rty of twenty-four. They set their faces towards the fells,
and stepped out briskly. They were not bound to walk in a crocodile,
but, though some progressed in groups, most of the girls gravitated into
pairs. Diana and Wendy linked arms as naturally as two pieces of mercury
merge together in a box. Their spirits, usually high, were to-day at
bubbling-over point: they laughed at everything, whether it was a joke
or not.

"It's my first real mountain walk in England," announced Diana.

"Oh! I'm glad you allow they _are_ mountains," said Sadie, coming up
from behind. "You've been bragging so hard about America, that I thought
perhaps you'd consider them hillocks."

"They _are_ hillocks compared with the Rockies," flashed Diana. "I'm not
going to give way an inch about America, so there!"

"All right, Uncle Sam, brag away. Everything over there is ten times
bigger and better than here--the apples are the size of pumpkins, and
the brooks are so wide you can't see across them, and it takes you years
to ride round a single farm! We know! You needn't tell us again."

"I wasn't going to!" retorted Diana. "What's the use, when you can make
it all up for yourself?"

"Oh! my invention's nothing to yours. I expect you're telling Wendy some
startlers. I'm going to walk with Vi, she's more interesting than you
two."

"What's the matter with Sadie?" asked Diana, as their schoolmate ran on
to catch up Violet.

"Jealous!" said Wendy, shaking her head sagely. "She has these attacks
sometimes, and I know the symptoms. She doesn't like to see you and me
walking together. Last term she and I and Magsie and Tattie were in
Dormitory 4. Magsie and Tattie did the 'twin cherries on one stalk'
business all the time, so in self-defence Sadie and I had to chum,
though we squabbled six times a day. I'm not going to be monopolized
now, so she needn't think it. Let her chum with Vi if she likes, I'm
sure I don't care. Hallo! Which stile do we go over here, I wonder?"

The two girls had lagged behind, so that the rest of the party, walking
at the brisk pace set by Miss Todd, had passed on in front. Wendy
mounted each stile in turn, and surveyed the prospect of fields and high
hedges. There was not a solitary tam-o'-shanter to be seen from either
of them. In much doubt she hesitated.

"It'll probably be to the left, because I know we have to go through
that wood over there before we get out on to the fells," she
conjectured.

"I can't help