excuses for their delay.
It was a long way down the lane to the farm, and when they arrived there
they had considerable difficulty in explaining their errand. No one
could understand English except a little boy, who was only half-able to
translate their remarks into Welsh. They had at length made the farmer
realize what had happened, and he had promised to come at once. In the
course of a few minutes they were followed by David Jones and his son,
Idwal, bearing a rope, an axe, and a saw, and looking rather dismayed at
the task in store for them. It proved indeed a matter of considerable
difficulty to rescue Rona without hurting her; a portion of the
tree-trunk was obliged to be sawn away before she could obtain
sufficient room to help to free herself, and it was only after an hour's
hard work that she stood at last in safety on the ground.

"How do you feel?" asked Miss Moseley anxiously, fearing broken bones or
a sprain from the final effort of extraction.

"Well, I guess it's taken the bounce out of me. I'm as stiff as a
rheumatic cat! Oh, I'll get back to school somehow, don't alarm
yourself! I'm absolutely starving for tea. Good-bye, you wood-demon; you
nearly finished me!" and Rona shook her fist at the offending oak-tree
as a parting salute.

"She called it demon to rhyme with lemon!" gurgled Addie, almost sobbing
with mirth as she followed, holding Merle's arm. "The Cuckoo will cause
me to break a blood-vessel some day. It hurts me most dreadfully to
laugh. I've got a stitch in my side. Oh dear! I wonder whatever she'll
go and do next?"

CHAPTER V

On Sufferance

"Scratch, scratch, scratch,
Scratch went the old black hen!
Every fowl that scrapes in the barn
Can scratch as well as your pen!"

So sang Rona, bounding noisily one afternoon into No. 3, Room 5, and
popping her hands from behind over Ulyth's eyes as the latter sat
writing at a table near the window.

"What are you always scratching away for? Can't you finish your work at
prep.? Why don't you come downstairs and play basket-ball? You're mighty
studious all of a sudden. What have you got here?"

Ulyth flushed crimson with annoyance, and turned her sheets of foolscap
hastily over to hide them from her room-mate's prying eyes.

"You're not to touch my papers, Rona! I've told you that before."

"Well, I wasn't touching them. Looking's not touching, anyway. What are
you doing? It's queer taste to sit scribbling here h