ck's conduct mark or make Polly let her off detention
on Saturday. You're just a silly, clumsy idiot--if you didn't do it on
purpose--and I wish to goodness you'd never come into the Lower Fifth."

"Or to the Pink Dorm," put in Phyllis.

Geraldine cowered visibly under this attack.

"I keep telling you I'm sorry," she protested pathetically. "I never,
never meant to give Jack away. I wouldn't have breathed a word about
it if only she hadn't owned up like that."

"Just as though she _could_ have done anything else!" cried Phyllis
hotly. "We're not that sort in the Lower Fifth, Geraldine Wilmott,
whatever _you_ may be! Of course Jack couldn't go letting Pretty Polly
think that it was you who'd done that sketch--whatever a sneak like you
might have done!"

As Geraldine had not sneaked, this remark was unjust, to say the least
of it. But the new girl was too unhappy to protest any further. She
returned to the task of putting away her lesson books, and Dorothy and
Phyllis left the room arm in arm. Geraldine looked round forlornly at
Jack, after the two chums had departed, but Jack was absorbed in
conversation with Nita Fleming, and the two presently departed from the
classroom, leaving the new girl to her own devices. Geraldine shed a
few miserable tears when she was finally left alone in the empty
classroom, but she was not allowed much time to indulge her grief. A
bell rang loudly through the school buildings, and she had to mop up
the tears hastily and hurry out to discover what the next proceeding
might be.

Dinner was the next item on the programme, she found, and she joined in
the stream of girls who were hurrying into the dining-hall. Jack and
Nita were already in their places, and Geraldine made her way rather
shyly to the vacant place on Jack's left side.

"May I--am I to sit here again?" she asked timidly.

"If you want to," replied Jack briefly. And Geraldine, not knowing
where else to go, took up her position behind the vacant chair. As she
did so, Jack murmured a few words in Nita's ear, and the next instant
the two girls had exchanged places, so that Geraldine now found herself
standing next to Nita instead of next to Jack. The action cut the new
girl to the heart. Jack was so offended with her that she couldn't
even bear to sit next to her at meals apparently! If there had been
anywhere else to move to, Geraldine would certainly have moved, but
there seemed to be no vacant places anywh