I've played at home with Basil, but I don't know how I shall get on here."

At Enid's special request, Miss Latimer included Patty in the scratch team for the following Sat.u.r.day afternoon, so that she might be able to show her capabilities and give her companions an opportunity of judging whether she might be considered fit for a place in the Lower School eleven. The prefects went in first, and the mistress, who had a keen eye for the future possibilities of her pupils, noticed with approval that Patty was not fielding like a novice, that she caught her ball neatly in her hands, instead of stopping it with her skirts, and threw it up promptly with an accuracy of aim not always common among girl players.

Wishing to test her further, Miss Latimer called to her at the next over, and told her to take her turn at bowling. It was Dora Stephenson's innings, and the Lower School knew that a struggle was in store. Dora's record scores were well known, and it often seemed almost impossible to put her out. Patty walked up, quaking at the prospect of her encounter.

"Oh, Miss Latimer!" said Beatrice Wynne. "Are you sending in Patty to bowl now? It's rather hard on our side, isn't it?"

"I know what I am about, Beatrice," replied the teacher. "Go on, Patty, and don't be nervous. Let us all see what you can do."

Patty's first ball showed a science that made her companions open their eyes wide. It was a curious way of bowling, half under, half over arm, such as none of the girls had seen before, and which seemed to prove most baffling. For three b.a.l.l.s Dora merely slogged; the fourth, to her extreme surprise, got her out.

"A duck! A duck!" cried the opposite side, in raptures of delight. To have taken her wicket in the first "over" was a success such as they had never expected, and a triumph for the Lower School not to be forgotten in a hurry.

"It was well bowled, certainly," said Dora, meeting her defeat with dignity. "I didn't think Patty could have done it. Oh, I don't grudge you a wicket! I'm only too glad to see good play, I a.s.sure you, for the credit of the school."

"It was nothing but luck, I believe," said Patty, when her friends crowded round to rejoice over her. "I daresay I couldn't do it again."

"Yes, you could," declared Enid. "It was that peculiar twist that bowled her. You'll have to teach it to us. Where did you learn it?"

"An uncle from Australia stayed with us last summer, and he showed us.

Basil and I used to practise it every evening. Basil can do it far better than I can."

"You do it quite well enough. You've made your reputation this afternoon, and you're sure to be put in the Lower School eleven. Miss Latimer never says much, but I can see she's pleased with you. I'm so glad, because this really settles the question. You mustn't think of tennis again, but stick to cricket."

Patty was glad to have scored such a success. She had not been specially good at hockey during the winter, and was only a moderate tennis player, so it was pleasant to find one game in which she had a chance of excelling, and of gaining credit for her team as well as for herself.

For once she tasted the sweets of popularity, and had the satisfaction of hearing even Vera Clifford offer her congratulations.

"I suppose I couldn't expect Muriel to do so," she thought. "She knows about it, though she wasn't watching the match, because I heard Cissie Gardiner telling her. She's the only one in the cla.s.s who hasn't mentioned it. Of course it doesn't matter in the least; still, it would have been so nice, when I'm her own cousin, if she had said just a single word to show that she cared."

CHAPTER XII

Playing with Fire

The Fourth Cla.s.s, including the members of both upper and lower divisions, was by far the largest at The Priory, and, in the opinion of Miss Lincoln, the most unruly and difficult to manage. During her many years of teaching, she had always found that girls between fourteen and sixteen gave more than the usual amount of trouble. They were too old to be treated as children, and had already begun to set up standards of their own; indeed, they thought they knew most things a little better than their elders. They were impatient of discipline, yet their ideas were still crude and unformed, and they had not the judgment nor self-restraint which might be counted upon in the higher forms. It was a phase of character which she knew would soon pa.s.s, but it required judicious treatment, and she felt that a mistress needed to be both kind and firm to exercise the right influence at such a crisis in the young lives under her charge. Miss Harper, who was popular with her cla.s.s, could always tame the most rebellious spirits, and maintain perfect order; but with Miss Rowe it was a totally different affair. She was not generally liked, and, taking advantage of her youth and lack of experience, many of the girls were as naughty as they dared, and defied her authority on every occasion. Amongst the ring-leaders in what may be called "the opposition", I regret to say Enid Walker held a foremost place. She was a very high-spirited, headstrong girl, who resented any restraint; she either took a violent fancy to people, or disliked them equally heartily: anyone who could gain her affection could lead her most easily, otherwise she was apt to prove so wayward as to cause a teacher to despair. Unfortunately Miss Rowe had not discovered the right way to manage Enid; for some time matters had been rather strained, and by the summer term it was a case of undeclared war between pupil and teacher.

