone by pulling off the most unexpected things, in an almost accidental kind of way. Kitty was astonished that she did not feel so much annoyed and irritated—as she certainly would have done three months ago—as quietly amused. She put it down to the fact that she was getting used to Duane and her ways.

She found that Bertha was quite a reliable partner to have at right back; she was sturdily built, and, if inclined to be a trifle slow against quick forwards, she stuck to them like a leech. She was a queer, reserved girl with little to say for herself; Kitty divined that there was a certain streak of sullen obstinacy in her character.

The day of the match came at last. Everybody seemed unusually restless during afternoon lessons, and as soon as dismissal bell rang there was a general stampede for the playing-fields.

The Carslake eleven gathered in a little group inside one room in the pavilion. "Oh dear," sighed Peggy, "I feel most frightfully squirmy inside. For mercy's sake, Edie, don't let any shots through."

"Can't help it sometimes," mumbled Edie, wriggling nervously.

"Don't look so glum, everybody!" cried Kitty, looking around. "We're not beaten yet, you know."

The youngest members of the team brightened up at this, for there certainly was something cheering in the sight of Kitty, looking so vigorous and dependable. Kitty glanced curiously round at their captain. That worthy stood in her favourite attitude—viz. leaning gracefully on her stick, a well-worn weapon with a heavy crook, guard and rubber-bound handle. She, too, was quite a striking figure in her perfectly fitting tunic ending well above her knees, as unperturbed as ever. "Time we were on the field," she said. "Just remember this, please. Whatever happens, you forwards are to keep forward."

"Here, Duane," remonstrated France. "You're not going to play with that watch on, are you?"

"Watch?" said Duane, vaguely. "Oh—er—no, of course not. I quite forgot it. Here, mind it for me, one of you kids."

"You've got shoes on too," struck in Margaret, reprovingly. "I thought Miss Bryce said nobody was to play matches in shoes unless she had pads on."

"Can't help it if she did. I never could play in boots—can't run. Don't worry, Margaret. I'll look out for my shins if you'll look after yours."

They all scrambled out of the pavilion and the two teams lined up on the field. The school eleven certainly looked a stiff lot to tackle, for Easthampton boasted of one of the best ladies' elevens in the county. The centre-forwards bullied off and for the first twenty minutes both sides continued to strain every nerve to keep up the pressure. The wise prognosticated that the pace could not last; the weaker side would not be able to keep it going.

On the wings France and Peggy, as fast as their opponents, were always dangerous and several times carried the ball right to the goal circle, but could not break through the school defence. Carslake's, too, was defending gallantly against a dashing forward line. Duane in the centre held Paddy and her two inners in check, and more than one of the onlookers remarked, "Cato's playing a good game to-day."

The Carslake captain had quite a distinctive style. She never appeared flurried, and, for hockey, was even unhurried. She played with neat adroitness, using both stick and feet with remarkable dexterity, invariably successful in robbing the attacker of the ball just at the right moment and hitting away without pause, as hard and accurate as a machine. The danger came from the wings, for the Carslake half-backs were comparatively weak and too slow to hold the school forwards. Kitty and Bertha found their work cut out for them in that quarter, while, by a tacit understanding, Duane held the centre.

But the pace was bound to tell. The end of the first twenty minutes found the lighter side being slowly overwhelmed and pressed back. The forwards made their attacking dashes at longer and still longer intervals, while the halves were back with Kitty and Bertha, resisting desperately. Twice Edith saved, but the school were not to be denied. A furious attack swept the ball over the goal line, then the left wing broke through, and when half-time sounded the school were leading by two goals to nil.

The Carslake team walked off the field and into the pavilion, looking tired and dispirited, with the feeling that worse things were in store for them in the second half. Public opinion was the same, for it was obvious that Carslake's were tired out and worn down by the pace, while the school felt as fresh as ever when they thought of the lead they had gained over their opponents.

"If it weren't just for a few—Duane, Kitty and Bertha," remarked one of the team, "we'd be all over them, and they wouldn't have a look in. Those three are as hard as nails, I know, but even they won't be able to keep us out much longer. It'll be a walk-over next half."

Meanwhile, in the pavilion, the younger members of the Carslake team dropped down wearily upon the nearest seats.

"Oh dear," gasped Daisy, "I feel nearly dead-beat."

"And I've got the stitch," added France, dismally, for the artist, good though her intentions might be, was not in the form to stand a gruelling match like this.

When Duane entered everybody seemed to glance spontaneously towards her, as the central figure in the whole affair. After all, it was she who was responsible for it.

She stood looking at them for a moment in silence. Her pale, rather sallow-complexioned face was flushed, her hair for once was ruffled and untidy; her light grey eyes shone vividly in their dark setting.

"Hallo!" she greeted them. "What are you all looking so dismal about?"

"We're not looking dismal exactly," protested Peggy, "but—well—they'll walk over us in the second half, Duane."

"And why on earth," demanded Duane, "should they walk over us?"

"We're dead-beat. I feel as if I couldn't run another step," with a weary sigh. "I simply couldn't get past those backs."

"And I've got the stitch," added France, lugubriously.

"And my heel rubs."

"Oh, of course, if you're going to lie down on the grass and let 'em," said Duane slowly and with supreme scorn, "I've no doubt they will walk over you."

Peggy flushed. "Of course, we'll do our best. But all the same, it was ridiculous to think we could do anything against the school eleven."

"Well, naturally," said Duane, sharply, "if you're giving in like this, it is hopeless. Only please realize that the match isn't over, so we haven't lost yet. I haven't been accustomed to playing in a team that sits down half-way through a match and says it's beaten. I, for one, certainly don't admit it, and I'm going on playing and sticking to it while I've a breath in me, if I'm the only one in the team left on the field. You stick to me and I'll stick to you. I will, on my honour, and what's more, I'll see you through somehow."

The last words came out in a rush. The girl was still facing them, the blaze of an unconquered spirit lighting her brilliant eyes.

For a moment, nobody stirred or spoke. Then Kitty jumped to her feet, and crossed over to the head prefect's side.

"I'm sticking to you, Duane," she exclaimed, clearly, driven by an impulse she did not stop to analyse. "There'll be two to play on to the end, anyway."

"And so am I," in Bertha's more deliberate tones.

"And I." France, too, sprang impetuously to her feet.

The spirit of the leader was as infectious as a disease. Everyone was on her feet now, eager and enthusiastic. It was as if a flame had suddenly been lit, spreading like a flash from one to the other. It was a different team entirely from the one that had entered the pavilion a few minutes ago.

Duane surveyed them a moment in silence. "That's better," she said, quietly. "I guess, if you're not very big, you're game anyway."

"There's the whistle," cried somebody, and the forwards ran out laughing and talking. The bigger girls followed more decorously. Duane laid her hand lightly on Kitty's shoulder.

"Thanks, Kitty," she said, in a low voice.

"What for?" said Kitty, awkward and embarrassed. "For backing you up? And what else should I do? You're the captain of this team."

The game began again after much the same fashion as in the first half. The school eleven, who had expected to find their work much easier now, were astonished to discover that their opponents were playing with a new burst of energy and enthusiasm, sticking to it determinedly. The spectators, too, were surprised, and generously conceded that if Carslake's had rather too much cheek, their hockey eleven certainly had plenty of grit.

The game went on, and no addition was made to the score. True, the school forwards were getting most of the play, but they could not break through the defence. Kitty cleared the ball away time after time, vowing inwardly that they should not get through again. Bertha stuck to it with sturdy resolution; that streak of sullen obstinacy in her character served her in good stead now. Duane had lost a little of her unflurried, machine-like precision, and nearly all of her casual coolness, but her hitting was as clean and as hard as ever, and Paddy was checked and held in her most desperate rushes. France was gasping for breath, and Daisy was limping painfully.

"Hurt?" inquired Duane, as they halted for a twenty-five bully.

"No, not much," replied Daisy, bravely. "But I'm afraid I can't run. I've twisted my foot over."

Somebody shouted out, "Buck up, the school! Only ten more minutes!"

"Get behind me," said Duane, quickly. "I'll play centre-forward for the rest of the game."

Now Paddy had the ball. But before she could pass, Duane had tackled her, taken possession of the ball, and swung it out to Peggy.

"Now then, Peggy!" she cried. "Take it down on the wing."

Peggy responded pluckily, and gathering all her remaining energies, spurted for all she was worth, then centred wildly with her last effort. Before anyone realized what was happening Duane had caught the ball on her stick, passed the right-back with a swerving run, was inside the circle, and without pausing had shot for goal. The ball rose in the air, twisting and spinning, and passed between the posts and far beyond like a streak of lightning.

