heir box, and turned away to place them inside her
locker.

Marion, penitent, but annoyed at being called a butter-fingered Handy
Andy, let the matter slide for the moment. Marion could never keep up
any quarrel, however, for longer than a morning, and before afternoon
school she had made her peace, and was walking in the gymnasium with her
arm round her chum's waist, very much to the indignation of Regina, who
considered Lesbia her own special property.

It was the last week in October that the Franklin Shakespearean Company
came to Kingfield. Their advent had been well advertised by placards on
the hoardings, and by handbills which were left at people's houses or
sent by post. They were a famous company and were always sure of a
welcome in whichever town they arrived on tour. Lesbia, going from
school to catch her tram-car, saw the large notice of their performances
being posted by a bill-sticker, and stopped to look. _Hamlet_, _The
Merchant of Venice_, _As You Like It_, _Much Ado About Nothing_, _The
Tempest_, _Macbeth_. What would she not give to see a single one of
them? Lesbia had never been to a Shakespeare play in her life. She had
studied _Julius Caesar_ and _The Merchant of Venice_ carefully with the
notes at school, and had read many of the other plays as part of her
preparation for the literature class. To see all the familiar characters
actually on the stage would be bliss indeed. But there did not seem the
slightest chance that such an ambition would be gratified. Lesbia had
very little pocket-money. The Pattersons did not grumble at keeping her,
but they seldom expended anything extra on her behalf. She never liked
to ask for such indulgences as entertainments. She mentioned, indeed,
that the Franklin Shakespeare Company was coming to Kingfield, and how
splendid it would be to see them, but nobody took the hint. Kitty and
Joan were going that week to a concert and to a performance of _Trilby_,
and had no other evenings disengaged, even if they had offered to escort
Lesbia. Mrs. Patterson considered that schoolgirls should stick to their
lessons during term-time, and keep all such dissipations as theatres for
the holidays.

"It's no use," thought Lesbia dismally. "I know heaps of other girls
will be going, but it won't be my luck. I wasn't born lucky. I may wear
as many mascots as I like, but the fact remains."

Lesbia was not quite as ill-used by fate as she made out, for she
received and accepted an