If Miss Beasley had been asked what was her most difficult problem in the management of her school, she would probably have replied the arrangement of the practising time-table. With the exception of four, all the girls learned music, and therefore, for a period of forty-five minutes daily, each of these twenty-two pupils must do execution on the piano. There were five instruments at the Grange, and, except during the hours of morning lessons and meals, they hardly ever seemed to be silent. At seven o’clock they began with scales, arpeggios, and studies, and passed during the day through a selection of pieces, classical and modern, in such various degrees of playing, strumming, and thumping as might be calculated to wear out their hammers and snap their strings in double quick time. About half of the girls learned from Mademoiselle, and the remainder had lessons from Mr. Browne, a visiting master who came twice a week to the school. He was a short little man, with sandy hair, and a bald patch in the middle of it, and a Vandyke beard that was turning rather grey. He was himself an excellent musician, and sometimes the performances of his pupils offended his sensitive 203 ear to the point of exasperation, and he would storm at them in a gurgling voice, blinking his short-sighted hazel eyes very rapidly, and wrinkling up his forehead till it looked like squeezed india-rubber. It was on record that he had once hit Lois Barlow a hard crack over the knuckles with his fountain-pen, whereupon she wept—not so much from pain as from injured feelings—and he had apologized in quite a gentlemanly fashion, and picked up the music that in his burst of temper he had flung upon the floor. In spite of his acknowledged irritability, all the girls who learned from him gave themselves airs of slight superiority over those who only learned from Mademoiselle. Though strict, he was an inspiring teacher, and when, as occasionally happened, he would push his pupil from the stool, and seat himself in her place to show the proper rendering of some passage, the music that followed was like a lovely liquid dream of sound.

Professor Marshall also attended the school twice a week to lecture on literature and natural science. He was a much greater general favourite than Mr. Browne; everybody appreciated his affable manner and bland smile, and the little jokes with which he punctuated his remarks.

The girls always felt that it made a change to have anybody coming in from the outside world. The one disadvantage of a boarding-school is that mistresses and pupils, shut up together, and seeing one another week in, week out, are rather apt to get on each others’ nerves. At a day school the girls take their worries home at four o’clock, and the mental atmosphere has time to clear before nine 204 next morning; but, when there is no home-going until the end of the term, little trifles are sometimes unduly magnified, and a narrow element—the bane of all communities—begins to creep in. To do Miss Beasley justice, she made a great effort to combat this very evil, and to run her school on broad lines. She recognized the necessity of letting the girls mix sometimes with outsiders. In a country place it was impossible to take them to concerts or entertainments, but they occasionally joined the rambles of the County Antiquarian Society or the local Natural History Club.

It occurred to Miss Beasley that it would be an excellent plan to throw open some of Professor Marshall’s lectures to residents in the neighbourhood, asking those people who attended to stay to tea afterwards, thus giving her girls an opportunity of acting as hostesses, and entertaining them with conversation. A short course of four lectures on geology was announced, and quite a number of local ladies responded to the invitation. The girls received the news with mixed feelings.

“Rather a jink!” ventured Ardiune. “It’ll be queer to see rows of strangers sitting in the lecture room! Did you say we’ve to give them tea when the Professor’s done talking?”

“Yes, and talk to them ourselves too, worse luck! I’m sure I shan’t know what to say!” fluttered Aveline.

“Oh, the monitresses will do that part of the business!” decided Raymonde easily. “We’ll stand in the background, and just look ladylike and well-mannered, and all the rest of it.”

“Will you, my child? Not if the Bumble knows 205 it! She’s nuts on this afternoon-tea dodge! (I don’t care—I shan’t put a penny in the slang box—Hermie isn’t here to listen and make me!) Gibbie told me that we’re all to act hostesses in turn. We’re to be divided into four sets, and each take a time.”

“Help! How are you going to divide twenty-six by four? It works out at six and a half. Who’s to be the half girl?”

“Oh! They’ll make it seven on one afternoon and six the next, I expect.”

