a jolly frame of
mind, and had even brought with her a box of chocolates, which she
handed round impartially till the contents vanished. Three
compartments seemed to overflow with Rodenhurst hats. Gwen had just
been following Millicent Cooper and Minna Jennings when Elspeth Frazer
gripped her by the arm.

"Come in here with us, Gwen," she said, and Gwen, too much astonished
for words, complied. Why she should be invited into a carriage with
Hilda Browne, Charlotte Perry, Iris Watson, Louise Mawson, and Edith
Arnold, the most elect set in the Form, was beyond her comprehension,
but it was a very pleasant circumstance all the same. To be sure,
they did not take much notice of her, but they were not disagreeable,
and Elspeth spoke to her more than once in quite a friendly fashion.
It was so utterly different from their former attitude towards her
that Gwen almost believed she was dreaming. Perhaps it was only
because they were on a holiday this afternoon, she thought, and
to-morrow they would be as usual again. Well, at any rate, she would
take advantage of to-day, and make the most of her opportunities, so
she chatted a little with Elspeth, and sat ruminating over this
amazing change of front on the part of those girls whom Netta, in
mockery, had nicknamed "The Saints". Riggness was reached in twenty
minutes, the train stopped at the small wayside station, and the
Rodenhurst party got out in a hurry. They were to descend to the
beach, and walk along the shore to Linkthwaite Bay, a distance of
about three miles, geologizing as they went. A steep zigzag path led
down the side of the cliff to the sands, and when once her flock was
all collected at the bottom, Miss Roberts improved the occasion by
giving a short lecture on the formation of the rocks which formed the
headland, then, leading the way, she showed them how to hunt about for
the ammonites embedded in the face of the cliffs, or the long
belemnites that could be seen in flat terraces of rocks at the water's
edge.

"Miss Roberts is right--they're uncommonly difficult to get out
whole," said Elspeth, tapping gingerly round a particularly fine
specimen; "just when you think you've done it, they go smash."

"It's most aggravating," agreed Gwen, whose heavy hammer, borrowed
from Winnie's hen-yard, had been rather too forcible in its effects.
"I'd almost got the loveliest, biggest belemnite, and it broke into
three pieces like a slate pencil."

"I like my toffee hamm