"Do you mean that Winona would prefer to help with the juniors?"

"She'd be torn in pieces rather than let me say so, but she's just crazy over hockey. I hope I haven't made any mischief! Win doesn't know I've come."

"All right. I understand. I'll see what can be done in the matter," returned the General, opening her books as a sign of dismissal.

Garnet was not at all sure whether her mission had succeeded or the reverse, but the next day Margaret sent for Winona.

"I hear Kirsty wants you for a hockey coach. Just at present I think games are of more importance in the school than the library, so please report yourself to her, and say I've taken your name off my list. You've done very well here, but I'm going to lend you to Kirsty for a while."

Winona was so astounded she hardly knew whether to stammer out apologies, gratitude, or regrets, and was intensely relieved when the head girl cut her short kindly but firmly, and sent her away. She lost no time in seeking out the Games Captain.

"Very decent of Margaret," remarked Kirsty. "It's got me out of a hole, for I couldn't find anybody else with that special time free. You'll do your best I know?"

"Rather!" beamed Winona ecstatically.

Under her tuition the children's play improved fast. Kirsty said little—she was not given to over-praising people—but Winona felt she noticed and approved.

Among the season's fixtures perhaps the most important was the match with the Seaton Ladies' Hockey Club that was to come off on March 7th. Their opponents possessed a fair reputation in the city, so it would behove the school to "play up for all they were worth," as Kirsty expressed it. It would be a glorious opportunity of showing their capabilities to the world at large, and demonstrating that they meant to take their due place in local athletics.

Three days before the event, Kirsty appeared in the morning with the air of a tragedy queen.

"What's the matter?" queried Patricia. "You've a face as long as a fiddle!"

"Matter enough! Barbara Jennings is laid up with influenza! What'll become of the match I don't know. It makes me feel rocky. Where's Margaret? I want to confab. Did you ever hear of such grizzly luck in your life?"

At five minutes past eleven, when Winona was eating her lunch in the gymnasium, Kirsty tapped her on the shoulder.

"I've something to tell you, Winona Woodward. You're to play for the School on Saturday instead of Barbara."

Winona swallowed a piece of biscuit with foolhardy haste. She could scarcely believe the news, so great was its magnitude. To be asked to fill a vacant place in the team was beyond her wildest dreams.

"Thanks most immensely!" she stammered, with her eyes shining like stars.

Through the next few days Winona simply lived for Saturday. To be able to represent the School! The glorious thought was never for a moment absent from her mind. She even ventured to tell Aunt Harriet the honor that had been thrust upon her, and was astonished at the interest with which her information was received.

On the Saturday afternoon the High School turned up almost in full force to view the match; juniors were keen as seniors, and the children whom Winona had coached were wild with excitement. The field was packed with spectators, for the Ladies' Club had brought many friends. It was even rumored that a reporter from the Seaton Weekly Graphic was present. The High School team in navy blue gymnasium costumes, bare heads and close-plaited pigtails, looked neat and trim and very business-like. "A much fitter set than we showed last year!" murmured Margaret with satisfaction. All eyes were riveted on the field as the two opponents stood out to "bully" and the sticks first clashed together. Winona, her face aglow with excitement, waited a chance to run. A little later her opportunity came: she dashed into the masses of the opponents' force, and with one magnificent stroke swept the ball well onward towards the goal.

"Oh! how precious!" shouted the girls.

Nobody had imagined Winona capable of such a feat. She at once became the focus of all eyes. It had not occurred to the High School that there was a real possibility of their winning the match. They had expected to make a gallant fight and be defeated, retiring with all the honors of war. Perhaps the Ladies' Club team, who had come to the field secure of victory, began to feel pangs of uneasiness under their white jerseys. The situation was supreme. The score had become even. Could the School possibly do it? That was the question. All looked to Winona for the answer. She was playing like one inspired. She had not realized her own capacities before: the wild excitement of the moment seemed to lend wings to her feet and strength and skill to her arm. One heroic, never-to-be-forgotten stroke, and the ball was spinning between the posts. It was a magnificent finish. Frantic applause rose up from the spectators. The High School cheered its champions in a glorious roar of victory. The Ladies' Club team were magnanimous enough to offer congratulations, and their captain shook hands with Winona.

"Glad to see how your standard's gone up!" she remarked to Kirsty aside. "That half-back of yours is worth her salt!"

Kirsty was literally purring with satisfaction. Last year the High School had been badly beaten in more than half its matches. This was indeed a new page in its records.

On Monday morning Winona received a message summoning her to the prefects' room. She found Margaret, Kirsty, and the other school officers assembled there.

"Winona Woodward," said the head girl, "we have decided to present you with the School Service Badge, in recognition of your play on Saturday. It is felt that you really secured the match, and as this is our first great victory we consider you deserve to have it recorded in your favor. Your name has been entered in the book. Come here!"

Winona turned crimson as Margaret pinned the daisy badge on to her blouse.

"I—I've been only too proud to do what I can!" she blurted out. "Thanks most awfully!"



CHAPTER X

A Scare

The Spring Term came to a close with a very fair number of hockey successes to be placed to the credit of the Seaton High School. Compared with last year's record it was indeed a great improvement, and Kirsty felt that though they had not yet established a games reputation, they at any rate showed good promise of future achievements. She hoped to do much in the cricket and tennis season, though she certainly acknowledged there was much to be done. The cricket so far had been such a half-hearted business that she doubted the advisability of making any fixtures.

"I believe we'd just better train up for all we're worth," she said at the committee meeting. "It'll take ages to lick an eleven into shape. What we want is to get a cricket atmosphere into the school. You can't develop these things all in a few weeks. You've got to catch your kids young and teach them, before you get a school with a reputation. I feel with all the games that we're simply building foundations at present at the Seaton High. This term especially is spade-work. I'll do all I can to get things going, but it will be the Games Captain who comes after me who'll reap the reward."

"Can't you stay on another year?" suggested Patricia.

"Wish I could for some things, but it's impossible. No, I'll do my bit this term, and then hand over the job to my successor. As I said before, what we want now is a good start."

Kirsty was a capital organizer. She soon recognized a girl's capacities, and she had a knack of inspiring enthusiasm even in apparent slackers. She worked thoroughly hard herself, and insisted that everybody else did the same. Her motto for the term was the athletic education of the rank and file. It was really very self-sacrificing of her, for she might have gained far more credit by concentrating her energies on a few, but for the ultimate good of the school it was undoubtedly far and away the best policy to pursue. The training of a number of recruits may not be as interesting as the polishing up of champions, but in time recruits become veterans, and a school in which the standard of the ordinary play is very high has a better general chance than one that depends on an occasional solitary star. So even the little girls were strictly supervised in their practices, and both cricket and tennis showed healthy development.

The Governors and the head mistress were anxious that the games department should prosper, and gave every encouragement. There were a larger number of tennis courts provided than fall to the share of most schools, and each form had its allotted times for play. Athletics were indeed compulsory, every girl being required to take her due part, unless she were excused by a medical certificate.

Winona worked with the utmost enthusiasm. As a Fifth Form girl she had, of course, to be rather humble towards the Sixth, but she felt that Kirsty approved of her. It was never Kirsty's way to praise, and she could be scathing in her remarks sometimes, but Winona did not mind criticism from her captain, and acted so well on all the advice given that she was making rapid strides. In pursuance of Kirsty's all-round training policy, she was not allowed to specialize in either tennis or cricket this summer, but to give equal energy to both. So she practiced bowling under Hester King's careful supervision, and played exciting sets while Clarice Nixon stood by to watch and score.

The games appealed to Winona more than any other part of the school curriculum. She did fairly well now in her Form work, but she knew she could never be clever like Garnet, and that it was extremely unlikely that she would win laurels on her books. She had promised Miss Bishop that she would try to do credit to the school in return for her scholarship, and to help to raise its athletic reputation seemed her most feasible method of success.

"I could never get a College Scholarship, however I tried," she thought, "but—I won't say it's probable, but it's just possible that I might do something some day in the way of winning matches. Miss Bishop would be pleased at that!"

The early summer was delightful at Seaton. The park opposite the school was full of tulips and hyacinths, and the long avenue of trees in the Abbey Close had burst into tender green foliage. Winona studied her home lessons sitting by her open bedroom window with a leafy bower outside, and an accompaniment of jackdaws cawing in the old towers of the Minster. She loved this window and the prospect from it. There was a romantic, old-world flavor about the gray pile opposite, its carvings and cloisters and chiming bells seemed so peaceful and so far removed from modern trouble. Sometimes indeed the whirr of a biplane would disturb the quiet as an airman flittered like a great dragon-fly over the city, reminding her that medieval times were past; while a bugle call from the neighboring barracks emphasized the fact that the world was at war. Not that Winona was likely to forget that! Every day in school the Peace Bell prayer was read at noon, and she might see regiments of recruits marching up or down the High Street on their way to their training grounds. Nearly every girl in V.a. had some relation at the front, and though Winona could not boast of anybody nearer than a third cousin serving "somewhere in France," she looked for news as eagerly as the rest.

"It must be glorious to get letters from the trenches," she said half wistfully one day to Beatrice Howell, who was exulting over a pencil scrawl written by her brother in a dug-out. "I half wish——"

"No, you don't!" snapped Beatrice. "It's a nightmare to have them in the firing line! Be thankful your brother's still safe at school."

