going home for the week-ends."

"For the week-ends? Heavens! You don't mean to say you're a weekly boarder?"

"Why not?"

An expression of deep consternation spread over the faces of Avelyn's four room-mates. Their disapproval was evident, and they voiced their objections.

"We've never had such a thing as a weekly boarder before!"

"You'll be away all Saturdays and Sundays!"

"You'll be out of all the fun!"

"Almost as bad as being a day girl!"

"Miss Thompson said once that she didn't approve of weekly boarders."

"I can't understand Tommiekins, she's changed so lately."

"Have you ever been to school before?"

"Why, yes," replied Avelyn, smoothing out the folds of her evening dress, and hanging it on the hooks behind the curtain. "Though not since last Christmas."

"To boarding school?"

"No; it was a day school."

"Where?"

"I went to The Hawthorns in Harlingden."

If a bomb had fallen in the dormitory it could not have caused a greater upheaval. For a moment the girls stared at Avelyn as if scarcely crediting her statement.

"Do you mean to say you're one of those wretched Hawthorners?" exploded Janet at last.

"I used to be, but I suppose I'm a Silversider now."

"And we've got you in our dormitory!" gasped Laura.

"So it seems."

"Miss Thompson ought to be thoroughly ashamed of herself!" fluttered Ethelberga.

"You'll be rid of me on Saturday and Sunday, remember," returned Avelyn bitterly.

At this crisis, the clamour of the gong for tea fortunately put an end to an extremely embarrassing situation. The four room-mates fled, leaving their new companion to follow them to the dining-room as best she could. When she entered, they were already seated at table, and did not look in her direction. She took a seat next to a complete stranger, who indeed handed her the bread and butter, but vouchsafed no single word of conversation.

When the meal was over, the original inmates of the Cowslip Room retired to a secluded portion of the garden, and held an indignation meeting. For the first frenzied five minutes they allowed their wrath full swing, and vibrated between a dormitory strike and writing to their parents to beg for instant removal from the school. Then reason reasserted itself, and decided the impracticability of both methods. Previous experience had shown them that their head mistress was a tough dragon to tackle, and scarcely likely to be coerced by even the best organized dormitory strike, while in her heart of hearts each knew that, after paying her term's fees in advance, her father would need some very solid cause of complaint to justify so extreme a measure as a return to the bosom of the family. They began to discuss the matter more sanely.

"The fact is, she's here, and I suppose we can't get rid of her," admitted Irma.

"After all, she's a boarder!" ventured Ethelberga.

"Only a weekly one," qualified Janet.

"And a Hawthorner!" added Laura.

"She said she hadn't been to school since last Christmas," commented Ethelberga.

"Why, so she did! Then she's had a sort of a break from The Hawthorns, and in a way she's making a fresh start here."

"I suppose so."

"If she'd be loyal to Silverside, though we could never like her, we might bring ourselves to tolerate her."

"A boarder's a boarder!"

When the girls returned to the Cowslip Room, they found their new companion with emptied box putting the last of her possessions into her drawers.

"Look here, Avelyn Watson," said Laura. "We've been talking you over. Although you go home for the week end, you're still a boarder, and at Silverside boarders are a very different thing from day girls, as you'll soon find out. If you've had two whole terms away from those Hawthorners, just forget them, and consider yourself entirely one of us. If you do that, we'll count you on our side; but if you've anything to do with day girls, we'll cut you dead."

"I don't quite understand," returned Avelyn.

"You soon will!" said Janet significantly.

"I advise you to think it over," added Laura.

CHAPTER II
An Invasion

The changes which were taking place this term at Silverside certainly marked a new era in its traditions. Up till now it had been essentially a boarding school. There had, indeed, been day girls, who had shared the classes and some of the games, but they were in the minority, both in numbers and in influence. They had had no part in the various guilds and societies, and had been made by the boarders to feel that they were inferior beings who did not count. The mistresses, themselves resident, had been accustomed to view the boarders as the more important factors, and arranged everything to suit their convenience. It had been the unwritten code of the school that to be a boarder meant to procure preferential treatment.

Miss Thompson, however, was a level-headed woman, who marched with the times. When the opportunity arose of acquiring the connection of The Hawthorns, the large day school at the other side of the town, she closed with the bargain, and decided upon an entire change of tactics. Henceforward Silverside was to be run as the girls' day school of Harlingden. The house was large, its accommodation had hitherto exceeded the needs of the pupils, there was plenty of room for added numbers, and even in war-time it would be possible to run up a corrugated iron or portable wooden building to serve as lecture hall and gymnasium. The big garden already contained several tennis courts, and there was a field close at hand which might be rented for hockey. Altogether, Miss Thompson congratulated herself that she had performed a most excellent stroke of business, and she looked forward to establishing a very flourishing educational centre, and to laying by a comfortable provision upon which she might retire when the burden of teaching grew too heavy for her to bear.

Certainly, Silverside was most excellently situated for the purpose she had in view. The property had been bought some years before the town of Harlingden had expanded, and while land was still cheap. The house stood in its own beautiful grounds, on the top of a hill commanding a fine view over the estuary. It was breezy and healthy, with large lofty rooms, big windows, and ample accommodation in the way of side doors and bathrooms: just sufficiently in the country to allow of walks through fields and woods, yet near enough to the town to permit most girls to return home for their mid-day dinners. As a day school, it was far more conveniently situated than The Hawthorns. Harlingden, formerly a moderate-sized and not particularly important town, had since the outbreak of the war been turned into a great munition centre; the Government, attracted by the advantages of the estuary, had established large permanent works there, together with a shipbuilding industry. In a few short years the population had doubled. Fresh suburbs sprang up like mushrooms. In the Silverside district this was particularly noticeable, for where formerly there had been quite a rural walk between hedges, leading to the town, there now stood rows of neat villas with stuccoed fronts and balconies, and conspicuously new gardens.

The boarders at Silverside, who preferred country to town, greatly deplored this suburban growth. They had always begged to take their walks in an opposite direction, and had ignored Harlingden and its industries as persistently as possible. The advent of about fifty day girls into Silverside they regarded as neither more nor less than an alien invasion.