Avelyn was looking forward with wildest joy to the Christmas holidays. There were so many things she intended to do at home. She and Daphne and the boys were all going to set to work to construct chicken coops in preparation for the hatching of clutches of eggs that would be put down in January. Then, if the weather kept open, there were wonderful improvements to be made in the garden, stones to be brought for a rockery, and ferns to be fetched from the stream to plant upon it, to say nothing of the vegetable culture which in these days of food shortage was the main feature of their outdoor activities.

Avelyn's whole heart was at Walden. She had grown to love every corner of it with an intense clinging attachment. No place in the world was so precious as those few acres of land she called home. The prospect of an entire glorious month there filled her with bliss.

"L'homme propose et Dieu dispose", however, and our best-made plans have a knack of "ganging agley". On the Thursday before the holidays Anthony broke out in spots, and the doctor, who came six miles in his car from the little town of Roby, looked at them critically, shook his head, and remarked: "Chicken-pox! There's a good deal of it about just now."

Mrs. Watson was a woman who acted promptly. When she had ushered the doctor out she tucked up the invalid warmly, put on her hat and coat, and went to the village, where there was a public telephone call office. Here she rang up 138 Harlingden, and held a brief but satisfactory conversation with her second cousin, Mrs. Lascelles. Then she went home, wrote a letter to Avelyn, and posted it, after which she focused her attention on the invalid, who was feverish and fractious. The news which Avelyn received in the letter came as a bolt from the blue.

"I'm so sorry, darling," wrote her mother, "but the doctor says Tony has chicken-pox, and you mustn't come home to-morrow. I have telephoned to Cousin Lilia, and she offers to take you in for the holidays, so will you tell Miss Thompson that you are to go there. No time for more, as I want to catch the early post. Good-bye, darling! Much love from Mother."

Avelyn had taken the letter to the Cowslip Room to read. She put it in her pocket, sat down on her bed, and tried to face the situation. Not to go home for the holidays! The idea was unbearable. Great tears welled into her eyes, and for a few minutes she was an absolute baby. Red-hot rebellion raged within her. She was tempted to go home in spite of her mother's prohibition, and beg to sleep in the cottage, or at Mrs. Garside's farm, and risk the chance of infection. She would cheerfully catch chicken-pox if only she might have it at Walden. A wild idea struck her of asking Pamela to take her in, but the remembrance of Mr. Hockheimer intervened. She was sure Pamela would not dare to invite a visitor to Moss Cottage.

"And we were going to have such fun together!" she moaned. "I'll hate to spend the holidays in town and at the Lascelles's. Oh, it'll be grizzly! I wish I could stay at school instead. I will go home!"

Better reflections, however, prevailed. Mrs. Watson had brought up her children to respect her authority, and Avelyn knew that she would not be able to meet her mother's eyes if she turned up at Walden in distinct defiance of instructions. There was nothing for it but to submit, though it was a miserable business. She took her letter to Miss Thompson, and told her of the altered arrangement. The Principal looked worried.

"I hope you haven't taken the infection yourself," she remarked. "You might spread it over the school. Are you sure you have no spots?"

"Not a single one," Avelyn assured her.

"Well, don't mention anything about it to the other girls; it would only make their mothers nervous. Your box shall be left in Harlingden this afternoon, when the second batch of luggage goes. I suppose you can walk to your cousin's house. They'll be expecting you?" "Oh, yes! Mother would tell them what time I am coming."

Avelyn went back to the Cowslip Room and began to put her various possessions into her box. The packing was a stale business, without any heart in it. It is horrible to be obliged to pay a visit when you don't want to go. In spite of Miss Thompson's injunctions, she could not help confiding her ill news to her room-mates. It was impossible to keep her woes bottled up in her own breast. She wanted sympathy badly.

"Hard luck!" said Laura.

"Beastly not to be going home!" agreed Janet.

"Poor old sport! I'll send you some picture post cards," consoled Ethelberga.

"Suppose you break out in spots at your cousin's?" suggested Irma.

This was a new view of the case that had not before occurred to Avelyn.

"I'd welcome them!" she declared. "I'd get Cousin Lilia to put me in an ambulance and pack me off home."

"Suppose they wouldn't? They might say it was too far, and send you to the fever hospital instead."

"I wouldn't stay. I'd run away and manage to get home somehow. By the by, don't tell anybody else about this. Miss Thompson told me to keep it dark."

"Right you are! We won't blab."

All five girls were busy packing. Their beds were strewn with blouses, stockings, and other impedimenta. In the midst of the proceedings entered Miss Hopkins, rather flustered and overdone with the responsibility of seeing that thirty-six boarders took their essential possessions home with them.

"Dear me, you're very slow in this dormitory!" she observed. "The Violet Room have finished and gone downstairs. If there were less talking you'd get on a good deal quicker. Here are your reports," dealing out from a packet in her hand five envelopes, addressed respectively to Mrs. Watson, E. A. Ridley, Esq., Mrs. Talbot, Colonel Duncan, and the Rev. F. Carnforth. "Now, make haste! I shall expect to find your boxes strapped when I come up again."

Miss Hopkins departed to do her duty in other dormitories, leaving a sensation as of east wind behind her. Avelyn stood staring at the envelope. She was anxious to see her report for this term. The Watson family were lax as regarded letters; at home they usually passed round their correspondence as common property. She tore open the envelope, therefore, and read the report. It was quite a good one, and ended: "Has done conscientious work, and shows marked improvement."

