‘My dear darling dearest Father,–We are in quorranteen that’s Jean Murray and Angela Wilkins and me becos we tried to feed the poor after the cannon’s sermon and the poor had scarlet fever and now praps we shall have scarlet fever too and in case we do we’ve got to stop in quorranteen for eight days and it’s an awful shame becourse it gives us such a little time to practis for the gym prize. The cannon is Finny’s uncle and he’s awfully nice though a little unreesonable Jean says and Jean knows bekause her father is a professor and he has ofered a prize for whoever is best at the gym display on the break up day. I mean the cannon and not Jean’s father. Quorranteen is a little house built by itself in the garden and connected with the school by a covvered passage that leads into the front hall because Jean says it’s no use being in quorranteen unless you’re quite sure no one can catch things off you so we are issolated. All the same we do free exercises every morning just to keep our mussels in good order for the gym competition and I tell them fairy stories when their’s nothing else to do and Angela says they’re not bad only she likes reel stories best which is a great pitty becos I don’t know any reel stories but still they put up with my kind of stories very well and Jean says I’m a funny kid. We have our dinner early so that we can go out in the garden while the other girls are having theirs so that no one can catch anything off us and we are alowed to go all over Finny’s garden as well as the nine aker field and we are really in a very supperior possition Jean says. Sumtimes for a great treat one of the big girls is alowed to come and talk to us from the garden and we stand at the window and shout down to her because you can’t catch things off people that way Jean says and the other two nearly always vote for Margaret that’s the head girl who is adorrable and divvine Jean says but I vote for Ruth who is a brick. The worst of being in quorranteen is that I have learnt the true charracter of the doctor and Kit always said he was a beast but I didn’t think he was a beast but now I think he must be rather a beast because he is so horrid and unsimpathetick he always behaves as if we were very naughty and wicked for wanting to feed the poor and giving such a lot of trubble insted of understanding that it was all the cannon’s fault for preaching that sermon which meant something quite diferent and how were we to know that the poor had scarlet fever? I think we were rather silly and it was our silly silliness that I minded most but the doctor doesn’t seem to think that and he looks at our tungs and he says what’s that? to every paper bag he sees about in the quorranteen which is only hardbake or chocalate from the big girls. Jean says he is much nicer to me than to Angela or her but I haven’t noticed any diference myself and I don’t want him to be nice to me if he isn’t nice to them it isn’t fair or above bord is it father? Anuther bother is that Finny hasn’t said a word to us yet about feeding the poor and giving such a lot of trubble and I think she’s very cross and is saving up for an enormous skolding but Jean says no it’s Finny’s way to give us time to think it over before she says anything and it’s just dissipline Jean says. Besides, she can’t be very cross or else she wouldn’t have gone on feeding the poor I mean the Hearnes ever since we came into the quorranteen which is what she’s been doing because she told us so and they haven’t had to go into the workhouse after all.’

Barbara had scribbled so far uninterrupted, but when she picked up her third sheet of exercise paper and began to cover that too, the patience of her companions became exhausted.

‘I say,’ said Jean, yawning, ‘I wish you’d stop writing and talk; I never knew any one so fond of writing as you are, Babe.’

Quarantine, after nearly a week of it, was beginning to lose its novelty, and all the paper bags that the sure aim of the head girl managed to deposit in their prison did not make up for the many hours of her society that they were unable to enjoy. Even the arithmetic lessons of Miss Tomlinson, and the plain-work evenings conducted by ‘Smithy,’ would not have seemed nearly so unattractive now as they did a week ago.

‘All right,’ said Babs, putting down her blue pencil; ‘I don’t mind stopping, but I thought Angela didn’t want to talk.’

Jean glanced round at Angela, and Angela immediately put her hand to her head and sighed heavily. She had been doing this for some minutes without making any effect upon Barbara, although Barbara had been the first to notice that there was something unusual in her behaviour. That was so like Babs! She was always the first to notice anything, but she had such an unsatisfactory way of passing it over, whatever it was, that it was no advantage to anybody unless some one else noticed it too.

‘Hullo!’ said Jean, staring; ‘what’s the matter, Angela?’

‘I’ve got a splitting headache,’ murmured Angela, half closing her eyes.

