suffering gave her the necessary excuse.

"Please, Miss Webb, may I go for a clean pocket-handkerchief?" she
asked.

Miss Bardsley would not have allowed any girl to leave the room during
an examination, but her substitute was more lenient.

"You must be very quick, then, Aldred," she replied. "If you lose your
turn I shall count it as a miss."

Aldred was up and out of the door in a minute. Once on the landing she
glanced cautiously round, to make certain that nobody was in sight;
then, boldly opening the glass front of the clock, she moved the hands
till they pointed to three minutes to eleven. She returned to her place,
ostentatiously displaying the clean handkerchief, just as the Form were
wrestling with the Punic Wars, and by a lucky chance got the date of the
battle of Cannae, which was the only one she knew.

"What was the policy of Rome after this defeat?" asked Miss Webb.

Lorna could not remember, and the question passed on to Phoebe, who
made a bad shot and answered wrong. Dora, Agnes and Myfanwy missed
entirely, and Miss Webb was in the act of turning to Aldred, when the
clock outside began to chime.

The teacher looked surprised, and glanced at her watch.

"I must surely be late!" she remarked. "I make it only twenty minutes to
eleven."

"The landing clock is always right," volunteered Ursula, who, being
doubtful herself as to the policy of Rome in that particular emergency,
was as relieved as Aldred.

Miss Webb did not dispute the matter, but closed her book. Perhaps she
also was not sorry to find it was lunch-time sooner than she had
expected. The girls did not need telling to go; they rose in a body, and
fled downstairs in hot haste.

"It isn't really eleven yet!" panted Aldred, when they had reached the
comparative safety of the hall. "Oh, don't make such a noise! Miss
Drummond will hear us, and come out and send us back. Let us rush
outside, into the carving-shed!"

"We knew it wasn't!" exclaimed Dora. "We all had our watches. How clever
of you to put on the clock! I guessed in a second what you'd done."

"I wonder how soon Miss Webb will find out the mistake?" said Myfanwy.
"The bell hasn't rung yet; she didn't think of that!"

"Well, I never was so glad to finish any exam in my life," avowed
Phoebe. "Wasn't it detestable?"

"As bad as the Inquisition. It was a regular torture chamber. My
unfortunate brains have been on the rack for two hours."

"Not quite two hours!" chuckled Ald