confided the whole of the affair to Marion, who was breezily sympathetic.

"How stupid and unenlightened!" raged her chum. "They ought to have been only too pleased to have the nursery so improved. Your stencil work's lovely. There isn't a girl in the school who can do it half so well. I'll tell you what. I've got an idea! An absolute brain wave. The walls of Va are colourwashed. Why don't you go to Miss Tatham and ask her to let you stencil them? It would be a boon to the form."

"O-o-o-h! I daren't!"

"Why not? She's rubbed in self-expression and here you are wanting to express yourself."

"So I am—in stencil work."

"I'll go with you to the study if you like."

"I wish you would. I'd never have the courage to march in alone. Suppose she thinks it cool cheek and absolutely withers me?"

"Then you'll be a faded flower, a broken butterfly, a crushed worm," laughed Marion. "Come along. Nothing venture nothing win. I'll guarantee Tatie won't eat you."

Miss Tatham, sitting in the sanctum of her study with a pile of exercise books on the desk before her, gasped a little when Lesbia advanced her idea. This was self-expression with a vengeance. Rather a startling proposal certainly, yet it seemed to show such initiative that it was a hopeful sign of progress under the new régime.

"I'll consider it, Lesbia," she said thoughtfully. "I must see some of your stencil work first, and have a talk with Miss Joyce. I'm always glad when girls wish to do anything for the school, but, of course, the quality of the work must be very high before it's worthy of a place in a form room."

"Lesbia's the oldest pupil at the school," ventured Marion rather inconsequently.

"That unfortunately doesn't guarantee proficiency in Art," twinkled Miss Tatham; "if everything went by seniority there would be no prizes."

Feeling half-crushed and half-encouraged Lesbia beat a retreat, expecting to hear nothing more about the matter, and doubting whether she had done herself any good at head-quarters. Miss Tatham, however, examined her work privately, and after a long talk with Miss Joyce summoned Lesbia to the study and announced that she would be allowed to stencil a border in Va under the close superintendence of the Art Mistress. This was indeed a triumph for Lesbia. Her disappointment about the dado for the nursery faded into nothingness now that she might actually decorate her own form room. Fortunately for her peace of mind she had no rivals in her own particular field. The only other girls in Va who took stencilling were Lizzie Logan and Laura Birkshaw, and both were such hopeless amateurs at it that they realized their own lack of skill, and would never have ventured to touch the schoolroom walls. Grace Stirling of the Sixth, however, and Alice Orton in Vb, were so fired with enthusiasm that they later asked and received permission to perform the same artistic service for their own forms. Lesbia was the pioneer, however, and won considerable credit for the idea, though she had the honesty to tell everybody that the original suggestion was Marion's.

Of course, the first and most thrilling step was to choose a good design. Both Lesbia and Miss Joyce decided that it ought to be original, and that they would evolve it between them.

"I have all sorts of sketches at my studio that would be helpful," said Miss Joyce. "Suppose you come back with me one day after school, and we'll look them over."

"Oh, may I?" said Lesbia, delighted. "Thanks immensely."

So on the following Thursday at four o'clock, instead of walking home to Denham Terrace, she turned into the town instead. Miss Joyce had a studio in Pilgrims' Inn Chambers, a collection of rooms let as offices and flats in a big old house near the river. In pre-Reformation times it had been a hostelry for the use of pilgrims, who came to visit the miraculous shrine at the little chapel on the bridge, and since then it had passed through many vicissitudes and had fallen on evil days, till a public-spirited citizen had taken compassion on its dilapidated condition and had bought it, caused it to be carefully restored, and had let it to various tenants. It was a beautiful example of mediæval architecture, and its quaint gables and timbered walls were built round a courtyard of cobbled stones. Lesbia, passing under a carved doorway and up a black oak staircase, felt as if she stepped into an atmosphere of five or six hundred years ago. Miss Joyce's studio was a large, quaint room with a raftered roof of ancient beams, and had latticed windows at either end, looking out upon the courtyard and upon the river. She held classes here for several kinds of art work, and tables were covered with specimens of her own or her pupils' paintings and handicrafts. Lesbia stared, fascinated by the display, and Miss Joyce left her to look round while she lighted a gas ring, put on a kettle and took some cups and saucers from a cupboard.

"We must have studio tea before we do anything," she decreed. "I always need tea horribly at this hour of the day, and I'm very cross if I can't get it. Take that comfy chair, Lesbia. We'll go through the designs afterwards."

"What a heavenly room!" said Lesbia, leaning back in a picturesque wicker armchair and holding a pale-yellow teacup in her hand, and a plate with a slice of walnut-cake on her knee. "It's too delightful and quaint for words. Are you here most of the day? Lucky you!"

"I have my classes at the High School, of course, but I give most of my lessons here, and do my own work too. Sometimes when I'm very busy and want to stay late I even sleep here. I have a little bedroom through that doorway."

"Sleep here! All alone! Aren't you frightened?"

"Not a bit."

"I should be scared to death. The whole place feels haunted. At midnight I'm sure it would be full of ghosts."

"I've never seen or heard any of them yet," smiled Miss Joyce. "If they're here they don't disturb me at any rate. I'm a sound sleeper and I never think about them. Now, I'm afraid we must hurry and look over our designs, for I have a class coming at half-past five."

"And I'm wasting your precious time," said Lesbia, springing up.

"Not at all. I should have had tea in any case. I told you I can't get on without it."

Miss Joyce had studied design, and had a big portfolio of drawings put away in a corner. She lifted it on to a table, and she and Lesbia went through its contents carefully. They were lost in choice between poppyheads, almond blossom, vine leaves, ivy, brier rose and irises, but finally decided to adapt a painting of water-lilies for their purpose.

"Lotus blooms were a great feature of decorative art in ancient Egypt," said Miss Joyce, hunting through a book on "Egyptian ornament" to demonstrate her point. "Look at this delicious little bit! With the long stems and the leaves and the seed vessels we ought to be able to manage something satisfactory. I'll bring the painting and the book to school, then we must evolve a simple design that we can cut in stencil. Done in dull green on the pale green colourwash I flatter ourselves it ought to look rather artistic."

"It'll be simply topping. How I shall enjoy dabbing it on! Thanks a million times for helping. Is this a pupil coming?" (as a suggestive tap sounded on the door). "Then I must take my books and scoot off. Good-bye—and again thank you awfully!"