own secrets."

"In this case you ought to have warned us properly. It was too bad to
let us rehearse all that time, and get all the costumes together--for
this!"

"We've made ourselves ridiculous, and it's your fault entirely."

"Couldn't you act it here, just among ourselves?" suggested Gwen
humbly; but her proposal was squashed by an indignant and scornful
majority.

"Act it here indeed! Who'd care to do that, I wonder? Don't be so
idiotic. You've spoilt our performance, Gwen Gascoyne, when you might
have saved it. Why couldn't you stay in the Lower School? You haven't
sense enough to be a Senior."

It was not a very satisfactory ending to a first term, even though
Gwen had done better in the exams than she expected, so that her place
in her new Form was well assured. She still felt an outcast, and as
she shut her desk for the last time on breaking-up day, she gave a
sigh of intense relief to think that she was going to enjoy a whole
month's freedom from the society of her classmates.

Home at present was the _summum bonum_ of her wishes. She almost
danced along the road from school, and behaved so jubilantly in the
bus that Winnie had to interfere, and give her a hint to restrain her
hilarity before the other passengers. She rushed into the Parsonage
like a cyclone, and flung her satchel under the bookcase.

"There! That's done with! Hurrah! No more horrid, hateful, scrambly,
early breakfasts, and tramping off through the mud. Every day's a
Saturday, and I'm just going to have a glorious time."

"There's plenty for you to do," said Beatrice, fishing out the satchel
and putting it tidily away on Gwen's special shelf. "I haven't
finished those texts I was making for the church yet, and--"

"Oh, wow! Don't set me to work too soon! I've a heap of things of my
own that want doing first. Winnie is far cleverer at cutting texts
than I am."

"She's more to be depended upon, certainly," said Beatrice dryly.

Each member of the family was mysteriously occupied with special
secrets. There were still five days before Christmas, time for an
energetic person to get through a great deal, and Gwen hoped to
accomplish wonders. She was in a sad quandary about her Christmas
gifts. Her savings box, which ought to have contained over fifteen
shillings, only held a threepennybit and two halfpennies; and she
shook her head dismally as she reviewed her pauper condition.

"I must make presents, that's the long and short of it,