istake me now for a Unionist. I'm
labelled 'Home Rule' as plainly as can be." Then, hastily pinning on
her hat before the mirror, she ran downstairs, humming under her breath:

"So we'll bide our time; our banner yet
And motto shall be seen,
And voices shout the chorus out,
'The Wearin' o' the Green'!"

The girls at Chessington College were all dressed exactly alike, in a
uniform costume of blue serge skirts, with blue or white cotton blouses
for summer, and flannel ones for winter. On Sundays they wore white
serge coats and skirts, and for evenings white muslin or nuns' veiling.
They were allowed a little latitude in the way of embroideries with
respect to best frocks, but their everyday, ordinary clothes were
required to be of the school pattern, with the addition of sailor hats
and knitted coats, for use in running across the quadrangle on wet or
cold days. Miss Cavendish considered that this rule encouraged
simplicity, and provided against any undue extravagance in the matter
of dress. She did not allow rings or bracelets to be worn, and the sole
vanity permitted to the girls was in the choice of their hair ribbons.

Punctually at twenty-five minutes past eight each morning the bell in
the little chapel began to give warning, and by half-past every member
of the school was expected to have taken her seat, and to be ready for
the short service held there daily by the senior curate of the parish
church at Dunscar. In twos and threes and small groups the girls came
hurrying in answer to the call of the tinkling bell. Though they
laughed and talked as they ran across the quadrangle, they sobered down
as they neared the door, and, each taking a Prayer Book from a pile
laid ready in the porch, passed silently and reverently into the
chapel. Every house had its own special rows of seats, and the sailor
hats that mingled like a kaleidoscope in the grounds were here divided
into their several sets of colours, though sometimes varied by a gleam
of ruby or amber falling from the stained-glass windows above. The
singing was musical and the responses hearty, while into his five
minutes' explanation of the lesson for the day the clergyman generally
managed to compress much helpful thought, sending away some, at least,
of his hearers braced up for the duties that awaited them.

On this particular morning anyone accustomed to the ordinary atmosphere
of the place might have been aware that something of an unu