heir own writing themselves. They engage
secretaries to help them. I've even heard of clergymen buying their
sermons."

"Oh, oh! Father doesn't!" Gwen's tone was warm.

"Well, I didn't say he did, but I believe it's done all the same. And if
a vicar can read somebody else's sermon in the pulpit as if it were his
own, I may hand in somebody else's essay. _Quod est demonstrandum_, my
child."

"Can't see it!" grunted Gwen.

"Look here, Gwen Gascoyne, you've got to see it! I've been uncommonly
patient with you, but I don't quite appreciate the joke of being done
out of that sov. I must either have it or its equivalent. You can
please yourself which."

Netta's eyes were flashing, and her mouth was twitching ominously. She
was a jolly enough fair-weather comrade, but she could be uncommonly
nasty if things went wrong.

"I suppose you don't consider it unfair to keep me waiting all this
time?" she added scathingly.

Gwen kicked the desk and groaned.

"Well, it just amounts to this: if you don't choose to come to terms,
I'll tell Lemonade. Yes, I will! I don't care a scrap if I went into
her room as well as you. You broke the china, and you'd get into the
worst row. It wouldn't be pleasant for you. I think you'd better hand
over Mr. Thomas Carlyle to me, my dear."

"And what am I to do, I should like to know?"

"Write another on a different author."

"There isn't time."

"Yes there is, heaps! I don't want it to be as good as this,
naturally. Well, are you going to trade, or are you not? I can't wait
here all day!"

For answer, Gwen held out the exercise book. She was in a desperately
tight corner; everything seemed to have conspired against her. She
knew Netta and her mad, reckless moods quite well enough to appreciate
the fact that her threat to tell Miss Roscoe was no idle one. When her
temper was roused, Netta was capable of anything.

"It's her fault more than mine if it's not fair. I really can't help
it," thought Gwen, trying to find excuses for herself.

"Oh! Glad you've come to your senses at last!" sneered Netta, as she
clutched the precious manuscript and stalked away, slamming the door
behind her. There was no one else in the room, so Gwen laid her head
down on the desk, and indulged in an altogether early Victorian
exhibition of feeling. Her essay--her cherished essay, over which she
had taken such superhuman pains, to be torn away from her like this!
It was to have brought her such credit from