They sent me to
school because they think it polishes a girl, and rubs off the angles,
don't you know!" said Lottie, with an air. She was the richest girl in
the school, who took all the extras, and put her name down for every
concert and entertainment, without thinking of the expense. Her parents
had a house in town to which they came regularly every spring, during
which season Lottie's friends received many delightful invitations. She
had unlimited pocket-money also, and was lavish in gifts to those who
happened to be in her favour, a fact which a certain number of girls
found it impossible to banish from their minds; and thus Lottie held a
little court over which she reigned as queen, while the more earnest-
minded of the pupils adored Margaret, and would hear no one compared to
the sweet "school-mother." Clara was a Margaret-worshipper, so she felt
in duty bound to snub Lottie on this as on every possible occasion.

"I don't see much polish about _you_!" she retorted brutally. "And it's
ridiculous to come to school at all, if you don't mean to work. If it's
only `pruins and prism' you want, why didn't you go to board with a
dancing-mistress, and practise how to come in and out of a room, and bow
to your friends, and cut your old schoolfellows when you meet them in
the road? You'd find it useful, my dear!"

The last sentence was a deliberate hit, for a former pupil had reported
that, during a visit to a well-known watering-place, when she herself
was returning unkempt and sandy from a cockling expedition, she had
encountered Lottie walking on the parade with a number of fashionable
visitors, and that, after one hasty glance in her direction, Miss Lottie
had become so wonderfully interested in what was going on at the other
side of the road that she altogether forgot to return her bow. Needless
to say, Lottie had been reminded more than once of this incident, so
that even Pixie, the newest comer, was familiar with its incidents,
though she could not bring herself to believe in such deliberate
snobbery. To-day, as Lottie flushed, and Margaret looked a pained
reproach, it was Pixie who rushed to the rescue, wriggling about in her
seat, and clasping and unclasping her hands in the earnestness of her
defence.

"Clara Montagu, you've no business accusing Lottie! You weren't there,
so you can't tell! Perhaps the sun was in her eyes. You can't see a
man from a woman when it's shining full in your face, though