"No, we couldn't!" said the aggrieved Dora. "It would show a mark right across the face, however carefully we joined it. I've tried piecing negatives together before, and they're not worth the trouble of printing."

"Well, it was only a picture of me, not the lovely one you took of Miss Drummond and Mademoiselle."

"No; I'm glad it was not that. But I promised this to Mabel; she asked me last night if I could find it, and I've had such a hunt through all my negatives! She'll be quite cross that it's broken."

"You must put the blame on me, then, for it was my fault."

Secretly Aldred was exultant.

"I know Dora only took one print from it," she said to herself, "and that was spoilt in the fixing bath. It's impossible to take snapshots in midwinter, so I believe I'm safe for the present. I shall discourage Mabel strongly from buying a camera. I hope she won't get one given to her on her birthday! I'm glad her Cousin Marion has gone to Germany, so that she won't meet Mabel for a year, at any rate. So far as I can tell, she is the only person who has seen that Lawrence girl and knows what she is like."

The ice lasted for a whole fortnight, a totally unprecedented record in the annals of Birkwood, which, on account of its position near the sea, did not often come in for so severe an experience of frost. The rink proved the greatest success; the ice was apt to get cut up and rough by the afternoon, but when everyone had left, the gardener would turn the hose over it, so that by next morning there was once more a splendid, smooth surface.

January 29th happened to be Miss Drummond's birthday. The girls were accustomed to prepare some little surprise for her on such occasions, and generally acted a play in honour of the event; and the evening was always considered a holiday. This time, however, Miss Drummond announced that, instead of being entertained by her pupils, she wished to provide a treat for the whole school.

"It is full moon," she said, "and we shall have a carnival on the ice.

The rink will be illuminated, and I expect we shall all find it quite a novel experience to skate by torchlight. Mind you don't catch colds beforehand! Anyone who is heard sneezing will have to stay indoors."

"It is a lovely idea!" said Phbe, as the Fourth Form discussed the project afterwards. "We shall have the most glorious fun! I'll ask Miss Drummond if we may hang up the Chinese lanterns round the rink; it would be quite safe to light them out-of-doors, and they'd look so nice!"

"I hope I shan't have toothache again," said Dora. "Do you think Miss Drummond would let me go out if I m.u.f.fled my head in a big shawl?"

"No, I'm sure she won't, nor Lorna either, if she persists in that noisy coughing. If you can't smother it, Lorna, you and Dora will have to keep each other company in the cla.s.sroom, and miss all the fun."

"Oh, that would be too bad! I'll manage somehow to get well enough, if I swallow every nostrum under the sun. Will you lend me your carbolic smoke ball? and I'll try it to-night."

In spite of many remedies suggested by sympathetic friends, Lorna was, however, obliged to forego the festivities. Miss Drummond was inexorable where health was concerned, and would not allow colds to be trifled with.

"Perhaps if I'd tried all the different recipes I might have cured it,"

said Lorna dolefully. "I've been recommended hot b.u.t.termilk and treacle, and honey with lemon, and black-currant tea, and elder syrup, and spirits of nitre, and ammoniated quinine, and to tie a wet handkerchief and a stocking round my throat, and sit with my feet in mustard and water!"

"I think the cures sound worse than the cold," said Dora, who was nursing a swollen face. "I've resigned myself to staying indoors. We shan't be the only ones, for there are at least eight others on the sick list. I don't much care; I'd rather sit near the fire and keep warm than skate with a raging toothache. No, I'm afraid I can't eat any chocolates, though it's kind of Miss Drummond to have sent us a box full."

"If you look out at the landing window, you can just catch a peep of what is going on," said Mabel. "We'll tell you all about it afterwards.

And if you're wise you'll let Miss Bardsley take you to the dentist to-morrow, and have that tooth out."

At half-past seven those members of the school who could show a clean bill of health wrapped themselves up warmly, and sallied forth to the carnival. The garden was really a beautiful sight. The full moon shone down upon the snow, glinting on the frosty branches of the trees, and showing cold and pale in contrast to the line of flaming torches that encircled the rink. All Phbe's Chinese lanterns had been put up, and a number of others, which belonged to the Fifth and Sixth Forms; so that the scene resembled Aladdin's palace, with its rows of red, blue, yellow, and green lamps. It seemed very romantic to skate amid such surroundings, and the girls felt as if they were stepping into a picture or a scene from a play, as they took their first strokes, over the ice.

Two friends of Miss Drummond had brought a mandoline and a guitar, and played lively selections, sometimes giving a song with a chorus, in which all could join, when the whole school swung round to the tune of "Oh! dem golden slippers" or "The old folks at home". The oil stove from the cottage had been requisitioned, and stood in a snug corner, keeping warm a large can of beef-tea, from which steaming cupfuls could be ladled from time to time by anyone who wanted refreshment; and a tray full of hot turnovers, which one of the maids carried from the house, was highly appreciated.

