For the School Colours

When a girl visited the town, she was given one of these forms, duly filled in by the Principal, without whose signature it was not valid. The system, perhaps, savoured of red tape, but it saved the mistresses the trouble of enquiring from head-quarters who were to compose their parties. Avelyn looked critically and covetously at the exeats. Each represented so much fun to one girl. A sudden idea struck her. She laughed aloud at the thought of it, and yielding to the impulse, counted out four of the forms, and popped them into her pocket. Then she fled back to the waiting Miss Kennedy with Volume III of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

Wednesday afternoons at Silverside were chiefly devoted to optional subjects. The violin master came to give lessons, and several girls whose spines were suspected of symptoms of crookedness, did special physical exercises under the eye of a gymnastic teacher. The elocution pupils met in the Sixth Form room, and learned to recite Shakespeare, while those who were taking oil-painting wended their way to the studio. Those unfortunates whose parents did not rise to "extras" were herded together in the dining-room, regardless of forms, and did plain sewing or printing. A band of privileged boarders, under guardianship of a mistress, started at 2.30 for the dissipations of the city. Now at 2.15 Avelyn was due for her music lesson. She put her pieces and studies into her case, washed her hands carefully, retied her hair ribbon, scented her pocket-handkerchief, and sauntered down the corridor. She paused for a moment at the door of the Fifth Form room, then entered. Laura Talbot was sitting disconsolately on one of the desks, girding at life to a sympathetic audience. Avelyn thrust the four exeat forms into her hand, and remarked:

"For the Cowslip Room! And I've got to go to my music lesson! Isn't it hard luck! Ta-ta! I'm late as it is, and Mr. Harrison gets baity if he's kept waiting."

Laura stared at the forms for a moment, utterly staggered, then incomprehension changed to joy, and she jumped from the desk.

"Irma! Janet! Ethelberga! We've got exeats! Oh, jubilate! Scurry quick and get ready! We've only just time to change our things. Oh, I say! To think of seeing 'The Temple Bells' after all!"

An agitated ten minutes followed, in which the four girls almost tumbled over one another in the hurry of making their toilets. Laura put on her best hat and birthday furs, Ethelberga sported a bracelet, Irma, after foraging at the back of her top drawer, was distinctly seen to abstract a powder puff and apply it to the tip of her nose, Janet tried to coax her fingers into new gloves a quarter of a size too small, there was an unlocking of cashboxes and a taking out of money. At the eleventh hour they sped down the stairs into the hall. The little party of elect were drawn up ready to go, and only waiting for Miss Peters. That lady had been impeded in her dressing, and consequently came hurrying up, very much flustered.

She was a gentle, fair-haired, middle-aged, depressed little person, who had been pitchforked into teaching against her will. Her weak point was discipline, and the girls knew it, and took base advantage. Now, instead of forming an orderly crocodile, they clustered round her, clamouring all sorts of requests for things they wanted to do in town.

"If there's time! Dear me, I don't know! I can't promise anything! It will all depend!" replied the harassed mistress.

She collected the exeats and counted them automatically. In her flurry she never noticed that four of them were not filled in with names or signed. Laura had handed them to her without herself noticing the omission. There was nobody to rectify the mistake, so the four room-mates, in most exuberant spirits, started in the crocodile for Harlingden. They accomplished a few purchases in the town, but poor Miss Peters found it so difficult to keep her flock together, that she was forced to abandon the shops, and suggested the cinema. She considered her rôle of duenna anything but an enviable position, and would willingly, that afternoon, have exchanged jobs with a charwoman. She breathed more freely when she had piloted her lively young charges up the stairs at the picture palace, and ensconced them in a giggling double row in the balcony. For a blissful hour and a half they would be out of mischief, with eyes fixed only on the marvellous scenes from India.

Meantime, while Laura, Irma, Janet, and Ethelberga were staring fascinated at the bewildering East, following the heroine through a series of dazzling adventures, things at Silverside were taking a prosaic and totally different turn. It happened that Irma and Janet, whose French recitations that morning had been a dismal failure, were due in the Fourth Form room that afternoon to say their returned poetry lesson to Mademoiselle. She waited a quarter of an hour for them, then, as they did not turn up, she instituted enquiries. Several reliable witnesses informed her that they had been seen (and envied) departing with the crocodile for Harlingden. Mademoiselle's temper was naturally peppery, and under such provocation as this she burst forth in great indignation:

"What! Go out to pleasure when I tell them to come and say lessons to me! It is what you call the limit! Of what use to try to teach, if they are to do only what they like? I go straight to tell Miss Thompson!"

Mademoiselle was brimming over with wrath, and poured out her complaints vehemently in the study. The Principal's lips tightened as she listened.

"I did not give exeats to Janet and Irma. This shall be enquired into, Mademoiselle," she replied.

Miss Thompson meant what she said. When the crocodile returned from Harlingden, she was waiting in the hall, and ordered Laura, Irma, Janet, and Ethelberga to report themselves in her study. The scene which followed was short and stormy. The girls, whose minds had scarcely yet become detached from Indian jungles and Hindoo palaces, were suddenly accused of having played truant. They denied in toto, pleading that they had exeats.

"Where did you get these exeats?" demanded Miss Thompson sternly.

"They were handed to us in the schoolroom."

"By whom?"

With one consent the girls hesitated. They did not wish to throw the blame upon Avelyn.

"You refuse to tell me?" said the Principal. "Very well, you may go to the First Form room, where your tea will be sent to you. I shall sift the matter thoroughly after preparation. It is disgraceful that such a thing should happen at Silverside."

When preparation was over that evening, the boarders were ordered to assemble in the big schoolroom. They went in much astonishment, wondering for what reason they were thus summoned. A whisper got about that four girls were in trouble, but on what exact count nobody seemed to know.

They had scarcely taken their places when Miss Thompson entered. She looked worried and serious. A decorous silence pervaded the room. Everyone was alert with expectation and intense interest. There was a sensation as when thunder is in the air. After an impressive pause, the Principal, standing so that her eyes scanned all the faces fronting her, stated the case briefly.