The Carslake supporters cheered frantically at this unexpected dénouement. But the next few minutes' play was still more amazing and bewildering. Duane took the bully now, and with the adroitness of one thoroughly at home at centre-forward, secured the ball and passed it to her forward. But the forwards had fought so well that they were almost "done"—little more could be got out of them. The school forwards were on the ball and had swept it right to the goal. Edith, on her knees, brought off the best "save" of her experience, and Kitty cleared the ball away, hitting right down the centre with a splendid shot to Duane, some instinct telling her what to do.

Duane stopped the ball with her foot and was off like a flash, running like a hare and with a control of the ball that at such a speed was amazing. The centre-half was out-distanced and Duane held on her way. With a feint to the right she dodged round the back, swerved sharply and, hardly pausing to steady herself, shot with all the strength behind her strong arms and shoulders. The ball skimmed over the ground and curled round the inside of the post. Carslake's had equalized.

Dazed and taken aback, the school lined up in their places, hardly realizing what had happened. Perhaps their astonishment was their undoing, for Duane and Daisy had wriggled the ball through at the bully, and before the school could pull themselves together, Duane was racing down the field again. Just before she could be tackled she passed the ball with delightful accuracy to France, who was quite uncovered for the moment. To her everlasting credit, that budding artist rose to the occasion nobly, for in spite of her "stitch," she carried the ball well into the enemy's quarters and without attempting what she knew was beyond her powers, centred again to Duane. The pass was not an easy one, but once more Duane had bobbed up in the right spot, and made no mistake in intercepting it. With her amazing swerve she was past the first back, but before she could shoot, the goalkeeper, running out, had tackled her. However, Duane's stick was still behind the ball and the impetus of her dash carried her forward a few staggering paces to drop on her knees just beyond the posts, while the ball rolled gently over the line and came to rest a foot or two beyond. It was one of the most curious goals ever scored on the ground.

Duane was on her feet, a little pale, and panting audibly now; she picked up her stick and walked back to the centre, unheeding the loud cheering and commotion that was going on around. Hardly, however, had play restarted, than the whistle rang out, loud and prolonged. The great match was over, and Carslake's had defeated the Rest by the extraordinary feat of scoring three goals in the last ten or twelve minutes' play.

CHAPTER IX

THE CYCLING EXPEDITION

The room commonly known as the "boot-room" was crowded to overflowing with girls. Most of the house, in fact, with the exception of the half-a-dozen senior girls, seemed to be there. The hockey players were busy changing their muddy boots and washing their hands in the basins, where there was plenty of hot water and soap. The rest were all busy chattering excitedly to them about the match. Needless to say, the whole house was jubilant and hardly knew how to contain itself.

Amidst the babel of excited tongues, a remark from one of the team was always listened to with respect and interest. "Who would have dreamed it?" Babs was declaiming. "Shan't we crow over the other houses now! I really can't imagine how we did it."

"There's no use blinking at the facts," retorted Peggy, bluntly. "'Twas Duane that did most of the doing. We all did our best, but it was Duane who won the match for us."

"There wasn't a player on the field to touch her," declared Daisy.

"Yes," agreed Peggy. "Didn't she run those last two dashes down the field! There wasn't one who could overtake her. And when she shot for goal, she didn't give the goalkeeper much chance."

"Her shooting always was fine," another girl remarked. "I can remember it in the matches last year."

"But doesn't it seem simply rotten," came from Peggy, slowly, "that a player like her shouldn't be in the school eleven, playing for the school. Of course I know—" she paused, uncomfortably. "Well, I suppose it's her own fault and the hockey club were right enough to drop her and—and all that. But, dash it all, it seems such a waste! I bet she's the finest centre-forward Easthampton's ever had."

"And knowing that she can play like that," added Daisy, thoughtfully, "she must hate being out of all the big matches."

Little Erica Salter had been standing near by listening eagerly, motionless, her hands hanging down by her sides, her eyes, with a very rapt look in them, fixed on Daisy and Peggy as they were speaking. The emotional, sensitive child was plainly stirred to the depths by the thrilling happenings of the afternoon, of which the tingling sense of excitement and triumph still pervaded the whole atmosphere. She spoke up suddenly, when Daisy had finished:

"But supposing—just supposing Duane never did it after all?"

"Well then, it would be jolly hard lines on her, that's all I can say," replied Peggy. "But I don't see why we need bother our heads about that. Duane must have done it. Nobody else could have."

"But supposing another girl had done it, and kept it secret?"

"Then all I can say is that she'd be the meanest sort of creature alive," returned Peggy, decidedly, "and if she were ever found out, the girls would jolly well make the school too hot to hold her."

Erica clasped her hands nervously together, and said with solemn conviction, "I'm sure she would deserve everything she got."

Just at that moment the door opened, and in came Duane, Kitty and the other hockey players, having washed and cleaned themselves in their own cubicles. They had come to change their muddy footgear.

"Great Scott!" exclaimed Duane, in her soft familiar drawl. "What a crowd! The whole house seems to have assembled in the boot-room, evidently under the mistaken impression that it's a hotel lounge. Clear out, you kids. Don't you know tea bell's gone?"

There was a general scramble for the door. Kitty, drawing on a pair of indoor shoes, was overcome with laughter at the sight. In a very short time the room was cleared of all except the hockey players themselves.

"Hurry up, girls," Duane advised. "You know Miss Carslake hates anyone to be late in to meals. Everyone ready?"

Daisy stretched her arms above her head. "Oh dear! I'm sure I shall be stiff all over to-morrow. But it was worth being stiff for the rest of the term. I say, Duane," she added, half hesitating, half wistfully. "We didn't let you down, did we? Towards the end, you know."

Duane, her hand on the door-handle, turned and faced them, lounging back against the door with easy, unstudied grace, aristocrat in every line of her.

"Let me down?" she repeated. "No, of course you didn't. I tell you what, you kids, you played up like heroes, and the house ought to be jolly proud of you. Kitty and Bertha were as good as the school backs any day, while Peggy's run got us the first goal, and France rose to the occasion nobly at the last one. Anyway, you've given the old place the shock of its life." She smiled at them with eyes that had grown suddenly brilliant, and for the moment everyone, even Kitty, forgot all about the Richoter and all that had happened the previous term.

"But it was you who scored the goals," said Peggy, honestly.

"Of course," returned Duane, lightly. "Didn't I tell you that was my one particular forte. Wait tell our next house match and we'll see what we can do then."

She pushed open the door and led the way out, France remarking that Miss Carslake could hardly row them for being a few minutes late for once, after the glory they had brought upon the house.

The next day, Wednesday, being half-holiday, Miss Carslake had arranged to take some of the girls on a cycling expedition to the downs, where recent excavations had disclosed traces of both early Celtic and later Roman habitation. The house mistress, who took the senior history classes in the school, was apt to wax enthusiastic over neolithic remains or mediæval architecture, and during the summer months organized many walking or cycling expeditions to see a prehistoric barrow on the downs, or a little village church with a Norman chancel, or an architectural curiosity such as a low side window or a hagioscope.

Some twelve or fifteen girls had given in their names to the head prefect as desirous of going. Duane was in her study that evening, making out this list, when there came a timid tap on the door and Erica Salter entered.

"Hallo! What is it?" inquired Duane, glancing up. "You, Erica! What's up?"

"Nothing," said Erica. "That is—" She glanced at Kitty, who was also in the room writing letters, but there was evidently nothing to be afraid of from that quarter, and Erica continued, "That is to say, I—I want you to ask Miss Carslake if I can come to-morrow to Stretton Downs, Duane."

"You! 'Fraid not, Erica. You're too small."

"I'm not so very," protested Erica. "And I'm used to cycling. I've got my bike here."

"It's too far for you," said Duane decidedly. "Nine miles there and back."

"But I've often cycled as much as that in a day, at home in the holidays. Really and truly I have."

"Bertha's not going, is she?" asked Duane, glancing down at her list.

"No. She doesn't want to. She said she hated anything to do with history. But ask her if I haven't cycled just as far these summer holidays."

Duane hesitated. "But what on earth do you want to go for, kid?" she said somewhat impatiently. "You're not interested in Celtic and Roman remains. Goodness knows if I am, for that matter, but I suppose I'm expected to be."

Kitty, of course, had been listening to this conversation. Something in the child's obvious eagerness touched her. Besides, Erica had never looked very well since that bad attack of influenza the last term. Her face was paler and thinner, her dark eyes looked bigger. It even seemed to Kitty that there was something strained and tense in her expression and attitude, though probably that was merely imagination on her part. She broke in with:

"Oh, let her go, Duane, as she seems so very keen. If she gets tired I'll undertake to give her a push."

Duane shrugged her shoulders in her characteristic fashion. "I suppose, since Kitty takes your part, I shall have to put your name down. Kitty's quite capable of pushing herself and you too; in fact, she'd doubtless enjoy the double burden."