‘Anything else?’ asked Jean, becoming interested.

‘My throat is rather sore, I think, and–and I’m sure I’m feverish,’ answered Angela, faintly; and she shivered to show how feverish she was.

‘Oh,’ said Barbara, opening her eyes, ‘that’s how Dr. Hurst said it began; and then Finny dragged him away, and we didn’t hear any more.’

‘Don’t say anything so dreadful,’ murmured Angela, complacently. ‘What shall I do if I can’t go in for the competition?’

‘Besides, you might have it very badly and die,’ said Jean, consolingly.

‘Yes, you might. We knew a boy on the opposite side of the square, and he died,’ remarked Babs. ‘Only, I’m not sure if it was scarlet fever. His sister used to come and tell us about it, and she said he had a kettle with a long spout in his room, all day long, and it puffed out smoke at him, and made such a funny gurgling sound that she used to be afraid to pass his door after dark. Perhaps it wasn’t scarlet fever,’ she added, out of consideration for Angela, ‘but he did die.’

Angela looked from one to the other and shook her head mournfully. ‘I expect it was,’ she said. ‘It sounds exactly like it.’

‘Oh, yes,’ continued Jean, cheerfully. ‘I know, because a cousin of mine had something that was catching once, and she nearly lost her sight through it, and she’s had to wear spectacles ever since, and her eyes are all red and shiny, and she looks a hideous sight. I expect that was scarlet fever too.’

Angela shuddered, and quite closed her eyes that time. Her two comforters looked at each other expressively.

‘Poor Angela!’ said Jean, stroking her forehead. ‘It’s awful hard lines that you should be the one to catch it.’

‘Oh, never mind about that,’ answered the victim, meekly. ‘I’m glad it’s me and not you.’

‘Lots of people don’t die, you know,’ added Barbara, taking hold of her hand and waggling it up and down in a way that was intended to express sympathy.

‘N–no,’ said Angela, with some reluctance; ‘but lots of people do. Anyhow, I hope I shall be brave, whatever happens.’ And she stifled a sigh.

‘Of course you will,’ said Jean, warmly. ‘We know that!’

‘If–if this should be the last time we are together before they separate us,’ continued Angela, opening her eyes again and looking up at them appealingly, ‘you will remember, won’t you, that––’

The door opened and put an abrupt stop to her pathetic last request. The triumvirate, still clasping hands affectionately, looked round and met the astonished gaze of the head-mistress.

‘What’s the matter with Angela?’ she inquired briskly.

Angela closed her eyes again hastily. The other two prepared valiantly to defend her position.

‘She’s got a headache and a sore throat, and she’s feverish,’ answered Jean, glibly.

‘She thinks she’s got it,’ added Babs, coming straight to the point.

They fully expected Miss Finlayson to do something startling to show her concern at the approaching peril of Angela; but Miss Finlayson merely smiled.

‘Oh, so that’s what she thinks, is it?’ she observed. ‘And may I ask if that is why you have chosen this particular moment to hang over her more closely than usual?’

The triumvirate loosed hands, and Miss Finlayson came and looked very sharply at the unconscious features of the sufferer; then she suddenly whipped a thermometer out of her pocket and into the open mouth before her. Angela sat up in dismay, and tried to protest; but Miss Finlayson smiled again and pressed her gently back.

‘You mustn’t speak, or we shall not be able to find out your temperature,’ she said, and Angela put on a resigned air, and suffered in silence.

‘Now,’ continued the head-mistress, pleasantly, ‘we can have a few minutes’ conversation, while we are waiting to discover whether Angela has scarlet fever or not. To begin with, I want to ask you if you remembered, when you went out of bounds last Thursday, that you were abusing the trust I had placed in you? Recollect!–I do not keep policemen at every corner to spy over you when you are left to yourselves, but I do put you on your honour not to do anything you know I have forbidden. Did you think of this, Jean?’

Jean reddened and looked down.

‘No, I didn’t,’ she blurted out. ‘I forgot all about the bounds, at first, and I only thought you would like us to feed the poor, and it was such a grand opportunity. And then, afterwards––’

‘Yes–afterwards?’ said Miss Finlayson, encouragingly, as Jean hesitated.