"A thing has occurred to-day which has never happened here before. Four girls went into Harlingden without leave. They tell me that they were handed exeats by a schoolfellow, and believed that they had my permission for the holiday. I have examined the exeats that were given in to Miss Peters, and find that four of them are unsigned. I can only conclude that somebody must have taken these exeats from my study. I intend to find out who that person is. Can anybody give any information on the subject?"

There was absolute stillness in the room. Every girl looked at her neighbour. Avelyn sat as if petrified. Until that moment it had never struck her that her practical joke might have any serious issue. She had not expected her room-mates to believe that the exeats were genuine. She thought that when they looked at them they would notice at once that they were unsigned, and therefore not valid. It was incredible that Miss Peters should also have accepted them. What was intended for a piece of silly fun had assumed the aspect of a very grave fault.

"I will ask Miss Peters to tell us what she knows," said Miss Thompson, turning to the mistress.

Miss Peters, much worried and embarrassed, could only state that she had counted the exeats, which tallied with the number of girls she had taken in to town. In her hurry she had not examined every paper, and could not say whether they were signed or not. It was an unpleasant situation for the poor governess. She was conscious that she had been slack in the performance of her duties, and that it was owing to her negligence that the affair had been possible. Though the Principal did not openly blame her, she felt that she stood reproved before the school. Laura, Janet, Irma, and Ethelberga sat overwhelmed and injured, but stubbornly determined not to betray their room-mate. They felt that they would rather take the blame themselves than sneak.

"I give you all one last chance," said Miss Thompson. "Can any girl throw a light on this unfortunate affair?"

The head mistress spoke clearly and slowly. Her glance passed along row after row of young faces, as if she would read their very souls. A minute of ghastly quiet followed, a horrible minute that seemed as long as a year. Then Avelyn rose. She was very pale, and stood erect with her head thrown a little back.

"I think I can clear it up, Miss Thompson," she answered, in a voice that was steady, but full of suppressed emotion. "It was I who gave out those exeats."

"You, Avelyn Watson! And on what authority? From where did you get them?"

"From your study table."

"From my study table!" repeated Miss Thompson, her manner growing still more grave. "What were you doing in my study?"

Avelyn was thoroughly ashamed of herself, but she did not hesitate.

"I was sent to fetch a book. I saw the exeats lying on the table, and I took four of them to give to the girls. I meant it as a joke. I did not think they would believe they were real ones."

A murmur of amazement, almost a laugh, circulated through the room. Miss Thompson checked it sternly.

"Do you understand, Avelyn Watson, what a liberty you have taken? You were sent into my study for a certain purpose, and you took advantage of the privilege of entering my room to peruse the papers on my desk, and to steal—yes, I use the word deliberately—to steal some of them. I don't know how you view such conduct, but at Silverside we consider it utterly unworthy of a lady. You owe me an instant apology."

Avelyn writhed under her mistress's scathing words. "I'm very sorry, Miss Thompson. I never thought of it as anything but a joke. I apologize most sincerely. I didn't mean to get anybody into trouble."

The Principal looked searchingly at Avelyn.

"You have been guilty of a very grave breach of discipline," she replied. "I accept your apology because you have spoken up and confessed, but I cannot let such an episode go unpunished. Until you return home on Friday afternoon you are not to speak to a single girl in the school. You will attend classes as usual, but you will take your meals in the studio, and will sit alone there during recreation hours. You are also prohibited from writing any letters, or taking any books from the library. You may spend your time upon your lessons. Go to the studio now, and your supper will be brought to you. I put every girl on her honour not to speak or write to Avelyn Watson until next Monday."

Avelyn walked out of the room quite steadily, but with downcast eyes. She had the feeling of one who has fallen suddenly into a pit. It was a horrible experience to be there arraigned, tried, and found guilty before all her companions. Miss Thompson's sarcastic comments hurt her more than the punishment. She spent the rest of the evening alone in the studio, and was left there half an hour beyond her usual bedtime. When she went at last to her own dormitory the other girls were in bed, and feigned to be asleep. Miss Kennedy came in first thing in the morning, and told her that she must dress in the bath-room. All day long her "Coventry" was preserved. The girls, indeed, cast surreptitious glances of sympathy at her, but they were on their honour not to speak or write, and they did not break their word. It was a hard penance to sit by herself, without even a story-book to amuse her. She felt specially lonely after four o'clock, when she knew her friends would be laughing and chatting together round the fire, and perhaps roasting chestnuts.

The studio was not a particularly cheerful room for solitary confinement. As the dusk closed in, the casts loomed like white ghosts from the corners, and she could almost fancy that the eyes of the plaster Venus deliberately winked at her. She had no matches, and nobody came in to light the gas. She had not even the satisfaction of a fire to poke, for the studio was heated with hot-water pipes. She did not expect her tea to be brought to her before 5.30.

"If I weren't going home to-morrow I don't know what I should do," she thought. "Thank goodness I'm only a weekly boarder! I do think they might have come and lit the gas."

The room was getting more and more dim, and Avelyn's spirits fell in exact ratio. She was beginning to feel an almost superstitious horror of the plaster Venus. Suppose it were to come to life, like Pygmalion's statue of Galatea? The bare fancy gave her shivers, and a sudden sound made her turn with a start. It was nothing less than an unmistakable tap on the outside of the window. Avelyn's nerves were strung at highest pitch. She almost screamed aloud. Peering in through the darkness was a face. She forced herself to approach and look, and with a revulsion of feeling recognized the enquiring countenance of her brother David, with his freckled nose pressed flat against the glass. He tapped again, and she opened the window.

"Dave! You mascot! How did you get here?"

"Climbed up the spout!" chuckled David. "It was quite easy. Move out of the way! I'm coming in."

He dropped inside the room, then turning to the window again, gave a soft whistle.

