indeed!"

"We're here, and the school is as much ours as theirs!"

"Our old set will follow us, and not care a toss about the prefects!"

Adah and her fellow-officers had indeed made a terrible mistake by their superior and patronizing ways. Instead of welding the school into one, as Miss Thompson had hoped and intended, they had entirely alienated the new element and had set up a most unhappy barrier of division. Silverside resolved itself into two parties, each apparently determined to misunderstand the other, and obstinately resolute not to mix. Miss Thompson, anxiously watching the result of her experiment, saw only the surface of things, for most of the trouble lay below, deeper than the ken of head mistresses. The teachers were aware of an undercurrent of discontent, but could not absolutely discover the reason. Only the girls themselves knew that the school was split into rival factions, between whom there was going to be war.

CHAPTER III
Walden

As Avelyn Watson is one of the central figures of this story, it will be well to go back some months, and follow the events which preceded her appearance at Silverside. Though apparently trivial enough, they are important, because if they had not happened, she would have come to school as a day girl instead of a boarder, and the part which fate put into her hands to play could never have been acted.

It all began with Daphne forgetting to change her wet stockings. Daphne had done many imprudent things before, and had suffered more or less from them. This time Dame Nature, tired of having her laws flouted, determined to teach her a lesson. The specialist who was called in to consult with the family doctor made an exhaustive examination of the case, then pronounced his verdict.

"She mustn't live in the town. If you want her to grow up into healthy womanhood, a year or two in the country is an imperative necessity."

Up to the time when Sir Basil Hunter delivered this ultimatum, the Watsons had always lived in Harlingden. Daphne and Avelyn could remember the old days when Daddy had been alive, and Mother's hair had been brown and not grey; and she had laughed as gaily and easily as they did now. That was many years ago, and to David and Anthony, at any rate, their father was little more than an enlarged photograph on the dining-room wall. They had all been born in the comfortable, commonplace house in Gerrard Square, and had taken it and its uninteresting view, and its smoky little garden, together with the round of town life, entirely for granted. Then the change came. Mrs. Watson, thoroughly alarmed at the doctor's diagnosis, and nervous over the health of her whole family, took immediate steps to carry out his advice. She let the house in Gerrard Square, and removed into the country. The place she selected was a tiny village named Lyngates, two miles from the station at Netherton, and twenty miles away from Harlingden. Its pure air, gravel soil, and record of sunshine were exactly what Daphne required; the boys could go in to town every day by train, and thus continue at King James's School, and Avelyn, who was sufficiently like Daphne to make the fatigue of a daily train journey seem a risky experiment, could be sent as a weekly boarder to Silverside.

By a most fortunate chance, Mrs. Watson came across the very little property she wanted. It was an old farm-house, with a few outbuildings at the back, and a field or two for poultry—the doctor had suggested that Daphne should interest herself in poultry. It was smaller by far than No. 7 Gerrard Square, but big enough for their requirements.

"With present war prices, and income-tax what it is, and four children to educate, I consider I'm very wise to make the move," she decided, "though I should never have had the courage to do it if Sir Basil Hunter hadn't been so emphatic."

So the house, gardens, outbuildings, and fields that composed the small holding were bought and paid for, and formally transferred by deed from their former owner, George Hethersedge, yeoman, to the possession of Helena Watson, widow, and the bargain was complete. That it was a bargain the children had no doubt. So many extra things were included that were never even mentioned in the title-deeds—the thrushes and blackbirds and tits in the garden, the wagtails that flitted up and down the little stream, the owls that sat and hooted in the elm tree at dusk, the wild bees' nest in the bank, the ferns in the crannies of the old wall, the morning view when the sun shone over the valley, and the calm, quiet sunsets when the sky was aflame with rose and violet. It was the most exciting experience to explore their new kingdom. They were always making fresh discoveries. Up till now, beyond their annual summer holiday at some seaside resort, they had had no practical knowledge of the country. To live side by side with Nature was like being transferred into another world.

To Mrs. Watson, no less than to her children, the change was welcome. She had often pored over Nature books from the library, and they had been wont to stir in her a vague yearning to get away from bricks and mortar and chimneys, and spend a sylvan year somewhere far from the sound of trams or steam hooters. She chafed sometimes against the monotony of her daily shopping and household cares. She longed for lanes and woods, but there seldom seemed time to go for walks at Harlingden; it was a long way from Gerrard Square into the fields. We are such creatures of habit, that it had never struck her to uproot herself and reorder the lives of herself and her children; and if Daphne had not forgotten her galoshes, and thus brought about the visit of Sir Basil Hunter, the family might have remained town birds to the end of the chapter. As it was, they stepped into a fresh inheritance. They named the house "Walden", after Thoreau's famous Walden, a book which her mother loved, and which Avelyn was just beginning to read and appreciate; the magic of its radiant love of Nature, and the breadth of its philosophy appealed to her strongly.

Though the Watsons' Walden was quite unpretentious, it was certainly more comfortable than the shanty in Concord, Massachusetts, where Henry David Thoreau spent his immortal two years and two months. There was a sitting-room on each side of the little hall, a big kitchen and pantry behind, and four bedrooms upstairs. Outside, across the yard, was a cottage, with a lower room which could be used as a den for fretwork, painting, carpentering, or the pursuit of any other cherished hobbies, and an upper storey containing two extra bedrooms for emergencies. The stable and barn were interesting, and held dim, cobwebby recesses, where bats hung head downwards, and a brown owl sometimes perched blinking upon the cross-beams.

In front was a small raised garden, bordered by a very wide ivy-covered stone wall. The house stood on the slope of a steep hill, so that this wall overtopped the road below like a crag. When you leaned your arms on its golden sweet-scented ivy blossom, or sombre berries and smooth leaves, you could look out over a tract of country that spread for miles—green meadows, hazel copses bursting into leaf, thick woods that hid the stream whose rushing waters yet made themselves heard, the reedy reaches of a river, and fir-clad hills that melted faint and blue into a misty horizon. There was a patch of gravel in front of the wall, and a rustic garden seat, dilapidated, but firm enough for occupation. The site made a natural outdoor parlour: a yew tree, grown slantwise with the prevailing wind, formed an umbrella