as not sure whether she wanted to put it off, or to get it over at
once.

"Better let them know and have done with it," she said to herself after
a few moments' consideration on the landing. "After all, it's my
business, not theirs!"

It was a rather airily-defiant Ingred who strolled into the cloak-room
and put on her hat. Francie Hall, trying to thread her boot with a lace
that had lost its tag, looked up, smiled, and made room for her on the
form.

"Cheery-ho, Ingred! How do you like our new diggings? Some removal,
this, isn't it? I must say the place looks nice. It's topping to be here
at last. By the by, I suppose you'll be getting in Rotherwood soon? Or
have you got already?"

Ingred was stooping to lace her shoe, so perhaps the position accounted
for her stifled voice.

"We're not going back there."

"Not going back!" Francie's tone was one of genuine amazement. "Why, but
you said it was being done up for you, and you'd be moving before the
term started!"

"Well, we're not, at any rate."

"What a disappointment for you!" began Beatrice Jackson tactlessly, as
several other girls who were standing near turned and joined the group.
"You always said you were just longing for Rotherwood."

"Do the Red Cross want it again?" queried Jess Howard.

"No, they don't; but we're not going to live there. Where are we going
to live? At our bungalow on the moors, and I'm a weekly boarder at the
hostel. Are there any other impertinent questions you'd like to ask?
Don't all speak at once, please!"

And Ingred, having laced both shoes, got up, seized her pile of books,
and, turning her back on her form-mates, stalked away without a good-by.
She knew she had been rude and ungracious, but she felt that if she had
stopped another moment the tears that were welling into her eyes would
have overflowed. Ingred had many good points, but she was a remarkably
proud girl. She could not bear her schoolfellows to think she had come
down in the world. She had thrown out so many hints last term about the
renewed glories of Rotherwood, that it was certainly humiliating to have
to acknowledge that all the happy expectations had come to nothing. On
the reputation of Rotherwood both she and Quenrede had held their heads
high in the school; she wondered if her position would be the same, now
that everybody knew the truth.

As a matter of fact, most of the girls giggled as she went out through
the cloak-room door.

"My lady's in a te