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“Seen the letter-slab, Margot? There’s a letter waiting there for you that you’re going to rejoice over or I miss my guess!” Con Maynard gave the younger of her triplet sisters a mischievous glance.

“Who’s it from? Is this a have?” Margot asked suspiciously.

“No have, my dear!” Con suddenly relented. “It’s from Australia——”

“Emmy at last!” Margot had swung round and was off like a shot for the entrance-hall where mail for the pupils of the Chalet School was always laid out. Con looked after her and laughed.

“What’s the joke?” asked a clear, fresh voice behind the middle one of the Chalet School triplets. “Is it a joke or merely the beginning of insanity?”

Con glanced round and laughed again. “Only that I saw a letter for Margot on the slab and when I told her it was there and where it came from, you couldn’t see her for dust. Poor old Margot! She still misses Emmy Hope badly!”

“What else did you expect? She and Emerence were bosoms from the word ‘go’, from all I’ve been told. But doesn’t she hear from her quite often?” The attractive, grey-eyed girl who had joined Con raised her eyebrows whimsically.

Con shook her head till her thick black pigtail swung out violently. “She certainly does not! Emmy’s awfully lazy about writing letters, and Margot’s been so busy lately that she hasn’t had much time for it either. However, judging by the thickness of the envelope, I should say Emmy’s sent a budget this time.” Con tucked a hand through her friend’s arm and they moved off down the corridor. “I wonder if she’s written to say they’re coming over for a holiday? Wouldn’t Margot chortle, though!”

Rosamund Lilley laughed. “I can just hear her. It may be that; or—have you ever thought that Emmy’s grown-up now? For she is, you know. Nineteen, isn’t she? I know she’s about three years older than you three.”

“Glorianna!” Con exclaimed. “So she is! I say, Ros, you don’t suppose she’s written to announce her engagement to someone, do you?”

“She’s old enough,” Rosamund said reflectively. “And then she had a year of touring America and that would make her older, I expect. Besides, according to my sisters, girls are getting engaged and marrying years younger than they used to. By the way, did I tell you that I had a letter from Joan Baker yesterday, telling me that she’s more or less engaged to a boy she met at her commercial college?”

“Not really? Rosamund Lilley! She can’t be! Why, she only left school the term before last!” Con’s dark eyes were wide with amazement as she looked at Rosamund. “She’s just your age, isn’t she?”

“Nearly a year older. I’m seventeen and Joan was eighteen last November. Not,” added Rosamund as they reached the door of the Senior commonroom, “that it may ever come to anything.”

“But there’s always a chance that it may. Well, I think it’s horrid!” Con said with decision. “I should hate it myself. I’d loathe being married and having to run a house before I was twenty.”

“Your own mother was only twenty-one when you three were born, wasn’t she?” Rosamund asked as she opened the door. “That would mean she was married at twenty at the latest and it isn’t so very much older than Joan is now.”

“That was different,” Con replied. “Mamma had been having the ghastliest adventures, escaping from Hitler, and Papa brought her through them.^[1] Besides, they’d known each other for years before that—oh, Margot!” as that young woman came up to them. “What has Emmy to say? Anything of interest?”

Margot’s blue eyes were blazing with excitement. “I should just think so, though I haven’t had time to read her letter properly, of course. But what do you think of this for news? Mr Hope has to go to England on business and Emmy’s coming with him. He’ll leave her here while he’s busy and when they go back, they want to take me with them for a holiday!” She looked at the other two. “Don’t you call that ‘something of interest’?”

“Interest all right,” Con replied. “But—when are they coming and how long for? I mean, if it’s this term, you won’t have long there——”

“It’s not till the end of May,” Margot said.

“Oh! Well, that’s better. But suppose they want to go back before the end of term? What about your matric?”

“Matric be blowed! But perhaps they’d wait till it was over.” Margot was calming down a little. “Oh, yes; I’m sure they’d wait till the end of term. Not that Emmy says anything about that so far as I’ve read. But I’m certain they’d wait at least till matric was over. But I’ll finish the letter during rest period and then I can tell you more. So far as I’ve gone, she seems to have all sorts of the most gorgeous ideas for trips while I’m there. She says her dad will take us to visit the Great Barrier Reef and we’ll go out in a boat with a glass bottom, and the water’s so clear, you can see right down through it and watch fish and other sea creatures swimming about and so on. And then she says we’ll go surfing at Manly. And they’ll take me up into the mountains and we’ll go for big picnics and——”

What more Margot had to tell had to wait, for the gong sounded for the midday meal, known at the Chalet School as “Mittagessen”, since the school was situated in the Swiss Oberland and they used a good many German names for such things as meals. The chatter which had been filling the room ceased at once, according to rule. Some of the elder girls slipped out to attend to prefect duties, and strict order had to be maintained when they were all on the march to the diningroom or “Speisesaal”—another German term they used.

Margot was bubbling with excitement throughout the meal. A trip to Australia with the only girl with whom she had ever really chummed was a delight she had never expected to come true. But if she went with the Hopes, she felt sure that no one would refuse her the treat.

