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A FORTUNATE TERM

By ANGELA BRAZIL

"Angela Brazil has proved her undoubted talent for writing a story of schoolgirls for other schoolgirls to read."—Bookman.

• Loyal to the School.
• A Fortunate Term.
• A Popular Schoolgirl.
• The Princess of the School.
• A Harum-Scarum Schoolgirl.
• The Head Girl at the Gables.
• A Patriotic Schoolgirl.
• For the School Colours.
• The Madcap of the School.
• The Luckiest Girl in the School.
• The Jolliest Term on Record.
• The Girls of St. Cyprian's.
• The Youngest Girl in the Fifth.
• The New Girl at St. Chad's.
• For the Sake of the School.
• The School by the Sea.
• The Leader of the Lower School.
• A Pair of Schoolgirls.
• A Fourth Form Friendship.
• The Manor House School.
• The Nicest Girl in the School.
• The Third Class at Miss Kaye's.
• The Fortunes of Philippa.

LONDON: BLACKIE & SON, Ltd., 50 OLD BAILEY, E.C.

SHE FOUND TOM IN THE GREENHOUSE

[Page 44]

A
FORTUNATE TERM
BY
ANGELA BRAZIL
Illustrated by Treyer Evans
BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED
LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY

Contents

Illustrations

A FORTUNATE TERM

CHAPTER I
Mavis and Merle

There had never been a week of worse weather, even for Whinburn, and that was saying something! Mavis, sitting up in bed with a dressing-jacket and two shawls round her and three comfortable pillows tucked at her back, could just see out of the window if she craned her neck a little. The prospect which greeted her was anything but pleasing—a wilderness of roofs covered with dirty snow, and a row of factory chimneys belching forth grimy smoke against a leaden sky. From the street came the noise of tram-cars and tramping feet; a motor-lorry, thundering by, shook the house like an earthquake. Mavis, in the blessed lull between two storms of coughing, turned her eyes resolutely from the forlorn view of the outside world to the cheery interior of the bedroom, with its glowing fire, its bookcase full of attractive volumes, and its walls so covered with framed prints, photos, and picture postcards that there hardly seemed a vacant inch of space left. Directly facing her, and in the place of honour, was a water-colour representing a landscape with a peep of the sea beyond. The trees in the painting were bare, but the undergrowth was green, and a patch of gorse blazed in the foreground, a rift of light from the sky gleamed on the waters of a stream, and the figure of a little girl was stooping to gather ferns. Mavis gazed at the picture for some time in silent contemplation, then:

"Muvvie, dear," she said suddenly, "I think you must have made a mistake when you told me you painted that in December."

Mrs. Ramsay, sitting with the mending-basket near the fire, snicked a piece of wool and put down the scissors.

"It's perfectly true, Madam Doubtful. Your mother doesn't tell fiblets. I sketched that in Devonshire the year before I was married. It was a milder winter even than usual, and I remember the gorse was in blossom at Christmas, and the laurustinus coming out in the gardens. I painted exactly what I saw, and no more. Can't you believe me?"

"Ye-e-s! But it's wonderful all the same. We don't get winters like that here in the north. When I look at the snow and the chimneys, and then at the picture, it's like peeping through another window into a different world. I only wish——"

But a severe gust of coughing interrupted Mavis's reflections, and when it was over she lay back, very quiet and white and exhausted, upon her three pillows.

Mrs. Ramsay, mixing a poultice by the fire, sighed as she stirred linseed meal into boiling water.

"It's most unlucky you've started with one of your bad attacks of bronchitis before Christmas. How am I going to get you through the winter, child, if you've begun to take cold already? I'd like to wrap you in cotton-wool and pack you away in a box to sleep like a dormouse till the warm weather woke you up! Whinburn certainly doesn't suit you. It may be bracing, but people with delicate chests can be too much 'braced' sometimes. Is the poultice too hot? Be a brave girl! Remember, Father said 'the hotter the better!' Bear it as long as you can. Why, there's the bell! Is it Merle home already? Surely she's early to-day?"

Mavis, protesting against the poultice, looked up eagerly as stamping feet resounded on the stairs, and her sister, with coat and hat lightly powdered with new-fallen snow, burst into the room.

"Hello, Mavis! You've got the best place, in bed! It's detestable out to-day. The wind's like a knife, and it's beginning to snow again. Oh, it was cold at school! My fingers were simply frozen. The end of Miss Donald's nose was quite blue, and her temper was bluer. She snapped my head off when I asked her a question. We played tig in the gym at 'break', though, and got warm, but Gertie upset the coal-box and made such a mess, and Miss Greene scolded ever so, and said we were trampling coal-dust into the floor, and it would have to be washed again before dancing lesson. It wasn't really Gertie's fault; Joan pushed her. I met the postman outside, Mumsie. He gave me this parcel. It's for you. You're always the lucker! I wish it was mine."

"We'll all share it together," said Mrs. Ramsay, taking the package to Mavis's bed and snipping the string with her scissors. "It has the Durracombe postmark, and it's Aunt Nellie's writing, and I think I shan't be very far wrong if I guess flowers."

The contents of the box were soon spread forth on the invalid's counterpane. They were an amazing display, for it seemed as if the seasons had overlapped, and late autumn had joined hands with early spring. There were yellow rosebuds, and passion flowers, and a few montbretias, and some Michaelmas daisies, a big bunch of purple violets, some primroses, polyanthuses, a pansy or two, blossoming ivy, little pink double daisies, and beautiful sprays of the yellow jessamine. Mavis fingered them delicately as if they were priceless treasures. The colour had flooded into her cheeks and her eyes shone like stars.

"Muvvie! Surely they come from a greenhouse?" she asked. "They can't be growing out-of-doors now."

"Indeed they can! You don't know Durracombe. The flowers go blooming along all the winter—if you can call it winter down there. I told you it was a different climate from Whinburn. Oh, how sweet they smell! I remember just the exact spot in the dear old garden where these violets grow."

Mavis looked out of the window, where the now fast-whirling snow was hiding the smoke of the factory chimneys, then looked back to the pure, clean, delicate blossoms that lay on her lap.

"It's like a fairy tale!" she murmured. "Think of picking them in December! Muvvie, if I could go and stay at the place where these flowers grow I should get well."

"I verily believe you would," said Mrs. Ramsay thoughtfully, as she fetched vases and began to place the drooping violets in warm water.

Mavis, at the time our story begins, was fifteen and a half, and exactly fourteen months older than Merle. It is necessary to state her age, because people always forgot it, and set her down as the younger of the two. Everybody, friends and strangers alike, gave precedence to Merle, the taller, stronger, more confident, and more dominating individuality. Mavis was an ethereal little person, who might be described as a spirit very lightly embodied in flesh. With Merle soul and body were balanced, with a bias towards the latter—on the whole she was of the earth, earthy. There was a sufficient likeness between the sisters to suggest that nature had reproduced an identical type in different mediums. She had painted the first delicately in water-colours, then had copied the same model more strongly in oils. Which picture you preferred was a matter of taste.

Fortunately there was a complete understanding between the girls. Their particular faults and virtues seemed to dovetail into one another without friction, and they were excellent chums, a useful factor at school, where Mavis often needed a defender, and Merle was constantly requiring the services of someone to help to pull her out of her numerous scrapes.

Dr. Ramsay lived at the north-country manufacturing town of Whinburn, a prosperous but bleak corner of the kingdom, where smoke had stunted the trees and soiled the herbage, where flowers were scarce and bloomed late, and winter stretched its icy fingers well into autumn and spring. The house, like most doctors' houses, was on the main high road, and part of the garden behind had been turned into a garage, so there was very little room for the bed of bulbs and the perennial border upon which Mavis concentrated most of her outdoor energies. She toiled hard to have a floral display in the summer months, but it was disheartening work, for the frost always killed her wallflowers, and only the hardiest of plants would consent to make a sulky struggle against the smoky atmosphere that seemed to blight the very heart of vegetation and turn the choicest bedding varieties into sickly specimens. Merle, less deeply wedded to nature, had long given up gardening as a bad job, and had handed over her patch of unkindly northern soil to her sister. She was more interested in the car: she liked to watch the chauffeur clean it, and the high-water mark of her bliss came on the days when, on a quiet road and with no policeman within sight, her father would allow her for a brief space to assume command of the driving-wheel.

"I'll be your chauffeur, Dad, when I'm old enough to leave school," she would assure him airily. "I do think you might get me a driving licence now! Too young? What nonsense! We've no need to tell the Government I'm only fourteen. I'd soon drive as well as Greenhalgh if you'd let me try. I'm not afraid of anything."

"I dare say not, but think of my feelings with a harum-scarum like you at the helm!" her father would reply. "You'd soon collide with a lorry, or land us in the ditch. I'll stick to Greenhalgh, thank you. He doesn't want to run at forty miles an hour."

"I'll take proper motoring lessons when I've left school," Merle would declare, "then I'll be ready to drive any car in the United Kingdom—that's to say, if I haven't made up my mind to be a lady detective."

Mavis, who was in bed when our story begins, weathered her December attack of bronchitis and came downstairs in time for Christmas Day, but with such white roses in her cheeks that her father looked at her anxiously, and called Mother into the consulting-room for a private confabulation, the result of which was a long private letter addressed Dr. Tremayne, Durracombe, Devonshire, which was posted without the girls' knowledge. Several other letters followed, and the brisk correspondence had just reached a satisfactory conclusion on a certain January day when Mavis, with a shawl round her shoulders, was peering out of the window at the flying snowflakes.

