ode."

"You ought to have been born Red Indians!" retorted Honor. "I like
people with a little fire. What's the good of having feelings, if one's
not to show them?"

"You show them so hard," laughed Lettice, "you make yourself quite
ridiculous! I'm sure I shouldn't think one of Flossie's silly jokes was
worth making any fuss about."

This was very excellent and practical schoolgirl wisdom, but
unfortunately Lettice preached a philosophy of stoicism to which Honor
had not yet attained. At the least provocation her fiery Irish blood
always asserted itself, and she would flare up, albeit she was
conscious that, by so doing, she was affording her enemy the keenest
satisfaction, and was providing amusement for the other girls, who
enjoyed "hearing Paddy break out".

One morning the feud came to a crisis. When Honor opened her desk she
found inside a neat little collection of new potatoes, and on the top,
pinned to the biggest, a paper in Flossie's handwriting, bearing these
lines:

HONOR'S WISH

Oh, Erin, moist Erin, how damp are thy showers!
I would I were back 'mid thy pigs and thy rills!
The "tater" to me is more dear than thy flowers,
And I relish the rain on thy ever-wet hills.

Honor could not help laughing at this, in spite of the aspersion on the
climate of her country. Such a quip, however, could not go unrequited,
and she sought for means of retaliation. She decided that Flossie
deserved a "booby trap", and fled back early to the classroom after
lunch, to set it for her. It was a rather difficult and delicate
operation, for she did not wish to catch anybody else by mistake. She
balanced a big dictionary so that it rested on the top of the door and
the lintel of the doorway; then, stationing herself inside the room,
she held the handle firmly, lest someone should disturb her arrangement
by flinging back the door, which was just sufficiently wide open to
allow a single person to enter. She peeped every now and then into the
passage, on the look-out for Flossie, and admitted each returning girl
with caution and due warning.

"Here she is at last!" whispered Lettice, who was naughty enough to
enjoy practical jokes, and, after admiring the preparations, had
offered to act scout.

"Is she really coming in next?"

"Yes; she's walking in front of May Thurston and Dorothea Chambers."

"Are you certain?"

"Absolutely."

"Then tell me when!"

"Now!"

Honor pulled open the door, a