On the subject of Percy, Winona was far from easy. He had let fall one or two hints during the Easter holidays which confirmed her previous suspicion that he had got into a wrong set at Longworth College. He had written to her twice already this term, wanting to borrow money, and suggesting that, without mentioning his name, she should ask Miss Beach to lend it to her. With such a request, however, Winona had utterly refused to comply.

"Aunt Harriet has been so decent to us I can't begin to sponge on her," she wrote back. "Besides, she'd want to know what I wanted such a lot for, and then all the mischief would be out!"

Apparently Percy was offended, for his usual weekly letter did not appear. Winona only laughed, expecting he would soon get over his fit of sulks. She was utterly unprepared for the sequel. One day she received a note from him written on Y.M.C.A. paper and headed "Horminster." It ran thus:

"DEAR WIN,—I'd got into such an altogether grizzly hole that there was only one way out, and I've taken it. I am at present a member of His Majesty's Forces, and if you want to write to me address: Private P. D. Woodward, 17th Battalion, Royal Rytonshire Fusiliers, Horminster.

"Your affectionate brother,

"PERCY."

"P.S.—You can tell the mater if you like."

Winona, in a great state of excitement, showed the note to Aunt Harriet, who telegraphed the information to Mrs. Woodward. The latter had just heard from Percy's housemaster of his disappearance, and was greatly relieved to have news of his whereabouts. The runaway was below military age, and his mother's first impulse was to apply for his immediate discharge. But from this course her best friends dissuaded her. The headmaster of Longworth College and Mr. Joynson, her trustee, were unanimous in counseling her to leave the boy alone, and Aunt Harriet cordially agreed with them.

"Let the lad serve his country!" she wrote to her niece. "He is tall for his age, and if the Military Authorities have accepted him, well and good. It seems to me the one thing in the world that is likely to steady him and give him that sense of responsibility that hitherto he has so signally lacked. You will make the mistake of your life if you keep him back now."

It seemed funny to Winona to imagine Percy, so young and boyish, actually in His Majesty's uniform. He had not yet got his khaki, but he promised to have a photo taken as soon as ever he was in military garb, and she looked forward to showing the portrait of her soldier brother to the girls in her Form. She began a pair of socks for him at once. I regret to say that Winona's patriotic knitting had languished very much during the last two terms, but this personal stimulus revived her ardor. She even took her sock to the tennis court, and, emulating the example of Patricia Marshall and several other enthusiasts, got quite good pieces done between the sets. She would have taken it to cricket also, but Kirsty had sternly made a by-law prohibiting all knitting on the pitch since Ellinor Cooper, when supposed to be fielding, had surreptitiously taken her work from her pocket and missed the best catch of the afternoon, to her everlasting disgrace and the scorn of the indignant Games Captain.

Kirsty was keen at present upon each Form having its own Eleven, and had arranged some school matches as trials of skill. The first of these, Sixth v. Fifth, was fixed for the following Saturday afternoon. Winona, to her ecstatic and delirious delight, had been elected captain of the combined V.a. and V.b. Eleven, and she was looking forward to the contest as one of the events of her life. She was aware that on its success or failure might hang much of her future athletic career at school, and she was determined to show of what stuff she was made. She urged her team to make heroic efforts, and got all the practice in that was available. On the Thursday afternoon she gave everybody a final drilling. On Friday the pitch would be the property of the Lower School, so this was the last opportunity of play before the match.

"If any of you muff the ball or do anything stupid, I'll never forgive you!" she assured her Eleven. "The Sixth are A1 at fielding, so for goodness' sake don't disgrace our Form. Beware of Patricia's bowling. It looks simple, but it's the nastiest I know. I'd rather have Kirsty's any day, because at least you know what to expect from her, and you're on your guard. Don't try to be clever too soon; it's better not to score at all during the first over than to run any risks. Evelyn, you were a mascot to-day! I hope you'll play up equally well on Saturday. By the by, Joyce, I really can't compliment you on your innings. What were you thinking of to make that idiotic blind swipe?"

"I don't know!" returned Joyce dolefully. (She was sitting on the fence looking decidedly crestfallen.) "I'm afraid I'm rather rocky to-day, somehow."

"Got nerves? Girl alive! Do brace up!"

"No, it's not nerves. My head's been aching all the week, and I've a pain across my chest, and I keep shivering. I suppose I must have caught cold. It'll be a grizzly nuisance if I can't play on Saturday!"

"You must play!" urged Winona. "We've got to beat the Sixth or perish in the attempt! You go home at once, and get some hot tea, and go to bed afterwards if you don't feel better. You may stop in bed all to-morrow if it'll do you good!"

"Thank you, Grannie! Perhaps I will go home now. I really am feeling rather queer."

"She looks queer, too," said Bessie Kirk to Winona, as they stood watching Joyce's retreating figure. "I thought she was going to faint a while ago. It'll be a hideous nuisance if she has to be out of it."

"Our best bowler! It's unthinkable!" groaned Winona.

"It's hard luck, but I'm certain Joyce won't play on Saturday," said Mary Payne.

The team was feeling rather down at the prospect.

"We may throw up the sponge if Joyce is off!" mourned Olave Parry.

"Shut up, you bluebottle!" snapped Winona, decidedly out of temper. "Joyce may be absolutely well again by Saturday, and if she isn't Marjorie Kemp must take her place. Do be sporting! You'll never win if you make up your mind beforehand that you're going to lose!"

When Winona walked into V.a. on the following morning she looked anxiously in the direction of Joyce's desk, but the familiar check dress and amber pigtail were not to be seen. Little groups of girls were standing in clusters, talking in apparent consternation.

"Well! Have you heard the news?" asked Garnet, stepping forward to meet her friend.

"No. What's the damage? You're looking very down in the dumps!"

"Joyce Newton has developed small-pox!"

"Nonsense!" exploded Winona.

"It's perfectly true," said Garnet, with severe dignity in her voice. "One only wishes for Joyce's sake that it wasn't! The news has only just come. Helena Maitland knows about it. She lives next door, and saw the doctor's car at the Newtons' gate this morning."

"I told you Joyce looked queer yesterday!" said Bessie Kirk.

"Suppose we all catch it!" shuddered Freda Long.

"Don't! It's too horrible!"

There was a feeling of utter consternation among the girls as the bad news was discussed. They wondered what was going to happen.

"Miss Bishop is telephoning to the Medical Officer of Health," volunteered Olave Parry, who had been downstairs to seek fresh information.

Just then Miss Huntley came into the room, though it was not yet nine o'clock. She went at once to her desk and took the call over.

"What's going to happen about Joyce?" one or two of the girls ventured to ask her.

"I don't know yet. I expect we shall all be put into quarantine. Miss Bishop is making arrangements. In the meantime we will go on with our work."

It was wise of Miss Huntley to begin the English Language lesson, for though every one was of course very abstracted, it gave some ostensible occupation. Before the hour was over Miss Bishop sailed into the room. She looked pale and anxious, but spoke with her usual calm dignity.

"Girls," she announced, "you have heard of the very difficult situation in which the school is placed. I have rung up Dr. Barnes, the Medical Officer of Health, and he tells me that the whole of V.a. must be regarded as 'contact cases.' That means that as Joyce has been amongst you, it is possible for any of you to develop the disease. In order to avoid the spread of infection throughout the city, you will have to be most carefully kept apart. I have sent all the other girls home, and you will stay at the school during to-day. Dr. Barnes is coming this morning to re-vaccinate you, and this afternoon you are to be taken to the Camp at Dunheath, where you will stay until the period of quarantine is over. Go home? Most certainly not! No girl is to leave the school on any pretext whatever. I am communicating with your home people and requesting that they send you a few necessary things to take to the camp, but no personal interviews can be allowed. Dr. Barnes' orders are most emphatic. You need not be alarmed, for if you are all re-vaccinated it is highly improbable that you will be infected, and I think you will all enjoy yourselves at Dunheath."

When the Principal had gone the girls clustered round Miss Huntley to discuss the situation.

"Yes, of course I'm going with you," said the mistress. "I'm a contact case as much as anybody else! Miss Bishop tells me that Dr. Barnes will send a hospital nurse with us. It's a nuisance to be in quarantine, but it will be beautiful out in the country just now, and we'll manage to enjoy ourselves."

The girls took the matter in various fashions according to their respective temperaments. Some were nervous, while others regarded it as a joke. The latter rallied their more timorous companions with scant mercy.

"Oh, buck up, you sillies!" said Marjorie Kemp, to the tearful plaints of Agatha James and Irene Mills. "Vaccination doesn't hurt! It's nothing but a scratch. You might be going to have your arms cut off. For goodness' sake show some pluck! Suppose you were in the trenches? The Camp will be just topping. We'll have the time of our lives!"

"If we don't break out in spots!" wailed Irene.

"Well, wait till you do before you make a fuss. You're far more likely to catch a thing if you're afraid of it."

"Oh, I say!" said Winona, suddenly remembering Saturday's event. "The match to-morrow will be all off!"

"Hold me up! So it will! What a grizzly nuisance! Oh, the hard luck of it!"

"Well, it can't be helped! We must play the Sixth later on."

"Kirsty'll be as savage as we are!"

"Poor old Joyce, she's responsible for a good deal of damage!"

