red to
the other end of the room. 'If you'd only said that at first, it would
have saved all this fuss!' she muttered, as soon as she was at a safe
distance.

Babs still lay face downwards on the floor, with her heels in the air
and her whole attention fixed on the paper she was covering with her
large round handwriting. If she did not finish her letter before the
prayer-bell rang, it would have to wait until next Wednesday. So she did
not take any notice when some one came and said something or another in
her ear. She was always in somebody's way, and if she moved, she would
only be in somebody else's way. So she stayed where she was.

'Don't you hear? You've got to go and see the doctor,' repeated Angela,
loudly and with impatience. Thoughtless and empty-headed as she was, even
Angela Wilkins had the sense to see how absurd it was that the new girl
should turn on her persecutors by ignoring them.

Barbara rolled over on her side and glanced up at her.

'Oh, all right! I know how much of that to believe,' she answered; and she
rolled back again into her old position and continued her letter to Kit.

'She says she doesn't want to see the stupid doctor, and nothing will
induce her to come, and she doesn't care what you say or anybody else
either,' was Angela's version, on her return to Ruth Oliver, of the way
in which Barbara had received her message.

The elder girl looked down at her suspiciously. 'Did she really say that?'
she inquired.

'Go and ask her, that's all,' cried Angela, full of righteous indignation
at having her word doubted. For she was really under the impression that
she had correctly described the attitude of the new girl towards the
doctor and Ruth Oliver.

'Well, I will,' answered Ruth, and she threaded her way among the girls
until she too stood over the prostrate figure of the offender.

'Babs,' she called, bending down.

Barbara flourished her black legs in the air with an impatient movement.
'How you do bother!' she complained, stifling a sigh. 'That's the second
in five minutes. Why can't you leave me alone?'

There was a start of surprise in the group that surrounded her. It is
probable that few of her listeners saw the ridiculous side of the new
girl's request to be left alone, when that was the punishment that had
been meted out to her ever since her second day at school; but any one of
them could have told her that that was not the way to speak to a girl
in the First.

Ruth tu