Kitty glanced sharply at Duane. Was she trying to be nasty, or was it merely her flippant, cynical way of talking? Impossible to tell.

Kitty glanced once more at Erica, who was exclaiming gratefully, "Oh, thank you ever so much, both of you! You are two dears," and said in a low voice to Duane:

"I don't think the child's looking very fit, do you?"

Duane frowned slightly, then turned to Erica. "I suppose you haven't anything on for the rest of the evening?"

"No. Nothing special. I wanted to read, but it's so noisy in the common-room. It makes my head ache."

"Sit down in that chair then, for a bit," said Duane abruptly, pointing with the handle of her pen to the easy chair in front of the hearth. "Kitty and I are both busy, so it will be quiet enough in here."

The child hesitated, flushing up. "Are you sure I shan't be in your way?"

"Quite."

"Then I should just love to."

She curled herself up in the chair before the fire, and there was silence in the room, broken only by the scratching of pens. Erica sat quiet and still, her dreamy gaze wandering from Duane to Kitty, and from Kitty to Duane, and in her soft dark eyes was the whole-hearted if childish hero-worship that is so common and natural between small schoolboys and girls and their seniors, the girls and boys who are at top of the school. Presently, the warmth from the fire making her drowsy, she dropped off to sleep, her head against the back of the chair.

"She's asleep," said Kitty softly, glancing up. "I thought she looked tired." She nibbled her pen-handle, then went on hesitatingly, "I say, Duane, I'm—I don't pretend to be very observant and all that, but it has struck me that the kid is—is worrying over something—has got something on her mind."

Duane did not look very much impressed. "What on earth should she have on her mind? Besides, there's her sister. It's her business to see if the kid's worried by anything."

"Well, I don't know much about Bertha," went on Kitty, hesitating. "To tell you the truth, I never did take to her much. But——"

"Oh, I'm not her great chum, either," interrupted Duane. "Still, I do happen to know that Bertha thinks the world of Erica and can be trusted to look after her as much as anybody. But I think the child gets bad attacks of homesickness, all the same. However, she'll grow out of that in time. All decent girls are happy enough at Easthampton."

Some inexplicable impulse prompted Kitty's next words:

"Are you?"

"Do you mean to infer that I'm not decent?" said Duane dryly.

Kitty flushed crimson.

"You know I didn't mean that."

"No, I didn't. I thought perhaps you were still thinking of the Richoter," returned Duane calmly.

"Well, I wasn't," said Kitty bluntly. "I was merely asking a straightforward question. I'm afraid I'm not used to playing about with words, and I'm not clever at it like you."

"It comes in handy sometimes," murmured Duane.

"Yes, I suppose it does, when you don't want to give a straightforward answer to a straightforward question," retorted Kitty.

"Or when you don't want to tell the truth," added Duane, with laughter in her eyes. "Hallo, there goes the junior bell." She laid her hand on Erica's shoulder, and shook her gently. Erica opened her eyes and blinked drowsily.

"Your bell has gone, kiddie," said Duane. "I tell you what. I'm going to carry you upstairs to bed and send Bertha along with a glass of hot milk. You'll sleep like a top after that."

"But—I'm much too heavy," protested Erica, as the head prefect stooped and lifted her out of the chair in her strong young arms.

Duane laughed contemptuously.

"Oh, I'm pretty strong, in spite of my frail appearance."

She turned at the doorway, evidently holding with ease the younger girl, whose fair silky hair formed a striking contrast to her own dark colouring, and glanced across at Kitty, saying flippantly:

"Don't look too despondent, Kitty. Cheer yourself up with the thought that you won't have to listen to my gifted conversation much longer. Hilary returns to-morrow evening. She'll tell you plenty of home truths if you want straightforward answers. Sorry it's not in my line."

When she had disappeared Kitty put down her pen and stretched herself, then gazed round the little room. It would seem quite strange to be back again in her own study. She really had got quite used to the company of France and Duane, and their somewhat unusual little ways. In fact, Kitty was rather troubled and uneasy when she discovered that not only had she got used to the present arrangement, but that she did not look forward at all to going back to the old one.

"Of course that's only because changing about is rather upsetting," she reproved herself. "Francie's a dear in many ways, but you don't really want to stay on here with Duane, of all girls." Why, she had nearly provoked a squabble that very evening! Kitty felt she had not yet recovered her equanimity from the little passage of arms.

* * * * * *

"Oh, dash!" Kitty surveyed her bicycle gloomily.

"What's up?" Duane, her foot on her pedal ready to mount, paused and looked back.

"My back tyre's down as flat as a pancake."

"A puncture?"

"'Fraid so," replied Kitty gloomily. "I'll see if I can pump it up, though."

A brief examination proved the fact beyond a doubt. Kitty looked at Duane. The two had been the last to leave the farmhouse—where the cycling party had had tea—and were the only girls left behind, the others having ridden on a minute or two before Kitty's discovery.

"You ride on and overtake the others," she said. "I'll mend the puncture and come on afterwards. If I scorch I might catch you up some time. Only it won't be long before it gets dark."

"Oh, I'll lend a hand," said Duane good-naturedly. "I've got my lamps. Besides, Miss Carslake wouldn't like one of us to be left alone."

"As to that, I'm quite capable of looking after myself," returned the Australian girl rather impatiently. "But it's good of you to stay, though, and keep me company."

The two girls were accustomed to mending their own punctures. They had some difficulty at first in locating this one, but with the aid of a bucket of water borrowed from the obliging farm people, found it and patched it up.

"That's done at last!" exclaimed Kitty with a sigh of relief, as she unscrewed her pump. "Now we can get on. Hallo, who on earth's this? Why," in great amazement, "it's Bertha! What on earth is she doing here?"

They hailed her, and in another minute Bertha had ridden up and jumped off her bicycle. They could see that she was in a state of great agitation.

"Is Erica with you?" she called out breathlessly.

"Erica? No, she's with the others, I expect," answered Kitty quickly. "They went on ahead some time ago. Didn't you pass them?"

"Yes. She wasn't with them. They told me she was behind with you. I wasn't sure of it, but I just said nothing and came on to find you."

"But what are you doing here, Bertha?" asked Duane, for Bertha had not been one of the members of the cycling party.

"As you know," Bertha answered hurriedly, "I went over to Sheerston's this afternoon. When I came back I found Erica had left this note behind for me, and I can tell you it nearly knocked me over when I read it. I borrowed a bike from one of the girls and came on as fast as I could, hoping to get here before you left." She had pulled an envelope from her pocket as she spoke, and handed it over to Duane. The head prefect read it through quickly and silently. Her face was grave when she handed it back.

"Great Scott! So that's why she was so anxious to come on the cycling expedition, is it? Poor little kid! But why on earth should she choose this way in which to run away from school?"

"I knew she was unhappy," replied Bertha, in a curiously hard tone. "She's been miserable ever since she's been back. I don't know what made her make up her mind, but she told me she wished she could run away home. I told her not to be silly and that I shouldn't hear of such a thing. I meant to see she didn't get any pretext for permission to go into town. Then, as she says here, one of the weekly boarders told her she knew this part of the country, and you were going not far from her home, at Frattenton, and Frattenton's on the main line for our home—no changing."

"Where exactly is this place, Frattenton?" asked Duane quickly.

"The other side of the downs—four or five miles away. The road to it runs right over the downs."

"And it's the nearest railway station from here?"

"Yes."

During the couple of minutes taken by this hurried conversation, Kitty had stood silent, listening, not knowing what was really the matter, but gathering that it was something serious.

Neither offered to show her the note; she realized that there was some mystery about it that Duane and Bertha both knew all about, but that they did not wish to share with anyone else. She did not ask any questions, but waited to see what would be required of her.

Duane turned to her.

"Erica's gone," she explained. "She's run away home. She's slipped off across the downs to Frattenton, to the railway station there."

Kitty nodded.

"What's to be done?" she said curtly. "I don't like the look of those downs. There's a heavy mist coming on and it's already getting dark."

"Let's hope she's there by now then," said Duane. "Look here, two of us had better ride after her, and the third one return to school and let Prinny know what's up."

"Who's to go back?" asked Bertha.

"You had better," answered Duane, speaking in decisive tones for once. "You're done up already with scorching so hard, I can see, and you've got no lamps. Kitty and I are fresh. That is to say, if Kitty doesn't mind a tiring ride now."

"I'm on," said Kitty briefly.

"Then we'll make a start. Cheer up, Bertha. We'll see she's safe somewhere or other and find out what's happened to her, all right."

"I know you will." Bertha tried to muster up a smile as she turned her bike round. "You're a sport if ever there was one, Duane."

The next instant she had disappeared round the bend, and Duane and Kitty were left alone again, this time with a feeling of responsibility resting heavily upon them.

"Better just ask about the road, at the farm," suggested Kitty sensibly. "We neither of us know it."