"Watching the feathers from Mother Carey's chickens, bairns?" said Mrs. Ramsay. "I'm afraid it's going to be a wild night. The wind's rising. I like the snow when it's newly fallen, but it gets dirty directly in Whinburn."

"And I don't like snow at all, Muvvie," replied Mavis. "We were building castles in the air just now, and mine was to live in a lovely wood where it was never really winter."

"My castle was to be a chauffeur or a lady detective!" laughed Merle. "Perhaps both! It would be great sport to go dashing about the country in a car, unravelling mysteries and catching jewel thieves. Will you come with me, Mavis?"

Mavis shook her head.

"I've told you I'm going to live in a house with an enormous garden, and a wood where I can watch the birds. I'd rather track tomtits than jewel thieves. You shall come and stay with me when you're tired of chasing your burglars. It will be fine and warm in my wood, with no slushy snow ever, or yellow fog, only lovely flowers and ferns the whole year round, and I shall go out without being eternally wrapped up. That's my castle in the air!"

"Don't you wish you may get it, that's all! It sounds like El Dorado. Oh, I'll come and stay with you right enough when you find such a fairyland. Woods like that don't grow near Whinburn. Look at the sky now! It's actually trying to snow again!"

"It won't snow in my wood!"

"And I say such woods don't exist except in your imagination," declared Merle emphatically.

"Not quite the fairy land Mavis pictures, but there's a very good approach to them in Devonshire," said Mrs. Ramsay. "I've something I want to tell you chicks. How would you like to go to Durracombe and stay with Uncle David and Aunt Nellie? Don't look so incredulous! It's really true. We've arranged to send you for three months, and I'm to take you down there next week."

This was news indeed, such news that at first the girls were hardly able to believe it. They had never been in Devonshire, and had not seen their mother's uncle, Dr. Tremayne. Their father, Dr. Ramsay, busy with his own professional work, had little time to spare for visiting, and when he snatched a holiday the family had generally gone to Scotland, or to some east-coast seaside resort. He was fond of the north, which has a charm all its own, but his wife was a Devon woman, who could not forget the county of her birth. She had told her children stories of its beauties, its mild air, its early flowers, its legends of pixies, its smugglers' coves and blue stretches of sea, its moors and dancing brooks, till they had come to look upon it as a sort of Elfland, a fairy-tale country that had no more real existence than the kingdom at the top of Jack's beanstalk. Uncle David and Aunt Nellie, too, though familiar household names, were entities as unsubstantial as characters in a book. To go and stay with them at Durracombe seemed as amazing as a visit to Robinson Crusoe's island or a sojourn with Robert Louis Stevenson in the South Seas. When their minds were adjusted to the new idea they demanded details.

"Three months! We shall miss school for a whole term. Oh, Mummie, what fun! Shall we find cowslips in the fields? And can we go paddling in the brook? It sounds gorgeous!"

"You certainly won't find cowslips in January. Don't expect impossibilities. And as for paddling, I forbid anything of the sort before Easter. Don't congratulate yourselves that you're going to have a term's holiday. There's a very nice little day school in Durracombe, kept by the late vicar's daughters, only ten minutes' walk from Uncle David's house. Don't pull faces! Of course you must go to school, and you'll probably like it. How long can I stay? About a week. I shall take you there and see you settled, then I must fly back to Father, for he's not accustomed to doing without the whole of his family. I wish he could have come with us, but it's quite impossible for him to leave his patients at present. If you catch another cold, Mavis, before we go away, I shall be really cross with you. We hope Devonshire air will work a cure and stop these perpetual bouts of bronchitis. As for you, Merle, there's really no reason for sending you, except——"

"Except that my little sister couldn't and wouldn't and shouldn't go without me. We're practically twins, and we're no more use apart than the two blades of a pair of scissors. Oh yes, Mummie darling, we'll be patterns of virtue. Don't worry about us. We'll cheer up Aunt Nellie and amuse Uncle David, and wake the new school up too, I dare say. Don't look horrified, sweetest, I'm half joking. Mavis is such an angel-girl she needs me to drag her down a little or she'd just go floating off to heaven like a balloon, and never find her way back. I act earthly ballast for her, and keep her anchored to this world. She'd never remember her tonic if I didn't remind her. I'll keep an eye on her down in Devon, and see that she doesn't sit in draughts or get her feet damp. Trust her twin to look after her. Whenever she wants to do silly things I'll scold till I'm hoarse. You don't know how I can croak when I like!"

"As if I were going to do silly things!" interrupted Mavis indignantly. "Really, to hear you talk, anybody'd think you were my grannie instead of fourteen months younger than I am! I hope this new school will be decent. We shall miss Janie and Edna."

"But think of getting rid of Miss Donald for a whole term, and not having Miss Hanson to teach us algebra. Oh, what a jubilee! Our desks will be empty in IVa. Sounds quite pathetic, doesn't it? Sort of twin tombstone business."

"They grew in beauty side by side;
They filled one school with glee,"

laughed Mavis.

"And now they're going to have some larks
In Devon by the sea!"

finished Merle.

"Durracombe—Durracombe—Durracombe," repeated Mavis. "Yes, I like the name. It grips me somehow. I feel I can be happy at Durracombe. I shouldn't want to go to a place called Porkville or Mudbury. There's a great deal in a name. Mumsie, dear, I wish we were starting to-morrow. I can't wait. I want to see Durracombe at once."

"You silly child! And I, who have all your clothes to get ready, am thankful to have at least a week to turn round in. I don't say I'm not looking forward to seeing Devon again, though. We shall be ever such a jolly trio when we set off in the train, shan't we?"

"And where do I come in?" asked a mock-lugubrious voice, as Dr. Ramsay joined the party. "My family appear very anxious to run away from me. It seems to me I'm to be left out in the cold. Poor Papa! Sitting alone by his desolate hearth with only the cat for company. My heart bleeds for him!"

"Daddy! You naughty boy! You ought to come with us," cried the girls, forcing their father into an elbow chair and seating themselves on the two arms, so as to be in position to administer smacking kisses on both his cheeks. "You know very well Devon won't be quite Devon without you. We hate to leave you behind. Now, promise us something! Oh, it's perfectly easy and possible, and we know you can do it. Say yes! You'll be kissed to death by wild daughters if you don't. It's your only chance of life! Now or never! There! You've promised to come down to Durracombe at Easter to fetch us home."

"Have I indeed? Oh, I dare say!"

"I'll keep him to his bargain," laughed Mother; "but I expect when the time comes he'll be fussing to start. We're not a family who can bear to be divided for long, are we?"

"Rather not!" said Merle, slipping from the arm-chair to pull Mother into the charmed circle. "You shall come in the car, darlings, and motor us back, and I'll drive whenever there's a smooth bit of road ahead. It's a topping idea."

"Only your driving doesn't happen to be included in the bargain, you young puss! We've some respect for our limbs, and prefer to reach home with bones unbroken," declared Father, escaping from his tempestuous daughters to answer the insistent telephone-bell that was ringing loud peals of agitated warning in the hall.

CHAPTER II
"The Moorings"

The tiny town of Durracombe consisted mainly of one very long and enormously wide street. Everything that was of any importance was situated in this High Street—the church, the bank, the public hall, the reading-room, the free library, the best shops, and the Swan Hotel. Each Friday it was turned into a species of market, with stalls, and barrows, and butter-baskets, and shouting men driving frightened cattle, but on great festivals, such as Empire Day, it became a gay café, for tables and forms were placed on the pavements and the school children were entertained to tea in the open air, while the town band played patriotic music. Being such a small and compact place, it had the advantage of beginning and ending quite suddenly. The river marked the boundary. On one side of it you were in civilization, with a mayor and police and a town crier, and the privileges of gas and the telephone, but directly you crossed the bridge you were in the happy fields that owned no sovereign but Dame Nature, and in quite a few minutes you seemed to have left the world behind you.

Dr. Tremayne's house was the very first when you entered Durracombe by the road from the south. Its green front door with the brass plate stood in the High Street, but its garden wall overtopped the river, and its side windows looked out over the fields to the open country. People coming to fetch the doctor on a black night could see his red surgery lamp from the top of the hill a whole mile away. It seemed to hold out promise of help like a kind hand stretched across the darkness of the river. For the last forty years Durracombe and district had depended upon Dr. Tremayne. Time had, of course, brought changes, and the dark-haired man who drove a high gig in the 'eighties was now grey and elderly, and did his rounds in a two-seater car. Quite apart from medicines the mere sight of him seemed to do his patients good. His very atmosphere was electric, and he had that true gift of healing that helps people to get well of their own accord. Certainly no one within a radius of thirty miles was a greater favourite than "the dear old doctor", and his small biscuit-coloured motor was a familiar feature on the country roads. His three children were married and settled down in various parts of the globe. None had followed their father's profession; so, though he might be proud of a son who was a judge in India, a barrister in London, or a successful civil engineer in Canada, he could claim no help in his practice from his own family. His wife, grey-haired and elderly too, was somewhat of an invalid, and most of the housekeeping was done by Jessop, an invaluable old servant who attended to the surgery, took patients' messages, sterilized instruments, washed medicine bottles, could give first aid in an emergency, and was generally almost as great a feature of the practice as the doctor himself.

