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‘Were you tilting?’

“Oh, there you are, Mary-Lou! Had decent hols?”

Mary-Lou Trelawney, standing near the big entrance door to the Chalet School and snuffing the fresh mountain air with keen enjoyment, turned with a start at the sound of a well-known voice, and her blue eyes lit up with a warm welcome. “Oh, Vi! And Barbara, too! What fun! But how on earth did you get here so early? Don’t say the coaches have arrived, for I shan’t believe you. They’re nowhere in sight.”

“Keep cool—keep cool!” Vi returned, with a peal of laughter. “The coaches are not here, as you so sapiently remark. The fact of the matter is, Uncle Peter—Bab’s dad, you know—had to come out with a patient for the San, and he said we two might as well come with him. Betsy and Julie aren’t coming till Saturday. Mummy and Daddy are away for a few days, so someone had to stay to look after young Kitten. Glendower House doesn’t begin till next Tuesday, and you know what that kid is!”

“But couldn’t she have gone to Barbara’s mother?” Mary-Lou queried, as she slung an arm round each of the others and drew them to the house.

Barbara herself shook her head. “Mummy’s off with Auntie J and Uncle Julian—he had to go to London on business, and said he’d take both of them with him for shopping and a theatre. Young Janice is coming with the school—Dad said he wasn’t being responsible for any infants—and we came with him. Now you know it all.”

“But what about Nancy?” Mary-Lou asked as they entered the building. “She’s grown-up now. Couldn’t she have taken over Kitten?”

“Nancy, my love, has gone to her hospital at last. She was thrilled to the back teeth when I last saw her,” Vi informed her friend. “That’s really why Betsy stayed at home to keep Julie company. She and Nancy have always been such pals anyone would think it was they who were sisters instead of being just cousins. Julie’s going to miss Nancy badly when it comes to the week-end this term. But I don’t suppose she’ll get leave off from her hospital for just a school’s coming-of-age celebrations.”

“I’m jolly sure she won’t,” Mary-Lou agreed.

“Well, there it is,” Barbara observed. “Have you been staying at Freudesheim?”

Mary-Lou nodded. “Dad had to go to Edinburgh to see that specialist-lad who’s keeping an eye on his leg and Mother wanted to go with him. So Verity and I came out last week and parked with Auntie Joey.”

“Where is Verity?” Vi demanded, looking round rather as if she expected to see the said Verity dangling from a picture rail or the electric light.

“Over at Freudesheim. It was her turn to write to the home-folks, and she hadn’t finished her letter. I just ran across to see if there was anything I could do to help. There was nothing, so I’ve been wandering around the garden. Who’s the invalid Uncle Peter’s brought out, Barbara? Anyone I know?”

Barbara shook her head. “I don’t know her myself. She lives in Peterport somewhere. She’s pretty bad, though, which is why Daddy brought her himself.”

“I see. Then at that rate, come on and report to Deney, and then we’ll go and ask Matey if you can unpack and get settled before the mob arrives. We’re going to be awfully close-packed this term, I can tell you,” she added as they crossed the wide entrance-hall and turned down a narrow passage. “Having all St. Mildred’s jammed in on top of us makes space pretty tight.”

“It’ll be rather fun, though, to have all the old crowd back for the term,” Vi suggested. “Anyone come up yet, Mary-Lou?”

“Dozens of people,” Mary-Lou said promptly.

“Oh, who?” Both girls looked suitably excited, and Vi stood stockstill.

“Not knowing, can’t say. I’m not in the habit of meeting the trains and asking every stranger I see who they are.”

“Idiot!” Vi cried. “You know perfectly well that I mean have any Old Girls arrived yet?”

“Not yet; but Auntie Joey had a letter from that French pal of hers, Mme de Bersac, and she’s coming shortly with the two babies. And I met Mrs. Graves yesterday, and she told me that she was expecting an old friend of hers, Giovanna Rincini, whom she hasn’t seen since the school was in Tirol. She’s wildly excited about it. And I believe the first batch of Old Girls is coming to St Mildred’s the week after next—people who can’t manage to come for Half term, you know.”

By this time they had reached the door of the office which was the special preserve of Miss Dene, another Old Girl and the school’s secretary, so the conversation had to cease. Vi tapped at the door, and she and Barbara went in to report their arrival while Mary-Lou, waiting outside, forgot that she was a prefect and nearly seventeen and amused herself by trying to kick her own height.

Miss Dene, a fair, pretty woman in the middle thirties, greeted Vi and Barbara, inquired after their parents and sisters, who were all old friends, and then told the two girls that they might go to Matron, after which they must amuse themselves for the present.

“And now you may go,” she added. “I’m snowed under with work already, and I want to keep a jump or two ahead so that I’ve time to renew old friendships when the other Old Girls begin to come up. This is going to be a very exciting term, you know.”

“I only hope it’s exciting enough to keep the Middles and Juniors from perpetrating anything wild,” Vi said, her deeply pansy-blue eyes dancing.

“I couldn’t agree more with you,” Miss Dene returned.

“Of course,” Vi said thoughtfully as she and Barbara turned to the door, “we are having the Dawbarns and Primrose Trevoase this term to add to our troubles.”

“Don’t worry about them,” Miss Dene said with a chuckle. “Miss Wilson has evolved a beautiful idea for keeping them in hand. They won’t like it at all if it has to be put into action, and they’re going to be well warned when they arrive, so I think that’ll hold them. Now do go!”

They laughed and left the room to join Mary-Lou, who was growing impatient.

“Come on! What a time you’ve been!”

“Well, we had to explain why we’re so early,” Vi said reasonably. “Now . . .”

The door opened so suddenly that all three jumped, and Miss Dene laughed. “Sorry to startle you, but I thought I’d tell you there’ll be Kaffee und Kuchen going in the Staffroom from sixteen o’clock onwards,” she said.

“Oh, thanks most awfully, but I’m taking them over to Freudesheim,” Mary-Lou said quickly. “I said I’d go back for Verity and the Trips——”

“Mary-Lou! I wish Joey could hear you!”

Mary-Lou looked self-conscious. “Well, I said I’d be back for tea, and she’ll love to see Vi and Barbara and get all the Guernsey news.”

“I don’t doubt it! Oh, bother! There’s the phone!” And she went in quickly, shutting the door, and the three girls set off in search of Matron.

“I only hope Bill’s idea will hold the Dawbarns and Primrose,” Vi said pensively as they mounted the front stairs. “They were demons in the St Briavel days, and I don’t suppose they’ve improved with keeping.”

“Oh, well, we’ll just jump on them if we see any signs of mad effervescence in them,” Mary-Lou said easily. “It’ll be jolly having old Doris with us again, though. I always thought her dad was the limit to send her to Glendower House instead of out here with us when the school split up. I wonder if she’ll be a prefect here? I know she’s been one there since the Christmas term.”

“Oh, rather! It would be awfully unfair to put her back to being just a Senior, and Bill and the Abbess are never unfair. Doris’ll be a prefect all right.”

“Yes; I think you’re right there,” her friend agreed. “That’ll make us fourteen altogether. Well, we can do with it, all things considered!”

By this time they had reached Matron’s room, so the talk had to stop. She greeted the cousins heartily, agreed that it was a good idea if they unpacked now and so were free to help when the rest of the school came along, and dismissed them to get on with it. Like Miss Dene, she was over head and ears in work and had no time for gossiping, as she told them.

With three of them to do it, the unpacking was quickly finished. Barbara had a cubicle in Pansy, and Vi was next door to Mary-Lou in Gentian, so it was possible for the cousins to share one of the long wicker trays they used and do things together. Mary-Lou bobbed about between the two dormitories, and in half an hour it was all done, except for setting out ornaments and pictures, which were left till bedtime. They dropped their curtains as a sign to the others that the cubicles were occupied, and then, with blazers pulled on over their light blouses, made their way across the gardens to Freudesheim, the next-door house, where Joey Maynard, who had once been Joey Bettany, the very first pupil the school had ever had, and now, despite a long family of her own and years of authorship, still “a Chalet School girl,” lived.

Tea was in the pretty Saal and Joey was waiting, a very slight, fair girl, clad in the blouse and skirt and school tie which were uniform for the Seniors, sitting beside her, chattering eagerly. The hostess jumped up when Mary-Lou appeared at the open french window with Vi and Barbara in tow, and came to welcome them with outstretched hands.

“Hello, you two! So you did come with your father, Barbara?”

“How did you know?” Barbara demanded.

“I thought it possible when Dr. Jack told me he was bringing poor old Miss le Marchant out here. Where are the rest of you, though?”

“Julie and Betsy are keeping house till Mummy and Daddy come back, and young Jan is coming with the rest of the school,” Vi explained.

“Oh, I see. Well, come along and sit down. Tea’s all ready and Anna made a batch of creamcakes. What’s that, Mary-Lou?”

“I asked where Len and Co. were,” Mary-Lou said as she came to stand by the tea-trolley, ready to hand round.

“Upstairs having tea with the babies. I told them I wanted you people to myself and I’ll be having them most days this term,” their mother said blandly, one eye cocked at the girls to see how they took this.

“What? What do you mean?” Vi exclaimed.

“What I say. Here you are, Mary-Lou. Hand the eats, Verity. About my girls! Well, you know what’s happening this term. St Mildred’s have had to turn out to leave somewhere for all our visitors to go, and the school is crammed full to the last inch of space. I can house my own daughters, so I rang up Miss Annersley after you’d gone, Mary-Lou, and put it to her and she leapt at the idea with both feet. I also got on to Lady Rutherford and she’s going to keep her twins and Nina, and that gives six more cubicles in case they’re needed. So all those six will be day-girls for this term and live at home.”

The big girls heard her in silence. Then Mary-Lou brought her cup for a second libation, and said: “Jolly good idea! But look here! Aren’t you having Auntie Madge and Auntie Mollie and all their infants?”

“You talk as if they had squads to bring. There are only three, and they’ll go up to the playroom with the twins and Cecil. We’re turning that into a dormy as they’ll be out-of-doors most of the time, I hope. Mike will be down at Montreux during the week, so he can sleep in his father’s dressing-room at the weekends, and we can manage beautifully. Don’t forget I have twenty rooms of sorts to sleep people. The girls are going upstairs, too, so I’ll have two good rooms vacant down below, and they will do for Madge and Mollie.”

The girls looked thoughtful. Then Barbara said thoughtfully: “Well, it sounds all right so far as making a scrap more room is concerned; but have you thought what Margot and Emerence are going to think about it?”

Joey nodded. “I have. In fact, I’ve already had Margot’s opinion on the subject. However, as I’ve pointed out to her, you can’t get all you want in this world, and it isn’t even as if they were in the same dormy. No one,” she added with a sudden grin, “has ever risked that!”

“No,” Vi agreed as she helped herself to a creamcake from the heaped-up dish Joey offered her. “There are limits everywhere. All the same, Aunt Joey, both these two have done a lot in the way of reforming this past year or so. Oh, well, it’s only for a term and it won’t kill either of them. They’ll see plenty of each other during the day. If it comes to that,” she went on, “Len and Rosamund will also be parted.” After which she bit largely and incautiously into her bun, and the cream spurted out and covered her face lavishly.

By the time she was clean again and the rest had finished their peals of laughter they had very little left for gossip. Joey advised them to “hoe in” and make a good tea as she doubted if she would be able to give many more tea-parties during the term, and they took her advice. Finally, when no one could eat any more, she blandly drew their attention to the time, and they bounced up with shrieks of dismay.

“We’ve barely three minutes to get across and tidy before the coaches are due!” Mary-Lou cried. “It’s been a lovely tea, Aunt Joey, and tell Anna her cakes are super. Come on, folks! Grab your things and scram!”

But though she let the others go, Joey caught at Mary-Lou before that leggy young person could escape, and kept her a minute or two.

“Just a sec, Mary-Lou! I’ve a commission for you.”

“O.K. But what is it? Hurry up and tell me! I don’t want to be scalped the very first evening of term.”

“All right. I won’t keep you; but I do want you to tell young Emerence my new arrangements for this term. She won’t be seeing Margot till tomorrow morning and she may as well have the shock tonight and get over it a little.”

Mary-Lou cast her an indescribable look. “Yes! It takes you to think up a nasty job like that! I thought you lo-oved me! Emmy’ll just about go up the walls when she hears!”

“That’s why I want her to get over the worst tonight,” Joey told her.

“O.K. I said I’d do it, and I will. But I’ve heard of nicer ideas in my time—much nicer, in fact!”

“Rubbish!” Joey retorted. “Emerence will take it like a lamb, coming from you, and well you know it. In any case, you’re a prefect, and what Middle ever went up the walls before a prefect?”

“If you come to that, Emmy’s a Senior—a very junior Senior, I grant you, but Inter V is a Senior form. If you think she’s going to be as meek as Moses when she hears that she’s to be parted from her alter ego out of school hours this term, you’ve another think coming.”

“My dear girl, my crowd will not come over till bedtime. The great idea is to sleep them—that, and nothing else. Now you scram or you will be late!”

Mary-Lou laughed as she made for the window. “O.K. I’ll tell her as I said, and if she feels like it, she can get leave to come over here and tell you herself what she thinks of you and your bright idea.” And with this she fled, leaving her hostess chuckling.

The great motorcoaches which had been rolling along the coach road leading from the valley to the Görnetz Platz and further up the mountain swung round the last curve past the fork leading to the main gate of Freudesheim, and turned in at the tall white gates of the Chalet School, slowing carefully as they went. In turn they drew up before the open door of the main building, and disgorged their loads of excited girls and escort mistresses, while the men, joined by Gaudenz, man-of-all-work at the school, and his two helpers, set to work to empty the boots of each of night-cases and other paraphernalia, and then pile them on the hand-trolleys which were waiting, and wheel their loads round the house to the back door and on to the big service lift which had been added during the holidays. This was an innovation, and quite a number of the Middles and Juniors turned to crane their necks and see what happened to their possessions, for, up till now, each girl had been responsible for her own belongings.

“Form lines!” called Miss o’Ryan, leader of the escort mistresses. “Never mind your cases! You’ll see them again shortly. Priscilla Dawbarn! Get into line at once! Emerence! Line, please!”

The girls hurriedly lined up with their forms across the drive, and the mistresses, satisfied that all was in order, left them to the prefects and entered the great door to be warmly greeted by their colleagues, who were all in the entrance hall to welcome their pupils back to school. Mary-Lou and Co. were in the background on the staircase, and as the two Heads swept forward through the laughing throng to greet the girls, that young lady muttered something to Vi, standing beside her.

“What’s that?” Vi demanded in an undertone.

“I only said, ‘Now for it!’ I mean, I’m grabbing Emmy at the first chance and breaking to her the news that she won’t see young Margot till tomorrow.”

“Rather you than I!” Vi returned in heartfelt tones. “Is that what Aunt Joey kept you back for? Oh, poor you! Emmy will have a fit!”

“That’s why—why I’m starting in at once,” Mary-Lou explained.

Then she fell silent, for Miss Annersley was speaking, and Miss Derwent, standing near enough to catch their voices, had turned to glare at her.

“Welcome back, everyone!” Miss Annersley’s beautiful voice rang out. “We all hope this is going to be an exceptionally happy term for us all! And now, when you come in, you are to go straight to the Splasheries, wash, and change your shoes, and then go quietly to the Speisesaal. A good meal is waiting for you, and we’ll have that first, I think. St. Mildred girls! You share the two Sixth Form Splasheries this term. Most of you know where they are, I think. Please look after the people who don’t. After Abendessen, you may go into Hall, and you’ll find the dormitory-lists pinned up on the big notice-boards at the far end. As soon as you know your dormitory—and this applies to everyone—go straight there, find your cubicle and unpack your night-case. As we have so much to get through this term, Matron is going to begin unpacking at once with the Seniors. Middles and Juniors, go to your House Commonroom and someone will come to you and tell you what to do. Now do you all understand? Abendessen—then go to Hall to find your dormitory. Seniors and everyone go straight there and unpack night-cases. Seniors remain up to unpack trunks. The rest go to House commonrooms and wait. That is all. School—turn! Forward—march!”

Like one girl the school turned, and, led by the Juniors, marched round the building to the sidedoor, where they entered and then dispersed to the various Splasheries, as cloakrooms were called at the Chalet School, to make themselves tidy for Abendessen or supper. Since the school was in a German canton of Switzerland, many German expressions were in use for such things.

Mary-Lou watched her opportunity, and when Inter V came streaming forth, she was waiting outside the door. She was greeted vociferously by all and sundry, and replied genially to everyone. Then a small fair girl, distinguished by a sharp prettiness, emerged, and the prefect took her arm quickly.

“Half a minute, Emmy! I’ve a message for you from Aunt Joey.”

Emerence turned aside with her, and she drew the younger girl along the corridor to the foot of the stairs the school at large used, and went up two or three to get away from the crowd. Emerence followed her and turned wondering eyes on her when she halted.

“What’s all this in aid of?” she demanded.

“Aunt Joey’s message. Listen, Emmy! As we’re going to be so packed this term, the Triplets aren’t going to sleep over here. They’ll be here all day, but after Abendessen and Prayers, they’ll go back home for the night.”

Emerence stared and her face fell. “Oh, Mary-Lou! And I’ve got such heaps to tell Margot! Why ever does she want to do a thing like that?”

“I’ve told you why—to make a little more room for other folk. We’ve got the whole of St. Mildred’s jammed in on top of us, and even one cubicle is going to be a consideration. Lady Rutherford is doing the same by Anthea and Alison and Nina, so that will give them six spare ones—and jolly well needed, let me tell you! Now you can go and join the rest. You’ll see Margot in the morning.”

She released her hold on Emerence, and went on up the stairs to join her own clan, and Emerence, looking very crestfallen, made her way with the chattering throngs to the Speisesaal where half the tables were already surrounded with girls, and the rest were filling up rapidly.

“What did Mary-Lou want?” her nextdoor neighbour murmured as Emerence took her place.

“Tell you later,” Emerence replied. “But it’s a jolly old drop for me!”

Meanwhile, other people were looking round and noting absentees.

“Where are the Maynards?” demanded a sturdy girl with a thick brown pigtail swinging well below her waist. “Anyone seen anything of them?”

“And—I say! Our one and only Yseult isn’t here!” exclaimed a young woman whose wicked blue eyes and tip-tilted nose told a tale. “Can she have gone to America to join Mother? Don’t tell me that’s possible!”

“I wouldn’t know,” returned the girl who had inquired about the Maynards. “Are the two kids here, Heather? You’re facing that way.”

Heather stared round the crowded tables. “I don’t see them. Gosh! What’s happened to them? I know they didn’t expect to go. Yseult was growling about having to stay at school the very last day last term.” Suddenly she chuckled. “The Dawbarns are here all right, my love—Oh, but you wouldn’t know them. The last time I saw them was when we were all Junior Middles at St. Briavel’s.”

“I didn’t see them on the boat or the train,” put in Emerence, who, up to this, had been sitting in gloomy silence. “As for the Maynards, Jo, Mary-Lou’s just told me that they’re going to be daygirls this term.”

“Daygirls? Why ever?” demanded the slim, black-haired girl sitting opposite.

“Mary-Lou says Mrs. Maynard’s sleeping them so as to give a few extra cubicles,” Emerence explained, her gloom lightening a little as she delivered the news. “Lady Rutherford is doing the same besides with her twins and Nina. I say! However will Nina manage her practice? There isn’t a piano at the Elisehütte, is there?”

“Not knowing, can’t say. It won’t be up to Nina’s standard if there is. I’m certain of that,” Jo said with a giggle. “However, Aunt Joey told her she could always practise at Freudesheim, I know, so it won’t matter.”

Here, she had to stop talking and pass her empty soup-bowl down the table, and when they were all served with stuffed veal and baked potatoes, the chatter had turned on the great event of the term, and the absence of the Maynards and the Pertwees was forgotten for the time being.

Meanwhile, Mary-Lou, at her own table, was renewing a very old and close friendship.

When the school had divided up, the major portion coming out to the Görnetz Platz while the rest went to Glendower House outside Carnbach, a small fishing port on the South Wales coast, she had been the leading light of what was known throughout the school as The Gang. Most of this illustrious body had come to the Oberland, but Doris Hill had had to be left behind as her father refused to allow his only child to gallivant about the Continent until she was seventeen. That great event had taken place in early February, and Doris had not failed to remind her father of his promise and keep him up to it. So here she was, among her old chums, and finding as many changes in them as they found in her.

“You people have all become so elderly!” she complained as she attacked her veal with a good appetite. “Lesley’s wearing her hair up, and Mary-Lou’s is cut and she’s got curls! Where on earth did they come from, Mary-Lou? When I remember you, it was straight and you wore it in two long pigtails.”

“That was the result of my accident. I wrote to you about it after it was all over. Didn’t I tell you I’d been cropped? I’m sure I did. I was just raging when I found my Kenwigses gone,” Mary-Lou said, laughing.

“You said it had been shaved, but I expected to see you with them again by this time—or one plait, anyhow. Somehow, you don’t look like you with curls!”

Vi Lucy turned to survey her friend thoughtfully. “No; it’s made a difference. For one thing, she’s turning out quite good-looking after being a good deal of a Plain Jane,” she said.

“That’s partly because she’s lost her round moonface,” put in Lesley Malcolm, a clever-looking girl of eighteen, whose brown locks were wreathed round her shapely head in plaits. “She grew enormously while she was ill, Doris. I can tell you, we all got a terrific shock when we first met her the next term.”

“When you’ve quite finished discussing my looks to my face!” Mary-Lou said sarcastically. “As for growing, Uncle Jack says that often happens to people in the teens after a head accident. Now that’s quite enough about me. You tell us if the Dawbarns and Primrose Trevoase are still young demons. I’m glad to see you’re a prefect, by the way. With those three added to the very healthy bunch of sinners we already have, we’ll need you, my child!”

Doris laughed. “Primrose has more or less reformed. After all, she’s fifteen, and you generally get a little sense by that age.”

“What about the Dawbarns?” demanded Hilary Bennet, another ex-member of The Gang. “They must be fifteen, too. Are you telling us that they’ve actually improved?”

Doris considered. “I think Priscilla has. I wouldn’t like to be too definite about Prudence. Why on earth her godparents ever wished such a name on to her I simply don’t know! It’s utterly untrue where she’s concerned.”

“Perhaps they hoped the name would have some influence on her,” Vi suggested.

“Then they’ve been doomed to disappointment. Don’t get me wrong, you folk. I don’t mean she does the mad things she did when she was a kid; but she certainly hasn’t become a little angel.”

“It isn’t in her!” Mary-Lou said with conviction.

“How right you are! Even now she’s a Senior, she’ll always bear watching.”

Blossom Willoughby, Games Prefect for the school and always on the look-out for talent, leaned forward from her seat further along to ask eagerly, “How are those three for games, Doris? I don’t remember a thing about them from St. Briavel days.”

“Primrose looks like being a very decent bat at cricket,” Doris said. “The Dawbarns are generally good for a few runs, too. None of them are much at bowling, so I hope you don’t need them for that.”

“What about tennis?” This came from Elinor Pennell, the Head Girl.

“Primrose is pretty good. The Dawbarns aren’t keen and haven’t bothered much.”

“Oh, bother them!” Blossom exclaimed. “The fact of the matter is, Doris, that we don’t get much in the way of cricket apart from our inter-House matches, and we have worked up quite a decent lot of tennis challenges. I was hoping some of that crowd would play fairly decently by this time. You’ve kept up your own tennis, I hope? You used to be pretty good for your age, I seem to remember.”

Doris blushed. “As a matter of fact, I was Games Prefect at Glendower House and in the Six. Gwen Jones was a reserve; but I can’t raise your hopes about the other three. Primrose is all right so long as she doesn’t lose her head, but she’s unreliable—or was last season.”

“I’ll talk to her!” Blossom said darkly.

“Good luck to you with it!” Doris retorted.

Then the chatter drifted to other subjects until the end of the meal.

In the meantime, the three under discussion were renewing old acquaintance for themselves. Primrose Trevoase, seated between Maeve Bettany from Vb and Betty Landon, another ornament of Inter V, was commenting on the difference in girls she had known in the old days, even as Doris had done.

“You all look such years older!” she protested.

“You don’t look quite so much of a kid yourself,” Maeve told her. “Talk sense, Primrose! It’s three years since we last met—or very nearly. If nothing else, we’d have grown. You have, yourself,” she added, carrying the war into the enemy’s country. “Look at you—miles taller than you used to be!”

“I’m five foot seven,” Primrose said complacently.

“There you are, then!”

“But that wasn’t exactly what I was meaning.”

“What did you mean, then?”

“Why, you’re all so grown-up. You—you look positively prim and proper.”

“We don’t!” came an outraged exclamation from at least half the table.

“Prim and proper yourself!” Jocelyn Fawcett added indignantly.

Primrose smiled sweetly. “Oh, no, Jocelyn, my love! My worst enemy couldn’t accuse me of that! I didn’t exactly mean that, either,” she went on, wrinkling up her brow as she thought hard. “It’s more—more——”

“Let it go,” Dorothy Ruthven said quickly. “Goodness only knows what you’ll say next if we let you go on. Tell us this instead. Are you three Vb or Inter V?”

“Inter V, the whole lot of us. What sort of a form is it? Who’s form mistress?”

“It’s a jolly decent form,” Betty assured her. “And we have a peach of a form mistress. That’s her at the High Table, sitting between Mdlle de Lachennais and Miss Moore—Miss Ferrars.”

“She’s new, isn’t she?” Primrose asked after an interested look at Miss Ferrars.

“Came in September,” Dorothy said. “She’s awfully jolly out of school!” with a strong emphasis on the “out.”

“Strict, is she? Well, I’d rather that than someone flabby. We had a fearful specimen last year about this time. She meant awfully well, but she couldn’t keep order for toffee, and some of the Middles went to most outrageous lengths with her—little beasts! I waded into one lot myself for baiting her,” Primrose said. Then she glared at Maeve, who was giggling. “And what’s the matter with you?”

“You!” Maeve told her between giggles. “Fancy you going for anyone for ragging a mistress! Talk of Satan rebuking Satan!”

Primrose flushed. “You’d have gone for them yourself. It was like ragging a baby! By the time I and a few others had finished with those beauties, they didn’t know if they had any skin left on them or not. And then Angela Carter—remember the Carter twins?—reported them to Miss Edwards for disorderly behaviour, and they got it from her. I can tell you, they sang small for the rest of the term, the whole four of them! Anyhow, she left then, and the next term they had Miss Holroyd, a perfect sergeant-major of a mistress. They daren’t call their souls their own most of the time. She had them all toeing the line before a fortnight was over, and she kept it up. Never mind who they are! You people aren’t likely to meet them, and they’re new since your time in England. Tell me what you’ve decided to do to celebrate the coming-of-age instead.”

And from then on the major event of the term was discussed heavily.

Abendessen ended, they went to find out their dormitories, and Doris was delighted to learn that she was in the same one as Mary-Lou and Vi.

“This is like old times!” she declared as she raced up the wide front stairs—a prefect’s privilege. “Gentian! It ought to be pretty!”

“So it is—very pretty,” Vi informed her. “Here we are! Now! Isn’t that pretty?”

“It’s lovely!” Doris agreed, looking round at the long room with its white walls, curtains of creamy cretonne patterned with clusters of deep blue gentians and counterpanes to match. “Green rugs! I rather like it. Blue would have been too much blue in that shade. Which are yours, you two? Next door? And I’m at the end here. Who else is with us?”

“Sybil Russell—Hilary Bennet—Hilda Jukes and Blossom,” Vi said.

“DO I hear my name?” inquired Blossom herself, emerging from behind the curtains next door to Vi. “Welcome home, Doris! Where are you? At the end of the line? You’ve got Hilary next you, so you won’t lack for amusement. Sybs and I come between. I say, you people, I’ve brought one or two photos and notes for that collection we’re to have. My cousin, Nita gave me hers, and so did Daphne Russell. The Russells live in Uncle Charlie’s new parish. I rather gather Nita and Daph fell on each other’s necks in the High Street when they first met. Anyhow, Nita collected Daph’s little details and sent them along with her own. I’ll show you the photos when I get them unpacked.”

“Good-oh!” Mary-Lou remarked. “And I’ve got Clem’s. You know,” she went on, “I think that idea is going to be rather fun. By the way, how’s your aunt, Blossom?”

“Heaps better. This new place suits her and their last abode never did.”

Matron arrived at that point, so the gossip had to end. She welcomed Doris heartily, and then told the girls to get begun with their unpacking at once as she wanted to get as many as possible of them out of the way before bedtime.

“I’ll leave you people to see to it for yourselves,” she wound up. “If you can’t be trusted to unpack your own trunks at your age, you never can. Mary-Lou, stop wasting time here and go and see what you can do in Pansy. Where’s Vi? You go to Buttercup. You others, as soon as you’ve finished your own, go and see where you can help. Hurry, please!”

She stalked off to seek the remainder of the prefects, and the big girls set to work at once. No one ever tried to argue with Matron—or not for long.

Mary-Lou scuttled off next door to find Barbara Chester already hard at it with Prunella Davies, and she herself tackled Jessica Wayne, who was by way of being a friend of hers. Jessica chatted amiably about her home, her mother and stepfather and his daughter, who was her own age, but hopelessly crippled so that she had to lie either in bed or, on her “well” days, on a sofa drawn up by the window.

Mary-Lou knew all about Rosamund Sefton, and she looked troubled as Jessica told her that Rosamund had been even more helpless than usual during the holidays.

“She’s had to stop knitting,” Jessica said sadly. “She kept dropping so many stitches. And even that loose weaving I took her home seems too much for her.”

“Hard luck!” the prefect said.

Jessica lifted the last pair of shoes out of her trunk and shut down the lid. Then she faced on the prefect. “I don’t like it, Mary-Lou. I—I’m afraid. . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“What do the doctors say?” Mary-Lou asked, settling some handkerchiefs that looked like tumbling off the long fight wicker tray and carefully avoiding looking at Jessica.

There had been a time when Jessica had fiercely resented the arrival of both Mr. Sefton and Rosamund into her life, and it had been Mary-Lou herself who had helped to straighten out that tangle. She had never met the invalid, but she had heard so much about her from Jessica, now, that she felt she knew her. Besides that, there had been two or three terrible days after her own accident when she knew that the doctors feared that she herself might never recover the power of motion. It had cleared up in the end, and she was as fit as ever she had been; but the experience had helped her to understand what the other girl had to endure.

Jessica said nothing in reply to her question until they had carried the loaded tray to her cubicle and were busy putting the things away in their drawers. Then she suddenly stopped with her hands full of stockings, and faced round on her friend. “They’ve told me nothing!” she said in a choked voice. “That’s—that’s why I’m so afraid. I wanted to stay at home this term, Mary-Lou. I didn’t like leaving her, somehow. But she begged me to come so that I could write to her every single thing about what we do to celebrate. She said it was the most exciting thing I could do for her. But . . . .” Again she stopped short.

“Then you’ll do it,” Mary-Lou said with conviction. “If I were you, Jess, I’d take a leaf out of the books of those kids in Inter V and keep a diary and send it home once a week. Write it up every night before you forget anything. That way, Rosamund will get the whole thing. And look here! If you get stuck over anything, come and ask me and I’ll help if I can.”

Jessica turned back to her bureau. “O.K.,” she said in half-stifled tones. “But just the same—I’m afraid.”

Mary-Lou sent up an unspoken prayer for wisdom before she replied, “Afraid? Why? If what you fear is coming to pass, won’t it be best for Rosamund? She has only half a life as it is, and she’s just a girl—only our age, you said. Whatever else you feel, don’t be afraid. Try to make yourself feel glad for her if it is really—that. Don’t grudge her her happiness.”

Jessica gave her a startled look, but she said no more, and as she was finished Mary-Lou caught up the tray and went to help with someone else before the bell rang for Prayers. But as she worked she was thinking that if Jessica’s fears were right, then the excitement of the new term would have a bigger meaning for her than for most people.

Miss Annersley and Miss Wilson had agreed that, on the whole, it would be wiser to leave the usual beginning-of-term speeches until after Prayers next morning. Matron was anxious to get on with the unpacking as far as she could, and the younger girls, at any rate, would be tired out after the long journey from England. So it was arranged that Prayers should come at eight—twenty o’clock by mid-Europe time—and everyone under fifteen should go to bed immediately after. The others were to continue with their unpacking until twenty-one.

“Then the whole boiling of ’em may go,” Miss Wilson, commonly known as “Bill” to her unregenerate pupils, ordained. “That ought to mean that we get off at a reasonable hour, and we’ll need it with all there is to see to tomorrow.”

Next day, however, everyone pitched in. At Frühstück, as they always called breakfast in the Oberland, Miss Annersley announced that there would be no early morning walk for once. Instead, the prefects and the rest of the Seniors were to turn to and help unpack the younger girls. Those not needed could go to the stockroom, where great parcels and crates of stationery of all kinds were waiting to be turned out, checked and put away.

“That should keep you all occupied until Break,” Miss Annersley said, smiling. “Prayers will be at a quarter to nine this morning, and after Prayers, Miss Wilson and I have each something to say to you as a school—quite a good deal, in fact. After Break, lessons will begin and go on till noon. Mittagessen will be at half-past today, and after your usual rest, you will all have games. I know the Games Committee want to try out as many people as possible for the Sixes and the Elevens today. Kaffee und Kuchen at sixteen o’clock, and after that, preparation until half-past eighteen for everyone but the Juniors, who will be told what to do by their form mistresses. You will be free for the rest of the evening after Abendessen and Prayers. Bedtime will be as usual, and tomorrow we begin on our full timetable.”

She paused there, and the girls gave each other quick looks of surprise. As a rule the full timetable did not begin till the Monday after they had returned.

Her eyes danced as she surveyed the astonished faces. She had guessed that this would come as a shock to most of them. Having administered it, she explained.

“You mustn’t forget that this is going to be an extra full term, and, in addition, it is also the term we take public exams. Therefore, we are starting proper work almost at once. I’ll say no more about that at the moment. I have one or two slight changes to tell you. The Maynards and the Rutherfords will not be sleeping in school this term. We are so crowded that they are going to be day-boarders. Besides that, the Pertwees have left us temporarily. Their mother is very ill in Boston after a serious operation, and they have gone to be with her. When we shall see them again is something no one can say definitely yet. I expect some of you would like to write to them. Those of you who do may bring your letters, properly enveloped, to the office, and Miss Dene will forward them in one large envelope. And, girls, when you say your prayers, don’t forget Mrs. Pertwee, will you? The doctors will do all they can for her, but it is God Who will give life or death.”

She sat down, and the chatter which her bell on the High Table had hushed, broke out again, rather more subdued than it had been. At the Staff table, the escort mistresses, to whom all this about the Pertwee family was news, began to comment.

“And what’s the matter with Mrs. Pertwee?” Miss o’Ryan, the history mistress, asked as she stirred her coffee.

Pretty Miss Dene, seated next to her, gave an exclamation. “Oh, Biddy! Didn’t I tell you the term before last that one reason why the girls were sent to us was because she had to go into hospital for treatment? Have you forgotten?”^[1]

“I remember,” observed Miss Ferrars, form mistress to Inter V of which Yseult, the eldest of the three Pertwee girls, had been a member. “The next thing was that Mrs. Pertwee turned up for a day and in full regalia—at least, that was what it looked like!—and told us she was off to America almost at once to give a series of lectures on the Arthurian legends. I remember, Biddy,”—she gave Miss o’Ryan a quick smile—“that she said something about you being interested in history.”

Biddy o’Ryan nodded. “I remember, too. It came as a bit of a shock, but I suppose no one had told her my subject in this abode. But if she ought to have been having medical treatment, why on earth was she going off on a lecture tour?”

Miss Wilson, sitting opposite to them, replied. “All quite true. Unfortunately, she put off her treatment in favour of the tour, and, as a result, the trouble has caught up on her and she’s had to undergo a major operation of the worst kind, and is still lying between life and death—there’s been no news since yesterday morning, has there, Rosalie?”

Rosalie Dene shook her head. “None so far. But mercifully she was in Boston when the thing became urgent.”

“Why that?” Biddy o’Ryan asked, opening her eyes widely.

“Because Corney Flower—I mean Corney van Alten—lives at Everett, which is one of Boston’s suburbs. I cabled her at once, and she’s not only keeping us up to date with news. She’s taken in those three girls so that they can be near their mother and be in a family as well.”

“Just like Corney! She was all kinds of an ass when she first came to us, but she was rock-bottom decent as well,” Biddy returned. Then her face suddenly relaxed into a grin as she added, “I wonder what she’s making of our picturesque Yseult?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” Rosalie said demurely, “but I can tell you that she’s insisted on all three going to school—and not to private school, either.”

“Mercy! What on earth will American schoolgirls think of Yseult?”

“And what does she think of American schoolgirls?” put in Miss Wilmot, who had been listening with interest. “By the way, Rosalie, how’s Corney getting on? I simply can’t imagine her a married woman, running her house and with a family!”

“Why not, pray? Corney kept house for her father for years before she married. She’s managing very well, and she has two little girls now—Terry, who was named Therese after our dear Mdlle Lepattre; and the baby, who is two months old now—Margaret Josephine after Madame and Joey. Corney says she’s to be called Meg when she’s old enough.”

“Well, there’s one thing!” Miss o’Ryan announced. “Corney was always obstinate as a mule, so, whatever our Yseult may say or do, to school she’ll have to go if that’s what has been arranged for her. But I’m very sorry to hear about Mrs. Pertwee,” she added gravely. “It doesn’t sound too good. Why on earth didn’t she go and have her treatment instead of fooling about with lectures?”

“She wanted to make more money for the girls,” Miss Annersley said, breaking off the talk she had been having with Mdlle Berné. “It was absurd, for I know there’s plenty for all three in any case. But her one idea was to make sure that they should never want. I’m very much afraid things are going very hard with her. If anything should happen, those poor girls will be left without a relative in the world.”

“Oh, poor kids!” Miss Wilmot exclaimed.

“What will they do?” Miss Ferrars asked shyly.

“Come back here. That was definitely arranged when she first entered them. In fact, the school has been appointed as their guardian. Their money affairs will be handled by the bank. But until little Val comes of age, we are responsible for them. Now the girls are finished, I see, so this conversation must cease.” She smiled at her young mistresses as she struck her bell before rising to say Grace.

They all stood for the brief Latin Grace, and then, while the Staff filed out by the top door, the girls hurriedly cleared the tables, piling everything on to the big trolleys with wire netting sides before they sped off to make their beds, dust their cubicles and toss up the dividing curtains so that the fresh mountain air might sweep through the long rooms unhindered. That done, they scuttled off in different directions, the Seniors to find out which of them Matron wanted; the Middles to the Art and Geography rooms where they had to get out models and apparatus in readiness for the morrow; the Juniors to the trunkroom. Presently everyone was hard at work, and, thanks to Matron’s careful organisation and the way everyone got down to it, all the Junior Middles were unpacked before the bell rang for Prayers.

The Chalet School had usually contained almost as many Catholic pupils as Protestant, and, at various times, even more. Prayers were divided in consequence. Miss Annersley saw to religious duties for the Protestants and Miss Wilson, this term, attended to the Catholics. As a general rule she was, of course, at St. Mildred’s, being Head of that branch. But this term, with St. Mildred’s also in the main school, she was able to take up an old duty, greatly to the joy of everyone concerned. For general announcements, they all came together in Hall where Miss Annersley had her share of their devotions.

On this occasion the numbers were practically even, and when, Prayers over, the Catholic girls filed quietly from the gymnasium to Hall, they made an impressive line. They marched in and took their seats with as little fuss as possible, while their mistresses went to join their colleagues on the dais. Miss Annersley was seated in one of the two beautiful William and Mary armchairs presented to the school by a group of Old Girls. When everyone was seated and they were all looking up at the dais, she got up and came to the carved oak lectern, another gift to the school. Leaning on it, she smiled down at them, and everyone smiled back. They were all very fond of their Head, however they might growl about some of her edicts.

“Well, girls, we have a great deal to consider this term,” she said, her beautiful deep voice reaching to the very back row of St. Mildred’s. “First, I want to bid the St. Mildred girls welcome. I know we are very crowded this term, but I think you’ll all be comfortable, and, in any case, there will be so much going on, that I doubt if you’ll have much time to worry about over-crowding!”

The girls laughed as she paused, and she laughed with them before she continued. “I can’t tell you yet how much we have towards our two chapels which are to be the real celebration of our coming-of-age. Miss Dene has had some letters containing cheques this morning, but she hasn’t had time yet to find out what the full amount will be when they are added to the bank account. One thing I can tell you, though. We have been making inquiries, and we find that the actual buildings themselves can’t be built under five thousand pounds each. So we still have a long way to go before we reach that sum. We aren’t considering even starting until we haw at least three-quarters of it in hand, so the sooner we reach the figure, the sooner we can begin. But once we do, we have the promise of a stained-glass window for each chapel. Sir James and Lady Russell—Dr. Jem and Madame, to you, I know!—are giving us the altar for the Protestant one; and Dr. and Mrs. Maynard are giving the one for the Catholic chapel. Finally, Sir Guy and Lady Rutherford have offered us a bell which will serve for both. So, you see, we have made a good start.”

She paused again, and the girls clapped vigorously while various people among them went red and tried to hide themselves from view. She gave them their heads for a minute before she held up her hand for silence, which instantly fell. Everyone was deeply interested in all this, and they didn’t mean to waste any time.

