s I ever heard of to go saying things like that
about a person when you _know_ they can overhear you! I'm not the
least bit ratty with Gerry. She didn't do it on purpose, and she's
sorry enough about it, anyway, without you two little worms rubbing it
in like that. You just shut up and leave Gerry alone. If I hear you
talking like that again I shall deal with you pretty severely."

For a moment the two girls were too thunderstruck at the Nemesis that
had descended upon them to make any excuse for themselves. Then
Dorothy rallied her failing powers.

"We're _awfully_ sorry, Muriel," she murmured in a deprecating tone.
"We didn't know Gerry was in her cubicle and could hear us."

Muriel gave a contemptuous sniff.

"Don't tell such lies! If you had said that you didn't know _I_ could
hear, I might have believed you. Go back to your cubicle at once,
Dorothy, and finish changing there. You know quite well that you are
not allowed to change in another girl's cubicle or talk in the
dormitory unless you've got permission. You can both of you take a
conduct mark for this little affair."

Then, having seen the abashed Dorothy depart to her own cubicle, the
head girl turned to Cubicle Thirteen.

"Ready yet, Gerry?" she asked kindly.

"N--not quite," came in muffled accents from behind the drawn curtain.

"Buck up, then--I'm waiting to walk down to tea with you," said Muriel
cheerily. And when, a few moments later, a subdued and rather red-eyed
person emerged from Number Thirteen, she slipped her hand through the
new girl's arm again, and marched her through the dormitory and down
the stairs and into the dining-hall, chatting gaily to her all the way,
as though she had been some important fellow-prefect instead of merely
a humble, insignificant member of the Lower Fifth who had just made a
disastrous exhibition of herself on the hockey field.

Arrived in the dining-hall where the girls were assembling for tea,
Muriel gave Gerry's arm a parting squeeze, and with a cheerful "Buck
up, kid, and never mind what those little beasts say," she sent her off
to her place at the bottom of Table Five, while she herself went to her
station at the head of Table Two.

But not even the head girl's championship could save Gerry from the bad
times that awaited her now. Indeed, in some ways, it rather made
matters worse. Phyllis was furiously jealous of the favour Muriel had
shown to the new girl, and Dorothy--although she was