ngs as they
are, now."

"But, girl alive! don't you want to be a prefect again?"

"Kathleen makes a far better one than I did. She'd best stick to it. As
long as the school knows the facts I don't care."

"But Miss Tatham? What will she say when she comes back and finds you
aren't prefect?"

"I shall explain it all to Miss Tatham without mentioning the names of
the girls. I'm sure she'll understand."

"Well, you _are_ a saint!"

"Not a bit of it. I'm putting my work on to Kathleen."

"Oh, I dare say!"

"Well, please let it stand at this."

"Right you are. _We_ shan't go telling Miss Ormerod. Don't you fear."

The true state of affairs, of course, spread round the whole school in
half an hour, and public opinion dubbed Lesbia a trump. Among the
juniors especially her decision raised her to the height of popularity.
Jess and Gwennie were ready to grovel at her feet.

"You'll find us all positive _angels_ next term," they assured her.

"Well, hardly that, I expect," laughed Lesbia. "Still, I dare say we'll
understand each other rather better, and you'll try to behave in class
without making me turn absolute gorgon to keep you in order, won't you?"

"Gorgon indeed! You're a _dear_!" gushed Gwennie.

"An absolute sport!" agreed Jess, linking her arm affectionately in that
of her new-found idol.

CHAPTER XX

The Highway Woman

Easter came as a blessed pause in the rush and turmoil of school life.
The round of work at Kingfield High had seemed even more arduous to
Lesbia in the Sixth than it had been in VA. The form was supposed to be
grinding for the Matric, and though only its brightest specimens,
Regina, Carrie, and Kathleen, and two wobbly candidates, Aldora and
Cissie, were to be offered up as victims to the educational sacrifice,
it meant that everybody, clever, mediocre, or dull, had to toil through
the same textbooks and write identical exercises. Miss Pratt, who had
gone up with the Sixth from VA, considerably to Lesbia's sorrow,
constituted herself a kind of intellectual razor to sharpen the wits of
the form, and had scant mercy on those who fell short of her standard.
Lesbia sometimes, squashed flat by a sarcasm, felt she was
metaphorically placed on a stool with a dunce's cap on her head. She
tried to keep pace with the matriculation candidates, but her swimming
brains often got confused, and, as she was a venturesome guesser, she
was occasionally guilty of coming out with "howlers".