Barbara’s disappointment had lost some of its bitterness by the time the seven o’clock bell woke her on the following morning. Perhaps, after all, it was her own fault that things had not turned out so delightfully as she had expected. Even the boys used to call her clumsy and stupid sometimes; so why should she expect any more tolerance from her school-fellows? Anyhow, here was the beginning of another day, and there was still plenty of time for her dream to come true.

It did not seem much like coming true, though, as she stood in the juniors’ room after breakfast, jostled from right to left by the girls who were on their way to the different classrooms, and wondering when somebody would come and tell her where she was to go. She wished rather sadly that everybody in this school would not expect her to know things by instinct.

‘Do you know where I am to go?’ she begged, catching hold of Jean Murray as she hurried by. Babs had forgotten, if, indeed, she had ever realised, that Jean looked upon her as an enemy.

‘Go and ask one of the seniors,’ retorted Jean, shaking her off. ‘You’re much too high and mighty to have anything to do with us.’

‘What is she talking about?’ asked the amazed Barbara, looking after her.

‘Well, it isn’t likely she can forget all at once that you got her a scolding from Margaret Hulme,’ explained Angela, who was hurrying as usual after her friend, like a shadow.

‘I got her a scolding? What do you mean?’ cried Babs.

‘Oh, it’s all very well to be so innocent,’ snorted Angela; and she disappeared too.

Barbara sighed and remained where she was, till she was moved on again.

‘Do get out of the way,’ complained some one else; ‘you’re right in front of my bookshelf.’

Barbara sprang aside hastily, and caught her foot in the leg of a desk and fell down.

‘I don’t mind moving,’ she said, getting up again and rubbing her elbow, ‘but I do wish I knew where to move to.’

‘Can’t you find out?’ asked the owner of the bookshelf inconsistently, as she rushed off with her arms full of books.

Barbara sighed again. Try as she might to make the best of things, it was a little tiring to be such a universal object of complaint.

‘Hullo, Babe! You ought not to be here,’ said a cheery voice from the seniors’ room, and Ruth Oliver put her head round the red curtain. ‘This is only the playroom, you know, and, except for preparation or for fetching your books between the classes, you are never supposed to use it in lesson-time. The classrooms are upstairs.’

‘I know I oughtn’t to be here,’ answered Babs, ruefully. ‘I never am where I ought to be.’

‘But Finny sent for you, ages ago,’ said Ruth, looking astonished. ‘Didn’t Jean tell you? She’s a young horror, that Jean. Never mind, come along with me, and I’ll show you the way.’

She hurried the child through the baize door into the front hall, and pointed out a room that was close to the foot of the stairs. ‘That’s Finny’s study,’ she said hastily. ‘You’d better look sharp. Good luck to you!’ She gave her an unexpected kiss that promptly secured her the child’s allegiance from henceforth, and ran off with her books under her arm.

Barbara entered the room, and looked round for Miss Finlayson. Only the head girl was there, however, sitting at the table with a frown upon her face.

‘You ought to have been here before this,’ she began reprovingly. ‘Miss Finlayson couldn’t wait any longer, so I’ve got to miss the history lecture and examine you, instead of her. Why couldn’t you come, directly Jean told you?’

Barbara turned a little red and tried to look unconcerned, in which she signally failed. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that you’d better ask Jean.’

Margaret looked at her sharply, and muttered something that sounded uncommonly like ‘Little beast!’ which seemed to the child rather more than she deserved, considering that it was really Jean’s fault and not hers at all. She was rather surprised at the head girl’s next words, which seemed quite gentle by comparison.

‘Why, you look blue with cold, child,’ she remarked, and drew her round by the fire. ‘Now, stand there, and tell me what history books you have been using.’

‘I haven’t used any,’ answered Babs. ‘I haven’t had any history lessons, you see.’

‘Do you mean to say you know nothing about the history of England–nothing about wars or kings or laws, or any of those things?’ inquired Margaret, raising her eyebrows.

Barbara’s face brightened. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, ‘I know all about them from father, and the British Museum, and books. I didn’t know that was history.’

Margaret was a little puzzled. The examination of this new girl looked as though it were going to present difficulties. ‘What kind of books?’ she asked doubtfully.