“Speaking of the Rutherfords,” she said, “reminds me that Alixe, sister to Anthea and Alison and cousin to Nina, is definitely better. The doctors say it will be a very slow thing, but in time they all hope that Alixe will be completely cured.”

The girls clapped again. The Seniors, at least, knew Alixe Rutherford, who was at the great sanatorium at the other end of the Görnetz Platz, undergoing treatment for tuberculosis, and they were delighted to have this good news of her.

“That’s why Mummy and Daddy are giving the bell,” Anthea murmured to her nextdoor neighbour, Jessica Wayne. “It’s a thank-offering for Alixe getting better.”

Jessica nodded, but her eyes were on the Head, who went on tranquilly, “Then, we already have a whole filing-cabinet full of photos and data about the doings of our Old Girls. The next wet day that comes along, these will be given to you Seniors to sort out in your free time, and begin to make up into the albums we discussed last term. The large photograph to be taken of everyone who turns up for our Half-term celebrations is also settled. Miss Dene will put up a notice about that during the next few days. You’ll like to know that everyone, or nearly everyone who has been invited for the occasion, has written to accept. Just where we are going to put everyone is more than I can tell you at present. But we’ll manage somehow.” She stopped and surveyed the eager faces beneath her with laughing eyes. “Joey Maynard says it’ll be worse than sardines in a tin. However, we shall manage. If the worst comes to the worst, we can always hire tents and put the school under canvas for the weekend.”

Gurgles of pure delight came from the Middles at this idea, and she laughed outright before she turned to another and much more serious topic. “And now for something quite as important, though I know a good many of you won’t think so. This is exam term. We have the public exams before us. The authorities are letting us have a Centre out here, and I hope every girl entered will work steadily and do her best to add to our record boards. Yes; I know it sounds very dull after all the excitements I’ve been telling you about, but I did hear rumours last term about everyone trying to make this a record term in every way. I hope they don’t remain just rumours! Celebrating our coming-of-age isn’t going to help you people much when it comes to starting out on your careers; but good exam results will. And this is the first time they’ve allowed us our own Centre in Switzerland. Let’s try and make a record there! Now that is all I have to say to you at present; but Miss Wilson has something really exciting to tell you, so I’ll give place to her.” She smiled at them and went back to her seat amidst loud cheering, and Miss Wilson, tall and trim with her crown of snowy hair framing her strangely youthful face with a poudré effect greatly admired by the elder girls, rose from hers and came to take her place at the lectern.

The girls calmed down when she was there. “Bill” was noted for possessing a tongue that could rasp like a file, though there were rumours in the school that when Miss Annersley was really moved, she could even better her partner. She was still smiling as she sat down, and the girls were all agog to know what it was Bill had to tell them.

“I’m not going to keep you girls long,” she began abruptly; and naughty Prudence Dawbarn was moved to murmur to her nextdoor neighbour, “I don’t mind how long it is so long as it isn’t lessons!”

Jo Scott glared at her, and she subsided with a sudden remembrance that she was now a Senior, even though she didn’t feel a day older than last term when she had rated as a Senior Middle. Luckily for her none of the mistresses or prefects had noticed her indiscretion, so she got away with it.

“Miss Annersley has told you most of the news,” Miss Wilson was saying. “I’m just going to speak of our promised trips to Tirol as those have been left in my hands. First of all, then, we have arranged with Herr Braun, the proprietor of the Kron Prinz Karl, a hotel on the shores of the Tiernsee and only a few minutes’ walk from the chalet where the school began, to take us during the weekends. Nothing will happen this weekend or next, but the following weekend, the two Second Forms are going in charge of their form mistresses and Miss Wilmot who, as an Old Girl, knows the district and can show you everything.” She smiled down at the little girls, who were beaming broadly at the prospect, and then went on. “Third Forms, your turn comes the following weekend. Lower IV, both a. and b., will go next. Then Upper IV. The next is half-term weekend, when everyone will be at school; but Inter V go the next, and so on until we come to the prefects, who are going with Mrs. Maynard——”

She got no further for, at this enthralling news, Mary-Lou forgot the dignity that enwraps a prefect, and sprang to her feet, crying, “Aunt Joey? Is she really coming with us? Oh, three cheers, the rest of you! Going with Aunt Joey will be too marvellous for words!” And the prefects, equally forgetful, gave the three cheers with a right good will!

Miss Wilson broke into a peal of laughter before she called the excited grandees of the school to order with a brusque, “That will do! You can cheer Joey as much as you like afterwards. At the moment, I should like to finish what I have to say.”

Mary-Lou was hauled down into her seat by Vi Lucy, and the rest of the school, who had joined in the cheering, fell silent. Bill might have laughed, but no one wanted to hear any opinion on bad behaviour from her!

“You people are going to be very lucky,” she told them when they were silent. “Not only she, but her three great friends, Mrs. von Ahlen, Mme de Bersac and the Countess von und zu Wertheim—or, to give them the names by which they were known in their own Tirol days, Frieda Mensch, Simone Lecoutier and Marie von Eschenau—are joining you all. I understand they intend to leave all the babies behind and revert to being schoolgirls again while they are with you. Joey Maynard informed me that families and houses were going to be forgotten, and I foresee a riotous weekend for all concerned. I have just one warning to utter, and it’s for everyone. We have our Sale for the San at the end of the term. That must not suffer for the other things, you know. They rely on us quite a good deal. You’ll all want to spend money while you are at the Tiernsee, if it’s only in buying postcards and chocolates. But you’ll also want to spend money at the Sale. And then there are the form collections for the chapels. There’s only one way in which you can do all this. During the term you must deny yourselves luxuries for once. Send letters; not picture postcards. Be satisfied with fewer sweets and chocolates. Think before you spend a sou. And, by the way, as you are having the trips to Tirol, there will be no other full-day trips this term. In fact, apart from your bi-weekly trips down to the lake for swimming and boating, I don’t see how we are to fit in any at all. As Miss Annersley has reminded you, this is exam term, and I, for one, have no intention of having any of you fail in my own subjects. So don’t say you haven’t been well and truly warned! One last piece of news. I had a letter from Tom Gay, and she tells me that not only is she coming for the weekend, but she hopes to bring with her her usual contribution to the Sale. She says it’s the best she’s ever done, and it’s taken a new and original turn for the occasion. No; I can’t tell you anything more for that’s all I know myself. But she did say that she was determined to make it a record affair, and everyone who has seen it says she’s succeeded. Now that’s all.”

She left the lectern and went back to her seat, cheered to the echo by the excited girls. Most of them knew Tom Gay, who was now at Oxford working for her B.A. with a view to doing missionary and social service when her course was ended; and practically all of them had seen at least one of the doll’s houses for which she was famous and which were raffled at each Sale and helped to bring in a goodly sum for the Sanatorium funds. The last one had been a work of magnificence. If Tom had surpassed that, she was a complete wonder.

Miss Annersley let them work off their excitement for a minute. Then she rang her bell, and after a few seconds even the most thrilled person was sitting silent. Miss Ferrars later confided to Biddy o’Ryan that it was an everlasting source of surprise to her that the girls could be given their heads as they were and yet could be brought to order so swiftly. When they were still, the Head nodded to Miss Lawrence, Head of the music staff, and that lady swung round to the piano.

“Girls—stand!” Miss Annersley’s beautiful voice rang out, and the girls were on their feet at once. “Turn! Forward—march!”

On the last word, Miss Lawrence crashed into an old favourite—Blake’s “Grand March”—and the girls, realising that the fun was over and work must begin at once, marched off smartly, all determined to do their best to see that it really was a record term.

“Je m’ennui!” sighed Prudence Dawbarn. “Oh, comme je m’ennui!”

It was Monday; therefore “French” day at the Chalet School. This meant that no one might speak anything but French. People who did and were caught were fined, the fines going to the box for the Sanatorium Fund. Since at no time did anyone like to be rendered penniless for the week, the girls were generally fairly careful. This term they had begun by being even more so than usual. The fiat had gone forth at Prayers that morning that no one might write home for extra funds to spend either during a Tirol trip or at the Sale at the end of term. In consequence, it behoved them to be sure that they did not waste a penny they had; and paying fines for talking the wrong language or using slang was regarded as sheer waste of money. Even people like Margot Maynard, Emerence Hope and, above all, Prudence Dawbarn, saw that, and were making every effort to keep free from fines.

Heather Clayton, sitting in front of Prudence, gave a chuckle at her remark. “Pourquoi?” she demanded. Then, with a little thought, she added in French, “We haven’t been at school long enough for anyone to be bored, I should have said.”

“It’s having to be so elderly,” Prudence complained—she was imitative as a monkey and picked up languages with the greatest ease. “I’ve always enjoyed myself at school, and I expected to do so this term—more so, in fact, in a foreign country. But you people are all so desperately in earnest! You’re even infecting Pris and Primrose. Though I must say Primrose was heading that way already last term. I noticed it often, Prim. You looked like becoming a Good Example!”

Before the indignant Primrose could retort to this, Priscilla replied to her twin. “You listen to me!” she said sternly. “You know what Father said about your last report, don’t you? He very nearly sent you back to Glendower House until next term. He did say that unless you had something much better this term, he would keep you in England for another year. Just you be careful!”

Prudence sighed again, but she said no more, and Priscilla, satisfied that she had made some impression on her stormy petrel of a twin, picked up the pen she had come to seek, and went back to her own seat at the other side of the room. Warned by those of the Staff who had had previous dealings with the Dawbarns and Primrose Trevoase, Miss Ferrars had seen to it that they were all as widely separated as possible in form.

Prudence opened her arithmetic textbook and flipped over the pages till she came to the rule Miss Ferrars had revised with them on the previous Friday. “How I do not like mathematics in any shape or form!” she remarked to the room at large.

No one replied, for quick footsteps were heard in the corridor outside. Joan Baker hastened to open the door, and Miss Ferrars came in, greeting her form with a smiling, “Asseyez-vous, mes petites!” as they rose to their feet.

They sat down, and she went to her table, opened her own book, and proceeded to set them to work on an exercise dealing with compound proportion. When they had all begun, she left her seat and went round among them. It had struck her on Friday that two or three people still seemed to be fogged over it, and she wanted to be sure that they understood what they were supposed to be doing.

She spent a few minutes with Margot Maynard, the youngest of the Maynard triplets, but during the weekend Margot seemed to have clarified her ideas. She was brilliantly clever when she chose to use her brains—perhaps the cleverest girl in the form. She and her sisters were very young for it, but they were beyond Upper IV and far too young for Lower V, so here they were, working with girls whose average age was a good two years more than theirs.

Miss Ferrars, satisfied that Margot could go ahead, turned to Con, the second triplet, and a problem. In all subjects but maths, she was fully equal to the work, and her English was remarkable for her age; but arithmetic especially was her bugbear. Being a conscientious girl she did her best, and now and then she had flashes of genius when she could outdo even Rosamund Lilley, who was the form’s mathematical genius. This had definitely not been the case on Friday, as one glance at her scribbler told Miss Ferrars.

“Take your book to the table and wait till I come,” the mistress said resignedly. “I’ll go over it with you in a minute or two when I’ve finished with Primrose, Priscilla and one or two others. Run along, Con.”

Con went to stand by the table, not noticeably upset. She stood there, a leggy youngster of thirteen, with curly black hair cut across her brows in a deep fringe and tied behind, deep brown eyes in an oval face which repeated Joey’s clear pallor. She was the only one of the Maynard nine to be their mother in miniature, though Baby Cecil, now past one, was thought to be growing very like both of them. Prudence nibbled the end of her pencil and stared at her. Thanks to present arrangements she had seen very little of the triplets so far, and they had been at St. Briavel’s only one term while she was there, having been in Canada before that for a year.

“I should think Margot’s good fun,” the wicked Dawbarn twin decided. “Con looks awfully serious, though. As for Len, I just gasped on Friday at the way she worked. Oh, dear! Even the triplets getting aged! I knew there’d be changes after three years, but I didn’t expect them to be the sort they are. I don’t think I like it one little bit!”

The imp that was never very far from her bobbed up at this moment. “Do something about it!” she hinted; and Prudence listened with a gleam in her hazel eyes, though she bent over her scribbler and worked industriously. She had been told that Miss Ferrars was “a perfect poppet out of school; but fool in her lessons and you know all about it!” She didn’t want to get into trouble if she could help it, so she turned her thoughts to her work and the previous lesson, and contrived to remember part, at least, of what she had been taught.

Miss Ferrars came to see what she was after, was satisfied that she could go on, and, having attended to the last of her doubtfuls, went to the table and Con.

Prudence finished her first sum and looked at the second. “I’d better be careful with Ferry,” she thought as she began to set out her statement. “I don’t want to be yanked back to Glendower House, even though it’s quite a decent school. I couldn’t bear to be parted from Pris. She’s my twin. All the same, I simply can’t live without some fun sometimes. We’ll see what the rest of the mistresses are like.” Then, seeing the mistress’s eye on her, she attended to her work in real earnest, and discovered that she had taken in a good deal more than she thought on Friday, for, after a little consideration, she managed her sums quite comfortably.

Inter V had a reasonably high standard of work. Many of them were girls who were too old for Upper IV and yet not quite ready for the work of Lower V. Some, like the Maynards, had been considered too young to tackle such definitely senior work. Therefore Intermediate V, to give it its rightful name, had been created, and it had worked excellently. The girls were being fully prepared for next year’s work, and also they had a chance to revise former lessons thoroughly.

Miss Ferrars dealt faithfully with Con who, at long last, said she thought she saw through the rule, and was sent back to her seat to make up for lost time while the mistress went round, ticking or crossing out the work of the rest. By the time she had seen everyone the lesson was practically at an end, and there was just time to set their prep before the bell rang. Miss Ferrars departed to Upper IV and Inter V sat back and waited for Miss Derwent and prose literature.

They were to read Northanger Abbey this term. The books had been given out on Friday, and most of them had begun on it already. Con Maynard had gone right through it over the week-end; but then Con was a reader. Prudence had glanced at it and instantly dubbed it “dull” and pushed it to the back of her desk. She preferred very much lighter literature! Now she opened her copy and skimmed over the first page. What a boring beginning! Who cared how many children the Morland family had? “Dull” was the word for it. Prudence sat back, and decided that she must see what she could do to enliven the lesson a little! Then Miss Derwent arrived, and she eyed the mistress with a good deal of interest.

Miss Derwent had been new at St. Briavel’s the same term as the Dawbarns; but they had ranked as very Junior Middles, and she taught only the Seniors and Senior Middles so Prudence had not come much into contact with her before. Surveying her thoughtfully, Prudence decided that she was very pretty. She admired the crisp, trig appearance of the wavy brown hair, gleaming from hard brushing; the trim blue dress matching her eyes under the ample folds of the B.A. gown. Yes; she looked quite jolly. But there was something about her mouth that made the young woman pause and think. How much could she be played up?

“Better wait and see. We’ve never had her before,” she mused as she sat with her eyes fixed on the mistress, who was opening proceedings with a brief sketch of Jane Austen. “I certainly don’t want another row with Dad! He was really nasty about my last report!”

By the time the lesson was over she had decided that it might be wise to leave Miss Derwent alone until she could think up something really subtle! The same went for Miss Ferrars. But after Break their first lesson was Latin with Mdlle Berné, and she was an old friend. Prudence, having contrived to keep out of trouble so far, let herself tempt Providence by proceeding to ask questions about their work. They were fairly legitimate questions, but no girl in a form as high as Inter V should have needed to ask at least half of them.

Mdlle answered the first two or three with amiability. She had forgotten what Prudence Dawbarn could be like. Unfortunately, that young lady’s tactics infected one or two other like spirits, and they, too, began to put queries which held up the lesson. The climax came when Frances Wilford, with a look of wide-eyed innocence, asked why the predicate should always come at the end of a sentence in Latin.

“But it does not always do so,” Mdlle replied in her own language. “Think of your Cæsar, Francie.”

“I never can see more than half of what he means,” Francie replied.

“Oh, nor can I!” Prudence put in eagerly. “Mdlle, don’t you think it would be better if we could have something more modern for our construe?”

This was going too far. Mdlle flushed and her dark eyes flashed angrily. “I think we can spare your criticisms of the choice of construe for your form, Prudence,” she said bitingly. “Be so good as to pay attention to your proper work—which is not Cæsar at the present moment—and cease to waste our time like this!”

“I’m sorry,” Prudence murmured. “I only wanted to know.”

But Mdlle had remembered by this time and was upsides with her. “And I shall be happy to inform you, my dear Prudence,” she said, with what Prudence later described as “a nasty sarkiness” in her tone, “but not here and now. There are twenty other girls to consider besides yourself, remember. You may come to me at half-past nineteen this evening, and I will do my best then to help you to comprehend all the reasons why you should read Cæsar.”

Check for Prudence, who had no wish to spend her spare time in any such discussion. She went scarlet and subsided.

“Serves you right!” muttered Jo Scott, sitting behind her; and Prudence went even redder and behaved herself properly for the rest of the lesson.

New Testament followed, and not even Prudence the Imprudent had ever dared to try to play up either of the Heads. There was no record of any girl who ever had. And she loved singing with which the morning ended. They had tennis and art in the afternoon, and she had no chance of livening up the form in any way there, and when they all went in to Kaffee und Kuchen, she was bound to admit that so far she hadn’t found any way of combating her boredom.

Preparation found her ripe for mischief. She sorted out her books and sat back in her desk, her mind made up to try out whichever prefect came to take them. It turned out to be Mary-Lou Trelawney, and when they had last been together, Mary-Lou had been a Middle who was capable of a good deal herself. It had been quite a shock to find her so grown-up and responsible in manner, even greater than the shock of beholding her with short curls instead of the two long pigtails she had previously sported, tall and slim instead of short and sturdy, and with an oval face where formerly she had had a round, full-moon one.

“It isn’t only looks,” Prudence thought as she opened her Latin grammar and prepared to do what she could with the five sentences Mdlle had set them. “She’s so grown-up! I wonder how deep it is?”

After a few minutes she decided to test it. Mdlle had set them an exercise on the rules governing the Conditional Subjunctive. Prudence could pick up conversation, but her Latin grammar can only be described as shaky. She tied herself into a knot over the second sentence, and finally held up her hand.

“Yes? What is it, Prudence?” Mary-Lou asked.

“I don’t quite understand this,” Prudence said with deceptive meekness.

Mary-Lou laid down her history. “Bring it up here,” she said.

Prudence marched up with her grammar and laid it before the prefect. Her eyes fell on the mop of curls, and she exclaimed involuntarily, “Gosh, Mary-Lou! When did you take to a perm?”

Mary-Lou went pink, but she replied with great calm, “I didn’t. What is it you want?”

“I don’t understand this,” Prudence said, pointing to the sentence.

Mary-Lou read it over. “ ‘If others had said this, I should not have believed them.’ What’s the difficulty? It looks perfectly straightforward to me.”

“I don’t know which mood I ought to use.”

“I see. Well, what you have to decide is whether the fulfilment of the statement is settled or not.”

“But how can I know that?” Prudence demanded.

“By finding out if the supposition is fulfilled. Take your book back to your seat and get on with it. You can do it quite well if you only think!” Mary-Lou was standing no nonsense from anyone, and least of all that young terror, Prudence Dawbarn! She handed the book to its owner, glanced round the room and went back to her own work.

Prudence trailed back to her desk, foiled for the moment, and set to work to do the exercise—which she was quite capable of doing, since she had plenty of brains when she chose to use them—and there was peace for the next ten minutes. Then, having written her last sentence, she proceeded to dry the ink by thumping on the blotting-paper several times, causing other girls to look up and one or two to growl to themselves. What a pest Prudence Dawbarn looked like being!

She turned to her arithmetic, and heaved a sigh which was a positive groan. Mary-Lou looked up again. So young Prudence was up to her tricks, was she? She’d soon find out she couldn’t get away with them here.

“What’s wrong, Prudence?” she asked kindly. “Got a tummy-ache? Like to go to Matron?”

Prudence went red. “It’s—it’s just my arithmetic,” she explained.

“I see. Well get on with it, and stop giving animal imitations in prep. We don’t like cow’s mooing at this time of day,” Mary-Lou returned sweetly.

It was impossible for Prudence to go any redder, but she fixed her mind on her arithmetic and finished it. Then she picked up her literature. Miss Derwent had told them to write a short essay explaining why Jane Austen was so important.

As Prudence had listened to her talk with about half an ear, she was stymied. She had not the least idea how to set about it. She sucked the end of her pen, wriggled maddeningly on her chair, made faces at the ceiling—reducing Margot, who happened to glance up and see her, to a fit of stilled giggles—and finally began to tilt her chair.

Now tilting was absolutely forbidden in the school. One or two girls in earlier days had given themselves unpleasant knocks as a result, never to speak of the havoc created to both furniture and floors. Prudence knew all this well enough, but she was an inveterate tilter. She swayed gently backwards and forwards on the hind legs of the chair, and Mary-Lou, fathoms deep in the history of Australia, never noticed her.

Jo Scott did, however. She had been disturbed the whole time by the other girl’s antics, and she felt, as she said later, that this was where it had to end. Standing up quietly, she made a grab at the back of the chair, intending to force it down all square. Unfortunately, just as she seized the top rail, Prudence elected to sway right over to one side, and the much-tried chair gave it up. The back parted company with the rest and Prudence crashed to the floor with a yell that was echoed by the startled Jo.

Mary-Lou, rudely aroused from her absorption, sprang to her feet, overturning her own seat. “What do you two think you’re doing?” she thundered. “Get up off the floor at once, Prudence! Jo, what were you playing at? I don’t expect such behaviour from a form prefect! Come out here at once, both of you! The rest of you go on with your work unless you all want an order-mark!”

It was so rare for Mary-Lou to lose her temper that the girls obeyed her at once—all but Priscilla. She had rushed to help her twin and was getting her to her feet. Prudence had come down with all her weight on the end of her spine, and she had been badly jarred in consequence. Her colour had gone, and Mary-Lou, seeing it, suspended the lecture she had meditated, and came swiftly to her.

“Where are you hurt?” she demanded as she slipped an arm round the girl.

“My—my tail,” Prudence whispered. She did not mean to be funny, and it was bad luck that Margot sat near enough to hear her. Thanks to Prudence’s earlier performance, she was in a giggly mood, and at this unexpected reply, she spluttered. Still holding Prudence, Mary-Lou swung round on her.

“Leave the room!” she ordered imperiously. Then she turned back to Prudence. “Think you can walk? You can? Then come on! The rest of you, go on with your work and no talking! Jo, carry that wreck of a chair out to the shed, please, and come straight back. Now, Prudence!”

“Wh-where are you taking me?” Prudence quavered.

“To Matey, of course. You came down with a terrific crash, and you may have hurt yourself badly. Come along!” And, giving her no time to argue about it, Mary-Lou marched her off, past a Margot whose giggles had died a sudden death, and along the corridor where they met Matron at the foot of the school stairs.

Prudence had begun to protest, but this put a stop to it. She knew Matron of old, and she knew she was in for trouble.

“What’s happened?” Matron demanded as she came to take Prudence from Mary-Lou.

“Prudence’s chair gave way under her, and she came down with a crash on—on the end of her spine,” Mary-Lou replied.

Matron fixed the victim with an icy glare. “Were you tilting?”

Sadly realising that she would get away with nothing here, Prudence meekly said, “Ye-es, Matron.”

“I see. Very well, Mary-Lou. Leave her with me. I’ll see to her!” Matron said, with another look that made Prudence shiver in her shoes.

Mary-Lou handed her over, and went back to Inter V where she found the girls working for dear life and a shame-faced Jo awaiting her at the mistress’s table.

“Please, Mary-Lou,” she said, “it was partly my fault. I grabbed the back of the chair to steady it, and—and it broke.”

“I know that. Prudence was tilting though she knows quite well that it’s forbidden. Very well, Jo; go and sit down and get on with your work. Sorry I snapped at you, but I hadn’t really seen what happened, and it looked as if you two were having a nice little barney between you.”

Jo gave her a grin. “Oh, we weren’t doing that. I haven’t time for barneys in prep. I took the chair to the shed, as you said, and Gaudenz was there. He says he’ll see what he can do with it, but it’s pretty badly smashed up.”

Jo went back to her place and her interrupted work, and Mary-Lou settled to hers. Ten minutes later, glancing up to see that all was well—Prudence’s exploit had warned her—she suddenly realised that Margot Maynard was still cooling her heels out in the corridor. She sent Con to fetch her, and a very subdued Margot came in and humbly took her seat. For the rest of preparation Inter V behaved like a set of unfledged archangels! But Prudence, smarting equally from the sting of Matron’s lotion and of her tongue, decided that, bored or not, she would wait a little before she tried enlivening Mary-Lou’s prep again.

Thanks to her accident Prudence got out of the session with Mdlle Berné, for which she was thankful. Matron had given her her unvarnished opinion of her and her antics, and that, Prudence felt, was quite enough to be going on with. Apart from that, she had really given herself a very nasty bruise, and for the next few days, when she sat at all it was on a cushion.

“Serves you right!” her twin told her next day when Matron had allowed them a half-hour’s interview. “Goodness knows, you’ve been told often enough about tilting, both here and at home! Now, perhaps, you’ll remember to let it alone for the future. Here’s a stick of chocolate I got for you from the sweets cupboard.”

“Is it milk or bitter?” Prudence asked, not noticeably overwhelmed by Priscilla’s diatribe.

“It’s milk. I got it from your supply.”

“Oh, thank goodness! How you can like that awful bitter stuff of yours is more than I can imagine.” Prudence bit into the stick.

“I can’t imagine how you can gollop that sweet stuff; so we’re quits. Now I must be going. Do try, when you come back into school, to make less of an ass of yourself! We’re fifteen now and it’s mad to behave like kids of ten!”

Prudence made a face. “O.K., Granny! Ta for the chocolate and not ta for the advice. I’ll be back in school tomorrow, I expect—plus a cushion. You’ve no idea how it hurts to sit down, even on feathers! But Matey says it’ll soon be O.K., and it’s frantically boring stuck here with nothing but mountains to look at!”

“Well, I’ve told you what to do,” Priscilla replied, giving her a hug all the same. The twins might scrap, but they were miserable apart, and their affection for each other was there all right.

Prudence returned the hug, and Priscilla, hearing the bell for prep, fled, leaving her sister to turn cautiously on the air-ring Matron had given her as long as she had to stay in bed and stare out of the window at the great mountains with their snowy caps. Even moving so much hurt, and she decided that it might be as well to heed what Priscilla had said when Matron did release her, which was not for two days, for the pain sent her temperature up slightly, and Matron never took any risks.

Meanwhile, Mary-Lou had a tale to tell her compeers that lost nothing in the telling. She had no time on the Monday for that was Hobbies Club night, and the prefects were in charge as usual. Neither did she manage it next day, being busy from the time she got up until she went to bed. But on the Wednesday evening, when Prep was over and they were sitting in the prefects’ room waiting for the gong to ring for Abendessen, she remembered and treated the rest to an account that sent them all off into peals of laughter.

“Prudence Dawbarn was always the world’s worst pest,” Elinor Pennell said as she put the finishing touches to a sketch of an owl. “Evidently she hasn’t improved with keeping. What about Priscilla and that other awful kid, Primrose Trevoase?”

“They seem to have got a little more sense,” Mary-Lou said cautiously. “Haven’t you met that lot yet?”

“Only casually. Deney wanted me for an extra shorthand practice yesterday evening, and Bess had to take my prep,” replied Elinor, who was going in for secretarial work later on, and was having coaching in shorthand and typing from Miss Dene.

“Rather you than I!” observed Vi.

“Why? Deney’s a jolly good teacher, and I like her. Oh, and that reminds me, I’ve got some news for you all. Deney’s going to hand over the files about the Old Girls, and we can begin to make up those albums we said we’d make. She’s giving us the first five years to do first to see how we get on. I think it’ll be rather fun.”

Lesley Malcolm laughed. “I couldn’t agree more! Some of the folk who’ve become legends were at school during those years. It’ll be sport to see what’s happened to them.”

“We do know about some of them—Auntie Jo and her pals, for instance,” Sybil Russell remarked as she stretched across the table and coolly tweaked Elinor’s drawing from her hands and scanned it. “What ducks of owls! I can’t think why you don’t go in for art in some shape or form instead of swotting at that ghastly shorthand.”

“When you’ve quite finished with my property!” Elinor took possession of it again, and grinned at her. “My good girl, I’ve got to earn my living, and there’s a far bigger chance that way than in things like this, let me tell you. Come off it, Sybs! I can do doodles like this, but I doubt if they’d provide much butter for my bread—and I never was fond of dry bread! I’m hoping to get a decent job when my training’s ended, and I may try a few magazines with this sort of thing later on—to give me a little jam for Sundays.” She laughed, gaily as she slipped the drawing into a book beside her and put her pencil into her pocket.

“It’ll be interesting work—making up the albums, I mean,” Mary-Lou said. “But can you tell me when we’re going to have any time to do it? I haven’t had a moment’s breathing-space since Monday morning, or you’d all have heard the full story of young Prudence’s exploit before this. And if you ask me, it’s going to get worse as the term goes on. I haven’t any exam this year; but quite a lot of us have. And then there’s the Sale. And while I think of it, Elinor, oughtn’t we to get down to deciding what form it’s to take this year?”

“We certainly ought. Shall I see the Head about appointing the Committee this week? Then we might call a meeting for after Abendessen next Monday. And in the meantime,” Elinor finished blandly, “you people can all be shining up any ideas on the subject you may possess so that we have something to discuss when we do meet.”

“Yes; you would think of that one!” Blossom Willoughby retorted, stretching out her legs and shoving her hands deep into her blazer pockets. “I haven’t an idea to bless myself with, as I may as well tell you at once. That sort of thing isn’t in my line at all. But I’ll rally round for anything you like.”

“I’m missing myself at this moment,” Elinor confessed. “Do try hard, everyone, and think up something really original. We ought to make this year’s Sale really good. And do remember that it’ll have to be something we can do out-of-doors as it’s to be in the garden.”

“It’s to be hoped we get a decent day for it, then,” Lala Winterton said.

Nan Herbert began to laugh. “Do you remember that last one we had at St. Briavel’s when Bride Bettany was Head Girl? Tom Gay was ‘Mr. Learning,’ I know.”^[2]

“And Elfie Woodward was ‘Duty.’ They got it out of that scream of a book by A. L. O. E.—what’s it called?—Oh, The Crown of Success!” Vi chuckled. “I was one of ‘Mrs. Sewing’s’ children, complete with pantalettes.”

“They did the ‘Mr. Arithmetic’ store with competitions,” Mary-Lou said reminiscently. “We’ve never had a Competition Stall since. I vote we do one this time.”

“Good for you, Mary-Lou! Where’s a notebook, somebody? Jot it down, Lesley—and any other brilliant ideas anyone has.”

“The Sale before that we did people of different nations,” Madge Watson reminded them. “We did ‘Bonny Scotland,’ and spent hours painting our packing paper with tartan designs. That was when Len set herself on fire, I remember.”

“And we were Red Indians,” Doris said, “and had sweets and cakes.” She glanced at Mary-Lou, who was laughing at the memory. “Mary-Lou, do you remember telling the Heads that they would have to spend ages being polite to people? You told Vi and me to save them each a quarter of fudge in case it was all gone when they could get away.”

“How was it Len managed to set herself on fire?” Blossom demanded. “There were no fireplaces around that I remember.”

“Goodness knows! It’s ‘wrop in mist’ry’!” Mary-Lou laughed. “And may I inform you, ladies, that we’re wasting time at the moment? We ought all to be thinking hard. Elinor, as St. Mildred’s are living over here this term, I suppose they’ll have rather more of a finger in the pie than usual? Or will they?”

“Oh, sure to,” Elinor agreed. “It might be a good idea to co-opt some of them as soon as possible, don’t you think?” She looked inquiringly round the table.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Blossom said, sitting up and taking her hands out of her pockets to lean her elbows on the table and bury her pretty chin in the palms. “Let’s see. Who’s there at the moment? Julie and Betsy, of course—and Pat Collins. They ought to be good for an idea or two.”

“Woa, there!” Hilary Bennet exclaimed. “They’ve more than just our own Old Girls. We ought to bag one or two of the others, or there may be trouble. Can anyone make any suggestions on that head?”

“There’s that awfully jolly girl, Jocelyn Abbott,” Madge Watson replied. “And there’s her pal, Mary Vallens. I rather like those two.”

“And there’s that girl from Lorraine—Aimée something-or-other—oh, Weilen,” Vi chimed in. “I should think she’d be all right.”

“And what about that other one—Phyllis Gurney? I got to know her during the panto rehearsals,” Madge went on. “What about her for another?”

Mary-Lou thumped on the table. “My dear lambs! Hasn’t it ever dawned on you that the people from St. Mildred’s will be chosen by themselves? Do use your brains—if you’ve got any!” she added with a grin. “At the present moment, I rather take leave to doubt it!”

“Insulting hussy!” Elinor retorted. “I may as well tell you I’d reached that point myself. I think the best thing will be to tell Julie and leave it to her to deal with. How many do you think we ought to suggest?”

“Oh, make it half a dozen,” Blossom said easily. “The more of them, the more ideas we’re likely to have. Six, at least, Elinor.”

“Won’t that make it rather a large committee with all our own crowd?” Leila asked doubtfully. “If you have too many, a lot of the meetings will probably just end in argument. I’ve heard Mother say that about her committees.”

“So’ve I,” Nan agreed. “However, we can always sit on the kids if necessary, and Julie will see that her crowd don’t go too far. And, as Blossom says, the bigger the committee the more ideas we’re likely to have. I’ll tell you what, Elinor! Ask Julie what she thinks. She’s got sense and she’ll know how to manage.”

“In any case,” Lala said, “don’t forget that some of us have exams ahead. I think we’d better give the Sale Committee a miss this time. I don’t know about anybody else, but I’ve a horrid feeling that I don’t know a single thing properly, and I’ll have quite enough on my plate, revising every moment I can spare.”

“Examinitis?” Blossom said with a grin. “You’re starting early, Lal. Don’t you worry! You’ll get through all right!”

“I wish I could think so!” Lala said ruefully. “If only I hadn’t assed about years ago I might have been spared that sinking feeling I get whenever I remember those ghastly exams. As it is, I can only work like a nigger right up to the time.”

Mary-Lou gave her a scornful look. “And do you mind telling us how you propose to do it? You know as well as I do that work is strictly rationed in this academy. If you think you can get away with extra slogging, you’ve another think coming!”

Sybil nodded. “Mary-Lou’s quite right there. And she ought to know!” she added with a grin at Mary-Lou.^[3] “She tried it on herself—she and Clem Barras—the first term she was here. And what did she get by it? A week in San and a flaying from Matey! It isn’t worth it! Besides, you’ll be all right. Look at your form positions! The trouble with you is that you do fly off the handle over things. Just calm down and make up your mind to take things in your stride. Anyhow, you can’t do anything but revise now, and even time for that is limited for you exam people. Snap out of it and come down to earth!”

“It’s all very well for you to talk. No one has ever even hinted at you taking Advanced,” Lala wailed. “But I’ve got to do it if I’m going on to the university. And that new classics mistress, Miss Bubb, seems to think nothing of my chances!”

“Has she said so?” Mary-Lou asked with deep interest.

“Not in so many words. But she’s hinted broadly enough. I don’t think I like her. She seems to think Latin should be the be-all and end-all of existence. It certainly isn’t of mine, though I like it all right. Anyhow, I’ve got to take it because Father insists, so that’s that.”

Elinor rapped on the table. “I thought we were discussing the question of the Sale Committee,” she said, a gentle sarcasm in her voice which brought them back to the original subject in short order.

“We want one representative from each form as usual, I suppose,” Vi said. “Let’s see: that’ll give us eight people as a beginning. Then our noble selves; we’re on it ex officio as usual, aren’t we? That’s another fifteen. If we add six from St. Mildred’s, it isn’t a committee we’re having: it’s a parliament!”

They were silent a moment, counting up as she made this bland statement.

“Heavens!” Blossom exclaimed. “Twenty-nine of us! No; I don’t think we can do with all that. We’ll have to cut down somewhere. The point is—where?”

It was beyond them, and it was finally left to Elinor to see the two Heads and ask them what should be done about it. It was certain that twenty-nine members of committee would be quite out of the question.

When this had been decided, Blossom heaved herself out of her chair and stood beaming benevolently on them all. “Well, if that’s all we can do about that,” she began with a quick glance at her watch, “I’d like to use up the remaining three minutes or so for a few choice words on the subject of the teams. So far, I’ve seen precious few people I’d like to include in the tennis Six. We’ve lost Katharine Gordon, let me remind you, and we haven’t a great number of people at match standard so far as I can judge. I was watching Inter V this afternoon and, apart from Jo Scott, who is only average decent, and Joan Baker, who still needs a lot of polishing, I don’t think we can hope for much there this year, though there are a fair number who show a good deal of promise. But that won’t help us this season. Doris, you did say that Primrose Trevoase wasn’t reliable, didn’t you?”

Doris shook her head. “She certainly wasn’t last season. She may have steadied down this, but I couldn’t say. And it’s no use looking at me like that, Blossom, for I’m only average at tennis. Cricket’s always been my game.”

“Well, we’ve only managed to fix up four cricket matches, and I don’t see much chance of any more. The Swiss don’t play, and, apart from the inter-House matches, I’ve only managed to fix up the two with that school in Geneva and two with the team Nina Rutherford’s cousin, Mr. Embury, gets up with members of his firm. And where they are concerned, I’ll bet they’d scorn our challenges if it weren’t for the fact that they aren’t likely to get many others. Do you bowl or bat, Doris? I forget.”

“She bowls, of course,” Mary-Lou said for her friend. “Don’t you remember those patent twisters of hers at St. Briavel’s?”

“Now you mention it, I do. Good! We aren’t too badly off for batsmen, but we’re shockingly short of good bowlers. Mary-Lou is good for a few really fast overs, but tennis is really her game. And Ruth Barnes bowls what’s meant for a yorker, which may or may not come off. We can do with you, Doris, my child.”

Doris got up and swept her a deep curtsy. “Too, too overwhelming!” she murmured as she sat down again.

“At the same time,” Blossom went on, taking no notice of this, “the tennis looks like being a real headache this year. We’ve got Vi and Mary-Lou who are good, I don’t mind saying. Then there’s me. That finishes it, since Bess has got herself dished by breaking that ankle-bone in the hols. You were an ape, Bess!”

Bess Appleton, a big, placid girl, laughed. “Believe me, I mind a lot more than you do, Blossom. But’s it’s no use. I’m still all strapped up and I couldn’t run if you paid me for it.”

“You couldn’t possibly mind more than I do!” Blossom retorted. “I’ve got to make up a decent tennis Six somehow, and find three reserves into the bargain. If you ask me, we shall have to fall back on St. Mildred’s, and I see no reason why we shouldn’t, seeing they’re a part of us this term. That would give us Katharine Gordon once more, as well as the chance of two or three of last year’s Six. What do you all say?”

“I quite agree there’s no reason why not,” Elinor said. “It would certainly save the situation if you could. That would give you Katharine and Hilary Wilson, to mention only two people. And Julie Lucy was always jolly good. If you can fix that, you’ve got your Six, and it ought to be easy enough to find three good reserves. Why don’t you go into a huddle with Burnie about it? She could tell you if it would be allowed.”

“I don’t see why it shouldn’t,” Mary-Lou said thoughtfully. “They are part of the school this term. Surely they’ll be allowed to play for it if they want to!”

“You go to Burnie and point all that out to her,” Elinor advised.

“Well, I can try,” Blossom agreed doubtfully. “I only hope you’re right, Nell, and that she and everyone else concerned will see things in a reasonable light!”

“Anyhow, there’s no time for further discussion,” Vi pointed out as she stood up and pushed her chair back. “There goes the first gong for Abendessen, and it’s high time we were all on duty. Come on, folks!”

And the prefects had to shelve the matter for the time being and go down to see that their juniors were lining up to march into Abendessen in a seemly manner, and with no more than the usual skirmishes between people.

“Got any ideas?” This was Josette Russell of Va to Len Maynard who, after a somewhat rowdy meeting in Inter V, had been finally elected as their representative on the Sale Committee, and who had arrived for the meeting looking decidedly smug and pleased with herself, while Josette was decidedly piano.

The leggy eldest of the Maynard family tossed back the long curly tail of chestnut hair which tumbled over her shoulder as she stooped to pick up the biro she had dropped, and nodded. “I’ve got one. It’s really half Mamma’s idea, and she did say that she couldn’t see, on the spur of the moment, just how we were to work it out. But at least it isn’t a repeat of everything else we’ve ever had.”

“If it’s Aunt Joey’s idea it’ll be a bonza, to quote our one and only Emerence!”

“Have you got anything?” Len wanted to know; but her cousin shook her head sadly.

“Not a sausage! Nor had anyone else in the form. At least, Barbara Chester did make one suggestion, but it was so wildly impossible that we all shrieked her down. I’m really here to say that we’ll agree to whatever the majority may decide on.”