"Tony's down below," he explained, "and he'll swarm up too, now I've given him the signal. I'll just lend him a hand over that last piece of coping. Here he is! Come on, old chap! We've struck the right shanty after all. Told you you might trust your grandfather!"

Anthony made his appearance with equal caution. His round face was wreathed in delighted smiles.

"It was a little difficult to fix exactly which window," he volunteered.

"But how did you know I was here?" asked Avelyn ecstatically.

"We met Pamela at the station, and she told us all about it. So, instead of going home by the 4.45, we thought we'd come up and see how you were getting on."

"We made Pam describe which room you were in," added David. "I say, it's a bit of beastly bad luck for you! Pretty stiff, I call it, to be shut up here!"

"It's too ghastly for words!"

"Cheer oh! We've brought you something. Look!" David felt in his pocket, and produced a paper bag full of toffee and a copy of Tit Bits. "It'll do to read. We'd have got you more, only we didn't happen to have much money with us."

"It was lucky we met Pam before we got into the train," commented Anthony. "We were earlier than usual at the station to-day. As a rule we tear up at the last moment."

"It was ripping of you to come!"

"Well, we couldn't desert you, old sport, at such a pinch."

"I don't believe anyone could have such decent brothers." Avelyn gazed at him through the gathering darkness with admiration.

At that moment a tread of footsteps and a rattle of crockery sounded in the passage.

"Goody! It's my tea coming!" she gasped.

There was not time for the boys to make their exit through the window. While the door handle was turning they fled to what cover they could find. David took shelter behind the pedestal of Apollo, and Anthony crouched in a corner among some drawing boards. Fortunately it was Miss Dickens who entered, and Miss Dickens was short-sighted.

"Take this tray from me, Avelyn," she commanded. "Dear me, you're all in the dark here! Has nobody been to light the gas yet?"

"No, Miss Dickens."

"I must fetch some matches, then. Be careful not to upset that tray as you put it down."

The second her back was turned the boys flew to the window, and, dropping out one after the other, made their way safely down the spout into the garden below, whence they waved parting salutations, and retreated with all speed. Avelyn had just time to hide the toffee and the Tit Bits before Miss Dickens returned with the matches and lit the gas. She assumed an air of appropriate subjection and melancholy before her mistress, which at the moment she certainly did not experience.

Until four o'clock on Friday her punishment continued. Not a single word was exchanged between herself and her schoolfellows. She had never felt so glad to go home. The week-end made a break, and when she returned to school on Monday she found herself apparently forgiven at head-quarters, and no more a black sheep, but an ordinary member of society. Her room-mates' attitude was a mixture of admiration and gratitude.

"You're the limit, Ave!" said Irma.

"I'd never have thought of it myself," admitted Janet.

"It was such a topping idea!" chuckled Laura.

"And we all got just the very time of our lives at 'The Temple Bells', thanks to you!" added Ethelberga.

"But I never intended it for anything but a joke!" protested Avelyn.

CHAPTER XI
Moss Cottage

Avelyn was a girl who loved sometimes to be quite alone. She had a favourite seat on the orchard wall among the ivy, where she would curl herself up with her back against an apple tree and watch the landscape below. So changeful and wonderful were the effects of storm and sunshine over this valley, that it never looked for one half-hour the same. Sometimes there would be sunrise tints of rose and violet, sometimes a soft yellow haze, sometimes storm-clouds would roll from end to end, or perhaps a magnificent rainbow would span the gorge like an ethereal bridge, or, grander still, the lightning would flash its wicked forks over the hills from summit to base, gleaming against a background of inky darkness.

The very air at Walden seemed softer than at Harlingden. It was a mild autumn; leaves lingered long on the trees and made the woods gorgeous, and traveller's-joy hung in exuberant masses over the hedgerows, like a soft silver cloud trying to veil the growing bareness beneath.

One Saturday early in December Avelyn started off to see Pamela. It was some distance to Moss Cottage, and, instead of walking by the high road, she meant to take a path that led up the gorge and across the hill. It was a glorious morning; a grey wind-swept sky showed, here and there, bright patches of blue between the masses of heavy clouds that were rolling down from the hill-tops like smoke from a cauldron, and fitful gleams of sunshine, bursting out in wonderful brilliance, made marvellous effects of light and shadow. The river, winding slowly through the marsh lands, was now vivid blue, now inky purple, as it reflected the clouds or the sunshine; a mass of larch-clad hill-side showed dark in contrast to the red of the ploughed field on its summit, which was catching the light descending in rays from one bright patch above. In a few moments all had changed: the larches were tipped with gold, the marsh lands were purest emerald, and the hills veiled in filmy mists floating like threads of gossamer down the slopes. Avelyn turned from this wide prospect and plunged up the glen, with her face towards the hill whence the mist was rolling. Ages ago a glacier must have slidden down there, and left its mark on the huge boulders which lay scattered everywhere around. Over this rough bed a stream, swollen by days of incessant rain, thundered along, its brown, peat-stained waters churned to the whitest spray as it forced its way in leaping cataracts over the rocks. Stepping-stones, which could be easily crossed in July, were deep under feet of foam, and the lower boughs of the trees were washed and swayed by the flood. It was so sheltered that the gale, which had stripped the leaves on the hill-side above, had spared enough here to tint the gorge with gold and brown. Some of the oaks were still green; a birch displayed the purest Naples yellow; low-growing mountain ashes and alders had kept their summer clothing intact, and the thick undergrowth of briar and bramble was verdant as ever. Even more beautiful, perhaps, were the bare boughs of the hazel copse, the exquisite tender shades of which were such a subtle blending of purples and greys as to defy the most cunning brush that artist ever wielded, and, contrasted with an occasional pine, or holly, or ivy tree, made a dream of delicate colour.

