s eyes, unwilling to share her with anybody else. Alison had been
away from school on the day that the truants went to the wedding, and it
was nearly a week before she returned. Each morning Dorothy had looked
out for her at Latchworth, and every time she had been disappointed. At
last, however, the familiar little figure appeared again on the
platform, and the round, rosy face smiled a greeting.

"No, I've not been very ill--only a bad cold. It's almost gone now. Oh,
yes, I'm delighted to go back to the Coll. It's so dull staying in the
house with nothing to do except read, and one gets sick to death of
chicken broth and jelly! I want somebody to tell me school news. It
seems more like a year than a week since I stopped at home."

Dorothy was accommodating in the matter of news, and the two chattered
hard all the way to Coleminster.

"It's a fearful nuisance you're out of rehearsals," said Alison. "Can't
we all come up to the classroom and have them there instead?"

"No; Miss Pitman won't let us. We six sinners are on penance; we mayn't
do anything but read. Oh, it's disgusting! I shall be out of the
Christmas performance altogether."

"No, you shan't," declared Alison; "not if I can compass it in any way."

She said no more just then, but when they were returning in the train
that afternoon she mentioned the subject again.

"I was talking to the girls at dinner-time," she began. "We were
planning out the programme. Really, the scene from _Vanity Fair_ is very
short. Hope says it won't take as much time as the play you had last
year, so I suggested that we should have some tableaux as well. You
could do characters in those without any rehearsing. What do you think
of my idea?"

"Ripping!" said Dorothy. "We haven't had tableaux at the Coll. for ages.
But we must manage to get hold of some decent costumes."

"I've heaps and heaps in a box at home," announced Alison complacently.
"I can lend them all. We'll get up something worth looking at. Tell me
what you'd like to be, and you shall have first choice of everything."

"It depends on what there is."

"There's a lovely mediaeval dress that would do for Berengaria of
Navarre."

"She had golden hair, and mine's brown!"

"Bother! so she had. Then that's off. Never mind, there are heaps of
others. There's a Cavalier's, if it will only fit. I wonder if it's big
enough? You'd look nice with the crimson cloak and huge hat and feather.
Or there's a Norwegian peasan