ppily. "Don't
I do it well? I really _have_ the knack! ... I can't think why you
don't have one."

"How should we find the time?" queried Susan earnestly. "First to
compose the things--and then write them out neatly would take hours and
hours."

"I would write them out. It looks ever so much better if it's all in
one handwriting."

The girls exchanged glances. Dreda certainly wrote a very legible hand,
but they were already beginning to feel a trifle dubious about her ready
promises.

"My dear, it would take _years_! You would never get through. Only
yesterday you were preparing us for softening of the brain from
overwork. You really must curb this overflowing energy." Nancy
narrowed her eyes in her most fascinating smile, in which still lurked a
spice of derision. "Your welfare is very precious to us; we can't
afford to risk it for the sake of a magazine!"

Dreda flushed, and wriggled impatiently on her seat. She never could
tell whether Nancy was in fun or in earnest.

"I am not proposing to take on more work. It would be a distraction!"
she declared loftily. "I love making up stories and poetry, and reading
what other people have written. I'd get up early, and do it in play
hours. It would be a labour of love. Besides, it would cultivate our
style. `The Duck' is literary herself. I dare say she'd let it count
as composition!"

The girls brightened visibly at this suggestion. It would be distinctly
more amusing to write for their own magazine than to cudgel their brains
to produce a sheet full of ideas on the abstruse subjects suggested by
Miss Drake. They edged a little nearer the fire, straightened their
backs, and fell to discussion.

"Perhaps she might."

"We'll ask her."

"She might be editor."

"She could write a lovely story herself."

"Bertha could illustrate. She draws the killingest pictures. There was
one of the fifth dormitory at 6 a.m. You saw all the girls asleep, and
their heads were killing. Amy had a top-knot that had fallen on one
side, Phyllis a pigtail about two inches long, and as thin as a string.
You know her miserable little wisp of hair. Mary was lying on her back
with her mouth wide open. It was the image of her. She's nearly as
good as Hilda Cowham. We might call her `Hilda Cowman' as a _nom de
plume_. Wouldn't it look professional?"

Dreda was a trifle annoyed that the position of editor had not been
offered to herself as the originator of th