ring sort of girl who had not taken a very active part in
school affairs. Last term, when war waged hot and strong between Lottie
Carson and Helen Stanley, two of the monitresses, Lorraine had committed
herself to neither party, though her form was divided to such an extent
of partisanship that Dorothy Skipton and Vivien Forrester nearly had a
fight one day on the landing. Lorraine! The matter required thought. The
school was so surprised that it could not decide how to take the
announcement, and it was with a look of uncertainty on their faces that
the girls, dismissed at last by Miss Kingsley, filed into their
classrooms to receive their new books and be told their preparation for
next day. This necessary business finished, they were free to don hats
and coats and go home. In the cloak-room the pent-up conversation
bubbled over.

"Well, what d'you think of it?" exploded Dorothy.

Patsie, sitting on the boot-rack, pulling on her shoes, made a round
mouth and whistled.

"It's generally the unexpected that happens," she moralized. "Lorraine's
a lucker! Cheer up, old Dollie! Don't look so glum! Bother! I've broken
my shoe-lace. What a grizzly nuisance! Lorraine's not such a bad sort,
after all!"

"I don't say she is--but to be head of the school!"

"Better than Vivien, anyway!" grunted Patsie, busy knotting her broken
shoe-lace.

"I agree with you there--_she'd_ have turned the place upside down. Here
she comes, in a tantrum by the look of her."

Vivien, judging by the way she slammed down her new books, was certainly
not pleased with the turn affairs had taken. Though she and Dorothy were
generally on terms of flint and steel, she sought her now to air what
she considered a common grievance.

"I couldn't have believed it of Miss Kingsley!" she began. "Why
Lorraine, of all people in the world? She's two months younger than I
am, and her marks weren't as good as yours in the exam, if it hadn't
been for that absurd essay that counted extra. How she's ever going to
manage to run the societies, I can't imagine! I'm sorry for the school!"

Dorothy was adjusting her attractive hat in front of the mirror. She put
in the pins carefully before replying.

"It's a rotten business!" she sighed.

"Disgusting! To have Lorraine set over us, while you and I are just
ordinary common monitresses, the same as Audrey Roberts or Nellie
Appleby. I'm fed up with it! It's going to be a hateful term; I shan't
take an interest in any