oning.

"I--I--don't know. They told me it was my cubicle," she answered,
shrinking away from this alarming intruder.

"_Who_ told you?" demanded Phyllis Tressider, in such a truculent tone
that the new girl retreated yet farther into her cubicle.

"The--the person who showed me here. She looked like a hospital nurse.
I--I suppose it was one of the mistresses."

"You suppose just wrong, then," replied Phyllis, more briefly than
politely. "That was Sister. I suppose if she showed you here she
meant you to stay. But it's a beastly nuisance, all the same! Dorothy
Pemberton always has slept in this cubicle, and it's a sickening shame
if she's got to be turned out by a rotten new kid."

The "new kid's" face flushed scarlet. She was beginning some murmured
apology when the situation was relieved by the entrance of a girl of
about seventeen or eighteen years of age, who was hailed rapturously by
all the other occupants of the Pink Dormitory. This was Muriel Paget,
head girl of Wakehurst Priory, prefect and monitress as well, and
Phyllis left for the moment her inquisition of the occupant of Cubicle
Thirteen, to join in the chorus of welcome.

"_Muriel_! How perfectly ripping! You _don't_ mean to say you are
going to be our monitress this term? Oh, how quite too splendidly
glorious! I say, _do_ let me fetch you your hot water in the mornings.
Do--do--there's a dear!"

"No--me--me!" interposed half a dozen voices. But Muriel held up her
hand in laughing dismay.

"For goodness' sake, chuck it, you kids! _Nobody_ is going to fetch my
hot water for me. The maids can do it as they do everybody else's.
I'm not going to have any of that silly rot going on in the Pink Dorm,
if _I'm_ to be monitress here. So I give you fair warning!"

"You _are_ going to be monitress, then? Oh, how perfectly
scrumptious!" And Phyllis Tressider executed a dance of delight.
Muriel laughed again, pleased at her reception. She enjoyed popularity
as well as most people, although she would allow no unhealthy sentiment
to be lavished upon her. If people "adored" Muriel Paget, they had to
do it from a distance, and not let the object of their worship know too
much about it, either. Otherwise they ran a grave risk of "ructions"
with the head girl. And to be "told off" by Muriel was no joke, as
many of the girls at Wakehurst Priory could testify.

The head girl walked along the corridor towards the monitress's
cubicle, which was