The rest of the day passed in an extraordinary fashion. V.a. had the whole of the school premises absolutely and entirely to itself. The Fourth Form room was turned into a temporary surgery, and Dr. Barnes installed himself there with tubes of vaccine and packets of new darning needles. Each girl in turn went first to Miss Bishop and had her arm thoroughly sterilized with boiled water and boracic lotion, and was then passed on to the medical officer for vaccination. The scratch with the needle really did not hurt, and the little operations were soon over. Sixteen maidens walking about waiting for their arms to dry before re-donning their blouses made a rather comical sight. The giggles that ensued raised the spirits of even Agatha and Irene.

"Glad it was done on our left arms! I expect we sha'n't be in much form for cricket after this, unless we play one-handed!" laughed Winona. "By the by, will there be any field we can practice on out at the camp?"

"I expect so," returned Miss Huntley. "You had better make a collection of bats, balls and stumps and a few tennis rackets, and also your school books. Put them all together, and Miss Bishop will have them sent to us."

The girls hastened to sort out the necessary impedimenta for cricket and tennis, but arranged piles of books with less enthusiasm, the general opinion being that it was rather stiff to be expected to do work at the Camp. They were each allowed to take a book from the school library, and Miss Huntley added a pile of foolscap paper, pens and a big bottle of ink, which the girls devoutly hoped might get broken on the way and thus save them the labor of writing exercises. They had dinner and a four o'clock tea at school, after which meal Miss Bishop, who seemed to have spent most of the day at the telephone, announced that arrangements were now completed, and that they must get ready to start. Great was the excitement when at five o'clock a motor char-a-banc made its appearance. The sixteen "contacts" and Miss Huntley took their places, their hand-bags, which had been sent from their respective homes during the course of the day, were stowed away with the rest of their luggage inside a motor 'bus, and the company, feeling much more like a picnic party than possibly infected cases, drove merrily away for their period of quarantine.



CHAPTER XI

The Open-air Camp

If this particular Friday had been an exciting day to the girls of V.a., it had certainly proved a most agitating one to the Medical Officer of Health for Seaton. Upon his energy and organization depended the prevention of a serious epidemic in the city, and he had shown himself admirably able to cope with the sudden emergency. The Corporation had lately set up a camp for children threatened with tuberculosis, and this was commandeered by Dr. Barnes as a suitable place for quarantine. It lay five miles away from Seaton, on the top of a hill in a very open situation in the midst of fields, so was excellently fitted for the purpose. The children under treatment there had been hurriedly taken back to their homes in Seaton, extra beds and supplies had been sent out, and a hospital nurse installed in charge, so that all was in readiness when the char-a-banc arrived.

The Camp consisted of a long wooden shelter or shed, the south side of which was entirely open to the air. The boarded floor was raised about three feet above the level of the field, and projected well beyond the roof line, thus forming a kind of terrace. Inside the shelter was a row of small beds, and a space was curtained off at either end, on one side for a kitchen and on the other to make a cubicle for Miss Huntley. Outside, under a large oak tree, stood a table and benches. Nothing could have been more absolutely plain and bare as regards furniture. The girls took possession, however, with the utmost enthusiasm. The idea of "living the simple life" appealed to them. Who wanted chairs and chests of drawers and wash-stands? It would be fun to sleep in the shelter, and spend the whole day out of doors.

"It's too topping for anything!" declared Marjorie Kemp, after a careful inspection of the premises. "We shall have to keep all our things inside our bags, and wash in an enameled tin basin, and drink our tea out of mugs!"

"It will be precious having meals under that tree!" agreed Bessie Kirk.

"What shall we do if it rains?" inquired Irene Mills.

"Go to bed with hot bottles, like the children did," replied Nurse Robinson. "They always thought that prime fun, so I expect you will too. You'll soon get into the life here."

The view from the shelter was most beautiful. In the far away distance they could see the towers of Seaton Minster and the spires of the churches, while all around lay lush meadows, fields of growing corn, and woods in the glory of June foliage. The Camp stood in the corner of a very large pasture, with hedges all covered with lovely wild roses and tangles of honeysuckle, while a wood close by showed a tempting vista of pine trees. The fresh country air and the smell of flowers and pines were delicious.

Life at the Camp was arranged according to a strict time-table. Every one rose at seven, and a certain number of volunteers helped to prepare breakfast. Then came bed-making, crockery washing and potato peeling, at which duties the girls took turns. From 9.30 to 12.30 they had classes with Miss Huntley, while Nurse Robinson superintended the cooking of the dinner on the large oil stove. With the exception of an hour's preparation the rest of the day was free from lessons. Tea was at four and supper at seven, and by half-past nine every one was in bed, well covered with blankets, and with a hot bottle if she liked, for the nights were apt to be chilly to those unaccustomed to sleeping in the open-air. The rules of quarantine were of course sternly kept. No girl might go outside the pasture without special permission. Sometimes Miss Huntley took her flock for a walk along quiet country roads and rambling by-lanes, but the vicinity of their fellow-creatures was carefully avoided.

"We're like the lepers in the Middle Ages!" laughed Garnet. "I feel as if I ought to wear a coarse white cassock, and ring a bell as I go about, to warn people to give me a wide berth!"

"It's amusing that the farmer has even driven his cows out of the pasture since we arrived," said Evelyn. "He let them feed here while the tuberculous children had their innings, and I should have thought consumption germs were as bad as small-pox ones."

"They weren't real consumptives though, only threatened!"

"Well, we're not small-pox patients, either, only contacts!"

"I'm sorry for those poor kids, sent suddenly back to their slum homes after being here for weeks," said Jess Gardner.

"Oh, the kids have had luck! There were only ten of them, and a lady at Hawberry has rigged up a tent in her garden, and has them all there, so Nurse told me this morning. They're living on the fat of the land, and gaining pounds and pounds in weight, by the look of them."

"Good! I don't feel so bad at having turned them out, then. It's great here!"

"Rather! On the whole, I feel thoroughly grateful to Joyce."

From the girls' point of view there really was matter for congratulation. None of them was ill, and all were having a most delightful and quite unexpected three weeks' holiday in idyllic surroundings. Their arms, to be sure, had "taken," and were more or less sore, but that was a trifling inconvenience compared with the pleasures of living in Camp. There was no anxiety to be felt about Joyce, she had the disease very slightly, and was being treated with such extreme care that her face would not be marked afterwards. It was ascertained that she had caught the infection from some Belgians who had come over lately from Holland, and who were now isolated by Dr. Barnes in a Cottage Hospital. The Seaton High School was undergoing elaborate disinfection, and as June was well advanced, the Governors had decided not to re-open until September, when all possibility of contagion would have passed away. This was the only part of the proceedings that did not please the girls.

"It's rather sickening to have no end to the term," groaned Marjorie. "Our matches are all off, and no swimming display or sports. It's rough on Margaret and Kirsty particularly. Do you realize that when we go back in September they'll both have left? All the prefects are leaving."

"Oh, hard luck! Who'll take their places?"

"Some of our noble selves, I suppose, if we're promoted to the Sixth."

"Who'll be General and Games Captain?"

"Ah! Ask me a harder, my intelligent child."

"I think I could put my finger on one of them, at any rate."

"So could I, perhaps, but I don't care to prophesy too soon," sighed Bessie.

Whoever might be destined to wear future laurels at school, Winona, as Captain of the V.a. team, assumed direction of the games at the Camp. Part of the pasture was sufficiently level to make quite a fair cricket pitch, while a piece in the opposite corner served as a tennis court. An old man from the farm was bribed to come and cut the grass with a scythe, but as no lawn-mower or roller was available, the result was decidedly rough. The tennis enthusiasts rigged up a tape in lieu of a net, and marked some courts with lime begged from the farmer. Their games, owing to the general bumpiness of the ground, had at least the charm of variety and excitement, and four umpires had to keep careful and continual watch in order to decide whether the balls went over or under the tape, which indeed collapsed occasionally, as the poles were only sticks cut from the hedge.

If the tennis was funny, the cricket was even funnier. Many of the girls could not use their left arms at all, consequently the batting was extraordinary, and sometimes the easiest catches were missed. It was very amusing, however, and perhaps for that reason provided more entertainment than the most strict and orthodox play under the critical eye of Kirsty might have done.

Really the quarantine party had a most idyllic time. In the warm June weather it was delightful to live out of doors. There were rosy-violet dawns and golden-red sunsets, and clear starry nights when the planet Venus shone like a lamp in the dark blue of the sky, and owls would fly hooting from the woods, and bats come flitting round the shelter in search of moths. One day, indeed, was wet, but the girls sat or lay on their beds, and read or talked, and played games, with intervals of exciting dashes in mackintoshes to fetch cans of water, or dishes from the larder.

On Sundays there was of course no church-going, but Miss Huntley read morning prayers, and in the evening they sang hymns, each girl in turn choosing the one she liked best. "All things bright and beautiful," "Nearer, my God, to Thee," and "Now the day is over" were prime favorites, but perhaps the most popular of all was the ancient Hymn of St. Patrick, which Miss Huntley had copied from a book of Erse literature, and had adapted to an old Irish tune. The girls learnt it easily, and its fifth century Celtic mysticism fascinated them. They liked such bits as:

"In light of sun, in gleam of snow Myself I bind; In speed of lightning, in depth of sea In swiftness of wind. God's Might to uphold me, God's Wisdom to guide, God's shield to protect me In desert and wild."

