ogise or
not?'

Jean reddened, and a lump rose in her throat. Her worship of the head
girl was the most genuine thing about her, and she was suffering keenly
under her disapproval. But an apology to a new girl, especially to one who
had come to rob her of all her privileges, was next to an impossibility.
Barbara saved the situation.

'I don't want anybody's apologies,' she cried. 'I'm not cross, and I don't
know what you're all talking about.' She wriggled away from the friendly
grasp of Ruth Oliver, and sped round the gallery till she came to the
head of the stairs. Arrived there, the temptation of a long, broad,
shining baluster-rail was too much for her; and in another moment the
little elf-like figure in the fresh muslin frock was astride of it and
flying down to the hall, with her hair once more in rebellion round
her face. The exhilaration of the brief rush downwards sent all her
troubles out of her head, and she uttered a war-whoop of delight as she
landed with a thump on the mat at the bottom. The elder girls, who were
just streaming across the hall in response to the supper-bell, stopped
and stared aghast. Certainly the new girl was the most impudent of her
species, and meant to make her entry into the establishment of Wootton
Beeches with a flourish! But Margaret Hulme, it was rumoured, had taken
her up; and that meant that the elder girls were no longer in a position
to criticise her.

CHAPTER V

THE INK BOGIES

Barbara's disappointment had lost some of its bitterness by the time
the seven o'clock bell woke her on the following morning. Perhaps,
after all, it was her own fault that things had not turned out so
delightfully as she had expected. Even the boys used to call her clumsy
and stupid sometimes; so why should she expect any more tolerance from
her school-fellows? Anyhow, here was the beginning of another day, and
there was still plenty of time for her dream to come true.

It did not seem much like coming true, though, as she stood in the
juniors' room after breakfast, jostled from right to left by the girls
who were on their way to the different classrooms, and wondering when
somebody would come and tell her where she was to go. She wished rather
sadly that everybody in this school would not expect her to know things
by instinct.

'Do _you_ know where I am to go?' she begged, catching hold of Jean Murray
as she hurried by. Babs had forgotten, if, indeed, she had ever realised,
that Je