A Popular Schoolgirl

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she had not expected to like the experience, but there is a subtle charm in community life that infects everybody with "the spirit of the hive," and in spite of herself she began to be interested in the particular set of faces that met round the table for meals. The greater part of the girls were in the middle and lower school, but there were a few members of the Sixth, who sat next to Mrs. Best, the matron, and Nurse Warner, and looked with superior eyes on the crowd of intermediates and juniors. To have secured such congenial room-mates was an asset for which she could not

erity as the girls tidied their hair for tea. "How anybody's expected

slowly, I'm only half-way through before she's bounced on to something else, and I've mis

purely phonetic character. Miss Strong had periodical crusades to improve it, but gene

casion. "If you have to write a letter in a hurry, and you begin 'Dear Maddam' and end 'Yours trueley'-well! Please

spirit for her lack of inches, and would fix her dark eyes on offenders against discipline with the personal magnetism of a circus trainer or a leopard-tamer. Schoolgirls are irreverent beings, and though to her face her pupils showed her all respect, behind her back they spoke of her familiarly as "The Bantam," in allusion to her small size but plucky disposition, or sometimes, in reference to her sarcastic powers, as "The Sark," which by general custom became "The Snark." On the whole Miss Strong's pithy, racy, humorous style of teaching made her a far greater favorite than mistresses of duller caliber. She had a remarkable faculty for getting work out of the most unwilling brains. Her form always made excelle

ere, and the confession of her altered circumstances. It had not proved quite so disagreeable an ordeal as she had anticipated, for, after the first expressions of surprise, nobody had referred again to Rotherwood; yet Ingred, on the look-out for slights, imagined th

out me!" she thought bitterly. "They'll hunt about till

he bright September sunshine blew away the cobwebs, and sent her almost dancing down the street. She had

ver direction you left it, you were obliged to climb. The scenery was very beautiful, for trees edged the river, and clothed the slopes till they gave way to the gorse and heather of the wild moorlands. Wynch-on-the-Wold was a hamlet which, since the opening of the electric railway, was just beginning to turn into a suburb of Gr

. The tenants who had occupied it during the period of the war had just returned to Scotland, so, as it was vacant, it had seemed a convenient place in which to settle. It was near enough to Grovebury to allow him to attend his office, and far enough away to cut them adrift from old associations. After four and a half years of war work,

d to enjoy the moors and our garden," she declared.

river that ran through Grovebury. Civilization, in the shape of fields and hedges, stretched out fingers as far as Wynchcote, and there stopped abruptly. Past the bungalow lay the open wold with miles of heather, gorse, and bracken, and a road edged with low,

Hereward, who attended the King Georg

her-Scampton, that chap in the cricket cap standing by the door. He's A1. He won't come near now, though, because he says he's terrified of girls. He's going to give me a rabbit, and I shall make a hut

isn't ready," o

I can keep it in a packi

the air seems almost as warm as in August, and with the clock still at summer time, the sun had not climbed very far down the valley. The garden, where Mother and Quenrede had been working busily all the afternoon, was gay with nasturti

Isn't it glorious here? Queenie and I have been digging up potatoes, and we quite enjoyed it. We felt exactly as if we were

tty little place in the September sunshine. To live there would be like a perpetual picnic. Mother and Queenie looked so c

range about the medical course which he was to take at the University. There was plenty of news, however, to be exchanged. Ingred had to give a full account of her experiences at school and

she said, when tea was over, and she sat leaning back l

that wretched pampered beast of a cat, for goodness sake! If it gets at my new ra

lap, took a flying run up his back, and settled herself on his shoulder, rubbing her head into his

you may well look guilty! Don't blink your eyes at me like that! I haven't forgiven you yet, and I don't thin

n't hammer my fingers, that's all I bargain for. Wait a moment till I get my

les and gooseberry bushes and fruit-trees. At the end was a wooden shed where t

f tools, and turning over the packing-case with a professional eye. "Now a wooden frame covered with wire, an

all close to them appeared a collie dog, growling, snarling, and showing its teeth. Ingred sprang to her feet in alarm. Wynchcote was so retired that they had scarcely realized that its garden

rged Ingred, with r

mannered brute!"

. Now, as Hereward wished to fix the rabbit-hutch in exactly the spot over which the creature had mounted guard, he was naturally much annoyed, and sought for some ready means

syringe, then discharged its contents straight at the dog. But at that most unlucky moment a quick change took place on the wall; the collie retired in favor of his master, and the stream of water charged full in

at is the mea

pologies and explanations. The old gentleman listened with his b

y dog has no further opportunities of annoying y

as the footsteps on the other

foot in it, haven't I? Who'd have thought he was just going to pop his head up? Dad was going to ask

ed. "It's a horrid idea to think that it may, any time, pounce o

oden paling erected along the top of the wall, making an effectual barrier between the two gardens. It was not a beautiful object, and it c

el so suburban,"

s a great point to me, for I'm past the age that looks fascinating in an overall. If we've Subur

sighed Quenrede, who was in a fit of blues