rumpled white frock,
and a good deal of untidy brown hair; and at first nobody did anything
but stare and exclaim. The ringing of the prayer-bell, however, brought
them all to their senses. Margaret Hulme made a sudden dash at the two
combatants, picked up the one that came first, and dropped her in a corner
of the room, where she could be hidden from view until she had time to
recover herself. Then the head girl turned to the child who still lay
sobbing and gasping on the floor.

'You get up and behave yourself!' she said in a stern undertone; and Jean
Murray struggled to her feet and went off snivelling, to be comforted
by the trembling and excited Angela. Then the elder girls melted away
again into their own room, and a kind of uneasy hush settled down on the
eighty-seven inhabitants of Wootton Beeches.

Barbara rubbed her eyes and stared wildly round her. A solid wall of
girls stood between her and the scene of the recent scuffle; she could
not see what had become of her victim, and at first she did not even
realise what was producing this wonderful calm. Then the girls in front
of her began slowly to move away towards the archway; and once she
caught a glimpse through the curtain of the door in the room beyond. It
was only a glimpse, for the girls closed up again immediately; but it was
enough to show her the stately figure of Miss Finlayson, as she stood
and wished her pupils good-night, one by one. Barbara had watched the
same ceremony for a good many evenings now, but it had never seemed
quite so orderly or so solemn before. To-night, it made a peculiar
impression on the wild little tomboy who had been brought up without
discipline or control, and the strangeness and the misery of her position
overwhelmed her as with a new feeling. At the same instant, in striking
contrast to the dismal reality, came the remembrance of the dream she
had dreamed all her life about this very place called school; and,
unnoticed by her school-fellows, who were fully occupied in trying to
behave as if nothing had happened, she broke down and sobbed bitterly
in her corner.

The stream of girls that had been filing past Miss Finlayson came to an
end at last; but Miss Finlayson did not follow them immediately to the
chapel. Far away, in a distant corner of the junior playroom, crouched
a dishevelled little girl in a crumpled frock, weeping dolefully for a
dream that had never come true; and Miss Finlayson stood and waited in
her plac