s. What did you do at home when it rained and you
couldn't go out?"

"I've never seen it rain hard enough to keep me indoors if I wanted to
be out," returned Pixie, with a toss of the head; "but I've had fine fun
indoors sometimes when I didn't feel disposed for exertion. Ratting in
the barn is good sport, or grooming the pony, or feeding the animals,
and pretending it is the Zoo; but you can't do those things here. It's
hard to think of anything amusing when you are shut up in one room."

"We can go out on the landing, if we like; I vote we do, and be by
ourselves. The fifth forms are sure to tell us not to, the moment we
have thought of something nice. Come along now, before they notice us!"

No sooner said than done. The little band of conspirators slipped from
the room, and stood without on the square landing, five short-frocked
girls all gazing eagerly, confidently, into the face of their leader.

"Pixie, what shall we do?"

Pixie racked her brains in despair, for not a single idea would come to
her aid, and yet to acknowledge such a want of invention would have been
to forfeit her position, and therefore not to be thought of for a
second. Her eyes roamed from side to side, and lit upon a table on
which some working materials happened to be lying. A basket, a folded
length of cloth, and a roll of wide green binding such as was used to
edge old-fashioned window-curtains. Pixie looked at it thoughtfully,
fingered it to ascertain its weight, shook it out to discover its
length, and cried eagerly--

"Just the thing! Might have been made for it. Would you like to see me
lasso the next person who comes upstairs?"

"Lasso!" The girls were not quite sure of the meaning of the word, but
Pixie explained it, suiting the action to the word.

A lasso was a rope with a noose at one end--so! and it was used to catch
wild horses, or anything else you happened to chase. You stood with the
rope gathered up in your hand--so! and then took aim and sent it flying
out suddenly--so! Pat could do it beautifully, and he had taught her
too, but she could not always manage very well. If you caught a girl
from above, she would be startled out of her wits, and squeal like
anything. It would be splendid fun. The next one, then, who came
upstairs!

The girls were divided between horror and delight. Dared she? Really!
Would it hurt? What would Miss Phipps say? Did she really think she
ought? But their agitation act