The boulders were almost completely covered with vivid green mosses, in sheets so thick and deep and compact that a slight pull would raise a yard at a time. Here and there among them were tiny bright red toadstools, or some of the larger purple or orange varieties that had lingered on since October. On a hazel twig Avelyn found the curious birds'-nest fungus, with its tiny eggs packed neatly inside. The day was so mild that a squirrel was taking a whiff of fresh air, waving his feathery tail from a fir tree overhead, but at the sight of a human being he disappeared suddenly into a hollow in a big tree, where no doubt he had established cosy winter quarters. There were few birds—perhaps they did not like the dampness or the roar of the water—but Avelyn caught sight of a dipper darting down the stream, a flight of long-tailed tits twittering noisily for a moment or two on a tree-top, and a heron sailing majestically towards the mountains. On the brambles the unpicked blackberries still hung ripe, though so absolutely sodden and tasteless that they were not worth the eating; there was even a spray of blossom left here and there. A branch of scarlet hips shone brightly in the sunlight; the birds, sated with yew berries, had spared it thus far, and it rivalled the holly on the bush close by, while trails of bryony berries repeated the colour with varieties of lemon and orange. There were a few wild flowers, even in December—a belated foxglove, a clump of ragwort, a blue harebell, or a stray specimen of buttercup, campion, herb robert, yarrow, thistle, and actually a strawberry blossom. The tall equisetum lingered on the boggy bank, and ferns were everywhere green; great clumps of the common polypody clung to the tree-trunks and flourished on boughs high overhead, and under the rocks grew the delicate fronds of the English maidenhair, or the rarer beech fern.

Avelyn had at last reached the waterfall. The great white cascade leaped over a ledge of rock, and dashed with such thundering force into the pool below that all the air around was filled with floating mist on which the sun formed a dancing rainbow. As each neighbourhood has its own distinctive scent, so each stream has its own peculiar sound, as if it would give us some message that it has no words to convey. The little gurgling brook tries to tell us cheery things; the slow-flowing river has a sadder story; the trout stream babbles kindly hopes. To Avelyn the leaping, rushing cascade, with its whirl of living, dashing foam, seemed to be calling out in a voice that rose and fell with the roar of the waters: "Therefore with Angels and Archangels, and with all the company of Heaven, we laud and magnify Thy glorious name".

She stood a long time gazing at the foam and the mist and the rainbow, then she turned and plunged up among the trees to the head of the glen. Looking back she felt as if she had held Nature, or something bigger than Nature, tight by the hand.

From the top of the gorge was an easy walk across fields to Moss Cottage. In spite of the bright morning the little house looked gloomy among the trees. It always struck Avelyn with an air of extreme melancholy. She was almost morbidly sensitive to impressions. She decided that she would not go to the front door, because she would then be certain to see Pamela's mother, and somehow she felt rather frightened of poor, quiet, retiring Mrs. Reynolds. She knew that her friend would probably be at work in the garden, so she tacked into the wood and climbed the palings at the back. Only half of the ground behind the cottage had as yet been brought into cultivation, and the part where Avelyn descended was still a wilderness. There were large rocks and tangled masses of brambles, and faded clumps of ragwort and teasel, and yellow bracken stumps. Not far away, however, was a newly-dug border, with a spade lying on the ground, and Pamela's hat. Pamela herself was not to be seen, but surely she must be somewhere near. Avelyn prowled about in search of her. She did not want to go up to the cottage, and decided that if her friend were indoors she would wait until she came out again. Possibly she might be in the hen-house. That was certainly an alternative. She had heard Pamela mention hens. In the distance some roofs were visible which looked like outbuildings. She went to investigate. Right in the far corner of the garden, almost indeed in the wood itself, and thickly embedded in trees, she came upon a ramshackle, tumble-down, two-storied kind of stable. A giant oak, shrouded with ivy, stretched out long protecting arms and almost hid it from view; the roof was built against the very bole of the tree, whose branches sheltered the windows. Was Pamela here? Avelyn gave a long coo-e-e and called her name. The next moment a startled face looked out from the upper window.

"Hallo, Pam!" shouted Avelyn gleefully, "I've unearthed you at last, old sport!"

"Wait a sec. I'll come down," returned her friend in a cautious voice.

Pamela appeared from out the stable door, with a rainbow face in which storm and sunshine seemed to be struggling.

"I never expected to see you, Ave! Have you dropped from the skies?"

"No, climbed over the palings. I thought I'd be sure to find you somewhere about in the garden. I saw your hat, and went to look for you."

"Yes. I was gardening."

"Is this your hen-house?"

"No, it's not the hen-house, it's—just a kind of stable."

"It reminds me of the Swiss Family Robinson, or Robin Hood's shanty in the depths of Sherwood Forest. You could climb up that tree if you got on to the roof."

As Avelyn's eyes glanced up the bole of the huge oak Pamela's followed with a look of strained anxiety. She laid her hand on her friend's arm and drew her inside the stable. She seemed ill at ease.

"What's the matter, Pam?"

"Oh, nothing!"

"You're not yourself at all."

"Yes, indeed I am."

"I don't believe you're pleased to see me!"

"Ave! I've been dreaming of you all the morning."

"Then what is it?"

Pamela was silent.

"Something's worrying you. I can see that plainly enough."

"Yes. I own I'm worried."

"Won't you tell me?"

"I can't."

"Is it a secret?"

"It is just at present. I want to think it over."

While she spoke Pamela kept glancing anxiously out at the door. She suddenly turned with frightened eyes.

"Ave! Uncle Fritz is coming! You must hide, quick! He mustn't catch you here for all the world! Run behind this stall. Don't move till he's gone."

She hustled Avelyn into the darkest corner of the stable, then herself sat down on the foot of the ladder that led to the floor above. A sound of footsteps brushing the grass was heard from outside, and in another moment Mr. Hockheimer entered.

"What are you doing down here?" he asked sharply. "I told you to stop upstairs."

"I've only just come down."

"Any message?"

"No, none at all."

"One might come just when you are fooling about here," he frowned. "Why don't you do as I tell you?"

Avelyn, crouched under the manger, could not see his face, but she could hear the bullying tone in his voice.

