smiling away more pleasantly than ever.

'Oh, rather!' said Kit, again; and he wound the blade of grass elaborately
round his little finger.

'What we can do is nothing to Babs, though!' said Angela, making a mighty
effort to overcome her shyness. 'She's the best in the whole school!'

'Oh, the Babe!' remarked Christopher, leaving the shelter of Jill's big
hat, and suddenly regaining confidence. '_She_ doesn't count.'

Conversation flourished more easily after that, for the triumvirate
combined immediately in an attempt to prove to Kit that the Babe did
count. Indeed, the argument grew so hot and furious that the Doctor,
who happened at that moment to make his call upon his small patients,
knocked three times at the door of the room, and finally had to walk in
unannounced. There was a look of annoyance on his face, for he already
resented being compelled to waste his precious time in attending three
healthy young schoolgirls who had nothing whatever the matter with
them, and would not have been in their present plight but for a piece of
childish folly. When he found that his patients had not even the grace
to be ready for his visit, his irritation increased.

'Excuse me,' he began, 'are you aware----?' He paused and frowned, for it
was quite evident that none of them was aware of anything except of
what was going on in the garden. Nothing was to be seen of his patients
except an array of black legs along the window-seat; the rest of them
appeared to be hanging over the ledge outside in a perilous and inelegant
position; and all three of them were gabbling away as fast as their
tongues would let them.

'Well, you wait for the competition, that's all!' Angela was proclaiming
shrilly.

'It all depends on how soon that stupid Doctor lets us out of this hole,'
added Jean, with suppressed scorn in her voice.

'He's so funny; he never says anything important, and he only looks glum,
as if he was _so_ sorry for himself,' chimed in Babs, with a laugh.

Dr. Wilson Hurst tapped his stick smartly on the table; and there was a
sudden pause. Then came three thuds on the floor by the window-seat, and
the triumvirate stood facing him in varying stages of confusion.

'We--we didn't know you were there,' ventured Barbara.

'So I gathered,' said the Doctor, without a smile. 'Will you kindly show
me your tongues?'

He did not want to see their tongues particularly; but it seemed the most
obvious means at his disposal for produ