where the hot-water pipes projected sufficiently to
form what might with imagination be considered a seat. It required
some ingenuity, perhaps, to preserve any sort of balance on the edge of
a row of hot-water pipes; but that was nothing to a small person who
could never sit down tamely on a chair like other people, but always
preferred the slanting surface of a desk, or something equally
unaccommodating. So Babs felt the hot-water pipes with her grubby
little hands, to make sure they were just the right heat to be sat
upon, and then squeezed herself on to them contentedly, curled her legs
away underneath, and in a few seconds was supremely unconscious of what
was going on at the other end of the gymnasium. Jean Murray might yell
herself hoarse in her defence, for all she knew or cared; for at that
moment her mind was occupied with a far more important question.

It was Angela who first grew tired of waging war with Mary Wells without
the valuable support of Barbara Berkeley. Angela could shriek with the
shrillest, when once some one had told her what to shriek; but there
was a solid calmness about Mary that carried more conviction with it,
and Barbara's wit was the only thing to make any impression upon that.
Besides, if Angela shrieked 'Margaret and Jean,' and Jean shrieked
'Margaret and the Babe,' who was there left but the Babe to shriek
for Angela herself? So in a very short time Angela Wilkins also left
the contest, and found her way to the place where the hot-water pipes
projected into a perch for the youngest girl in the school.

'Hullo, Babe! What's up?' she inquired.

Barbara looked at her vaguely. Some one in a scarlet gymnasium frock
certainly stood in front of her, but it had nothing whatever to do with
what she was worrying over in her mind; so, at first, she did not take
any notice.

'Aren't you coming to practise rings?' pursued Angela, who had seen
Barbara look like this before, and knew from experience that in time
the child would rouse herself sufficiently to answer her.

'Rings?' repeated Babs, vacantly.

'Oh, come on!' said Angela, impatiently. 'How you do moon about the place,
to be sure! Don't you want to win the Canon's prize?'

Barbara's expression changed swiftly, and she frowned. 'Get away,' she
growled, with unusual fierceness; and Angela stared and withdrew.

'Barbara Berkeley is in an awful fury,' she announced, when she got back
to Jean.

'What about?' asked Jean.

'Oh, not _ab