se it's so--so splendid to
feel you _can_ do things.'

She slid down the rope again, and Jean saw how her eyes were glowing and
shining, and she felt a little more puzzled than before.

'Then, Angela wants to get it because she's always bottom in everything
else,' continued Barbara. 'That's not much of a reason, I think,
especially when she hasn't got any brothers--only millions of sisters,
who don't count; but still, she'll be awfully disappointed if she doesn't
get it, won't she?'

'Yes,' said Jean.

Babs curled the rope round her waist, and swung herself gently to and fro.
The movement seemed to aid her reflections. 'Why do _you_ want to get it,
Jean?' she asked softly.

It was never easy to induce Jean to talk about herself; but if any one
could do it, Barbara was the person. And, this time, she succeeded.

Jean drew another long breath, and clenched her fists.

'Because I want to be first,' she said slowly. 'I want to be first in
_everything_. I'd sooner be bottom than second! Of course you'll think
I'm a conceited pig,' she added, almost fiercely, 'but I can't help
that; I don't expect you to understand.' Then she muttered in a lower
tone,--'Nobody ever does, excepting only mother and father.'

Barbara's eyes were fixed on her face, and there was a warmth in their
blackness that Jean had only seen there once, and that was when she was
writing to her father in America.

'Good old Jean!' she murmured. 'It's awfully hard to understand; but I'll
try--_truthfully_. And I'd like you to get the prize--I would, really.
I didn't want you to have it before; but I do now, Jean, old girl!'

'I ought to want _you_ to have it, but I don't,' sighed Jean, trying
vainly not to be behindhand in unselfishness; 'I just want it myself,
so it's no good pretending I don't.'

There was silence between them for an instant; and from the other end of
the gymnasium drifted the monotonous war-cries of Mary Wells and Angela
Wilkins.

'Margaret and Charlotte Bigley!' shouted one.

'Margaret and Jean Murray!' added the other.

The enthusiasm was too infectious to be resisted. With a wild scream
of glee, Jean and Babs raced the whole length of the room and flung
themselves into the fray, without a thought of the opposite sentiments
they had just been expressing to each other.

'Margaret and the Babe!' yelled Jean, brandishing an Indian club.

'Margaret and Angela!' came from the panting Barbara, just behind her.

Nothing but