ing to them. She was short in
stature, but made up in spirit for her lack of inches, and would fix her
dark eyes on offenders against discipline with the personal magnetism of
a circus trainer or a leopard-tamer. Schoolgirls are irreverent beings,
and though to her face her pupils showed her all respect, behind her
back they spoke of her familiarly as "The Bantam," in allusion to her
small size but plucky disposition, or sometimes, in reference to her
sarcastic powers, as "The Sark," which by general custom became "The
Snark." On the whole Miss Strong's pithy, racy, humorous style of
teaching made her a far greater favorite than mistresses of duller
caliber. She had a remarkable faculty for getting work out of the most
unwilling brains. Her form always made excellent progress, and she had a
reputation for obtaining record successes in examinations. To judge from
the first few days of term, she meant to keep up her standard of
efficiency. Miss Burd had mapped out a heavy time-table for
VA., and it was Miss Strong's business to see that the girls
got through it. Of course they grumbled. After the long weeks of the
summer holidays it was doubly difficult to apply their minds to lessons,
and set to work in the evenings to perform the enormous amount of
preparation demanded from them. To some the task was wellnigh
impossible, and poor Fil would send in very imperfect exercises, but
others, Ingred and Verity among the number, had ambitions, and boosted
up the record of the form.

It was after a most strenuous few days that Ingred came to the close of
the first week of the new term, and, taking her books and hand-bag,
started off to spend the week-end at home. She left the College with a
feeling of intense relief. She had dreaded the return there, and the
confession of her altered circumstances. It had not proved quite so
disagreeable an ordeal as she had anticipated, for, after the first
expressions of surprise, nobody had referred again to Rotherwood; yet
Ingred, on the look-out for slights, imagined that she was not treated
with as much consideration as formerly. Avis Marlowe and Jess Howard had
hardly spoken to her, and, though the omission was probably owing to
sheer lack of time or opportunity, she chose to set it down to a desire
to show her the cold shoulder.

"Now I have no parties to offer them, they don't care about me!" she
thought bitterly. "They'll hunt about till they find somebody else who's
likely to act ent