It was to this rather old-fashioned household that Mavis and Merle, sworn to the most exemplary behaviour, were sent for three months in the hope that in the soft Devonshire air Mavis would catch no more bad bronchial colds, and would have a chance of setting up her health and growing the two extra inches which she still needed to set her head on the same level with Merle's.

To the two girls everything in Durracombe seemed delightful. The mildness of the climate amazed them. After the nip of Whinburn's perpetual east wind, lifeless hedgerows, and desolate winter fields, it felt like a sudden jump into spring to find campion, herb robert, and dead-nettle blooming by the road-sides, catkins waving on the hazel bushes, clumps of snowdrops and Christmas roses under the apple trees, violets beneath the sheltered wall, primroses peeping through last year's dead leaves, and the missel thrush chanting a triumphant song in the yew tree that overhung the river.

Mother, as happy as if she were a girl again, took them round to her favourite haunts: the beacon-top, where you could catch the first view of the sea, eight miles away; the moor with its rushes and soft, short green grass; the fields where cowslips would be found later on; the fir wood that seemed like a wilderness of Christmas trees; the marshy flats where you could see the wild ducks flying; the little quarry where the sand-martens had burrowed holes for their nests—all the dear delightful spots that she had known as a child, and had described to them so often that they recognized them the moment they saw them.

"It's gorgeous! Muvvie, if only you weren't going away I'd think myself in Paradise," declared Mavis, with pink cheeks, and standing on tiptoe as if she were growing already. "Uncle David's a dear, and so's Aunt Nellie, and as for Jessop, she's just a sport—that's what I call her. Bridge House is simply A1, and if school anything like comes up to it, well—I shall say it's the time of my life. It's going to be the nicest term I've ever had."

"Don't congratulate yourself too soon," croaked Merle. "School's school all the world over, and there's sure to be something to put up with. I'm not looking forward to sums and exercises. When do we start? To-morrow! Ugh! Enter it as a black day in the calendar of Merle Ramsay, and probably of the school too, for they won't find me soft wax in their hands. I've got ideas of my own, and when people begin to try to mould me I'm apt to turn katawampus. Mumsie, darling, don't shoot up your eyebrows! There! I'll promise and vow to be a perfect seraph. They'll call me St. Merle before they've done with me. Honest, Mumsie, I will really try! You know how I flare out, but I'll make a bouncing start at this new school and think of you every time I get into a pixie mood. If I don't, the Devonshire pixies had best steal me away and have done with it. I'd be a good riddance to everybody, I dare say."

Merle spoke half in jest and half in earnest. There was laughter in her voice, but her eyelashes were suddenly wet. Mrs. Ramsay laid a tender hand on her younger daughter's shoulder. She was not laughing at all.

"I hope both my girls are going to grow this term," she said quietly, "in character as well as in inches. There's room for improvement in both of you. Mavis must stir about instead of always dreaming and reading, and Merle must curb that little demon that sometimes gets possession of her. I expect to find two very sweet girls when I come to fetch them at Easter. We want this term to be in every sense a fortunate term."

"We'll do our level best, Muvvie! Can't you trust us?" whispered Mavis, linking her arm in her mother's, as they turned from the wood and began to walk down the hill-side towards the little town where the next eventful months of their lives were to be spent.

But Merle, who always hid her deepest feelings under a joke, chirruped out an impromptu ode to the future:

"School! School! School!
They'll probably call me a mule!
And stick me to stand,
With a book in my hand,
And a dunce's cap, on a stool!"

So it ended in the three of them laughing after all.

There was no large college or high school for girls in Durracombe, only a very small private establishment kept by Miss Mary Pollard and her sister Fanny, daughters of the late Rev. Horatio Pollard, formerly vicar of the parish. They educated about twenty-four children, half of them from the immediate neighbourhood: Opal Earnshaw, the bank-manager's daughter; Edith and Maude Carey, from the Vicarage; Christabel Oakley, who rode over on her bicycle from St. Gilda's Rectory; the three little Andrews, from Fir Tree House; Major Leach's small grand-children; Betty and Stella Marshall, who lived with their aunt, Miss Johnson, while their parents were in Buenos Ayres; and twelve resident boarders, most of whose parents were stationed in India, and who, born under burning skies, had been sent to Durracombe for the sake of its soft air and mild winter record, until they should be sufficiently acclimatized to stand their chance as hardy specimens in bigger schools.

"The Moorings" was a large, pleasant, white house with green shutters and a veranda, and it stood at the bottom of a short road that led from the High Street. It was what is commonly known as "a dear little school", that is to say it was rather old-fashioned and out-of-date but very comfortable and "homey", and the classes were more like lessons with a private governess than working with a form. Miss Pollard, whose hair was as silver as spun moonlight, had dropped behind the more modern methods of education, and, feeling rather diffident in the schoolroom, concentrated her attention on the housekeeping, cossetted up the delicate children, aired the linen, superintended the dormitories, and acted nurse to anybody who was lucky enough to be kept in bed. The bulk of the teaching rested in the hands of Miss Fanny, who was thorough, if old-fashioned, and whose original methods, by a curious coincidence, actually anticipated those of some of our most advanced educationists, and so placed her ahead of as well as behind the times.

It was into this small community, more like a big family than a school, that Mavis and Merle were introduced one January morning, causing visible thrills to the occupants of other desks as they took their seats. To plunge suddenly from the work of one school into that of another is a rather bewildering experience, and by the time the half-past twelve bell sounded, the Ramsay girls felt as if their standards had been turned upside down. Mavis, shaky in general over history, had reeled off the dates of the principal battles in the Civil War, the only period of which she happened to have any special knowledge, and Merle, by an equal fluke, worked correctly all her problems in mathematics, a lesson which she usually abhorred. They were so astonished at scoring on these subjects that they naturally hoped to do better still in the French class, for languages had been their one strong point at Whinburn High School. But alack for their self esteem! The girls at The Moorings had concentrated on French, and not only translated easily from a book which was much too stiff for the Ramsays, but chattered quite fluently with Mademoiselle Chavasse, whose encouraging remarks and questions were palpably not understood by her new pupils. It is humiliating not to be able to express yourself in a foreign tongue when others are talking it all round you. Merle, who never liked anybody to "go one better" than herself, was particularly aggravated by a fair-haired girl who sat near her, and who, as she conversed with the teacher, kept the corner of her eye on the new-comers as if judging the impression she was making on them.

"I don't like her! I shan't ever like her!" thought Merle irately. "She's conceited, and those eyes are sneaky. It's nothing so much to talk French. I suppose they're used to it. She needn't think I'm admiring her cleverness, for I'm not. I'll pluck up courage myself to say something next time Mademoiselle looks at me."

But Merle's powers were not equal to her courage, and when Mademoiselle gave her another chance she turned scarlet and stuttered, and generally made rather a goose of herself, to her own infinite indignation and evidently to the amusement of the rest of the class, especially of the fair-haired girl, who tittered openly till she met the teacher's outraged gaze, when she suddenly straightened her face and tried to appear quite unconscious. Mavis, profiting by her sister's example, did not commit herself to speech. Mademoiselle Chavasse's accent was unfamiliar and difficult to understand, and most of her remarks might as easily have been in Greek as French, to judge by the standards of Whinburn High School. Both the Ramsays were particularly relieved when the lesson came to an end.

At 12.30 Mavis, who had been sent to the school with a special recommendation that her health should be looked after, was carried off by Miss Pollard to be weighed and measured and otherwise inspected, while Merle, with boots and hat and coat on, and all impatience to be off, waited for her in the cloak-room. The other day-girls had scurried away with hardly more than a glance in her direction, and she sat alone, kicking her heels and not in the sweetest of tempers, till one of the boarders, passing the door, peeped in, saw her, and entered. The new-comer was a nice-looking girl, with grey eyes and a plait of very dark hair. She smiled in quite friendly fashion.

"Hello!" she began. "Sitting here all by your lonesome? Why don't you go home?"

"Can't. I'm waiting for Mavis."

"Is Mavis the other? She's rather sweet! I like her fluffy hair and that blue velvet band. Somebody said she was older than you, but she doesn't look it."

"People often take us for twins," conceded Merle.

Iva Westwood shook her head.

"No one with eyes, surely! You're alike in a way, but not very. Opal Earnshaw was fearfully angry that you beat her in maths. She's been cock of the walk till now."

"Which is Opal Earnshaw?"

"That fair girl who sat near you."

Merle's face darkened.

"That was why she tried to take it out of me in the French class, then?"

"Oh, Opal tries to take it out of everybody. She won't be very pleased you two have come, I expect. You're too old to stand her bossing."

"Why do other people stand it?"

"Well, you see, she's head of the school, and Miss Pollard and Miss Fanny are her godmothers."

"What difference does that make?"

"A great deal of difference, as you'll soon find out. Everything their darling god-child does must be right, that's the long and short of it. They favour her fearfully."

"What a blazing shame."

"Yes, some of us get rather fed up I can tell you. We mutiny every now and then."

"Count on me, then, next time you have squalls."

"Thanks!"

"Tell me about some of the other girls. Who's that one in the green jersey who sat by the window and dropped her pencil-box? Is she nice?"

"Edith Carey! Ye-e-s, she's nice enough in a way." (Iva's tone was unconvincing). "She's the kind of girl who drags on your arm when she's tired, and insists on kissing you when she's got a bad cold."

"I understand—exactly. I suppose the other green jersey is her sister?"

