Cook, though amazingly capable, was not an absolute magician; few people are. Perhaps it was not altogether astonishing, considering that she had only received her orders last night when dinner had been duly ordered, that the meal was not on the table quite at 12.45. It was in fact seven minutes late—not an extraordinary delay considering the circumstances, but enough to make the meal a scramble, and everybody feel a little fussed.

Noreen and Gabrielle had both meant to see Joey before she started, and impress on her the great importance of not allowing her cousin to start late for Deeping Royal. But Joey was not to be seen about the place when they put on coats, boots, and hats according to directions before lunch, in Remove II. Dressing-Room, and there was not a second to tear up to Blue Dorm, where she would be changing into her Sunday frock, when lunch was over. Everybody was bustled into the brakes in hot haste, with the exception of poor Tiddles, who was being consoled, however, by lunch with the housekeeper in her own room, and a liberal supply of sweet biscuits and almonds and raisins.

"Rotten about Joey not coming with us," grumbled Noreen, as the long procession of brakes wound down the drive. "I can't think why she wanted to go to her cousin's to-day of all days."

"She didn't," Gabrielle remarked. "Joey does a few things she doesn't want."

"Well, it's very tiresome she should do it to-day. I bet she'll be late, and then she'll have to stand somewhere at the back, and we shan't be together at all."

"We could go back a little way to meet her," suggested Gabrielle, "and then whatever happens, we shall be together."

"Good egg! What luck you're Lower School Head, Gabby! If it were me I should have to ask leave, and probably get it refused too," Noreen whispered, for Miss Lambton was in the brake with them, and she was young and great on discipline, and was known to disapprove of some among the many concessions made to Gabrielle's exalted position. It was on the cards that, if she heard the plan, there would come an authoritative order to keep all together and not exert the privileges of Head of the Lower School.

The drive was a long one, but no one in the whole school thought so for an instant. Besides the grand excitement of the match at the far end, the drive itself was so full of interest.

After passing the station the long procession of brakes kept to the straight raised road for a couple of miles only, then began to wind down on to the broad road which spanned the Deeps.

That road in itself spelt romance to the Redlands girls. It was still christened Malfrey Street, though that Roger Malfrey, who had owned the chief interest in the flourishing town and harbour that had once made Deeping Royal a famous name in the region of the great Wash, and had sunk a fortune and years and high hopes in the attempt to make a lasting road across the undrained fens, had gone—where effort that has failed may wear a brighter crown than fulfilment.

Now, centuries later, sand and shoals had silted up the harbour, and of the old greatness of Deeping Royal nothing remained but the magnificent twin churches of St. Philip and St. James (once hardly able to contain all the worshippers of the place), and open fields that carried strange names—"Fishmarket Field," "Mummers' Square," "Gold-Heart Street," and so on. Of Deeping Royal proper there remained a straggling fishing village of, perhaps, five hundred souls.

Malfrey Street ran in a line with the river for three-quarters of its length. A quarter of a mile perhaps of Green Deeps separated the brimming, bankless river from the causeway that lifted itself from the grass even as the river seemed trying to do. And both seemed making straight as a die for the sea. Then, when Redlands was some seven miles behind, river and road appeared to change their minds, and, twisting sharply, ran parallel with the flat, dreary shore for more than two miles, only a narrow strip of shingle dividing the sand from the road. On such a day as this the road was soft with the sand that blew over the shingle and settled on it, only to be whirled away and flung among the coarse grass that still struggled to grow between river and road—fighting for existence with sea-pinks and purple madder.

The sand blew into the girls' eyes and proved rather a bar to absolute enjoyment at this point. The mares' tails of the morning were driving madly across a high, ragged sky; the wind had come with a vengeance.

"Bother it!" growled Noreen, pushing her curly ends of hair out of her eyes for about the hundredth time. No plait that was made could keep Noreen's curly hair in absolute order. "Hard luck on the teams to have such a wind as this."

"It's equally bad for both, anyway," Gabrielle remarked. "And I'd back our side for pluck anywhere."

Miss Lambton was looking uneasily at the sky. "I hope it won't get much worse," she said.

