Chad's girls were sitting in the recreation room, Flossie pulled
her handkerchief from her pocket, and in so doing whisked out a
pearl-handled penknife. She stooped in a hurry to recover it, but it
had fallen under a little table, close to where Pauline Reynolds was
sitting, and the latter picked it up instead.

"Hello! This is Janie Henderson's knife," exclaimed Pauline. "Look
here, Janie! Isn't this the one you lost?"

"Of course it is," affirmed Janie. "I can tell it by the small blade.
There's a tiny piece broken off at the end."

"Where did you get it, Flossie?" enquired

"I found it when I was warden," replied Flossie. "How should I know it
was Janie's?"

"You might have asked whose it was," said Maisie. "You've no right to
pocket things when you're warden!"

"I wrote a 'Found' notice about it," declared Flossie.

"I never saw any notice," put in Janie.

"Where did you pin this wonderful paper?" asked Pauline.

"On the dressing-room door."

"Where nobody would ever dream of looking!" returned Maisie. "Why
couldn't you put the knife on the forfeit tray?"

"I really don't know! What's the use of making such an absurd fuss
about trifles?" said Flossie, linking her arm in Norah Palmer's, and
turning away.

"I call them principles, not trifles," murmured Maisie; "it's just on
the same lines as the cribbing, not quite open and square. I wish
Flossie had stayed at St. Bride's; I certainly don't consider her a
credit to St. Chad's."

The quarrels between Honor and Flossie occasionally rose to the level
of a miniature war. The latter never lost any opportunity of flinging
ridicule and contempt on all things Irish, and Honor, who resented a
slur on her native land more than a personal injury, could not keep her
hot temper within bounds. It was, of course, very foolish to take any
notice of Flossie's taunts, and so her friends reminded her.

"The more you blaze up, the more she'll tease, of course," said Maisie.

"Why can't you keep calm, and pretend you don't hear her?" said
Pauline. "She doesn't try it on with us."

"You're such a set of stolid Anglo-Saxons!" declared Honor. "You never
get roused about anything."

"It's bad form, my dear girl! Hysterics are out of fashion. We don't go
in for them at Chessington."

"But you really are entertaining when you're aggressively Celtic,
Paddy!" said Lettice. "I own I can't resist taking a rise out of you
myself sometimes, just for the fun of seeing you expl