latter could not tolerate cheating or copying, and spoke her mind
freely on the subject.

"Well, I'm sure I'm not nearly as bad as you!" Flossie retorted once.
"You do the most outrageous things. I never mixed the French and
history exercises, nor dipped the chalk into the red ink!"

"It's worse to crib someone else's work," protested Honor, "because
that's sneaky and underhand. What would Miss Farrar say if she knew you
wrote dates on a slip of paper and put it inside your dictionary, and
then copied them when you pretended you were only looking how to spell
a word?"

"Miss Farrar won't find out, and what the eye doesn't see the heart
doesn't grieve for!"

"But it's so mean!"

"You turning Mentor!" sneered Flossie. "Really! I wonder what we may
expect next? Come, girls, and hear our most righteous and
well-conducted Paddy preach a homily on 'How to be the pattern pupil'!"

"Paddy is quite right," declared Maisie Talbot, taking up the cudgels
for once on Honor's behalf. "There's a difference between her way of
breaking rules and yours. She mayn't be exactly a shining example to
the class, but, at any rate, she's always square and above-board, and
that's more than I can say for you!"

"We're none of us saints," added Lettice, "but we've never gone in for
cribbing at Chessington. No other girl in the Form ever does it."

It was not only as regards the question of fairness in her work that
Flossie failed to reach the standard of honour current in the Lower
Third. She had many little meannesses, so small in themselves as to be
hardly worthy of notice, yet enough in the aggregate to exhibit her
character unfavourably.

One morning, just as the girls were going to their desks, Maisie Talbot
suddenly remembered that it was Miss Farrar's birthday.

"We ought to say something about it," she whispered to Lettice. "I wish
we had thought of it before, and bought her some flowers. How stupid we
were to forget!"

"Are you sure it's her birthday? How do you know?" asked Flossie, who
was standing near, and overheard.

"I'm absolutely certain. I have her name in my birthday book," replied
Maisie.

Flossie said no more just then, but the moment Miss Farrar came into
the room she stood up and wished her "Many happy returns", in the name
of the whole Form, before either Maisie or Lettice had the opportunity
to say a word.

They were most annoyed to be thus forestalled.

"It was our idea," protested Lettice afterwards.