The Youngest Girl in the School

‘Oh, you’re putting it on; don’t be affected,’ scoffed Angela.

‘No, she isn’t putting it on; she never does,’ objected Jean. ‘Look at home, Angela, before you talk about affectation.’

‘All the same,’ continued Angela, undisturbed, ‘you must know you’re perfectly splendid at gym, Babs. Now, don’t you?’

‘I’d quite forgotten,’ confessed Barbara, as they resumed their stroll. ‘I’m so bad at most things that I’d got out of the way of thinking I could do gymnastics. But, of course, the boys always said I wasn’t bad, for a girl; and once I got the prize at my class in London. There were only thirty of us, though,’ she added modestly.

They strolled on as far as the gate at the bottom of the field, and stood looking over it into the lane below. The lane was out of bounds, which lent it an added charm; and they liked nothing better than to come here on half-holidays and lean against the gate, and wonder where the grass-grown path led to and what it looked like when it got round the corner by the old elm tree. To-day, they had scarcely taken up their position there when they were startled by sounds of distress from below; and the next minute a small boy came slouching along the lane, crying bitterly.

‘Hullo!’ said Jean. ‘What’s the matter?’

The boy was so surprised that he stopped crying and looked up. He was a very pitiable little object, in corduroy garments that could not properly be called knickerbockers and yet were too short for trousers, with a small area of grey flannel shirt appearing above them, and a red worsted comforter twisted round his neck, making an unbecoming patch of colour against his pinched and tear-stained little face.

‘What is the matter?’ asked Angela, pityingly.

‘Have you hurt yourself?’ added Barbara, as the child only stared at them vacantly.

With a little more coaxing and the bribe of a piece of dusty chocolate that came from the depths of Barbara’s pocket, he was at last induced to mumble out a confused statement of his woes. Between the quaver in his voice and the broadness of his speech they had a hard matter to understand what he said; but Angela, who lived in another part of the same county, managed after a while to translate to the others that he was crying because his father was away looking for work, and his mother could not pay the rent, and they were all going into the ‘house’ to-morrow. To Bobby Hearne, who was smarting under the remarks of the neighbours’ children, it was the last part of his story that seemed the worst; but the triumvirate only grasped the fact that starvation and poverty really stood before them in the person of the small boy with the red comforter round his neck. They looked at one another breathlessly, for the same thought was in all their minds.

‘It’s the opportunity!’ said Jean, solemnly.

‘They’re really starving!’ cried Barbara, clapping her hands joyfully. ‘We must go and feed them––’

‘And give them clothes,’ added Angela, enthusiastically; ‘and pocket-money!’

Babs pulled a purse out of her pocket. ‘Here’s three and sevenpence halfpenny, and I’ve got ten shillings more in my left-hand corner drawer,’ she said earnestly. ‘Will that be enough, do you think?’

Jean had been thinking deeply. ‘It’s no use giving anything to that scrap of a child,’ she decided. ‘We must go and see his mother first, and find out if his story is true. My father says that indis-indiscrim-in-ate charity does an awful lot of harm. We don’t want to do indiscrimin-ate charity, do we? Come along, you two, and look sharp!’

They clambered over the gate and dropped into the lane, one by one. Barbara was the last, and she almost forgot the solemn reason for their expedition in the thrilling thought that they were going to find out at last where the lane went to. She was quite unprepared for the disappointment she felt when they turned the corner by the old elm tree and the forbidden world beyond burst upon their view. After all, the lane was just the same round the corner, except that it was not quite so interesting, for it grew less grassy as it went on, and finally widened out into a kind of cart-track that was anything but romantic. An enchanted princess might flee with a prince down a grass-grown lane that wound away to nowhere in particular but she would never dream of stumbling over sharp flint stones and splashing through puddles in a common cart-track. The other two did not seem to notice that there was anything wrong with the lane, though; they just kept on straight ahead, with Bobby Hearne shuffling along between them, and Barbara had to run a little to catch them up.

‘Is it far?’ she asked.

‘Oop agin the top end o’ the village,’ explained Bobby, who was fast losing his shyness under the influence of these wonderful young ladies, who carried such funny sticks in their hands, and talked in such a magnificent way about pocket-money.

‘That’s close to the church, on the way up from the station,’ said Jean. ‘Is yours the cottage with the red roof, Bobby, or the one with roses all over it?’

Bobby looked vacant again; he did not recognise his home from Jean’s picturesque description. ‘There be foive pig-styes along of it,’ he announced, after long and careful reflection.

The cart-track brought them to a ploughed field, across which they plodded laboriously, and in the end it landed them in the road that ran right through the village. They met a good many inquisitive glances as they hastened along, for the young ladies of Wootton Beeches very rarely left their own grounds, and certainly never appeared in the village except on their way to and from the station. They found their courage slowly evaporating in the face of the curiosity they provoked, and there was very little of it left by the time they arrived at the cottage with the five pig-styes. Talking about good works in the junior playroom was a very different matter, they found, from carrying them out in a strange cottage, where numbers of strange children came out from dark corners and gaped at them without saying a word of welcome. Babs and Angela pushed forward their leader, and peered over her shoulder as she stood hesitating on the threshold.

‘Hello, mother!’ shouted Bobby, hustling his brothers and sisters out of the way and penetrating into the gloomy recesses of the cottage. ‘Here be three yoong ladies come to see ye.’

A harassed-looking woman came in from the back-yard, and started when she saw the three faces in the doorway. ‘It be proper good of ye, for sure,’ she said, casting nervous glances from her unexpected visitors to a bed that was made up on the floor, near the empty grate; ‘but my girl Lilian Eliza, she be ill, she be, and ye’d best not come in, I reckon.’

She did not know the power of the Canon’s address. At the sound of her voice, the triumvirate, neither understanding nor heeding her warning, stepped firmly into the room.

‘I’m so sorry your daughter is ill,’ began Barbara, fumbling hastily in her pocket. ‘Would three and sevenpence halfpenny be any good, do you think? And I’ve got ten shillings more in my––’

Jean nudged her violently, but the woman’s eyes had glistened at the mention of money, and Babs emptied her purse impetuously on the table.

