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“Then you understand, my daughter.” Rev. Mother gave Sœur Marie-Cécile one of her piercing looks. “You will not leave that place without this girl. From all that Père Soulanger has told me, it is the last place in which one would wish to leave a young girl. Sœur Monique will accompany you: Jules, also, that he may drive the car, help with the baggage, and enable you to feel that you are not without a male protector. That, it seems, may be necessary. However, I trust all may go well and you may bring this child, Adrienne Desmoines, safely back to us without trouble.”

The slender nun made her reverence and left the room after a brief blessing: Rev. Mother nodded with a little smile as the door closed. She knew that all her daughters in religion would be ready to fare forth on this quest if she had demanded it; but in Sœur Cécile there was just that little bit extra that might make the whole affair pass off smoothly and with little ado. Rev. Mother was not anxious for trouble if it could be avoided.

“And then she is English,” the elderly nun said to herself. “The English are a mad race, sans doute, but in an affair of this kind they shine.”

She then put it out of her mind for the moment and turned to more immediate worries—mainly the question of how to find enough sheets for all the beds in the establishment so that those in use could be laundered regularly.

Meanwhile, Sœur Marie-Cécile passed along the wide corridor with its gleaming floor-boards and turned into a small ante-room where, as she had expected, she found her allotted companion in this—adventure? It might well prove to be that. Her brows had shot up involuntarily when Rev. Mother had told her where she and Sœur Monique were to seek this girl. Especially had she been startled because Rev. Mother had told her that this was the daughter of an artist and, according to the parish priest who had brought the matter to the nun’s notice, gently born and bred. Certainly an appartement in that quarter of the town was most undesirable for a girl of fifteen, alone and without any protector in the world.

Sœur Monique turned with a smile as Sœur Cécile came towards her. “You are here, ma sœur. Our Mother has given you all orders and information?”

“But yes,” Sœur Cécile replied briskly. “Jules is to take us in the car and we are to bring away this girl—Adrienne Desmoines—and all her possessions. Ah!” she added as the melodious honking of a motor horn sounded, “Jules grows impatient. Come, ma sœur. En avant!” And she ushered the big peasant-born Sœur Monique, whose bulk seemed almost to obscure her, out of the ante-room to the car.

“Truly, we have cause to be thankful for this legacy from Mme Chartrex,” she observed as Jules slammed the door on her. “It might not have been so easy if we had had to depend on a hired car. With Jules, however, all should be well.”

Meantime, in the great attic-atelier where she had lived for the past twelve months with her artist father, a slightly-built girl of fifteen was considering ways and means and how she should manage for the next three weeks.

“Tomorrow I shall buy a piece of sausage at the charcuterie,” she thought. “There remains enough coffee for two more days and Mme Boulangier will let me have some stale rolls. Come, Adrienne, it is not so bad after all. And the rent has been paid for yet another three weeks so there is a roof over thy head. Surely before that time it will be possible to find work and then one can leave this place.” She glanced round with a barely-suppressed shudder. That it was bare, containing only the absolute necessities in the way of furniture, had not troubled her. But she had had her father to watch over her. Now that he was gone, dead from a sudden heart attack, she felt an unaccountable dread of the place, of its inhabitants and, above all, of the concierge. She shrank from the calculating look of those beady black eyes whenever she encountered the woman. The last two or three days, she had not only locked herself into the appartement: she had dragged a couple of heavy trunks across the door with a vague idea that if anyone tried to break in, this obstacle would give her time to call for help through the window. She had no real reason for this. It was sheer instinct on her part.

She stood looking round the great, bare place with the sun pouring in through the skylight and the window at the south end. She must think what she could do to earn her living. She had had no proper training—almost no proper education. She and her mother had led a gipsy life with her father, for as soon as he felt he had exhausted all that one place had to give him, he moved on elsewhere. She had been very little to school. There had been two sémestres at a Sacred Heart convent in Cadenabbia when she was a child of eight; a third in a public school in Paris. For the rest, her mother had taught her to read, to write a clear, well-formed hand, a certain amount of algebra and geometry and rather more arithmetic. Needlework had been an important part of their lessons and during the hours spent in sewing, Mme Desmoines had read aloud from the classics of both French and, since she herself was English, English literature. She had learned to speak the two languages accurately with a pure accent and intonation. Her father had spared time to give her lessons in drawing and painting. The point was what help would all this be towards earning her living?

She could not hope for secretarial work. Secretaries were expected to offer shorthand and typing and she knew neither. She felt that she was too shy to be much use as a shop assistant. To become a dressmaker she must be apprenticed and that cost money which she lacked.

“Hélas!” she said aloud. “It seems that I am a most useless person. I must do laundry-work or else scrub floors.” Then she stopped and laughed. “Oh, quelle blague! Le bon Dieu will certainly help me to use what I have learned in better ways than that. But I wish Maman had been able to tell me more about her own family. If I knew where to find them—or, indeed, if any such exist—I could apply to them for help until I can keep myself. But——” She stopped there. It was true that her mother had said one day when they were alone that she must tell her little girl about the English relations. Then she had stopped and said with a sigh, “But, indeed, they may be dead. I had no brothers or sisters and my parents were elderly. They did not wish me to marry Papa and tried to prevent it. So we ran away, he and I, and they would not forgive me. Then he said that we would trouble them no further and so I know nothing of them. But now—yes; I think I must tell you something. You may need them one day.”

“Maman must have known then that she was dying,” Adrienne thought. “Yet she seemed no more ill than usual that day. But I was too young—only eleven and such a baby for my age. And she had been ill for more than a year then and not strong for a long time before that. But I wish—how I wish she had been able to tell me something—a name—an address! It might have been possible to find them then. I should have gone to them and said, ‘I am Adrienne, your daughter’s only child. She has gone, and so has my father, and I beg you to help me until I can earn my own living when I will repay you for every sou you have spent on me. Will you repulse me?’ But I never knew so much as her name before she married Papa.”

Adrienne crossed over to the window and stood looking down on the narrow dirty street below. Of all the people swarming through it not one cared a snap of the fingers for Adrienne Desmoines. True, Père Soulanger, the parish priest who had come when the Sisters of St Vincent de Paul to whom Adrienne had applied after she had found her father lying unconscious on the floor, had promised that he would help her; but that was more than a week ago and she had not seen him since the funeral.

“It seems,” she thought sadly as she stood staring down, “that there is no one who cares.”

The hooting of an automobile horn changed the direction of her thoughts. She leaned out of the open window to stare eagerly up the street. A large, well-kept if elderly Citroën was moving slowly along. It was school-time—otherwise the chauffeur would have found a good deal of difficulty in making his passage. As it was, he had to keep blowing his horn continually as the women and idlers crowded to stare at the car. Smaller ones were no novelty, but this was enormous. Clearly it must belong to a millionaire or a milord! Then it drew up at the door of the appartement house where Adrienne, gazing down could see only its shiny black roof. Someone must have got out, but who she was unable to see. She gave a sudden laugh, left the window and went to the big armoire which was one of the few pieces of furniture in the room.

She was so busy at the shelves that she never noticed the sound of light footsteps mounting the stairs. When a tap came at the door, she jumped.

“Who is there?” Despite her bravery, her voice shook a little.

“It is Sœur Monique and Sœur Cécile from La Sagesse,” came back a sweet voice. “Will you admit us? Père Soulanger has told our Mother and she has sent us to help you.”

“O-oh!” Adrienne sprang to haul away the two trunks and unlock the door. The next moment she was looking at two nuns: one big and sturdy with twinkling black eyes and a slight moustache shading her upper lip; the other no taller than Adrienne herself and with the loveliest face the girl thought she had ever seen. All at once, she felt safe for the first time since her father’s death. She flung the door wide in welcome.

“Come in—come in, then!” she cried. “Oh, I am glad you have come!”

Both nuns broke into smiles and the bigger one, speaking with a strong Provençal accent remarked, “That is good hearing, petite. We are glad to come.”

The other handed Adrienne a note. “Read, ma petite. This is from Père Soulanger to announce us. But yes; read. It is well to take one’s precautions in these days and we are strangers to you.”

Adrienne noticed that she spoke in the pure Parisian French she herself had learned and which both her parents had used. If anything else had been needed to reassure her, that speech would have done it. As it was, she opened the priest’s letter and read it quickly. It was brief, merely stating that she might put all trust in the Sisters who would now take charge of her, find her a home with people who would take care of her, and see to all the business with Mme la Concierge. She read and looked up with deep brown eyes shining happily.

“Ma Sœur, will you really do as Père Soulanger says? Do you know of anywhere I may go? Can you tell me how best to earn my living? It is true the rent here is paid for another three weeks, but—oh, I do not like it! I feel afraid all the time! Why, I do not know. Mme Poirin has been kind enough to me but—I do not like her. She looks at me—so. And I think she has a cruel nature and—oh, this is foolish of me—but she smells!”

The nuns glanced at each other. They had met the concierge when they came into the building and they had noticed the frowsty smell of stale heavy scent that came from her. They had also seen the thin mouth slashed across the broad raddled face like a scarlet gash and the lustreless eyes with hooded lids. No more than Adrienne did they like her. Certainly they did not trust her one iota where the girl was concerned.

“You need not trouble yourself about her,” remarked Sœur Cécile. “We are taking you back to the convent with us and there you will remain for the present. So,” she added briskly, “it is necessary to pack your possessions. Is the furniture yours?”

“But no, ma Sœur. The linen, the china, the pots and pans and the cutlery are ours. And all the pictures. These two trunks and the cases over yonder and the books. That is all.”

“Then I think,” said Sœur Cécile, “that Jules must come upstairs to help us. Ma sœur,” she turned to Sœur Monique, “Will you——”

“Mais à l’instant!” exclaimed the elder nun, making for the door and hurrying off down the stairs.

“Jules will be here in one little moment,” remarked Sœur Cécile. “Meanwhile let us tie up these books in readiness. You have string? Good! I will put these paintings together while you do that. Ah! This case is empty. Doubtless it will hold all if we pack carefully. Begin, chérie!”

Thus urged, Adrienne set to work and when Jules, followed by Sœur Monique, arrived the books were safely packed at the bottom of the big case and most of the canvases were there, too. Sœur Cécile had kept her eyes open and when she saw the delicate china and the few pieces of heavy silver, she knew that at some time M. and Mme Desmoines must have known much finer living than their daughter. A glance had told the nun that the books were mainly standard works on art. A few of the works of the great novelists of both countries and one or two poets comprised most of the rest. The linen was darned and patched but it was spotless and of fine texture. Sœur Cécile nodded to herself. She said nothing however, either to Adrienne or Sœur Monique. As for Adrienne, it had suddenly struck her to wonder why Mme Poirin had not yet arrived to demand the meaning of all this.

Sœur Cécile saw her face change. “What is it, ma petite?” she asked.

“Why does not Mme Poirin come?” Adrienne asked fearfully. “She will not like this—no. And I have heard her—when she is angry she scolds terribly. One of her lodgers could not pay his rent and she said terrible things to him—only Papa hurried me past her office and I think she would not have dared to speak so to him. But me she will not heed.”

“Have no fear,” Sœur Monique said with a great, rolling laugh. “She will not speak so to Sœur Cécile, either. You are safe now, ma fille. Ma sœur, this case is full. Shall Jules rope it? And then there are left only those other cases and into them we will put all the clothes, n’est-ce pas?”

Sœur Cécile nodded. “Yes; that will be best. And when all is done, Jules, you and Sœur Monique shall carry down all you may and stow it safely in the auto and Mdlle may go with you. I will wait here to finish and to attend to the business with Mme Poirin.”

Jules looked at her from beneath bushy eyebrows. “But I will return as soon as I may, ma Sœur. All cannot go in one journey. That is understood.” He roped the last big case and stood up. “Now, Mdlle, if you will carry this small box with the china in it and you, Sœur Monique, will bear this larger box, I will take this case, and this one, and while I return for the rest, you may pack these into the boot and along the seat.”

He heaved up the largest case to one shoulder and picked up another, but before anyone could leave the room, the door which had been shut was flung wide and the concierge stood there. She was clearly in a temper and Adrienne shrank back involuntarily while Jules set down his case and stood waiting watchfully.

Mme Poirin advanced into the room. “Hé, Mademoiselle, what is the meaning of this?” she demanded. “You leave—and without one word to me—no warning that you go! But that you cannot do! It is the law that I have four weeks’ full notice and you have not given me one—not one! But we will go to the Mairie and you will soon find that you cannot cheat a poor woman of her living in this way! There are fines, my little one, for such cheats. And if the money for the fine is not there, then there is prison. You will not like that, no! You, who hold yourself like a princess and turn up your nose at a poor woman who has to work for her living!—And you, mes sœurs,” she went on, attacking the nuns, “you should know better than to come here and tempt a mere child away and encourage her to rob a poor woman of her rightful dues. But we will have none of it! I will visit the Mairie and we will see what they have to say there. You will find that a religious habit will not excuse you—no! So be prepared. As for you, petite, you stay here with me and if you cannot pay me in money, well, doubtless we shall find another way.”

Adrienne was terrified. Not so Sœur Cécile. In one flash she seemed to erect an unbreakable barrier of ice between themselves and the raging woman. Her brown eyes met the black ones full and it was the black ones which looked away first as a dull crimson flush came into the sallow face under the paint on it. Then the nun spoke.

“No; I think you will not go to the Mairie, for you dare not. What had you in mind for this child? Nothing of good. For the rent, that has been paid up for a full three weeks more than this, so you are not out of pocket but are gaining. You will not interfere with Mademoiselle, for it is I who will go to the Mairie and I do not think you would enjoy being questioned by the gendarmerie. Jules,” she turned to that worthy, “pray take those two cases down to the car. Mademoiselle will go with you; also Sœur Monique, who will begin to pack the cases in. Return at once, please, to collect these others. For you, Madame, you will be good enough to come down to your bureau and make me a bill that I may show it to those whom it may concern. Come!”

Adrienne heard nothing of the latter part of this speech. She had felt that she must obey without question and she followed Jules down the stairs and to the car where Sœur Monique joined her while the man went off upstairs again to bring down the remaining cases. He came back presently and, helped by Sœur Monique, stowed everything away on or in the car. Adrienne sat quietly in the corner where the nun had placed her. She never knew how she had got down the stairs, for everything was swinging about her and she could scarcely keep hold of the case of china—she was so giddy. Somehow she had done it, but now that the need for exertion was over, she sat there, shivering occasionally. Presently Sœur Cécile came out of the house, folding a long narrow sheet of paper which she bestowed in the leather bag at her waist under her habit. Sœur Monique took her place beside Jules, and Sœur Cécile came in beside Adrienne with a laughing remark about its being as well that both of them would take up so little room. Jules shut the door and went to his own seat.

It was at this point that Mme Poirin, who had seemed to be stunned into silence, recovered her tongue. She shrieked curses and abuse after them as the big car began to move slowly away. Adrienne, glancing back through the rear window, saw her shaking both clenched fists after them. Then she saw no more. The shivering became continuous despite the comforting arm Sœur Cécile threw round her, drawing her closely to her. She buried her head in the nun’s habit to shut out the sound of that cursing. Jules quickened speed and they turned out of the narrow street and into one of the main streets, but still the coarse malevolent voice rang in the girl’s ears.

Sœur Cécile was thankful when they finally reached La Sagesse and she could hand over her charge to the Infirmarian. For long weeks Adrienne remained in that charge. She had stood up to all her troubles with wonderful fortitude for a girl of fifteen, but this last stroke had been too much and a long illness followed so that when at length she was better, summer and autumn had vanished; Christmas was past and she was greeted with the news that when the New Year came she was to go to school in Switzerland and forget that dreadful last week in Provence.

Letters at the Görnetz Platz were wont to come either in the middle of breakfast, if someone went to the tiny Görnetz station to collect the postbags from the mountain train, or else in the middle of the morning. Apart from mail for the natives, there were the bags for all connected with the great Görnetz Sanatorium at one end of the shelf; those for the Chalet School at the other; and always one bag for the inhabitants of Freudesheim which was next-door to the school and where Dr Maynard, head of the Sanatorium, lived with his wife and lengthy family. During term time the eight elders were at school, the boys in England and the girls at the Chalet School, leaving Dr and Mrs Maynard with the three babies, Cecil, who was nearly five, and the twins, Geoff and Philippa, who were three in the coming June. In the holidays, however, the entire family were at home as a rule. Frequently their numbers were augmented by the Maynards’ three wards, Roger, Ruey and Roddy Richardson, so the holiday postbag was usually a heavy one.

On a certain foggy day in January, the doctor, coming home from the Sanatorium, where he had been spending the night watching a particularly serious case, called at the station and collected the bag. Mrs Maynard—Joey Bettany in the days when she had been a pupil of the Chalet School herself, and still Joey to a number of people at the school—saw her husband coming and was at the door to meet him.

“Got the mail? Oh, good man!” she greeted him. “Has it been a bad night? You look pretty dead, my lad.”

“I can do with a couple of hours of shut-eye,” he admitted, tossing the bag down on the old Welsh dower-chest which stood at one side of the wide hall. “Breakfast ready? Good! I’ll go and wash and then a spot of breakfast and after that, I’m for bed. Eugen Courvoisier has taken over with that poor chap, and Phil Graves and Reg Entwistle are in charge until Laurie Rosomon turns up. Everything is being very nicely taken care of, thank you.”

“I should hope so, with that lot and all the other men,” Joey said indignantly. “You go and have a wash and brush-up and I’ll see to Frühstück.—Oh, Len!” as the eldest of the family, a tall, serious-looking young person of seventeen came down the stairs with a primrose-fair little girl of eight, Joey’s fourth daughter. Behind them came the other two members of the triplets with which the long Maynard family had begun—Con, black-haired and brown-eyed; and Margot, youngest of the three, and certainly with the most showy looks in the family, with red-gold curls, brilliantly blue eyes and a complexion of milk-and-roses. It was a family joke that all three of the triplets had begun life as ginger-tops but, as time passed, Len’s wavy mop had turned to chestnut, Con’s to black, though there were still reddish lights in it, and Margot’s had lightened to gold. All three were extremely good-looking girls and all three had inherited their fair share of brains from clever parents, though Con had been thankful to give up maths in every shape or form when the time came to specialise. As for little Felicity, she had early made up her mind that she wanted to take up ballet as a career, whereas Len was headed for teaching modern languages, Con meant to write and Margot was working hard at science with an eye to getting her M.B.

At sight of their father, Felicity jumped the last four stairs and ran to hug him. The elder three chorussed: “Good morning, Dad!” Margot adding, “You look rather off-colour—morning-after-the-night-beforeish, if I may express it thus. What have you been doing?”

“Don’t you be cheeky, Miss!” he retorted, setting Felicity down after a satisfying hug. “Run along to Frühstück, my pet. I’ll be along in a minute. The boys are up, I suppose?”

“Ages ago,” Con told him. “Mike’s been out, in fact. Steve and Charles have been chopping wood for Anna and Felix has piled it. Any post today?”

He nodded towards the dower-chest. “A bagful, to judge by the bulk and weight. I’m just going to freshen. I’ll deal it out when I come along.”

“And meanwhile,” Joey said gaily, “Len may attend to the coffee urn and Con and Margot can dish out the porridge. I’m just going upstairs to see that the babies are all right. Who’s with them, does anyone know?”

“The Coadjutor,” Margot replied. “Anna’s busy in the kitchen.”

“Good! Begin on the porridge, then. Len, just cast an eye on Mike and Felix before they sit down, will you? I won’t have anyone at table whose nails are in deepest mourning—or even half-mourning, if it comes to that,” she added with a chuckle as she sprang up the stairs more like one of her own daughters than the mother of eleven, mistress of a large household and an authoress in her own right.

The doctor had already vanished into the cloakroom to attend to his toilet, and the girls went on to the big dining-room where the two eldest boys, Stephen and Charles, were already in their places and Mike, the third of the Maynard boys, was bringing plates of steaming porridge from the hatch through to the kitchen.

“Good for you, Mike!” Len exclaimed. “Let me take a dekko at your nails though. O.K.—spotless. Where’s Felix?” she added looking round for Felicity’s twin brother—unaccountably missing, seeing that usually he was one of the first at any meal-table.

“He’s coming,” fourteen-year-old Stephen said in the new, deep voice wherewith he sometimes startled his family nowadays. “I r’minded him about what Ma said yesterday about dirty hands, so he dashed off to the bathroom.”

“Jolly well needed it,” Charles, little more than a year younger than Stephen and his other self in many ways, supplemented.

“If he’s been piling wood, I should say so,” Margot commented as she poured milk on Felicity’s porridge. “That enough, Flixy?—Oh, here come the rest so we can have Grace.” And she set down the big jug of hot milk and stood waiting until their parents and Felix had taken their places and Felicity had said, in her silvery small voice, the brief Latin Grace they used.

They sat down, the doctor dumping the mailbag by his chair, and all attended to the porridge which, in winter, was the foundation of their home breakfasts. When they had finished and Con and Margot were clearing the bowls away while Len, behind the great urn, filled cups with milky coffee, he produced his keys, unlocked the bag and drew out the sheaves of letters it contained. With a speed born of long practice, he distributed the mail. The major portion belonged to himself, but the girls had two or three letters each and Roger, the eldest of the Richardson boys, had written to Stephen. Joey herself had eight or nine and proceeded to deal with them rapidly.

“Bill for that last lot of typing paper—advertisement—advertisement—note from Frieda—appeal from that convalescent home in Bordighera—I call this a most uninspiring collection!—bill—that’s for those new shoes I got for you, Felix. They cost enough, so try to take a little care of them, won’t you?” She grinned at Felix, who grinned back unperturbed. “Patterns for those new curtains for the salon. Girls, we’ll go through them as soon as we’ve a minute to spare. It’s not likely to be much before this afternoon, seeing the boys’ packing has to be done this morning. When did you say the boxes were to go, Jack?”

The doctor glanced up from a letter which had been absorbing him. “Eh?”

“When are they coming for the boys’ baggage?”

“It’s all to go down on the train at 14.20 hours. Morris will be down and he’ll collect it along with young Colin’s and see it sent off from Interlaken.”

“Then we certainly shan’t have time to look at them this morning,” Joey told her daughters, dropping the fat envelope and turning to the remaining two. She gave a little cry of delight. “Oh, fabulous! A letter from Robin!”

Everyone looked up at this. Letters from Joey’s adopted sister, Robin Humphries, now Sœur Marie-Cécile, were few and far between. Indeed, the younger members of the family had never known her. But the triplets, Stephen and Charles and Mike, all had happy memories of the days when she had lived with them.

“Auntie Rob? What does she say?” Con demanded, setting aside her own letter from Ruey Richardson. “Is there any chance of her coming nearer to us?”

Joey had ripped open the envelope and was rapidly scanning the closely-written sheets, but she looked up to reply to Con. “Not so, but far otherwise, I’m afraid. She’s been recalled to the House at Toronto—she was only lent for a time to the convent at Arles—oh, very well: near Arles if you must be so accurate, Margot! She’s been there for three years and more and now she’s going back to Canada. But—Jack! Listen to this and never mind your own letters!—she’s been having adventures. At least she’s more or less adopted a girl and she’s wishing her on to the school and us. Listen, all of you, and I’ll read you what she says. Half a tick!” Joey drained her coffee and then turned again to her letter while even the twins prepared to listen with all their ears, though they had no memories of “Auntie Robin”.

“Now, Joey,” Robin had written after she had disposed of the family news and told her own, “I have a request to make to you. I know your special scholarship falls vacant at the end of the summer term. If you haven’t allotted it already, will you let me have it for a girl I’ve more or less adopted? She seems to have no relations whatsoever—worse off, even, than the Richardsons when you first met them—and practically no friends either. She’s an orphan, the daughter of an artist who took his family everywhere with him. The wife died two or three years ago and he died of a heart attack at the end of last May. Adrienne was left alone with no one to care for her at the age of fifteen. Her case was brought to our notice and Rev. Mother sent Sœur Monique and myself to bring her to the convent. She was in an appartement house in a quarter which has anything but a good name. The concierge is known to the police, we are told. We were just in time, I fancy, to save this child from a very nasty experience to say the least of it.

“I meant to write to you long before this, for I want to do all I can for Adrienne, poor poppet. However, as you very well know, letter-writing is one of the things for which there is very little time in a life like ours. To complicate matters, Adrienne was no sooner safe with us than she became ill. The doctor says it was partly the heavy strain under which she had lived; partly malnourishment, for she seems to have lived on very little since her mother’s death in an effort to make the family income, which was inadequate to say the least, go as far as it would. Her father left everything of that kind to her. He was an artist and, so far as we can gather, they had always lived more or less like the birds of the air. Anyhow, what with that and all the emotional strain the poor kid had endured, she was ready to pick up any germ that was floating round—and she did.”

“What was it?” the doctor demanded sharply. “Does Robin say?”

Joey nodded. “And how! Wait and you’ll hear. Where was I? Oh!” And she read on: “It began with a fit of shaking, started by a final encounter with the concierge who tried to bully the lot of us into paying her a double rent or else letting her keep Adrienne to work for her. I leave you to guess what sort of a life the poor girl would have had with such a woman! It didn’t come off, of course, but it terrified Adrienne. By the time we reached the convent, she was only fit for bed and Rev. Mother ordered her straight into the infirmary. It’s been some sort of low fever and though it has never been violent, it has been obstinate. Twice we thought it had broken, but it returned next day. However, we’ve got the better of it at last. For the past month she has been convalescing, but it’s been a slow business. She was so far down that pulling up has meant a big effort for all concerned. However, she’s regaining her colour and she’s putting on a little weight at long last. The doctor here says that the best medicine for her now is to be properly occupied and among her own kind. We can’t keep her here. Even for the Chalet School she’ll be a good deal of a problem. She has scarcely ever been at school and while she is amazingly advanced in some subjects, in others I doubt if she knows much more than or even as much as Felicity. Also, she needs to feel safe and cared for. Will you and Jack out of the goodness of your hearts be mother and father to her as long as she needs it? And will you, Joey, give her your scholarship to the Chalet School? I know the school would take her freely, but she has a very great sense of independence and is proud. It won’t do to let her feel that she is an object of charity. So this is what I propose.

“You remember that when I entered religion I left a certain sum of money in Jack’s hands to be used for any charitable purposes. I know you’ve never touched the principal. Now I want you to take it and provide for Adrienne out of it. She needs a complete new outfit for one thing. She’s grown considerably during her illness, and apart from that such clothes as she had were shabby—to say the least of it. Then she will want all the etceteras such as lacrosse stick or hockey-stick, whichever she elects to play; tennis racquet and pocket-money; story-books and pictures of her own; camera, hobbies requirements—oh, you know what girls of her age want! The one thing you don’t have to worry about is artist’s materials. She has all she needs in that line. Rev. Mother suggests that you should send us a cheque to buy the clothes and so on—she must have a new trunk and a couple of decent suitcases—so that when she joins the school for the beginning of term she won’t be unlike the rest. I wrote to Rosalie Dene for the prospectus and dates and the rest of it without telling her why I wanted them. I couldn’t do that until I knew if you and Jack would play ball. I’m pretty sure you will, knowing you two, but it’s always well to be sure!

“I’m returning to Canada any time now and my idea is to hand Adrienne over to whoever is on escort duty at Paris before picking up my plane at Le Bourget. I wish you folk could have come to see me. It’s ages since I saw any of you and, of course, your last three infants are strangers to me. You will really have to start to save up and take a trip to Toronto as soon as possible!

“Well, I hand over Adrienne to an escort mistress and when she’s arrived at the Görnetz Platz, you take over and give her a home at Freudesheim. If you’ll agree to that, I can depart for Toronto feeling positive that she will be safe and happy and certain of a home. Also, I’ll know that she’ll get a decent, all-round education, which she stands in much need of at the moment. Finally, you’ll be able to find out what she wants to do in the way of a career. So far, we haven’t been able to discover that.” Joey folded the sheets and returned them to their envelope. “The rest,” she said, “is about other things and doesn’t matter to anyone but us two. Well, Jack?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Why ask me? You know perfectly well that you’ve already made up your mind that this—Adrienne, did you say her name was?—is to come to us. Who am I to gainsay you?” He finished with a chuckle. “You girls can give her a hand when she needs it. As for lessons, the school has tackled some oddities in its time. I don’t suppose Adrienne is any weirder than a lot of them. Anyhow, Robin seems to like her and I’d back Rob’s opinion along those lines any day in the week. And now, if you’ll all excuse me, I’m off to make up for some of the sleep I didn’t get last night. Let someone call me at noon, Joey, and mind you don’t leave it any later.” He gathered his mail together and left the room, nodding at them with a smile. The boys seized the opportunity to ask to be excused, too. Finally only Joey and the triplets were left. Joey was hurriedly skimming the rest of her mail and the girls were clearing the table.

“How old did Auntie Robin say Adrienne was?” Margot asked as she pushed the chairs back against the wall while Len ran the sweeper over the carpet and Con straightened the table-napkins before shutting the drawer in which they lived.

“Fifteen,” Joey said. “Judging by what Robin says she’ll be in Inter V. Put your brains in steep, you three, and think which of that crowd will be most likely to be a good sheepdog for her. You folk won’t be any good, you know.”

“No,” they agreed. Len added, “We’ll think it over and let you know. In the meantime, what should we do first this morning? We finished the beds before we came down.”

Thereafter Adrienne was sent into the background while they settled the morning’s work among them.

The great day had come. Adrienne, dressed for the first time in the Chalet School uniform in its entirety, examined herself curiously in the little ten-by-eight mirror that was hanging up in the cell-like room that had been hers since she had been discharged from the convent infirmary. Not, as she ruefully thought, that you could see very much. The convent did not encourage vanity. But she liked the gentian-blue frock with its honeycombing in crimson at shoulders and wrists and the touches of white on the revers. The big blue coat was warm and well cut, and the blue beret with the school badge embroidered on the left side struck her as both comfortable and chic.

It had come as a shock to her to learn that, far from beginning to earn her living as she had expected must happen once she had recovered from her tiresome illness, she was to go to school in Switzerland. It was Rev. Mother who told her when, feeling able to start work, she had begged for an interview and asked what she had better do about seeking a job.

“No need, ma petite,” Rev. Mother said briskly. “For the present, you remain here. After Christmas you go to the school in the Bernese Oberland where Sœur Cécile was educated herself. There you will receive a proper education which will fit you to take your place in the world and so be of more use to your fellow-men and to God than if we sent you out as you now are—half-trained, raw and knowing nothing thoroughly.”

“But—I have no money, ma Mère,” Adrienne stammered. “Who, then, will pay for this. Or is it, perhaps, a State school?”

“Au contraire, it is a privately-owned school, but, as its Principal has told me, although most of the girls are paid for by their parents, there are others whom the school accepts as free pupils. Others again are awarded bourses. You are one of those. You have been offered the Josephine Bettany Scholarship—that is what it is called—and there is no need for you to trouble about expenses either for your education or your clothes, for they are all paid for out of that. What remains for you is to work well and do yourself and the school credit and be happy in it. Later, who knows, you may hand on the knowledge you have gained there and that will be another way of payment.” She had eyed the girl with a little anxiety. During the weeks that had passed since Adrienne had come to them, Rev. Mother, a shrewd observer of character, had come to certain conclusions about her. She realised that the girl was almost fiercely independent and very proud. They might find it difficult to persuade her to accept what was offered and though she had certainly recovered fairly well from her illness, it had drained her strength at the time and it would be advisable for no extra strain to be put on her. Luckily, Adrienne was inclined to be slightly overawed by Rev. Mother and she was still enough of a child to yield to authority, which seemed to be absolute. She did not argue at all. Instead, she asked how long she must remain at the school.

“You are fifteen,” Rev. Mother said. “You will stay for at least two years—possibly three. By that time you will know better what you wish to do. You may choose to teach; or you may become a secretary; perhaps a nurse. Whatever it is, you will receive any special training you still require. Even,” the brown eyes twinkled under the white headband, “if you should wish to be a doctor and it is thought you would do well, you will be given the needful training. That, as you should know, is a very long one. You look amazed—astounded. My child, I am assured that you are not the first to whom this bourse has been awarded and you will not be the last.”

“But—but why?” Adrienne stammered. “They do not know me.”

“True; but they know Sœur Cécile whose sister it is who offers this bourse. It falls vacant this summer. She has mentioned you and told her sister your story. All is arranged and you will be grateful to God for watching over you and providing for you in this way. It comes to you through Sœur Cécile and her sister, Mme Maynard, but the first thought of it came from God. Now, ma fille, go you to the chapel and render thanks to Him.”

Adrienne obediently stood up from the stool on which she had been sitting, made her reverence and left the room almost too surprised to grasp it all. Obeying Rev. Mother’s command, she went to the chapel where she dropped down on her knees and remained very still and quiet until her thoughts were in order once more. When at last her mind was clear, two points fixed themselves in her brain. She must deserve all this that was coming to her. To do that, she must work well and steadily, putting work before pleasures of any kind. And then she must show Sœur Cécile how much she thanked her for her part by not only working hard, but also trying to be everything she felt sure the nun would like in a schoolgirl.

Sœur Cécile had not talked much about that, but she had found out that Adrienne was partly English and read that language as easily as French. During the long and often wearisome convalescence, she had brought the girl school stories written by this sister of hers, Mme Maynard. Adrienne had never read any tales like this and it did not take her long to discover what kind of girl both the author and Sœur Cécile preferred. She must be truthful and honest, working and playing with all her might, faithful to her promises, kind, loyal, above talking maliciously about other girls. These were the main points to strike Adrienne—though later she was to find others. It seemed a very large order in some ways. She must do her best, though. One other idea came into her head. When she herself was working and was able to put by a little out of her salary, she must save up so that in her turn she might establish such a bourse as this. What it would cost she had no idea, but she must save and save and she could find out.

