'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 gla.s.s 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-k.n.o.bbed 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 a.s.sured 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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 compet.i.tion, 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 pa.s.sed 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.