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Tom and Some Other Girls: A Public School Story

by Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey · English · Gutenberg #21102 · 399,059 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Tom and Some Other Girls: A Public School Story

Author: Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

Illustrator: Percy Tarrant


        
Release date: April 16, 2007 [eBook #21102]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21102

Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOM AND SOME OTHER GIRLS: A PUBLIC SCHOOL STORY ***




Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England





Tom and some other Girls
A Public School Story

By Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
________________________________________________________________________
You would be mistaken if you thought this was going to be a book about
a girl called Thomasina, for it is actually about a girl call Rhoda
Chester.  Rhoda has been brought up as the child of rich parents. Her
brothers have done well, but she has been kept at home, and has been
taught by governesses and other visiting tutors.  The German fraulein
goes to her own home in Germany for a holiday, where she gets married
and never comes back.

This prompts Mr Chester to consider sending Rhoda away to a boarding
school.  There is a discussion, Rhoda's mother not being at all in
favour of the idea, but Rhoda is keen to go.

They settle on a school.  Rhoda goes there, and enjoys herself, doing
well.  Tom and the other girls are of course her schoolmates.  But there
is to be an important exam, for which Rhoda overworks, to the point
where her brain  no longer works when she is in the examination hall.
So life is downward, instead of upward, she realises.  We will leave
you to read the rest of the story.  Vaizey is at her best again.  N.H.
________________________________________________________________________
TOM AND SOME OTHER GIRLS
A PUBLIC SCHOOL STORY

BY MRS. GEORGE DE HORNE VAIZEY



CHAPTER ONE.

A CHANGE.

"Yes, she must go to school!" repeated Mr Chester.

A plaintive sob greeted his words from the neighbourhood of the sofa.
For once in her life Mrs Chester's kindly, good-tempered face had lost
its smiles, and was puckered up into lines of distress.  She let one
fat, be-ringed hand drop to her side and wander restlessly over the
satin skirt in search of a pocket.  Presently out came a handkerchief,
which was applied to each eye in turn, and came away bedewed with tears.

"It will break my heart to part from her!" she faltered.  Her husband
laughed with masculine scepticism.

"Oh, nonsense, dear," he said; "hearts are not so easily broken.  You
are too sensible to grieve over what is for the child's good, and will
get used to the separation, as other mothers have done before you.  It
will be the making of Rhoda to leave home for a few years, to mix with
other girls, and find her level.  She is getting an altogether
exaggerated idea of her own importance!"

"Her level, indeed!  Find her level!  I should like to know the school
where you could find another girl like her!" cried the mother, in a tone
which showed plainly enough who was responsible for Miss Rhoda's
conceit.  The tears dried on her face for very indignation, and she sat
upright in her seat, staring across the room.

It was a gorgeous apartment, this drawing-room of Erley Chase, the
residence of Henry Chester, Esquire, and Marianne his wife; a gorgeous
room in the literal acceptance of the term, for each separate article of
furniture looked as if it had been chosen more from the fact of its
intrinsic value than for its usefulness or beauty.

Mr Chester, the son of a country clergyman, had considered himself
passing rich when a manufacturer uncle took him into his employ, at a
salary of £400 a year.  The first thing he did after this position was
assured was to marry his old love, the daughter of the village doctor,
with whom he had played since childhood; and the young couple spent the
first dozen years of their married lives very happily and contentedly in
a little house in a smoky manufacturing town.  The bachelor uncle was
proud of his clever nephew and fond of the cheery little wife, who was
always kind and thoughtful even when gout and a naturally irritable
temper goaded him into conduct the reverse of amiable.  When Harold was
born, and christened after himself, he presented the child with a silver
mug, and remarked that he hoped he would turn out better than most young
men, and not break his parents' hearts as a return for their goodness.
When Jim followed, the mug was not forthcoming; but when little Rhoda
made her appearance six years later he gave her a rattle, and trusted
that she would improve in looks as she grew older, since he never
remembered seeing an uglier baby.  He was certainly neither a gracious
nor a liberal old gentleman, but the young couple were blessed with
contented minds and moderate ambitions, so they laughed good-naturedly
at his crusty speeches, and considered themselves rich, inasmuch as they
were able to pay their way and were spared anxiety for the future.  And
then an extraordinary thing happened!  The old man died suddenly, and
left to his beloved nephew a fortune which, even in these days of
millionaires, might truthfully be called enormous.  Henry Chester could
not believe the lawyers when the amount of his new wealth was broken to
him, for his uncle had lived so unostentatiously that he had had no idea
of the magnitude of his savings.  The little wife, who had never known
what it was to spend sixpence carelessly in all her thirty-five years,
grew quite hysterical with excitement when an arithmetical calculation
proved to her the daily riches at her disposal; but she recovered her
composure with wonderful celerity, and expressed her intention of
enjoying the goods which the gods had sent her.  No poking in gloomy
town houses after this!  No hoarding of riches as the poor old uncle had
done, while denying himself the common comforts of life!  She herself
had been economical from a sense of duty only, for her instincts were
all for lavishness and generosity--and now, now!  Did not Henry feel it
a provision of Providence that Erley Chase was empty, and, as it were,
waiting for their occupation?

Her husband gasped at the audacity of the idea.  Erley Chase! the finest
place around, one of the largest properties in the county, and Marianne
suggested that he should take it! that he should remove from his fifty-
pound house into that stately old pile!  The suggestion appalled him,
and yet why not?  His lawyer assured him that he could afford it; his
children were growing up, and he had their future to consider.  He
thought of his handsome boys, his curly-headed girl, and decided proudly
that nothing was too good for them; he looked into the future, and saw
his children's children reigning in his stead, and the name of Chester
honoured in the land.  So Erley Chase was bought, and little Mrs
Chester furnished it, as we have seen, to her own great contentment and
that of the tradespeople with whom she dealt; and in the course of a few
months the family moved into their new abode.

At first the country people were inclined to look coldly on the new-
comers, but it was impossible to keep up an unfriendly attitude towards
Mr and Mrs Chester.  They were utterly free from affectation, and, so
far from apeing that indifference to wealth adopted by most _nouveaux
riches_, were so frankly, transparently enchanted with their new
possessions that they were more like a couple of children with a new toy
than a steady-going, middle-aged couple.  They won first respect, and
then affection, and were felt to be a decided acquisition to the well-
being of the neighbourhood, since they were never appealed to in vain in
the cause of charity.

In the days of her own short means, when she had been obliged to look
helplessly at the trials of her neighbours, Mrs Chester had solaced
herself by dreaming of what she would do if she had money and to spare,
and to her credit be it said, she did not forget to put those dreams
into execution when the opportunity arose.  The days are past when fairy
godmothers flash suddenly before our raptured eyes, clad in spangled
robes, with real, true wings growing out of their shoulders, but the
race is not dead; they appear sometimes as stout little women, in satin
gowns and be-feathered bonnets, and with the most prosaic of red,
beaming faces.  The Chester barouche was not manufactured out of a
pumpkin, nor drawn by rats, but none the less had it spirited away many
a Cinderella to the longed-for ball, and, when the Prince was found, the
fairy godmother saw to it that there was no lack of satin gowns, or
glassy slippers.  Dick Whittingtons, too, sitting friendless by the
roadside, were helped on to fortune; and the Sleeping Beauty was rescued
from her dull little home, and taken about to see the world.  It is
wonderful what fairy deeds can be accomplished by a kind heart and a
full purse, and the recipients of Mrs Chester's bounty were relieved
from undue weight of obligation by the transparent evidence that her
enjoyment was even greater than their own!

Harold went to Eton and Oxford, and Jim to Sandhurst; but Rhoda stayed
at home and ruled supreme over her mother, her governesses, and the
servants of the establishment.  Her great-uncle's wish had been
fulfilled, inasmuch as she grew up tall and straight, with a mane of
reddish-gold hair and more than an average share of good looks.  She was
clever, too, and generous enough to have acknowledged her faults if it
had for one moment occurred to her that she possessed any; which it had
not.  It was one of Mrs Chester's articles of faith that her daughter
was the most beautiful, the most gifted, and the most perfect of created
beings, and Rhoda agreeably acquiesced in the decision, and was pitiful
of other girls who were not as herself.  Every morning when she had not
a headache, and did not feel "floppy" or "nervey," she did lessons with
Fraulein, who adored her, and shed tears behind her spectacles when
obliged to point out a fault.  Then the two would repair together to the
tennis courts and play a set, the pupil winning by six games to love; or
go a bicycle ride, when Rhoda would practise fancy figures, while her
good, but cumbersome, companion picked herself up from recumbent
positions on the sidewalk, and shook the dust from her garments.  At
other times Rhoda would put on her riding habit and go a ride round the
estate, taking care to emerge from the west gate at the moment when the
village children were returning from school.  The little girls would
"bob" in old-fashioned style, and the boys would pull off their caps,
and Rhoda would toss her flaxen mane and acknowledge their salutations
with a gracious smile and a wave of the little gloved hand.  The
children thought she looked like a fairy princess, and no more dreamt
that she was of the same flesh and blood as themselves than did Miss
Rhoda herself.  Then came lunch, and more often than not some excuse for
getting off the hour's lessons with Fraulein before the "visiting
professors" arrived.  Music master, drawing master, French master--they
each came in their turn, and Rhoda exerted herself to do her best, as
she invariably did, given the stimulus of an audience, and was praised
and flattered to her heart's desire.  It was a happy life, and most
satisfactory from the girl's point of view; so that it seemed most
annoying that it should be interrupted, and by Fraulein too, who had
always been so meek and tractable!  Who could have imagined when she
went home for the summer holidays that an old love would appear and
insist upon marrying her out of hand?

"But what am _I_ to do?" cried Rhoda, when the news was first received;
and then, in stern disapproval, "I'm _surprised_ at Fraulein!  At her
age she should know better.  She always professed to be so devoted.  I
can't understand how she could make up her mind to leave me."

"It must have been a terrible trial to her, dearest," said Mrs Chester
soothingly, and she meant what she said.  How could any one prefer a
fat, long-haired, spectacled lover (all Germans were fat, long-haired,
and spectacled!) to her beautiful, clever daughter?  She sighed, once
for Rhoda's disappointment, and once again, and with an added stab, for
herself.

Several times lately Mr Chester had hinted that Rhoda was getting too
much for Fraulein, and should be sent to school, while Harold had
treacherously seconded his father with remarks of such brotherly candour
as made his mother hot with indignation.  Jim was mercifully away from
home, but even so it was two against one, and she instinctively felt
that Fraulein's defection would be seized upon by the enemy and the
attack pressed home upon the first opportunity.  And now it had come,
and there sat the poor, dear soul, shedding tears of anguish on her
lace-edged handkerchief, as she vainly tried to oppose the inevitable.

"I cannot, and will not, part from my child!"

"Nonsense, mother, you parted from me, and I shall take it as a personal
insult if you insinuate that you would feel Rhoda's absence more than
you did mine.  Remember how delighted you were when I came back!
Remember the holidays, how happy you were, how interested in all I had
to tell!"

Harold Chester crossed the room, and laid his hand on his mother's
shoulder with a kindly gesture.  He looked as if he were made on the
same principle as the other objects of _vertu_ in the room, and if Mrs
Chester had desired to possess "the most superfine specimen of sons and
heirs," she had certainly got her wish, so far as appearances were
concerned.  Harold was tall and fair, with aquiline features and a manly
carriage.  His hair would have curled if it had not been cropped so
close to his head; his clothes were of immaculate cut.  At twenty-five
he was known as one of the most daring sportsmen in the county, and if
he had not distinguished himself at college, he had, at least, scrambled
through with the crowd.  His mother declared with pride that he had
never given her an hour's anxiety since he had had the measles, and
thanked Heaven for her mercies every time she saw him ride off to the
hunt in his beautiful pink coat.  Harold was her first-born darling, but
Rhoda was the baby, and she could not bring herself to believe that her
baby was growing up.

"The child will fret and break her heart.  I don't care about myself,
but I will not have her made unhappy.  She has such a sensitive heart!"
She sobbed as she spoke, and Harold laughed.

"You trust me, mater; Rhoda is as well able to take care of herself as
any girl can be.  You will regret it all your life long if you keep her
at home now.  School is what she needs, and school she must have, if she
is to make a woman worth having.  She is a jolly little soul, and I'm
proud of her; but her eyes are so taken up admiring Miss Rhoda Chester
that she has no attention left for anything else.  Let her go, mother,
and find out that there are other girls in the world beside herself!"

"But the other girls will b-b-bully her.  They will make fun of her and
laugh at her little ways--"

"And a good--" Harold checked himself and said cheerily: "Rhoda won't
let herself be bullied without knowing the reason why, mother.  Whatever
faults she may have, no one can accuse her of lack of spirit.  I believe
she would like to go.  She has very few girl friends, and would enjoy
the new experience."

"We will tell her about it, and see what she says," said Mr Chester;
and at that very moment the door opened and Rhoda walked into the room.



CHAPTER TWO.

WHAT RHODA THOUGHT.

Father, mother, and brother looked at Rhoda, and felt a pardonable pride
in her appearance.  Her white evening frock showed off the fair
complexion and golden locks, and she carried herself with an erect,
fearless mien which made a pleasant contrast to the stooping backs and
shambling gait of most growing girls.  If she were not regularly pretty,
her air of assurance forced onlookers to think her so, despite their
better judgment, and there was about her a breezy atmosphere of health
and youth.  She looked from one to the other of the watching faces, and
smiled in a good-humoured, tolerant manner, which showed a dimple in the
round cheek.

"Hatching mischief!" she cried, nodding her head sagely.  "The way in
which your voices ceased as I entered the room was highly suspicious.
Never mind--I'll go to bed soon, and then you can talk at your ease.  It
_is_ awkward when birthdays are drawing near! ...  Chain bracelets are
very nice, with turquoises set here and there, and I rather like that
new edition of Shakespeare with a lot of dear little books fitted into a
case.  I don't object to brooches either, or ornaments for my room--"

"But, strange to say, we were not thinking of giving you anything!  We
were talking of a much more serious consideration than a birthday.  We
were talking of your Future Education," said Mr Chester, solemnly.  He
spoke so impressively, and with such very large capitals to the last two
words, that Rhoda was startled into attention, and turned her eyes upon
him in wonder.

"My--future--education?  Why, what do you--what am I going to do?"

"We have been considering the advisability of sending you to school.
You are nearly sixteen, and have been educated at home all your life,
and now that Fraulein cannot return I feel strongly that it would be for
your good to spend a couple of years at school among girls of your own
age.  Your mother naturally dreads the parting, and fears that you would
be unhappy, but Harold thinks that you would enjoy the experience.  What
is your own impression?  Do you dislike the idea, or feel inclined
towards it?"

Rhoda meditated, and her mother watched her with wistful eyes.  At the
first mention of the word "school" the girl had started with surprise,
and her eyes had looked wide and puzzled, but now as she stood
deliberating, it was not dismay, but rather pleasure and excitement,
that showed in her face.  The eyes gleamed complacently, the dimple
dipped, the fair head tilted itself, and Rhoda said slowly--

"I think I should--_like_ it!  It would be a--change!"

Alas for Mrs Chester, and alas for every mother in that sharp moment
when she realises that the nestling which she has been keeping so safe
and warm is already beginning to find the nest too narrow for its
ambitions, and is longing to fly away into the big, wide world!  Two
salt tears splashed on to the satin gown, but no one saw them, for the
girl was engrossed in her own feelings, while Mr Chester was saying
brightly--

"That's my brave girl!  I knew you would be no coward."

Harold watched his sister with mingled pity and amusement.

"They'll take it out of her!  They'll take it out of her!  Poor little
Ro!  Won't she hate it, and won't it do her good!" he said to himself,
shrewdly.  "And, after the first, I shouldn't wonder if she became a
prime favourite!"

Rhoda seated herself on a crimson plush chair, and folded her hands on
her knees, in an attitude of expectation.  She was an impetuous young
person, and could brook no delay when once her interest was aroused.
School having been mentioned as a possibility of the future, it became
imperative to settle the matter off-hand.

Which school?  When?  Who would take her?  What would she have to buy?
What were the rules?  When were the holidays?  How long would they be?
Where would she spend them?--One question succeeded another in
breathless succession, making Mr Chester smile with indulgent
amusement.

"My dear child, how can I tell?  So far it is only a suggestion.
Nothing is settled.  We have not even thought of one school before
another--"

"If she goes at all, I should like her to go to Miss Moorby's, at
Bournemouth," said Mrs Chester quickly.  "She only takes ten girls, and
I'm told it is just like a home--hot bottles in all the beds, and beef-
tea at eleven--"

"Mother!" cried Rhoda, in a tone of deep reproach.  Her eyes flashed,
and she drew herself up proudly.  "No, indeed!  If I go at all, I will
do the thing properly, and go to a real school, and not a hot-house.  I
don't want their old beef-tea and bottles.  I want to go to a nice, big,
sporty school, where they treat you like boys, and not young ladies, and
put you on your honour, and don't bind you down by a hundred sickening
little rules.  I want to go to,"--she drew a long breath, and glanced at
her mother, as if bracing herself to meet opposition--"to Hurst Manor!
There!  I've read about it in magazines, and Ella Mason had a cousin who
had been there, and she said it was--simply mag.!  She was Head Girl,
and ruled the house, and came out first in the games, and she said she
never had such sport in her life, and found the holidays quite fearfully
flat and stale in comparison."

"You don't become Head Girl all at once," interposed Harold, drily;
while Mrs Chester gave another sob at the idea that home could ever be
looked upon in so sad a light.

"Hurst Manor?" she repeated vaguely.  "That's a strange name.  I never
heard of the place before.  What do you know about it that makes you
want to go, darling?  Are you quite sure it is nice, and what is the
Head Mistress like, and how many young la-- girls does she take?  Not
too many, I hope, for I can't see how they can be properly looked after
when there are more than twenty or thirty.  I've heard terrible stories
of delicacy for life arising from neglect.  You remember poor, dear Evie
Vane!  Her glands swelled, and nobody noticed, and--"

"My glands never swell.  They know better.  Over two hundred girls,
mother; but they are divided into different houses, with a staff of
teachers in charge of each, so there's no fear of being neglected; and
it's much more fun living in a crowd.  I'm tired of talking to the same
people over and over again, and should love a variety.  Among the
hundred girls, one would be sure to find one or two whom one could
really like."

Harold laughed again, a sleepy laugh, which brought a flash into his
sister's eyes.  That was the worst of Harold; he was so superior!  He
never argued, nor contradicted, but he had a way of smiling to himself,
of throwing back his head and half shutting his eyes, which made Rhoda
feel as if throwing cushions at him would be the only adequate relief to
her feelings.  She glared at him for a moment, and then turned her back
on him in a marked manner and addressed herself to her father.

"You will write to Miss Bruce at once, won't you, father, and arrange
for me to go at the beginning of the term?"

"I will write for particulars, or, better still, your mother and I will
go down to see the place for ourselves.  I should like you to go to the
school you fancy, if it can be arranged, and I suppose this is as good
as any."

"Better!"  Rhoda declared rapturously, "a thousand times better!  Ella
Mason said so; and she knows, because her cousin's sisters have all been
at different schools--one at Cheltenham, one at Saint Andrew's, one at
Wycombe, and she declares that Hurst beats them all.  It must be so,
since it has adopted all the good ideas and abandoned the bad."  She
went on with a rambling statement which seemed to imply that Miss Bruce
had been in turn sole proprietor of each of these well-known schools
before abandoning them in favour of her new establishment; that Hurst
Manor buildings had been recently erected, at vast expense, to provide
every possible convenience for the pupils, and at the same time was a
nobleman's seat of venerable interest; that sports and games formed the
chief interest of the pupils, lessons being relegated to an appropriate
secondary position; while, astonishing to relate, the honours in all
University examinations fell to "Hurst girls," and every woman who had
made a name for herself had graduated from its ranks!  She detailed
these interesting items of information with sublime assurance; and, when
Harold mildly pointed out inconsistencies, retorted scornfully that she
supposed she might be allowed to know, since Ella's cousin had _said_
so, and she had been there, and seen for herself!  Mrs Chester
supported her by murmurs of assent, and little warning frowns to her
son, which in dumb language signified that he was to be a good boy, and
not aggravate his sister; and Mr Chester put his arm round her waist,
and looked down at her, half smiling, half pitiful.  The pitiful
expression grew, and became so marked that the girl gazed at him in
surprise.  Why did he look so sorry?  Was he already feeling the blank
which her absence would leave?  Did he fear that she would be home-sick,
and regret her hasty decision?  She stared into his face with her bright
blue eyes, and her father gazed back, noting the firm chin, the arched
brows, the characteristic tilt of the head.  This overweening confidence
of youth--he was asking himself earnestly--was it altogether a
misfortune, or but raw material out of which great things were to be
made in the future?  Was it not better to go forth to meet life's battle
with a light heart and fearless tread than trembling and full of doubt?
Surely it was better, and yet his heart was sore for the girl, as the
heart of a leader must be sore when he sends his soldiers to the front,
knowing that no victory is won without a cost, no fight without a scar.
Something very like a tear glittered in the father's eye, and at the
sight Rhoda's face softened into a charming tenderness.  She snuggled
her head into his neck, and rubbed her soft cheeks against his,
murmuring absurd little sentences of endearment, as to a child of two
years old.