It was a pity that neither Sœur Cécile nor Sœur Monique, the two nuns whom she knew best, came near her just then. If she could have discussed her notions with either or both, they would have shown her that while it is right to aim high, it is foolish to try to accomplish the impossible. If all Adrienne had in mind at that time had been possible to her, she would have been a prodigy second to none. As it was, she was no prodigy, fortunately for her. She was a clever girl and a girl who honestly wanted to reach a high standard of character and work, but she was not an angel and not a saint. As for the work she was planning out for herself, she was to find that the human brain can do only so much. If you try to cram it further, trouble ensues.

The school uniform came from the school, but there were underclothes to see to and two or three pretty frocks for state occasions. Rev. Mother ordained that Adrienne should help with these. Her needlework was excellent, both plainwork and embroidery. A length of yellow nylon was bought and she was set to embroidering it with tiny sprays of green leaves after it had been made up by one of the nuns into a simple, pretty dress. By the time it was finished, the frock was a thing of beauty and Sœur Monique told Adrienne that if all else failed she could certainly keep herself by doing similar work for one of the big shops.

“But, of course, not until you have learned very much more than you know now,” she added. “But you need never despair of being able to make a living with such skill in your finger-tips.”

The journey had begun the previous day when Sœur Cécile and Adrienne together with another nun, Sœur Agnés, who was also bound for Toronto, had set off from Arles, reaching Paris in the evening and staying for the night at another convent not far from the Gare de l’Est where, Adrienne had been told, she would be handed over to the mistress on escort duty. While Sœur Agnés attended to their baggage Sœur Cécile, with Adrienne in close attendance on her, scanned the crowds on the long station platform. Although she did her best to be her usual tranquil self, Adrienne could see that she was excited. Her brown eyes were alight with eagerness and her cheeks pink.

“I wonder if I know any of the mistresses on escort?” she remarked to Adrienne as they stood, looking round. “Ah! See! Here they come! But how enchanting that vivid blue looks! Now who——” She stepped forward eagerly glancing along the trim blue lines that came on at a smart pace. Suddenly, she gave an exclamation which was echoed by a jolly-looking person in her early thirties.

“Peggy Burnett!” Sœur Cécile cried, catching at the hands the lady stretched out as she came racing up to them. “Oh, Peggy!”

“Robin Humphries—Rob herself! Oh, my dear, how miraculous to meet after all this time! I’d no idea the nun I was to meet was going to be you! I’d have known you anywhere. You haven’t altered a scrap. Can you say the same for me?—Yes; carry on Kathy!” as another mistress, brown of hair, eyes and skin and with a humorous mouth paused to glance inquiringly at her. “First, though, you’ve heard reams about our Robin. This is her. Rob, this is Kathy Ferrars, Nancy Wilmot’s second-in-command. You remember Nancy, don’t you?” She suddenly turned on Adrienne who had been standing a little to one side looking as she felt more than a little de trop. “Is this our new pupil? Kathy, this is Adrienne Desmoines. Find someone to do sheepdog for her, will you? She ought to be Inter V, by the way. It’s all right, Adrienne. Sœur Cécile will come to say goodbye to you before the train leaves if possible. Rob, just five minutes to ourselves!” And she led Sœur Cécile to one side while Miss Ferrars, with a smile at Adrienne, picked up the night-case by the girl’s side and then turned to rebuke a curly-headed fifteen-year-old with an impish face who had suddenly broken away from the line and was diving for the nun.

“Ailie Russell! What do you think you’re doing? Back into line, please!”

The girl turned an imploring face to her. “Oh, Miss Ferrars, it’s my Auntie Rob and I haven’t seen her for years and years. Please, do let me just speak to her for a moment.”

Sœur Cécile heard and turned to stare. “Ailie Russell!” she exclaimed. She began to laugh. “I’d forgotten you would be here. It’s all right, Miss Ferrars, isn’t it?” Then as Miss Ferrars nodded, laughing, “Aren’t you in Inter V now, Ailie?”

“Me, and Judy Willoughby and Janice Chester. We’ve managed to stick together so far. Oh, and Tessa de Bersac—Tante Simone’s Tessa.”

“Good! Ailie, do something for me, will you? This is Adrienne Desmoines who is coming to the school this term. She’s scarcely ever been at school before, so you people look after her for me and show her how we do things at the Chalet School. Oh, and while I think of it, I seem to remember that not one of you could ever be truthfully described as a little angel, so don’t try to involve her in any of your wicked ways.”

“Oh, Auntie Rob!” Ailie protested, looking as soulful as in her lay.

“No use, my child. I know you much too well to be taken in by seraphic looks. What a disappointment you have been to your mother! When you came along she was hopeful that for once she’d got a sweet, gentle little daughter since no one could ever describe Sybil or Josette like that——”

“Well, I’m sorry, but I’m me. ‘Sweet and gentle’ doesn’t describe me any more than it does Sybs and Josette and it’s not my fault,” Ailie protested, her grey-green eyes alight with mischief. “All right, Auntie Rob. We’ll look after Adrienne for you. You’re not coming to the Görnetz Platz with us, by any chance?” she added hopefully.

“No, my lamb. I’m off to Toronto again. Give everyone my love and tell your mother and Joey I’ll write when I’ve got time. Now you must go,” for the girls had begun to march into the carriages reserved for them and Miss Ferrars and two more mistresses who were on escort duty were beginning to look rather agitated. “Off you go! Adrienne, chérie, adieu! Some day we may hope to meet again.” She made a cross with her thumb on Adrienne’s brow blessing her as she did so. That was all there was time for. The next minute, the girl was swept away to climb up into the long carriage after Ailie and established in a compartment where four or five other girls, all of the same age, were putting cases and other impedimenta up on the racks, unfolding travelling rugs and generally settling themselves for the long railway journey to Basle where, as Adrienne already knew, they would leave the train which went on to Vienna, and travel in a southerly direction to Interlaken whence, as Sœur Cécile had informed her, they would either go up to the Görnetz Platz by the rack-and-pinion mountain railway, or else find the school coaches waiting for them outside the station.

Now that she had been parted from the nun, Adrienne could think of at least six questions she wanted to ask; but though she could see the familiar habit coming along to their carriage beside Miss Burnett, she realised that there would be no chance of talk. The questions must wait until she could write. Meanwhile, Ailie, who seemed to be a leader among these girls, was ordering an unmistakably French girl out of the corner seat, and pressing the new girl into it.

“You sit there. We’ve all done this journey dozens of times, but it’s probably new to you. This is Tessa de Bersac, by the way. And this is Judy Willoughby, and the one with the black pigtails who looks so good is Janice Chester——”

“It’s only looks,” Judy said with a grin. “She’s just as bad as the rest of us. I say it’s those awfully tidy pigtails of hers that make people think she’s so good. This is Thyra Jespersen. She spells it ‘T-h-y-r-a’, but she calls it ‘Teera’. Rum, but there it is.”

The owner of the rum name grinned amiably. “And just so that you make no mistake,” she said, “Judy’s proper name is Juliana Jane, but they’ve made Judy of it. Can you blame them?”

Tessa chuckled. “Anyhow, we will look after you and tell you everything.”

“So,” Ailie wound up, “if one of us isn’t around, another is safe to be and you can latch on to whoever is there when you want a helping hand. Hello!” she interrupted herself. “We’re off. Comfy, Adrienne? Then you can just get down to it and tell us how you know Auntie Rob and all about her. Were you at La Sagesse, or what? Wire in!”

Adrienne had been feeling very much alone, but that sort of thing had no chance where Ailie and Co. were concerned. Long before they had begun to consider that a meal would be a good thing, they had managed to make the new girl feel that, new or not, she belonged to them in one way. It was a mere surface feeling at that stage, but it helped amazingly.

The train had left Paris in the early evening since many of the girls came from across the Channel, others from the south of France and from Holland and it was impossible for them to reach Paris in time for an earlier train. In any case, a good deal of the journeying was spent in sleeping which relieved the monotony of travel and certainly made things easier for the staff. It was six o’clock next morning when they reached Basle with the long, well-lit platforms showing brightly against the deep blue of the night sky. The stars were still shining, though over in the east they had begun to pale. Adrienne stumbled out of the carriage with the rest, clutching her belongings and shivering as the keen dawn wind greeted them, all the chillier for the warm, not to say fuggy, compartments in which they had spent the night.

“Cold?” Ailie asked sympathetically. “Never mind. We’ll be going for coffee and rolls in a sec and that’ll warm you. Turn up your coat collar. Here! I’ll fix it for you.”

Before she got round to it, however, Miss Ferrars was calling on them to line up and they were marched to the big refreshment room where bowls of milky coffee steamed a welcome, and brioches, hot from the oven, accompanied by pats of ivory-tinted butter and the dark richness of black cherry jam, sharpened everyone’s appetite.

“Get down to it!” Judy Willoughby ordered Adrienne. “We shan’t get anything else in the way of a meal until we reach school. This, my love, is what you would call petit déjeuner, I imagine. Incidentally, when we get to school, the meal will be Mittagessen. ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do,’ you know, and the Görnetz Platz is in German Switzerland.”

“I had forgotten,” Adrienne owned. “Sœur Cécile told me that at the school one speaks in three languages——”

“Only one at a time,” Ailie said with a wicked twinkle. “That’s bad enough. The way you talk makes it sound ten times worse!”

Adrienne went red. “Ah, I have not had much practice with my English of late and it is easy to forget. But you will help me, n’est-ce pas?”

“You bet!” Judy told her cordially. “You’ll soon come back to it. Lucky for you! It’ll give you more time to dig in at German—or do you speak that as well?”

Adrienne laughed. “I speak a very little—enough to ask my way and to order a meal. Not much more, I assure you. I shall find it trying, that—to work at lessons in German. It will be worse even than in English, which I do know and can speak when I remember.”

“Don’t worry,” Judy said, passing her the brioches. “Have another—and a spot more jam. You’ll be famished by the time we have Mittagessen if you don’t.—About languages, you’ll soon get into the way of it.”

“Shall I?” Adrienne sounded doubtful.

Janice who had been silent up to this, took her turn. “Of course you will. We all do. And you’re a lot better off than heaps of people, knowing two of our languages quite decently. Anyhow, no one gives you much chance of not getting on with that sort of thing.”

“How right you are!” This was Judy.

“Why? What happens if one forgets?” Adrienne asked curiously.

“Consequences—in other words, fines,” Janice told her. “You have a fortnight to settle down and pick up a few things. After that, you’ve got to remember or pay a fine every time you forget. So if it happens too often, you haven’t a sou to your name by the end of the week. Not nice!”

Adrienne agreed with her. “Oh, indeed I shall try to remember! I should not enjoy being penniless, me! But how if one does not know the words?”

“You soon learn them,” Janice informed her. “For one thing, everyone helps you out—at first, anyhow. For another, if the staff or the prees do it they usually make you say things over and over again till you’ve got the right accent and pronunciation—more or less, at least. After a few weeks of that kind of drilling I defy the stupidest girl not to learn something. Don’t worry, Adrienne. You’ll soon pick up enough to go on with.”

A girl of their own age who had been sitting opposite them on the other side of the table, looked across with dancing eyes of the beautiful blue-grey the Normans call “perce”. “On Saturday afternoons and Sundays one may speak in one’s own tongue,” she said. “Me, I am French so I speak that most. You also?”

Adrienne’s face lit up. So far she had met only one compatriot, Tessa de Bersac, and Tessa spoke English as well as any of the other members of her crowd. This girl, however, though she seemed to be fluent, retained her accent enough to be marked.

“Yes; I am French; but English also,” she added, speaking in French. “I am Adrienne Desmoines. And you?”

“Solange de Chaumontel,” the girl replied. “I came to the Görnetz Platz to be with my aunts. One of them was ill, you understand, and a patient at the Sanatorium. La pauvre Tante Léonie! She died in October, but I was happy at school and Tante Mélanie, who was Tante Léonie’s twin sister, decided to remain here and keep me at the school. So I remain at least until my parents return. When that will be, I do not know. Maman is a singer, you comprehend, and she and Papa are on a long, long world tour.”

“I see,” Adrienne murmured.

“Have another brioche,” Ailie said at that point, thrusting a basket of fresh delicate rolls at her. “You, too, Solly. May as well make hay while the sun shines. Brioches aren’t exactly common at school.”

Solange accepted the offer, but Adrienne declined it. At all times her appetite was small. Now she was too tired to feel hungry, after the long night journey as well as all the new experiences she had had of late. She sat sipping the last of her coffee and watching the others who were still munching heartily. The meal ended at last, however, and they were walked off, ten at a time, to wash hands and faces, tidy their hair and generally attend to their toilettes. When the last of the prefects who had taken charge of the Juniors’ wash-and-brush-up appeared looking fresh and trim, the mistresses marshalled them into double lines and they marched smartly out the station, into the Centralbahnplatz, where a fleet of big motor-coaches awaited them.

Adrienne was startled at the speed with which they were packed in. Each coach, as soon as it had received its full complement of passengers, rolled off into the busy St Jakobstrasse where they joined the ever-swelling stream of traffic. Finally they found themselves running down one of the fine Autobahnen for which Switzerland is famous, heading for Berne.

Adrienne had been pushed into a window-seat by Janice with the remark that they all knew the route by heart by this time, so she had better sit next the window and they would point out all the interesting things to her. She found that the same crowd surrounded her as she had been with since they left Paris. Solange was in a row of seats a little ahead. With her was a pretty English girl whom the rest called “Anne”. Judy and Ailie occupied the seats behind them and immediately in front of Adrienne and Janice. On the other side of the coach were Thyra Jespersen and Tessa de Bersac. All the girls looked to Adrienne to be of much the same age as herself. She gathered from their chatter that they were also mostly in the same form, though half-a-dozen or so were members of the form immediately above Inter V, Judy told her.

“How many forms are there?” Adrienne asked with interest.

“In Senior School? Five—Inter V, Vb, Va, VIb, VIa,” Judy replied.

“Yes; but how many in the whole school?” Adrienne persisted.

“Gosh! I can’t tell you offhand. Anyone else know?”

“I do.” Janice spoke in her low, rather lazy voice which Adrienne had noticed already. “There are four in Middle School and five in Junior School. Fourteen altogether, Adrienne. You’ve done your entrance exam, haven’t you? Yes,” as Adrienne nodded. “I thought so. I guess you’re going to be with us—Inter V—as you’ve been put with us for the journey. That’ll make us twenty-seven. I say, you folk, we’ll be the largest form in Senior School anyhow.”

“A long way the largest,” Ailie said emphatically. “They don’t like forms to be more than about twenty-five or six. I wonder why we’re so big this year?”

“Oh, so many people all at the same level, I expect,” Anne Lambert remarked, looking round. “I suppose it does happen sometimes. I remember last year Nesta Parry, who was Inter V then, said that they had thirty.”

“How many were there in your last form?” Janice asked Adrienne.

“I have not been at school since I was ten,” Adrienne explained. “My father liked to keep us with him: he was an artist, you see, and wished to go to beautiful places. I forget how many were in my last class—it is so long ago. But I think there must have been fifty; perhaps more.”

“I don’t think I’d like that,” Ailie said thoughtfully. “Oh, I know! When there are such crowds no mistress can keep her eye on everyone at once. On the other hand if you’ve stuck at something and really want to know, the chances are you can’t get her attention and that means latching on to her out of lessons. I like work reasonably well, but I can’t see any point in going out of one’s way to add on to lesson time. No; I think, on the whole, I prefer forms like ours. By the way, Anne,” she went on, raising her voice, “I didn’t see Jack. Isn’t she coming to school this term?”

“Jack went a week early to stay with Jane Carew,” the quiet Anne replied.

“What?” It was Thyra who exclaimed. “Jack staying with Jane? But, my dear, they’re not as matey as all that, are they? Why, Jane’s first term they were at daggers drawn!”

Anne, Jack’s very quiet elder sister, spoke up. “That’s all over. They really are quite friendly. Besides, after all, Jack’s beginning to see things differently. She’ll be fifteen in August. That’s not a kid any longer.”

“Gosh!” Janice exclaimed. “Is young Jack nearly fifteen? Well, I suppose she must be. After all, most of us are verging on sixteen.”

“Doesn’t it sound ghastly grown-up?” Judy sighed.

“Remember what the Head told us last term when we were doing Romeo and Juliet with her?” Janice asked. “Juliet is supposed to have been only fourteen when she fell in love and there was all that hoohah with Romeo. I suppose,” she added thoughtfully, “it’s being away at school and having such piles of other things to think about that makes us not bother so much about boys; but I know two girls at home who have boy-friends they go out with and all that. And one of them isn’t as old as I am.”

Judy tossed her short brown curls. “I suppose we’ll come to it sooner or later. At the moment, it strikes me as mad. I’d a lot rather win the Junior Tennis Championship next summer than go streeling round to dances with boys.”

There was a general laugh and then Ailie voiced her ideas.

“I’m with Judy. It’s all right going to dances and all that—but I’d never be allowed, of course—but where’s the fun of getting married before you’ve had any other kind of fun? Look at Auntie Joey! She was only about four years older than us when she married and she’s done nothing but have babies and keep house and——”

She was as nearly howled down as was possible in a motor-coach with three prefects in charge, not to speak of two mistresses who had overheard a good deal of this and grinned at each other.

“Talk sense!” Janice retorted when the objectors had been more or less silenced. “She’s done a lot more than that and you know it. What about all her books? And the way she’s gone on having adventures one time and another. Look at the places she’s gone to—Canada, and Austria, and France and——”

“Yes; Janice is right,” Thyra put her oar in. “You can’t call Mrs Maynard an average example of married life. She’s done a lot too much of different things for that. Anyhow, Miss Moore has been cocking an eye at us. We’d better stop talking about boys or she’ll be coming down on us. Adrienne, what games do you play? Not any team games, I expect. What about tennis?”

“Oh, do you ski or toboggan?” Judy added eagerly. “This is winter sports term, you know.”

“I have played a little tennis,” Adrienne said. “For winter sports, I have not played at any. You see,” she added hesitatingly, “Maman was ill for a very long time before she died. Cold she could not endure and always we lived where there was sunshine and warmth. But I can swim, and also row a boat,” she finished up.

“I’m not so sure we’ll get much in the way of winter sports this term,” Solange remarked. “I overheard some people in the hotel where we were say that there hasn’t been much snow so far and very little ski-ing and tobogganing. Unless more snow should come, it is feared that the big ski-ing centres will lose much money.”

“Oh, well, it isn’t much more than halfway through January now. There’s plenty of time for some good heavy falls of snow,” Janice said cheerfully. “Oh, look, Adrienne! This is Solothurn we’re coming to. It’s a frightfully interesting place—one of the oldest cities in Switzerland. It was here before the Romans came, in fact. It was here, too, that St Victor and his pal—what’s his name, someone?”

“St Ursus,” someone supplied it.

“Ta, muchly!—Yes; St Victor and St Ursus were martyred. They were in the Theban Legion which was stationed in Switzerland—Helvetia, they called it then—and they became Christians, so that was that.”

“There’s a lovely cathedral dedicated to St Ursus,” someone put in.

“Why not to both of them?” Adrienne asked.

“Search me! I haven’t a clue. I just know it’s St Ursus. But there’s a memorial to St Victor in the cathedral.”

“Do we pass by it?” Adrienne queried with interest.

“No,” Thyra said. “We don’t go through the town at all, but turn off just before we get there. But we’ll probably go and see it properly on one of our expeditions,” she added consolingly.

Adrienne discovered that this was the case with most of the towns on the way to Lake Thun and she understood why the girls had been encouraged to make a hearty meal at Basle. But at last they reached the lake and from there, the coaches swept off up a road cut through the mountains to the Görnetz Platz where not only the Chalet School, but the great Görnetz Sanatorium stood, the school at the nearer end of the Platz; the Sanatorium three miles or so further on. Sœur Cécile had also told her that Mrs Maynard’s home, Freudesheim, came even before the school, only you went down a little lane to reach the gate.

“Auntie Jo may be at school to welcome us,” Ailie remarked as their coach swung past one of the typical little Swiss churches, with white-washed walls and an onion-bulb spire. “She usually does. You’ll like her, Adrienne. She’s a complete poppet.”

“I shall hope to see her soon,” Adrienne said seriously. “She has been so kind to me. She has given me a—a bourse—no—scholarship, you say, so that I may be educated and trained for a—a—for work to make me a living.”

“In other words, a career,” Judy struck in. “Good for you!”

“You’ve never seen her, have you?” Janice asked.

Adrienne shook her head. All she knew of Mrs Maynard apart from what Sœur Cécile had told her had been two friendly notes from the lady, welcoming her to the Chalet School and also assuring her of a warm welcome at Freudesheim, the Maynard home, as soon as she could go there. She had replied to them in her best Engish and the result had been so stilted that Joey, having read it, had exclaimed in horror, “What on earth has Rob wished on to us—a modern version of Goody Two Shoes? My only Aunt Sophonisba!”

“I only know that she is kind—but very kind,” Adrienne said. “I mean to show her how I am grateful by working hard for I can repay her in no other way. That I can do, and I will do.”

Ailie eyed her doubtfully. “I shouldn’t overdo it,” she said at last.

“Besides, Auntie Jo doesn’t care for only work,” Janice chimed in. “She likes you to be as all-round as possible—you know what I mean—playing up at games and joining in hobbies and things and pulling your weight all round.”

“How d’you know that?” Judy demanded argumentatively.

“I’ve heard her say so for one thing. You stop arguing!”

“I wasn’t. I was only going to say don’t give Adrienne the idea that Auntie Jo has no use for lessons because that’s all wrong.”

“I never even hinted at it,” Janice cried hotly. “I said that she liked people to be all-rounders. So now, young Judy!”

“Oh?” Adrienne spoke politely, but she was not sure what the girls meant by all this. Still, she did gather that Mrs Maynard would be pleased if she worked hard and did her best. However, there was no time left for pondering. The coach rounded a curve, passing a tall house which stood well back from the road, before turning up a wide drive. They slowed up. Adrienne, a-thrill with excitement, had reached the Chalet School.

The Chalet School entrance papers had been sent to La Sagesse three weeks previously and Adrienne had done them under the strict invigilation of Sœur Cécile. She had worried considerably as to how she had done. Since the journey from Paris, she had hoped vehemently that they were good enough to entitle her to a place in the Inter V. Certain questions she had been quite unable to tackle, but certain others had been very easy for her. If only the one would counterbalance the other, she might be just good enough for the form which her new friends all graced. If she were not, then it would mean that not only would she be in a form lower; she would be relegated to Middle School, whilst they, in Inter V, were in Senior.

Luckily, it was not the custom at the Chalet School to keep girls in suspense for long. She heard nothing that first day, but next morning Miss Dene, the School secretary, sent for her and told her that she had “made” Inter V though it would mean extra coaching in her weaker subjects. However that would be arranged. Meantime, Janice Chester would show her where to go, give her the lists of textbooks and stationery she needed, and generally keep an eye on her until she had found her feet.

Adrienne had quickly found out that Janice meant Ailie and Judy as well. The three hung together as far as they could. It was, in some ways, an odd sort of combination. Janice was highly artistic, caring nothing for maths or science and just managing to scrape through enough work to enable her to keep up with the ruck of the form. Judy, on the other hand, was keen on maths, detested art, and rubbed along in other subjects. Ailie was frankly lazy over anything that needed brainwork. Where she was good was at all games and gymnastics. She was dallying with the idea of taking up physical training when she left school, but the information given her the previous term that in that case she must work at science and kindred subjects had made her pause before finally deciding.

She explained this to Adrienne when they were out for the mid-morning walk along the highroad on the next Monday.

“You see, I love all games and P.T. work, but I loathe having to swot at anything. Now Burney says if I really want to do P.T. I’ve got to dig in at anatomy and science and a whole lot of other stuff. Oh, I expect I’ll have a go at it in the end; but it’ll mean wiring in at chemmy and physics and all sorts of things like that and that wasn’t my idea.”

“But it sounds very hard work,” Adrienne said in awed tones. “Is it possible for you to do it, Ailie?”

Ailie grinned. “Oh, I daresay I can manage it; but it’s a lot more like work than I ever wanted. What are you thinking of doing, Adrienne?”

Adrienne flushed. “Me, I have not really thought. I know so little about many things. Is it necessary that one should know at once?”

“Oh, goodness, no! It’s as well to have an idea in your head so that you can sort of work towards it; but it isn’t necessary. Anyhow, you can’t specialise until you reach VIb, so you’ve plenty of time. Janice wants to go in for designing—textiles, she says. Judy keeps on swithering from one thing to another. Thyra means to go in for secretarial work and get diplomas and things so that she can get a plum of a job. Some of the others know more or less what they’d like to do—Solange means to take up nursing; and Tessa de Bersac wants to go in for cookery and get her cordon bleu and be an awfully posh chef. Jane Carew will be an actress and Gabrielle Thomé says she would like to take up kindergarten work. So I thought perhaps you had some idea, too, about what you wanted to do.”

Adrienne merely shook her head. Her ideas so far were vague. She felt she must know far more than she did at present before she could fix on any future career.

Inter V had art that afternoon and the trio escorted her to the artroom and introduced her to Miss Yolland, the art mistress. “Yollie”, as the school at large called her in private, asked a few questions and then set the new girl to work on an illustration. They were all doing it. The book was Sans Famille which everyone had read. They could choose their scene for themselves. Adrienne delightedly settled down to a sketch of the wandering minstrel, Vitalis, and his troupe of the poodle Capi, Mattia and Rémi, the two little waifs he had with him, and was lost to her surroundings for the next half-hour. Miss Yolland glanced at her work once or twice, but she left the girl to rough in her figures before she interfered at all.

“Quite good, Adrienne,” she said, when at last she came to examine the sketch in detail. “Tell me, though, how do you think anyone could balance with a knee bent at that angle?” She tapped the figure of Mattia. “Correct, that leg, please. And have you ever seen—really seen, I mean—how a violinist holds his fiddle for playing? No? Well remember that the belly is on his shoulder, held in place by his chin. The neck is held by the left hand at the same level—not drooping down to his waist. Always try to be accurate.”

Having poured out this out in fluent colloquial French—it was “French” day—she left Adrienne to correct her drawing as far as possible and passed on to Ailie who, being no artist, had produced the front of a house with a door in the middle, a window on either side of the door and a path leading down to the margin of her paper and put in with a nice appreciation of perspective.

Miss Yolland regarded this work of art with a grim expression. “And what, if I may ask, does this represent?” she asked with an edge to her voice that made even the insouciant Ailie cringe slightly.

“It—it’s the outside of the gardener’s cottage just before Rémi sat down in the porch,” she said.

“I see. Hardly what is meant by an illustration, however—as you have produced it. We must see what we can do to get a little interest in it.”

Ailie’s face lengthened considerably. This meant quite a lot of hard work for her. “Ye-es,” she faltered.

“Yes! I think, you know,” Miss Yolland spoke confidentially, “that it would be quite a good idea if you made it the house after Rémi has sunk down in the porch, exhausted. You may draw him huddled up, or stretched out as if he had fallen, but put him in. And I’m sorry, Ailie, but this means that you must redraw your door to show the depth of the porch. Quite a lot to do, you see, so take your rubber and begin on it at once.”

Miss Yolland left her and went on to Jane Carew who, no more than Ailie, was much of an artist, but who had made some effort to produce an interesting picture. As for Ailie, that young woman waited till the mistress was well in front of her and then grimaced so violently that Adrienne, catching sight of her, almost wondered if her face would ever come straight again.

At this point, the door of the art-room opened and Betty Landon, a member of VIa, came in with a message from the office. “If you please, Miss Yolland, may Adrienne Desmoines go to Miss Dene for ten minutes?” she asked.

Miss Yolland looked up from Jane’s effort and nodded. “Certainly. Adrienne, run along to the office—and don’t forget to put on your cloak and over-shoes,” she added as Adrienne laid down her pencil and got up. “Pull the cloak well round you. There’s a very icy wind today.”

Adrienne followed Betty out of the room.

“Do you know the way to the office?” the elder girl asked kindly as she pulled the hood of her own cloak over her head.

“Yes, thank you,” Adrienne replied. “I have been there before.”

“Good! Then I’ll leave you to it. I was in the middle of hunting up an historical reference and I rather think I’ve got it pinned down and I don’t want to miss it. Mind you wrap your cloak right round you. The wind cuts like a knife!” And with this Betty departed for the non-fiction library, leaving the new girl to pull on over-shoes and cloak before skipping down the long, narrow courtyard which separated the special classrooms, such as art, geography, domestic economy and the science laboratories from the main buildings of the school. There was an inside corridor but, as Adrienne had already learned, it was for use only during bad weather. Otherwise, the girls were expected to pass from one section of the school to another by the outdoor ways. This might be a cold day, and the wind coming from the snow-capped mountains was certainly icy, but it was fine and bright. Adrienne clutched her long blue cloak tightly round her and set off for the side-door into the main building which all the girls used.

When she reached the office where pretty Miss Dene was waiting to fill in one or two details about her extra coachings, the chill air had whipped up a faint pink into her usually pale cheeks and her eyes were bright. Miss Dene looked at her with approval after she had jotted down the brief notes the girl would need and commented on her appearance.

“This place seems to suit you, Adrienne. You’ve got quite a colour, my child!” Like everyone else on the staff, she spoke fluent French and German and, like a good many of them, had the additional advantage of being an Old Girl of the school. “I hope you’re going to enjoy life here.”

“Oh, but yes!” Adrienne exclaimed fervently. “Everyone is so kind and the lessons are so interesting. And then the wonderful scenery—ah, one must be blind and stupid not to delight in that! And to me, you see, it is new. I have lived among mountains, that is true. But I have not lived so high up among them. And that is another delight—the wonderful air! I came feeling always weary. Already, I feel the fatigue slipping away and I am able to do far more than I have ever done before. How should I not enjoy so much?”

Rosalie Dene looked startled. You never knew what you might come up against with any new girl, but so far she had never met with one who raved about the air and the scenery—or, not so soon. Still, as she remembered, Robin (as she, in common with all the older members of the school still called Sœur Cécile) had said that Adrienne was an artist’s daughter. No doubt she inherited artistic tastes from him. But if the poor child could comment on the stimulating atmosphere, she must have been badly overdone; and for some time, too, to judge by what she said.

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” she said with a smile. “I hope by the time this term ends you’ll be so free from any kind of tiredness except what comes as a result of a hard game or an hour or two of dancing or a good scramble, that you’ll not even notice it. Well, we must talk of all that another time. At present, I’ve got enough work to keep me busy for the rest of the afternoon, and as for you, Miss Yolland won’t love me if I keep you from her class.” She laughed, a sweet mellow laugh and nodded. “Off with you, my lamb! We’ll have a nice, social chat some other time. Please thank Miss Yolland for me for sparing you.”

Adrienne made her reverence and left the office, feeling that here she had another friend. It was odd, but ever since Sœur Cécile had come into her life, she seemed to make new friends almost every week. Before that, she could have counted her friends on the fingers of one hand.

“I prayed to God to help me,” she thought as she left the school, pulling the door to after her. “How good He has been!”

She stood still for a moment or two, enjoying the sharp freshness of the wind, the brightness of the winter sunshine and the feeling of well-being that filled her. She had to clutch her cloak tightly round her against the wind and pull the hood more closely round her face.

“Oi! What time of year do you think this is?” demanded a fresh, very sweet voice behind her and she swung round to see a tall figure wrapped in a green cloak standing at her elbow.

“The new girl—Rob’s gift to the school!” the newcomer ejaculated, an arm round her to prevent the folds of her own cloak from bellying out in the wind. “My lamb, don’t you know that you’ve got to keep moving in this sort of weather? I’m Joey Maynard, by the way, Rob’s sister. I’ll bet you’ve heard all about me unless Robin’s changed a lot. Tell me! Which of my worst sins has she recounted to you?”

Startled, Adrienne looked up into the dancing black eyes that met hers.

“She has told me of how you all had to fly from the Germans, Madame——”

“For pity’s sake don’t call me that!” Jo interrupted her. “ ‘Madame’, indeed! You make me sound as if I were an aged dame in cap and mittens! I’m Mrs Maynard, please—for the present, at any rate. In the meantime, kindly tell me why you were standing here meditating as if it were midsummer instead of midwinter and bitterly cold.”

“Please—I did not feel it cold. I was thinking of many things and there is so much to think about and one has so little time for thought. But you are right and I ought to be at my art class, only Miss Dene sent for me. I must make haste. Excuse me, please, Mrs Maynard.”

“I’ll come with you,” Joey Maynard said amiably. “It’s not often I’m not in and out at school, but my youngest girl has been cutting two double teeth—she’s been slow over them, poor baby!—and we’ve had some lively nights with her. They’re through at last, thank goodness, but I’ve been feeling like an unstarched tablecloth these last two days. However, we had a lovely night last night—slept unbrokenly till seven this morning. I’m feeling like myself again so I thought I’d wander along and pick up any news I could. Here we are!”

By this time they had reached the classrooms and while Adrienne went to pull off overshoes and cloak and put them away, Joey sauntered along to the art-room where Miss Yolland was hard at work with Anne Lambert’s attempt. One or two of the girls glanced up and saw her, but a sharp gesture kept them quiet and it was not until Adrienne entered and went to deliver Miss Dene’s message to the art mistress that that young woman realised that they had a visitor.