"Do you think I feed you and educate you for you to do just as you like?" continued Mr. Hockheimer angrily. "What would become of you if it weren't for me, I should like to know? Another time when I set you to do anything you'll do it, or I'll know the reason why. Here, get up and let me pass!"

He pulled her roughly off the ladder and walked up himself. His footsteps creaked on the boarded floor above, then all was silence. Pamela crept softly up the ladder, peeped into the room above, and descended as quietly as she came; then, crossing to the stall where Avelyn was hidden, put her finger on her lips for silence and beckoned her friend towards the door. She led her hurriedly along the garden. Neither spoke a word till they reached the palings.

"I'm awfully sorry I came, Pam!" apologized Avelyn.

"Never mind, you couldn't help it. How should you know Uncle Fritz would be here?"

"I certainly shouldn't have come if I had known."

"Who would? Ave, have you ever seen a little wild linnet get into a bird-catcher's net?"

"No."

"I have. It runs and struggles and beats its wings, and the more it tries to escape the worse it gets caught in the meshes. Ave, at present I feel like that linnet."

"Can't I help you, Pam?"

"Not yet. I want to think. When I really feel you can help me, I shall come and ask you. You wouldn't fail me?"

"I'd help you for all I'm worth, if it's against your uncle."

Pamela's eyes filled with tears.

"I'm so utterly alone," she faltered. "Mother doesn't understand. Since Father died she has never cared for anything. She's content to live here on Uncle's bounty. She's so absolutely trusting and unsuspicious, just like a child. I never can get her to see things as I do. Although I'm hardly fourteen, I often feel that I know more of the world than she does. Just at present Mother is going about with her eyes closed."

"And you?"

"I'm keeping my eyes particularly wide open, and my mouth tight shut," replied Pamela, as she kissed her friend good-bye and helped her to climb the palings.

Avelyn went home very thoughtfully. She found the boys digging in the kitchen garden, and confided to them her morning's experience. They decided that something mysterious must be going on at Moss Cottage.

"It looks fishy!" said David, slowly scraping the earth off his boots with the edge of his spade.

"What has that old Hun got up his sleeve?" enquired Anthony, shaking his head.

"I don't know. After what we saw in the wood I'd believe anything of him."

"Shall we tell the Vicar, or somebody?" suggested Avelyn.

"No! no!" protested David emphatically. "Whatever you do, Ave, for goodness' sake don't blab! We've no proper evidence yet, and if stories begin to get about the village he'll know he's suspected, and he'll be careful. Just you leave this to me. It's my first 'case', and I want to worry it out. Remember, I'm going to be a barrister some day, when the war is over, if I don't go out to France first and get killed. Old Hockheimer's deep, but he doesn't know we're watching him. Two British boys ought to be a match for a German!"

"I'd shoot him first and watch him afterwards if I had my way," declared Tony bloodthirstily.

It was on that very same afternoon that a fresh planet swam into the Watson horizon, or, in other words, that they made a new acquaintance. The Vicar was distinctly responsible for it. He was standing at the top of the churchyard steps, talking to a somebody, the toe of whose boot alone was visible round the corner, and when he saw Anthony passing in the road below he beckoned to him. Tony mounted the steps, and found that the boot belonged to a young officer in khaki, who stood with his hands behind his back contemplating the tombstones.

"Hallo, sonnie!" said the Vicar affably. "Doing anything special this afternoon? This is Captain Harper, who's in charge of the camp near the river. He wants to go and see the Roman fort on the top of Weldon Hill, and he doesn't know the way. Have you time to take him?"

Anthony's grey eyes scanned the Captain's dark ones for one searching moment, but in that moment he loved him, and would have offered to act guide to the top of Mount Everest if required.

"I'd like to go," he volunteered. "You don't mind David coming too, do you?"

"I don't know who David is, but let him come, by all means!" smiled the officer. "Thanks very much, Mr. Holt, for finding someone to 'personally conduct' me!"

So it happened that David and Anthony started off with Captain Harper, and by the time they had reached the Roman Camp they had decided that they "liked him awfully", and when they returned to Lyngates they felt as if they had known him for years. They talked about school, and football, and fishing, and treacling for moths, and a great many other interesting topics, and he told them a little about his experiences at the front, and how he had been wounded.

"How long have you been at Netherton?" asked Anthony as they paused by the gate of Walden.

"About six weeks."

"I wonder we've not seen you before."

CHAPTER XII
"Lady Tracy's At Home"

"They used to have plays at their old school," volunteered Consie.

"I suppose they did, but I dare say they weren't up to much. You see, as they weren't boarders, they couldn't have had proper time for rehearsals, and perhaps didn't think out their costumes as we're doing."

"Very likely they only took Shakespeare or scenes from Dickens, or something tame of that kind," nodded Isobel.

Miss Thompson had allowed the Dramatic Society a certain wideness of choice, so they had abandoned the classics, which seemed to savour too much of the schoolroom, and had selected an entirely modern and up-to-date comedy. In their eyes it was going to rival a piece from the real theatre. They had all seen up-to-date acting, and had their ideals of what a comedy ought to be.

"You must try to live in your parts beforehand, so that you catch the spirit of them," counselled Adah. "I've heard that Ellen Terry and Sarah Bernhardt always did that. It was the secret of their success. Throw yourself into your character till you entirely realize it."

"I suppose that's the artistic temperament," agreed Consie. "It would be gorgeous to take up the stage as a career, wouldn't it?"

"The stage of the future is going to be a School of Education for the People," moralized Adah. "Conscientious and cultured actresses will be a want."

"Miss Hopkins says Nature never creates a vacuum," ventured Joyce.

"Trust Mother Nature! If there's a want, she'll send someone to fill the gap."

"Only, of course, they've got to train themselves. There's nothing like beginning when one's young. And having the wish is half the battle."