A few brief questions elucidated the information that the road wound over the downs to Frattenton, that it was a lonely road, but that there were few turnings of any importance, and then one had to keep to the left. The two girls mounted and sped off, determined to cover the greater part of the way before darkness settled down.

The first mile was a long drag uphill, but the girls struggled gamely on. Presently, to their relief, they found themselves on high but fairly level ground, and were too hot with their exertions to feel the chill, penetrating damp that was settling upon everything. They made short work of the next couple of miles.

Up till now they had met no sign of habitation. Here, however, at the corner of a cross-road, was a small, thatched cottage. The place looked deserted, but remembering the directions given them, they held on to the left. The road dropped down into a little hollow. Here they came across another house, a square, stone farm-house this time, with three or four children and a couple of dogs playing about in the roadway.

They dismounted and inquired of the eldest child if she had seen a girl of about her own age, riding a bicycle, pass by within the last half-hour. The girl shook her head, and on being questioned declared that they had been playing in the road for quite a long time, but that she had seen no one pass except Farmer Wootten's wagon. The smaller children said the same.

Duane looked at Kitty rather perplexedly.

"Funny they should have missed her. She can't have passed here very long ago."

The girls mounted again, but had not gone very far—only round the next bend—when they came across a horse and cart and two road menders, just preparing to leave their work of laying down granite and start their return journey to Frattenton. Here the two cyclists were brought "up against it" very definitely, for both men stated positively and convincingly that no one had passed that way for the last hour save a man driving a farm wagon, for they had been working on the road all the time.

CHAPTER X

A NIGHT ON THE DOWNS

The two girls stood and looked at each other in dismayed silence.

Kitty thought rapidly.

"If she has come this way, it must have been in the last half-hour. I remember seeing her leave the tea-table when the other girls did, and thought she was with them when they went to get their bikes. I wasn't more than twenty minutes mending that puncture, so that we weren't more than half-an-hour behind when we left. And we've most likely reduced that, for we've covered the ground quicker than she could, I bet."

"Then, if she has not passed here," Duane demanded, "where is she?"

"There's only one turning she could possibly have mistaken for the Frattenton road. You remember the one where that cottage was."

She turned to one of the men.

"Where does the road to the right, a little way back, go to?"

"That!" replied the man. "That don't lead to nowhere, miss. That be only a road fur th' farm carts. It ends in a sheep track across th' downs."

"And how far on is Frattenton?" inquired Duane.

"Barely two miles, miss."

"Well, if she has passed here she's there by now all right," remarked Kitty. "Only, supposing she's taken the wrong road and is wandering over the downs now? I know what downs are."

"We'd better make inquiries at the cottage," said Duane briefly.

So they hurriedly pedalled back to the little thatched cottage, and after some trouble succeeded in routing out an old woman with a sweet, quavering voice and some difficulty in hearing distinctly. However, when they had explained their errand, she was most eager and voluble in giving them information.

Why yes, to be sure, a little lady on a bicycle had come to the door, maybe half an hour back, and asked if she were on the right road to Frattenton. The kindly old soul had invited her in to rest a minute by the fire and have a glass of milk, "for she had looked so tired-like, and 'twas a long pull along the Frattenton road." The offer had evidently been too much for Erica to resist, for she had left her bicycle outside and gone in.

"And how long has she been gone?" interrupted Duane quickly.

"A matter o' ten minutes or perhaps a quarter of an hour, I should say, miss," quavered the old lady.

"And did you see which road she took?"

"Why no, miss. I didn't go down to th' gate wi' she. You see, my rheumatics is that bad——"

But Kitty and Duane, with a hurried thanks, were already outside the door and running down to their bikes.

"Just missed her at the turn here, then," said Duane. "Jove, but it's getting thick!"

"Better light up," said Kitty quietly, and they lit their lamps with fingers that trembled with impatience.

"What luck for us those road-menders were there," said Kitty as they pedalled forward. "Or else we should have been nearly in Frattenton by now. Bother it, it's uphill again!"

"And getting jolly rough too," added Duane, as she bumped violently over a big stone.

The road was certainly getting rough. Presently great ruts appeared in it and the two cyclists had to go very warily. To add to their difficulties a thick, chill mist was settling over the downs in addition to the falling darkness. Soon it would be impossible to see many yards ahead, even with their lamps.

"One thing," observed Kitty, "if our progress is slow, so is Erica's. She can't be very far ahead. In fact, I wonder she hasn't turned back by now, realizing that this can't be the main road."

"I wonder if she has any lamps," said Duane uneasily.

The next minute her front wheel ran into a rut; the bicycle skidded sharply and threw her off.

Kitty dismounted. "Hurt?" she inquired.

"Oh no," replied Duane with a laugh. "Came off on my feet all right. But I guess we'd better walk, and wheel our bikes. It'll be just as quick in this awful mist and darkness."

The two girls pressed forward with dogged courage. They were neither of them timid or nervous, each had confidence in the other, and no doubt, but for the anxiety of Erica's safety, would have enjoyed it as a "real adventure."

"Hallo! What's this?" Kitty came to an abrupt halt.

"Erica's bike. She's left it by the roadside and gone forward on foot. There's her front lamp on it, unlit—but perhaps she had no matches," a surmise they afterwards found out to be fact.

"We'd better leave ours here too. They're more nuisance than use now we can't ride them. We can take the front lamps with us."

So they propped their bicycles by the side of the road, which was now little more than a track. The dense mist had settled down thicker than ever, so that they could hardly make out the ground at their feet, and the lamps only seemed to light up and reveal a few yards of greyish vapour. It all felt very weird and mysterious.

To go on now had become a matter of real danger. But Erica was somewhere ahead, in the darkness, alone, and to go back was impossible.

The two girls shouted and halloed at the top of their voices, but the mist only returned the echoes of their own cries.

"Coming on?" asked Duane curtly.

"Of course," returned Kitty as briefly.

"We must keep to the track though. Won't do to get lost ourselves."

They stumbled forward again, neither of them daring to voice their secret fear that Erica, frightened and lonely and without a light, had wandered off the track when the mist and the darkness had descended so quickly, and was lost on the downs. Such a possibility made them both shiver. They stopped at brief intervals and shouted, Kitty raising piercing calls of "Coo-ee!" and then listening intently, but with no result.

It would be hard to say how far they had gone—their only guide was the track, which they dared not leave and which they followed mainly by the feel of it beneath their feet—when at last Kitty's sharp ears caught a faint, answering call. They advanced, shouting again, and again came the faint answer from the darkness.

Kitty halted. "It's from our left somewhere, not ahead. Come on."

They turned to their left and by the light of their lamps advanced cautiously over the down turf, guided by the voice. Before long, a dark mass loomed up with startling suddenness in the pale rays of their lamps. It was a shepherd's hut, and inside, crouched in a forlorn heap upon the hard, bare floor, they found the runaway.

"Crouched in a forlorn heap upon the floor, they found the runaway."
"Crouched in a forlorn heap upon the floor, they found the runaway."

"Oh, I'm so glad you've come. I'm so c-cold and t-tired."

"However did you find this place?" asked Kitty, peering around.

"You see, the road got so rough," Erica replied in a tired voice. "I left my bike and walked, and then I knew I must have taken the wrong road; but I was so tired, I didn't want to go all the way back. I thought perhaps it would lead to some houses or a village if I kept on. But it got so dark and I was frightened. I couldn't see my way and then I was wandering about and I ran right into this hut. Oh, I wish I was home. I heard you calling at last, but there's a big blister on my heel, and I—I c-can't walk any more."

The child was worn out and exhausted; moreover, she was shaking with cold. Duane slipped off her heavy coat with its big fur collar and cuffs. "Just put this on a minute," she said, "and it'll warm you, for I was simply boiling after the rate we've pounded along to catch you up."

She glanced at Kitty, who was investigating their little shelter by the light of a lamp. The place had evidently been quite recently inhabited, for it was in excellent repair and as dry as a bone. On the other hand, it was quite bare, consisting of absolutely nothing but walls, roof and door. True, there was a fireplace, but as Kitty remarked, it was no good without any fuel, and of fuel, wet or dry, there was not a stick to be had anywhere, and they had no implements with which they could break away any of the boarding of the hut.

"If we could only get a fire," sighed Kitty wistfully, "we'd stay here the night. It would be quite jolly. But we should simply freeze otherwise. I'm sure it'll freeze if it gets much colder."

Duane went to the door and peered out. The mist was covering everything with icy drops of water, and it was densely black everywhere. She drew back with a shiver.

"I say, Kitty, do you think we should find the track again? Then, of course, we could get back to the Frattenton road. We could carry the kid between us."