"Maude? Oh, she's not a bad sort either. Rather a slacker though, always late for everything. We say she'd be late for her own funeral. She made us miss the train once when we were going an excursion. What are the others like? Well, we call Aubrey Simpson the jackdaw, because she's always talking. Muriel Burnitt makes fun of everybody. You should hear her take off Mademoiselle! Nesta Pitman may be a little nasty to you at first, but don't mind her, because it's only her way with new people. She'll soon come round. She's rather off-hand, but a real sport!"

"So are you, I should guess!"

"Oh, I don't know. I'm Cornish, and Cornish people are supposed to be queer. At least Devon people say they are."

"Mother is Devon."

"Then I expect you'll think me queer. Are you living with your uncle, Dr. Tremayne? He's a sport if you like! He used to come and see me when I had scarlet fever, and he brought me strawberries long before our own were ripe. I wish I weren't a boarder. We live fifteen miles away, at Langoran Rectory. It's too far to come every day, or I'd bike, like Christabel Oakley. We used to have a governess at home until my brother went to school and——"

But Iva's reminiscences were broken by the appearance of Mavis, rather hot and injured after her health examination, and very anxious that they should not be late for one o'clock lunch. Iva, hearing a bell, disappeared without further remark, and the Ramsays hurried back through the town to Bridge House, where Aunt Nellie, who admired punctuality as a cardinal virtue, was looking out of the window for them. They compared notes while they washed their hands.

"Are you going to like it?" asked Mavis eagerly.

"Um—I don't know! I certainly shan't like Opal Earnshaw, and she needn't think because she's head girl and all the rest of it that I'm going to truckle to her. They must be a poor-spirited set to let her lord it over everybody. Who said she did? Why, Iva Westwood. She was talking to me in the cloakroom. I could be chums with that girl! There's something about her I rather take to. She's Cornish, and they say Devon and Cornish people never can agree, but perhaps we'll hit it in spite of that. She said you were rather sweet! Don't screw up your mouth! She meant it as a compliment really. Do you think teachers ought to have their own godchildren for pupils? No, I've not suddenly gone mad, but Iva told me Miss Pollard and Miss Fanny are Opal's godmothers, and think everything she does is absolutely perfect. 'The Queen can do no wrong' sort of idea! I think it's horrid to have favourites. There goes the gong. Help! Give me the towel, quick! We mustn't be late for lunch on our first day without Mother, or Aunt Nellie'll think us horrible slackers."

CHAPTER III
The School Favourite

Mavis and Merle walked into the dining-room just in the nick of time to satisfy Mrs. Tremayne's sense of propriety. She was a dear, nervous, old lady, who had never had any daughters of her own, and had rather a hazy notion of girls in general, and was indeed a little frightened of schoolgirls; but she tried to be very kind to her great-nieces, and had told Jessop to be sure and look after them. Jessop did not need any telling. It was she who had arranged their bedroom, and had put the little table in the window, and the two basket-chairs, and the bookcase full of tales of adventure and bound volumes of The Boys' Own Paper. The iced soda-cake was of her making, and so was the plateful of delicious treacle toffee.

"It's twenty years since the boys used to come home from boarding-school for their holidays, but I haven't forgotten what young folks like," she explained to Mavis and Merle, as she helped them to unpack. "It's more like a boys' bedroom than a girls' perhaps, but I just collected anything of Master Richard's and Master Cyril's that I could find about the house. If you don't care about them we'll take them out."

"But we love boys' things," declared Merle, admiring the pictures of dogs and horses on the walls, opening the drawers of the cabinet of birds' eggs, and touching the whip and the cricket bat with friendly fingers. Mavis was already deep in Coral Island, and temporarily deaf to the outside world, but she had just sufficient sense of manners left to grunt "It's a gorgeous bookcase!" before she lost herself in the South Seas among the palm trees.

"Two very nice young ladies, and to have them here is like old times," Jessop had confided to Tom, the factotum. "The house has always seemed dull since Master Cyril went away. Miss Mavis reminds me of him, with her blue eyes and that gentle little voice of hers. Now, Miss Merle is like Master Percy. He'd a way with him! I never knew what was going to happen next when he was at home. 'Jessop' he'd say, 'you're a wonderful woman!' Then I knew he meant to coax me to let him keep his rabbits in his bedroom, or do something of that sort. Girls are quieter than boys, but these two will cheer us up a little, I dare say. We all seem to have grown old here lately."

And Tom, the factotum, polishing boots by the back door, agreed with her. Twenty years ago he had been the coachman, and, immaculate in his grey livery and silver buttons and top hat with the cockade at the side, had driven the high gig about the country lanes. It had nearly broken his heart when his master decided to give up the horses and take to motoring instead. There were tears in his eyes when he groomed Czar and Ruby for the last time. But, though Dr. Tremayne might march with the century, and visit his patients more quickly in his new automobile, he had no intention of parting with his old coachman, and determined to turn him into a chauffeur instead. So Tom learnt to drive the car, learnt almost too well, indeed, for, determined not to show the white feather, he waxed foolhardy, and would career round corners with one wheel off the ground, or dash down hills at such breakneck speed that the doctor, not usually a nervous subject, would gasp with relief to find himself alive at the bottom. Something plainly had to be done, or Tom would soon have broken the family's bones, and the question was how to shelve him without giving him offence. The riddle, fortunately, solved itself by the retirement of Dalton, the factotum-gardener. Dr. Tremayne decided to retrench and to keep only one man-servant. In future he drove his own car, and Tom was installed in Dalton's place, to weed the walks, clip the grass, polish the knives, and carry the coals. He made friends at once with Mavis and Merle, or rather he merely transferred to them the friendship he had given to their mother twenty-five years ago, when she used to spend her holidays at Bridge House, and rode Cobs, the white pony, whose grave lay at the bottom of the paddock. To Tom, motoring was the sign of a degenerate age, and he would descant to the girls about the good old days, when people were not in such a frantic hurry and could wait for the doctor until he drove up behind a well-groomed horse, and made such a case for the past times that Merle, in spite of her ambition to drive a car, began to wish Czar and Ruby and Cobs were still in the stable, and she herself could be clad in Mother's old riding-habit and flourish Cousin Percy's discarded whip as she ambled along the lanes on pony-back.

That, however, was before she had had a run in the little, yellow Deemster car. After the first trip to Chagmouth she completely changed her mind.

For a week life went on with the greatest regularity at Durracombe. Every morning the girls were called by Jessop promptly at half-past seven. They started for school at twenty minutes to nine, returned home for lunch, rushed back to The Moorings by 2.30, did their preparation and practising in the evenings, and went to bed at nine o'clock. Uncle David was nearly always out, or busy in the surgery, and Aunt Nellie sat by the fire, knitting or taking little naps. She would ask very kindly about their lessons, then, hardly giving them time to answer, would plunge into reminiscences of her boys' schooldays. Life, for her, still centred round Percy, Richard, and Cyril. When the girls wanted to talk they went to Jessop. It was to her they poured out their experiences of their new school, and she listened with the flattering interest of one who really enjoys hearing. She never read any books, so perhaps the little adventures described humorously by Mavis or Merle took the place of chapters in a serial story. She was familiar directly with the names of all the girls and teachers at The Moorings, and most delightfully ready to "take sides", and like those whom they liked and agree about the iniquities of those who offended them.

For this first week had not been all plain sailing. It is often really easier to get on in a big school than a little one. There is more elbow-room among two hundred girls than among two dozen. Nobody except Iva Westwood had seemed particularly pleased to welcome them. Opal Earnshaw palpably resented their presence.

"Miss Pollard is only supposed to take twenty pupils," she remarked, on the day after their arrival. "I know she refused two other girls, so I can't think why she should have broken her rule."

"But those girls would have been boarders," objected Iva.

"Well, where's the difference?"

"A great deal when it means two extra beds in a dormitory."

"It means two extra seats in a room that's already overcrowded," declared Opal loftily. "If the school is going to take any more new girls it had better build an annexe and let them have classes there."

"Sorry to be on the earth!" said Merle sarcastically. "Perhaps you'd like us to sit inside the cupboard? We shouldn't crowd you out there."

Opal looked her up and down, from her velvet hair-band to the tips of her shoes, then she gave a kind of snort.

"I suppose you think yourself ever so clever," she retorted. "Girls from big schools generally give themselves airs."

"Other people can give themselves airs," snapped Merle, warming to the battle. "Big schools teach manners at any rate!"

"Oh, we don't mean anything against this school," hurriedly put in Mavis, who generally tried to take the edge off her sister's cutting speeches. "We think it's going to be quite jolly. I'm sorry if we've taken the desks where you've had your museum, but where are we to keep our books and things?"

Opal, who was grudgingly removing the contents of two desks, which for a whole term had been devoted to a collection of natural history objects, had the grace to look rather ashamed of herself.

"Oh, it's all right," she temporized, "but what I'm to do with all our birds' eggs and butterflies goodness only knows! I daren't keep them in any of the other classrooms or those juniors would be fingering them and they'd be smashed to bits. I suppose I must pack them in boxes and get Miss Fanny to stow them away somewhere."

"Can't I help?" said Mavis, coming to the rescue.

