It was wonderfully quiet in the Queen's Hall, considering that six hundred girls were assembled there. Of course, there was not the absolute pin-drop silence of the times when Miss Conyngham read prayers, but that was not to be expected because The Election—(it was always the Election at Redlands)—was in progress. For the last hour there had been a steady tramp of feet going to and returning from the platform on which there sat in silent dignity the "Heads of the Upper and Lower School."

Before each was a large waste-paper basket, and into one or other of those receptacles each girl dropped a folded paper containing the name of a candidate for the highest dignity the school could offer.

The Head of the Upper School must be chosen from the Upper or the Lower Sixth; the Head of the Lower from Remove II. A or B, that was the one restriction. It gave a choice of forty girls in the Upper School and of sixty in the Lower. Every College girl had the right to vote, with the exception of the retiring dignitaries; even Tiddles had her buff slip, and was laboriously printing something on it with a much-sucked pencil. No Redlands girl would have forgone the privilege of voting for the world.

Six weeks had gone by since that exciting 31st of October; six wonderful weeks for Joey. Weeks when extraordinary things happened; among others a day in town with Colonel Sturt (who wasn't gruff at all) and with Cousin Greta, when she was taken to the War Office to answer the keen, interested questions of a couple of splendid-looking staff officers, who were very kind to her, and promised that the business of searching for her father should be put in hand without a second's delay. They shook hands with Joey, and congratulated her when they had finished. She went to lunch at the Ritz afterwards, feeling deliriously happy, and much older. The only bar to her perfect bliss was the fact that she might not tell Mums about that wonderful hope forthwith. Cousin Greta said it would be cruel, until the hope was a certainty, and Cousin Greta had been so wonderfully kind and understanding of late that Joey felt sure she must be right. Still not even the lovely little gold wrist-watch bracelet which her cousin chose for her in Bond Street, when lunch was over, could make up for having to keep silence to Mums. It was a better consolation when Lady Greta said she was going to ask Mums down for the "Old Girls' Day" at the end of the term, so that Joey could show her the school and her friends, and they could travel back to Scotland together. Joey thought it would be a particularly pleasant thing to show the school to Mums just now, when everyone was being so extraordinarily nice to her. Even Ingrid Latimer and her friend Joan Chichester, that big Sixth Former who had put Joey on the table the day that she and Gabby and Noreen were going to meet Miss Craigie, condescended to a good deal of notice. Joey felt her cup of pride would brim over if she could bring Mums up to these majestic people and say, carelessly, "I'd like you to know my mother," as she had heard Joan Chichester do when her people came down at Mid-term. Of course, in old days it would have been unheard-of cheek for any member of the Lower School, except for Gabrielle, who breakfasted with Miss Conyngham when school matters needed attention, and could say, "I say, Ingrid, oughtn't we...."

It was that "we" which was so wonderful, really; much more so than breakfasting with the Head!

Still, for all she was a mere Remover II. B girl, Ingrid had been most uncommonly gracious since the flood; Joey thought that one might perhaps risk an introduction, and thanked Cousin Greta warmly.

Cousin Greta patted her hand. "And I hope you will have a little welcome to spare for your old cousin too, my dear; for I want to come too, and to bring Gracie as well as John."

"Oh, are you coming? How topping!" Joey cried, and the remark was quite truthful as far as Cousin Greta and John were concerned, though Joey wasn't quite sure how she felt about Gracie. And then Cousin Greta said something so astounding that it took her breath away.

"Joey, I want you to be kind to Gracie and show her round the school, because—she is coming to Redlands as a weekly boarder next term."

"What?" Joey had jerked out, forgetting manners. Gracie at Redlands, being talked to candidly by people like Noreen and Syb and Barbara! It was hard to picture.

"Yes, she is coming," Cousin Greta repeated, with a smile. "Her father and I both think that Redlands will be good for Gracie. You are not such a bad specimen of a Redlands girl, you know."

"You should see Ingrid—wish she weren't leaving," Joey told her, with conviction; "and Noreen and Gabrielle. Now they are toppers."

Lady Greta smiled, and said she would take Joey's word for it; but Joey must bring any of her special friends that she liked with her to Mote, subject, of course, to Miss Conyngham's permission. Altogether life had been extraordinarily pleasant during the last six weeks.

Jean Corvette was to go back to the home which was not any longer under the German heel. Joey's faith in Colonel Sturt's power "to put it right" for the poor fellow had been justified. She never knew what Colonel Sturt said to the police and the War Office, or they to him; but the fact remained that Jean's unwilling share in the Professor's plots and plans was all condoned, and he was to go back to Alsace with Mademoiselle de Lavernais at the end of the term.