“Perhaps you’ll get an inspiration when you hear what the rest have to say,” Len suggested hopefully. She was very fond of Josette, who was not so very much older than the triplets, for all she was in Va. But then, Josette was brilliantly clever—the only one of the three Russell girls to be so. Sybil was frankly domesticated with a passion for needlework, though she worked conscientiously at her other subjects. As for Ailie, the youngest of the three, she was a cheerful featherhead of ten who scrambled through her lessons as easily as she could and left it at that.

Josette shook her head again. “Hardly likely. But I’ll certainly keep my ears open, and I may get a clue before it’s over. But I’m not exactly hopeful.”

“Oh, I’ll bet you’ll get an inspiration sooner or later,” Len consoled her.

“I’d like to, I don’t mind owning. It’ll be rather awful if we’re the only form to have nothing to suggest—especially seeing we’re Va,” Josette said. “What’s Auntie Jo’s brain-waggle? Or would you rather not say yet?”

Before Len could unbosom herself—as she had every intention of doing—the prefects arrived in a body, followed by the two representatives from St. Mildred’s, who had flatly refused to send more than two, and Elinor, after a glance round to make sure that everyone was there, rapped on the table with the end of her pen, and called the meeting to order.

“We’re here,” she said as she stood up, “to decide what form our Sale shall take this year. We haven’t too much time, I might warn you, so if anyone has come prepared to offer so-called funny suggestions, will she kindly forget them! I’ll just read out the list of stalls we’ve decided on, and then the meeting will be open to discussion—and don’t all yell at once, please.”

At this point, Leila Morris handed her the list, and she read them out. “Produce—plain needlework—fancy—woollies—toys—competitions—bric-à-brac——”

Phyllis Amberley, a round-faced ten-year-old who represented IIIb, raised her hand. “Please, Elinor, what’s—what’s—that last thing you said?” she asked.

“Bric-à-brac, you mean?” Elinor replied. “Well, it means ornaments and little oddments like wooden bears and china dogs, and all that sort of thing. That all, Phyllis? Then we’ll go on with the list. Here it is. Books and stationery and pictures; and the Juniors’ lucky dip, whatever form that may take. One of the Senior forms will take charge of refreshments, and there are the various entertainments to be decided too, though I doubt if we’ve time to get on to them this afternoon. One thing more before we begin to jot down ideas. Will you all please remember that you must address the Chair and not hold private conversations! The meeting is open now.”

She sat down, and there was a long pause. Then Zoe Wylie, one of the St. Mildred people, broke it by rising to say, “I should like to propose a Water Babies Sale. We could introduce all the principal characters, like ‘Mr. Grimes’ and ‘Mrs. Do-as-you-would-be-done-by,’ and ‘Tom’ and ‘Ellie,’ of course. The younger girls could be the Water Babies themselves, and it shouldn’t be too difficult to manage cave effects among the trees and bushes. We might have ‘Mr. Grimes’s’ chimney pot for the lucky dip. And it would be something quite fresh.”

“You’re telling me!” Blossom Willoughby muttered to her nextdoor neighbour. “It’s a lot too original, if you want my opinion. Who do they propose to have for ‘Mr. Grimes’—or ‘Tom the Sweep’? Dirty all the time! What a prospect for someone!”

Elinor made a long leg and gently kicked her under the table. She subsided as Zoe sat down, and Leila scribbled down the suggestion on her pad.

The next person was Phyllis herself, who scrambled to her feet, and said in one breath without stopping anywhere, “Please we drought we might have an Eastern Sale with Indians and Persians and Chinese and Japanese. . . .” At which point she ran down from lack of breath, and Nan Herbert, the editor of The Chaletian, said, “But we did a Peoples of All Nations Sale the year before we came out here. That would be much the same sort of thing, wouldn’t it?”

“Please, I wasn’t at school then,” Phyllis said. “None of our form was.”

Elinor came to the rescue. “Put it down, Leila and we’ll discuss it later when we’ve got all the rest. Next, please!”

Phyllis sat down, and Janice Chester from IIIa rose. “Could we make it a Garden Sale with everyone dressed as flowers and each stall representing one kind of flower? The dresses would be easy! You could make them of crinkled paper and art muslin.”

Leila was scribbling hard now, and Isabel Drew, from Upper IV, waited a moment before she rose with dignity to propose a Dickens Sale. Each stall to represent one of the novels and well-known characters to be the saleswomen. It met with a good deal of approval, but Elinor frowned on the muted applause, and turned to hear what Len had to offer.

“It’s not my idea, really,” Len said. “Mamma suggested it. Couldn’t we do something with Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales? There are lots of lovely characters we could use. And couldn’t Gaudenz rig up a wooden sort of front of the Tabard Inn?”

“Heavens! You’re asking something!” Mary-Lou said. “Oh, it’s original all right. It would be if Aunt Joey had a hand in it! Shove it down, Leila.”

Leila wrote it down, and Elinor turned to Betsy Lucy, the other St. Mildred’s representative, who had risen to say, “Mine isn’t as bright as that one. What about a Nursery Rhymes Sale? Lots of jolly characters there; and we wouldn’t be so tied down to setting.”

Lower IVa had sent Enid Matthews to hold the fort for them, and she now got to her feet, looking very important. “We thought of a Royal Sale,” she said, while her hearers gasped. “All the Kings and Queens of England with crowns and trains.”

Mary-Lou gave vent to a sigh that was nearly a groan. “Trains and crowns in the sort of weather we shall be having around then!” she murmured to Hilary Bennet. “I shall strike if they take that idea!”

Elinor glanced at her and she said no more, and the Lower IVb representative, Odette Bertoni, a shy child from Lucerne, suggested a Swiss Sale with each of the important cantons to be represented.

Listening to all this flow of originality, Josette decided that she simply must think of something or Va would be disgraced for ever. She had been thinking hard, and as Odette, crimson to the tips of her ears, sat down, she jumped up.

“I should like to suggest a Shakespeare Sale,” she said. Then she sat down again in a hurry in case anyone asked for details, which she had had no chance to think out. But at least she had produced something and the form’s reputation was saved.

Only Vb and the two sixths were left to speak now, and Maeve Bettany, the delegate from Vb, got up and proposed what was certainly one of the most original ideas. “Let’s make it a Ships’ Sale,” she said.

“How on earth would you do that?” Betsy Lucy demanded involuntarily.

Maeve was quite ready to explain. “Each stall would be made to represent a ship of some kind. We could use the stalls, and with cardboard and sacking we could easily manage the shapes. We might have a clipper ship, and a Norse dragon ship, and an Elizabethan galleon, and one like the Victory where Nelson died. We could dress up to match our ships—oh, and we could have a pirate ship, too, with the black flag and everyone wearing scarves round their heads and patches over their eyes, and things like that.”

She had to stop there for Mary-Lou, judging by what she knew of Maeve that she was likely to go on enlarging on her idea for the next ten minutes, had risen to her feet, since she was representing VIb, and Maeve suddenly realised that her tongue was running away with her as usual, and plumped down on her seat, very pink.

“We thought of a Ballad Sale,” Mary-Lou announced. “Plenty to choose from and of all periods, so the dresses wouldn’t be too difficult.” Then she, too, sat down, for time was flying and they still had to discuss the proposals before they were put to the vote. Nan Herbert remembered this, too, and jumped up to propose a Dutch Sale, winding up at the end with a Dutch Auction to get rid of any left-overs.

“What’s the difference between a Dutch Auction and a plain one?” Phyllis asked.

“We’ll explain later if that’s what we decide on,” Elinor said hastily. To tell the truth, she was none too sure herself.

Leila finished writing and glanced at the Head Girl as she handed over the list. “Time’s flying. Better cut the discussing short and get them down to voting as soon as you can,” she said.

Elinor fully agreed. She stood up. “Well,” she said, “we’ve had ideas from everyone, and some of them are really new. I’ll write up the list on the board, and then we can discuss them.”

She went to the old-fashioned blackboard and easel they had brought, picked up the chalk lying on the ledge, and prepared to write. A few streaky marks were all that appeared. Elinor looked dumbfounded, for it was a new stick, for which she had sent one of the Middles just before they began. She tried again, but in vain! With a puzzled look, she broke off the tip and tried again. No better!

Mary-Lou suddenly left her seat and strode round the table to her. “May I?” she asked, taking the chalk.

One glance told her what was wrong. She turned to the rest, utter disgust in her face, saying, “Some bright young thing has thought of a joke—oh, very funny! Most humorous! It’s been soaked in water, so, of course, it won’t write.” She flung it down on the table. “Where did you get it, Elinor?”

“I asked some kid to bring it from stock cupboard,” Elinor said, startled.

“Who was it?” Blossom asked with interest. “That young pest, Prudence Dawbarn, for a ducat!”

“Oh, dear no!” Elinor said with deadly intent and one eye on all the youngest delegates. “I can’t tell you exactly who it was, for I was in a hurry and didn’t really notice. But it was one of the little girls, as you might have guessed. Only a very babyish girl would have thought this sort of thing funny. I suppose I’ve only myself to blame,” she went on. “I should have seen it to myself. All I know is that she was in a green cotton.” She turned to Mary-Lou. “Go and see what you can scrounge from the formrooms, Mary-Lou, will you? Time’s flying and we can’t prolong this meeting beyond sixteen o’clock.”

The Juniors were wriggling uncomfortably. They had no idea who the culprit was, but they thought over who had been wearing green that day and determined to ask round to find out who had done such a silly-ass thing, and proceed to show whoever it was that such mad tricks didn’t pay—which was just what Elinor meant them to do.

Mary-Lou was quickly back with two or three ends of chalk, and Elinor thanked her and proceeded to chalk up the various suggestions for their consideration. When she had finished, the meeting began to discuss with vigour, and before very long it was quite clear whither they were all tending. The Water Babies and the Ships were both voted too difficult; and the Garden and Eastern Sale were too much like things they had done before, and they prided themselves on not repeating their efforts if it could be avoided. Dickens came rather near the Crown of Success affair, and Nursery Rhymes and Ballads were voted so like each other that if they took one they might as well use the other and combine them. Eventually they were left with Chaucer and Shakespeare, and they argued the two with vim. Elinor gave them their heads for five minutes. Then she rapped sharply on the table and brought them to order.

“We have ten minutes left and something has to be chosen before we close. We’ll vote now. Write your choice on a slip of paper, fold it, and pass it to Leila.”

“Supposing they’re ties?” Isabel Drew asked.

“Then Elinor, as chairman, has the casting vote,” Blossom told her sharply. “Stop arguing, Isabel, and get on with it!”

Isabel subsided, and the girls proceeded to vote. When all the slips had been handed in, Elinor called on Betsy and Zoe to act as tellers, and everyone sat waiting excitedly until at last Betsy scribbled down something on the back of one of the slips, and handed it to the chairman.

Elinor glanced at it, nodded, and said, “If it had been ties, I’d have voted for this myself. The other affair might have been rather difficult to arrange with so little time ahead. But whoever is Head Girl next year might remember it. It would be a very good one if we had plenty of time.” She turned to the rest, and said, “The Shakespeare Sale has won by three votes. So that’s so much settled. Now we must choose which plays we’ll represent, and hurry up about it, please. You’ve five minutes exactly.”

Thanks to this warning, the girls chose quickly. As You Like It and A Midsummer Night’s Dream were the first chosen. Then Hilary Bennet proposed The Tempest, and Vi Lucy put in a plea for the letter scene from Twelfth Night. Mary-Lou observed detachedly that one of the Windsor Park scenes from The Merry Wives of Windsor might be a good idea. Zoe begged for the Shearing Feast from A Winter’s Tale; and Leila rather diffidently asked if they couldn’t do one of the Padua street scenes in The Taming of the Shrew.

By that time the bell was ringing for the end of school, and they had to wind up their meeting, but Elinor promised to call another as soon as possible to get the other details fixed. The younger girls scattered to wash hands and faces and tidy their hair before Kaffee und Kuchen, and finally only Betsy and Zoe were left with the prefects.

“It’s a really good idea,” Betsy said. “For one thing, we can manage the men’s dresses fairly easily, and they’re always a pain in the neck. For another, we can vary the settings considerably and scatter the stalls so that everyone is crowded together on the lawns or the court or wherever it might be. Elinor, when do you propose to hold the next meeting?”

“I’ll have to take a look at the timetable,” Elinor replied. “I’ll do that after Kaffee und Kuchen, and put up a notice on the board in Hall some time this evening.”

“What are you going to do about the idiot who messed up the chalk?” Nan asked.

“Exactly nothing.”

“Nothing? You don’t mean you’re going to pass over a piece of cheek like that?”

Elinor smiled sweetly. “Don’t worry! Didn’t you see those kids looking at each other? They’ll tackle it all right, or I miss my guess. Phyllis was furious, and so were young Janice and Isabel. Someone is going to be made very sorry for herself before many hours are over. I shall leave it to them.”

“Quite right!” Betsy said cordially. “It’s the wisest thing you can do, Elinor. They’re just at the age to feel awfully important at being delegates to any sort of committee and they didn’t like the dignity of it all spoiled by some misguided idiot’s idea of a joke. They’ll see to it that she pays all right.”

How right she was, was proved when, just before Abendessen, Norah Fitzgerald, a wild Irish scamp, arrived among the group of prefects under the trees, looking as if the bottom had dropped out of her world, and with wild blushes and even wilder Irishisms, humbly confessed that she had been responsible for the “joke.”

By the time Elinor had finished telling her what she thought of such babyish tricks, she was dazedly trying to find out how much of her was left. Elinor was a pleasant girl and easy on the Juniors as a rule; but she was righteously indignant on this occasion, and so, between what her own clan had said to her and what the Head Girl added, what was left to her of native impudence and mischief might have been put into a thimble with room to spare. No one, so long as Norah remained in the school, ever tried that particular joke again.

Blossom did as she had been advised and duly consulted Miss Burnett, the games mistress, on the subject of including some of the St. Mildred girls in the Tennis Six. Miss Burnett considered the matter carefully.

“So far as I’m concerned, Blossom,” she said at last, with a frank smile at the tall, graceful girl standing gazing down at her, “I’m quite prepared to agree. I think it a good idea. We certainly are short of outstanding players this year.”

“Oh, we are,” Blossom said eagerly. “And considering what term this is, I do think we ought to be able to include St. Mildred’s in the Six. We’re all set to make a record term of it, but unless we can count record defeats, I don’t see how the tennis is going to help that out.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say it’s as bad as all that,” the mistress replied drily. “We have some good average players; and you yourself have come on amain.”

Blossom went pink. “Thanks a lot,” she murmured.

“Well, to go back to your idea. As I said, I’m in full agreement with it. It all depends on how St. Mildred’s like it. Why don’t you get hold of—let’s see—Julie Lucy and Katharine Gordon and—and Hilary Wilson? They were our chief stars together with yourself last season. I don’t think we’ll ask any of the people who have come from other schools. It matters less to them. But those three would be sure to do what they could for the school. You talk it over with them and see what they say and then report back to me.”

Blossom went off to do what in her lay, and was lucky enough to meet Julie Lucy as she crossed the entrance hall. Being Blossom, she wasted no time.

“Hi! Julie!” she called. “Half a sec! I want to see you.”

Julie, a slim, handsome girl of eighteen, with thick black curls clustering over her head and framing a damson dark face, pulled up and waited for her junior to come up with her. “What’s cooking?” she demanded as long-legged Blossom reached her.

“Tennis!” Blossom returned, going to the point at once. “Look here, Julie, when have you a free period? I want to talk to you about it?”

“What’s the matter with now? I have an English Lecture with the Abbess at fifteen o’clock, but I’ve nothing till then. I had meant to look over my notes on the Augustans, but it doesn’t really matter. What about you?”

“Nothing, bar an essay which I can tackle later on. This is frightfully important, though,” Blossom said. “What about sauntering out to the rock garden?”

“O.K. Come on before someone comes along and snaffles us for something else,” Julie said—most reprehensibly.

The pair slipped out into the garden and established themselves comfortably in the sunk rock garden which was the pride of the present Sixth forms. It was a glorious day with a bright sun and just enough of a cool breeze to make it comfortable. Blossom spread herself comfortably along a white-painted wooden seat, and Julie took possession of a deck chair someone had left near.

“Now!” she said when they were settled. “What’s your worry?”

Blossom sat up and looked serious. “It’s just this: we’re frightfully short of good players this year—in the school proper I mean. But you people are part of us for the term, and we’ve been wondering if it would be possible to count you in. That would give us your noble self and Katt Gordon and Hilary Wilson for the Six. We’d have Mary-Lou, who is jolly good on her day, and two or three others of more or less the same standard to choose from to make up the pairs and give us reserves as well. I’ve seen Burnie about it—just left her, in fact. She says so far as she’s concerned we can go ahead; but it depends on you crowd.”

Julie thought it over. “I don’t see why not,” she said at last. “As things are, we can’t issue any but House challenges this term. Katt and Hilary would love to have the chance of playing some of the people we were up against last year. I can assure you of that. I’ve heard them on the subject of how difficult it is to send out challenges on our own, seeing we haven’t our own courts to play on. They’d be frightfully bucked to be included in the Six. But what about your own players? Won’t they be browned off if you drop them for us three?”

“How little you know them—or most of them!” Blossom retorted scornfully. “When I merely murmur ‘Tennis Six’ to them, most of them instantly start trying to look as if they weren’t there! The fact of the matter is, quite a lot of them are mad keen on winter sports and everything else has to take a back seat. We have quite a lot of younger Seniors and Senior Middles who are coming along, but they aren’t up to match standard yet. Bar your own sister, Vi, and Mary-Lou Trelawney, who can be really good, and Joan Baker, who is still awfully in the rough, and Rosamund Lilley, keen, but not enough stamina so far, I don’t think there’s a soul likely to mind. Anyhow, Mary-Lou and Vi are in the Six, and I was wondering about Elinor. But if you three could play, she’d be a reserve, which is what she’d prefer.”

Julie nodded thoughtfully. “I see. Well, if it’s like that, you don’t have to worry on that score. What about Hilary Bennet? Isn’t she any good?”

“Cricket’s her game. She’s a natural-born stonewaller and enough to break any bowler’s heart, once she planks her bat down solidly. I did think of putting her in as a reserve, but she’s hardly up to match standard in tennis.”

“I see,” Julie said again. “Well, I can’t tell you straight off, of course, but I’ll go into a huddle with Katt and our Hilary and let you know some time this evening. That O.K.?”

“Good enough! If we can have you three, that’s a big load off my mind. I don’t mind telling you I’ve enough on my plate, anyhow, what with the cricket and swimming and rowing. I’ll be thankful not to have to fuss over the tennis!”

“Oh, well, you haven’t many cricket matches to worry about,” Julie said.

“That may be. Most of what there are are apt to be stinkers, though.”

“Your English! And you’re a prefect, too!”

Blossom grinned. “Don’t you try to come the good girl over me! I can remember when your own English was nothing to shout about. Anyhow, we’re alone, and there aren’t any juniors to be corrupted by my choice of language. And to get back to the games, we mayn’t have a lot of cricket matches, but we’ve a good number of rowing challenges and quite a few swimming races in hand. I wish we lived nearer the lake—or a lake, anyhow! We don’t get nearly enough practice as it is.”

“Can’t have everything,” Julie told her austerely. “Up here, we do get ski-ing and coasting, which we wouldn’t do if we were down at Interlaken or Thun, or any of the other lakeside places.”

“Yes; there’s that, of course. O.K.! You see to the tennis, and I’ll be off to see about nets for tonight. Some of the kids are shockingly lazy about nets practice, and I’m putting my foot down. See you later!”

Blossom got up, shook out her skirts, and strode off to Hall to study the games timetables, and Julie, after consulting her watch, decided that it was time to seek the library, and Miss Annersley’s lecture on the Augustan poets.

She duly kept her word and rejoiced Blossom’s heart just before bedtime by informing her that both Katherine Gordon and Lesley Wilson would be delighted to play for the school once more, and so would she herself. Blossom heaved a deep sigh of relief on hearing the decision, and thereafter the match courts were kept busy whenever the Six and the reserves could put in a spare moment.

The weekend saw the departure of the Juniors for their trip to the Tiernsee, and the rest of the school spent the Saturday evening hard at work for the stalls at their annual Sale, which was to take place on the Saturday of half term. The small fry returned wildly excited with all they had seen and done, and quite a number of them were heard to wish loudly for the days when the school was there. For the next two or three weekends there was, to quote Elinor, peace and quiet, since the younger girls were away and the senior half of the school was able to go ahead with the stalls, which they had determined should be extra-well filled this term. Finally, they found that they were just a week away from what the school at large persisted in calling “The weekend”—otherwise, half term—and out of school hours they would be occupied in entertaining their guests, who were beginning to arrive.

Impromptu tennis matches were got up; and one afternoon they all went for rambles in various directions, when the girls introduced their special flock to their own favourite walks. However, that came during the week. On the Saturday before, the first of all the visitors arrived in time for tea, and she was, in the eyes of the school, quite the most important guest of the lot.

This was Lady Russell, who was to stay at Freudesheim with her younger sister, and would remain for three weeks. She came by car, and arrived at the gates of Freudesheim shortly before sixteen o’clock, when the school was fully occupied since the third—and one of the most important—of their tennis matches was taking place.

Joey Maynard was on the lookout for her sister, and she gave her a characteristic welcome.

“Hello, Madge! Thank goodness you’ve come!” she cried as she came flying to open the gate for the little car. “Oh, my lamb! How—how natural you look!”

Lady Russell wrenched open the door of the car and sprang out, and the sisters hugged each other joyfully. “Oh, Joey! It’s seemed such a time! Let me look at you! Yes; just the same as ever!”

“Did you expect me to develop a green and sickly shade of complexion? Or to have bleached my hair for a change?” Joey demanded. Then she looked round. “Well? And where are your twins, may I ask?”

“Safe at home, of course. You didn’t imagine I was undertaking a motor drive like this with two young demons in tow, did you? Never to speak of letting them loose in the midst of all the hurly-burly there will be here for the next fortnight or so? Where’s your common sense?”

“Oh!” Joey wailed. “And the school is madly expecting them! They’re dying to see how they’re growing up. Well, fetch that blackbeetle of yours in and park it in the garage. But you can tell the school yourself that you’ve come alone. I won’t have anything to do with it. They all revving up like a lot of little steam-engines. I can tell you, the excitement is rising by a rapid crescendo, and just where it will end is more than I can say! Perhaps your well-known powers of repression may be able to clamp them down a little. Otherwise, it would never surprise me if we had an outsize in explosions sooner or later.”

Madge Russell chuckled. “No school that I have had anything to do with is going to do anything so mad. I didn’t found the Chalet School twenty-one years ago for it to go up in smoke when it achieved its majority.” She drove off round the house to the garage, and presently appeared in the garden, her curly dark hair exposed to the summer breeze, since she had tossed off the shady hat she had worn for driving, looking very little older than the twelve-years-younger sister. Joey looked up from the teatable as she came.

“Honestly, Madge, no one would ever think you were in your middle forties! You don’t look a lot older than you did that June twenty-one years ago when we celebrated your birthday by a picnic in the mountains, and were storm-stayed in a herdsman’s hut all night. Do you remember the flavour of the milk the man gave us to drink?”^[4]

Madge Russell laughed and sat down. “Do I not! Milk and smoke and garlic! Well, give me a cup of tea, and then you can wire in and tell me all the news.”

Joey handed her the tea. “News? Well, they’ve made a start on the albums. I ran over last night, and Rosalie Dene showed me with an amount of pride that was revolting, fifteen finished and seven more begun. I had a squint at some of them. In fact. I spent a solid two hours on them, and Jack arrived at twenty-two to fetch me home. Do you know, I was stunned to find out how many folk I’d either forgotten or lost touch with.^[5] Carla von Flügen, for instance. Did you know she’d been married and widowed? She’s wretchedly poor, and you may remember that she was one of our well-off people. They lost pretty well everything. Her husband died in a concentration camp, and six months later she lost her baby-boy, poor girl. She said she was a waitress in a coffee-shop in Salzburg. I rang Marie up and she went flying to the rescue. That’s over, anyhow!”

“What do you mean—over?” Madge demanded. “What has Marie done?”

“Made her chuck the job and go back to their place with her till next term. Then she’s coming to me as Mother’s Help.”

“What? But what about Maria Marani?”

“She’s leaving me in August. A very nice young man seems to think he has a much better right to her company than I have.”

“Joey! This is news! Maria’s engaged?”

“And how! She just hasn’t the sense she was born with at the moment. And oh, Madge! The difference in her! She’s gone back to the old Maria we had in Tirol. She’s lost all that awful sadness and—and gravity—and she’s sparkling and gay and full of life again. It’s like a transformation scene! And Frau Marani is happy again, too. It’s marvellous to see them as they were before all the awfulness of poor Onkel Florian. I’m more thankful than I can say.”

“Who is he?” Madge demanded. “And why wasn’t I told anything about it?”

“Nothing to tell—till last week. As for who he is, do you remember my telling you about the Emburys engaging a Mr. Maclaren as tutor for those imps of theirs?”

“Of course I do. Michael spends termtime at Montreux to share his labours—and, knowing your Mike, I imagine they are labours!”

Joey grimaced at her. “Too true, alas! Well, Mike comes home every weekend that’s possible. Sometimes I fetch him myself; but I’ve often had to send Maria, and so those two met. And as a consequence, I’m to lose my Maria.”

“What will happen when the boys go to England?” her sister asked.

“Oh, that’s all settled. He’s out here as a preventive measure, though he’s all right now. When the kids go to school, he’s going to try to get a secretarial job out here. Jack says it’ll be safer, and they’re toying with the idea of appointing him as Registrar at the San the year after next when Mr. Grier’s appointment ends. He’s not too satisfactory, that lad. Runs after all the pretty nurses, and always off to Interlaken and the Casino. He’s been warned that if this goes on they’ll break his contract. Anyhow, Walter Maclaren has his screw and a small private income; and goodness knows, Maria has never been accustomed to living in luxury. They’ll manage all right. The Emburys have managed to snaffle a small appartement for them in Montreux, and Frau Marani is giving up hers and will live with them, so they haven’t to worry about furnishing. Most of us are going to send them cheques for wedding presents, and they can get what they like to make up any deficiencies.”

“It all sounds marvellous,” Madge Russell agreed as she nibbled round the edge of one of Anna’s luscious cream pastries. “Only—well, I wish they could start off alone. It’s better at the beginning.”

“Don’t worry—they will! Frau Marani is going to Gisela and Gottfried for a six months’ visit, once the wedding’s safely over. She’s unlikely to come to Montreux until the spring. By that time they’ll have got over the first bridal raptures.”

“You unromantic object!”

“Yes; I am, aren’t I? But while cream cakes are very nice now and then, you’d soon get sick of them if you had to have them for every meal. For a general diet, I’d advise the plain bread-and-butter of ordinary married life. Then,” Joey went on, deliberately changing the subject, “you did know that Frau Hamel died during the war? Sophie is keeping house for her father and the two boys. She sent her photo, and, oh, Madge, she’s got enormous! She’s bigger than Winnie Embury, and goodness knows she’s no sylph!”

“Sophie always was a chubby specimen,” Lady Russell said reminiscently as she bit cautiously into the centre of her cake. “What’s happened to Berta?”

“Married and three babies,” Joey said succinctly. “Oh, and there’s been a long letter from Bianca di Ferrara. She’s married, too, and living in Naples. She can’t come for the weekend because she’s just had Number Six; but she sent a sub for the Catholic chapel, and she says the family mean to club together and present a statue of St. Clare in memory of Luigia.”

“Poor Luigia!” Madge said. “It’s over, thank goodness; but I hate to think what her sufferings must have been in that awful concentration camp.”^[6]

“She wasn’t the only one,” Joey said sombrely. “We’ve lost a number of our Old Girls through the war. Some of them we shall never know anything about.” There was a silence which Madge broke by asking for any further news Jo might have for her.

“Well, Anita Rincini is teaching in one of the public schools in Innsbruck—she’ll be up on Saturday, having got leave, but she has to go back on Sunday night. Giovanna is married and living in Vienna, so I doubt if we’ll see her. And oh, my dear! Gertrud Steinbrücke is living in Salzburg. Wanda has contacted her, and sent us her address and she’s coming on Wednesday. I haven’t seen good old Gertrud since we had to fly for our lives from the Sonnalpe, so it’s a real thrill.”^[7]

“Are Wanda and Friedel back in Salzburg, then?”

“Yes; but definitely not in the same house. It’s much too small for them nowadays. But they’re still on the Mönschberg, though. Have another cake? Well, some more tea, then?” as Madge shook her head.

“Not another thing. I’m going upstairs to the playroom to see your babies.”

“You can go if you like, but you won’t see the babies.” Joey gave her sister a grin. “They’re at Hilary Graves’, having tea with her and her small Marjorie and the new baby. She sent Phil over to collect them so that we could have a peaceful hour or so of gossip alone. They’ll be coming back shortly, so you’ll see them soon enough. Far better come upstairs and unpack, and then you’d better pop over and pay your respects to the school while I see to bedtime. You’ll get a rousing welcome, I can assure you.”

“I rather wondered that we hadn’t at least heard them. Your family are anything but noiseless. Very well; I’ll do as you suggest. Where am I this time?”

“In your old room. I have the triplets sleeping here this term, you know, as the school is full to the brim. So you’re in the room above ours. Come on!” And leaving the remains of the tea to look after itself, the sisters linked arms and went off to the house, laughing and chattering as if they were schoolgirls themselves instead of responsible married women with long families.

Sunday was, as Miss Wilson remarked pensively when it was all over, the only quiet day of the next week. The school kept to its usual customs of church, rest, walks and early bed that day. But on the Monday, the Old Girls began to come in real earnest.

After a long session with the entire Staff, it had been decided that for this week only Frühstück would be at seven; lessons begin at eight and go on till noon, and the rest of the days would be free. As Miss Derwent pointed out at the meeting, at this stage of the term everyone was supposed to have finished her syllabus and be giving up the time to revision, which made things easier.

The first to arrive was a bunch of people well known to most of the Seniors and Middles of the school. They were headed by Peggy and Bride Bettany, elder sisters of Maeve and nieces of Joey Maynard, and included such favourites as Tom Gay, Dickie Christy, Nita Eltringham, Barbara Chester’s sister Nancy, and Elfie Woodward. The school greeted them noisily and enthusiastically, though it is true that Mary-Lou, eyeing Nancy severely, demanded to be told how that young lady had contrived to get time off from her hospital when she had only just gone there.

Nancy gave her a sweetly superior smile. “I’m on sick leave,” she announced.

“What?” Barbara exclaimed. “What are you talking about, Nance?”

“Just that. No; I know you didn’t know. I made the rest promise to say nothing. But it is so, nevertheless.”

Matron, who was standing near, pricked up her ears. “What’s been wrong with you?” she demanded suspiciously.

“Nothing infectious,” Nancy said, hurriedly becoming merely a naughty schoolgirl again—a phenomenon well known to everyone who had had any dealings with Matron. “I’ve had a sudden appendix. Started one afternoon, and they had me in the operating theatre before I’d time to decide what was wrong with me, and yanked the thing out then and there. Now I’m on sick leave, and everyone thought the Oberland would be an ideal place for me to spend it in. So here I am after all!”

“I must say you don’t look like a convalescent,” her cousin, Julie Lucy, remarked.

“Oh, I’m practically all right again,” Nancy said. “I didn’t go in for anything exotic as you did with your peritonitis and adhesions and whatnots.^[8] I just doubled up with pain one afternoon, and was whisked off at the rate of no man’s business. Anyhow, when the worst was over, I looked on it as a godsend, for otherwise, I hadn’t a hope of getting here for the Great Event!”

The girls laughed and declared it was exactly like her, after which she was walked off by her young sister and three cousins to give them all the home news.

Meanwhile, the others had also gathered in various groups, and school gossip had a busy time of it until the middle of the afternoon brought a second group—Joey Maynard and her own three great chums, Frieda von Ahlen, Simone de Bersac and Marie von und zu Wertheimer. All three were staying at Freudesheim, and Joey had brought them over after they had got their second wind after a breezy exchange of domestic news with her and Lady Russell.

It was the turn of those of the mistresses who had been at the Chalet School when it was in Tirol, and any girls near enough to see and hear were edified to behold Miss o’Ryan, Miss Wilmot and Miss Burnett make wild dives for them, followed by Miss Dene, who was also a contemporary of theirs. The eight, as Miss Annersley said later on, when they all came to Kaffee und Kuchen with her, made as much noise as the first party, and no one would ever have thought they were fifteen or sixteen years away from their own schooldays and responsible wives and mothers!

“Aren’t they thrilled?” Mary-Lou chuckled. “You know, except for the fact that they’ve all got their hair up, they look like a set of kids.”

“Less of your ‘kids,’ my child!” said a fresh voice behind her, and she swung round with a squeal of delight as she fell heavily on the neck of her own dearest friend, Clem Barras.

“Clem! How did you manage to make it?” she cried. “I thought you weren’t coming till Thursday! Where’s Verity? Come on, young Verity! We’ll take Clem to a quiet spot and she can give us all the hanes from home!”

Exit Mary-Lou, Verity Carey, who was her “sister-by-marriage” as they called it, since Mary-Lou’s mother had married Verity’s father, and Clem, who was orphaned and made her home, together with her younger brother, Tony, with Mr. and Mrs. Carey. No more was seen of them after that until the gong sounded for Kaffee und Kuchen, which everyone had, picnic fashion, in the sunny garden.

That day was more or less the pattern for the next three. By Thursday morning, the Görnetz Platz was packed to bursting, and Miss Annersley and Miss Wilson laughed together and announced a holiday until Tuesday of next week when most of the excitement would be at an end. Even the exam people—even Lala Winterton—could hardly be expected to give their minds to lessons with so many reunions going on!

“Rambles today!” Mary-Lou announced, bursting into the prefects’ room before Frühstück on the Friday. “Anyone who likes may go for a full-day ramble so long as she’s with a grown-up. Clem and some of her crowd want to go down to Thun for swimming. We’re to take sandwiches and so on with us and picnic there. Afterwards, we’re going to explore Thun properly, and then walk back to Interlaken along the south shore. She said I could invite anyone who liked to come. What about it?” She looked round them all expectantly.

“You’re late for the fair, my child,” Blossom said with a chuckle. “I’ve already seen Bill, and she told me, and told me to tell our crowd. The kids are hearing at Frühstück. I can’t come with you. I’m booked with Nita and two or three others, and Elinor, Nan, Madge and Lala are coming with us, so you can count them out, too. I don’t know about the rest.”

As it turned out, most of the others were also booked up; but Hilary Bennet, Vi Lucy and Doris Hill all accepted the invitation with fervour, and Mary-Lou departed to hand in their names, escorts and destination to Miss Dene.

It was still early when they set out to walk down to Interlaken, Tom Gay having insisted on it.

“If you go for a ramble, go for a ramble!” she said. “Don’t depend on trains but on your own sturdy legs. I’m walking, anyhow, whatever the rest of you may do.”

Biddy o’Ryan and Nancy Wilmot had been added to the party by special invitation, and at the last moment, Biddy pleaded for an invitation for her own friend, Miss Ferrars, who, as a comparatively new mistress, naturally was rather out of things.

“She’s inclined to be shy,” Biddy said, “but she’s awfully jolly when you get past that. Let me bring her, you folk.”

“Bring anyone you like,” Peggy Bettany said hospitably. “I rather like the look of her. But fly, Biddy! We don’t want to get off late.”

Biddy flew and, as a result, Kathie Ferrars found herself trotting along between Tom Gay, who was a six-footer, and Peggy herself, who was even smaller than she was, being on a miniature scale.

The path down to the valley lay at the farther end of the Platz, nearly opposite the great Sanatorium, so that meant three miles before they even began to descend, and Nancy Wilmot announced that Tom might say what she liked, but once they reached the autobahn, which lay at the foot of the mountains, they were taking the postal coach into Interlaken.

“Enough’s enough!” she pronounced. “A lot of fun we’ll have if we’re all tired out by the time we reach the boat!”

“You can rest then,” Tom said austerely. “Oh, very well, if you’re going to be obstinate about it. But when I take a walk, I like to walk.”

“You’re a freak and always were!” Miss Wilmot retorted. “Everyone isn’t as mad keen on violent exercise in weather like this. We’ll walk down since nothing else will serve you; but after that, it’s the coach!”

Tom knew when she was worsted. She grinned defiantly at Miss Wilmot, but gave way. And if she would have confessed, by the time they reached the foot of the path she was not sorry. Down and down they went, round one hairpin bend after another, with the atmosphere growing hotter and hotter at each bend. It was now June and the sun seemed to have set itself to show what it could do. Even Tom groaned when they were three parts of the way down, and mopped her streaming face.

“If it’s going to be like this tomorrow,” Kathie Ferrars remarked to Peggy as they rounded a corner, “we ought to have a double lot of ices.”

“That’s an idea!” agreed Doris, who was in charge of the said ices. “I’ll see Sally-go-round-the-moon about it when we get back.”

“Oh, stop talking about ices in this desert!” Peggy exclaimed. “I could do with a dozen myself at this moment; but it’s no use talking up here.”

“You’d get a frozen tummy after an orgy like that,” Nancy Chester informed her. “Will there be time for a small one, though, before we catch the boat?”

“If we haven’t too long to wait for the postal coach,” Biddy o’Ryan said. “There’s a café fairly near the landing, and they’ll be open all right by the time we get there. Come on, and stop grumbling. This walk was your idea, Tom!”

It was impossible to hurry in such heat, but they did their best and arrived at the autobahn in time to see the coach rolling up in the distance.

“Good!” Biddy said. “Stop her, Tom! No one could overlook a leggy object like yourself!”

Tom grinned, stepped forward, and the coach came to a halt, and they all piled in thankfully. It was not yet nine o’clock, and down in the valley it was baking hot already. What it would be like in a couple of hours’ time no one liked to think! Even in the postal coach, with all the windows open, they found it stuffy. However, they had not to endure it for long, and they arrived at the Schiff Station, Thun, and found they had twenty minutes to wait for the steamer.

“Just time for an ice!” Peggy cried as she made a dive for a nearby café. “Come on, everyone! I’ll stand treat!”

“Wrong! This is on me!” Nancy Wilmot said firmly.

“I proposed it first,” Peggy retorted heatedly.

“Ah, but I meant to do it all along. That’s why I made for the place so soon. Come along, folks! Ices all round!” And she swept them into the café and demanded their preferences.

There was no time for bickering, and Peggy gave it up, resolving in her own mind to get even before the day was over. They had their ices and were all standing on the landing-stage as the lake steamer slipped alongside and the gang-plank was run out, and the passengers from the various tiny towns and villages round the lake disembarked. Then the party marched on board and settled themselves up in the bows to catch every cool breeze that might be going. Five minutes later they were out on the lake and proving the truth of Mary-Lou’s saying. A little breeze was blowing and bringing a grateful coolness with it. They all removed their hats, and let the wind do what it chose to their hair until Biddy o’Ryan suddenly exclaimed in horror.

“You girls will get sunstroke if you go hatless in this sun! Put them on again! And, by that same token, I’m wearing my own. I don’t want sunstroke!”

They donned their hats, for the sun’s rays were striking down full force, and they turned their attention to what was to be seen.

The breeze broke the lake into tiny ripples in the centre, but close inshore the water lay still and clear with the outline of the mountains reflected in it. Early as it was, tourists were already out enjoying themselves, and the bathing beaches rang with shouts and laughter. Rowing-boats were dotted here and there over the blue waters, and now and then a yacht spread its sail to what wind there was, and curtsied across from one side to the other. At Merligen, they paused to disembark an obvious honeymoon couple, and take on half a dozen more passengers.

Mary-Lou removed her gaze from the lake, and then exclaimed to her own particular gang, “Oh, my goodness! Look what’s come aboard here!”

Doris, Vi and Hilary all turned to stare with complete lack of manners, and Peggy Bettany, attracted by Mary-Lou’s remark, also glanced round. There, coming stalking up the gangplank, was Miss Bubb! Peggy’s very blue eyes widened till they looked like twin saucers. She remembered the lady from the days when Miss Annersley, Miss Wilson, Mdlle de Lachennais, and Miss Edwards, who was now at the Carnbach branch, had all been more or less badly involved in a motor coach accident so that someone to take charge of the organisation had been necessary, and Miss Bubb had applied and got the post.^[9] It had been anything but a success, and she had left before the half-term. Since then no one, so far as Peggy knew, had seen or heard anything of her. Now, here she was, large as life, boarding the steamer.

“For the love of Mike!” she exclaimed under her breath to the pretty girl standing close to her. “Daph, do you see what I’m seeing?”

“I should think I do!” Daphne Russell said with emphasis. “What on earth is she doing here?”

Biddy o’Ryan, who had also overheard, grinned to herself. “Is it Miss Bubb?” she asked them. “She’s teaching up at the school—two days a week. Greek and Latin it is, but only to St. Mildred’s and the exam people.”

Mary-Lou butted in at this point. “Lala Winterton goes to her and she says Miss Bubb is simply crackers over Latin! Incidentally, Lal thinks she thinks she won’t get through.”

“Who thinks who won’t get through?” Biddy demanded.

“Lala says Miss Bubb thinks that she—Lala—won’t get through,” Mary-Lou said with colossal calm. “That’s all rot, of course! Lal’s safe for a pass in Latin, and it wouldn’t surprise me if she got credit at least. She’s a whale at it!”