Iva had just arrived on the scene bearing some large cardboard boxes, into which the three girls transferred the little collection. It seemed quite a pity to have to move it, for it had been so carefully set out. There were certainly grounds for Opal's ill humour, though even the most unreasonable of head girls can hardly expect a mistress to reserve desks for a museum when she can give them to two extra pupils. The fact was that Opal had been "first favourite" at The Moorings for too long. It would have done her all the good in the world to be sent to a large boarding-school and find there were people more important than herself. Miss Pollard and Miss Fanny, devoted friends of her mother, undoubtedly spoilt her, lent a ready ear to her complaints, but listened coldly to anybody who made accusations against her. The knowledge that she will receive support at all costs from head-quarters is a dangerous weapon for a girl in a position of authority. During the whole of last term Opal had done pretty much what she liked, and when others grumbled would declare: "Well, go and tell Miss Pollard and see which she'll believe, you or me!" an argument which was so unfortunately well founded that the luckless objectors preferred to suffer in silence.

It was not in the nature of things that a disposition such as Merle Ramsay's could be in the same school with Opal Earnshaw without a clash. Merle loved fair play, and was always ready and willing to stand up for anybody's rights, including Mavis's and her own. Her first instinct had been to clear their new desks by tipping the unfortunate museum on to the floor. That was Merle all over. She preferred forcible methods to diplomacy. It generally needed all Mavis's tact to smooth over the difficulties roused by Merle's ardent partisanship and freedom of speech. Many were the squalls from which she had rescued her sister at the Whinburn High School, and apparently she would be required to perform the same office for her at The Moorings.

Opal calmed down and was fairly civil during the morning, but on that very afternoon arose another unfortunate occasion of dispute. The Ramsays had finished lunch early, and hurried back to school in order to have a little fun with the boarders before lessons began at 2.30. They liked Iva and Nesta, and also some of the younger ones, and meant to enjoy half an hour with them in the playroom. Merle was by nature a public entertainer. She could not spend ten minutes in the company of other girls without wanting to start games or organize a sing-song or in some way get up amusement. During the Christmas holidays she had been poring over an article on palmistry which she found in a magazine. As the result of her studies in that direction she offered to tell the fortune of anybody who liked to consult her. She was instantly besieged by an excited crowd, all thrusting forward their hands at once for inspection and trying to push one another aside.

"Cheerio! This won't do!" decreed Merle. "One at a time, my hearties! Take your places in an orderly queue and come up in your turns to the witch, or she'll fly away on her broomstick and tell you nothing! Iva first, then Nesta, then you others, and no squabbling. Anybody who tries to push in front will be turned to the end of the queue. That's kismet!"

Merle could always keep order among juniors. The small fry giggled, but formed into line and kept their places while Iva and Nesta consulted the oracle. The prophecies were rather startling but sufficiently exciting to make eight young heads bob up and down with eagerness to secure their turns before the bell rang for afternoon school. Iva had been sent away a little dubious between the attractions of "foreign travel" and a warning of "danger by sea", while Nesta was openly rejoicing over a prospect of "wealth and honours" in spite of the "accidents" scattered over her future path. It was now the turn of Mamie Drew, and that short-skirted damsel was just advancing with rather awed eyes and a nervous chuckle, when the door opened and Opal Earnshaw strolled into the room.

"Hello! What are you all doing here?" she exclaimed. "Fortunes! Oh, I say! I must have mine told. What can you make out of my hand?"

And, thrusting Mamie aside, she spread out her palm for Merle's inspection.

Now it was partly Merle's love of fair play and partly her antipathy to Opal, and partly a little bit of "katawampus", but the three feelings combined made her thrust away the hand in a very peremptory fashion, and brought an extremely tart note into her voice as she said:

"No pushing in front! Go to the end of the queue and take your turn with the others. It's Mamie next."

"I don't mind," volunteered Mamie, making way for Opal.

"But I mind!" snapped Merle. "It's I who's telling the fortunes and I'll do it as I like, and take you in order. If you don't want to come next, Mamie, get out of the way can't you, and let Joyce have her innings! Opal must wait like other people."

Opal, however, as head girl, considered herself highly insulted.

"You needn't think I'm going to wait at the end of a queue of kids," she retorted angrily. "I don't care about your old fortune-telling, thanks!" and she flounced out of the room.

She was very glum indeed all afternoon, and would not look at either of the Ramsays, though Mavis, to make amends, offered the loan of a new penknife, and even tendered a surreptitious chocolate.

"I took her down, didn't I?" smirked Merle, as the sisters walked home up the High Street, and watched the retreating figure of Opal, who had scuttled past them with averted eyes, hurrying towards her own front door.

Mavis sighed. Her naturally kind and peaceful disposition and her loyalty to Merle were always pulling her in opposite directions.

"I'm afraid Opal just detests us. Perhaps you might have let her take Mamie's turn as Mamie actually offered."

"Certainly not." (Merle's voice was firm.) "If you begin to let a girl like that butt in whenever she wants, you never know where you are. I think she's the limit. She'd no need to look so annoyed when we arrived at school. What does it matter to her? The Moorings isn't run for her private convenience!"

"She couldn't forgive us for taking those spare desks and turning out the museum."

"Bother her museum!"

"It's rather a nice one anyway. It seems a pity it has to be put by in cardboard boxes."

Mavis was really concerned about the little collection of curiosities that had been so neatly spread forth in the unoccupied desks. She cogitated for a long time as to how the difficulty could possibly be overcome. Finally she sought Tom, with whom she was already on terms of great friendship. She found him in the greenhouse, repotting some ferns.

"Oh, Tom!" she burst out eagerly. "Do you think there's anything about the place I might take to make a museum?"

Tom stroked the grey stubble on his chin reflectively.

"A museum?" he repeated. "That's a big order, Miss, isn't it? I went through the museum in the castle grounds at Taunton once. It must be ten years ago. Or will it be twelve now?"

"Oh, of course, I don't mean a museum like that," explained Mavis, "only a kind of box arrangement with some glass over it, to put butterflies and birds' eggs in, very like—" (her eyes wandered round the greenhouse) "very like what you grow seeds in."

The nice part about Tom was the alacrity with which he caught up suggestions. At his age it was really amazing.

"A very good idee, Miss," he agreed. "I know what you want. Master Cyril used to keep his butterflies in boxes like that. I'll hunt about and see what I can find for you."

"Smart-looking boxes and some pieces of glass to fit over them?" pleaded Mavis.

"You leave it to me," was all Tom would promise, but there was a twinkle in his eye as he stooped over his ferns again.

Every morning Mavis asked him for the boxes, and each time he either pretended to have forgotten or was ready with some excuse. At the end of four days, however, he took her into the old harness-room, where he had a joiner's bench and a variety of tools, for he acted handy man to the establishment.

"How will these suit you, Miss?" he enquired, in a would-be nonchalant tone.

Mavis gave an absolute bounce of surprise. There on the bench lay two most beautiful cases. Tom had planed the boxes and made lids for them, into which he had fitted the pieces of glass. They were stained brown and varnished, and were lined neatly with dark-blue cloth. The old man was evidently bursting with pride at his handiwork, though he affected an attitude of indifference.

Mavis made haste to congratulate him.

"It's the cleverest thing I've ever seen done in my life," she purred. "Oh, they're just too lovely for words—absolutely topping! Thanks, a thousand times over. You must have simply slaved to finish them so quickly."

"Oh, I just worked at them in odds and ends of my time," said Tom casually, looking very pleased all the same. "That varnish is a bit sticky yet, but I dare say it'll be dry by the morning. If you want the boxes at school I'll carry them round for you to-morrow some time."

"Oh, thanks! Could you bring them at eleven o'clock 'break'? That would be scrumptious. I must fetch Merle to look at them at once, and Jessop too. You don't mind?"

Tom delivered the cases next day with admirable punctuality; indeed he was standing on the school doorstep exactly as Miss Fanny rang the big bell for break. The girls, pouring into the hall, saw him deliver the treasures into the safe custody of Bella, the housemaid. Naturally they crowded round to look.

"Hello! What are these for?" asked Opal. "What stunning cases!"

"They're for Miss Ramsay," proclaimed Bella.

Mavis, with rather a red face, stepped forward.

"If you think they'll do to keep the birds' eggs and butterflies and things in will you please have them as a museum for the school," she said quickly. "Tom, my uncle's coachman, made them on purpose."

"Jolly decent of him. They're A1," approved Opal. "Better than the desks really, because of the glass lids. I say, I'm going to bolt my lunch in two secs, and get down those boxes and spread out the collection again. The things will look no end on that dark cloth."

"Spiffing," agreed Iva, who was also inspecting the new acquisitions.

"Hurry up with your lunch then, and help me to arrange them. No, I can't have a dozen people's fingers interfering! I'm curator of the museum and I won't have it smashed. Three are quite enough. Iva and Mavis and I are going to do it, and we don't want anyone else, thank you! You can come and look at it when it's finished. I'll put the cases on the window-sill in the big schoolroom. Mavis Ramsay" (this last communication was whispered) "I don't mind telling you I didn't care for you before—it was mostly the fault of that sister of yours!—but I think now you're an absolute sport. You and Merle aren't a scrap alike. Nobody would ever take you for sisters."

