tatas, and when I'm not practising I shall play what I like. There!"

And Fil, who was sitting at the piano, twirled round on the stool and
strummed "Beautiful K--K--Katie" with a lack of technique that probably
would have brought her teacher's temper up to bubbling-over point had he
been there to listen to her.

It was exactly ten days after the term had begun that Bess Haselford
came to the College. She walked into the Upper Fifth Form room one
Monday morning, looking very shy and lost and strange, and stood
forlornly, not knowing where to sit, till somebody took pity on her, and
pointed to a vacant desk. It happened to be on a line with Ingred's, and
the latter watched her settle herself. She looked her over with the
critical air that is generally bestowed on new girls, and decided that
she was particularly pretty. Bess was the image of one of the Sir Joshua
Reynolds' child angels in the National Gallery. The likeness was so
great that her mother had always cut and curled her golden-brown hair in
exact copy of the picture. She was a slim, rosy, bright-eyed, smiling
specimen of girlhood, and, though on this first morning she was
manifestly afflicted with shyness, she had the appearance of one whose
acquaintance might be worth making. Ingred decided to cultivate it at
the earliest opportunity, and spoke to the new arrival at lunch-time.
Bess replied readily to the usual questions.

"We've only come lately to Grovebury. We used to live at Birkshaw. Yes,
I'm fairly keen on hockey, though I like tennis better. Have you asphalt
courts here, and do you play in the winter? I adore dancing, but I hate
gym. I'm learning the violin, and I'm to start oil-painting this term."

She seemed such a pleasant, winsome kind of girl that Ingred, who was
apt to take sudden fancies, constituted herself her cicerone, and showed
her round the school. By the time they had made the entire tour of the
buildings, Ingred began to wonder whether, without offense, it would be
possible to leave her desk, next to Verity, and sit beside Bess. There
was a great charm of voice and manner about the new-comer, and Ingred's
musical ear was sensitive to gentle voices. She discussed Bess with the
others next morning before school.

"Yes, she's pretty, and that blue dress is simply adorable," conceded
Nora. "I'm going to have an embroidered one myself next time."

"Her hair is so sweet," commented Francie.

"I call her ripping!" said Ingred with enthusi