“She should be safe enough if she doesn’t turn panicky at the last,” the experienced Miss o’Ryan agreed. “What gives the silly girl that impression? Sure, I thought myself Miss Bubb was as pleased with her as it’s in her to be with anyone!”

“Lal doesn’t think so!” Vi shoved in her oar. “She has the idea that Miss Bubb looks on her as a complete dud.”

“She was wailing about it in our room the other day,” Hilary added her quota. “She always says, you know, that she and Polly did a lot too much fooling about ages ago before they ever came to the school.^[10] She’s had to slog hard to make up for then, and it always makes her feel that sometime that period may let her down.”

“Oh, does she, indeed? ’Tis talking to her myself I’ll be, once all this excitement is over,” Miss o’Ryan said darkly.

“I wish you would,” Vi said fervently. “I can just see Lala making a complete moke of herself over Latin Unseen or something like that from sheer fright.”

The boat moved off down the lake, and Miss o’Ryan’s attention was attracted by Tom Gay, and she left the girls. They eyed each other dubiously.

“What ought we to do about her?” Mary-Lou asked.

“Look the other way,” said Nita Eltringham, a cousin of Blossom Willoughby’s. “You don’t propose to invite her to join the party, do you? I doubt if she can swim, and somehow I don’t see her just messing about in the water. Let her alone.”

“Oughtn’t we to give her a chance to decide for herself?” Peggy asked. “She’s seen us—bound to unless she’s gone blind and deaf. I don’t see how we can just ignore her.”

“And supposing she decides she wants to latch on to us?” demanded Peggy’s sister. “A nice thing that would be!”

“We’d just have to put up with it. Don’t be an idiot, Bride! We can’t be rude!” Peggy said severely. “She’s recognised us and I don’t see how we can leave her out. We’ll have to ask her. She’s part of the school just now, it seems.”

“You and your conscience! I could ignore her quite easily,” Bride returned.

“Well, I can’t. I’m going over to speak to her and invite her to come. I don’t think,” Peggy added by way of a sop, “that she’ll accept. From all I remember of her, she wasn’t so frightfully fond of our company in those days, and I doubt if she’ll have changed very much that way.”

She settled her hat more firmly over her pretty curls, and then strolled across the boat to where Miss Bubb was sitting, staring ahead after that one quick glance at them which Peggy had caught. Mary-Lou followed her, after an agonised look at the rest. As she said later, it wasn’t fair to leave it all to Peggy.

“Good morning, Miss Bubb,” the latter said as they reached that lady. “I don’t know if you remember me? I’m Peggy Bettany. I was a Middle when you were at the Chalet School before.”

Miss Bubb looked round at the pair as they stood there. “Oh, yes; I remember you,” she said in her rather hard, metallic voice. “You haven’t altered much.”

Peggy laughed and sat down beside her while Mary-Lou stood near, watching. “No; I haven’t even grown much. I’m the dwarf of the family. You know Mary-Lou, don’t you?” she added, drawing the prefect into the conversation.

Miss Bubb turned a rather grim smile on the tall, good-looking girl. “One of the Seniors who does not come to me,” she said. “I’ve heard about you, however.”

Mary-Lou went red. What had Miss Bubb heard about her? But Miss Bubb was going on.

“I suppose you, Peggy, have left school now and are here for the celebrations?”

“Yes,” Peggy said easily. “I’m at home now. We have a baby sister, and my mother needs me at home. My sister Bride is hoping to teach, but I’m just an old-fashioned girl with domestic tastes.” She laughed gaily, and Miss Bubb smiled the grim smile that seemed to be the best she could produce.

Mary-Lou felt it was time to come down to brass tacks. She carefully moderated her usual matey manner, and said, “What about joining our crowd, Miss Bubb—if you’re not meeting someone else, that is? Won’t you come? We’re going swimming once we reach Thun, and then having a picnic lunch on the bathing beach. After that we want to explore the town properly, and walk home along the south shore. Do come!”

“Oh, yes; do!” Peggy chimed in.

“Thank you,” Miss Bubb said. “It is very kind of you, but I’m just making the round trip of the lake. I’m enjoying myself quite well alone.”

Well! The pair withdrew after that to report to the rest, though Peggy soft-pedalled the refusal as much as she could. Biddy o’Ryan, however, was not satisfied. She was an observant young woman, and she had already noted the sunken eyes and sallow skin. She rooted about in her memory, and then drew Nancy Wilmot and Kathie Ferrars to one side.

“Look here,” she began abruptly, “Miss Bubb may have refused those two, but I don’t like the looks of her. I remember Bill told us she’d been very ill last autumn, and was out here to recuperate. She doesn’t look to me as if she’d done much in that line.”

“Why on earth is she wearing tweeds and a felt hat on a broiling day like this?” Kathie asked. “It’s enough to make anyone feel ill!”

Nancy Wilmot looked conscience-stricken. “Joey told me she’d lost money, which is why she came to us for a part-time job,” she said as abruptly as Biddy. “I should imagine those are about all she has. I’ve noticed how shabby she was when she came for her lessons.”

“Gosh!” Kathie exclaimed. “And Switzerland isn’t what you’d call cheap!”

“We must be doing something about it!” Biddy declared.

“Well—what? You can’t very well offer her a summer frock and hat. At least if you did, I should imagine you’d have no nose left on your face,” Nancy told her. “But I’ll tell you what we can do. Those ices we had before we started are a long-told tale by this time. Let’s all go for coffee and cream cakes somewhere before we go down to the bathing-beach. We’ll ask her to join us. Her ticket will hold good for any other boat today, so that’ll be all right. You two stay here and I’ll stroll over and see what I can do with her.”

“I doubt if you make the grade,” Biddy said pessimistically.

“I’ll manage it somehow,” her friend returned. “If you ask me, she’s economising on food. She has a famished look to me!”

“Well, good luck to you!” Biddy replied.

Nancy nodded and went off to where Miss Bubb was surreptitiously mopping her face. She was very hot but, as her young colleague had shrewdly guessed, she had very few summer dresses, and the only presentable one she was keeping to wear on Saturday for the Sale. Also, she had cut down on her food, finding that even with the quite good salary she was receiving for her job with the school, she must be careful or she would have to return to England, and she really did not feel that she had made much headway, even yet.

Miss Bubb was almost frighteningly alone in the world, and she dared not run any risk of further illness. If she could possibly stay out in the Alps, she must until her lungs were sound again. The doctors had told her that there was no disease as yet, but great weakness which might lead to disease. Hence, she was straining every nerve to remain in Switzerland until she had recovered. She had breakfasted off a cup of coffee and two rolls, and was feeling really faint. Nancy’s invitation, given with a casualness that convinced her that the mistress had no idea of the state of her finances, came as a godsend. She accepted and cunning Nancy resolved that the mere snack she had suggested should be changed to a decent meal if it could be done.

As a result, when they left the steamer at Thun and found their café, she ordered not only cream-cakes, but crescents and butter and jam, and made an effort and tucked in herself as if she had not had her usual hearty meal of boiled egg, toast and butter and marmalade. The other two mistresses backed her up, and as they all talked exams solidly, Miss Bubb was persuaded to eat a petit déjeuner which more than made up for her scanty Frühstück.

The girls couldn’t imagine what had got into the trio. As a rule, school shop was barred on expeditions. Only Peggy and Mary-Lou had a clue to the procedure, and both had the sense to hold their tongues. So it was that when, finally, they left Biddy to settle their score, Miss Bubb was feeling distinctly better, and there was a little colour in her face, thanks to the two big cups of coffee with their blankets of whipped cream and four crescents lavishly spread with ivory butter which she had consumed almost unknowingly as she and the others had argued about the value or otherwise of public exams.

She went off finally to catch her boat, and they made for the bathing beaches, where they settled down to enjoy themselves.

They had a glorious morning of it, and Mittagessen was late with them, for both Peggy and Mary-Lou had seen what the Staff were up to and had backed them up ably, to the extent of stuffing themselves with an extra roll each after they felt they had over-eaten in any case.

This resulted in an episode that was added to the school’s store of legends by acclaim.

They had come out of the water and sat for a few minutes, drying off in the sun. Then Miss Wilmot sat up and shook out her mop of golden-brown hair with the remark, “Well, if we intend to see anything of Thun before we set off on our homeward walk, we’d better get down to it. I vote we make ourselves decent before we feed. Then we can start off as soon as we’ve finished. It’s fourteen o’clock now.”

Everyone agreed, and they swarmed up the beaches to the bathing chalets to tidy themselves and dress. Nancy Wilmot raced ahead of the others, and made, as she thought, for the one she had used. She wrenched open the unbolted door and bounced in on top of an elderly female who was just preparing for an afternoon bathe. The lady had undressed and was already in her swimsuit. She had also removed certain aids to beauty and, to the horrified Nancy, she exhibited a head that was nearly denuded of hair on top.

When the mistress entered, she gave a shocked squawk and scrabbled wildly at a kind of scalp-lock which hung from one of the hooks. Unfortunately, in her haste, she tried to put it on hindside foremost. Nancy spluttered an incoherent apology, and bounced out faster than she had entered, nearly bowling over Kathie Ferrars, who had come to bring her to the proper place which the three mistresses were sharing. She, too, got a glimpse of the vision within, and when the pair of them finally joined their third, they were so suffocated with suppressed laughter that it was some minutes before Biddy o’Ryan could get any sense out of them. When she did, she simply screamed with laughter, and the girls heard them, and when they finally appeared for the meal, insisted on hearing the joke.

“This,” said Tom Gay when she had recovered from her peals of merriment, “must certainly be added to your dossier in the albums. ‘Last-known activity to terrify a hairless lady in a bathing chalet at Thun.’ It will give quite a cachet to an otherwise uninspired account I imagine!”

“That’s all you know!” Nancy retorted. “In any case, no one is to say a word to the rest about it until I leave the school. I don’t want this yarn to get round, thank you, Tom! Now hurry up with the eats! Time’s flying and we can’t afford to miss our train up.”

There had been some difficulty as to how the various plays were to be identified. Julie Lucy had got over it by suggesting that, as the various stalls were to be scattered throughout the length and breadth of the school grounds and Joey Maynard’s garden, they should set up signposts pointing the way. During the Friday, the men had been busy with the erections required and also setting up all the stage scenery in the different places, and everyone had helped to deck the stalls and fill them after Abendessen, the final stroke being to cover them up with ground sheets and tent canvas for the night. This meant that when Saturday morning came, the elder girls and those of the Staff who could be spared had only to remove the coverings and everything was ready.

By ten o’clock all the saleswomen had changed, and the garden was thronged with people whom Shakespeare himself would have had little difficulty in recognising, as Joey Maynard remarked when she arrived about then, accompanied by her sister, to make a first inspection.

“You’ve really done it awfully well,” she told the prefects, who came up to them in a body. “As for you, Blossom, you’re enough to give anyone perpetual nightmares! If ‘Caliban’ looked anything like that, I only wonder ‘Prospero’ kept him alive! You’re the world’s worst monstrosity, girl!”

Blossom, who had covered her face, arms and legs with green grease-paint, and added to her own sunny locks with crepe hair sticking out in every direction, grinned, and both Joey and Madge shrieked, for she had covered most of her front teeth with black court plaster and the resultant toothless aspect was very real.

“I’m cooked to death already!” sighed ‘Falstaff,’ patting the enormous stomach he had produced by dint of stuffing two pillows and a cushion down him. “What I’ll be like by the time this is over, I can’t think!”

“It’s your own fault!” her peers told her in a ruthless chorus. “You would bag ‘Falstaff’!”

“Come off it, Lesley!” Mary-Lou added. “You’re no worse off than I am with all these ghastly black drapes swirling round me, never to speak of my headgear! Can anyone tell me just why enchanters are always supposed to have worn glorified dunce’s caps?”

“How’ve you got it fixed?” Lady Russell asked, looking at it critically.

“Mademoiselle de Lachennais sewed some prongs inside, and they’re caught in my hair. Just the same, it feels a most unsafe erection! Oh, here come the Midsummer Night’s Dream people! I say! Young Verity looks rather a picture, doesn’t she?”

Verity Carey did look enchantingly pretty in her knee-length robes made of strips of art muslin in pastel shades and a wreath of marguerites round her long fair curls. There was always something elfin about her, and in her present attire she looked almost like a being from another world. Some of the Junior Middles were her elves, and Josette Russell and Jessica Wayne were ‘Oberon’ and ‘Puck’.

Josette grinned at her mother. “Hello, Mummy! Mind you come to our stall,” she said. “We’ve got the bric-à-brac, and we’ve some gaudy things, I can tell you!”

“Your legs!” Lady Russell said, regarding her daughter’s long bare legs distressfully. “When are you going to stop growing?”

“I’m not as long as Mary-Lou is,” Josette said defensively.

“You’re quite long enough! You can look over the top of my head as it is.”

“Taller than mother!” Sybil chuckled. “Well, I’m not a daddy-long-legs, Mummy, and I don’t, somehow, think Ailie will be. Content yourself with that reflection!”

Lady Russell laughed, and then went off to admire Prospero’s Cave, where the books, stationery, pictures and oddments of that kind were gracefully disposed, with Ferdinand and Miranda—two St. Mildred girls—at the head of things for the moment, and a motley string of male characters from the play standing about and chattering.

“We’ve got two hundred books to dispose of,” Mary-Lou told the visitors complacently. “We’re charging two francs each for the novels, and the rest are various prices. Like to bag one, either of you? I’ll mark it sold if you do.”

Joey looked along the piles, and suddenly grinned. “Who on earth weighed in with Queechy? I’ll have that, Mary-Lou. I owe Mollie Bettany a copy. I spoilt hers when I was in India by tearing out all the illustrations.”

“You did what?” her sister gasped, staring at her open-mouthed.

“You heard, dearie! I had a jolly good reason for it. But never mind that! I’ve never given her another, though I said I would. This’ll fill the bill. Mark it sold, Mary-Lou, and here’s the cash. No; I don’t want any change. Keep it to start you off.”

“Thanks a lot,” Mary-Lou replied, depositing the ten-franc note in the cashbox on top of a “rock.” “Shove a ‘sold’ slip on it, Jean, will you?”

Jean Ackroyd laughed as she did so. “The things you get away with! Mrs. Maynard, aren’t we to hear the story?”

Joey looked abnormally innocent. “I shouldn’t think of it! Chosen a book, Madge? O.K. Come on, then, and let’s take a dekko at the rest of the show.”

She and her sister went off to exclaim at the way in which the people from the Letter scene in Twelfth Night had disposed their fancy-work all over the hedge between her own garden and the school, and to admire the really beautiful work the girls had produced. One afternoon tea-cloth, worked by Sybil Russell herself, was to be raffled, as Mdlle, an expert on the subject, had declared that it was unlikely they could otherwise get its proper value. Madge Russell flushed with pleasure when she saw the exquisitely embroidered sprays of wild flowers which made a border all round, while the corners carried fern fronds reaching nearly to the centre.

“I must have a few tickets for that,” Joey declared, feeling in her bag. “How much are they, Vi? A franc each? Give me half a dozen.”

Both she and Lady Russell then departed, promising to return when the selling was in full swing, and were on their way to look at “A Glade in the Forest of Arden” when they were brought up short at the Competitions stall which had been placed in ‘Portia’s’ garden at Belmont and where Tom Gay’s model house had been set up.

“This,” said Joey emphatically, when she had surveyed it, “is no toy! It ought to be in a museum! It’s a work of art! Just look at it! And look at the rooms!”

“I’m looking!” Madge responded. “Tom’s a real genius at this sort of thing!”

It really was worth looking at. Tom had elected to produce an Elizabethan Manor House in black-and-white. She had done her work thoroughly, even to inserting the beams of the frame separately, and the Tudor chimneys were a joy. The interior had been fully fitted up, for Tom had called on various friends, like-minded with herself when it came to handcrafts, and the beautifully-made stools and tables, day-beds and chairs with leather backs and seats, were very complete. The dining-hall had the long table laid out for a banquet, with tiny pewter plates and dishes which Tom had coaxed out of an aunt who had treasured her childhood’s toys all her long life. The bedrooms had four-poster beds with curtains that drew all round, and one also contained a cradle for the doll-baby which was properly swaddled like all Elizabethan babies. Others wore farthingales and tiny stomachers, and the three gentlemen were in puffed breeches and jerkins and capes, with wee swords at their belts. And all the gentry wore ruffs starched to a cardboardlike stiffness.

But the kitchen was what took the fancy of everyone who stopped to look at the house. Tom had made a proper delft-rack, and the fireplace had a hook and chain from which hung a gipsy-pot that had once been a matchstand. She had ransacked the junk shops everywhere she went, and the result was a minute copper warming-pan, copper pans and kettles, and a complete set of porcelain dinner dishes so delicate that they were almost transparent.

“Oh, Tom, it’s a honey!” Vi Lucy had exclaimed when she first saw it. And, slang or not, that really did seem the only way to express it.

“How on earth did you manage about the swords for the men?” Peggy Bettany demanded.

Tom grinned. “Pinched ’em from a cousin who had ’em as brooches. I had a time of it, easing off the pins and hooks without damaging the swords; but I did it in the end!”

“Well, I only hope your cousin was pleased!” Nancy Chester exclaimed.

“Quite pleased, thank you! I gave her an ancient cameo brooch of my own Gran left me. It was quite a decent one, I believe, and those things of hers were only gimcrackcry. Anyhow, I didn’t want the thing.”

Her hearers could well believe it. Tom had always been more than half a boy, and had no use for trinkets of any kind whatsoever.

“What’s the competition?” Bride Bettany demanded with interest.

“We—ell,” Tom drawled, “I was so nearly stuck over it that I’d almost made up my mind I’d have to fall back on that awful idea of yours, Nancy^[11]—remember?—and make everyone guess at the cubic contents of each room and of the entire house”—she paused for the expected groans which came in full force—“however, I managed to give that the go-by. You’ll know what it is when you enter and not before.”

And from that stand she resolutely refused to budge.

Joey laughed, and dragged her sister off to see what other competitions there were, and the bunch of Old Girls remembered their duties and went to escort even Older Girls who had never been at the Görnetz Platz, round the place.

“How do we know when to assemble for the Opening?” Madge asked her sister as they paused before the toys, which were all arranged on an open booth in “A street in Padua,” and were watched over by ‘Katharina,’ ‘Petruchio,’ ‘Bianca’ and the rest.

“Peggy Burnett is going to toot on her games’ whistle,” Joey explained. “I must bag one of those scrapbooks for young Daisy’s little Tony. She sent me five pounds, and told me to buy what I liked for her. I’m sure Tony would love a scrapbook in a year’s time.”

“I’m sure he would!” the gentleman’s great-aunt agreed. “If Daisy has any sense, though, she won’t give it to him for at least two years. I remember what Kevin and Kester were like at that age! Paper was simply something to tear up and——”

The loud tooting of a whistle made her jump and exclaim.

“Mercy! How the time’s flown!” Joey cried. “Come on, Lady Russell! You’ve got to be there to welcome the Lady Opener, even if you do remember her as a wicked Middle in the Dark Ages! And by that same token, so must I!”

Without further ado, the pair turned and fled from the tennis courts, where they had been standing, followed by the various characters from The Taming of the Shrew, and arrived at the big entrance of the school, whither everyone was streaming, in time to find Miss Wilson looking her grimmest and treating Joey’s third son, Michael, to a sharp scolding.

“You are a very naughty boy!” they heard her say as they arrived. “I’ve a good mind to ask your mother to take you home and put you to bed for the rest of the day! Who told you to blow that whistle?”

“Mike again!” Joey pushed her way through the throng and reached the pair. “Was it you who blew that whistle, Mike?”

Michael nodded. He looked faintly scared.

“Very well! Give me that money I gave you before we came out.”

Mike’s face fell. “Please, Mamma, oh, please——” he began imploringly.

“I told you to give it to me,” Joey returned, holding out her hand.

He fumbled in his pockets and produced a handful of centimes and a couple of franc notes. Joey took them and dropped them into her bag. “And now you can tell us why you blew the whistle.”

Michael winked back the tears, and swallowed valiantly. “I—I saw it—and I thought—it would be f-fun to b-blow it.” He stopped there on the very verge of tears.

“Very well,” Joey said. “You’ve had your fun, and now you can pay for it. Five francs it’ll cost you, but I suppose you thought it worth it.”

A new voice interrupted. “Oh, Joey—no! Let him off, do, and we’ll have the Opening now. Most people should be here by this time, and I certainly am! Give the kid his money back, and I’ll speak my piece and we can get on with the selling.”

Joey whirled round—they had moved into the hall out of sight—and flung her arms round the slight, curly-headed person who had suddenly appeared.

“Margia!” she cried. “I thought you couldn’t be here before half-past eleven.”

“So did I, but friends met me at the airfield and ran me along, so I’m early. Let the kid have his cash, Joey—do!”

Joey shook her head. “You don’t know Mike!”

“But he’s sorry, and a whistle is an awful temptation to a boy. Come on, Joey, and let’s get this over!”

Joey opened her bag again, and Mike, who had been digging his fists into his eyes, calmed down a little. “I’ll give you the loose change back,” she said. “If you manage to be a good boy for the rest of the day, you shall have the rest later, but that’s as far as I’ll go. Here you are!” She dropped the centimes into his hands, and then swung round. “And now, after that, I suppose we’d better do as Margia proposes, and have the Opening early. Mike, you stay beside me! Is everyone ready?”

The incident was over, and Mike, warned by what had happened, contrived to keep out of mischief for the rest of the day, and duly received his two francs just before the afternoon selling began again.

“Aren’t you a strict parent!” Margia grinned at Joey, as they met during the course of the morning.

“You have to be with a crowd like mine!” Joey retorted. “As for Mike, I only wonder I’m not grey, thanks to his pranks. That boy has us on our toes the whole time. We’re putting him into the Navy—provided he can get into Dartmouth. The discipline is exactly what he needs, and he’ll love the life. He’s a born sailor! The only toys he ever condescends to play with are boats; and the only books he looks at have to do with the sea. The fact of the matter is,” she went on, “he’s rather a lonely bird. The three girls were together all their early days, of course. Stephen and Charles are about fifteen months apart, and were always pals. But Mike is three years younger than Charles and three years older than the twins, so he falls between two stools. Therefore he gets into mischief.”

“But I thought it was Margot who was your problem child?”

“Oh, my dear, that’s becoming very much a thing of the past. Margot has been steadily pulling up these last two years. You shall come with me presently and see the three babies—though Felix and Felicity are practically out of babyhood now. Matron has them tucked away safely somewhere. In the meantime, are you having a go at Tom’s Elizabethan Manor House?”

“Am I not! Don’t forget that I have two nieces. Amy’s Margaret would love it, and little Celia will soon be old enough to play with it, too. Certainly I’m having a go at it. Only I’ve so many people to see. I’ve just had a session with Elsie Carr and Evvy Lannis. Why hasn’t Evvy married, Joey? She was engaged.”

“He was shot down over the Western Desert, and she doesn’t seem to have found anyone else. You knew that Corney was married and had a family, didn’t you?”

“Yes; I met them during my last concert tour in America. She had only the one then, but we’ve kept in touch since, so I know her news. Well, here we are! What have we got to do for that marvellous effort of—what did you say? Tom? How on earth does any girl come to be called that?”

“I’ll introduce you, and she can tell you herself,” Joey returned as ‘Lorenzo’ came up to them. “O.K., Freda. We’ve come to do our best. How are you getting on?”

“Oh, jolly good!” Freda Lund said. “Pay your cash, and here are your envelopes. Five francs a go, please. Oh, and you must promise to tell no one what the comp is when you’ve finished.”

“Oh, it’s one of those, is it?” Joey asked, as she handed over the money and took her envelope. “No; don’t you bother about the change. I’ve brought a certain sum with me to spend, and I’m going home penniless. All right; we won’t breath even a hint. Got yours, Margia? Then come on, and let’s see what Tom’s done for us this time!”

‘Jessica’ established them at the long table, where about a score more people were sitting waiting until it was filled up, and the arrival a few minutes later of Lady Russell and Mary-Lou set them free to find out what it was they had to do. Joey ripped her envelope open, pulled out the slip therein, and stared at it with dropping jaw! She was not the only one. The question that faced them all was, “Name the great historical event that took place in the year the house is supposed to have been built.”

Tom was there, now got up as the ‘Duke of Venice,’ and she grinned as she heard the exclamations of horror from all sides.

“It’s not fair!” Mary-Lou proclaimed, in her usual bell-like notes. “How on earth are we to guess which year in Lizzy’s reign it was built?”

“You don’t—if you use your eyes,” Tom told her austerely. “It’s written up on the house. Of course, if you didn’t see it, that’s your loss! You’ll just have to guess at the event. But it really is up and quite plainly to be seen.”

“I never saw it,” Sybil Russell said suspiciously.

“O.K. You didn’t. You’ll just have to make a shot at it, then.”

Sybil groaned loudly, and then wrote down “The defeat of the Spanish Armada.” Her mother, more cautious, put down “The execution of Mary, Queen of Scots”; and Mary-Lou, after a quick glance at Tom, who was looking sweetly innocent, scribbled down, “The defeat of the Saracens at Lepanto,” which had the merit of being original. Joey considered for some moments before she wrote, “The production of Shakespeare’s first play.”

The moment she had handed in her effort, she got to her feet, remarking, “And now I’m going to take another dekko at that house and see if I can find the date!”

“Oh, it’s there, all right,” Tom called after her as she crossed the lawn to where the house stood in all its glory in the middle of a model Elizabethan garden.

“Oh, I believe you!” Joey called back. “I just want to see for myself.”

All the same, it took her and the rest crowding round her some minutes before they discovered the date neatly traced in the clay which formed the chimney-breast of the fireplace in the banqueting hall in Elizabethan figures:

Joey thought hard for a minute. Then she suddenly grinned. “Just what you might expect of Tom! Oh, well, I’ve had it this time!”

“So have I,” her sister said, laughing. “Not that it matters. Ailie’s a little tomboy who has never played with a doll in her life, and Sybs and Josette are too old for such things now. Besides, as you said yourself, Joey, the thing’s really a museum piece. Now what comes next, if you’ve satisfied your curiosity?”

“All the other competitions, of course. I’m having a go at each one. I adore competitions!” said Joey, leading the way to another table, where she settled down to seeing how many boot-buttons she could fish up with a bent pin tied to a piece of cotton, and rose triumphant with thirteen to her credit in the time allotted.

She had just begun to tackle the book titles when she heard a familiar voice saying, “Good afternoon, Mrs. Maynard!” and looked up to meet the glance of Miss Bubb.

So far she had contrived to avoid the lady completely, though it had been by a narrow shave more than once. Now, however, she was fairly caught, and all she could do, as Miss Bubb sat down beside her and began to look over the lines of doggerel which formed the competition, was to grasp at her manners and reply, “Good afternoon, Miss Bubb.”

“I have been persuaded by Mary-Lou Trelawney to come here and do my best with this,” Miss Bubb said as she considered a couplet which ran:

“Now I wonder what title that can be?” she remarked.

Joey, being a Jane Austen fan, had got it at once. She laughed as she studied the next one, and said, “Oh, that’s quite easy! This next is awful, though.”

Miss Bubb looked at it.

“Dear me! I must try to think. This is not an easy competition.”

“You bet it isn’t!” Joey grinned, as she left it and passed to the next, over which she grimaced furiously before suddenly exclaiming, “Got him!” and scribbling hard for a few moments.

They were allowed ten minutes, and she had done all she could when eight were up. She turned her glance on her neighbour, who was plodding methodically through the sheet of absurdities, and what she saw made her first raise her eyebrows and then purse her lips to a soundless whistle.

“Mary-Lou said she looked awful, but unless I make my guess wrong, the woman’s heading for a nasty illness! She’s almost green and ‘haggard’ doesn’t begin to describe her. I wonder what’s wrong?”

‘Antonio’—Nan Herbert—called, “Time!” at this point. Joey handed in her paper, and got up. Miss Bubb passed hers along, and also stood. The next moment she gave a gasp, swayed dangerously, and would have fallen if Joey had not been there to catch her and lower her gently to the turf.

“Stand back, idiots!” she said imperatively, as the rest of the competitors came crowding round. “Fetch me some water, Nan, and look sharp about it! Here, some of you, go and get one of the first-aid stretchers. We must get her out of this hot sun pronto!”

But though they bore her to the house, and handed her over to Matron and Jack Maynard, who had just arrived, having been too busy all the morning to put in an appearance till then, Miss Bubb did not come to. Jack sent his wife out to go on with her duties, and he and Matron worked over Miss Bubb for a long time before at last her eyes opened and she tried to ask what had happened.

When at last they had got her quietly away in an ambulance to the Sanatorium at the other end of the Platz, however, he went to see the two Heads, looking very troubled.

“What is it, Jack?” Miss Annersley asked him anxiously.

“In one word—starvation!” he said tersely. “Yes; I know she has a good salary here; but she has been trying to save as much as possible so that she can remain in Switzerland for another six or seven months. Well, she’s done that all right. In fact, if you ask me, I doubt if she’ll ever leave the place. The silly woman to starve herself in her state!”

“What do you mean?” Miss Wilson asked sharply.

“She’s all in—very far through. I don’t know how she’s kept on as long as she has. Her heart’s in a pretty bad state, and one lung is touched at least, if not worse. We’ll do our best for her, but . . .”

He let it go at that, and the two Heads were wise enough to say nothing then, though they went into conference with him, Joey and Madge Russell late that night to decide what could be done to help Miss Bubb. But in the meantime, the Sale had to go on, and they could do nothing just then.

The people in charge kept their heads, and, apart from Joey Maynard, even those who had seen the collapse of Miss Bubb were left under the impression that she had only succumbed to the terrific heat. The sun had set out to show what he could really do when he tried, and, at that stage of the proceedings, the thermometer stood at 97° in the shade! So the Sale went on, with those who heard of it saying that the only wonder was that more folk hadn’t gone off.

By this time the stalls were practically denuded, and the visitors were turning their attention to the entertainments. With an eye to the different tastes of people, the girls had tried to cater for everyone. There was a piano recital, given by Nina Rutherford, the school’s musical genius, who was expected to add many laurels to its crown in another year or so, not only by her playing, but by her compositions. A couple of one-act comedies were given in the gymnasium, and followed half an hour later by a gymnastics display. The little girls were responsible for a charming little cantata in which the bees, the birds, the flowers and the butterflies elected the Queen of the garden for the year. Mary-Lou and Co. provided a series of tableaux drawn from fairy-tales, which ended up with Fatima in the arms of one of her brothers while the other stood waving a triumphant sword over the fallen Bluebeard, and behind this elect group were the heads of the slaughtered wives. The girls had managed this by means of the biggest clothes-horse in the laundry. They had covered it with sheets, between which the seven girls representing the victims, had their head pushed out and red ink made gory streaks beneath their chins. Mary-Lou had chosen people with long hair, and dragged their locks up to the top rail of the clothes-horse, where they were secured with tape and drawing-pins, while the faces had been powdered a ghastly white.

Matron’s reaction to this was to exclaim loudly, “Their good sheets! How could they!” But most other people enjoyed it hugely—all but the victims, who complained that their hair had been pulled so tight that their heads were sore!

In a corner of Joey’s garden Jack Maynard had arranged for clock-golf, to which most of the menfolk present stampeded as soon as they could get away from their womenkind. There were not a great number of them, fortunately, but they contrived to enjoy themselves over the game, and yet feel that they were doing their duty by the school.

The Winter’s Tale people were kept busy the whole time with refreshments, and Doris Hill was sold out of ices long before the Sale ended, which was at sixteen o’clock.

At half-past fifteen, word went round that the “draws” would now be taken on the tennis courts outside of Prospero’s Cave, so everyone streamed along there, clutching bunches of tickets and looking eagerly expectant. There were eight “draws” besides Sybil’s afternoon tea-cloth, which fell to Anita Rincini, a very Old Girl and a great friend of Hilary Graves, once Hilary Burn, and, very surprisingly, so far as most of the girls were concerned, not there, though she had insisted that Anita, who was staying with her and her husband, Dr. Graves, should do duty for both of them.

Anita, a pretty Tirolean in the early thirties, came forward to receive her prize, remarked joyfully, “But this is most fortunate! I can give it to Hilary to mark the occasion!”

“What occasion?” demanded Mary-Lou, who was holding the hatbox in which the counterfoils had been well mixed, and was near enough to hear.

“But have you not heard?” Anita exclaimed. “Hilary has a second daughter, born this morning.”

“What?” Mary-Lou nearly dropped the box. “But why didn’t someone tell us?”

“Because Hilary forbade it,” Miss Wilson said, as she turned to Vi Lucy, who had brought up the box for the second “draw.” “She said the Sale would be excitement enough. How could you give her away, Anita?”

Anita looked conscience-stricken. “I forgot that. But the Sale is over now, so it cannot matter. Hilary is very well, and the little Lois Anita is very well, too. And Marjorie is delighted with her new sister, so all goes well.”

“Lois—is that what they’re calling her?” Miss Wilson asked, laughing. “Well, it’s a very pretty name. And now we must get on or we shan’t finish on time. Hold it up, Vi!”

Vi held up the box, and Miss Wilson reached up her hand, fished, and drew out a slip. “Miss Derwent!” she read; and a blushing Miss Derwent came up to accept the charming twin-set in lime green which Joey had knitted.

A huge box of chocolates went to Madge Russell herself; a complete set of Joey’s school-stories fell to Nina Rutherford’s share, and Verity Carey walked off with a box of embroidered handkerchiefs and a bottle of perfume. Tom Gay, to the delight of everyone who knew her, won an enormous flask of eau-de-verveine, and Simone de Bersac had guessed the correct weight of a huge iced cake concocted by the Senior cookery class. Jessica Wayne was thrilled when her name was called out for the big white wool shawl knitted in an intricate lace pattern by the mother of two of the present pupils at the school. Frau Bertoni had been a patient at the Sanatorium for the last two years, and was cured now and hoping to return to her home in Lucerne when the summer ended.

“I did hope I’d have a chance of it,” Jessica told Mary-Lou, who had come to stand beside her. “It was the one thing I really wanted. Rosamund will love it!”

Mary-Lou looked at her meditatively, but said nothing. She had not forgotten what Jessica had told her at the beginning of the term, and she knew that Rosamund was slowly growing worse, for Jessica had read her passages from the home letters. In any case, the number of the next “draw” was announced, and she hurriedly sorted out her tickets.

“I’ve got that!” Clem Barras announced before she had done. “Oh, luck! Auntie Doris will simply love it!”

“It” was a dainty coffee-service, and Mary-Lou agreed with her chum that her mother certainly would like it!

Nancy Chester won an enormous golliwog, the creation of two people in Va, who had produced the creature unexpectedly the previous evening, with the announcement that his name was “Peter Empedocles”—the last name to be pronounced “Empydockles”, whereat Emerence Hope, who had been responsible for the weird pronunciation years before when she was a Junior Middle, had gone darkly red and refused to have anything to do with him. To make sure that there was no mistake, Josette Russell had printed the name on a square of linen, and Catriona Watson had stitched it firmly to the back of his tail-coat!

Nancy shouted with laughter when she took the thing, and informed everyone who would listen that she would make him the mascot for her year among the nurses at her hospital.

The last “draw” was a charming water-colour in a gilt frame. It had been painted by one Elma Conroy, who had been at St. Mildred’s when it first opened at Das Haus unter den Kiefern on a little shelf lower down than the Görnetz Platz. Elma was married now, and the mother of delightful twin girls and a week-old son, so that she had been unable to turn up for the celebrations. She was a gifted amateur artist, and when the girls heard Miss Annersley’s name called out, they cheered loudly.

“It’s time we had one of Elma’s paintings in the school!” Bride Bettany told her crowd severely. “Now the Abbess has won it, it’ll at least be there as long as she is. But you ought to write, Peggy, and tell her that the school should have one of her pictures, and she can get going on it as soon as she’s all right again.”

“O.K.,” Peggy Bettany said serenely. “I will. I promised to tell her all about everything, anyhow, so I can put it in my letter.”

The prizes from the Competition stall came next, and it was sixteen o’clock before the last was presented. There remained only Tom’s house, and there was an almost breathless silence when Lady Russell, who had been presenting the various things, opened the first of two rather grubby envelopes Tom handed to her.

She scanned the slip she drew out, and made a grimace. “Well, I’m not in it!” She opened the second one. “Let’s see who the lucky person is.”

“What’s the event—what’s the event?” came in an agitated chorus.

“Well, I suppose you’ve all seen the date by this time?” she said with a bubble of laughter. “It’s fifteen seventy-seven, and the event is the setting off of Drake to sail round the world—the first man to do it, I may remind you. And the winner,” she paused and examined her second slip before raising her head with a broad smile, to announce, “It’s Miss Denny! Congratulations, Miss Denny!”

Miss Denny, who was, as saucy Joey was fond of remarking, one of the foundation stones of the school, started violently, and cried loudly, “Me? Oh, no! Impossible! I only put that down because the one other thing I could remember was the defeat of the Spanish Armada, and I know Tom well enough to be sure she wouldn’t hit on anything as obvious as that!”

“I can’t help that!” Lady Russell retorted. “That’s what it is, and you’ve won the house. What are you going to do with it?”

“Well!” For a moment, Miss Denny seemed to be bereft of breath. But she quickly recovered. “Do with it? Why, what Joey said, of course!”

“What I said? I said nothing whatsoever!” Joey exclaimed loudly.

“Oh yes, you did! You said it was a museum piece. We haven’t a museum in this place, and it’s high time we had. I’ll present the house to form the nucleus of one. That’s what I’ll do with it!”

“O.K.! It’s a good idea,” Joey replied. “I’ll hunt up a few oddments to add to it myself. And what’s more,” she added, grinning at the idea, “now we’re all here, I propose that the museum be called the Sarah Denny Museum! Who’ll second it?”

“Me—I mean I!” Mary-Lou shouted. “I beg to second that!”

“Good! All in favour, hands up!”

A forest of hands waved wildly in the air amid cheers which drowned Miss Denny’s squawks of protest, and the thing was settled. The Sarah Denny Museum had come into being.

That ended the Sale, and while such of the visitors as wanted to get down to the valley hurried off to catch the next train down, and those who were staying over the week-end strolled off to their different abiding-places, the school rushed to change into their summer cottons, and then to meet in the Speisesaal where a magnificent tea awaited—really a tea, with “English” tea for once, and piles of cakes, fancy breads, jams and honey. The Staff retired to their own abode for a similar meal, leaving the prefects in charge, and everyone relaxed with sighs of relief.

When they had finished, they all went to Hall, where long trestle tables had been set up and various people, appointed to the task by Miss Dene, set to work to count up the proceeds of the Sale while the rest looked on anxiously. Would they have a really grand total this year?

Rosalie Dene had appointed two people to act as accountants for each stall or entertainment. She had also provided the cashiers at each with large clips for notes and canvas bags for coins. The girls emptied the collection of boxes out, and set to work, one taking notes, the other coins. When they had made their reckoning, they wrote it down, and then changed over for a double check. As they finished, the slips with the true amount on were passed to the top of the table, where the pretty secretary sat waiting to enter the amounts. In two or three cases, it was necessary to go over the tally again, but at last Blossom and Co. were able to hand over their slip, and there was silence while Miss Dene wrote it down and rapidly totalled it.

Three times she went over it, and Miss Wilmot and Miss Ferrars checked on her before, at long last, the big sheet was handed to Madge Russell, who had come back from Freudesheim for the purpose, accompanied by an excited Joey, who peeped over her sister’s shoulder—a thing she was well able to do—and then voiced her feelings by a prolonged whistle and a “Jimmy Christmas! What do you know about that?”

“How much is it?” the girls shouted eagerly. “Tell us how much it is?”

“Well, subject to a check by the bank, it’s exactly twice what you took last year,” Lady Russell said, her checks flushed and her eyes shining. “This is wonderful, girls, and I’m proud of you all! In fact,” she added, “I’m so proud that I’m going to ask Miss Annersley and Miss Wilson to add an extra day on to the summer holidays as a reward for all the hard work you must have put in to make this possible.”

She paused, and before the girls could burst out in applause, two small voices made themselves heard. “Please, what’s it come to in English money?”

Madge turned to laugh at her own daughter Ailie and Ailie’s special chum, Janice Chester. “You’ll have to ask Miss Dene, or one of the maths mistresses that. My arithmetic won’t work as quickly as that.”

Kathie Ferrars had already been doing the sum in her head, and she answered at once. “Actually, its three hundred and six pounds, one shilling, and tenpence, or as near as makes no matter.”

Then the storm broke, and most of the grown-ups clapped their hands to their ears as the girls cheered again and again.

“It’s as well,” Miss Wilson bawled into her partner’s ear, “that we don’t have this sort of thing every term, or I should think the authorities would turf us out for noise! Never to speak of the risk of most of us being permanently deafened!”

“What a din!” Lady Russell added her mite. “We’d better shut them up now. They’ve had their heads long enough.”

Mdlle de Lachennais darted from the room, and came back with the big school bell, which she handed to Miss Annersley, who made vigorous use of it and the cheering began to die down. When at last everyone was standing silent, she nodded.

