"Oh, do stop, Avis! You make the place quite damp. No one would think it was your fourth term. I hope you've brought a macintosh pillow, if you're going to turn on the waterworks like this. Wipe your eyes, and have a peppermint cream. I always take them when I feel homesick. There's nothing does one so much good."

The speaker was a merry, bonny-looking girl of perhaps fifteen, with bright brown eyes, a clear complexion, a freckled nose, very white teeth, and curly brown hair tied with a red ribbon. Patty thought she must surely have spent all her pocket money at the confectioner's before she came away—such endless packets of sweets came out of the Gladstone bag which she held on her knee, and disappeared with such startling rapidity that Dr. Hirst looked on in horror.

"I got hold of my eldest brother," she explained to a companion. "I told him I shouldn't be allowed a solitary chocolate drop at The Priory, and how I should be simply yearning even for treacle toffee. He laughed, and said I should have a good time before I got there, at any rate, so we went into town, and he bought me absolutely anything I wanted. Have another caramel, Winnie? It's no use keeping them. Miss Rowe'll confiscate them all if she finds them in my bag. You won't have the chance of any more sweets for thirteen weeks, remember!"

"Not unless she can manage to get up a cough," said a girl whom the others addressed as Ida, "and it depends whether you like Miss Lincoln's cough drops or not. I think they're hateful myself, and taste like medicine, but Dorothy Dawson loves them. She made her throat quite sore one day last term with trying to cough all through the history class, and Miss Lincoln didn't give her any after all. She only told her to go and take a glass of water. Dolly was so disgusted! No, thanks, Enid! I really can't manage another. There are limits, you know, even for me."

"But we simply must finish them up."

"Then finish them yourself."

"She'll be ill if she does," said the short, rosy-faced girl called Winnie. "I don't believe you've stopped eating sweets, Enid, since you got into the train. You'll have a horrible headache to-morrow, see if you don't!"

"I'll call it homesickness if I do," laughed Enid, "and then everybody will sympathize with me. Look here, Avis, if you insist on crying over the window curtains you'll take the colour out of them, and the company will bring an action for damages. They're so dusty, too. Your face is all in streaks of black. Let me rub it off for you. Winnie, lend me your bottle of eau de Cologne, that's a dear. I have a clean handkerchief here. That's better. Now do cheer up, and put your hat straight; we shall be there in about five minutes."

Patty sat surveying these new girl comrades with deep interest. Avis and Enid particularly claimed her attention. She had a kindred feeling for the grief of the one, and the lively manner and bright chat of the other were attractive, while a look in the merry brown eyes, when they happened to glance her way, made her think their owner would be willing to make friends. There was no opportunity, however, to speak, and the train having reached Morton, everyone turned out in a hurry. In the bustle of collecting handbags and umbrellas and identifying her own box from the huge pile of similar luggage on the platform, she lost sight of her fellow-travellers, and only thought she noticed Enid's blue dress disappearing inside a station omnibus, and Winnie's black hat whisk past her in a closely packed landau.

"Muriel was to arrive by the earlier train," said Dr. Hirst, as he put Patty's belongings into a cab. "No doubt we shall find her waiting for us at The Priory. What a number of girls! And everyone seems to have brought a hockey stick. We shall have to ask Miss Lincoln to get one for you, Patty. If the pretty, dark girl who was in our compartment isn't ill to-morrow, I shall be much surprised. I'm sure she deserves to be. If I were her medical man, I should order her a dose of rhubarb and sal volatile. She's going to call it homesickness, the young rascal, is she? She looks as if she could be ready to play pranks. If they would consult me, I'd soon find a cure!" And the doctor chuckled with amusement at the idea.

The Priory was about a mile away from the railway station, and it was with a beating heart and a queer lump in her throat that Patty found herself stepping from the cab and alighting at a great doorway ornamented with ecclesiastical carvings, and, giving a hasty glance round a courtyard where girls of various ages seemed already to be collected, realized that she had at length reached school. In the fourteenth century Morton Priory had been a monastery of the Franciscan order, and it now seemed a strange irony of fate that feminine petticoats should reign supreme within the very walls where the grey brothers had lived in such seclusion. The old refectory where they had dined, and the cloister where they had been wont to meditate, were now given up to a lively, laughing crew of girls, whose serge skirts and white blouses among the quaint surroundings made a curious blending of ancient and modern. What remained of the monastic building occupied one side of a large quadrangle, while the other three sides were taken up with modern additions, erected, however, in such excellent taste, and so closely in accordance with the architecture of the older portion, that the whole had a strictly mediæval appearance. In the centre of the courtyard was a pretty Italian garden, with neat box edgings, where stood the sundial which had marked the hours for the monks who once paced there, and still remained an old-world protest against the big clock in the tower over the gymnasium that set the time for the clanging school bell. Situated in the midst of beautiful scenery, the large grounds formed a little self-contained kingdom, shut off from the rest of the world: the numerous tennis courts and the playing fields provided ample space for outdoor sports; the home farm supplied milk, butter, and eggs; the kitchen garden grew the fruit and vegetables; while a small sanatorium in a breezy corner ensured a safe retreat for anyone who happened to be placed upon the sick list.

Parents were received in the library by Miss Lincoln, who spoke a few pleasant words to Dr. and Mrs. Hirst about Patty's education and attainments, and then, as other visitors arrived, passed them on to an under-mistress, who took them to have tea in the drawing-room, and afterwards showed them round the school. To Patty, fresh from Miss Dawson's modest arrangements, it seemed indeed a new world, and she looked with eager eyes at the classrooms with their Girton desks, their maps and their blackboards, the studio with its array of casts, models, and easels, the row of little practising rooms, each with piano, music stool, and a chair for the teacher; and she gazed almost with awe at the laboratory with its mysterious bottles and retorts, and the gymnasium fitted with ropes, bars, and other appliances as yet unknown to her. Her bag was already placed on the chair in her neat cubicle, though her box had not been carried upstairs, and her mother was able to note with approval the excellent arrangements of the bedroom, curtained off as it was into four parts.

"I'm sorry you will not be with your cousin," said Mrs. Hirst, "but no doubt you'll soon get to know your room mates. I should like to see Muriel before we go. I wonder where she is! We must be quick, as we have only ten minutes left before we must start again to the station."

Miss Graveson, the mistress, volunteered to send in search of her, and a girl started on an urgent hunt through the school; but evidently it was a difficult task, for it