‘Bless ye, missy, for sure!’ said the woman, gratefully. ‘Lilian Eliza, she be goin’ to the infirmary to-morrow, she be, and I can git her Neighbour Bunce’s spring-cart wi’ that, I can.’

Her evident gratitude reproached Jean, and she forgot all about the dangers of indiscriminate charity. She took the other two by the hand and pulled them away to the door.

‘We’ll come back again directly, Mrs. Hearne,’ she called out. Then the triumvirate broke into a run, and vanished along the road before the eyes of the bewildered woman.

‘What are we going to do?’ asked Angela, panting, when they once more climbed the gate at the bottom of the nine-acre field.

‘We’re going straight to the larder, straight as we can go; and then, we’re just going to bag all the food we can carry,’ answered Jean, in an odd, determined sort of tone. ‘Did you see the look on that woman’s face when you gave her the money, Babe? I believe–I believe they’ve all had nothing to eat for weeks! It’s–it’s horrible to think of!’

There was a sob in her voice, and the other two were silent from sympathy and a kind of awkwardness. They had never heard Jean talk like this before, and it finished the work begun by the Canon’s address. There was not the thought of a scruple in either of their minds when they arrived at the back of the house, and Jean bade them climb up by the water-butt and get into the larder through the open window.

‘There’s sure to be a hook you can undo so as to move the wire netting aside,’ she told them. ‘If we went round to the door, some one might make a fuss; and there’s no time for fusses.’

‘Jean knows everything,’ murmured Angela, as she found the hook and squeezed successfully through the window.

‘What shall we take?’ whispered Babs, slipping after her into the dimly lighted larder. ‘I think they’d like jam tart and plum-pudding, don’t you?’

She shifted the two delicacies dearest to her heart on to one dish, and handed it up to Jean, who stood poised uncertainly on the edge of the water-butt.

‘The jelly and the cranberry pie look rather nice,’ said Angela, her own mouth watering for them, as she passed them out to Jean.

‘Can’t you find something substantial?’ urged Jean, when she had deposited the second load on the ground beside the water-butt.

The two children in the larder looked round at the well-stocked shelves. There was cold beef, to be sure, and a large tureen of mutton broth; but these did not strike them as being at all the sort of present that any one would like to have.

‘Apple dumplings,’ settled Angela, swiftly, as her eye fell on a large dish full of them; and they handed the apple dumplings after the other things, and then followed them by way of the water-butt to the impatient Jean, who had already loaded herself with the jelly and the cranberry pie.

‘Come along!’ said Jean. ‘If we’re not quick, we shall be late for tea. Besides, we must get back to see Finny, and explain to her what we’ve done. She might be cross if she found it out for herself.’

‘Are you sure she won’t be cross anyhow?’ asked Barbara, as she staggered along in her wake, carrying the dish that contained the plum-pudding and the jam tart.

‘Not if we explain exactly why we did it,’ said Angela, gasping for breath just behind her companions. She found the apple dumplings decidedly weighty.

‘Nobody,’ said Jean, emphatically, ‘could mind anything we chose to do in a cause like this. Besides, there wasn’t time to ask leave first, was there? When people haven’t had anything to eat for weeks, you can’t keep them waiting for food while you ask leave, can you?’

The shortest cut to the nine-acre field was across the lawn at the side of the house, and then through the little gate in the shrubbery. It was much less secluded than the longer way by which they had come, but detection had to be risked, now that the time was so short. And even if they were caught, as Jean pointed out in a whisper, it would be worth while to suffer in such a noble cause; and as for the Hearnes, Finny would be sure to send them on the things as soon as she heard how many weeks they had been without food.

‘But how can we suffer, if Finny isn’t going to be cross about it?’ argued Barbara, becoming heated in the effort to keep the plum-pudding from rolling into the jam tart and sticking to it. ‘You said––’

Her sentence was never finished, for just as they left the shadow of the house and were going to strike across the lawn, they heard the click of the little gate opposite, and two figures emerged suddenly from the shrubbery. There was still light enough to disclose that they were the Canon and Barbara’s disenchanted beast, the Doctor.

Even then, the triumvirate might have escaped detection by slipping round to the back of the house again before they were seen; and Jean had the presence of mind to sound a retreat in an agonised whisper, and turned sharply round herself. But Barbara’s effort to follow her example was too much for the uncertain balance of the plum-pudding. It chose that very moment to tumble into the jam tart, and the two slid together from the dish and rolled to the feet of the astonished Canon.

‘Upon my word,’ exclaimed the old gentleman, starting violently, ‘Elizabeth’s establishment is full of surprises!’

The triumvirate kept very close together at the edge of the grass lawn, and waited for the two gentlemen to approach. Very little of their enthusiasm remained to keep up their spirits, for the erratic behaviour of the plum-pudding made even the pursuit of good works seem foolish and unnecessary.

‘What are you children doing here?’ asked the Canon, and his voice distinctly took a note of disapproval. He did not know very much about girls, though his niece assured him they were not unlike little boys; but he was quite sure that it was not the right thing for plum-puddings to be rolling across the lawn at that time of day, and disapproval seemed to be demanded by the circumstance.

The effect on the three children of his mild attempt at severity was immediate. Babs was struck dumb by it; anything so dreadful as the anger of a Canon had never occurred to her as a possible result of feeding the poor, and she had to think it all over before she could say anything. Angela put down the apple dumplings, the weight of which had become intolerable, and began to cry softly. Jean pulled herself together with a frantic effort, and clutched the dish she was holding so fiercely that the jelly on the summit of the cranberry pie shivered and shook.

‘It was my fault,’ she blurted out, looking steadfastly over the edge of the dish at the well-blacked boots of the Canon. ‘I made them go out of bounds, and visit the poor, and–and climb into the larder window to fetch things for the woman who looked so hungry. They wouldn’t have gone, if it hadn’t been for me. I made them–it was my fault.’

‘No, it wasn’t; it was all our faults,’ wept Angela, in a confused mumble.

Babs stepped forward and tried hard not to break down and cry too. ‘Please don’t rag Jean for it,’ she begged. ‘The boy was crying, and we all thought it was the opportunity come at last––’

‘What opportunity?’ asked the Canon, looking extremely puzzled.

