nasium here?'

She clapped her hands when Margaret nodded, and bounded towards the door.
'Mayn't I go and try it _now_?' she asked in a disappointed tone, when
the head girl called her back.

'There's plenty of time for that,' said Margaret, reminding her with a
frown that she was only a new girl and was there to be examined; 'I've
got to settle first what class you had better go into. But I'm sure I
don't know what I am to say to Finny about you.' She sighed, and looked
at Barbara as if for inspiration. Barbara was quite equal to the occasion.

'You'd better put me in the bottom class, I should think,' she advised
pleasantly; 'you don't know what my spelling is like yet.'

'Thanks,' said Margaret, drily; 'I've no doubt you are quite competent to
examine yourself, and to teach all your betters into the bargain, but that
doesn't help me just now.' She drummed her fingers on the table again,
and Barbara waited and went off into a kind of dream as she stood there.
She was aroused by an exclamation from the head girl. 'I know,' she was
saying in a relieved tone. 'Can you write compositions, child? I mean,
make up things in your head and write them down?'

Barbara smiled. Certainly, that had nothing to do with lessons. She had
scribbled over every piece of paper she could find, ever since Nurse had
first taught her to form her letters. 'I can do that all right,' she said.
'All except the spelling,' she added as an afterthought.

Margaret paid her no attention. She was occupied in carrying out her
happy idea for concluding the examination of the new girl and leaving
herself free at the same time to go to her history lecture. 'Look here,'
she said, spreading some paper rapidly on the desk in front of her;
'come and sit in this chair and write about anything you like. You'll have
a good hour and a half before the interval for lunch; and then Miss
Finlayson will come and look at what you've written, and she will settle
what class you can go into.'

'But what shall I write about?' asked Barbara, when the head girl had
installed her at the table and was hurrying out of the room.

'Anything you like; it will be all the better test if I don't give you
a subject,' said Margaret; and she escaped before the child had time to
say any more. She felt a little mean about it, for she was positive she
could not have done it herself; but she consoled herself by the reflection
that the new girl was queer enough for anything. Besides, sh