d downstairs seemed
quite free from all aches, pains, coughs, sneezes, and other suspicious
symptoms. They were in dire disgrace, however, for now that Miss
Drummond was reassured as to their health, she turned her attention to
their conduct.

"I'm most dreadfully sorry about it," said Mabel to Aldred that evening.
"You see, Miss Drummond has always trusted us so entirely at the Grange,
and this is the first time anybody has ever gone out of bounds. She says
it shakes her confidence in us. I'm afraid she'll stop all exeats for
the Lower School. Of course, I know it wasn't your fault. You're a new
girl, and how could you tell we weren't allowed on the promenade? You
only went where the others took you. You'd no idea you were breaking the
rules, had you?"

Aldred was brushing her teeth at the moment, therefore a grunt was her
only means of reply. Mabel took it as the required denial.

"I was sure you hadn't," she declared triumphantly. "A girl who can do
such splendid things always lives up to them. It was a mean trick to
play on Blanche and Freda, when they had invited you all for a walk, but
I was certain you weren't capable of it. Naturally, you're ready to take
your share of the scolding (I shouldn't have tried to get out of that
myself); but I'm so glad that I, at any rate, know you don't really
deserve it!"

CHAPTER VII

False Colours

The thunderstorm that had added to the unpleasantness of the girls'
adventure at Sandsend seemed to herald a complete change in the weather.
The beautiful Indian summer, so warm and genial, so full of kindly
sunshine, vanished suddenly, and autumn, cold and bleak, appeared in its
place. A sharp frost in a single night worked havoc in the garden,
blackening the dahlias, withering the nasturtiums, and reducing all the
remaining annuals to a state of blighted ruin, so that what had one day
been a flowery paradise was the next a scene of desolation. A strong
easterly gale, following the frost, cleared the leaves from the trees
before they had any chance of turning to crimson or gold, and stripped
the last vestige of beauty from the hedgerows.

After this came days of pouring rain. The lawns and the playing-fields
were sodden, the roads were deep in sticky mud, the row of bare elms
dripped dismally on to the garden seats below, and the neglected sundial
no longer told the hour of day, nor formed a centre for the throng of
girls who generally haunted its steps.

"Baldur t