But Gabrielle and Noreen had an optimistic spirit about a team captained by the great Ingrid Latimer, and refused to be really depressed by the weather on their account.

It was another fear which worried them.

"Suppose that cousin of Joey's thinks it's too bad to play, and won't send her?" Noreen whispered tragically.

"I believe she'll come somehow—trust her," Gabrielle whispered back reassuringly. "Anyhow, we'll go as far as the reservoir, and see. If we climb up at the side of that we can get a splendid view."

By this time they were within a quarter of a mile of Deeping Royal. To their left was still the desolate shore, with the narrow strip of shingle separating them from it, but there was a great sense of nearness to the waves which the high wind was driving in big and threatening, with a crest of foam.

Before them, crowning the slight rise on which the village stood, were the great twin churches, standing not a stone's-throw apart, with their massive beacon-towers outlined sharply against a clear, wind-swept space in the sky.

Below them clustered the village, through which the procession of brakes drove up a rather steep street to the inn, which one reached through an incongruous ivy-hung gateway, bearing on one mouldering dim red pillar the name cut deeply "Good Hope."

The "sweet Anne Wendover," whom Roger Malfrey had wooed in vain, because "the wasting sickness" wooed her more successfully, had lived there; and he must have ridden often through those great gates, which now stood wide to chars-À-bancs and brakes all the summer-time, and bore a large printed notice, "Teas provided."

"Joey would like this," whispered Gabrielle, as the first brake rattled into the old court-yard, and stood beneath the new sign.

"Yes, wouldn't she? Queer how one misses the kid," returned Noreen. "Specially queer when one remembers how we barred her coming from that twopenny-half-penny school."

"A man's a man for a' that," quoted Gabrielle. "We were snobs."

"You weren't anyway. Well, it's over and done with. Hope she won't be late."

"So do I," observed Mademoiselle de Lavernais, with a suddenness which took the two rather aback. They had not realised that she was so near, or that she would take the smallest interest in their conversation.

It had, in fact, been a surprise to everyone that "Maddy" should have come at all. She had never professed to take any interest in the school games, or in the life outside her classes. But she had turned up to-day at the hurried lunch, in her rusty black toque, and her coat and skirt of a cut belonging to some five years back, and had climbed into the same brake as Noreen and Gabrielle.

The two turned to her politely as soon as she joined in their conversation. "May we see if we can get you a good place, Mademoiselle?" Gabrielle asked; "and then we are going to try and keep one for Joey."

Mademoiselle smiled, her little tight-lipped smile, that seemed as though it were a thing stiff from disuse.

"Thank you, my child; I am obliged. But I fear I do not come to view the match, though it will give much pleasure to hear of the success of Redlands, I assure you. But the hockey is to me a mystery, and I seek a sketch of this place that may remind me of the fen-land when I no more see it."

Noreen stared. "But—but—are you going away?"

Mademoiselle smiled again. "Yes, after this term I return no more. So think no further of me, but watch for your friend."

She detached a little field-glass case that was slung across her narrow shoulders. "Take these if you will, and you will see her from afar."

"But won't you want them, Mademoiselle?" asked Gabrielle.

"Not yet, my child; I shall sketch first. Presently, if I can drag my old bones so far, I climb one of the twin towers that I may see the great view, which is to live in my heart also. You will bring them back before I need them. Adieu."

Gabrielle took the glasses gratefully. "Jolly decent of her," she whispered to Noreen, as the procession of girls began to wind their way out of the inn-yard, and down through the village towards Fishmarket Field, where the great match was to be played.

The wind was now terrifically high, a regular gale blowing straight from the sea. "Lucky they didn't bring Tiddles; the poor mite would have been scared out of her senses by all those great waves so close," Noreen said. "I wonder when high tide is, Gabby. It must be pretty near that now I should think."

Gabrielle looked out towards the sea. "I should think it must be. Someone told me high tide never comes beyond that bit of broken harbour wall, and it's up to it now."

"If it ever does come over, I should think Fishmarket Square is an enormous puddle," laughed Noreen. "I don't see any sign of the Lincs Ladies in the field. Do you? Suppose we're early."

