were the order of the day. All
friendly advances on the part of seniors were repelled, the younger
girls keeping strictly to themselves. This was the more marked as there
had never been any very great division at The Woodlands between Upper
and Lower School, the whole of the little community sharing in most of
the general interests.

After tea there was a short interval before evening preparation began,
and during the summer term this was spent, if possible, out-of-doors by
everybody. One afternoon, only a few days after the conversation just
recorded, the girls had filed as usual from the dining-hall, and were
racing off for tennis, basket-ball, or a run by the stream. As Ulyth,
down on her knees in the darkest part of the hall cupboard, groped for
her mislaid tennis-shoes, two members of IV B came in for a moment to
fetch balls. They were in a hurry and they evidently did not perceive
her presence.

"Did you get the tip?" Irene Scott asked Ethel Jephson under her breath.
"By the lower pool immediately."

"All serene! Tootie told me herself."

"Pass it on then; though I think most know."

As they ran down the passage, Ulyth, relinquishing her hunt for the
missing shoes, rose to her feet.

"There's one here who didn't know," she chuckled. "This is a most
important piece of information. Immediately, by the lower pool, is it?
Well, I must go and find Lizzie. What are those precious juniors up to,
I wonder?"

Lizzie was taking her racket for a game of tennis, but she readily gave
up her place to Merle Denham at a hint from Ulyth.

"I told you they vanished after tea," she said, as the two girls
sauntered into the glen. "We'll track them this time. Don't on any
account look as if you were going anywhere. Sit down here and give them
a few minutes' grace, in case stragglers come up. They probably won't
begin punctually. I'll time it by my watch."

When five minutes had elapsed there was not a solitary junior to be seen
in the glade, and Ulyth and Lizzie, deeming themselves safe, set out in
the direction of the lower pool.

This was a part of the stream at the very verge of the grounds belonging
to The Woodlands; indeed, the greater portion of it lay in the land of a
neighbouring farmer, and to reach its pebbly bank meant a scramble round
some palings and under a projecting piece of rock.

Ulyth and Lizzie were too wary to follow the juniors by this path, but
scaled the palings at another point, and under cover