turdays I'd try and paint her. She has a pretty side face and
her fluffy hair would look nice against a blue background. Perhaps Mrs.
Patterson wouldn't scold if it was Joan's portrait I was doing. Oh dear!
How I wish Kingfield High School was a school of art."

Lesbia returned to 28 Park Road at the end of the three weeks with
relief and regret about equally balanced. She treasured the remembrance
of a quite tearful good-bye hug from Terry, but rejoiced that she had no
longer to put him to bed, to comb his curls, or to keep his mischievous
fingers from doing damage. She did not covet Miss Gordon's post, and
decided that if she had to teach it should be at a day school, where she
could be free from the small fry from 4 p.m. till 9 o'clock on the next
morning.

"The fact is," she confessed to herself, "I adore children to look at or
to romp with. It's that abominable keeping order I hate so. I'm not what
Miss Tatham calls 'a good disciplinarian'. The young scamps know it, and
they take advantage of me. I suppose I'm a round peg in a square hole,
or a square peg in a round hole, whichever it is; I don't seem quite to
fit somehow. Well, it can't be helped anyway, and I shall just have to
worry along as best I can to the end of the chapter."

CHAPTER XII

The Blessed Damozel

It was not until after Easter that Regina Webster came to school. She
appeared in VA on the first morning of the new term, and because the
form was really "full up" she had to be accommodated with a chair and a
small table at which to write. Miss Pratt, having settled the new-comer
with a seat, suggested that somebody should afford hospitality to her
books, which certainly could not be left lying about the room. For a
minute there was dead silence. Everybody's desk seemed already
overflowing, and nobody felt at all anxious to share its limited space
with a stranger.

"Won't _anyone_ offer?" asked Miss Pratt with a tinge of surprised
tartness in her voice.

Regina was staring out of the window trying to look utterly
disinterested.

Then Lesbia's conscience gave her a hard tweak and whispered: "Don't be
mean". She often ignored her inner monitor, but this time she listened.

"_I_ will, Miss Pratt," she said, turning a little red, as the gaze of
the form instantly focused upon her.

"Thank you, Lesbia!"

So that was how it began. Fate, at their first meeting, seemed to fling
Regina into her very lap. You cannot share a desk with anyb