“Joey!” she exclaimed. “Where have you been all this time? Come and take a look at our illustrations! But first tell me why you haven’t been in before.”

“Philippa and teeth, my love. It’s over, thank goodness, but poor little Phil has had a doing. So have I, if you come to that. You look very fit and well. Good holidays? Excellent! So had we. Phil only started her teeth last Wednesday. By the way, I had a few words with Adrienne, so if she’s later than you expected lay the blame to my account.”

“That’s all right,” Miss Yolland said absently as she bent over Janice Chester’s illustration. “Yes; that’s quite good, Janice. Be careful with your shadows, though.” She turned back to Mrs Maynard. “Joey, I’m sorry, but this is a lesson,” she said in a rapid undertone. “Do you want anything special? Not? Then be a dear and go away now, please. Come to Kaffee und Kuchen in the staffroom—or come back in half-an-hour when the lesson will end and you can see what you think of our illustrations. But do go away and let me get on. There’s never nearly enough time to get through everything, and we can’t waste a second.”

“Tut, tut!” said Joey sweetly. “I’d no idea I was so unwelcome to you. All right, Rosalind, I’m going. I’ll seek the Head—or Matey. They both welcome me with open arms! Be seeing you!” And she was gone.

Miss Yolland took very little notice. She was far too absorbed in her work and even if she had not been, she knew her Jo well enough to know that that lady fully understood. As for Adrienne, she was already feeling the fascination Joey Maynard always had, especially for girls. She was working hard at the alterations to her picture that Miss Yolland had suggested, but inwardly she was thrilling to the feeling that here was yet another new friend for her. Moreover, this was a friend with a difference. Just where it lay she could never have said, but it was there. More than ever she was resolved that she would work to her full pitch to show her gratitude for Mrs Maynard’s kindness.

It was a good idea. Unfortunately, Adrienne, unaccustomed to living with other people, even after her weeks at the convent, and with an almost abysmal ignorance of the average schoolgirl never reckoned on the reaction of her school fellows and she was to find, before she was finished, that she had taken on a fairly tough assignment for more reasons than one.

Having made her decision, Adrienne stuck to it. The weather remained very trying to people who had been looking forward to winter sports. The snow was not nearly deep enough for either good ski-ing or tobogganing, and what snow did fall was often soft and wet, making matters worse. News came in that many of the big ski-ing resorts in the Alps were resigning themselves to a bad season. Visitors, disappointed of ski-ing, were departing to the lake resorts and consoling themselves with skating and curling. This was not much consolation to the Chalet School girls, since going to Lake Thun at the foot of the mountain meant a full half-day’s excursion. It was all very well in summer, going down for boating and swimming. They could take a certain amount of work with them and had set periods for preparation, lying on the sun-warmed beach. You couldn’t even sit about in winter weather, so they had to content themselves with walks along the high-road and, when the snow had been frozen hard, over the school playing-fields and the pastures of the Görnetz Platz.

“I’m sick of this,” Ailie grumbled to the form at large one day. “I want to go out for a really decent run. But shall we manage it?”

“Only if the weather changes,” replied Janet Henderson, a clever girl who practically always topped whatever form she was in.

“It won’t do that if the radio is right,” Thyra assured her. “This is continuing, my love.”

The authorities did their best for the girls, but when term was three weeks old, a beam holding the ceiling of the gymnasium cracked. That meant no apparatus work until it had been renewed, a matter of some days. The girls growled, for drill in Hall which was the best anyone could do, was no substitute for rope-climbing, trapeze-work and work on the ribstalls and cross-bars. Worse; a heavy fog enveloped all their part of the Oberland and remained for three days, making it impossible for any of them to go out. Even the doctors at the Sanatorium preferred to take the upper roads and paths through the pines to driving along the highroad which, at times, lay a bare six feet from the edge of the cliff.

Inter V, in common with most of the school, growled and grumbled among themselves, but amused themselves fairly comfortably with reading, paper games of various kinds, charades and sessions of country and morris dancing. The last two occupations certainly exercised their muscles, but it was not always possible to find someone to play for them.

During this period Adrienne spent as much of her free time as she could in working at her weak subjects. She was a clever girl and her mother’s early training had taught her to concentrate on what she was doing. It had been the easier to learn this because she had worked alone with nothing to distract her. Now, with the excellent teaching she was receiving added to her fixed determination to reach the full standard of the form, she was making strides. German, which had been the biggest drawback, she was picking up with rapidity. As she did not suffer from the usual self-consciousness of the average English schoolgirl, she never minded making mistakes and, since the rule at the school was that newcomers faced with the difficulty of learning a hitherto unknown language should be helped by everyone who could help them, she learned quickly.

As a result, by the time half-term was approaching, her place in form had risen from tenth to third. The week before half-term week, when the form lists were read out, to everyone’s amazement and Janet Henderson’s utter disgust she was bracketed first with that young person.

The Three congratulated their protégée with enthusiasm. They had become reconciled by this time to the fact that she was a slogger. They also realised that she really enjoyed most of her lessons and was prepared to “go all out for things she abominates, really,” to quote Judy Willoughby.

“Gosh!” she had added incautiously, seeing that it was Tuesday and a German day, “How she can beats me!”

Nemesis caught up with Judy. “English, Judy?” asked a voice behind her. Turning, Judy found herself confronted by Len Maynard, the Head Girl, and went plum colour. Len regarded her with a twinkle in her eyes. “You do ask for trouble, don’t you?” she added in the prettily-accented German which was the envy of more than half the school. “Pay your fine, please, and do try to remember.”

Judy had nothing to say. It was a rare week in which she did not contribute at least one fine to the fines-box for this sin. She heaved a sigh and went off to drop in her coin. Len laughed as she watched her go.

“Poor Judy! She’s just Blossom over again for carelessness! How they manage it, I just don’t know. Goodness knows they have had tellings enough all these years!” She looked at the other three standing beside her. “Can’t you folk do something about it? What are friends for if not to help?” With which she left them.

“I suppose we’d better keep an eye on her,” Janice said. “At least we have never had to trouble about you that way, Adrienne. What’s the time? Time we were going over to the Kitchens. Come, Adrienne. Bring your apron and sleeves and cap.”

Judy came racing to join them and they moved off to collect their belongings and, since a heavy storm of sleet was raging, march off through the corridors to the domestic science kitchens where Frau Mieders awaited them.

It was while they were hard at work, laundering fine damask cloths that Judy Willoughby discovered that her tub-mate, Janet Henderson, was scowling blackly at nothing in particular. Being Judy, she would usually have asked at once what was wrong. However, having to pay a fine already that morning deterred her for once and it was not until they were tidying themselves for Mittagessen that she remembered it.

“What’s wrong with you, Janet?” she asked as she dried her hands. “You look as if the cat had eaten your canary, you’d lost twenty francs and found a centime, and all your nearest and dearest had vanished into thin air. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong, thank you,” Janet replied with dignity as she went to hang up her towel on its peg and take out her comb and brush to attend to her short, wavy hair. Judy, whose peg was next to hers, followed on the same errand.

“I’ve no idea what should be wrong,” she said as she wrenched the comb through her untidy brown curls, “but if there’s nothing, why are you looking like that?”

“Can’t you guess?” Ailie Russell tucked brush and comb into their bag and turned to enlighten Judy before she followed the example of the majority and went to the Senior common room to await the gong. “Dummkopf! Didn’t you hear the form list read out yesterday morning? All last term and this too, so far, Janet has beaten the lot of us. What’s happened? Here’s Adrienne, a new girl who came knowing no German at all, and in six weeks she has managed to work her way up the form until she’s bracketed first with Janet. It is a knock for Janet, isn’t it? No one has ever done it before.”

Judy regarded her friend with a slow grin. “So far as you are concerned, meine Liebste, no one would expect it. And I admit that although I know Adrienne is clever, it was a shock for me. Of course,” she added thoughtfully, “Adrienne ist eine Affe!” At which piece of not very polite German, Ailie gave a loud gasp.

“What’s taken you?” she demanded, dropping into English.

“Eine Geldstrafe,” Judy told her succinctly. “Behüte dich!”

“Beware yourself!” Ailie cried. But she returned to German again. “I shouldn’t worry about it, Janet. After all, you still are top, even if it’s bracketed, and that’s what matters.”

Janet did not think so. She was a very ambitious girl, proud of what she had done throughout her school career and, if the truth must be told, more than a little inclined to regard the top of the form as hers and hers alone by right. It had been a real shock to her when the weekly form list had been read out and she found that for once she was not exclusively top.

Most of the others would have recovered by this time, shrugged their shoulders and forgotten it. Not so Janet, however. She brooded on it at intervals, a sullen anger fermenting within her until, by this time, she had begun to cast round for some explanation of the phenomenon which would not be exactly complimentary to Adrienne. Now she regarded Ailie and Judy with smouldering eyes.

“All I’ve got to say is either the girl’s an amazing genius when it comes to languages; or else she was telling lies when she first came and said she didn’t know a word of German. How else do you account for the fact that she can understand it so quickly?”

“If you mean it’s lies, that’s where you’re wrong,” Ailie said quickly. “I very much doubt if Adrienne could ever tell a lie and—what’s the German for ‘get away with it’?—anyhow, she always goes puce when there’s a form row and she’s asked to say what she knows about it. She never does say; but she won’t tell a lie, either. Remember that monumental row we had with Willy over the caricature on the blackboard a fortnight ago? Adrienne knew who’d done it all right, but she wouldn’t say a thing and Willy pitched on her first for questioning. Wasn’t Willy mad, though!” she added with a giggle.

“Oh, well, she had a cold coming,” Judy said tolerantly. “A ’flu cold, too. I expect she was feeling upset anyhow and that caricature of Ferry was the last straw. She and Willy are great friends, you know.”

“All this,” said Janet heavily, “has nothing to do with marks and form places. You may think what you like, but I want to know how she’s done it!”

She moved away and Ailie, catching sight of Janice who had been to explain—if she could!—just why her Latin exercise was not only abominably written, but plentifully besprinkled with blots, held Judy back till their third reached them. There was a subdued look about her and that made Judy the heedless exclaim.

“Hello! Has Mdlle been eating you? You look like it.”

“I wonder there’s anything of me left,” Janice said. “And the odd thing is that I know that exercise hadn’t a blot to its name last night. Oh, I’ll admit it wasn’t my best handwriting——”

“I’ll say it wasn’t!” Ailie eyed the scrawl with a grin. “I wonder you dared hand in anything like that after the ticking-off we all got last Friday about scribbling. What happened, Jan?”

“I roughed it and forgot to fair-copy it until just before school this morning.” Janice confessed. “What’s wrong with Janet? Her face was enough to turn the milk!”

They repeated to her Janet’s remarks about Adrienne. Janice heard them out and her dainty nose wrinkled as they ended.

“Disgusting cat!” she said in cool tones that struck them more than the most heated comment would have done. “Is she hinting that Adrienne cheats?”

The other two stared. That had not entered their heads; and yet, as Judy said, when you thought it over, that was what it looked like. What a foul idea!

“She must be demented!” Ailie said. “What can we do about it, Jan?”

“Nothing—for the present. We must keep a weather eye open, of course. Myself, I think she must be sickening for something—’flu, probably. For, you know, it’s most awful rot. Just you tell me how you could cheat over conversation in a foreign language when there isn’t a book or a paper anywhere near. As for the rest, Adrienne had lessons if she didn’t go to school. I think she was probably taught by someone who was a born teacher. She is a slogger—you cannot overlook that. And she is also very clever.”

“And I’ll tell you something,” put in Ailie who was an imp of mischief, but who had a good brain of her own under her thatch of flaxen curls. “She knows how to begin work and how to go on—yes; and to make the most of every tiny scrap of help she’s given. Haven’t you noticed how she starts in at prep? I admit it’s hard on Janet. She did come out top all last term, and when we were in Upper IVa, it was the same thing. All the same, I don’t see what she’s making all the fuss about. She was still top last week, wasn’t she? The only difference is that Adrienne is bracketed with her. So, what’s the fuss?”

“Doesn’t like having to share her honours,” Judy said briefly.

“Oh, pish-tush! It doesn’t make any difference to her marks or her place. If that’s what’s at the bottom of it, she’s a fatuous jobbernowl!” Janice ended her remarks, perforce, in English, and got her reward in the dropped jaws of the other two to whom her exclamation and the epithet she applied to Janet were quite new. Ailie promptly demanded where she had got them and Janice replied airily that she had met them in books and as she was getting bored with their usual expressions she thought she would try them out.

“Not too bad, are they?” she asked, complacently.

It was just as well that the first gong sounded at that moment, seeing that all three had been tempting Providence with their language for some minutes. Providence, however, seemed to be busy elsewhere and they got away with it for once. What was more, Janice had started a new fashion. They had to be careful about what they used, but Jane Carew, who had had occasion to turn to Roget’s Thesaurus while writing an essay, suggested that they should use it, and for the remainder of the time before the half-term holiday came, the two copies in the non-fiction library had a lively time with members of Inter V desirous of consulting them at frequent intervals.

The staff watched carefully when they first noticed this, but most of them were old hands and they soon drew their own conclusions. They chuckled over it in the privacy of the staffroom, but apart from keeping their ears open for anything too outrageous, they let it go.

“After all, quite a lot of us have done it in our own careers,” Miss Wilmot—known to the school at large as “Willy”—observed indulgently to Peggy Burnett. “Mary-Lou and Co did it, I remember.”^[1]

Miss Burnett gurgled. “Oh, it happened a lot earlier than that. I was only a K.G. kid at the time, but I distinctly remember Joey and her pals coming over all Shakespearian in their Middles days.^[2] Well, it’ll keep them amused and out of mischief—and that’s something with the weather as it is. What on earth are we to do if it doesn’t improve before half-term? I don’t see us having many expeditions in things like that!” She waved her hand towards the window which was largely obscured by sleet the wailing wind was dashing against it.

That question was also exercising the prefects who were dismally foreseeing a very boring time over the week-end.

“Perhaps they’ll put the holiday off for another week,” suggested Alicia Leonard, the editress of the school magazine.

“Not likely!” Francie Wilford, the librarian said. “It’s been put off once already. They can’t go on doing that or we’ll end by having no half-term at all. But I must say we don’t look like having much of a time.”

That was on the Monday. On the Tuesday, the school awoke to find that the wet and dismal sleet had given place during the night to fine, powdery snow. An icy wind was blowing from the north, driving the snow into great drifts and bringing with it frost so severe that by the Thursday the ground was as hard as iron. The snow had ceased to fall during the night and the girls hailed the pale winter sunshine which turned the fallen snow to a dazzlingly blinding whiteness with acclamations. Half-term might begin next day, but they felt fairly sure that after their long imprisonment indoors the authorities would see reason and part of the morning, at any rate, would be given up to ski-ing and other outdoor activities.

“Then you’ll see something!” Janice told Adrienne while they waited in the commonroom for the gong to announce Frühstück.

Janet, standing near, heard this. “Will she?” she said with the edge to her voice that was never absent from it now when she spoke either to or about Adrienne. Len Maynard, who had come to the Senior commonroom with a message from the Head to three girls who were due for violin lessons that afternoon, caught it, and glanced sharply at the girl. She made no comment, but she tucked the episode away in the back of her mind for consideration when she had a spare moment.

Meanwhile, unaware that the Head Girl was finding something to think about where she was concerned, Janet went on: “Surely our hard-working Adrienne will never waste her time over anything so futile as ski-ing!”

“Shut up, you ass! Len Maynard’s here!” muttered Janet’s special friend, Julia Hudson. “Honestly, Janet!”

Janet reddened and she looked across to where Len was informing Priscilla Dawbarn, Anneli Bertoni and Nesta Parry that their violin lessons were put off as Herr Mahler, the violin master, was unable to get up to the Platz from his home in Berne today. Nesta’s exclamation of thankfulness drowned Janet’s unwise comment, but Julia’s hint did not make her feel any sweeter. She was wise enough to heed it, all the same. In fact, she would have been put to it to explain what she meant if anyone had tackled her on the subject. The plain fact was that Janet had allowed herself to become so obsessed by the idea that Adrienne had done her a positive injury by being level with her in form, that she was not quite sane on that point. She had worked like a slave at her lessons all that week, but she could not feel that she had out-distanced the new girl. Adrienne, too, was slaving at her work and, though so far it had escaped the notice of the staff, it was reducing itself to a neck-and-neck race between the pair, the only difference being that Adrienne was doing her best to repay Joey Maynard by working her hardest and Janet was doing her best to beat Adrienne and once more reign as undisputed first in the form-lists.

Halfway through Frühstück the bell rang at the high table where the Head and the staff sat in state. Everyone stopped eating and the faces turned to the table were full of expectancy. Nor were they disappointed. Miss Annersley rose with a smile and announced in her beautiful deep voice that lessons that morning would end at 10.30 hours. They would have their elevenses and then wrap up and go out for ski-ing. As soon as Frühstück had ended, they must hurry upstairs to attend to dormitory work. Then they were to change into their ski-ing suits to save time later on.

“Don’t forget your mitts,” she added. “Bring them down to the Splasheries when you come down. There will be no early morning walk as we expect to stay out till noon at least. And while I think of it, bring down your sun-glasses as well.” She glanced out of the window at the stretches of dazzling white, glittering under the pale February sunlight. “We don’t want any cases of snow-blindness to cope with, you know. Now finish your meal, please.”

She sat down and the girls returned to their coffee and rolls and honey. It is to be feared that most of them bolted their food. Even with no early walk to worry about, it would take them all their time to make their beds, sweep and dust their cubicles and change from uniform into ski-suits, and no one wanted to be accused of being the one to hold up everyone else.

It was not exactly easy, but somehow the school got through the period before Break without any serious trouble. Quite a number of the Junior Middles had to sit hard on their excitement. However, they managed it. The bell ringing for Break found no one condemned to losing her fun for unruliness.

Inter V were over in the geography room with Miss Moore, head of that branch of the school’s work. She had set them a spot test as being the thing most likely to keep them well occupied without too much strain. As the bell pealed out, she ordered them to finish the sentence they were writing, hand in their answers and line up by the door as quickly as possible. Even with winter sports ahead, you could hardly let nearly thirty girls go charging through the corridors at their own sweet will. But she hurried up the one or two laggards, and five minutes after the bell had ceased the geography room was deserted.

“Don’t forget your coloured glasses,” Miss Ferrars warned her form when they arrived to put their books into their lockers. “As the Head said at Frühstück, we do not want to have to cope with any cases of snow-blindness.”

“What is snow-blindness, if you please?” Adrienne asked Jane Carew, who was standing near and with whom she had begun to grow very friendly.

“Oh, darling, it’s the most horrible thing!” Jane exclaimed in the quick, eager way that appealed so much to Adrienne. “You see everything through a swimmy red mist and it goes on sometimes for days at a time. Ghastly!”

“But it has a most unpleasant sound,” Adrienne agreed as she pulled on her gentian-blue cap and fastened the ear-flaps. The sun was shining, but the air was nipping and no one could be allowed to take any risks with frost-bite, hence the ear-flaps.

At this point, Len Maynard came into the Splashery—the name given by the school to any cloakroom—to demand how much longer they would be. Also she made sure that no one was playing any tricks with ears or eyes. They all had to put on their glasses before they left the Splashery, Len commanded.

“We’re ready,” Janice announced. “Adrienne, you’re coming with us, aren’t you? May we start off, Len? We want to give Adrienne a good doing so that she can find her feet—or do I mean skis?—as quickly as poss.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” Len asked. “You, Janice—and Judy and Ailie as well, I suppose.” She grinned at her young cousin, Ailie. “Right! You go—Merciful Heavens! Is that a stampede of rogue elephants coming?”

She might well ask, though it turned out to be only a bunch of Junior Middles, all wildly excited at the thought of getting out after their long imprisonment by the weather. Len dealt with them promptly.

“Now then! A little less of it, please! Robina McQueen, can’t you stand on your own feet?” as the said Robina skidded against someone else. “Emmy and Clare, wait till you’re outside if you want to start a wrestling match. Inter V, you go out and line up and then we can settle these objects of art and vertu.” She gave the members of Inter V who were ready a nod and waved them off. As they moved away Adrienne distinctly heard Robina McQueen, a living question-mark, ask plaintively, “What’s an object of—what you called us?”

Ailie grinned at Janice. “Jack Lambert always was the Want-to-Know, but if you ask me young Robina’s not far behind her.”

“Len can tackle that all right,” Janice said with a giggle. “She’s had plenty of practice with Jack.”

“And that’s true enough! You know, though Len’s my own cousin I must say she makes a good Head Girl. She can be as jolly and matey as you please off duty but if she ought to come down on anyone she comes down like a ton of bricks.”

Janice giggled. “So far as dropping heavily on people is concerned, she isn’t a patch on my cousin Betsy Lucy when she was Head Girl—that is if Vi is to be believed.^[3] She always said that Julie was bad enough, but Betsy was ten times worse. They were both so scared of being accused of favouritism they leaned over backwards where Vi was concerned—and my sister Barbara said the same thing. Vi,” she added explanatorily to Adrienne, “is their younger sister. They’ve all left now, though Kitten, the youngest of the family, will be coming along in September. Vi left school two years ago and had a year at Millie’s.”

Adrienne had been at the school long enough to know that this meant St Mildred’s House, the finishing branch of the Chalet School. She also knew that the majority of the Sixth Form went on there for a final year, though not all did so.

“How’s Vi getting on at her art school?” Judy asked.

“Oh, jolly well. She likes it awfully. Of course what she really wanted to go in for was illustrating, but I believe it’s jolly difficult to break through into the publishing world so she’s doing design—textiles and things like that. They say there’s quite a future in it,” Janice said in her most grown-up manner. “Judy, suppose you and I take on Adrienne first? We can change at the gate when we get there. Look, Adrienne. Put your feet—skis, I mean—together and keep them like that. Don’t try to do anything yet. We three will run you to the meadow. Once we’re there, we’ll show you what to do all right.”

Miss Burnett came up to them as they were making their arrangements. “You folk giving Adrienne a hand?” she inquired. “Good show! Yes; you may get off now. Straight across the playing-fields and out at the back gate. You may leave that open for once. We’re all coming that way. Watch her, you three, and don’t let her be too venturesome. Use your wits and commonsense!”

With this she left them to go and see to some other people and having got their party as they wanted it, the four set off, Adrienne clinging to an arm each of Janice and Judy, and Ailie skimming alongside them.

“Lean forward a little!” she cried as they sped over the snowbound playing-fields. “That’s better! Oh, isn’t it fabulous!”

“Miraculous!” Janice exclaimed. “Like it, Adrienne?—By the way, I do wish there was some way of shortening your name. I’ve thought and thought but I can’t think of a single decent brief for it.”

“Oh, make it ‘Addy’,” came a bland voice as Janet caught up with them. “Or even better, ‘Adda’. Quite a good short don’t you think?”

“You shut up!” Ailie cried with unwonted rudeness. “You may think you’re being very witty, but you’re not—not even quite sane. Just you leave Adrienne alone. And don’t think we don’t get your meaning, either! We’re none of us daft!”

There was no time for the indignant Janet to answer back. At that moment Len Maynard and her sister Con came flying up with Flavia Ansell, better known as “Copper”, between them. Janet might be rude among her own congeners, but she had more sense than to exhibit her feelings before the Head Girl and another prefect. She snorted and swung off in a wide arc while the two Maynards greeted the others with shouts, and Copper grinning at her fellow-tyro, called, “Isn’t this simply stupe? I’d no idea it would be so like flying!”

“What, then, is ‘stupe’?” Adrienne asked as the laughing prefects whirled Copper off. “Me, I have never heard it before.”

“It’s the latest, according to Copper,” Ailie explained. “It’s really stupendous, I think,—er—prodigieux.”

“Mad, I call it,” observed the downright Judy as they neared the open gateway through which Len and Con had borne Copper a minute since. “It may be stupendous; but who’s to know you aren’t meaning ‘stupid’?”

“By the sense of it, I imagine,” Janice said. “On the whole, I think I prefer something less chancy, though.”

“Such as?”

“Oh, well, I’ll have to think it over,” Janice said with some hesitation.

Adrienne looked from one to the other and her black eyes were dancing as she said, “Might not one say mirabile! If you wished to make it short, you might say mirab.”

The three looked at her and then at each other. “I say! I call that rather keen,” Ailie said.

“So do I,” the other pair agreed. Janice, however had an eye on what was going on and she added, “And here we are, so we’ll have to let it go for the moment. Come on, Adrienne, and we’ll help you to get your balance.”

Adrienne looked round. Groups of girls were scattered all over the wide white expanse. Some of them were as complete beginners as herself—girls who had joined the school in the previous September. There had been no chance of winter sports during the Christmas term, so they knew as little as she did about it. Others had learned only the previous year and were out of practice. Yet others had ski-ed for the past few winters and were flying over the snow easily and gracefully. The staff were all good, as Adrienne saw. So were most of the seniors, especially the prefects. Quite the most graceful person there was little Mdlle de Lachennais, who skimmed over the ground as lightly as a bird. But then, as Adrienne had already learned, Mdlle was a member of the French Alpine Club and an alpiniste of many years standing.

“Now then, come along and make a beginning!” Judy ordered the new girl. “You can’t just stand around admiring everyone—or not, as the case may be.”

They set to work and presently Adrienne was doing her best to maintain her balance and control her skis which seemed determined to rush together, no matter how hard she tried to keep them apart. Not that she was worse than anyone else. Indeed, as Ailie Russell who had taken a turn round the area came to report, she was a good deal better than quite a number of them. She had a good sense of balance and the crisp bright air gave a feeling of well-being she had not known for a very long time. Len Maynard, leaving Copper to the guidance of her sister Con and Ted Grantley, the second prefect, came to see how she was progressing and was amazed to see how bright she looked. Her eyes were sparkling and her cheeks deep pink. She had lost the sad, rather subdued look she usually wore and looked quite a different girl.

“Why, I believe she’d be pretty if she always looked like this,” Len thought amazedly. Aloud, all she said was, “Now then, you three, you’ve done your share of helping Adrienne. Off you scram and have a decent run and I’ll take her on for a while. Now, Adrienne, not tired, are you?”

Adrienne shook her head. “No; not tired, thank you. But oh, comme je suis meurtri! De main, je serai très courbaturée!”

“Don’t you bother about that. Matron has some marvellous liniment which takes out all the bruises if you use it after a hot bath. You may be a little stiff, as you say, but nothing to fuss about. Have a go with me, will you? And Adrienne, do try to remember that this is English day. I don’t want to fine anyone, but if they shove it right under my nose, so to speak, I haven’t any choice.”

Adrienne laughed. “I beg your pardon. I had forgotten.” Then she gave her mind to the ski-ing. By the time the whistle blew to summon them all back to school, she had managed as many as a dozen paces at a time and Len assured her that if she went on, she would soon be able to get about.

“Is that possible?” Adrienne asked doubtfully. “But I do not think I shall ever ski as well as you and your sisters do—or Mdlle. I have had great delight in watching her. Every movement is so graceful, so easy.”

“Oh, we all say that,” Len said, laughing. “She’s naturally graceful, you know, and I suppose it all helps. As for you, I should think by the end of the season you’ll be ski-ing as well as anyone. You have balance and you hold yourself well and all that is very important. As for us three, we were nine when we went to Canada where we lived for a year, and during that winter we learned to ski and snowshoe and skate, too. Since then we’ve spent every winter up here. Whatever we may do, it’s the result of plenty of practice. Now here come your little pals. Hello, you three! Yes; take Adrienne back but handle her tenderly. She’s bruised and sore. Take her to Matey and she’ll see to her. See you later, Adrienne.” She nodded and swung off with the lovely skimming motion Adrienne admired so whole-heartedly and Ailie and Co, having settled who should help her this time, they formed up and set off for the school, chattering like starlings.

On the way they were passed by Janet and five or six others, including Solange who slowed down to congratulate Adrienne on her first attempt. The rest slowed down too, and it speaks volumes for the effect the clean brisk air and bright, pale sunshine had had on them that Janet had forgotten her silly grievance—for the time being, at least. Her sulks had vanished and she was the cheerful Janet they had known previously. She even asked if Adrienne felt very stiff after her many falls. Adrienne was not given to having feuds with people and she replied with her usual quiet courtesy that she felt sore, but everyone said that Matron would give her liniment to relieve that.

“I hope it does!” Copper, who was with them, said feelingly. “I’m just about as sore as I can be. And stiff! Well, that isn’t the word for it!”

Matey, as everyone called Matron Lloyd, doyenne of the matrons and beloved tyrant of the whole school, both past and present, duly ordered hot baths for people who were aching with knocks and the use of normally unused muscles. She also handed out small bottles of the liniment with instructions to everyone to soak then scrub dry as hard as possible and finally anoint their joints with her nostrum. It was mainly the novices who were suffering and they were all told to go straight down to the Speisesaal as soon as they were dressed, where hot soup would be awaiting them.

“Ow! How it hurts!” Jane Carew shouted across the partition to Adrienne when they were both soaking in steaming baths. “All the same, it’s worth it. I’ve been dying to learn to ski, but honestly the weather we’ve been having made me feel so frustrated I could have screamed! Oh, darling, hasn’t this morning been the goods?”

“I have enjoyed it,” Adrienne said, not very sure just what Jane’s last remark meant. “Do you think we shall do it again tomorrow?”

“I don’t know. I don’t expect so. Half-term holiday begins after morning school, you know, so unless they let us ski in the afternoon, I don’t suppose we shall. But, as a matter of fact, no one seems to know what we shall do. Mostly we go for expeditions, but no one has said anything so far and there have been no notices anywhere. It will depend on the weather, I expect. There! I’ve soaked until I feel sodden! I’m going to dry myself and then if I bring my liniment in to you will you rub some into my shoulders for me? And I’ll do you.”

“But yes; with pleasure,” Adrienne replied, following Jane’s example and beginning to rub herself hard. Presently Jane arrived with her liniment and they anointed each other amiably before scuttling back to their cubicles to finish dressing prior to going down to the Speisesaal where bowls of soup awaited them, steaming hot and redolent of herbs and vegetables and altogether delicious.

Luckily for everyone, the afternoon lessons were what Ailie had once called tranquil lessons. Inter V had needlework, followed by literature with the Head. She, being a merciful woman, set aside their prepared work and proceeded to entertain them with a vivid account of life in a theatrical company in the days of Shakespeare. As for preparation, that, in view of the coming holiday, amounted to very little—some repetition in both French and English and the weekly essay. After Abendessen and Prayers, everyone under fourteen was sent to bed. The others were told they might amuse themselves quietly in the commonrooms until the bell sounded for their bedtime. No one grumbled. Most people were only too thankful to take things easily, even the experienced skiers. So the day ended peacefully. It remained to be seen what would come next.

“Wouldn’t you know it would do something like this at half-term?” Thus Ted Grantley as she stood at one of the windows in the prefects’ room next morning, sheer indignation in her face as she surveyed the blizzard which had sprung up during the night. The snow was coming down in dizzy spirals, and everyone present knew that there would be no going out for the school so long as that lasted.

“How on earth are you folk who are going home to manage it, Carmela?” Rikki Fry demanded of Carmela Walther whose home lay in the Geneva country.

“Oh, something will be arranged, I expect,” Carmela said soothingly. “Yes, Rikki; I know it’s quite maddening, but in the first place, this is March now so it’s less likely to last for days and days on end. In the second, as our people are expecting us, you may be very sure the Head and Miss Dene will strain every nerve to get us off. I’m not going to worry unless I must.”

Eloïse Dafflon, who came from Basle, laughed. “Indeed, the people I am most pitying are those of you who must stay. What will you do with all the Juniors if it continues like this so that one cannot go out?”

“Goodness knows!” Heather Clayton made a face.

“Oh, I expect the staff have a dozen schemes at least lined up. But I can’t say it’s my notion of an ideal half-term. I like to go about and see places of interest.”

Francie Wilford gave vent to a deep chuckle. “That’s my idea, too. Just the same, I’ll be interested to see what will happen if this sort of weather continues, as it seems to show every prospect of doing. Just listen to that wind! Talk of wuthering! It’s enough to make your blood run cold!”

“You are enough to make anyone’s blood run cold!” Len Maynard said with decision. “Snap out of it, Francie! Give it a miss, girl!”

“I agree!” Ted joined in. “And for goodness sake, don’t let the kids hear you going all sepulchral or you’ll be giving the little poppets nightmare, tonight—and then Matey will talk to you!”

Francie chuckled again. “Can’t you hear any one of them saying, ‘Please Matron, it was the way Francie Wilford talked’—and getting away with it? The poor kid wouldn’t have any nose left on its face, if I know Matey!”

As all the prefects agreed with her there was a general laugh. The first gong sounding for Frühstück stopped the chatter and they all streamed away to enjoy a breakfast of eggs, hot rolls and the usual milky coffee.

“Karen seems to be under a misapprehension,” Len said. “Half-term hasn’t begun yet, though she’s given us a half-term brekker.” She pushed her empty plate aside. “Honey, please, Margot.”

She was not the only one to comment on the unexpected treat: quite a number of other girls were remarking on it. Termtime Frühstück was generally rolls, butter and honey and the great cups of café-au-lait. Only on Sundays and special days did they get anything else. And rolls were always cold.

“This,” said Janice Chester as she bit into her third roll and honey, “is what I call luscious. Karen is the complete poppet.”

“Greedy pig,” Judy remarked absently. “I say, what do you think they’ll do with us if this goes on—us who are staying, I mean?”

