her a severe
scolding for her carelessness; so she would be obliged to manage as
best she could and hope that no one in authority would notice her
feet.

"Didn't you give Sylvia my message?" she said to Hazel at the first
opportunity, when the three girls were able to speak together during a
rest.

"Of course I did, but she just flatly said she wouldn't go," replied
Hazel, delighted to have this opportunity of making mischief between
the friends.

"Did you really, Sylvia?" asked Linda, her eyes full of reproachful
enquiry, and leaning upon Hazel's arm.

Now Sylvia was still not at all in an amiable frame of mind, and the
sight of Linda's head pressed against Hazel's shoulder heaped coals on
to her wrath.

"I hadn't time," she snapped, and, turning away, began to talk to Nina
Forster.

At this point the mistress called for the tarantella, and Linda stood
up with several elder girls, holding her tambourine and long ribbons
gracefully above her head. How she longed for the dainty bronze shoes
that were left in the bedroom upstairs! Her steps felt so awkward that
she could neither glide nor spring properly, and she was not surprised
when at the end of the dance Miss Delaney said: "Hardly so good as
usual, my dear." Linda considered she had very good cause to feel
offended with Sylvia, and she would not look at her for the rest of
the afternoon. She scarcely touched the tips of her fingers when they
met in the "grand chain", and kept as far away from her as she
possibly could, choosing Hazel for her partner in the waltz and Connie
Camden in the Highland schottische.

Sylvia tried to show by her manner that she did not care, but in
reality she felt on the verge of tears. She danced with little Sadie
Thompson, casting a wistful look every now and then at Linda's back,
though she took no notice if they happened to meet face to face. She
managed to change places at tea and sit between Gwennie Woodhouse and
Jessie Ellis, and at evening recreation she retired to a corner of the
playroom with a book.

The great ordeal was when the two children found themselves alone in
their bedroom at night. Each considered the other so entirely in the
wrong that neither would give way, and they both undressed in stony
silence, very different indeed from the confidences which they were
accustomed to exchange.

Sylvia peeped at Linda's bed in the morning, wondering whether she
would show any signs of relenting. But no, Linda got up wi