* * *

"Christ with me, before me, Behind me and in me, O Threeness in Oneness I praise and adore Thee."

"In Ireland it is sometimes called the Shamrock Hymn," said Miss Huntley, "because St. Patrick used the little green shamrock leaf to explain to the chiefs the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. The original is in a very ancient dialect of the Irish Celtic, and was preserved in an old manuscript book written on parchment. It always reminds me of the 'Benedicite omnia opera' of our prayer-book; the thought is the same in both: 'O ye spirits and souls of the righteous, bless ye the Lord' is about the sum of it all."

Except for the trifling trouble of vaccination, the effects of which in most cases were soon over, the quarantine party enjoyed radiant health. Dr. Barnes came twice a week to inspect, and Nurse Robinson kept a vigilant watch for headaches, back-aches, and sickness. None of these symptoms appeared, however, and all began to congratulate themselves that the infection had been avoided. There was a burst of warm weather at the beginning of July, which made the hill breezes of Dunheath highly acceptable. It was too hot during the daytime to play active games; the girls lounged about under the shade of the trees, and read the illustrated papers with which they were kept plentifully supplied.

"I've never really had time before to study the toilet hints," said Beatrice Howell one afternoon, poring over a certain page headed "My Lady's Boudoir." "It seems to me that we ought to take our complexions more seriously. We actually wash our faces with soap and water, and 'Lady Veronica' says here that that's an absolutely suicidal practice for delicate skins. She gives all kinds of recipes for what one should do. I wish I could have a few lessons in face massage. I wonder how hard one ought to rub? And why a downward movement all the time?" (Beatrice was stroking her cheeks contemplatively as she spoke.) "Why mayn't you rub upwards?"

"The Princess recommends gentle pinching," said Mollie Hill, who was studying the columns of a rival paper, "and then an application of Mrs. Courtenay's lavender cream. We ought to be careful not to get freckled or sunburnt. 'Lady Marjorie' gives some splendid prescriptions against both. I wonder how the papers always get the aristocracy to write their Beauty Hints? I shouldn't have thought they'd have condescended to reveal their secrets!"

"My good girl! Don't flatter yourself that either 'Lady Veronica' or 'Lady Marjorie' is a member of the aristocracy," chuckled Bessie Kirk. "They're probably most plebeian and dowdy-looking individuals living in Bloomsbury boarding-houses, with pasty complexions and freckled noses, and they get a percentage on the preparations they recommend. If you notice, they always tell you to use Mrs. Somebody's pomade or face cream, and it's generally very expensive."

"Oh, but this one's home-made!" declared Beatrice. "Look here! It says: 'Take an ounce of spermaceti, and melt it in a pan with a teacupful of rose water. When thoroughly mixed, add an ounce of Vodax, which may be obtained from any chemist, stir until quite cold, then put into pots.' I'm sure that sounds simple enough, in all conscience."

"What about the Vodax, though? If you went to the chemist's you'd find it is a patent preparation, and very expensive, and it would just knock the bottom out of the 'home-made' theory of the recipe."

"There must be something in all these hints, though," said Mollie plaintively, "or the paper wouldn't publish them every week."

"Well, perhaps there is, to a certain extent, but just think of the time it would take to carry them out, to say nothing of the expense of cosmetics. Here, give me the book a sec, and a piece of pencil. I want to make a calculation. Now, if you really follow 'Lady Marjorie's' advice, your day will run something like this. It's a kind of beauty time-table:

Face Massage, Morning 10 minutes " " Evening 10 " Hair Drill, Morning 15 " " " Evening 15 " Application of cloths wrung out in hot water to face daily 30 " Breathing Exercises 15 " Physical " 15 " Manicure 5 " Oatmeal applications 5 " —- Total 2 hours.

"Now, if you're going to put in two hours every day at your toilet, it seems to me that you won't have much time left for games, unless you can get your prep. excused on the ground that you're studying beauty culture. I'd like to see Bunty's face if you asked her!"

"Don't be piggish!" said Mollie. "One has no need to cultivate a tough skin, just because one's fond of cricket and hockey. I hate to see girls with hard red cheeks and freckles."

It was certainly not possible to obtain Mrs. Courtenay's lavender cream or any other toilet specialties at the Camp. Beatrice and Mollie, however, impressed with the necessity of preserving their complexions, commandeered some of the buttermilk which was sent daily from the farm, and dabbed it plentifully over their faces before retiring to bed, following the application with massage to the best of their ability. They were emulated in these toilet rites by Agatha James, Mary Payne and Olave Parry, who also studied the beauty hints columns, and liked to try experiments. One day Agatha found an entirely new suggestion in a copy of "The Ladies' Portfolio." A correspondent wrote strongly advocating common salt as a hair tonic. It was to be rubbed in at night, and brushed out again in the morning.

Apparently nothing could be more simple. Beatrice, being on kitchen duty, had access to the salt-box. She purloined a good breakfastcupful, and divided the spoils with her four confederates. They all rubbed the salt carefully into the roots of their hair. Next morning, however, when they essayed to brush it out again, it obstinately refused to budge, and remained hard and gritty among their tresses. They were very much concerned. What was to be done? The only obvious remedy was to wash their hair. Now the one drawback of the Camp was its shortage of water. The daily supply had to be carried in buckets from the farm, and as, owing to the warm dry weather, the well was getting low, their allowance at present was rather small, and had to be carefully husbanded. The amount doled out for washing purposes certainly was quite inadequate for the due rinsing of five plentiful heads of hair.

"I suppose we shall just have to grin and bear it till we can get home and can mermaid properly in a bath!" sighed Mary.

"Oh, I can't! I'm going to wash mine somehow. Look here, suppose we sneak off quietly this afternoon, and go on a water hunt?"

"There isn't a stream or a pond anywhere near."

"We haven't tried the wood!"

"Well, we're not allowed there, of course."

"I don't see why we shouldn't go. The young pheasants must be all hatched, and running about by this time, so what harm could we do? Besides which, nobody's troubling about preserving game during the war. They're shooting Germans instead of birds this year."

"Very likely the gamekeeper has enlisted," suggested Beatrice, "in which case there'd be no one to stop us."

Now the strict law of the Camp confined the girls to the pasture, but as it was the last week of the quarantine, they were beginning to grow a little slack about rules. The five victims of the salt cure waited until Miss Huntley and Nurse Robinson were enjoying their afternoon siesta; then, without waiting for any permission, they climbed the fence into the lane, found a thin place in the hedge, and scrambled into the wood. It was a thrillingly exciting experience. Rather scratched and panting, they surveyed the prospect. Trees were everywhere, with a thick undergrowth of bramble and bracken. Apparently there was no path at all.

"I suppose we shall just have to wander about till we see a pond!" remarked Agatha.

"I believe some people can find water with a forked hazel twig," said Olave. "They hold it loosely in their hands, and it jerks when the water's near. I wish I knew how to do it!"

"Oh, water-finders are occult people," laughed Beatrice, "the sort that see spooks and do table-turning, you know. Besides, they find underground water, and tell where wells ought to be dug. We want a pond which any one can see with the naked eye, without being endowed with psychic powers. My natural reason tells me to go down hill, and perhaps we'll strike it in a hollow."

The girls rambled on, thoroughly enjoying the coolness of the shade and the beauty of the wood. As Beatrice had prophesied, when they reached the foot of the incline they came across quite a good-sized pool, with reeds and iris growing on its banks. They rejoiced exceedingly.

Now it is one thing to wash one's hair in a bath or a basin, but quite another to perform that operation in a pond with shallow muddy edges. The girls took off their shoes and stockings, tucked up their skirts and waded into the middle, where they made gallant efforts at dipping and rinsing their heads, and contrived to get uncommonly wet in the process. They wrung out their dripping tresses, mopped them with handkerchiefs (for nobody had dared to take a towel), and spread them out over their shoulders to dry. There was an open glade close by, where they could squat in the sunshine, and let the breeze help the process. Mary had had the forethought to put a comb in her pocket and she lent it round in turns. They were sitting in a row, like five mermaids, extremely complacent and satisfied with themselves, when footsteps suddenly crashed through the wood, and a middle-aged man approached them. For once Beatrice's calculations were wrong. The gamekeeper had not yet enlisted. No doubt he would have been far better employed in the trenches somewhere in France, but here he was, still in England, and looking extremely surly and truculent.

"You've no business to be in this wood," he began. "Can't you read the trespass notices? There's plenty of them about. What do you mean by coming in here, disturbing the pheasants?"

"We aren't doing any harm!" protested Olave.

"That's neither here nor there. You've no business here, and you know it! Are you from that camp up the hill?"

"Yes."

"Then take yourselves off at once—spreading small-pox!"

"We've none of us had small-pox!" returned Beatrice indignantly. "We've told you we weren't doing any harm. Still, if this will make things right——" and she slipped half-a-crown into his hand.

The gamekeeper's expression changed considerably, and his tone instantly became more respectful.

"Well, young ladies, I have to do my duty, and of course you understand the pheasants mustn't be disturbed anyhow. Perhaps you won't mind going back to the Camp now. I'll show you a path that will take you into the lane."

He led the way, and the girls followed in subdued silence, feeling rather crestfallen. Mollie was yearning to tell him that he ought to be doing his duty by his country instead of by the pheasants. If at that moment she could have found a white feather, I believe she would have presented it to him. The path ended in a small gate which he unlocked. He ushered them solemnly into the lane, pointed out a trespass notice that was nailed conspicuously on to a tree, and then retired into the fastnesses of the wood. The girls decided that, unless actually compelled, they would not divulge where they had been.

