only four?"

"Why, so there are! What a hateful cram! Who's to have the fifth?"

"I asked Hopscotch, and she said, 'A new girl.' I couldn't help flying out at that, and she simply sat flat upon me and withered me. Told me to go away and mind my own business, and she was coming round to inspect the Cowslip Room in half an hour, and I'd better get on with my unpacking."

"Oh, she will! Why didn't you tell us that before?" exclaimed the others, bouncing up with considerable haste, and setting to work again to empty their boxes.

"I forgot. I can think of nothing but those wretched Hawthorners. It's made me feel weak."

"You'll feel weaker still if Hopscotch comes in and finds you with nothing unpacked!" observed Laura sagely, stowing underclothes in her middle drawer with the utmost rapidity. "I advise you to make some sort of a beginning, even if you don't put things away tidily. Fling them in anyhow, stick a blouse for a top layer, and straighten them up afterwards. Don't let her see them still inside your box."

For a few minutes the girls suspended talk for work. Laura's flaxen head vibrated between box and wardrobe. Janet arranged her dressing-table and replaited her dark pigtail. Ethelberga hung up a selection of photographs, and placed her nightdress inside its case; Irma spread her bed with her possessions, preparatory to filling her drawers, and comforted her ruffled feelings with the last pear-drop in the paper bag she had brought with her.

The dormitory was of fair size, and though the girls might grumble, contained ample space for the fifth bed. It was a pretty room with a yellow wall-paper, and chintz curtains with little bunches of cowslips on them. There were pictures of cowslips also on the walls, and all the pin-cushions and hair-tidies had yellow ribbons. The window looked over the garden, and behind the belt of trees that bordered the lawn gleamed the grey waters of the estuary, where ships were stealing out from port into the dangers of the great waters. The girls prided themselves upon this view, though at the present moment they were too busy to think of it. Three years' previous experience had taught them that, when Miss Hopkins made a tour of inspection on the first afternoon of term, she meant business, and woe betide the luckless slacker who had gossiped and dawdled instead of bestowing her property in her own lawful drawers. If she had announced her intention of visiting them shortly, she might certainly be trusted to keep her word.

Their expectations were not mistaken, for before the half-hour had expired the door opened, revealing the short stout figure and rather angular features of the second mistress. The girls jumped up and stood obediently at attention, ready to go through the usual routine of dormitory superintendence. Miss Hopkins, however, was not alone. In her wake followed a girl of fifteen, whom she bustled in, in a hurry.

"This is your dormitory, Avelyn—the Cowslip Room, we call it. Here's your bed, and these are your dress hooks and your drawers. The janitor's bringing your box upstairs. Oh, he's here now! Put it at the end of the bed, Tom, please. I suppose you have the key, Avelyn? Then you'd better unlock it at once. These are your room-mates—Laura Talbot, Irma Ridley, Janet Duncan, and Ethelberga Carnforth. Girls, this is Avelyn Watson. I hope you will make her welcome. Begin your unpacking now, Avelyn. I shall be back directly to see how you are getting on."

Miss Hopkins, whose duties on the first day of term were multifarious, withdrew as hurriedly as she had entered. Her visits generally resembled the brief career of a whirlwind—sometimes her pupils considered that they carried equal desolation.

The new girl remained standing by the bed, and for the moment made no effort to obey orders and unlock her box. She was pretty—her four critics decided that point at their first glance—her chin was softly rounded, and her nose was small and straight. Her general colouring was brunette, but the big wide-open eyes were grey as the estuary outside. She flushed vivid pink under the scrutiny of her room-mates. For a brief instant they thought she was going to cry, then she winked rapidly and began to whistle instead.

"I shouldn't advise you to whistle too loud," counselled Janet, by way of breaking the ice.

"Miss Hopkins is only in the next dormitory, and she's got a crusade on against whistling—at least she had last term, and I don't suppose she's changed her tactics; she doesn't generally."

"Do the eternal snows change?" murmured Ethelberga.

The new girl stopped with her mouth puckered into a button. A look of consternation spread over her face, then passed into a smile.

"I was told I'd have to be jolly careful and mind my p's and q's here!" she remarked cheerily. "I've been just five minutes in the school, and my first impressions are that Miss Thompson aims at unadulterated dignity, and that Miss Hopkins is concentrated essence of fuss. Am I near?"

"Not so far off!" laughed Laura. "They can exchange characters sometimes, though. I've seen Miss Hopkins ride her high horse and be dignity personified, and on the other hand I've seen Miss Thompson more ruffled than a head mistress has any business to be. You'll soon get to know them."

"I suppose I shall. Whether I shall altogether like them is another question."

"You'll like Silverside!" gushed Irma. "It's a perfectly delightful school—at least it used to be. We're afraid it is going to be utterly and entirely spoilt now."

"Why?"

"Because it's being invaded. It used to be quite small and select, more boarders than day girls, you know. And now we've just had a horrible shock—the whole of another day school is being plumped upon us—a school we've always despised. We're too indignant for words."

Avelyn, who was fumbling with the lock of her box, lifted her head.

"Don't you like them coming?"

"Like them! Sophonisba! How can you ask such a question? We've always looked down on them so fearfully. Why, if we met any of them in the street, we used just to stare straight through them, as if they didn't exist. They wore dark-blue coats and horrid stiff sailor hats with coloured bands, for all the world like an institution. I tell you we simply wouldn't have touched them."

"You'll have to know them now."

"To a certain extent, worse luck! But they needn't think we'll be friendly with them, for we shan't. We shall keep a strict line drawn."

Avelyn had lifted the tray of her box on to the floor, and was busy taking books from the bottom portion. She was too intent on her occupation to reply. Irma, whose writing pad and fountain pen had just come to hand, was hastily scribbling a letter home; Ethelberga, leaning out of the window, exchanged greetings with a schoolmate in the garden below; Janet's vision was focused on her drawers; and Laura had just come across the postcard album, which she was afraid she had forgotten to pack, and was rejoicing in its possession. For five minutes or so the girls were engrossed with their own affairs, then the attention of the room was concentrated again on Avelyn.

"You haven't told us yet where you live," said Laura, looking up suddenly from the contemplation of post cards.

"My home is at Lyngates just now."

"Where's Lyngates?"

"About twenty miles from here."

"You say 'just now'. Haven't you lived there long?"

"Only since last spring."

"You've brought very few clothes and things with you," commented Irma, who had been watching the unpacking of the new girl's box with critical eyes. "You'll never get through a term on those, I should say."

"There isn't any need to bring so many things when I'm