r Marjory's vigorous and ungentle scrubbing had overbalanced the
easel, and away crashed the blackboard on to the floor, breaking the
pegs, and only just missing the window by a merciful inch. The form
giggled, and Lesbia scolded as she helped to pick up the wreckage. The
pegs were smashed and she had to sharpen them with a penknife before
they would fit into their holes in the easel, and once more support the
board. All this took considerable time and delayed the lesson. The girls
watched as if it had been a specially provided entertainment. Marjory's
face was not at all contrite; she unrolled the map so roughly that
Lesbia took it from her and hung it up herself.

"Go to your seat," she commanded, catching a smile exchanged between
Marjory and Ella, "and if I've any more trouble I shall report you."

The monitress shuffled back noisily between the rows of desks, giving a
pinch to Gladys as she passed, an episode which Lesbia, anxious to get
on with the lesson, judged it expedient to overlook. She had opened her
book, ready to begin, when suddenly an unexpected thing happened.
Through the open window sailed a queen wasp, and headed straight for the
desks. It was, of course, very early in the year for wasps, but the
queens fly abroad as soon as the spring stirs, and this one no doubt was
intent on nest-building.

Instantly the form was in panic. The girls squealed, and dodged about,
and ducked their heads.

"O-o-h! Look at it!"

"It's coming at me!"

"It's a hornet!"

"Mind, Ella!"

"I don't want to get stung!"

"It's going for Chrissie!"

"Don't let it get into your hair, Rose!"

Some of the more timorous crouched under their desks, Gladys bolted in
the direction of the door. Lesbia did not like wasps herself, but she
made a supreme exertion of courage, seized the blackboard duster,
pursued the enemy, knocked it down on to the floor, and slew it with a
ruler. She picked up the corpse gingerly and placed it upon a piece of
blotting-paper.

"Perhaps it will do for the museum; it's not very much squashed," she
commented. "I'll give it to Miss Chatham. Now, girls, be quiet and sit
still. How silly you are! It might have been a lion instead of only a
wasp."

But to settle down after such an excitement was impossible to the form.
They had started badly, and they went on in disorder. They talked and
giggled and generally "ragged" until Lesbia in desperation called out:

"Silence! I shall report you all! If