'_I_ got her a scolding? What do you mean?' cried Babs.

'Oh, it's all very well to be so innocent,' snorted Angela; and she disappeared too.

Barbara sighed and remained where she was, till she was moved on again.

'Do get out of the way,' complained some one else; 'you're right in front of my bookshelf.'

Barbara sprang aside hastily, and caught her foot in the leg of a desk and fell down.

'I don't mind moving,' she said, getting up again and rubbing her elbow, 'but I do wish I knew where to move to.'

'Can't you find out?' asked the owner of the bookshelf inconsistently, as she rushed off with her arms full of books.

Barbara sighed again. Try as she might to make the best of things, it was a little tiring to be such a universal object of complaint.

'Hullo, Babe! You ought not to be here,' said a cheery voice from the seniors' room, and Ruth Oliver put her head round the red curtain.

'This is only the playroom, you know, and, except for preparation or for fetching your books between the cla.s.ses, you are never supposed to use it in lesson-time. The cla.s.srooms are upstairs.'

'I know I oughtn't to be here,' answered Babs, ruefully. 'I never am where I ought to be.'

'But Finny sent for you, ages ago,' said Ruth, looking astonished. 'Didn't Jean tell you? She's a young horror, that Jean. Never mind, come along with me, and I'll show you the way.'

She hurried the child through the baize door into the front hall, and pointed out a room that was close to the foot of the stairs. 'That's Finny's study,' she said hastily. 'You'd better look sharp. Good luck to you!' She gave her an unexpected kiss that promptly secured her the child's allegiance from henceforth, and ran off with her books under her arm.

Barbara entered the room, and looked round for Miss Finlayson. Only the head girl was there, however, sitting at the table with a frown upon her face.

'You ought to have been here before this,' she began reprovingly. 'Miss Finlayson couldn't wait any longer, so I've got to miss the history lecture and examine you, instead of her. Why couldn't you come, directly Jean told you?'

Barbara turned a little red and tried to look unconcerned, in which she signally failed. 'I think,' she said, 'that you'd better ask Jean.'

Margaret looked at her sharply, and muttered something that sounded uncommonly like 'Little beast!' which seemed to the child rather more than she deserved, considering that it was really Jean's fault and not hers at all. She was rather surprised at the head girl's next words, which seemed quite gentle by comparison.

'Why, you look blue with cold, child,' she remarked, and drew her round by the fire. 'Now, stand there, and tell me what history books you have been using.'

'I haven't used any,' answered Babs. 'I haven't had any history lessons, you see.'

'Do you mean to say you know nothing about the history of England--nothing about wars or kings or laws, or any of those things?' inquired Margaret, raising her eyebrows.

Barbara's face brightened. 'Oh, yes,' she said, 'I know all about _them_ from father, and the British Museum, and books. I didn't know that was history.'

Margaret was a little puzzled. The examination of this new girl looked as though it were going to present difficulties. 'What kind of books?'

she asked doubtfully.

'Lots of kinds,' answered Barbara, glibly. 'Napier's _History of the Peninsular War_, and somebody else's _History of the Anglo-Saxons_, and another one called _The Four Georges_, and--and--oh, that long stuffy one, cut up into volumes, with ever so many funny words in it, called _Cromwell's Life and_----'

'That's enough,' cried Margaret, and she looked in amazement at the small animated face of the new girl. 'I--I think that will do for history,'

she went on hastily. 'Now, what about geography? I suppose you know the elements, so I won't----'

'What's elements?' interrupted Babs.

'Well, the beginning part,' explained the head girl--'the part that tells you the meaning of islands and volcanoes and earthquakes, and what the world is like inside, and things about the moon and the----'

'But all _that_ is in Jules Verne's story-books,' remarked Babs. 'Of course I've read Jules Verne. Is that what you call elements? I like elements, then, especially the _Journey to the Centre of_----'

'Oh, I say, do stop,' interrupted Margaret, biting her lip. She was divided between perplexity and amus.e.m.e.nt, and she wished that the head-mistress had stayed to examine this extraordinary imp of a child herself. 'Haven't you used any real geography books?' she asked presently.

