wing-room until she had
distinguished herself by some special act of kindness and self-denial.
Mrs. Willis had no fixed rule on this subject. She alone gave away the
compartments, and she often made choice of girls on whom she conferred
this honor in a way which rather puzzled and surprised their fellows.

When the compartment was won it was not a secure possession. To retain it
depended also on conduct; and here again Mrs. Willis was absolute in her
sway. More than once the girls had entered the room in the morning to
find some favorite's furniture removed and her little possessions taken
carefully down from the walls, the girl herself alone knowing the reason
for this sudden change. Annie Forest, who had been at Lavender House for
four years, had once, for a solitary month of her existence, owned her
own special drawing-room. She had obtained it as a reward for an act of
heroism. One of the little pupils had set her pinafore on fire. There was
no teacher present at the moment, the other girls had screamed and run
for help, but Annie, very pale, had caught the little one in her arms and
had crushed out the flames with her own hands. The child's life was
spared, the child was not even hurt, but Annie was in the hospital for a
week. At the end of a week she returned to the school-room and play-room
as the heroine of the hour. Mrs. Willis herself kissed her brow, and
presented her in the midst of the approving smiles of her companions with
the prettiest drawing-room of the sets. Annie retained her honorable post
for one month.

Never did the girls of Lavender House forget the delights of that month.
The fantastic arrangements of the little drawing room filled them with
ecstacies. Annie was truly Japanese in her style--she was also intensely
liberal in all her arrangements. In the tiny space of this little
enclosure wild pranks were perpetrated, ceaseless jokes made up. From
Annie's drawing-room issued peals of exquisite mirth. She gave afternoon
tea from a Japanese set of tea-things. Outside her drawing-room always
collected a crowd of girls, who tried to peep over the rail or to draw
aside the curtains. Inside the sacred spot certainly reigned chaos, and
one day Miss Danesbury had to fly to the rescue, for in a fit of mad
mirth Annie herself had knocked down the little Japanese tea-table, the
tea-pot and tea-things were in fragments on the floor, and the tea and
milk poured in streams outside the curtains. Mrs. Willis se