‘To–to do what you said in your sermon,–good works, and feeding the poor, and all that,’ faltered Barbara. Somehow, when she expressed it that way, it seemed like putting the blame on the Canon, and she was sure it could not be right for a little girl to blame a Canon. Added to this, she was possessed with the dread that they had only made themselves look ridiculous after all; and she expected that they would all three be very heartily laughed at, as soon as the old gentleman began to understand their story. She was determined in her own mind that if the Doctor should join in the laugh against them, a certain fairy prince should be turned once more into a beast and banished for ever from her kingdom. She was bound to admit, however, that the Doctor, so far, had not shown the least interest in them or their story.

‘But–but I quite fail to understand,’ said the Canon, rather testily. ‘Who was the boy you speak of, and what had you to do with him?’

‘It was Bobby Hearne,’ answered Jean, still staring down at his boots; ‘and if you only knew how hungry they all looked when we got to the cottage––’

She was interrupted by the Doctor, who suddenly behaved in the most extraordinary manner. For the first time he appeared to be listening to what they were saying, and he sprang right in front of the Canon and grasped Jean by the shoulder.

‘Do you mean to say you have been into the Hearnes’ cottage?’ he cried, shaking her in his impatience until the jelly and the cranberry pie ran some danger of following the example of the plum-pudding. ‘Were you stupid enough to go right inside?’

‘Yes!’ answered the triumvirate, with one voice.

The Doctor took his hand away, and turned with a shrug of his shoulders to the Canon.

‘The Hearne girl is down with scarlet fever,’ he said in a suppressed tone.

CHAPTER XIII
IN ‘QUORRANTEEN’

‘My dear darling dearest Father,–We are in quorranteen that’s Jean Murray and Angela Wilkins and me becos we tried to feed the poor after the cannon’s sermon and the poor had scarlet fever and now praps we shall have scarlet fever too and in case we do we’ve got to stop in quorranteen for eight days and it’s an awful shame becourse it gives us such a little time to practis for the gym prize. The cannon is Finny’s uncle and he’s awfully nice though a little unreesonable Jean says and Jean knows bekause her father is a professor and he has ofered a prize for whoever is best at the gym display on the break up day. I mean the cannon and not Jean’s father. Quorranteen is a little house built by itself in the garden and connected with the school by a covvered passage that leads into the front hall because Jean says it’s no use being in quorranteen unless you’re quite sure no one can catch things off you so we are issolated. All the same we do free exercises every morning just to keep our mussels in good order for the gym competition and I tell them fairy stories when their’s nothing else to do and Angela says they’re not bad only she likes reel stories best which is a great pitty becos I don’t know any reel stories but still they put up with my kind of stories very well and Jean says I’m a funny kid. We have our dinner early so that we can go out in the garden while the other girls are having theirs so that no one can catch anything off us and we are alowed to go all over Finny’s garden as well as the nine aker field and we are really in a very supperior possition Jean says. Sumtimes for a great treat one of the big girls is alowed to come and talk to us from the garden and we stand at the window and shout down to her because you can’t catch things off people that way Jean says and the other two nearly always vote for Margaret that’s the head girl who is adorrable and divvine Jean says but I vote for Ruth who is a brick. The worst of being in quorranteen is that I have learnt the true charracter of the doctor and Kit always said he was a beast but I didn’t think he was a beast but now I think he must be rather a beast because he is so horrid and unsimpathetick he always behaves as if we were very naughty and wicked for wanting to feed the poor and giving such a lot of trubble insted of understanding that it was all the cannon’s fault for preaching that sermon which meant something quite diferent and how were we to know that the poor had scarlet fever? I think we were rather silly and it was our silly silliness that I minded most but the doctor doesn’t seem to think that and he looks at our tungs and he says what’s that? to every paper bag he sees about in the quorranteen which is only hardbake or chocalate from the big girls. Jean says he is much nicer to me than to Angela or her but I haven’t noticed any diference myself and I don’t want him to be nice to me if he isn’t nice to them it isn’t fair or above bord is it father? Anuther bother is that Finny hasn’t said a word to us yet about feeding the poor and giving such a lot of trubble and I think she’s very cross and is saving up for an enormous skolding but Jean says no it’s Finny’s way to give us time to think it over before she says anything and it’s just dissipline Jean says. Besides, she can’t be very cross or else she wouldn’t have gone on feeding the poor I mean the Hearnes ever since we came into the quorranteen which is what she’s been doing because she told us so and they haven’t had to go into the workhouse after all.’

Barbara had scribbled so far uninterrupted, but when she picked up her third sheet of exercise paper and began to cover that too, the patience of her companions became exhausted.

‘I say,’ said Jean, yawning, ‘I wish you’d stop writing and talk; I never knew any one so fond of writing as you are, Babe.’

Quarantine, after nearly a week of it, was beginning to lose its novelty, and all the paper bags that the sure aim of the head girl managed to deposit in their prison did not make up for the many hours of her society that they were unable to enjoy. Even the arithmetic lessons of Miss Tomlinson, and the plain-work evenings conducted by ‘Smithy,’ would not have seemed nearly so unattractive now as they did a week ago.

‘All right,’ said Babs, putting down her blue pencil; ‘I don’t mind stopping, but I thought Angela didn’t want to talk.’

Jean glanced round at Angela, and Angela immediately put her hand to her head and sighed heavily. She had been doing this for some minutes without making any effect upon Barbara, although Barbara had been the first to notice that there was something unusual in her behaviour. That was so like Babs! She was always the first to notice anything, but she had such an unsatisfactory way of passing it over, whatever it was, that it was no advantage to anybody unless some one else noticed it too.

‘Hullo!’ said Jean, staring; ‘what’s the matter, Angela?’

‘I’ve got a splitting headache,’ murmured Angela, half closing her eyes.

‘Anything else?’ asked Jean, becoming interested.

‘My throat is rather sore, I think, and–and I’m sure I’m feverish,’ answered Angela, faintly; and she shivered to show how feverish she was.

‘Oh,’ said Barbara, opening her eyes, ‘that’s how Dr. Hurst said it began; and then Finny dragged him away, and we didn’t hear any more.’

‘Don’t say anything so dreadful,’ murmured Angela, complacently. ‘What shall I do if I can’t go in for the competition?’

‘Besides, you might have it very badly and die,’ said Jean, consolingly.

