and I caught the words "new girls". Miss Buller, the governess, seemed
busy, and not able to waste any time upon us, so she merely announced:
"Lucy and Philippa Seaton. I hope you will make them welcome, girls;"
and hurried away, leaving us standing shyly by the door, not quite
knowing what to do next.

The little group collected round the fire moved slightly so as to make
room for us, and a pretty fair-faced girl, with a mop of frizzy
pale-gold hair, came forward.

"Come along," she said brightly, "and I'll tell you who we all are. I'm
Doris Forbes, and this is my sister Janet, and these are Ellinor Graham,
Millicent Holmes, Blanche Greenwood, and Olave and Beatrice Milner,"
pointing to each as she spoke. "Most of the others are still upstairs
unpacking their boxes, and a few of us haven't arrived yet. Now as
you're new girls, we want to know all about you. To begin with, which is
Lucy, and which is Philippa? Are you sisters, and have you ever been to
school before?"

"I'm Philippa," I replied, "and this is my cousin Lucy. We've never been
to school before; we had a governess at home."

"All the better for you," put in the tall girl in the blue dress whom
the others called Millicent Holmes. "Mrs. Marshall never likes girls who
come from other schools. She says she has to teach them everything all
over again."

"That's just to make you think her ways are better than anyone else's,"
said Ellinor Graham. "I've had five music masters, and every one has put
me back to the beginning, and told me the others didn't know how to
teach."

"Then you'll get put back again this term," laughed Blanche Greenwood.
"For Herr Goldschmidt has gone home to Germany, and we're to have an
Italian, named Signor Salviati, instead."

"No!" cried the girls with thrilling interest. "Have you seen him?
What's he like?"

"Oh, don't excite yourselves! He's not a romantic-looking Italian, with
long curls and a twisted moustache; he's a nasty little fat oily kind of
a man, with a pointed beard, who looks as if he could be horribly cross
if you played wrong notes."

"How disgusting!" cried the others. "Are there any other changes?"

"Miss Buller is to have the fourth class," said Blanche, who seemed to
be the general fund of information. "Janet, Beatrice, and Olave are on
the early-morning practising list for this month" (groans from Janet,
Beatrice, and Olave at the bad news), "the Simpsons have the bedroom at
the end of the passage, with