hockey I'm getting on at hockey Hurly-Burly says and she says I
shall play in matches some day and she's a brick and I like her. We
haven't had any gym yet because the gymnasiam is being painted but
we're going to begin to-morrow and I'm longing to begin they can't laugh
at my short skirts at gym because everybody's skirt is short at gym
and its red and very becomming Ruth says Ruth is Ruth Oliver and she's a
big girl and she hooks up my frocks and kisses me she kisses me rather
a lot but it's Ruth Oliver so I can put up with it. School is very nice
when it's games or algibra or latin but it's horrid when its dictation or
geography or coppies Finny says I must try so I am trying but I wish I
wasn't such an ignorrant girl I heard Jean Murray say yesterday I was the
most ignorrant girl that ever came inside this house but praps that was
because I had seventeen speling faults.'

She sighed as she dipped her pen in the ink again. That was all she had
said, after writing nearly all the afternoon and evening. And she had so
much more to say, and there was so little time left before prayers!

'I have just seen the doctor who is a Beast and he isn't a Beast,' she
had written laboriously on a fresh page, when Jean Murray stooped over
her and shook her vigorously by the arm.

'Oh, dear!' sighed Babs, feeling in her pocket for the handkerchief that
so rarely seemed to be in it. 'There's another blot, and I'm in such a
hurry!'

'It's no use losing your temper about it,' said Jean. 'You've got to get
up from the floor and fetch a desk, if you want to write letters.'

Barbara looked up in mild surprise. 'But I'm not losing my temper! Are
you sure you don't mean _you_ when you say me?' she asked with a spice
of mischief in her tone.

'There!' said Jean, turning triumphantly to the attendant Angela. 'Didn't
I say she was only laughing at us? Now, look here,' she continued,
turning again to Babs, 'you've got to remember that you're the youngest in
the school----'

'Oh, don't!' interrupted Babs, putting up her hands to her ears. 'You'll
begin about the head girl's boots next.'

It was the most luckless thing she could have said, for it convinced
Jean more than ever that the new girl was bent on making game of her
most serious feelings.

'I shall say anything I choose,' she retorted hotly. 'Get off the floor
at once, will you? We don't want ink spilt all over the place; this isn't
a nursery.'

'Who's spilling ink all over the