a wicked twinkle in
them the whole time. No, my good girl, whatever else you may do, you
won't succeed in looking saintly."

"Well, I guess I've got some bounce in me, certainly," agreed Diana.
"But I thought perhaps if I went about on tiptoe and whispered,
and"--hopefully--"I could keep my eyes half-shut, couldn't I?"

Violet shook her head decisively.

"That twinkle would ooze out of the smallest chink, and besides, even if
you managed to look a saint, that wouldn't influence Toddlekins. You
don't know her yet. Once she says a thing she sticks to it like glue.
_She_ calls it necessary firmness in a mistress, and _we_ call it a
strain of obstinacy in her disposition. In the old days we could get
round Mrs. Gifford, but now Toddlekins rules the show, you may as well
make up your mind to things and have done with it. What she says is
kismet."

"Why do you want to go to Glenbury?" asked Jess.

"Oh! just a reason of my own," evaded Diana.

"You'll very likely get an exeat the week after," consoled Violet.

"It would be no use to me then," said Diana dismally.

The procession of rush-bearers, each carrying a good-sized sheaf in her
arms, wound down the hill-side to go back to Pendlemere by a different
route. This was a wild track over the moors, past the old slate-quarry,
where rusty bits of machinery and piles of broken slates were lying
about, then over the ridge and down by Wethersted Tarn to the gorge
where the river took its rise. Here a stream of considerable force
thundered along between high walls of rock. It was a picturesque spot;
rowan-trees hung from clefts in the crags, their bright berries
rivalling the scarlet of the hips and haws; green fronds of fern bent at
the water's edge, and brilliant carpets of moss clothed the boulders. At
one point a great tree-trunk, a giant of the fells, rotten through many
years of braving the strong west wind, had fallen and lay across the
torrent. It stretched from bank to bank like a rough kind of natural
bridge, with the stream roaring and foaming only six feet below. The
girls scrambled over its upturned roots, and stood looking at the
straight trunk and withered branches that lay stretched before them.

"Shouldn't care to venture across there," said Loveday with a shiver.

"It looks particularly slippery and horrid," agreed Geraldine.

"The water must be so very deep down there," said Hilary.

"I don't believe there's one of us who'd go across for a
five-poun