“Give you extra lessons in English if they overhear you, I should think,” Janet said with a giggle. “How many exactly are staying, anyhow?”

“D’you mean the whole school or just our lot?” Jane asked.

“Our lot, of course.”

“Well, I can tell you that,” Ailie informed them. “Exactly half are staying. I heard Deney say so last night. And two-thirds of the whole school will be here as well. So this weather is ghastly luck.”

“Oh, well, they’ll have made plans for it, I suppose,” Jane said.

At this point, the Head’s bell on the high table rang and the chatter, which had been going on all over the room, ceased at once. Everyone turned to look at Miss Annersley, who had risen to her feet and was smiling at them.

“I have something to say, girls. In the first place, as the weather is so bad, it has been decided that all those going away for the weekend should leave as early as possible. Therefore all girls going home or to visit friends will attend to dormitory duties and then put on outdoor things. Bring your weekend cases downstairs with you and be ready to leave as soon as the coaches come—which will be at 9.30 hours. Those remaining will go into Hall. You will be told then what we are going to do. Prayers will come immediately after you have cleared the tables, so will all those not on table duty please march straight into Hall or Gym and take their places in readiness. It will take you all your time to fit everything in, so don’t waste time over chattering. That is all. Finish your meal and then we’ll have grace.” She smiled and sat down amid broad beams from the girls. After her final remark, no one felt like starting applause, but their faces were enough for the Head, who murmured to Mdlle de Lachennais as she sat down, “How much they would like to cheer! However, if they’re to be ready when the coaches arrive, there isn’t time for any extras.”

Mdlle nodded and laughed. “Indeed, there is not. Ah! I see they have all finished. Shall we not have grace, ma chère? I am certain they desire to hasten upstairs and attend to their duties and, as you told them, first we have Prayers. I must go to seek my books.”

Miss Annersley rose once more. “Grace!” she said; and the school was on to its feet and standing behind its chairs in short order.

There was no dilly-dallying over clearing the tables this morning. Those who were off for the weekend were in great haste to be ready for the arrival of the motor-coaches. The rest were eaten up with curiosity to know what the authorities had planned for them in place of an expedition. So the crockery was piled up on the great three-shelved trolleys with their wired sides and these were trundled to the door leading from the Speisesaal to the kitchen regions where two of the maids waited to collect them. Cloths and table-napkins were bundled into their proper drawers and the girls were all in their places for Prayers, either in the Gym with Mdlle to take the Catholics, or in Hall where the Head had the Protestants. Not that the short services were skimped in any way. Miss Annersley had spoken to Mdlle and in both cases the girls were reminded that they must put other things out of their minds for the time being and give themselves up to their devotions.

Prayers over, they sped upstairs to make their beds and tidy their cubicles and by 9.15 hours, everyone was down again and the departing crowd were pulling on berets and coats, tying their big shawls round them and making sure that they had their keys and journey-money safe. Then the coaches arrived and presently rolled away again, well loaded with excited girls. The Maynards and anyone else who lived on the Platz went off in another coach which would drop them at their several homes. They all took at least one other girl with them thus reducing numbers still further. Finally, the stay-at-homes trooped off to Hall where they filled the long forms at the front. Out of the three hundred and odd pupils, a hundred and seventy had gone in the end. As Judy Willoughby remarked, looking round, it did make a difference.

“Me, I wonder what we are going to do,” Solange said. “We cannot go out. Indeed, I begin to wonder if it will ever stop and we shall go out again!”

“Oh, snap out of it, Solly!” Ailie exclaimed. “Of course we shall! Honestly!”

Solange shook her head. “But regard, then!” she said, throwing out one hand with a dramatic gesture. Unfortunately, the drama was spoiled. Suzanne Mercier, pressing forward to gaze out of the window, got in the way and Solange’s hand met her nose with a resounding “Smack!” Suzanne yelled and so did Solange who was wildly startled at what she had done. To make matters worse, Suzanne had one of those noses that, as Janice had once said, bled almost if you looked at them. Solange’s involuntary slap set it off at once and she had to be led off to one of the House matrons, accompanied by her cousin Aimée and Solange herself.

Matron rose to the occasion at once. She kept Suzanne for the moment, but ordered the other two back to their commonroom. “Back you go! Yes, Solange; I am sure it was an accident, though one that might well have been avoided, I imagine. I know your habit of waving your arms wildly——”

“Please,” said Suzanne thickly through her handkerchief and in her own tongue, “it was my fault also. I did not notice what Solange was doing and got in the way of her hand. Do not blame her, Matron.”

“Very well; but keep your head back. The bleeding will soon stop.”

“Mais le sang coule!” Suzanne complained.

By this time Matron had pushed the other two out of the room. She shut the door on them with a friendly smile and Solange looked at Aimée with a stricken expression. Aimée began to laugh.

“Oh, Solange! Ce n’est que le nez de Suzanne! Tu sais bien qu’il saigne très facilement. On n’ira pas te blâmer, je t’en assure!”

“No?” said Solange miserably in her own language, “but how often have I been warned about that very thing! And now—the poor Suzanne! Truly, Aimée, the blame is mainly mine, whatever she or you may say. I am so sorry.”

Aimée grinned. “Well, as she said herself, it was partly her own fault for dashing to the window without looking. We all know what you are. At least she is not killed nor even badly hurt. Do, pray, stop looking so miserable!”

By this time they had reached the commonroom, where they discovered that Miss Ferrars had been in and informed them that they were to spend the first part of the morning on any work they had on hand for the school’s annual sale which would take place next term. After elevenses, they were to have organised games and sports in the gym, though the Juniors were to be in their own house. In the afternoon, they were to take things quietly, reading, writing, and so on. In the evening—here, Miss Ferrars had stopped tantalisingly and only laughed and refused to say another word, though Ailie and Janice and two or three of the others coaxed hard to know what they were going to do in the evening.

“So just what is going to happen is anyone’s guess,” Ailie said. She turned to Adrienne who was sitting beside her on the big settee. “What do you think it is Adrienne?”

Adrienne wrinkled up her brows. “But how can I guess? I do not know what we might do. You forget, Ailie that it is all so new to me, even now.”

“Have a go yourself,” Janice suggested. “Let’s all have a go. My guess is progressive games——”

“But what, then, is that?” Adrienne asked.

“Oh, tables all round Hall and we sit four to a table and play games like fishing for boot buttons with thread and a bent pin—to see who can catch the most, you know. Then the two winners go on to the next table—and so on.”

“Do you know, I should be surprised if you haven’t got it in one,” Janice remarked. “I’ve never noticed it before, but we haven’t had progressive games once this term. Three Saturdays we’ve danced; one the prefects gave us a play; one the Fifth Forms—A. and B., I mean—gave us charades——”

“That was good!” Judy said with a giggle. “I never laughed so much in my life as I did over that dumb crambo where it rhymed with ‘sit’ and we tried everything we could think of and had to give it up in the end because it was ‘it’.”

Everyone within earshot joined in her giggles at the memory. Then the door opened and Francie Wilford came in to suggest that they might as well make a start on their work for the sale. She also brought back Suzanne whose nose had returned to normal and who looked distinctly sheepish. However, everyone was very kind and, for once, abstained from unkind comments. She sat down beside Aimée and Solange and set to work on the cushion-cover she was embroidering.

Aimée was making a baby’s dress and Solange who disliked needlework, though her sewing was beautiful, went on with the scrapbook on which she had been busy all the term. Judy was making a raffia basket and Ailie was doing another. Janice, the artistic, was painting flower-wreaths on plain white china plates; Adrienne was illuminating an old French carol which she had first printed in black-letter on a sheet of fine vellum. Others were making more scrap-books, knitting scarves, gloves, shawls and jumpers, embroidering table-linen, and, in the case of Tessa de Bersac, making needle-point lace.

Jane Carew leaned over from her seat to look at Adrienne’s illumination.

“That is simply fab!” she remarked. “I love the tiny pictures you’ve made round the capital letter at the beginning of each verse. As for this border you’re on, I call it ineffable!”

“You call it—what?” demanded Janice, pausing in the middle of a spray of harebells to gape at Jane. “Where did you get that one?”

“Roget,” Jane said, smirking complacently. She knew that by this time she was the main source of the extraordinary adjectives with which Inter V were startling other forms from time to time. “Quite good, don’t you think?”

“Very—but what, exactly, does it mean?” Solange queried. “I should not wish to use it—er—wrongly.” She wound up with a giggle.

The others joined in, all but Dolores Gonsalez who went darkly red. She had once rashly chosen “worshipful” to express admiration of something and the effect when she had pronounced a brilliant sunset as “worshipful” was something worth describing! Since then, the girls, when they were not sure of the exact meaning of any word that took their fancy, consulted a dictionary.

“It means—well—indescribable, more or less,” Jane said, sitting back and going on with the tapestry cover for a footstool on which she was engaged.

“That border is decent,” Judy said. “How you have the patience to do all that niggling work, though, I don’t know.”

Adrienne smiled. “But it is work I like,” she replied.

“Rather you than me. I like art all right, but nothing as finicky as that,” Judy said. “My idea is big sweeps of colour. But it’s a lovely illumination, all the same—something like the work in a copy of The Book of Kells which Mum has, only even finer. Has Yollie seen it?”

“I have not shown it to her,” Adrienne said, looking slightly alarmed. “Is that what one should do? I did not know.”

“Goodness, no! You do what you like,” they chorused.

Adrienne looked relieved and went on with her border. Indeed, they all worked hard until the bell rang for elevenses. After that, they went to the gym where they were divided into teams and team races of various kinds—an obstacle race, leapfrog, frog-hopping and sundry other gymnastics removed any fidgetiness they might have felt. Miss Burnett, Miss Wilmot and Miss Ferrars were in charge and by the time they had wound up with a wild follow-my-leader, most folk remembered thankfully that the afternoon was to be a quiet one. The three young mistresses had them up and down the ribstalls, hopping madly round the gym, scrambling up the ropes and swinging off from them to one of the three trapezes, leaping across the horse and finally turning cartwheels all down one side of the long building. Everyone was breathless by the time that was over and Betty Landon, an ornament of VIa, observed that it was just as well that the Juniors had been taken for their own games by their own mistresses in St Nicholas, the Junior House.

Mittagessen followed, and Karen had followed up the extra-special Frühstück she had given them with an extra-special Mittagessen which included meat sliced wafer-thin and made into rolls round a delicious stuffing, potatoes cooked in four different ways, and a sweet so delicately pink and creamy and adorned with spun sugar that quite a number of the younger girls were heard to mourn aloud that they had eaten such large helpings of the first course!

The usual half-hour’s rest followed and then they were told to go to their commonrooms for the afternoon and stay there. They might read, knit, sew, play quiet games or write letters, but they were not to roam about and no one was to go upstairs at all on pain of being sent to bed before the evening fun began.

This mysterious fiat set them all agog. What on earth was cooking? Why might they not go upstairs? What about changing for the evening? Were they not to change? What did the staff have in store for them at that rate?

No one in the know would say a word. Not even the tiniest hint passed from anyone and the school was left to spend its afternoon in a state of pleasing uncertainty. Somehow they survived, but the moment Kaffee und Kuchen—Karen had provided piled up dishes of her most delicious pastries and biscuits—was over and they had cleared away, everyone was sent into Hall and they sat waiting for further orders in states of the wildest expectancy.

“What do you think is coming?” Primrose Trevoase of VIb asked Isabel Drew of Va. “The staff have been so mysterious and cagey about the whole thing that I think anything may happen.” She suddenly chuckled. “Well, whatever the rest of the weekend is like, no one can say that today has been dull!”

There was no time for more. The upper doors of Hall were flung open and the staff, headed by Miss Annersley, came in, filed on to the dais and took their usual seats. The Head came forward to the lectern and smiled at the girls.

“First, we are going to have Prayers now,” she said. “Will all Catholics please go to the gym. As soon as Prayers are over, you will come back here. Go quietly, please.”

The girls left Hall quietly, but when, Prayers over, they came back, they went to their places, looking so alert that one or two of the mistresses had a good deal of difficulty in being serious. However, when the last girl was seated, the Head stood up once more. Looking round on the excited throng below her, she bestowed her most brilliant smile on them.

“Are you all ready? Then listen carefully. Everything is upstairs. Nothing is in any bed. The staff corridor, the san, Matrons’ rooms and the annexe are out of bounds. So is the trunkroom. Otherwise, everything is open to you. This is a Treasure Hunt. There is one parcel for each girl—all named. When you have found a parcel, go quietly downstairs to the Speisesaal and take your proper seat. Oh, and by the way, all drawers are forbidden ground, too. You won’t want to have to take time off tomorrow tidying all your drawers after all your friends have been going through them. Is that quite understood? Then—the hunt is on! Off you all go!”

The school streamed forth from the Speisesaal, full of excitement. Adrienne was with Janice, Ailie and Judy as usual. They were full of pleasurable excitement, but Adrienne was looking slightly bewildered. Janice, the most observant of the three, saw it and as they ran up the wide main staircase—a holiday privilege, since normally the school used staircases running up from the back of the school—she puzzled over it. At the head of the stairs, she stopped and drew the French girl to one side.

“Why are you looking so bothered?” she demanded.

“It is that I do not know what a treasure hunt is,” Adrienne replied. “We search for something—yes? Something that one has lost, maybe? But what is it we look for and where should we look?”

“Oh dear! I wish she knew a bit more about school!” Janice thought. What she said was, “We may look anywhere upstairs except the annexe, the staff corridor and the trunk room. Also we mayn’t hunt in drawers—and thank goodness for that! Can you imagine what they’d look like after half the dormy had been digging through them? I can! I suppose we’d better hunt under beds and chairs and bureaux. Look along the standards and rails that carry the cubey curtains—oh, and examine the curtains, too. Things might be pinned to them. I don’t expect they’ve shoved anything in our beds, but they just might. You never know with people like Burney and Willy and Ferry. They’re awfully mistressy during lessons, but they’re jolly good fun out of them. As for what we’re to look for, my guess is something quite tiny or they couldn’t be very easily hidden in the dormies. Now do you understand? Oh! and it’s tiny parcels!”

Adrienne said she did understand and Janice nodded. “O.K.! Then come on, or other people will be swiping our turns! Gosh! What a row! Just as well it’s half term when rules about silence in the corridors and speaking only one language are washed out for the time being!” She gave Adrienne a jolly look, her grey eyes dancing with mischief, and then, with an arm slung through her friend’s, led the way to Pansy which was their dormitory.

Adrienne still felt rather bewildered. She had never taken part in anything like this in her life. Indeed, she had missed a great deal of fun and frolic. Often the antics of the rest gave her a feeling of breathlessness. And yet, as she knew quite well, the authorities were the authorities. They seemed able to check the wildest pranks with a word or two—sometimes merely a look. Between staff and girls there was excellent feeling for the most part. Indeed, the elder girls and the younger mistresses could show real friendships, which was hardly surprising when one realised that in some cases at least there was a difference of only three or four years in age.

The staff had accompanied the girls upstairs to see the fun. As soon as a sufficient number of the younger girls had found their prizes and gone down to the Speisesaal they would take it in turns to go down and take charge. On such a stormy night it was unlikely that there would be any passers-by to be startled by whatever noise the school might produce, but some of the juniors and practically all the younger Middles were never any the worse for someone keeping an eye on them.

The first person to make a find on the corridor was Jack Lambert. Gazing round her cubicle, she spied something odd about the top of one of the standards. To drag her chair into place, bound on to it and discover a slender parcel tied securely to the standard was the work of a moment to agile Jack. She gave tongue in a long “Talley-ho-o-o!” which rang through all the nearby dormitories and made her sister Anne look up from where she was scrabbling under her own bed to say, “That’s Jack! I know her gloat!”

Jack jumped off her chair, clutching her prize, and dashed along the corridor full of triumph. Was she the first to find anything? She dived into the Speisesaal, nearly tripping over the rug by the door in her hurry, and looked round.

“Goody! I’m first of anyone!” she exclaimed aloud, much to the amusement of Miss Moore who had just come in by the top door, armed with her knitting.

“First it is!” the mistress remarked, laughing. “But for goodness sake, Jack, moderate your raptures slightly. If that grin of yours gets any wider the top of your head will be coming off. Ah! here come some more finders!” as a bunch of eight or ten people arrived, headed by Francie Wilford from VIa and including a mixed bag from the entire school, down to ten-year-old Yolande de Saussure of Lower III. Everyone had a tiny parcel and everyone eyed it longingly. But the Head had said they must wait till everyone had come, so they laid their prizes before them on the table and chattered about other things.

Meanwhile, the people in Pansy dormitory had not been very lucky. Two or three of them found their parcels, but the Trio and Adrienne, Jane Carew and Thyra Gregersen had found nothing. They had tried everything they could think of. Cubicle and window curtains had been shaken vigorously; standards had been keenly scrutinised. All furniture had been examined but all alike were innocent of anything out of the ordinary. Ailie even took her bed to pieces despite the Head’s statement, in case something had been tucked among the bedclothes or under the pillow. Nothing was there. They turned their chairs upside down in case anything had been fixed under the seat. Wasted energy!

“The closets!” Jane Carew cried, making a dive down the dormitory to the end where were the three hanging closets that took their Sunday hats and coats and extra dresses. It proved a shrewd guess. Tucked away under Jane’s own hangers was a round bundle. Janice found one safety-pinned under the lapel of her coat. Judy had a longish narrow one hanging down the sleeve of a frock.

“What about you, Adrienne?” Janice asked anxiously. “And you, Thyra? Oh, and you, Janet. Haven’t any of you found anything? But there must be something somewhere.”

“Well, it isn’t in this dormy,” Thyra said decidedly. “I suppose we now hunt around outside. Unless—oh, but it’s strip-lighting. You couldn’t possibly hide anything up there.” She gazed up at the strip-lighting and then giggled. “You’d need a jolly long ladder to get there!”

“Janice! Come on!” called Ailie at this point. “We’re supposed to go down as soon as we’ve found our treasure.”

“O.K. I’m coming. You can manage, can’t you?” Janice added to Adrienne.

“But yes, truly. Please go, Janice. I will soon find something, I expect.”

Janice went off and the three remaining left the dormitory and wandered along the corridor. Two or three people were there already, hunting behind the radiators, feeling about on the high sills of the windows and even—this was Lesley Anderson from Vb—crawling along the floor to feel under the radiators. She had her reward, for as Adrienne, Janet and Thyra reached her, she gave a smothered yell of triumph and rose to exhibit a small flat parcel—and filthy hands which sent her posthaste to the nearest bathroom to wash them. But she was the only lucky one. Then Giovanna Celli of Inter V found a long narrow affair behind one of the fire extinguishers and Sue Mason of VIb discovered another behind one at the other end of the corridor.

“Should we try the staircase?” Adrienne suggested shyly.

“Good idea!” Thyra exclaimed. “You take the upstairs one, Adrienne; I’ll try this one going down and you have a shot at the one at the far end, Janet.”

They separated and raced off to the staircases. Two minutes later, a shriek from Thyra announced that she had been lucky. It was followed by one from Janet who discovered a pencil-shaped parcel stuck beneath the bannister with Sellotape. Other yells from various parts of the upper regions informed anyone who was interested that other people had also made finds. Finally, only Adrienne and Prudence Dawbarn of Va were left still hunting. By this time, some of the younger mistresses had come to cheer them on. They might give no hints, of course, but, following the example set by Nancy Wilmot, they kept the pair going with cries of, “Cold—icy—warmer—very warm—hot!” Finally, as the two girls met outside the door of one of the bathrooms, Miss Wilmot announced, “Very hot—scorching, in fact!” That was all very well, but just exactly where their quarries were hidden was more than either could guess. Prudence looked round the four little cubicles the bathroom contained while Adrienne stared blankly at a framed copy of bathroom rules hanging to one side of the door. Suddenly she made a dive, caught the frame and turned it over. There, attached to the back by Sellotape was a large envelope.

“Oh, but I have found him!” she cried in her own language. “He is here!”

“Unstick it,” Miss Wilmot said practically. “Prudence, I can’t help you any further. If you can’t find it now you must be——”

“A doddering ass,” Prudence finished for her in melancholy accents. “I’ll just take a final dekko round. If I can’t find it then, I give up!”

“You’ll find it—if you look hard enough,” Miss Wilmot said cryptically. “Come along, Adrienne! Supper’s begun but they’ve only just brought the soup in. Prudence, hurry up or your soup will be cold.”

“I’ll just give everything a complete once-over,” Prudence called after them as they left the place and went down to the Speisesaal where the maids were still serving bowls of a thick, delicious vegetable soup which was one of Karen’s specialities.

At sight of Adrienne Ailie gave vent to a squawk but Jane, sitting next her suppressed her firmly. “You can’t start cheering now, Ailie! Don’t be stupid. D’you want the Head or anyone to think you’re bonkers?” So Ailie subsided.

“What an age it’s taken you,” Janice remarked as Adrienne slid into her seat, laying the precious envelope carefully in front of her place. “Are you the last or is there anyone left still?”

Adrienne took a spoonful of soup. “Prudence Dawbarn was looking, but I think she will have found it, for Miss Wilmot said she must find it now.”

“Where was yours?” Ailie asked eagerly.

Adrienne opened her mouth to reply, but she never got round to it. There came an exultant yell from upstairs, followed by a howl of anguish. Matey, the Head and one or two of the other mistresses sprang to their feet, but before they could get further, the door at the bottom of the room burst open. Prudence dashed into the Speisesaal, waving a parcel; but what struck the company dumb for the first minute or so was the fact that she was dripping wet. From head to foot she was drenched; but oh, the triumph of her!

“Got it!” she cried. “Well hidden, whoever did it, but it didn’t fox me in the end! I got it!”

“My dear girl, what you will get next will be a severe cold,” Miss Annersley cried as she came hurriedly down the room. “Prudence! How did you get so wet? You must go and change at once—at once! Yes, Priscilla!” as Prudence’s twin sister came swiftly to join her. “Take her upstairs and help her to rub down thoroughly and change everything. Luckily, her hair is short, but give it a rub. Primrose, take Priscilla’s bowl to the kitchen and ask Karen to keep it hot for her, please!”—as the twins left the Speisesaal, Prudence still clutching her prize. “The rest of you, go on with your meal, please. It’s getting late, you know.”

It was getting late. In fact the Juniors and the Junior Middles had all been sent off upstairs before the two Dawbarns reappeared with Prudence very neat and tidy and her damp hair brushed flat though already its curl was beginning to come back. They sat down and someone brought their soup.

“Oh, good!” Prudence remarked. “Just the thing for a night like this!”

“How on earth did you manage to soak yourself like that?” Miss Wilmot asked as Prudence took her first spoonful.

That character grinned though she also blushed. “Well, as a matter of fact I spotted the parcel tied to the top of the shower just when I was about to give up and come downstairs and own myself beaten. I was thrilled to the marrow—I always hate giving up. It was mad, I suppose, but I didn’t bother either to get the step-ladder or even shove a chair to climb up on. I stood on the edge of the bath and stretched up. My foot slipped while I was unhitching the parcel and—well—well, I grabbed the handiest thing there was—the shower cord. Mercifully, it was the hot one. The cold one would have been rather much on a night like this. Before I could do anything about it, I was on the floor and the water was pouring down on me. It’s all right, Matron—I did stop to switch the water off.”

“I might have known it!” Miss Burnett said with emphasis. “I thought at the time that it was asking for trouble to fix anything up there. I’ll admit, though, that I expected someone leggy—like you Heather, or Primrose—would be most likely to spot it so I let it go. I certainly never expected that it would be someone like Prudence, who never stops to think but just goes bald-headed at things. And I certainly never visualised anyone being so mad as to dickey-dance about on the rim of the bath! You know, Prudence, some day you’re going to do something really silly—sillier even than this, I mean.”

The Head came to the rescue of the badly embarrassed Prudence. With her most sympathetic smile at that young woman she said, apparently to no one in particular, “I’ve heard of other people doing things quite as mad when they were at the school. I’m naming no names and I’m giving nothing away, but more people than Prudence have done silly things and hair-raising things. No harm has been done, so I think we’ll let it pass. Will someone please bring the rest of their meal for Priscilla and Prudence. While they are busy, we’ll open the parcels.” Then she went back to the High table and nothing more was heard about the matter. In the excitement of discovering what their own “treasure” was and admiring other peoples’, no one had time to think of Prudence’s involuntary shower, and the affair was buried in oblivion.

The prizes were tiny of course. Handkerchiefs, thimbles, needlebooks, lavender and roseleaf sachets made up the bulk of them. Jack Lambert had a new protractor which, as she said jubilantly, would save her having to buy one from Stationery. Thyra had a small writing-pad. There were silhouette pincushions in the shape of squatting black cats and gay butterflies. Adrienne’s envelope contained a colour print of Lake Lucerne, showing the graceful slopes of the Rigi. Prudence, amid shrieks from everyone round her, produced a tablet of toilet soap!

Bed followed presently, Matron remarking that they hadn’t done so badly for one day, what with Suzanne’s nose-bleed and Prudence’s bath. However, they were not quite finished. Jack, it may be remembered, had used her chair to climb up to rescue her prize. She had also left it where it was, instead of putting it back in its place. The consequence was that when she went into her cubicle, chattering over her shoulder to Wanda von Eschenau, her special chum, and not looking where she was going, she tripped over the chair and went headlong.

The chair, thanks to the violent shove she gave it, shot under her cubicle curtain into Wanda’s domain, catching that little person in the middle of her tummy and sending her flying, to end up against her bureau with a squall that brought Matron Henschell and three prefects to find out what was wrong. No one was really hurt—not even Jack who had banged her head against one of the iron standards when she fell. But Matey, hearing of it next day, requested everyone to keep a firm eye on all feather-headed girls for the rest of the week-end. There was no saying what might happen next!

The wind changed during the night, veering sharply from due north to south-east and bringing with it a considerable rise in temperature. The frost began to give, and the long icicles dangling from roofs and trees lost their wickedly sharp points and began to drip. When the sun came out—as come he did, to be hailed by the school with rejoicing—he gave little glitter to the surface of the ground.

“And that,” sighed Francie Wilford, as she turned away from her cubicle window, “is a jolly sure sign that there’ll be neither coasting nor ski-ing this day.”

In Pansy dormitory, the juniors were voicing their opinions with vim.

“No going outside today!” Janice Chester observed. “I do think the frost might have hung on for one day more. This has been such a—a messy sort of term. As for winter sports, we’ve had scarcely any.”

Jane Carew, brushing her long, fair hair with an action that might have been better described as “battering”, paused for a moment to say, “What shall we do, anyone? I’m getting frightfully bored with being forever in the house. I call this sort of weather too, too frustrating! It makes me want to scream!”

“You’d better not,” said matter-of-fact Anne Lambert. “There would be a mêlée!”—this being Inter V’s latest for what other people called a fuss, a row, or a how-d’ye-do and therefore in constant use for the moment.

Luckily before Jane could do more than exclaim, “Oh, Anne! don’t take everything so au pied-de-la-lettre, I implore you!” the first bell rang and they had to stop talking and scurry to finish their early morning duties before they went downstairs to the Speisesaal, where a special Frühstück awaited them. The chatter might have gone on later, but their thoughts were all turned in a different direction by the arrival of Len Maynard just as the meal was finishing. She had come in her father’s waders and her own oilies, as she explained in reply to the Head’s exclamation on seeing her.

“And even then, I’m mud to the waist, almost,” she added.

“But why not phone?” Rosalie Dene asked.

“Can’t; the ’phone’s gone bad on us. Dad thinks one of the lines must be down somewhere. Anyhow, it’s deader than mutton, so Mamma sent me to invite the entire senior school to our place for this evening. You’re to come as soon as you like after 18 hours and stay till 22 hours. And it’s a sheets-and-pillowcase party, and you’re to manufacture your own dresses. Also, Mamma says will everyone please bring some sort of contribution to the supper.”

Miss Annersley laughed. “Who, exactly, is giving this party, Len? It sounds much more like you three than your mother with that last bit tagged on.”

“Oh, it’s her idea,” Len said airily. “Said she thought everyone would be going round saying, ‘Oh, comme je m’ennuie!’ and if there was a little extra-special cookery to be done, it would relieve the boredom. Oh, and she wants a pile of scrap-books for a very poor hospital in Carinthia, so she’s sending over a roll of calico, varnish and piles of old magazines and cards, and she wants Middles and Junior schools to make the said scrap-books. There are prizes for the best and the funniest and the prettiest, but no one above Senior Middle may enter for it. Dad’s bringing the stuff in his car, I believe, on the way to the San. Usual size, of course, and if you can’t finish today—and you won’t!—you have till after Kaffee und Kuchen on Monday.” She turned to the high table. “That’s all, I think. May I go?”

“By all means. I imagine you are badly needed at home today,” Miss Annersley replied, rising from her seat. “Mdlle, will you take Grace when everyone has finished. I want a word with Len.” She went out with her Head Girl, leaving the others all agog.

“What is a sheets-and-pillowcase party, if you please?” Adrienne asked Jane who glanced at her just then.

They nearly fell over themselves in their haste to tell her.

“It’s fancy-dress—only fancy-dress with a difference,” Judy began.

“You make your own, and you use sheets and a pillowcase,” Janice supplemented this information.

“Does one cut up one’s sheets and pillow-cases? But then one must mend them again later,” Adrienne said in startled tones.

Ailie grinned at her. “Don’t let Matey hear you talking like that, for pity’s sake! You certainly may not cut up anything.”

“But then how, if you please, does one contrive? That seems to me impossible,” Adrienne protested. “One must have sleeves—and a neck, n’est-ce pas? How can one make that? It will mean only Greek draperies.”

“It needn’t,” said Jane who had been considering. “We’ll use safety-pins, of course. You can do a good deal with two sheets and dozens of safeties without sticking solely to classic draperies. A nun, for instance, would be easy.”

“Oh, well, I daresay we’ll all manage something,” Judy said cheerfully. “Oh, Mdlle’s standing! Grace!” And she bounced to her feet, the rest following her example.

Grace was followed by the usual clearing of tables and dormitory work. After that, there would be the making of cakes, creams, sweets and sandwiches. Also, they knew that the Matrons would be sending for them to give them the pair of sheets and a pillow-case they would need for their dresses.

Meanwhile, the Head had taken Len to the study.

“Will you please tell your mother that I am going down to Interlaken this morning,” she said. “Say that I will order ice-cream for everyone to be sent up on the 18.35 train if she can arrange for someone to collect it. I can’t bring it myself, I’m afraid. I’m going on to Basle to see your Aunt Frieda.”

“Not coming to our party?” Len said blankly. “Oh, Auntie Hilda, that’s a blow! I was dying to see what you would come as—and so were Con and Margot.”

“Then I’m afraid you must resuscitate as quickly as you can!” her brevet aunt retorted. “This has been arranged for more than three weeks. Do you never think, Len, that we are quite glad of a change from all you people now and then?”

Len went scarlet. “I expect you are,” she mumbled. “One doesn’t think of it, of course; but it must be as frustrating to you to see us day in and day out as it is to us to see you—Oh, mercy! I didn’t say it, Auntie Hilda! Anyhow, I didn’t mean it—not all that badly!”

The Head broke into a peal of laughter. “Is it as bad as all that?” she asked teasingly. “Poor Len! Never mind; you’ll have a respite from me and all my works till Monday morning. And I,” she added with twinkling eyes, “will have a respite from you folk! That levels the score, I think!”

Len joined in her laughter, though she still looked sheepish. “I didn’t mean to be rude, though goodness knows I must have sounded like it. Forgive me, please. The fact is, what with one thing and another—including the news Mamma dumped on us this morning, I’m all gee-whiz! Auntie Hilda, did you know about this?”

“I knew when it was finally settled. Or rather, when the date of Sybil’s wedding was settled. Your Auntie Nell and I guessed then that your mother would be off to Australia. It’s just lucky that Mr Hope was over in Germany on business and could offer to take her with him when he flew back.”

“And that he can take the babies as well,” Len said. “He offered to take us, too, but Dad wouldn’t hear of it.”

“You can count me in on that. I should have refused to hear of it. You all three have public exams coming along next term—yours is this term, in fact. You couldn’t possibly have spared the time for an Australian trip, not even if you flew both ways. I’m sorry you have to miss your cousin’s wedding, but it can’t be helped. Better luck with Josette’s, we’ll hope!”

Len nodded. Then she said a very unexpected thing. “Auntie Hilda, do you think Josette is too young to be married? She’s not quite nineteen.”

The Head looked at her thoughtfully. “I don’t think age has a great deal to do with it after all. What matters more is if you’ve met a man you feel you could bear to spend the rest of your life with—seeing him at breakfast every morning, doing all his mending and cooking his meals, putting up with his whims and fancies—and that is a matter for both sides, let me tell you. Remember that marriage is for life. When your time comes, Len, think long and think hard and be very sure—as sure as you can be. And now,” she went on in another tone, “you must go. I have plenty to do and so, I imagine, have you. If you want to discuss this with me, let me know and we’ll find time for a talk together. Now be off!”

Len departed to pull on waders and oilies before splashing her way through the slushy mess on the ground. Her cheeks were very pink and there was a light in her eyes that would have told the Head or her mother that she had left the last of her childhood behind her with that brief chat. The Head’s words had settled for her a question which had been on the nebulous side with her till then. Now she knew where her future seemed likely to lie.

“But, of course, I must do as she says—think long and think hard. But I somehow believe that all my thinking will end one way,” she said aloud as she raced round Freudesheim to the backdoor to get rid of her muddy outdoor garments before going off to work on preparations for the party.

