r the omnibuses which were to take them to the station.

"Good-bye to poor old Winterburn Lodge!" said Cicely, giving a last peep
into the familiar classroom. "We shan't see these maps and desks again
until next September."

"I wonder how many things will have happened before we come back here?"
said Lindsay thoughtfully.

It was a long journey into Somerset, but Miss Russell had engaged saloon
carriages, and taken large baskets of lunch; so, in the opinion of her
thirty pupils at least, the expedition felt like a picnic.

"How I wish we could go every year, or that Miss Russell would remove
into the country altogether," said Beryl Austen, who had secured a
corner seat, and was in raptures over the view.

"Then it wouldn't be town, and we shouldn't be able to have visiting
masters," said Mildred Roper, one of the monitresses.

"Who wants them? I'm sure I should be only too delighted never to see
any of them again!"

Mildred smiled.

"I suppose, after all, we're sent to school to learn something," she
remarked dryly. "I'm afraid you'll find Miss Frazer will give you plenty
of work to make up for the loss of Herr Hoffmann and Monsieur Guizet."

"I don't care a scrap, so long as there's fun when lessons are over.
We're going to have a glorious time, and I mean to thoroughly enjoy
myself."

Beryl only expressed the sentiments of the rest of the girls, most of
whom regarded the coming term in the light of a holiday. As the train
steamed through green meadows and woods just breaking into leaf, it
indeed seemed as if London and professors had been effectually left
behind, and their spirits rose higher with every mile.

By afternoon they were all impatience to arrive. For fully an hour
before they reached their destination they kept enquiring whether they
must get out at the next station, and were sure that each ancient house
visible from the carriage windows could not fail to be the Manor.

"Here we are at last!" announced Miss Russell, when, after many false
alarms, the welcome word "Haversleigh" made its appearance in plain
letters, and a porter's voice was heard pronouncing something which bore
a faint resemblance to the name. "Steady, girls! Steady! Remember each
is to take her own bag, and file out in proper order. Nobody is to move
until I say 'March!'"

Miss Russell first held a review on the platform, to make sure that none
of her pupils or their belongings had gone astray.

"I am quite relieved we hav