‘Yes, you might. We knew a boy on the opposite side of the square, and he died,’ remarked Babs. ‘Only, I’m not sure if it was scarlet fever. His sister used to come and tell us about it, and she said he had a kettle with a long spout in his room, all day long, and it puffed out smoke at him, and made such a funny gurgling sound that she used to be afraid to pass his door after dark. Perhaps it wasn’t scarlet fever,’ she added, out of consideration for Angela, ‘but he did die.’

Angela looked from one to the other and shook her head mournfully. ‘I expect it was,’ she said. ‘It sounds exactly like it.’

‘Oh, yes,’ continued Jean, cheerfully. ‘I know, because a cousin of mine had something that was catching once, and she nearly lost her sight through it, and she’s had to wear spectacles ever since, and her eyes are all red and shiny, and she looks a hideous sight. I expect that was scarlet fever too.’

Angela shuddered, and quite closed her eyes that time. Her two comforters looked at each other expressively.

‘Poor Angela!’ said Jean, stroking her forehead. ‘It’s awful hard lines that you should be the one to catch it.’

‘Oh, never mind about that,’ answered the victim, meekly. ‘I’m glad it’s me and not you.’

‘Lots of people don’t die, you know,’ added Barbara, taking hold of her hand and waggling it up and down in a way that was intended to express sympathy.

‘N–no,’ said Angela, with some reluctance; ‘but lots of people do. Anyhow, I hope I shall be brave, whatever happens.’ And she stifled a sigh.

‘Of course you will,’ said Jean, warmly. ‘We know that!’

‘If–if this should be the last time we are together before they separate us,’ continued Angela, opening her eyes again and looking up at them appealingly, ‘you will remember, won’t you, that––’

The door opened and put an abrupt stop to her pathetic last request. The triumvirate, still clasping hands affectionately, looked round and met the astonished gaze of the head-mistress.

‘What’s the matter with Angela?’ she inquired briskly.

Angela closed her eyes again hastily. The other two prepared valiantly to defend her position.

‘She’s got a headache and a sore throat, and she’s feverish,’ answered Jean, glibly.

‘She thinks she’s got it,’ added Babs, coming straight to the point.

They fully expected Miss Finlayson to do something startling to show her concern at the approaching peril of Angela; but Miss Finlayson merely smiled.

‘Oh, so that’s what she thinks, is it?’ she observed. ‘And may I ask if that is why you have chosen this particular moment to hang over her more closely than usual?’

The triumvirate loosed hands, and Miss Finlayson came and looked very sharply at the unconscious features of the sufferer; then she suddenly whipped a thermometer out of her pocket and into the open mouth before her. Angela sat up in dismay, and tried to protest; but Miss Finlayson smiled again and pressed her gently back.

‘You mustn’t speak, or we shall not be able to find out your temperature,’ she said, and Angela put on a resigned air, and suffered in silence.

‘Now,’ continued the head-mistress, pleasantly, ‘we can have a few minutes’ conversation, while we are waiting to discover whether Angela has scarlet fever or not. To begin with, I want to ask you if you remembered, when you went out of bounds last Thursday, that you were abusing the trust I had placed in you? Recollect!–I do not keep policemen at every corner to spy over you when you are left to yourselves, but I do put you on your honour not to do anything you know I have forbidden. Did you think of this, Jean?’

Jean reddened and looked down.

‘No, I didn’t,’ she blurted out. ‘I forgot all about the bounds, at first, and I only thought you would like us to feed the poor, and it was such a grand opportunity. And then, afterwards––’

‘Yes–afterwards?’ said Miss Finlayson, encouragingly, as Jean hesitated.

‘Afterwards, when I saw that woman look like she did, I never thought of you or anything,’ she muttered with an effort; and she was very red indeed by the time she had finished.

Miss Finlayson took her hand and held it between her own, and then turned to Barbara.

‘Was that your reason too, Babs?’ she asked.

‘No, it wasn’t,’ answered Babs, without hesitation. ‘I did remember about going out of bounds directly we climbed over the gate; but I saw the other two had forgotten, so I didn’t say anything.’

The thermometer nearly fell out of Angela’s mouth from surprise at this amazing admission; and Jean felt compelled to say something in Barbara’s defence.

‘You see, the boy was crying so,’ she interrupted anxiously; ‘and I suppose Babs thought––’

‘Hush!’ said the head-mistress, softly; ‘I want Babs to tell me what she thought.’

Barbara was almost as red as Jean by this time. ‘I didn’t think about the boy, or the poor, or anything,’ she confessed; ‘but I wanted to see whether the lane did lead to the enchanted grotto, where the beautiful princess––’

She paused, because she remembered just in time that nobody ever understood about those things. Miss Finlayson was watching her carefully.

‘And did it?’ she asked quietly.

‘Oh no,’ said Barbara; ‘it was horrible when it got round the corner.’

Miss Finlayson nodded, and smiled her own mysterious smile. Then she took the thermometer out of Angela’s mouth.

‘And what was your reason, Angela?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know,’ said Angela, rather foolishly. ‘Jean said “Come on!” and we’d promised to share the first opportunity that came; and Babs went, and so of course I went too.’

Miss Finlayson looked relieved. ‘You have made me feel much happier, children,’ she said, ‘because I see now that you did not realise what you were doing, and that your own reasons seemed good enough to you at the time. If I thought I could not trust to your honour any more, I should be most unhappy. Do you think you understand?’

The triumvirate looked very thoughtful. Angela, who seemed to have forgotten all about her alarming symptoms, was the first to speak.

‘I suppose I ought to have found out whether the others were right before I followed them,’ she said.

Miss Finlayson nodded.

‘And we ought to have made sure we were right ourselves before we let her follow us, because Angela always follows,’ added Jean.

Miss Finlayson nodded again.

Barbara roused herself and shook back her hair. ‘I was the worst,’ she said impetuously. ‘I did remember about the bounds, and the others didn’t until afterwards. But I forgot about the honour part, truthfully!’

‘Yes,’ answered the head-mistress; ‘you were the worst, Babs; and you soon found out that the lane did not lead to the enchanted grotto, didn’t you? Now, what we can all see very clearly from this conversation is that we must think a little more carefully in future before we do things. The rules in my school are made for people who think, and not for people who have to be told whether a thing is right or wrong. People of that kind are not the people for me. Are you going to let me trust you again in future, children?’

