come back with this girl, then I shall feel quite happy about you. You
have your books and your umbrella? Well, good-bye, darling, until five
o'clock."

The girl stood waving her hand through the window until the train was
out of the station, then she came and sat down in the seat next to
Dorothy. She had a plump, rosy, smiling face, very blue eyes, and
straight, fair hair. Her expression was decidedly friendly.

Dorothy was hardly in a genial frame of mind, but she felt bound to
enter into conversation.

"You're in the Upper Fourth, aren't you?" she began, by way of breaking
the ice.

"Yes, and so are you. Aren't you Dorothy Greenfield, who was put up for
the Lower School election?"

"And lost it!" exclaimed Dorothy ruefully. "I don't believe I'll ever
canvass again, whatever office is vacant. The thing wasn't managed
fairly. You haven't told me your name yet."

"Alison Clarke, though I'm called Birdie at home."

"Do you live at Latchworth?"

"Yes, at Lindenlea."

"That pretty house on the hill? I always notice it from the train. Then
you must have just come. It has been to let for two years."

"We removed a month ago. We used to live at Leamstead."

"How do you like the Coll.?"

"I can't tell yet. I expect I shall like it better when I know the
girls. I'm glad you go in by this train, because it's much jollier to
have somebody to travel backwards and forwards with. Mother took me
yesterday and brought me home, but of course she can't do that every
day."

Dorothy marched into school that morning feeling rather self-conscious.
She could not be sure whether her story had been circulated or not, but
she did not wish it to be referred to, nor did she want to enter into
any explanations. She imagined that her classmates looked at her in
rather a pitying manner. The bare idea put her on the defensive. Her
pride could not endure pity, even for losing the Wardenship, so she kept
aloof and spoke to nobody. It was easy enough to do this, since Hope
Lawson was the heroine of the hour, and the girls, finding Dorothy
rather cross and unsociable, left her to her own devices. At the
mid-morning interval she took a solitary walk round the playground, and
at one o'clock, instead of joining the rest of the day boarders in the
gymnasium, she lingered behind in the classroom.

"What's wrong with Dorothy Greenfield?" asked Ruth Harmon. "She's so
grumpy, one can't get a word out of her."

"Sulking because she missed the