“That’s not fair! It’s throwing too much work on those six and not enough on the seven. It’s opposed to all the instincts of co-operation and justice which Gibbie has laboured so hard to instil into me.”

“Don’t see how the Bumble can manage otherwise, unless she chops a girl in half. No, I predict you’ll be chosen among a select six, and have to pour out tea and hand cakes with one-sixth extra power laid on, and your conversation carefully modulated to your hearers.”

“Oh, Jemima!”

“Please to remember that this is a finishing school!” mocked Ardiune. “Don’t on any account shock the neighbourhood by an unseemly exhibition of vulgar slang!”

“It’ll slip out, I know, when I’m not thinking,” groaned Raymonde.

On the first afternoon of the geological course, an audience of about twenty visitors augmented the usual gathering in the lecture hall. They were accommodated with the best seats, and the school occupied the third and fourth rows. Directly in 206 front of Raymonde sat an elderly lady in a large black hat trimmed with cherries, which bobbed temptingly over the brim. She appeared to take an interest in her surroundings, glanced about the room, and turned a reproving eye on Raymonde, who ventured to whisper to Aveline. With Miss Gibbs hovering in the background with a now-mind-you-keep-up-the-credit-of-the-school expression, the girls hardly dared even to blink, but Aveline managed to write: “What a Tartar in front!” on a slip of paper, and hand it to her chum.

The Professor, bland as ever, was coming into the room and hanging a geological map over the blackboard. He smiled broadly, showing his large white teeth to the uttermost, and, after a few preliminary remarks of welcome to the visitors, plunged into a description of the earth’s crust.

All went well for a while; then an untoward incident happened. The lady with the cherries in her hat, who had possibly taken cold, or was affected by the pollen in the flowers upon the table, sneezed violently, not only once, but twice, and even a third time.

“Three’s for a wedding! Is it Gibbie?” whispered Raymonde the incorrigible.

Aveline’s mental equilibrium was always easily upset. The idea of Miss Gibbs in connection with matrimony was too much for her, and she exploded into a series of painfully suppressed giggles. The more she tried to stop, the more hysterical she grew, especially as her lack of self-control appeared to produce great agitation among the cherries on the black hat in front. It was only by holding her 207 breath till she almost choked that she managed to avoid disgracing herself absolutely.

As Morvyth had predicted, Raymonde was among the hostesses for the afternoon. She rose admirably to the occasion, handed round cakes and bread and butter, and talked sweetly to the guests on a variety of topics. Aveline, also one of the chosen, though less agile in conversation, tried to look “hospitable” and “welcoming,” and cultured and pretty-mannered and gracious, and everything else which might be expected from a young lady at a finishing-school.

Miss Gibbs, who was keeping the deportment of the hostesses well under inspection, beamed approval, but spurred them on to fresh efforts.

“See that nobody is neglected,” she whispered. “Hand the cakes to that lady who is standing by the piano; and you, Raymonde, take her the cream.”

The chums had instinctively avoided the owner of the black hat with the cherries, but thus urged they were bound to fulfil their social obligations. They offered a selection of ginger-nuts and fancy biscuits, and the best silver cream-jug, and murmured some polite nothings on the hackneyed subject of the weather. The lady helped herself, and regarded them with an offended eye.

“I believe you’re the two girls who sat behind me during the lecture!” she remarked tartly. “I should like to say that I considered your behaviour disgraceful. It would serve you right if I were to tell your governess.”

Overwhelmed with confusion, Raymonde and Aveline beat a hasty retreat. 208

“Oh, dear! Does she think I was laughing at her?” whispered Aveline. “What must I do? Ought I to go and explain and apologize? I simply daren’t!”

“She’s a nasty old thing!” returned Raymonde in an indignant undertone. “I hope she won’t sneak to Gibbie! You can’t explain. I shouldn’t go near her.”

“Gibbie’s working round towards the piano!”

“No, Mrs. Horner’s stopped her.”