“Yes,” she said with mock severity. “I think you had better calm down! I only wonder we haven’t had the entire Platz rushing here to ask if murder is being done! Now please listen carefully, all of you. It is now half-past eighteen. Supper tonight will be at twenty o’clock, and will be only milk or lemonade and biscuits. Prayers will come immediately after, and then everyone under fifteen will go up to bed at once. The rest will go at half-past nineteen. The rising-bell will not sound until half-past seven tomorrow. Of course,” she added, “anyone who wishes to attend the eight o’clock service in either of the chapels may get up in time for that. Don’t forget to put your names down on the list before you go to bed. Now, you are all to go out to the garden and amuse yourselves very quietly until the gong sounds for Abendessen. No running about, Juniors! You’re all very tired, whether you know it or not, and we don’t want anyone in tears to end the day.” She turned to Miss Lawrence, who had already seated herself at the piano, and nodded. Miss Lawrence went into one of their favourite marches, and the school and such Old Girls as had stayed for this, marched out to the garden, while the Staff helped Rosalie Dene to carry the money to the office and lock it up in the safe till Monday, when it would go down to the bank. The biggest event of the term was over!

Sunday was a quiet day. Most people were so tired after all the hard work and excitement of the Saturday, that they were thankful to take life as easily as possible. A goodly number attended the early morning services, and more filled the two little chapels at the special ten o’clock services which, were always held for the school so that there was plenty of room for the other Platz dwellers at the regular ones. All the Old Girls staying up attended one or other, and the little buildings were crammed to the doors.

Church-going over, the school scattered, some to seek deck-chairs and books and spread out under the trees; some to stroll quietly about the Platz itself. Joey had kept her triplets at home for the day, for Margot had been a frail baby and a delicate child, and though she had outgrown her fragility to a very great extent, her mother, remembering the days and weeks of deep anxiety she and Jack Maynard had endured on the child’s account, was always inclined to be extra careful of her. Con was a highly-strung youngster, and had been known to walk in her sleep on occasion. Len, sturdy and much more self-controlled than either of the other two, was doing a good deal of growing at this stage, and, her mother thought, would be just as well for the quiet day at home.

As it turned out, they had other work to do, for, during the afternoon, most of Joey’s old friends foregathered at Freudesheim, and hospitable Mrs. Maynard provided coffee and cakes for all who turned up. Her three eldest daughters were kept busy running round with cups and cakes, and Anna, her faithful factotum, told herself thankfully that it was as well she had turned to on the Friday and devoted the whole of her spare time to baking, for by eighteen o’clock every cake-box in the place was empty and the bread-bin contained the heel of a loaf, and nothing more.

“What are you proposing to do, Anna?” Joey demanded when, the last of her visitors departed, she burst into the kitchen to find Anna setting out baking-board, rolling-pin and mixing-bowl.

“I make rolls for Frühstück tomorrow,” Anna said placidly as she measured out her flour. “It is needful, liebe Frau, for all our bread is eaten.”

“I don’t like you working on a Sunday,” Joey said in her fluent German. “You’ve had a hectic week-end of it, and ought to be resting or taking a stroll; not turning to and baking in this hot kitchen at this hour of the day.”

“Aber, meine Frau, what do we do for Frühstück if I do not?” Anna demanded, with some point.

“Oh, lawks!” Joey said dismally in her own language. “If it’s as bad as all that, I suppose you’ll have to do it. Very well; get on with your rolls. But remember this! Next week-end, you go home from Friday till Tuesday and have a good rest. Oh, yes; I mean it! The Herr Doktor will get your ticket the next time he goes down to Interlaken, so you’d better see and get your packing done by Thursday because you’ll have to set off bright and early on Friday, let me remind you.”

She left the kitchen to go and see that her sister had put Baby Cecil to bed properly, and to hear Prayers and Confessions from the twins and Mike, and Anna was left to concoct her rolls with a beaming face. Home for her was at Briesau on the Tiernsee, and it was a day’s journey there, so she did not manage it very often. This long week-end would give her Saturday, Sunday and Monday with her parents and any of the numerous brothers and sisters who happened to be at home and was an unexpected treat.

Joey marched her triplets off to bed at eight o’clock, with strict injunctions to get there as quickly as possible, and not to talk once they were there. As she informed her sister when she came downstairs again, having run up to see that her orders had been obeyed, all three were sound asleep already.

“Thank goodness,” she remarked as she sat down beside Madge Russell and her own three special chums, Frieda von Ahlen, Simone de Bersac and Marie von und zu Wertheim, “that my family do know that when I give them an order like that, I mean it! Oh, they’re all sound asleep, and even Con looks as if she meant to stay where she is until the morning. I hope she does. It’s a year or two now since she did any sleep-walking, but you never know when a thing like that may bob up again, and she’s been wildly excited all day.”

There was a wild baying, and then a big St. Bernard came bounding over the low garden gate and made straight for his mistress. Joey was not quite quick enough and before she could move, he had launched every ounce of his weight on top of her—and the chair, which gave up the ghost and collapsed with the sound of snapping wood.

“Bruno!” Joey shrieked as she tried to wriggle out from under Bruno, who was trying to wash her face with a loving tongue. “Get him off me, someone! I can’t budge! Bruno! Sit—sit, I say!”

As well as they could for laughing, the four contrived to haul the too demonstrative Bruno off her, and she was able to get to her feet, and began to tidy herself while a tall, dark man, who had been enjoying the spectacle from the gate, opened it and strolled across the lawn.

“Well, Joey, Bruno certainly seems to have got back at you for sending him away for the week-end!” He grinned at her unsympathetically. “Hilary will enjoy hearing about this!”

Joey shoved a last hairpin home, and turned to glare at him. “Phil Graves, I hate you! Why on earth couldn’t you bring Bruno home on lead? You know what he’s like!”

“I do—and Bruno knows the way home, too.” He held up a snapped lead. “That’s Bruno’s lead, that was!”

Joey cast a glance at it. “Merciful goodness! Are you telling me you tried to bring him on a leather lead? Bruno? You must have been out of your mind! What’s happened to his chain? Jack brought it to you with him on Friday. And you know as well as I do that he always has to be got out of the way for occasions like the Sale. He bounces all over the place, and if we shut him up here, he makes the hours hideous by howling his head off.”

“Unfortunately—most unfortunately, young Marjorie has buried the chain.”

“What? Buried it? But why on earth? Find yourself a chair and explain, and then you can tell us how Hilary and the new baby are.”

Dr. Graves chuckled as he sat down. “I’m most awfully sorry, Joey, and you’ll get a new chain tomorrow. The thing is that Marjorie saw Heinrich digging in the garden, and when he was gone to fetch something or other, she took Bruno’s chain—to which she had taken a violent fancy—and tossed it into the hole. Heinrich never saw it, and he levelled the earth over it and went on digging further along. Now, short of excavating the entire bed, we can’t find the thing. Marjorie was spanked and sent to bed, but that won’t dig the chain up, I’m afraid. She really is getting a young demon! As for Hilary and Lois, they’re both splendid. Hilary wants all of you to go along and see her so that she can show off the baby to you. It isn’t everyone,” he added cheerfully, “that has a ten-pounder to exhibit!”

“That’s what I thought myself when Stephen arrived,” Joey said detachedly.

“What—was he a ten-pound baby?”

“Ten-and-a-quarter, to be strictly accurate. He was a shock after the girls, but there were three of them! I must admit,” she added cheerfully, “that none of the others has even attempted to reach him. Mike was eight-and-a-half, and Charles, poor lamb, was tiny. Cecil was only seven. So don’t you go getting swelled head, for I’ve beaten Hilary in every way, still.”

He laughed. “But then, Hilary was never the wholesale creature you are.”

“But then I’m unique!” retorted Joey, who believed in carrying the war into the enemy’s country whenever possible.

She got up. “We’d better see about supper. Jack’s at the San with Miss Bubb, so goodness knows when he’s likely to get home. Come on and help, you people.” And she led the way to the house, and refused to let any of them dwell on the subject any more.

Joey and Madge had something to rejoice about, as it happened, for Jack Maynard arrived home at midnight to say that Miss Bubb seemed to be definitely stronger. Her heart was steadying, and, though she must remain in San for months to come, he felt more hopeful of her than he had done.

Next day, they all had to be over at the school by ten o’clock for the photograph, so that left no one much time for other things.

It had been decided to take it in the garden, with a background of the distant mountains on the other side of the valley, and there was a good deal of scrimmaging for the next hour or so. Apart from the hundred and fifty odd people who made up the present school, there were all the Staff and at least six hundred odd more to get in.

The girls were all in clean frocks with immaculate hair. The Staff were solemnly robed and hooded for the occasion, and the Old Girls had put on their best. Quite a number who had left at the end of the previous summer had brought old school frocks with them, and now appeared in them, proclaiming that they meant to swell the ranks of the school proper in the photograph.

When at last they were all in position, the photographer set to work, and so determined was he to make a success of it that he made twelve exposures before he finally finished. Rosalie Dene had been watching, and before anyone could move, she was out of her place and standing at his side.

“One moment, everyone!” she called. “Stay where you are while we get the names down to go on the back of the photo.” She nodded at sundry members of the Staff, who came to join her, armed with pencils and enormous sheets of paper pinned down to drawing-boards. They divided up the great group between them, and, for some minutes, they were busy getting down the names in their proper order.

“How on earth are you going to manage to type all that lot on the backs of the photos?” Joey demanded halfway through.

Rosalie gave her a look of scorn. “I’m cutting stencils, of course. Do use your sense, Jo!” she said. Then she returned to her scribbling, and Joey chuckled loud and long.

But even when that was over, the girls were not released. Madge Russell came to take Rosalie’s place, and her eyes were shining with excitement. “Girls!” she said, her clear voice ringing out with triumph, “I’m proud of you all! The bank has sent up the figures for the Chapels’ Fund to date, and we’ve collected seven thousand six hundred and fifty-seven pounds, fourteen shillings and tenpence—more than two-thirds of the sum we aimed at. In addition, we have the following gifts promised.” And she read from the list she was holding, “Three stained glass windows for each chapel, the bell, two statues, the two altars and a lectern. If you can keep it up, we may hope by this time next year to have our own chapels for our own worship. I should like to add that Mr. Flower, father of Cornelia Flower whom a good many of you will remember, has promised that when we get our ten thousand pounds he will make it up to twelve thousand, so that we can have the pulpits and something towards the seating.”

The girls clapped long and loud as she went back to join the two Heads, who had risen as she ended, and then Mdlle de Lachennais was taking charge and dismissing everyone.

“Of course,” Joey remarked to her three great friends that afternoon when they were strolling along the Hoheweg in Interlaken for the last time before they said goodbye to Marie for the next two or three weeks, “we’re lucky. We’ve had three girls at the school whose fathers were millionaires. Corney Flower’s an heiress in her own right, and she sent us ten thousand dollars, and Evvy Lannis did the same. And Emerence Hope’s dad weighed in with a mighty cheque. Actually, we got the first twenty thousand pounds in one fell swoop, more or less. But everyone’s been amazingly generous, and the girls at the school have done really well with their own collections. Of course, we’ve only getting on for enough for the actual buildings. We shan’t lack for an adornment or two, but the rest will have to come by degrees.”

“And thanks to the Sale doing so well, the San won’t suffer,” Simone said thoughtfully. “Joey, do you remember that collection of awful jewellery I showed you when you stayed with us the first time you all came out here?”^[12]

“Do I not! I can’t imagine what André’s ancestors were thinking about to get things so utterly tasteless—unless it was the taste of the period, which is more than likely. You sold them, didn’t you—or most of them, anyhow?”

“We sold some. The ruby parure and that terrible set of opals and sapphires. The stones were really good, and the settings were twenty-two carat gold, and brought their own value, of course. They sold amazingly well, and André put the rest away until we had need of any really big sum. We have picked out a set of diamonds and topazes to sell, and the money is to buy a paten and chalice and vestments for the Catholic chapel. Anything that’s over we are giving to the other for their paten and chalice. It’s even worse than the opals and sapphires,” Simone added dreamily.

“It couldn’t be!” Joey said with conviction. “That was the most appalling thing I ever saw in my life in the way of jewellery!”

“But it is! You haven’t seen it. It came to light in its case in the bottom of a chest of drawers up in the attics—it and some other things. The topazes are like small saucers, all set round with diamond chips. I wouldn’t,” Simone wound up solemnly, “be seen dead in it!”

Then they all giggled madly at this reminiscence of their own schooldays.

“It must be utterly ghastly from your description,” Joey agreed when they were grave again.

“Oh, it is! The pendant will cut up into about four biggish stones, and the rest of it is on the same scale. The bracelets are two inches wide!”

“But they must be like fetters!” Marie von Wertheim exclaimed.

“André calls them ‘the jewelled handcuffs’,” Simone agreed. “A man is coming from Paris—that big place where they do so much making up of stones—to value them and, we hope, make us an offer for them. The topazes are a lovely colour, very deep amber with a flame in it.”

“Fire topazes; I know,” Joey nodded. “It’s awfully decent of you two, Simone.”

Simone flushed. “It is to be a thank-offering for all the things le bon Dieu has given us—our children and our wealth—for it is wealth to us—and the fact that all goes well with us now.”

“You deserve it,” Marie said, her lovely face also flushed with her earnestness. “You’ve had a hard time of it, Simone, and I’m glad that now it is your time to eat white bread, as the Italian proverb says.”

“And we, too, have much to be thankful for,” Frieda added. “I must talk this over with Bruno. We, too, must make a thank-offering. Our affairs go well now; we have a beautiful home, dear children, and, above all, Gretchen is really growing stronger. Joey, did I tell you the doctors think that in another year’s time she may be able to come to the Chalet School?”

“You didn’t, but I’m gladder than I can say. And after all, she’ll be only nine then. That’s quite young enough to start at boarding-school. Though I shall expect young Carlotta when she’s eight. She’s a bouncer, all right! I’m proud of my goddaughter’s sturdiness.”

Simone glanced at her watch and gave a faint shriek of horror. “If we do not go at once, Marie, you will miss your train! We’ve exactly a quarter of an hour before it goes! Come quickly, all of you!”

They had to fly, for they were still some distance from the station. However, they just made it, and Marie was bundled into it in due time, and the Quartette, as they had always been called in their schooldays, lost the first member of their four as the train bore her away for her home near Salzburg.

“Well,” Joey said as she and the other two made their way back to the Hoheweg to seek somewhere for Kaffee und Kuchen before returning to the Platz, “we’ve met again, and I don’t intend that we shall ever go so long again without meeting. We have the week-end at the Tiernsee in four weeks’ time, and after that we must try to arrange that never a year passes without our being together for a few days, at least.”

And the other two assented to this most heartily.

The great week-end being over, the Staff prepared themselves for the job of tackling people who felt flat after all the excitement and were ready to give trouble.

As Miss Wilmot remarked to the Staffroom at large, “Human nature being what it is, you can’t expect anything else. Stand by to repel boarders, my hearties!”

The prefects were likewise on their toes, and the result was that their juniors felt repression in the air, and decided that it would be wise to amuse themselves with legitimate amusements for the present, at any rate.

“They’re all ready for us to do something awful,” remarked that astute young sinner, Prudence Dawbarn. “Let’s give them a disappointment and behave like a covey of unfledged angels—for the next few days, anyhow.”

“It isn’t in you!” two or three voices retorted together.

“Just you wait!” was all Prudence vouchsafed to this.

For the whole of that week she contrived to keep out of any trouble, much to the amazement of her compeers as well as her elders and betters. Her example infected the gang, who might have caused trouble, and when, the week over, the only order and conduct marks had been awarded for everyday things like spilling ink, leaving possessions lying about, or—this was the Juniors—tobogganing down the hill-slope on the tails of their frocks, Staff and prefects alike heaved sighs of relief and relaxed their vigilance.

“After all,” Elinor reminded her fellow prefects, “we did all decide to try and make this a record term.”

Mary-Lou looked dubious. “Somehow, I don’t see Prudence Dawbarn going all out to make it a record of good behaviour on her part. It’s out of character.”

“Well, if you come down to brass tacks, she hasn’t,” Blossom reminded her, with a grin. “Have you forgotten what happened at the beginning of term? Of course, coming the awful wallop she did may have helped to improve her morals; but I’m like Mary-Lou. I ha’e ma doots! It’ll take more than that to reform young Prudence!”

“Oh, come, Blossom! That’s rather a case of giving a dog a bad name and hanging him!” Hilary protested.

Sybil chuckled. “Aunt Joey has always vowed that both those Dawbarns were born to be hanged. It isn’t often she makes a mistake about people.”

“Well, anyhow, give the young ass the benefit of the doubt at the moment, and you calm down about her!” Hilary retorted. Then she changed the topic. “Has anyone looked at that awful cube root Willy’s given us for prep? I’ve had two shots at it and I simply can’t get it out. It seems to end with a variety of recurring decimals which can’t possibly be. Anyone had any better luck?”

“I don’t really understand cube root,” Mary-Lou admitted. “I’m glad I know it’s so ghastly. I’ll give it half an hour, and if it hasn’t come out by that time, I’ll give it a miss.”

“So shall I,” Vi agreed. “Working hard at something you understand is one thing. Filling pages and pages of working and never getting any forrader strikes me as most misguided and a waste of brains and energy. Thank goodness I’m chucking most maths next year and specialising in art.”

“So’m I—chucking maths, I mean,” Mary-Lou said. “I’m specialising in languages and history, and it’s going to take me all my time to work at those.”

Thereafter, the conversation wandered off to future careers, and the doings of the Dawbarns were forgotten.

By the time Tuesday came, Prudence had decided that everyone was more or less lulled to a nice state of guilelessness, and cast about in her mind for something that would enliven things a little. She went into prep that night ripe for any wickedness she could manage, and sat down and piled her books on top of her desk as a beginning. She did not get away with that, however, for Jo Scott, who seemed to have developed an extra sense where Prudence was concerned, glanced up, saw the precarious erection, and promptly demanded that she should set the pile on the floor as was the general custom.

Prudence had no mind to awake suspicion too soon, so she did as requested though she sighed gustily, “What a pest you can be, Jo! There! Does that satisfy you? Or,” sweetly, “would you prefer me to lay them out singly on either side of the desk?”

Jo had more sense than to rise to this piece of impertinence. Besides, she was feeling apprehensive. The prefect on duty tonight was Blossom Willoughby, and, though Blossom was easy-going as a rule, she had her limits. As they all knew by this time, when a certain look appeared on Prudence’s face, it meant that she was prepared to recognise no limits. It was no use saying anything, and Jo was wise enough to hold her tongue; but there was mischief in the air, and the moment Blossom arrived to take duty, she sensed it. She looked round sharply, but she was a minute or two late, and everyone was, to all seeming, hard at work already. She put her books on the mistress’s table, and made a tour of the room, but even Prudence seemed to be thinking of nothing but her botany diagrams, so she went back to her seat, sent one more sweeping glance round and then fell to on her French essay.

Prudence gave her twenty minutes to become fully immersed in it. Then she fumbled for her pocket handkerchief, pulled it out with a flourish, and with it a small cloud of fine dust. Immediately, she and all her near neighbours were sneezing convulsively. Everyone jumped when the epidemic began, and Margot Maynard sent her inkwell flying, and gave vent to a smothered shriek of horror.

“Oh, Blossom, I’m so frightfully sorry!” She was out of her desk and down on her knees, sopping up the ink-pool which disfigured the beautiful parquet of the floor, with a sheet of blotting-paper which looked world-weary, to say the least of it, and did very little towards repairing the damage.

Several other people also rushed to the rescue, and, what with the noise they made and the noise the sneezers made, it was a minute or two before Blossom could get them called to order again. Even then, when the rest were politely muffling their sneezes in their handkerchiefs, Prudence, who had seemed a little better and put hers away, suddenly gave vent to a mighty “Ati-shoo!” which shook her so violently that she kicked over her pile of books, and they went flying in every direction.

“That’ll do!” Blossom said in her most repressive tones. “Margot, put that awful blotchy into the wastepaper basket, and go and ask Karen for cloths and water and the floor-polish. And you can ask Lala for a fresh sheet,” she added as Margot stood up, tossed the blotting-paper into the basket, and went off to seek Karen, the kitchen tyrant, and to wash her hands. Blossom then turned her attention to the sneezers, “If you people are starting ’flu colds, you’d better all go to Matey at bedtime and ask her for A Dose,” she observed, striking dismay into the hearts of the sufferers. Matey’s “Doses” were famed for their nastiness.

Francie Wilford, who had come in for a benefit of whatever it was Prudence had released with her handkerchief, was still sneezing vehemently, but she managed to get breath enough to gasp out between convulsions, “It—atishoo!—isn’t ’flu!—atishoo!—It’s something that—atishoo!—tickles our noses—atishoo—atishoo!—ATISHOO!” She ended with an explosion that left her wondering if her head was still on her shoulders. Blossom, rather alarmed, was on the point of sending someone flying for Matron when she realised that that had really been Francie’s last effort. She was sitting back, panting and mopping her eyes, but the bout seemed to be over.

The prefect considered the others, remembered Francie’s remark, put two and two together and made a very probable four of them, and then smiled with such beatific sweetness that all those regarding her felt horribly alarmed. What exactly was Blossom going to do with them?

To herself that young lady was saying, “I’ll bet my bottom dollar this outbreak is thanks to Miss Prudence! Well, I’m not going to drag Matey into it, and have her thinking and saying that I can’t keep order! I’ll deal with it myself, and, thank goodness, I’ve got the very thing tucked away!” Rising from her seat, she went out, saying as she went, “No talking! Go on with your work till I come back. Jo, take charge, please!”

She returned a few minutes later, her fair curls ruffled by the speed with which she had torn upstairs to the prefects’ room and back. In her hand was a small box which she opened and proceeded to hand round among the afflicted.

“One each,” she said firmly. “They’ll stop any cold going further.”

No one dared to rebel. They were well aware that if they did, Blossom might turn them over to Matron, and every last one of them preferred to avoid that if possible. They each meekly took one of the lozenges in the box, and sucked it. But their thoughts were not lawful to be uttered!

“But just wait till prep is over! Young Prudence is going to hear all about it!” Francie thought, as she sucked at one of the very nasty lozenges Matron favoured for colds. Blossom had had a touch of catarrh at the beginning of term, and Matron had given her the boxful and told her to suck them at intervals. The trouble had cleared up by the time she had used half a dozen, and she had forgotten to return the remainder to the medicine cupboard. It was only when Francie had uttered her protest that she had remembered them, and she thought that if this was a put-up job, the flavour of those awful lozenges would end it in short order.

So far as the sneezing was concerned, she was quite right. One or two people did have a return of it, but they smothered it thoroughly with their handkerchiefs, and Inter V settled down to work again, though more than one person cast a glowering glance at Prudence, who concentrated on her work while she sucked hard at her lozenge until it was small enough to swallow at a gulp. Blossom returned to her essay, and there was comparative silence for the next twenty minutes or so.

Sitting in the row behind Prudence, and about four desks removed from her, Rosamund Lilley finished her geography, closed her textbook and slipped her synthetic maps into their case before she took up her anthology, and turned to Titania’s speech to Oberon, which was their repetition. Having found it, she glanced up before beginning to memorise, and her eye was caught by Prudence. That young woman had also turned to repetition and was sitting back in her chair, her eyes closed as she gabbled the lines over and over to herself. But it was not this that was the cause of the sudden loud titter which fell sharply across the stillness of the room and made Blossom look up sharply.

“Who was that?” she demanded.

Rosamund stood up with scarlet cheeks. “Bitte, es war ich, Blossom,” she faltered in German, which was fairly correct, but whose accent was sadly wanting.

Blossom was dumbfounded. So were most other people. Rosamund was a girl who rarely had to be called to order for bad behaviour, and certainly never during lessons or prep. She was much too anxious to go ahead to have time for that.

“Why did you laugh?” the prefect asked at last.

“I—it was something I have seen,” Rosamund said lamely.

Blossom was feeling irritated, but not so much so that she didn’t realise that Rosamund was probably very little to blame for giggling. “Well, sit down and keep your eyes on your work only for the rest of prep,” she said, rather more mildly; and Rosamund sat down thankfully, and glued her eyes to Titania’s speech for the rest of the period, though it has to be recorded that she knew little more of it when the bell rang than when she had first opened her book, and had to go over it again next morning before school.

Meanwhile, Prudence had slipped out the glove puppet in the shape of a monkey, which she had hurriedly shoved into her pocket when Rosamund exploded, and fitted him on again under the desk. Then she repeated the next line to herself, and once more leaned back, her right hand shoved under her left arm, and the monkey nodding, waggling his hands and scratching his head. Finally, he cocked the said head to one side in a knowing way that was irresistibly comic, and so brought about his owner’s downfall. Emerence Hope, bringing out a knotty point in her geography for Blossom to solve, caught sight of him, and spluttered even more loudly than Rosamund had done. Prudence tried to smuggle the thing under her desk, but Blossom had already connected her in her mind with Rosamund’s unusual levity, and at the first sound had started straight at her.

“Prudence Dawbarn! Bring that thing here!” she said—and all desire to giggle left Emerence, for the usual merry voice had an edge to it that made her thankful that, for once, she was comparatively blameless.

Prudence, looking thoroughly crestfallen, got slowly to her feet, and made her way to the table. Blossom held out her hand, and, feeling every kind of a fool, Prudence tried to pull the thing off her hand quickly for there was a nasty glint in the prefect’s eye. Somehow, a thread had come loose inside and caught round her finger, and, struggle as she might, it was too strong to be broken easily. With everyone staring at her, Prudence tugged and twisted until Blossom came to the rescue with her penknife. She slit up the glove part, found the thread and cut it, and finally had the monkey off. She had stood to do it, and when the thing was lying on the table, she remained standing, looking down on the slight and younger girl with a contempt that made Prudence wriggle in spite of herself.

“Well?” she said at last. “Which is it—fifteen; or five?”

Prudence made no reply. Perhaps Blossom had never expected one. At any rate, she tossed what was left of the puppet into the wastepaper basket, and said, “Well, as you’ve elected to behave like a baby, you may take a baby punishment for making a nuisance of yourself and disturbing everyone else. Go out of the room and stand in the corridor until I send for you. After Abendessen, you may come back here and make up the time you’ve wasted. Leave the room at once!”

Red to the very tips of her ears, Prudence crawled out of the room, and shut the door behind her. And there Nemesis fell on her with a vengeance. Five minutes later, Miss Wilson came hurrying past. Seeing Prudence standing there, she pulled up to inquire why she was not in prep. Prudence tried to avoid retailing the worst, but Miss Wilson was past mistress in the art of getting full confessions, and the young sinner got away with nothing. Before “Bill” had finished with her, she had owned to everything from the shaking free of the powdered ginger she had put into her handkerchief, down to the very latest.

“I see!” Miss Wilson said no more for a minute or two, but simply stood there looking at Prudence in an interested way until that young woman was ready to yell with nervousness. Then she went on. “Very well! As Blossom says, you’ve behaved like a baby. You shall be treated like one for the remainder of the week. Also, before you say or do another thing, you will come and apologise first to Blossom and then to the form for wasting their time and making a nuisance of yourself. Come with me!” And she opened the door and swept in, a demoralised Prudence at her heels. She waved the other girls back to their seats, and addressed Blossom.

“Blossom, Prudence Dawbarn tells me that she has forgotten that she is supposed to be a Senior and behave like one. First of all, she has something to say to you, and then something to her form. Well, Prudence?”

Wishing herself anywhere but where she was, Prudence mumbled out the two apologies demanded. Then Miss Wilson proceeded to make sure work.

“For the rest of the week. Prudence will rank as a Junior! She will join the Juniors in everything—lessons, games, walks, everything. She will go to bed when they do. She naturally loses all her Senior privileges, including the use of the Senior Library and the tennis courts. This will go on until Saturday evening at this time, when we shall see if she thinks she remembers to behave like a Senior for the remainder of her school-life here. If not. . . .”

Miss Wilson paused there, and there was a horrid threat in her silence that nearly reduced Prudence to tears. She clenched her hands, swallowed hard, and contrived not to break down; but only just.

“Bill” turned to her. “The Juniors are doing needlework while Mdlle Berné reads aloud to them. You may go and tell her why I have sent you, and remain with them until bedtime. And remember, Prudence; for the rest of the week, you keep to Junior hours and Junior society. It is high time you realised that, at fifteen, your tastes ought to be rather more adult than they seem to be. Go at once.”

Prudence, only just not crying, trailed out of the room to the Junior Common Room to explain as best she could that she had been relegated to the status of girls five years younger than herself for the rest of the week, and Miss Wilson, hoping that this would see the end of her childish nonsense, sped on her way again.

No one sympathised with Prudence, not even her twin. Quite the contrary! Priscilla was furious with her sister, and told her so in good set terms.

“It’ll jolly well serve you right if Father sends you back to Glendower House for keeps when he hears of this!” she wound up a lengthy diatribe. “You needn’t come to me for pity. I’ve had you!”

It was not in human nature—Prudence’s nature, anyhow—to put up with this sort of thing meekly, and she flared up. Ten minutes later saw Priscilla walking off in one direction and Prudence stalking away in another, and, by Abendessen, it was all over the school that for once the Dawbarns had had a bad split and wouldn’t have a thing to do with each other.

“Oh, well, it won’t really hurt either of them,” Elinor said when she heard. “In fact, it may just tip the scales for Prudence if she finds that Priscilla isn’t going to back her up in such idiocy. It’s more than time that she settled down to something like decent behaviour!”

“If it doesn’t set her off in the other direction,” Mary-Lou remarked, rather apprehensively. “You never know with a barm-pot like Prue!”

“Don’t be a bigger ass than you can help,” Hilary advised her. “After a swinging punishment like the one she’s got, I should imagine she’ll think a few dozen times before she tempts Providence again.”

Doris Hill suddenly gave an exclamation. “Oh, my aunt! Do you folk realise that it lasts till Saturday evening?”

“What about it?” Blossom inquired.

“Only that this is the week-end Inter V visit the Tiernsee.”

The prefects looked at each other dismayedly. Hilary was the first to speak.

“Do you think Bill forgot that when she said it had to go on till Saturday night?”

“I should imagine she did,” Elinor said slowly. “But I don’t quite see what we can do about it.”

“We ought to do something, though,” Mary-Lou said in worried tones. “If Prudence misses the trip when everyone else has it, she’s quite likely to go clean off the deep end, and then there’s no saying what she may do.”

“Well, what do you propose to do about it?” Elinor asked tartly. “You can’t very well go to Bill and ask her if she’s forgotten.”

“Don’t you believe it!” Vi Lucy struck in. “It’s just the sort of thing I can see Mary-Lou doing. But I don’t think she’d get away with it this time.”

“I’m certainly not going to Bill about it,” Mary-Lou replied with dignity.

“What are you going to do then?” half a dozen people asked in chorus.

“How do you know I’m going to do anything?” Mary-Lou demanded.

“Because we know you!” Blossom informed her.

“Then you’ve all got me wrong—this time, anyhow. I’ve no intention of barging in on Bill’s punishments. I’d rather live a little longer; quite apart from which, I don’t want to risk missing our own trip.”

“Well, I’m glad you’ve got that much sense,” Vi said. “What are you doing?”

“I’m handing over to Aunt Joey,” Mary-Lou said simply.

They all breathed freely at this announcement.

“The best idea of the lot!” Blossom agreed. “O.K., you go and see her, and get her to intercede for young Prudence. I’ve had enough of her antics, and I quite agree that if she’s cut out of the trip, she may do anything!”

Mary-Lou went off to get leave to pay a visit to Freudesheim after Abendessen, and as a result, on the Thursday evening, Prudence was commanded to the Head’s study, where she was told that, on the understanding that she would behave herself for the rest of the term, she might go with Inter V the next day. As she had been bitterly regretting her misdoings so close to the trip, she was only too ready to promise. What is more, she made up her mind to do everything in her power to keep her word. When three weeks had passed, and Prudence had not once been in any real trouble, Hilary triumphantly reminded her peers that she had told them so!

“If you ask me,” Sybil Russell retorted, “a lot of young Prudence’s improvement is thanks to the fact that she was allowed to go to the Tiernsee after all; and that, I may add, is thanks to Aunt Joey and Mary-Lou.”

“In the first instance, to Doris,” Mary-Lou replied. “It was she who pointed out what would happen. Otherwise, none of us might have thought of it till it was too late. Anyhow, let’s hope decent behaviour becomes a habit with her for the future. I’m sick of all the alarms and excursions she’s given us ever since that crowd arrived!”

Thereafter the prefects shelved the question of Prudence and gave themselves up to joyful anticipation, for the week-end brought their turn for the Tiernsee, and not only was Joey Maynard going with them, but she had arranged for the rest of her Quartette to join them at Briesau, at the Kron Prinz Karl, and renew their schooldays at the same time. No mistress was going with the party, in view of this, and, as Mary-Lou remarked on the Friday evening, even the nicest of mistresses can’t help causing a certain constraint at times. With Joey and Co. there would be none of that.

They left by the first train down from the Platz on the Friday morning. Frieda von Ahlen was to meet them at Interlaken, where they would join the motor-coach engaged for the purpose. Simone de Bersac and Marie von und zu Wertheim were to meet them at the Kron Prinz Karl, as Simone and her newest baby were spending a week or two at the old castle of Wertheim.

“You look a lot more like your old self!” was Joey’s greeting to Frieda when they foregathered outside the station in Interlaken. “Anything good happened?”

Frieda’s blue eyes glowed as she said, “Oh, Joey, the doctors say that all fear for Gretchen is at an end, and in another year’s time she ought to be as well and sturdy as the boys. I am so glad, so thankful, after all our anxieties for her!”

“Oh, so am I!” Joey exclaimed, catching a hand of Frieda and wringing it violently. “You don’t need me to tell you how I understand what you feel. But,” she added in a different tone, “I’m bound to say that I think Gretchen has timed all this very nicely. Couldn’t be better, in fact.”

Frieda laughed. “Oh, Joey! How like you! And now, where is this motor-coach that is to take us to Tirol? Oh, thank you, Mary-Lou!” as that young woman picked up her case to swing it into the coach. “Joey has so nearly wrung my fingers off, I was wondering how I was to manage to do any lifting for the next few hours.”

Joey made a hideous grimace at her. “It’s your own fault! You surprised me into it. Well, hurry up, you people. Talk about dilly-dalliers! You beat everything in that line that I ever knew!”

Chuckling, they all clambered in, and packed their cases on the back seats. The driver shut the door, and in another moment they were off.

The journey was uneventful, Sybil upsetting a full cup of coffee blanketed with whipped cream over her own lap and Blossom’s arm, excepted. The heat of the day dried the dampness quickly, and, as Blossom observed as she wiped her arm clean again, mercifully, it was mainly cream that she got!

It was late afternoon when they finally rolled into the Bahnhof Platz at Innsbruck, where everything was baking under the July sun. They were to take the train to Spärtz, the little town from which they would go by the tiny mountain train up to the Tiernsee, which lies over 3,000 feet above sea-level, Joey and Frieda having both insisted on it for old time’s sake. Frieda went off to get the tickets for the entire party, while Joey, after a quick glance round, told the girls, “They say this was the only part of Innsbruck to be badly bombed. They’ve built up the station, and I can’t say I see an awful lot of changes at a cursory glance. But I’d better warn you all here and now that from this moment forth, Frieda and the other two and I will be schoolgirls again. We haven’t seen this for years and years, and we’re going to renew our youth.”

“I shouldn’t have said there was any need so far as you’re concerned,” her niece grinned at her. “Mummy says you only have fits of being grown-up, even now.”

“Yes,” Jo returned, not markedly perturbed by this, “and just see what a nice aunt I am! Hello, Frieda! Got ’em all correct? Then come on, everyone. We’ve just nice time for the Salzburg train.” And she led the way to where the monster was just panting to a halt.

They all crowded together as far as possible, for the girls were all anxious to hear Joey’s reminiscences. It ended in everyone sitting having someone in her lap while the rest stood. Then they were hurtling through the suburbs, past the backs of tall houses of apartments or flats, where the snowy fat plumeaux were hanging over the balconies, airing and sunning.

“This always happens during the summer in these parts,” Joey said airily. “Yes, Elinor; I know it’s a shock; but do remember that these are the backs of the houses. Anyhow, just think of the strings of washing in backyards that you see around London. It’s no worse, and, in fact, it strikes me as a lot better.”

Then they left the last of the suburbs, and shot past meadows where fat cattle were feeding, and forests of pines, black and cool-looking, on this hot day.

“Here’s Hall!” Frieda cried as they came to a halt. “This is famous for its salt-mines, which are very old. Perhaps some day it may be possible for you to visit them.”

“Have you seen them, Tante Frieda?” Sybil asked eagerly.

“But of course! We came many years ago, when we were younger than any of you.”

“Get your cases, folks,” Joey ordered. “Stand up, Mary-Lou, you great lump! We haven’t far to go now.” She turned to Frieda, cheeks flushed and black eyes dancing with excitement. “Oh, Frieda! Isn’t it just all like old times?”

Frieda, looking scarcely less excited and, as Sybil remarked to the rest later, years younger than usual, nodded and laughed. “I have been back since, of course, but not with you. This makes me feel a real schoolgirl again!”

“Pity you didn’t do your wig in a pigtail again,” Joey said with a chuckle. “And I might have had mine bobbed for the occasion.”

“Yes,” Sybil said, with emphasis. “And I can just hear everyone’s comments on it if you had done! Uncle Jack, for instance!”

“Oh, well, perhaps I may do it some time yet. It’s an awful nuisance in the mornings, when I’m in a hurry,” Joey told her. “You just wait and see!”

“Well, bags me not to be the one to break the news if you do do it!” Sybil retorted. “Oh, we’re slowing again. Is this Spärtz?”

Spärtz it was, and, as the train was late, they had to run to catch the mountain train which ran only once in every hour. However, they made it, and piled in, laughing and chattering at the tops of their voices. But when they had set off and were clanking their way up the mountainside, Sybil gave a cry.

“Oh, I remember this! Auntie Jo, do you remember the day the Mystic M kidnapped me and lugged me off down here? Vater Bär met us in Spärtz, and lugged them and me back to the Tiernsee.”

“Remember it? I should think I do! Your mother was nearly out of her mind about you! Jem took Rufus, and went off to hunt down the mountain-path while the rest of us combed all the lakeside. He was at Maurach when the train arrived, and the first thing he saw was dear old Vater Bär with you on his lap and those three demons in front. He was pretty mad himself, for the Balbini pair were wanted at the San up on the Sonnalpe where their mother was dying. In fact, Princess Balbini died before Jem came down to us. I’ll never forget the time we had with Maria when Jem told her that their mother had been asking for them, and they had come too late. Poor kid! She was nearly demented!”

The rest had listened to this wide-eyed. Now Hilary spoke.

“Kidnapped you? When were you kidnapped? It’s the first any of us have ever heard of it. And why on earth? I should have imagined,” with cheerful insult, “that anyone kidnapping you would have dropped you under the first street lamp!”

Sybil grinned and dropped the eyelid nearest to Joey and hidden from Hilary, as she said solemnly, “You heard—it was the Mystic M.”

“Come again!” Mary-Lou exclaimed.

“I’ll tell you something else,” said wicked Joey. “They shot at me—in the Speisesaal of a hotel. Also at Madge, and got us both.”

“What?” It was a shrieked chorus, and Sybil, turning to scan her aunt’s innocent face, added, “This is news to me! When was it, Auntie Jo?”

“Before you were carted off. What a day that was!” she added reminiscently. “I only wonder all our hair wasn’t white by the end of it! You,” she added to her niece, “were about the filthiest thing in babies I’ve ever seen, and in a howling paddy to top up! How you fought and screamed! It was just as well your mother didn’t see you until Rosa had washed and tidied you!”

“I’ll bet you were no oil-painting yourself!” Sybil retorted. Then she lapsed into giggles. “I don’t really remember any more about it—except Rufus barging into the train on top of everyone and trying to lick my face. I don’t think any of the other passengers were very pleased. A huge St. Bernard dog flailing round on a scorching hot day and me yelling my head off!”^[13]

“In fact,” Vi Lucy wound up for them, “a good time was had by all!”

“You’ve said it!” Jo returned laconically. Then she gave a cry. “The Tiernsee! Look, everyone! The Tiernsee at last! There it is!”

Sybil’s story was forgotten as they all turned to gaze in the direction of her outflung hand to where the Tiernsee, blue and still under the blazing July sun, shimmered away in the distance, its frame of high mountains reflected in its mirror-like waters. There were tears in Joey’s eyes, which she dashed away with an impatient hand, and Frieda’s own eyes were glowing again.

“Oh!” It rose in a soft chorus of delight as the girls stared across the sapphire sheet. Here was the cradle of their beloved school, and though they had often heard how lovely it was, they had never imagined it like this.

The train had stopped, and Joey, pulling herself together, grabbed her case and jumped out on to the rough turf, sweet with wild thyme and gay with tiny alpine heartsease, wild snapdragons and myriads of other wild flowers. Frieda followed her, and the rest of the girls came after. The cases were piled in a heap, and then they stood looking expectantly at her. What came next?

“You wait here while I go to the Gasthaus,” she said. “I wonder if the Meinraths are still there? Coming, Frieda?”

“No; I’ll stay here while you go and find out,” Frieda said.