‘Lots of kinds,’ answered Barbara, glibly. ‘Napier’s History of the Peninsular War, and somebody else’s History of the Anglo-Saxons, and another one called The Four Georges, and–and–oh, that long stuffy one, cut up into volumes, with ever so many funny words in it, called Cromwell’s Life and––’

‘That’s enough,’ cried Margaret, and she looked in amazement at the small animated face of the new girl. ‘I–I think that will do for history,’ she went on hastily. ‘Now, what about geography? I suppose you know the elements, so I won’t––’

‘What’s elements?’ interrupted Babs.

‘Well, the beginning part,’ explained the head girl–‘the part that tells you the meaning of islands and volcanoes and earthquakes, and what the world is like inside, and things about the moon and the––’

‘But all that is in Jules Verne’s story-books,’ remarked Babs. ‘Of course I’ve read Jules Verne. Is that what you call elements? I like elements, then, especially the Journey to the Centre of––’

‘Oh, I say, do stop,’ interrupted Margaret, biting her lip. She was divided between perplexity and amusement, and she wished that the head-mistress had stayed to examine this extraordinary imp of a child herself. ‘Haven’t you used any real geography books?’ she asked presently.

Barbara looked vague.

‘Do you know the map of England, for instance?’ pursued Margaret, rather desperately.

‘Oh, yes, I know the map of England,’ answered the child, confidently. ‘It’s so easy to find, because it’s pink. I know America too, because father has gone there to lecture, and he won’t be back for ever so long, not till––’

‘Hush!’ said the head girl. ‘Tell me what arithmetic you have done.’

‘Let me see, that’s figures without letters, isn’t it?’ inquired Babs. ‘I’m afraid I can only add up, because Bobbin hasn’t got any further yet; he’s backward in sums, you see, and I’ve only learnt mine through helping him with his prep. Sometimes, I wish he’d get on a little faster, because I’m getting so tired of––’

‘Then you mean to say,’ interposed Margaret, rather impatiently, ‘that you can only do simple addition?’

‘That’s in arithmetic,’ Barbara hastened to point out. ‘I’ve got as far as fractions in the funny sums that Kit does out of the other book; they’re much easier, because they have letters dotted about to help you. I always do Kit’s sums, when he has asthma; but he says I’m very slow. Then there’s the nice interesting book with pictures of triangles and things; we’ve got up to––’

‘Oh, don’t!’ said Margaret, and Barbara paused, a little surprised. Why did people ask her questions if they did not mean her to answer them? Margaret was drumming her fingers on the table and looking a little worried. ‘Have you learnt any languages?’ she asked suddenly. ‘I mean, anything besides French–German, for instance?’

‘No, I haven’t learnt any German, and I don’t want to, thank you,’ said Babs, decidedly. ‘Ever since the German band complained to father, because Peter tried to stop their noise by shying potatoes at them from the window, we’ve all made a vow never to learn their beastly language. And I don’t know any French either; no more does father. I know Latin up to the deponent verbs, though,–deponent verbs are catchy, aren’t they?–and I’ve begun Greek with father. I’m afraid that’s all the languages I––’

‘Well, you are a curiosity!’ declared Margaret, giving up the attempt to hide her amusement. ‘So you’ve never had a governess at all? Nor been to classes?’

‘I’ve been to a gymnastic class,’ said Barbara, eagerly. ‘It’s the only thing I can do properly. Have you got a gymnasium here?’

She clapped her hands when Margaret nodded, and bounded towards the door. ‘Mayn’t I go and try it now?’ she asked in a disappointed tone, when the head girl called her back.

‘There’s plenty of time for that,’ said Margaret, reminding her with a frown that she was only a new girl and was there to be examined; ‘I’ve got to settle first what class you had better go into. But I’m sure I don’t know what I am to say to Finny about you.’ She sighed, and looked at Barbara as if for inspiration. Barbara was quite equal to the occasion.

‘You’d better put me in the bottom class, I should think,’ she advised pleasantly; ‘you don’t know what my spelling is like yet.’

‘Thanks,’ said Margaret, drily; ‘I’ve no doubt you are quite competent to examine yourself, and to teach all your betters into the bargain, but that doesn’t help me just now.’ She drummed her fingers on the table again, and Barbara waited and went off into a kind of dream as she stood there. She was aroused by an exclamation from the head girl. ‘I know,’ she was saying in a relieved tone. ‘Can you write compositions, child? I mean, make up things in your head and write them down?’