"Whose pet is it, then?  Whose own precious?  The nicest old sweet in
the world."

Mr Chester pushed the girl aside, and put on a frown of portentous
ferocity to conceal the delight with which her demonstration had, in
reality, filled him.  He loved to feel the sweep of the crisp locks, the
touch of the soft cheek; he even appreciated, if the truth must be told,
being addressed as a "precious," but wild horses would not have induced
him to confess as much, and he made haste to leave the room with Harold
lest perchance any sign of his real feelings might betray themselves to
the sharp feminine eye.

Left alone with her mother, Rhoda clasped her hands behind her back, and
paced slowly up and down.  It was a relief, after all, to be rid of the
men, and be able to talk things over with a feminine hearer who never
brought forward inconvenient quibbles, who accepted statements as facts,
as of course they were, and agreed to propositions in a quiet,
reasonable manner.  Rhoda thought out several important matters in that
march to and fro, and announced the result in a decisive manner.

"I must have a complete new outfit!  I don't believe in taking half-worn
things.  You can send them away to that poor clergyman in Ireland, with
the five daughters.  Geraldine, isn't it, who `fits' my clothes?  Well,
Geraldine shall have my blue silk, and the fawn jacket, and the blouses,
and the grey dress.  If the arm-holes stick into her as much as they do
into me, she will wish I had never been invented.  She can have my best
hat, too, if she wants it.  I hate it, and at `Hurst' you never wear
anything but sailors', with the school colours.  There is a blue house,
and a pink, and a green, and a yellow, and a red; that's the way they
arrange in all big schools, and I only hope and pray it won't be my fate
to be yellow, or _what_ an image I'll look!  Other things being equal,
Mum dear, kindly say you think the blue house would be best for my
health and morals.  I want to live _in_, you understand, not _out_--
that's one point I have quite decided."

"In what, dearest?  Out of what?  I don't understand what you mean."

"In school itself.  There are three houses in the school building and
three in the grounds, and, of course, if you live `out' you have ten
minutes' walk over to classes, whatever the weather may be.  I should
object to shivering across the first thing in the morning in rain and
snow and getting all splashed and blown.  No one can call me a coddle,
but I _do_ like comfort, and it would be a dreadful fag--"

"I should think so, indeed; most risky!  I wouldn't hear of it for you.
If you go at all you must live in, and have a comfortable room, with a
fire in cold weather."

"Oh, well; I don't know if you can expect that.  We mustn't be too
exacting.  You will look after my clothes at once, mother, won't you?
for there will be so much to get.  I want things nice, you know!  I
should like the girls to see that I had decent belongings.  I love
having all the _little_ things complete and dainty.  I think girls ought
to be particular about them.  It's a sign of refinement.  I can't endure
shabby things round me."

"Of course not, darling; and there's no reason why you should.  Write
down a list of what you want, so that we shan't forget anything when we
are in town.  You shall have all you need; but, oh! dear me, I don't
know how shall I live when you have gone.  I shall break my heart
without you!"  And Mrs Chester's tears once more rolled down her
cheeks.  It seemed to her at this moment that the greatest trouble which
her happy life had known was this projected parting from her beloved
daughter.



CHAPTER THREE.

ANTICIPATIONS.

Two days later Mr and Mrs Chester started on their tour of inspection,
and Rhoda reflected that she could not employ herself better during
their absence than by preparing, so far as might be, for the life ahead.
She went upstairs to her own sitting-room, and made a sweeping survey
of her treasures.  The books in the hanging cases must, of course, be
left behind, since they were too numerous to carry.  She looked lovingly
at their bright gold and leather backs, and took down a special
favourite here and there, to dip into its contents.  The Waverley novels
ran in a long, yellow line across one shelf; Dickens, clad in red, came
immediately beneath; and a whole row of poets on the bottom shelf.
Wordsworth was a prize from Fraulein, but his pages were still stiff and
unread; Longfellow opened of himself at "Hiawatha"; while Tennyson, most
beloved of all, held half a dozen markers at favourite passages.  His
portrait hung close at hand, a copy of that wonderful portrait by Watts,
which seems to have immortalised all the power and beauty of the
strange, sad face.  Rhoda nicked a grain of dust from the glass surface,
and carefully straightened the frame against the wall, for this picture
was one of her greatest treasures, and respected accordingly.  Another
case held books of stories, ranging from the fairy tales of childhood to
the publications of last year; a third was devoted to bound volumes of
magazines, and a fourth to the less showy and interesting school-books.

"It's no use taking _you_!" said Rhoda scornfully.  "I expect you are
quite out of date.  You can stay here and rest, and when I come back
I'll point out your errors, and send you into the lumber-room to make
room for the new ones!"  Then she turned her attention to the
mantelpiece, on which reposed a quite extraordinary number of miniature
jugs.  Jugs, jugs everywhere, and nothing but jugs; blue jugs, yellow
jugs, brown jugs, red jugs; Worcester jugs with delicate white figures
against a background of blue; jugs worth a penny sterling at the village
emporium; plain jugs, iridescent jugs; jugs with one handle, with two,
with three, with none at all.  Their variety was as puzzling as their
number, but Rhoda gazed at them with all the pride of the collector.
"Jugs"--unrivalled by postcards, stamps, or crests--had been her mania
for a year on end, and the result was dear to her heart.  To find a new
jug to add to the collection had appeared one of the chief objects in
travelling; an expedition to town had been a failure or success,
according as it discovered jugs or no jugs.

In her anxiety for their safety she had even volunteered to dust her own
mantelpiece, and now, alas! she must leave them to the tender mercies of
Mary and her assistants!  It was a painful reflection, and after a
moment's consideration she determined not to risk it, but to store the
darlings away in some safe hiding-place until her return.

No sooner said than done.  Each little jug was wrapped in a separate
roll of tissue paper, fitted into a drawer of the writing-table, and
securely locked against invasion.  The process of "putting away" thus
begun extended itself indefinitely.  The photographs in their various
frames must be arranged and divided; nice relations and very dearest
friends, to be taken to school, disagreeable or "middling" relations,
and merely "dearest friends," to be laid aside in another drawer;
fragile ornaments to be hidden, in case they were broken; silver and
brass in case they tarnished; letters to be destroyed, to be tied up in
packets, to be answered before leaving home; pieces of fancy work to be
folded away, in case sacrilegious hands should dare to put them to any
other use than that for which they were intended.

Rhoda set to work with the energy of ten women, and worked away until
the once tidy room had become a scene of wildest confusion; until sofa,
table, and chairs were alike piled high with bundles.  Then of a sudden
her energy flagged, she grew tired and discouraged, and wished she had
left the stupid old things where she had found them.  It occurred to her
as a brilliant inspiration that there was no possible hurry, and that
sitting under the trees reading a book, and drinking lemon squash, was a
much more agreeable method of spending a hot summer's day than working
like a charwoman.  She carried her latest book into the garden
forthwith, ordered the "squash," and spent an hour of contented idleness
before lunch.

The story, however, was not interesting enough to tempt a second reading
during the afternoon, for the heroine was a girl of unimpeachable
character, who pursued her studies at home under the charge of a daily
governess, and such a poor-spirited creature could hardly be expected to
commend herself to a girl who had decided for two whole days to go to
the newest of all new schools, and already felt herself far removed from
such narrow experiences.  Rhoda cast about in her mind for the next
diversion, and decided to bicycle across the park to call upon the
Vicar's daughter the self-same Ella Mason who had been her informant on
so many important points.  Ella would be indeed overcome to hear that
Rhoda herself was to be a "Hurst" girl, and there would be an increased
interest in hearing afresh those odd pieces of information which had
fallen from the cousin's lips.

She felt a thrill of relief on hearing that her friend was at home, and
in finding her alone in the morning-room, which looked so bare and
colourless to eyes accustomed to the splendours of the Chase.  Something
of the same contrast existed between the two girls themselves, for while
Rhoda sat glowing pink and white after her ride, Ella's cheeks were as
pale as her dress, and her eyes almost as colourless as the washed-out
ribbon round her waist.  She was not a beauty by any means, but
unaffectedly loving and unselfish, rejoicing in her friend's news,
though it would deprive her of a favourite companion, and she was all
anxiety to help and encourage.  She knitted her brow to remember all
that the cousin had said of Hurst Manor, wishing only that she had
listened with more attention to those pearls of wisdom.

"Yes, she said that they did a great deal of Latin.  All the girls learn
it, and it seems to be looked on as one of the most important subjects.
They translate Horace and Livy and all kinds of learned books."

"Humph!  I shan't!" declared Rhoda coolly.  "I don't approve of Latin
for girls.  It's silly.  Of course, if you intend to teach, or be a
doctor, or anything like that, it may be useful, but for ordinary stop-
at-home girls it's nonsense.  What use would Latin be to _me_, I should
like to know?  I shall take modern languages instead.  I can read and
write French fluently, though it doesn't come quite so easy to speak it,
and German, of course, is second nature after jabbering with Fraulein
all these years.  I should _think_ in German if I would allow myself,
but I won't.  I don't think it is patriotic.  There is not very much
that any one can teach me of French or German!"

"Then what is the use of studying them any more?" inquired Ella, aptly
enough; but Rhoda was not a whit discomposed.

"My dear, it is ever so much pleasanter doing things that you
understand!  The first stages are such a grind.  Well, what next?  What
other subjects are important?"

"Mathematics.  Some of the girls are awfully clever, and are ever so far
on in Euclid.  I did one book with father; but it worried me so, and I
cried so much one day when he altered the letters and put the whole
thing out, that he grew tired, and said I could give it up.  You didn't
do any with Fraulein, I think?"

"No; it's a nuisance.  I wish I did now; but I'll have to begin at once,
that's all!  I'll get Harold's old books and cram up before I go, so
that I can just bring in an expression now and then, as if I knew all
about it.  Girls are so patronising if they think you are a beginner...
I'm pretty well up in history, and can say reams of poetry, and play,
and draw, and paint in water colours--"

"Ye-es!" assented Ella feebly.  She was afraid to say so much in words,
but her conviction was that her friend's methods of work would seem
strangely antiquated when contrasted with the vivid strength of the new
_regime_.  She recalled Rhoda's mild copies of village scenes, with
cottages in the foreground, trees to the rear, and a well-regulated
flight of swallows on the sky line, and mentally placed them beside her
cousin's vigorous sketches on the Slade system, where two or three lines
seemed to do the work of a dozen, and prettiness was a thing abhorred!
She remembered the lessons in theory and harmony, and trembled for her
friend's awakening.  "Yes," she repeated.  "Oh, of course; and then
there are other things besides lessons--a girl can make herself popular
by being pleasant and obliging, and the outdoor life is so fascinating.
Games every day, just as if you were boys, and each one trying to get
into a higher team, and as keen and enthusiastic as she can be.  You
_will_ enjoy the games, Rhoda!"

"Now that's just one thing I wanted to talk to you about!" cried Rhoda
earnestly.  "I'm glad you reminded me.  Of course, tennis and croquet
are all right.  I can play a _very_ good set, and beat most ladies at
croquet.  One time this summer I made five hoops in one turn, and took
my partner with me, but of course I don't do that _every_ day of the
week.  I'm all right for summer games, but winter is coming on, and I
shall have to play that horrid old hockey, and I haven't the remotest
idea how it is done.  I've never seen a match, but you have, and I want
you to tell me all about it, so that I may know what to do, and not make
an idiot of myself.  You went to the Betham ground when you were staying
there, and saw the girls' team play.  Go on!  Describe it!  Tell me all
about it, and everything they did!"

Ella drew a deep breath, and looked awed and important.

"Well! it was a county match, and one team wore white blouses and the
other pink.  They had on blue skirts, very short, and awful feet!  Some
had great pads on each ankle, and some had leggings, and some had
nothing at all.  I should have swathings of cotton wool a foot wide, for
it made my ankles ache just to see the sticks swinging about!  It was an
icy day; the wind went through us like knives and scissors, and we stood
on little planks of wood and shuddered, with furs up to our ears, but
they wore no hats or jackets, and their sleeves went flap, flap, as thin
as possible.  There was only one pretty one among them, all the rest
looked--hideous!  There was a goal at one end, _here_, and another,
_here_."  Ella drew a rough map of the ground on the back of an
envelope, and Rhoda looked on with breathless interest.  "This team
wanted to make a goal _here_, and the other side tried to prevent them.
They whacked with their sticks, and off went the ball, and each side
flew after it, trying to send it the way they wanted, and one poor,
wretched girl stood before each goal to prevent the enemy's ball from
entering.  I expected they would both die of consumption the next day,
but I met them out at tea, quite spry and lively, and they said they
didn't feel cold a bit.  I didn't believe them, but that's nothing.  An
umpire marched about in leggings, and blew a whistle, and called out
`Off side!  Off side!'"

"And what did he mean by that?"

Ella hesitated, uncertainly.  Her knowledge of the game was of the
slightest, but she was anxious to help her friend, and gallantly tried
to recall odd explanations.

"Oh, well, I think one of the wrong side hit, you know, and there is a
rule that you may not send the ball straight forward to one of your own
side, but must hit it back to some one behind you."

"But that's silly!  If you want to get on as fast as you can, why on
earth must you go _back_?  If they never hit forward, how can they win.
Do you mean to say they _never_ send it forwards towards the goal?"

"Oh, yes, yes!  One girl was splendid.  She hit magnificently.  She ran
like a man, and sent it flying before her, and made three goals
herself."

"Then how--why--what--what in the world did you mean by saying that you
_mustn't_ do it?" demanded Rhoda sternly, and Ella made a gesture as of
tearing her hair in confusion.

"I don't know!  It isn't easy to understand a game when you see only one
match.  I was confused myself, but I know each side tries for a
different goal, and there are `backs' and `half-backs' and `forwards,'
just as at football, and, whatever you do, you must not raise your stick
above your waist.  It's a murderous-looking game, anyhow.  I wondered
that they weren't all killed; and one girl's hand was bleeding horribly.
I asked her if it was very painful, and she stared and said, `Oh, I
hadn't noticed it!' and mopped it up with her handkerchief.  Awfully
callous, I call it."

"Oh, I don't know!" replied Rhoda, airily.  "Those flesh wounds don't
hurt.  I should never think of taking any notice of a little thing like
that.  Well, I can't say I am very much wiser for your instructions, my
dear, but I will pump Harold and see what I can get out of him.  I have
no doubt I could hit all right, for I have a quick eye, and if you can
play one or two games it helps you with the rest.  But I should be
pretty mad if I made a hit and they whistled at me and made me come
back.  I like to know what I am about."

"You had better be a goal-keeper," advised Ella, wisely; "you have no
running to do until the ball comes your way, and then at it you go,
tooth and nail!  Stop it somehow--anyhow--with your hands, your feet,
your skirt, your stick.  I believe there is an etiquette about it, don't
you know, as there is about all those things, and that it's more swagger
to stop it one way than another, but the main thing is to stop it
_somehow_, and that you simply must do!"

"Humph!  If you can!  What happens if you can't?"

"Emigrate to Australia by the first boat!  I should think so, at least,
to judge by the faces of the other girls when one poor creature _did_
let a ball in.  Feerocious, my dear! there was no other word for it.  My
heart ached for her.  But it was a stupid miss, for it looked so easy.
I felt sure I could have stopped it."

"It's all a matter of nerve.  If you lose your head you are sure to play
the fool at a critical moment.  Fraulein was like that.  The moment the
game went against her she began to hop about, and puff and pant, and
work herself into such a fever that she couldn't even see a ball, much
less hit it.  I kept calm, and so of course I always won."

It did strike Ella that victory under such circumstances would be easily
gained, but she was too loyal to say so, and Rhoda leant back against
the cushions of the sofa, and continued to discourse on games in
general, and school games in particular, with an air of such intimacy
and knowledge that no one would have suspected that the object of her
visit had been to listen, rather than to teach.

Ella listened meekly to a recital of what her friend intended to do, and
be; of the examinations she would pass, the honours she would gain; the
influence she would exercise over her fellows; and sighed to think of
her own limitations, and the impossibility of such a career ever falling
to her lot.  And then Rhoda rose, and put on her gloves preparatory to
saying good-bye.

"I shall come down to see you again, of course, but I shall be very
busy.  I am going to have a complete new outfit, and everything as nice
as possible."

"Ye-es," said the Vicar's daughter.

"I shall have all my best skirts lined with silk."

"Ah!" sighed Ella, and felt a pang of keenest envy.  She had never
possessed a silk lining in her life.  It seemed to her at times that if
she could only hear herself rustle as she walked, there would be nothing
left to wish for in life!

"They will think you are a Princess!" she said, and Rhoda smiled, and
did not attempt to deny the impeachment.



CHAPTER FOUR.

DEPARTURE.

Mr and Mrs Chester returned from their visit to Hurst Manor with
somewhat different accounts of the establishment.  The father was
delighted with all he had seen, thought the arrangements excellent, and
Miss Bruce a charming and lovable woman.  The mother did not see how
draughts were to be avoided in those long, bare passages, considered the
hours of work cruelly long, and was convinced that Miss Bruce could be
very stern if she chose.  Her husband laughed, and declared that a
school of two hundred girls would fare badly indeed if she could not,
and the maternal fears were silenced at once by his banter, and by
Rhoda's fearless confidence.

It was finally decided that the girl should join at the beginning of the
term, and preparations were set on foot without delay.  It was almost
like buying a trousseau, Rhoda declared; and certainly no bride-elect
could have taken a keener interest in her purchases.  The big, new box
with her initials on the side; the dressing-bag with its dainty
fittings; the writing-case and workbox; the miniature medicine chest
stocked with domestic remedies, in case she should feel feverish or
chilled, have earache, toothache, or headache; be threatened with sore
throat or swollen glands--they were all new possessions, and as such
afforded acute satisfaction, for though the wardrobe list was
disappointingly short, there were at least no restrictions as to
quality.

When the key was turned in her box Rhoda heaved a sigh of satisfaction
in the confidence that not one of the two hundred girls could possess a
better equipment than her own.  Then she looked round her dismantled
room, and felt a pang of depression.  It looked so _dead_--as if its
owner had already departed, and left it to its fate.  The wardrobe door
swung apart and revealed the empty pegs; the drawers were pulled open
and showed piles of torn-up letters; the carpet was strewn with pins.
All the treasured ornaments had been stored away, and the ugly ones
looked uglier than ever, as if infected by the general dejection.  In
story-books girls were wont to bid a sentimental adieu to their maiden
bowers before leaving for a new sphere, but Rhoda did not feel in the
least inclined to be sentimental; she took to her heels instead and ran
downstairs, only too glad to escape from her dreary surroundings, and
presently she and her mother _were_ driving towards the station on the
first stage of the eventful journey.

The village women stood at the doors of their cottages to put their
aprons to their eyes, and murmur, "Ay, poor dear!" as she drove past;
little Tommy Banks threw a nosegay of marigolds through the carriage
window, and waddled away, scarlet with confusion; and there was quite a
gathering of friends on the platform.

Ella had brought a box of home-made Fuller's sweets from herself and a
dainty copy of _The Christian Year_ as the Vicar's farewell offering;
Mrs Ross had a stack of magazines for reading on the journey, and
little Miss Jones, who owed all the comforts of life to Mrs Chester's
friendship, presented the most elaborate "housewife," stocked with every
necessary which it seemed probable that a girl at school would _not_
require.  It was all most touching and gratifying.  Even the station-
master came up to express his good wishes, and the one-eyed porter
blurted out, "Glad to see you back, Miss!" as if it were impossible to
suppress his feelings a moment longer.

Rhoda felt an insight into the feelings of Royalty as she stood at the
window of the carriage, graciously smiling and bowing so long as she
remained in sight, and when this excitement was over, another appeared
to take its place.  Mrs Chester was discovered to be crying in quite
uncontrolled fashion, and at the sight of her tears Rhoda put on her
severest air.

"Mother!  What are you doing?  You must _not_ cry!  Please remember that
in half an hour we shall be at Euston, and meet the school.  I should
never get over it if the girls saw my mother with a red face!"

Mrs Chester mopped her eyes obediently, and made a valiant effort to
regain her composure.  For herself, poor dear, she cared little about
appearances, but Rhoda had already exhibited an intense anxiety that she
should make a good impression on the minds of her future school-fellows.
Each separate article of clothing had been passed in review, while the
bonnet had been changed three times over before the critic was
satisfied.  It would never do to spoil an effect which had been achieved
with so much trouble; so the unselfish creature gulped down her tears,
and tried to talk cheerfully on impersonal topics, keeping her eyes
fixed on the landscape the while, lest the sight of her child might
prove too much for her resolution.

Rhoda was immaculate in blue serge coat and skirt, and sailor hat with a
band of school colours.  Nothing could have been simpler; but there are
ranks in even the simplest garments, and she was agreeably conscious
that her coat was not as other coats, neither was her skirt as other
skirts.  The hand of the Regent Street tailor was seen in both, and
there was a new arrangement of pleats at the back which ought in itself
to secure the admiration of the school!  She was all complacency until
Euston was reached, when the first glimpse at a group of "Hurst" girls
smote her to earth.  She had sewn the band on her hat upside down,
putting the wide stripe next the brim, which should by rights have been
the place of the narrow!  To the cold, adult mind such a discovery might
seem of trifling importance, but to the embryo school-girl it was
fraught with agonising humiliation.  It looked so ignorant, so stupid;
it marked one so hopelessly as a recruit; Rhoda's cheeks burned crimson;
she looked searchingly round to see if by chance any other strangeling
had fallen into the same error, but, so far as bands were concerned, she
was solitary among the throng.