Joey stayed for no more. She raced off to the tall Gasthaus, with its frescoed walls and steep, stone-weighted roof, all agog with delight. When she returned ten minutes later, however, she looked distinctly crest-fallen. “They’ve all gone,” she said to Frieda. “Herr Meinrath died shortly after we left Tirol, and Frau Meinrath sold the business and went to join her married daughter in Kufstein. The people here are total strangers. Oh well, at least good old Herr Braun is still at the Kron Prinz Karl, thank goodness! They’re sending us their porter, with a truck to take the cases. We’ll just see to them, and then we’ll set off and walk.” She broke off as a tall, fair-haired young man appeared, stared at him, and then cried, “Eigen! It must be! Eigen, have you forgotten me?”

The man looked keenly at her. A slow grin overspread his face, and he exclaimed, “Fräulein Joey! But it must be! I could not forget!”

“Me!” Joey returned in German as she held out her hand. “Why did Anna not tell me you worked here? She knew? She must have known!”

“My Cousin Anna has not seen me for a long time,” he replied. “It is only one month since I came here. Before, I was in Wien, and have not been able to leave. But now I am at home, and I stay.”

Frieda came up now to speak to him, for in the early days he had worked at the Chalet School under his sister Marie, who was still with Lady Russell. The prefects stood aside, feeling rather outsiders, until Joey suddenly remembered her duty and, with a final handshake, left Eigen to deal with the luggage while she swept the girls before her, explaining, “That’s Eigen, brother of Madame’s Marie and Rosa and cousin to my own Anna. I haven’t seen him for years and years. It was thanks to him that I had my precious old Rufus. I’ll tell you that yarn later, if you don’t know it already. He’s had a dreadful time, poor Eigen. I can see that. He’s so thin. However, I’ll get all the news from him later. In the meantime, we ought to be setting out for Briesau, so come on! I don’t know about you lot, but I could do something to a large cup of coffee and a couple or so of rolls.”

“I could manage that much myself,” Hilary assured her. “Oh, what a lovely lake this is—bluer than Thun, and I’d have said that was impossible!”

Joey looked at it. “I’ve always said I left a bit of myself here,” she said. “Well, we’ve a whole week-end to enjoy it, and believe me, it won’t be long before I come back again. In fact, if I can manage it, the family are going to holiday here. There’s the lake-path. Come on! The sooner we’re on it, the sooner we’ll be having our coffee and rolls!” She slipped one arm through Mary-Lou’s and the other through Vi’s, and led the way, chattering vigorously all the time.

“How far is it?” Vi asked.

“Oh, not too far—about a mile or so. Then we come to the white fence—if it’s still there—and there, you see a tongue of land running up into the mountains. That’s Briesau, mainly hotels and Gasthäuser and a few chalets where they let rooms to summer visitors. There’s one shop—at the Hotel Post—where you can buy stamps and postcards and alpenstocks and sweets and a few things of that kind. At least,” Joey added cautiously, “that’s how it was in our time. Frieda!” She turned to call back to her friend, who was strolling along in the middle of a bunch of enthralled prefects to whom she was relating various titbits from ancient school history.

Frieda started, and, if Joey had been near enough to see, blushed guiltily. She had been in the middle of one of her friend’s more sensational adventures. “What is it, Joey?” she called back.

“Are there any more shops at Briesau?”

“There weren’t when I was last here—which is about six years ago.”

“Goodness knows what’s happened since then! O.K.; we’ll just have to wait and see.” Joey turned back to her pair, and they went on, passing a big chalet built against the mountain slope.

“Aren’t the back rooms of that place dark?” Vi asked, nodding towards it.

“There aren’t any. It’s all front.” Joey tiptoed to look over the high fence, and then said sadly, “No Heinrich! Oh, well, I suppose he really must be dead ages ago. Not that I’ve any idea how long goats live. How he loathed us! Whenever we went past, he always glowered at us like a demon! I never knew why, but I always felt that if he’d ever met us when he was loose, we’d have been for it!” Then she added darkly, “After seeing Heinrich I always understood why the goat was supposed to have some connection with the devil.”

Her hearers went off into fits of laughter at this, and, after a moment, she joined in, and her golden laughter pealed out on the still air. “He really was a most evil-looking beast! Well, we’ll halt here a moment, and wait for the rest to come up, I think.”

“Why?” Mary-Lou demanded. She guessed there was more behind it than merely waiting for the others. She knew her Joey pretty well after all these years.

“Be patient, my love; be patient!” was all she got; and patient she had to be.

When the other thirteen came up with Frieda, she halted them, too, and then said solemnly, “This place is historical.”

The girls looked round, startled. It was a quite ordinary part of the lake-path. There was the lake on one side. On the other a deep ditch ran along and above it, the mountain side rose in a fairly steep slope for some ten feet or so before easing back to a mere foot-track, and then rising again. The ditch was dry at this time of the year, and, except for odd bushes of alpenroses which had found foothold in crevices of the bare rock, there was no vegetation for quite a little way up.

“Why is it historical?” Blossom demanded.

“Because this is where I once jumped into the lake,”^[14] Joey replied blandly.

“Where you did what?” the prefects exclaimed; while Frieda, who had been looking as puzzled as the rest, collapsed into wild giggles.

“Jumped into the lake,” Joey repeated. “Frieda, I see you remember.”

“Remember? But how could I ever forget?” her friend demanded. “At least half of us were drenched, for you went with such a mighty splash we couldn’t avoid it.”

“But why on earth did you do it?” Vi Lucy wanted to know.

Joey grinned. “I suppose you’ve all heard of the Flood we had the first spring we were here? Well, as soon as the water had gone down enough to allow it, we were all out for a walk. Simone, Robin, Amy Stevens and I had all climbed up to that track up there, and were trotting along it. But, as you can see for yourselves, it peters out just about here, and we had to come down. It wasn’t easy, for the ditch was full—in fact, it had over-brimmed—and there was only the width of the path between it and the lake for us to jump to. It was shallow enough as a rule, but that particular day pools were everywhere and anywhere, and it must have been a good two and a half feet deep. The other three clambered down somehow, but they just couldn’t manage the jump. As you see, there simply isn’t any take-off. They all landed ignominiously in the ditch, and had to be hauled out, wet to the waist. I decided to avoid that and jump from halfway up—there!” She pointed to a tiny shelf in the steep face of the wall, and the girls all gasped.

“Did you do it?” Mary-Lou asked curiously.

Joey grinned wickedly at her. “I certainly didn’t land in the ditch. I cleared that all right——”

“You cleared it, indeed?” Frieda cried as well as she could for her wild laughter. “Girls! She cleared the ditch and the path, both, and went straight over into the lake itself! Anything like the yell she gave before she vanished under the water I have never heard bettered! But if the other three were wet to the waist, you were drenched from head to foot, Joey. Oh, you were pulled out safely enough, but it ended our walk, for, thanks to you and the other three, those of us who had kept to the path were also soaked, and we were all hurried back to school and bed. But,” she added, when she stopped laughing at the memory, “I had forgotten it until you spoke of it just now.”

“Well, that’s the yarn,” Joey said, quite unmoved. “And now, what about that coffee? Come on, folks! I’m ready for it if you aren’t! I’ll race you all there!”

She set off, full tilt, and they raced after her, never stopping till they reached the Kron Prinz Karl, the big white hotel beside the ferry-landing, where the rest came up panting in time to see Joey with both hands clasped by a fat and elderly Tirolean, who shook them violently while ejaculations of welcome and delight burst from him like so many squibs going off, one after another, as Mary-Lou described it later!

Coffee, rolls, butter and jam were the first things to be attended to, once Herr Braun had finished welcoming Joey and Frieda and been introduced to the new generation of Chalet girls. Not that he left them to attend to that little matter themselves. He waited until they had washed hands and faces, and then escorted them to the big Speisesaal, where a feast was awaiting them with what Hilary described as “young bath-tubs of iced coffee”. He seemed unable to let Joey and Frieda out of his sight; especially Joey. He waited on them himself, all the time demanding news of old friends, and pouring out his own. They had barely sat down before they learned that his little granddaughter, Gretchen, another Old Girl of the school, was now married and living in Kufstein, and the proud mother of two bonny boys and a very new little daughter.

“And you, Fräulein Joey—ah, but I know you are now Frau Doktor Maynard,” he said, smiling. “Yet to me you will be always Fräulein Joey. You, also, have a family, nicht wahr?”

Joey swallowed a luscious bite of cream-cake before she replied with a complacent feeling that she was about to give her old friend a shock, “Oh, yes; we have nine children!”

Herr Braun’s jaw dropped. “I—perhaps I have made a mistake and did not hear aright,” he said. “You—did say nine?”

Frieda took pity on him. “It is quite true, mein Herr,” she said with a smile. “The first were triplet girls, and then, after three boys, she had twins. Last year a fifth little girl came to join the family. And I—I, too, am wed, and have three boys and two girls. You will remember Fräulein Simone and Fräulein Marie? They come to join us this evening. Fräulein Simone has two boys and a girl, and Fräulein Marie has five girls and two boys. But Fräulein Joey has kept ahead of us all. Three of her girls and Fräulein Simone’s, and Fräulein Marie’s eldest, are all at the school now.” She smiled charmingly as she added, “Everyone calls them the school’s grandchildren.”

Herr Braun threw up his hands in amazement. “Herr-gott! What the years have brought to us all!” he exclaimed.

Joey laughed. “Well, you can see the first of them, anyhow.” She turned to the small table at the side where Elinor, Sybil, Blossom and Leila were seated, chattering among themselves. “Sybs!” she said.

Sybil turned. “Hello, Auntie Jo! What do you want?”

“Come here a moment, my lamb!”

Sybil jumped up and came to her aunt. Joey put an arm round her, and turned her towards Herr Braun. “You knew this girl when she was a baby, Herr Braun. Do you remember my sister’s redhead?”

Poor Sybil blushed scarlet, and Herr Braun eyed her with deep surprise. “But, Fräulein Joey! Do you mean that lovely baby-girl is now as old as this?” he exclaimed. “Alas! The years have indeed fled! Mein Fräulein, I make you my compliments!” And he bowed to the beautiful girl standing there feeling, as she told the others, all kinds of a fool, and looking prettier than ever in her shyness.

However, Sybil had good manners, and she held out her hand at once, saying in her prettily accented German, “I was too small when we left Tirol to remember much, mein Herr, but my mother and aunt have seen to it that I did not forget altogether. I am so happy to be back in this lovely place again.”

Joey had made use of the opportunity to finish her cake and drain her coffee. Now she looked round. “Well, everyone seems to have finished, so I propose that we settle in as fast as we can and then take a stroll. I want to see our old school again, mein Herr. I did see the original house as we came past, and I’m glad to see that it seems to be in good hands. But where are the covered passages we built to link it up with the other chalets?”

“When the American, Herr Flower, left us, the houses were all bought by the new hydro-electric company which dammed our lake at the St. Scholastika end, as you will see. The manager has your first house, and the others are occupied by other important members of the company. They had no need for the passageways, and when fuel was difficult one bad winter during the war, the passage walls were pulled down and cut up for firing.”

Joey nodded. “I see. And do you know what happened to Die Rosen—our home on the Sonnalpe?”

“The Herr Doktor who is now head of the Sanatorium which Herr Doktor Russell established lives there now, mein Fräulein. It is still a doctor’s house. Perhaps you will visit him, nicht? He would make you very welcome, I know. But now, you will wish to unpack. The Countess and her friend come at nineteen, which, also, is the time of our Abendessen. We will have talks again later on, nicht wahr?” He looked at her wistfully, and she nodded.

“Oh, yes; in fact, now I’m back you need never be surprised to see me dashing in at any time demanding a bed for a night or two. How I’ve ever managed to keep away so long when we were just next door, so to speak, is something I shall never understand!” she added, laughing. “Come on, you folks. I know where you’re bedded down, so I’ll show you, and we’ll get settled and then, if you hurry, we can take just one turn as far as The Chalet, and you shall see the—the cradle of our school.”

The girls hurried after her as she led them up the short flight of stairs to the next floor and along a narrow corridor, where she nodded at two opposite doors, saying, “That room’s mine and Frieda’s. The other belongs to Marie and Simone. You people are up these stairs and more or less above us. This way!” And she went up the stairs two at a time, and showed them the three rooms set aside for them—wide airy rooms, with windows looking out across a balcony and over the lake. Each held five narrow wooden beds, five chairs, a dressing-table and a huge armoire. There was a strip of matting by the side of each bed; and that was all. But the floors were snowy white, and the linen smelt of sweet thyme and orris-root. A tiny room at the corner was handed over to Elinor as Head Girl. Their cases had been brought up and dumped in a heap at the end of the corridor, and Joey waved a hand towards it.

“Sort yourselves, as the sexton said when the parson had married five couples at once all to the wrong ones! Get your things unpacked, and, when you’re ready, go down to the landing-stage and wait there till we two come to you. Ta-ta!”

She shot off to see to her own unpacking, and the girls, anxious to be out and exploring, set to work, and were soon all down and standing by the landing-stage, watching the little white steamer as she sailed across the width of the lake from Briesau to Seespitz.

“Oh, lovely!” Mary-Lou sighed as she stood with the breeze, which had come up with the evening coolness, ruffling her uncovered curls. “It must have been marvellous when the school was here! Fancy having a lake like this at your very doors!”

“We used to have a summer home across there, at Buchau,” Sybil remarked, pointing across the lake. “Look! That big chalet over to the right! I believe that’s it. I must ask Auntie Jo when she comes. She’ll remember all right. I was only three when we had to clear out, so I don’t really remember.”

“Yes; they’re being rather a long time, aren’t they?” Blossom asked. “Oh, well, I suppose when you’re grown-up you don’t rush round as we do. I know Mummy doesn’t.”

“If you’re starting in to think of Auntie Jo as grown-up this week-end, you’re missing, my child,” Sybil said. “I’ll bet you what you like that she’s the youngest and maddest member of the party the entire week-end!”

As Joey and Frieda arrived at this point, no one contradicted this statement. The party formed into groups and went for a stroll along the lake-path until they reached a little wooden bridge on to which a gate opened, and Joey, regardless of anything like good manners, pressed up to it and gazed at the big chalet partly hidden by the high wattle fence that surrounded it.

“Oh, look, Frieda!” she cried. “Our statue of the Blessed Virgin is still in the niche where we left her! I’ve often wondered what the next people did with her after Mr. Flower left. Nice people not to remove her!” She turned to the girls, pointing unashamedly at the house. “Those windows up there, my loves, belong to what used to be the Yellow dormitory, of which I was a shining light in my early days. The ones above belong to Green. Incidentally, when I was up there, we had a circus at the end of one term after Lights Out, and three days later the ceiling in Yellow collapsed!” She suddenly giggled like the schoolgirl she had been. “No one, with any truth, ever said I was a model!”

“Tell us something we don’t know!” Sybil retorted. “It’s a lovely house, Aunt Joey—lots prettier than our present abode. Did you have the frescoes then, too?”

“We did; but you have frescoes at the Platz, so you can’t complain on that score!”

“No; but this is prettier in the way it’s built. We haven’t any balconies, for instance. And if we did have a statue, we’ve no niche for it.”

“If you people keep on plastering yourselves up against the gate like this, we’ll have the inhabitants sending for the police under the impression that we’re a burglarious gang hunting for weak points!” Mary-Lou interrupted them with emphasis.

“There’s no one there at the moment,” Frieda said in her soft voice. “They’ve gone away for the week-end, and the under-manager is in charge. Herr Braun told me so. Besides, Mary-Lou, do we look like gangsters?”

“You never can tell! According to the latest thrillers, it’s the most innocent looking people who are the villains of the piece,” Mary-Lou replied serenely. “Still, there’s no one there, I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

“It’s high time someone looked after your reading,” Joey told her. “Well, I suppose we’d better move on if we’re to see anything more before Abendessen. That big house over there is Middle House, which we built ourselves.^[15] On that flat roof, a gang of Middles produced a play—of sorts! I’d left school by that time, but I landed in for it. I’d come down to spend the evening somewhere, and left much too late to go up to the Sonnalpe, so I called at the school to beg a bed and landed in for an extra-special prefects’ meeting. They knew something lawless was going on up there after Lights Out, and we all set to catch the beauties. I joined them. That, the way, was when Hilary Burn was one of the prefects—and don’t look so dumb, you folk! Mrs. Graves, I mean!”

“How did you deal with them?” Sybil asked.

“Oh, I didn’t, though I was invited to trot along and help out. As a matter of fact, it was Nancy Wilmot who settled them. She suggested that they should give their play before the entire school and provide a supper out their tuck to follow.”

“What was the play like?” Blossom asked eagerly.

Joey suddenly doubled up as she remembered that very funny play.

“Go on, Aunt Joey!” Vi pleaded. “What was it? Something funny, judging by the way you’re giggling.”

“It wasn’t meant to be funny,” Joey said, controlling herself with an effort. “Actually, it was a tragedy. Frieda, you came up for it. Do you remember when Elizabeth Arnett’s knicker elastic snapped and she had to fight a duel hanging on to them to keep them up?”

The pair shrieked in unison, but their laughter was brought to a speedy halt by Hilary, who suddenly announced, “I say! Isn’t Abendessen at nineteen? Then we’d better scram or we’ll be frightfully late. It’s two minutes to this minute!”

“Heavens!” Joey cried. “Come on, all of you! Frieda and I will never hear the end of it if we aren’t there to welcome Marie and Simone, and they’re due now!”

She led the way, and the rest streamed after her, and, thanks to racing wildly across the grass, they reached the Kron Prinz Karl just as the little car containing the other pair of her Quartette came in sight, both Simone and Marie looking wildly excited and more like schoolgirls than the responsible mothers of families. The girls slowed down and held back, while Joey and Frieda dashed up to the car.

“Hello, you two! Isn’t this gorgeous? And not a babe amongst the lot of us!”

“Not one!” Marie von und zu Wertheim laughed. “In any case, my youngest is five now and Frieda’s last boy is three, isn’t he, Frieda? It’s you and Simone who provide the babes. If you wanted us to have infants, you should have brought them.”

Joey laughed. “Oh, no, thank you! For this weekend, at any rate, we’re casting aside our family cares and being schoolgirls again. Here are our little playmates waiting to say ‘How d’ye do?’ all nice and polite! Come along, people! Greet the pretty ladies nicely!”

In a state of helpless giggles, the girls came to greet the newcomers, but everyone was brought up short by the roll of the gong sounding for Abendessen, and Marie, with a sudden look of horror, switched off her engine, which had been ticking over.

“There goes the gong! Joey, what do I do about the car? Can I leave her parked here, or should I run her round to the garage?”

“Neither! Here comes Jockel to run her round for you. Give him your keys, and then he can bring your cases up to your room. You can unpack later. I’ll lend you soap, and so on. But scram! I’m hungry, if you’re not!”

“She hasn’t altered a scrap!” Marie sighed, as she left the car, and handed over her keys to Jockel, who had once been odd boy at the Chalet School. She changed to German, and spoke to him in her friendly way before she followed the others into the hotel, where she and Simone were hustled upstairs by the other two to wash and tidy.

“We’ll see to keeping something decent for you,” Elinor had promised. “You go ahead, Mrs. Maynard, and we’ll ask our Kellnerin to save some of the nicest things for you.”

The girls went to take their seats in the Speisesaal and make interest with their own special waitress on behalf of the four grown-ups, and when those ladies finally arrived, they found that Elinor had kept her word.

Kellnerin Annerl greeted them with a beaming smile as she came up to their table with plates of delicious iced soup, and the remark, “ ’Zist gut, meine Damen!”

Good it was; and so was the dish of cold stuffed veal accompanied by tiny potato-balls, crisp outside and hot and melting in, and a glorious golden colour which went with it. Small dishes of cherries and raspberries were added, too, and a crisp, chilled salad. This was followed by a creamy sweet, cold and luscious, and of a composition that defied analysis, though Mary-Lou claimed to detect almonds in it, and Vi declared it was flavoured with wine. The girls had iced lemonade with their share, and Joey and Co. drank a light country wine which was an old friend of theirs. Coffee followed, and then they all went out in a body, chattering hard. The four Old Girls pointed out various places of interest close at hand, and most of their talk was punctuated continually with cries of, “Oh, do you remember when. . . ?” or “Don’t you remember the time. . . ?” and quite a number of skeletons were dragged from their graves and given a good airing, to quote Joey’s airy remark as they finally fetched up at the boat-house, where they divided their forces among four boats and rowed about the glassy lake, their tongues still going hard.

It was dusk before Joey finally called them in, and they gently paddled shorewards. They had watched Alpenglück, that wonderful effect sometimes seen before rainy weather, had rowed right across to Buchau, and seen the big Chalet which had been the Russell’s summer home after the school which had been there for two or three years had been amalgamated with the Chalet School;^[16] had had the spot pointed out where Frieda and Joey once had a hectic ice adventure, Joey, in fact, going through the ice with a girl from St. Scholastika’s, the other school; and then had made a wide circuit to let the girls see the Dripping Rock from the lake before returning to Briesau.

“Bed, everyone!” Joey said when they had handed over their boats and strolled back to the hotel, admiring the effects of the lights from the chalets and hotels in the lake-water. “We had an early start, and we’ve done quite a lot. Tomorrow, if the rain gets over during the night, we’ll go up the Bärenbad Alpe and pick wild strawberries on the way up, and have them with whipped cream at the Gasthaus on one of the shelves. We’ll also show you the Maultasch—if we can remember where it is, that is—where Corney Flower disappeared from sight once.”^[17]

Marie and Frieda looked at each other and exploded. “Oh, do you remember what Corney said when that big peasant who pulled her out asked for a kiss from her as reward?” Marie asked Frieda.

Frieda shook her head. “I never heard that. Bill sent me to order coffee for herself and the Abbess and Corney. Corney had fainted, you remember.”

“Well, I’ll say for her that she did wait till he had gone. Then she said, ‘I wish he hadn’t had a beard. He scrubbed so!’ ” Marie said with a chuckle.

“Corney all over!” Joey cried. “I wasn’t there, I remember. I’d gone off to Madge at the Sonnalpe. But I heard most of it later—though never that,” she added thoughtfully.

“It was the last thing I heard,” Marie said. “I was sent after Frieda, but the buckle came loose on one of my sandals, and I had to stop to secure it, so I heard.”

“Well, we can discuss all that tomorrow,” Joey cut in. “It’s after twenty-one o’clock—almost twenty-two, in fact, and high time everyone had hit the hay.”

“Quoi?” exclaimed Simone at this.

“Simone, you’re forgetting your English!”

“I am not, but I was never so good at English slang as Marie. I suppose, though, that you mean it is time to go to bed, and I agree. I am very weary, me.”

“Then come on. Have you people got everything you want? Sure? O.K. Then we’ll say goodnight, I think. As the Spaniards so beautifully put it, ‘Tomorrow is also a day’. Wow! Here comes the rain! I thought it wasn’t a vivid Alpenglück like that for nothing!” Joey made a dive for the hotel, and they followed her in, and, after bidding goodnight to Herr Braun, who had come to look for them, went off to bed where not even the battering of the rain on the roof just above them kept the tired girls awake, and Joey and Co. were also soon asleep and dreaming of years before when they were the Chalet girls themselves.

The rain came down heavily most of the night, but towards dawn it slackened off. A wind sprang up which drove the rain-clouds northwards, and when Mary-Lou opened her eyes at six o’clock, it was to gaze out of the window at a white mist that betokened a hot day in store. She tumbled out, and went to perch herself on the sill of the side window, but the thin white blanket hid everything from sight, though it was quite evident that the sun was blazing away, for it had a luminous aspect.

After trying vainly to pick out any landmarks, she gave it up, slid off her sill, and went to wake Vi Lucy by the simple means of sitting down heavily on her legs. Vi grunted, kicked out wildly, and rolled over, nearly upsetting her friend on to the floor. Then she sat up and rubbed her eyes sleepily.

“What is it?” she demanded as she shook back the mane of golden-brown curls that tossed wildly about her. “Has the bell rung yet?”

“Well, not quite, I shouldn’t think,” Mary-Lou said blandly. “At the moment, however, the bell doesn’t concern us at all. Wake up, fathead! We’re at the Tiernsee.”

“Shut up, Mary-Lou!” came drowsily from a bed in the far corner. “ ’Tisn’t time to get up yet. Why can’t you let a fellow sleep?”

For reply, Mary-Lou stretched back to her own bed, seized her pillow, and threw it with unerring aim. It got Hilary right across the face, and she came to in a hurry.

“Oh, you would, would you?” she observed as she hurled the pillow back with all her force. Mary-Lou ducked, but Hilary had reckoned on that, and it took her full in the chest, and she landed on the floor with a bump which was enough to rouse anyone beneath who happened to be asleep.

“Shut up, you idiot!” she growled as she got to her feet again. “Aren’t we over Joey and Frieda? D’you want them haring up here to ask if we’re having a free-for-all, or what?”

“Did they say you could drop the ‘aunt’?” Vi asked with interest as she sat up, hugging her knees.

Mary-Lou went pink. “Well, they didn’t, if you must know, but it’s just among ourselves. Anyhow, they’re a lot more like Chalet girls just now than married ladies with squads of kids,” she added defensively. “I say! It’s going to be a gorgeous day. A pity to waste any of it. Let’s get dressed and go for a stroll.”

“Into that?” Doris demanded—she was awake now, too—pointing out of the window at the mist. “My good girl, you’ll have us all walking headlong into the lake!”

“Not at all. It’s thinning already. By the time we’re dressed, it’ll be practically gone,” her friend retorted as she whirled into her kimono.

“She’s right.” Vi was out of bed. “It’s only heat haze. If you ask me, it’s going to be a snorter of a day. I vote we take that stroll she mentioned.”

Hilary stretched luxuriously, and then threw back her sheet. “We’d better do as she says. You know what she is! There’ll be no peace for anybody, now she’s up!”

“I like your style—all your styles, if it comes to that—talking about me as if I wasn’t there!” Mary-Lou returned indignantly. “Don’t come if you don’t want to; but Vi and I are going, anyhow!”

There was a light tap at the door, and then Joey entered. She was in her dressing-gown, and her long thick plaits were twisted into a knob at the back of her neck and skewered up anyhow. “So you are awake? I thought so, when we heard the young earthquake overhead. What on earth were you doing? Who fell out of bed?”

“No one! Hilary chucked a pillow at me while I was—er—sitting on Vi, and I ducked and slid off,” Mary-Lou said with colossal calm. “Did we wake you?”

“Don’t be so silly!” Joey said with scorn. “As if I’d be asleep at this time on a summer morning at the Tiernsee! Where are you two off to?”

“Have a bath, of course.”

“Waste of time and quite superfluous! We four are going swimming, and I ran up to see if any of you folk would like to join us. What about it?”

“Oh, super!” Hilary was out of bed with a bound, and on her knees by her suitcase. “We did bring our swimming kit, but I wasn’t sure how early we could go in.”

“As early as we please. Did Matey give you all scrubby towels? You’ll need them, let me warn you. I love swimming in the Tiernsee, but you’d better realise that it’s on the chilly side as early as this. It’s mainly spring-fed, you see. O.K. Get your suits and wraps and meet us on the verandah. We can bathe off the landing-stage now. The ferries don’t start up till eightish, Herr Braun says. One of you go and ask the rest. You can all come if you like. You all swim more or less, don’t you? I ask,” she added plaintively, “because I don’t want my fun spoilt by having to rescue drowners and administer artificial respiration to the drownee.”

“Every last one of us,” Mary-Lou said solemnly. “And none of us is subject to cramp. I say, Aunt Joey!”

“Well? What is it? Hurry up, for I want a good swim before Frühstück.”

“Well, may we drop the ‘Mrs.’ or ‘Aunt’ or what-have-you, and just use your names?” Mary-Lou asked. “You feel such a lot more like us than married and proud mammas just now.”

Joey stared at her, and then giggled infectiously. “So far as I’m concerned, you may. I don’t suppose the others will mind, either—so long as you keep it for this occasion. Anyhow, I know quite well I’m plain ‘Joey’ to the school. I always have been, however primly you may address me to my face. Ask the others, Mary-Lou. I can only speak for myself.” Her black eyes danced as she saw Mary-Lou’s face.

Mary-Lou caught the look, and she threw up her head. “I will, then. They can’t eat me, after all.”

“Then that’s settled. And now will someone go and see what the rest of you want to do? I’m not going to wait all day for anyone, and so I warn you!” And with this valediction she was gone, leaving the girls to exclaim at Mary-Lou’s temerity.

“The things the girl gets away with!” Hilary remarked as she pulled on her kimono and set off to wake the rest with Joey’s proposal.

There was no question what they wanted to do. Only the fact that this was a hotel and there were other visitors kept them within bounds. They all scrambled into swimming-suits and caps and sandals, wrapped themselves in their big towelling wrappers, grabbed their towels, and tore off downstairs to the verandah, where they found the four Old Girls awaiting them. The laggards nearly fell down the stairs, and one or two people, disturbed by the noise they made with all their care and peering out through the mist, now thinning rapidly, were edified to see the entire party, led by Joey, take headers off the landing-stage, one after the other, while their wraps were left in an untidy heap at one end.

The water was very chilly after the rain and the mist, and Mary-Lou, surfacing after a long dive, gasped as she reached the air, turned over and trod water hard.

“Icy, but awfully refreshing once you’ve got over the shock!” she shouted. “Buck up, you sluggards, and come on in! I’m racing anyone who likes!”

She flattened out, and went off like a human torpedo. Joey had had the sense to forbid anyone swimming out into the lake, so she had to keep to the side; but she went at it with her usual vim. Joey was after her at once, and was greeted with a plea to be allowed to go out.

“No fear!” that lady retorted as she came up with the girl. “Later on, we may take a boat and dive off that, but just now you folk can keep inshore till I see how you all shape. It’s plenty deep enough, anyhow. Over by the school it’s shallower—or used to be. Bathing was safe enough there. That’s where all non-swimmers had to disport themselves until they passed Miss Nalder’s test.”

“O.K. I’ll race you, then—to where your old bathing-place was. Off!” And with the last word, Mary-Lou went ahead with a strong over-arm stroke.

The rest had heard most of this, and turned to watch. Mary-Lou was easily the school’s best swimmer, though Vi Lucy was not far behind. It came as a shock to the girls, therefore, when Joey Maynard raced her neck and neck and began to steal ahead. Yells from her friends warned Mary-Lou what was happening, and she redoubled her effort; but, try as she would, she was no match for Joey. Both swimmers put all they knew into their efforts, but Joey was just a shade the best. She reached the goal a length ahead, and then turned over on her back, and shouted, “That’s enough, Mary-Lou! We’re there! Over you go and float for a minute or two!”

Mary-Lou obeyed at once, and got her breath back gradually. “Gosh! You can swim!” she gasped presently. “I went all out, and yet you’ve beaten me! And you must be out of practice these days. Or have you been practising on the quiet?” she added.

Joey chuckled. “I’ve got in quite a lot of swimming this summer. I’ve been going down in the afternoons with Anna and the kids. And I did a lot at Carnbach while we were living there. Luckily, even Mike stands in awe of Anna. Otherwise, I couldn’t have got in all I did. Mike is awful near water! He simply walks in regardless! Luckily, he can swim quite well now, and the twins kick about like a pair of little frogs.” She paused to move in nearer to the shore, and then experimented to see if the shallows were still there. They were, and she heaved a sigh of relief. “Yes; well, it isn’t really any deeper than it ever was. That’s good!” She turned to look at the big chalet with affection. “I only wish we were all back here again! Switzerland is all very well and quite enjoyable; but Briesau has something that no other place could ever have—for me, at any rate.”

“Will you two stop nattering and come on in!” This was Marie from the path. She and Simone had seen to it that the rest came out and returned to the hotel, while she herself came flying along the path, dripping water at every step, to bring back the truants. Frieda had already gone in. She felt the shock of the cold water rather too much to please her friends.

“Coming!” Joey shouted. “Are the rest in?”

“Of course they are! First Frühstück will be ready shortly, and we put down our names for it, in case you’ve forgotten. We said we wanted a good long morning. I’m going!” And she clutched her wrap round her, and scudded back.

“Come on!” Joey shouted to Mary-Lou. “We’ll have to go it! Rested now?”

“I’m O.K.!” Mary-Lou flung herself forward, and, side by side, they shot through the still water at top speed.

They reached the landing-stage, and hauled themselves out and huddled on their wraps before making for the hotel’s verandah, where they dropped their wet suits and handed them over to a passing maid, who smiled and promised to have them dried out on the hotel washing-line. Ten minutes later they all filed into the Speisesaal, glowing and fresh from the sting of the icy water, and rather damp about the head. Mary-Lou had lost her cap in that hectic race with Joey, and her curls were a matted mop. Joey’s hair was streaked close down, and her deep fringe was plastered to her forehead. Blossom’s wavy crop was wild, and two or three others were no better.

“Never mind, it was lovely!” Mary-Lou said as she proceeded to eat her rolls voraciously. “I do feel so clean and fresh!”

“So do I!” It came as a chorus.

“All the same,” Marie said, swinging round on Frieda, “for the rest of the time, Frieda, you’ll bathe only when the day’s warmed up a little. You frightened me when you turned so blue. What’s wrong with you? You never used to be like that!”

Frieda flushed. “I suppose it’s because I haven’t been very well this last year or two. I worried so over Gretchen. But that’s at an end now!” she wound up triumphantly. “All right, Marie. There is no need to glare at me like that. I will wait a little before I go in. I don’t want to shiver half the day!”

“You’ll have a time, combing out that mat of yours!” Joey said, with an eye to Mary-Lou’s rampant curls. “There’s something to be said for straight hair, after all!”

“Oh, well, at least it isn’t sea-water, so it won’t be sticky. Oh, but I enjoyed that! I’m inclined to agree with you, Joey! I wish we could be here again.”

There was a united gasp from most of her compeers, and they stared first at her and then at Joey, who smiled sweetly at them. Mary-Lou herself went red, but her chin went out defiantly as she returned their rather horrified gaze.

“It’s all right,” Joey said calmly. “Mary-Lou asked if she might, and I said I didn’t mind—here. She paid us rather a nice compliment, you three. She said that since we’d been here she felt as if we were a lot more like themselves. I call that a real compliment!”

“Oh, so do I!” Marie cried. “Girls! If it helps the rest of you to have the same feeling, you all know my name is ‘Marie’. I get awfully sick of being addressed as ‘Countess’, anyhow,” she added.

“The thing that amazes me about you,” Blossom said, “is your English. No one would think you were a foreigner—I mean,” she added hastily and in some confusion, “you speak it just like we do, slang and all.”

Marie chuckled. “I should hope so after all my years at the Chalet School, never to mention the fact that most of the early years of my married life were spent either in America or England. When we first returned to England, my elder son, Wolfram, was a complete little American, accent and all. What a time we had correcting his English!” she finished up reminiscently.

“Oh, I see,” Blossom replied rather flatly.

Frieda had been waiting till this ended. Now she recalled them to the former topic. “I should like you all to call me by my name, Frieda, while we’re here. Somehow, I can’t feel in this place like Frau von Ahlen. And I know that Simone agrees with us. So please, during this week-end, we’ll really forget how elderly we are, and just be Joey, Marie, Simone and Frieda to you.”

“That’s awfully good of you, Fr—I mean, Frieda!” Elinor took the initiative. “Of course, we all understand that it’s just while we’re here.”

“Then that’s settled!” Joey said, making a long arm for the butter.

“Your manners!” Marie said detachedly. “Couldn’t you have asked?”

“No; much too great a hurry!” her friend retorted. “Buck up, you folk, and get on with it. We’ve a lengthy walk before us, and I’d be just as glad to get off before the real heat of the day. Oh, and mind you make a decent meal. I don’t want to have to hold up any fainting females on the lake-path!”

They did as she told them. The icy dip had sharpened their appetites, which were always healthy at any time. Even Frieda ceased to look shivery by the time she had drunk two bowls of steaming, milky coffee and eaten four rolls well-plastered with butter and apricot jam. Joey, who had been eyeing her with some apprehension, drew a sigh of relief. Frieda had lived under a heavy strain during the past few years, and she had a fragile look that her friend had vowed should be removed as much as possible during these few days together.

“Do you think we shall ever come back here—as a school, I mean?” Elinor asked as the meal drew to a dose.

Joey shook her head. “No use asking me, for I just don’t know. I’m inclined to doubt it. Moving an entire school is an expensive job, let me tell you. Besides, we couldn’t have our old buildings back, I’m afraid. They’re all in use, as you’ve seen. I don’t suppose the hydro-electric folk would be inclined to clear out for us. I should say they’ll just sit tight on what they’ve got.”

Simone de Bersac drained the last of her coffee. “I think that is true. But Joey, would it not be possible to arrange for a small chalet where those of the girls who wished could come for short holidays? At least that would mean that we could keep in touch as we have not done for years.”

“It’s an idea,” Joey said meditatively. “We’ll have to think all round it, of course; but it is, definitely, an idea. We’ll put it up to the Abbess and Bill when we next see them.” She popped the last end of her roll into her mouth. When she had swallowed it, she said, “And now, will anyone have any more? No? Then we’d better get cracking. Come on, everyone!”

They left the room and raced upstairs just as most of the other visitors were coming down. Joey dashed into her room, calling, “Mind you wear big hats! It looks like being a scorcher, and even less than holding up fainting females do I want to deal with sunstroke cases! Oh, and don’t forget your cash if you have an idea of buying crocks at Tiernkirche.”

The girls giggled as they ran up the second flight of stairs and fished out the big, shady hats the school authorities insisted on for hot weather.

“Joey is rather overwhelming when she gets really going,” Mary-Lou remarked as she raked a comb through her rampant curls before adjusting her hat. “I say, you people, I vote we take something to carry our purchases—if any—in. I’ve got that leather shopping-bag I bought at the Sale. I’ll take that, and we can take it in turns to carry it. Vi, you might scoot and warn the others. I don’t suppose they’ll think of it themselves! And can you see the picture we should present if we all arrived back waving mugs and plates and dishes?” she wound up dramatically.

“Like a lot of tinkers!” Hilary finished off the picture. “You’re quite right. You go to Elinor and Co, Vi, and I’ll take on the rest. We’ll meet on the verandah.”

She dashed out of the room, Vi following her, and Mary-Lou, having succeeded in fishing out the bag from the bottom of her case, tucked her arm through Doris Hill’s, and hauled her off downstairs.

“Sure you’ve got everything?” Joey demanded when she and her party arrived. “Cash—hankies? What’s that you’re carrying, Mary-Lou?”

“A shopping-bag to take our pots when we get them,” Mary-Lou replied.

“Good idea! I’ll fly back and get mine.” She fled, followed by requests from the other three to bring their shopping-bags and returned waving them triumphantly.

“I once bought a gorgeous big jug at Tiernkirche,” she said as they set off. “Blue and yellow whirligigs all over,” she went on dreamily. “It was a peach of a jug—had a long pointed spout. It never oozed over the wrong places as so many jugs do, but always poured cleanly. Anna broke it by accident when we were packing up to come to Switzerland. How she howled! I’d like to see if I could get its mate. Then she might cease mourning over it at intervals.”

“I remember it,” Marie said. “I always envied you that jug. Well, we can but try. And Joey, I’ve had an idea. What about taking this crowd up to the Baumersee and showing them where we camped that summer you were Head Girl?”^[18]

“Oh, but yes!” Simone was all agog at this. “And we can look for the pit Joey fell into when she was so rude to Bill!”

With one accord, the prefects turned startled faces to Joey.

“You were rude to Bill?” Elinor cried. “To Bill, of all people? How did you dare?”

Joey went crimson, much to everyone’s glee. It was not often that anyone saw her discomfited. “I wasn’t!” she returned. “At least, I suppose I was rude all right, but I was feet down in the pit, and couldn’t see a thing, and I didn’t recognise her voice, and—well, I did say things.”

“I’ll say you did!” Marie retorted, reverting to one of her Americanisms. “Believe it or not, she called Bill an idiot, and told her to stop maundering and use her wits!”

The entire party went off into peals of laughter at this, and Joey, after glaring at them wrathfully, suddenly gave way and giggled herself. “What a shock I got when I found who it was I’d been calling all kinds of an idiot.” Her deep chuckle sounded again before she added, “I say! Do you three remember what happened when Juliet and Grizel and I went fishing in the early morning? Now that was a nasty shock, if you like!”

“Oh, I’ve heard that yarn!” Vi cried. “Daisy Venables—Rosomon, I mean—told Beth and Gwensi all about it, and Beth passed it on to us. You thought you’d fished up a human body, didn’t you?”

Joey nodded. “Only it turned out to be a worn-out artist’s lay-figure—well, what now?” This last to Mary-Lou.

“I only asked if the artist or the lay-figure was worn-out?” Mary-Lou said with deceptive meekness.

“Idiot! The figure, of course!” Joey knew her Mary-Lou. “If you’d been there, my good girl, you wouldn’t have liked it at all, I can tell you! For a time! felt I never wanted to be on the water again! And Grizel and I were both sick, and Bill dosed us with brandy—ugh! And then the farmer who held that bit of land came and uttered sweet nothings about that part of the lake being where the pike fed!”

“How simply disgusting!” Lesley Malcolm exclaimed. “I wonder you weren’t sick again!”

“I rather fancy that was an impossibility by that time,” Joey told her airily.

“Well, let us forget it for the moment,” Simone proposed. “I want to ask when we should visit the lake?”

“Tomorrow, I should think. Frieda, you’re the one who was last in these parts. Can we get up there on Sundays, do you know?”