"It was a bit of hard luck to be caught!" giggled Olave. "Didn't you feel queer when he came up?"

"I thought he was a beast, and didn't deserve propitiating with a tip!" declared Agatha.

"But we washed our hair!" rejoiced Mary, plaiting her long dark pigtail.



CHAPTER XII

Captain Winona

To the entire satisfaction of themselves, their relations, and Dr. Barnes, the girls passed safely through their period of quarantine, and were certified as fit once more to take their places among the rest of the world. They left the Camp almost with regret. They had been such a jolly, merry party, and had enjoyed such high jinks there, that they felt their departure closed a pleasant episode. They were going straight home to holidays, however, which was a very different matter from returning to work. The remainder of July and the month of August passed very swiftly to Winona. She missed Percy, who was in training with his regiment, but since the advent of their new governess, Letty and Mamie had grown more sensible, and proved quite pleasant companions. Letty especially seemed suddenly to have awakened, so far as her intellectual capacities were concerned. She had begun to devour Scott and Dickens, took a keen interest in nature study, and tried—sometimes with rather comical effect—to be extremely superior and grown-up.

"She's far cleverer really than I am," thought Winona. "Pity she's not at the Seaton High! She'd be the star of her form directly. I wish she could get a scholarship some day."

With her school experience in coaching juniors, Winona was able to give her family some drilling in the matter of cricket, though she did not find that younger brothers and sisters proved such docile pupils as the members of III.a. and III.b. It was the usual case of "a prophet is not without honor, save in his own country," and while to High School juniors she preserved the authority and dignity of a senior, to Letty, Mamie, Ernie, Godfrey, and Dorrie she was "only Winona." She practiced tennis with the Vicarage girls, and was surprised to find how much her play had improved. Last summer they had nearly always beaten her, now it was she who scored the victories.

"I've learnt how to play games at 'The High,' even if my report was only moderate," she said to herself.

To make up for the long holiday caused by the small-pox scare, school was to commence at the beginning of September. Aunt Harriet, who had not been well, and was taking a rest in Scotland, wrote that her house in Abbey Close was shut up for the present, but that she was making other arrangements for her great-niece until her return. This term a hostel was to be opened in connection with the High School, and Winona was to be a boarder there for a few weeks. She was uncertain whether she liked the prospect or not, but she nevertheless left home in good spirits.

The hostel was under the superintendence of Miss Kelly. It was prettily furnished, and looked bright and pleasant. The girls had a common sitting-room, where they could read, write, paint or play games, and the bedrooms were divided into cubicles. So far there were only ten boarders, though there was accommodation for eighteen, but no doubt the numbers would be increased when the venture became better known.

The school seemed very strange without the familiar figures of Margaret Howell, Kirsty Paterson, Patricia Marshall and the other prefects. All of the Sixth had left except Linda Fletcher and Dorrie Pollock, and the members of V.a. were now promoted to the top form. Linda Fletcher was head of the school, the new prefects being Hilda Langley, Agatha James, Bessie Kirk, Grace Olliver, Evelyn Richards and Garnet Emerson. Linda, with her past year's experience, made an extremely suitable "Head." She understood thoroughly what ought to be done, and at once called a mass meeting of the whole school in the gymnasium. Everybody clapped as Linda stood up on the platform to open the proceedings. She had been a favorite as a prefect, so she was welcomed in her new capacity of "General."

"Girls!" she began. "I felt it was better to lose no time in calling this meeting to settle the affairs of the coming school year. I am in a difficult position, because I have to follow such an extremely able and efficient 'Head.' I'm afraid I can't hope to rival Margaret Howell (cries of "Yes! Yes!" and "You'll do!" from the audience), but at least I shall try to do my duty. During the past year we may fairly consider that the 'Seaton High' made enormous strides. Owing to the exertions of our former 'Head' and prefects a most excellent foundation has been laid. The Dramatic Society, the Debating Club, the Literary Association, the Photographic Union and the Natural History League all accomplished very satisfactory work, and may be considered in a most flourishing condition. Perhaps, though, our greatest improvement is in the direction of games. This may not appear on the surface, for though we won five hockey matches, it was impossible, for reasons well known to you, to have fixtures for hockey and tennis. We feel, nevertheless, that in spite of our inability to test our skill against that of other schools we are conscious of the enormous all-round improvement that has taken place in our play. It was Kirsty Paterson's policy to train recruits for the games so that every girl in the school might be a possible champion. How well she succeeded I hope our next season's matches may testify. Let us all work together for the good of the school, and try to establish the reputation of the 'Seaton High.' I need not remind you that everything in the coming year will depend upon the energy and efficiency of the Games Captain. As soon as I knew that I was 'Head,' I wrote to Kirsty, who is staying in Cornwall, and asked for her opinion upon this most important point. I want to read you an extract from her reply, which I received this morning. She says:

"'You ask me who is to be the new Games Captain. Well, of course it is a delicate matter to nominate my own successor, but from my knowledge of everybody's capacities I should most decidedly suggest Winona Woodward. She is a good all-round player herself, and has a particular aptitude for organization, which should prove invaluable. She thoroughly appreciates the advantage of having reserves to fall back upon, and is most keen on keeping up the standard. I do hope the dear old "High" will have a splendid year. I shall be frantic to hear how you get on. Send me a p.c. with the result of the meeting.'

"Well," continued Linda, "you've heard Kirsty's opinion. It coincides entirely with mine. Will some one kindly propose that Winona Woodward shall be elected Games Captain?"

"I have much pleasure in making the proposal," said Bessie Kirk, standing up promptly.

"And I have much pleasure in seconding it," murmured Grace Olliver.

"Will all who are in favor kindly hold up their hands? Carried unanimously! I'm extremely glad, as I'm sure Winona is 'the right man for the job,' and worthy to carry on Kirsty's traditions. I vote we give her three cheers!"

Winona flushed crimson as the hip-hip-hoorays rang forth. She had never expected such a complete walk-over. She had known that her name was to be submitted for the captaincy, but she had thought that Bessie Kirk and Marjorie Kemp held equal chances, and that the voting would probably be fairly evenly divided. That Kirsty should have written to nominate her was an immense gratification. Kirsty's praise at the time had been scant, and Winona had no idea that her former chief held her in such esteem. To Winona the occasion seemed the triumph of her life. She would rather be Games Captain than have any other honor that could possibly be offered to her. Glorious visions of successful matches, of shields or cups won, and a county reputation for the school swam before her eyes. And she—Winona Woodward—was to have the privilege of leading and directing all this! It was indeed a thrilling prospect. Her thoughts went back to the symposium of a year ago, when as a new and unknown girl, she had listened to Margaret Howell's inspiring speech. How unlikely it had seemed then that she would ever have a hand in making school history, but how her spirit had been stirred, and how she had longed to do her part! It was something to have realized her pet ambition.

"It was most awfully good of you to propose me," she said to Bessie Kirk afterwards. "You'd a splendid chance yourself."

"Not I!" returned Bessie lightly. "Kirsty's letter settled the whole business. I shouldn't have made nearly as good a Captain as you. I don't care to bother with the kids, and I'd hate all the business part of it, making the fixtures and that sort of thing, you know. You'll be A1, and we'll all play up no end. I believe we dare venture a fixture with Grant Park this season."

Winona fully realized the responsibilities of her important position, and began at once to pick up the threads of her new duties. She took possession of the Games Register, with its records of past matches, and began to make plans for hockey fixtures. The term had begun so early that the other schools in the county had not yet re-opened; that, however, was really an advantage, as it gave her more time for consideration. At present the September weather was hot as summer, and tennis and cricket were still in full swing. In order to spur on enthusiasm Winona organized a school tennis tournament. The result was highly satisfactory. Several new and unsuspected stars swam into view, and she determined to keep her eye upon them as possible champions for next summer.

"You never know what a girl's capable of till you try her!" she confided to Garnet. "Who would ever have thought that that stupid-looking little Emily Cooper could beat Ethel March? I was simply astounded. I've my plans for Emily, I can tell you! And I believe Bertha March is going to be a second Annie Hardy. She serves in exactly the same way. Oh, I've hopes for next summer. Brilliant, glorious hopes."

The school took every opportunity of using the fine weather while it lasted. The Photographic Union organized an outing to Linworth, a picturesque town six miles away, where an old castle, an Elizabethan mansion, a river and many quaint streets made subjects for their cameras, and promised to provide materials for an exhibition later on, when films were developed and prints taken. The Natural History League had another delightful ramble under Miss Lever's leadership, and secured additional specimens for the museum. On this occasion Winona and Garnet started in better time for the station, and did not get into the wrong train, as they had done on the expedition to Monkend Woods.

"Dollikins," as Miss Lever was affectionately nicknamed, was as great a favorite as ever among the girls. Owing to changes on the staff, she now had charge of IV.a. and taught mathematics throughout the junior forms, so that the seniors saw little of her in school hours. On a ramble she was as jolly as one of themselves.