As a result of this serious interest in dramatic culture, the character of the six "principals" underwent sudden and astonishing changes. Isobel, erstwhile a rather shy and retiring maiden, put on a perkiness and a coy assurance very puzzling indeed to anybody who did not know that pro tem. she was Miss Diana Davenport, the beautiful, dashing, fascinating Society debutante, who was breaking the hearts of young and old in fashionable Mayfair. She practised casting a glamour over people and glancing from under veiled lashes, and succeeded fairly well with those who understood and played up, but indifferently with Miss Hopkins, who asked her if she were suffering from an attack of indigestion, and whether a dose of sal volatile would relieve the pain. Muriel, whose rôle was that of Diana's rejected lover, Lord Darcy Howard, went about endeavouring to remember that she had a broken heart. She sighed frequently, kept an expression of yearning in her eyes, and smiled a sad, wan smile, fraught with memories. She maintained a calm, yet melancholy dignity, befitting one who is singled out by fate for disappointment, heroism, and an early grave. It was really a very difficult part for Muriel, whose natural tastes inclined to a more sporting character, and she would have preferred to act a comic Irish servant; but Adah assured her that it was useless to think of the stage unless she was prepared for all emergencies, and could take any rôle that might be offered her. Adah herself, as Lady Tracy, had blossomed into a loquacious, clever, manœuvring, brilliant hostess, much set on worldly advantages, and immediately concerned with the due disposal in life of her daughter Marigold. Adah's manner had always been rather consequential, now it surpassed itself, and she swam about the school as Queen of Society. Mabel, as Marigold, schooled herself to extreme innocence. She would practise making round eyes and an engaging pout as she lisped out: "But, Mother dearest, what is the great big world really, really like?" After many rehearsals, she succeeded in sidling bashfully into a room, and extending a timid hand without relapsing into laughter. Consie, the dashing débonnaire hero of the piece, had an easier task. It was comparatively simple to stride about paying flowery compliments and carrying all before her. She soon acquired an irresistible manner, and a habit of flinging herself lazily into arm-chairs and toying with an imaginary watch-chain. She succeeded so admirably, that when she wore her costume at dress rehearsal, some of the girls almost fell in love with her. To Joyce, as the villain, fell a harder lot. It is difficult to live the part of a villain consistently for weeks. At rehearsals, much coached and chivied by Adah, she would slink and frown and bite her finger-tips and look daggers, and throw sarcasm into her voice, but off the stage she would relapse at once into the comfortable, easygoing, happy-go-lucky ways which usually characterized her personality. She was a sore trial to Adah.

"If you'd ever seen 'Shylock' or 'Mephistopheles', you'd have a better idea," urged the head girl. "You're not nearly bold and bad enough, somehow. We'll give you a dark wig and a curled moustache, and that paper cigar, and you must grind your teeth when Lord Archibald taxes you with the conspiracy."

"Will the audience hear me grinding them?" asked Joyce helplessly.

"Of course not, stupid! But they'll see your mouth move."

"If the moustache doesn't cover it."

"We'll take care it shan't. Can't you manage to look like 'Gentleman Jim' on the cinema when the detective caught him with his hand inside the safe?"

"I'll try; but how long must I go on looking like that? In the cinema they whisk on to the next picture in half a second, but on the stage I'll have to stand there, and I don't feel inclined to grind my teeth for five minutes. I hope that tweed suit will fit!"

All the performers felt their costumes to be their last resource, supplying any deficiencies in the acting. They were determined to be ultra-fashionable, and sent home for suitable garments. Adah secured a perfect dream of a dress in grey voile trimmed with sequins, and a silk petticoat that rustled as she walked. They lent an added graciousness and seal of society to her impressive manner. Isobel borrowed a toque, and a veil with spots, and a feather boa, and a pair of tan boots with high French heels, and a large cameo brooch, and a vanity bag, and looked dashing enough to break the heart of the most hardened and deliberate woman-hater who ever trod the boards. Her companions, gazing at her bewildered, assured her that she looked at least twenty-one, if not more. The way she stretched out a dainty gloved hand and murmured "How d'ye do?" was considered a triumph of acting.

"If we do it really well, of course, we might be asked to give it over again," Adah confided modestly to her fellows.

"Here?" asked Isobel.

"Well, not necessarily. Sometimes managers lend theatres for charities."

"An amateur play generally makes a heap of money!" opined Joyce.

"It would be lovely to act it in a real theatre!" gasped Mabel.

"The Harlingden Operatic Society cleared thirty pounds for the hospital by the 'Gondoliers'," volunteered Consie.

In imagination the Silverside Dramatic was already emulating this gratifying example. They could picture their appearance on the boards of the Prince of Wales Theatre before a distinguished audience, including possibly the Mayor and Mayoress. Meantime they expected quite a crowded audience in the big class-room, and made grand preparations. The performance was to be on the last Wednesday afternoon of term at four o'clock. It was a custom as old as the school. The day girls had always been invited to attend, and this year Adah pinned up the usual announcement on the notice board. She saw Annie and Gladys sniggering over it, but set that down to their general lack of manners. She hoped what they were going to see would duly impress them. They would surely be proud to belong to a school that could get up such a dramatic entertainment.

The performers were allowed to stop lessons at 3.15 in order to change their costumes, and, after a tremendous amount of breathless work in the way of dressing, accomplished their toilets to their own and everybody else's satisfaction.

"You look A1," said Adah to Muriel. "If you don't absolutely take the house I shall be really astonished."

Lord Darcy laughed nervously. His clothes were immaculate, but not very comfortable. He showed decided symptoms of stage fright. Joyce, as the wicked earl, was anxious about the set of her wig. It was rather too large, and exhibited a tendency to tilt over on one side unless she held her head very stiffly erect, an attitude that did not correspond with the sinuous, snake-like poses which she had practised as appropriate for the villain of the piece.

"My moustache makes my upper lip quite stiff. I'm sure I speak funnily," she fluttered.

"No, no, you're all right! I'll tip you a wink if your wig gets crooked, and you can push it straight. Consie, you look an absolute bounder in that blue tie! If I were Marigold I should prefer the villain instead of falling into your arms."