Gabrielle looked at her watch. Noreen's spent most of its time at the nearest jeweller's being repaired!

"Yes, nearly a quarter before time; we might have chased Joey to Blue Dorm after all. Let's go along to meet her."

"One of the church towers would be a good place for sighting her," suggested Noreen; "but then we shouldn't be able to lay hold. So the road be it. Hope her cousin won't want to hang on to her by the way; we don't yearn to have the whole show tacked on to us."

"I don't suppose she'll come," Gabrielle said; "Lady Greta, I mean. She'll just send Joey in the car. She'll know we shall bring her back all right."

"I see. We just grab Joey, and say, 'Home, James,' haughtily to the chauffeur. Come on."

They slipped away unnoticed from the throng of girls at the entrance to Fishmarket Field, and made the best of their pace to the road, setting out along it at a steady double. The reservoir was nearly three-quarters of a mile away, but Noreen had come in first in the Hundred Yards Race for over-fourteens-under-sixteens at the College Sports in the summer, and Gabrielle was a quick though not a lasting runner. The reservoir was reached in an easy six minutes; and they began to scramble up its high bank. The wind caught at their clothes; it seemed trying to whirl them bodily away. Noreen stopped for breath; Gabrielle caught her arm.

Then, "Try-the-other-side-against-the-wind," she shouted; "wind-might-blow-us-into-water-here."

Noreen had plenty of sense when she chose to use it; she nodded, and the two slithered down the rough brickwork, and dived around to the farther side so as to face that furious wind driving from the sea. They clambered up the bank, and Noreen, who reached the top first, crouched gasping and laughing, with her hat crushed under her arm, and her hair blowing wildly.

"Oh, I shall be blown clean off," she shouted down to her friend. "Come and help me hold on, Gabby; or give me Maddy's glasses."

Gabrielle, who was wrestling with her hat, had no hand free, and Noreen leant down and snatched the glasses from her.

"Yes, there's a car," she proclaimed. "Can't see what it is, or how many people in; but it seems to be doing a sprint all right. Bother that cyclist in front—he gets in the way."

"The car will catch him up directly though," said Gabrielle.

"It's a motor-cycle, stupid! My word! They're coming some pace."

"Which, the car people?"

"Both. Come up and look. Your turn with the glasses. I'll have just one more squint through them. My Sunday hat, and...."

"What is it?" demanded Gabrielle, scrambling up in a hurry, for Noreen had broken off short in her favourite ejaculation, as though she were almost too surprised to speak. "Isn't it Joey in the car?"

"Who do you think it is on the motor-cycle, and scorching fit to bust?" demanded Noreen in a thrilling whisper. "Why, our old Stinks Professor, no less."

She suddenly dived down from her position on the high-bricked bank, and dropped below, pulling Gabrielle with her, and nearly landing on terra firma with a great bump, in her haste.

"He won't have seen us; he hasn't got glasses. Let's hide and perk up like jacks in the box just as he goes by. He'll have the surprise of his life—and he ought to be pleased to see two of his promising pupils."

"You won't call out or anything to give him a jump, will you?" asked Gabrielle anxiously. She knew Noreen.

"Am I a juggins? He'd probably jump out of his skin and break his precious neck," Noreen said. "I only want to say a suitable good-bye to one who never bothered to say it to any of us, I noticed."

Her eyes brimming over with mischief, she caught Gabrielle's hand and dragged her round to the angle of the reservoir, still keeping the side farthest from the sea. "Now let's shin up this—more rest for our toes at the corner," she said; "then we can put our heads over the top, and, speaking with extraordinary politeness—oh, it's all right, Gabby—mention that the brainiest and the stupidest girl in Remove II. are desirous to bid him a fond farewell. What's the harm of that?"

"We shall miss Joey," objected Gabrielle. "I don't mean to do that for any Professor."

Noreen, who was scrambling up the angle of the reservoir, kicking vigorously to find a foot-hold, managed to rear her head enough to look over the top for a second.

"Nor do I, as it happens, but we shan't," she stated. "If it's a race, the Professor means to win, hands down."