ects, and not such a disgrace to the Fifth as to
necessitate her dismissal to the Lower School again, a consummation at
which one or two of her detractors had occasionally hinted in times of
irritation.

The few days left were chiefly occupied with what the girls called
"scratch lessons", just something to keep them employed until the
lists were out. A good deal of latitude was allowed to those
rehearsing for the various performances, and though Gwen could not
claim that excuse for exemption, she managed to make a little work
spin out a long way without incurring reproof.

She was tired with the strain of the term; it had needed much effort
to keep up with the rest of the Form, and the daily bus journey and
walk to and from home were all extra exertion. She had grown
enormously in the last few months--"grown out of all conscience", said
Beatrice, who sighed ruefully over boots too small and skirts too
short--and she had become so pale and lanky and angular in the process
that Winnie unfeelingly compared her to a plant raised in a cellar.
Her unlucky hands and feet seemed bigger than ever, and more inclined
to fidget and shuffle, and to her bad habit of wrinkling up her
forehead she had added a nervous blink of her eyes.

"Winnie Gascoyne is charming," confided Miss Douglas to a fellow
mistress, "and Lesbia is about the loveliest child I've ever seen. I
can't imagine why Gwen should vary from pretty to plain continually.
But she does."

Unfortunately, Gwen's temper suffered in exact proportion to her
increased inches. She was snappy at school and snarly at home,
difficult to please, and ready to take offence at everything. Probably
a week's rest in bed, on a feeding diet and a good tonic, was what her
tired body and irritable nerves required, but nobody had the hardihood
to make such a suggestion. Except in cases of dire necessity, the
Gascoynes did not indulge in the luxury of medical advice or chemist's
bills, so Gwen perforce did without a doctor, and the medicine he
would most undoubtedly have prescribed for her. So far from thinking
of rest, she was making plans sufficient to fill five holidays instead
of one; even she herself laughed sometimes at the largeness of her
projects compared with the brief month in which she was to carry them
out.

Meantime the two days of the dramatic performances had arrived. The
Seniors always had the first afternoon and the Juniors the second, the
audience being composed of the