The Sixth had a new mistress, Miss Goodson, who had only joined the staff this term. The form was rather uncertain whether to like her or not. It was rumored that she had been engaged specially to coach them for the matriculation. So far the High School had been laying foundations, and had not sent in any candidates for public examinations. This year, however, having a certain amount of promising material in the Sixth, Miss Bishop had decided that the time was ripe for trying to win the educational laurels towards which their training had been directed. Miss Goodson came from a High School in the north, and brought with her a reputation for successful coaching. She was well up in all her subjects, but she was a cold and not very inspiring person. She was apt to concentrate her energies on the clever members of her form, and leave the less brilliant to stumble along as best they could. Winona, who certainly belonged to the second category, did not like Miss Goodson, while Garnet was strongly in her favor.

In her new capacity of prefect, Garnet proved a success. She was as enthusiastic over the "bookish" side of the school as Winona over the athletic department. She was President of the Literary Association, a member of the Debating Club Committee, and head librarian. The school library had grown and prospered exceedingly since its installation by Margaret Howell. It now numbered nearly five hundred volumes, and its shelves almost filled the Prefects' Room. Garnet managed it systematically. She had special hours at which books were issued, and assistants whose business it was to be on duty at the specified times.

Among other improvements in the school welcomed by the girls was the advent of a fresh drilling mistress, and some new apparatus for gymnastics. Under Miss Barbour, "Gym" became highly popular, and it was felt that an athletic display would probably be held at Christmas. This was something to work for, and every one seemed much keener than formerly. Winona was naturally an enthusiast, and tried to keep others up to the mark. She had once seen an "Assault-at-Arms" at Percy's college, and the memory of it made her long for the Seaton High School to have a similar opportunity of showing its prowess. She and a select circle of friends practiced whenever possible. Altogether among the various athletic activities of the school, Captain Winona promised herself a very enjoyable year in the Sixth Form.



CHAPTER XIII

The Hostel

Aunt Harriet had intended to return home towards the end of September, but her health continued so unsatisfactory that her doctor ordered her to Harrogate to drink the waters, and advised a long period of rest and change before again taking up the many occupations with which she busied herself in Seaton. Miss Beach was a restive patient, and Dr. Sidwell knew that if he once allowed her to be within reach of committees, she would plunge herself into work, while to keep away from the scenes of her former activity was her only chance of recovery.

The house in Abbey Close was still shut up, and Winona for the present term was established at the Hostel. On the whole she liked it. She missed certain things, particularly her own bedroom, and the quiet dining-room where she had been accustomed to prepare her lessons, but life in a community had its compensations. It was a nuisance to have to sleep in the same dormitory with Betty Carlisle, who snored offensively, but, on the other hand, Winona's cubicle was next to the window, with the little balcony that overlooked the park, and every morning she could watch an aeroplane hovering and flitting like a beautiful dragon-fly over the city. Seaton possessed a Government aircraft factory, and each finished machine had to be carefully tested. All the girls in the school were extremely interested in the exploits of Lieutenant Mainwaring, a member of the Flying Corps, who might constantly be seen practicing. He was a cousin of Elsie Mainwaring, a Fifth Form girl. Elsie recorded his doings with immense pride, and provided up-to-date information of his whereabouts. He was a very daring young fellow, and was reported to have looped the loop. Winona had never witnessed the performance of this feat, so she looked out eagerly each day, hoping she might have the luck to see him do it. When the biplane came swooping over the park, she would wave her handkerchief to it from the balcony by way of encouragement. She was immensely patriotic, and she considered that our airmen deserved praise almost beyond any other branch of our forces. She often wished Percy were in the Flying Squadron. She cut out all the pictures of aeroplanes from the Seaton Graphic, and pinned them up in her cubicle. There was a portrait of Lieutenant Mainwaring among the number, and this she placed on her dressing-table, side by side with Percy's photograph. According to Elsie it was a very bad likeness, but as Winona had not seen the original, except at a distance, she had no means of judging. Curiosity led her to borrow a pair of field-glasses from Garnet. She was standing one morning on the balcony when the aeroplane came in sight, and hovered quite low down over the park, exactly opposite the hostel windows. Through her glasses Winona could plainly see the occupant. The impulse to smile and wave was irresistible. To her immense surprise the signal was returned. In frantic excitement she waved again, and shouted "Hooray!"

"What are you doing, Winona Woodward?" snapped a voice behind her, and turning guiltily, she found herself face to face with Miss Kelly.

"I—I was only looking at the aeroplane," stammered Winona.

"Come in at once! You know perfectly well that this sort of thing is not allowed. I am very much surprised and disgusted. If I find you signaling to gentlemen again from this balcony, I shall change your dormitory. Whose field-glasses are those?"

"Garnet Emerson's," said Winona sulkily.

"Then you must give them back to Garnet this morning. Remember, that such unladylike conduct must never happen again at the hostel."

Winona considered herself very much aggrieved. She had waved on the spur of the moment, and to have her innocent and impulsive act construed into "signaling to gentlemen," and reproved as "unladylike conduct," was highly aggravating. Miss Kelly was a disciplinarian, and of a very suspicious temperament. Her idea of duty was the French one of "surveillance." She never trusted the girls, or put them upon their honor; her mode of procedure was to keep an eye upon them, and to pop in suddenly and surprise them. They resented this attitude extremely.

"Miss Kelly always gives us credit for going to do the very worst!" grumbled Betty Carlisle.

"She puts ideas into our heads!" declared Doris Hooper indignantly.

The gist of the trouble was this: the girls at the hostel expected to have as much liberty as if they were in their own homes, while Miss Kelly, who had formerly been a mistress at St. Chad's, wished to enforce strict boarding-school rules. It was much more difficult to do this because the hostel only formed part of a large day school; the general atmosphere of the place was more free than at a college where all alike are boarders, and the girls naturally were infected by the prevailing spirit. A constant source of annoyance was the rule that they must report themselves in the hostel at 4.15. It was the fashion to linger after school, and chat in the "gym" or in the playground. It was a delightful little time, when everybody could meet every one else, and discuss school news and matches and guilds and other interesting topics. To be obliged, for no particular reason, to cut short their conversations and race back to the hostel was annoying. The boarders evaded the rule as far as possible, but Miss Kelly kept a roll-call, and they knew that their absences would be duly reported to Miss Bishop.

To Winona, in especial, many of the rules were extremely irksome. At more than sixteen and a half, she felt it ridiculous to be obliged to ask permission to go out and buy a lead pencil at the stationer's. "It's like living in a convent!" she fumed.

Another bone of contention was her preparation. She had been so accustomed to work in a room by herself at Abbey Close that she found the presence of others highly distracting. Though silence was enforced, the girls fluttered the leaves of their books, scratched with their pens, or even murmured dates under their breath, all of which sounds were most irritating. Winona begged to be allowed to take her books to her cubicle, but Miss Kelly would not hear of it.



"I cannot make an exception for one," she replied, "and it would be impossible to allow girls to work as they liked in the dormitories. There would be more talking than preparation! You'll stay here with the others, and I can see for myself what you're doing."

The hint that Miss Kelly suspected her of some ulterior motive for wishing to study upstairs enraged Winona, but she was obliged to submit, and to sit, close under the mistress' eye, at the long table, in company with her fellow-boarders. Her work suffered in consequence, and Miss Goodson's sarcasms descended on her head. Miss Goodson was not so patient a teacher as Miss Huntley, and Winona tried her temper at times. Winona was subject to curious fits of stupidity. Her brains were like a clock with a broken cog. Sometimes they would work easily, and on other days she seemed quite unable to grasp the most obvious problems. A lively imagination may be a very delightful possession, and of use in the writing of history and literature exercises, but it cannot supply the place of solid facts, nor is it of the least aid in mathematics, so Winona's form record was not high.

The hockey season would commence at the beginning of October, but during September, while the weather was still warm, the girls continued to play cricket on Wednesdays. The school was fortunate enough to possess large playing fields; these adjoined the public park, in itself a big area, so that quite a fine open space lay below the buildings. One afternoon, just as Winona was having her innings, Elsie Mainwaring uttered a cry, and pointed overhead. Far up in the clouds was the aeroplane, and it was gracefully looping the loop.

"It's Harry! He's showing off for our benefit!" squealed Elsie excitedly. "I told him we should be playing cricket to-day. Oh! didn't he do it cleverly? He went just straight head over heels in the air! Let's wave to him, and perhaps he'll come down a little."

Handkerchiefs fluttered out so briskly that the field resembled a washing day. Miss Barbour was signaling as vigorously as the rest. Evidently Lieutenant Mainwaring took the display for an invitation, the biplane descended like a hawk, and to every one's immense gratification alighted on the school ground. To see a real live airman at such close quarters was not an ordinary experience. Elsie promptly introduced her cousin to Miss Barbour and begged that they might all inspect the machine. Lieutenant Mainwaring good-naturedly explained the various parts; perhaps he rather enjoyed a visit to a Ladies' School! He did not stay long, however, but after a few minutes started his engine and went soaring up again into the blue of the sky, and wheeling over the towers of the old Minster was soon lost to sight behind some clouds.

"It must be glorious to fly!" sighed Winona.

In spite of Miss Kelly's injunctions she could not help looking out of her window every morning for the aeroplane, and giving a surreptitious wave. She told herself that she was only acting patriotically in cheering on our aerial defenses. The back of the hostel opened into the school playground, and one day Winona, taking a run there for exercise before breakfast, heard the familiar whirring, and looking up, beheld the flying-machine poised just overhead. She heard a shout from the occupant, and something dropped into the playground. She ran to pick it up. It was a packet of chocolates! She tried to wave thanks, but the biplane had moved on, and was now far over the town, Lieutenant Mainwaring no doubt having enjoyed his little joke of innocent bomb-dropping.

