that I'd prefer not to be educated at a
school where they take German girls."

"Who's that that's German?" inquired Monica Deane, looking up quickly
from the book she was poring over. It was during the evening
preparation, and Monica, with one or two other members of the Sixth,
had repaired to the large room, half classroom, half library, where the
Sixth Form classes were held. Being a somewhat privileged form, the
Sixth were at liberty to prepare their work where they liked, either in
their common room, or in the small studies of which each member of the
form possessed one.

It was Kathleen Milne who answered the question.

"That new girl in the Lower Fifth--Geraldine Wilmott."

Monica banged her book indignantly upon the table.

"Rot! She isn't! She's as English as I am. She sleeps next door to
me in my dorm, and the first day of term she was telling me all about
her home and her relations."

"Well, Phyllis Tressider told me that she _was_," persisted Kathleen.
"Her mother was German and married an Englishman, and they lived in
Germany before the war. The kid jabbers German like a native. Fact,
Monica. Phyllis says the kid told them so one day, bold as brass about
it. She's got all their sneaky ways, too. She's always getting them
into rows, and is an awful little funk into the bargain. If that isn't
German, I don't know what is!"

Monica said nothing further then, but that evening after supper, she
encountered Phyllis Tressider in one of the corridors and immediately
cornered her on the subject of Geraldine's nationality.

"What makes you think she's German?" she asked. "Did she tell you she
was?"

"Well--all but," said Phyllis. "You wouldn't have any doubts about it
if you heard her talk their beastly lingo! She's got Pretty Polly beat
to a frazzle."

"Well, I don't believe it," said Monica firmly. "And I think it's
jolly rotten of you Lower Fifth kids to go spreading a rumour like that
about the school. Even if it were true, the least you could do would
be to keep it to yourselves. I didn't know that Wakehurst girls could
be such rotten little sneaks!"

"We're _not_ sneaks!" said Phyllis indignantly. "It's _she_ who's a
sneak! Why, she got Jack Pym kept in so's she couldn't be tested for
the second eleven, on her very first day at school!" And she poured
out a somewhat highly-coloured version of the episode of the caricature.

But Monica was not at all sympathetic with Jack's wro