Fortunately for the girls, at this moment Professor Marshall cleared his throat violently, and, obtaining by this signal a temporary respite in the babel of small talk, announced that on the following Saturday afternoon he proposed to lead a party to Littlewood Quarry to examine the geological formation there, and search for fossils. He hoped that all the present company would be able to attend, as the expedition would be of great educational value. The general conversation in the room immediately turned upon geology. The black hat with cherries bore down upon the Professor, and its owner plunged into a lengthy discussion on the flora of the carboniferous period, so apparently absorbing that it left her no opportunity to lodge complaints as to the behaviour of the pupils. The chums, whose social duties were now finished, slipped thankfully away to prep.

“I’m disgusted with the Professor!” groaned Morvyth. “It’s too bad of him to take up another of our precious Saturday afternoons with his geology excursion. The tennis match will be all off now, and I know we could have beaten the Sixth! I don’t want to hunt for fossils! 209 I’m tired of continually having my mind improved!”

“We really don’t get a fair chance for games at this school,” Ardiune grumbled in sympathy. “I wish Gibbie were sporting instead of intellectual!”

It was really a grievance to the girls to be obliged to abandon tennis on this occasion. The match between Sixth and Fifth had been a fixture, and each side had hopes of its own champions. Daphne and Barbara were good players, but Valentine and Muriel had been practising early and late, and in the estimation of their own Form were well in the running for victory. Even the juniors had looked forward to witnessing the combat. Valentine, in her disappointment, went so far as to suggest to Miss Gibbs that the match might claim precedence over the excursion. The astonished mistress gazed at her for a moment with blank face, then burst out:

“Give up the fossil hunt in favour of tennis! What nonsense! You ought all to be deeply grateful to Professor Marshall for coming to take us. You girls don’t appreciate your privileges!”

“There’s one compensation,” urged Fauvette. “We shall walk through the village, and, if we break line a little, it will give a chance for somebody to dash into the shop and buy pear-drops. One had better do it for us all, and get a pound. We’ll pay up our shares, honest.”

On the afternoon of Saturday, twenty-six rather apathetic geologists started forth from the Grange. Each carried a basket, and a few, who had scrambled first, had secured hammers. Miss Gibbs, armed with “An Illustrated Catalogue of the Fossils in 210 the Bradbury Museum,” by means of which she hoped to identify specimens, brought up the rear, in company with Veronica, and the school crocodiled in orthodox fashion as far as the village. Here they were met by the Vicar’s wife and daughter, and several other ladies who were to join the excursion. The double line swayed and broke. Miss Gibbs’s attention became engaged by visitors, and, during the few minutes’ halt, Raymonde, well covered by her comrades, seized the golden opportunity, darted into the shop, and emerged with a large packet hidden in her basket, before mistress or monitresses had had time to miss her.

“Paradise drops!” she announced with gleeful caution. “Got them because they were on the counter, and the quickest thing I could buy. No, I daren’t dole them out now. You must wait till we get to the quarry. Gibbie’d notice you sucking them, you idiots!”

It was rather a long way to Littlewood. Much too far, in the girls’ opinion, though they would have thought nothing of the walk had they been keener on its object.

“Shouldn’t have minded so much if we’d come on a Thursday, and missed French translation. Why had it to be Saturday?” groused Ardiune.

“Because Saturday’s the only day the men aren’t working in the quarry. For goodness’ sake, stop grumbling!” returned Hermie in her most monitressy manner. “If you can’t enjoy things yourself, let other people have a chance, at any rate!”

Duly snubbed, Ardiune subsided, and tramped 211 on in silence, her discontent slightly alleviated by the prospect of Paradise drops, for Raymonde was rattling the basket suggestively to cheer her up. Extra visitors joined the party here and there upon the way, and outside Littlewood village the Professor himself was waiting for them, beaming as usual, and carrying a most professional-looking hammer, and a little bass for specimens. He greeted them with one of his customary jokes, and they smiled obediently, more out of habit than inclination.