"Many thanks!" said Lord Archibald, regarding himself in the mirror with satisfaction. "As you're to be my prospective mother-in-law you ought to appreciate me better!"

"It's high time we began," urged Mabel.

"I'll take a look and see that everything's ready," said Adah.

She ran to the platform and held a hasty review of the stage properties. Yes, all was arranged exactly as she wished. Minnie and Alice had done their duty. From the other side of the curtain came the sound of talking. She could not resist a peep at the audience and applied her eye to a small chink. What she saw made her gasp. Instead of a whole schoolroomful of people only the three front rows of seats were occupied. Much disturbed she rushed back to the dressing-room, and, calling Mona Bardsley, who was acting prompter, sent her off as scout.

"Go and find out why they're not ready, and tell them to hurry up and take their places or we shall begin without them," she commanded.

Mona was away some little time. She returned looking decidedly blank.

"They say they're ready and waiting, all those who are coming."

"But the room's only a quarter full! Where are the others?"

"The day girls have nearly all gone home."

"Gone home! Didn't they understand we'd invited them?"

"Oh, yes, but they said they'd rather not stay."

Adah's face was a study.

"Do you mean to say they don't care about seeing our play?"

"So it seems."

"The slackers! They've just done it on purpose, out of spite. Well, if this isn't the meanest thing I've ever heard of! How perfectly sickening!"

The injured performers received the bad news with much disgust, but their grousing was cut short by the arrival of a fourth-form girl with a message.

"Miss Thompson says, will you please begin at once, because it's getting very late?"

There was nothing for it but to go through the piece with the best grace they could, before an audience of mistresses, boarders, and about ten of the old Silverside day girls. It is poor work playing to an empty house, and they felt that half the spirit had gone out of the performance. Adah's manner was not nearly so gracious and impressive as at rehearsals, Lord Darcy got confused and mixed up his speeches, and Marigold giggled palpably when she ought to have been looking love-lorn. As for the wicked earl, his black moustache dropped off just when he was in the very midst of his villainy, and spoiled his best point. The Principal and the mistresses clapped their hardest, and so did the rest of the scanty audience, but everybody felt that the whole affair had been a fiasco.

"It was very nice, my dears!" said Miss Thompson, congratulating the disconsolate actresses as they came in to tea afterwards. "Quite one of the best plays we've ever had here."

"She means kindly, but she knows it was a failure," whispered Adah gloomily to Consie. "I'll never forgive those day girls!"

CHAPTER XIII
Reports

"L'homme propose et Dieu dispose", however, and our best-made plans have a knack of "ganging agley". On the Thursday before the holidays Anthony broke out in spots, and the doctor, who came six miles in his car from the little town of Roby, looked at them critically, shook his head, and remarked: "Chicken-pox! There's a good deal of it about just now."

Mrs. Watson was a woman who acted promptly. When she had ushered the doctor out she tucked up the invalid warmly, put on her hat and coat, and went to the village, where there was a public telephone call office. Here she rang up 138 Harlingden, and held a brief but satisfactory conversation with her second cousin, Mrs. Lascelles. Then she went home, wrote a letter to Avelyn, and posted it, after which she focused her attention on the invalid, who was feverish and fractious. The news which Avelyn received in the letter came as a bolt from the blue.

"I'm so sorry, darling," wrote her mother, "but the doctor says Tony has chicken-pox, and you mustn't come home to-morrow. I have telephoned to Cousin Lilia, and she offers to take you in for the holidays, so will you tell Miss Thompson that you are to go there. No time for more, as I want to catch the early post. Good-bye, darling! Much love from Mother."

Avelyn had taken the letter to the Cowslip Room to read. She put it in her pocket, sat down on her bed, and tried to face the situation. Not to go home for the holidays! The idea was unbearable. Great tears welled into her eyes, and for a few minutes she was an absolute baby. Red-hot rebellion raged within her. She was tempted to go home in spite of her mother's prohibition, and beg to sleep in the cottage, or at Mrs. Garside's farm, and risk the chance of infection. She would cheerfully catch chicken-pox if only she might have it at Walden. A wild idea struck her of asking Pamela to take her in, but the remembrance of Mr. Hockheimer intervened. She was sure Pamela would not dare to invite a visitor to Moss Cottage.

"And we were going to have such fun together!" she moaned. "I'll hate to spend the holidays in town and at the Lascelles's. Oh, it'll be grizzly! I wish I could stay at school instead. I will go home!"

Better reflections, however, prevailed. Mrs. Watson had brought up her children to respect her authority, and Avelyn knew that she would not be able to meet her mother's eyes if she turned up at Walden in distinct defiance of instructions. There was nothing for it but to submit, though it was a miserable business. She took her letter to Miss Thompson, and told her of the altered arrangement. The Principal looked worried.

"I hope you haven't taken the infection yourself," she remarked. "You might spread it over the school. Are you sure you have no spots?"

"Not a single one," Avelyn assured her.

"Well, don't mention anything about it to the other girls; it would only make their mothers nervous. Your box shall be left in Harlingden this afternoon, when the second batch of luggage goes. I suppose you can walk to your cousin's house. They'll be expecting you?"

"Oh, yes! Mother would tell them what time I am coming."

Avelyn went back to the Cowslip Room and began to put her various possessions into her box. The packing was a stale business, without any heart in it. It is horrible to be obliged to pay a visit when you don't want to go. In spite of Miss Thompson's injunctions, she could not help confiding her ill news to her room-mates. It was impossible to keep her woes bottled up in her own breast. She wanted sympathy badly.

"Hard luck!" said Laura.

"Beastly not to be going home!" agreed Janet.

"Poor old sport! I'll send you some picture post cards," consoled Ethelberga.

"Suppose you break out in spots at your cousin's?" suggested Irma.

This was a new view of the case that had not before occurred to Avelyn.

"I'd welcome them!" she declared. "I'd get Cousin Lilia to put me in an ambulance and pack me off home."