CHAPTER IV
Red Devon by the Sea

Mavis now found herself placed in a somewhat embarrassing situation. The school favourite had taken rather a fancy to her and extended overtures of friendship. Had she been at The Moorings by herself she might have responded, but it was impossible to be chums with a girl who displayed such open hostility to Merle. The two were "diamond cut diamond". Each was a strong character, and neither would give way an inch. They squabbled and heckled one another continually. If Opal had had even a term's experience of a big school, and if Merle had possessed a little tact and forbearance, they might have rubbed along together. As it was they went about like two thunderclouds. Mavis found her best safety lay in neutrality. She was quite nice to Opal, but not expansive, and whenever opportunity offered she patched up a truce, though the task of peacemaker was often a thankless business, for Opal would say: "Oh, of course, you side with that sister of yours!" and Merle would indignantly accuse her of not taking her part with sufficient vehemence.

Merle had found an ally in Iva Westwood. Iva was a rather out-of-the-way girl, proud and reserved. She did not often care to wage battle with Opal herself, but she keenly enjoyed hearing somebody else do it, and was ready to act "backer-up" within limits. She appreciated both the Ramsays, though her particular temperament was more attracted by Merle. In a certain off-hand, abrupt fashion she might be considered a chum.

On the second Friday afternoon after their arrival at Durracombe, Mavis and Merle went to The Moorings as usual. To their immense surprise, when they arrived there, they found the whole school arrayed in light frocks, silk stockings, and sandalled slippers.

"Hello! What's the meaning of this? Is there going to be a party?" they asked quickly.

"Party? No! Don't you know it's dancing afternoon?" replied Nesta, re-tying her pale-blue hair-ribbon, which was coming off. "Surely Miss Pollard told you?"

"She never said a word about it."

"Well, she told Opal to tell you at any rate. Just when you'd gone home this morning I heard her say to Opal: 'Run after those two and remind them it's dancing afternoon.'"

"Opal never came near us. What a shame!" blazed Merle.

"We didn't have dancing last Friday," objected Mavis.

"No, because Miss Crompton hadn't come back. We shall have it every Friday now."

"Where? In the playroom?"

Nesta laughed.

"Oh no! We don't have it at school. There's no room big enough. We go to Miss Crompton's class in the public hall."

"Well, look here! What are we to do?" asked Mavis. "We can't turn up as we are? Shall we run home and change into 'war paint'?"

"I don't know. You'd better ask Miss Pollard. Oh, here she is! Miss Pollard, please! Mavis and Merle didn't know it was dancing afternoon."

"How very annoying! I told Opal to remind you," said the mistress, turning to the aggrieved pair almost as if it were their own fault. "Go home to change? Oh no! There isn't time now. You must all come along at once or we shall be late. It's a tiresome mistake but it can't be helped and you mustn't miss the lesson. You'll know better next week."

"Might we tear home and change, and run on to the public hall?" begged Mavis desperately.

"No, no! You must all come together. Never mind. I'll explain to Miss Crompton, and it will be quite all right."

It was all very well for Miss Pollard to say "Never mind" in so easy a fashion. Mavis and Merle were furious. They possessed dainty dresses, thin stockings, and dancing slippers in their wardrobe at Bridge House, and when the whole school was arrayed en fête it was most humiliating to be marched off in their brown knitted jerseys, ribbed stockings, and ordinary serviceable shoes. They both looked daggers at Opal, who just then put in an appearance very prettily got up in a white crêpe de Chine dress and a big, pale-pink hair-ribbon. She started guiltily when she saw them.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you two about the dancing. It simply went out of my head," she exclaimed.

"Then your head's as empty as a brass nob," exploded Merle. "It was just criminal of you to forget. I believe you did it on purpose."

Even Mavis did not attempt to palliate Merle's home truths, for she was bubbling over with injury, and sharper words still might have followed had not Miss Fanny arrived and swept her whole flock from the house for a "crocodile" walk to the public hall. The big room here, engaged by Miss Crompton, was certainly a very good one for the purpose, with a polished floor and nice decorations, so that it looked quite festive and "Christmasy", as the girls, having left their coats and hats and over-shoes in the cloakroom, marched in and took their places. The class was not confined to the pupils at The Moorings; girls from various country houses in the neighbourhood, and a sprinkling of little boys were also there. The array of light dresses and thin shoes made the Ramsays more indignant than ever. And there would have been plenty of time to go home and change. Miss Crompton and her assistants were so long in getting the children arranged, that Mavis and Merle might easily have been back from Bridge House, robed in their best, before the first dance began.

Miss Crompton ascertained that her two new pupils were no novices, then placed them in the senior class. In revolt against what some parents termed "stage posturing" she had revived some of the old Victorian square dances, and was teaching the first figures of the quadrille. Merle happened to be vis-à-vis with a girl of about her own age, a tall athletic girl with fair hair, who looked as if she would be more at home on horseback than in a ballroom, but who, nevertheless, gaped at the Ramsays' morning costumes with unconcealed scorn, and arranged the skirt of her own pretty dress rather ostentatiously, as if calling attention to the difference. When she met Merle in "the ladies' chain", instead of joining hands as the figure required, she deliberately refused the outstretched fingers and swept past without touching them.

To Merle it was an open insult. She looked at Miss Crompton to see whether the teacher had noticed, but Miss Crompton's attention was concentrated on two special bunglers, and though the incident happened again as the girls crossed back to their own places, it drew down no reproof.

"Slack teaching here," thought Merle, fuming with wrath. "Such a thing would never have been allowed in our class at Whinburn. I don't know who that girl is, but she's an out-and-out blighter. This is one of the most grizzly afternoons I've ever had in my life."

The Ramsays were indeed glad when half-past four arrived, and they were able to go home and pour out their woes to Aunt Nellie and Jessop, both of whom were most sympathetic and indignant about the whole business.

"I'd have brought your dresses to the town hall for you if I'd only known," declared Jessop.

"It was a great mistake of Miss Pollard's; she ought to have sent you home to change, even if you missed part of the lesson." (Gentle Aunt Nellie sounded quite wrathful). "How could you dance properly without your thin shoes? Never mind, dears! You'll know better next week, and we'll take care you go really nice. I wouldn't worry any more about it if I were you. Do your preparation this evening, and if it's fine to-morrow perhaps Uncle David will take you with him to Chagmouth. That will give you something else to think about, won't it?"

The girls cheered up at this suggestion. They were very anxious indeed to go out with Dr. Tremayne in his little Deemster car. He had a branch surgery at Chagmouth, a village ten miles away, and every Saturday he spent most of the day there, seeing patients and visiting a sanatorium to which he was consulting medical officer. He would have taken the girls on the previous Saturday, but there had been a strong gale, and he was afraid of Mavis running any risks just at first.

"When you're acclimatized we shan't fear a puff of wind or a few drops of rain," he said, "but we'll harden you gradually, like Tom does with his bedding-out geraniums."

"Devon wind and rain are so soft they don't hurt me," urged Mavis. "The whole air has a different feel from the north. It's nearly as mild as our summer. Uncle David, I just want to forget I ever had a sore chest!"

"That's the best way; still we must go slow and sure. I don't want to have to order you to bed with a bronchitis kettle."

"I hope I've said good-bye to that wretched old kettle for evermore. I didn't want Mother to pack it, but she put it in. I'll give it away willingly to the first person who needs it."

Saturday morning fortunately proved fine and mild enough to dispel all fears on Mavis's behalf, and the girls were ready and anxious to start long before Dr. Tremayne had finished his work in the surgery. They fumed round the waiting-room door, casting indignant glances at the patients seated within, and hoping their cases were not serious, and would not require much of the doctor's time and attention; then, finding such hanging about rather dispiriting, they went to the garage and helped Tom to polish the brasses of the car—a praiseworthy occupation that kept them busy until the last patient had been dismissed from the surgery.

"Just a few bottles of medicine to make up, and then we're off," said Uncle David, giving some instruments to Jessop to sterilize. "Have you each got a warm scarf, girls? And where's the rug? Tell Tom to put my bag inside the dicky, there won't be room for it in front to-day. You two will have to sit close, but we'll squeeze in somehow."

The little yellow car was only a two-seater, but it held three at a pinch. Mavis, in the middle, sat as far back as possible, so as not to incommode Uncle David's left arm as he drove, while Merle sat a little forward, to give extra room. Jessop tucked the rug over their knees, Tom started the engine, Aunt Nellie waved good-bye out of the open window, and at last they were off, over the bridge and along the road that led to the south. It was a lovely sunny morning, with great fleecy clouds on the horizon, and a blue sky overhead. Small birds were flitting about in the hedges, and large flocks of rooks and starlings were feeding in the ploughed fields. The banks were green with masses of beautiful hart's-tongue ferns, and all nature seemed alive and stirring and thinking of spring. The car whizzed along at a good pace, and they were soon scaling the hill and crossing the portion of the moor that lay between Durracombe and Chagmouth. The glistening drops from yesterday's showers still shone on the brown heather, sheep were feeding on the patches of fine grass, and wild little ponies stampeded away at the approach of the car, as if they were running a race with motor power.

It was so beautiful on the uplands that the girls were quite sorry when the open, hedgeless road dipped between banks into a valley and turned into the orthodox deep Devonshire lane. Down and down they went, so steeply that Uncle David seemed to be hanging on to the brakes, and for at least two miles there was no occasion to use the engine, then quite suddenly they whisked round a bend of the road and caught a glimpse of the village lying below them. Chagmouth came afterwards to mean so much to Mavis and Merle that they never forgot their first sight of it. It burst upon them, a compact mass of picturesque houses lying huddled between two magnificent headlands crowned with gorse and brown bracken.

