told.'

Babs explained submissively that she was quite ready to do things if she
only knew what to do; but Jean still grumbled.

'Any one with any sense would know,' she declared, hastening out of the
door again as she spoke. When she was half-way across the hall, she
shouted, without looking back, 'Can't you come along? There's only a
quarter of an hour to dress for supper.'

Babs hurried after her, and managed to keep her in sight up the wide
staircase and along the gallery at the top. There were doors all round
the gallery, and at one of these, marked number twelve, Jean stopped
and waited impatiently.

'What a time you are,' she complained, when Barbara caught her up.

'I'm very quick, when anybody doesn't take such an enormous start,'
answered Barbara, panting. 'I can beat Peter twice round the Square and up
to the gate, _easily_! And you're not in it with Peter.'

Jean looked at her, and her expression was not a pretty one. However, she
only jerked her head at the door in front of them, and told Babs it was
her bedroom. 'Finny said I was to show you,' she added. 'Don't know, I'm
sure, why everybody thinks I've got to show you things. And you'd better
look sharp and dress, because when you're ready you've got to cut along
to number two and do the head girl's hair. It's always the business of
the youngest in the school to do the head girl's hair. See?'

'But I don't know how to do anybody's hair,' began Barbara, in a fever of
dismay. But Jean had already scampered out of hearing; and with her
responsibilities weighing heavily upon her, the new girl turned the
handle of her bedroom door and went forlornly in. It was a simple little
room, very clean and fresh-looking, with everything there that she wanted
and nothing that she could do without. The pretty coverlets on the bed
and the dressing-table and the muslin curtains that draped the oaken
window-sash gave it a look of homely comfort, while harmonising with the
plain green colour of the walls and the blue frieze and carpet. As
Barbara walked across her small domain and pushed aside the blind to
peep out into the clear starlit night, a moment's rest came to her
perturbed little mind. The tiny bare room was all hers, and the feeling
of privacy and possession was very comforting.

A door in the wall told her there was a room leading out of hers, and
the sound made by some one moving rapidly about in it reminded her again
of her present woes and of the necessit