Mademoiselle's departure was an open secret by the time that was settled, and most of the girls were sorry, in spite of their not infrequent grumbles at her strictness. It was Joey who suggested to Gabrielle the idea of a farewell offering from the Lower School, but the whole of the Lower School jumped at it, and also at Joey's further plan of learning the "Marseillaise" properly in French, so that "Maddy" should realise the alliance between France and England was a reality even where schoolgirls were concerned. All Remove II. B contributed a shilling per girl—not bad when the end of the term and Christmas were near—the junior forms sixpence, and the kindergarten babies threepence. The result was a highly respectable sum, which was entrusted to the hands of Gabrielle, who went to Lincoln with Miss Craigie and bought a beautiful leather dispatch case, fitted with every luxury. And Clare, shuddering occasionally, but very valiant on the whole, drummed the difficult tune and time of the "Marseillaise" into the most unmusical members of the Lower School; it being a point of honour that everyone should sing.

The presentation to Maddy was to take place after voting; Miss Craigie, taken into confidence, had promised to arrange that Maddy should be in the kindergarten playroom, even if she had to drag her there, directly the election was over. The "counting" only concerned the retiring officers, Ingrid and Gabrielle, out of all the girls, and Gabrielle had delegated to Joey her position of spokesman and presenter of the dispatch case and list of subscribers. There would be no time if they waited till after dinner, she said; the "Old Girls" who always came to the Christmas Breaking-Up would surround Maddy, and leave no one else a chance to speak to her.

So the Lower School, with the exception of its Head, surged towards the kindergarten playroom, as soon as they left Queen's Hall, Joey only pausing to seize the dispatch case, with the enormous list of names in all hand-writings tied to its handle and fluttering out from it like a great black and white banner, and to bring it along with her.

Miss Craigie had kept her promise faithfully. "Maddy" was there in the kindergarten with her, rusty as to front, and shabby as to dress as ever, but somehow younger, Joey thought, than she had been on that dreadful day when Joey asked her to "amuse" the class with stories of the Franco-Prussian War.

Maddy looked round, surprised, as the Lower School poured in, and made a hasty movement towards the farther door. Maddy was known to loathe a noise! But Miss Craigie held her arm firmly and gave her no opportunity of flight. The Lower School fell into an immense horseshoe, in treble rows, the little ones in front, then the next size, then the tallest. Maddy and Miss Craigie were left inside.

Clare scuffled to the piano, and struck a chord, and the Lower School crashed joyfully into the "Marseillaise," all singing at the tops of their voices. Maddy bore it, though some of the pronunciation was, to say the least of it, eccentric, and Rhoda Watson, who had about as much music in her as a cow, was shrieking into her left ear half a tone flat throughout.

Joey advanced the moment that the music stopped. "Please, Mademoiselle, we learnt that for you," she said, "to show we're your friends, if you'll have us, just as France and England are friends, for ever and ever. We're frightfully sorry you're going away, and will you please accept this dispatch case, with a lot of love from the Lower School?"

"That's the list of us," she added hastily, as the huge paper nearly obscured the dispatch case altogether. "I'm sorry it's such an outsize, but you see some of the kids write so large, and we all wanted to sign."

Mademoiselle de Lavernais took the dispatch case from Joey. There was a queer look in her tired black eyes for a moment. "Thank you, Joey, I would not have the paper smaller," she said.

She stood quite silent for a moment; then began to speak in her level voice that had hardly a hint of foreign pronunciation about it.

"To say thank you is a little thing, to feel thanks warmly through you is a bigger. I carry that warmth with me for the rest of my life—and there was a time when I was not only glad because I was going back to my own country, but because I was leaving Redlands. Now that is not so. I leave Redlands with regret, but I shall carry in my heart the memory of it, and of you all. And that is something to bring back with me to a home from which a little girl, as young as Tiddles, was driven more than fifty years ago. Now that I am so near going back, I dare again allow myself to see the picture of the burning chÂteau, the flames rising behind the trees, and my nursery a blackened shell, as the front wall fell forward. I see my cot against the wall, my doll's house, black with flaming edge ... myself crying pitifully, but at the same time thankful to my father who permitted me to bury my cherished dolls in the hole he had dug to preserve our heirlooms from the conquering German. My father himself fired the chÂteau that no German should pollute it, and went out homeless into the wide world, deserting all, sooner than live under German rule. I kissed my little hands to my beloved dolls, down in the garden mould, whispering, with the faith of childhood, that I would soon come back and dig them up again. And after one-and-fifty years I keep that promise. I go back alone, the last of all my family, to the home of my childhood; but I shall not be lonely in that I take with me the love of the Lower School."

