ur feet six before,' added Angela,
forced by the seriousness of the moment into a strict statement of facts.

'Margaret was nervous; I'm certain she was,' said Barbara, positively. 'It
was the same with Egbert, when he forgot his godfathers and godmothers; he
said there was a silly idiot at the bottom of his form, who didn't mind
the strange clergyman blinking at him a bit, and he even got through the
duty to his neighbour. And Ruth wasn't nervous, you see.'

'What nonsense you are talking,' remarked Mary Wells, who loved to be
literal. 'Why, Ruth is more shy than any one in the whole school!'

That was certainly true, and Babs went on puzzling over it, long after
Margaret and Ruth had retired hand in hand to the other end of the
anteroom. For whatever the head girl felt about her failure, she did not
mean to let any one guess that she cared. Her easy self-possession was
all her own again, as she kept tight hold of Ruth's hand and chatted
lightly to the girls about her; and one or two of the others, who tried
to patronise her with their consolation, received such sarcastic replies
that they were very soon put back in their place again. Margaret Hulme
was not going to forget she was head girl, even if that roomful of
strangers had robbed her of the power she had wielded for two and a half
years.

Scales struck up a march of his own composition; and at a vigorous sign
from Miss Burleigh, Charlotte Bigley hastily marshalled her scattered
troop and led them into the gymnasium for the Indian club performance.
They were all very much subdued by the time they had separated to their
various places, for the peep they had stolen through the anteroom door
had given them no idea of what it really felt like to stand in the
middle of this staring crowd of people, who filled the gallery above
and the platform at the end, and even spread thinly round the room
close up to the wall. Jean clenched her teeth and frowned fiercely, and
would have endured twice the shyness that tortured her sooner than
forget one of the exercises she had to go through; and as for Barbara,
she took no notice of the people at all, but began to work mechanically,
as soon as the first bars of the familiar valse fell on her ears.
Angela, however, lost her head and one of her clubs at the same instant;
and a harmless aunt, who sat near, only escaped a severe blow from the
latter by the dexterity of another visitor, who put out his hand just
in time and caught it