"Oh, yes! That would be splendid, and then she would see our opinion of her."

"Every girl must vow she won't say it, even you, Patty!"

"I think you're very silly," said Patty, "but I shan't be there myself.

I always have my music lesson at nine o'clock on Friday mornings."

"So much the better," said Enid. "You were the only one I thought might spoil it. Will everybody else promise?"

All gave the required a.s.sent. The girls were anxious to air their grievance, and this seemed the most feasible way of showing their teacher their displeasure. At five minutes to nine on the following morning, they were seated in their places waiting for the second bell to ring. Miss Rowe entered punctually, and turning to the cla.s.s as usual said: "Good morning".

There was no reply. She waited a moment in much astonishment.

"Good morning, girls," she said again.

Still there was dead silence in the room.

"I will give you one more chance. I cannot believe that you can be so deliberately and intentionally discourteous. Good morning, girls."

What would have happened at this juncture, whether the girls would have still persisted in defying their teacher, and so have obliged her to report their conduct to Miss Lincoln, or whether they would have given way with an ill grace, it is impossible to say. Fortunately for all concerned, Miss Harper was rather earlier than usual that day, and arriving in the schoolroom exactly at the critical moment, she saved the situation. Her greeting was answered by a chorus of "Good morning", which might be intended for both mistresses. Miss Rowe had the good sense to take no further notice, and to proceed at once to mark the register; and as she did not refer to the subject afterwards, the girls felt doubtful whether their little mutiny had been quite so effective as they had meant it to be.

"I wish Miss Rowe wasn't so horribly particular," said Avis, tidying her possessions ruefully a few days afterwards. "She says she's going to look at all our desks this afternoon, and give forfeits for any that are in a muddle. I haven't rummaged to the back of mine for ever so long. I scarcely know what's in it. Why, what's this? It's actually a box of fusees. I remember now, I brought them from home. I'd quite forgotten I had them."

"Oh, do give them to me!" cried Enid. "They make such a lovely hissing noise, I like to hear them go off."

"You'd better not strike them in cla.s.s, then," replied Avis.

"Do you dare me to?"

"Why, even you wouldn't do such a risky thing!"

"Oh! What would Miss Rowe say if you did it in the very middle of Euclid?" said Cissie Gardiner, with round eyes of delighted horror.

"Then I will, just to show you I dare. I'm not afraid of Miss Rowe!"

declared Enid, appropriating the box and putting it in her pocket.

The girls laughed, not believing for a moment that she really intended to carry out her threat. The bell rang, Miss Rowe entered, and lessons began before they had time to say anything more about it. Euclid was not a favourite subject with the Upper Fourth. It was considered dry, and the half-hour devoted to it was regarded as more or less of a penance.

In the very middle of the fifth proposition, when Miss Rowe had changed the letters on the blackboard, and was endeavouring to make Vera Clifford grasp the principle of the reasoning, instead of merely repeating the problem by rote, Enid's head was bent low over her desk, and her fingers appeared to be busy with something.

"Y G K = D F O," droned Vera in a melancholy voice.

Suddenly there was a striking sound, and a loud, long hiss.

"Oh! oh! oh!" came in a subdued chorus from all sides.

"Enid, what are you doing?" cried Miss Rowe, sharply.

For answer naughty Enid held up the hissing fusee in a kind of daring triumph, but as she raised her head her long curly hair, which was floating loose, brushed against the burning spark, and in an instant blazed up, setting fire also to the sleeve of her thin lawn blouse. With a wild shriek she dropped the fusee, and, springing from her seat, would have tried in her terror to rush from the room had she not been prevented by Miss Rowe, who, with admirable presence of mind, seized the duster from the blackboard, and with only that and her bare hands succeeded in stifling the flames. The whole cla.s.s was in a panic. Jean Bannerman ran at once for Miss Hall, the teacher in the next room, and in a very short s.p.a.ce of time Miss Lincoln herself arrived on the scene.

Finding that Enid and Miss Rowe were the only two hurt, she carried them off at once to apply first aid until a doctor could be summoned, leaving Miss Hall to try and calm the agitated girls. Cissie Gardiner was sobbing hysterically, and all were offering versions of the accident in such a state of excitement, that it was difficult to understand their accounts.

"Enid Walker lighted a fusee?" repeated Miss Hall, almost incredulously.

"Then she alone is responsible for this unhappy occurrence. I can only trust that neither she nor Miss Rowe is seriously injured. Girls, go back to your desks. I must return now to my own cla.s.s, but I will send a prefect to you as soon as possible. I trust to your good feeling to work in silence at your preparation for to-morrow."