There was no doubt whatever from their faces that they thought she might; but Babs still wanted something cleared up.

‘Was the Canon’s sermon all wrong, then?’ she asked in her straightforward manner. Jean and Angela looked at the head-mistress nervously; but Miss Finlayson did not seem to mind.

‘The Canon’s sermon was rather like my rules,’ she pointed out; ‘and it was meant for people who think. It is no use being unselfish in a thoughtless kind of way, or else you do as much harm as most people do by being selfish. I want you to try very hard to put lots of thought and cleverness into your good deeds all your life, so that by the time you are grown up your good deeds will be really worth doing. Then you will be able to carry out properly what the Canon told you; for, to tell the truth, the Canon’s sermon was rather meant for grown-up thinking, and perhaps that is why you misunderstood it. But children’s thinking is worth just as much in its own way; don’t forget that, little girls.’

She jumped up and kissed them all round, then glanced hastily at her watch. ‘It strikes me,’ she said gravely, ‘that if somebody looks out of the window in five minutes’ time, somebody will see something in the garden.’

She was just going out of the room, when an exclamation from Barbara called her back. ‘Why,’ she said, ‘you haven’t told us about Angela’s scarlet fever yet!’

‘No more I have,’ said the head-mistress, and she took the thermometer to the window and examined it. Angela tried rather feebly to recover her resigned expression, which she had completely dropped in the last few minutes; and her school-fellows exchanged a look of apprehension.

‘Poor Angela!’ said Miss Finlayson, pensively, as she dipped the thermometer into a glass of water.

Angela put her hand to her head, and the other two closed round her sympathetically.

‘I am truly sorry for you,’ continued Miss Finlayson, returning the thermometer to her pocket and sighing deeply.

The triumvirate gazed at her in a scared fashion.

‘Is she–is she going to have scarlet fever, really?’ asked Barbara, anxiously.

Miss Finlayson walked slowly across the room, shaking her head. She turned when she reached the door, and her eyes twinkled. ‘I am afraid not,’ she said, and they heard her laughing to herself as she ran downstairs.

The triumvirate had very little time to congratulate Angela on her escape before their attention was caught by a loud ‘Coo-ey!’ from the garden below. Certainly ‘quorranteen’ was full of diversions this afternoon.

‘Kit! Kit! That’s Kit!’ shouted Babs, and a series of flying leaps took her across to the window. In another minute the sash was flung wide, and she was leaning out as far as the laws of balance allowed her. She was right about the ‘Coo-ey!’ for there on the lawn below stood her favourite brother, and by his side stood Jill and Auntie Anna.

‘Well, well,’ said the old lady, leaning on her blue-knobbed cane and looking more like a witch than ever, ‘and what is the meaning of this, I should like to know? A fine lot of trouble you’re giving people with your tricks, you young monkey!’

‘Oh, it’s all right,’ Babs assured her; ‘we’ve made it up with Finny, and she’s not a bit cross, and next time we’re going to think first, and we’re never going to pay a bit of attention to the old Canon till we’re grown up. Then we shan’t make any more mistakes, she says.’

‘It’s to be hoped not, for I think you’ve made a young silly of yourself all the same,’ remarked Christopher, frankly. ‘Whatever made you do it, Babe?’

Barbara looked a little crestfallen. It would be easier to explain their escapade to twenty Canons than to one brother, even when it was a favourite brother like Kit. Jill came hurriedly to the rescue.

‘Never mind about that, Kit,’ she said. ‘Think how lucky it is that she hasn’t caught scarlet fever, after all.’

Barbara cheered up. ‘Even Angela doesn’t think she’s going to have it now,’ she observed; ‘and she’s been thinking she’s got it, ever since we went into quarantine; so we shall be able to come out again the day after to-morrow. Of course it means sums and flannel petticoats and all those horrible things as well; but still, we shall be able to practise up for the gym display, and that’s much more important. You’re all coming to the gym display, aren’t you?’

‘Rather!’ said Kit. ‘It’s the day after the others break up; and even Egbert says he doesn’t mind coming, though it’s only a girls’ school, and he says he doesn’t expect much. Of course, Will is awfully keen on coming, and so is Peter; but that’s only for the grub, so don’t you make any mistake about it.’

‘I don’t know why Egbert is so mighty grand,’ objected Barbara. ‘Our gym is really serious, I can tell you. You should see Angela on the rings; and as for Jean Murray–why, I forgot! You don’t know them yet!’

She disappeared abruptly from the window, while Auntie Anna said something about leaving the young people to themselves, and strolled off towards the house. Kit was attacked with a sudden fit of shyness at the prospect of being presented to two perfectly strange schoolgirls; and he shouted at Barbara to ‘come back and chuck it!’ But Barbara did not hear him, and he edged behind Jill for protection.

Upstairs, in the ‘quorranteen,’ Barbara was trying with some difficulty to persuade Jean and Angela to show themselves.

‘Oh no!’ they both said, getting as far away as possible from the window, and contriving to look neglected. ‘Never mind us, Babe; please go on talking to your people.’

‘But it’s Kit!’ represented Babs, as if that settled the matter at once. ‘He’s my favourite brother, and he’s a genius, and he’s only thirteen, and he has asthma so badly you’d think he was going to die. You must want to know Kit! Besides, Jill is there too.’

‘Jill Urquhart?’ cried Angela. ‘Why didn’t you say so before? Of course, we want to see Jill Urquhart!’

So the triumvirate squeezed themselves on to the narrow window-seat, and hung in a row over the window-ledge, while Jill smiled and nodded from below, and said pleasant things to them in her pretty soft voice. For all that, her old school-fellows did not feel at their ease with her; for they had suddenly made the discovery that Jill Urquhart, who used to be the privileged possessor of boots to be unlaced and desks to be put away, and other things now connected with Margaret Hulme, had somehow changed into a daintily dressed, grown-up sort of visitor, who had to hold up her skirt because the grass was wet. No one, not even the head girl, held up her skirt at Wootton Beeches.

