tes, past the quay where the fishing smacks were lying idly at anchor
and a pleasure-steamer was unloading its human cargo, past the long
stretch of sandy common, where the white tents of the Territorials
evoked an outcry of interest, then up alongside the broad tidal river
towards where the mountains, faint and misty, rose shouldering one
another till they merged into the white nebulous region of the
cloud-flecked sky. Those lucky ones who had secured window seats on the
river side of the carriage were loud in their acclamations of
satisfaction as familiar objects in the landscape came into sight.

"There's Cwm Dinas. I wish they could float a big Union Jack on the
summit."

"It would be a landmark all right."

"Oh, the flag's up at Plas Cafn!"

"We'll have one at school this term?"

"Oh, I say! Move a scrap," pleaded Ulyth Stanton plaintively. "We only
get fields and woods on our side. I can't see anything at all for your
heads. You might move. What selfish pigs you are! Well, I don't care;
I'm going to talk."

"You have been talking already. You've never stopped, in fact," remarked
Beth Broadway, proffering a swiftly disappearing packet of pear drops
with a generosity born of the knowledge that all sweets would be
confiscated on arrival at The Woodlands.

"I know I have, but that was merely by the way. It wasn't anything very
particular, and I've got something I want to tell you--something
fearfully important. Absolutely super! D'you know, she's actually coming
to school. Isn't it great? She's to be my room-mate. I'm just wild to
see her. I hope her ship won't be stopped by storms."

"By the Muses, whom are you talking about?"

"'She' means the cat," sniggered Gertrude Oliver.

"Why! can't you guess? What stupids you are! It's Rona, of course--Rona
Mitchell from New Zealand."

"You're ragging!"

"It's a fact. It is indeed!"

The incredulity on the countenances of her companions having yielded to
an expression of interest, Ulyth continued her information with
increased zest, and a conscious though would-be nonchalant air of
importance.

"Her father wants her to go to school in England, so he decided to send
her to The Woodlands, so that she might be with me!"

"Do you mean that girl you were so very proud of corresponding with? I
forget how the whole business began," broke in Stephanie Radford.

"Don't you remember? It was through a magazine we take. The editor
arranged for readers of the magazine