ions, swayed to and fro in the rocking-chair
with her lips drawn into a bunch and the particular little pucker
between her eyebrows that always came when she was trying to concentrate
her thoughts.

"It really _is_ a difficulty, Janet!" said Miss Kingsley. "A suitable
head girl makes all the difference to a school, and if we happen to
choose the wrong one it may completely spoil the tone. If only Lottie
Carson or Helen Stanley had stayed on! Or even Enid Jones or Stella
Hardy!"

"It's hard luck to lose all our best senior girls at once!" agreed Miss
Janet, biting her stump of pencil abstractedly. "But if they're gone,
they're gone."

"Of course!" Miss Kingsley's tone savoured slightly of impatience. "And
the urgent matter is to supply their places. It's like making bricks
without straw. Haven't you any suggestions? I _do_ wish you'd stop
rocking, it worries me to hear your chair creak!"

Miss Janet, seasoned by thirty-five years' acquaintance with her
sister's nervous temperament, rose and walked to the window, where she
stood looking out over the sunlit tennis court to the bank of exotic
shrubs that half hid the blue line of the sea. There was a moment's
pause, then she said:

"Suppose you read over the list of 'eligibles', and we'll discuss their
points each in turn."

Miss Kingsley reached for a certain black-backed shiny exercise-book
and opened it. The entries were in her own neat hand.

"There will only be eight girls in the Sixth Form this term," she
volunteered. "Taking them in alphabetical order they are: Nellie
Appleby, Claire Bardsley, Claudia Castleton, Vivien Forrester, Lorraine
Forrester, Audrey Roberts, Dorothy Skipton, and Patricia Sullivan."

Miss Janet smiled.

"First of all you may cross off the last," she suggested.

"Decidedly. Patsie Sullivan as head girl would be about as suitable
as--as----"

Miss Kingsley paused for an appropriate simile.

"As making Charlie Chaplin Archbishop of Canterbury!" finished Miss
Janet with a chuckle.

"It's unthinkable! Most of the others are soon weeded out too. Nellie
Appleby and Claire Bardsley--good stodgy girls, but quite unfit for
leadership--Claudia Castleton, a new girl, so of course not eligible;
Audrey Roberts--could you imagine silly little Audrey in any post of
trust? It really only leaves us the choice between Lorraine Forrester,
Vivien Forrester, and Dorothy Skipton."

"In last term's exams these three were fairly equal," commented Mis