Barbara smiled. Certainly, that had nothing to do with lessons. She had scribbled over every piece of paper she could find, ever since Nurse had first taught her to form her letters. ‘I can do that all right,’ she said. ‘All except the spelling,’ she added as an afterthought.

Margaret paid her no attention. She was occupied in carrying out her happy idea for concluding the examination of the new girl and leaving herself free at the same time to go to her history lecture. ‘Look here,’ she said, spreading some paper rapidly on the desk in front of her; ‘come and sit in this chair and write about anything you like. You’ll have a good hour and a half before the interval for lunch; and then Miss Finlayson will come and look at what you’ve written, and she will settle what class you can go into.’

‘But what shall I write about?’ asked Barbara, when the head girl had installed her at the table and was hurrying out of the room.

‘Anything you like; it will be all the better test if I don’t give you a subject,’ said Margaret; and she escaped before the child had time to say any more. She felt a little mean about it, for she was positive she could not have done it herself; but she consoled herself by the reflection that the new girl was queer enough for anything. Besides, she did not want to miss the whole of her history class for the sake of examining a child who was ignorant of all the things that other children knew, but had picked up the most extraordinary bits of knowledge by herself. So Babs was left to face the difficulty, for the first time in her life, of writing something within a given time.

It was certainly not easy to think of anything to say, in this unfamiliar, austere little room, with a blank sheet of paper staring at her, and some one preparing to pounce upon her presently, to criticise what she had done. In the library at home such a chance as this would have filled her with joy, and the paper would have been covered in a few minutes with a medley about giants and princesses and dragons, to be told later on to Kit and Bobbin when they clamoured for a story. But here it seemed impossible to get a single word on to her sheet of paper, and she looked at the clock in despair, and wondered what would happen to her when Miss Finlayson returned and found she had written nothing. She plunged her pen desperately into the ink at last, and wrote the first thing that came into her head. It was a title she remembered noticing on the back of a book with a smart cover–one that had lately been added to her father’s library. She did not know what it meant, and she was not sure what she was going to say about it, but it sounded more like the kind of thing to choose for an examination than one of her fairy stories would have been. Then, just as she had written the heading very crookedly across the top of the page, she found that the pen she had picked up was a quill, and possessed the most entrancing capacity for making splutters. It was the first time she had happened upon a quill, and the discovery was too delightful to be neglected. So she spent the next ten minutes in adorning her paper with fantastic ink shapes, that she named bogies on the spot and wove into a fairy story about an enchanted princess, who had to write a composition in an hour and a half. When this exciting occupation began to pall, she was seized with a sudden desire to explore, and began wandering restlessly round the room. There was very little to examine besides books; but books were always good enough for Barbara, and she became very quiet and absorbed as her inky forefinger travelled slowly along the bottom shelves, until she had exhausted the outsides of all the volumes that came within her reach. Then she stood back, with her hands behind her, and stared up at the ones above her head; and a familiar name, printed in dull gold letters on the back of a solid volume in russet brown, suddenly made her heart leap.

‘Father’s book!’ she gasped. ‘There’s father’s book! And I’ve been in this stupid place all this time, and never discovered it till now! Oh, I must get father’s book!’

There was a sob in her throat when she found that even a footstool, placed on the highest chair in the room, did not mount her up sufficiently to reach the precious volume. Her bright little eyes travelled quickly round the study, to embrace all its resources, and she very nearly uttered one of her wild war-whoops of delight when she spied a step-ladder half hidden in a dark corner. It did not take her a minute to stagger with it across the room and to fix it, more or less securely, against the bookshelf. After that, there was no sound in the little study except the ticking of the clock and the rustling of leaves, until the door opened sharply and the owner herself walked in.

For a moment Miss Finlayson thought the room was empty. Then she saw the small figure with the big book, perched on the top of the ladder; and the quaintness of the picture made her smile irresistibly. ‘What are you doing, Barbara?’ she asked.

She spoke as softly as she could, but the sound of her voice was quite enough to startle the unconscious child. She dropped the heavy book with a thud, and would have lost her balance and plunged after it, had not Miss Finlayson been prepared for the contingency and put out an arm to save her. Babs caught at it wildly, and found herself lifted down and placed on the floor in safety.