After that came dinner, a hasty and somewhat noisy affair, when mistresses made no particular effort to keep order, and no one talked of anything but the Election.

Ingrid and Gabrielle came in rather late; Joey tried to catch Gabrielle's eye and show her there was room to squeeze in between herself and Noreen; but Gabrielle, looking flushed and excited, only smiled at her in answer to the invitation, and sat down at the far end of the table. And after dinner there was the scramble to dress, to the tune of rumbling wheels and snorting cars, as the old girls and the more ordinary visitors poured up in an unending stream.

Then the prize-giving—one side of the Queen's Hall entirely filled with excited girls in best frocks, the other with visitors of all ages; old girls conspicuous among them by their proprietary air.

The school list read, as it would stand with the beginning of the new term, going from the babies in the kindergarten up to the high and mighty Sixth. Noreen and Joey in Remove II. A. Gabrielle in the Upper School, the youngest girl there by a whole year. Barbara heading Remove II. B. Syb second. The prospects for the next term were great indeed, with the junior hockey team colours for Joey and Noreen, to add to all the rest.

Then the prize-giving—an armful to Gabrielle, but Remove II. B Maths. for Joey, and composition to Noreen. They grudged nobody else anything in the world after that, and Joey wanted nothing but that her people should be there. Cousin Greta had 'phoned that Mums had business in town last night, and would not come to Mote till to-day; but Joey had never thought she would be late for the prize-giving. Still she couldn't see the door from where she sat; Mums and Cousin Greta and John and Gracie might be standing among the group there who had come in late, and would not disturb the performance by moving about to find seats.

Prize-giving on Old Girls' Day always concluded with the singing of Newbolt's stirring verses, "The Best School of All," sung only by collegers, past and present, standing. After that would come the great announcement—the result of the Election for the coming year.

As the first bars were played there was a stir and a movement among the audience. In little groups—in single state—people were standing up. The years had rolled away from these; they were Redlanders again each one of them, from shy Jean Hyde, who had only left last term, to old Lady Rownham, quite blind and bent with rheumatism, but who would never dream of forgetting that she had been a Redlands girl seventy years ago.

Visitors sat to listen to the great school song; old girls stood to sing with the school, and for five blissful minutes forgot everything—except that they were back at Redlands, and Redlands was theirs, and they were Redlands' still.

Newbolt's splendid words rang out to their slow, grave marching tune.

Girls and old girls had got into their swing by now; the great hall rang!

Lady Rownham was singing with all her might, and a pathetic effort to hold her slight stooping shoulders back; she had been Vicereine of India forty years ago, but, excepting for that time, there had been few years in which she had missed coming to the Old Girls' Day—and no time when she had not been at Redlands in spirit. They had sung rather cramped mid-Victorian words as the school song for many of those yearly festivals that she had known; but in these very "Old Girls" had beat the heart of the school none the less, though that earlier poet had lacked the greatness of expression.

The last line swung out with triumphant fervour; the old girls sat down. Miss Conyngham stood forward; on her right were the two retiring officers, Ingrid and Gabrielle, one very tall, the other small and childish looking. Amid an absolute silence from the assembled visitors Miss Conyngham shook hands with each girl in turn. "We all thank you for what you have done for the school throughout the year," she said.

At Redlands it was always the youngest girl at the school who called the cheers. A huge Sixth Former had Tiddles ready beside the platform and hoisted her on to it at the right moment. The mite faced the audience unblinkingly, "Tree cheers for Ingrid Latimer! Tree cheers for Gabrielle Arden!" she said in her tiny distinct voice. It did not reach half the length of the hall, but everyone who had been at a "Redlands speecher" knew what was meant by the appearance on the platform of the youngest girl, and the cheers rang out with a will. Ingrid and Gabrielle acknowledged them with a grave bow, and then turned and walked off the platform and down to their respective places in the hall, leaving only the youngest girl in the school to stand by Miss Conyngham's side.

A sealed envelope lay before the Head upon the table. She took it up in her long slim fingers.

