and
foremost came the plan of sandwiching seniors and juniors together in
their bedrooms. She hoped the influence of the elder girls would work
like leaven in the school, and that putting them with younger ones would
give them the chance of developing and exercising their motherly
instincts. She tapped her book with her pencil as she mentally ran over
the list of her seniors, and considered how--to the outside view of a
head mistress--each seemed to be progressing.

"It's difficult to foster just the spirit one wants in them--it depends
so largely on the girl," she decided.

And there she was right--the girl made all the difference. Hilary
Chapman had listened to her remarks on "the mother instinct", and had
walked straight into her dormitory, tow-rowed her young room-mates for
their untidiness, snapped at their excuses, and sent them downstairs
with a snubbing, returning to the bosom of the seniors ruffled, but with
a strong sense of having performed her obvious duty. Betty Blane, Erica
Peters, and Peggy Collins, comparing injured notes, viewed the matter
from a different angle.

"Calls herself a mother, does she? Jolly more like a step-mother, I
should say," objected Erica.

"Pretty grizzly to be boxed up with Hilary for a whole term," lamented
Betty.

"I'm _not going_ to be 'mothered' by her," proclaimed Peggy with energy.
"She's only two years older than I am, and yet from the airs she gives
herself you'd think she was Methuselah."

"You don't _look_ like her daughter," remarked Betty, who was
literal-minded to a fault.

Peggy made an eloquent grimace.

"I'm an undutiful one, at any rate," she laughed. "I'm afraid Hilary
will find me somewhat of a handful."

Up in the little ivy room, however, matters were going somewhat better.
Diana and Loveday, after a few minor differences, dovetailed both their
possessions and their dispositions so as to admit of the least possible
friction. It was fortunate for Diana, for she had a side to her
character that would have bristled into porcupine quills had she been
placed with Hilary. Loveday's particular temperament soothed her down.

"I'm falling in love with her," she admitted to Wendy. "I was taken
with her, of course, the moment I saw her, but I believe now I'm going
to have it badly. I think she's beautiful! If there were a Peach
Competition, she'd win at a canter."

Such a pandering to the "pomps and vanities" as a Beauty Show was
certainly not an item in th