ay on which she should have played
again, turned out so wet that hockey or anything else of an out-of-door
nature was quite impossible. Tuesday was a walk-day for Gerry's team.
But on the following Wednesday the practice could be avoided no longer,
and after dinner Gerry went up to her dormitory to change into her
hockey things, feeling very much as though she was on her way to be
martyred at the stake.

Gerry was far and away the biggest girl in the very low team in which
she had been placed. K.1. and K.2. were mostly filled with quite
little girls from the First and Second Forms, with one or two backward
individuals from the Third, and one spectacled person, Sally Jones,
from the Middle Fourth. Sally was rather an aggressive young lady
altogether. Although she was not good at hockey she was certainly
improving, and was usually put to play centre forward in the practice
games. She was inclined to presume upon this position and her superior
age to order the other children about. When Gerry slowly approached
the ground on which the two K teams were supposed to practise, Sally
regarded her with keenly-inquiring eyes, and noticing her obvious
dejection prepared to improve the occasion.

"Here comes German Gerry," she observed. And with a quick turn of her
wrist she flicked the ball she was idly knocking about full at the
approaching girl, hitting her smartly on the shin.

Gerry, who had not seen the ball coming, gave an involuntary cry of
pain, which occasioned a shriek of laughter from the small girls around.

"German Gerry! German Gerry! German Gerry's hurt again!" chanted one
small damsel. The catchword was taken up by the others, and the air
was filled with the clamour from some twenty lusty voices as the
taunting cry rose on the wind. But it died down somewhat abruptly, as
Sally, who, for all her spectacles, was by no means shortsighted,
caught sight of Muriel Paget in the distance.

"Shut up! Here's Muriel!" she said in an awestruck voice. And the
chanting stopped suddenly as the head girl came up.

Muriel looked rather sharply from Gerry's flushed face to the abashed
countenances of the other children. But if she guessed something of
what had been happening she did not betray her surmise.

"Places, please," she said briskly. "I'm going to take your practice
to-day instead of Kathleen. So mind you all play up jolly well."

The team scurried to their places with alacrity. It was something very