s gives us credit for going to do the very worst!"
grumbled Betty Carlisle.

"She puts ideas into our heads!" declared Doris Hooper indignantly.

The gist of the trouble was this: the girls at the hostel expected to
have as much liberty as if they were in their own homes, while Miss
Kelly, who had formerly been a mistress at St. Chad's, wished to enforce
strict boarding-school rules. It was much more difficult to do this
because the hostel only formed part of a large day school; the general
atmosphere of the place was more free than at a college where all alike
are boarders, and the girls naturally were infected by the prevailing
spirit. A constant source of annoyance was the rule that they must
report themselves in the hostel at 4.15. It was the fashion to linger
after school, and chat in the "gym" or in the playground. It was a
delightful little time, when everybody could meet every one else, and
discuss school news and matches and guilds and other interesting topics.
To be obliged, for no particular reason, to cut short their
conversations and race back to the hostel was annoying. The boarders
evaded the rule as far as possible, but Miss Kelly kept a roll-call, and
they knew that their absences would be duly reported to Miss Bishop.

To Winona, in especial, many of the rules were extremely irksome. At
more than sixteen and a half, she felt it ridiculous to be obliged to
ask permission to go out and buy a lead pencil at the stationer's.
"It's like living in a convent!" she fumed.

Another bone of contention was her preparation. She had been so
accustomed to work in a room by herself at Abbey Close that she found
the presence of others highly distracting. Though silence was enforced,
the girls fluttered the leaves of their books, scratched with their
pens, or even murmured dates under their breath, all of which sounds
were most irritating. Winona begged to be allowed to take her books to
her cubicle, but Miss Kelly would not hear of it.

[Illustration: "TO SEE A REAL LIVE AIRMAN AT SUCH CLOSE QUARTERS WAS NOT
AN ORDINARY EXPERIENCE"]

"I cannot make an exception for one," she replied, "and it would be
impossible to allow girls to work as they liked in the dormitories.
There would be more talking than preparation! You'll stay here with the
others, and I can see for myself what you're doing."

The hint that Miss Kelly suspected her of some ulterior motive for
wishing to study upstairs enraged Winona, but she was o