‘This is Jean Murray, Kit, and that’s Angela Wilkins,’ said Babs, by way of introduction; and Christopher, who was still seeking protection behind his cousin, pulled off his cap and grinned. Then there was a pause, and the situation became rather strained. Barbara looked round at her two companions, and could not imagine what had come over them. Why, she wondered, did they not chatter away as they usually did? They only giggled faintly, however; and Angela was covered with blushes. So far, the introduction did not seem a success.

‘Angela can swing and turn and leave go with one hand and catch on again–I mean on the rings,’ said Barbara, by way of opening the conversation.

‘I can’t! What stories! Besides, it’s quite easy; anybody could!’ declared Angela, vehemently.

‘And Jean can turn coach-wheels as well as Peter,’ continued Babs, eagerly. ‘She can do hand-balance too, when Hurly-Burly isn’t looking; because we’re not allowed to do hand-balance, you see, so we’ve got to wait till no one is looking. Isn’t it wonderful of Jean?’

‘How can you, Babe?’ murmured Jean, reproachfully; and she concealed her confusion by staring up at the top of the elm tree opposite and pretending that she was not the person referred to.

‘They are very clever, aren’t they, Kit?’ said Jill, in a gentle, encouraging manner.

‘Oh, rather!’ said Kit, picking a blade of grass and gnawing it in his desperation.

‘And it will be most exciting to see Angela on the rings at the display, won’t it, Kit?’ continued Jill, smiling away more pleasantly than ever.

‘Oh, rather!’ said Kit, again; and he wound the blade of grass elaborately round his little finger.

‘What we can do is nothing to Babs, though!’ said Angela, making a mighty effort to overcome her shyness. ‘She’s the best in the whole school!’

‘Oh, the Babe!’ remarked Christopher, leaving the shelter of Jill’s big hat, and suddenly regaining confidence. ‘She doesn’t count.’

Conversation flourished more easily after that, for the triumvirate combined immediately in an attempt to prove to Kit that the Babe did count. Indeed, the argument grew so hot and furious that the Doctor, who happened at that moment to make his call upon his small patients, knocked three times at the door of the room, and finally had to walk in unannounced. There was a look of annoyance on his face, for he already resented being compelled to waste his precious time in attending three healthy young schoolgirls who had nothing whatever the matter with them, and would not have been in their present plight but for a piece of childish folly. When he found that his patients had not even the grace to be ready for his visit, his irritation increased.

‘Excuse me,’ he began, ‘are you aware––?’ He paused and frowned, for it was quite evident that none of them was aware of anything except of what was going on in the garden. Nothing was to be seen of his patients except an array of black legs along the window-seat; the rest of them appeared to be hanging over the ledge outside in a perilous and inelegant position; and all three of them were gabbling away as fast as their tongues would let them.

‘Well, you wait for the competition, that’s all!’ Angela was proclaiming shrilly.

‘It all depends on how soon that stupid Doctor lets us out of this hole,’ added Jean, with suppressed scorn in her voice.

‘He’s so funny; he never says anything important, and he only looks glum, as if he was so sorry for himself,’ chimed in Babs, with a laugh.

Dr. Wilson Hurst tapped his stick smartly on the table; and there was a sudden pause. Then came three thuds on the floor by the window-seat, and the triumvirate stood facing him in varying stages of confusion.

‘We–we didn’t know you were there,’ ventured Barbara.

‘So I gathered,’ said the Doctor, without a smile. ‘Will you kindly show me your tongues?’

He did not want to see their tongues particularly; but it seemed the most obvious means at his disposal for producing silence. The rapidity with which three tongues simultaneously darted out for his inspection reminded him irresistibly of mechanical toys, and he very nearly allowed himself to smile.

‘That will do,’ he said, controlling himself sternly; and he took out his watch and felt Barbara’s pulse. The moment the child’s tongue was her own again, she began to make use of it.

‘You’re sorry that we are not any iller, aren’t you, Dr. Hurst?’ she remarked.

‘Eh? What?’ said the Doctor, taken aback. ‘I–I don’t know what you are talking about.’

‘Well, you always look as though you would like us so much better if we really had scarlet fever instead of only waiting for it,’ explained Babs, pleasantly. ‘Would you like us better, Dr. Hurst, if we really had scarlet fever?’

She had so nearly guessed the truth with her quick, impish perception, that the Doctor dropped her hand abruptly and passed on to Angela. ‘There doesn’t seem to be much the matter with any of you,’ he said, by way of conducting the conversation on strict medical lines. He looked so cross about it, however, that the attempt did not prosper. Barbara, in the innocence of her heart, thought he needed cheering up.

‘Are you coming to the display, Dr. Hurst?’ she asked politely.

‘The–I beg your pardon?’ he murmured, staring hard at his watch.

‘The gymnastic display at the end of the term, when we’re going to compete for the Canon’s prize, you know,’ proceeded Barbara. ‘Everybody’s coming–Jill too! So you will, won’t you, Dr. Hurst?’

‘Really, I don’t know,’ answered the Doctor; and he dropped Angela’s hand just as hastily, and passed on to Jean Murray. Babs looked a little puzzled for a moment, and then her face cleared.

‘Oh, of course, you don’t like Jill! I’d forgotten that,’ she remarked with a smile. ‘But that doesn’t matter, because you needn’t sit next to her, need you? I don’t think Jill would mind your not sitting next to her,’ she added reflectively.

The Doctor began to wish very heartily that he had accepted Miss Finlayson’s offer to let one of the teachers accompany him from the house, and he prepared to beat a speedy retreat. But Angela, in her bland and tactless manner, put the finishing touch to his embarrassment and cut off his retirement.

‘Jill Urquhart is outside on the lawn now,’ she observed quite pointlessly.

‘So she is!’ cried Barbara, clapping her hands. ‘Then you’ll come to the window and speak to her, won’t you, Dr. Hurst? Kit is there too!’

‘You must really excuse me,’ said the Doctor, stiffly, as he took up his hat and stick; ‘but, really––’

‘Oh, Dr. Hurst, do come,’ begged the child, her little black eyes bright with entreaty. In spite of her temporary disloyalty during the period of ‘quorranteen’ to the prince who had once been a beast, she still considered him worthy to stay in her kingdom with the magician and other privileged folk; and it really hurt her to feel that he did not appreciate Jill and Kit, and that Jill and Kit on their side did not know he had been disenchanted quite six weeks ago. Surely, she thought, if they were all properly brought together, they could not fail to like one another.

