ica must have had an unusually long practice. When
their bedtime arrived, and still they were missing, the headmistress had
grown uneasy, and started in search of them. She had gone first to the
church and found the door locked (it must have been while they were in
the vestry), so concluded that they had returned with Monica to the
cottage. She had been seriously alarmed to find they were not there, and
her anxiety was shared by the Courtenays; and both she and Monica were
on the point of rousing the whole village to aid in discovering their
whereabouts when the sudden clanging of the bell made them hasten to the
church. The girls gave a brief account of their adventure in reply to
the many enquiries of their rescuers.

"I thought I could have trusted you to return straight home," said Miss
Russell reproachfully. "No, Monica, it is not in any way your fault.
Lindsay and Cicely knew perfectly well they had no right to linger
behind, nor to enter the tower. I am disappointed in them, for I
certainly should not have allowed them to go and blow the organ if I
had believed there was the slightest opportunity for such behaviour.
They have only themselves to blame, and I consider they thoroughly
deserved the fright they have had."

CHAPTER XII

An Enigma

Though most of the delights of the summer term at the Manor consisted of
outdoor amusements, other interests were not entirely lacking. In a
magazine which Miss Russell took in for the school library there was an
announcement of a competition which offered a prize to children under
thirteen for the largest number of poetical quotations descriptive of
wild flowers. Both Lindsay and Cicely were anxious to try, and ransacked
all the volumes of poetry they could get hold of for suitable extracts.

"I think it's too much bother," said Nora Proctor. "It means looking
through such a heap of books, and then copying out the pieces so neatly
afterwards. It would take one's whole recreation time."

"And probably one wouldn't get anything for it in the end," said
Marjorie Butler.

"I began," said Effie Hargreaves, "but, as Nora says, it's far too great
a fag. I got ten quotations from Shakespeare, and six from Tennyson.
I'll give them to you, Cicely, if you like."

"Oh, thanks, if they're not the same as I have already!"

"I tried for a prize once in a magazine," said Beryl Austen, "but I only
got highly commended. I'm afraid my writing wasn't good enough."

Though th