e small Vera's
hostile glances, Geraldine quickly made her way thither and was
deposited at an empty place next to Jack at the end of the long table.
Jack's immediate neighbour on her other side was Nita Fleming, another
member of the Lower Fifth, who leant forward to smile amiably at
Geraldine and was introduced at once by Jack.

"Nita's been longing to see you ever since I told her we'd got a new
girl in the Lower Fifth," she remarked. "She's hoping that perhaps she
won't be bottom of the form any longer, now you're here--aren't you,
old thing?" with an affectionate tug at Nita's long, fair pigtail, a
proceeding which led to instant retaliation by Nita upon Jack's short
locks, and brought down upon the two the wrath of the prefect in charge
of the table.

"Jack Pym and Nita Fleming--what are you doing? You're not to sit
together, you two, if you're going to behave like this. Change places
with that new girl next to you, Jack. Here, you," addressing
Geraldine, "sit next to Nita Fleming, will you, and try and keep her
and Jack in order if you can."

A mistress came in at this moment to say grace, and then the girls sat
down to the meal. Geraldine took her place between Jack and Nita with
the rueful reflection that she seemed fated to be the separator of
friends at Wakehurst Priory. However, Jack and Nita appeared to bear
her no malice, and bandied words with each other across her in the
liveliest way, taking her into the conversation with the utmost
affability. There was no such friendship between Jack and Nita as
there was between Phyllis and Dorothy, Jack being very cosmopolitan in
her friendships, and possessing as many different "partners" as there
were walks in the week.

After breakfast the girls retired to their dormitories to make their
beds and tidy their cubicles. Then came some half-hour or so of free
time before the bell went for prayers. After prayers, the girls were
marched to the Great Hall, where Miss Oakley, the headmistress, read
out the form lists for the term, and made a few remarks appropriate for
the occasion. And then the various forms departed to their respective
classrooms, where the real business of the day began in earnest.

Although she had never been to school before, Geraldine found that she
was not at all behind the rest of the class. She had been very
well-grounded by her governesses, and although, of course, she was
handicapped a little by not knowing the class methods,