A governess, seeing the two figures standing apart from the rest, came
forward and welcomed Rhoda with a few kindly words, but she was too busy
to spare time for more than a greeting.  Fresh girls kept arriving with
every moment--a crowd of brisk, alert, bustling young creatures,
skurrying along bags in hand, and bright eyes glancing to right and
left.  At every step forward there would come a fresh recognition, a nod
of the head, a wave of the hand, a quick "Halloa!" more eloquent than
elegant.  Rhoda felt a spasm of loneliness at the realisation that no
greeting waited for herself, and at the strangeness of the many faces.
She looked critically around and came to the most unfavourable
conclusions.

"I don't like that one--she's a fright!  I hate that one--she's so
affected.  Those two look common; I won't have anything to do with
_them_.  The big one with spectacles looks horribly learned.  The one
with the violin has a most unmusical face.  _She_ looks fit for
stratagems if you like!  The little one in brown is a cunning fox, I can
see it in her eyes.  Of all the plain, uninteresting, stodgy set of
girls--"

There was a movement inside the saloon carriage opposite, and a large
mamma clad in black, with a profusion of bugles, stepped on to the
platform and marched stolidly away.  She steered a course clear of the
crowd of girls, the ends of her mantle floating behind her, like a brig
in full sail before the breeze, while her poor little daughter hung out
of the doorway gazing after her, sobbing bitterly, and mouthing in
pathetic, helpless misery.

Mrs Chester began to cry at once in sympathy, and even Rhoda felt a
smarting of the eyes.  It was coming!  The crucial moment was at hand;
the bell was ringing, the girls were crowding into the carriages, the
governess stepped forward and spoke a warning word.

"You had better come now, dear!  Please take your seat."

Rhoda turned and bent her tall young head to her little mother, but
neither spoke--the tension was too great.  Mrs Chester's face was
tremulous with agitation, the girl's white and defiant.  Then she
stepped into the carriage and seated herself among the crowd of
strangers.  The girls were all silent now, pale of face and red of eye,
a few crying openly, the majority fighting against emotion.  The mothers
came to the edge of the platform, and stared in through the windows.

"It is like looking at animals in a cage," said Rhoda to herself, and
then the wheels began to move, she saw her mother's quivering face--saw
it from a distance--saw it no more--and realised for the first time,
with a great, bitter pang of anguish, the meaning of farewell!

She had not intended to cry, she had never believed it possible that she
_would_ cry, but it was hard work to resist it during the next half-
hour, when every second bore her further from home, and the strangeness
of her surroundings pressed more heavily upon her.  Other girls were
beginning to cheer up and exchange confidences with their companions,
but she had no one with whom to talk.  Two girls opposite--the foxey one
and the affected one--were chatting quite merrily together.  The
affected one, whose name appeared to be Hilda, had spent part of her
holiday at Boulogne, and was discoursing on the delights of Continental
bathing, while Foxey, not to be outdone, would have her know that
Scarborough kept pace with all the Continental methods.

Another girl made the harrowing discovery that she had left her
spectacles at home, and announced the same to a chum, who remarked that
it was "a ripping joke!"  The violin girl had had a bicycling accident,
and exhibited her scars with pride.  The shock of parting over, they all
seemed very happy together, very friendly, very absorbed; far too much
absorbed to notice a new-comer, or trouble themselves on her behalf.
The governess stood by Rhoda's side for a few minutes and made remarks
in an aggressively cheerful manner, but her reception was not
encouraging, and presently she went away, and did not return.

Rhoda looked at the pictures in her magazines, or pretended to look, for
her brain was so much occupied with other matters that she could not
grasp their meaning, and after five minutes' inspection would hardly
have been able to say whether she had been studying the features of a
country landscape or those of a society beauty.  Then she turned and
cautiously examined her neighbours.  The girl to the right was a square,
stolid-looking creature, square-faced, square-shouldered, with square
toes to her boots, and elbows thrust out on each side in square,
aggressive fashion.  Her eyes were small and light, and her nose a
defiance of classic traditions; the corners of her mouth turned down,
and she had at once the solemnest and the most mischievous expression it
is possible to imagine.  After a critical survey of her charms, Rhoda
felt that she was not the person with whom to force a conversation, and
turned her attention to the neighbour on her left.

A recruit, surely; for, though her hat-band was in order, there was in
her mien an absence of that brisk, independent air which seemed to
characterise the old Hurst girl.  A pretty damsel, too, with curling
hair and soft dark eyes, which at the present moment were bent in
elaborate scrutiny on the paper before her.  Rhoda noticed that it was
the advertisement page at which she was looking, and suspected a pre-
occupation kindred to her own.  She coughed slightly and ventured a
gentle question--

"Is this your first term at school?"

The dark-eyed girl turned a fleeting glance upon her, so fleeting that
it seemed as if she had never altered her position, and replied
monosyllabically:

"Yes."

"You are going up, like me, for the first time?"

"Yes."

"And you have never been to school before?"

"Yes."

"I mean a boarding school.  A big school like this, on all the new
lines?"

"Yes."

This was disconcerting!  What _did_ she mean?  It was her first term,
she was a new girl, and yet she had been up before!  What was the girl
thinking about!  She might really trouble herself to say more than one
single word.

"But you said--I understood you to say--"

Brown Eyes turned fiercely upon her, and fairly snapped in indignation.

"I don't care what I said, or what you understood.  Can't you _see_ I
want to be quiet?  Can't you leave me alone?  If I am a new girl, I
don't want to howl before all the others, do I!  Very well, then! don't
make me talk!  Read your book, and let me read mine."

"I _beg_ your pardon!" said Rhoda, in her most stately manner.  She took
up her magazine obediently, but now it was more impossible than ever to
read it, for she was tingling with mortification.  Such a snub from a
stranger, and when she was trying to be friendly too!  It would be a
long time before she troubled Brown Eyes again.  Her thoughts went back
regretfully to Ella, the loyal, the sympathetic, the faithfully
admiring.  If Ella were only here now, how different it would be!  Why
had she not thought of it before, and asked her parents to pay Ella's
fees, so that she might have the solace of her presence?  They would
have done it gladly, but, alas!  Ella could not have been spared from
home.  She had to help her mother; to be governess as well as pupil,
teaching the younger children for part of every day.  No!  Ella was
impossible; but the craving for companionship grew so intense that it
even conquered the dread inspired by her other companion, and
strengthened her to make yet another effort.

The train had just left a station whose name was familiar in her ears,
and she realised that they had crossed the boundary between two
counties, and were now in Blankshire, in which Hurst Manor itself was
situated.  To remark on this fact seemed an innocent and natural manner
of opening a conversation, so she turned towards Square Face, and said
brightly, "Now we are in Blankshire, I see!  I have never been here
before.  The country looks very pretty and undulating."

The girl turned and stared at her with a wooden stolidity of feature.
Seen at close quarters she appeared to Rhoda as at once the most
extraordinarily ugly and comical-looking creature she had ever beheld.
Her little eyes blinked, and the thin lips flapped up and down in an
uncanny fashion that refused to be likened to any ordinary thing.  There
was a moment's silence, then she repeated in a tone of the utmost
solemnity--

"The country is very pretty and undulating--you are quite right.  Your
remark is most apt!  May I ask if you would object to my repeating it to
my friend over here?  She would be so very much interested."

She was so preternaturally grave, that for a moment Rhoda was taken in
by the pretence, the next she flushed angrily, and tilted her head in
the air, but it was of no avail, for already the next girl was tittering
over the quotation, and turning to repeat it in her turn.  The simple
words must surely contain some hidden joke, for on hearing it each
listener was seized with a paroxysm of laughter, and face after face
peered forward to stare at the originator, and chuckle with renewed
mirth.  It was a good ten minutes before it had travelled round the
carriage and been digested by each separate traveller, and then, so far
from dying out, it acquired fresh life from being adapted to passing
circumstances, as when the train having stopped at a junction and moved
on again with a jerk, Square Face fell prone into her companion's arms,
and excused herself with a bland--

"Excuse me, dear.  It's my little way.  I _am_ so pretty and
undulating," and instantly the titters burst out afresh.

Rhoda's face was a study, but even as she sat fuming with passion, a
voice spoke in her ear from the side where Brown Eyes still studied her
advertisements.

"Laugh, can't you?" said the voice.  "Laugh, too, as if you enjoyed the
joke.  It's the only way.  They will go on all the more if they see you
are angry."

"I hate them all!" hissed Rhoda savagely, and the other heaved a sigh.

"Ah, so do I, but they shan't hate me if I know it!  I'm sorry I
snapped, but I'll talk now, and for pity's sake don't look so dismal.
Let us look over this paper together, and make remarks, and smile as if
we were enjoying ourselves too."

"I don't feel as if I should ever enjoy myself again.  It's hateful
going to school.  If I had known it was as bad as this I would never
have come."

"There's a lake in the grounds.  We will drown ourselves together after
tea, but in the meantime do please keep up appearances.  Don't give
yourself away before all these girls!"

Rhoda looked at her curiously, and felt a thrill of comfort at finding a
friend in the midst of her desolation.  "What is your name?" she queried
eagerly, and the dark eyes met hers in a solemn stare.

"Marah, for bitterness.  That's how I feel to-day, anyhow.  My
godmothers and godfather christened me Dorothy, and in festive moments I
have even answered to `Doll,' but I'd murder any one who called me that
to-day.  Now, I'll show you something interesting...  I've travelled on
this line before, and if you look out of the window you can catch a
glimpse of Hurst Manor as we pass the next station.  It stands in its
own grounds with nothing between it and the line.  Over there to the
right--you can't miss it if you keep your eyes open.  Now!  There!  That
gaunt, grey building."

Rhoda looked, and there it lay--a gaunt building, indeed, with row upon
row of tall, bare windows staring like so many eyes, and out-standing
wings flanked like sentinels on either side.  The poor recruit's face
lengthened with horror.

"It looks," she said dismally, "like a prison!  It looks as if when you
once got in, you would never never get out any more!"



CHAPTER FIVE.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS.

Ten minutes later the journey came to an end, and the girls surged out
on to the platform of the country station.  A line of waggonettes,
cheerfully denominated "Black Marias" by the pupils, was in waiting, and
with less confusion than might have been expected the girls divided into
different parties, and seated themselves in the carriages marked with
their own house colours.  Rhoda and her travelling companions, being all
"blue," were among the first to drive off, each girl clutching the
handbag which contained the immediate necessities of her toilet, and
chattering away at the pitch of her voice.  "Square Face" was evidently
the wag of the party, and was treated with an admiring deference which
seemed to bespeak a position of importance.  She was professionally
addressed as "Tom," and Rhoda from her seat opposite, read the words,
"Thomasina Bolderston," upon the label of the bag, and reflected that
she had never heard a name more entirely appropriate to its owner.  It
was at once so ugly, so uncommon, and so arresting to the memory, while
Tom herself, once seen, could never be forgotten, nor confounded with
another girl.  There she sat, the keen autumn air blanching her cheeks
and reddening her eyes, her arms crossed squarely over her bag, her lips
twitching with mischievous enjoyment.  She had but to roll her eyes, and
the girls went into fresh convulsions of laughter; and when, at the
entrance to "Hurst" grounds, she took out her handkerchief and affected
to sob, the merriment reached an almost hysterical pitch.  Rhoda,
however, failed to appreciate the humour of the joke, being inclined to
cry in good truth as the grim doorway yawned before her, and she caught
a glimpse of the chill, grey hall, so different from the glowing warmth
of her own dear home.

Dorothy gripped her arm in sympathetic fashion as they alighted and fell
into position in the long line of girls, who had suddenly thrown off
their hoyden airs, and assumed a demeanour of severe propriety.  The
queue wended its serpentine course down the hall itself, and across a
smaller corridor to the head of the great staircase, where stood a lady
in a black silk dress, and a cap with lavender ribbons, crowning bands
of iron-grey hair.  She was in reality small of stature, but she held
herself with an air which gave her the appearance of being six feet high
at least, and as she shook hands with each girl she addressed to her a
word of greeting.

"How do you do, Mary?  Glad to see you, Kathleen.  Hope you are better,
Ella.  Welcome back, Carrie!" and so on, and so on.  Occasionally there
came a hesitation, and the greeting terminated without a name being
added, but whenever this was the case there was a knitting of the brows
which showed distinct annoyance.  Miss Bruce evidently took a pride in
remembering her pupils, and was hard on herself for any forgetfulness.
When it came to the turn of the new girls, she detained them a moment to
hope they would be happy, before waving them forward with an encouraging
smile.

"That's what we call being `presented.'  She is the Queen, and on the
next landing are `the Lords,' and on the second `the Commons,'"
whispered a girl, who being herself only in her second term was not
averse from posing as preceptor.  Rhoda lifted her eyes and beheld an
array of governesses standing before her, shaking hands and welcoming
the pupils in their turn.  Some looked formidable and learned, some did
not.  Some had the orthodox braided locks and spectacles, some even
condescended to the frivolity of a `fringe,' but one and all bore
themselves with a dignity worthy of a foremost position in the newest of
all new schools.

Rhoda passed by as in a dream, and felt far more interest in "the
Commons," who were for the most part young women removed from girlhood
by so slight a barrier that there was a tone of comradeship in their
voices, a sympathetic understanding in their glance.  The sweetest
looking of all was evidently in special charge of the Blues, and, walked
by the side of the two new girls as the detachment filed along the
endless corridor towards its own apartments.

"You two are sisters?  No!  Ah, well, you must pretend you are, for a
day or two at least, until you get over the first loneliness.  Every one
feels lonely at first among such a crowd of strangers, but it soon
passes, and we are very happy together.  You must come and sit with me
in my little den sometimes.  I'll ask you to tea on Sunday, and you must
always come to me if you are in any difficulty.  In the meantime do as
the other girls do, and you will get along quite easily.  You are in the
same room.  Wash and get ready for tea at once.  The gong will ring in
half an hour, and after that your boxes will have arrived and you will
be able to unpack."

They reached the door of the dormitory as she finished speaking, and the
girls entered, trying not to feel as if they were being introduced to a
prison cell, or to be unduly cast down because they were separated by
half the length of the room.

"If we could have been next each other and just wobbled the curtain
occasionally it would have been friendly!" sighed Rhoda, sinking down on
the solitary chair and gazing forlornly round her new abode.  A bed, a
wash-stand, a chest of drawers with a glass on top, a small fixture
wardrobe, and about three yards of space on which to disport her own
fair self--different quarters, indeed, from her room at home, with its
spacious floor, its deep bay windows, its adjoining dressing-room and
bathroom!  When the curtains were drawn there was a feeling of cramped
confinement which was most depressing to the spirits; yet, as her eye
took in one detail after the other, Rhoda realised that there were
redeeming points in the situation.  Small as it was, the cubicle was
decidedly pretty, and blue enough to satisfy the blondest of mistresses.
Blue was the paint on the walls, blue the mat on the floor, blue and
white the coverlet on the bed, blue the quaintly shaped china on the
wash-stand.  She remembered with a thrill of satisfaction that her own
bags and cases were of the same hue, and took off her hat feeling that
she had found an oasis in the desert of life.

Half-an-hour seemed a long time to prepare for tea, when no change of
garment was possible, but it passed so quickly that the sound of the
gong came as a surprise, and she emerged from her retreat to find her
room-mates already filing towards the door.  Thomasina led the way,
staring at Rhoda's locks with an amusement which the girl found it hard
to fathom.  She had brushed out the curling mane with even greater care
than usual, and was conscious that it was as tidy as nature had intended
it should be.  Then why stare and smile?  She could not understand, but
Thomasina only said enigmatically--

"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may!  Come on, Fuzzy!" and led the way out
into the corridor.

Lines of girls were appearing on every side--along this corridor, along
that, down narrow nights of stairs, around unexpected corners, all
converging steadily on the central staircase.  It was like a game of
"Follow my leader," and Rhoda could not but admire the ease and skill
with which "Tom" avoided collision, and marshalled her party to its own
table in the great dining-hall.  When every one was seated, and grace
said, the clatter of cups and saucers began, and Rhoda had her first
experience of a school meal.

Well! the tea was very welcome, and it certainly was hot, but somehow or
other it did not taste like the tea at home.  There was so much "cup"
about it--perhaps that was the explanation.  It was quite an effort to
get one's lips over the rim.  Thickness seemed to be the order of the
day when one looked from the china to the slices of bread and butter
piled in the many plates.  One such chunk would make a meal in itself,
thought Rhoda, nibbling fastidiously at the first slice, but whether
from the fatigue of the long journey or the stimulating effect of
companionship, her appetite seemed to be unusually keen, and when it was
finished she put out her hand to take a second slice.

Instantly Thomasina's voice rang out in warning.  "Stop that, Fuzzy!
That's forbidden!"  Rhoda stared at her in dignified displeasure.  "My
name happens to be Rhoda Chester!"

"Congratulate you, I'm sure.  Couldn't be sweeter; but you mustn't break
rules, Rhoda Chester, all the same.  The rule in this school is that no
girl helps herself at meals, or asks for more, or pays any attention to
her own plate."

"But if I am hungry?  If I _want_ more?  How am I to get it?"

"You must rely on the thoughtfulness and attention of your neighbours.
Each girl is supposed to look after those beside her, but if she forgets
you must starve in silence, knowing that you suffer in a good cause.  I
find myself that a slight nudge applied to the elbow just as the cup is
being carried to the mouth is a useful and judicious reminder...  Let me
press a piece of plum-cake upon you, Miss Chester!"

She held out the plate of bread with her squarest smile, and Rhoda
smiled back with a curious sense of elation.  She questioned herself
curiously as to its cause, and made the surprising discovery that it was
because Thomasina had spoken to her, and showed some faint signs of
friendliness!

Tea over, there was another game of "Follow my leader," to the top story
of the building this time, where all the length of a corridor was lined
by baggage, with the mysterious addition of a flat wicker clothes-basket
beside each trunk.  The house-mistress, Miss Everett, was flitting to
and fro, and explained to the bewildered new girls that as the cubicles
afforded no room for the accommodation boxes they must unpack upstairs,
and carry down their possessions to store in drawers and wardrobes.

For the next hour and a half, therefore, the curious scene was witnessed
of sixty pupils staggering downstairs in turns under the weight of heavy
baskets of clothes, and meeting with sundry adventures by the way.  Lazy
girls gave themselves the usual additional share of trouble by
overweighting their load and toppling it over on the floor; hasty girls
tripped on the stairs and collapsed in a heap, with a rain of boots
falling on their head and pins showering broadcast through the
banisters; careless girls took a rest to ease aching backs, then nipped
up the wrong basket and bore it away, to reappear ten minutes later,
puffing and injured, and receive indignant reproaches from the rightful
owners.

Rhoda worked with a will, undisturbed by any such interruptions.  It was
with the unconsciousness of habit that she shook out her silk-lined
skirts, on lifting them from the box, but the rustling sound could not
be mistaken, and instantly she was aware that the girls on either side
were mincing round in affected fashion, shaking out their own skirts,
and simpering meaningly in her direction.

At the first glance from her eyes they became statues of propriety, but
she felt their ridicule, and catching the giggles of laughter which
followed her retreat blushed over cheek and neck in an agony of
mortification.

After all, was it appropriate to bring fine clothes to school?  Where
the rules of the house were plain living and high thinking, was it not
better to dress accordingly?  Might not display savour of ignorance, of
lack of perception, of--oh, horrors!--of snobbishness itself?

The new dresses hung neglected on their pegs, and Rhoda put on a silk
blouse with her serge skirt, and walked down to supper in mental
sackcloth and ashes.

But here was a pleasant surprise!  The room was not grey any longer, but
flooded with rosy light from the pink-hued shades which covered the
electric burners.  The girls, too, were no longer clad in dark blue as
in a uniform, but shone forth in blouses of brilliant hues, pink, blue,
red, and white alternating gaily, with an occasional green or yellow to
add to the variety.  There was in the atmosphere an indefinable air of
relaxation, of rest after labour, which added tenfold to the brightness
of the scene.  What if on each plate there was only a morsel of fish,
not half enough to satisfy clamourous appetites, there was unlimited
bread and jam to follow, and if cocoa was not the drink of all others
which one would have chosen, it was at least wholesome and satisfying.
Rhoda ate and was thankful, and felt ready for bed even before the
summons came.  Several times during the day, when her feelings had
threatened to become too keen for endurance, but pride had forbidden
outward demonstration, she had cherished a determination to cry
comfortably in bed; but when the time came she was so sleepy, so
exhausted with excitement, the bed was so unexpectedly sympathetic, that
she forgot her resolution, and, snoodling down on the pillow, fell
swiftly and happily asleep.



CHAPTER SIX.

TOM'S RULE.