Miss Rowe and Enid were taken to the sanatorium, which was always kept in readiness to receive urgent cases. Both were suffering greatly from the shock: Miss Rowe's hands were badly scorched, and Enid had a severe burn on her arm and also on her neck. The doctor, having completed his dressings, ordered them both to be kept very quiet, and not to receive visitors until he gave his permission. It was several days, therefore, before Enid was allowed to see any of her school-fellows, and when the nurse at last declared that she might have a friend to spend half an hour with her, she fixed her choice at once upon Patty. The latter had been two or three times a day to the sanatorium to enquire how the invalids were progressing, so it was with great eagerness that she now knocked at the door. She was admitted by the nurse, and after a warning not to excite her companion, was shown to Enid's room. Enid was lying on the sofa, her arm swathed in bandages; some of her pretty hair had been cut away, and her face looked white, with dark circles round her eyes, as if she had not slept. Patty, after a rapturous greeting, sat down on a chair by her side, and began to tell her the school news.

"Everybody sent all kinds of messages," she said. "It seems so funny in cla.s.s without either you or Miss Rowe. Have you seen Miss Rowe? Are her hands very bad?"

"They're both bandaged up," replied Enid. "She won't be able to use them for some time. Wasn't it brave of her to rush at me with the duster? Do you know, she's been so nice. We had a long talk last night, and she told me ever so many things. She meant to go to Girton when she left school, but her father lost all his money, and she had to begin to teach at once, so that she could help a younger brother. She's paying for his education herself, and he's doing splendidly at his school, and she's so proud of him, and hopes he may win a scholarship. If I'd only known all this, I wouldn't have made it so hard for her. I'm as sorry for that now as I am about her hands being burnt."

"I always thought Miss Rowe was nicer than you imagined. I'm so glad you've found it out," said Patty.

"I expect she's one of those people who improve on acquaintance,"

continued Enid. "I couldn't bear her at one time, and now I believe I'm going to like her immensely. You can't think how jolly she can make herself. I'll never be naughty in her cla.s.s again, or let anybody else be, if I can help it. On my honour I won't!"

Enid was as good as her word. When she and Miss Rowe were well enough to again take their places in school, the young teacher found, to her surprise, that all her trouble with the Upper Fourth was at an end. The girls regarded her in the light of a heroine, and her new popularity gave her an influence over them which her efforts at strict discipline had not been able to gain.

"She seems quite different," said Winnie, voicing the feelings of the cla.s.s. "She's far pleasanter than she used to be, and now she doesn't order us about so much, we don't seem to want to do so many things we oughtn't. She's really very pretty, you know; her nose is just perfect, and her hair is so thick and fair. Of course she can't compare with Miss Harper, but still I like her ever so much better than I did before, and I vote we give her a tremendous clapping on Speech Day."

CHAPTER XIII

The School Picnic

Towards the middle of July the girls at The Priory began to look forward with eager antic.i.p.ation to the annual picnic. In the minds of most it was the great event of the summer term, and eclipsed even Speech Day.

Patty, who had not yet experienced the joys of such an excursion, was anxious to learn something about it, and made many enquiries of her friends.

"It's the loveliest fun," said Avis. "We have special saloon carriages engaged on the train, and lovely baskets of lunch, and Miss Lincoln lets us buy toffee and chocolates if there are any shops. I wonder where we shall go this year, and if it will be to the country or the seaside. Has anyone heard?"

"Phyllis Chambers said she believed it was to be Moorcliffe," said Winnie.

"Where's that?"

"It's a dear little seaside place near Chelstone. There's a nice sandy sh.o.r.e, and Phyllis says she shouldn't be surprised if we were allowed to take our costumes with us and bathe."

"Oh, how glorious! I do hope we shall."

"I believe it depends on the tide," said Winnie.

"Why on the tide? How absurd!"

"No, it's not absurd. The sea goes out very far at Moorcliffe, and leaves a large sandy bay. You don't want to walk half a mile to the water. If the tide's up in the morning, and we can get our dip then, it will be quite right, because there will be time for our costumes to dry afterwards in the sun; but if it's not high water till afternoon, we shall have to do without our swim. It would be impossible to carry back more than seventy dripping bathing-dresses."

"Unless we chartered a tank for them and put them in the luggage van,"

laughed Enid. "I hope the tide will be nice and accommodating. Hasn't anybody got an almanac?"

"Miss Lincoln is planning it all out, and is to tell us on Sat.u.r.day."