ct in view,
toiled with a vigour such as nothing else would have wrung from her, and
which would have caused unfeigned amazement to her former governess. It
was not all plain sailing, for Ursula Bramley and Agnes Maxwell were
also good workers; and even Mabel, though not specially bright, was very
plodding and conscientious. Aldred soon found that she had to revise
entirely her old method--that a careless German exercise could
completely cancel a brilliant score in history, and that she must give
equal attention to every subject if she wished to chronicle a record.
The little tricks she had practised on Miss Perkins were not equally
successful at Birkwood: she had tried reeling off her lessons very fast,
so as to gloss over mistakes, but Miss Bardsley would allow her to
finish, and then say: "Yes; now you may repeat it again, slowly. I did
not quite catch the second person plural;" and Aldred, to her disgust,
would be compelled to reveal her ignorance in a more deliberate fashion,
and take the bad mark that ensued. She was at first a venturesome
guesser, till her many bad shots drew scathing comments from her
teachers and smiles from the rest of the Form.

"Even Lorna Hallam knows that Sir Philip Sidney didn't write the _Faerie
Queene_, and she's supposed to be our champion bungler!" observed Ursula
Bramley sarcastically, on one occasion. "As for history, you muddle up
Thomas Cromwell with Oliver Cromwell! You'd better get an elementary
book, and learn a few simple facts."

The girls would not tolerate Aldred's conceit. She quickly discovered
that if she wished to be popular, it was unwise to claim too much credit
for her achievements. The week after she arrived she had taken her place
among the others at a singing lesson. Miss Wright, the mistress, began
to teach the class the old English ballad, "Should he upbraid"; it was
one with which Aldred happened to be familiar, so she at once took the
lead and sang away lustily, beating time in a rather marked manner, and
accomplishing the many little runs and trills with an air as if she
considered herself indispensable. At the close of the lesson, as they
were filing out of the room, she could not resist remarking to Ursula
Bramley:

"It was a good thing I knew that song so well, wasn't it?"

"Why?" asked Ursula pointedly, looking her straight in the eyes.

Thus cornered, Aldred could hardly say that she thought the class would
have managed badly without her aid; her ta