The next moment, as it seemed, there came the roll of a distant gong,
and instantly there burst into life a score of jangling bells, clanging
and tinkling over one's very head in a manner calculated to destroy the
strongest nerves.  Rhoda felt an agonised certainty that the Chase was
on fire, and springing up was confronted by the blue walls of her little
cubicle.  Memory came back then, and with a pang of regret she lay back
in bed, listening to the succession of groans, yawns, and sighs which
arose from every corner of the room.

They were so eloquent that one could almost _see_ the sleepers
stretching themselves in turn, blinking heavy lids, and rubbing
dishevelled locks like so many sleek, lazy kittens.  For a moment no one
spoke, then began a chorus of lamentations.

"Seven o'clock!  It can't be true.  I haven't slept a wink all night!"

"I've been getting up at half-past eight all the holidays, and having a
cup of tea in bed before that.  It's killing going back to this!"

"Wait till the mornings are dark, and the water is frozen in the jugs;
that's the time it is really fun.  This is a mere trifle."

"It's not a trifle at all.  I'm a growing girl, and need sleep.  If Miss
Bruce had any heart she would see it, and give me an excuse."

"She'll give you a mark instead, if you are not quick.  Hurry up now!
No laggards!" cried Thomasina's voice, in answer to which there came
still louder groans, and the creaking of bedsteads as one girl after
another rose to her feet.

Rhoda rose with the rest, and for ten minutes there was silence, broken
only by the splashing of water.  Then suddenly the air was filled with a
deep, melodious roll, at which, as at a signal, Thomasina appeared from
her lair--beautiful in a magenta dressing-jacket, and hair coiled in a
tight little knot at the top of her head--and opened wide the door of
the dormitory.  Rhoda, peering from between her curtains could see other
doors opening all the way down the corridor, and bare arms hastily
withdrawn from view, while all the time the music swelled into fuller
force, and pealed over the great, silent house like some majestic
wakening voice.

"What is it?" she queried breathlessly, and Thomasina answered from
behind her curtain:

"The organ, of course.  The organ in the hall.  One of the music
mistresses plays a voluntary every morning ten minutes after we get up,
and the choir sings a hymn.  You will hear them presently.  Each house
takes it in turn to do choir duty.  It's the Greens this week."

As she spoke the first note of the hymn sounded, and the words rose
clearly on the air:--

  "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,
  Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee.
  Holy, holy, holy, Merciful and Mighty,
  God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity!"

The clear voices were softened by distance into almost angelic
sweetness, the treble rang true and sweet against the harmonious
background of alto; the organ sank to a flute-like softness.  It was an
unexpected and beautiful beginning to the day's work, and the tears
started to Rhoda's eyes as she listened, for she was of an emotional
nature, quick to respond to any outside influence.  She followed each
line of the hymn with devout attention, and when it was finished knelt
down beside her bed to offer a prayer, which was much longer and more
fervent than it would have been ten minutes before.  She prayed for
strength, for guidance, and--with a remembrance of yesterday's trials--
for patience too, that she might be able to take a joke in good part,
and not value too highly her own dignity, and finally rose from her
knees in a glow of virtuous resolution.

No sooner was she out of her cubicle than the blow descended.  With the
glow of good resolution still upon her, she was tried--and fell!

Thomasina regarded her critically, and said, with a cool assurance more
maddening than downright rudeness:

"That coiffure is very becoming, Fuzzy, but it won't do here.  Go back
to your den, and plait it in a pigtail like mine!"

The glare of indignation, of scorn, of outraged dignity in Rhoda's eyes
was beyond description.  She straightened her back into a poker of
obstinacy, and replied--

"I shall do no such thing!  I shall wear my hair as I choose, and as I
have always worn it."

"No you won't, my dear.  Pigtails are the rule in this establishment,
and pigtails you must wear so long as you are within its walls."

"If a teacher tells me to wear one, I shall obey.  If it is a rule, some
one in authority will tell me.  I won't be ordered by you."

There was a gasp of astonishment throughout the room, and one head after
another peered out to stare at the rebellious spirit who dared to defy
that important personage, the Head Girl.

Thomasina closed her eyes and smiled in maddening fashion.

"That's where you make your mistake, sweet love, for it's just exactly
what you've got to do!  I'm Head Girl, and don't you forget it.  The
Queen on her throne is not more absolute than I am in this room.  If you
don't do what I tell you, it will be my painful duty to report you for
insubordination, and it is a sad thing for a girl to get a mark on her
first day.  I must trouble you for that pigtail, if you please."

She was speaking the truth, that was evident!  Confirmation was written
on every watching face, in every warning frown.  Rhoda's pride battled
with a sense of helplessness so acute that she had much ado not to burst
into tears on the spot.  The two girls stood confronting each other, the
new-comer flushed and quivering, like a beautiful young fury, with her
flaxen hair streaming over her shoulders, and her blue eyes sending out
sparks of fire; Thomasina composed and square, with her lips pursed up
in a good-humoured, tolerant smile.

"Hurry up!" she said, and Rhoda whisked round and dashed behind her
curtain, which flew out behind in an aggrieved fashion, as if unused to
be treated with such scant courtesy.  The next few moments seemed to
have concentrated in them a lifetime of bitterness.  The comb tugged
remorselessly through the curling locks, but the physical pain passed
unnoticed; it was the blow to pride which hurt--the sharp, sharp stab of
finding herself worsted, and obliged to give in to the will of another.
It was nothing at that moment that the pigtail was ugly and unbecoming;
Rhoda would have shaved her head and gone bald for ever if by this means
she could have escaped that verdict; but to appear again before all the
girls with that hateful, hateful wisp hanging down her back--she felt as
if she would die rather than do it; yet would it not be even more
degrading to wait for a summons?  She stalked forth, straight and
defiant, and was received with a bland smile.

"Pretty fair for a first attempt.  Plait it down further next time.  I
must have my girls neat and tidy.  Now then, forward please--Right,
left! right, left!"

The order was accompanied by a tap on the shoulder, which put the
finishing touch to Rhoda's exasperation.  She stepped into her place in
the queue, trembling from head to foot, and with a painful throbbing in
her head which was something new in her healthy experience.  Immediately
in front marched a tall, straight form, whom at first she failed to
recognise, but at the head of the staircase there came a temporary wait,
and then the head was turned towards her, and, behold, it was Dorothy
herself, pigtailed like the rest, and looking curiously reduced without
the background of hair.

"Morning!" she cried cheerily, and Rhoda gasped a breathless question.

"You too!  Did she tell you?  I never heard--"

"Didn't give her a chance!  Heard her ordering you, and nipped mine up
in a trice.  Treat it as a matter of course, and don't seem to mind--
that's the tip!  Only get yourself disliked by making a fuss."

"I know, but I _can't_ help it," sighed Rhoda dismally.

"I'm not used to bullying, and it makes me wild.  My head's splitting.
I feel all churned up."

"Worse troubles at sea!" said Dorothy shortly, and after that there was
no more chance of conversation, for the queue moved on again, and they
were separated at breakfast as at dinner the night before.  Thomasina
sat opposite to Rhoda, and pressed the various dishes upon her good-
temperedly, ignoring all causes of discord, an attitude which, if she
had only known it, but added to the score against her, for pride forced
a haughty "No, thanks," whilst appetite prompted "Yes, please."  To sit
with empty plate, and see others feast on bread and marmalade is no
slight trial when one is fifteen and a-hungred, but no one urged Rhoda
to change her mind, or thought it possible to succeed where the Head
Girl failed.

There were no regular lessons during the morning, but a great deal of
confusing moving to and fro from one class-room to another, to go over
preliminary arrangements, and receive instructions from the mistresses.
Sometimes the new girls were ignored altogether, and then they felt
worms, and ready to sink through the earth; sometimes they were
questioned as to their attainments, and then the very walls seemed to
have ears, and their replies echoed through a deadly silence.  Dorothy
attained a fair level throughout, and reaped neither praise nor blame,
but Rhoda knew alternate rapture and despair, as Mademoiselle and
Fraulein beamed approval, and the "class-mistress" put up her eye-
glasses and regarded her as one might regard a wild animal at the Zoo,
upon hearing that she had "done" no Latin or mathematics.

"You will not do much good at this school without them," she said,
severely.  "They are the most important subjects.  I advise you to give
all the time you can spare to working them up, and to get, if possible,
some coaching during the holidays.  That is, of course, if you wish to
excel."

If she wished to excel!  _If_, indeed!  Did any one suppose for a moment
that Rhoda Chester would be content to remain among the rank and file?
Did they think that she could continue to be ignored, and live!  Ten
thousand times no!  "A day would come!" as Disraeli had said.  They
thought just now that she was nobody, but in time to come the school
would know her name, would be proud of it, would boast of it to other
schools.  Rhoda reared her head and smiled complacently, and the class-
mistress noted the action, and made a mental note that the new pupil
must be "kept down."

The morning seemed very long, but it came to an end at last with a
blessed ten minutes "off" before preparing for dinner.  The other girls
hurried to their cubicles, but Rhoda waylaid Miss Everett in the
corridor, and appealed to her in breathless eagerness.

"You said I was to come to you in any difficulty...  I want to know if
it is necessary for me to wear my hair like this?  I never do it at
home, and I'm sure my mother wouldn't like it.  Is it really the rule?"

"I'm afraid it is," said Miss Everett kindly.  "You don't like it, eh?
Well, I don't wonder!  I shouldn't myself, in your place; but you see,
dear, bending over desks, and running about at games, loose hair gets in
the way, and cannot possibly be kept tidy.  It seems an arbitrary rule,
but there's reason in it, as there is in all the rules if you think them
out, and it doesn't apply to every day.  On Thursday evening we have
`Frolics,' and then you can wear it loose, and put on your prettiest
things.  There is always something going on--concerts, dances, or
theatricals--and Miss Bruce likes the girls to look bonnie and festive.
On Sundays, too, you can go back to your mop if you choose.  I hope you
will, for I like to see it.  I have a little sister with hair just like
yours."

She laid her hand affectionately on the curly head, and the touch of
kindliness acted as balm to Rhoda's sore heart.  Her eyes glistened with
unshed tears, and she said huskily:

"I'll do anything _you_ tell me.  I won't mind; but that Thomasina--
she's hateful!  I can't stand being ordered about by a girl of my own
age."

"Ah-h!" cried Miss Everett, and sighed as at the recurrence of a well-
known trouble.  "Well, you know, Rhoda, you must get over that feeling,
and conform to the rules of the school.  Thomasina is a great help to
me, and makes a capital `head girl.'  You see, dear, I have no time to
look after these details.  The girls think that they are busy, but long
after they are asleep at night I am slaving away correcting exercises.
Oh such piles of books! it makes me tired even to see them.  I'll do
what I can for you, but you mustn't expect too much; and after all, in a
week or ten days you will have mastered the rules, and the difficulty
will be over.  You wouldn't make a fuss for one week, would you?  Stay!
There is one thing I _can_ tell you now, and that is that you won't be
allowed to wear those slippers any longer.  I'll give you an order, and
you can go downstairs to the bureau and get a pair of school shoes like
the other girls wear."

Rhoda gasped with dismay.

"What!  Those frightful things with square toes and no heels!  Those
awful tubs that Thomasina waddles about in!"

Miss Everett laughed gaily.  She was only a girl herself, and she cast a
quick glance up and down the corridor to see if any one were coming
before she drew aside her skirt to exhibit her own flat feet.

"They _are_ awful!  I love pretty shoes, too; and the first time I wore
these I--I _cried_!  I was very home-sick, you see, and nervous and
anxious about my work, and it seemed the last straw.  Never mind! it's
only a little thing, and on Thursday you shall wear your very best pair
and I'll wear mine, and we'll compare notes and see which is the
prettier."

To say that Rhoda adored her is to state the matter feebly.  She could
have knelt down in the passage and kissed the ugly little feet; she
could have done homage before this young mistress as before a saint;
when the light streamed out of a window and rested on her head, it
seemed to take the form of a halo!

She went meekly downstairs, procured the shoes, and carried them into
Dorothy's cubicle, to display before the eyes of that horrified young
woman.

"There!  We've got to wear those, too!  It's the rule.  Miss Everett
told me, and gave me an order to get them.  You had better ask her for
one before Thomasina gets a chance."

Dorothy looked at her solemnly, and measured the slipper against her own
neat shoe; then she took off the latter and held the two side by side.
One was arched and slim, the other flat and square; one had French heels
and little sparkling buckles, the other was of dull leather, unrelieved
by any trace of ornament.

"Here's deggeradation!" she sighed hopelessly.  "Here's deggeradation!"



CHAPTER SEVEN.

THE RECORD WALL.

There was no end to the surprises of that wonderful school!  When Rhoda
returned to her cubicle to get "tidy" for dinner, she washed, brushed
her hair, put an extra pin in her tie to make sure that it was straight,
wriggled round before the glass to see that belt and bodice were
immaculately connected, put a clean handkerchief in her pocket, nicked
the clothes-brush over her skirt, and, what could one do more?  It
seemed on the face of it that one could do nothing, but the other girls
had accomplished a great deal more than this.  Rhoda never forgot the
shock of dismay which she experienced on first stepping forth, and
beholding them.  It was surely a room full of boys, not girls, for
skirts had disappeared, and knickerbockers reigned in their stead.  The
girls wore gym. costumes, composed of the aforesaid knickers, and a
short tunic, girt round the waist with a blue sash, to represent the
inevitable house colour.  Thomasina's aspect was astounding, as she
strode to and fro awaiting the gathering of her forces, and the new
girls stared at her with distended eyeballs.  Rhoda had registered a vow
never to volunteer a remark to the hateful creature; but Dorothy
stammered out a breathless--

"You never said--We never knew--Is it a _rule_?"

"Not compulsory, or I would have told you; you may do as you please.
They wear gyms, at Wycombe in the afternoon, and we have adopted the
idea to a certain extent.  Most of the girls prefer it for the sake of
the games, for it is so much easier to run about like this.  For myself,
I affect it for the sake of appearances.  It is so becoming to my
youthful charms."

She simpered as she spoke, with an affectation of coyness that was
irresistibly amusing.  Dorothy laughed merrily, and Rhoda resisted doing
the same only by an enormous effort of self-will.  She succeeded,
however, in looking sulky and bad-tempered, and went downstairs feeling
quite pleased with herself for resisting an unworthy impulse.

All the old girls were in gym. costume, and a quaint sight it was to
watch them descending the great central staircase.  Lanky girls, looking
lankier than ever; fat girls, looking fatter than ever; tall girls
magnified into giantesses; poor little stumpies looking as if viewed
through a bad piece of window glass.  Plump legs, scraggy legs, and legs
of one width all the way down, and at the end of each the sad,
inevitable shoe, and down each back the sad, inevitable pigtail!  Now
and again would come a figure, light and graceful as a fawn, the
embodiment of charming youth; but as a rule the effect was far from
becoming.

Rhoda's criticisms, however, were less scathing than usual, for she
herself was suffering from an unusual attack of humility!  If any reader
of this veracious history has to do with the management of a self-
confident, high-spirited girl, who needs humbling and bringing to her
senses, let the author confidently recommend the pigtail and flat-heeled
system!  To fasten back a mane of hair is at once to deprive the culprit
of one of her most formidable means of defence.

She has no shelter behind which to retire, as an ambush from the enemy;
she has nothing to toss and whisk from side to side, expressing defiance
without a word being uttered.  The very weight of the pigtail is a
sobering influence; its solemn, pendulum movement is incompatible with
revolt.  As for the slippers--well, try heel-less shoes yourself, and
test their effect!  They bring one to earth, indeed, in the deepest
sense of the word.  All very well to mince about in French shoes, and
think "What a fine girl am I," but once try mincing in flat, square
soles, and you will realise that the days are over for that kind of
thing, and that nothing remains but humility and assent!

Dinner over, the girls adjourned into the grounds; but as games, like
lessons, could not be begun without some preliminary arrangement, most
of the pupils contented themselves with strolling about, in twos and
threes, exchanging confidences about the holidays and hatching plans for
the weeks to come.  Rhoda and Dorothy were standing disconsolately
together, when Miss Everett flitted past, and stopped for a moment to
take pity on their loneliness.

"What are you two going to do?  You mustn't stand here looking like
pelicans in the wilderness.  You must walk about and get some exercise.
I'm too busy to go with you myself, but--er--Kathleen!"  She held up her
hand in summons to the second-term girl who had volunteered information
about the Lords and Commons--"Here, Kathleen, you remember what it is to
be a new girl; take Rhoda and Dorothy round the grounds, and show them
everything that is interesting.  Have a brisk walk, all of you, and come
back with some colour in your cheeks!"

She was off again, smiling and waving her hand, and the three girls
stood gazing at each other in shy, uncertain fashion.

"Well," said Kathleen, "where shall we go first?  The Beech Walk, I
suppose; it's half-a-mile long, so if we go to the end and back we shall
have a constitutional before looking at the sights.  The grounds are
very fine here, and there is lots of room for all we want to do.  You
can find a sunny bit, or a shady bit, according to the weather, but it's
only on really scorching days that we are allowed to lounge.  Then
there's a scramble for hammocks, and the lucky girls tie them on to the
branches of trees, and swing about, while the others sit on the grass.
Once or twice we had tea under the trees, and that was fine, but as a
rule they keep you moving.  Games are nearly as hard work as lessons!"

"But you needn't play unless you like?"

"Oh, yes, you must; unless you are ill or tired.  You can get off any
day if you don't feel well, but not altogether.  And you would not wish
to either.  It would be so horribly flat!  Once you are into a team, you
are all anxiety to get into another, and I can tell you when you see
your remove posted up on the board, it is b-liss!--perfect bliss!"

The recruits laughed, and looked at their new friend with approving
glances.  She was, so far, the only one of the girls who had treated
them on an equality, and gave herself no air of patronage, and they were
correspondingly appreciative.  They asked eagerly in which games she had
won her remove, and Rhoda, at least, was disappointed at the answer.

"Cricket!  That's the great summer game.  I've three brothers at home,
and used to practise with them sometimes to make an extra one.  They
snubbed me, of course: but I'm not a bad bat, though I say it myself."

"And what about tennis?"

"Um-m!"  Kathleen pursed up her lips.  "We have courts, of course, but
its rather--_Missy_, don't you think?  The sports captains look down on
it, and so, of course, it's unpopular.  The little girls play
occasionally.  It keeps them happy."

This was a nice way to speak of a game which had been for years the
popular amusement of young England!  Rhoda was so shocked and
disappointed that she hardly dared mention croquet, and it seemed,
indeed, as if it would have been better if she had refrained, for
Kathleen fairly shouted at the name.

"My dear, how can you!  _Nobody_ plays croquet except old tab-- I mean
ladies who are too old to do anything else.  Miss Bruce plays sometimes
when she has the vicar's wife to tea.  We hide behind the bushes and
watch them and shake with laughter.  _Croquet_, indeed!  I should like
to see Tom's face if you mentioned croquet to her!"

"It's a matter of perfect indifference to me what Miss Bolderston
thinks," said Rhoda, loftily; but she veered away from the subject of
games all the same and tackled lessons instead.

"Are you working for any special examination, or just taking it easily?"

"I'm going in for the Oxford Senior in summer.  My birthday is so
horribly arranged that it comes just one week before the limit.  A few
days later would give me a year to the good, but as it is it's my last
chance.  If I can only scrape through in preliminaries I am not afraid
of the rest, but I am hopelessly bad in arithmetic.  I add up with all
my fingers, and even then the result comes wrong; and when so much
depends upon it I know I shall get flurried and be worse than ever."

"The great thing is to keep cool.  If you don't lose your head, I
shouldn't wonder if the excitement helped you.  Say to yourself, `_Don't
be a fool_!' and _make_ yourself keep quiet," quoth Miss Rhoda, with an
air of wisdom which evidently impressed her hearers.  They glanced first
at her and then at each other, and the glance said plainly as words
could speak that here was a girl who had strength of mind--a girl who
would make her mark in the school!

"I'll try!" said Kathleen, meekly.  "I am terribly anxious about this
exam., for if I do well and pass better than any one else in the school
I shall get a scholarship of £40 towards next year's fees.  That would
be a great help to my parents, for they are poor, and have only sent me
here that I may have a chance of getting on and being able to teach some
day.  I should be so thankful if I could help, for it's horrid to know
the people at home are stinting themselves for your sake.  I lie awake
at nights imagining that the report is in, and I am first, and then I
write a long letter home and tell them about it.  Each time I invent a
fresh letter, and they are so touching, you can't think!  I cried over
one, one night, and Tom came round to see what was the matter.  At other
times I imagine I'm plucked, and I go cold all over; I think I should
_die_!  Never mind, nine months yet!  I'll work like a slave, and if I
_do_ fail no one can say it's my own fault."

"You won't fail.  Don't imagine anything so horrible!  You will get over
your nervousness and do splendidly, and write your letter in real
earnest," cried Dorothy cheerily.  "I am going in for the Oxford too,
but you need fear no rival in me.  I am one of those deadly,
uninteresting creatures, who never reach anything but a fair medium.
There isn't a `distinction' in me, and one could never be first at that
rate.  A scrape-through pass is all _I'm_ good for!"