As for the Head, she glanced over her correspondence and then went to consult the matrons about sheets and pillow-cases.

“We’ll leave them to their cookery this morning,” she said. “I think the best thing will be to put their sheets and pillow-cases on their beds and let them have the whole afternoon to manufacture their dresses.”

“What if any of them finishes early?” asked Matron Duffin of St Clare’s.

“Tell them to go to the commonroom and read. I’ve no idea,” Miss Annersley continued pensively, “just what Joey has in store for them. It may be progressive games, or charades, or tableaux or dancing. Whatever it is, it won’t hurt them to sit quietly for a while beforehand.”

“How do they get to Freudesheim?” Matron Henschell of St Agnes queried.

“I’ve ordered the motor-coaches to take them. They certainly couldn’t walk it, not in sheets and with all that slush!”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Matey remarked. “Well, we’d better see about the sheets, etcetera. I hope, by the way, that you’ll make sure, Hilda, that everyone understands that she may not cut either sheets or pillow-cases.”

Miss Annersley reassured her on that point and they parted.

A busy morning followed for everyone. The kitchens were full of people who were making creams, trifles, cakes, sponges and everything else for which they could get the ingredients or which could be ready for use that evening. In two of the commonrooms, some of the elder girls cut sandwiches with as great a variety of fillings as they could manage. Odette Mercier and Thérèse Rambeau called together a select party and they made what Odette called “Barques des légumes”, splitting the rolls, buttering them and then loading each boat-shaped half with a sprinkling of cress, grated cheese, a dab or two of anchovy, two slices of olives and anything else they could think of that would add colour and flavour. The great dishes piled high looked most appetising when they were finished. Later they proved highly popular with everyone.

Mittagessen found almost everything ready except a couple of enormous cakes which Betty Landon, Eve Hurrell, Tina Harms and Zita Rosselli had combined to concoct and which had still an hour in the oven before they could be taken out. The girls felt thoroughly complacent as they eyed the results of their labours which were set out on the long tables in the Domestic Science kitchen. Gaudenz and one of his helpers would take them to Freudesheim during the afternoon.

The girls spent the time after Mittagessen in manufacturing their dresses, and a fine time they had of it. When you have two sheets and a pillow-case for the job, none of which may be cut, your ingenuity has to work hard and fast. The Matrons had distributed boxes of safety-pins to save sewing. Even so, it took the girls all their time to get through the work and be finished by 16.30 hours when the gong sounded for Kaffee und Kuchen. After that, they swarmed up to the dormitories to dress, taking with them their big cloaks. Punctually at 18 hours the motor coaches arrived, and while the Middles and Juniors watched them with envy, the Seniors trooped downstairs, climbed into the coaches and were whirled off next-door where they were welcomed by a grinning Diana, recognisable by the crescent in her red-gold hair and the bow and quiver of arrows made out of white pasteboard which she carried slung over one shoulder. She passed them on to a chef whose tall hat was a pillowcase, ingeniously wired to the right shape but, alas! secured to her hair with a glittering hatpin.

“Chefs don’t use hatpins!” Rikki Fry said reprovingly. “Really, Con!”

“I daresay, but I couldn’t make it big enough to sit right down on my head so I have to use a hatpin,” Con returned. “Goodness, Rikki! What a gaudy Jappy you make! Impeccable, I call it!”

“You’ve discarded your glasses!” exclaimed Len who came up at that moment. “Are your eyes all right again, then?”

Rikki nodded. “I’ll still have to use them for close work, but not for anything else, thank goodness.”

Len giggled. “I wonder what’s become of that awful Van Allen kid?^[4] He’ll be quite a boy now, won’t he! It’s three years since it happened.”

“Not so far from four, actually. Three and a half, anyhow,” Rikki replied. “Yes; that kid must be eleven or so.”

“Let’s hope his poppa kept his word and a stiff hand over him or he’ll have grown up into a complete young horror,” Con observed. “Ready, you folk? Then go on to the salon and find seats for yourselves.”

Adrienne had come with her usual crowd, and as they were in the last coach, they had just reached Freudesheim by this time. Margot collected their cloaks and bore them off to what the Maynard family united in calling “the Glory-hole” where all the other cloaks were. While she was gone, the girls pulled folds of dresses straight or smoothed their hair. Then she was with them again and ushering them along the wide hall and through big double doors into a room which made Adrienne give a tiny gasp of delight. It was a large room as it might well be—Freudesheim had once been a guest-house and this had been a ballroom. At one end was a full-blown fireplace where big logs were burning gloriously. At the other was a deep window where some of the prefects were clustered, talking eagerly to a small black-haired lady. There were three windows cut in the long outer wall. French windows held the centre and on either side they were flanked by big Georgian sash windows. Between one of these and the fireplace was a deep niche with shelves. Beneath were bowls of flowering bulbs. The lower part had doors. There were low bookshelves filled with books running round two sides of the room. Above them hung a variety of pictures—prints, water-colours and between them here and there were plaques. Chairs and settees showed that the room was meant for use, for the covers were well worn though everything was spotlessly clean. The parquet floor was gleaming with oil and hard rubbing. It was a welcoming room. Adrienne suddenly lost the shyness which had been overwhelming her. A tall lady, dressed in 10th century attire with long black plaits dangling nearly to her knees and framing a clever sensitive face lit by a pair of beautiful black eyes came forward to greet the party. Ailie flung herself on her with a rapturous, “Aunt Joey!”

“Well, Demon! And what do you represent?” asked a laughing, golden voice.

“I’m an Angel,” Ailie said solemnly. “Can’t you see my wings?”

“Ye-es; but they aren’t exactly angel’s wings—more like butterfly’s. It’s the last character I should have chosen for you, knowing you!” Joey Maynard said with a chuckle. “Janice, you’re a Normandy Peasant, I see. I like your cap! And Judy——”

“I’m a Christmas Pudding, ready for boiling,” said lazy Judy who had doubled her sheet, tying it round her neck and sticking a leg and an arm through each corner. The second sheet and the pillow-case she had used for stuffing, and she had found a piece of artificial holly which she had stuck in her hair.

Joey laughed. “Simple—but quite effective,” she said solemnly. Then she turned to Adrienne who was standing rather shyly to one side. “And this is Adrienne. No need to ask what you are, my lamb.” She surveyed Adrienne with a smile. “You’ve done it delightfully.”

Adrienne, who had contrived to turn herself into the White Cat of the old French fairy tale, looked very charming, using the pillow-case for head dress to give herself prick ears, and stitching here and there so that her sheets gave the effect of robes over a cat’s body, with a plumy tail made out of paper and wire, curling gracefully over her back. She lifted big dark eyes to Joey’s and gave her a wistful little smile as she murmured her thanks. Joey stared at her breathlessly. Then, as if remembering where she was, she nodded.

“Isn’t it fun, Adrienne? Off you go, folk! In a few minutes you are forming up for a grand march so that we can judge your dresses and award your prizes. I must just speak to the last few people.”

She turned away to give Janet, Julia and the two Merciers a gay greeting, and Ailie, by virtue of being Joey’s niece, led the way to an already crowded settee placed across the french windows.

“Make room for us!” she commanded. “Shove up, José. Janice can squeeze in there. And we can sit on the rest of you.”

“Not if I know it!” José Helston retorted. “Or not until this parade affair is over. Squat on the floor, if squat you must!”

However, at that point, Miss Lawrence, the resident music mistress who was one of the duty staff that half term, went to the grand piano which had been pushed up against a side wall and struck two or three chords. The buzz of chatter died away and everyone turned to look at the hostess who was standing on a footstool on the rug before the fire.

“Get into line, folks!” she cried. “We’ll have judging first while all the costumes look fresh and while you can bear to wear them. Unless I miss my guess, a good many of you will be wanting to change into your usual evening frocks before long. Sheets are heating things to wear! Hurry up! Don’t be so slow! Scram!”

Laughing they hurriedly got into line and she paired them off. “Too many of you to go round in single file. That’s better! Thanks, Miss Lawrence.”

Miss Lawrence, attired as a Roman lady, struck up the school’s hoary favourite, Blake’s Grand March, and the parade began. Round the room they went, briskly at first; then more slowly. Joey and those of the staff who were present had gathered together at the top of the room and inspected them thoroughly frequently voicing opinions which made the girls giggle wildly. At last Mrs Maynard called a halt. She told them all to sit down and she and the mistresses consulted together. But it was soon over. Miss Dene, who had been scribbling furiously on a pad, tore off her sheets and handed them over. The girls waited eagerly to hear who had won, but they were doomed to disappointment just then. Smiling blandly round on them, Joey announced that they were to take their partners for Oranges and Lemons, one of the more stately country dances.

“The prize list will not be announced until after supper,” she said. “Biddy!” to the little dark lady Adrienne had noticed when they first came in, “be my partner, will you? Hurry up, everyone! Choose your partners!”

The girls obeyed and presently the room was filled with squares for eight and they danced the dance. Two more followed, but by the time the second one had ended, they were all realising how truly she had spoken when she said they would find sheets very hot to dance in. It was then that she dropped a small bombshell.

“Beginning with the two Sixth Forms, go upstairs with Len, Con or Margot and change,” the hostess said. “Your frocks are here. I wasn’t going to be accused of cruelty to schoolgirls by anyone! Lead on, you people and hurry up. We’ll have a round of Clumps until you’re all ready. Off you go!”

The members of the two Sixth Forms went off upstairs shepherded by the triplets who were thankful to seize the chance of changing into their ordinary evening frocks. Indeed, everyone was only too pleased to get rid of garb which might be picturesque but was distinctly overheating. Most of the party were mopping their faces. Quite a bunch of them had to wash and powder before feeling able to show up again in the salon feeling much fresher.

Joey nodded with an appreciative grin before she sent off the next section and started everyone else on a game of Subject and Object. The third and last batch finally returned to the salon to find that this had been changed to Adverbs, another hoary favourite of the school’s. The triplets and certain other members of the Sixths promptly left the game and presently arrived, pushing before them three of the school’s great trolleys which Joey had begged the loan of from Matey, and began to hand round glasses and plates. Other girls followed with the huge dishes of “barques” and sandwiches which they handed round. No one needed any pressing. Between the exercise they had had, their wash-and-brush-up and all the excitement, everyone was ravenous. The big platters and dishes were speedily cleared. So were the dishes of creams and jellies which followed. As for Anna’s pastries and cakes, the plates and baskets which had held them looked as if an army had descended on them before many minutes had gone. The great jugs of lemonade, orange squash and Joey’s own pet fruit drink were emptied quite as quickly and Len and Margot dashed off to the kitchen to offer to help Anna to mix more drinks.

“No need, mein Vögelein,” Anna told Len, waving her hand towards a big milk churn. “Here, I have more of orange. Over there is more of lemonade and the fruit liquor is here. I know how youth is thirsty, so I prepare.”

“Anna, you’re a pet, a poppet, a sweetiepie!” Len cried. “Come on, Margot! We’ll have the rabble on the yell if we don’t hurry. I’ll say thank-you properly when it’s all over, Anna. Meantime,” she rose with brimming pitcher in either hand, “we must moisten nature’s clay with all haste. Droughty is how I’d describe that lot in the salon! Come on, Meg!” She led the way with an infectious laugh, Margot following with a broad grin at Anna as she left the kitchen.

Anna watched them with an equally broad beam. She loved every member of the Maynard family, from the busy Doctor and his equally busy wife, down to big Bruno and Pompey, the budgerigar, who lived in a huge cage in the playroom to keep him safe from Nox, the black cat, who ruled in the kitchen. He was Anna’s own possession, but when the fit seized him, he took possession of any chair or sofa that he chose and the gate at the head of the top flight of stairs was always kept securely latched as much on Pompey’s account as the babies’. But of them all, Len was secretly Anna’s special darling and had been from baby days. Not that this meant that the eldest Miss Maynard got much in the way of privileges as a result. Anna was a stern moralist and, because Len was her favourite, she had always been stricter with her than with any of the others.

“Where are Cecil and the babies?” Heather Clayton asked Margot as that young woman replenished her glass with Anna’s delicious orange squash.

“Over in Aunt Stacie’s wing,” Margot replied. “She told Mum to park them there for the occasion and Bessie, her old maid, is keeping an eye on them. Bessie adores those three.”

“Then why isn’t Dr Benson here?” Heather demanded.

“Because she’s in London, giving a series of lectures on Aeschylus,” Len, who had finally filled her own glass and now came to sit down for a minute or two, told her. “She was mad when she found that she’d be dished for this party, but it couldn’t be helped. As for the kids they’re all right. I popped in after I’d changed just to make sure and they were sleeping like logs, all three of them, bless them!”

“Grannie!” Heather mocked her. “To hear you talk anyone would think you were their ma and not just their eldest sister.”

“The fruits of being the eldest,” Margot said with a chuckle. “She’s always been the most responsible one of the lot—though Steve runs her pretty close with the other boys.”

“What a lot of blether!” Len exclaimed. “Have some more squash, Heather?”

“I couldn’t,” Heather said truthfully. She set down her glass and went back to the earlier subject. “Margot’s right, of course. You are responsible.”

Len laughed. “Well, you needn’t say it as if it were a crime, you goop!”

She glanced round and saw her young cousin Ailie coming up with Adrienne in tow to have their glasses replenished.

“This is a party,” Ailie remarked. “I say, Len, I do think Sybs might have come home to England for her wedding. It means that none of you folk will be there and it’s the first in the family. I do think Sybs might have thought of that earlier.”

“Oh, well, in that case I suppose her bridegroom’s folk wouldn’t have been able to be present,” Len said. “It cuts both ways, you know, Ailie.”

“There’s something in that,” Ailie owned. “Anyhow, I’ll see you folk get a good-sized chunk of the cake and if I can bag any bells or things from its ornaments for you, I will. I’ll tell Mum. I expect she’ll see the point when I explain it to her. She’s quite good at that sort of thing.”

“She’s not the only one,” Margot said. “So’s our mum. In fact, when you come to think of it, as a family—I mean all of us and the Bettanys—we’re jolly lucky in our parents. It isn’t often they try to come the heads of the family over us once we’re old enough to see sense. And they do see that one has one’s own point of view and will listen to it, even if they don’t agree with it. I suppose,” she added thoughtfully, “that’s too much for anyone to expect, even in these days.”

Adrienne listened to the talk, wide-eyed. She herself had been on unusually easy terms with her father, but she had never ventured to argue a command he had issued. Neither, unless she was asked for it, would she have stated her own opinions. Yet she had heard the Maynards discuss things with their mother almost as if they belonged to the same generation. Did all English families behave so, she wondered.

“You look a trifle dazed,” Janice remarked, joining her. “Anything wrong? Or are you feeling over-done?”

“But no. I feel very well. It is just——” she paused.

“Well? Just—what?” Janice demanded. “What’s biting you?”

“I am amazed at the way you English girls seem to speak to your parents.”

“What? What do you mean?” Janice was staring at her.

“Why, it is almost as if—as if they were of the same—same—ah, I forget the word. Not age—no; but——”

“I suppose you mean the same generation. Well, but don’t you think that’s a compliment to our people?” Janice asked lightly.

Adrienne shook her head. “Me, I do not understand. I do not think it would be permitted in France. La jeune fille is expected to remember that she is a daughter and owes reverence to her parents.”

“Gosh! How ghastly! Of course, I know that even people like Mélanie Lucas is—is—well, more formal, if you like, to her father and mother. My own folk would take running jumps if I spoke to them as I’ve heard Solly de Chaumontel speak to her aunt or the Merciers to their father that time he came last summer. What’s more, I should hate it myself. Oh, I’ve never been allowed to be cheeky—especially,” she gave a sudden grin, “if Dad was anywhere in the offing——”

“How ‘offing’, if you please?” Adrienne was not letting this pass.

“It’s—well it means neighbourhood. It’s a sailor expression.”

“Ah, I understand. Excuse me, please, and continue with what you were saying. I have much interest, for it seems to me that English girls have so much more freedom than we who are French.”

“Why,” Janice said without further comment, “what I was going to say was that we’ve never been allowed to cheek people. In fact, I think Mummy and Dad are pretty strict that way—lots more so than our Aunt Janie and Uncle Julian Lucy. You don’t know, of course, but all our Lucy cousins have been at school here and, in fact, Kitten, the youngest of the bunch, is coming in September. Well, now I come to think of it, that crowd talk to their folk just as the Maynards talk to theirs and—and so on.”

Before Adrienne could say anything more, Con arrived with a trayful of ices. “Have an ice?” she inquired with a twinkle. “Or have you no room at all?”

“For an ice?” Janice said with a grin. “Take one, Adrienne. I say, Con, you lot are doing us proud!”

“The ices are the Head’s offering—to make up for her absence,” Con said with a chuckle before she moved on with her tray.

“Jolly nifty of her,” Janice commented. Then half-a-dozen more of their clan descended on them and the chatter became general.

When the ices had been dispatched, Joey ordained that dancing should be the order of the day. Len brought her fiddle and Con her ’cello. Marie Hüber sat down at the piano and they struck up one of the Strauss waltzes. The girls took partners and the big salon was filled with dancers enjoying the swift Viennese waltz. Adrienne had only begun to dance since she joined the school and now she sat quietly in an alcove, watching the others. Joey saw her and presently came to sit down beside her with a swing of jade-green draperies.

“Don’t you dance?” she asked with the delightful smile which had won hearts to her throughout her life.

Adrienne shook her head. “I did not learn—but never. Who was there to dance with me? Maman was never well enough and Papa—ah, he was always so occupied with his work. But since I am here I have begun to learn.” She glanced round swiftly, but no one was noticing them. “Madame, you must let me say it, if you please. I am so grateful to you for your goodness in making it possible for me to be here. I am happy. I feel I am learning—but truly learning and also learning how to learn. I have friends now, for I think I may say that Janice and Ailie and Judy are all my friends. There are others, also, who help me and—and talk with me. And then, all this!” She made a quick, eloquent gesture, indicating the room and the girls. “I have never known companionship of this kind before. I had read of it, but that it existed and could be for me—ah no!”

Joey smiled at her again, this time with a warm motherliness in her smile. “And now you know that it exists and is as much for you as for anyone, never forget that,” she said, her beautiful voice conveying to the emotional girl a sense of protection such as she had not known before. “I am more glad than I can say to learn that you’ve settled down among us so happily. That’s what we wanted, Robin and I. Life hasn’t been too easy for you, has it? But, as the Italians say, now is the time for you to eat white bread. So be happy and enjoy everything—your work, your play, your friends. Later, when you are grown up and have gone out into the world, pass on that happiness to others. That’s all we ask of you. And now,” as the music ended, “I must be off. Some day soon I’m going to have a long talk with you about various things. Perhaps when that takes place we may be able to do even more. Yes, Margot,” as that young woman came racing up. “I know you want to play Family Aeroplane. O.K. Get into threes and I’ll go the rounds. Here, take Adrienne with you and find her a couple who will explain clearly to her what it’s all about!” The mischievous grin she gave her daughter was utterly unlike the smile she had bestowed on Adrienne who was rendered speechless. How could anyone who only a moment since was so protecting and motherly, suddenly become no older than one of the Seniors at school.

Margot gave the bewildered girl no more opportunity for thought. She grabbed her firmly and pulled her up from her seat. “Come on! I’ll take you on myself and—and——” she looked round and her eyes lit up. “Hi, Ted! Partner me and Adrienne!”

Ted Grantley nodded and came over to join them. “Know this, Adrienne? No? Well, we make up threes as you observe. Then Mrs Maynard gives each three the name of some part of an aeroplane. When that part is mentioned, the three who are it get up and turn round. Every time she says the word ‘Crash’ everyone gets up and changes places—only the threes have got to keep together. After each crash, seats are taken away and people without seats have to pay a forfeit—give up something like a hanky or a brooch to whoever is telling the story. Then at the end you buy them back. You’ll see. Come on, Margot. Let’s bag that love-seat affair. You can have one seat, being on the chubby side, and Adrienne and I will manage with the other, both being skinnigallees,” she added calmly.

At this point, and just as they had crammed themselves into the love-seat, Joey arrived to tell them they were the Perspex and presently Adrienne was initiated into one of the wildest games she had ever known. Later, Margot explained that the game was based on a very old one known as Old Family Coach and had been originated by her mother in her schooldays. Only, as the school held many more people than the original game catered for, they had improved on it. Certainly, it was noisy. The difficulty of tearing across a polished parquet floor, hanging firmly on to two other people and grabbing a seat before someone else got there first made for wild yells. Ted explained that it was a point of honour to change seats as far apart as possible and, what with collisions with other trios, scrambling wildly for seats and being perpetually on the qui vive for any allusion to a crash, there was some reason for Heather’s gasped-out comment to Len as they collapsed on to the same big settee, “Jolly good job the kids aren’t in this part of the house! I’d defy even the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus to sleep through this din!”

Joey kept up her story until she decided that time was flying and brought it to an end with a final “Crash!” which, according to her, also finished aeroplane and passengers. Then came the forfeits and Adrienne, looking as no one had ever seen her look in her life before, all flushed with laughter, her dark eyes alight with it and her hair tossing wildly round her shoulders, retrieved her hair-ribbon by following the example of her partners and writing on the floor with a forefinger “My head” and standing on the place firmly.

When the last forfeit had been paid for, Joey announced the prize-winners of the earlier part of the evening. The prettiest were Julie Pierre-Bonnet as a Directoire lady, Marie Hüber as one of the Muses, and Mélanie Lucas who had contrived a Normandy fishwife’s dress very successfully. Funniest were Francie Wilford as a Snowman, Nancy Wadham as a Frog—she had borrowed someone’s under-water flippers and drawn the frog face in charcoal on her pillow-case with hair-raising effect—and Genéviève Rosier who had got herself up as a Ghost with the assistance of two lacrosse-sticks to give her height and a couple of badminton bats which elevated her sheets at the shoulders. Most applicable were a Nun—Carmela Walther who might be an excellent prefect these days but who, when she was a Middle, had been famed for being a demon with a trick of looking angelic when she was at her wicked worst—a Student, worn by Hilda Pinosch who was headed for the university and a doctorate in Philosophy at the earliest possible date, and a Ballet-dancer whose brief skirt was held out at the correct length by means of crumpled newspapers. Finally came the most original and Inter V cheered loudly when first prize fell to Adrienne for her Chatte Blanche get-up. The other two were Nina Konstam who had contrived the dress and appearance of the Troll Princess from Peer Gynt and Marie Weissen’s Rapunzel from the old fairy-tale. Marie was blessed with a mane of flaxen hair which normally she wore plaited and doubly looped by ribbons at her neck. For this occasion she had left it flowing loose and the wonderful masses fell round her far below her hips like a mantle of silver-gilt. Incidentally, she had been thankful to plait and loop it once she was free to do so. She was longing to have it cut short, but thoughts of her father’s wrath if she did had held her from it.

“But once I am grown-up, I shall have it bobbed,” she informed her friends. “Thank you, Julie. That is much more comfortable.”

The prizes were trinkets and knickknacks, pretty but of no great value, handkerchiefs, scent and books. For Adrienne there was one of Joey’s own stories—one she had not so far read, so she was delighted. Hilda, who had a soul above frivolities, received a ball-pen. Marie was presented with three coloured hair-nets and rejoiced in the thought that they would help to keep her troublesome mop in order.

Then Anna arrived to announce that the motor-coaches were outside and there was a rush for coats and sheets and pillow-cases. The Maynard girls were remaining at Freudesheim, and when they had said goodbye to the guests had promptly turned to clearing up. In the coach Adrienne, seated next to Janice, was hugging her book to her and making up her mind that Mrs Maynard was even more wonderful than she had thought at first.

“I must work my hardest,” the girl thought. “If ever I have a chance to do something really great for her, I will. At present, I think there is nothing; but I can show my gratitude by working with my whole heart and I will, for that would please her. I am sure of it.” Her thoughts went to Sœur Marie-Cécile who had been the means of her being at the school and she added mentally, “And also it would please Sœur Cécile. Therefore, doubly I will work and I will also remember what Madame has said to me tonight. When I am grown-up and out in the world I will look for those who need help and happiness and I will give all I can.”

Sunday of half-term began as most Sundays did at the Chalet School, with church. People who had put down their names the night before to go to 8.00 hours service went off to one or other of the school’s two chapels, escorted by those mistresses who chose. The rest would turn out for the 10.00 hours services. On this particular Sunday a goodly congregation turned up at both Our Lady of the Snows and St Mary the Virgin’s. Frühstück followed as soon as they got back to the school. Dormitory duties came next and then those who had not been at either of the early services or who wished to attend a second act of worship went off through the playing-fields. The remainder settled down to the usual quiet day.

It was a grey day, chilly and damp, with occasional showers of wet snow which added nothing to anyone’s gaiety. At Frühstück, Miss Wilmot had announced that the afternoon should be spent in reading, writing letters, or the usual quiet amusements. In the evening they would have community hymn-singing, always popular with everyone. Two sheets of foolscap had been pinned on the notice-board in Hall for any specially wanted hymns. The procedure was that each form prefect made a list from her own form and copied it out on the foolscap. Miss Lawrence, Head of the music staff, collected the sheets during the afternoon and the choice for the actual singing was made mainly from the lists.

“It can be awfully jolly,” Judy observed while explaining the arrangement to Adrienne. “Of course, you never know what you may get in the way of hymns. I remember last term one Sunday quite close to the end of term we had ‘We plough the fields and scatter’ and ‘Ich weiss ein lieblich Engelspiel’—which, in case you don’t know, means ‘I know a lovely Angel-game’ and is a Christmas carol. It had a rummy effect, a harvest hymn and a Christmas carol bang on top of each other!”

Ailie gave a chuckle. “R’member that thing that kid in Upper IIa gave us—‘Where is now the prophet Daniel’? It went on and on and she’d told her crowd that you could use it for any number of people and, believe me, they did—until the Head choked them off. They had Charles I and Oliver Cromwell and Jean Chauvin—oh, well, John Calvin, then!—and Pope St Pius X all mixed up ‘safe in the promised land’.”

“On the other hand,” Janice put her oar in, “we also once had a most morbid thing called ‘Days and moments quickly flying’ and Angèle Roverie burst into tears and howled her silly head off. Got anything you like specially, Adrienne?”

Adrienne shook her head. She was committing herself to nothing. And then Felicity Maynard arrived with an invitation for the new girl to go to Freudesheim for “English” tea that afternoon at 15.30 hours.

“Mamma says if you don’t like tea—English tea, I mean—you can have coffee or chocolate, whichever you choose,” Felicity said in the silvery voice that matched her elfin appearance so exactly. “She wants you to stay all the evening ’cos she wants a nice long talk with you and to hear all you can tell her about Auntie Rob.”

“Auntie Rob? Comment——?” Adrienne stopped rather puzzled.

“Didn’t you know? We always call her Auntie Rob or Robin. ‘Cécile’ is only her name in religion—or no; her real name is Marya Cecilia, but—oh, dear! It’s a muddle. Ask Mamma when you see her and she’ll explain.”

“Yes; but I must ask for permission to come, Felicity. Will you wait until I have consulted—oh, but——”

“Go to Mdlle de Lachennais,” Janice interrupted her. “She’s in charge when the Head’s away, and Len said last night that she’d gone to Basle for the week-end. I heard her telling Odile Paulet so. I’ll take Felicity into our common-room while you go—take off your cloak, by the way, kid, or you’ll catch cold when you go out—but it’ll be O.K. Try the Head’s salon for her—she’s most likely to be there. If not, have a go at the staff-room.”

Adrienne went off obediently to seek formal permission. Felicity, having tossed off her big hooded cloak, went with Janice to the Senior common-room where a number of the girls were happily occupied with quiet ploys.

Janet, writing her home letter, looked up as Janice passed with Felicity in tow. She raised her eyebrows at the sight. “Hello! What are you doing here? I thought you’d gone home for half-term.”

“So I did,” Felicity said shyly. From being a baby flirt, she had become during the past two years by far the most retiring of Jo’s family.

“Then what’s the why of this? Won’t they keep you at home?” Janet teased her. “But in that case why not join up with your own crowd—I’m sure they’d welcome you with open arms.”

Felicity went very pink. “I only came with a message from Mamma.”

“Oh, pipe down!” Janice exclaimed as Janet opened her lips with another sally ready. “Aunt Joey wants Adrienne to go there to tea, if that’s what you want to know. Come on over here, Felicity. Shove up, Ailie, and make room for a little ’un—a really little ’un,” she added with a grin at Felicity, who laughed back at her.

Ailie chuckled and made room for her little cousin. “Everyone O.K.?” she inquired. “When did you get the babies back?”

“After the party was over,” Felicity replied. “The girls went and carried them back and tucked them up in their own beds.” She gave a gurgle. “Were they surprised when they woke up this morning! ’Specially Cecil!”

Janet glanced up again. “How surprising!” she drawled.

Ailie stared at her. “What’s gone wrong with you?” she demanded.

Before Janet could reply, Adrienne arrived beaming to inform Felicity that Mdlle had said she might accept the invitation.

“Lucky you!” Ailie said feelingly. “Why couldn’t Auntie have asked me as well, I’d like to know?”

“Because she didn’t want you,” Judy said with a grin. “Don’t blame her!”

Ailie opened her mouth to retort but Janice, feeling that it was hardly the thing for Seniors to scrap in front of a Junior, intervened hastily. “You’d better scram, Felicity. It’s fine at the moment, but goodness knows how long it’ll last. Where’s your cloak? Come on!” She wrapped it round Felicity, pulling the hood well down over the silvery-fair curls and then ushered the small girl out of the common-room. Remarking, “You’d better take the shortest way,” she led her to the door on the far side of the building. This was not used, as a rule, by the girls, but Janice, with an eye to the heavy clouds filling the sky, opened it and firmly pushed Felicity forth.

“Sure you’ll be all right?” she asked.

Felicity nodded. “ ’Course I shall! Going this way, you’re bang on to the rock-garden path and then it’s just straight across our own lawn.”

“Ye-es; but it’s a biggish lawn. Oh, well, I don’t suppose it’ll snow for a while yet. But you go straight back home and don’t dither on the way,” Janice said sternly. “Give Auntie Jo my love. No: don’t stop for anything now. If you’ve anything to say to me it’ll keep until Tuesday. Scram!”

She gave Felicity a shove as that small person hesitated. Under the impetus, the younger girl gave it up. After all, she had only been going to ask why Janet Hudson was so snarky. It didn’t really matter. Felicity took to her heels and raced home and forgot all about it.

The snow kept off, but the day remained grey and comfortless outside. No one suggested a walk and, for once, the girls were glad. Indeed, Judy commiserated Adrienne on having to leave the cosy common-room and brave the rigours of the weather.

“Rather you than me!” she said as she held out a box of fudge. “Have a piece to cheer you on your way.”

Adrienne declined the delicacy, laughing, and after she had assured Janice that she could easily find her way to Freudesheim, she went off. She was feeling slightly apprehensive about her visit and would have been very glad if Mrs Maynard had included Ailie in the invitation. She had enjoyed herself at the party but it was one thing to be one of a crowd and quite another to be a solitary guest. Then she gave herself a mental shake.

“But how foolish thou art, Adrienne!” she said to herself. “Madame Maynard is good and kind—thy benefactress. And the other girls will be there also. What is more, my dear Sœur Cécile loves her—and here I am!” as she paused before the gate which led from the school grounds directly into the Freudesheim garden. She opened it and at the same moment, tall Len Maynard appeared at the top of the bank which led between flowering bushes, at present merely humps of snow, accompanied by Bruno, the Maynards’ beloved St Bernard.

“Here you are!” Len called. “I thought one of us had better meet you or you might go wandering all round the rose-garden and there’s no need for that—not on a brute of a day like this! Bruno decided he’d like a stroll, so he came too.”

Adrienne smiled at Len, but she kept a wary eye on the dog. She was not accustomed to dogs and last night Bruno had been shut into the doctor’s den. Jo had felt that there would be noise and excitement enough without a huge dog to complicate matters, so Adrienne had not met him yet. He came up to her, his great tail going like a flail, his mouth open in a doggish grin.

Len noticed how the visitor flinched a little as he came to push his head against her, and laid a strong hand on his ruff. “Keep down, old man! Adrienne, this is Bruno, who is a very important member of our family. The school presented him to Mother years ago when he was only a pup.^[5] He’s very friendly. Bruno, give Adrienne a paw!”

Bruno solemnly presented a paw and, not without some inward qualms, the French girl shook it. She was relieved to find that when the little ceremony was over, Bruno shot ahead of them, racing madly over the lawn. Len laughed.

“Poor old Bruno! He doesn’t get much in the way of Out this weather. However, it certainly looks as if the thaw had begun in earnest so better things are in store for him. Come along, Adrienne—over here and along the terrace. We’ll go in by the salon window. Kick the snow off your boots and here’s a whisk to clear the remnant. We three shovelled all this clear this morning after Frühstück,” she added with a complacent glance along the paved terrace which was clear of snow. “If only it doesn’t snow again, the kids will be able to play on it. Lately, Mamma says, they’ve been tied to the house. No one minds snow as long as it is snow; but this slushy mess we’ve had lately just isn’t any use. Come in! Mamma! Here’s Adrienne—and I’ll have to go after Bruno. He’s gone mad with joy at being out again and he dashed off to the shrubbery while we were coming over.” She laughed, nodded at Adrienne, giving her a gentle push through the open french window and went off, calling Bruno as she went. Adrienne, thus deserted, took two shy steps forward and then found hands on her arms, pulling her into the room. Mrs Maynard’s black eyes, soft as pansies and aglow with welcome, were smiling down at her. The golden voice she had so admired the first time she heard it rang out now.