The Doctor hesitated, and Barbara waited anxiously. He thought he only had to decide whether he should leave at once, or whether he should stay and be laughed at by the other schoolgirl outside–the one who had made him feel so stupid at Mrs. Crofton’s dinner-party. But to Barbara his decision meant much more than that, for it was going to determine whether a certain beast was a prince, or whether a certain prince was a beast.

So she waited with a look of thrilling expectancy on her face; and the other two, who had never seen her look like that before, began to feel a little doubtful about the way she was behaving.

‘I say, Babe, don’t!’ whispered Jean, tugging at her.

The little movement roused the Doctor, and recalled him to the absurdity of his position. He bowed, and walked with sudden determination to the door.

‘Good afternoon,’ he said curtly; and the disappointment on Barbara’s face haunted him in the most tiresome manner for the rest of the day.

Babs stood motionless for nearly a minute after he had gone. Then she smiled a little wistfully to herself.

‘After all, he must have found it rather lonely without a princess, and I can’t find a princess,’ she reflected out loud.

‘What are you talking about?’ asked Jean.

‘Hadn’t we better go back to Jill?’ added Angela, impatiently.

Barbara gave a start. ‘What a silly duffer I am!’ she cried joyfully. ‘Of course, there’s Jill; and she’s been there all the time!’

‘Yes, she has,’ said Jean, bluntly, ‘and it’s time you remembered it, for she must be tired of waiting for us by this––’

Barbara interrupted her with another remark–rather a mournful one this time.

‘It never comes right,’ she sighed. ‘Now, I’ve got a princess without a prince!’

CHAPTER XIV
PREPARING FOR THE DISPLAY

Dr. Hurst did not call again at the little house in the garden, and the triumvirate came out of quarantine in due course, very little subdued by their eight days’ imprisonment, and more on the alert than ever for any piece of excitement that might come their way. The junior playroom, having passed an exceedingly dull and uneventful week during their absence, welcomed their return with joy; and it was perhaps fortunate for the internal affairs of Wootton Beeches that there was going to be a gymnastic display to absorb the energies of its wilder spirits. As the days rolled on and the end of the term drew nearer and nearer, the conversation on both sides of the curtain became almost entirely limited to the one topic of the Canon’s prize; and those who were not among the chosen competitors for it spent the best part of their time in watching the others practise in the big gymnasium, and in disputing hotly the various chances of the claimants. Miss Finlayson had settled that the six morocco-bound volumes offered by her uncle should be divided into two prizes, one for the senior and one for the junior division of the school; and while it was generally agreed that Margaret Hulme would carry off the first, the discussion in the junior playroom as to the winner of the second was endless. Most of the girls were agreed that Charlotte Bigley and the three members of the triumvirate shared equal chances, on the whole, of being successful; and a great deal would depend, it was said, on the exercises chosen for competition. For, until a week before the great day, nobody knew what the exact programme was to be. ‘It’s one of Finny’s dodges,’ Charlotte Bigley declared, ‘because she wants us to be good all round, and not to grind at one or two things just for the sake of the prize. It’s like the prize-giving in the Christmas term; we never know what the prizes are going to be for, till after the exams. are over.’

So the excitement was great when Miss Burleigh walked into the gymnasium on the Saturday before the display, and called for silence so that she might read out the order of the competition. Even the younger children forced themselves into a kind of uneasy order, as Hurly-Burly unfolded her sheet of foolscap paper; for the next few minutes would practically decide, they thought, who was to be the lucky one among the juniors.

‘First of all,’ announced the games-mistress, ‘the whole gymnastic class will open the display by an exhibition of step-marching.’ This was received with average interest, for it sounded like one of the ordinary gymnastic lessons, and had nothing to do with the competition. Miss Burleigh waited for the murmur of comments to subside, and went on. ‘Then the thirty-two girls chosen to compete for the prize will separate into two divisions; and the senior division, led by Margaret Hulme, will perform the following exercises:–’

Miss Burleigh paused again, but there were no comments this time.

‘First, wand exercises by the whole senior division; then a display on the horizontal bar, to be followed by one on the vaulting-horse,–competitors to choose between the bar and the horse,–and the whole to conclude with high jump. After tea, I will show you the exercises chosen for competition, and will help you to divide yourselves into sections.’

The buzz of remarks from the senior division lasted almost long enough to shake the loyalty of the younger children to the head girl; and they cast many reproachful glances towards the further end of the gymnasium, where Margaret formed the centre of an eager, chattering group. Then Hurly-Burly took pity on them and called for silence again, and the juniors had their chance at last.

‘The junior division, led by Charlotte Bigley, will go through the following exercises:–’ began Miss Burleigh. She did not mean to pause here, but a storm of remonstrance from the junior division drowned her next words.

‘Did you ever!’ cried the shrill voice of Angela Wilkins, who, with Jean and Barbara, sat perched on the top of the vaulting-horse.

‘Why doesn’t Jean lead?’ added Babs, indignantly.

‘I say, please don’t! I’m not nearly so good as you are,’ contradicted Jean, in a faint tone that lacked conviction.

‘Can’t you be quiet, you three?’ grumbled Mary Wells, who had a prejudice against the triumvirate, founded on many injuries. ‘As if anybody could lead better than Charlotte! The impudence of some kids––’

‘Hush-sh!’ interposed the audience generally, and Miss Burleigh struggled on.

‘First, Indian clubs for the whole section. After that––’

‘Jean–for certain!’ interrupted Barbara, nodding. ‘She bangs every one at clubs!’

‘There you go again!’ said the injured voice of Mary Wells. ‘Everybody knows that Charlotte––’

‘Oh, stop it!’ said Charlotte herself; and temporary peace was restored.

‘After that,’ continued Hurly-Burly, rapidly, ‘a display on the horizontal ladder, to be followed by one on the rings. Competitors to choose between––’

‘I bag rings!’ screamed Angela, at the top of her voice.

‘No, you don’t!’ said Mary Wells, in her stolid, aggravating way. ‘You’ve just got to wait till it’s settled for you, so there! We all know why you’re so anxious not to do the ladder; why, you can’t even manage a simple travel––’

‘How can you, Mary Wells?’ asked Angela, solemnly. ‘You know I can bear anything but an untruth; and to say that I––’

‘Sh-sh!’ said Miss Burleigh, vigorously, and she was again allowed a few seconds of silence. ‘The junior division will then conclude with rope-climbing.’

