tely to the school by the writer.

Marjorie, in some amazement, opened the letter which Mrs. Morrison gave
her. It was written on Y.M.C.A. paper in an ill-educated hand, and ran
thus:--

"DEAR MISS,

"This comes hoping you are as well as it leaves me at present. I
was very glad to get your letter, and hear you are thinking
about me. I like your photo, and when I get back to blighty
should like to keep company with you if you are agreeable to
same. Before I joined up I was in the engine-room at my works,
and getting my L2 a week. I am very glad to have some one to
write to me. Well, no more at present from

"Yours truly
"JIM HARGREAVES."

Marjorie flushed scarlet. Without doubt the letter was a reply from the
lonely soldier. It came as a tremendous shock. Somehow it had never
occurred to her that he would write back. To herself and the other
members of the S.S.O.P. he had been a mere picturesque abstraction, a
romantic figure, as remote as fiction, whose loneliness had appealed to
their sentimental instincts. They had judged all soldiers by the
experience of their own brothers and cousins, and had a vague idea that
the army consisted mostly of public-school boys. To find that her
protege was an uneducated working man, who had entirely misconstrued the
nature of her interest in him, and evidently imagined that she had
written him a love-letter, made poor Marjorie turn hot and cold. She was
essentially a thorough little lady, and was horror-stricken at the false
position in which her impulsive act had placed her.

Mrs. Morrison watched her face narrowly, and drew her own conclusion
from the tell-tale blushes.

"Do I understand that this letter is in reply to one written by you?"
she asked.

"Yes, Mrs. Morrison," gasped Marjorie, turning suddenly white.

The Principal drew a long breath, as if trying to retain her
self-command. Her grey eyes flashed ominously, and her hands trembled.

"Do you understand that you have not only broken one of our principal
rules, but have transgressed against the spirit of the school? Every
pupil here is at least supposed to be a gentlewoman, and that a
Brackenfielder could so demean herself as to enter into a vulgar
correspondence with an unknown soldier fills me with disgust and
contempt. I cannot keep such a girl in the school. You will go for the
present to the isolation room, and remain there until I can make
arrangements to send yo