"The point is," replied Kitty, somewhat grimly, "that if we risked the chance of finding the track and failed, ten chances to one if we should be able to find the hut again. In that case we should be wandering about the downs in this icy mist, and Erica, for one, isn't in a fit condition to do much wandering. On the other hand, if we stay here for the night,"—she looked at Duane with a faint smile—"I've no doubt we shall need all our courage if we are going to stick it."

"Oh, your courage is all right," said Duane carelessly.

"And—I sort of—believe you've got plenty too," muttered Kitty under her breath. Then aloud, "Well, let's have a little rest and make up our minds what to do."

It was the discovery of the straw that settled the matter—a big truss of it in the corner, dry as a bone, and clean and fragrant. They did not waste time considering the reason for its being there, but decided to settle down in the hut, now that they had something that might keep the warmth in their bodies. They spread it on the floor and curled up on it, wishing that there was twice the quantity so that they might burrow right in. They were all wearing their big coats, and Kitty and Duane were quite warm from their hard cycling and walking; but Erica was shivering with cold. So Kitty and Duane set to work vigorously to rub her arms and legs until the blood began to circulate again.

They huddled up together on the straw, with Erica in the middle. It was to Duane, Kitty noted with some surprise, that the child turned for comfort and protection, and the bigger girl seemed to respond with a queer, sympathizing tenderness that Kitty had never dreamed her capable of.

"I thought you two were ancient and bitter enemies," she said with a laugh.

"I thought I hated Duane once," responded the child with quaint gravity. "But I don't now. It was very silly of me. Duane is a dear," with an affectionate, almost passionate hug.

"Duane is an ass," said that person herself, "and Kitty is one too, to let two lamps go on burning when one would do."

"You made a rhyme," murmured Erica sleepily.

"Oh, there's nothing I can't do if I like to try," said Duane modestly. "You know, I didn't say what kind of an ass I was, did I?"

"No. What kind are you?"

"A geni-ass."

"Oh! You are silly!" A gleam of fun struggled with the sadness in the child's face. "And I'm a horrid little pig, that's what I am."

"What rubbish!" said Duane hastily. "I say, Kitty, you haven't gone to sleep, have you? Do you know it's not much past seven o'clock?"

"Is that all? How awful! No, I don't feel a bit sleepy." She tried to imitate Duane's gay, careless flippancy. "What shall us do?"

"Well, something fairly primitive. Not even as elaborate as 'noughts and crosses,' seeing we've neither pencil nor paper."

"Nor much light to see with," added Kitty. "We shall have to pretend we're Indians in a wigwam."

"Or Eskimos in a snow hut. I hope you're warm enough, little Eskimo?"

"Oh, yes, I'm lovely and warm now," replied Erica.

"We are disciples of the Simple Life," continued Duane. "What could be a simpler way of living than this? Erica, think how years hence you'll tell your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren how you were lost on the downs and spent the night in a wooden hut with the howling of savage wolves outside, thirsting for your blood."

"But that would be an awful whopper," objected Erica. "There aren't any wolves left in England."

"Aren't there? What a pity! However, to come back to our original question. What shall we do to pass away the time?"

"You and Kitty can tell stories," suggested Erica brilliantly.

"Good gracious! But I don't know any," protested Kitty in alarm.

"Can't you tell one out of your head?"

"But how can I, when there aren't any in there?"

"Well, Duane will, then."

"Very well," said Duane resignedly. "What sort of a story do you want?"

"I don't mind."

"It'll have to be a nonsensical one then. I couldn't tell a sensible one in a senseless place like this. No genius could. Let me see," thoughtfully, "did I tell you the story of my uncle?"

"No."

"I'm afraid it's rather sad, but never mind. It was something most extraordinary that happened to my Uncle Bill—or was it my Uncle John? Never mind, it was one of them. It must have been, because they're the only two uncles I've got. Well, he was standing one day in front of his fire, when a dreadful thing occurred. His backbone melted."

"What!" gasped Erica.

"His backbone melted. Of course, that made him very ill, but fortunately the doctors knew what to do. They packed him round in ice and it froze again, and now he's walking about just the same as ever."

"I don't believe it," cried Erica scornfully. "It couldn't happen."

"I don't know about that. I'm telling you just what he told me."

"Then your uncle was only telling you stories."

"I think that depends on which uncle it was. You see, Uncle John is a very truthful man. But my Uncle Bill probably doesn't always tell the truth."

"Then it was your Uncle Bill who told you about it," said Erica conclusively.

Kitty had been struggling to repress her mirth. At last she said:

"Can't you tell us something a bit less gruesome than that?"

"Oh yes," cried Erica, "a happy-ever-after one."

"In that case it'll have to be a fairy story," decided Duane. "Very well then."

She began her story while the other two listened, the light of the bicycle lamp flickering on the little group, picking out in particular the clear-cut, aristocratic profile of the narrator. Kitty lay looking at it dreamily and finding a curious pleasure in doing so, never realizing until now what a fascinating face it could be to watch, not exactly for any particular beauty of feature, nor even for the vividness of the light grey eyes in their dark setting, but for something elusive in its rather sleepy expression.

"Once upon a time," she began, "there was a king over a far Eastern land, and this king had three tall, brave sons. The two eldest were said to be the handsomest men in the whole kingdom, but though the youngest was just as big and strong, and his hair was just as golden and his eyes as blue, he had a thorn in the flesh——"

"Like St. Paul," interrupted Erica eagerly.

"Yes. Only we don't know what St. Paul's was, but we do know the prince's——"

"Then what was it?" put in Kitty.

"Don't interrupt or you'll mix me up," said the narrator severely. "Let me see, where was I?"

"At the beginning, I should say," said Kitty.

"One day there came a herald from the neighbouring kingdom. Everyone knew he came from the neighbouring kingdom because he wore his master's coat-of-arms——"

"What was the coat-of-arms like?"

"Oh—er—two lions couchant and one pard rampant upon a field of azure. He stood on the steps of the king's palace, blew his thingummyjig—I mean his trumpet, and shouted, 'Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! To all busybodies whom it may concern. Anyone bringing back the stolen princess to her sorrowing father, King Baldhead, will be given her hand in marriage and half her father's kingdom.' At that, there was great commotion everywhere. The three princes sent for the herald and asked him how the princess had been stolen. He told them that she had been carried off in the wink of an eye by a dreadful witch disguised as a whirlwind. The princess's father had consulted her fairy godmother and she said that he who wished to rescue the princess must follow his nose until he found her.

"'That is an easy matter,' quoth the eldest prince. 'I will set out at once,' and he called for his finest horse and his ten body-servants and rode out in state, giving orders that no one else was to set forth on the quest. Because he was so handsome he was vain, and because he was vain he was selfish.

"A year passed away and he did not return. Then the second prince set out in the same manner, for he also was vain and selfish, and at the end of a year he had not returned either.

"Then the youngest prince, who was neither vain nor selfish, told his father that he too would try his luck. He, however, set out alone and on foot, for he said he thought he could follow his nose better thus. And when he had walked and walked without stopping for three days, the earth suddenly opened in front of him and out stepped the princess. She smiled radiantly upon him, and said, 'Dear prince, you have broken the witch's spell and set me free,' and they went back to her father hand in hand."

"And what about the other two princes? What had happened to them?"

"Oh, they were never heard of for seven years, and then the eldest one came riding along. He had followed his nose right round the world until he got back to the place from where he started. And exactly a year later, the other one turned up."

"But I don't see," objected Erica in a drowsy voice, and opening one sleepy eye, "why the youngest prince found her and they didn't."

"Oh well, you see, that's just where the point of the 'thorn' comes in. The two oldest princes had Grecian noses, but the youngest prince had a crooked one. Consequently he'd been going round and round in a circle, and when he'd gone round twelve times that broke the spell, you know, and the earth opened. Don't you remember the fairy rings?"

"But how could the princess marry a prince with a crooked nose?" murmured Erica, with a last effort.

"Oh, I've no doubt the fairy godmother could put that straight. I don't see the use of having a fairy godmother if she couldn't do little jobs like that," replied Duane. Erica, however, had not heard. She was fast asleep. "Supposing one of them had had a retroussé nose," remarked Kitty meditatively. "What would have happened then?"

"He'd have made a journey to heaven, doubtless," retorted the story-teller.

There was silence for a little while, save for Erica's steady breathing. Then Kitty said softly, so as not to disturb her:

"How do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Talk—like that."

"Talk rubbish, do you mean?"

"If you like to put it that way. Just as if you hadn't a serious thought or a care in the world—as if our situation wasn't—well—decidedly an uncomfortable one?"

"Oh, I don't know. Because I'm a geni-ass, I suppose."

"Shall I tell you what I think? You just do it to keep everybody's spirits up and be cheerful."

"You mean, to make out to people I'm not afraid or I don't care? Yes, perhaps I do," replied Duane, with a note of thoughtfulness in her voice.

"But I don't mean that a bit. You do it just because you aren't afraid."