"It doesn't matter what I say or do, Miss Rowe's always down on me!"

declared Enid.

"Well, you really go rather too far sometimes," said Avis. "Miss Rowe knew perfectly well this morning that you dropped your atlas on purpose, and that it was you who tied Cissie's hair ribbon to her desk."

"Miss Rowe can be quite nice sometimes," said Patty. "When we were on the common yesterday, she found two new orchises, and gave them to me to press."

"Oh, you always manage to say something for everybody!" said Enid.

"You're too good-natured, Patty. I can't bear Miss Rowe."

"But why?"

"'I do not love thee, Doctor Fell, The reason why I cannot tell; But this I know, and know full well, I do not love thee, Doctor Fell,'"

quoted Enid. "That's how I feel, exactly."

"Perhaps she feels the same about you," suggested Winnie.

"Perhaps she does, but I don't care in the least. I don't like her voice, nor the cold way she looks at me and says, 'Now, Enid!' She's only an a.s.sistant teacher, and I'm not going to obey her as if she were Miss Lincoln or Miss Harper. She needn't expect it."

Certainly poor Miss Rowe found Enid a very trying pupil. Her attention was ever wandering, and she was invariably engaged in some mischief calculated to distract the rest of the cla.s.s. She would sometimes give a wrong answer on purpose to raise a laugh; she could never lift the lid of her desk without letting it fall with a bang; and the contents of her pencil-box seemed always ready to disperse themselves over the floor. One morning the girls were having a lesson in grammar, and were diligently repeating Latin derivations and Anglo-Saxon suffixes, when some chance called Patty's attention to Enid. She noticed the latter open her desk stealthily, and draw out a tiny paper box, which she placed on her knee, and covered with her pocket handkerchief. Patty wondered what she was doing. It was evidently something which required great secrecy, for Enid glanced carefully round to see whether anyone was watching her; then, as n.o.body except Patty appeared to be looking, she drew away a fold of her handkerchief, cautiously opened the little box, and out hopped a huge gra.s.shopper, which bounded straight on to Cissie Gardiner's blouse. Patty was so fascinated by gazing at it, and wondering where its next leap would take it, that she started when Miss Rowe asked her a question, and for once failed with her answer.

"Ad, ante," she began, but could get no further. Her eyes were glued to Cissie's blouse, and Cissie, noticing she was the cause of Patty's hesitation, looked down at her sleeve, and sprang up with a scream.

"Take it off! Somebody take it off!" she entreated. At this point the gra.s.shopper promptly hopped away, no one could see where. Each girl naturally thought it might be on herself, and, jumping up, shook her skirts frantically. The cla.s.s was instantly in the greatest disorder.

Ella Johnson and May Firth stood on their seats, loudly protesting their horror of all creeping or crawling insects.

"Don't let it come on me! Oh, don't!" wailed Kitty Harrison.

"It's there!" exclaimed Maud Greening.

"Where?"

"It's hopped on to Doris."

"Oh! It will go down my neck!" shrieked Doris.

"No, it's hopped off again."

"It's on Maggie Woodhall's desk."

"Catch it, Maggie!"

"I daren't! I daren't!"

"Squash it with your ruler."

"I couldn't! I hate squashing things!"

"It's gone again."

"It will be on me next!"

"There it is on Maggie's desk again."

"Girls! Girls! Calm yourselves and keep still!" cried Miss Rowe's measured voice. "Maggie, sit down at once!"

The teacher strode across the room, and, catching the gra.s.shopper in her hand, put it safely out of the window, then turned again to her agitated cla.s.s.

"Order!" she said sternly; and after waiting a few moments until her pupils had regained their self-control, she continued: "Who let loose that gra.s.shopper?"