window. Her eyes wandered across
the drive and fell on the little building in the field, where she and
Angela had passed their eight days of quarantine with the youngest girl
in the school. Somehow, Jean could not bear the sight of it to-day, and
she moved round restively, till she faced Margaret again.

'Oh, do leave me alone!' she said fiercely; and the head girl felt rather
helpless, and left her.

In the junior playroom, Angela had relapsed at the sight of Ruth Oliver
into a fresh fit of crying.

'What _is_ the matter, Angela?' demanded Ruth, for once almost losing her
patience.

'Matter?' sobbed Angela, leaning back for support on the substantial arm
of Mary Wells. 'I'm full of re--remorse, and--and penitence! So would you
be, if--if you were as bad and--and as sinful as me!'

'Why, what have you been doing now?' inquired Ruth, keeping her temper
with difficulty.

Angela stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth, and recovered sufficient
control over herself to take it out again and make her confession.

'Last week,' she faltered, '_she_ asked me to help her with her French;
and--and--I was cross, and--and--I wouldn't.'

She burst into tears again, as Charlotte Bigley looked up from the book
she was pretending to read and put in a curt remark.

'Who's _she_?' she demanded bluntly.

Angela stopped crying to stare at her. 'You know fast enough, Charlotte!'
she mumbled indistinctly.

Charlotte tossed her head scornfully. 'If you mean Barbara Berkeley, why
on earth can't you say so?' she exclaimed. 'She hasn't lost her name
because she fell off the rings, _has_ she?'

Mary Wells spoke her mind solemnly. 'We all know _you_ have no feeling,
Charlotte Bigley,' she was beginning, when some one near the window
announced that the Doctor had just driven round the corner of the house.

This in itself was enough to reduce Angela to further depths of
contrition. 'What shall I do,' she wailed, 'if she dies before I can ask
her forgiveness?'

Margaret Hulme suddenly stood over her, and shook her by the shoulder.

'Stop it, child!' she said, not unkindly, for even Angela's tears made her
own feel uncomfortably near the surface. She turned to the others quickly.

'Every one will get ready and go into the field for a hockey practice,'
she commanded.

Charlotte shut her book with a bang. 'What's the good of hockey?' she
grumbled crossly.

'What's the good of anything,' sighed Margaret, 'with that poor little
kid l