A rushing stream ran through the valley, flowed under several bridges, and poured itself into the harbour, where gulls were flapping and screaming, and the rising tide was rocking the fishing-boats gently to and fro. Out beyond the jetty white sea-foam was flying round jagged rocks, and a motor-launch was making its way cautiously among chopping waves. Though it was only the first of February, the village, owing to the large number of its half-exotic shrubs, was framed in a setting of green, among which the little colour-washed houses shone like flowers. Seen as a bird's-eye view from the road above, Chagmouth indeed looked like a gigantic flower border with the emerald sea for a lawn. As they dipped downward into the ravine there rose up towards them certain scents and sounds intimately connected with the place, and afterwards indissolubly associated with it in the minds of the two girls—the murmur of running water, the cries of sea-gulls, the twitter of small birds, the salt smell of the sea, the pungent smoke of burning driftwood, and the faint, aromatic odour of moist evergreen shrubs steaming in the sunshine.

Dr. Tremayne halted at a house at the top of the village, and took his car round into the stable-yard. The house was a farm, and he rented rooms there for the purpose of his profession. A brass plate upon the door set forth his surgery hours. People in Chagmouth, unless they were seriously ill, kept their aches and pains until Saturdays, for it was a long way to fetch the doctor from Durracombe to pay a special visit. The waiting-room at Grimbal's Farm was generally full when he arrived, and there were enough messages from patients requiring his attendance to keep him busy for the whole of the day.

When the car had been put safely under cover, Uncle David took Mavis and Merle beneath the great arch of fuchsias that framed the doorway and into the wide, old-fashioned hall, where the farmer's wife, who had been watching for the car, was standing to greet them.

"Well, Mrs. Penruddock, how are you? Anybody waiting for me this morning?" began Uncle David. "You see I've brought my nieces with me to-day. They'll take a look round the place while I'm busy. Can you manage to find any lunch for them, do you think?"

"Of course I can, Doctor," smiled Mrs. Penruddock. "It's a nice day for them to see Chagmouth. It's really quite warm down by the harbour. There are ten people in the waiting-room, and I have the messages here. Mrs. Glyn Williams said there was no hurry, any time would suit her."

"I'll go up in the afternoon then, when I take the Sanatorium. I'll see the people who are waiting now, and then have lunch, please, before I begin my round. Have you a watch, Mavis? That's right! Then run down and look at the sea, you two girls, and be back by one o'clock. Don't forget the time, because I shall have a long round to-day, and must make an early start."

Dr. Tremayne disappeared into his surgery, and Mavis and Merle, after a few directions as to their route from Mrs. Penruddock, turned down the street that led towards the sea. Chagmouth was nothing more than a village, though its natives liked to call it a town. To enter it was like exploring a new world. The road to Chagmouth was happily too steep and narrow for charabancs, so that, even in summer, trippers, with their terrible train of sandwich-papers and cigarette-ends, had not yet discovered it and defiled its beauty. It was the most picturesque jumble of fishermen's cottages that could possibly be imagined; its narrow alleys, its archways, its flights of steps, its green half-doorways, its tiny windows and chimneys set at every quaint angle, its cobble stones and deep gutters, seemed a survival from old days of wrecking and smuggling, and transported one's charmed imagination back to the eighteenth century. Every corner was an artist's subject, the roofs were yellow with lichen, and many of them were covered with masses of ferns; fishing-nets hung out to dry over palings, and clumps of valerian and stocks and snapdragon grew in the crevices of the walls. Sea-gulls were everywhere, as tame as chickens. They sat in rows on the roof ridges, they perched on the chimneys, and flapped down into the streets to catch the bread the children threw for them, they swam with the ducks in the wide pool where the stream emptied itself into the harbour, and circled with loud cries round the jetty and the arcade where the fish was packed. Nobody in Chagmouth ever molested the gulls; they were the mascots of the village, and, according to all traditions handed down from time immemorial, to injure one of them would be to court instant bad luck and risk at sea. Even the naughtiest boys did not throw stones at them, and they were indeed considered almost as sacred as are the storks in some countries.

Mavis and Merle, much thrilled with their surroundings, plunged down the narrow little street and along flights of steps and under a deep archway, till they found themselves by the harbour, where red-sailed fishing-boats were at anchor, and blue-jerseyed, bronze-faced men were sitting on casks or on coils of rope, smoking, and talking about prospects of future catches. It was such a picturesque sight that Mavis wanted to linger, but Merle, who could catch a glimpse of the spray beyond the breakwater, pulled her on towards the sea. So they climbed one flight of steps, and went down another on the far side of the jetty, finding themselves on a strip of sand and shingle with high rocks and a headland behind, and the stretch of green open channel in front.

The midday February sunshine made gleaming, dancing lights on the water. Each wave as it rolled in showed a transparent window of amber, then fell in foaming white on the beach, carrying back with it a mass of grinding pebbles. The south wind was fresh, but not at all cold. Mavis drank in great gasping breaths of it, as if it were something for which she had craved and pined. A fortnight of Devon had already brought a pink tinge to her cheeks, and the sea air to-day was turning them rosy. The girls walked about on the shore, picking up shells, examining the great tangled pieces of seaweed, and peeping into the pools among the rocks. They would have liked to go round the point, but Mavis's wristwatch warned her that time was galloping, and that if they meant to climb back up the hill to Grimbal's Farm they must turn at once and hurry their steps; so, very reluctantly, they said a temporary good-bye to the beach, promising themselves many further visits there on future Saturdays, and each taking a cockleshell to carry in her pocket as a charm to lure her again to the domain of the sea-nymphs.

CHAPTER V
Fair Maids of February

Mavis and Merle had lunch with Uncle David in the parlour at Grimbal's Farm. It was a quaint, old-fashioned house-place, with a horsehair sofa, a cabinet full of best china, some enlarged family photographs in gilt frames, a very ancient piano, and a round table. It had the faint, musty, shut-up scent that clings to a room which is used only once a week, but a blazing fire of logs, and a bunch of snowdrops on the table, helped to give it a more occupied air. To the girls it was all part of their delightful new experience at Chagmouth. Everything was different from home, and therefore interesting, and when Mrs. Penruddock brought in a bowl of Devonshire cream with the roasted apples they felt they were indeed in a land of plenty. When the meal was over, Dr. Tremayne retired into his dispensary to make up medicines, telling the girls to wait about for him and not go too far away, as he would soon be starting on his round, and would take them in the car.

Of course they did not want to stay in the house, so, accepting Mrs. Penruddock's invitation "Go just wherever you like", they started to explore the farm premises. Clumps of snowdrops were growing among the grass in the orchard under old apple trees, some of whose branches held boughs of mistletoe. Bulbs were pushing up in the garden, and the daphne mezereon was out already in the warm corner near the bee-hives. Through the stackyard flowed the stream which was such a feature of Chagmouth, and here its glittering, tumbling waters had been harnessed to turn a waterwheel that worked a churn, a turnip-cutter, and other farm implements. The wheel at present was still, and the girls could go quite close and examine it. It was a picturesque affair, yellow with lichen and moss, and with green ferns growing on the wall against which the water dripped. It was so utterly different from the unlovely, whirling, modern machinery to which they were accustomed in Whinburn that they climbed down the steep, narrow steps to get a nearer view. Birds were flitting hither and thither like dainty water nixies, great sprays of periwinkle trailed down the banks, and the stream danced by with a gurgling murmur as if it were trying to put some story into words. Mavis, standing on the lowest of the steps, and leaning against a blade of the waterwheel, threw sticks on to its bosom and watched them as they bobbed along on their way towards the sea.

"Hello!" called a voice from above. "If you don't want to get knocked into the water you'd better come up. The wheel will be turning in another moment. We didn't know you were down there."

The girls made a hurried ascent of the steps, and came scrambling up into the stackyard. The stream might have its attractions, but they had no wish to try a February bath in it. At the top, by the door of the churning-shed, stood a boy of perhaps sixteen, a dark, good-looking boy, with clear brown eyes that sparkled and twinkled like the dancing water below. He held out a strong hand and helped them up the last of the awkward steps.

"Dr. Tremayne sent me to look for you," he volunteered, "and a hunt I've had. I thought you must have gone down the town. I wouldn't have found you, only I heard your voices. He's ready to start, and in two minds whether to set off without you or not."

"Is he waiting? Oh, I'm so sorry! Where's the car? On the road by the front door? Can we cut across the orchard here? Oh, thanks! We won't be two seconds," and Mavis, scrambling over a fence, made a bee-line for the house in hot haste.

"We'd no idea it was so late," added Merle, scurrying after her with only half a glance at the knight who had come to their rescue.

The boy stood watching their race across the orchard with an amused look in his dark eyes, then he picked up a piece of rope and went away down the stackyard to the stables, whistling softly to himself as he walked.

The girls arrived at the front door of the farm at the very eleventh hour, for Dr. Tremayne had started the engine, and was on the point of setting forth for his visits. They scrambled into the car, pouring out breathless apologies.

"You were nearly left behind," he commented. "I've a long round and couldn't wait, but I thought you'd like to come with me to the Sanatorium; there's such a glorious view up there. It would have been a pity to miss it. Yes, put that scarf round your neck, Mavis, certainly!" as a scrimmage went on between the two girls, Merle trying to force wraps upon her sister, which the latter fiercely resisted.

"I hate to be eternally coddled," protested Mavis.

"You know what Mother said. You must put on extra things in the car, especially when you're so hot with running. She told me to make you."