“But of course. The postal coach runs past the wood. We could go by that and also come back by it. But you must ask Herr Braun about the times, for I have no idea of them. When we went last, Papa took us in his car.”

“Can do! I’ll go into a huddle with him when we get back. And what about visiting the Sonnalpe on Monday, and having a dekko at Jem’s original San and Die Rosen? I’d love to renew all my memories of up there, too.”

“So would I!” Sybil Russell suddenly spoke up. “I remember Die Rosen quite well, and what a lovely home it was. Oh, yes; do let’s do that!”

“What about it, the rest of you?” Joey glanced round the crowd, for, as it was still quite early, they were trooping along in a compact body.

“Oh, rather!” Blossom cried eagerly. “I think that would be marvellous!”

“I’d like it, too,” Elinor said. “We’ve heard heaps about it all, of course. It would be wonderful to see the place where things happened. I suppose,” she added wistfully, “we couldn’t visit the cave where you all hid before you had to skip out of Tirol after the row with the Nazis?”

Joey shook her head. “My dear girl, it’s practically a day’s trip in itself. That’ll have to wait for another time.”

Elinor sighed. “And I have only next year at St. Mildred’s, and then I leave school. I haven’t much time!”

“Don’t talk rot! You can come out and stay with us, can’t you? For,” Joey added, with the comfortable assurance that she was about to create a sensation, “I’m going to talk Jack into buying a chalet somewhere around for us to spend the holidays. However I’ve kept away so long, I can’t think. But never again!”

“Won’t it cost an awful lot?” Mary-Lou asked.

“That’s quite possible. But we’ve decided to give up Plas Gwyn. Jack’s had an excellent offer for it, and it’s very unlikely we’ll want it again for at least another ten years, if then. In one way, I’m very sorry. But Madge isn’t close at hand any longer, and—but that’s no business of mine so I can’t discuss it,” Joey said mysteriously. “The school won’t go back, either. There’s really no point in keeping it on. So Plas Gwyn is going, and I’ve got to hop over to England during the holidays to see about shifting the furniture we have there. Jack can’t be spared, of course, but Daisy and Laurie Rosomon are coming to stay with me and help out, and bringing their small Tony with them. So I’ll see him at last.”

The girls were not very sure what to say—all but Mary-Lou. She set up a wail of dismay. “Not coming back ever! What a ghastly thing!”

“Well, it won’t affect you very much,” Joey told her. “You’re going to Oxford, and when that’s over, you’ll be flighting about the world. I don’t see what you’re making all the fuss about!”

This took all the wind out of Mary-Lou’s sails, so she subsided, and they went on, chatting amiably about old times, until Joey was suddenly moved to lift up her voice in Schubert’s “Hark, Hark the Lark!” whereupon they all sang vigorously until they finally came in sight of Tiernkirche, where they stopped and made a dive for the Gasthaus in quest of coffee and anything they could procure in the way of food.

“I’m ravenous with all this walking!” Joey remarked as she led the way.

“It’s been a gorgeous weekend on the whole, hasn’t it?” Mary-Lou asked as she sat in the bows of the boat, trailing one hand in the cool water, while Joey, who had been rowing, rested on her oars and gazed round the beloved scene with satisfied eyes.

“We could have done without yesterday’s weather, I must say,” she replied. “What a day! I almost thought we’d be having another nice little flood! It’s a pity we had to give up the Baumersee trip, but it would have been a ghastly fiasco!”

“Oh, well, we didn’t do too badly.” Mary-Lou sat up and shook the water off her fingers. “It was fun seeing something of Innsbruck. And I did enjoy the visit to Frieda’s people. What a huge man Herr Mensch is!”

“I used to call him Onkel Reise,” Joey said reminiscently. “Yes; on the whole, it has been a gorgeous week-end, though I’ve one crab.”

“Oh! What’s that?”

“Why, try as I would, I couldn’t get even a sniff of a chalet for us hereabouts. I did so hope to be able to present Jack with un fait accompli. It would probably save quite a lot of argument.”

“Something will turn up,” her companion declared with certainty. “I never knew anyone like you for falling on your feet! Remember how you thought you’d have to build your own chalet up at the Görnetz Platz? And then Freudesheim suddenly conked out as a pension, and Uncle Jack was on the spot at the time and was able to snaffle it at once. And you told Mother yourself it came lots cheaper than building would have been.”

“I daresay. That sort of thing happens once in a lifetime, my child.”

“You may be right. I wouldn’t know. Anyhow, I’m not going to argue the point. Much too much like work on a sultry evening like this!” Mary-Lou concluded with a yawn, and sprawled again on her cushions, and Joey, after making a tentative stroke or two, ceased her efforts and let her oars trail in the water while the boat drifted along, rocking very gently. Like Mary-Lou, she found the night sultry even though out here there was the faintest breeze.

It was the Monday of the week-end. The Sunday, as Joey had pointed out, had been an appalling day so far as the weather was concerned. The rain had come down in sheets nearly all day, and a melancholy wind had wailed over the lake. The trip to the Baumersee had to be given up and instead, they had all gone to Innsbruck on the mid-morning train. For the time before Mittagessen they had shown the girls various important points in the beautiful old city. Then Frieda and Joey had gone off to the tall apartment house in the Mariahilf where Frieda’s people, the Mensches, lived, taking with them Sybil, Elinor and Mary-Lou.

“I’m sure Onkel Reise and Tante Gretchen will want to see specimens of the present-day Chaletians,” Joey had pointed out to a giggling crew. “They knew Sybs as an infant, and Elinor and Mary-Lou will do for another pair. The rest of you may amuse yourselves as you like. Meet us at the Hauptbahnhof for the train that leaves somewhere around seventeen. That will give us nice time to catch the last mountain train up, and I, for one, don’t fancy walking after all the rain!”

As if to make up for Sunday’s fiasco, the Monday had dawned bright and hot. They had gone up to the Sonnalpe where Joey had speedily routed out sundry old friends and acquaintances. She had marched them to the big Sanatorium founded by her brother-in-law, Sir James Russell, and taken over by the Government when various happenings had forced the English folk to leave Tirol. Here, she had made inquiries until she had discovered an old ally who introduced them to the present head. When he understood who she was, he had insisted on inviting the entire party to Mittagessen, striking horror into the heart of his housekeeper—he was a bachelor—when he rang up to desire her to have a meal ready for twenty guests. So they had been able to see Joey’s old home, for he took them all over the house. Joey and the other three kept recognising various former belongings, and when the inspection was over, she heaved a deep sigh.

“Oh, how happy we were here! More than ever do I intend to fix up a holiday home for ourselves somewhere around here!” She turned to the big Austrian doctor who was watching her with a twinkle in his eyes. “I suppose you wouldn’t like to sell us the house again, Herr Doktor?”

“Unfortunately, it is not mine to sell,” he told her gravely. “It is part of the Sanatorium now. But if you wish a home here, meine Frau, I can help you, I think. A friend of mine has a chalet at Buchau, and as his wife has died and his children are all grown-up and gone out into the world, he now wishes to remove to Salzburg. He was up last night and told me. He would sell, I am sure. Perhaps you know it? The big chalet——”

“St. Scholastika’s!” Joey gave a shriek. “But that used to be our summer home. Jem bought it after Miss Browne gave up her school there, and we used to go down from May to September—and spend odd weekends there at other times, too. Do you mean it’s really for sale? How simply wonderful!”

Nothing could be done then, though Doktor Auböck tried to telephone his friend. Evidently the gentleman was away, for there was no reply, so Joey had to leave the Sonnalpe unsatisfied, when they finally descended to the lake, reaching their hotel just in time for Abendessen.

When the meal was over they had all wandered forth again for last strolls by the lake. Joey, for purposes of her own, persuaded the boatman to hire her a boat, and took Mary-Lou off with her, declining to have anyone else. Mary-Lou was tired with the long hot day and scramble down the old mountain-path. A fine new road had been built since the war, but nothing but the old-time way would do for the Quartette, and the girls had been nothing loath.

For a few minutes the pair sat silent in the rocking boat. Then Joey roused herself. She looked round to see that they were well out of the track of the last ferry, and then leaned forward.

“Mary-Lou!” she said urgently.

“Uh?” Mary-Lou asked, sleepily.

“Wake up! I want to talk to you. You don’t suppose I brought you out here by yourself and wasted so much breath on Hansi Biener, coaxing him to let me have a boat after hours, just for the pleasure of your society, do you?”

“Hadn’t thought about it.” But Mary-Lou was intrigued. She sat up, clasping her hands round her knees, and looked at her friend with interest. “What do you want to talk about that’s so private?”

“I’m going to tell you—if you can keep awake long enough to listen!”

“I’m wide awake, thank you, and listening with all my ears. Go ahead before I start to waggle them off!”

“Right! Well, it’s this. We four have taken all your crowd into unusually close friendship, this week-end. I want you to warn the rest to keep it more or less to themselves. I know you will, of course.”

“What on earth do you mean?” Mary-Lou was wide awake now and glaring at Joey. “Joey! Do you really suppose that we’re likely to go running round to all and sundry saying that you let us use your Christian names and were real pals all the time, and boasting about it? Now, is it likely?”

“Don’t be an ass! I never thought that at all. What I did think was that one of you might accidentally let something slip, and I need hardly tell you that we don’t want the rest of the school to think they can be on the same terms. Neither do I want us to be accused of favouritism. Do you see?”

Mary-Lou cooled down. “Yes; I think so. But, Joey, tell me this. Why did you do it? The rest thought me the limit when I first asked you, and I rather wondered what you yourself thought about it. They’re always saying I get away with things that no one else would think of mentioning, and I’d like to know if you thought that.”

“No; I didn’t. I know you, my child, and I know it isn’t that with you. You were right, you know. We did feel more like Chalet girls when you crowd weren’t forever reminding us by names that we are married and have families. We liked it. We wanted it. Especially, we wanted it for Frieda.”

“But why her especially?” Mary-Lou demanded.

“Because she needed it most. You know how worried and anxious they’ve been all these years over Gretchen. As Frieda told us when we set out last Friday, that’s over now. Humanly speaking, she seems likely to grow into as husky a specimen as my own Margot. But all the trouble and the constant strain has affected Frieda badly. I thought—we all thought—that if she could be taken right out of her present self and plunged into something quite different—the times we had when we were kids at school ourselves—it might make a difference. And it has! Make no mistake about that! She’s a different creature now. She’s lost that look of being perpetually strung up to concert pitch. She’s still far too thin, of course. Not even the sort of meals Herr Braun seems to think we ought to eat has done very much about that. But I believe, and so do Marie and Simone, that this break has been just what she needed to jerk her out of it all and give her a shove off on the right way.”

Mary-Lou nodded thoughtfully. “I see. But Joey, you had the same sort of worry over Margot. It didn’t take you like that—or did it?”

“My lamb, it was well on the way to doing it. But I had the same sort of treatment that Frieda’s been having. Mine lasted a full year, of course—two years, in fact. Madge walked Margot off to Canada twelve months before we went out to join them. Going there yanked me right out of all my old terrors for her, and I came round like a bird, and I’ve never looked back again. But, apart from that, I believe I can stand up to that sort of thing better than Frieda can. I always could.”

“I didn’t think of it that way,” Mary-Lou confessed. “You’ve always been so jolly and—and up and coming. But of course, I do know you used to have awful times with Margot and bronchitis when she was a kid. Anyhow, I was too much a kid myself in those days to notice it. Well, I’m sure you needn’t worry about us letting the rest of the school get wind of what’s been happening, but I’ll warn the others when we get back, though it would be all right, even if I didn’t.”

“I know; but I thought I’d just mention it. After all, you are a little different. We’ve been friends a good many years now.”

“Why didn’t you shove the job on to Sybil?” Mary-Lou asked. “After all, she’s your niece. She’d understand all right.”

“She is my niece. That’s why,” Joey said.

Mary-Lou thought that one out. “I see,” she said slowly. “To Sybs you’re an aunt, and, therefore, one of the elders.”

“I thought you’d get it,” Joey said briefly.

“And you really think this week-end has done for Frieda what Canada did for you? It’s a lot shorter time, isn’t it?”

“It is. But it’s meant a complete break with the home atmosphere. She’s had practically no time to think of her family since she came here. She hasn’t been Frieda von Ahlen, any more,” Joey grinned suddenly, “than I’ve been Joey Maynard. We’ve definitely got back—not to our schooldays. I suppose that would be rather too much to expect. But we’ve got back to where we were before even Marie was married—and that’s not intended for a pun, let me tell you.”

“What about nights?” Mary-Lou asked diffidently. “You do think of awful things when you wake up in the middle of the night.”

“You do; but every night Frieda’s slept unbrokenly from the time she lay down till the time she got up. And that’s something she hasn’t done for years.”

“You don’t always do it yourself, do you? What about teething babies?”

“That’s a very different matter from waking up at odd hours to go and stand beside a child’s cot, and watch her to make sure that she’s all right.” Joey spoke from bitter experience. “The other is just a natural thing, and you get over it. It’s the constant drag at your nerves that does the damage. I’m going to get that chalet here or die in the attempt, and then I’ll see to it that Frieda comes to me as often as possible in the hols—Mercy!” Her tone changed completely. “Where are we going?”

She made a dive for her oars, and, in her haste, contrived to send one of them off the rowlock and into the water, where it bobbed off on its own. Mary-Lou, leaning over in an effort to catch it, nearly capsized the boat, and Joey shrieked at her to sit back at once.

“I’ll try to paddle with this one and get it that way,” she said breathlessly. “Sit over, Mary-Lou, or the boat won’t trim, and I don’t want an unexpected swim—not in these parts, anyhow. This is one of the deepest parts of the lake and pretty icy, thanks to the spring hereabouts. And we’d have a jolly long swim before we could get to safety. Just look at that young cliff!”

Mary-Lou looked, and promptly sat over without a word. In their interest in the conversation they had never noticed that they had got into the current which flowed from the main stream towards their own side of the lake, but also towards a part where the rocks rose sheer out of the water to a height of twenty feet or so. Joey knew the danger well enough, and she did her grim best with her single oar. But though she kept them away from the rocks, it was all she could so. She looked across at Mary-Lou, who was sitting quietly, though she was rather pale.

“It’s no go,” she said. “I’ll do my best to keep us going until we reach the Dripping Rock. We can get ashore there. We’ll talk of what to do when we’ve managed that. Hang on to your rudder lines and steer to the centre of the lake as far as you can.”

“Wouldn’t anyone hear us if we yelled?”

“Not in these parts, I’m afraid. There used to be a path right along to Gaisalm, but it’s vanished now. It wasn’t any too safe in my time.”

“Why not?” Mary-Lou asked, forgetting their unpleasant situation in her interest.

“Breaking away,” Joey said. “Herr Braun tells me there isn’t any left now, and people have to come by lake to view the Dripping Rock as we did.”

“What about other people on the lake? Wouldn’t they hear us, and come?”

“There aren’t any, I imagine. There’s a big dance at the Seehof Hotel tonight, and practically everyone will be there. But we’ll try it, just in case.”

The pair yelled at the full pitch of healthy lungs, but no one heard them. At any rate, no one came to their aid, and by the time they decided that any help must come from themselves Joey, who had been keeping a keen eye on landmarks, announced that they were practically there.

“Whatever happens, we’ll be safe enough,” she said cheerfully.

“I wish it wasn’t so dark!” Mary-Lou said with an involuntary shudder. “What’s happened to the moon?”

“She’ll be along shortly. She is nearly past the waning half now, so she rises latish,” Joey explained. “It’s a bit cloudy tonight, too, which is why we haven’t much starlight. There’s one thing. It’s such a hot night, we can’t possibly suffer from the cold! Watch out, Mary-Lou! We’re almost there!”

Manœuvring as well as she could with her single oar, she brought them safely past the last of the cliff-like rock and to the little gully below the Dripping Rock. There she sprang out, splashing knee-deep in the water. Mary-Lou followed, and together they managed to drag the boat up half out of the water.

“It’s a blessing we’ve no tides to worry about,” Joey remarked, turning to look up at the Rock itself. “That ought to be safe enough. Hansi can come along and collect her tomorrow. I hope you aren’t feeling too dead, for I’m afraid it’s either a wild scramble or spending the night out here, and I don’t want to do that. The rest would be scared out of their wits if we didn’t turn up, and,” she added with a sudden return to her usual impish self, “I should hate to have to return to the Platz with a gibbering band of prefects! What Bill and the Abbess would say to me when they saw the lot of them mopping and mowing, I hate to think!”

Mary-Lou chuckled. “How do you mop and mow? I’ve often wondered.”

“We won’t go into that now. Instead, we’ll see what we can do about climbing. It isn’t dangerous; merely tiresome. What about that back of yours? Will it stand up to that sort of thing?”

“My back’s perfectly all right again, thank you. Hang it, Joey, it’s nearly two years since the accident!”^[19] Mary-Lou turned to survey what she could see of the Rock. “It’ll be a bit of a sickener in the dark, won’t it?”

As if in reply, at that moment the clouds were riven and the moon sailed out, white and gleaming and shedding a silvery light over everything. It was nearly as bright as day, and Mary-Lou, still gazing upwards, saw that the suggested climb was perfectly practicable.

“Thank goodness the heat today has cleared up any effects left by yesterday’s rain!” Joey remarked. “I admit it wouldn’t be very nice then. The rock’s so slippery when it’s wet. However, I don’t think that’ll worry us now. Look here, Mary-Lou, I’m sending you up first. I know this way—I’ve done it before, though I’m bound to admit that no one else but my fellow-criminals knew of it——”

“Who were they?” Mary-Lou interrupted her.

Joey grinned. “No one here. Don’t you think that! As a matter of fact if you really want to know they were Deira o’Hagen, Mary Burnett, who used to teach you folk history—no; I won’t be interrupted!—and Carla von Flügen, who landed in on us as I was beginning the climb. I believe Mary’s the only one of the lot you know.”

“She is,” Mary-Lou agreed. “Anyhow, go on with the yarn.”

“There isn’t one. I was just pointing out that I know the way, and I can tell you all about footholds and handholds as we go, and otherwise guide your infant footsteps in the right direction.”

Mary-Lou glared at her helplessly. When Joey was in this mood, there was nothing she could do about it, and she knew it. Joey chuckled inwardly as she went on tranquilly: “Well, that being settled, come on! Oh! Before I forget! I’d be just as glad if you kept this part of our adventure to yourself—until after you leave school, at any rate. I’ve provided a good many legends in my time, and I’d rather not have this one added for the present.”

Mary-Lou had recovered herself. “Think we know too much about you and your evil deeds?” she jeered. “O.K. I’m ready. But I’m not leading. Don’t you think it! You shall be Good King Wenceslas, and I’ll be your page, marking your footsteps. We’ll be much safer that way. And it’s no use arguing because I’ve turned deaf.”

Looking at the girl’s face in the moonlight, Joey saw that she meant what she said. She had little time to waste if there was not to be a hue and cry after them, for it was pretty late already. She did not want Frieda to be upset and worried, so she gave way, though her idea had been that if Mary-Lou should slip, she herself might be able to prevent her falling. However, there was a good deal to be said for leading the way herself, so she nodded.

“Very well. We’ll do it that way if that’s what you feel like. Come on!”

Mary-Lou relaxed. “Lead on, Macduff! I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth—and when we get there, I’ll push you over!” she added with a giggle.

Joey scorned to reply. She found the first holds, and set off and Mary-Lou followed with a cheerfulness that was not all assumed. She had faith in her leader, and the moon seemed to have come to stay, so all was well!

“This,” Joey panted indignantly when they had managed to get about halfway up the rock, “is definitely not what I planned when I asked you to come for a row with me. You all right, Mary-Lou?”

“Quite O.K., thank you. And you save your breath until we’re out of this!” Mary-Lou advised as she dug her finger-tips into a cleft while she felt with her toes for another to lift her a little further.

“Cheeky brat!” Joey retorted. Then she fell silent. She was finding that what had been a huge joke when she was an athletic schoolgirl of fifteen or sixteen was quite another matter now she was double that age. It was not that she had ever been anything but active; but her activities had not, of late, included rock-climbing, and she was out of practice. Besides that, she had the responsibility of Mary-Lou on her shoulders, and until that young woman was safely up, she was going to feel anxious.

To add to her worries, even the faint breeze off the lake had died away, and there was a stillness about everything that she did not like. She knew too well how to interpret it! Pausing on a ledge that was about six inches wide, she cast a wary glance up at the sky. It was still clear and the moon was still shining; but she guessed that over on the eastern side of the lake, the heavy clouds were beginning to muster their battalions. A thunderstorm was due and, whatever happened, she did not want to be caught in that very sticky place with the sort of thunderstorm the Tirol can produce to make things worse.

Luckily for both of them, help was at hand. Mary-Lou’s back was beginning to remind her of her accident, and Joey’s shoulder and leg muscles were aching badly, when a man’s gentle voice spoke from immediately above them.

“Ladies climbing here—and with such weather coming! Aber, meine Damen, can I not be of assistance to you? I will give you some light, at least.” And the light from a huge torch was flashed down on them.

Even in that moment, Joey thought that the voice was vaguely familiar. Not that she stopped to think it out. She replied quickly, “Danke sehr, mein Herr. Have you, perhaps, a rope with you?”

“Alas, no!” came the reply. “But I can help for all that.” The light shifted a little to the left. “See, mein Fräulein, if you will stretch a little to the right, there is a deep little cleft into which you can insert your fingers. Below him is a ledge for your feet, and from there you will find another a very little higher up, which runs on up to the top and makes it easy. And I am here to help you up at the end. Try him! I will hold the light very steady.”

Mary-Lou stretched and found the cleft. A minute later, and her feet were on the first ledge. Then she was up on the second one, and finding that the back-straining climbing was over. Other niches and little projections gave her good handholds, and the ledge did, indeed, climb up to the top of the rock where the owner of the voice was stooping. As her head appeared over the edge, he bent lower, put his hands under her arms, and nearly lifted her up beside him.

“Go a little back,” he ordered her; and she obeyed without question, while he turned back to help Joey, who was in difficulties with her hair. She had lost most of her hairpins in the struggle, and the great waveless black mane was tossing about her as she followed in Mary-Lou’s steps, for she had got her own way in the end and sent the girl ahead of her. She shook the hair back from her face impatiently, and then she, too, was at the top, and those long slender musician’s hands which were yet so powerful, were helping her up, and she finally rolled over beside Mary-Lou, and sat up panting for breath.

Their rescuer came to squat down beside them. “I have here a flask,” he announced, drawing it from an inner pocket. “Just a schnäppsen, now, and you will feel better. Drink, gnädige Frau!”

Joey made a grimace to herself in the darkness, for she hated spirits. However, she knew that she needed it, so she swallowed the generous dose he poured out for her, spluttering a little over it. Once it was down, though, the icy cold she had been feeling inside began to go, and she was able to giggle over Mary-Lou’s struggles with a smaller dose. That young lady gulped, choked and tried to refuse the rest. But the gentleman was firm, and finally she got it down.

“Das ist gut!” the gentleman remarked as he screwed on the cup, and returned the flask to his pocket. “It will put new strength into you. Rest one little moment, and then I will take you to your hotel. Are you staying in Briesau or at the Gaisalm Gasthaus? No matter. The path goes all the way between the two.”

“We are at the Kron Prinz Karl in Briesau,” Joey explained, seeing that Mary-Lou had still not got over her choking fit. “I am Frau Doktor Maynard—from the Görnetz Platz in the Oberland.” She was hurriedly plaiting back her mane.

“Maynard? The Herr Doktor Maynard? That is a name well known here,” he exclaimed. “It was a Doktor Maynard who, with the Herr Doktor Russell, worked at the Sanatorium on the Sonnalpe many years ago. Are you his wife, meine Frau?”

“That’s me,” Joey said cheerfully as she tossed back the end of the thick bellrope of hair. She peered at him through the thickening darkness. Surely his voice was familiar? Who could he be? “And you, mein Herr?” she asked, with outward politeness but inward excitement.

“I am Franz Helfen, very much at your service,” he replied, with a bow.

“What?” Joey was on her feet in a moment. “Herr Franz Helfen, did you say? But you must be the Herr Helfen who used to give violin lessons at the Chalet School years and years ago!”

“Nearly twenty years ago,” he agreed. “Much has happened since then, meine Frau. But you—ach, pardon if I look again!”

He flashed the light of his torch on her. The next moment he was exclaiming, too. “But it is Fräulein Joey Bettany! I remember you well! You were a friend of the young sister of Fräulein Bernhilda Mensch, and you sang like a chorister. Do you bring the school back to us, then? Alas! And I am about to leave the Tiernsee!”

“You’re leaving the Tiernsee?” In the light of the torch, Joey’s eyes were starry pools of blackness. “No, mein Herr. So far as I know, the school remains where it is—at the Görnetz Platz. But tell me, mein Herr, are you the friend of the Herr Doktor Auböck who is living in our old St. Scholastika’s, but is giving it up to go and live in Salzburg? Oh, how simply marvellous!”

Mary-Lou was fully recovered by this time, and she had been glancing at her watch. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said now, “but it’s nearly ten o’clock—I mean twenty-two—and the others will be going up the walls about us if we don’t show up before long. Joey, couldn’t you and Herr Helfen go on with your talk while we get down to Briesau again?”

“Mercy!” Joey ejaculated. “I’d forgotten everyone and every thing in all the excitement! But you’re quite right, Mary-Lou.” She turned to Herr Helfen. “We are here with a party, mein Herr,” she explained in her rapid, fluent German. “Mary-Lou and I went for a row on the lake and lost an oar. Hence the place where you found us. But if it’s as late as that we must return as speedily as possible or the others will be imagining that we have drowned ourselves. You will come back with us to the hotel, nicht wahr? You will meet other old friends if you do.” She broke off to laugh. “Frieda Mensch is there with us. So are Simone Lecoutier and Marie von Eschenau. We came with a party of the present girls for the week-end. Do come and meet them again! Besides,” she added, “I want to see you very badly, though I didn’t know it was you I wanted to see, so to speak.”

Herr Helfen laughed. “But it will be a pleasure. I had intended it in any case, to light your path, for though it is comparatively easy walking, it is also awkward. There are tree-roots and rock-snags here and there, over which you might fall. So I will certainly accompany you.”

“Oh, good! Lead on, Mary-Lou! This will be an excitement for the other three!”

Mary-Lou led the way, Joey following and Herr Helfen bringing up the rear with his torch shedding light over the so-called path as they went. It would have been very dark otherwise, for the clouds Joey had expected had been gathering, and now the stars were fled and the moon hidden. But as Joey said later, with that young lighthouse shining on everything, it was an easy matter to see their way and pick their steps safely. It was not a made road, and, as Herr Helfen explained, little used at any time. Visitors to the Tiernsee rarely troubled it. Presently, however, it broadened a little, and then he came level with Joey.

“I am curious,” he said. “Why is it so marvellous that I should be leaving Tiernsee?”

Joey had the grace to blush. “Well, it’s this way, mein Herr. This is the first time I’ve been back here since we all had to fly. I’ve often been homesick for it, but—well, as I told you, I married Dr. Maynard, and we’ve a long family——”

“Nine of ’em!” struck in Mary-Lou, who was near enough to hear all this.

“Yes,” Joey agreed. “We’ve nine youngsters now. You know what happened. The war came and there wasn’t a hope of returning, even if Jack and I hadn’t been very badly wanted by the Nazis.^[20] We lived in England for some years. Then we had a year in Canada, and when we got home it had been decided to move the school back to the Alps—to the Görnetz Platz, where a new branch of the Sanatorium was also to be opened. My husband was appointed Head, which meant that we came, too, and, in any case, my three eldest girls are at the school. We had quite a time settling in, and I had twin babies to complicate matters. Number Nine arrived a little over a year ago, and when we’ve gone away, it’s had to be to England. There were a good many loose business ends to tie up, you see. We’re hoping to finish those these coming holidays, and then we shall settle down at the Görnetz Platz for good, I expect.”

She had to stop there for the moment. Mary-Lou, in her deep interest in the story, had forgotten to watch her feet, and now she tripped over a snag. She would have fallen headlong, but Herr Helfen made a long arm and caught and steadied her just in time.

“Can’t you look where you’re going?” Joey queried sweetly.

“Sorry!” Mary-Lou returned, completely impenitent. “Thank you so much, Herr Helfen. I nearly came a nasty cropper that time.”

“You must watch the path,” he told her with a smile. Then he turned to Joey. “Then why, gnädige Frau, are you so interested in my house?”

“Well, you see,” Joey went on, “until this year it hasn’t been possible for me to revisit Tirol. And now I have, I feel as if I couldn’t bear to give up all connection with it again. This year we are celebrating the coming-of-age of the school, and for part of the celebrations it was decided to bring all the present-day Chalet girls to Tiernsee to let them see where we began. This is the last party—the prefects—and as things are very busy at school, what with exams and the end of term, and so on, I said I’d come with them, and my three chums came, too. Now I’ve seen it again, I’m determined to have a summer chalet here if it’s possible. Only, until today, I couldn’t hear of one either to let or for sale. Then, when we were up at the Sonnalpe today, I tried to tempt Herr Doktor Auböck to sell us Die Rosen. But he tells me it is reckoned in with the San property, and he can’t. Then he told us he had a friend who had St. Scholastika’s, and was leaving. He tried to get you on the ’phone, but you weren’t there.”

“I see,” Herr Helfen said, with a smile. “And as I am leaving, you wish to buy. I remember that when the former school closed, the Herr Doktor Russell had it.”^[21]

“That’s it!” Joey said eagerly. “I know we can’t possibly come to any definite arrangement tonight, and we leave tomorrow. But I’ll ask my husband to get into touch with you, mein Herr, and I do hope we can come to terms. When did you propose to give it up?”

“I expect to leave at the end of next month,” he said. “I should be very glad for you and the Herr Doktor to have the chalet, for otherwise it would almost certainly be bought by the hydro-electric company, and I think they have enough places round here. I mentioned my intentions to no one but my good friend, Anton Auböck, so you are—how do you say it?—first in the field, nicht wahr?”

“Oh, good!” Joey cried. “If we can’t have Die Rosen or one of the school buildings again, I’d like St. Scholastika’s. I’ll tell Jack as soon as I get home, and he’ll contact you at once, mein Herr.” Then she added prettily, “And when we are settled, I do hope you’ll come and stay with us for a few weeks now and then. Are you going to teach in Salzburg?”

He shook his head. “No; my teaching days are over now. I go to be near my son. He has a shop for selling music and musical instruments. There are four little ones there, so they have no room for der Grossvater; but a modest appartement is to be had in the next street, and that is where I go. My good Grete, who keeps house for me, goes with me, and I shall be very comfortable. So if the Herr Doktor and I can come to an arrangement about the chalet, I shall be pleased indeed to accept your invitation, and so I shall still be able to come and see the so-loved lake and meet the friends I have here. We will see. I do not think he and I are likely to disagree over-much.”

By this time they were descending the hill, and ten minutes more saw them in Briesau itself, where a wild-eyed Marie, accompanied by Mary-Lou’s own special gang and Sybil, looking frightened out of her wits, met them as they reached the little gate in the fence which cuts off the Briesau peninsula from the northern shore of the lake.

“Where have you been? What have you been doing?” Marie flung herself on Joey, angry in the reaction from her fright. “You’ve scared us all nearly out of our senses! What do you mean by going off in that mad way and staying away all this time! Do you know that it is nearly twenty-three o’clock, and you said you wouldn’t be away longer than an hour or so? What have you been doing?”

“Oh, this and that,” Joey said airily. “Never mind Mary-Lou and me, Marie. Just see who’s here!” And she waved her hand towards Herr Helfen, who had stepped back for a moment.

He came forward now, holding out his hand and saying, “Fräulein Marie! Ach, but I should have known you anywhere. You are no more changed than Fräulein Joey. But I beg your pardon. I remember now. Already at school you were betrothed to the Count von und zu Wertheim.”^[22]

Mary-Lou tucked her hands through the arms of Vi and Hilary, who were nearest, and nodded to the others to come with them. “We’ll get on to the hotel while those folk are reminiscing,” she said. “We can relieve the minds of the others. Sorry if you’ve all been scared, but we lost an oar and that delayed us. And that,” she added, very strictly to herself, “is, thank goodness, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth!”

“We might have known what would happen if you and Auntie Jo went off alone together!” Sybil snapped. “She’s always been a flypaper for adventure, and you’re a cat of the same colour!”

“Oh, well, they’ve come back safe and sound,” Hilary said soothingly. “We might have known they’d fall on their feet. They’re the kind that do.”

“And luckily,” Lesley Malcolm chimed in, “Frieda was tired, what with the long walk and the heat of the day, and she went off to bed shortly after you left us, and Simone went with her, and neither knows anything about you two being missing.”

“And that was a jolly good thing,” Vi put in. “Frieda doesn’t look frightfully fit at the best of times, though she’s certainly fitter since she’s been here. It’s the marvellous air, I expect.” She sniffed, dog fashion, and then heaved a deep sigh. “I do hate to think this is our last night. Let’s hope Joey finds that chalet she’s been nattering about, and keeps her word about inviting us to stay.”

“Oh, here’s Mary-Lou, at any rate!” said Blossom’s voice, as she and Elinor loomed up out of the darkness. “Give an account of yourself, young woman! What on earth have you two been doing? Sybs had horrid visions of both of you drifting about in the depths of the lake, locked in each other’s arms! I think she wasn’t very sure that she oughtn’t to cable Madame on the spot. However, we all pointed out to her with much emphasis that the Poste was closed, and had been for two hours or so, and none of us knew how to get a cable sent otherwise, so she gave that idea a miss in the end.”

“I should hope so!” Mary-Lou cried. “Sybs! You lunatic! Did you really want to scare Auntie Madge out of seven years’ growth?”

“Well, you never came, and Marie was scared to death, and it was all dreadful,” Sybil said defensively. She was prepared to go on justifying herself, but at that moment there came a low, long rumble of thunder, far away, but none the less menacing for that. Elinor exclaimed, and Sybil made a dive for the hotel.

“Come on!” she called. “It’s going to thunder like mad in a minute!”

The girls broke into a run, and tore after her, reaching the Kron Prinz Karl just as she did.

“Suppose you’d been out on the lake when that came!” Blossom said.

“Shouldn’t dream of supposing anything so mad,” Mary-Lou told her calmly. “What do you think Joey is? Use your wits, all of you, and don’t be so idiotic! By the way, another reason why we are late is that we met an old friend of theirs. Joey’s been talking nineteen to the dozen ever since. He used to teach the fiddle in the school, I gather. I wonder if it’s too late to ask for something to eat? I’m starving!”

This remark was answered by Herr Braun himself, who had been down to scan the lake as far as he could for the wanderers. He came back in time to hear Mary-Lou, and gave vent to an ejaculation of relief.

“Gott sei dankt! But where is Fräulein Joey? Come in, come in, my children! There are coffee and rolls waiting for all in the Speisesaal. Fräulein Mary-Lou, where is Fräulein Joey?”

“Coming behind us,” Mary-Lou replied; but her answer was drowned by a second, much louder peal of thunder, and he hustled them all into shelter.

“It will rain, and you will be wet! We shall have a bad storm, I fear. Come to the Speisesaal, all, and then I will go to seek Fräulein Joey myself.”

There came the sound of flying footsteps, and Joey and Marie appeared, both looking rather the worse for wear, since Joey’s plait had come undone and Marie had dropped several hairpins and her golden curls were floating round her as a result.

“Where’s Herr Helfen?” Mary-Lou demanded as they raced up the verandah steps.

“Gone home, as hard as he could pelt,” Joey said. “Oh, not on foot, of course! He wouldn’t have a hope of setting there before this bursts. He rowed across in his boat, and it was tied up at the landing-stage. We wanted him to come with us, but he says his housekeeper is scared stiff of storms, so he wanted to get home. He literally fell into the boat, and the last we saw of him, he was flying over the water at the rate of no man’s business. What’s that, Herr Braun? Coffee? Lead me to it! I could do something to a cup of your gorgeous coffee and a roll or two. I’m simply ravenous!”

They streamed into the Speisesaal, where a dainty meal awaited them. Joey and Mary-Lou gave each other a quick, reminding look as Marie slipped off to see that all was well with Frieda, and returned with the news that both she and Simone had been sleeping peacefully when the thunder woke them. Both demanded a cup of coffee, so Marie would take it to them.

“I told them that Herr Helfen had turned up, and they’re both madly thrilled, especially Frieda,” she wound up. “Heavens! Listen to that rain!”

“We’d have to be stone deaf not to hear it!” Joey told her. “O.K. You take the coffee up, and then come back. Tell them I’ll see them later.”

Marie laughed, and went off with her coffee. When she came back, everyone was hard at it, making a good meal. Herr Braun had been called away to calm the fears of one of the visitors, an elderly lady who was convinced that the hotel was going to be struck any minute.

Joey enjoyed her coffee and three or four rolls. Then she filled last cups for everyone, and stood up, her own cup in her hand. There was such an air of triumph about her as she stood there that even those not in the know half-guessed what it was she was going to say before ever she began.

“Listen, all of you!” she said, shouting to make herself heard above the rumbling of the thunder, which seemed to be enjoying itself thoroughly. “I want you to drink to Herr Helfen! Thanks to him, I believe I’ve got my chalet, and in that case you are all invited to come out here during the hols and renew your acquaintance each year with the Tiernsee. Herr Helfen!”

Marie and the prefects jumped to their feet and clinked coffee-cups. “Herr Helfen!” they shouted in unison.

“And now,” said the toast-mistress when the empty cups were on the table again, “I vote we all go to bed. I won’t say to sleep. I doubt if anyone gets much sleep while this din lasts! But at least we can be lying down and resting our weary bones. Come on, Marie! We’ll set the example! Goodnight, girls!”

“Goodnight!” the girls chorused.

Mary-Lou put the finishing touch. “And you’ve got your chalet—or practically. Didn’t I say you always contrived to fall on your feet?”

“Mary-Lou! If you dare to say, ‘I told you so’, I’ll come along in the dead of night and murder you!” Joey vowed as she took her departure, leaving them all to follow her as well as they could for their peals of laughter.

The prefects’ trip saw the end of that particular form of celebration. They were the last. They came back to school to find everyone else in the thick of exams, public and otherwise. Hall was given up to those sitting the public exams. The rest were dotted about the grounds with various mistresses to invigilate, while those not on duty worked frantically to get through the piles of work that still remained to be done.

“These reports seem never-ending!” Nancy Wilmot groaned as she passed Upper IV over to Mdlle de Lachennais, and prepared to deal with Inter V. “All right, Kathie. I’ve looked them through, and they’re all O.K., so you can start on the geography now, and good luck to you!” She grimaced as she surveyed the big sheet. “Joan Baker! Yes; well, she shows improvement. I’ll say that for her. What else can I add?”

“You pipe down and let other people have a little peace!” Biddy o’Ryan retorted as she dealt with Josette Russell’s history paper.

Nancy grinned at her. “It’s all very well for you, my dear. These are your last reports. When the end of next term comes, you’ll be sitting complacently in your own salon thinking pityingly of us while you darn your husband’s socks!”

She got no further. Bundling up her papers, Biddy rose with some dignity, and departed to seek the peace of her own room, and the four or five mistresses left united to tell the torment what they thought of her.

The prefects were exempt from any exams this term, and were supposed to get on with their own special reading or essays in the library or the prefects’ room. Two of them were leaving at the end of the term. Lala Winterton was to go to London University and work for her degree before plunging into journalism. Elinor Pennell had won a scholarship to Oxford, and, when her three years there were over, would go in for secretarial work. With her languages, she might hope for a really good job, once her course was over. The Pennells were poor people, and it had been a struggle to give her the years in Switzerland. She knew this, and her great ambition now was to be able not only to keep herself but to help her people a little.

The rest of VIa, together with Bess Appleton and Felicity King from VIb, would go on to St. Mildred’s for a final year, which meant that next term they would be a good half-mile away from their old home. Those remaining of VIb would be in their last year at the Chalet School proper, and a number of Va would form the new VIb.

“It seems to be nothing but changes!” Mary-Lou sighed, on the Friday of that week, as she tried to suck an inky forefinger clean. “Elinor and Lala, I do wish you’d made up your minds to go on to St. Mildred’s for the next year. Once you leave here, when shall we all meet again?”

“Don’t misquote,” Lala said severely. “So far as I’m concerned, it’s Dad has the say-so, and he says I’ve had quite long enough at school, and it’s time I was buckling down to the next stage of my career. I’m quite a bit past eighteen.”

“Same here,” Elinor agreed. “So far as that goes, the sooner I can tackle my future job, the better I shall be pleased. It’s time Mother and Daddy gave up supporting me and let me do it for myself.”

“You won’t mind when it comes to your turn, Mary-Lou—or any of you,” Lala chimed in again. “I’ll admit I didn’t think so last summer when Dad broke the news that this would be my last year. But by the time you reach the age of eighteen, you begin to see things differently.”

Blossom looked up from her French essay to add her quota. “Well, I’m more than thankful I’ve still got the year at St. Mildred’s. But when that’s over, I’ll be glad to go home and help Mummy. Aubrey is stronger now, but he’s still very frail. As for The Infant, she’s the outside of enough! Mummy can do with my help.” Her lovely face was graver than usual as she spoke.

The conversation ended here for the moment, for Miss Dene came in.

