jolly good try. I'll show those
girls I can do something, though I am the youngest! Oh, I say! I've
only just remembered that Winnie'll be the under-mistress. I'll have
to call her 'Miss Gascoyne' whenever I speak to her. How perfectly
idiotic! I'm sure I shall laugh. I wonder if Miss Roscoe's told her
yet? What a surprise it would be for her to come into the room and
find me there!"

"I wish you'd be quick, Gwen Gascoyne," said Eve Dawkins; "I'm to have
your desk as soon as you've moved out. It's a nicer seat than mine."

"Right-o!" answered Gwen, piling her books on top of her big atlas.
"You're welcome to it, I'm sure. I think you might all have seemed a
trifle more sorry to lose me! I don't see any display of pocket
handkerchiefs. No, I can't say I'm shedding tears myself unless
they're crocodile ones. Please to recollect in future, my dears, when
you speak to me, that you're addressing a member of the Upper School!
You're only little Junior girls! Ta-ta!" and with a mock curtsy, in
process of which she nearly dropped her pile of books, Gwen retired
laughing from the Fourth Form to take her place and try her luck among
the Seniors.

CHAPTER II

The Gascoyne Girls

At fourteen and a quarter Gwen Gascoyne was at a particularly
difficult and hobbledehoy stage of her development. She was tall for
her age, and rather awkward in her manners, apt at present to be
slapdash and independent, and decidedly lacking in "that repose which
stamps the caste of Vere de Vere". Gwen could never keep still for
five seconds, her restless hands were always fidgeting or her feet
shuffling, or she was twisting in her chair, or shaking back a loose
untidy lock that had escaped from her ribbon. Gwen often did her hair
without the aid of a looking-glass, but when she happened to use one
the reflection of her own face gave her little cause for satisfaction.

"I'm plain, and there's no blinking the fact," she confessed to
herself. "Winnie says I'm variable, and I can look nice when I smile,
but I'm afraid no one would trouble to look at me twice. If only I
were Lesbia now, or even Beatrice! People talk about the flower of a
family--well, I expect I'm the weed, as far as appearances go! I
haven't had my fair share in the way of good looks."

It certainly seemed hard that Nature, which had been kind to the
Gascoynes in that respect, should have dowered her brothers and
sisters so liberally, and have left poor Gwen out in the cold