Hardly were the words out of her mouth than her listeners fell to disputing again.

‘Rope-climbing–Barbara!’ asserted Jean.

‘What are you talking about?’ cried Mary, with contempt. ‘Barbara is simply not in it with Charlotte; and what’s more, you know she isn’t, Jean Murray.’

‘Oh, the wicked stories some people can tell,’ sighed Angela. ‘Have you seen Barbara Berkeley swarm up the––’

‘Please, please don’t,’ implored Babs. ‘Can’t you see that Hurly-Burly wants to say something else?’

Being the champion in question, she could not very well side with Jean, as she usually did. Her appeal had some effect on the disputants, and Miss Burleigh, remembering it was a half-holiday, shrugged her shoulders good-naturedly and took advantage of the pause to proceed.

‘The display will take place at five o’clock on Thursday,’ she proclaimed; ‘supper will be at seven, and after supper, the Canon, who is coming from the North on purpose, will give away the prizes to the two successful competitors––’

‘That’s Margaret and Charlotte Bigley,’ interrupted Mary, noisily; and Hurly-Burly gave it up and fled, with her hands over her ears, just as Angela, with a yell of defiance, lost her balance and plunged down head-first from her perch on the vaulting-horse.

‘No, no! Margaret and Jean!’ she gasped out breathlessly, as she scrambled up again from the floor and brushed the dust from her hands and knees.

Jean sprang to her feet on the top of the vaulting-horse, and danced up and down in her excitement.

‘Margaret and the Babe!’ she shrieked, waving her arms wildly round her head.

But Barbara had slipped down after Angela, though not quite so precipitately, and had retired from the contest to a particular corner of the gymnasium, where the hot-water pipes projected sufficiently to form what might with imagination be considered a seat. It required some ingenuity, perhaps, to preserve any sort of balance on the edge of a row of hot-water pipes; but that was nothing to a small person who could never sit down tamely on a chair like other people, but always preferred the slanting surface of a desk, or something equally unaccommodating. So Babs felt the hot-water pipes with her grubby little hands, to make sure they were just the right heat to be sat upon, and then squeezed herself on to them contentedly, curled her legs away underneath, and in a few seconds was supremely unconscious of what was going on at the other end of the gymnasium. Jean Murray might yell herself hoarse in her defence, for all she knew or cared; for at that moment her mind was occupied with a far more important question.

It was Angela who first grew tired of waging war with Mary Wells without the valuable support of Barbara Berkeley. Angela could shriek with the shrillest, when once some one had told her what to shriek; but there was a solid calmness about Mary that carried more conviction with it, and Barbara’s wit was the only thing to make any impression upon that. Besides, if Angela shrieked ‘Margaret and Jean,’ and Jean shrieked ‘Margaret and the Babe,’ who was there left but the Babe to shriek for Angela herself? So in a very short time Angela Wilkins also left the contest, and found her way to the place where the hot-water pipes projected into a perch for the youngest girl in the school.

‘Hullo, Babe! What’s up?’ she inquired.

Barbara looked at her vaguely. Some one in a scarlet gymnasium frock certainly stood in front of her, but it had nothing whatever to do with what she was worrying over in her mind; so, at first, she did not take any notice.

‘Aren’t you coming to practise rings?’ pursued Angela, who had seen Barbara look like this before, and knew from experience that in time the child would rouse herself sufficiently to answer her.

‘Rings?’ repeated Babs, vacantly.

‘Oh, come on!’ said Angela, impatiently. ‘How you do moon about the place, to be sure! Don’t you want to win the Canon’s prize?’

Barbara’s expression changed swiftly, and she frowned. ‘Get away,’ she growled, with unusual fierceness; and Angela stared and withdrew.

‘Barbara Berkeley is in an awful fury,’ she announced, when she got back to Jean.

‘What about?’ asked Jean.

‘Oh, not about anything,’ answered Angela, shrugging her shoulders. ‘When the Babe is in a fury, it’s never about anything, is it? It’s inside her, or something,’ she added, seeking in her mind for some explanation of the strange moods that made Barbara Berkeley a puzzle to every one.

‘Inside her!’ echoed Mary Wells, scornfully. ‘What you two can see in that child I never can make out. Fancy making friends with any one who loses her temper inside!’

‘Well, it’s better than losing it outside and upsetting everybody by howling like a baby, because you can’t find your pencil-box, isn’t it, stupid?’ cried Jean.

Mary blushed painfully at the personal reference, and hastily changed the conversation. ‘Barbara Berkeley is a spoilt little kid,’ she retorted. ‘She’s the most sullen, ill-tempered, obstinate little––’ The words stayed at the tip of her tongue, for the unconscious subject of them had suddenly joined the group round Mary, and was staring at her in her most solemn and disconcerting manner.

Mary Wells felt foolish. There was something about the youngest girl in the school, when she looked like that, that would make any one feel foolish. But Babs had evidently not heard a word she had been saying.

‘Come on,’ she said, hooking her arm into Jean’s; ‘I want to ask you something.’

The two wandered away together down the long gymnasium.

‘Look here,’ began Barbara, impetuously, as soon as they were out of hearing of the others. ‘Are you keen on winning that prize?’

Jean drew a long breath. She wanted to take that prize back with her to the little home in Edinburgh, where she had been adored and spoiled for twelve whole years, more than she had ever wanted anything in the world; and she did not know how to answer Barbara’s unexpected question.

‘Why?’ she asked, at length.

Barbara took hold of a rope and waved it backwards and forwards to give herself courage. ‘Because,’ she blurted out, ‘I want to get it too,–awfully, and so does Angela, and–and we can’t all get it, can we?’

‘No,’ said Jean, looking at her curiously. She had thought she really was beginning to understand the Babe; and here she was, showing herself in a more puzzling light than ever.

‘You see,’ Barbara went on, swarming up the rope a couple of feet and making her next remark to the black hook in the beam above, ‘I’d like awfully to win it, because I don’t want the boys to think I’ve got too much like a girl to do things now; and because it’s so–so splendid to feel you can do things.’