Barbara looked vague.

'Do you know the map of England, for instance?' pursued Margaret, rather desperately.

'Oh, yes, I know the map of England,' answered the child, confidently.

'It's so easy to find, because it's pink. I know America too, because father has gone there to lecture, and he won't be back for ever so long, not till----'

'Hush!' said the head girl. 'Tell me what arithmetic you have done.'

'Let me see, that's figures without letters, isn't it?' inquired Babs.

'I'm afraid I can only add up, because Bobbin hasn't got any further yet; he's backward in sums, you see, and I've only learnt mine through helping him with his prep. Sometimes, I wish he'd get on a little faster, because I'm getting so tired of----'

'Then you mean to say,' interposed Margaret, rather impatiently, 'that you can only do simple addition?'

'That's in arithmetic,' Barbara hastened to point out. 'I've got as far as fractions in the funny sums that Kit does out of the other book; they're much easier, because they have letters dotted about to help you. I always do Kit's sums, when he has asthma; but he says I'm very slow. Then there's the nice interesting book with pictures of triangles and things; we've got up to----'

'Oh, don't!' said Margaret, and Barbara paused, a little surprised. Why did people ask her questions if they did not mean her to answer them?

Margaret was drumming her fingers on the table and looking a little worried. 'Have you learnt any languages?' she asked suddenly. 'I mean, anything besides French--German, for instance?'

'No, I haven't learnt any German, and I don't want to, thank you,' said Babs, decidedly. 'Ever since the German band complained to father, because Peter tried to stop their noise by shying potatoes at them from the window, we've all made a vow never to learn their beastly language. And I don't know any French either; no more does father. I know Latin up to the deponent verbs, though,--deponent verbs _are_ catchy, aren't they?--and I've begun Greek with father. I'm afraid that's all the languages I----'

'Well, you are a curiosity!' declared Margaret, giving up the attempt to hide her amus.e.m.e.nt. 'So you've never had a governess at all? Nor been to cla.s.ses?'

'I've been to a gymnastic cla.s.s,' said Barbara, eagerly. 'It's the only thing I can do properly. Have you got a gymnasium here?'

She clapped her hands when Margaret nodded, and bounded towards the door.

'Mayn't I go and try it _now_?' she asked in a disappointed tone, when the head girl called her back.

'There's plenty of time for that,' said Margaret, reminding her with a frown that she was only a new girl and was there to be examined; 'I've got to settle first what cla.s.s you had better go into. But I'm sure I don't know what I am to say to Finny about you.' She sighed, and looked at Barbara as if for inspiration. Barbara was quite equal to the occasion.

'You'd better put me in the bottom cla.s.s, I should think,' she advised pleasantly; 'you don't know what my spelling is like yet.'

'Thanks,' said Margaret, drily; 'I've no doubt you are quite competent to examine yourself, and to teach all your betters into the bargain, but that doesn't help me just now.' She drummed her fingers on the table again, and Barbara waited and went off into a kind of dream as she stood there.

She was aroused by an exclamation from the head girl. 'I know,' she was saying in a relieved tone. 'Can you write compositions, child? I mean, make up things in your head and write them down?'

Barbara smiled. Certainly, that had nothing to do with lessons. She had scribbled over every piece of paper she could find, ever since Nurse had first taught her to form her letters. 'I can do that all right,' she said.

'All except the spelling,' she added as an afterthought.

Margaret paid her no attention. She was occupied in carrying out her happy idea for concluding the examination of the new girl and leaving herself free at the same time to go to her history lecture. 'Look here,'

she said, spreading some paper rapidly on the desk in front of her; 'come and sit in this chair and write about anything you like. You'll have a good hour and a half before the interval for lunch; and then Miss Finlayson will come and look at what you've written, and she will settle what cla.s.s you can go into.'

'But what shall I write about?' asked Barbara, when the head girl had installed her at the table and was hurrying out of the room.