the balcony, and Miss Percy is to take the
sewing this term."

"What a nuisance!" lamented Janet. "She's _so_ particular! I can never
make my stitches small enough to satisfy her. I hate poking over sewing.
I wish we went to Ecclestone, where our cousins go, it's exactly like a
boys' public school; they have a matron to do all the mending, and the
girls play football."

"I know they do," said Millicent, "and Mother says it is _most_
unladylike. We know several girls who go there, and they behave so
badly, sitting on the edges of the drawing-room tables, and gulping
their tea, and bolting their cake, and talking the most atrocious
slang."

"My sister goes to St. Chad's," said Ellinor Graham, "and they weigh the
girls every time they go back. They won't let them do any work if
they're not 'up to standard', and Patty's so thin that she's always
'turned out to grass', as they call it, for at least a fortnight at the
beginning of each term. I think she has a lovely time."

"Yes, but you have to wear the school costume at St. Chad's, even in
church," put in Doris. "And it's ever so ugly--a blue serge dress with
no shape in it, a plaid golf-cape, and a cricket-cap. I shouldn't like
that at all!" and she smoothed down her pretty dress with evident
satisfaction.

"You haven't yet told us what class you're to be put in," said Blanche
Greenwood, turning to Lucy and myself, who had been listening with much
interest to the conversation.

"In the fourth, I believe," said Lucy. "Mrs. Marshall said she expected
we could both manage the work."

"The fourth! That's to be Miss Buller's. Janet and Olave and I are in
the same class, and Catherine Winstanley is to be monitress for the
month. By the by, where is Cathy? Has no one seen her?"

"Here!" said a voice from the door, and a slender girl of about thirteen
came forward to join the group. She was a pretty girl, with long,
curling brown hair, and a very graceful way of holding herself. Her
pleasant manner and bright winning smile attracted me to her at once.
Her dark eyes seemed familiar, and I wondered where I had seen them
before, till in a sudden flash of remembrance I recalled how eyes just
the same had looked into mine when Mrs. Winstanley had held me close in
her arms, and told me she was my mother's friend. So this was the little
daughter of whom she had spoken, and as I watched her I hoped with all
my heart that we, too, might become friends. She seemed to be a general