she had tuned it, as reverently for its own sake. It was a rare old instrument of sweetest tone and almost unconsciously Dorothy tried one theme after another upon it while Miss Hexam leaned back in her chair listening and motionless.

Into that playing the young musician put all the love and homesickness of her own heart. It seemed as if she were back at Deerhurst, with the Great Danes lying on the rug at her feet and dear Aunt Betty resting before the fire. Then, when memory threatened to bring the tears she was determined should not fall, she stopped, laid the violin silently upon the table and slipped out of the room, leaving Miss Hexam still motionless in her chair.

But she would have been surprised had she looked back into the “inquisition chamber” a few moments later to see the “inquisitor” arouse, seize a sheet of paper and rapidly write a few lines upon it. But the few lines were important. They gave a synopsis of Dorothy’s scholarship and accomplishments, and unerringly assigned her to “Form IVb, class of Miss Aldrich.”

The “terrible exam” was over and Dorothy hadn’t known a thing about it!

Outside that little parlor another surprise awaited her. A crowd of girls was racing madly down the hall, the foremost looking backward as she ran and roughly colliding with Dorothy; with the result that both fell; while the others, following in such speed, were unable to check in time to prevent their tumbling over the first pair. Then such shrieks of laughter rang out that the teachers in the nearby classrooms came to their doors in haste.

Even they were obliged to smile over the heap of girls and the tangle of legs and arms as the fallen ones strove to extricate themselves. They were all in gymnasium-costume and were bound for a side door of the building which led by a short cut to the gymnasium in the Annex.

This was Dorothy’s introduction to the “Commons,” the largest and wildest “set” in the great school. They were all daughters of good families but of no “rank” or titles; and there was an abiding opposition among them to the “Peers,” the smaller “set” of aristocrats to which the Honorable Gwendolyn Borst-Kennard and Lady Marjorie Lancaster belonged. Mostly the “Commons” were a rollicking company, going to the extreme limits of behavior where any fun promised to follow, yet mostly keeping just safely within rules. Their escapades kept the faculty in considerable anxiety as to what they would do next, yet their very gayety was the life of Oak Knowe and even the Lady Principal was secretly fonder of them than of the more dignified “Peers.”

As they now scrambled to their feet, she who had run against Dorothy heartily apologized, yet paused half-way in that apology to stare and remark:

“Why, heigho, there! I thought you were a Minim, you’re so little. But I fancy you’re a newcomer whom I don’t know. Please explain; are you ‘Peer’ or ‘Lower House’?”

Dorothy laughed:

“‘Lower House,’ I thought when you knocked me down, whatever that may be.”

“It means—is your father an Earl? or your mother a Duchess? Have you an Honorable amongst you? You hold your curly head as if you might have all three!”

All the girls had now gathered about the stranger whom their leader was so unceremoniously quizzing and were eagerly inspecting her, but somehow Dorothy did not resent the scrutiny. There were big girls and little ones, fat girls and thin ones, plain and pretty, but each so good-natured looking and so friendly in her curiosity that Dolly’s own spirits rose in response to their liveliness.

“No, indeed! I’m just a plain American girl and prouder of that than of any title in the world. You see, all of us are queens in our own right!” answered the newcomer, promptly.

“Well, come on then; you belong to us and we all belong to the queen. Queen, what shall we call you? Where do you hail from?”

“My home is in Baltimore, and my name is Dorothy Calvert.”

“Then you must be a sort of ‘Peer’ after all. I hate history, but I remember about that, for Lord Baltimore and Calvert are the same thing, I fancy. I’m sorry. I hoped you belonged to our ‘set’ and weren’t an aristocrat.”

“But I’m not, I’m not!” protested Dorothy. “I do belong to you, I want to because you look so friendly and I need friends dreadfully. I’m so lonely, or I was. I’ve just come, you know.”

“Have you been ‘inquisitioned’ yet?”

“I don’t understand.”

The questioner explained, and Dorothy exclaimed:

“Oh! I think that’s cruel! Miss Hexam is perfectly lovely!”

“So do we think, course, and she doesn’t mind the nickname. It was first given her by a silly Seventh Form girl who thought she was all ready for the University yet failed to pass even a Fifth Form exam. I guess you’ll not be put to study to-day, so best come over to the gym with us. What stunts can you do?”

“None. But I’ve told you my name and you haven’t told yours. Thank you, though, for asking me. I’m so glad to go.”

“Oh! you poor little lonesome Queen Baltimore! I’m Winifred Christie; this freckle face is Fannie Dimock; Annie Dow wears that blue bow in her hair; Florita Sheraton is the fat one; Ernesta Smith the thin; Bessie Walters—well, no need to point out Bessie. She’s the nimblest girl in the gym. We here extend the freedom of the Lower House; and all in favor of grabbing this Yankee into our set before the other set catches her, say—Aye!”

“Aye—aye—aye!” endorsed the motion and Dorothy clapped her hands over her ears, to keep out the ear-splitting shouts. How these girls dared make such an uproar amazed her; but she did not yet know that in the “long recess,” now passing, much liberty was permitted and that a noise which did not interfere with study hours was not reprimanded.

“It’s the overflow of natural spirits and inevitable in the young,” was one of the Bishop’s beliefs, and not even the Lady Principal disputed his authority.

“Come on, Queenie, and be put through your paces!” cried Winifred, throwing her arm around Dorothy’s shoulders and forcibly racing her out of doors and across the lawn toward the gymnasium.

But arrived there only one or two of the group attempted any exercise. The rest settled around Dorothy, whom the athletic Winifred had tossed upward upon the back of the wooden horse, and, with her arms folded upon the newcomer’s knees, this leader of the “Commons” proceeded to cross-question her victim.