Miss Finlayson had stopped smiling, but she did not look very angry. ‘What were you doing up there, Barbara?’ she repeated gently.

‘I was reading father’s book,’ answered Barbara, rubbing her eyes. ‘I didn’t know it was there, till I looked up and saw it; and then I just climbed up and got it. I think I must have been reading a great long time, because I’ve got such an ache just there.’ She curled her hand under her arm and thumped the middle of her back. ‘Do you ever get an ache in the middle of your back when you’ve been reading?’ she inquired earnestly.

Miss Finlayson did not answer immediately. She stooped and picked up the fallen book first, and replaced it on the shelf. Barbara began to wonder if she was angry, and if that was why she had such an odd, serious look on her face.

‘And do you like your father’s book, Barbara?’ she asked presently.

‘I think it’s the most beautiful book in all the world,’ answered Barbara, without hesitation.

Miss Finlayson was a little startled, but she did not show it. ‘Then I wonder if you can explain it to me,’ she went on; ‘for, do you know, I find some of it rather difficult to understand?’

Barbara threw back her head and laughed merrily. ‘But I don’t understand any of it,’ she cried. ‘You have to be grown up to understand it, father says. And I’m not grown up yet, you see.’

‘No,’ agreed Miss Finlayson. She was looking distinctly relieved, and the twinkle had come back again into the depths of her eyes. ‘I shouldn’t worry about that, though, if I were you,’ she continued, sitting down and taking the child on her lap. ‘Some day, when you are quite grown up, you will be able to understand it; and then we can read it together and help each other over the difficult parts. What do you say to that?’

‘I think it will be beautiful; but it’s a very long time to wait,’ sighed Barbara. ‘When do you think I shall be quite grown up? Jill is grown up, and she is eighteen. Shall I be grown up when I am eighteen?’

‘We will wait and see,’ said Miss Finlayson, but somehow her tone was not encouraging. ‘Meanwhile,’ she went on, patting the hand that was fearlessly lying in hers, ‘supposing we make a bargain that neither of us will read your father’s book until we can read it together? You see, if you were to go on reading it now, you might understand it in quite a wrong way, and then you would never be able to help me over the difficult parts.’

Barbara thought about it for a moment or two. ‘But you will have to do without father’s book all those years!’ she exclaimed suddenly.

‘I have read it once, you see,’ said Miss Finlayson, gravely; ‘I think I can manage to wait, if you will wait too.’Barbara still looked doubtful. ‘Do you really think I shall be able to help you over the difficult parts?’ she asked.

Miss Finlayson smiled mysteriously. ‘Perhaps,’ she said. ‘One never knows.’

‘Then I’ll wait till I’m grown up before I read it again,’ decided Barbara. ‘It would certainly be a pity to spoil father’s book by understanding it all wrong.’

‘Or by dropping it from the top of other people’s ladders,’ observed Miss Finlayson. That was all the reproof she gave her; and then she turned briskly to the writing-table. ‘Isn’t there something you have written for me?’ she asked.

Barbara jumped away from her in dismay. ‘I quite forgot!’ she said penitently. ‘I did begin to write something, and then–and then––’ She struggled in vain to remember what had happened, and gave it up with a sigh. ‘I don’t know what I did, but I know I never wrote any more than this,’ she added, and produced the sheet of paper in a shamefaced manner.

Miss Finlayson took it, and glanced at the title that was written crookedly across the top of the page. ‘A Comparrisson of the Possition of Women, now and in the eighteenth century,’ was what she read. Below that came quantities of smudges and blots, and at the bottom of all was inscribed: ‘These are the ink bogies that came and wrote the Princess’s compossition for her, and saved her from the awfull anger of the cruel old witch called Finny.’Miss Finlayson read this over more than once, then she folded up the sheet of paper very carefully, keeping her face averted all the while. Babs was sure she had been very naughty, and she was seized with a panic lest the head-mistress should be too angry this time even to speak to her.

‘I–I know it was very naughty of me,’ she confessed anxiously; ‘I couldn’t think of anything to say about it, and the pen made such beautiful bogies, and–and–are you awfully furious?’

Miss Finlayson had to look at her, then; and she made a last effort to keep grave. The next moment the little room was filled with her laughter.

‘My dear little girl,’ she exclaimed, ‘I am afraid I am not a bit furious. The fact is–the ink bogies have saved the Princess!’