upidity of their pupils. As for the
Matric. candidates, they would _all_ fail! There wasn't a chance for a
single one. The stupidest set of girls the school had ever possessed!
Oh, certainly they would all fail!

"And then," said Mary Rhodes bitterly, "_we_ shall be blamed."

The Arts mistress said with a sigh--

"Oh, wouldn't it be heavenly to run away from it all, and have a week-
end in the country! The gorse will be out, and the hawthorn still in
blossom. What's the very cheapest one could do it on for two days?"

Mademoiselle said--

"Absolutely, _ma chere_, there is no help for it. It is necessary that
I have a distraction. I must buy a new hat."

Sophie Blake said defiantly to herself--

"Crippled? Ridiculous! I _refuse_ to be crippled. I want to run, and
run, and run, and run, and dance, and sing, and jump about! I feel
pent! I feel caged! And all that precious money squandered on
injections..."

The six weeks' course of treatment had been, from the doctor's point of
view, a complete success; from Sophie's a big disappointment. She
argued that she was still stiff, still in pain, that the improvement was
but small; he pointed out that without the injections she would of a
certainty have been worse, and since in arthritis even to remain
stationary was a success, to have improved in the smallest degree in six
weeks' time might be regarded as a triumph. He prescribed a restful
holiday during the Easter vacation, and a second course of treatment on
her return. Sophie resigned herself to do without new clothes for the
summer, and sold her most treasured possession, a diamond ring which had
belonged to her mother, so that the second ten pounds was secure. But
how was she to pay back the original loan?

Meanwhile Mrs Willoughby was inquiring among her friends for a suitable
post, and had played the good fairy by arranging to send Sophie for the
Easter holidays to a country cottage on the Surrey heights, which she
ran as a health resort for gentlewomen. Here on a fine dry soil, the
air scented with the fragrant breath of the pines, with nothing to do,
and plenty of appetising food to eat, the Gym. mistress's general health
improved so rapidly that she came back to school with her thin cheeks
quite filled out.

"Very satisfactory," said the doctor. "Now I shall be able to get on to
stronger doses!"

"What's the good of getting better, only to be made worse?" cried Sophie
in rebellion.

C