palled her. But she saw
that it would never do to let this new-found friend of hers guess just
how she felt about it. Geraldine could imagine the contempt that would
come into Jack's eyes if she were to betray the fact that she was
really afraid of the unknown game. And she made haste to change the
topic before her companion should perceive the horror with which she
was regarding her coming ordeal on the hockey field.

"Oh, after hockey," said Jack, readily taking the bait. "Tea, of
course, after you've washed and changed. There's usually about half an
hour's interval after we come down from the field. The tea-bell goes
at half-past four, and the prep bell at five, so there's not much time
between them. We do prep until seven. Then change for supper, which
is at half-past seven. From eight to nine's free. The juniors go to
bed then, while the seniors--all the forms above the Lower Fourth--go
to Chapel once more for prayers. Then bedtime comes for everybody at
nine-thirty. So wags the weary round from day to day," she concluded,
with a fine poetical flourish. "If it wasn't for hockey and
half-holidays, and Sundays and hampers and dormitory feasts, and other
occasional rags, school would be an awfully dead-and-alive affair. But
as it is, it has its redeeming features. I say, what dorm are you in?"

"The Pink Dormitory," answered Geraldine.

"You lucky kid! That's Muriel Paget's dorm this term. Half the girls
in the school would give their eyes to be in your shoes."

"Why?" asked Geraldine in astonishment.

"Why? Because Muriel's head girl, and everybody in this school is
cracked on her. At least, as cracked as Muriel will let them be! She
won't let girls make themselves idiots over her--she squashes them
horribly if they overdo the flowers and sweets and fagging business.
Still, it would be jolly nice to be in her dorm; I wouldn't mind being
there myself, though I'm not one of the most love-sick of her
satellites, by a long way. I bet there'll be a rare old scrum to-night
to fetch her hot water, and do those sorts of things."

"One of the girls did ask if she might fetch her hot water, this
afternoon," volunteered Geraldine. "But she squashed her then. She
said she wasn't going to have any of that silly rot going on in her
dorm so long as she was monitress there."

"Did she? How awfully like Muriel!" chuckled Jack, with keen
appreciation. "Who was the girl, do you know? Oh, of course, thou