mper!" exclaimed Francie.

"Lemons and vinegar!" hinnied Jess.

"Why did she fly out like that?" asked Beatrice.

"Well, really, Beatrice Jackson, after all the stupid things you said,
anybody would fly out, I should think," commented Verity Richmond. "I'm
sorry for Ingred. I'd heard the Saxons can't go back to their old house.
It's hard luck on them after lending it all these years to the Red
Cross."

"But _why_ aren't they going back?"

"Why, silly, because they can't keep it up, I suppose. If you've any
sense, you won't mention Rotherwood to Ingred again. It's evidently a
sore point. Don't for goodness sake, go rubbing it into her."

"I wasn't going to!" grumbled Beatrice. "Surely I can make an innocent
remark without you beginning to preach to me like this! I call it
cheek!"

Verity did not reply. She had had too many squabbles with Beatrice in
the past to want to begin a fresh campaign on the first day of a new
term. She discreetly pretended not to hear, and addressing Francie Hall,
launched into an account of her doings during the holidays.

"We're moving out to Repworth at the September quarter," she concluded.
"And it's too far for me to bicycle in to school every day, so I've
started as a boarder at the hostel. I shall go home for week-ends,
though. Nora Clifford and Fil Trevor are there too. They'll be glad
Ingred's come. With four of us out of one form, things ought to be
rather jinky. Hullo, here they are! I say, girls, let's go to our
diggings."

The two girls who came strolling up arm-in-arm were the most absolute
contrast. Nora was large-limbed, plump, rosy, with short-cut hair, a
lively manner, and any amount of confidence. Without being exactly
pretty, she gave a general impression of jolly, healthy girlhood, and
reminded one of an old-fashioned, sweet-scented cabbage rose that had
just burst into bloom. Dainty little Filomena might, on the other hand,
be described as the most delicate of tea roses. She was fair to a fault,
a lily-white maid with the silkiest of flaxen tresses. Her pale-blue
eyes, with their light lashes, and rather colorless little face with its
straight features were of the petite fairy type. You felt instinctively
that, like a Dresden china vase, she was made more for ornament than for
use, and nobody--even school-mistresses--expected too much from her.
Experience had shown them that they did not get it.

For two years, ever since her mother's death, Fil had been a boarde