The quarry proved more exciting than they had anticipated. It was a large place, and to get down into it they were obliged to descend several steep ladders, leading from one platform to another. Arrived at the bottom level, Professor Marshall collected his students in a group round him, and delivered a lecturette upon the points to be noticed in the strata surrounding them. Raymonde listened sadly. It seemed to her an unprofitable way of spending a Saturday afternoon. She brightened, however, when the audience dispersed to commence practical work.

“Come along!” she whispered to her chums. “Let’s scoot over there and begin to chop rocks! Quick!”

“Where are the Paradise drops?” enquired the others eagerly.

“Don’t worry, I have them safe. Only wait till Gibbie’s back is turned.”

Though they were decidedly tired of lectures, the girls nevertheless were quite mildly interested in searching for fossils. There was an element of competition about it which appealed to them, and 212 when Hermie found a fine specimen of Cupressocrinus crassus, the Fifth felt that they must not be outdone.

“We haven’t got anything really decent yet!” sighed Aveline, watching with envious eyes as Hermie exhibited her treasure to the admiring visitors. “The Sixth are cackling ever so hard.”

“Let’s go over there,” suggested Raymonde. “No one’s explored that bit of the quarry. We might find all sorts of things.”

The Mystic Seven, who generally clung together in their undertakings, scaled a ladder therefore, climbed a mound of refuse, and found themselves on new ground. They dispersed, and each searched to the best of her ability among the pieces of crumbly rock that were lying about. Aveline, absorbed in splitting strata with her hammer, was suddenly disturbed by a piercing yell and a shout of “Help!” She ran at once in the direction of the screams, and round the corner discovered Raymonde, sunk nearly to her waist in a kind of clay bog.

“Help me!” she implored. “I can’t get out. The more I try, the deeper I seem to sink in.”

“Don’t struggle, then; wait a minute,” said Aveline, advancing on to some firm-looking stones and stretching out a hand. “Can you manage now?”

Raymonde made a desperate but futile effort. “No, I’m stuck tight—can’t move my legs.”

“Don’t pull me, or I’ll be in too! Now, I’m going to tug one of your legs out! That’s it! Now the other! Here you are! Good gracious! What a mess you’re in!”

Arrived on firm ground, Raymonde certainly 213 looked a deplorable object. Her feet were two shapeless lumps of wet clay. She regarded them with rueful consternation. Ardiune came running up, and, being of a practical turn of mind, set to work to scrape her friend clean with a thin piece of stone. She succeeded in removing the bulk of the matter adhering to her, but there still remained a most unsightly coating of mud.

“What were you doing to get yourself in such a fix?” she asked.

“I don’t know. It looked quite solid, and then, when I stepped on it, I just sank in—squash! I might have been swallowed up in it and killed, if Ave hadn’t tugged me out!”

“You look a nice object to walk home with!” giggled Aveline. “What’ll Gibbie say?”

What Miss Gibbs remarked when she saw the state of her pupil’s garments was:

“Really, Raymonde, I might have known you would be sure to do some stupid thing! No other girl in the school has fallen into the mud. Why didn’t you keep with the rest, and look where you were going? You’re more trouble than everybody else put together. If you can’t behave yourself when you come on an excursion, you must be left behind to do some preparation.”

The Mystics consoled their leader as best they could, offering her their last remaining Paradise drops, and walking in a clump round her through the village to shield her from observation. Ardiune, who was poetically inclined, thought the occasion worthy of being celebrated in verse, and at bedtime handed Raymonde the following effusion, illustrated with spirited sketches in black lead-pencil, 214 representing her with clay-covered feet of gigantic proportions.

“Humph! Good for you, Ardiune!” commented Raymonde. “Not much tenderness about Gibbie, though! And I didn’t see anybody’s fond tears! 215 You all laughed at me! My feet weren’t a yard long, anyway!”

“Poetic and artistic license allows a few slight exaggerations. Even Shakespeare took liberties with his subjects!” returned the authoress blandly. “If not exactly a yard long, your feet, not small by nature, looked absolutely enormous! It’s the truth!”