"Oh, am I not? I feel in an awful funk at times, but I should feel frightfully humiliated if I let anyone see or guess it."

There was another pause. Duane was evidently in a thoughtful and unusually serious mood, for she went on:

"I've an unfortunate manner, I believe, but I've been brought up to think it correct and couldn't get rid of it now if I wanted to try. I always ambled along here happily and serenely enough till all the Carslake Sixth-formers took it into their heads to leave and Prinny sent for me and informed me that she intended giving me the honour of the head prefectship. I funked it horribly, but Prinny was a dear and I had to take it on. Honestly, I meant to do my best, though I felt rather crushed. Do you remember that frightfully serious jaw Prinny gave us, the beginning of last term? But I'm terribly lazy, I know, and as I said, I've an unfortunate manner and I'm afraid I made a hopeless mess of things."

Duane gave her explanations with matter-of-fact, almost impersonal simplicity. Kitty's thoughts were in such a jumble that she hardly knew what to say. She felt she must say something of what was in her mind, though, so she blurted out:

"That's all nonsense. A mess, indeed! Look at Sports Day—look at the hockey match——"

"Oh well, I do happen to be fairly decent at hockey," said Duane curtly. "It's the one thing I'm proud of. But that doesn't make me a success as a head prefect, does it?"

"Success or not," returned Kitty, "the house has pulled itself together again, and taken up its proper place in the school, and the head prefect takes the glory as well as the responsibility. That's only fair."

Duane grunted.

"By the by, I've some news to tell you. I had a letter from Hilary this morning. The doctors think she had better not come back after all. Say she wants a complete rest from studies for at least a year, if her headaches are to be cured. Rough luck on Hilary, isn't it? She's keen on her work."

"Yes. I'm awfully sorry," said Kitty sincerely. "She was clever too, and a good sort."

"Oh yes, Hilary was always decent. Though I fancy she didn't quite approve of me. It's rather hard lines on you too, having your study-mate taken away. A pity!" with a mocking note in her voice, and the drawl back again. "But perhaps you can still put up with France and me."

"Yes. I'm sorry we took a dislike to each other at the beginning," said Kitty in a low voice.

"You did, you mean. I never disliked you."

Kitty looked surprised.

"Why yes, you did. Besides, don't you remember how I squeezed a sponge over you?"

"Oh, that! I thought it was frightful cheek on your part, but then, I've plenty of cheek myself."

"And when I challenged you to tennis?"

"And beat me? Did I look so furious?"

"You never turned a hair. But I thought you were simply wild, inwardly."

"Perhaps I was. But I hope I'm sportsman enough not to show it."

"Oh, you're a sportsman all right," said Kitty with conviction. "But if you didn't dislike me extremely, how did you feel about me?"

"Oh, I rather liked you when I first saw you. I thought you looked a decent sort and a thorough sport, and I said to myself that you'd make a welcome addition to the house. And then I saw that you disliked me for some reason or other—in fact, rather despised me—and so I just didn't care. I was rather sorry, but I wouldn't have let you see it for worlds. Perhaps, too, my pride was hurt."

"Yes, I did dislike you and feel rather—contemptuous," confessed Kitty, laughing under her breath. "You see, I'd never met anyone like you before. You were quite a new experience. It began when I first saw your name painted right across your trunk, 'The Hon. Duane l'Estrange Estevan,' and I said to myself, 'What a name!' I had a horror of anything aristocratic and a great contempt for laziness in any form whatever, and I thought you were both. I'm beginning to have my doubts about the laziness, however."

"We'll put it down to my 'unfortunate manner,'" conceded Duane generously, "though I won't deny it."

"Your manner is all that it should be," declared Kitty firmly, "so don't try to alter it. You couldn't be you without it. I was a silly fool."

"Then you really think that we might become quite good friends in time?"

Kitty flushed. "I'd be proud," she said in a low voice.

"And the Richoter? Have you forgotten that?"

Kitty's flush faded. Yes, strange to say, she had forgotten all about it. It had never once entered her head.

"Yes, I have. I don't care a hang about the Richoter," she replied sturdily.

Duane ran a gentle hand over the fair silky head nestling so confidingly against her shoulder, and a smile lit her eyes and then hovered on her lips—a smile that was strangely sweet.

"Yes, hang the Richoter!" she repeated softly.

A little later and all three girls were sleeping soundly. But the time when they needed all they had of pluck and endurance was yet to come. As the hours passed, the chill, raw, penetrating cold crept through the thin covering of straw and through their thick overcoats. They awoke in the early hours of the morning when it was still inky dark, cramped and cold right through. By the feeble light of the remaining lantern the mist could be seen hovering in greyish wisps in the bare hut. They tramped up and down the narrow space at their disposal and went through all the drill tables they could remember, to keep circulation flowing. The two older girls looked after the younger as best they could, realizing that she was not only the youngest but the frailest physically of the three. As Duane remarked cheerfully, she and Kitty were "as hard as nails."

The colder they grew, the higher Duane's spirits seemed to rise, and the more nonsense she talked. Kitty and Erica had not her aptitude in that way, but they showed their grit by their readiness to laugh. Kitty came to a better realization of the head prefect's character in those three hours before the dawn. The Australian had as much courage as any one, but the other girl's was of a kind she had not understood till now; it sprang from a pride that would meet danger or death with a laugh and a jest rather than a prayer; the same pride of race that sent the old French aristocrats to the guillotine as if they were driving to the King's levee at Versailles.

Erica, too, never murmured. Duane and Kitty declared she was a little brick.

The three hours seemed like years. At last, however, a faint grey light began to filter into hut. The girls crept out, with chattering teeth, and taking it in turns to carry the crippled Erica pick-a-back until they should find their bicycles, set off in search of the cart track that was their only guide.

CHAPTER XI

THE TRUTH OF IT ALL

The Principal received a telephone message in the morning from Frattenton, to the effect that the missing ones had arrived safely in the early hours, having spent the night in a shepherd's hut on the downs. Miss St. Leger, with a heart considerably lightened, recalled her search parties and sent back instructions for the girls to be brought to Easthampton by train, after they had been fed and cared for by the kindly owners of the George Inn at Frattenton. The school went in to afternoon lessons with the excitement of the morning calmed down, and a little later the three girls arrived.

Nurse insisted on sending Erica to bed at once, with hot blankets and bottles, but the two seniors protested that they felt none the worse for their adventure, for they had been given hot baths and had their clothes thoroughly dried at Frattenton. Indeed, they looked none the worse. Nurse gave in, on the condition that they went to bed early in the evening and had a "proper night's rest."

The two received a summons from the Principal to tea in her room.

"We're honoured," said Duane to Kitty with a laugh. "It's only on very special occasions that girls have tea with Prinny."

A few minutes later found them comfortably ensconced in easy chairs before a bright fire, in the Principal's charming little sitting-room, with cups of tea in their hands and plates of the same delicate and fragile china on their knees. The Principal talked to them pleasantly while they had tea, and Kitty thought what a charming woman she was; though, to be sure, nothing out of the ordinary to look at!

Then, after the maid had cleared the tea-things away, she drew a chair up next to Duane's and said with a sudden change to gravity:

"And now, Duane, for a very serious little talk. I want to know exactly what happened in this distressing affair of the Richoter examination. I know, of course, that there has been a good deal of trouble in the school over it and that you have been very much concerned in it. I want to hear your version of the affair—all you know about it."

Duane hesitated, looking perplexed. Miss St. Leger, who was watching her closely, went on quietly:

"Need I say that I already know almost all there is to know? The cycling expedition and its sequel have at last brought things to a head, I am thankful to say. I insisted on an explanation from Bertha, and under the circumstances she could do nothing but give me it: I have seen the note for her which Erica left behind. But I want your version of the story as well—all of it."

Duane drew a deep breath.

"I was hoping that it would never come out," she said with a faint smile, "and yet of course, now it has—well, I do feel relieved."

"Yes, I can quite realize that," said Miss St. Leger, somewhat dryly.

"You know who did it, then?" queried Duane.

Kitty was sitting forward in her chair, tense with eagerness. The mystery that had puzzled her and the rest of the school for so long, was to be revealed at last.

"Yes, little Erica Salter was the culprit."

Kitty uttered a cry of surprise.

"Erica Salter—that child!"

Duane nodded. "Yes."

"But surely—" stammered Kitty, "she could not think of such a thing herself. Why, what does a child like her know of chemistry experiments?"

"That is one of the little points I want Duane to make clear," put in Miss St. Leger. "Yes, Kitty can stay and hear, since I believe she also narrowly escaped serious trouble over the affair."

"Through my incorrigible laziness," added Duane, with a drawl in her voice. "How I blessed Miss Vacher at that moment for disturbing me!"

"Begin at the beginning," advised Miss St. Leger.