‘Afterwards, when I saw that woman look like she did, I never thought of you or anything,’ she muttered with an effort; and she was very red indeed by the time she had finished.

Miss Finlayson took her hand and held it between her own, and then turned to Barbara.

‘Was that your reason too, Babs?’ she asked.

‘No, it wasn’t,’ answered Babs, without hesitation. ‘I did remember about going out of bounds directly we climbed over the gate; but I saw the other two had forgotten, so I didn’t say anything.’

The thermometer nearly fell out of Angela’s mouth from surprise at this amazing admission; and Jean felt compelled to say something in Barbara’s defence.

‘You see, the boy was crying so,’ she interrupted anxiously; ‘and I suppose Babs thought––’

‘Hush!’ said the head-mistress, softly; ‘I want Babs to tell me what she thought.’

Barbara was almost as red as Jean by this time. ‘I didn’t think about the boy, or the poor, or anything,’ she confessed; ‘but I wanted to see whether the lane did lead to the enchanted grotto, where the beautiful princess––’

She paused, because she remembered just in time that nobody ever understood about those things. Miss Finlayson was watching her carefully.

‘And did it?’ she asked quietly.

‘Oh no,’ said Barbara; ‘it was horrible when it got round the corner.’

Miss Finlayson nodded, and smiled her own mysterious smile. Then she took the thermometer out of Angela’s mouth.

‘And what was your reason, Angela?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know,’ said Angela, rather foolishly. ‘Jean said “Come on!” and we’d promised to share the first opportunity that came; and Babs went, and so of course I went too.’

Miss Finlayson looked relieved. ‘You have made me feel much happier, children,’ she said, ‘because I see now that you did not realise what you were doing, and that your own reasons seemed good enough to you at the time. If I thought I could not trust to your honour any more, I should be most unhappy. Do you think you understand?’

The triumvirate looked very thoughtful. Angela, who seemed to have forgotten all about her alarming symptoms, was the first to speak.

‘I suppose I ought to have found out whether the others were right before I followed them,’ she said.

Miss Finlayson nodded.‘And we ought to have made sure we were right ourselves before we let her follow us, because Angela always follows,’ added Jean.

Miss Finlayson nodded again.

Barbara roused herself and shook back her hair. ‘I was the worst,’ she said impetuously. ‘I did remember about the bounds, and the others didn’t until afterwards. But I forgot about the honour part, truthfully!’

‘Yes,’ answered the head-mistress; ‘you were the worst, Babs; and you soon found out that the lane did not lead to the enchanted grotto, didn’t you? Now, what we can all see very clearly from this conversation is that we must think a little more carefully in future before we do things. The rules in my school are made for people who think, and not for people who have to be told whether a thing is right or wrong. People of that kind are not the people for me. Are you going to let me trust you again in future, children?’

There was no doubt whatever from their faces that they thought she might; but Babs still wanted something cleared up.

‘Was the Canon’s sermon all wrong, then?’ she asked in her straightforward manner. Jean and Angela looked at the head-mistress nervously; but Miss Finlayson did not seem to mind.

‘The Canon’s sermon was rather like my rules,’ she pointed out; ‘and it was meant for people who think. It is no use being unselfish in a thoughtless kind of way, or else you do as much harm as most people do by being selfish. I want you to try very hard to put lots of thought and cleverness into your good deeds all your life, so that by the time you are grown up your good deeds will be really worth doing. Then you will be able to carry out properly what the Canon told you; for, to tell the truth, the Canon’s sermon was rather meant for grown-up thinking, and perhaps that is why you misunderstood it. But children’s thinking is worth just as much in its own way; don’t forget that, little girls.’

She jumped up and kissed them all round, then glanced hastily at her watch. ‘It strikes me,’ she said gravely, ‘that if somebody looks out of the window in five minutes’ time, somebody will see something in the garden.’

She was just going out of the room, when an exclamation from Barbara called her back. ‘Why,’ she said, ‘you haven’t told us about Angela’s scarlet fever yet!’

‘No more I have,’ said the head-mistress, and she took the thermometer to the window and examined it. Angela tried rather feebly to recover her resigned expression, which she had completely dropped in the last few minutes; and her school-fellows exchanged a look of apprehension.