"Right-o! only don't quite smother me, please," agreed Mavis, giving up the struggle and submitting to the warm scarf. "Anything for a quiet life. Do keep still, and sit more forward, can't you? Uncle David hasn't room to drive. Are you going straight to the Sanatorium now, Uncle?"

"I must call at The Warren first to see Mrs. Glyn Williams. That's the house, the white one among the trees. They've a beautiful sheltered garden there. I wish I could grow early vegetables like they do. They seem to escape all the frosts. It's the most forward bit of land in the countryside."

In another minute they had passed the great gates and were motoring up the laurel-bordered drive to the house. Dr. Tremayne stopped his car on the carriage sweep opposite the glass front door, drew off his thick gauntlet gloves, took his case of instruments, and rang the bell.

"You'd rather stay with the car than come inside?" he asked the girls. "I shall probably be perhaps twenty minutes—not longer, I hope! Walk about, Mavis, if you feel chilly. I'm sure Mrs.——" but at that moment the butler opened the door, and the rest of the doctor's sentence went unspoken.

For a space of five minutes the Ramsays stayed quietly in the car, then Merle began to grow restless. She amused herself by inspecting the various levers.

"I could start as easily as anything," she announced airily.

"Oh, Merle, don't! Uncle David will be so angry if you play any of your pranks with the car. Let us get out and walk about till he comes back. I'm tired of sitting still."

Anxious to keep her sister away from temptation, Mavis hustled her out of the car on to the drive, and began to pace up and down the carriage sweep. But this did not content lively Merle. She wanted to sample the garden.

"Uncle David was just going to tell us to go when he went indoors," she contended, and there seemed so much truth in her argument that Mavis yielded, though slightly against her better judgment.

It was so warm that they took off their coats and left them inside the car, then they selected an interesting-looking path among the bushes, and started to explore. Certainly it was a delightful garden; it had lawns and shrubberies and flower-borders, and a brook with a rustic bridge over it, and a glade that looked a veritable fairies' dancing-place. Mavis and Merle were thoroughly enjoying themselves. They were in no particular hurry, because they thought when Uncle David came out of the house and missed them he would sound his motor-horn as a signal for them to return. They walked on, therefore, some considerable way along the course of the little brook. Quite suddenly they heard voices, and from a path slightly ahead two girls turned into the glade. The Ramsays remembered them instantly. They had been present at the dancing-class yesterday, and it was indeed the elder of them who had behaved with such extreme rudeness to Merle in the ladies' chain. The recognition seemed to be mutual. They came forward briskly towards Mavis and Merle, who stood still, feeling decidedly caught, but determined to hold their own.

"Hello! What are you doing here in our garden?" began the elder girl inhospitably.

"Looking at your flowers," answered Merle.

"Well, I must say that's rather cool. Don't you know you're trespassing?"

"No, I don't!"

"Well, you are at any rate. These are private grounds."

"So I suppose, but we're not doing them any harm by walking round them."

"Oh, Merle, do let us explain properly," put in Mavis, trying to stop this unseemly fencing. "We came with our uncle, Dr. Tremayne, and we got tired of sitting in the car waiting for him, so we took a walk. We didn't think anyone would mind."

"Is Dr. Tremayne your uncle? Why didn't you say so before?"

"You never gave us a chance!" snapped Merle. "Of course he's our uncle. There goes his hooter. We must scoot back, because he'll be in a hurry to start."

"I can show you a short cut," volunteered the younger girl, speaking for the first time, and running in front she led the way, between bushes and through a vegetable garden, back to the carriage sweep opposite the front door.

Here Dr. Tremayne was hooting loudly to recall his wandering nieces, and looked not a little relieved at their appearance.

"I thought I'd lost you again," he said, as they came up. "So you've been making friends with Babbie? Where's Gwen? Is her wrist better? I wanted to look at it. Yes, fetch her, please, Babbie! I may as well see her while I'm here."

Mavis and Merle, with eyes fixed on the distant landscape, sat in the car while Dr. Tremayne made a hurried examination of Gwen Williams's wrist. They did not look in her direction as they drove away, though they nodded a stately good-bye to Babbie.

"Think of meeting that girl here," whispered Merle to Mavis. "Isn't she odious?"

"I wish we'd never gone into their garden," Mavis whispered back. "If there's anything in the world I hate it's being caught."

The brief episode had upset them both. They did not care to explain it to Uncle David, and sat rather silent and glum as he drove up the road to the Sanatorium. It was not flattering to have been taken for trespassing trippers, which was evidently what Gwen had supposed them to be. Her reception had certainly been most impolite, and was calculated to hurt anybody's feelings. They cheered up a little when they reached the top of the hill, and began to forget about it, for in front lay such a view of cliff and sea and sky as to send all cobwebs flying away to the region where dismal things belong. The Sanatorium had been built in a glorious situation, and surely no place in Devon had a more beautiful prospect from its open windows. Dr. Tremayne halted outside the gate for a few moments, and pointed out to his nieces certain distant features of interest, such as the lighthouse, and Port Sennen harbour. He was expatiating upon the clearness of the afternoon, when a voice called him by name, and, turning round, the girls saw, hurrying along the road after them, the boy who had helped them up the steps from the waterwheel at Grimbal's Farm. His dark face looked hot. He had evidently been running fast.

"I hoped I'd just catch you, Doctor," he exclaimed breathlessly. "You left this in the surgery, and I was sure you'd want it."

"My stethoscope! Great Scott! I thought it was in my pocket. Thanks, Bevis! I should have had to go back for it. I suppose you came by the cliff path?"

"Yes, it saves half a mile at least."

"You're going home that way? I wonder if my nieces would care to go with you for the sake of the walk. Girls, would you rather wait in the car outside the Sanatorium or try the path along the cliffs to Chagmouth? Bevis would act guide."

After their previous experience of waiting for Uncle David, Mavis and Merle did not hesitate a moment, and accepted their escort with alacrity. A ramble would be far more fun than sitting still in the car, or wandering surreptitiously round a strange garden. Dr. Tremayne was in a hurry, so the moment they had scrambled out he pulled his starting-lever and set off again.

"We'll meet at the farm. Mrs. Penruddock will give you some tea. I shall be back by five, so be ready for me then," he called, as he drove away along the road through the Sanatorium grounds.

Left behind, Mavis and Merle felt their first and most obvious duty was to make friends with the boy who was to act as their guide back to Chagmouth. Beyond the fact that his name was Bevis they knew absolutely nothing about him. They wondered whether he belonged to Grimbal's Farm, or was merely a visitor there. His dark, alert face and his speech and general bearing marked him as utterly different from homely Mr. and Mrs. Penruddock. Merle, calling up a mental vision of the stout, ruddy-haired woman who had charge of the surgery, and the slow, heavy-featured farmer whom she had seen in the stackyard, decided hastily, "They can't be his father and mother!" Whoever he might be he was a handsome boy, with a look of natural distinction about him, that "stamp of the gods", which is the hall-mark of a noble mind, quite irrespective of the accident of birth. His dark hair had a crisp curl in it, and his mouth held beautiful curves when he smiled. Merle, who had lately taken several violent prejudices, in this instance decided hotly in his favour. Merle never liked people by halves. All her world consisted of foes or chums.

Bevis, who had readily accepted the office of guide, seemed doing his best to make himself agreeable. He led the way along a path across some fields and on to the headland that skirted the sea. There was a track here among the gorse and dead bracken, so faint indeed that the girls would not have found it for themselves, though Bevis walked along confidently. Below them lay the sea, and great jagged rocks, round which crowds of gulls were whirling and calling, and here and there flew a cormorant, like a black sheep among the white flock, diving occasionally under the waves in quest of fish. There could hardly be a pleasanter companion than Bevis. He knew the names of all the birds, and could tell where he had found their nests. He pointed out two distant black specks, that to the girls might have been anything, but which he assured them represented a pair of choughs that built every year on the cliffs.

"We tried to get some eggs," he explained, "but the nest was in such an awkward place, we couldn't reach it even with a rope."

"Do you mean to tell me you'd let yourself dangle over the edge there to collect eggs?" asked Mavis. "Don't you turn dizzy?"

"Not a bit. As long as I know the rope isn't frayed, I'm all right. There's something rather jolly about hanging in mid-air. I feel like a bird myself. I once got a hooded crow's egg from that cliff over there. I gave it to our school museum."

"Do you go to school near here?" asked Merle, hoping to draw some information. But Bevis shook his head.

"I've left now," he said briefly, and changed the subject.

As they neared Chagmouth the track they had followed led them down the side of the cliff to where some allotment gardens lay under the shelter of the headland. Many of these were neglected and uncultivated, but a few showed signs of recent digging. Bevis, pausing by a small wooden gate, pointed downwards.

"That's ours," he explained, "and if you don't mind I want to fetch my knife. I believe I left it there yesterday when I was working. I won't be a minute if you can wait."

"Oh, do let us come too, please!" urged the girls.

So they all went down, scrambling along a kind of sheep track till they reached the level patch of rich soil below. The little plot of land was mostly devoted to vegetables, but it also held a few fruit-trees and some flowers. There was a fallen stump in its midst, which made a capital seat, and here the girls settled themselves to rest while Bevis looked for his knife. Snowdrops grew in profusion around them, lifting tall stalks and pure white heads above the herbage through which they had pushed. The late afternoon sun just touched the roofs of the little fishing-town below, though the beach lay in shadow. Up among the woods some glass windows gleamed like gold.