"I could get two distinctions at once!  I know more German and French
than ninety girls out of a hundred.  Two distinctions!  It's a big
start.  I wonder--I wonder if I could possibly be first!" said Rhoda to
herself, and her breath came fast, and her cheeks grew suddenly hot.
"Nine months!  Nine months!"  If she studied hard, and worked up the
subjects on which she was behind, might she not have a chance with the
rest?  The first girl!  Oh, if only it could be possible, what joy, what
rapture!  What a demonstration of power before the school.  She went off
into a blissful dream in which she stood apart, receiving the
congratulations of Miss Bruce and her staff, and saw Thomasina's face
regarding her with a new expression of awe.  Then she came back to real
life, to look remorsefully at her new friend, and notice for the first
time her pinched and anxious air.

"But I would give Kathleen the money.  I want nothing but the honour,"
she assured herself, shutting her mind obstinately against the
conviction that such a division might not be altogether easy to arrange.
"And Dorothy is going in, too; lots of girls are going in, so why
should not I?  And if I enter I must do my best; nobody could object to
that!"

Nevertheless there was an unaccountable weight on her heart, which made
it a relief when the subject dropped, and Kathleen began to point out
the various out-buildings scattered over the grounds.

"That's the pavilion.  We keep all the games there, and it's so nicely
furnished.  There is quite a pretty sitting-room, and a stove, and all
the materials for making tea.  On Saturday afternoons the winning teams
may stay behind and have tea there by themselves, and buy cakes from the
housekeeper.  It's ripping!  We look forward to it as the Saturday
treat, and aren't you just mad if your side loses!  That's the joiner's
shop.  You can have lessons if you like, and learn to make all sorts of
things; but I've no ambition to be a carpenter, so I don't go...  That's
a summer-house, but it's so earwiggy that we leave it alone...  That was
meant to be a swimming-bath, but the water comes straight from a well,
and it is so deadly cold that the girls got cramp, and Miss Bruce
forbade them to use it any more.  It looks wretchedly deserted now.  If
you want to be miserable all by yourself you couldn't have a better
place.  It's so still and dark, and the birds have built their nests in
the corners, and come suddenly flying past, and frighten you out of your
wits...  Those little patches are the girls' own gardens.  You can have
lessons in gardening, and get a prize if you are clever.  I don't go in
for that either, for it's an extra expense."

"Oh, I must have a garden!" cried Rhoda quickly.  "I adore flowers, and
they could send me cuttings from home.  I always had my own garden, but
I didn't do the work, of course.  I just said how it was to be arranged,
and what plants I wanted, and every one admired it, and said how
successful it was.  I had big clumps of things, you know; not one
straggling plant here and another there, but all banked up together.
You should have seen my lily bed!  I made the men collect all the odd
bulbs and plant them together, and they were a perfect show.  The scent
met you half-way down the path; it was almost overpowering.  And then I
had a lot of the new cactus dahlias, and left only about two branches on
each, so that they came up like one huge bush with all the lovely
contrasting colours.  Many people say they don't like dahlias, but that
is only because they haven't seen them properly grown."

"Oh well, I loathe them myself, and I always shall do.  You never get
any satisfaction out of them, however pretty they may be, for as soon as
people see them, they begin groaning and saying, `Oh, dear, dear, autumn
flowers already!  How sad it is.  Winter will soon be upon us.'"
Dorothy sniffed derisively.  It was evident that no support was to be
expected from her on the dahlia question, and Rhoda felt that only time
and experience could prove to her the folly of her position.

When all the out-buildings had been explained, Kathleen led the way down
a winding path which seemed to lead to nowhere in particular, but rather
to come to an abrupt _cul-de-sac_ in the shape of a high grey wall.  Her
companions wondered at her choice, but she went forward with an air of
determination, so that there was nothing left but to follow, and hope
soon to return to more interesting scenes.  When she came to the end of
the path, however, she stood still and began to smile with a most
baffling air of mystery.  What did it mean?  What were they expected to
see?  The girls wheeled to and fro, looked at the paths, the beds, the
flowers, frowned in bewilderment, and then suddenly lifted their eyes to
the wall, and uttered simultaneous exclamations of surprise.

The wall was dotted over with little tablets of stone, on each of which
was a neatly engraved inscription, and each inscription bore the name of
a girl at its head.  Rhoda craned forward and read first one and then
another:

"...Winifred Barton, joined Hurst Manor, September, 189--, left
Christmas, 189--.  The youngest pupil who ever obtained honours in
Mathematics in the Oxford Local Examinations."

"Elizabeth Charrington, an old pupil of the school, obtained First Class
in the Honours School of Modern History at Oxford."

"Eleanor Newman, joined Hurst Manor, September, 189--, left Mid., 189--.
Beloved by her fellow-students as the kindest and most loyal of
friends, the most unselfish of competitors.  Held in grateful
remembrance for the power of her influence and example."

"Fanny Elder.  For two years Games President of the school.  Winner of
the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Tournament, 189--.  Holder of Edinburgh Golf
Cup, 189--.  A just and fearless sportswoman..."

The list of names went on indefinitely, but Rhoda had read enough to
inflame curiosity, and wheeled eagerly round to confront Kathleen.

"What is it?  What does it mean?  Who puts them up?  Is it just the
cleverest girls?--"

"It's the Record Wall!" said Kathleen.  "We are very proud of our Record
Wall at Hurst.  The cost of these tablets is paid by the pupils
themselves, and they are put up entirely at their discretion.  The
teachers have nothing to do with it.  If a girl has distinguished
herself at work, but is conceited and overbearing, and makes herself
disliked, no one wants to put up a tablet to _her_; so it is really a
testimony to character, as well as to cleverness.  Eleanor Newman was
quite stupid, they say.  I never knew her.  She never passed a single
examination, nor took a prize nor anything, yet every one loved her.
She was a little, fair thing, with curly hair too short to tie back, and
soft, grey eyes.  She wasn't a bit goody, but she always seemed waiting
to do kind things, and make peace, and cheer the girls when they were
home-sick.  And no one ever heard her say a cross word, or make an
uncharitable remark."

"And did she die?" croaked Rhoda solemnly.  A long experience of girls'
stories had taught her that when girls were sweet and fair, and never
said an unkind word, they invariably caught a chill, and died of rapid
consumption.  She expected to hear the same report of Eleanor Newman,
but Kathleen replied briskly:

"Die!  Not a bit of it.  She married, at nineteen, a doctor down in
Hampshire, and brought him to see the school on their honeymoon.  The
Greens escorted her in a body to the Record Wall, and when she saw her
own name she covered her face with her hands, and flew for her life.
And her husband looked quite weepy.  The girls said he could hardly
speak!"

"Ah-h!" sighed Rhoda, and was silent.  She felt "weepy" too, filled with
a sudden yearning, a sudden realisation of want.  Eleanor Newman had
risen to heights to which she could never attain.  "A little, fair
thing, and almost stupid," yet her school-fellows loved her, and
immortalised her name in words of grateful loyalty.  She sighed again,
and yet again, and heard Kathleen's voice cry sharply--

"Oh, I look at that empty space, and wonder if this time next year I
shall read there that I have passed first, and won the Scholarship.  I
wonder if ever, ever there will be a tablet with my name upon it!"

"I expect there will be," said Dorothy.  "It's a lovely idea, and I can
imagine every girl longing to see her name on the scroll of honour; but
for my own part I never shall.  Not for this child!  There is no hope
for me, unless they put me up as `a good little tortoise who never fell
asleep.'  The worst of it is that in real life the hare keeps awake too,
and spoils one's chance.  I must be content to bloom, in obscurity--`A
violet by a mossy dell, half hidden from the eye'--"

But Rhoda already saw a new tablet twinkling on the empty space, a
tablet recording phenomenal success and distinction, and the name at the
head of the inscription was not "Kathleen Murray," but one much more
familiar in her ears!



CHAPTER EIGHT.

AN ENCOUNTER.

Sunday afternoon was hopelessly wet; but the fact was less regretted
than usual, as from three to four was the time put aside for writing
home.  So far a postcard to announce safe arrival had been the only word
written, and each girl was eager to pour forth her feelings at length,
to tell the latest news, and report changes of class.  The two new-
comers had a score of complaints and lamentations to record, and Rhoda,
at least, entered unhesitatingly into the recital.

She had never been so miserable in her life.  The girls were hateful,
domineering, and unfriendly--Miss Bruce had spoken to her three times
only--the food was good enough in its way, but so plain that she simply
longed for something _nice_; the lessons were difficult, the hours
unbearably long.--It took three whole sheets to complete the list of
grievances, by which time her hand was so tired that she read it over by
way of a rest, with the result that she was quite astonished to discover
how miserable she had been!  Everything she had said was true, and yet
somehow the impression given was of a depth of woe which she could not
honestly say she had experienced.  Perhaps it was that she had omitted
to mention the alleviating circumstances--Miss Everett's sweetness,
Fraulein's praise, hours of relaxation in the grounds, signs of
softening on the part of the girls, early hours and regular exercises,
which sent her to the simple meals with an appetite she had never known
at home.  Five days at school, and on the whole there had been as much
pleasure as suffering.  Then, was it quite fair to send home such a
misleading account?

Rhoda drew from her pocket the latest of the five loving letters penned
by the maternal hand, and read it through for the dozenth time.  Sunday
was a lonely day for new-comers, and the period occupied by the sermon
in church had been principally occupied by Rhoda in pressing back the
tears which showed a presumptuous desire to roll down her cheeks and
splash upon her gloves.  It had been a sweet consolation to read over
and over again the words which showed that though she might be one of a
crowd at "Hurst," she was still the treasured darling of her home.
There was nothing original in the letter; it simply repeated in
different words the contents of its four predecessors--sorrow for her
absence, prayers for her welfare, anxiety for the first long letter.

"I can hardly wait until Monday morning.  I am so longing to know how
you are faring!"  Rhoda read these words, and looked slowly down upon
her own letter.  Well! it would arrive, and the butler would place it on
the breakfast-table, and her mother would come hurrying into the room,
and seize it with a little cry of joy.  She would read it over, and
then--then she would hand it to her husband, and take out her
handkerchief and begin to cry.  Mr Chester would pooh-pooh her
distress, but she would cry quietly behind the urn, and despite his
affectation of indifference he, also, would look worried and troubled;
while Harold would declare that every one must go through the same stage
before settling down, and that Rhoda might be expected to "make a fuss."
She had been so spoiled at home!

Rhoda dug her pen into the blotting-paper, and frowned uneasily.  Five
days' experience at school had impressed her with the feebleness of
"making a fuss."

"If you are hurt--bear it!  If you are teased--look pleasant!  If you
are blamed--do better next time!  If you feel blue--perk up, and don't
be a baby!"  Such were the Spartan rules of the new life, and an
unaccustomed shame rose up in her mind at the realisation of the
selfishness and weak betrayal of that first home letter.  Was it not
possible to represent the truth from the bright side as well as the
dark, to dwell on the kindnesses she had received, and leave
disagreeables untold?  Yes, it _was_ possible; she would do so, and save
her dear ones the pain of grieving for her unhappiness.  So the thick
sheets were torn across with a wrench, which made Thomasina look up from
her desk.

As a head girl, "Tom" possessed a study of her own, to which she had
prepared to depart earlier in the afternoon, but had been persuaded to
stay by the entreaties of her companions.

"Tom, don't go!  Don't leave us!  It's a wet day, and so dull--do stay
with us till tea-time.  You might!  You might!" urged the suppliant
voices, and so Tom sat down to her desk in the house-parlour which was
the property of the elder Blues, and indited letters on blue-lined,
manly paper, with a manly quill pen.

As her eyes rested on the torn letter and on the clean sheet of paper
drawn up for a fresh start, she smiled, a quiet understand-all-about-it
smile, which Rhoda chose to consider an impertinent liberty.  Then down
went her head again, and the scrape, scrape of pens continued until four
o'clock, by which time the girls were thankful to fold the sheets in
their envelopes and make them ready for post.  Rhoda read over her
second effort in a glow of virtue, and found it a model of excellence.
No complaints this time, no weak self-pity; but a plain statement of
facts without any personal bias.  Her father and mother would believe
that she was entirely contented; but Harold, having been through the
same experiences, would read between the lines and understand the
reserve.  He would say to himself that he had not expected it of Rhoda,
and that she had behaved "like a brick," and Harold's praise was worth
receiving.

Altogether it was in a happier frame of mind that Rhoda left her desk
and took her place in one of the easy chairs with which the room was
supplied.  From four to five was a free hour on Sundays, and the girls
were allowed to spend it as they liked, without the presence of a
teacher.

This afternoon talk was the order of the day, each girl in turn relating
the doings of the holidays, and having her adventures capped by the next
speaker.  Thomasina, however, showed a sleepy tendency, and kept dozing
off for a short nap, and then nodding her head so violently that she
awoke with a gasp of surprise.  In one of these intervals she met
Dorothy's eyes fixed upon her with a wondering scrutiny, which seemed to
afford her acute satisfaction.

"Ah!" she cried, sitting up and looking in a trice quite spry and wide-
awake.  "I know what you are doing!  You are admiring me, and wondering
what work of nature I most resemble.  I can see it in your face.  And
you came to the conclusion that it was a codfish!  No quibbles, please!
Tell me the truth.  That was just exactly it, wasn't it?"

"_No_!" cried Dorothy emphatically, but the emphasis expressed rather
contrition for a lost opportunity than for a wrongful suspicion.  "No, I
did not!" it seemed to say, "How stupid not to have thought of it.
You--really--are--extraordinarily like!"

"Humph!" said Thomasina.  "Then you are the exception, that's all.  All
the new-comers say so, and therein they err.  It's not a cod at all,
it's a pike.  I am the staring image of a pike!"

She screwed up her little eyes as she spoke, and pulled back her chin in
a wonderful, fish-like grin which awoke a shriek of merriment from the
beholders.  Even Rhoda laughed with the rest, and reflected that if one
were born ugly it was a capital plan to accept the fact, and make it a
joke rather than a reproach.  Thomasina was the plainest girl she had
ever seen, yet she exercised a wonderful attraction, and was infinitely
more popular among her companions than Irene Grey, with her big eyes and
well-cut features.

"Next time you catch a pike just look at it and see if I'm not right,"
continued Tom easily.  "But perhaps you don't fish.  I'm a great angler
myself.  That's the way I spend most of my time during the holidays."

"I don't like fishing, its so wormy," said Irene, with a shudder.  "I
like lolling about and feeling that there's nothing to do, and no
wretched bells jangling every half-hour to send you off to a fresh
class.  `Nerve rest,' that's what _I_ need in my holidays, and I take
good care that I get it."

"I don't want rest.  I want to fly round the whole day and do nice
things," said a bright-eyed girl in a wonderful plaid dress ornamented
with countless buttons--"lunches, and teas, and dinners, and picnics,
and dances, and plays.  I like to live in a whirl, and stay in bed to
breakfast, and be waited on hand and foot.  I don't say I _get_ it, but
it's what I would have if I could."

"Well, I'm a nice, good little maid who likes to help her mother and be
useful.  When I go back I say to her, `Now don't worry any more, dear;
leave all to me,' and I run the house and make them all c-ringe before
me.  Even the cook is afraid of me.  She says I have such `masterful
ways.'"

The speaker was a tall, fair girl, with a very large pair of spectacles
perched on the bridge of an aquiline nose.  She looked "masterful"
enough to frighten a dozen cooks, and made a striking contrast to the
next speaker, a mouse-like, pinched little creature, with an air of
conscious, though unwilling, virtue.

"I spent the last half of these holidays with a clergyman uncle, and
helped in the parish.  I played the harmonium for the choir practice,
and kept the books for the Guilds and Societies.  His daughter was ill,
and there was no one else to take her place, so, of course, I went at
once.  It is quite a tiny little country place--Condleton, in
Loamshire."

"What!" cried Rhoda, and sat erect in her seat sparkling with animation.
"Condleton!  I know it quite well.  I often drive over there with my
ponies.  It is only six miles from our place, and such a pretty drive.
I know the Vicarage quite well, and the Church, and the funny little
cross in the High Street!"

She spoke perfectly simply, and without thought of ostentation, for her
parents' riches had come when she herself was so young that she had no
remembrance of the little house in the manufacturing town, but looked as
a matter of course upon the luxuries with which she was surrounded.  It
never occurred to her mind that any of her remarks could be looked upon
as boasting, but there was a universal glancing and smiling round the
room, and Thomasina enquired gravely:

"Do you drive the same pair every day?"

"Of ponies?  Oh, yes, generally," replied Rhoda innocently.  "They are
frisky little things, and need exercise.  Of course if we go a very long
way, I give them a rest next day and drive the cobs, but as a rule they
go out regularly."

Thomasina shook her head in solemnest disapproval.  "That's a mistake!
You should change _every_ day.  The merciful man is merciful to his
beast.  I can't endure to see people thoughtless in these matters.  My
stud groom has special orders _never_ to send out the postilions on the
same mounts oftener than twice a week!"

There was a moment's pause, and then a shriek of laughter.  Girls threw
themselves back in their seats, and held their sides with their hands;
girls stamped on the floor, and rolled about as though they could not
contain their delight; girls mopped their eyes and gasped, "Oh, dear!
oh, dear!" and grew red up to the roots of their hair.  And Rhoda's face
shone out, pale and fixed, in a white fury of anger.

"You are a very rude, ill-bred girl, Thomasina Bolderston!  I made an
innocent remark, and you twist it about so as to insult me before all
the house!  You will ask my pardon at once if you have any right
feeling."

"I'm the Head Girl, my dear.  The Head Girl doesn't ask pardon of a
silly new-comer who can't take a joke!"

"I fail to see where the joke comes in.  If you are Head Girl a dozen
times over, it doesn't alter the fact that you don't know how to behave.
You have bullied me and made me miserable ever since I came to this
school, and I won't stand it any longer, and so I give you notice!"

"Much obliged, but it's no use.  The rules of this school are that the
pupils must obey the Head Girl in her own department, and there can be
no exception in your favour, unpleasant as you find my yoke."

"When _I_ am a Head Girl I shall try to be worthy of the position.  I'll
be kind to new girls, and set them a good example.  I'll not jeer at
them and make them so wretched that they wish they never had been born!"

Thomasina leant her head on her hand, and gazed fixedly into the angry
face.  She made no reply, but there was no lack of speakers to vindicate
her honour.  Sneering voices rose on every side in a clamour of
indignant protest.

"When _she_ is Head Girl indeed!  It will be a good time before _that_
happens, I should say."

"Not in our day, let us hope.  We are not worthy to be under such a
mistress."

"Oh my goodness, what a pattern she will be; what a shining example!
You can see her wings even now beginning to sprout."

"Nonsense, child!  It's not wings, it's only round shoulders.  These
growing girls _will_ stoop.  You had better be careful, or you will be
set in order next."

Rhoda looked across the room with smarting, tear-filled eyes.

"Don't alarm yourselves; I wouldn't condescend to bandy words.  You are
like our leader--not worthy of notice!"

"Look here, Rhoda Chester, say what you like about us, but leave
Thomasina alone.  We will not have our Head Girl insulted, if we know
it.  If you say another word we will turn you out into the passage."

"Thank you, Beatrice; no need to get excited; I can fight my own battles
without your help.  This little difference is between Rhoda and me, and
we must settle it together.  I think we could talk matters over more
comfortably in my study, without interrupting your rest hour.  May I
trouble you, Miss Chester?  Three doors along the passage.  I won't take
you far out of your way!"

Thomasina rose from her seat, and waved her hand towards the door.  She
was all smiles and blandness, but a gasp of dismay sounded through the
room, as if a private interview in the Head Girl's study was no light
thing to contemplate.

Rhoda's heart beat fast with apprehension.  What was going to happen.
What would take place next?  It was like the invitation of the spider to
the fly--full of subtle terror.  Nevertheless, her pride would not allow
her to object, and, throwing back her head, she marched promptly, and
without hesitation, along the corridor.



CHAPTER NINE.

HAVING IT OUT.

Thomasina led the way into her study, and shut the door behind her.  It
was a bare little room, singularly free from those photographs and nick-
nacks with which most girls love to adorn a private sanctum.  It looked
what it was--a workroom pure and simple, with a pile of writing
materials on the table, and the walls ornamented with maps and sheets of
paper, containing jottings of the hours of classes and games.  On the
mantelpiece reposed a ball of string, a dogskin glove, a matchbox, and a
photograph of an elderly gentleman, whose pike-like aspect sufficiently
proclaimed his relationship.  There were three straight-back chairs,
supplied by the school, and two easier ones of Thomasina's own
providing, both in the last stages of invalidism.

The mistress of this luxurious domain turned towards her visitor with a
hospitable smile.

"Sit down," she cried, "make yourself comfortable.  Not that chair--the
spokes have given way, and it might land you on the floor.  Try the
blue, and keep your skirts to the front, so that it won't catch on the
nails.  I can't think how it is that my chairs go wrong.  I'm always
tinkering at them.  Nice little study, isn't it?  So cosy!"

"Ye-es!" assented Rhoda, who privately thought it the most forlorn-
looking apartment she had ever seen, but was in no mood to discuss
either its merits or demerits.  It was in no friendly spirit that she
had paid this visit; then why waste time on foolish preliminaries?  She
looked expectantly at Thomasina, and Thomasina stood in front of the
chimney-piece with both hands thrust into the side pockets of her
bicycling skirt, jingling their contents in an easy, gentlemanly
fashion.  From her leathern band depended a steel chain which lost
itself in the depths of the right-hand pocket.  Rhoda felt an
unaccountable curiosity to discover what hung at the end of that chain
and rattled in so uncanny a fashion.

