rward
rapturously to the next meeting with him. It ended with fondest love,
and was signed: "Your little Forget-me-not".

"No, I didn't write it," answered Lorraine.

"Then who did?"

Lorraine hesitated.

"As it was only a joke, will you please excuse my not answering? It
doesn't seem quite fair to give anybody else away. The whole form were
in it, really."

Miss Kingsley fixed her with a glance which Lorraine afterwards
described as that of a lion-tamer. Then she summed up:

"As you all seem to have been equally foolish, I'll let the matter stand
at that. But I wish to say that I've never in my life read more
perfectly idiotic, senseless, worthless _drivel_ than is contained in
these silly letters, and if that's your idea of amusement, I'm sorry for
you! I should have thought that _you_, Lorraine, would have been above
such nonsense, and would have used your influence to interest the girls
in something more sensible. These letters must be stopped at once. I
distinctly forbid anything more of the sort, and you may tell the others
so. Do you understand?"

Miss Kingsley, as she spoke, tore 'Jack's' latest effusion into shreds,
and threw the bits into the waste-paper basket.

A very dejected and indignant Sixth Form listened to Lorraine's account
of the interview.

"Miss Janet must have fished some of the letters out of that tree, and
read them and put them back!"

"What a sneaking trick of her!"

"And she thought it was you, because you'd got your feet wet."

"Sporting of her to examine our shoes! It's like Sherlock Holmes!"

"Sporting! I call it disgusting!"

"Is poor darling 'Jack' _never_ to write again to his little
'Forget-me-not'?" demanded Vivien, with a note of tragedy in her voice.

"We'd better drown him, or kill him at the front, or let him die
suddenly of pneumonia!" said Patsie sadly. "Then you can look decently
sorry for a while. It really _is_ too bad, just when I was working up so
nicely for the elopement! He was buying a new car on purpose. Never
mind! I'll write a novel some day, when I've left school, and I'll put
all the letters in--every scrap of them. And when it's published, I'll
send a copy of it to Miss Janet!"

"Oh!" thrilled the excited circle.

"She'll say _then_: 'The dear girl! I always said she was clever, and
would turn out a famous authoress!' People generally say afterwards that
they 'always said'."

"Oh, Patsie! It _will_ be so delightful! Do begin it soon!"

"N