entered your name as a candidate for the Senior
Oxford, so you will, of course, take the examination. Miss Trent has
arranged to give you some extra coaching in the dinner hour every day
this week, and I think you ought to be able at least to secure a pass.
You're fairly certain all round."

"Except in maths.," said Gwen.

"Well, you must give all the time you can spare to that. But don't
overdo the cramming. It's sometimes a fatal mistake to work early and
late till your brain's utterly exhausted. I did that once myself and
missed a scholarship through it. Take an hour at tennis every evening
before you go to bed. Exercise is an absolute necessity if you're to
be in form for next week. You're looking pale, and you mustn't break
down before Monday. Tell your father to buy you a tonic."

Miss Roscoe spoke kindly, more sympathetically indeed than Gwen ever
remembered to have heard her before. She had a wide experience with
girls, and could estimate their capacities to a nicety. She had chosen
her candidates carefully, and would ensure that they were sent in well
prepared. So far she had had few failures in public examinations, and
every pass brought extra credit to the school.

Five members of the Form were to take the Senior Oxford; Elspeth
Frazer, Edith Arnold, Louise Mawson, and Betty Brierly, being the
other four, all of them considerably older than Gwen.

"We call you the five victims!" said Charlotte Perry. "I'm glad I'm
out of it. I sang a jubilee last week when Miss Roscoe read the list
and my name wasn't on it."

"There were eight girls sent in last year," said Hilda Browne.

"Yes, and two failed--Majorie Stevens and Daisy Wilson. I don't think
Miss Roscoe has forgiven them yet."

"Oh, dear! I'm afraid she'll be very down on me then," wailed Gwen.
"I'm a doubtful quantity!"

"You? Oh, you'll be all right! She'd never let you try if you
weren't--trust her!" said Charlotte Perry, and the rest agreed.

In spite of her schoolmates' assurances Gwen did not feel at all
certain of success, and it was in very blue spirits and a state of
woeful apprehension that she betook herself on the fateful sixteenth
of July to the Stedburgh Town Hall, which was the local centre for the
examination. It was her fifteenth birthday, and it seemed a funny way
of celebrating the day. She had been so agitated that morning that she
had scarcely been able to realize her presents, except the fountain
pen which Father and Beatrice