So the head prefect told her story, quite simply and with some embarrassment, her two listeners hanging intently upon every word.

It seemed that Erica, in her blind, childish adoration of the redoubtable Peggy O'Nell, regarded that rebel's natural enemy, the head prefect, in the light of a hateful tyrant. Her highly-coloured imagination, in fact, exaggerated and magnified the attempts of the prefect to put down the junior leader, and after the ordering-off of Peggy from the sports field, her seething indignation crystallized into a fierce determination to avenge the insult offered to that much-wronged damsel.

How this was to be accomplished she had no idea; probably her feelings would have calmed down before long without any harm whatever being done, but a few chance words from Bertha—words not said in a very kindly spirit—put the whole idea into her head, an idea which would otherwise have never entered it.

The Richoter candidates had been giving an account of their morning's experiences in the laboratory, when they left it for the dinner hour. Bertha, with Erica, had been among the listeners. Strolling off afterwards, the older girl, speaking her thoughts aloud, had said with a laugh:

"Now, a very simple way of upsetting any of their apple-carts would be to meddle with the balances just now. A little weight stuck underneath the pan with a piece of putty would do the trick. Simple but effective, eh?"

It had been carelessly spoken and Bertha did not dream that anyone had taken notice of her words, or in fact heard them, save her little sister; and Erica, fired by impulse, resolved in that way to avenge the wrongs done to Peggy and her confreres by the tyrannous head prefect, who was so mean and horrid to them.

It never occurred to Erica that the laboratory door might be carefully locked to ensure against any tampering with the unfinished experiments. A weight? A little piece of stone would do. Putty? A bit of plasticine out of one of the tins in her classroom, which was quite near the laboratory! The school-rooms would be deserted now; no one would see her. What could be simpler? And if Duane didn't get her experiment correct, it would serve her right. Oh yes, she deserved it all!

Had Erica paused to think, it would never have been done. But the blind impulse aroused by her passionate adoration of Peggy, drove her straight into the school and up the stairs towards the laboratory.

It was the most extraordinary coincidence that she should be following close on the heels of Kitty, intent on Miss Vacher's errand, though Erica was just too far behind to see her; and also a coincidence that Erica, slipping in noiselessly in her drill shoes (it had been drill last lesson that morning), should neither be seen nor heard by Kitty, who at that moment was at the other end of the room beyond the high-backed benches, pausing in the act of hunting for a clean pipette in order to gaze out of the window to see the reason for the loud noise of a motor engine misfiring on the country road outside. Neither knew of the other's presence. Erica had done her work in a few seconds and was gone before Kitty recrossed the room with the pipette, and left, locking the door again behind her.

But the point of the whole affair lay in the fact that Erica, who had not stopped to think, and was in such a state of agitation as hardly to know what she was doing, made a mistake over the balances and weighted Salome's instead of Duane's. She had heard Eileen describe herself as in the middle of the first bench near the door, with Salome on her right and Duane on her left, but she did not stop to consider which would be Eileen's right and which her left; there was the end of the bench conveniently just inside the door, and in her agitation it did not dawn upon her that Duane might be at the other end. "Which shows," Duane put in somewhat quaintly, "that she was not cut out for a conspirator, at any rate."

Then had come the inquiry in the hall and with it so complete a realization of the enormity of the thing which she had done, that the highly-strung, sensitive child, with visions of awful punishments floating before her eyes, could no more come forward and confess her guilt in front of them all than she could have taken wings and flown.

"Up to then," went on Duane, "I knew no more about the affair than any of you. All I knew was that the keys had never left my possession during the dinner interval save once. I had not done it myself; I could only think Kitty was the culprit. I am afraid," looking across at Kitty, "I did you an injustice there."

"And I," responded Kitty with a smile, "knew I hadn't done it, and I could only think you had. We were both mistaken. Of course, what put us all on the wrong track was the fact that it was Salome's balances that had been meddled with. She's so popular with all the girls. We could only put it down to motives of house jealousy."

"Well, up till the evening, as I said, I was as much in the dark as anyone," continued Duane, and went on to narrate how she had received a visit from Bertha and a white, trembling Erica, who had confessed to her older sister what she had done, knowing that Bertha would somehow help her. Bertha, startled and horrified, had sternly enjoined the younger child that on no account must she breathe a word of it to anyone else until she, Bertha, gave her permission. Bertha meant that it should never have been found out, if she could help it, no matter what happened.

But she had to do something to calm the frightened, conscience-stricken child. They could tell Duane, she said, and ask her advice. She was the one Erica had meant to injure.

So Bertha, in the interview that passed between the three girls, had paved the way by explaining that Erica was in trouble and wanted Duane's advice, but she must first promise not to say a word to anyone else. Duane, never dreaming what the trouble really was and thinking it was just some childish scrape Erica had been inveigled into, gave her word. Even she could not conceal her amazement and dismay when she heard the "confession." She was troubled and perplexed, more so than she had ever been in her life before, and did not know what she ought to do for the best. She tried to persuade the child to go to the Principal and confess, pointing out that Miss St. Leger could be trusted to understand and would not be harsh on her. Erica, however, in her over-wrought state, could not credit this.

On the other hand, Bertha, too, was fiercely determined that, if possible, it should never be known, pointing out that Erica was but a child and had not realized what she was doing, and that in time the whole affair would die down and be forgotten.

"It was Bertha's influence against mine," Duane explained, "and of course, Bertha's was the stronger."

Duane, moved by the pitifulness of the child's shrinking fear and whole-souled repentance to a tenderness which, in spite of all her faults, she was evidently capable of feeling, tried to comfort her, resolving that if Erica could not summon sufficient moral courage to confess, and if she felt happier in the knowledge that her wrong-doing would never become public, she, Duane, would help keep the secret.

The next day had been passed in the visit to the vicar's house, and Duane had heard nothing of the scene in the sports field, and the feeling against Kitty that had arisen.

On her return she had hurried straight from an interview with Miss Carslake to Paddy's mock trial, entering late and just in time to hear the charge against Kitty.

"I thought, of course," she explained, "that it was a deadly earnest affair, and I was so horror-struck that for once I lost my head completely. I don't know what I blurted out—something to the effect that I knew for certain Kitty had not done it——"

"In such a manner as to convince everyone that you were the conscience-stricken culprit yourself," finished off Miss St. Leger. "That was it, was it not?"

"Yes," admitted Duane. "Afterwards I knew I had made an ass of myself. Still, in a way I was glad, for if the girls had gone on believing Kitty guilty, it would have put me in an awful hole, knowing all the time that she wasn't. So I consoled myself with the reflection that it was all for the best."

"And were content to shield someone else at your own expense," said Miss St. Leger bluntly.

"Easiest way," returned Duane with a shrug. "I'm in the habit of choosing it."

"Sometimes, perhaps," said Miss St. Leger cautiously.

"Then what did you mean by saying you were sorry you had wronged me?" asked Kitty eagerly.

"Oh, I was merely referring to my wrongly believing that you were the culprit, the day before."

"And, of course, everybody took it in rather a different way."

"There isn't much more to be told," Duane continued. "I must admit it bothered me sometimes last term when I saw that Erica still worried over the affair, but I thought she'd get over it in time. But she didn't, and what happened yesterday was the result."

Miss St. Leger nodded gravely.

"I gather from this note that it was the hockey match that decided her." She glanced again at the note in her hand, and read it out:

"DEAR BERTHA,

"I can't stand it any longer, having people think Duane did it and knowing all the time it was me. But I'm not brave enough to confess to everyone, and so I'm going to run away home this afternoon. I'm going to try and slip away from the others and get a train at Frattenton. Gracie Morris whose home is at Frattenton told me the way. I am sorry. I hate myself for being such a coward. But after yesterday afternoon I felt I just couldn't go on being such a little pig, though Duane says it's all right and I mustn't worry my head about her. Please will you tell them all about everything after I have gone.

"Your loving sister,
            "ERICA."

There was a short silence. Then Duane said slowly:

"I'm glad she tried to own up at last. You know, I think she would have done so long ago if it hadn't been for Bertha. She's got heaps of physical courage."

There was a very kind look in the Principal's eyes as she turned towards Duane, and laying her hand on the girl's shoulder, said gently:

"So am I. But I don't think it was altogether by herself that she decided to own up. I think someone helped her, if unconsciously."

Duane looked puzzled.

"How do you mean, Miss St. Leger?"

"Why, I think in the end it was your influence and not Bertha's, that proved the stronger."

"I should jolly well think so," added Kitty emphatically.

Duane flushed and looked uncomfortable. She had told her story with brief simplicity, plainly and unvarnishedly—not as it has been related here. But her two listeners, knowing the dramatis personæ so well, had imagined clearly and vividly all the details and side issues that Duane had mentioned so baldly. The girl had, to a great extent, dropped her flippant, blasé manner to tell the story. Now, for a moment she succeeded in throwing off the reserve in which she had been trained to hide her emotions, as she had done before Kitty in the hut last night.