"I have now to announce the result of the Election," she said, speaking slowly and clearly, so that her voice reached every corner of the great hall. "I do not need to remind our old girls what that election means to Redlands; it is the visible expression of perfect trust; it means that in the girl chosen to govern the Upper or the Lower School the other girls feel they have someone in whose hands can be safely placed the honour of the school. It is a great trust and a great privilege: the heads of the Upper and Lower School are my right hand, and in their choice I have never found the school's judgment in fault. The great Election took place this morning; the results were checked by the retiring officers and two mistresses, and the successful names handed to me in this envelope, which I now propose to unseal before you all."

She ripped it open and spread out the paper it contained.

A pin could have been heard to drop as she gave out the result of the Election.

"Head of the Upper School—Joan Chichester. Head of the Lower School—Jocelyn Graham."

Joey sitting fizzling with excitement between Noreen and Barbara nearly fell off her form in sheer unbelieving amazement.

"What! it's not me that's it," she whispered frantically, with a lack of grammar that would have horrified Mr. Craigie away at Calgarloch. Noreen gave her a friendly push. "You're not deaf are you, you juggins. Of course it's you. I thought it might be and I'm jolly glad. I voted for you anyway, and so did Syb and Barbara."

Joey feverishly squeezed a hand of both her neighbours. "You are dears!" she said unsteadily.

Ingrid looked round, the Head of the Upper School still, for all she had resigned her dignities. "No talking there!"

"The newly elected officers will come on to the platform," said Miss Conyngham.

Joey arrived on the platform, still feeling rather giddy, and as though she must be someone else, and Miss Conyngham pinned to her frock the little gold star brooch that was her badge of office, and then shook hands.

"I congratulate you, Jocelyn. I think the honour is well earned; I know it will be treated faithfully."

She turned from Joey to Joan Chichester, and invested her. Joey ought to have been standing at attention by that enormous and distinguished personage, whom it was so astounding to think about as the colleague to whom in the future one would say "we." But she was not doing what she ought. From the platform she could see the group by the door, and what she saw put everything else out of her head for the minute—even this wonderful new dignity.

Cousin Greta was there, with Colonel Sturt and Gracie, the latter looking far less superior; and John, jolly and cheery as ever, and leaning on one crutch only instead of two. And beside them Mums, and a tall khaki figure, worn and thin and hollow-eyed; but unmistakable—Father!

Their eyes met; it was only by a supreme effort that Joey forced herself to stand still on the platform and listen to the wonderful things that Miss Conyngham was saying about her.

"To Collegers past and present the election of the Heads of the Upper and Lower School is of supreme importance," she said. "The splendid record of Joan Chichester is well known to us all; we have no doubt as to her fitness for the honour accorded her by Redlands. Jocelyn Graham is a new girl this term, and never before in the history of Redlands has this honour been conferred on a new girl. I am glad that Redlands has broken its tradition in that respect. A great opportunity came to Jocelyn Graham six weeks ago—and she showed herself able to meet it. We are proud of her at Redlands, and believe that in her lives the spirit that has always actuated the Heads of the Upper and Lower School—the spirit which has set our school where it is: a name to be honoured wherever in the world a Redlands girl is found."

The big Sixth Former did not need to touch little Tiddles on this occasion; she was ready.

"Tree cheers for the new Heads of the Upper and Lower School!"

They finished at last, though Noreen, the experienced, declared that there never had been such cheering at Redlands, and Joey could dive through the throng, moving teawards, to her people.

Father had come to town last night, and Mums, to whom the wonderful news that Jean Corvette's Major Graham was the right one, had been wired as soon as it was a certainty, and who had met him there. They hadn't wired to Joey, because Mums, who knew what was going to happen on that last day, thought the excitement would be upsetting, and she had better know nothing till Father was there.

"Though it was a shame, when it all came about through you, Joey," Mums said.

"Isn't it funny?" Joey remarked blissfully. "It's like the house that Jack built—all going back and back. If I hadn't wanted the scholarship I wouldn't have come to Redlands, and if Miss Craigie hadn't had 'flu,' I should have travelled with her, and Noreen wouldn't have ragged me about the Lab, and I shouldn't have found out about the violet handkerchief, and if Gracie had been like she is now, John wouldn't have taught me signalling, and I shouldn't have come back alone, and if Noreen and Gabrielle hadn't been such bricks and waited for me at the reservoir...."

"Yes," interrupted Father, "and if my eldest daughter hadn't been out to keep her promise like an Englishman and take care of Mums, I suppose she wouldn't have fagged for the scholarship, and then there would have been no beginning, middle,—or very glorious end."