“Mary-Lou?” she said, looking round. “Oh, there you are! Come along! You’re wanted.”

Mary-Lou got up from her seat by the window where she had been devoting the modicum of attention to Spenser’s Faerie Queene, and followed the secretary out of the room, wondering what was up now.

“Is anything wrong?” she asked as Miss Dene closed the door behind them and took her arm to draw her along the corridor.

“Jessica Wayne has been cabled for to go home at once, and she wants your help in packing. The Head told her she could have any prefect she liked to help her, and she asked for you at once.”

“Is it her sister Rosamund?” Mary-Lou asked, looking very grave.

“Yes; she has been failing all this term, as I think you know?” Rosalie Dene paused with up-raised brows, and Mary-Lou nodded. “They asked her more than once if she’d like Jessica home again, but she’s always refused until yesterday. Then she asked Mrs. Sefton if Jessica might come quickly. Mr. Sefton cabled the Head to put her on the first plane for London, and he’ll meet her at the airport. I’ve been on the ’phone to him since, and he says that the doctor says Rosamund may go any time now, and they won’t deny her anything she wants, poor child!”

“No; they wouldn’t,” Mary-Lou agreed, still looking very serious. “All right, Miss Dene. I’ll help her. Is she up in the dorm now?”

“Yes. It’s most unfortunate,” Miss Dene went on, almost as if she were talking to herself, “that Matron and all the other Matrons have gone off to Interlaken for the day. But they’ve had no real break this term, and it seemed a good time. Oh, well! We shall manage! The Maynards are taking Jessica to Basle in the car, and she wants you to go, too. What she actually said was, ‘Let me have Mary-Lou. She’ll talk sense and help me!’ Do what you can for her, child. She’s desperately unhappy about it and very rebellious, and she musn’t go to Rosamund in that mood. You’ve always had a certain influence over her. Try to get her to see how much better it is for that poor girl.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Mary-Lou agreed as she turned to run up the back stairs, which most of the school used. “I did try to make her see that at the beginning of term, when she first told me how much worse Rosamund was. I suppose now it’s really come close, she wants to hear it again. I’ll help her if I can.” She looked at Miss Dene with solemn blue eyes. “She’ll be all right once she’s got over the shock of knowing that it’s now. There’s jolly good stuff in Jessica, Miss Dene!”

“Yes; and it’s rather amazing that a girl of your age can see it,” Miss Dene thought. Aloud, she only said, “Good! We’re relying on you, Mary-Lou.”

Mary was off, springing up the stairs two at a time with complete disregard of rules. She found Jessica emptying her drawers with her lips set in a hard line, and a mulish look on her face. For a moment she nearly quailed at the task before her. Then she sent a swift, unspoken prayer to Heaven for help, and came forward.

“I’ll help you, Jessica. And take that look off your face! Yes; I know it’s heart-breaking for you, but this isn’t the moment to think about that. It’s Rosamund you’ve got to think of. If you let her see you looking like that, it’ll make her miserable. After all, she has lived through the term, and she has had all the fun of your letters about our celebrations. You must be very grateful for that.”

Jessica said nothing, but her lips relaxed. Mary-Lou began to sort the neat piles on the bed, and lay them in the long, light wicker tray, ready for carrying to the trunkroom. Suddenly she stopped.

“Shall you take everything now?” she asked. “You’re only allowed sixty pounds of luggage free on the plane. Why not pack a case with just what you’ll need, and leave the rest to come in your trunk with the school luggage? I’ll see to it myself for you, and it’ll make things much easier at the airport. O.K.?”

Jessica nodded. “You’re right. Thanks a lot, Mary-Lou.”

“Good! I’m coming with you to Basle, you know,” Mary-Lou went on as she sorted out absolute necessities, and then began to return the rest to the drawers. “And you’ll be back with us all next term.”

“Yes; but it won’t be the same! Rosamund—there’ll be no Rosamund to write to!” Jessica burst out.

“No; but Jessica, it’s going to be so good for Rosamund! She’ll be done with pain and weakness then. Isn’t it worth while to know that for her? Besides,” she added, in her most matter-of-fact tones, “it isn’t as if everything came to an end. Just think what a lot you’ll have to tell her when you meet again! That’s what I’ve always thought about Gran.”

Jessica had stopped work. “If only I hadn’t been such a beast to her at first!”

“Yes; but you’ve made up for that this past eighteen months or so. Since you came here, you’ve made her life a thousand times happier by being so good to her.”

“How can you know that?” Jessica demanded.

“Of course I know! Would she be asking for you now if you hadn’t? Do use your wits and sense of logic!” Mary-Lou said severely.

“I see. Yes; perhaps you’re right. But I’d do almost anything to be able to go back and be decent to her from the beginning!”

“But you can’t, my lamb, and it’s no use fretting over it. Rosamund’s forgotten all about it now. What she’ll want will be for you to forget, too. If you’re the decent girl I think you, you’ll do as she wants, too. Come on! We’ve piles to do before you’re ready. I think you’d better take all the hankies and stockings. Leave your shoes—except the bedroom slippers. Have you another kimono at home? Then we’ll leave this for your trunk. After all, you’ll have it in ten days’ time. I’d take the frocks, though. And shove in this woolly. England isn’t as hot as it is here!” She worked quickly in silence for a moment or two. Then she stopped as Jessica, who had been attending to her hair, came to lay her brush and comb beside the things to be packed. “Jessica, put yourself and your own feelings right in the background for the next few days. Think only of Rosamund. It’ll help you both. I know! I’ve had to do it myself. When Gran was dying, she asked me not to fret and I’ve tried not to. I’m sure Rosamund would say the same thing, and you’ll do it because it’s one of the last things you can do for her. It’s horribly hard, but it can be done!”

Mdlle de Lachennais had come to see how they were getting on, and had heard some of this. She nodded her head with a little smile, and then, as Mary-Lou stood up and turned to check up on what they had put ready, she slipped between the cubicle curtains which that young woman had dropped when she first came up.

“So little?” she asked as she looked at it. “Ah,” as Mary-Lou explained what Jessica was going to do, “that is very wise. So, you will escape the sooner from the douanerie, and be with the young sister earlier. Bring your case here, Jessica, and pack here. Then come downstairs to the drawing-room, where Miss Annersley has a meal waiting. Make haste, both. Miss Dene has written labels, Jessica, so leave that.”

“Well, that’s a blessing!” Mary-Lou exclaimed. “I’d forgotten all about labels!”

Mdlle smiled, and went off to assure the anxious Heads that Mary-Lou had everything in train, and the two girls would soon be ready.

“Already she has made Jessica less unhappy,” she continued in her own language. “You know what we were discussing last night. I think this should be enough. She is all that is needed in that way.”

“Joey has been on the ’phone to us,” Miss Annersley said. “She has made up her mind, too. I think we may take it as a settled thing.”

Miss Wilson nodded. “Couldn’t be better—either way. Oh, yes; she’s settled it herself—just by being herself,” she added.

“I am sorry for Jessica, la pauvre!” Mdlle said. “But Mary-Lou will help her to see that it is not well to brood over past mistakes.”

“Yes,” Miss Wilson assented. “That young woman has a very sane outlook on life. Brooding is the last thing to expect from her. She’s completely healthy-minded!”

The sound of footsteps on the stairs told them that the girls were coming down, and Miss Annersley jumped up to pull out chairs at the table laid for a dainty meal, and when they came, the worried mistresses were quick to note that the bitter look had left Jessica’s face, though she was very silent. She ate a tolerable meal, thanks mainly to Mary-Lou, who calmly reminded her that if she went fasting, she would probably make a scene and faint all over the place and be no use to anyone!

When it was over, they went to get their hats and Jessica’s raincoat and blazer, which had to be strapped to her case. The sound of a car-horn outside told them that the Freudesheim car was there, and they hurried out to it. Miss Annersley held Jessica closely for a minute.

“Be brave, Jessica,” she said briskly. “Be brave and unselfish. Rosamund will soon be very happy. Give her a good send-off, child!”

“I’ll try,” Jessica jerked. “Goodbye till—till next term!”

The Head kissed her, and sent her to the car, keeping Mary-Lou back a moment. “Stick to it, Mary-Lou! You’re her best help just now!”

“Yes; but when she’s off, I’m going to remind her to hang on to God,” Mary-Lou said, none too lucidly. “After all, He’s there, all the time.”

It was midnight when Mary-Lou returned. She came in yawning widely, and owning that she had slept at least half the way back. She said that Jessica had “perked up” and told her that she was going to do everything she could to make the goodbye a happy one for Rosamund when it came.

As it turned out, there was no goodbye ever said. Two evenings after Jessica had come home, Rosamund had said, “I’m sleepy now, Jess, and you want your supper. We’ll say goodnight, and you’ll come to me early in the morning and tell me some more about the celebrations. Goodnight! Sleep well!” And she had kissed Jessica, and drowsed off into a quiet sleep from which she only awoke in Heaven. So there was no sadness in the parting after all.

But to go back to the day Jessica was summoned.

Mary-Lou was hustled off to bed by Miss Annersley, and Matron arrived ten minutes later with a laden tray, and by the time everywhere was locked up, she had finished her meal, said her prayers and was dozing. Miss Annersley bent over her, but found that she had no need to worry. Mary-Lou, with her happy, healthy outlook on life was grave over what was happening, but not greatly saddened. She sat up and smiled at the rather anxious Head.

“I’m all right, and that was a gorgeous supper. I was ready for it, too, though Uncle Jack did give us dinner in Berne. That’s really why we’re so late.”

The Head smiled, too. “I’m glad you made a good meal. But before you go to sleep—can you keep awake long enough to listen?—I’ve something to say to you.”

Mary-Lou looked at her sleepily. “O.K.; I’m listening.” Then she suddenly remembered to whom she was speaking, and woke up completely. “Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Annersley. I didn’t mean to be cheeky.”

“All right. I know that. Mary-Lou, we—and by ‘we’ I mean the whole Staff—decided last night that our next Head Girl should be you.”

“Me!” Mary-Lou forgot the slumbering dormitory, and spoke in her usual clear clarion tones. “But why me?”

“Because we think you can do it. And don’t shriek like that, you dreadful girl! Do you want to rouse the whole dormitory?” Miss Annersley left the cubicle a moment, but all was still. She came back, remarking, “I’d no idea we had such good imitations of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus in the school! Now, Mary-Lou, I’ve told you to give you something pleasant to think over, but you are to keep it to yourself until after we’ve broken up. No one else is to know this term. Is that understood?”

“Ye-es, I suppose so,” Mary-Lou said reluctantly. “Very well, Miss Annersley; I’ll say nothing to anyone. But I simply can’t believe it, you know.”

“You’ll find it’ll come to you quite naturally in a day or two,” the Head returned. “Now I’m going to say goodnight and switch off the light, and you can go to sleep as fast as you can. There will be no bells in the morning, so sleep as long as you like. You’ve had a long and tiring day. Goodnight, child!”

Mary-Lou giggled softly. “I don’t feel a bit sleepy just now, you’ve given me such a shock! I honestly don’t see why, Miss Annersley.”

“I’ll leave you to work that one out for yourself. For the last time—and I mean it!—goodnight, Mary-Lou!”

Mary-Lou lay down again. “Goodnight!” she said. “I daresay I’ll be able—able—to think. . .” Her voice trailed off and died away. Despite her latest declaration, she was asleep, and when Matron arrived a moment later, she was well away.

“Thank goodness!” Miss Annersley said as she and Matron left the dormitory. “No need to worry about nerves there! Yes, Matey; I’ve told her about the Head Girl business. She yelled, of course, but it doesn’t seem to have disturbed anyone.”

“I’ll just go and make sure,” Matron replied, suiting the action to the word. She was quick back, to announce that everyone was sleeping as if for a wager. “So you and I had better seek our own beds,” she added.

Mary-Lou slept dreamlessly all night. In fact, she never stirred until nine o’clock next morning, when she rolled over, rubbed her eyes and sat up.

“Gosh! Where’s everyone got to?” she exclaimed as the silence in the dormitory was borne in on her. She burrowed under her pillow for her watch, and regarded it with startled eyes. “Nine o’clock! My only Aunt Sophonisba! Oh! I remember! I wonder how things are going? Oh, and—did the Head really come and tell me—but she couldn’t possibly! It must have been a dream!”

“No dream,” said Matron’s voice. “You’re the next Head Girl, if that’s what you’re talking about. Put that watch away and take this tray. Mind you bring it downstairs when you’re up. And don’t be too long over it, either. Hurry up!”

Mary-Lou took the tray, and Matron rustled away with a great noise of starched skirts, and Mary-Lou, with a giggle, fell on her breakfast and cleared everything in short order.

She had just got out of bed to set the tray aside, when Miss Dene arrived. “A cable for you, Mary-Lou,” she announced.

Mary-Lou took it and tore it open. “Arrived safely. Rosamund very happy,” it said simply.

She knitted her brows over it. “I don’t quite know what she means by that last bit,” she complained. Fear came into her eyes. “Is—is——”

“Rosamund is weaker today, but still living,” Miss Dene said quickly. “I’ve been on the ’phone to Mr. Sefton, and he says that Jessica is telling her all the funniest things that have happened this term, and she’s laughing faintly now and then.”

“Oh, good! Jessica was so afraid she might arrive too late. I’m glad she hasn’t. And I’m awfully glad Jess can tell Rosamund funny things,” Mary-Lou said. “She’s being awfully plucky, Miss Dene.”

“Yes; but that’s what we expect of you girls,” Miss Dene told her. “No one wants to hear of a Chalet girl being a poor, spineless creature, lapsing into tears for the least thing. You’re growing into women; not jellyfish! Remember that!”

A mischievous look came into the blue eyes opposite. “Do jellyfish weep?” Mary-Lou asked innocently. “I thought man was the only animal that either cried or laughed.”

Miss Dene cast her an indignant look, and then laughed. “One has to get up very early in the morning to catch you out! Get up and dress, and go and join your own clan. They’re waiting for you.”

Warned by Miss Wilson, the others said little to Mary-Lou about the happenings of the previous day. Instead, they greeted her when she joined them in the garden, where they were having an art lesson, with subdued shrieks of excitement and nearly fell over themselves to tell her the latest news.

Sybil got there first. “Oh, Mary-Lou, Auntie Joey is giving her special prize this year, and all us prefects are to vote for it.”

“Her first idea was to leave it to the Staff,” Hilary chimed in. “Then she decided that we ought to have a say in it, too. We’re to vote on it this evening after Kaffee und Kuchen. She and Dr. Jack are coming over to—to conduct the election.”

“She’s doubling it this year as another bit of the celebrations!” Vi had to shove her oar in. “I’m frightfully glad she’s giving it this year. We haven’t had it for quite a while now.”

“So you get down to thinking over who you think deserves it most,” Blossom finished it off. Then she added in quite different tone, “Cave! Here comes Herr Laubach! Get down to your work, mes amies!”

The irritable art master, renowned throughout the school for his hair-trigger temper, had only gone to attend to a group working at the further side of the garden, and was coming to see how the present crowd were progressing with the clumps of growing flowers he had given them to paint. There were public exams that morning, so the school must be quiet and everyone was having lessons.

He shot a suspicious glance at Mary-Lou as he reached them. “You have come, then? Where is your paintbox? And your block? And your water and blotting-paper? Go and bring them, girl!”

Mary-Lou fled. No one ever attempted to argue with Herr Laubach, any more than with Matey. She returned, duly armed with all her paraphernalia, and was set to do what she could with a clump of lupins, and for the rest of the period, she had to work. But after the bell rang for Elevenses, they were sent out for rambles, and the prefects talked of little else but Joey Maynard’s prize for the rest of the day.

Joey had offered it first about ten years previously. It consisted of a sum of money to be spent by the winner on books. It was given to the girl who, in the considered opinion of those concerned, had shown most the qualities the Chalet School people wished to see in their girls—kindness and thoughtfulness for others on all occasions; real helpfulness, unselfishness, and using what influence the girl in question might possess to the best advantage. The first award had been to Gay Lambert, who had contrived to show all this, despite being a very naughty girl on occasion. Since then, it had been given perhaps half a dozen times, for both Heads and Lady Russell herself had declared that such a prize must only be awarded when there was someone who really deserved it. As a result, it was the one prize every girl most longed to win.

This year, Joey had insisted that it must be given, so eighteen in the evening saw all the prefects in their own room with her at the head of the table, and her husband perched on a nearby window-sill, while the girls sat round with slips of paper before them, their pens in their hands, and frowns of concentration on their faces. Most of them did not take long to consider, however. They wrote down the name of their choice, folded the slip and passed it up the table to Joey, who sat waiting until the last one had been handed in. Then she withdrew to the window with them, and she and Jack Maynard were very busy sorting them out for the next few minutes. Finally, she turned and nodded to the expectant prefects.

“Just as I expected!” she announced. “And every blessed member of the Staff has voted the same way, too. Now remember; you may not tell anyone who you voted for—what’s that, Jack?”

“I was only pointing out that for a writer for the young, your English is beneath contempt when it comes to conversation,” he told her blandly.

His wife cast an exasperated glance at him. “I’ll deal with you later! Girls!” She turned again to the prefects. “I meant what I said. That’s all. You’ll hear the name of the winner in due course. Now you can scram!”

“Aren’t you going to tell us now?” Sybil exclaimed in disappointed tones.

“No fear!”

“Well—when?” Blossom asked.

“Perhaps tonight—perhaps tomorrow—perhaps not until after the Sports on Monday. You’ll hear in due course, as I said before.”

“Auntie Joey!” It was in Mary-Lou’s most bell-like tones. “I call that downright cruelty to schoolgirls!”

Joey chuckled. “Do you all good. Teach you patience, and that, if the old rhyme is to be believed, will give you pretty faces! Well, that’s that! Off you go now! You’ll get nothing more from me!”

The girls departed, grumbling, and when the last had gone, she laughed across at her husband. “How mad with me they all are! I believe the young ninnies actually thought I’d break the glad news tonight! Well, come along down to the drawing-room, and we’ll tell Hilda and Nell, and then I must get back and see to the twins and Mike. Come on!” And she swept him off, chuckling the whole way as she thought of the dismay of the girls on hearing her last dictum!

The sports at the Chalet School were always held on the last full day of the summer term. As they usually broke up on a Tuesday, this meant sports on Monday. It was a good arrangement, for Sunday was always spent restfully, and it meant that the girls were at their best and fittest.

Up on the Görnetz Platz it was regarded as one of the big events of the summer, and, by fourteen o’clock, a crowd of people were seated round the en tout cas tennis courts on which most of the events took place. Halfway through the afternoon, refreshments were served, the elder girls acting as waitresses, and the prize-giving was always scheduled to come at eighteen to allow people living a distance away time to catch trains or take a long walk by daylight. The mistresses acted as stewards and starters, and judges were always doctors from the Sanatorium.

On this occasion, the girls, very trim and smart in their pleated shorts and open-necked white blouses, with their hair safely banded out of the way, were all in their places a good half-hour before the opening. The little girls’ races came first, and, once that was out of the way, the youngsters were always herded to one side with their own mistresses in charge, and the elder girls got down to the really serious events. Prizes were produced partly from entrance fees, partly from the generosity of friends. There was a big House Cup which went to the House that won the most points. Lady Russell had given a shield to be held by the girl who did the same. The mistresses of the early years had banded together to present another for the girl under fourteen who did best. Besides these, various people usually rallied round.

One very good rule had long been established. No girl might accept more than three prizes besides the shield—if she won it. People who gained more were allowed to choose which they would keep, but anything else went to the second winner, and that prize was awarded to whoever came in third, and fourth got third’s prize.

“You see,” Joey Maynard explained to a lady who had exclaimed over the rule at one of the prize-givings in England, “it means that other people get a chance as well. If we have a young phenomenon who wins practically every race, it isn’t much encouragement to the others. It’s daunting to an eager youngster to try her hardest and yet feel fairly certain that she hasn’t a chance of winning. The winner keeps her points, of course; they go towards the Shield. But the prizes go to other people who deserve them quite as well, but haven’t the same ability.”

“Oh, I see. I think it a very good idea,” the lady had said, much impressed.

On this occasion the wisdom of it came home when Ailie Russell, a fleet-footed young person, won the fifty yards, the hundred yards, the two hundred yards, the skipping race and the long jump. Janice Chester came second to her in the first four, and Odette Bertoni just missed equalising with her for the last. Ailie elected to hold the first two and the skipping race, which meant that Janice got the prize for the two hundred yards and Odette the long jump, so everyone was happy.

Besides these, the little ones had a sack race, an egg-and-spoon, a high jump—which was won by Heidi Blaser, who hopped over the rope with bounds like a kangaroo’s—and a simple obstacle race. Then their part was ended for the time being, and they flocked over to one end where they sat on rugs and discussed the efforts of their seniors with vim and point.

The nets between the four tennis courts had been taken down, and the resultant area was quite large enough to give the Seniors plenty of room. Connie Winter of Upper IV created a sensation when, during the frog race, she hopped so hard that she fell headlong over her next-door neighbour, who was also hopping for all she was worth, and the pair rolled over, clutched in each other’s arms, shrieking at the tops of their voices. In fact, Mary-Lou, looking like a thundercloud, had to stride on to the field and yank them off before they came to their senses, and the audience nearly split their sides with laughter.

After this episode came the Senior hundred yards, which was won by Carole Younger, a member of Vb and a sprinter on her day. This was clearly “her” day, for she left everyone else at the post, streaking down the course like a flash. She was also in for the two-twenty yards, but fell back to third there, having slipped when she was halfway along, thus giving Maeve Bettany the chance to race past and reach the tape half a second ahead of Clare Kennedy, who came in second.

The three-legged race was a gift to Len and Margot Maynard, who had practised assiduously all the year, and, as their mother remarked, simply waltzed home. Rosamund Lilley, of the steady hand, won the Senior egg-and-spoon race; and big Joan Baker beat everyone in the long jump. Jo Scott was victor in the Senior sack race. She simply rose on her toes, and ran forward with tiny steps while other people tried shuffling or else forgot the restricted limits of their stride, and fell over.

Vi Lucy won the high jump, gaining special points for neatness of style as well as height. She was lightly built, and seemed almost to skim over the pole. Mary-Lou won the half-mile, her long legs proving a great asset in carrying her well away from her rivals in the second round of the course. Blossom came off victor in throwing the cricket-ball. Her elder brother had coached her for many years, and she had a remarkably straight aim for a girl and could throw for a good distance.

Con Maynard, of all people, contrived to come in first in the obstacle race for under-sixteens. She wriggled under nets, climbed a tree and came down, hopped ten yards on one foot, turned twenty cartwheels at incredible speed, and finally did an addition sum of incredible length, and got it right first time, and ran the last twenty yards of the way, outdistancing everyone else to the sound of wild cheers from everyone. It was the first important prize she had ever won in sports, and she looked as if she couldn’t believe it when she found she was first.

This was the end of the serious part. Now came the “funny” races. The first was a horseback race, when ten seniors, mounted by ten juniors, solemnly raced on all-fours from one end of the course to the other. En tout cas is not the most pleasant stuff to crawl over on hands and knees, and the competitors proceeded somewhat jerkily while their small riders clung with knees and hands to their perches, cheering their steeds on with yells of joy or cries of anguish. In the end, Hilda Jukes did it by sheer force of determination. It is true that when she reached the winning tape, she up-ended her hind-quarters and shot off her small rider right into the judge’s arms, but she had bunted the tape with her head, and Dr. Peters caught the screaming Judy Willoughby, Blossom’s small sister, quite safely.

This was followed by a flower-pot race, which was won by Verity Carey, Mary-Lou’s “sister-by-marriage”. Verity was very small for her sixteen years, very dainty and very pretty. She managed her flower-pots beautifully, stepping from one to the other as if she had never progressed in any other way, and was loudly cheered by everyone. Mary-Lou, unfortunately, stepped so heavily on her first flower-pot, that she literally crushed it flat, and was out of the race at once. Hilary got halfway, and then, while turning to pick up her last part and deposit it further ahead, began to giggle, wavered on the one on which she was standing with one foot, and finally came down, doing a very neat splits in the process.

“Wheelbarrow race now,” Miss Annersley said to Lady Rutherford, who sat beside her, a delicate-looking girl at her side. The Seniors had all rushed to welcome this person, for she was the eldest of the Rutherfords, Alixe, who had been ill at the Sanatorium for more than a year. She was recovering at long last, but for some months there had been great reason to fear for her, and even now she must stay in the mountains until she was completely cured.

“Are the twins and Nina in for this?” Alixe asked eagerly. “I knew Nina wouldn’t go in for a lot. She has to be so careful about hurting her hands. But she could be a driver quite safely.”

“She’s in for it,” observed Mary-Lou, who was not, having been beaten in the heats. “She’s got Sybil Russell for a wheelbarrow. I don’t know how they’ll get on. Syb hates getting messy. Still, she’s quick when she likes.”

Sybil was quick. She set her teeth and went at it. The result was that instead of Nina “driving” her, she towed Nina, who clung to her ankles like grim death while Sybil, sacrificing her pretty hands to the good of the cause, simply went ahead at a rate that left everyone else far in the rear. In fact, Mary-Lou declared that Elinor, who was “wheeling” Madge Watson, simply stood still and gaped open-mouthed at the pair!

Barbara Chester and Lesley Malcolm should have come second, but just before they reached the tape, Lesley caved in and Barbara fell over her. This gave Emerence Hope and Margot Maynard their chance. Yelling excitedly, Margot shoved Emerence along at such a pace that Emerence afterwards declared that she nearly collapsed over her own hands. However, they got there, and third place was won by a plodding couple, Christine Vincent and Catriona Watson, who had attempted nothing spectacular but kept plugging on until they reached the tape, by which time, Lesley and Barbara had contrived to sort themselves out, and were cheering the winners excitedly.

“The next is a blindfold race,” announced Miss Burnett from the top of her umpire’s ladder. “Six competitors reached the final—Hilary Bennet, Mary-Lou Trelawney, Rosamund Lilley, Jo Scott, Dora Ripley and Gwen Jones.”

The six were at the far end of the course by this time, it having been decided that it would be wiser to let them begin there, and if they must fall over the spectators, it had better not be the Juniors. Biddy o’Ryan, Kathie Ferrars and Nancy Wilmot produced enormous handkerchiefs and blindfolded the six. Then they were led to the starting-point and carefully placed.

“Now do try to go straight ahead!” Biddy said as she pulled Hilary into line. “Mary-Lou, take half a pace back. You’re out of the straight!”

Mary-Lou shuffled backwards, nearly landing on top of Anneli Bertoni, who moved backwards with a squawk. Gwen Jones and Jo Scott were towed into place, and Doktor Courvoisier, Biddy o’Ryan’s future bridegroom, looked narrowly along the line before he began his chant.

“Arrre you r-r-readee? Get r-r-readee!” he intoned with a great rolling of his R’s. Then BANG! the revolver went off and the blindfolded six set off.

In two minutes the spectators were screaming with laughter. It began when Dora Ripley made a false step, half-turned and walked slap into Jo Scott, who skidded badly, grabbed at Dora’s arm, and the pair embraced fervently. By the time they had disentangled themselves, Mary-Lou, taking great strides, had swung to the right and was heading for a solid block of Middles who gave tongue with no uncertain voice. Mary-Lou, realising that something was wrong, swung round again, and began to retrace her steps, but squeals from the Juniors warned her and she turned again, and this time went ahead for about six strides. Then she collided with Rosamund, who had been groping slowly but steadily forward until Mary-Lou clutched her arm. Then she lost her direction, and the pair, trying to avoid each other, walked round and round in circles until Rosamund suddenly made a half-turn and buried her nose in Mary-Lou’s blouse.

“Wow!” gasped Rosamund, recoiling from the contact.

“That’s me, whoever you are!” Mary-Lou exclaimed. Then she added calmly, “I’ll stand still, and you take four steps away, and we’ll try again.”

She stood still, and Rosamund, facing about, walked away from her, counting aloud at the top of her voice. When she reached “Four!” Mary-Lou started off, and really, it looked as if they had a fatal attraction for each other, for two minutes later they were hugging each other again, and Joey Maynard, who was weeping with laughter, gave up, slid out of her chair and moaned gently.

Gwen Jones chose another way. Determined to keep off her fellow competitors, she took three steps towards the side, then turned and proceeded to head in a slanting direction across the course. How she avoided the rest was something no one could ever explain; nor how she managed to keep a fairly straight course. The fact remains that she did. She headed straight for the umpire’s ladder where Peggy Burnett, nearly helpless with laughter, was watching the gyrations of Mary-Lou and Rosamund, and never saw what Gwen was doing until there came a minor crash. The ladder swayed backwards under the impact and, with a yell no girl had yet bettered, she was tossed headlong into a group of nurses from the Sanatorium who were too far gone to do more than grab at her futilely, and she landed in a nearby bush, whence she had to be rescued, distinctly the worse for wear, for her whites were streaked and her hair unloosened from its shining coil, tumbled about her shoulders, and she was well scratched into the bargain. As for Gwen, she fell over the ladder and promptly pulled the handkerchief off her eyes, exclaiming that she was half-killed!

It was left to Hilary to complete the débacle. She had set off like Mary-Lou with giant strides, and took at least half a dozen before she heard the laughter close at hand, and realised that she was getting dangerously near the spectators. She executed a series of side-steps that brought her to the middle of the field where she stood helplessly for at least fifty seconds before deciding to make a bold move. She set off to run. It was unfortunate that she had moved round a little during her side-stepping, and instead of being headed for the tape, was now on a slanting course which led her to race straight across, trip, even as a yell told her that she was going wrong, and then sit down plump on Jack Maynard’s knee before he could move out of the way. At the same time, one of her groping hands contacted Joey’s hat—that young lady was still sitting on the ground at her husband’s feet—and she gave a tug which yanked it off and with it most of Joey’s hairpins. Joey flung up her own hands with a shriek, caught at Hilary’s, and hauled her down on top of herself.

That ended the race. No one had won, for no one had come within yards of the tape. Not that it mattered, for the two doctors holding it had given up and were leaning against each other, yelling with laughter, while the tape trailed forlornly between them. In fact, it was almost the end of the sports, for there were only the Inter-House tugs-of-war to come, and very few people were in a state to haul in good earnest by that time. St. Mildred’s had expected it to be a gift to them with their extra weight; but most of them were verging on hysteria, and Ste Thérèse gave one good pull and brought them across the dividing line with a run. St. Clare’s accounted for St. Agnes’; and St. Scholastika’s, after a real fight, mastered St. Hilda’s.

By the time this had happened, most people had recovered. Joey, with her plaits re-coiled and pinned into the great flat shells over either ear, her straight deep fringe combed into order, was sitting up in her chair, looking quite refreshed, and Peggy Burnett, who had relegated her duties to Kathie Ferrars, had changed, and, apart from one or two angry-looking scratches, was herself again.

“What now?” Joey demanded of Miss Wilson, who had come to sit beside her.

“Ste Thérèse meet St. Scholastika and the winner of that tugs with St. Clare. Then we have the prize-giving and your own pet award, my dear.”

Joey made a face. “Must I do it myself? I’m a shy, retiring violet, I’d have you know, and I’d much rather remain in a decent obscurity.”

“Shy and retiring? You!” Miss Wilson said, with derision in her voice. “Don’t be funny! I’ve never seen any disposition in you towards violet behaviour. Oh, no, my dear! You don’t get away with anything like that!”

Jack Maynard leaned across his wife. “Nell, I wish you’d tell me something.”

“What is it?” she asked suspiciously.

“Why have your girls got such a hate at me? The last time you had this ghastly blindfold race, my own daughter tried to maul my nose.^[23] Now Hilary does her best to reduce me to strawberry jam in a chair. If I were you, I’d give it a miss another time. Or I shall be missing when it takes place. I’m warning you!”

Nell Wilson choked. “Hilary—isn’t as heavy as all that,” she said unevenly.

“Oh, isn’t she? Have you ever had her on your lap?”

This time the second Head of the school exploded outright. “Oh, you!” was all she found to say when she had recovered. A sudden cheering sent her to her feet. “Who won that one? Ste Thérèse? I expected that. They have one or two heavyweights there, including Hilda Jukes. Pull yourself together, Joey! Your time is almost on you!” She suddenly laughed. “How mad the prefects have been because you refused to tell them who had won the Josephine Maynard! They’ve forgotten it for the moment, but they’ll be all agog when the time actually comes.”

Joey laughed. “Oh, well, it doesn’t, as a rule, come even once in the year. I suppose I can stand it. There! Stop talking, do, and let’s watch.” She turned to look at the two teams ranging themselves along the rope. “You’re right, Nell; Ste Thérèse’s are a very hefty team, what with young Hilda—if that girl doesn’t look out, she’s going to rival Winnie Embury sooner or later!—and Joan Baker, to mention only two. Still,” she added cheerfully, “fat doesn’t always tell.”

“It isn’t fat, not even with Hilda,” Miss Wilson said indignantly. “She’s all muscle, that girl. All the same, it’s to be hoped she slims down later on.”

“Maynard—Hi, Maynard!” Dr. Peters was bellowing across the field.

“Want me?” Jack was on his feet, and striding across to the teams.

“Come and judge this, will you? You’ve done nothing all this blessed afternoon!” returned his friend with cheerful insult. “Nice old slacker you are!”

“I’ve done my share of this,” Jack retorted. “It’s time you young fellows took over! O.K. I’ll see to it for you. Lift the rope, teams! Get your grip! Where’s the line? I see. Now then, are you all ready? Right!”

The teams gripped the rope, dug in their heels, and prepared to haul for all they were worth. Jack stood counting. “One—two—three—four—five—HAUL!”

Instantly, the other members of the two Houses, who were standing round, got down to cheering on their men. The field re-echoed with howls of, “Pu-u-ll! Pu-u-ull!” alternated by, “Ste Thérèse!—St. Clare! Go it, St. Clare!—Pull, Ste Thérèse!”

Backwards and forwards the two teams swayed. Now Ste Thérèse’s gained an inch or two only to lose it again as St. Clare’s put their backs into it. Then Ste Thérèse’s began to give ground, but they rallied, thanks mainly to a wild shriek from Mary-Lou, who was not in the team and was devoting herself to howling—literally—them on to victory. St. Clare’s were dragged almost up to the dividing line, but, as Joey remarked pensively later, they fought every inch of the way like young wild-cats, and for a second or two it almost looked as if the contest would end in a stalemate.

This was where Fate, with a twinkle in her eye, decided to take a hand. The rope was by no means in its first youth, and it had stood a good deal during the years. Now as twelve hefty girls hung on to either end and hauled with all their weight, it suddenly gave up the ghost. It snapped with a sharp “Cr-r-rack!” right in the middle, and the two teams went sprawling in two heaps with the luckless end-man well buried beneath the others.

Controlling their laughter as well as they could, the Staff rushed to the rescue, and Hilda and Blossom were dragged out, winded and sore, but not really much the worse. The spectators, sad to relate, saw only the funny side of it, and most of them were bent almost double as they rocked with mirth.

“Well,” gasped Joey, mopping her eyes, “I’ve seen some funny sights at our sports, but today’s affair has beaten the record! Ow! I’m aching! Someone take me away to tidy myself, please!”

“What on earth for?” Biddy o’Ryan demanded when she heard this pathetic appeal.

“Because I’ve got to hand over my prize, idiot, and I can’t do it looking all hairy and teary, can I? Most undignified, I’d call it! Come on, Biddy! Your room will do!”

Quite a number of people had to follow her example, and while non-competitors served tea, coffee, lemonade and cakes, fruit and ices to their visitors, everyone else was occupied in an intensive cleaning up.

Thus, when a long trestle table, well-laden with all sorts of delightful prizes, including the big cup and the two shields, was set up in the centre of the field, it was an almost painfully clean and demure set of schoolgirls that formed up along one side while the spectators brought their seats nearer to form a big semi-circle.

Joey, looking very much Mrs. Maynard, was seated behind it, next to Lady Rutherford, who was to give away the prizes. Dr. Graves from the Sanatorium was Chairman, Jack Maynard having flatly refused to act in that capacity this time. Miss Annersley and Miss Wilson sat at his other side, with Peggy Burnett behind them, ready to hand the prizes to Lady Rutherford.

Dr. Graves rose when everyone was there, and, in a neat little speech, congratulated the school on its prowess, and introduced Lady Rutherford. Then he sat down, and she stood up.

As Joey murmured to the Chairman, she was very decorative, and when the school baby arrived, clutching an enormous bouquet of roses to present to her, everyone clapped loudly when she bent to kiss the small girl. Anne Chappell was just rising from a very beautiful curtsy, and she nearly fell over. Luckily, Lady Rutherford slipped an arm round her in time to prevent this, so the school was spared another fiasco. Anne backed solemnly away until Elinor was near enough to catch her and send her to her proper place among the Juniors. Lady Rutherford spoke for five minutes, reminding everyone that this was the last event of the coming-of-age celebrations, and it had been a very good one. Then she sat down, and Miss Wilson, who usually officiated on these occasions, was on her feet, ready to read out the list of winners, with Peggy at her side to hand the prizes along.

It was a long list, which was just as well. Everyone was too much occupied in applauding the winners to notice that Inter V had lost its form mistress for the time being, and no one noticed when Kathie Ferrars suddenly appeared behind Peggy with a laden basket, which she handed over with a murmur before retiring somewhere to mop her hot face, powder her nose and tidy her hair as well as she could. But the result of the way she had scorched along to the tiny station on her bicycle to meet the late afternoon train and rescue the basket of boxes of chocolate, for which Miss Dene had telephoned to Interlaken when she saw how the tug-of-war had ended, was that every member of the two teams was called up to receive one. As Rosalie Dene remarked later in the Staffroom, it could be called nothing but a draw, even if a somewhat unexpected one!

When the last of St. Clare’s team had trotted back to the ranks, all one broad beam, Dr. Graves rose again.

“I understand that there is still one more prize to be given,” he began. “Many years ago, Mrs. Maynard,” he turned and bowed to Joey, who gave him a wide grin, “established what is known as the Josephine Maynard Prize, which is given to the girl who most fulfils the ideal the pupils of the Chalet School always have held before them. I understand that it began as The Margot Venables Prize, but the girls themselves have insisted that the name of the donor be given to it.

“It is not by any means awarded every year, but this year it has gone to one girl for whom everyone concerned, Staff, prefects and Mrs. Maynard herself, voted with one accord! I will now call on that girl to come and receive from Mrs. Maynard herself the prize she has so richly deserved.” He paused before speaking the name, and Prudence, who had contrived to behave like a Christian being all these past weeks, suddenly forgot herself and forestalled him.

“Mary-Lou Trelawney!” she shrieked. “Well done, Mary-Lou!”

“ME?” Mary-Lou gasped, going first white and then red. “But it couldn’t possibly be me!”

“Couldn’t it just!” Blossom exclaimed. “Go on, idiot! Go up and take it—and mind you say thank you prettily!”

Mary-Lou, blushing like a beetroot, left the ranks and went forward while the visitors clapped and the girls cheered so loudly that Matron, leaning forward to her fellow-matrons among whom she was sitting, murmured imperatively, “Gargles for everyone tonight or we shall be sending them all home with sore throats!”

Somehow, Mary-Lou got herself to the table, where Joey was standing waiting for her, a large envelope in one hand.

“Oh, Joey, how could you!” she muttered.

“Don’t blame me! I was only one among the crowd,” Joey said airily. “Here you are, Mary-Lou, and may you enjoy your reading these hols!”

“Oh! Oh, thanks a million!” Mary-Lou gasped; and then she turned and fled for refuge to her fellow prefects, who welcomed her with such violent back-patting that she complained she felt like the dog in “The Farmer wants a Farm”!

That was the end of it. People began to remember trains, and hurriedly said goodbye and left, streaming along to the station, while others climbed into cars, and there was a procession down the drive and out along the road that led to the valley. The Staff summoned the girls to a composite meal that was part tea, part supper, and when it was over, they were freed for an hour before Prayers.

Surrounded by a joyful gang, Mary-Lou was able, at last, to say what she had been thinking. “You’re dears, all of you. But I haven’t done a thing more than anyone else, honestly!”

“Oh, yes you have!” Vi told her instantly. “You’ve been you, and I don’t mind telling you that a lot of us think that means like Aunt Joey. You jolly well deserve it, Mary-Lou, and there isn’t a girl in the place who wouldn’t agree!”

“Hear—hear!” came in a chorus from the rest.

Mary-Lou felt choky. However, she had a scorn for tears that was completely boyish. She pulled herself together, and a sudden gleam of mischief lit her blue eyes.

“Well, all I can say is thank you, everyone. After we get home, I’ll reward all you lot by passing on a piece of news I’ve known for quite a few days. I’ll write it to each of you, so you’ll be sure of at least one letter from me these hols! And there goes the bell for Prayers, so stop nattering and come on!” And she led the way with a great display of long, flying legs.

Later, despite any amount of teasing, she stuck to her promise to Miss Annersley, and her disgusted friends gave it up at last. But when the letters arrived at the various homes during the first week of the holidays, there wasn’t a girl who didn’t say, “What else did you expect? Mary-Lou is the complete Chalet girl, and she’ll keep things up to scratch next year! Good for Mary-Lou and good for such an end to our coming-of-age!”

[End of The Coming-of-Age of the Chalet School, by Elinor Mary Brent-Dyer]