was still scowling. "Will you promise faithfully to bring it by
the 1st of February?"

"I'll do my best," agreed Gwen, escaping from what was to both a very
unpleasant interview.

She had mentioned a fortnight simply on the spur of the moment to put
Netta off, but she knew that the 1st of February would bring no way
out of her entanglement. It was something, however, to have even a
respite of two weeks; it gave her time to think and to lay plans. She
wondered what Netta would do if, as seemed most likely, the debt still
remained owing. She did not suppose Netta would turn informer to Miss
Roscoe, but she might very possibly mention the matter to Winnie, who
would tell Beatrice, who would promptly tell Father.

"Only a fortnight!" groaned Gwen, feeling like a criminal in a
condemned cell. "Unless 'something turns up', as Mr. Micawber says in
_David Copperfield_. If I were the heroine of a novel, a forgotten
uncle in America would suddenly die, and leave me a million just at
the opportune moment. But I'm only a very unromantic, every-day kind
of person, not the forget-me-not-eyed, spun-gold-haired,
wild-rose-petal-complexioned, pearly-toothed sort of girl who gets
fortunes; I'm solid fact, not fiction. Most things are nowadays, I
suppose."

Certainly the Fifth Form did not offer scope for romance or sentiment.
Its daily doings were most prosaic, a round in which Latin,
mathematics, and chemistry were chiefly to the fore, and the only
appeal to the imagination was the weekly lecture on English literature
from the Principal. Gwen liked these; Miss Roscoe had the knack of
making historical dry bones live, and encouraged the girls to read for
themselves. All her lessons were interesting, but in this she was
inspiring. She was accustomed to give themes for fortnightly
exercises, and at the first lecture of this new term she announced as
a special subject: "An Essay on any one of the Great Writers of the
Victorian Era", promising a volume of Browning's poems as a prize.

"I had intended to offer it for Christmas," she said, "but I thought
you were too busy preparing for examinations to be able to give time
to such an essay. I hope you'll do justice to the subject now."

It was a large order, thought Gwen, when already their homework had
about reached its outside limit. Miss Roscoe was quite unconscionable
in her demands on their time and brains. She fixed the standard of the
Form so high that only the very bright girls