f
you don't!"

"I'll call it homesickness if I do," laughed Enid, "and then everybody
will sympathize with me. Look here, Avis, if you insist on crying over
the window curtains you'll take the colour out of them, and the company
will bring an action for damages. They're so dusty, too. Your face is
all in streaks of black. Let me rub it off for you. Winnie, lend me your
bottle of eau de Cologne, that's a dear. I have a clean handkerchief
here. That's better. Now do cheer up, and put your hat straight; we
shall be there in about five minutes."

Patty sat surveying these new girl comrades with deep interest. Avis and
Enid particularly claimed her attention. She had a kindred feeling for
the grief of the one, and the lively manner and bright chat of the other
were attractive, while a look in the merry brown eyes, when they
happened to glance her way, made her think their owner would be willing
to make friends. There was no opportunity, however, to speak, and the
train having reached Morton, everyone turned out in a hurry. In the
bustle of collecting handbags and umbrellas and identifying her own box
from the huge pile of similar luggage on the platform, she lost sight of
her fellow-travellers, and only thought she noticed Enid's blue dress
disappearing inside a station omnibus, and Winnie's black hat whisk past
her in a closely packed landau.

"Muriel was to arrive by the earlier train," said Dr. Hirst, as he put
Patty's belongings into a cab. "No doubt we shall find her waiting for
us at The Priory. What a number of girls! And everyone seems to have
brought a hockey stick. We shall have to ask Miss Lincoln to get one for
you, Patty. If the pretty, dark girl who was in our compartment isn't
ill to-morrow, I shall be much surprised. I'm sure she deserves to be.
If I were her medical man, I should order her a dose of rhubarb and sal
volatile. She's going to call it homesickness, the young rascal, is she?
She looks as if she could be ready to play pranks. If they would consult
me, I'd soon find a cure!" And the doctor chuckled with amusement at the
idea.

The Priory was about a mile away from the railway station, and it was
with a beating heart and a queer lump in her throat that Patty found
herself stepping from the cab and alighting at a great doorway
ornamented with ecclesiastical carvings, and, giving a hasty glance
round a courtyard where girls of various ages seemed already to be
collected, realized that she had at