girl to get a mark on her
first day. I must trouble you for that pigtail, if you please."

She was speaking the truth, that was evident! Confirmation was written
on every watching face, in every warning frown. Rhoda's pride battled
with a sense of helplessness so acute that she had much ado not to burst
into tears on the spot. The two girls stood confronting each other, the
new-comer flushed and quivering, like a beautiful young fury, with her
flaxen hair streaming over her shoulders, and her blue eyes sending out
sparks of fire; Thomasina composed and square, with her lips pursed up
in a good-humoured, tolerant smile.

"Hurry up!" she said, and Rhoda whisked round and dashed behind her
curtain, which flew out behind in an aggrieved fashion, as if unused to
be treated with such scant courtesy. The next few moments seemed to
have concentrated in them a lifetime of bitterness. The comb tugged
remorselessly through the curling locks, but the physical pain passed
unnoticed; it was the blow to pride which hurt--the sharp, sharp stab of
finding herself worsted, and obliged to give in to the will of another.
It was nothing at that moment that the pigtail was ugly and unbecoming;
Rhoda would have shaved her head and gone bald for ever if by this means
she could have escaped that verdict; but to appear again before all the
girls with that hateful, hateful wisp hanging down her back--she felt as
if she would die rather than do it; yet would it not be even more
degrading to wait for a summons? She stalked forth, straight and
defiant, and was received with a bland smile.

"Pretty fair for a first attempt. Plait it down further next time. I
must have my girls neat and tidy. Now then, forward please--Right,
left! right, left!"

The order was accompanied by a tap on the shoulder, which put the
finishing touch to Rhoda's exasperation. She stepped into her place in
the queue, trembling from head to foot, and with a painful throbbing in
her head which was something new in her healthy experience. Immediately
in front marched a tall, straight form, whom at first she failed to
recognise, but at the head of the staircase there came a temporary wait,
and then the head was turned towards her, and, behold, it was Dorothy
herself, pigtailed like the rest, and looking curiously reduced without
the background of hair.

"Morning!" she cried cheerily, and Rhoda gasped a breathless question.

"You too! Did she tell you? I never he