n my life! I
wouldn't put you in if there was anybody else--but there isn't. So
you'll just have to play."

"But, Muriel----" protested Gerry desperately. But Muriel waved her
protest aside.

"Not another word! You've got to play. It's for the honour of the
dorm, you know. I shan't expect anything very great of you--just do
your best and I shall be satisfied. It's 2.30 sharp up on the hockey
ground, and mind you're ready in time."

Then, as Gerry still lingered, a look of distress on her face, the head
girl rose from her seat and laid her hand kindly on her junior's
shoulder.

"Look here, kiddie--you must try and get a better opinion of yourself.
Having confidence in oneself is half the battle in everything, you
know. Just make up your mind that you're going to play A1 in the match
this afternoon, and you'll come through all right! You're such a
quiet, shy person that you make the girls shy of you too, and you'll
never make friends with them while you're like that. You just try and
come out of the background a little and do things, and you'll find
you'll get on much better all round."

Muriel smiled down very kindly at the younger girl as she said these
words, and Gerry felt her heart go out to the head girl of the school.
Almost it was on the tip of her tongue to confide some of her troubles
to Muriel about that horrible nickname and the caricature that first
day in class, and how the rest of the Lower Fifth suspected her of
having German sympathies, if nothing worse! It was evident that Muriel
knew that things were not quite right with her, or she would not have
said as much as she had done.

But just as she was going to speak, the words died away on her lips.
No! She wouldn't say! She wasn't a sneak, whatever the Lower Fifth
might think, and since she had kept her own counsel so far, she would
keep it to the end. After all, she didn't want to be friends with such
a mean set of pigs as the Lower Fifth had proved themselves to be!
Even Jack, whom she had liked so much that first day of term--but, no!
Jack would not bear thinking about just then! And Gerry turned to
leave the head girl's study with a murmur of thanks for Muriel's
encouragement.

"I'll do my very best," she said earnestly. And Muriel gave her
another friendly smile as she dismissed her, so that Gerry retraced her
steps to the Lower Fifth classroom with a new feeling of happiness in
her heart. Muriel was nice--whatever the girls