istened Annie Smith, "_she_ has a brain!"

Nice Susan Brown hadn't, but balanced the lack by a wealthy parentage.

"Yes! of course she has! And _isn't_ she beautiful!"

Nice Annie Smith was as plain as a bun, but balanced her defect by a
heart of gold, and found her ultimate and perfect joy in an overworked
curate and seven children by him, all of whom were destined to sit
round the festive board like seven plain little currantless buns on a
plate.

"Yes! isn't she! She's wonderful, I think, and oh! so very different
to all of us."

"I found the very word to suit her in the dictionary," rather
importantly added Susan Brown, "_bizarre_----"

"Whatever does it mean?" inquired Annie Smith, who was destined never
again to run up against the word or its meaning during the rest of her
neutral life.

"Er--a kind of a--er--_je ne sais quoi_ in the temperament--not exactly
a nonconformist, you know; but just a little--well, not _quite_ like
_us_!"

"I see!" contentedly replied mystified Annie Smith. "But I _do_ love
her; she's such a dear. So gentle and so ready to help everybody, and
so _splendid_ at sports. What tremendous friends she and Jessica have
become, haven't they, since the night of the scare? I often wonder
what made her walk in her sleep like that; she's never done it since."

"Indigestion, I've always thought. Cookie was away on her holidays, if
you remember, and her _locum tenens_, understudy, you know, made pastry
like cement; I always thought, too, that Principal gave her that lovely
little room right away from the rest of us on account of it--the
sleep-walking, I mean. I'm sure I should have _died_ if I'd found her
standing over me in the moonlight in the middle of the night. It must
be awfully jolly though having someone in India who writes to you every
three months. _Isn't_ she lucky to have been _born_ in India, and to
have had an ayah, a kind of native nurse, you know, who _still_
worships her, and writes to her, and sends _real_ Indian presents, and
to have had a V.C. for a father--Leonie, I mean?"

Annie Smith laughed that happy laugh which is the outcome of a
perfectly contented mind. "She deserves all the luck she gets, and
what luck for _us_ having her as head next term. What a favourite she
is with everyone, even old Signer Valenti! Oh, dear, I wish
to-morrow's exams were over; my fingers feel just like blanc-mange when
I think of that nocturne."

"Never say die, Ann! _Have