ringing glorious
cloud-effects, and sending the stream swirling over its boulders with a
boom of myriad voices. Sometimes the sudden swelling of its tributaries
made the Craigwen River overtop its banks, flooding the low-lying
meadows till, augmented by the high tide, its waters filled the valley
from end to end like a lake. This occasional flooding of the marsh was
good for the fields, and ensured a rich hay-crop next summer, so the
school felt it could enjoy the picturesque aspect without needing to
deplore loss to the farmers.

On the 21st of January Miss Teddington had a birthday. She would have
suppressed the fact altogether if possible, or treated it in quite a
surreptitious and off-hand fashion, but with her autograph plainly
written in forty-nine separate birthday-books the Fates were against
her. She was obliged to receive the united congratulations of the
school, to accept, with feigned surprise, the present which was offered
her, and to say a few appropriate words of appreciation and thanks. She
did not do it well, for her manner was always abrupt, and even verged on
the ungracious, the greatest contrast to the bland and tactful
utterances of Miss Bowes.

This year the annual ceremony was gone through as usual: Catherine, as
head girl, proffered the good wishes and the volume of Carlyle; Lucy
Morris, on behalf of the Nature Study Union, handed a bouquet of
polyanthus, rosemary, periwinkle, pansies, and pink daisies culled from
the garden, the earliness of which Miss Teddington remarked upon, as
though she had not watched their progress for the last week.

"I'm very much obliged to you all," she said jerkily, looking
nevertheless as if she were longing to bolt for the door.

But she was not yet to make her escape. There was another time-honoured
ceremony to be observed. All eyes were turned to Miss Bowes, who rose as
usual to the occasion.

"I think, girls," she said pleasantly, "that, considering it is Miss
Teddington's birthday, we ought to take some special notice of the
occasion. Suppose we ask her to grant a holiday, so that we may make an
expedition in her honour. Who votes for this?"

Forty-nine hands were instantly raised, and forty-nine voices cried "I
do!" Miss Teddington, who utterly disapproved of odd holidays during
term-time, submitted with what grace she could muster, and gave a rather
chilly assent, which was immediately drowned in a storm of clapping. The
girls, who always suspected the