Now most unfortunately for Winona, Miss Kelly's bedroom window overlooked the playground, and she had been a witness of the whole incident. She came out now in extreme wrath, confiscated the chocolates, and scolded Winona sharply.

"But it's not my fault! I'd no idea he was going to drop anything!" protested Winona indignantly.

"After what has happened before, I can only draw my own conclusions," returned the mistress icily. "You will change to Number 3 dormitory to-day."

"But, Miss Kelly——"

"Don't argue! I warned you that I should move you if I found any more signaling going on. Your aunt will have to hear about this!"

When Winona returned to the hostel that afternoon, and went upstairs, she found that all her possessions had been cleared out of Number 2 dormitory, and placed in Number 3, which being at the side of the house had no view except the school buildings. The contents of her drawers had been transferred intact; her brushes, books and home photos were placed on her new dressing-table, but all the pictures of aeroplanes and the portrait of Lieutenant Mainwaring, which she had cut out of the Seaton Graphic, had disappeared. Winona sat down on the bed and laughed. She was very much annoyed, but the humor of the situation appealed to her.

"It's too idiotic of Miss Kelly! Does she think I'm going to elope in an aeroplane? I never heard of anything so silly in my life! She may tell Aunt Harriet if she pleases. I don't care! Why, I don't suppose Lieutenant Mainwaring knows me from any other girl in the school. He just dropped those chocs. on spec. It was a shame I wasn't allowed to eat them!"

Miss Kelly, very keen on upholding discipline in her new hostel, considered that she had successfully squashed an incipient flirtation, and kept a stern eye on all the elder girls, and most particularly on Winona, for fear some repetition of the offense might occur. The boarders were justly indignant.

"Too bad!" was the general verdict. "Winona's not a scrap that sort of girl really, if Miss Kelly only knew. It's absurd to make such a fuss."

Out of sheer bravado and love of mischief, the remaining occupants of Number 2 dormitory waved not only handkerchiefs but towels from the balcony when they heard the whirring of the aeroplane overhead, enjoying the exciting sensation that any moment they might be pounced upon by Miss Kelly. No doubt in time they would have been discovered in the act, but at the end of three days Lieutenant Mainwaring was sent to the front, and his successor, not having a cousin at the Seaton High School, took no interest in school girls, and flew over the city oblivious of everything except his engines.

"I don't suppose he'd notice if we waved a sheet!" said Betty Carlisle disappointedly.

"The police might though, and they'd think you were signaling to Germans," replied Doris Hooper. "Come in, Bet, it's no use! Girl alive, quick! I hear the dragon's fairy footsteps in the passage. Do you want to get your head bitten off?"

In spite of occasional hostilities with Miss Kelly, Winona managed to have a good deal of fun at the hostel. The other girls were jolly, and in the evenings, when preparation was finished, they would play games together in their sitting-room. There were high jinks in the dormitories, and small excitements over little happenings, which, however trivial they might be, provided considerable entertainment to the participants. Only one really stormy incident occurred during Winona's term at the hostel, and that had nothing to do with Miss Kelly.

One Saturday morning, when Winona, Betty and Doris were in the town shopping, they happened to meet Clarice Nixon, who stopped to chat, and ask for school news.

"I feel fearfully out of things now I've left," said Clarice. "It'll be a stale winter without hockey."

"Why don't you join a Club?" suggested Winona.

"Shouldn't care to! It would be no fun to play with a team I don't know. The Seaton Ladies' Club is the only decent one, and I hear they're so cliquey. I wish we could get up an Old Girls' Hockey Club!"

"Why, that would be simply glorious! What a splendiferous idea! Oh, do let us try! Then we could have a Past versus Present match. Oh! wouldn't it be precious?"

"Have you settled up your fixtures?"

"Very nearly."

"Then we ought to get this thing in hand at once. You're Games Captain, so you ought to organize it. Write round to-day to all the old girls you know, and ask them to come to a meeting on Monday."

"Isn't that rather soon?" said Betty.

"Not a bit. No time must be wasted, if the club's to be a going concern for this season. Don't let the grass grow under your feet, is my advice."

Winona was naturally impulsive. The idea appealed to her so immensely, that she straightway bought a packet of postcards and a number of halfpenny stamps, and sent out her invitations. As she was bound to report herself in the hostel at 4.15, she decided to call the meeting there at 4.20. It could be held in the sitting-room, and there would be plenty of time to discuss matters before five o'clock tea. She wrote to Margaret Howell, Kirsty Paterson, and all the former members of the Sixth, and was already exulting over the success which she hoped would accrue. She was sure every one in the school would like the notion when they heard about it.

On Monday morning when she walked into her form room, she noticed several of the prefects talking together. They looked at her significantly as she entered, and Evelyn Richards made a movement as if about to speak. Grace Olliver, however, laid her hand on Evelyn's arm, and pointed to the clock, as if deferring the matter. At eleven "break," as the girls filed out of the room, Agatha James laid a paper on Winona's desk. It bore the words:

"Kindly report yourself at once in the prefects' room."

Rather mystified, Winona obeyed the summons. She found the prefects assembled in their den, looking dignified and perturbed.

"Winona Woodward," began Linda Fletcher, "are you responsible for this post-card?" showing one of the invitations which had been written on Saturday. "Beatrice Howell brought it to me first thing this morning, by Margaret's advice. Margaret couldn't understand why you had sent it to her."

"I explained on the card," replied Winona eagerly. "It was to try to get up an Old Girls' Hockey Club!"

"And who gave you authority to call such a meeting?" asked Linda icily.

"Why, I thought as Games Captain——" began Winona, then she stopped, for the faces of the prefects expressed a righteous wrath that staggered her.

"It was a most unwarrantable liberty!" continued the head girl. "As Games Captain you are responsible for the school play and for the fixtures, but you're certainly not to take upon yourself a matter of this kind. Why, you're not even a prefect! And no prefect would have dreamed of calling such a meeting on her own account without consulting her colleagues."

"I—thought—there wasn't time—to ask," stammered Winona, overcome with confusion.

"As a matter of fact the suggestion had already been placed before the prefects, and it was proposed to form an Old Girls' Guild, which would include several branches, a Hockey Club being among the number. An initial committee meeting is to be held next Thursday. Margaret Howell was perfectly well aware of this, and could not understand why you should have stepped in and called a meeting at the hostel, thus forestalling our arrangements."

"It's the most abominable cheek I ever heard of!" burst out Agatha James.

"What were you dreaming of?" demanded Grace Olliver.

Poor Winona! She suddenly saw her innocent, impulsive act in the light in which it must appear to the prefects. It had never struck her that she was exceeding her authority, and that she ought to have referred the matter to the head of the school. The urgency of getting the club started, so as to enter a Past v. Present in her list of fixtures, had been her uppermost thought. She had indeed made a most terrible blunder. The feeling against her was evidently one of general censure. Even Garnet looked grave, and Bessie Kirk was bridling. Linda's manner was coldly official. The stateliness of her speech was more cutting than Agatha's explosive wrath. Winona collapsed utterly, and groveled.

"I'm most fearfully sorry!" she apologized. "Indeed I'd never have done it if I'd thought about it. I was an utter idiot! I really don't know what possessed me! I just sent off those cards in a hurry. What shall I do? There isn't time to write back to everybody!"

"I think I can send messages to most of the girls, and if any turn up at the hostel this afternoon they must be told." Linda's tone was slightly mollified. "I hardly need impress upon you the necessity in future of referring everything to headquarters. No school can be run on the basis of individual enterprise."

Duly chastened, Winona left the prefects' room. She had the further annoyance in the afternoon of explaining the situation to several comers who turned up in answer to her invitation. Notwithstanding this preliminary disturbance, the Old Girls' Guild was started with thirty-five members on the roll. A Hockey Club and a Dramatic Society were formed, both of which promised to have a flourishing existence, and Winona had the satisfaction of fixing a Past v. Present match for the following March. The prefects were magnanimous enough to bear her no ill-will, so on the whole she came out of a very unpleasant dilemma much better than she expected.



CHAPTER XIV

The Hockey Season

When the hockey season commenced, Winona got to business. She was wildly anxious to prove an effective Games Captain, and win credit for the school. It would be no easy matter to follow so excellent a predecessor as Kirsty Paterson, but she determined to keep Kirsty's ideals well in mind, and try to live up to them. One change, which Kirsty had suggested, Winona at once carried out. The hockey badge was altered. The new one had the initials S.H.S. embroidered in the school colors on plain dark blue shields, and looked very imposing on the tunics. There was another point upon which Winona was resolved to effect a reform. The field was not in a thoroughly satisfactory condition, and certainly needed attention. The prefects had put the matter before Miss Bishop, who referred it to the Governors. Those august personages, mindful of war economies, decided that for the present it would do well enough, and would not vote the spending of any money upon its improvement. The bad news was received with indignation throughout the school.

"It's too stingy for anything! How can we possibly have decent practice on such a rough old place? I'd like to make them come and try it for themselves, the mean wretches!" protested Bessie Kirk.

