tzgerald, and I come from Kilmore, near Ballycroghan, in
County Kerry."

"Then you're Irish!" gasped Chatty Burns.

"Quite right. First class for geography! County Kerry is exactly in the
bottom left-hand corner of the map of Ireland. It's a more hospitable
place than this is. I've been here nearly two hours, and nobody has
offered me any refreshments yet. I'm simply starving!"

She looked so humorously and suggestively at the Edinburgh rock that
Madge Summers promptly offered it to her, regardless of the fact that
the box belonged to Maisie Talbot.

"Come along here," said Ruth Latimer, trying to make a place for the
new girl on the bed by pushing the others vigorously nearer the end.

"No room unless I sit on your knee, while you get up and walk about,"
declared Honor. "There! I knew you would!" as Madge Summers fell with a
crash on to the floor.

"Seven little schoolgirls, eating sugar sticks;
One tumbled overboard, and then there were six!"

"Thank you. I think I prefer to 'take the chair', as the dentist says.
There only seems to be one in each cubicle, but as I'm the visitor----"

"Take care!" screamed Maisie. "My clean blouses!"

"What am I doing? I declare, I never saw them. There, I'll nurse them
for you while I eat this delicious-looking piece of pink rock."

The new girl was so utterly different from anybody else who had ever
come to St. Chad's that the others waited with curiosity to hear what
she would say next.

"Well?" she enquired coolly at last. "I suppose you're thinking me
over. I should like to know your opinion of me. They tell me at home
that my nose turns up, and my tongue is too long. But I didn't turn up
my nose at the Edinburgh rock, did I?--and as for my tongue, it fits my
mouth, as a general rule, though it runs away sometimes."

"When did you come?"

"What class are you in?"

"Have you seen Miss Cavendish yet?"

"How old are you?"

"Have you been to school before?"

"Do you know anyone here?"

"Why did you come to St. Chad's?"

The questions were fired off all together from seven pairs of lips.

"One at a time, please!" returned Honor. "I'm older than I look, and
younger than I seem. You mayn't believe me, yet I assure you I've only
had three birthdays."

"Rubbish!" said Chatty Burns.

"It's a fact, all the same."

"But how could that be?" demanded Pauline Reynolds incredulously.

"Because I was born on the twenty-ninth of February, and I can't have a