"Well!" began Thomasina, tilting herself slowly forward on the points of
her flat, wide shoes, "Well, and now about this little matter.  I asked
you to step in here because I think differences of opinion are more
easily settled without an audience, and as it were, man to man."  She
buried her chin in her necktie, and gazed across the room with a calm,
speculative glance.  The likeness between her and the pike-like
gentleman grew more startling every moment.  "Now, we have known each
other barely a week, and already I have offended you deeply, and you,
without knowing it, have hit me on a tender spot.  It is time that we
came to an understanding.  Before going any further, however, there are
one or two questions I should like to ask.  You have had time to notice
a good many things since you arrived.  You have seen me constantly with
the girls.  Do they dislike me?  Do they speak of me hardly behind my
back?  Do they consider me a bully or a sneak?  Should you say on the
whole that I was popular or unpopular?"

"Popular!" said Rhoda firmly.  Whatever happened she would speak the
truth, and not quibble with obvious facts.  "They like you very much."

"And you wonder how they can, eh?  Nevertheless it's true.  I'll tell
you something more.  I'm the most popular Head Girl at Hurst.  You ask
the other colours to-morrow, and they'll tell you to a man that you are
lucky to have me.  Very well then, Rhoda, who's to blame if you think
the opposite?  Yourself, and nobody but yourself, as I'll proceed to
prove.  You come to school with a flourish of trumpets, thinking you are
doing us a mighty big favour by settling among us, and that you are to
be allowed to amble along at your own sweet will, ignoring rules you
don't like, graciously agreeing to those you do, and prepared to turn
into a wild cat the first moment any one tries to keep you in order.
Then, when you are unhappy, as you jolly well deserve to be, you turn
and rend me, and say it is my fault.  If all the new girls behaved as
you have done, I should have been in my little tomb long ago, and you
would have some one else to deal with.  It seems to me, my dear, that
you don't recognise my duties.  I am placed in a position of authority,
and am bound to enforce the rules.  If the girls are obedient, well and
good; if they kick, well and good also.  _I break 'em in_!  I'm going to
break _you_ in, Rhoda Chester, and the sooner you realise it the happier
you'll be."

Rhoda looked at her fully, with a firmness of chin, a straightness of
eye, which argued ill for the success of the project.

"You will never break me in, as you call it, by domineering, and
treating me like a child."

"I know it, my dear.  I haven't been studying girls all these years
without learning something of character.  Some fillies you can drive
with a snaffle, others need the curb.  You drive yourself, and
understand what I mean.  I can see quite well that you are a proud,
sensitive girl, with a good heart hidden away behind a lot of nonsense.
If it were not for that heart I shouldn't trouble myself about you, but
simply give my orders, and see that they were obeyed.  But there's
nothing mean about me, and I'd scorn to take an unfair advantage.  Now,
I'll tell you straight that I have come to the conclusion that I judged
you wrongly about that pony business, and that you didn't mean to brag.
I saw by the way you flared out that you were really hurt, and I was
sorry.  I've no pity on brag, but when I judge a girl wrongly I feel
sick.  If it's any relief to your mind to know it, I believe that little
episode upset me more than it did you.  When you said I was not worthy
of my position, and made new-comers wretched, you hit me very hard,
Rhoda, very hard indeed!"

She stopped short and jingled furiously at her chains, then suddenly
looked up, gave a roguish smile, and cried, insinuatingly--

"There, I've done my part.  I've acknowledged I was wrong.  You are no
coward, so you will do as much!  You will admit that you have been a
difficult subject, won't you now?"

Rhoda looked at her and hesitated.  She cleared her throat and
determined to speak openly, and then suddenly, suddenly, something
swelled at her throat, and she heard her own voice say chokingly:

"I suppose I've been stupid...  I've never been accustomed to be--
ordered about!  I'm sorry if I was disagreeable, but I never, never
meant to--give myself airs!"

"But you did though, all the same," cried Thomasina briskly.  "Bless me,
yes!  The way you came into a room, the way you walked out, the way you
looked at your food, and turned it over on your plate, the way you eyed
the other girls up and down, down and up--it all said as plainly as
print `I'm Her Royal Highness of Chester, and I won't have any dealings
with the likes of _You_!'  If you had been a Princess of the blood you
couldn't have put on more side, and so, of course, we judged your words
by your actions, and thought you were bragging when you meant nothing of
the sort.  Now, just make up your mind, like a sensible girl, to forget
your own importance, and don't always be on the lookout for insults to
your dignity.  Your dignity will look after itself if it's any good, and
you'll be a heap happier if you give up coddling and fussing over it all
day long.  There was that little matter of the pigtail the other
morning!  It wasn't my wish that you should tie back your hair.  I don't
mind telling you that it's much less becoming than it was, but I was
simply acting as the mouthpiece of Miss Bruce, as you might have known
if you had taken one minute to consider.  Your friend, Dorothy What-
ever-she-calls-herself, behaved like a sensible girl, and did as she was
told without making a fuss, but you must needs work yourself into a
fury.  You'll have a fit one of these days if you are not careful.  You
are just one of those fair, reddy people who are subject to apoplexy, so
don't say I didn't warn you.  When we went down to breakfast I tried to
be friendly, just to show there was no ill-feeling, and you went and
starved yourself rather than accept a crumb from my hands.  It reminded
me awfully of my little cousin of three.  When he is made to do what he
doesn't like, he refuses to eat his bread and milk.  He seems to think
he is punishing us somehow; but, bless your heart, _we_ don't mind!  We
know he is strong and hearty, and that it will do him no harm to starve
once in a way.  I wasn't in the least anxious about you, but I don't
want you to go on feeling wretched in my house, so I'll do my best to
consider your feelings.  I warn you, however, I can't stop chaffing.  If
I think of a funny thing to say, I _must_ say it or burst, and if you
don't like it you can comfort yourself by thinking that it's for your
good, and will teach you to control your temper.  If you get offended
after this, the more fool you, for I tell you straight there will be no
ill-feeling in my mind, nothing but simple, pure buffoonery."

Rhoda smiled feebly.  The cool, unemotional tones of the other had
effectually dried her tears, but the softened expression remained, and
her voice had almost an humble intonation.

"I'll try.  I know I am touchy, but I shan't mind so much now that you--
that you have explained!  I think you have been very generous."

"All right," interrupted Thomasina briskly.  "Don't gush.  I loathe
gush.  That's all right, then, and I'll tell the girls I was wrong just
now.  They will all treat you decently if I tell them to; so behave
sensibly, and don't be a young jackass, and all will be well."

"I--er, I _beg_ your pardon!"

"Don't mention it!"  Thomasina beamed amiably over her shoulder.
"Jackass, I said--don't be a jackass!  The gong will ring in ten
minutes, so you'd better be off to your room.  Pleased to have seen you!
Good afternoon.  Come again another day!"



CHAPTER TEN.

HARD WORK.

From that day forward matters moved more smoothly for Rhoda.  Dorothy
reported that Tom had returned to the house-parlour to explain her
regret at having misjudged a new-comer, and her desire that her
colleagues would second her effort to make Rhoda happy, and, as usual,
Tom's word was law.  That very evening several of the girls took an
opportunity of exchanging friendly remarks with Rhoda, while at supper
an amount of attention was bestowed upon her plate which was positively
embarrassing.  It was a delightful change, but through all the relief
rang the sting of remembering that it had been accomplished by
Thomasina, not herself; that the new friendliness was the result of
Thomasina's orders rather than her own deserts.  To her fellow-students
she was still an insignificant new-comer, with no claim to distinction.
If she excelled in one subject, she was behind in the next, while at
games she was hopelessly ignorant.  It was wormwood and gall to be
obliged to join the "Bantlings" at hockey, and be coached by a girl of
twelve; but Rhoda set her teeth and determined that if pluck and energy
could help, it would be a short time indeed before she got her reward.
Oh, those first few games, what unmitigated misery they were!  The ankle
pads got in her way, and made her waddle like a duck, and when at last
she began to congratulate herself on overcoming the first difficulty,
they tripped her up, and landed her unexpectedly on the ground.
Although she was repeatedly warned to keep her stick down, it seemed to
fly up of itself, and bring disgrace upon her; and then, alas! the ball
followed its example, bounded up from the ground, and landed neatly on
her cheek immediately beneath her left eye.  A hideous swelling and
discolouration was the result, but after the first rush to see that the
damage was not serious, no one seemed in the least agitated about the
mishap.  Erley Chase would have been convulsed with panic from attic to
cellar, but Thomasina only struck an attitude, and exclaimed, "Oh! my
eye!" and even Miss Everett smiled, more in amusement than horror, as
she cried, "In the wars already, Rhoda?  You _have_ begun early."  Mrs
Chester would hardly have recognised her darling in the knickerbockered
girl, with her curly mane screwed into a pigtail, her dainty feet
scuffling the ground, and her face disfigured by a lump, which changed
to a different colour with each new dawn.  If she could have had a
glimpse of her during that tragic period it is certain that Rhoda's term
at "Hurst" would have been short indeed: but she was not informed of the
accident, while each letter showed an increasing interest in work and
play.  Rhoda had put her back into her studies, and worked with an
almost feverish earnestness.  The hours of preparation were all too
short, but she found a dozen ways of adding to their length, so that
from morning to night her brain was never allowed to rest.  She grew
white and tired, and so perceptibly thin that Miss Bruce questioned her
class-mistress as to the change in her appearance.

"She is an ambitious girl," was the reply, "and does not like to feel
behind.  She is working hard, and making progress; but she never
complains, or appears to feel ill."

"Oh, well, everything in moderation.  See that she is not overworked.
There will be no time gained in that way," said the principal, and
forthwith banished the subject from her busy brain.  There came a day,
however, half way through the term, when Rhoda collapsed, and found it
impossible to rise from her bed.  Three times over she made the effort,
and three times sank back upon her pillow faint and trembling, and then
in despair she raised her voice, and wailed a feeble "Tom!"

Tom came promptly, buttoning her magenta jacket, and went through a most
professional examination.

"To the best of my judgment," she announced finally, "you are sickening
for scarlatina, tonsilitis, and housemaid's knee, but if you stay in bed
and have an invalid's breakfast I should say you would be fairly
convalescent by twelve o'clock.  Snoddle down, and I'll see Nurse as
soon as I'm dressed, and put her on the track."

"I want Miss Everett!" sighed Rhoda plaintively, and Tom gave a grunt of
assent.

"I expect you do.  All the girls want her when they are ill.  She's no
time to spare, but I'll tell her, and probably she'll squeeze in five
minutes for you after breakfast.  You are not going to die this time, my
dear, so don't lose heart.  We shall see your fairy form among us before
many hours are past!"

Perhaps so.  Nevertheless it _was_ good to be coddled once more, to lie
snugly in bed and have a tray brought up with a teapot for one's very
own self, and egg, and fish, and toast--actually toast! instead of thick
slices of bread-and-scrape.  The luxury of it took away one's breath.
It was pleasant, also, to have Nurse fussing around in motherly fashion,
and hear her reminiscences of other young ladies whom she had nursed, in
days gone by, and brought back from the jaws of death.  From her manner,
it is true, she did not appear to suffer any keen anxiety about her
present patient: but, as Rhoda looked at the empty dishes before her,
she blushingly acknowledged that, after all, she could not have been so
ill as she had imagined.

After breakfast came Miss Everett, sweet as ever, and looking
refreshingly pretty in her pale blue blouse and natty collar and cuffs.
If one did not know to the contrary, she would certainly have been
mistaken for one of the elder girls, and her manner was delightfully
unprofessional.

"Well, my poor dear, this is bad news!  I _was_ sorry when Tom told me.
What is it?--headache--back-ache--pain in your throat?"

Rhoda stretched herself lazily and considered the question.

"A kind of general all-overishness, if you know what that means.  I feel
played out.  I tried to get up, but it was no use, I simply couldn't
stand.  I feel as if I had no back left--as weak as a kitten."

Miss Everett looked at her quietly, then her eye roved round the room
and rested meaningly on half-a-dozen pieces of paper fastened up in
conspicuous positions.  One sheet was tacked into the frame of the
looking-glass, another into a picture, a third pinned against the
curtain, and each was covered with Rhoda's large writing, easily legible
across the few yards of space: Rules of Latin Grammar, List of
Substantives, Tenses of Verbs--they stared one in the face at every
turn, and refused to be avoided.  Miss Everett laid her hand upon the
bed, and something rustled beneath her touch.  Yet another sheet had
been concealed beneath her pillow.

"Oh, Rhoda!" she cried, reproachfully; "oh, Rhoda!"

The girl put on an air of protest.

"What?  There's no harm in it, is there?  I can't catch the others up
unless I work hard.  I have not enough time in preparation, so I put
these up and learn them while I dress and undress, and every time I come
in to prepare for a meal.  You have no idea what a lot I get through.
And I keep a list in my pocket too, and take it out at odd moments.
Miss Murray is surprised at the way I am getting on."

"I have been surprised too, to see you look so ill, with such white
cheeks and heavy eyes.  I understand it now."

"But, Miss Everett, I _must_ work.  I _must_ get on!  If I am behind I
_must_ catch up.  Even if I am tired I must get on in my class."

"Why?"

Why?  Why must she get on?  It was such an extraordinary question to
come from a teacher, that Rhoda could only gasp in bewilderment--"Why?
You ask _why_?"

"Yes, I do.  One has always some object in work.  I wondered what yours
might be.  Why are you so terribly anxious to come to the front?"

A dozen answers rose to Rhoda's lips.  To impress Thomasina; to show her
that if I do think a good deal of myself, it's not without a cause...
To take the conceit out of the girls who patronise me.  To be able to
patronise in my turn, and not remain always insignificant and
powerless...  To show Harold how clever I am, and to have my name put on
the Record Wall when I leave! ...  They were one and all excellent
reasons, yet somehow she did not care to confide them to Miss Everett.
Instead, she hesitated, and answered by another question.

"I suppose you think there is a wrong and a right motive?  I suppose you
think mine is the wrong one.  What is the right, then?  I'm ill, and
reduced in my mind, so it's a good time to preach; I'll listen meekly!"

"And disagree with every word I say," cried Miss Everett laughing.  "No,
no, Rhoda, I never preach.  I know girls well enough to understand that
that doesn't pay.  There are some secrets that we have to find out for
ourselves, and it is waste of time telling the answers before the hearer
is ready to receive them; only, when one has oneself suffered from
ignorance, and sees another poor dear running her head against the wall,
one is sorry, that's all, and one longs to point out the danger signals.
Find out, dear, what your motive is, and be satisfied that it's a good
one.  Meantime, I'm going to take away these papers.  Do you see?
Every--single--one!"  She walked round the room, confiscating the lists,
and putting them in her pocket with an air of good-natured
determination.  "Let that tired head rest, and believe me, my dear, that
your elders understand almost as much about girls as you do yourself.
We are never blamed for under-working at Hurst, and you may take for
granted that the hours for work are as long as you can stand.  The short
time spent in your cubicle is not intended for work, but for rest--of
all kinds!"

Rhoda blushed guiltily.  During the first days at school the morning
hymn had been both a delight and stimulus.  She had listened to the
words with a beating heart, and whispered them to herself in devout
echo; they had seemed to strike a keynote for the day, and send her to
work full of courage; but, alas! for weeks past the strains had fallen
on deaf ears, and the lips had been too busy conning Latin substantives
to have leisure for other repetition.  Her sense of guilt made her meek
under the confiscation of her lists, and pathetically grateful for the
kiss of farewell.

"Thank you for coming.  I know you are busy, but I wanted you so!  It's
nice to see you; you look so sweet and pretty!"

"Oh, you flatterer!  I'm surprised at you.  As if it matters what a
staid old teacher looked like; I'm above such silly vanities, my dear."

She looked, however, extremely pleased, quite brisked up in fact, and so
delightfully like a girl that Rhoda took heart of grace, and enquired:--

"I wish you would tell me _your_ object!  That wouldn't be preaching,
and you are so young to be working so hard!  I have often wondered--"

"Ah!" cried Miss Everett, and a curious look passed over her face--half
glad, half sad, wholly proud.  "I'll tell you my object, Rhoda--it's my
brother, Lionel!  I have an only brother, and he is a genius.  You
remember his name, and when you are an old lady in a cap and mittens you
can amuse other old ladies by telling how you once knew his sister, and
she prophesied his greatness.  At school he carried all before him, and
he is as good as he is clever, and as merry as he is good.  He won a
scholarship at Oxford, but that was not enough.  My father is the vicar
of Stourley, in D--shire, and has such a small stipend that he could not
afford to help him as much as was needed.  Then I wrote to Miss Bruce,
and asked her if she could give me an opening.  She is an old family
friend, and knew that I had done well in examinations and was good at
games (the younger teachers here must be able to play with the girls--
it's one of the rules), so she gave me my present position, and I am
able to help the boy.  He went up last year and did famously, but I have
had sad news this week.  He had been obliged to go home and convalesce
after an attack of influenza, and is so weak still that the doctor says
he will want any amount of rest and feeding up before he can go back.
So you see I am more thankful than ever to be able to help!"

"I don't see it at all," said Rhoda bluntly.  "I should be mad.  What's
the good of your slaving here if, after all, he can't get on with his
work?  You might as well be comfortably at home."

"Rhoda!  Rhoda! be quiet this moment.  It's bad enough to fight against
my own rebellious feelings without hearing them put into words.  I won't
stay another moment to listen to you!"

She gave a playful shake to the girl's shoulder, and ran out of the
room, while Rhoda "snoddled" down to think over the conversation.

"Well, then, I suppose her motive is love--love for her brother, and--
er--thinking of him before herself.  She comes here and slaves so that
he may have his chance.  She is an angel, of course, an unselfish angel,
and I'm a wretch."  She lay still for a few moments, frowning fiercely,
then suddenly the bedclothes went up with a wrench--"I don't care--she's
ambitious too!  She thinks he is clever, and wants him to be great!
Well, so do I want to be great!  If it isn't wrong for one person, it
can't be for another.  My motive is _success_, and I'll work for it till
I drop!"



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

TOM'S EXAMINATION.

A day in bed renewed Rhoda's energy, and she took up her work with
unabated fervour.  The "lists" were, perhaps, less conspicuously
displayed than before, but were none the less in readiness when needed,
and if Miss Everett disapproved, the Latin mistress was all praise and
congratulation.

"I certainly have a gift for languages, and with lessons during the
holidays I shall soon be steaming ahead," Rhoda told herself proudly.
"I'll ask mother to let Mr Mason coach me.  He is a splendid teacher,
and if I have an hour a day I shall learn a lot.  Won't the girls stare
when I come back, and go soaring up the class!  I shouldn't wonder if I
got a remove.  It will be impossible to work up to Thomasina and her
set, but at any rate I'll be past the baby stages, and not disgrace
myself in the examinations."

All the world seemed bounded by examinations at present.  Thomasina and
the elder girls working steadily towards the goal of the "Matric";
Kathleen and her friends dreaming night and day of the "Oxford"; while
nearer at hand loomed the school examinations, which ended the term.
Rhoda was in a fever of anxiety to acquit herself well in the eyes of
her companions on this occasion, and could think, speak, and dream of
nothing else.  Even her joy of getting her remove from the "Bantlings"
into a higher team was swallowed up in the overwhelming interest, while
Dorothy was filled at once with admiration and disgust at the monotony
of her conversation.

"I don't know, and I don't care!" she replied callously, when anxiously
consulted about a point in mathematics.  "I've come out to play, and I'm
not going to rack my brains for you or anyone else.  You are getting a
regular bore, Rhoda!  It's like walking about with `Magnall's
Questions.'  Let's talk about frolics, or holidays, or something nice,
and not worry about stupid old lessons."

Well!  Rhoda told herself, it was no wonder if Dorothy _were_ medium, if
this was the way she regarded her studies.  If she took no more interest
than this in the coming contest, what could she expect from the result?
She would be sorry, poor dear, when she saw her name at the bottom of
the list!  There was no help to be expected from Dorothy; but Rhoda
stored up a few knotty questions, and took the first opportunity of
asking Tom for a solution.  She had discovered that Tom liked nothing
better than to be consulted by the younger girls, and had a tactful way
of asking help in return, which took away the sense of obligation.

"Oh, by-the-by," she would call to Rhoda, in her elegant fashion, "you
are a bit of a German sausage, aren't you?  Just read over that passage
for me.  I've been puzzling over it for the whole of the evening," and
then would follow some blissful moments, when Rhoda would skim lightly
over the difficulty, and feel the eyes of the girls fixed admiringly
upon her.

In the present instance a wet Saturday afternoon afforded a good
opportunity for the desired questioning.  The Hurst girls did not stay
indoors for an ordinary drizzle, but this was a downpour of so hopeless
a character that even the most enthusiastic athletes felt that the
house-parlour was preferable to the soaking, wind-swept grounds.  They
gathered together, stoked up the fire, and prepared to spend the two
hours' leisure as fancy should dictate, some girls reading, some sewing,
and some making themselves as comfortable as circumstances would permit,
and doing nothing at all with every appearance of enjoyment.

