red work, and
the habit was assuming proportions that Gwen did not like. At first it
had only been a word or two, then an odd sentence, but it was rapidly
developing into a demand for a translation of the whole lesson.

"Oh, I say, Netta, you make me a regular henchman!" she objected. "Why
should I act as providence to you continually?"

"Because you know the lesson, my hearty, and I don't. Ergo, it is your
duty and privilege to impart your information to me."

"Don't always see my privileges."

"Then you ought. If you're helped, you ought to help others."

"I'm not helped!"

"Oh, Gwen! I'm sure Grinnie helps you at home!" broke out Millicent
Cooper.

"She doesn't! She doesn't, indeed! I do all my prep, by myself."

"Can you actually swear on your honour she's never once helped you?"
said Annie Edwards.

"On my hon--" began Gwen, then stopped and stammered lamely. "Well, at
least, there was once--"

The recollection had struck her of the evening when she had caught the
rat in the hen-coop. She had been so upset and flurried on that
occasion that she had certainly applied to Winnie for assistance with
a passage that she could not have otherwise prepared.

"Once!" sneered Annie. "Oh, no doubt! Everybody in the Form knows how
it is you get on so well with your work!"

"I get no help at home!" declared Millicent self-righteously.

"Oh, drop drivelling, and let Gwen alone! She's got to tell me these
lines," said Netta. "What do I care how she prepares her work? Come,
Gwen, ma-vourneen, be a real friend!"

As Gwen translated the passage Netta wrote it rapidly down in pencil,
and even Annie and Millicent, in spite of their condemnations of
assisted preparations, seized their books and followed the words
carefully.

"A particularly nasty bit--I could never do it if I tried half a year.
Thanks awfully!" said Netta, slipping the paper inside her _AEneid_.

"Netta, you're not going to--"

"Never mind what I'm going to do. My concerns are my own," returned
Netta airily. "I'm an unlucky person, and I'm sure to get the worst
piece if there is one. It's Kismet."

Gwen's desk was close to Netta's, and when the Virgil class began she
could not help noticing the latter pop the scrap of paper on her knee
under cover of a pocket handkerchief.

Miss Douglas followed no fixed order in the Form; she called on any
girl she wished to translate, choosing from back or front desks with
strictest impartiality. As Netta had