‘Poor Angela!’ said Miss Finlayson, pensively, as she dipped the thermometer into a glass of water.

Angela put her hand to her head, and the other two closed round her sympathetically.‘I am truly sorry for you,’ continued Miss Finlayson, returning the thermometer to her pocket and sighing deeply.

The triumvirate gazed at her in a scared fashion.

‘Is she–is she going to have scarlet fever, really?’ asked Barbara, anxiously.

Miss Finlayson walked slowly across the room, shaking her head. She turned when she reached the door, and her eyes twinkled. ‘I am afraid not,’ she said, and they heard her laughing to herself as she ran downstairs.

The triumvirate had very little time to congratulate Angela on her escape before their attention was caught by a loud ‘Coo-ey!’ from the garden below. Certainly ‘quorranteen’ was full of diversions this afternoon.

‘Kit! Kit! That’s Kit!’ shouted Babs, and a series of flying leaps took her across to the window. In another minute the sash was flung wide, and she was leaning out as far as the laws of balance allowed her. She was right about the ‘Coo-ey!’ for there on the lawn below stood her favourite brother, and by his side stood Jill and Auntie Anna.

‘Well, well,’ said the old lady, leaning on her blue-knobbed cane and looking more like a witch than ever, ‘and what is the meaning of this, I should like to know? A fine lot of trouble you’re giving people with your tricks, you young monkey!’

‘Oh, it’s all right,’ Babs assured her; ‘we’ve made it up with Finny, and she’s not a bit cross, and next time we’re going to think first, and we’re never going to pay a bit of attention to the old Canon till we’re grown up. Then we shan’t make any more mistakes, she says.’

‘It’s to be hoped not, for I think you’ve made a young silly of yourself all the same,’ remarked Christopher, frankly. ‘Whatever made you do it, Babe?’

Barbara looked a little crestfallen. It would be easier to explain their escapade to twenty Canons than to one brother, even when it was a favourite brother like Kit. Jill came hurriedly to the rescue.

‘Never mind about that, Kit,’ she said. ‘Think how lucky it is that she hasn’t caught scarlet fever, after all.’

Barbara cheered up. ‘Even Angela doesn’t think she’s going to have it now,’ she observed; ‘and she’s been thinking she’s got it, ever since we went into quarantine; so we shall be able to come out again the day after to-morrow. Of course it means sums and flannel petticoats and all those horrible things as well; but still, we shall be able to practise up for the gym display, and that’s much more important. You’re all coming to the gym display, aren’t you?’

‘Rather!’ said Kit. ‘It’s the day after the others break up; and even Egbert says he doesn’t mind coming, though it’s only a girls’ school, and he says he doesn’t expect much. Of course, Will is awfully keen on coming, and so is Peter; but that’s only for the grub, so don’t you make any mistake about it.’

‘I don’t know why Egbert is so mighty grand,’ objected Barbara. ‘Our gym is really serious, I can tell you. You should see Angela on the rings; and as for Jean Murray–why, I forgot! You don’t know them yet!’

She disappeared abruptly from the window, while Auntie Anna said something about leaving the young people to themselves, and strolled off towards the house. Kit was attacked with a sudden fit of shyness at the prospect of being presented to two perfectly strange schoolgirls; and he shouted at Barbara to ‘come back and chuck it!’ But Barbara did not hear him, and he edged behind Jill for protection.

Upstairs, in the ‘quorranteen,’ Barbara was trying with some difficulty to persuade Jean and Angela to show themselves.

‘Oh no!’ they both said, getting as far away as possible from the window, and contriving to look neglected. ‘Never mind us, Babe; please go on talking to your people.’

‘But it’s Kit!’ represented Babs, as if that settled the matter at once. ‘He’s my favourite brother, and he’s a genius, and he’s only thirteen, and he has asthma so badly you’d think he was going to die. You must want to know Kit! Besides, Jill is there too.’

‘Jill Urquhart?’ cried Angela. ‘Why didn’t you say so before? Of course, we want to see Jill Urquhart!’