"If we had only some chestnuts," said one of the lazy ones, "how happy
we might be!  I have a wild craving for chestnuts.  It came over me
suddenly just now, sitting looking at that fire."

"I think," said Irene Grey solemnly, "it's very sad, but I do think a
school like this makes one horribly greedy.  You get so tired of the
food, and have such a longing for something that _isn't_ wholesome.  I
assure you, my dears, there have been occasions when the centre table
has had beef, while we have had mutton, when I could have wept--simply
wept!  I should like to order a meal regardless of everything but what I
like--lobster mayonnaise, and salmon, and veal cutlets, and ice pudding,
and strawberries and cream, and fizzy lemonade.  That would be something
like a dinner--better than old joints and milk puddings!"

The girls groaned in sympathy, and Rhoda took advantage of their
absorption to cross to Tom's desk and consult her quietly on the knotty
points.  The solutions were remarkably simple--when you knew them!--and
Tom delivered herself solemnly on the subject.

"You don't think, my dear; you don't reflect.  Your brain would help you
out, but you don't give it a chance.  It's what I am always saying to
this room--it's not cram you need, it's intelligence!  Use your reason!
Cultivate your faculties!  Now, then, I'll tell you what I'll do!"--she
raised her voice suddenly, and swung round in her seat.  "I'll give you
girls an examination myself.  You need some practice before the real
business begins, and it will be just the thing for this wet afternoon.
Get out your books and pencils and I'll dictate the questions.  It's to
be a `General Intelligence' paper, and the examiner's instructions are--
use your wits!  They will not be the ordinary blunt, straightforward
questions manufactured by the masculine mind, and intended mainly for
the coarse, masculine ability, but full of depth and subtlety, so that
they will require careful consideration.  If you go scribbling down your
answers before you have read the questions, you'll be sorry, that's all;
but don't say you were not warned.  Now, then, are you ready? ...  We
will begin our studies to-day, young ladies, with a problem in
calculation!"  She deepened her voice into such an accurate imitation of
the Arithmetical Mistress as filled her listeners with delight.
"Attention to the board!--If a room were 20 feet long, 13 feet broad, 11
feet high, and 17 feet square, how much Liberty wall-paper 27 inches
wide would be required to paper it, allowing 5 feet square for the
fireplace and seven by three for the door?"

The girls wrote down the question, not, however, without some murmurs of
protest.

"If there is one kind of sum I hate more than another, it's these horrid
old wall-papers!" declared Bertha Stacey.  "I shall never be a paper-
hanger, so I don't see why I should worry my head.  I don't call _this_
General Intelligence."

"I expect we shall have a taste of most subjects; but really, Tom,
really now--the room could not be 17 feet square if your other
measurements were right!" argued Irene, who knew arithmetic to be her
strong point, and was not sorry to impress the fact on her companions.
"You have made a mistake."

She expected the examiner to be discomfited, but Tom fixed her with a
glittering eye, and demanded if perchance she had _seen_ the room in
question, since she was so positive.

"No, of course not, but then-- You know quite well--"

"Well, I _have_, so perhaps you will allow me to know better.  Go on,
young ladies, and the next one who dares to raise any objections gets
ten bad marks to begin her list.  I must have perfect submission.  Five
minutes allowed for working!"

The time proved all too short for some of the workers, for the less
expert they were the more elaborate became their calculations, until
page after page was filled with straggling figures.  Thomasina made a
round of inspection, frowning over each book in turn, protesting,
scolding, marking the result with a big black cross.  According to her
verdict everyone was wrong, although five girls had arrived at the same
result; and Irene obstinately disputed the decision.

"I _know_ it is right!  Work it for yourself, and see.  It's a simple
enough sum, and any one could tell--"

"That's apparently just what they can't do!  I don't deny that you may
be correct in the broad, vulgar sense, but that is not enough for me.  I
expect you to grasp the inner meaning.  Now the _real_ answer to this
question is that there can be no answer!  To a perceptive mind it would
be impossible to reply without further information.  It entirely depends
on how the paper is cut out, and the amount of waste incurred in
matching the pattern!"

The girls shrieked aloud in mingled protest and delight.  It was too
bad; it was ripping, it was mean; it was killing; they all spoke
together and at the pitch of their voices, and alternately abused and
applauded until they were tired.  The _denouement_ had taken them by
surprise, though in truth they knew their Head too well to have taken
the examination seriously.  When Tom played schoolmistress there was
bound to be a joke in ambush, and they settled down to question number
two with minds alert for a trap.

"We will now, young ladies, take an excursion into the realms of
Literature, and test your insight into human nature.  I will ask you, if
you please, to compare the respective characters of Alfred the Great and
Miss Charlotte Yonge--`Jo March' and Joseph Chamberlain--four great,
and, it will be obvious to all, strongly-defined personalities.  I shall
be interested to hear your distinctions!"

It appeared, however, as if there would be little to interest, for most
of the girls stared blankly into space, as if powerless to tackle such a
subject.  Rhoda was one of the few exceptions, and scribbled unceasingly
with a complacent sense of being on her own ground until the limit of
time was reached.  Tom had evidently noticed her diligence, for she
called out a peremptory, "Rhoda, read aloud your answer!" which was
flattering, if at the same time slightly alarming.

"Ahem--er--er--in the historical character of Alfred the Great we find
combined the characteristics of courage and simplicity.  He waged a long
and unequal fight, and was equally inspired by failures or success.

"In the person of Miss Charlotte Yonge we discover the same virtues, but
in a softer and more feminine mould.  Her heroes are for the most part
refined and cultivated young men, actuated by the highest motives--"

"Stop!  Stop!" screamed Thomasina desperately.  "For pity sake spare us
the rest.  Such deadly propriety I never encountered!  It reminds me of
the Fairchild family at their very worst.  If _that's_ the sort of thing
you are going to write, Rhoda, I pity the poor examiners.  And what do
you mean by Alfred fighting?  He was a most peaceful creature, so far as
I have heard!"

"Thomasina! the war with the Danes--all those years!  You must
remember!"

"I don't remember a thing about it.  How could a man fight the Danes
living in a peaceful retreat in the Isle of Wight, as Tennyson did
for--?"

Tennyson!  Tennyson!  Who spoke of Tennyson?  Oh! it was too bad; too
mean!  How on earth could anyone be expected to guess that Tom had meant
Tennyson, when she had expressly said Alfred the Great?  Rhoda protested
loudly, and the other girls backed her up; but Tom was obdurate.

"And isn't Tennyson known as `Alfred the Great' as well as the other
crittur?  It is just another example of want of intelligence!  You read
the words, and never trouble about the connection.  Who in their sane
senses would ask you to compare a warrior king with old Miss Yonge?  A
little reflection would have saved you from the pitfall into which you
have all fallen headlong.  Five bad marks each!  Now, then, for the next
two.  What have you got to say about the two Joes?"

Very little apparently.  No one had tackled the comparison in Rhoda's
grandiose fashion, but a few pithy sentences were to be found scribbled
on the sides of exercise books.  "Jo March was very clever, and my
father says Mr Chamberlain is, too!" from one dutiful pupil.  "Jo March
was a darling, and Chamberlain is not," from another of Radical
principles.  "Both wore eye-glasses, and wrote things for magazines,"
and other such exhaustive criticisms.

"You are _all_ plucked in Literature," announced Thomasina, solemnly,
"and I am deeply pained by the exhibition!  I will give you one more
chance in Arithmetic before going on to the higher branches, because, as
you are aware, this is a most vital and important subject.  Write down,
please: A and B each inherited thirty thousand pounds.  A invested his
capital in gold-mine shares to bring in eighteen per cent, interest.  B
put his money into the Post Office Savings Bank, and received two and a
half per cent.  State to three places in decimals the respective wealth
of each at the expiration of twenty-seven years!"

"Er--with what deduction for current expenses?" queried Irene, with an
air.  She had been snubbed once, but was not in the least subdued.
"What were their current expenses?"

"There were none!"

"Thomasina, what bosh!  There _must_ have been.  They couldn't live on
nothing."

"Well, they did, then.  Since you are so particular, I may tell you that
they were in prison!  They had their wants supplied by their native
land."

"I'm not going to do sums about convicts!  My mother wouldn't like it,"
said Dorothy, shutting up her book with a bang.  She leaned forward, and
whispered in Rhoda's ear, "Don't bother; it's only another joke.  What's
the use of worrying for nothing?"

"It's practice," said Rhoda, and away went her pencil, scribbling,
calculating, piling up row upon row of figures.  To her joy the answer
came out the same as Irene's, which surely must prove it right; yet, as
Dorothy had prophesied, Tom was once more sweeping in denunciation,
"Wrong!  Wrong!  All wrong!  The gold-mine failed, and left A a pauper,
while B lived happily ever after.  You are old enough to know that gold-
mines that pay eighteen per cent, invariably _do_ fail and ruin their
shareholders; or if you don't, you may be thankful to me for telling
you.  I must say, young ladies, you are coming exceedingly poorly
through my test.  I cannot congratulate you on your insight.  I doubt
whether it is any use examining you any further."

"Oh, yes, let us have the higher branches, Tom!  Do let us have the
higher branches!  Who knows?  Perhaps we may distinguish ourselves at
last.  Give us another chance!" pleaded the girls, mockingly; and, thus
challenged, Tom could not but consent.  She tackled Zoology, and giving
the three divisions of Plantigrada, Pinnigrada, and Digitigrada, added a
list of animals to be classified accordingly.  When it is said that the
list included such widely diverging creatures as "A camel-leopard, a
duck-billed platypus, Thomasina Bolderston, and Spring-heeled Jack," it
can be imagined with what zest the pupils began their replies.

Tom professed to be mortified beyond endurance to find her fairy tread
unanimously classed under the first heading, and begged the Blues to
take notice that if any girl pined to call her "splay-footed" to her
face she might do so, and take the consequences!  No one accepted the
challenge, however; so she proceeded to Latin, and, with much jingling
of keys, gave out a sentence for translation:--

"Aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem."  The girls smiled at
this, confident of their powers.  The students at Hurst prided
themselves on their Latin, and could have stood a much severer test
without wavering.  The seniors did not trouble to write their answers,
but waited complacently until the time came when they should have an
opportunity of airing their proficiency.  It never came, however, for
Tom chose to disappoint expectations by reading aloud her own
translation from her position in front of the fire.

"Memento--remember; mentem--and mind; servare--to hold up; aequam--your
mare; in rebus arduis--going up hill.  That translation, young ladies,
was given by an undergraduate in the University of Oxford.  He
afterwards rowed stroke in the 'Varsity boat, and was the best billiard
player of his year, so it would ill become us to dispute his
conclusions.  You will observe the valuable moral lessons inculcated in
the words, and, I trust, take them to heart--`Remember and mind--'"

A laugh sounded from the direction of the door, and there stood Miss
Everett, looking round with mischievous eyes.  Rhoda noted with relief
that she looked brighter than for days past, as if some good news had
arrived from the home about which she was so anxious.

"This sounds improving," she cried, merrily.  "Thomasina holding a Latin
class!  I am glad you have found such an exemplary way of passing the
afternoon.  I am afraid you must stop, however, as the gong will ring in
five minutes, and meantime I must break up the class.  I want,"--her eye
roved enquiringly round the room--"I want Rhoda!"

"Certainly, Miss Everett.  Anything to oblige you.  Rhoda, my love, you
have my permission to retire," drawled Thomasina, wagging her head in
languid assent, and Rhoda left the room in no little wonder as to the
reason of the summons.

Arrived in the corridor, Miss Everett laid both hands on the girl's
shoulders, and asked a quick, laughing question:--

"What about that hamper?"

"Hamper?" echoed Rhoda.  "Hamper?"  Her air of bewilderment was so
unaffectedly genuine that the other's expression became in turn doubtful
and uncertain.

"Yes, yes, the hamper!  The hamper of good things that has just arrived
for my brother.  I thought you--"

"I know nothing about it; truly I don't!  I wish I did, but--"

"But, my dear girl, it came from your home.  There was a game label upon
it, with your father's name in print--`From Henry Chester, Erley Chase.'
There cannot be two Henry Chesters living at houses of the same name."

"Ah!" exclaimed Rhoda, and her face lit up with pleasure.  "It's mother!
Of course it's mother!  It's just the sort of thing mother would do.  I
told her that your brother had been ill, and that you were anxious about
him, and so she set to work to see how she could help.  That's just like
mother, she's the kindest dear!  I believe she sits down in her armchair
after breakfast every single morning, and plans out how many kind things
she can do during the day."

"Bless her heart!" cried Miss Everett devoutly.  "Well, Rhoda, she
succeeded this time.  My mother has written me all about it.  It was a
dull, wet day, and Lionel seemed depressed, and there was nothing nice
in the house, and nothing nice to be bought in the little village shops,
and she was just wondering, wondering how in the world she could cheer
him, and manufacture a tempting lunch out of hopeless materials, when
tap-tap-tap came the carrier's man at the door.  Then in came the
hamper, and Lionel insisted upon opening it himself, and was so
interested and excited!  There were all sorts of good things in it--
game, and grapes, and lovely, lovely hot-house flowers filling up the
chinks.  They were all so happy!  It was such a piece of cheer arriving
in that unexpected fashion, and mother says the house is fragrant with
the scent of the flowers.  Lionel arranged them himself.  It kept him
quite happy and occupied.  How can I thank you, dear?"

"Don't thank me.  It was not my doing.  It's mother."

"But how did your mother know where we lived?  How did she know who we
were?"

"Well!"  Rhoda smiled and flushed.  "Naturally I tell her the news.  I
suppose I must have mentioned that your father was Vicar of Stourley.  I
don't remember; but then I've so often written about you, and she would
naturally be glad to do anything she could, for she knows you have been
kind to me, and that I'm very--fond of you!"

Miss Everett bent down quickly, and kissed her on the cheek.

"And my people knew who Mr Chester was because I've written of you, and
they know that you have been kind to _me_, and that I'm fond of you,
too.  Oh Rhoda, you don't know how lonely it feels to be a teacher
sometimes, or how grateful we are to anyone who treats us as human
beings, and not as machines.  You don't know how you have cheered me
many a time."

"But--but--I've been tiresome, and stupid, and rebellious.  I've given
you lots of trouble--"

"Perhaps, but you have been affectionate too, and seemed to like me a
little bit, in spite of my lectures; and if it had not been for your
kind words the hamper would never have come, so I insist upon thanking
you as well as your mother.  Many, many thanks, dear!  I shall always
re--" She stopped short suddenly, her attention arrested by the scraping
of chairs within the parlour, and concluded in a very different tone,
"The girls are coming!  For pity's sake don't let Tom find us
sentimentalising here!  Fly, Rhoda, fly!" and off she ran along the
corridor, flop, flop, flop, on her flat-soled shoes, as much in fear of
the scrutiny of the head girl as the youngest Blue in the house!



CHAPTER TWELVE.

HOME AGAIN.

The week of examination passed slowly by, and the morning dawned when
the all-important lists were to be read aloud.  The girls were tired
after the strain, the teachers exhausted by the work of reading over
hundreds of papers, and it was consequently a somewhat pale and
dejected-looking audience which assembled in the Hall to hear the
report.

Rhoda sat tense on her seat, and puzzled for some moments over the
meaning of a certain dull, throbbing noise, before discovering that it
was the beating of her own heart.  It seemed to her morbid sensitiveness
that every eye was upon her, that everyone was waiting to hear what
place the new girl had taken.  When Miss Bruce began to read she could
hardly command herself sufficiently to listen, but the first mention of
her own name brought her to her bearings with a shock of dismay.  After
all her work, her care, her preparation, to be so low as this, to take
so poor a place!  The mortification was so bitter that she would fain
have hidden herself out of reach of consolation, but to her surprise, so
far from condoling, teachers and pupils alike seemed surprised that she
had done so well.

"You have worked admirably, Rhoda.  I am pleased with you," said Miss
Murray.

"Well done, Fuzzy!" cried Tom, and even Miss Bruce said graciously:

"Very good progress for a first term, Rhoda!"

It was evident from their manner that they meant what they said, and
another girl might have gleaned comfort from the realisation that she
had expected too much of her own abilities.  Not so Rhoda!  It was but
an added sting to discover that she had been ranked so low, that an even
poorer result would have created no astonishment.  She was
congratulated, forsooth, on what seemed to her the bitterest
humiliation!  If anything was needed to strengthen the determination to
excel at any and every cost, this attitude of the school was sufficient.
In the solitude of the cubicle she vowed to herself that the day should
come, and that speedily, when she would be estimated at her right value.
She stood in the damp and cold gazing up at the Record Wall, and
renewed the vow with fast-beating heart.  The sun struggled from behind
the clouds and lit up the surface of the tablets, and the Honours girl,
and the B.A. girl, and the girls who had won the scholarships, seemed to
smile upon her and wish her success, but Eleanor Newman's name was in
the shade.  The sun had not troubled to light it up.  She was "stupid,"
and had never won a prize.

The last two days were broken and unsatisfactory, and Rhoda longed for
the time of departure to arrive; yet it was not without a pang of regret
that she opened her eyes on the last morning, and gazed round the little
blue cubicle.  It was delightful to be going home, yet school had its
strong points, and there were one or two partings ahead which could not
be faced without depression.  How nice it would be if she could take all
her special friends home--Dorothy and Kathleen, and Miss Everett, and--
yes!  Tom herself; for, wonderful to state, she was unaffectedly sorry
to part from Tom.  What fun they would have had running riot in Erley
Chase, and summoning the whole household to wait on their caprices!

The gong rang, and all the little bells followed suit in their usual
objectionable fashion, but the girls yawned and lay still for another
five minutes, aware that leniency was the order of the day.  The roll of
the organ and the first two lines of the hymn found them still in bed,
and the words were clearly distinguishable:--

  Awake my soul, and with the sun, Thy daily course of duty run--

"How stupid!" commented Rhoda to herself.  "`Course of duty' on the very
day we are leaving school.  What a ridiculous choice!" and then she
tumbled out of bed and listened no more.

The rest of the morning seemed a comical Alice-in-Wonderland repetition
of the day of arrival.  The same long queues were formed to march down,
instead of upstairs; the teachers stood on the landings to say good-bye,
instead of welcome; the "Black Marias" bore the pupils to, instead of
from, the station, where the saloon carriages stood waiting as before.
The Blues crowded into one carriage, and Tom seated herself by Rhoda,
and with twinkling eyes called attention to the undulating beauty of the
landscape.  It was all exactly the same, yet delightfully different, for
now there was no shyness nor restraint, but the agreeable consciousness
of liberty to chaff in return, and be as cheeky as one chose.

There was unceasing talk on the journey, yet each girl realised as the
train steamed into Euston that she had forgotten to say the most
important things, and was divided between regret and anxiety to look out
for friends waiting on the platform.  Rhoda had heard that Harold was to
meet her, and presently there he was--handsomer than ever, or looking so
after the three months' separation, and as immaculate as if he had
stepped out of the traditional bandbox.

"There he is!  That's Harold!  That's my brother!" she cried, with a
thrill of pride in the tall, frock-coated figure; and Thomasina looked,
and rolled her little eyes to the ceiling.

"What a bee-ootiful young man!  A perfect picter!  Give him my fond
love, Fuzzy, and say that I am desolated not to be able to stay to make
his acquaintance, but I must make a bolt for my train."

She seized her bag as she spoke and hurried to the door, prepared to
jump on to the platform at the first possible moment, while her
companions impatiently followed in her wake.  Rhoda had a vague
recollection of promising to write regularly to half a dozen girls, and
then she was shaking hands with Harold, and laughing in pure joy at
seeing the familiar face.

"Here I am!  Here I am!  I have come back at last!"

"So I see!"  He swept a glance over her, half smiling, half startled.
"Awfully glad to see you.  Got your luggage in the van, eh?  Don't know
how on earth we shall get hold of it in this crowd.  What an--excuse
me!--an appalling set of girls!"

"I thought so too, at first, but they look different when you know them.
Some of them are sweet, and awfully pretty."

"Humph!" said Harold, sceptically.  "They are not conspicuous.  I don't
see a decent-looking girl anywhere, except--who's the girl in the grey
hat?"

"That's Miss Everett, our house-mistress, the one I'm so fond of--the
one who has the invalid brother, you know, to whom mother sent the
game!"

"Teacher, is she?  I thought she was a pupil.  Sorry for her, poor
little thing, if she has to manage a lot of girls like you.  Ha!  `R.C.'
That's your box at last.  I'll get a porter to put it on a four-
wheeler.  Watch where I go, and keep close behind."

He strolled forward, and such was the effect of his imposing appearance
and lordly ways, that the porters flew to do his bidding, and piled the
luggage on the cab, while others who had been first on the scene were
still clamouring for attention.  Rhoda glanced proudly at him as they
drove away together, but the admiration evidently was on one side, for
he frowned, and said critically--

"You--er--look pale!  You have lost your colour!"

"I've been working hard."

"You have grown thinner!"

"Games, I suppose.  We are always running about."

"Er--what has become of your hair?"

Rhoda first stared, and then laughed.

"Oh, my pigtail!  I forgot that you hadn't seen it.  I hated it too, at
first, but I've grown accustomed to it, and find it very comfortable.
It worries me now to have my hair blowing about and tickling my face."