“Come along in, my lamb! Brought your slippers? Good! Sit down and put them on. Then give me your cloak and boots to take to the cloakroom and when I come back we’ll settle down by the fire and have a good old natter together.”

Luckily, the weeks at school had taught Adrienne a certain amount of English slang so she knew what a “natter” was. She meekly did as she was told and her hostess, gathering up cloak and boots, nodded towards a comfortable chair in front of the blazing log fire and went off. She returned speedily, pulled up another chair and sat down; she produced a box of bonbons which she offered and then, changing from English to French, began to chat about the school.

It was impossible for Adrienne to feel shy. Almost before she knew it, she was chattering eagerly, telling how happy she was and what good friends she had made even in this short time. She gave Janice’s message and a similar one from Ailie, and Mrs Maynard laughed.

“I’ll bet those three were envious all right,” she said. “So you and they have formed a chummery? Any other pals, Adrienne?”

Adrienne thought. “Well, I am friendly with Jane Carew. She has been kind to me—oh, but kind! And she told me that she was also new as I to Inter V. Besides, there are Thyra Gregersen and two other French girls—Solange de Chaumontel and Tessa de Bersac.”

“Good for you! Don’t let Solange lead you into her own wicked ways, though,” Joey said with a chuckle. “She’s a dear girl, but sinful doesn’t describe her on occasion. Tessa is my god-daughter. Her mother is one of my quartette—has been ever since we four met and chummed up ages ago when the school was in Tirol on the shores of the Tiernsee.^[6] You do know that’s where we began, don’t you? And our Robin—Sœur Cécile to you—came a year later.^[7] I want to hear everything you can tell me about her. It’s ages since we actually met and she is my precious little sister, Adrienne. How does she look? Is she well?”

“But yes; I think she is very well. And oh, Madame, for looks she is beautiful comme un ange! She was so good to me, too. I was alone and—yes; I was frightened. The concierge looked at me so—and she said—half-sentences. They made me afraid, though of what I did not know. And then Sœur Cécile came and—Madame, you know how she is not tall and she is gentle. But when the concierge came and would have made me stay to work for her to pay for rent she said I owed—but indeed, I did not, for my father had paid just the day he——”

She stopped short and Joey laid a quick hand on hers.

“I understand, chérie. Say no more about that. But one thing I will say to you. It will not always hurt to speak of him. Yes; you find it hard to believe me. But as time goes on, you will find it is true. And so,” she went on in a different tone, “Robin stood up to the old harpy, did she? I wish I’d been there to see it. I hope she didn’t manage to keep many possessions of yours?”

“But no, Madame. Sœur Cécile and Sœur Monique who came with her saw to that. I did not know then,” Adrienne went on. “I was beginning to be ill, you understand, and it was not for many weeks that I knew all they had done for me. And then, Madame, they told me that not only were they who had rescued me good to me, but that you who had never seen me were also good. Madame, you must let me say it, if you please. I am so grateful to you for all you are doing—for the good education you are providing for me so that when I am grown-up I shall be able to make my way in the world—perhaps even help others as you have helped me. Please believe, Madame, that I am truly grateful for your kindness: if I can ever do anything for you to repay it a little, I will. That, I promise.”

Joey knew better than to try to laugh the girl’s intense earnestness off. She realised that Adrienne meant every word she said. She felt the sensitiveness which would have shrunk back from a light joke and she smiled down into the dark eyes raised to hers.

“I am glad you feel like that about it, Adrienne. It makes me even happier that my scholarship has been awarded to you. As for repayment, work well and play well and be happy with us and I shall be well repaid. But now, I want to talk about something else—your mother.”

“Maman? Ah, I can speak of her,” Adrienne said quietly. “She was ill for so long and it is some years now since she left us. What do you wish to know?”

“Are you like her—in looks, I mean?”

Adrienne laughed. “I do not really know. I have been told I am a little like her. My father”—her chin quivered but she controlled herself—“used to say my eyes were like hers, Me, how can I say? But I have here a locket which contains her portrait. Mais hélas! It will not open!” She slipped a fine silver chain over her head and laid it and the locket it bore in Joey’s hand.

Joey took it with some curiosity. She had already evolved a theory about Adrienne’s parentage, but until she was very much more sure than she was at the moment, she was saying nothing to the girl about it. She fiddled with the oval locket, trying to find the spring that would open it, but she failed.

“It’s no use, Adrienne,” she said at last. “There must be a spring, but I can’t find it. Have you ever seen it open?”

“Mais oui. Papa opened it for me once or twice after he had given it to me. But he never told me how it is done and I do not know. It has Maman’s portrait in one side and his in the other.” Adrienne looked up at Joey. “Madame—do you think it is possible to learn the secret? I would like to be able to open it so that I may look at the portraits sometimes.”

“I suppose the best thing would be to take it to a good jeweller’s and get him to find out the secret,” Joey said thoughtfully. “Listen, Adrienne! The week after next I am going to stay with friends of mine who live in Montreux. I shall be going early on the Friday morning and returning the following Tuesday or Wednesday. If I come across to school for the locket on the Thursday will you trust it to me? We shall certainly be going to Geneva, and if I took it with me I could go to one of the big jewellers and see if they could find out the secret of the spring and show it to me. Shall we do it?”

Adrienne’s cheeks were bright pink and her eyes were glowing. “Oh, Madame, but if you would! See, I will leave it with you today so that you will have it and not need to make the special journey to school——”

“Oh, ta—ta—ta!” Joey laughed, dropping chain and locket into the girl’s lap. “We will do nothing of the kind. Ten to one I should put it away so safely that when it came to the day I shouldn’t be able to find it. It’s far safer round your neck until I do go. But I promise not to lose it over the week-end, Adrienne. And now, my lamb, I hear wheels and the rattle of china. Here comes tea! Felicity said you said you would have tea. Are you sure? Because we can make chocolate in a few minutes and coffee is always on tap in this house. So don’t hesitate if you’d rather have either of them.”

Adrienne shook her head. “But I should like tea, if you please. Maman liked it and often drank it. She was partly English, you know, and she had lived in England for many years when she was a little girl. I drank it when she had it and I liked it then. But since she died I have not tasted it. I should like to again.”

The big double doors opened and Margot Maynard came in, wheeling a big three-shelved trolley before her. Con followed, bearing a dish with a cover on a tray. Len and Felicity came last, Felicity with a small dark-curled girl clinging to her hand and Len firmly gripping the pudgy paws of a riotous pair whose locks were red. Little Philippa’s were darkening to the chestnut of her eldest sister’s mop, but her twin, Geoffrey, remained fiery red. Philippa was an attractive little person, though by no means as pretty as either Felicity or Cecil; but Geoff was plain at the moment, with features too strongly marked in a baby’s face for him to be anything else. He was very much a boy and his twin gave every sign of being a little hoyden, as Joey informed the visitor.

“My hands are very full, as you see,” she told Adrienne, handing her a cup of tea. “That’s right, Felicity. Hand the hot scones, my pet. Margot, tie the twins’ feeders on them, for goodness sake. Len, you and Con see to their milk, will you? Now, you two, remember this: you’re having tea downstairs for a half-term treat, but if you behave badly, you’ll go back to the playroom.”

Geoff fixed his mother with the brown eyes that were his best feature at present and nodded solemnly. “We’ll be dood,” he said. “Phil, be dood.”

Phil chuckled wickedly, but she also nodded. “Dood,” she repeated and turned eyes as blue as cornflowers on Adrienne. “What’s ’oo name!”

“Adrienne,” Len said, seeing that Adrienne, all unaccustomed to tiny children, was rather flummoxed by this attack.

“Pitty,” Phil remarked, her head cocked on one side. “Me like ’oo, Ad-Ad-i-enne. Sit on ’oo lap.”

“After tea, then,” her mother said hastily. “Stay where you are now or you’ll be spilling something.”

Luckily she was in time. Phil subsided on to her little stool, and for the remainder of tea-time stayed where she was. But the instant the last teaspoon had been put on the trolley and Con was wheeling it off, Miss Phil was scrambling into Adrienne’s lap and there she stayed until Rösli, known in the family as “The Coadjutor”, came to summon the three youngest to bed. And then she wanted Adrienne to come and bath her. Poor Adrienne looked alarmed, but Joey came to the rescue.

“Adrienne shall come upstairs and kiss you goodnight in bed when you are safely there,” she promised. “Run along with Rösli now and Mamma and Adrienne will come up presently. Say goodnight, my pets, and go.”

By this time Adrienne had learnt that Mamma’s word was law, at least where the nursery folk were concerned. Phil scrambled unwillingly off her lap, but she made no real fuss and went off with Rösli and the other two without protest. But later, when Joey took the guest upstairs to the night nursery where she heard prayers, the tiny girl insisted on saying her prayers to the new friend.

When at last they were free to go down to the salon again, Joey turned to Adrienne with an infectious giggle as she closed the night nursery door behind them. “I hope you won’t mind being adored for the moment,” she said. “Phil has taken an enormous fancy to you.” Then as she saw the amazement followed by a look of sheer pleasure that filled Adrienne’s face, she added, “It really is so. I’m so glad. You must come when you can and give the friendship a chance to grow.”

“Oh!” gasped Adrienne, “It seems impossible. But if ever I can do anything to help Phil, I will. I promise you!”

Joey shook hands with her. “It’s a bargain. And now come on down and we’ll have a singsong to ourselves. You like singing? You do? Oh, good! Come on!”

(Letter from Adrienne to Sœur Marie-Cécile)

“Thank you so much for your last letter, ma Sœur. I have already read it six times, but I gave it to Len Maynard this noon as she and her three sisters are all going to Freudesheim for tea and you said that you wished me to let Mme Maynard read it since you were too busy to write to us both. Len will bring it back to me this evening.

“This afternoon I am alone. Ailie Russell left school yesterday to fly to Australia for the wedding of her eldest sister Sybil. The wedding takes place on Thursday of next week and Ailie told us that it had been decided that as there will then be only three weeks of the term left, she might stay for the Easter vacation. I am glad for Ailie, but sorry for myself. We are great friends, you understand, and I shall miss her. Then Janice Chester and Judy Willoughby, my other great friends, have gone to spend these two days with Janice’s married sister who is staying at Montreux with an old friend. Thus, I am alone for today and this afternoon I have been meditating on all that has happened since my father died.

“How good you and Mme Maynard have been to me! Had you not come to my aid when I was left alone, who knows what terrible things might have happened to me? But you took me away in time, thank God! Then Mme Maynard is giving me such an education that when I am old enough I can earn my living honourably and well. It may be that later I can help some other girl left as I am. That, I think, would please both of you. But that is for the future. I wish to make a return to you now. Well, I can promise you, ma Sœur, that I will do all my possible to deserve all your kindness. I will work as long and as hard as one is permitted. Unfortunately, it is not permitted that one should prepare lessons out of school or preparation hours. If one might only work in one’s free time! But it is forbidden, so I must make the most of every moment there is. Indeed, ma Sœur, I will do that.

“You ask me if I have other friends besides Ailie, Janice and Judy. There are two French girls here, Solange de Chaumontel and Tessa de Bersac, whose mother, she has told me, was one of the first pupils at the school with Mme Maynard so you may know her. There is also Jane Carew whose parents are famous actors, I am told. She has travelled greatly and has even lived for some months in Toronto. Jane has described the beautiful lake to me and the gardens and also the great shops. I think Toronto sounds very pleasant and I hope that one day I may visit it.

“Of the older girls I like best our Head Girl, Len Maynard. She is so kind and understanding and helps so willingly if one asks for help. Also I like Thérèse Rambeau who lives in the Haute Savoie not far from the town of Anneçy on Lake Anneçy. My mother was at school in Anneçy, at a convent. Her father, my grandfather, held some post for the British Government there and they lived in an appartement in the town. Maman has told me often of the beautiful lake with its walls of mountains just like the lakes here. She was very happy at her convent school and said sometimes that she wished it was possible for me to go there also. It was not possible, of course, for we had so little money and I could not have left her alone in any case. I also like Con Maynard, but she is difficult to know; and Margot is very jolly, as Ailie and the others say, but she is very busy with games out of school and, of course, in school one sees very little of the Seniors unless one is in trouble with the prefects or has special friends among them, as Len is specially friendly with Jack Lambert. But it is not quite the same as my friendship with Ailie and the others. More it is that Jack always wants to know things and Len can tell her.

“But, ma Sœur, I beg for your advice in one matter. There is one girl in my form who is not only not friendly but who dislikes me greatly. This is because until I came she was always head of the form by herself, Janice and the others say. Now I am head with her. Janice thinks she prefers to be first by herself. Myself, I find this foolish for I take nothing from her if I share the lead with her. However, it seems that she does not think so. I am sorry for it, for I can see that she is not happy, and also it is not pleasant to know that someone with whom you live resents you. But what to do? Even to make her happier I cannot waste my time. Please, will you advise me for I find it a problem truly unsolvable and it makes me uncomfortable.”

(The rest, dealing with other matters has no place here.)

(From Sœur Marie-Cécile to Adrienne)

“My dear girl, you must ignore this silly girl whoever she may be and continue to do your best. She is not only foolish but wrong. For you to waste time and pander to her desire to be first of all would be wrong. Two wrongs never make a right, remember. I’m sorry this has happened, but you knew it wouldn’t all be plain sailing and if we never had difficulties with which to grapple, what spineless creatures we might become! Difficulties come partly to enable us to grow and develop. Of course, it depends on the way we meet them whether the growth is right or wrong.

“As for advising you, I can only say, try to keep clear of arguments with her, especially unnecessary arguments. I know how hard it is not to answer back, especially when you feel that you are in the right. But once you begin it’s so easy to go on and on till both of you are ruffled and scratchy and unable to see straight. Try not to let her see that you feel her resentment. Above all, try to keep from resentment of her attitude yourself. Don’t go out of your way to rub against her, but do your best to be pleasant to her when you do. And, chérie, remember that the best thing you can do in any difficulty is to pray for help. And pray for this girl, too. I won’t forget you in my own prayers. Some day—perhaps quite soon—things will straighten themselves out.”

“And now, tell me all the news, please, when you write again.”

(The rest of the letter, dealing with questions about old friends and telling Adrienne one or two tales of Robin’s own school days may be omitted.)

(From Janet Henderson to her cousin, Kate Dalziel, in Edinburgh)

“Honestly, Kate, I’ve a good mind to ask Dad if I can’t leave here and go to school with you in Edinburgh. Auntie Jean would let me live with you, wouldn’t she? At any rate, I’m beginning to be sorry I ever came here. There’s a blight of a new girl come this term. She’s French—Adrienne Desmoines. I can’t stick her at any price. She tells lies—I’m certain of it. What’s more, I’m positive she cheats though I’ve never caught her at it yet. And the worst of it is that she’s so artful she’s got round quite a lot of the others who never see that she must be deceitful or she wouldn’t be where she is in form. It’s either that or they’ve put her too low in the school and she ought to be in Vb. Well, listen to this. You know that ever since I began school I’ve been top of every form I’ve been in. What’s more, I’ve beaten everyone else in marks—and I mean beaten! But that’s not the way of it now—oh dear no! This girl is top with me every time. What’s more, when she first came she told us that she didn’t know German. But now, even on German days she seems to do the work as easily as if they were French or English—I believe her mother was English and she speaks it fairly well. But German! No one need tell me that anyone can pick up all that much of any foreign language in little more than a half-term. It just isn’t possible. She must have been lying when she said she didn’t know any. What’s more, she’s a slogger of the worst kind. I’m convinced she sneaks books up to her cubey overnight and swots at them in the early morning. I’ve never actually caught her at it. For one thing, she’s not in my dormy and you can’t go visiting in other dormies regardless. But I’m keeping my eyes open and if ever I do catch her at it, I’ll jolly well report her for breaking a strict rule. And what’s so maddening, though she must know how I feel about her, she just goes on looking smug. It’s my belief that she’s devoid of feelings. Oh, how I’d love to wipe the smugness off her face with a floorcloth!”

(At this point, Janet had to wind up, letters being called for by the form prefect. Otherwise, she might have had second thoughts about it.)

(Reply from Kate—a fortnight later)

“Oh, Jan, snap out of it, you ass! After all, what does it matter so long as you are top? As for leaving the Chalet School and coming here, don’t be so mad. Uncle would never hear of it and you know it. Anyhow, we may be moving in the summer. Father’s in for a new job and if he gets it we’ll be leaving Edinburgh and going somewhere near London. Goodness knows what the housing situation is like there and there mightn’t be room for an extra. Sorry, but I’ve got to finish. G.C.E. next term and I’ve just realised how little I know about anything—unlike your new French girl!—and how short a time is left before the exam. When next you see me I expect my hair will be white if I have any hair left!”

(And thereafter Miss Kate Dalziel, most heedless of girls, tossed her cousin’s letter into a drawer and forgot all about it until a later date.)

(From Joey Maynard to her adopted sister, Robin Humphries)

“Well, I’ve told you all the family hanes now so I’ll turn to the real reason for this screed. Robin, what do you know about Adrienne’s people? I don’t mean her artist father, who must have been bats to take any girl of fifteen to that house where you found her—and thank goodness you did!

“I told Simone the whole yarn in a letter—just tossed it into the pot, so to speak, as a relish. You should have seen the reply I got back! You can’t, Geoff having used the sheets for making paper boats, but I’ll give you the gist of it. It’s enough to make your hair curl if it didn’t do it naturally!

“My dear, that place was neither more nor less than a thieves’ kitchen! It was raided by the police shortly after the New Year and five of the inhabitants are now in prison awaiting trial on charge of robbery with violence. The concierge is also there and another of the lodgers who had got away has been caught in Antwerp and extradited—wanted for murder in a bank robbery. He shot up the manager, a cashier and a clerk. The clerk, poor lad, died instantly and the manager two days later of his wounds, while the cashier has lost the sight of one eye. Honestly, Rob, the account Simone sent me read like the most lurid thriller you could imagine. No one ever said with truth that she had much of an imagination—and certainly not a lurid one. Thank goodness you folk got that child away before she came to any real harm!

“I seem to have digressed considerably at this point. To get down to brass tacks, what I want to know is, do you know anything at all about her mother’s side of the family. You did tell me that both her parents were only children, but that’s not to say they mightn’t have had uncles and aunts and cousins not to speak of grandparents and so forth. Did Adrienne ever tell you anything about her own grandparents. What was her mother’s maiden name, for instance? She mightn’t have said anything directly, but did she give any hint of it in casual talk? If not, do you think Rev. Mother at the convent—not your old Toronto one, by the way—could possibly find out?

“I have a definite reason for asking. I’ve seen quite a fair amount of Adrienne since term began and I’m always bothered by an odd resemblance she has to someone I know quite well though who it is I’m jiggered if I know. It’s not a likeness, exactly, though the beautiful eyes and sensitive mouth are distinctly familiar. Jack can’t place it, nor any of the school crowd, though I’ve asked them. We all agree that there are these resemblances though Hilda Annersley pointed out—which I, for one hadn’t realised until she did—that it’s more tricks of manner and intonation than a physical likeness. You know what I mean—the way she turns her head when she’s startled; a trick of clasping her hands with the forefingers pressed together perpendicularly when she’s thinking deeply; above all, her walk—so light that she seems to skim over the ground rather than step—all that sort of thing.

“I could ask Adrienne herself, I suppose, but I’d rather not at this point. All this may be pure accident and I don’t want to rouse any hopes in her. She’s so sensitive and quick that if I started to ask about the family, she might begin to wonder and then she’d guess. It isn’t even as if I’d anything definite to go on—just this odd feeling of familiarity which gets me. If I had more gen on the subject, I’d be able to do something. So you gird up your loins and hoe in and see if you can’t discover something.

“I know you’re thinking that your life is crowded enough and why can’t I set about my own inquiries. The point is I haven’t any real right. Your Rev. Mother might look cross-eyed at me if I started in. You, my love, were one of her nuns and among you you rescued Adrienne, so you do have a right. Apart from that I’m quite as busy as you are. Geoff is one person’s work like most of his brothers. Charles has always been the only one who never tried to turn my hair white in a single night, though I admit that where he and Margot were concerned, they both gave me plenty to worry about in the matter of health. However, that’s all over now. Margot turned into a Bouncing Bet in Canada, and since his op. for appendicitis Charles has never looked back.^[8] Apart from all that, just as I was all set to try to take life a little more easily, Daisy Rosomon has managed to get an abode here on the Platz. She’s thrilled about it—well, we all are. Jack and Co are gloating over the fact that Laurie will be decently on tap when needed in an emergency. There were one or two odd days during January and February when he couldn’t get through from Ste Cecilie at any price and you know what means at the San. They hope to remove in ten days’ time. I’m having Daisy’s trio for two or three days to set her free for settling in properly. On top of that I’m trying madly to finish this year’s juvenile. Just to add to life’s gaiety the proofs of my latest novel arrived yesterday. You will gather from all this that at the moment I’m literally inundated with work of one kind or another. Oh, well, I suppose it’ll all come out in the wash. Meantime, you pull up your socks and see what you can find out about Adrienne.”

(Reply from Sœur Marie-Cécile)

“Poor old Joey! You do seem to be up to the neck. I’ll do what I can about Adrienne’s folk but I don’t know that it’s possible to find out much. It’s no use worrying Adrienne herself. We did try, very cautiously, to find out what she knew about her mother’s people when she recovered from that illness. I’m bound to say she seems to know extremely little. Her people don’t seem to have talked much to her. So far as I could learn, Mme Desmoines married against her family’s wishes and all communication between them and her was broken off. We tried to get into touch with that artist friend who saw to things when she died, but she had left Lugano, which was where they were living at the time, and all Adrienne could tell me was that her name was Winter—Poppy Winter—and she did design and also painted pot-boilers.

“Rev. Mother did her best to trace her through the priest who administered the last sacraments and took the burial service, but he had been transferred and when at last she got on to him he could say very little. So there it is. Has anyone yet put a finger on who she reminds you of—and don’t pull me up for vile English. This letter is being written by penny numbers even more than usual and you’re lucky to get it. Is it anyone I know? You write and send me all the gen. And tell young Daisy that she owes me a letter and I want to hear all about the new house and her babies.”

(From Joey Maynard to Sœur Marie-Cécile)

“Free once more, with only my own trio to see to at the moment. Daisy and Co finished settling in yesterday and Laurie Rosomon collected their family last night. Just as well, for my small Phil seems to be off-colour today. She’s off her oats, is cross and whiney and though she’s asleep at the moment, I don’t like the looks of her. Jack is on his way home, mercifully, so he’ll look at her. With Sybil’s wedding in the offing I’m hoping it isn’t anything infectious. That would put the lid on things!”

“Now—Oh, Janet, I want you to take a message to Freudesheim for me, dear. Run and change into your wellingtons and put on your cloak. I know the sun is warm, but the wind has a nip in it. Come to the study as soon as you are ready.” Miss Annersley gave Janet a smiling nod and hurried off, leaving that young woman to do as she was told.

Janet had been wearing the black scowl that seemed to have settled down permanently on her face this term, but even in her present mood, she felt a little more cheerful at the prospect of a visit to Freudesheim and, if she were lucky, a chat with Mrs Maynard.

“Perhaps she can tell me what to do,” the girl thought despondently as she exchanged her house-shoes for wellingtons. The thaw had come in good earnest and lawns, shrubbery, fields, paths and even the high road were all swimming with water. “There’s one thing, anyhow. Whatever she may think about it all, she’ll understand and no one else does—not even Kate. I did think she would sympathise with me but all she does is to tell me to ‘snap out of it’. She doesn’t understand! It isn’t the honour and glory of beating them all that I care for. It’s knowing inside myself that I can do it. Oh dear! This has been a beastly term. I’m all mixed up in my mind and it’s horrible!”

She stood up, stamping to settle her feet comfortably in the boots before taking her big hooded cloak from its peg, pulling it round her and hooking it securely under her chin. She left the splashery and hurried along to the study where the Head was standing by the window, looking out thoughtfully at the sodden lawn beyond. She turned as Janet entered in reply to her “Come in!” and gave the girl a smile.

“Ready? Good? You’ve certainly wasted no time. Now, Janet,” she went across to her desk and picked up a large envelope, “I want this envelope taken over to Mrs Maynard. Ask for her personally and wait for a reply, please.” Again she gave the girl a smile. “If she suggests a chat, you may stay for half-an-hour. You won’t miss anything. Games are definitely off and so are walks. Even wellingtons and cloaks wouldn’t be much protection against the present small lakes everywhere. Unless things dry out much faster than they are doing, I doubt if the Juniors, at any rate, will even manage church tomorrow.” She dismissed Janet with another smile and when she heard the side-door close behind the girl, she picked up her telephone and rang Freudesheim.

“That you, Joey? She’s on her way. Joey, I know you feel I’m asking a lot of you when you’re so anxious about Phil, but she is over the worst, poor baby, and mercifully she’s a sturdy little person. Jack told me last night that it was only a question of time until she’s her usual jolly little self. That being so, I want you to see if you can help us with Janet. No one here can get anywhere with her and the girl is looking utterly miserable. There’s no home trouble to account for it. Mrs Henderson wrote at the beginning of the week to say that her husband has had promotion and they’re leaving Kings St Peter in a fortnight for Ropnor, which is a biggish market town in the West Midlands. They’ll live over the bank so no house-hunting worry.”

“Oh, good luck to them! Yes; send Janet along and I’ll see if I can find out what’s wrong with her. It may be some quite silly little thing—girls can be such oddities at her age.”

“You ought to know! You were oddity enough yourself at fifteen!”

Joey gasped loudly and Miss Annersley chuckled to herself. Then she had to listen, and she beamed as Joey poured forth the vials of her wrath. They had had a bad two or three days. Little Phil had proved to have mastoid trouble and so acute was the attack that an emergency operation had to be performed. For the whole of one long day it had been touch and go. Then Phil turned the corner and today the doctors at the Sanatorium had pronounced her out of danger. It would be some time before the baby was herself again, but it would come. Dr Graves had told Joey that, humanly speaking, there should be no further need for anxiety, though Phil must be watched for some months to come. The school had been told the good news; hence the Head’s resolve to persuade Mrs Maynard to use her gift of being able to get into the skin of someone else. Janet was not herself at all, and though the Head had done her best to get to the bottom of the trouble, beyond the fact that Adrienne was mixed up in it she had learned nothing.

Miss Annersley was far too wise to try to force any girl’s confidence. She had asked Adrienne if she could explain matters at all, but Adrienne had merely said that she knew Janet didn’t like her and left it at that. Sundry folk had tried to account for it. No one had asked Inter V at large about it and if they had it is doubtful if anyone would have said flatly that all that was wrong was that Janet wanted to be the sole top of the form. As Judy Willoughby said, “It sounds so mad—completely kiddish! You can’t tell anyone that anyone as old as our crowd is behaving like that.”

Joey relieved her feelings fully and then asked if Ailie had gone to Sydney. She herself had refused to go so it was as well that Mr Hope, father of one of the Old Girls, Emerence Hope, had taken her off in his own private plane. He had promised to take every care of her, and Ailie, already subdued by the danger in which her little cousin still stood then, had promised to be obedient and behave quietly.

“Yes, she’s gone. Mr Hope came for her yesterday and I imagine they’re somewhere around Ceylon by this time.”

“Let me know as soon as you hear they’ve arrived. By the way, does Janet know about the changes pending in her home life? That might account partly for things.”

“Oh, yes. She knew her people were hoping for it and Mrs Henderson said she’d told her about it in her Sunday letter.”

“I see. Well, I don’t know what I can do for the young idiot, but I’ll try and saints can’t do more. And you can tell the school about Phil. I told Con when she came over early this morning, but I warned her to say nothing except to Len and Margot until further notice. I hadn’t had the O.K. then. But it’s real progress, now, and Phil Graves says all danger is ended. Oh, Hilda, I don’t know how I’ve lived through this week! It’s been awful!”

“You did it by faith and your faith has helped to cure Phil. Remember the miracle of the man healed of palsy? Goodness knows what his friends and relatives felt like when they found they couldn’t even get within sight of Our Lord. But their faith did the trick when they lowered him through the roof and he was healed. I often think we have to have faith for ourselves, but we must also have faith for other people—as they did. And that man recovered. He picked up his pallet and rolled it up and went off home.” Miss Annersley paused before she added, “You know, I’ve often wondered what his womenfolk said when he came striding in, healed and well.”

“Mercy, Hilda! How deep do you go? It never dawned on me before. It must have been an almighty shock for them. But I see your point. My dear, I’d do anything that would help to heal my Phil—crawl on my knees from here to Jerusalem if that would help.”

“That’s not asked of you. It isn’t the big things that count so much as the little ones—and they’re often the ones that seem to us too feeble to matter.”

“I’ll remember. I can never be grateful enough that she’s come through. I know you love her, but she’s our baby—Jack’s and mine——” she stopped short. Then she exclaimed in quite a different tone of voice, “Gosh Is this real—or am I dreaming? It is you? But——” At which point she must have dropped the receiver, for though the Head demanded imperatively to be told what had happened, she got no reply and in the end had to hang up, wondering who it was who had turned up so suddenly and evidently so unexpectedly.

Meanwhile Janet had swung along the path above the school’s rock garden, which was a delight in summer—though at the moment a drearier sight could hardly have been imagined. She reached the wicket gate which Dr Maynard had had hung in the thick hedge which divided the school and Freudesheim, passed through it and scrambled up the flagstone path which led up the steep, grassy bank to the walk above the sunk rose-garden which, when the Maynards had first taken possession of Freudesheim, had been a cabbage patch. Now, in summer, it was one of the sights of the Görnetz Platz. The flagstones laid at intervals in the grass led round to the broad terrace which ran from back to front of Freudesheim. Janet turned aside to step on to the gravelled walk which ran across the front of the house and round to the far side where a short flight of steps, sheltered by a steeply pitched roof, led to the main door. She had been here once or twice before, but always with a crowd. Now, feeling free, thanks to the Head’s remarks, she stopped to study it thoroughly before she finally mounted the steps and tugged at the chain at one side. A deep, sweet jangling sounded and then the door opened to show Rösli, better known as the Coadjutor.

“Guten Morgen,” Rösli said with a beaming smile.

“Guten Morgen,” Janet replied. “Bitte—Frau Maynard, ist sie——” Then she stopped. How did you say “at home” in German?

Rösli beamed again. “But enter—enter!” she invited, holding the door wide. “Zis vay, mein Fräulein. I vill Madame tell.”

She was leading the way down the wide hall, with its gleaming parquet floor and equally gleaming Welsh dower chest and odd chairs with which it was furnished, when another door opened and Joey herself appeared. Janet went to her at once with the big envelope the Head had given her.

“Miss Annersley sends you this and I’m to wait for a reply, please.”

Joey took it with a nod. “O.K. You come along to the salon and I’ll be with you in two twos. Find yourself a chair and a book. Be seeing you.” She nodded as she quitted the room, leaving a somewhat bewildered Janet behind her. Not thus was Freudesheim wont to receive its visitors.

“What can I have done?” Janet wondered. Then she remembered little Phil’s illness. Could the baby be worse? Oh, she did hope not! Before she could think further, Rösli came with a tray on which was a cup of chocolate with a plate of Anna’s famous cream biscuits.

“Madame says vill you of zese partake?” she said, setting the tray on a small stand which she moved close to Janet. “She vill come soon.” Then she went off and Janet began to sip the luscious chocolate, feeling happier. At least she had done nothing to offend Mrs Maynard.

She had drunk about half when Joey arrived, her face flushed and her eyes smiling. With her was someone Janet knew—someone she had not seen for some time, but someone who would always remain in the memories of those girls who had had anything to do with her. For the someone was none other than Mary-Lou Trelawney who throughout the eight years she had spent at the Chalet School had made nearly as great an impression on the rest as Joey had done in her day.

“Mary-Lou!” Janet cried.

“Me!” said Mary-Lou laconically. “Goodness! How you’ve grown! Let’s see: it must be all of two years since I last saw you. That makes you—how old?—fifteen? And you were a mere Middle then. Oh, heavens! How elderly it makes me feel!”

Joey laughed. “Poor old Granny! Go on with your chocolate and biscuits, Janet. There goes the telephone—all right, Rösli! I’m coming!” And she sped off.

Mary-Lou looked after her. “Poor Joey! Phil is better and definitely out of danger, but she’s still on edge whenever the phone goes. I’ve seen it before and it was only Daisy Rosomon asking if she wanted any shopping done, Daisy being off to Interlaken to shop.”

Janet glanced at her uncomfortably. She could think of nothing to say. However, Mary-Lou changed the subject. “Hello! Another of you people coming. Joey is popular today. Who is she, Janet? I don’t know her.”

Janet looked towards the girl wrapped in the usual cloak who was coming quickly round the rosegarden path. Her brows knit. Then she suddenly relaxed.

“It’s a new girl—new this term. She’s French and her name’s Adrienne Desmoines. She’s in Inter V with me.”

There was something in her voice which brought Mary-Lou’s very blue eyes swiftly to her face. Those eyes saw more than Janet would have cared for, but it was some time before that young woman knew it. In any case, Mary-Lou was remarking, “Came this term, did she? How come? I mean, no one exactly loves new girls at this time of year, not in this establishment. What happened?”

“I don’t really know. She’s something to do with that nun-aunt of the Maynards. At least it was she who brought Adrienne to the station in Paris and handed her over.”