So the triumvirate squeezed themselves on to the narrow window-seat, and hung in a row over the window-ledge, while Jill smiled and nodded from below, and said pleasant things to them in her pretty soft voice. For all that, her old school-fellows did not feel at their ease with her; for they had suddenly made the discovery that Jill Urquhart, who used to be the privileged possessor of boots to be unlaced and desks to be put away, and other things now connected with Margaret Hulme, had somehow changed into a daintily dressed, grown-up sort of visitor, who had to hold up her skirt because the grass was wet. No one, not even the head girl, held up her skirt at Wootton Beeches.

‘This is Jean Murray, Kit, and that’s Angela Wilkins,’ said Babs, by way of introduction; and Christopher, who was still seeking protection behind his cousin, pulled off his cap and grinned. Then there was a pause, and the situation became rather strained. Barbara looked round at her two companions, and could not imagine what had come over them. Why, she wondered, did they not chatter away as they usually did? They only giggled faintly, however; and Angela was covered with blushes. So far, the introduction did not seem a success.

‘Angela can swing and turn and leave go with one hand and catch on again–I mean on the rings,’ said Barbara, by way of opening the conversation.

‘I can’t! What stories! Besides, it’s quite easy; anybody could!’ declared Angela, vehemently.

‘And Jean can turn coach-wheels as well as Peter,’ continued Babs, eagerly. ‘She can do hand-balance too, when Hurly-Burly isn’t looking; because we’re not allowed to do hand-balance, you see, so we’ve got to wait till no one is looking. Isn’t it wonderful of Jean?’

‘How can you, Babe?’ murmured Jean, reproachfully; and she concealed her confusion by staring up at the top of the elm tree opposite and pretending that she was not the person referred to.

‘They are very clever, aren’t they, Kit?’ said Jill, in a gentle, encouraging manner.

‘Oh, rather!’ said Kit, picking a blade of grass and gnawing it in his desperation.

‘And it will be most exciting to see Angela on the rings at the display, won’t it, Kit?’ continued Jill, smiling away more pleasantly than ever.

‘Oh, rather!’ said Kit, again; and he wound the blade of grass elaborately round his little finger.

‘What we can do is nothing to Babs, though!’ said Angela, making a mighty effort to overcome her shyness. ‘She’s the best in the whole school!’

‘Oh, the Babe!’ remarked Christopher, leaving the shelter of Jill’s big hat, and suddenly regaining confidence. ‘She doesn’t count.’

Conversation flourished more easily after that, for the triumvirate combined immediately in an attempt to prove to Kit that the Babe did count. Indeed, the argument grew so hot and furious that the Doctor, who happened at that moment to make his call upon his small patients, knocked three times at the door of the room, and finally had to walk in unannounced. There was a look of annoyance on his face, for he already resented being compelled to waste his precious time in attending three healthy young schoolgirls who had nothing whatever the matter with them, and would not have been in their present plight but for a piece of childish folly. When he found that his patients had not even the grace to be ready for his visit, his irritation increased.

‘Excuse me,’ he began, ‘are you aware––?’ He paused and frowned, for it was quite evident that none of them was aware of anything except of what was going on in the garden. Nothing was to be seen of his patients except an array of black legs along the window-seat; the rest of them appeared to be hanging over the ledge outside in a perilous and inelegant position; and all three of them were gabbling away as fast as their tongues would let them.

‘Well, you wait for the competition, that’s all!’ Angela was proclaiming shrilly.

‘It all depends on how soon that stupid Doctor lets us out of this hole,’ added Jean, with suppressed scorn in her voice.

‘He’s so funny; he never says anything important, and he only looks glum, as if he was so sorry for himself,’ chimed in Babs, with a laugh.Dr. Wilson Hurst tapped his stick smartly on the table; and there was a sudden pause. Then came three thuds on the floor by the window-seat, and the triumvirate stood facing him in varying stages of confusion.

‘We–we didn’t know you were there,’ ventured Barbara.

‘So I gathered,’ said the Doctor, without a smile. ‘Will you kindly show me your tongues?’

He did not want to see their tongues particularly; but it seemed the most obvious means at his disposal for producing silence. The rapidity with which three tongues simultaneously darted out for his inspection reminded him irresistibly of mechanical toys, and he very nearly allowed himself to smile.

‘That will do,’ he said, controlling himself sternly; and he took out his watch and felt Barbara’s pulse. The moment the child’s tongue was her own again, she began to make use of it.