"Suppose they wouldn't? They might say it was too far, and send you to the fever hospital instead."

"I wouldn't stay. I'd run away and manage to get home somehow. By the by, don't tell anybody else about this. Miss Thompson told me to keep it dark."

"Right you are! We won't blab."

All five girls were busy packing. Their beds were strewn with blouses, stockings, and other impedimenta. In the midst of the proceedings entered Miss Hopkins, rather flustered and overdone with the responsibility of seeing that thirty-six boarders took their essential possessions home with them.

"Dear me, you're very slow in this dormitory!" she observed. "The Violet Room have finished and gone downstairs. If there were less talking you'd get on a good deal quicker. Here are your reports," dealing out from a packet in her hand five envelopes, addressed respectively to Mrs. Watson, E. A. Ridley, Esq., Mrs. Talbot, Colonel Duncan, and the Rev. F. Carnforth. "Now, make haste! I shall expect to find your boxes strapped when I come up again."

Miss Hopkins departed to do her duty in other dormitories, leaving a sensation as of east wind behind her. Avelyn stood staring at the envelope. She was anxious to see her report for this term. The Watson family were lax as regarded letters; at home they usually passed round their correspondence as common property. She tore open the envelope, therefore, and read the report. It was quite a good one, and ended: "Has done conscientious work, and shows marked improvement."

Avelyn purred with satisfaction.

"Tommiekins is a dear! Mother will be ever so pleased. Even Hopscotch has given me 'satisfactory', which is more than I expected from her, and Mr. Harrison has put 'painstaking' for music, though I know he thinks I'm rather a duffer at it."

"I wonder what they've said about me?" speculated Laura, fumbling in her box for the envelope which she had just packed.

"And me?" echoed Janet.

There is force in example. In another moment Laura, Janet, Irma, and Ethelberga were all perusing their reports.

"'Good' for botany! Oh, how precious!"

"Wonders will never cease! I've actually got 'fair' for general knowledge."

"Oh, hold me up! I've passed muster in maths."

"What does Miss Kennedy mean by this: 'sadly lacking in order, and wants more application'? I'm sure I'm no worse than the rest of you," exclaimed Janet indignantly.

"Has she put that?"

"Yes, I call it spiteful of her!"

"Poor old sport!"

"It isn't as if I'd been so very behindhand all the term. Miss Kennedy knows I haven't. I declare I shall go and ask her what she means by it!"

The offended Janet, in a furious temper, flounced out of the room in search of her form mistress. She found her in the study addressing luggage labels.

"Miss Kennedy, I do think it's too bad to give me such a horrid report!" burst out Janet. "Why am I specially 'lacking in application'? I'm sure I've worked just as hard as most of the other girls; and if it's a question of order, Irma's far more untidy than I am, and so is Ethelberga! I don't call it fair. You've no right to say such things about me!"

Miss Kennedy looked up in extreme astonishment.

"How do you know what I've said about you?" she queried.

"Why, it's here, in black and white!"

"What paper have you there?"

"My report."

"Do you mean to say that you have opened your report?"

Janet's face fell. She shuffled her feet uneasily, and did not reply.

"It was addressed to your father. Who authorized you to open it, I should like to know?"

"Well, Avelyn Watson read hers, so we all thought we could read ours," urged Janet in exculpation.

"Indeed!" Miss Kennedy's tone was as iced vinegar. "What an extremely honourable proceeding! Miss Thompson will have to hear of this! It's something new in the school for girls to open their parents' letters."

Miss Kennedy abandoned the labels she was directing, and went at once in search of the head mistress, to whom she told her astounding tale. Miss Thompson took off her convex glasses, wiped them solemnly, and put them on again.

"I couldn't have believed they would have dared!" she said, with a note of battle in her voice. "Send Avelyn Watson to me. I must deal with the matter at once."

Miss Thompson might not be very tall, but she was thoroughly capable of managing her school. Every inch of her bristled with dignity. Avelyn entered the room a trifle jauntily, but one steady glance from those convex glasses caused her feathers to fall.

"Avelyn Watson, I understand that half an hour ago Miss Hopkins gave you a letter addressed to your mother, to take home with you."

"Yes, Miss Thompson, but I'm not going home for the holidays."

"So I'm aware. In the circumstances the letter should have been posted, but that has nothing to do with it. What I want to know is on what authority you have presumed to open it?"

Miss Thompson's grey eyes were almost hypnotic in their power. Avelyn's fell before their keen scrutiny.

"Mother always used to let me see my reports," she faltered.

"That's quite a different matter, to allow you to look at what she had already seen herself. To open a letter addressed to anyone else, without permission, is one of the most dishonourable things that anybody can do. No lady would disgrace herself by such an action. I am amazed beyond measure to find that any girl in this school could be capable of it. I thought you knew our standards better. Have you been a whole term here, Avelyn, and not yet learnt the very elements of honour? Silverside has always prided itself upon its traditions."

Avelyn stood aghast. It had never struck her that anyone would construe her thoughtless and impulsive action in such a light. She had no further excuse to urge.

"Have you the report here? Then go and fetch it," commanded the Principal.

Avelyn went without a word. When she returned and handed Miss Thompson the paper, the latter took out her stylo and appended another line:

"Conduct unfortunately not strictly honourable."

She showed the addition to Avelyn.

"I am going to post this to your mother," she remarked pointedly. "You may tell your room-mates that they are each to bring me her report. I shall post theirs also. I am very much disappointed in you all."

Avelyn left the room in the depths of dejection. She had been very near tears all the morning, and now she could restrain herself no longer. It seemed an absolutely pixie day, with disgrace on the top of bad news. She gave a husky message to Laura, telling her to pass it on to the others, and then flew into the bath-room and had a good weep in private. Crying is a horrid business; it makes one's head ache, and one's eyes feel bunged up, and one's throat sore, and one's heart like a lump of lead. If it is true that our emotions cause waves of colour to emanate from us, poor Avelyn's aura must at that moment have been a particularly dingy drab.