Mary-Lou’s face lit up. “Do you mean Robin—Robin Humphries? Sœur Marie-Cécile? Caramba! Did you actually see Robin herself? How did she look? Is she still as lovely as ever? Did she speak to any of you folk? Of course, if the Maynards had been there she’d have been in the middle of you all; but they weren’t—or were they?”

“No; but Ailie Russell and Janice Chester said it was their Auntie Rob.”

“Oh, drat and drabbit it! Why did I have to miss her? I’ve never set eyes on her since she went off to Toronto as a postulant at La Sagesse and that’s—oh, ages ago! I was only a kid of thirteen or so when she came to say goodbye. I’d have loved to see her again. I always had a very soft spot for Robin Humphries. Joey!” as Joey came back into the salon, “why was I not told that Robin was in Paris in January? You know I’d have crossed the Channel like a bird on the chance of seeing her. When I was a kid we all thought Robin was the canary’s top-boots. Here’s another visitor for you.” Mary-Lou went to open the french window and call to Adrienne who was making her way towards the front of the house. “Hi! Come in this way!”

Startled, the French girl turned and came back. She was carrying a large parcel, at sight of which Joey gave an exclamation.

“My typing paper at last! Well, I couldn’t have used it before, but now I feel as if it might come in very useful.”

Adrienne lifted eager eyes to her face. “You have good news of the little Phil, Madame? Oh, but I am so glad!” She clasped her hands in a quaint gesture. “I am rejoiced—the dear little Phil!”

“Yes; she is safe now, humanly speaking.”

“Oh, but that is wonderful!”

“Fabulous!” Janet joined in. “Can we tell the school, please? They’ll all be dying to know if we’ve heard anything when we go back.” She glanced at Adrienne and for almost the first time there was no enmity in her glance.

Adrienne nodded. “But yes; we shall all be so very happy to know that la petite is recovering. When will she come back to you, Madame?”

“Well, not quite yet,” Joey said. “She will need careful nursing for some time to come and she’ll get that at the San. As for telling the school, Miss Annersley knows already, of course, and she’ll do the telling. Sorry, you two, but I think it’s best left to her. In other words,” she twinkled at them, “You’ve had it!”

Mary-Lou made a grimace at her. “And I was on the verge of bagging the telling on my own account! Oh, well, in that case you two had better be trotting back to school. I’ll tell you what you can do, though. Announce my arrival, and say I’ll be coming over shortly. In fact, I’ll come for the Saturday show. What is it—games and dancing—competitions—a play? Who’s giving it, by the way?”

“We are,” Janet said with dignity. “It’s tableaux and there are prizes offered for guessing the titles.” She suddenly went off into giggles. “It should be quite a good show, I think.”

Joey regarded the pair of them suspiciously. “Oh, should it? Why the giggles? What are you people up to?”

“But, it is truly tableaux,” Adrienne protested. “You will come, Madame, n’est-ce pas? And your friend, also? We shall be glad if you will.”

“You’ll see me all right,” Mary-Lou assured her, her gaze lingering on the delicate, mobile face with its beautiful brown eyes.

“And I just might,” Joey added. “I can’t promise anything yet but I will if I can. I don’t suppose they’ll let me spend the entire evening with Phil, and Rösli will be with Cecil and Geoff, so I might manage an hour or so. I shan’t make any promises, though.”

“Well, anyhow, you can count on me,” Mary-Lou said. “Tell everyone I’ll be over and want to hear all the hanes, so let them be prepared.” She paused then she added blandly, “Mind you let Adrienne have a fair share of the telling, Janet. I seem to remember that you were always very much on the spot in your Middles days and she looks as though she might be one of those people who are always terribly backward in coming forward. Give her a chance!”

Adrienne blushed furiously, but Janet’s crimson cheeks outdid hers. What, she wondered, did Mary-Lou know about all the wheels within wheels? And if she did know anything, what, exactly, did she think about it. Like Mary-Lou herself, Janet had various memories of the elder girl during the days when she was a school prefect and, later, Head Girl. She didn’t know why, but she suddenly felt that she would just as soon Mary-Lou didn’t know anything about what had been going on in Inter V of late. She doubted very much if that young woman would show her much sympathy over her woes. In fact, she might have quite a number of things to say that Janet would not relish hearing. It was a first step in the right direction and quite a big one. From that point, Janet, it was to be hoped, would be able to see how silly she had been. In fact, how utterly selfish her point of view had been. She hadn’t reached that yet and, as it happened, a certain event was to hurry things up. All the same, when that event did happen and changed everything, Janet was ready for it. At the moment, she felt rather thankful that she and Adrienne were ordered off to school again, with injunctions from Joey to “step on the gas or someone would be asking what they had been playing at to be so long over a simple message.”

What followed on their departure was Mary-Lou’s turning to Joey with eyes wide with surmise, to ask, “Haven’t you really seen it, Jo?”

“Seen what?” Jo asked as she collected Janet’s tray and went to the door with it. “What are you talking about?”

“No; I see you haven’t,” was the cryptic response.

“Stop talking in riddles and tell me what you’re getting at!” Joey ordered.

Mary-Lou shook her head until her yellow curls flew. “Oh no, my dear. I may be all wrong though I don’t think I am. But until I’m certain, I’m saying nothing. But I rather think, if I’m right, that not only am I going to solve a big riddle for you, but it’ll mean the coming much, much closer together of two people one of whom I know to be nice. The other I’m almost sure of.” And from that she refused to budge, let Joey coax or scold as she would. But she assured her indignant hostess that she should know as soon as possible. “And then,” wound up the tantalising Mary-Lou, “you’ll be one large thrill from heels to head. I mean it!”

Inter V, with the responsibility for a Saturday evening entertainment on their shoulders, had little time for anything else that day. All the same, Janice Chester the observant noticed that Janet seemed to have got rid of her black mood and wondered what had happened. However, the news she and Adrienne brought was quite enough to explain matters. Mary-Lou Trelawney had been a much-loved prefect and Head Girl. The news that she was actually at Freudesheim and expecting to stay for some weeks would, in Janice’s opinion, account for anything like that.

“And let’s hope that now she’s got over it she stays got over it!” Janice said to herself as she helped to arrange the seats in Hall for the evening’s audience. Then, aloud, “Put the cushions down for the kids, someone. Who’s seeing to the Staff chairs? You, Solly? Then you’d better collect a few helpers and get on with it. Bring low chairs, remember. Oh, all except for Sally-Go-Round-the-Moon. She has to have a high one because of the arthritis in her bad knee. Better get one from the commonroom.”

Solange nodded, summoned half-a-dozen or so of her friends, and led them off to seek chairs for the mistresses and any outside folk who might turn up. On these occasions the girls saw to everything themselves. The elder girls frequently attended to refreshments as well, but Inter V might not. However, Matron Henschell, herself an Old Girl of the school, had seen to that side of it and she had informed the form that they might look forward to something very special in that line.

Inter V were in high spirits and felt they had a right to be. First, there was the good news about Phil Maynard. Next, Mary-Lou was here. Finally, there was evidently something extra in the refreshments and that would redound to their credit.

“And,” Judy Willoughby remarked during a brief interval, “tableaux may be ordinary, but the ones we’ve chosen are anything but!” She wound up with a chuckle which her hearers echoed.

When, at last, every seat was in place; the last cushion put down for a Junior; and Anne Lambert and Sarah Akerman, who were responsible for the curtains, had drawn them for a last time to make certain that they would run all right, even Inter V agreed that there was nothing more they could do and trooped off to their splashery to make themselves tidy for Kaffee und Kuchen.

They were just in time. The big school gong sounded as the last girl was drying her hands. They lined up with the rest and marched off to the Speisesaal where Kaffee und Kuchen awaited them—milky coffee with fancy bread twists and, since it was Saturday, slices of one of Karen’s luscious cakes. Karen had cooked for the school since its first year and knew exactly what the girls liked. Her cakes had plenty of fruit, and yet remained of the cut-and-come-again variety. When she turned her attention to pastries, the school vowed that Matron laid in an extra stock of castor oil and syrup of figs for those pastries were feather light and yet rich as only Austrian pastries can be.

Inter V spent as little time as possible at the table. As they were acting hostesses that evening, they might be excused as soon as they had finished and they took full advantage of that fact. The others were no more than halfway through their meal when Janice, Jane Carew, Solange and two French girls, Françoise Richet and Léonie St Denis, excused themselves to Len Maynard and left the room. Most of the others were not slow in following them. Löis Kynaston, the last, arrived in Hall with the information that second cups of coffee were just being poured out as she left.

“You’ve been an awful age,” Judy remarked.

“I know. I’ve got a loose tooth and I have to eat carefully. Once this do is over, I’m going to Matey about it, but I didn’t want to be out of the fun, so I’ve hung on,” Löis said candidly. “It isn’t exactly painful—more tiresome. Is everything ready? Ought those of us in the first two get ready now? Sarah ought to, surely, with all that make-up to put on.”

Sarah giggled. “It’s a good job I don’t mind making a fright of myself for the good of the cause. We’d better get going, hadn’t we, Jan?”

“I suppose so. People who are receiving and dishing out programmes, you scram and change into your evening frocks. The rest of us will go to the dressing-rooms.”

They parted, the half-dozen or so who would represent the form as receptionists to scuttle upstairs to the dormitories and change into the pretty frocks they usually wore on Saturday evenings; the rest to get into their stage clothes and attend to make-up. Jack Lambert from Upper IVa and Flavia Ansell, a boon companion of hers, had, by grace of the Head, been allowed to reckon themselves as members of Inter V for the one night so that they could look after the lighting. Jack had kept a wary eye on the form and she and Flavia, better known as Copper among her congeners, had bolted their last mouthfuls of cake and scurried after Inter V as quickly as possible.

“You two had best see to your lights now and be sure everything is all right,” Janice said. “I gave you the lighting plots, didn’t I? Be careful about the red lights in Tableau Five. You know you found them tricky at the last rehearsal. We don’t want to make a mess of it and if it does come off it’ll be the star of the lot.”

“That’ll be O.K.,” Jack said airily. “Come on, Copper. This place is too jolly packed, anyhow—and we don’t have to change, thank goodness!”

Copper chuckled and followed her out of the room. At nearly fifteen, Jack Lambert was still half-boy. She thanked her stars that her straight black hair was cropped boy-fashion; took little or no interest in her clothes; and was all set for a career in electrical engineering if it could be managed. Copper Ansell, on the other hand, was still, to quote herself, “swithering” about her future. She was a much more feminine person than Jack, but for all that the pair were great friends.

While they went to Hall for a final check-up on the very simple lighting arrangements, the others turned to the job of getting into their clothes and making-up. They had certainly contrived to be original in their choice of subjects. They had pitched on “Major Catastrophes”, of all things. The first “Catastrophe” was the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden with Thyra Gregersen as Adam, Hilary Taylor as Eve, Jane Carew as the Angel, and Sarah Akerman as the Serpent in a skin-tight dress of blue and green muslin daubed here and there with luminous paint to match. Her make-up was green with blue shadows. Jane attended to it, since she, of them all, knew most about that sort of thing. At the same time it hardly looked as horrible as the artist intended and streaks of silver luminous paint down either side of Sarah’s Roman nose gave her an odd appearance without making her look in the least like a snake. Adam and Eve wore shaggy tunics made of an old woolfur coat sent by someone’s mother the previous term, and Eve wore her long brown tresses flowing round her with a wreath of artificial wild roses from the acting cupboard to keep it out of her eyes. Jane as the Angel was easily fitted, for the school possessed a quantity of angel dresses and also wings and haloes. The fiery sword had been the worst headache, but they had managed it with a wooden sword and sheets of crimson and golden paper.

Eden was represented by sundry forest flats showing above a couple of wall cut-outs with high gates at which the Angel stood with upraised sword while Adam and Eve cowered away from him on a grey earth with heaps of rocks scattered here and there. Inter V had aimed at a bleak effect outside Eden and they had obtained it.

Meanwhile, the audience had begun to arrive, headed by Mary-Lou Trelawney who had come to the school shortly after Kaffee und Kuchen to be welcomed delightedly by the prefects with whom she’d marched down to Hall.

“Is Mamma not coming?” Con Maynard demanded.

Mary-Lou shook her head. “She’s gone off to the San to see Phil. Your Dad arrived to say the kid was asking for her, so Aunt Joey went off at once. Isn’t it prodigious that she’s begun to come round?”

Len Maynard gave her a look with eyes that were dancing wickedly. “Ineffable!” she said. “But if they’ve let Mother go to her then the worst period must be really up. Good! Perhaps we can go now.”

“I shouldn’t bet on it. They’ll have to keep her pretty quiet, won’t they? Mothers are different to sisters, I imagine. But I do agree it’s stupendous that she’s really begun to get feeling like visitors.—Oh, hello Ruey! How goes it?”

Ruey Richardson, ward of the Maynards and practically one of the Maynard family, stopped to exchange a few words with her before she went on to her own set among the members of VIb. Other people were coming now, however, and most of them wanted to have a word with Mary-Lou. So did those members of the staff who now began to enter. Hall filled up and then the Head arrived with her partner and co-Head, Miss Wilson. The kitchen staff filed in after them to the seats allotted to them. One or two of the Sanatorium staff also turned up and Dr Graves brought his wife who, as Hilary Burn, had been first pupil and then P.T. mistress in the school, and a great favourite with everyone, despite a tongue that could skin you when she felt like it.

“What about Mme Courvoisier—Biddy?” Mary-Lou demanded.

“Jean-Eugen is cutting a double tooth and she can’t leave him,” Mrs Graves explained. “You’ll be seeing her. You’re staying for a few weeks, aren’t you? Well, then, you’ll certainly see her. Sit down, Mary-Lou, and stop making a cake of yourself.”

Mary-Lou grinned. “It’s not making a cake of myself to look for a pal. I lo-ove Biddy and always did. Talking of babies, how are your crowd?”

“Full of beans—as usual—Hello! Here comes Dr. Benson. You know her, don’t you?”

“I know of her. Can’t say I’ve ever met her. Present me, please. Gosh! What an utter Personage she looks!”

“So she is someone. Hello, Stacie! Come and receive our one and only Mary-Lou. She thinks you look a Personage. How about it?”

The tall, stately Doctor laughed. “She’s in ghastly error. I’m no more a Personage than you are. You’ve heard about Joey’s Phil, haven’t you?”

“I have. My own Phil was full of it when he came home. Well, let’s get this introduction over. This is Mary-Lou who’s setting out to become the world’s chief archaeologist, Stacie. Mary-Lou, in case you didn’t know it, Dr Benson is considered to have written a book on Aeschylus which is the last word about him.”

“I did know that,” Mary-Lou said as she and the doctor shook hands. “Oh, the lights are being lowered. I must scram or I shan’t be able to find my seat. See you later?” And she fled to the seat Len Maynard had been keeping for her among the prefects.

The house lights finally dimmed, the footlights sprang up and the curtains swept back to show the cowering Adam and Eve glancing back at the Angel over their shoulders in a manner more reminiscent of pickpockets in a crowd than the first parents being driven out of Paradise by a celestial being. The audience were disposed to be generous and applauded vigorously, though Miss Annersley leaned back to murmur to Miss Dene, “Who is the Serpent? I simply don’t recognise her, but I hope someone sees she gets rid of that silver paint before she goes to bed. From long experience, I know how it can cling.”

“Don’t worry. She’s probably in some other tableau with an entirely different make-up,” Rosalie said cheerfully. “Now what?” as the curtains finally closed. “I suppose they don’t expect us to sit gazing at—No! Here comes someone to entertain us.”

It was a quartette who sang Schubert’s setting of “The Lord is my Shepherd” with strict attention to time and tune and very little to expression. However they received their mead of applause before they left the stage and the curtains rose on “Vesuvius overwhelming Pompeii”, which was represented by groups of terrified Romans clinging together, eyes and mouths open, while to one side stood the faithful sentry discovered so many centuries later and immortalised in the famous picture, “Faithful unto Death”.

This was followed by Jane Carew, speaking with uncanny effect Kipling’s “The Eggshell”. The staff clapped her, but Miss Ferrars looked round rather uneasily at the Junior Middles close by.

“Let’s hope we get something more cheerful soon,” she said to Miss Wilmot, sitting beside her as usual. “I give Jane full marks for getting every ounce out of the thing. Those last lines sounded positively gruesome! But I don’t know that the horrors are awfully good for that crew of Junior Middles.”

“Don’t worry. They see much worse on the television when they’re at home,” Nancy Wilmot said. “Hear much worse, too. They’re hardened to horrors, if you want to know what I think. All the same,” she added as two other members of the form suddenly appeared to sing a duet, “I’d like to know just why they’ve chosen such dismal subjects for their tableau.”

She had to stop there, for the duet had begun, and when it ended and the singers had left the stage, the curtains opened to show the “Death of Nelson”. Nelson looked ghastly, his face having been well powdered with cornflour—the surgeon, Hardy, and the other men gathered round him, appearing in loose shirt blouses, navy-blue tights and coats turned inside out to show the linings.

Behind the mistresses, a small voice rose, very clear and shrill: “Is the man goin’ to be sick? ’Cos he looks like it. He wants a basin.”

The audience rocked—all except Celia Everett who scowled blackly and muttered to her chum, Val Gardiner, “Oh, bust that kid! She would! Kid sisters are the outside of enough—or young Win is, anyhow!”

The curtains closed on the scene and two Seniors arrived to treat the company to a mélange of Gilbert and Sullivan airs, arranged as a piano duet. It ended, but clearly the hostesses were not ready, for the curtain remained closed for a few minutes longer.

“But what was that one?” inquired Carmela Walther plaintively. “I cannot place it—nor the one before. The best I can say of that one is ‘People afraid’. Would that do, do you think, Len?”

Len Maynard gave a giggle. “I doubt it. Not that I can make a nearer guess myself and, of course, I do know this one. Go back to English history, Carmela.”

Carmela sighed. “But history was never what you call a strong point with me, my Len. We must hope that I know what follows next.”

The curtains moved at that point and the bewildered audience found themselves gazing at what was obviously meant to be a snow scene, since the stage was draped with sheets. Two or three people attired in brief skirts with travelling rugs slung over their shoulders lay about, and scarlet tissue paper patches seemed to indicate that a battle of some sort had taken place. A wild-looking woman, whose hair, back-combed to the last degree, gave her a witch-like appearance, knelt by one of the presumable corpses, her clenched fist raised threateningly. That was all and just what it represented was more than most people could guess. Sundry wild surmises were put down, among them Jack Lambert’s “Lady Macbeth crowing over the murder of Duncan” which drew yells of laughter when it came out later—much later. Although they could not know it, the actors were heading for a near disaster of their own.

The snow scene—which turned out to be “The Massacre of Glencoe”—was followed by another recitation from Jane who this time had chosen The Forsaken Merman which she repeated beautifully. Everyone clapped hard and, much to the surprise of the audience, she came back to give an encore—a thing rarely allowed on these occasions. However, as most of the staff shrewdly guessed, the tableau was not ready, and Jane, after a gasped, “Oh, goodness! What on earth shall I repeat now?” came back with High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire and reduced more than one of the more sentimental to choking.

“That girl should go places all right,” Miss Burnett remarked sotto voce to Miss Moore. “She’s got what it takes.”

“Quite right; but you be careful with your language,” Miss Moore warned her. “If the Head hears you using slang like that with the girls around she’ll certainly say things!”

Peggy Burnett made a face at her, but subsided. In any case, an agitation of the curtains as Jane vanished from the stage told them that everything was set for Tableau Number Five.

It was a lurid scene which appeared. Inter V had helped themselves liberally from the flats and cut-outs the school had accumulated over the years. A tall tower stood in the centre of the stage, with a church spire behind it and two flats showing houses at either side. Left downstage was a motley gang of people—at least eleven. To the right were to be seen a dozen or so figures clad as soldiers. One, standing well forward, was unmistakably Napoleon. Who the others were was anyone’s guess, for one, at least, wore full Cavalier kit, the dresses having given out. Crimson and yellow lighting added to the effectiveness and the audience were silent for a moment. There came a sudden creaking followed by a sharp cry as the tower suddenly swayed and from it poured a stream of crimson smoke accompanied by a flame that was all too real. Inter V had decided to use coloured lights to add reality to the fire in “The Burning of Moscow” which they were supposed to be portraying. The matches they used for the purpose had no flame as a rule. By what awful chance a live match was mixed into the box of harmless lights was something that never was solved. The fact remained that it had happened. The flimsy canvas flared up as Janet, who had been manipulating the lights behind the scenes, flung down the fatal one with a shriek which was echoed by a number of other people. The “tower” swayed perilously, threatening to fall forward against more of the scenery and ignite it; while Janet, already dressed in the muslin dress she was to wear to portray Marie Antoinette in the next tableau, tried to spring off the stage. The inflammable muslin had caught and was already flaming round her. Just what might have happened was something that no one ever decided. Certainly, all the makings of an appalling disaster were there. But mercifully the staff and the prefects rushed to the rescue. Quicker even than they was Adrienne, because she was actually on the stage and standing close beside Janet at the time. Before the terrified girl could do more than move, the French girl had flung an arm round her and tripped her up adroitly before flinging herself on her, rolling her over and beating out the flames with frantic hands.

It was over almost at once. Cylinders of foam were always kept in Hall and while some people directed their contents on the burning flats, others hurriedly tore down those still untouched but likely to prove a danger. Gaudenz, the man-of-all-work at the school, lumbered up Hall at unexpected speed and his great strength soon had anything perilous out of the way, while some of the staff rushed the younger girls from the building to the far side of the school, where they would be safe. The matrons, headed by “Matey”, took charge of Janet, who was hysterical as a result of the shock, and Adrienne, who was shaking but managing to control herself amazingly.

The net result was the complete destruction of the “tower” and another cut-out; the scorching of two flats; the loss of a couple of sheets which had been used to represent a snowy ground; and damage to some of the costumes, including Marie Antoinette’s muslin gown which was in rags. One or two of the girls were bruised and suffering from slight burns. But Janet’s right arm and side were badly scorched and Adrienne’s long, thick hair was so badly burned that it had to cropped close to her head. Her hands were burned and one cheek was seared where the flames had caught it. But though painful, as all surface burns are, it was not dangerous and, as Dr Entwistle who had come from the Sanatorium in response to Miss Dene’s frantic summons said, unlikely to leave even a scar, once it had healed properly.

He attended to all the minor casualties, and it was then that Len Maynard realised that her future was settled, once she had finished her formal education, though she said nothing about it to anyone for some months to come. She had burned two fingers in helping to tear down the scenery and had sustained a bad bruise on one arm as well. As the doctor finished bandaging the fingers, she looked up at him to say rather shakily, “Well, a thrilling time has been had by all, whether it’s good or not.” What she saw in his eyes as they met hers told her volumes. Joey Maynard always vowed that Len grew up completely in those moments.

“Just as I did that night years and years ago when we thought Hilary and Robin were lost in the bowels of the earth—remember?” she said to her husband. “And then we reached Die Rosen and heard that they were safe and sound and——”

“And you fainted,” he finished for her. “I remember. Also the shock you gave Madge when you came round by clinging to me and telling me I was a solid lump of comfort.^[9] Ah, well, a good deal of water has gone under the bridge since then—and if Reg Entwistle finds all in Len that I’ve found in Len’s mother, he’ll be a lucky chap!”

“Please, Matron, could I see Adrienne Desmoines some time today?”

Matron Duffin looked across the high white hospital bed at Nurse. “What about it, Nurse? Is she well enough for a special visitor, do you think?”

Nurse surveyed her patient with compressed lips. Then she relaxed and nodded. “Yes, I think so. Only for ten minutes though—and, Janet, only on condition that you don’t excite yourself or her. You may be much better, but you must still keep quiet unless you want to send your temp up and have an extra week or so in bed as a result. As for Adrienne, she has been quite ill, too. We mustn’t forget that she spent a good part of last year being ill with a fever.”

Janet looked startled. “I didn’t know that. When was it?”

“Most of the summer. She had over two months in bed and was a long time getting her strength back. It wasn’t necessary that you girls should know before this, but I know how thoughtless you folk can be so I’m telling you. Adrienne has suffered a good deal of pain with her burns and the shock of the affair was no better for her than for you. I don’t want her over-tired. By the way, talking of shock, I’d better tell you that Adrienne’s hair has had to be cut.”

“Whatever for?” Janet exclaimed, sitting up in bed in her amazement.

“It caught fire and when Matron began to comb it, it came off in odd lengths. The only thing to do was to cut it. It’s been bobbed to the nape of her neck and it certainly has made a change in her appearance.” Nurse looked at Matron and laughed. “She’s like another person for looks.”

“Gosh!” said Janet deeply. “I’d no idea. All right, Matron; I promise I won’t let her talk much—nor talk myself,” she added. “It’s just—well, I want to see her,” she wound up lamely as Nurse laid her down again.

“Well, provided you’re both as fit after Mittagessen as you are now, you shall see her then for ten minutes. Ah, here comes your hot milk. Wait, Janet! Let me prop you up. I know you really are better today, but if you try to do too much too soon, you’ll undo all the good and be back where you were last week.”

She heaped up the pillows behind Janet’s back, and when the girl was well supported, gave her a beaker of hot milk. “Now drink that. Sip it slowly. When you’ve finished, I’m going to lay you down and you must try to get a good nap.”

“Yes, Nurse,” Janet said meekly. She sipped the milk slowly, hoping that implicit obedience to Nurse’s orders would soften that lady’s heart and she might be allowed to sit up and read for a while. But Nurse thought not. She removed the empty beaker, took away three pillows and laid the patient down carefully on the remaining one, covered her over and left her with the injunction to go to sleep. Janet submitted meekly, and when she had seen that the girl was practically asleep, Nurse drew the curtains and left the room. Janet was the one about whom the authorities had felt most anxious. She had sustained two really nasty burns on an arm and shoulders, besides surface scorching on the other arm and down one leg. Her mother, in the throes of a removal when the news reached her, had been unable to come. Janet was ill with pain and shock, but the doctors had assured the Hendersons that she was in no danger, so it had been left until Mrs Henderson was able to feel that her husband could manage alone. The day before this, she had rung up the school on the telephone to say that she was setting off for the Görnetz Platz that afternoon and hoped to be with them next day. So far, Janet had not been told, Dr Maynard thinking it would be wiser that she should undergo no needless suspense. She knew about the removal and acquiesced when the Head told her that it would be a few days before her mother could come to her.

This had not been for some days after the accident. On the morrow, however, she was to be told that her mother would be with her that day. She was past the worst now and the burns were healing well—much better than those which Adrienne had suffered. The trouble there was that the French girl was far more highly strung. Apart from that, Janet was a sturdy, healthy girl who rarely ailed anything. Adrienne’s long, trying illness of the previous year had taken its toll of her strength. However, she too was making a steady recovery. Indeed, the doctor hoped that another week would see her back in school again. As for little Phil, she was well on the road to recovery, though her head was still bandaged and her round little face had become a long little face. But no one was anxious about her now. Mercifully, as Joey said, the family could always be relied on for quick recoveries. The summer should see Phil her sturdy little self again.

Nurse left the room where Janet was sleeping and went to her own sanctum where Adrienne was sitting gazing out of the window. She was still pale, with shadows under her eyes, but the biggest change in her was the loss of her long black hair. As Nurse had told Janet, when they first combed it out, great chunks came away in the comb and the resultant uneven mess was so awful that the only thing to do was to crop it short. What no one had expected was that when it was done, what had formerly been merely a slight wave should turn into big loose rings all over her head. The difference in her appearance was positively startling.

“Janet wants to see you later,” Nurse said as she produced a cup of malted milk and some biscuits and set them before the convalescent. “She’s sleeping at present but you may have ten minutes together—no more, though—when she wakes. Now let me see what you can do with this and after that you can wrap up. Mary-Lou Trelawney is coming to take you for a stroll along the coach road. It’s a glorious day and you’ll get on faster once you can go out.”

Adrienne opened her eyes widely. “But why does Mdlle Trelawney trouble herself about me, please? It is kind of her, but I cannot see why. We have met once for only ten minutes and yet she thinks about me like that?”

“Oh, yes,” Nurse said briskly as she sat down with her own coffee. “Mary-Lou is kind. Besides that, there really is no one else to take you at the moment. Mrs Maynard is spending all her spare time at the San with Phil. I have my hands full with those five ’flu colds in Isolation, not to speak of Janet. Mary-Lou will look after you all right and see that you don’t loiter or go too far.”

“It is kind,” Adrienne repeated. “But then, Nurse, I find all of you here are kind and—and friendly.”

Nurse laughed. “Glad to hear it. As for Mary-Lou, she was a demon of mischief in her extreme youth, but she outgrew that, of course. By the time she was your age she was a big influence in the school. I’m only sorry that, with her chosen career, we aren’t likely to see much of her once her college days are finished.”

“But why not?” Adrienne asked interestedly. “What is it she will be?”

“She’s always said she meant to be an archaeologist and explorer. Her father was an explorer. He was with the Murray-Cameron Expedition when it was practically wiped out—he was killed among them—far up the Amazon. She gets her love of travel from him, I suppose.”

“Was he an archaeologist also?” Adrienne queried.

“Oh, no. He was a naturalist—butterflies were his speciality. He was quite noted for his additions to some of the great British collections as well as for his own private one which was, I believe, considered one of the finest in the world. I believe it is lent to some museum or other at the moment. Mrs Carey—Mary-Lou’s mother who married the cartographer of the expedition some years after the tragedy in the Amazon country—refused to sell it and it’s Mary-Lou’s now, of course. Interested are you?”

Adrienne shook her head. “But no, Nurse. I like to look at beautiful butterflies, but I would rather watch them alive and flitting about among the flowers.”

“I know. But the majority of people can’t visit South America or Asia and see them like that and the only way they can get any real idea of them is through great collections like those in the Natural History Museum in London, or the one in Berne—or Paris—or in any of the great cities. Now finish your milk and then go and get ready. Be sure and wrap up well. Mary-Lou will be here in ten minutes or so, so be ready for her.”

“Yes, Nurse,” Adrienne said meekly. She drained her beaker and then went off to seek coat and beret and big scarf. The thaw had continued during the fortnight which elapsed since that half-term Saturday and now the roads and paths were dry except for puddles still lingering in the hollows and shady places.

Today was bright and sunny with a light breeze shaking the still leafless bushes. Having changed her slippers for stout walking-shoes and wrapped up well, Adrienne pulled on her mitts. One hand was still bandaged so gloves would be of no use. It was the first time she had been out since the accident and excitement touched her cheeks with a faint pink and lit up her eyes. Nurse nodded when she saw her.

“That’s better! You look more like yourself than you have done since that silly affair. Go down to the entrance hall. Mary-Lou will come there. Tell her I said you might stay out for about forty minutes but no more. We’ve got to make haste slowly at present. Got a clean hanky, by the way?”

Adrienne suppressed a grin as she produced it. She had learnt that Nurse always asked this of her convalescents when they made their first expeditions. Nurse nodded and sent her off with a final reminder to tell Mary-Lou if she felt tired sooner than the time allowed. Adrienne escaped at last and made her way slowly down the stairs and into the big entrance hall where Mary-Lou appeared almost at once, breezing into the hall in a way that made it impossible for anyone to feel shy.

“Here you are!” she exclaimed, a beaming smile deepening the dimples in her cheeks. “You look a lot better than I expected. Good! How long has Nurse let you off the chain for? Forty minutes? Oh, well, I suppose you’ll feel tired by then and ready for a rest: but it doesn’t give us much chance to go far, does it?”

“But it is the first time, you see,” Adrienne said apologetically.

“I know. Joey meant to have taken you herself, but Phil keeps asking for her all the time. However,” Mary-Lou led her charge out of the big door and on to the drive, “the kid is so much better that Uncle Jack says she’ll be able to come home next week—probably round about Wednesday.”

“Oh, mais c’est magnifique, ça!” Adrienne exclaimed as they went down the drive. “Moi, j’en suis bien heureuse!”

“So is everyone else,” Mary-Lou agreed, dropping into French also. “Very, very happy we all are.” She smiled at the younger girl and added, “I hear Phil took a regular shine to you. I expect you’ll be popping along to the San with Auntie Joey on Monday or Tuesday. Or if not then, you’ll certainly have to be on tap when they get her home.”

Adrienne laughed. “Will it be permitted?”

“Well,” said Mary-Lou judicially, “if you ask me it’s going to be an awful job to keep everyone from spoiling young Phil. I don’t know, though. On second thoughts, neither Aunt Joey nor Uncle Jack is much given to spoiling anyone. Goodness knows they’d excuse enough with Margot when she was a kid. She was always having bronchitis and I know everyone wondered how long they could keep her. And yet she never had a lot of spoiling. And Charles, whom you don’t know yet—he was always delicate. Oh, I suppose it’ll work out in the end. Shall we go toward the San? We’ll get all the sun that’s going if we do and I’m all for making the most of any sunshine after the dismal winter we’ve had. The other way has some lovely views, of course, but with all the twists and turns in the road, you do tend to get rather a lot of shadow. Come along!”

She tucked a hand through Adrienne’s arm and led her off along the motor road which ran up through the mountains from the plain below, cut along the entire length of the Görnetz Platz, and came to an end in the grounds of the great sanatorium of which Dr Maynard was the Head and where little Phil was recovering from the serious operation for mastoid she had undergone.

Adrienne looked round with eyes sparkling with pleasure. “Oh, but I am so glad to be out again! It began to seem as if I should never walk in the sunshine and fresh air, Mdlle——”

“What!” Mary-Lou stopped dead and faced her. “Do you mean me, by any chance? Then kindly note that my name is Mary-Lou. I thought even you knew that much.”