‘You’re sorry that we are not any iller, aren’t you, Dr. Hurst?’ she remarked.

‘Eh? What?’ said the Doctor, taken aback. ‘I–I don’t know what you are talking about.’

‘Well, you always look as though you would like us so much better if we really had scarlet fever instead of only waiting for it,’ explained Babs, pleasantly. ‘Would you like us better, Dr. Hurst, if we really had scarlet fever?’She had so nearly guessed the truth with her quick, impish perception, that the Doctor dropped her hand abruptly and passed on to Angela. ‘There doesn’t seem to be much the matter with any of you,’ he said, by way of conducting the conversation on strict medical lines. He looked so cross about it, however, that the attempt did not prosper. Barbara, in the innocence of her heart, thought he needed cheering up.

‘Are you coming to the display, Dr. Hurst?’ she asked politely.

‘The–I beg your pardon?’ he murmured, staring hard at his watch.

‘The gymnastic display at the end of the term, when we’re going to compete for the Canon’s prize, you know,’ proceeded Barbara. ‘Everybody’s coming–Jill too! So you will, won’t you, Dr. Hurst?’

‘Really, I don’t know,’ answered the Doctor; and he dropped Angela’s hand just as hastily, and passed on to Jean Murray. Babs looked a little puzzled for a moment, and then her face cleared.

‘Oh, of course, you don’t like Jill! I’d forgotten that,’ she remarked with a smile. ‘But that doesn’t matter, because you needn’t sit next to her, need you? I don’t think Jill would mind your not sitting next to her,’ she added reflectively.

The Doctor began to wish very heartily that he had accepted Miss Finlayson’s offer to let one of the teachers accompany him from the house, and he prepared to beat a speedy retreat. But Angela, in her bland and tactless manner, put the finishing touch to his embarrassment and cut off his retirement.

‘Jill Urquhart is outside on the lawn now,’ she observed quite pointlessly.

‘So she is!’ cried Barbara, clapping her hands. ‘Then you’ll come to the window and speak to her, won’t you, Dr. Hurst? Kit is there too!’

‘You must really excuse me,’ said the Doctor, stiffly, as he took up his hat and stick; ‘but, really––’

‘Oh, Dr. Hurst, do come,’ begged the child, her little black eyes bright with entreaty. In spite of her temporary disloyalty during the period of ‘quorranteen’ to the prince who had once been a beast, she still considered him worthy to stay in her kingdom with the magician and other privileged folk; and it really hurt her to feel that he did not appreciate Jill and Kit, and that Jill and Kit on their side did not know he had been disenchanted quite six weeks ago. Surely, she thought, if they were all properly brought together, they could not fail to like one another.

The Doctor hesitated, and Barbara waited anxiously. He thought he only had to decide whether he should leave at once, or whether he should stay and be laughed at by the other schoolgirl outside–the one who had made him feel so stupid at Mrs. Crofton’s dinner-party. But to Barbara his decision meant much more than that, for it was going to determine whether a certain beast was a prince, or whether a certain prince was a beast.

So she waited with a look of thrilling expectancy on her face; and the other two, who had never seen her look like that before, began to feel a little doubtful about the way she was behaving.

‘I say, Babe, don’t!’ whispered Jean, tugging at her.

The little movement roused the Doctor, and recalled him to the absurdity of his position. He bowed, and walked with sudden determination to the door.

‘Good afternoon,’ he said curtly; and the disappointment on Barbara’s face haunted him in the most tiresome manner for the rest of the day.

Babs stood motionless for nearly a minute after he had gone. Then she smiled a little wistfully to herself.

‘After all, he must have found it rather lonely without a princess, and I can’t find a princess,’ she reflected out loud.

‘What are you talking about?’ asked Jean.

‘Hadn’t we better go back to Jill?’ added Angela, impatiently.

Barbara gave a start. ‘What a silly duffer I am!’ she cried joyfully. ‘Of course, there’s Jill; and she’s been there all the time!’

‘Yes, she has,’ said Jean, bluntly, ‘and it’s time you remembered it, for she must be tired of waiting for us by this––’

Barbara interrupted her with another remark–rather a mournful one this time.

‘It never comes right,’ she sighed. ‘Now, I’ve got a princess without a prince!’