As a wind-up to the festivities, everyone made an attempt to dance Sir Roger de Coverley--a very funny proceeding indeed on the ice, where strokes had to be subst.i.tuted for _cha.s.ses_, and the ranks were apt to be abruptly broken by someone sitting down suddenly, with more swiftness than grace. Miss Reade and Miss Bardsley were heading the line, and pa.s.sing under the upraised hands of Maude Farnham and Rose Turner, two of the prefects, when unluckily Rose tipped a little too far forward and lost her balance. Down she came with a crash, and in her fall she clutched wildly at Miss Bardsley, and not only brought both the teachers to their knees, but upset six couples who were following close behind and could not stop. There was quite a tangle of prostrate figures upon the ice, and much laughter as the girls picked themselves up, and tried to re-form the lines. Amidst the general scramble, n.o.body noticed for a moment that Miss Bardsley was really hurt; when she attempted to rise, however, her foot was so painful that she sank back with a groan.

"I'm afraid I must have sprained my ankle!" she exclaimed.

It was a case for "first aid", and the members of the ambulance cla.s.s had very soon shown the advantage of their training by taking off the teacher's skates and boots, improvising a stretcher, and carrying her into the house, where Miss Drummond set to work at once with hot fomentations and bandages. Unfortunately, the mischief was greater than anyone supposed, for when the doctor from Chetbourne arrived next morning he declared that a bone was broken, and that the ankle must be put into splints.

Naturally, this was a very awkward occurrence just at the beginning of the term. Miss Bardsley would be disabled for some weeks, and in the meantime, who would take her Form? For a few days one of the prefects did duty, while Miss Drummond wrote post-haste to a scholastic agency, to secure a teacher as loc.u.m tenens.

It was difficult to find anyone who was disengaged and could come at so short a notice, and Miss Webb, the mistress who finally arrived, was hardly to the taste of the Fourth Form. She had been a private governess in a family, and was not accustomed to cla.s.s teaching; and the girls discovered in the first half-hour that she had not the slightest notion of how to enforce discipline.

"She told me to stop talking, and when I didn't, she simply took no notice!" chuckled Dora Maxwell.

"And she said: 'Ursula, dear, please do not fidget with your pencil,' in such a mild, apologetic little voice!" laughed Ursula. "Miss Bardsley would have glared, and said: 'Ursula, take a forfeit!'"

"She doesn't know anything, really, about the lessons," said Aldred scornfully. "She kept looking at the book all the time, to follow what we were saying."

"And you remember that sum that came out so funnily? I'm sure the answer was wrong in the book, and I wanted her to work it on the blackboard, but she wouldn't," put in Dora.

"Because she couldn't!" sneered Aldred. "She's evidently no good at arithmetic. We know more ourselves than she does!"

"And when we were having physical geography, and I asked her why the moon really had phases, she said it depended on the tide!"

"Well, she had got rather fl.u.s.tered, and put it the wrong way,"

interposed Mabel. "Of course, she meant that the tide depended on the moon."

"Then why didn't she say so?"

"You muddle her by asking so many questions."

"Miss Bardsley never gets muddled; she always explains things so that one can understand exactly. As for Miss Webb, at the end of her physical geography, I feel as if I weren't sure whether the sun goes round the earth, or the earth round the sun."

"Well, it must be difficult for her, poor thing! to come here at a few hours' notice and have to take up another mistress's work," said Mabel.

"I expect she's taught from quite different books, and doesn't know how far we are on in anything."

"It's not exactly that," said Phbe. "I'm sure Miss Bardsley could set to work on someone else's Form, and manage their lessons in five minutes. The real trouble is that Miss Webb hasn't been used to teach in the way we learn things at Birkwood. She's old-fashioned, and expects you just to repeat what's in the book, and never minds whether you really understand it or not."

"That's fearfully out-of-date!" said Ursula. "She must have been educated a very long time ago. I wonder how old she is?"

"Quite fifty, I should think. Her hair is very grey," said Aldred.

"She's older than Miss Drummond, I'm certain, and oh! what a vast difference there is between them! Miss Drummond is the cleverest person I know, and Miss Webb is a perfect noodle!"

"I don't see what's the use of troubling to learn her stupid lessons; they can't do us any good."

"Well, we must be able to reel off something, or she'd give us bad marks, and Miss Drummond would scold."

"Yes, that's the worst of it."

"Freda Martin made a far better teacher; I wish she could have gone on taking us!"

"So do I; but, you see, she has her own work. She is going in for the Matric. next summer."

"Well, I vote we give ourselves an easy time with Miss Webb. We'll learn just enough to satisfy her and no more; and if we feel inclined to talk in school we'll talk!"

CHAPTER XII

The New Teacher