Adrienne blushed. “I did not like—it seems so—so impolite—so bold when I have just met you. But if I may—oh, I should like to so much,” she said somewhat confusedly.

“Well, you don’t catch me bothering about you if you don’t,” Mary-Lou informed her. “I’m not ‘Mdlle’ or ‘Miss Trelawney’ to anyone but strangers, and I hope,” with some severity, “that you don’t intend to keep us strangers. You’ll have a job to do it! I’m here till the Easter vac. ends so when your hols start, we’ll be living in the same house, let me tell you. You say ‘Mary-Lou’ and keep to that.”

Adrienne had no chance to reply to this diatribe. At that moment a rather fresher gust than usual caught her beret and blew it off and she had to chase it. Mary-Lou caught it in the end and handed it to her with a laughing, “Better pull it well down over—” when she stopped short. Her hand flashed out and tilted Adrienne’s chin so that she could look straight down into the younger girl’s face. “Look at me! Straight in the eyes! Oh, my gosh and goodness! Has no one seen the likeness before? Where’s Joey? At the San, of course, and I’ve got to wait until she gets back home! Oh, wouldn’t you know that would happen?”

Adrienne stared at her dazedly. What was all the excitement about? “But what—why—what is it?” she stammered.

Mary-Lou began to laugh. “Oh, you poor lamb! No; I haven’t gone utterly bonkers though I shouldn’t blame you if you did think so. Don’t look so alarmed, Adrienne. It’s quite all right and we’d better go on as soon as you can settle that beret securely on your head. Now come on!”

She drew her charge along and Adrienne went in stupefied silence, still wondering what it was about her that had stirred up Mary-Lou like that. Mary-Lou herself was silent also. Then she began to talk.

“If I’m right, Adrienne, how we’re all going to rejoice! You’ll be wildly glad yourself, I know.”

Poor Adrienne stared. “But—please, I do not understand,” she said.

“Of course you don’t. Oh, what an ass I am!” Mary-Lou sobered down though her very blue eyes were still blazing with excitement. “You couldn’t possibly understand and I’m pretty certain I mustn’t say anything definite yet. But I rather think, my lamb, that things are coming your way. What is that Italian proverb Joey is so fond of—‘There comes a time when everyone eats white bread once in his life’? That’s it! I rather think your time has come.”

Adrienne laughed in her turn. “But that began this term when I came to school here—or no; it began when Sœur Cécile and Sœur Monique rescued me and took me to La Sagesse. It has gone well with me ever since. Ah, you are thinking of this—” she held up her burnt hand—“and how I was ill for so long before. But even so, I say I am a very fortunate girl—very happy. See you, I was alone when Papa died and without a protector. Now I have friends, protectors—all one could ask, almost. And if I have no one of my own kin, others are worse off than I. I can only be grateful to le bon Dieu for all He has given me. And oh, I am—I am!”

A loud honking made them look round. Joey was slowing up her little runabout. Now she came to a stop and leaned out of the open window. “Hello, folks! Adrienne, how pretty your curls look——”

“Oh, never mind that!” Mary-Lou interrupted her. “Just you look at her—really look, I mean!”

Joey looked. Then she turned to the excited Mary-Lou. “What’s wrong with her? I know her hair’s been cut. We all know it. I’ve just been congratulating her on her pretty curls. They really are an improvement, Adrienne. I like them immensely. But I see nothing to get so madly revved up about. What’s eating you, Mary-Lou? Calm yourself, my love—calm yourself!”

“Do you mean to say you can’t see it?” Mary-Lou demanded in clarion tones.

“For mercy’s sake, girl, don’t yell like that! See what?”

“The likeness! Look at her, woman! Who does she remind you of with those black curls instead of a prim pigtail?”

Joey surveyed the embarrassed Adrienne with wide eyes. Her face suddenly lit up. She wrenched open the door of the car and leapt out. “Robin! It’s Robin! Adrienne—our Robin—your Sœur Cécile—you might be her younger sister! How could I miss it? Oh, it’s not a freak likeness, but it’s all there. Look, Mary-Lou! She has the same little trick of the hands and I noticed it and never connected it. You did mean Rob, didn’t you?”

“I did. When I first met her I knew she reminded me of someone I knew awfully well, but I couldn’t place it. It was that pigtail that did it, of course. Once that got frizzled off and those curls came, it settled it. Adrienne, I don’t know just where the relationship will come in and I don’t suppose you do yet. We’re going to have to dig down into your past, my sugarpie. But we’ll do it and sooner or later we’ll find the connection, believe me!”

“But—how could it be?” Adrienne gasped. “Maman had no brother or sister I know.”

“What about her, though?” Mary-Lou demanded. “She may have had cousins. You may be a cousin’s child. Or it may have nothing to do with her. It might be on your father’s side.”

Adrienne shook her head. “But no; for I have heard him say he was the only child in his generation—at least, I think that is what he said.”

“Well, the connection is there somewhere and we’ll find it somehow,” Mary-Lou declared. “Don’t worry Adrienne. That part will be all right. But now you understand why I was so excited. Robin belongs by adoption to the Maynards and the Russells and, since her father died, she has had no one of her very own. That’s right, isn’t it, Joey?”

Joey nodded. “Quite right. Her mother died when she was little more than a baby. Uncle Ted was all she had left except us. He died when she was thirteen and I don’t know that he ever said much about his wife. Certainly I never knew more about her than that she had been very lonely—Robin’s supposed to be her image—and died when the kid was just a kid. He may have told Jem or Madge more but I just wouldn’t know. Jem and Madge are my sister and brother-in-law, Adrienne—Ailie’s father and mother. I must get on to Madge as soon as I can, and if she knows nothing, there’s quite a chance that he may. It’ll have to wait till next week, I’m afraid, with Sybs’s wedding. But as soon as that’s well out of the way, I’ll screw those two down to it.”

“You do,” Mary-Lou said cordially. “I’ll back you to the limit. But you do see, don’t you, Adrienne, just why it’s such a thrill. You’ll be family for Rob and ever since she was a mere kid, two years younger than you are now, she’s thought there wasn’t any. You can see what a joy it will be to her.”

“And other folk will be happy about it, too,” Joey said, turning back to the car. “Get in, both of you. I’ll run you back to school and we’ll dig the Head out and go into a huddle about this pronto. The sooner we know something definite the better for all of us. Adrienne, don’t breathe a word of all this to anyone. I’m practically sure, but we must be beyond-doubt sure before we broadcast it. In you get, you two!”

They scrambled in and she drove them back to school, leaving them to go back to the school sanatorium while she hunted out Miss Annersley. Before she left them, she looked searchingly into Adrienne’s face once more.

“It seems mad not to take it all on trust straight away,” she said. “Just the same, we won’t count our chickens before they’ve actually left the shell. Oh, what a day this has been! Phil is really on the highroad to recovery and now we are finding out that you belong to us, Adrienne, and especially to our Robin—and that, let me tell you, means everything to all of us.”

It was not until the early afternoon that Adrienne and Janet had their interview. There had been so much to follow on Mary-Lou’s sensational discovery. First Adrienne had been swept along to the Head’s study by the excited Jo and Mary-Lou. There they had both talked at once to the startled Head and so incoherently that it was a little time before she could understand what it was they were trying to tell her. And then she had to order them both to sit down and stop talking, in her most magisterial tones, before she could fully understand. Mercifully for everyone concerned, the pair reacted automatically to her authority and stopped babbling, and she was able to turn to Adrienne who was looking half-pleased, half-scared, and ask a blunt question.

“Adrienne, this has something to do with you, it seems. What exactly is it about?”

Equally bluntly, Adrienne replied, “They say that I am a relation of Sœur Cécile, Madame.”

With startled face the Head surveyed her in silence before turning to the other two to demand, “What reason have you for saying this? Wait!” she added with another quick glance at Adrienne. “I think Adrienne had better go back to Nurse. All this isn’t exactly what any doctor would order for any convalescent. You look tired, my dear. Go back to San and tell Nurse I’ll come to see to you later, but I think you need rest now.”

Obediently, Adrienne left the room and went up to Nurse who took one look at her and remarked grimly, “I shall have a word with Mary-Lou later on. I thought she was to be trusted. Apparently not. No; don’t chatter now. I’ll hear anything you have to say later on. Your job is to take off your things including your frock, put on your dressing-gown and lie down on your bed. I’ll be along in a minute or two.”

Adrienne did as she was told. To tell the truth her head was whirling with all the new ideas this latest turn in her life was producing and she felt slightly giddy. She was thankful to lie down. When Nurse arrived with her usual panacea, the girl was feeling slightly steadier.

“Drink this!” Nurse held the beaker to her lips. “Only sip it. I’ve told you girls scores of times that milk should always be sipped—not bolted.”

When the beaker was empty, Nurse removed all the pillows but one, drew the window curtains and left her patient to go to sleep. Adrienne was so really tired that, helped by the milk, she drowsed off almost at once. When Miss Annersley came into the cubicle to stand by her bed and look at her, she was so deeply asleep she never knew. The Head looked down at her, noting each little likeness to Robin Humphries. Now that she had heard what Joey and Mary-Lou had to say she could only wonder that she herself had not detected it sooner.

“What Mary-Lou has been doing with her, I don’t know,” Nurse said in an undertone to the Head, “but when I get hold of that young woman she’s going to hear all about it! I did think she could be trusted to use a little common sense, but evidently not. Adrienne looked worn-out when she came to me.”

Miss Annersley nodded in silence. Then she turned, beckoning to Nurse to follow her. Once they were safely our of earshot of anyone, she told her the news.

“So you see it really is more than just a walk that has tired her like this,” she concluded. “In fact I gather that they hadn’t gone very far when it all happened. I should let her sleep as long as she will, Matron. I think she’ll probably be all right when she wakes again.”

Nurse nodded. “I see. I beg Mary-Lou’s pardon in that case. All the same I think both she and Jo might have restrained themselves slightly and remembered that the girl has been ill and is still very near to real invalidism. She’s not fit for anything like excitement, though she’s making good headway.” Her quick ear was caught by a sound from another of the little wards. “Ah that’s one of my ’flu people. I must go. Are you visiting Janet while you’re here? I promised her Adrienne should look in when she came back from the walk but it’ll have to wait now. But I should think she’d like a chat with you. She’s doing as well as possible now. Luckily for her she’s one of those matter-of-fact young people who, once they begin to come round, do it with a bang.”

“If she’s awake, I’d like to,” the Head agreed. “I suppose your ’flu patients are still heavily quarantined?”

“You suppose right. I’m not risking any further infection if it can be avoided. Mercifully, it doesn’t seem to have gone any further. The last was Carmela Walther on Sunday. We’ve had no more cases since then and we’re getting much too near the end of term for us to run any risks.”

The Head fully concurred with this. She went with Nurse into the little single-bedded ward where Janet was lying, still very white and thin but with that indefinable look about her that tells experienced people that the patient is going ahead by strides and likely to continue. Nurse felt her pulse and nodded.

“Much better every time I come to you. If you go on at this rate we shall have you out of bed next week for an hour or so. Now here’s Miss Annersley to visit you, so Adrienne must wait her turn till the afternoon. I’ll just repack those pillows behind you and leave you for a chat.”

She piled up the pillows so that Janet was sitting up, made sure that the dressings on the burns were all right and then left the Head in charge while she went to attend to her ’flu patients of whom Audrey Everett was sufficiently recovered to want to get up, though the other four were still languid and Carmela still took no interest in anything.

Miss Annersley smiled at her pupil as she sat down by the bed. “Well, Janet, you look really better today and Nurse tells me that the burns are beginning to heal nicely. And best of all, your mother will be here before many more hours are up. That’s something to look forward to, too. Nurse says Adrienne will visit you this afternoon as well, so you’ll have something to pass the time away. No chance of being bored now!” She laughed her sweet, mellow laugh.

Janet suddenly made up her mind. During the long days when she had lain unable to do anything but lie there, she had gone over the term in her own mind, beginning with the fire and going backwards over everything. Some of her memories were far from pleasant. No one likes to feel ashamed of herself and as she remembered some of the incidents in which she had played her part she did feel deeply ashamed. What had possessed her to make such a pig of herself? Why should she have tried to influence other girls to think Adrienne a cheat and dishonest in her work? That they had not done so was no thanks to her. How ready she had been to say unkind, hurtful things both to and at the French girl! And what had been at the bottom of it all? Nothing but her own selfish wish to be the unrivalled top of the form.

All that morning when she was awake Janet’s conscience had been wide awake and getting busily to work. The friendly voice of the Head put the finishing touch. She heaved herself still higher against her pillows, regardless of Miss Annersley’s exclamation of protest, and caught at the Head’s hand with her own good one.

“Oh, Miss Annersley, don’t speak so decently to me!” she cried. “I—I don’t deserve it! I’ve been such an utter beast to Adrienne! If you only knew!”

The Head gave her a quick glance. She saw that the girl, still weak from her illness, was on the verge of a storm of sobs and must be checked at once if possible. She applied the check promptly.

“My dear girl, I did know, of course.”

It stopped the tears. Janet stared at her amazedly. “You knew! But—but you did nothing about it. You didn’t stop me.”

“No. What good would it have done if I had interfered? Would you have felt any more kindly towards Adrienne?”

Janet’s whiteness vanished under the blush that flooded her face. “No-o,” she admitted. “I—I should have hated her all the more.”

“Exactly. It is so much better if you can see things like that for yourself—and stop them yourself. If your unkindness had affected Adrienne badly or if you had been able to influence the other girls and turn them against her, I should have had to interfere, of course. As it is, it hasn’t been necessary.”

She paused there and looked thoughtfully at Janet. Then she said, “Luckily for everyone, Adrienne has chosen for friends girls of decided character who do their thinking for themselves. She also thinks for herself. She did the best thing she could—ignored your behaviour. Above all, she never let it affect either her work or her friendships. And that must have taken some doing.”

Janet leaned back against her pillow. “I’m glad you didn’t have to butt in,” she said reflectively. “I’d have had to pull up, of course, but I should have been raging inside me. I—we don’t like older people barging in on us.” She spoke for her own generation there and Miss Annersley knew it.

“Yes; I think that is true,” she assented. “You’re at the age which bitterly resents anything in the nature of restraint or criticism. As someone once told me at the same age, ‘You’re neither fish, flesh, fowl nor good red herring. Neither child nor adult but something in between, and the trouble is you don’t know what to make of yourself.’—My dear girl, don’t stare at me like that or your eyes will drop out! Did you think I came through the same age without suffering very much from the same troubles? Don’t you believe it. We all have to go through it. Some of us have it worse than others, but I’ve never known anyone who missed it entirely.”

“But—what can you do about it?” Janet demanded.

“It’s an enigma you’ll have to solve for yourself, my dear. We can’t live your lives for you or make you wise from our experiences. You’ve got to build on your own and the most we can do is to try to show you the best way to build. Oh, I know that to a certain extent we can prevent you from going wrong; but if it’s going to fill you with resentment it’s not too good.”

“Than what can you do?”

“Begin with the baby, my dear. You can’t afford to neglect even the first weeks of a baby’s life. I’ve seen that with Mrs Maynard. From the very first her children have learnt certain things—obedience among them. The child reaches girlhood—or boyhood—with obedience engrained in its character. By degrees it becomes possible to drop the ‘you must’ attitude. Then one ought to see that any order is reasonable. If a child can see that, so much the better. If not then try to take time to give your reasons for it. Most of us are reasonable folk, Janet, if we’re given the chance. So if you start with all that sort of thing with a baby, certain qualities belong to one’s character and, unless one is a hopeless jellyfish, they won’t give way, even under severe strain. Do you understand?”

Janet nodded. “I think so. But Miss Annersley can you tell me why I’ve felt so ghastly mean when Adrienne was top with me? She didn’t beat me and I think I shouldn’t have resented it so much if she had. It was having her level with me that I minded so much.” She flushed again as she added ashamedly, “You mayn’t believe it but that last form list I could almost have killed her when our names were read out together. Now why?”

“Think it out for yourself,” the Head suggested. “You say yourself that you don’t want me or anyone else to butt in, as you say, on you. You’d rather do your thinking for yourself and I’d rather you did. It’s the only way. Be as honest about it as you can. I’ll say one thing more, Janet. I think you’ll find when you get back into school—not till next term, I’m afraid—that that feeling has gone. As long as you kept it bottled up inside you it couldn’t go. Even if you’d discussed it with sympathetic friends, I doubt if it would have gone. But you did know, I think, that I would take sides with neither of you. You told me honestly and I’ve told you as honestly as I can just what I think. Now it’s in your hands. You’re fifteen—growing up rapidly. Make up your mind what kind of woman you want to be. That’s all. And now we’ve talked quite long enough. You’re looking tired and it’s nearly time for Mittagessen. I’ll move your pillows and you can rest until your tray comes. Don’t forget that your mother is due before many hours are up and you want to be as fresh as possible to meet her.”

Janet nodded. “It’ll be lovely to have Mum with me, even if it’s only for a few days. I know she can’t stay longer than that when they’ve just moved. But the holidays are only three weeks away now and there’ll be all the time with her and Daddy then.” She suddenly stopped short. Then she went on with a complete change of subject. “Miss Annersley, thanks a lot for—for saying all that to me—about bringing children up, I mean. I think I know what you mean about that. And—and I’ll do my best not to be so piggish about anyone again. I can’t think what got into me, but I will try not to let it happen again.”

“And remember, Janet,” the Head’s beautiful voice deepened, “no one has to try alone. Help is yours for the asking. Don’t forget to ask.” She bent to kiss the girl. “For your comfort I’ll tell you that you’ve been brave enough to tell me the worst. You’ll find, I think, that nothing will be quite so hard after that. Now I must go and you must rest. I’ll try to come in this evening if it’s only for a minute or two. Goodbye for the present.”

She left the room and Janet found that Nurse was waiting to remove the extra pillows and lower her for a rest before Mittagessen. Janet snuggled down comfortably when she left the room. She was very tired, for that talk had taken it out of her; but at least her conscience was relieved and she could rest with an easy mind. There was only the interview with Adrienne left and somehow she knew that Adrienne would make it easy for her. Her mother would be with her very soon after that.

“And I think—everything is going to be—all right,” Janet thought drowsily as she yawned.

Everything was all right. When Janet woke up from a refreshing nap, she found an appetising meal awaiting her, and later on, Adrienne appeared. Janet had prepared a beautiful speech in which she apologised to Adrienne for everything and begged her forgiveness. It was such a beautiful speech it was really almost a pity it never was spoken. The truth is that when Janet saw Adrienne for the first time with short curls instead of a long pigtail, she forgot everything else and cried out.

“Adrienne! Gosh, what a difference your hair makes to you! But aren’t you lucky to have curls! My hair was cropped anyhow, so I haven’t even got curls out of it and the scars are going to be horrid when the bandages come off.”

“But my scars are very ugly, also,” Adrienne said seriously. “And for the hair, I cannot tell you yet, Janet, but I think a wonderful thing is going to happen because it has had to be cut. But you shall hear soon. Oh, and a parcel has come by airmail from Sydney with an enormous piece of Ailie’s sister’s wedding cake for us—just Ailie’s friends, you know. And there is a box with silver bells and sprays of silver leaves to share among us. And Janice and Judy have decided that you are to have a bell because you have been so badly hurt in the fire.”

So the speech was never spoken and no one apologised to anyone. But thereafter Adrienne and Janet became friends in a mild way. And that, as Janice remarked, was something no one would ever have thought could happen. Still, you never know what weird things may come out of a wedding!

After all the excitement of half-term and the weeks immediately following, the remaining fortnight of the Easter term was very calm—little things like Gentian dormitory having a pillow-fight which ended with two pillows being heaved out of the window, one pillow-case badly torn and a treasured vase belonging to Ghislaine Touvet being reduced to flinders, being nothing to worry about, as Matron Henschell remarked to Matey.

“If that’s what you think, Barbara,” returned Matey severely, “I can’t say much for your improvement with age. Pillow-fights are more or less forbidden and well they know it! Well, Arda Peik has to spend her free time mending that pillow-case and Ghislaine has lost her vase and serve her right. She began it.”

Barbara Henschell chuckled. “And glad I am to hear it. It’s a sure sign that Ghislaine is improving in health whatever you may find to say about me.”

The next flurry was caused by Matey herself and passed into the school’s annals. It was the greater cause of joy to everyone in that Matey was seldom or never caught napping. On this occasion, however, it was partly her own fault, as she owned later. If she had not put off a locks inspection on the top corridor, the lock of staff bathroom would not have slipped and Matey would not have been locked into the bathroom for two solid hours, unable to make anyone else hear her calling and banging on the door. It was Miss Wilmot who came to the rescue in the end, and even Matey’s stern authority over anyone who had passed through her hands in early days could not prevent that young woman from chortling loudly and, later, broadcasting the affair.

Matey, busy till a late hour—midnight, to be exact—had decided that a hot bath would do her good and help her to sleep. All the rest of the staff had gone to bed an hour before, so when, having had a good hot soak, dried herself in leisurely style, collected her belongings and made sure that she was leaving the bathroom in the immaculate condition she demanded of every one else, she made the discovery that the spring of the lock must have broken and she was unable to get out, she was in a quandary. She had no desire to make so much noise that the girls would hear. Bad enough if her confrères had to be brought into it. Matey was under no delusions about them—she knew how they would love the story. She began by calling. When ten minutes had passed and no one came, she started to knock at the door.

From tapping lightly, she quickly reached the stage of furious banging without any result. Matey was certain that she had been there at least an hour, calling and banging. She had left her watch on her table so had no means of telling the time. Her fists were sore with thumping and she was hoarse with calling. Pulling her dressing-gown round her, she sat down on the bathroom stool and took stock of the situation.

It looked as if she must stay where she was until the morning—unless anyone wanted her during the night—and even then she couldn’t be sure that they would hunt for her unless it was urgent. The most likely thing would be that they would take it for granted that she had been called to someone else, and if a matron was really needed, the dormitory prefect would scuttle off to one of the others. The school was divided into houses, but apart from the kindergarten house, they were all under the same roof. There would be more chance of her being heard then, of course, but, on the whole, Matey thought she would prefer to spend the night in the bathroom rather than have one of the girls upset.

By this time, she was growing stiff with sitting on the cork-seated stool, which was hard. What was more, as the night hours crept on it was growing colder and even her warm dressing-gown and slippers pulled tightly round her were not a great deal of help. Her towels were damp though she had hung them over the radiator when she first discovered her awful situation.

Matey drew a long breath. Never mind if she did wake the girls! Somehow she must get out of this. It would do no one any good if she got a chill as a result of the business. She shouted at the full pitch of her lungs and hammered on the bathroom door as hard as she could. Oh, if only she had had her house shoes with her! Felt bedroom slippers were no good for making a noise. Or if she had followed the example of some of the mistresses and had a flesh-brush instead of her loofah!

Tired out with her exertions, Matey finally subsided on the stool and wished with all her might that she had not put off that inspection.

“And I’m so tired I can’t even think straight!” she said to herself. “Oh, how stiff I am! If only there was something I could bang with! But there isn’t!” Then, as a sudden thought came into her head, she bounded off the stool and turned to survey it with a gleam in her eyes. Why had she not thought of it sooner? Retying the cord of her dressing-gown which had been loosened by all her efforts, Matey picked up the stool by the seat and proceeded to bang the legs against the recalcitrant door in a way that threatened to break either the legs or the door-panel. Matey was small but she was wiry. What was more, she was in a thorough-paced rage by this time. She would get out of that awful place by hook or by crook, and she inflicted appalling damage on the paintwork with her weapon.

Luckily for all concerned, Nancy Wilmot was sleeping restlessly. A stiff breeze getting up made her window rattle and shortly after Matey had started with the stool, she half-roused. She might have imagined muzzily that it was a dream, turned over and gone to sleep again, but just then Matey uttered a yell that nearly burst a blood-vessel and dispelled the sleep-mists in Nancy Wilmot’s brain. She sat up in bed with a bang and listened with all her ears. The next minute she was scrambling out, switching on her table-lamp and fishing for her slippers. Someone was clearly where she ought not to be at that time of night and the sooner the matter was investigated the better. Nancy pulled on her dressing-gown, picked up her torch and opened the door. A wail that a banshee could not have bettered—Matey was almost at her last gasp by this time!—greeted her and she scuttled along the corridor to the short one where the staff bathrooms were in short order.

Her idea had been that some Middle had been playing pranks and was hoist with her own petard. Miss Wilmot remembered how Jack Lambert had given Miss Burnett an unexpected bubble bath during the former young person’s first term at the school. Jack had learnt since then not to play tricks on the staff bathrooms which were strictly out-of-bounds to the girls; but there were other people who were almost as great demons as Jack had been.

“I caught Peggy that time,” thought Nancy Wilmot with a giggle. “Whom have I got this time, I wonder?”

She was opening the bathroom doors. The first three turned easily enough but when she reached the door of Number 4 it was a different story. The knob refused to turn.

“Who is in there?” Miss Wilmot demanded severely.

She got a shock when Matey responded, her usually plangent tones muted, “It’s me! Is that you, Nancy? It’s no use your twisting at that handle like that. The lock’s gone and you’ll only pull the knob off. I’m sorry, but I think you’ll have to get Gaudenz—unless you can unscrew the thing yourself. There’s a screw-driver in the top righthand drawer of my desk if you can do it.”

“Can do,” Nancy responded cheerfully. “Or if I can’t,” she added wickedly, before she went flying noiselessly along the outer corridor to Matey’s room, “I expect Jack Lambert can. She’s a dab with tools!” Which was where she fled and Matey was left to inveigh against the idea to the empty air.

Mercifully, there was no need to call either Jack or Gaudenz. Nancy was fairly handy with tools and after some minutes of intensive work, she got the lock off and released the prisoner who was so exhausted by this time that she merely said, “Thank you, Nancy!” and allowed that young woman to take her to her room and tuck her up in bed with a beaker of hot milk well-laced with brandy, as well as a couple of fresh hot-water bottles. The heater had been burning throughout the whole affair so the room was thoroughly warm and Miss Wilmot’s nostrum together with the warm bed brought to an end the incipient shivers which Matey had felt during the last twenty minutes or so of her incarceration. In fact, contrary to all expectation, apart from being very tired next day, Matey suffered no ill-effects. But not all her arguments and pleading could stop Nancy from insisting on retailing the story to an enthralled staff next evening. It was agreed that the girls had better not hear it—or not at present. But Joey Maynard heard it from Rosalie Dene and wrote it in full to the delighted Sœur Cécile, as well as her sister in Australia, and Sybil and Josette Russell got hold of it, with the result that Ailie finally had it and told the rest. So it was broadcast everywhere in the school by the end of the first week of the next term. However, quite a number of other happenings helped to play it down. But Matey never again neglected locks inspection. She said once of that experience was enough!

Meanwhile, Joey Maynard had written to her elder brother, Dick Bettany, to give him the full story of Adrienne.

“Uncle Ted was really your pal,” she went on when she had given him the account. “Rack your brains and let me have every blessed thing you can remember about him. As a matter of fact, I’m very much afraid the relationship may lie on his wife’s side. I remember that he told Madge that Robin was exactly like her mother. In that case, I don’t know how we’re to get hold of any more proofs than we already have. It’s proof enough to my mind, but Adrienne is the kind of girl who would always have a lurking doubt as to whether it could be really true unless we could produce something more than looks and expressions and little tricks of movement. So you set to work, my lad, and see what you can dig out. Ask Mollie if you ever told her anything in those early days. She might remember oddments you forgot. Anyhow, we must do what we can. If it’s on the Humphries side, O.K. If it’s on the other—I don’t believe I ever knew what Robin’s mother’s maiden name was, though I know her Christian name was Marya—I’m afraid we’ll have had it. I wonder if Robin knows it—her mother’s maiden name, I mean. After all, she was thirteen when Uncle Ted was killed in that climbing accident.^[10] He might have told her. I know he used to talk to her about her mother because she told me scraps here and there. I’ll send her an airmail, anyhow, and ask her what she remembers. I’ve already written to tell her what we all think and had a rapturous reply back. I’ve nearly made up my mind that if we can manage it we must take a trip to Canada—or some of us must anyhow—with Adrienne so that she and Robin can meet again. I don’t suppose there’s any chance of her coming back to Europe so soon if at all.”

Dick Bettany obliged and his letter reached his younger sister three days before the school broke up for the Easter holidays. He had dived into a big wooden case which had remained almost untouched since the Bettanys had left India where all their children had been born except Daphne, the after-thought. The result of his burrowings brought proof positive that Adrienne was indeed a relation of Sœur Cécile’s, though it was no more than second cousinship.

“Ted told me that his mother’s brother was by way of being an artist. His father wanted him to go into the family business and he refused. The old man cut up rough and the boy cleared out. What became of him, they never knew until years later when Ted himself was at Oxford, someone sent a death notice to the firm’s offices—they were solicitors somewhere in the north—Manchester, I believe—of Charles Desmoines. It was stuck on a sheet of paper on which was written in a foreign hand, ‘Charles Corbett, son of Ralph and Hilda Corbett’. Ted said his uncle must have dropped the Corbett and used only his two Christian names. I’d forgotten about it but I remember him telling me in a letter about the notice and when term began again, he gave me the details. I have his letter—found it in a case under a lot of rubbish that I’ve been meaning to clear out but never got round to. However, there’s your proof. If this girl’s father was the son of the so-called ‘Charles Desmoines’ then he was first cousin to Ted Humphries and Robin and Adrienne are second cousins or thereabouts. It’s near enough, anyhow. I’m holding on to the letter until I hear from you again. Robin ought to see it, but as she has no personal possessions, being a nun, I imagine it had better go to Adrienne in the end. I suppose she doesn’t propose to become a nun as well? Tell her from me that one in the family is enough when there are only two of them, anyhow.

“But you know, Jo, when one thinks it over, the coincidence of Robin’s being the one sent to rescue that child is stunning. In a novel it would be set aside as stretching the lady’s long arm. But I’ve noticed that over and over again coincidence plays a big part in real life—not merely in fiction.

“Mollie says I’m to tell you to tell Adrienne that we want to see her. You lot had better come over for a few weeks in the summer. In fact, my chicken, you’ll have to. Bride’s wedding is to take place in early September. You’ve had to miss young Sybil’s—you must be present at Bride’s. She insists on having all her girl-cousins for bridesmaids—except Sybil, of course. In fact, Sybs will have to take a back seat as a guest because our own Peggy will be here in August, complete with baby son and, we hope, small sister expected in June. Peggy, therefore, is booked for matron of honour. It’s a mercy Bride’s future husband has only brothers and boy-cousins, or it would be a cavalcade Bride would be having to follow her up the aisle!”

Chuckling over the end of the letter, Joey made her way by the road, since the rain was coming down in sheets, to the school where she and the Head went into a huddle. The result was that it was decided to send for Adrienne and tell her at once. She was pretty well recovered now, though the scars still showed brilliant scarlet and she was still thin and wanting colour. But she had been allowed to return to school on her promise not to overwork or try to make up in the few days of term left to them for all she had lost since the accident.

She came into the study in her usual quiet manner. Then her eyes fell on Joey and that lady’s excited face and the sheets of paper she held told the girl that the longed-for proof had come to hand. A warm pink flush tinged her pale cheeks and her eyes glowed. Joey sprang up and took the girl into her arms.

“Yes; we know now, Adrienne, and it’s quite, quite sure. You and Robin are second cousins. Your fathers were first cousins and you both had the same grandfather. So that makes you one of our family. So whatever else happens you need never feel lonely again. You’ve got Jack and me, Dick and his Mollie, and Madge and Jem, and all our three families as relations of one kind or another—that makes—” Jo paused to reckon up—“thirty-two relations of one kind or another! No one could be lonely with thirty-two—what’s that, Rosalie?” For Rosalie Dene, the Head’s secretary who had come in to hear the news had said something under her breath.

“I only said you can’t count. Thirty-two of you lot and Robin on her own makes thirty-three,” Rosalie said with a grin. “She’s quite right, Adrienne. Loneliness is certainly something that doesn’t seem likely to come your way for a good many years to come if ever.”

“Unless, of course,” Joey put in, grinning wickedly, “the lot of us are wiped out by an A-bomb, or an earthquake, or shipwreck or something of that nature. However, we can hope that such a holocaust isn’t likely to take place.”

Adrienne looked at her, bewilderment in her face. The Head saw it and proceeded to check any further excursions on Jo’s part. “When you have quite finished talking nonsense, Joey, I should like to say something to Adrienne.” Joey stopped short and Miss Annersley held out her hand to her pupil. “Adrienne, I am hoping to go to Canada in Easter week to visit some old friends and to attend to one or two business matters. Would you like to come with me and see your Sœur Cécile—our Robin, again, now that you know that you are truly related? You would? Good! Then, Joey, I know she’s booked to you for Easter, but on the Wednesday, I shall be going to Paris and taking the plane from there to Toronto and Adrienne shall go with me. So please see that she is ready. It will be only a short visit, dear, because both you and I must be back here for the beginning of next term; but it will give you a chance to get to know your cousin as your cousin. At present, you only know her as Sœur Cécile.”

Tears came into Adrienne’s eyes but she blinked them back determinedly. “Oh that will be fabulous!” she exclaimed. Then she looked round the three faces all smiling at her. “A year ago everything seemed so terrible and so dark. But now that has all gone and it is all sunshine. Thank you all so very much. And oh, how glad I am that I have come to the Chalet School where such wonderful things can happen and such tidings of joy can come true!”

[End of Adrienne and the Chalet School, by Elinor Mary Brent-Dyer]