ever, so Geraldine was not able to take the dog to the
headmistress's room. She took him as far as the mistresses' corridor,
and left him there, while she hurried off to brush her hair and wash
her hands for dinner.

Nobody had missed her or noticed her absence apparently, which,
Geraldine decided, was perhaps just as well. So far as she knew there
was no rule at Wakehurst Priory to forbid girls from assisting to bath
the headmistress's dog, but possibly somebody might have found some
objection to her morning's occupation if they came to know about it.
Since they did not, no harm had been done, and Geraldine reflected,
with some satisfaction, that in Bennett at least she had found a friend.

And indeed she had! The school porter was at that moment exhibiting
his newly-acquired patch to a circle of interested maids in the
kitchen, all of whom were unanimous in praising the excellence of the
handiwork.

"A grown woman couldn't have done it better," declared Kate, the
linen-room maid.

"Little Miss Wilmott, did you say it was?" asked Cook. "She's a real
nice little lady, to my way of thinking."

"That she is," said one of the dining-hall maids. "Always 'Please' and
'Thank you' whatever you do for her, and never any grumbling or
ordering of you about. Pity there aren't more young ladies like her, I
say, quiet though she is."

"And none the worse for that, I dare say," commented Cook.

So Geraldine, whatever her school companions might think of her, had at
any rate succeeded in winning golden opinions in the servants' hall.

CHAPTER VIII

MAINLY CONCERNING A MOUSE

The Lower Fifth was a long way removed from the Sixth Form at Wakehurst
Priory. Between it lay the Middle Fifth, the Upper Fifth, and the
Sixth Remove. But things had a way of getting round in the school, as
they have in other places; and in due course it came to the ears of the
Sixth Form that the new girl, Geraldine Wilmott, was not exactly
popular with her companions. She had done something rather "sneaky,"
the Sixth understood, and was vaguely suspected of being a German--or
at any rate of having a good deal of German blood in her.

"Too bad of Miss Oakley to have admitted her into the school if it's
true," commented Kathleen Milne, one of the prefects and a prominent
member of the Sixth. "Of course, I know the war's over now, and all
that; but all the same, one can't quite forget some of the things they
did. I, for one, must say