"All the same, my dear, you had better untie it before we get home.  We
will lunch at the Station Hotel, and you can comb it out there.  It will
give the mater a shock if she sees you looking so changed.  She would
hardly know you, I think."

The tone of disapproval hit hard, and to hide her chagrin Rhoda adopted
an air of indifference.

"Oh, we don't trouble ourselves about appearances at Hurst.  So long as
we are comfortable we are satisfied.  If a girl worries to dress up, we
chaff her unmercifully."

"The more foolish you!  I hope and pray, Rhoda, that you are not going
to develop into one of the strong-minded young women one meets nowadays,
who seem to spend their lives in trying to be as much like men as
possible.  It will be a mistake if you do.  Be as learned as you like,
and as sensible as you like, and as hardy as you like--that is all to
the good--but, for pity's sake, be pretty too, and dainty, and feminine!
We don't want to have all our womenkind swallowed up in athletes,
warranted to be `hard kicks,' or `useful forwards!'  We want them to
play the ornamental part in life, and be pretty, and sweet, and
attractive."

"Ha, ha, yes!  That's the man's point of view!" quoth Rhoda loftily, and
her brother smiled good-naturedly as the cab stopped before the hotel.

"It is, my dear, that's very certain; and as you will probably meet a
good many men as you go through life, you might as well study their
opinion.  It may be regrettable, but it is certainly true, that you will
have more influence if you are agreeable to look at.  You would have
more influence over _me_ at this moment if you would kindly walk
upstairs and make yourself look--er--a little more like your old self!"

"Oh, I don't mind.  Anything to please you!" said Rhoda carelessly, and
strode upstairs after the chambermaid, smiling to herself in lofty
superiority at Harold's "dandy ways."  She did not smile, however, when,
on coming suddenly in front of the mirror, she caught a full-length
reflection of herself, for her brother's presence had unconsciously
altered her point of view, so that she saw herself no longer from the
standpoint of Hurst Manor, but that of Erley Chase.  Yes, Harold was
right!  It was not only the pigtail; there was an indefinable difference
in her whole appearance.  The clothes were the same, the girl was the
same, but there was no longer the immaculate neatness, the dainty care,
the well-groomed look which had once characterised her.  In her usual
impetuous fashion, she had rushed from one extreme to the other; in
discarding vanity, had run perilously near neglect.

"I look a nasty, horrid, hidjus fright!" she cried aloud, staring in
disgust at the unwelcome vision.  "I couldn't have believed it--really I
couldn't!  It's the fault of those horrid little cubicles with the glass
stuck in the darkest corner.  Harold was right.  Mother would have been
shocked."

She slipped off coat and hat, and with the aid of the well-stocked
dressing-bag went through such a process of dusting, brushing, and
combing-out as she had not known for weeks past.  Finally the old Rhoda
seemed to smile upon her in response, in her own eyes at least, but when
Erley Chase was reached some hours later Mrs Chester was far from
satisfied with her darling's appearance.  Her anxious eyes took in at a
glance every change in the beloved features, and nothing could shake her
conviction that the child had been starved and overworked.  An elaborate
system of coddling was inaugurated, to which Rhoda submitted with
wonderful meekness.

Oh, the delight at being home again, of being loved and fussed over, and
indulged in one's pet little weaknesses!  How beautiful everything
looked; the richly-furnished rooms, the hall with its Turkey carpet and
pictured walls; the dinner table with its glittering glass and silver!
How luxurious to awake in her own pretty room, to hear the fire
crackling in the grate, and to sit up in bed to drink the early cup of
tea!

"I never realised before how nice home was!" sighed Rhoda to herself,
and for four whole days she succeeded in forgetting all about school,
and in abandoning herself to the enjoyment of the festivities of the
season.

Christmas Day once over, however, recollections came back with a pang,
and she was all eagerness to begin the proposed lessons with the Vicar.
To her surprise, father and mother looked coldly upon the project, and
so far from admiring her industry thought it a pity to introduce work
into the holidays.  It needed a hard struggle to induce them to consent
to three lessons a week instead of six, and she had to face the
certainty that private study would be made as difficult as possible.
Even Harold elevated his eyebrows and enquired, "Why this tremendous
hurry?" as if he had never been to a public school himself and known the
necessity for advance.

Rhoda betook herself to the faithful Ella in no very gentle mood, and
stormed about the small Vicarage garden like a young whirlwind.

"Well, I must say grown-ups are the most tiresome, aggravating,
unreasonable creatures that were ever invented!  First they want you to
work, and urge you to work, and goad you to work, and `Oh, my dear, it
would do you all the good in the world to compete with other girls,' and
then, the moment you take them at their word and get interested and
eager, round they turn, and it's, `Oh the folly of cram!  Oh the
importance of health!'  `Oh what does it matter, my dear good child, if
you _are_ a dunce, so long as you keep your complexion!'  No, I'm not
angry, I'm perfectly calm, but it makes me _ill_!  I can't stand being
thwarted in my best and noblest ambitions.  If I had a daughter, and she
wanted to cram in her holidays, I'd be proud of her, and try to help,
instead of throwing hindrances in the way.  It's very hard, I must say,
to get no sympathy from one's nearest and dearest.  Even your father
looked at me over his spectacles as if I were a wild animal.  I thought
he would have been pleased with my industry."

"He is; I know he is; but he thinks you may overdo it.  You know, Rhoda,
you _are_ impetuous!  When you take up an idea you ride it to death, and
in lessons that doesn't pay.  Slow and sure wins the--"

"Rubbish!  Humbug!  It will never win my race, for I have a definite
time to run it in, and not a day more.  It has to be a gallop, and a
pretty stiff one at that.  For goodness' sake, Ella, don't _you_ begin
to preach.  You might be grown-up yourself, sitting there prosing in
that horribly well-regulated fashion."

"I'm not well-regulated!" cried Ella, incensed by the insinuation.  "I
was only trying to calm you down because you were in such a temper.
What is the use of worrying?  You have got your own way; why can't you
be happy?  Leave the wretched old Latin alone, and tell me about school.
There are a hundred things I am longing to hear, and we have not had a
proper talk yet.  Tell me about the girls, and the teachers, and the
rules, and the amusements, and what you like best, and what you hate
worst."

It was a "large order," as Harold would have said, but Rhoda responded
with enjoyment, for what can be pleasanter than to expatiate on one's
own doings to a hearer with sufficient knowledge to appreciate the
points, and sufficient ignorance to prevent criticism or undue
sensitiveness as to consistency of detail!

Rhoda told of the chill, early breakfasts, of the seven o'clock supper
when everything looked so different in the rosy light, especially on
Thursdays, when frolics and best clothes were the order of the day; of
Miss Mott, with her everlasting "Attention to the board"; the Latin
mistress, with her eye-glasses; Fraulein, with a voice described by Tom
as sounding "like a gutter on a rainy day"; and of Miss Everett,
sweetest and best-loved of all.  Lastly she told of the Record Wall, and
Ella was fired, as every girl hearer invariably was fired, with interest
and emulation.

When Rhoda went off to her lesson in the study the poor little stay-at-
home recalled the words of Eleanor Newman's inscription, and capped them
by one even more touching:

"Ella Mason, a student of exceptional promise, voluntarily relinquished
a career of fame and glory to be a cheerful and uncomplaining helper at
home."  Alas, poor Ella! at the word "cheerful" her lips twitched, and
at "uncomplaining" the big tears arose and trickled down her cheeks!

For the rest of the holidays Rhoda worked more persistently than anyone
suspected, with the exception of her tutor, who invariably found the
allotted task not only perfectly accomplished, but exceeded in length.
Even making allowances for the girl's undoubted gift for languages, he
was amazed at her progress, and complimented her warmly at the close of
the lessons, watching with half-amused, half-pitying eyes the flush of
pleasure on the girl's cheeks.

"You are very ambitious, Rhoda.  Very anxious to distinguish yourself?"

"Yes."

"Well, well! you are young.  It is natural.  Remember only that there
are different kinds of success, and aim for the best.  When I was your
age I had dreams of a deanery or a bishopric, but I have remained all my
life in this sleepy village.  My college companions have soared over my
head, yet I can never feel myself an unsuccessful man.  I have had great
compensations, and have discovered that obscurity has many lessons which
I needed badly to learn.  Don't be too anxious for honour and glory;
there are other things better worth having!"

"The worst of old people is--they _will_ preach!" said Rhoda to herself
as she walked home across the Park.  "He is a good old thing, the Vicar,
but a terrible bore.  Unsuccessful!  I should think he _is_
unsuccessful, with half-a-dozen children, and that wretched little bit
of a house, and a poor stipend.  No wonder he gets prosy.  Young people
understand young people best, and Miss Everett was quite right when she
said it was no use trying to stuff lessons down your throat until you
were ready to swallow them.  If all the fathers, and mothers, and
brothers, and vicars in the world were to lecture me now, and tell me to
take it easy, and not to worry about the examination, it would have no
effect.  In another two days I go back to school, and then--then--" She
stood still in the midst of the bare, wintry scene, and clasped her
hands together passionately.

"Rhoda Chester, you must work, you must win!  If you don't do well in
that examination, it will break your heart!"



CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

"IF I PASS--"

The Christmas holidays were over, the Easter holidays were over, and
spring was back once more.  On the slope over which the new students had
gaily tobogganed two months before the primroses were showing their
dainty, yellow faces, and the girl gardeners were eagerly watching the
progress of their bulbs.  Hearing that other plots boasted nothing rarer
than pheasant eye and Lent lilies, Rhoda had promptly written home for a
supply of Horsfieldi and Emperor, which were expected to put everything
else in the shade, but, alas! they were coming up in feeble fashion, and
showed little sign of flowering.  "Another year," the gardener said,
"they would do better another year!  Bulbs were never so strong the
first season."  Whereat Rhoda chafed with impatience.  Always another
time, and not _now_!

Always postponement, delay, uncertainty!  Try as she might, checks
seemed to be waiting on every side, and she could never succeed in
distinguishing herself above her fellows.  In moments of depression it
seemed that she was as insignificant now as on the day when she first
joined the school; but at other times she was happily conscious of a
change in the mental attitude towards herself.  Though still far from
the front, she was recognised as a girl of power and determination; an
ambitious girl, who would spare no work to attain her end, and who
might, in the future, become a dangerous rival.  Dorothy had long ago
thrown up the unequal fight, and even Kathleen had moments of doubt,
when she said fearfully to herself, "She is cleverer than I am.  She
gets on so well.  Suppose--just suppose..."

With milder weather, cricket had come into fashion, and on the occasion
of the first pavilion tea the Blues turned up in force.  Thomasina sat
perched in manly attitude on the corner of the table, where, as it
seemed to the onlooker, every possible hindrance was put in the way of
her enjoyment of the meal.  Irene Grey presided at the urn, Bertha
handed round the cups, and a bevy of girls hung over the cake basket,
making critical and appreciative remarks.

"Bags me that brown one, with the cream in the middle!  I've tried those
macaroons before--they are as hard as bricks!"

"I wish they would get cocoa-nut cakes for a change; I adore cocoa-nuts,
when they are soft and mushy.  We make them at home, and they are ever
so much nicer than the ones you buy!"

"That's what they call plum-cake, my love!  Case of `Brother, where art
thou?' like the Friday pudding.  Those little white fellows look
frightfully insipid.  What Rhoda would call a `kid-glove flavour,' I
should say."

Every one laughed at this, for it was still a matter of recent
congratulation in the house that Rhoda Chester had invented an
appropriate title for a certain mould or blancmange, which appeared at
regular intervals, and possessed a peculiar flavour which hitherto had
refused to be classified.

In a moment of inspiration, Rhoda had christened it "Kid-Glove Jelly,"
and the invention had been received with acclamation.  Did she say she
had never distinguished herself, had never attracted attention?  No,
surely this was wrong; for in that moment she had soared to the very
pinnacle of fame.  So long as the school endured, the name which she had
created would be handed down from generation to generation.  Alas, alas!
our ambitions are not always realised in the way we would choose!  When
one has pined to be in a first team, or to come out head in an
examination, it is a trifle saddening to be obliged to base our
reputation on--the nickname of a pudding!

Rhoda smiled brightly enough, however, at the present tribute to her
powers, and passed her cup for a third supply with undiminished
appetite.  She had been playing with her usual frantic energy, and was
tired and aching.  Her shoulders bent forward as she sat on her chair;
she shut her eyes with a little contraction of the brows; the dimple no
longer showed in her cheek; and when Bertha upset the tray upon the
floor, she started with painful violence.  Her nerves were beginning to
give way beneath the strain put upon them; but, instead of being warned,
and easing off in time, she repeated obstinately to herself:--"Three
months more--two and a half--only two!--I can surely keep up for eight
weeks, and then there will be all the holidays for rest!"

It seemed, indeed, looking forward, as if the world were bounded by the
coming examination, and that nothing existed beyond.  If she succeeded--
very well, it was finished!  Her mind could take in no further thought.
If she failed--clouds and darkness! chaos and destruction!  The world
would have come to an end so far as she was concerned.

It filled her with surprise to hear the girls discuss future doings in
their calm, unemotional fashion; but though she could not participate,
the subject never failed to interest.  The discussion began again now,
for it was impossible to keep away from the all-engrossing subject, and
the supposition, "If I pass," led naturally to what would come
afterwards.

"If I do well I shall go up to Newnham, and try for the Gilchrist
Scholarship--fifty pounds a year for three years.  It's vacant next
year, and I don't see why I shouldn't have it as well as anyone else,"
said Bertha, modestly, and Tom pounded the table with her heels.

"Go in, my beauty, go in and win!  I only wish you could wait a few
years until I am there to look after you.  I am going to be Principal of
Newnham one of these fine days, and run it on my own lines.  No work,
and every comfort--breakfast in bed, and tea in the grounds--nothing to
do but wait upon me and pander to my wishes!"

"I daresay!  So like you, Tom!  You would be a terror, and work the
girls to death.  You are never tired yourself, so you would keep them
going till they dropped.  I pity the poor creatures who came under your
rule, but most likely you will never be tried.  You may be first
mistress, or second, or third, but it's not likely you'll ever be a
Principal!"

"It's not likely at all, it's positive sure," retorted Tom calmly.
"Principals, like poets, are born not made, and the cause can't afford
to lose me.  I don't say for a certainty it will be Newnham; it may
possibly be Girton, or Somerville, or Lady Margaret Hall, but one of the
two or three big places it's bound to be.  No one shall call me
conceited, but I know my own powers, and I intend that other people
shall know them too.  Education is my sphere, and I intend to devote my
life to the advancement of my sex.  Pass the cake, someone!  I haven't
had half enough.  Yes, my vocation is among women.  You will hardly
believe me, my dears, but men don't seem to appreciate me, somehow!
There is a `Je-ne-sais-quoi' in my beauty which doesn't appeal to them a
mite.  But girls adore me.  I've a fatal fascination for them which they
can't withstand.  There's Rhoda there--she intended to hate me when she
first came, and now she adores the ground I tread on.  Don't you, Fuzzy?
You watch her smile, and see if it's not true!  Very well, then; I see
plainly what Providence intends, and I'm going straight towards that
goal."

"And it is what you would like?  You would choose it if you had the
choice?"

"Rather, just!  It's the dream of my life.  There is nothing in all the
world that I should like so much."

Pretty Dorothy sighed, and elevated her eyebrows.

"Well--I wouldn't.  I enjoy school very much, and want to do well while
I am here, but when I leave, I never want to do another hour's study.
If I thought I had to teach, I should go crazy.  I should like to have a
good time at home for a few years, and then--yes, I should!--I should
like to marry a nice man who loved me, and live in the country--and have
a dear little home of my own.  Now, I suppose you despise me for a poor-
spirited wretch; but it's true, and I can't help it."

But Tom did not look at all scornful.  She beamed at the speaker over
her slice of plum-cake, and cried blandly--

"Bless you, no!  It's quite natural.  You are that sort, my dear, and I
should not have believed you if you had said anything else.  You'll
marry, of course, and I'll come and visit you in the holidays, and
you'll say to `Him,' `What a terrible old maid Thomasina has grown!' and
I'll say to myself, `Poor, dear old Dorothy, she is painfully domestic!'
and we will both pity each other, and congratulate ourselves on our own
escape.  We have different vocations, you and I, and it would be folly
to try to go the same way."

"You are happy creatures it you are _allowed_ to go your own way," said
Bertha sadly.  "I'm not, and that's just the trouble.  I'm not a star,
like Tom, but I love work, and want to do some good with my education.
I should be simply miserable settling down at home with no occupation
but to pay calls, or do poker work and sewing; yet that's what my
parents expect me to do.  They are rich, and can't understand why I
should want to work when there is no necessity.  I may persuade them to
send me abroad for a year or so for languages and music, but even then I
should be only twenty, and I can't settle down to vegetate at twenty.
It's unreasonable to send a girl to a school where she is kept on the
alert, body and mind, every hour of the day, and then expect her to be
content to browse for the rest of her life!  Now, what ought one to do
in my position?  _I_ want one thing; _they_ want another.  Whose duty is
it to give way?"

She looked at Tom as she spoke, but Tom swung her feet to and fro, and
went on munching plum-cake and staring into space with imperturbable
unconsciousness.  Bertha called her sharply to attention.

"Tom! answer, can't you?  I was speaking to you."

"Rather not, my dear.  Ask someone else; some wise old Solomon who has
had experience."

"No, thank you.  I know beforehand what he would say.  `Submission, my
child, submission!  Parents always know best.  Young people are always
obstinate and hot-headed.  Be ruled!  Be guided!  In time to come you
will see'--Yah!" cried Bertha, with a sudden outburst of irritation.
"I'm sick of it!  I've had it dinned into my ears all my life, and I
want to hear someone appreciate the other side for a change.  I'm young;
I've got all my life to live.  If I were a boy I should be allowed to
choose.  Surely! surely, I ought to have _some_ say in my own affairs!
Don't shirk now, Tom, but speak out and say what you think.  If you are
going to be a Principal you ought to be able to give advice, and I
really do need it!"

"Ye-es!" said Tom slowly.  "But you needn't have given me such a poser
to start with.  It's a problem my dear, that has puzzled many a girl
before you, and many a parent, too.  The worst of it is that there is so
much to be said on both sides.  I could make out an excellent brief for
each; and, while I think of it, it wouldn't be half a bad subject to
discuss some day at our Debating Society: `To what extent is a girl
justified in deciding on her own career, in opposition to the wishes of
her parents?'  Make a note of that someone, will you?  It will come in
usefully.  I'm thankful to say my old dad and I see eye to eye about my
future, but if he didn't--it would be trying!  I hate to see girls
disloyal to their parents, and if the `revolt of the daughters' were the
only outcome of higher education I should say the sooner we got back to
deportment and the use of the globes the better for all concerned.  But
it wasn't all peace and concord even in the old days.  Don't tell me
that half a dozen daughters sat at home making bead mats in the front
parlour, and never had ructions with their parents or themselves!  They
quarrelled like cats, my dears, take my word for it, and were ever so
much less happy and devoted than girls are now, going away to do their
work, and coming home with all sorts of interesting little bits of news
to add to the general store.  It's impossible to lay down the law on
such a question, for every case is different from another, but I think a
great deal depends on the work waiting at home.  If a girl is an only
daughter, or the only strong or unmarried one, there is no getting away
from it that her place is with her parents.  We don't want to be like
the girl in _Punch_, who said, `My father has gout, and my mother is
crippled, and it is so dull at home that I am going to be a nurse in a
hospital!'  _That_ won't do!  If you have a duty staring you in the face
you are a coward it you run away from it.  An only daughter ought to
stay at home; but when there are two or three, it's different.  It
doesn't take three girls to arrange flowers, and write notes, and pay
calls, and sew for bazaars; and where there is a restless one among
them, who longs to do something serious with her time, I--I think the
parents should give way!  As you say, we have to live our own lives,
and, as boys are allowed to choose, I think we should have the same
liberty.  I don't know how large your family is, Bertha, or--"

"Three sisters at home.  One engaged, but the other two not likely to
be, so far as I can see, and Mother quite well, and brisk, and active!"

"Well, don't worry!  Don't force things, or get cross, and they'll give
in yet, you'll see.  Put your view of the case before them, and see if
you cannot meet each other somehow.  If they find that you are quiet and
reasonable they will be far more inclined to take you seriously, and
believe that you know your own mind.  That's all the advice I can give
you, my dear, and I'm afraid it's not what you wanted.  Perhaps someone
else can speak a word in season!"

"Well, I side with the parents, for if the rich are going to work, what
is to become of the poor ones like me, who are obliged to earn their
living?" cried Kathleen, eagerly.  "Now, if Bertha and I competed for an
appointment, she could afford to take less salary, and so, of course--"

"No, no!  That's mean!  I do beg and pray all you Blues that, whatever
you do, you never move a finger to reduce the salaries of other women!"
cried Tom fervently.  "If you don't need the money, give it away to
Governesses' Institutions--Convalescent Homes--whatever you like; but,
for pity's sake, don't take less than your due.  For my own part, I must
candidly say that when I am Principal I shall select my staff from those
who are like Kathleen, and find work a necessity rather than a
distraction.  It seems to me,

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