It's the limit " exploded Laura. "An atrocious shame " agreed Janet. "Gives me nerve shock " mourned Ethelberga gloomily. "You see," continued Laura, popping the tray of her box on to the floor and sitting down on her bed, so as the better to address her audience-"you see, it's been plumped upon us without any warning. Miss Thompson must have arranged it long ago, but she never let out so much as a teeny-weeny hint. If I'd known before I came back I'd have asked Father to give a term's notice and let me leave at Christmas. Crystal clear, I would."

"Say, is it fate that has flung us together, We who from life's varied pathways thus meet?" IT was a broiling day at the end of July, and the railway station at Tiverton Junction was crowded with passengers. Porters wheeling great truckfuls of luggage strove to force a way along the thronged platform, anxious mothers held restless children firmly by the hand, harassed fathers sought to pack their families into already overflowing compartments, excited cyclists were endeavouring to disentangle their machines from among the piles of boxes and portmanteaus, a circus and a theatrical company were...

"Here they are " "Not really " "It is, I tell you " "Jubilate You're right, old sport Scooterons-nous this very sec Quick Hurry Stir your old bones, can't you?" The two girls, who had been standing in the ruined watch-tower that spanned the gateway, tore down the broken corkscrew staircase at a speed calculated to imperil their necks seriously, and reached the bottom at the identical moment that a motor char-a-banc rounded the corner and drew up in front of the entrance. Sixteen jolly faces were grinning under sixteen school hats, and at least a dozen excited voices were pouring forth a...

I'm afraid it has come to that, Philippa I believe I have kept you here too long already. You're ten years old now, growing a tall girl, and not learning half the things you ought to. I feel there's something wrong about you, but I don't know quite how to set it right. After all, I suppose a man can't expect to bring up a girl entirely by himself." My father looked me up and down with a glance of despair which would have been comical if it had not seemed at the same time somewhat pathetic.

"The fault I find with the Kingfield High School," proclaimed Kathleen Wilcox, squatting on the top of a boot locker, and putting on a new pair of patent leather house shoes with a deliberate eye to their effect upon her surrounding friends and foes, "the fault I find-yes, I do find fault and I shall, Lesbia Ferrars, though you are the oldest pupil and take the school under your wing You needn't make round eyes at me like that I don't care twopence for your glares Well, as I was saying-and I won't be interrupted-the fault I find with the Kingfield High School is that it's not nearly...

"Only one day more," cried Patty Hirst, surveying with deep interest the large new box which stood by the side of the chest of drawers in her bedroom; "just one day How dreadfully quickly the time has come I feel quite queer when I think about it. I can scarcely believe that before the end of the week both I and my luggage will be a whole hundred miles away, and settled at Morton Priory. I do wonder how I shall like it?"

It was exactly ten days before the opening of the autumn term at The Gables. The September sunshine, flooding through the window of the Principal's study, lighted up the bowl of carnations upon the writing-table, and, flashed back from the Chippendale mirror on the wall, caught the book-case with the morocco-bound editions of the poets, showed up the etching of "Dante's Dream" over the mantelpiece, and glowed on Miss Kingsley's ripply brown hair, turning all the silver threads in it to gold. Miss Kingsley, rested and refreshed after the long summer holiday, a touch of pink in her cheeks and a...

It was precisely five minutes past eleven on the first day of the autumn term, and Avondale College, which for seven whole weeks had been lonely and deserted, and given over to the tender mercies of paperhangers, painters, and charwomen, once more presented its wonted aspect of life and bustle.

'Good sooth I know not be she wench or swain; Her face proclaims her one, her deeds the other ' 'Peggy Peggy where are you? Peggy Aunt Helen wants you Oh, Peggy, do be quick Wherever are you hiding?' Getting no response to her calls, the speaker, a pretty fair-haired girl of fifteen, flung her brown holland cooking-apron over her head, and ran out across the farmyard into the lightly-falling rain. She peeped into the cart-shed, where the hens were scratching about among the loose straw.

"If I'd known " groaned Winifred Cranston, otherwise Wendy, with a note of utter tragedy in her usually cheerful voice. "If I'd only known D'you think I'd have come trotting back here with my baggage? Not a bit of it Nothing in this wide world should have dragged me. I'd have turned up my hair-yes, it's quite long enough to turn up, Jess Paget, so you needn't look at it so scornfully; it's as nice as yours, and nicer Well, I tell you I'd have turned up my hair, and run away and joined the 'Waacs' or the 'Wrens', or have driven a motor wagon or conducted a tramcar, or scrubbed floors at a...