"I—Miss St. Leger, perhaps I made an awful mess of things," she said in a low voice. "When you talked to me that day you asked me to—to take on the head prefectship, and I promised you I would do my best for the house. I honestly meant it. I—it made me feel a bit sore sometimes, when I could see quite plainly I wasn't succeeding, and how the girls disliked me——"

"Yes, I know," interrupted Miss St. Leger. "But you remember that I told you, knowing well enough your task was a difficult one, that if the juniors were insulting or refused to acknowledge your authority in any way, or if you found yourself in difficulties, you were to come to me and I would settle things for you. As you never came, perhaps I hardly realized how badly things were going sometimes."

Kitty broke in, with a chuckle, "Duane wouldn't ask for help from a soul. I know her and her pig-headed pride by now. If she were dying she'd never admit herself beaten."

"But I did," said Duane, smiling. "The Richoter complicated things a bit, and, frankly, I didn't want to come to you about it, Miss St. Leger——"

"No," interrupted the Principal. "As I said before, you were so busy shielding that child at your own expense that you didn't want me to smell a rat. For I shouldn't and didn't believe it of you, you know. You have been long enough in the school for me to know you, and what you are and are not capable of doing, pretty well by now. However, I believe you had a partiality for the child and that prejudiced you."

"But one couldn't help being sorry for her, Miss St. Leger. It seemed so absurd to hold her responsible. She's such a tender-hearted, timid little thing really. She wouldn't hurt a fly if she could help it."

"But I could be trusted to see that too," remarked the Principal, somewhat dryly.

"Oh yes, Miss St. Leger," replied Duane quickly and with an eagerness that was almost passionate. "Of course, I knew that. If it had only rested with you! But it was the publicity that would have followed that the child couldn't have faced, the realization that everyone in the school knew and somehow despised her. She thought all the girls would be simply disgusted with her. I couldn't make her believe anything else."

"The truth is," said Miss St. Leger, "that you are much too soft-hearted for your job."

"I soft-hearted!" Duane exclaimed indignantly. "Whatever next! But anyway," with a mischievous gleam in her grey eyes, "I did realize my limitations, Miss St. Leger. I was reduced to sending in my resignation at one time, and you know you refused to accept it."

"We were a lot of idiots," Kitty interposed with much vigour. "I was a new girl, it is true, but the others ought to have known you were far and away above doing a petty, spiteful thing like that." Needless to say, Kitty was referring to the Richoter trouble.

Miss St. Leger rose.

"Well, I'm not going to keep you here any longer. The girls will be dying to see you again and hear about your adventures. Besides, Nurse is going to pack you off to bed early. Duane, I think Miss Carslake is anxious to see you for a few minutes, so you had better go there first and then come along to the hall."

As Duane disappeared the Principal turned to Kitty.

"You can come along with me, Kitty. I gave orders for the girls to assemble in hall after tea. We shall find them there now."

Kitty understood without being told that she meant to make a public announcement concerning the Richoter examination.

When they arrived they found the girls waiting. The Principal motioned Kitty to follow her upon the dais, turned to the sea of expectant, upturned faces, and addressed them briefly.

"I want a misunderstanding cleared up this evening, girls, a misunderstanding that has been amongst us too long. You have for a long time been treating one amongst you with grave injustice. I am, of course, referring to Duane. May I state most emphatically that the two girls upon whom suspicion appeared to rest for attempting to spoil Constance's chances in the Richoter examination are both quite innocent. We have just discovered the whole truth of the matter."

There was a stir among the crowd of girls, a quick intake of breath. They had naturally guessed that there was something more than met the eye in this last mysterious affair in which, it was whispered, Bertha's little sister Erica had tried to run away from school, and Duane and Kitty had gone after her. Now, at last, they were going to know everything.

The Principal's face had been softened by a smile. "You'll be rather surprised to hear that I'm not going into any long explanations myself. I'm going to leave Kitty, here, to do that. She's an authority on the subject, having had first hand information, and I fancy she'll plead Duane's cause better than I could. I'll give you till prep time, girls, and when prep bell rings the prefects will see you all go quietly to your classrooms as usual. Is that understood?"

There was a prompt and eager chorus of "Yes, Miss St. Leger," and the Principal took her departure, still with that half-smile about her lips.

Kitty found her task strangely congenial, and though according to her own statements she believed in deeds and not words, on this occasion she found it surprisingly easy to be fluent. Perhaps the breathless interest with which she was listened to, broken only by eager questions from one or other of the girls, spurred her on. Not until every smallest detail was described to them were her hearers satisfied.

"I tell you what," announced Paddy loudly, when Kitty had finally come to a full stop. "There's no getting away from the fact, you girls, that we've treated Cato pretty shabbily."

Paddy's remark was unnecessarily obvious. The girls, big and little, looked at each other rather shamefacedly, and were all of the same opinion. Peggy was expressing herself forcibly to her followers:

"Come to think of it, we are rather a lot of chumps, you kids. As if a girl who played the game like Duane did in that match against the school, could do a mean trick like that!"

Then Salome had sprung upon the dais and was speaking:

"There's just another thing, girls. As it happens, far more fuss has been made over the affair that it—it deserves. We must remember that Erica Salter is little more than a child, and did not realize fully what she was doing. I am sure, by Kitty's account, she has suffered enough, and we mustn't be hard on her. The best thing to do is to put the whole affair away and forget it as quickly as we can." She paused a moment, then had one of the "nice" ideas that were part of the secret of Salome's well-deserved popularity, and concluded with a smile, "We won't be nasty to little Erica, if it's only out of regard for all the trouble Duane's taken to try and keep her from being unhappy and miserable."

Everybody signified their assent by stamping on the floor, and Vanda, as a head prefect, also thought it the proper thing to add her opinion:

"We shall have to make it up a bit to Duane for treating her so shabbily, shan't we?"

"Rather!" came an enthusiastic chorus from everybody.

Then Kitty had an inspiration.

"I say, girls, I've got a brain-wave. Duane'll be coming along in a minute, you know, when Miss Carslake's finished with her. Isn't there a match against St. Magdalene's to-morrow?" and Kitty proceeded to impart her "brain-wave" to her interested audience.

When Duane, a little later, strolled into the hall with leisurely step and tranquil mien, and found the whole school assembled there and regarding her with ludicrously solemn, immovable faces, a little of her coolness deserted her. She eyed them uneasily for a moment. Why this remarkable silence? Why did they all stare at her so hard?

Then Salome called from the dais at the top end of the room:

"Oh, is it you, Duane? Just the person we want. Come along up here. We have a little business transaction to carry out."

Duane recovered her customary calm, and, mounting the dais, bowed exaggeratedly to Salome.

"Well met by gaslight, proud Titania."

Somebody giggled, then subsided with a little squeak.

Salome looked at Duane. "The school sports club have great pleasure in presenting you with this," she said gravely and very distinctly. "They have also put your name down in the eleven for the match against St. Mary Magdalene's to-morrow, and hope you will play. They also wish me to say," and there was a slight tremor in her voice, "that they are quite convinced that you have always worn it with honour in the past, and they know you will continue to do so in the future."

The tension relaxed with a tumultuous burst of applause. Duane, her old hockey colour tightly clutched in the hand that hung at her side, bit her lip hard to control its trembling. But only for the moment. With the loud, delighted yells of "Speech, Speech!" from everybody sounding on all sides, she turned and faced them, speaking in the old familiar drawl as soon as the noise had died down.

"I see by your anxiety to hear me that you are well aware I speak with authority and not as the scribes"—loud cheers—"or perhaps I should say, the juniors—but on this occasion I'm not going to say much. I will convince the hockey club of my earnestness by the number of goals I shall score on its behalf to-morrow. When they see shots falling about the St. Mary's goalkeeper like—like leaves in autumn——"

Everybody, amid laughter, realized that it was apparently the same old Cato talking and not some unfamiliar heroine of fiction. The rest of the speech was never heard, for someone struck up "For she's a jolly good fellow," and they continued it till prep bell put an end to the din.

Smiles and kindly words were seen everywhere in Carslake's that evening. Kitty and Duane were actually going in to supper arm-in-arm; France and Margaret beamed with delight at everybody. The girls in Dormitory A were squabbling as to who should fetch their head prefect's hot water, but Duane settled the matter by asking Erica if she wouldn't mind doing it, and as Erica took the jug, a happier look on her face than there had been for many a week, no one said an ungenerous word or gave her an unkind look.

When Miss Carslake came round to switch off the lights there was a very hearty "Good night" in response to hers, and the house mistress went on her way happily conscious that one could say of her house at last, "All's well."

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