Avelyn purred with satisfaction.

"Tommiekins is a dear! Mother will be ever so pleased. Even Hopscotch has given me 'satisfactory', which is more than I expected from her, and Mr. Harrison has put 'painstaking' for music, though I know he thinks I'm rather a duffer at it."

"I wonder what they've said about me?" speculated Laura, fumbling in her box for the envelope which she had just packed.

"And me?" echoed Janet.

There is force in example. In another moment Laura, Janet, Irma, and Ethelberga were all perusing their reports.

"'Good' for botany! Oh, how precious!"

"Wonders will never cease! I've actually got 'fair' for general knowledge."

"Oh, hold me up! I've passed muster in maths."

"What does Miss Kennedy mean by this: 'sadly lacking in order, and wants more application'? I'm sure I'm no worse than the rest of you," exclaimed Janet indignantly.

"Has she put that?"

"Yes, I call it spiteful of her!"

"Poor old sport!"

"It isn't as if I'd been so very behindhand all the term. Miss Kennedy knows I haven't. I declare I shall go and ask her what she means by it!"

The offended Janet, in a furious temper, flounced out of the room in search of her form mistress. She found her in the study addressing luggage labels.

"Miss Kennedy, I do think it's too bad to give me such a horrid report!" burst out Janet. "Why am I specially 'lacking in application'? I'm sure I've worked just as hard as most of the other girls; and if it's a question of order, Irma's far more untidy than I am, and so is Ethelberga! I don't call it fair. You've no right to say such things about me!" Miss Kennedy looked up in extreme astonishment.

"How do you know what I've said about you?" she queried.

"Why, it's here, in black and white!"

"What paper have you there?"

"My report."

"Do you mean to say that you have opened your report?"

Janet's face fell. She shuffled her feet uneasily, and did not reply.

"It was addressed to your father. Who authorized you to open it, I should like to know?"

"Well, Avelyn Watson read hers, so we all thought we could read ours," urged Janet in exculpation.

"Indeed!" Miss Kennedy's tone was as iced vinegar. "What an extremely honourable proceeding! Miss Thompson will have to hear of this! It's something new in the school for girls to open their parents' letters."

Miss Kennedy abandoned the labels she was directing, and went at once in search of the head mistress, to whom she told her astounding tale. Miss Thompson took off her convex glasses, wiped them solemnly, and put them on again.

"I couldn't have believed they would have dared!" she said, with a note of battle in her voice. "Send Avelyn Watson to me. I must deal with the matter at once."

Miss Thompson might not be very tall, but she was thoroughly capable of managing her school. Every inch of her bristled with dignity. Avelyn entered the room a trifle jauntily, but one steady glance from those convex glasses caused her feathers to fall.

"Avelyn Watson, I understand that half an hour ago Miss Hopkins gave you a letter addressed to your mother, to take home with you."

"Yes, Miss Thompson, but I'm not going home for the holidays."

"So I'm aware. In the circumstances the letter should have been posted, but that has nothing to do with it. What I want to know is on what authority you have presumed to open it?"

Miss Thompson's grey eyes were almost hypnotic in their power. Avelyn's fell before their keen scrutiny.

"Mother always used to let me see my reports," she faltered.

"That's quite a different matter, to allow you to look at what she had already seen herself. To open a letter addressed to anyone else, without permission, is one of the most dishonourable things that anybody can do. No lady would disgrace herself by such an action. I am amazed beyond measure to find that any girl in this school could be capable of it. I thought you knew our standards better. Have you been a whole term here, Avelyn, and not yet learnt the very elements of honour? Silverside has always prided itself upon its traditions."

Avelyn stood aghast. It had never struck her that anyone would construe her thoughtless and impulsive action in such a light. She had no further excuse to urge.

"Have you the report here? Then go and fetch it," commanded the Principal.

Avelyn went without a word. When she returned and handed Miss Thompson the paper, the latter took out her stylo and appended another line:

"Conduct unfortunately not strictly honourable."

She showed the addition to Avelyn.

"I am going to post this to your mother," she remarked pointedly. "You may tell your room-mates that they are each to bring me her report. I shall post theirs also. I am very much disappointed in you all."

Avelyn left the room in the depths of dejection. She had been very near tears all the morning, and now she could restrain herself no longer. It seemed an absolutely pixie day, with disgrace on the top of bad news. She gave a husky message to Laura, telling her to pass it on to the others, and then flew into the bath-room and had a good weep in private. Crying is a horrid business; it makes one's head ache, and one's eyes feel bunged up, and one's throat sore, and one's heart like a lump of lead. If it is true that our emotions cause waves of colour to emanate from us, poor Avelyn's aura must at that moment have been a particularly dingy drab.

"What will Mother think of my getting 'dishonourable' in my report?" she sobbed. "And I can't go home and tell her all about it. I'll write to her and try to explain, but I'm always a silly at writing. She's kept all our reports ever since we first went to school, and we've none of us ever had anything nasty like this in them. It'll just spoil the record. Oh, dear, what an idiot I've been! I wish I hadn't to go to Cousin Lilia's this afternoon! I know I'll hate Christmas there. Life's a perfectly sickening business!"