Winona laughed. A vision of the Governors wildly brandishing hockey sticks flashed across her imagination. She seized her note-book and drew a fancy portrait of the delicious scene: old Councillor Thomson, very wheezy and fat, running furiously; bald-headed Mr. Crabbe performing wonderful acrobatic feats; a worthy J.P. engaged in a tussle with the Town Clerk; and various other of the City Fathers in interesting and exciting attitudes. The masterpiece was passed round for general admiration. The girls sniggered.

"Wish we could show it to them!" said Margaret Kemp. "Perhaps it might make them realize their responsibilities. It's too sickening of them to grudge keeping the field in order!"

"Look here, it's no use complaining!" said Winona. "Of course it relieves one's feelings, but it doesn't make any difference to the field. I've got a plan to propose. Let us ask Miss Bishop how much it would cost to hire somebody to do the rolling, and offer to pay for it ourselves. We could get up a Hockey Concert in aid of it."

"What a frolicsome notion! I'm your man!"

"Wouldn't it be setting a bad precedent?" objected Marjorie Kemp. "Suppose the Governors stop having the tennis courts cut, and say we may do it ourselves?"

"We'd put that to Miss Bishop first, and make it well understood."

"It would just make all the difference to the practices to have a roller at work, even once a week," urged Olave Parry. "Do ask about it, Win!"

Miss Bishop, on being appealed to, considered the suggestion favorably.

"Certainly there's no reason why you shouldn't improve the field, if you wish," she replied, adding with a smile: "I'll take care that the tennis courts don't suffer in consequence. It was a prudent thought to mention them. I expect when the war is over, the Governors may be persuaded to take the full expense of the playing field too. I'll get an estimate at once of what the rolling would cost."

Jones, the school janitor, who formerly kept the courts and cricket pitch in order, had gone to the war, and his place was occupied by a rheumatic old fellow who could do little more than carry coke and attend to the heating apparatus. When every able-bodied man seemed fighting or making munitions, it was difficult to find anybody to roll a hockey field, A volunteer was procured at last, however, who undertook the job at the rate of L1 per month, with an extra thirty shillings for putting the field in good order to begin with. Six or seven pounds, therefore, would cover the expenses of the season. Winona, mindful of the terrible offense she had given in connection with the Old Girls' Guild, very wisely took the matter to Linda Fletcher, who called a united meeting of Prefects and Games Committee to discuss the best way of raising the money.

"It will have to be done on a bigger scale than the symposium last year," said Hilda Langley. "If I remember rightly, that made exactly L2 13s. 7d., enough for a Form trophy, but not sufficient for this venture."

"We'd better issue tickets, and sell some of them to parents and friends," suggested Linda.

"How many will the hall hold?"

"Three hundred at a pinch, if the babes squash up tight."

"They won't mind doing that in a good cause."

"The Dramatic Society ought to take an innings, and provide at least half the program."

"They'll jump at the opportunity. I believe they have something quite prepared, and have been yearning for an audience."

"Then by all means let them have one."

"At sixpence a head," added practical Marjorie; "we ought easily to be able to sell sixpenny tickets."

Everybody took up the idea with enthusiasm. The difficulty was not so much to find helpers as to decide who was to have the honor of performing. There were many heart-burnings before the program was finally fixed. It was decided that a musical selection should be given first, followed by a piece by the Dramatic students. To cut these to reasonable limits needed all Linda's discretion, tact and firmness.

"You can't have an entertainment beginning at three, and going on till midnight," she urged, as the various desired items were submitted to her. "You'd have to hire ambulances to take your exhausted audience home! Very sorry, but we must keep some of the things for a future occasion."

Linda, being wise in her generation, and having an eye to the sale of tickets, insisted that the Lower School should take a share in the performance.

"Who wants to bother to hear the kids?" objected Grace Olliver, who, by the bye, was a member of the "Dramatic," and therefore not entirely disinterested.

"If we don't bother with the kids, they mayn't bother to come and bring friends, and we should look silly if we didn't sell all our tickets! Let them do their flag display, and sing their Empire song. That will content them and their mothers, and leaves quite time enough for other people."

Miss Bishop allowed a special Wednesday afternoon to be set aside for the entertainment; the tickets sold briskly, and expectation ran high. All concerned in the program kept their parts a dead secret, but items leaked out, and the wildest rumors were afloat. It was whispered that some of the Governors were to be present, and even that Miss Bishop would perform a sword dance, though not the most callow of juniors really consented to swallow such an astounding piece of information. The uncertainty as to what was in store, however, added largely to the pleasurable anticipation, and though the Dramatic Society rehearsed with locked door, and the keyhole carefully stopped up, juvenile spies, by hoisting one another up to the level of the windows, obtained brief and tantalizing peeps and spread news of gorgeosities in the way of costumes.

When the great afternoon arrived, the hall was crammed. The little girls were packed as tightly as sardines. A long line of them squatted on the floor in front of the first row, and others sat on the window sills, the latter positions having been scrambled for with enthusiasm.

Every one was at the tip-top of expectation. The concert opened with the inevitable piano solo which seems indispensable for the starting of any entertainment, and during the performance of which latecomers hurry to their seats, programs are sold, and the audience, with a tremendous amount of rustling and whispering, settles itself down to listen. This initiatory ceremony being over, more interesting items followed. The juveniles sang an Empire song, accompanied by a pretty flag drill; it was a taking tune, and as Linda had prophesied was immensely applauded by the visitors, who insisted on an encore. A violin solo came next, and was followed by a charming Russian dance given by two members of Form IV.a. Garnet played a piece on her mandoline, with piano accompaniment. She had suggested a duet for mandoline and guitar, but Winona had had no time to practice her instrument lately, and had begged to be excused. The fact was that Winona had been busy with a special item which she now brought out as a surprise to the school. She had composed some verses in praise of hockey, and set them to one of the tunes in the senior school song-book. The piece was sung by an eleven in full hockey costume, and they waved their hockey-sticks with appropriate actions to the music:

"When autumn returns, and the trees are all bare, Our blue tunics are off to the field; No team in excitement with ours can compare, As our hockey-sticks wildly we wield. For hockey's the game to play When autumn has come to stay, And this is the reason we love the cold season, For hockey's the game to play.

"Hurrah for goalkeepers, for forwards and halves! Hurrah for the clash of the sticks! Hurrah for the rapture of scoring a goal! (Who minds a few bruises or kicks?) For hockey's the game to play, When autumn has come to stay, And this is the reason we love the cold season, For hockey's the game to play.

"But a team that is set upon scoring its goal, And winning a vict'ry or two, Must see that its field it should carefully roll, And that's what we're hoping to do! Oh! hockey's the game to play, When autumn has come to stay, Yes, this is the reason we love the cold season, When hockey's the game we play!

"Hurrah for Form trophies! Hurrah for our badge! We'll make it an annual rule To hold a 'Sports' Concert,' to wish all success To the team of the Seaton High School! Oh! hockey's the game to play, And at Seaton we know the way! Yes, this is the reason we love the cold season, When hockey's the game we play!"

Winona's words would certainly not have passed muster as a literary composition, but their extreme appropriateness to the occasion, combined with the action of the hockey-sticks, completely brought down the house. The applause was thunderous, and the last verse was encored twice over. Undoubtedly it was the hit of the afternoon.

For the second part of the performance the Dramatic Society gave an amusing little play, and the concert wound up with a lusty rendering of certain patriotic songs.

Winona was highly gratified. Both artistically and financially the entertainment had proved a success. The committee would be well able to bear the expense of keeping the field in order. A gardener had been at work there, and already a marked improvement was noticeable. The Games Captain's enthusiasm was infectious. Under her leadership the girls became wonderfully keen. To Winona the thrill of struggle when a game seemed on the eve of being lost was one of the wildest excitements in life, and the joy when she struck the ball home straight and true the utmost triumph obtainable. During this autumn term she lived for hockey. The crowd of school girls, in thick boots and blue tunics, struggling and shouting in a somewhat muddy field might not be an altogether picturesque sight, but to the Captain it was Marathon and Waterloo combined. No colonel prided himself on a crack regiment more than Winona on her team. Sometimes, of course, a practice was off color; the day might be bleak or drizzly, or players might be penalized for "sticks," or grumblers might express their dissatisfaction audibly, but whatever went wrong, Winona emerged cheerful from the fray, remonstrated with "off-sides" and "sticks," and reminded growlers that it is unsporting to murmur. By Kirsty's advice she had sent out challenges to several good clubs in the neighborhood.

"While we were still in our callow infancy I should not have ventured," wrote Kirsty from Cornwall. "But one must begin some time to measure one's strength. After the work we did last season, I certainly think you might risk it. Nothing improves a team so much as playing plenty of matches; you see in time you get to know the strokes of everybody at the High, and you can calculate what others will do at certain turns of the game; it's far better for you to meet all sorts and conditions of opponents."

Winona had been afraid it was rather "cheek" to challenge the "West Rytonshire Club" or "Oatlands College," but she ascertained that both those august bodies had two teams, Number 1 and Number 2, and that while the first only met foes worthy of their steel (or rather sticks!) the second would graciously condescend to play a yet unknown High School. The match with Oatlands College was fixed for December 16th, and Winona looked forward to it with some anxiety. The last practice had not been altogether satisfactory. The day had been wretchedly cold, and everybody had been cross in consequence. The team, though proud of its fixture with so celebrated an opponent, was not very sure of itself.