motor-bike with dispatches."

"I'd rather ride a horse than a bike any day," said Betty. "I used to
hunt before the war. You needn't smile. I was twelve when the war began,
and I'd been hunting since I was seven, and got my first pony. It was a
darling little brown Shetland named Sheila. I cried oceans when it died.
My next was a grey one named Charlie, and Tom, our coachman, taught me
to take fences. He put up some little hurdles in a field, and kept
making them higher and higher till I could get Charlie over quite well.
Oh, it was sport! I wish I'd a pony here."

"There used to be riding lessons before the war," sighed Irene. "Mother
had promised me I should learn. But now, of course, there are no horses
to be had, and the riding-master, Mr. Hall, has gone to the front. I
wonder if things will ever be the same again? If I don't learn to ride
properly while I'm young I'll never have a decent seat afterwards, I
suppose."

"You certainly won't," Betty assured her. "You ought to have begun when
you were seven."

"Oh dear! And I shall be sixteen on Wednesday!"

"Is it your birthday next Wednesday?"

"Yes, but it won't be much fun. We're not allowed to do anything
particular, worse luck."

It was one of the Brackenfield rules that no notice must be taken of
birthdays. Girls might receive presents from home, but they were not to
claim any special privileges or exemptions, to ask for exeats, or to
bring cakes into the dining-hall. In a school of more than two hundred
pupils it would have been difficult continually to make allowances first
to one girl and then to another, and though in a sense all recognized
the necessity of the rule, those whose birthdays fell during term-time
bemoaned their hard fate.

It struck Marjorie as a very cheerless proceeding. She found an
opportunity, when Irene was out of the way, to talk to her room-mates on
the subject.

"Look here," she began. "It's Renie's birthday on Wednesday. I do think
it's the limit that we're not supposed to take any notice of it. I vote
we get up a little blow-out on our own for her. Let's have a beano after
we're in bed."

"What a blossomy idea! Good for you, Marjorie! I'm your man if there's
any fun on foot," agreed Betty enthusiastically.

"It'll be lovely; but how are we going to manage the catering
department?" enquired Sylvia.

"Some of the Juniors will be going on parade to Whitecliffe on
Wednesday. I'll ask Dona to ask them to get a few things fo