“All the same, I’d better get hold of Len and Con and get them to promise to back me up if the parents turn sticky over it,” she thought during a pause in the meal. “Oh, but they couldn’t do that! I’m not likely to have any other chance of visiting the Antipodes—too many of us for me to have such a trip. This way, it’ll cost nothing—or only pocket-money. Oh, they must say ‘yes’! But a bit of backing from Len and Con won’t hurt and might even just tip the scales.”

With this idea in her mind, she contrived, after the rest-period on which the school insisted each day after the midday meal, to draw her sisters to one side long enough to murmur, “I simply must see you two somewhere private. How can we fix it? And when?”

Len, the eldest of the trio, grinned. “I can guess. Con’s been telling me about Emmy’s letter. As to how we’re to get a private chat, I couldn’t tell you. I’ve not a free period to my name all afternoon. What about you two?”

“Art until 15.30 hours,” Con said. “I’m not free after that, either. What are you having, Len?”

“Mediaeval French with Mdlle,” Len said. “After that, German lit. with Sally-go-round-the-moon. It’s no go, Margot. I shan’t have a moment to bless myself with until after Kaffee und Kuchen. I can manage twenty minutes then if that’ll do you.”

“And I’ve got extra English after art, but I could shove in the time after Kaffee und Kuchen, too,” Con said. “I ought to put it in on my ’cello. Herr von Falck will be here tomorrow and I’m shaky on that new study he gave me, but I’ll risk it if Margot wants us so badly. That suit you?”

“It’ll have to, I suppose. I wish you two weren’t specialising so violently. Why couldn’t you just be content to take the ordinary course like me?”

“We’ve got our future jobs to think of, young woman,” Len returned smartly.

Margot laughed ruefully. “Oh, well, come to that, so have I. Oh, all right, then. I’d have liked to discuss it sooner. I know I shall be bursting with excitement until I’ve managed to spill some of it over on someone and you two are the best. Sure you can’t get out of this extra coaching for once?”

“Can you see us?” Len demanded. “We both want to live a little longer. Can you imagine what would happen if we begged off because you wanted to talk to us?”

Margot grinned. “I can; and I’d just as soon spare you. O.K.! After Kaffee und Kuchen, then. There goes the bell! Come on, Con!”

Len turned tail and fled, for she still had to collect her books from the Prefects’ room. The other two had no such worry; art materials were all kept in the Art rooms. However, they had to hurry there at once, so Margot had to bottle up her feelings. Miss Yolland the art mistress was, to quote the girls, a regular poppet, but there was never any mistake about her discipline.

Luckily for Margot, they had design and as she was really interested in the subject she contrived to give at least half her mind to what she was doing. Con, much more self-controlled, put Emmy Hope’s latest completely out of her head and worked as steadily as usual.

Len’s ambition was to teach modern languages, and when school days were over, she was going to the university to work for her Arts degree. She had never shown any signs of being specially gifted in any form of art and when it came to choosing, she begged to be allowed to give it up in favour of Spanish which would be more useful to her.

Con intended to write and she, too, was headed for a university course in English language and literature. As she said, she knew she must earn her own living, and journalism was best until she could keep herself by writing books. Her gifts were inherited from her mother who, despite a long family of eleven, still contrived to produce at least two books each year, so she found plenty of sympathy in her proposed career.

Margot at sixteen still remained a problem. For the past two years she had, as she said, swithered from one idea to another. Her final decision had been to work for a medical diploma, and for the last three terms she had pitched in at science and biology with a will. She was brilliantly clever and could work hard when she chose, and she did choose. As a result, she was making real headway and her future career had come to be regarded as settled. The choice had startled everyone concerned, for at no time during her earlier years had she shown any sign of being interested in either the subject or sick people. However, it was agreed that she might drop all domestic subjects and music in favour of extra science, though her mother had protested over the music. Her father, however, had upheld her. He was a doctor himself, head of the great Görnetz sanatorium at the farther end of the Görnetz Platz on which the school and the Maynard home were situated. He had been delighted to learn that one, at least, of his family wanted to follow in his footsteps.

Three boys had followed the triplets and none of them wished to take up medicine. Stephen, the eldest, meant to be an engineer and Michael, the youngest, was headed for the Navy. What Charles, the middle one, proposed to do, was not yet clear, though Joey Maynard had her own ideas on the subject. As for the five youngest, they were still too small for anyone to prophesy with any certainty about their future.

To Margot, the afternoon seemed never-ending. At last it was over and they all went racing upstairs to their dormitories to change into the velveteen frocks which formed everyday wear for winter evenings. Kaffee und Kuchen followed, and at long last the triplets found a spare moment for their consultation before preparation. Thrilling with excitement, Margot led the way to a quiet corner where they could hope for a little privacy and, when they were comfortable, produced her precious letter with a flourish.

“What a screed Emmy seems to have written!” Len commented as she glanced at the sheaf of pages in her triplet’s hand. “Surely it didn’t need all that just to invite you to go and stay with them!”

“Oh, but she’s written a lot about the things we’ll do if I go,” Margot explained with a bubble of laughter. “I don’t know if she thinks I’ll need tempting——”

“If she thinks that she certainly doesn’t know much about you even after all your years of friendship,” Con said with decision. “Who, in her senses, would refuse such a gaudy invitation? You don’t need any tempting. I wouldn’t myself—nor you, either, Len,” she added with a twinkling glance at Len.

For reply, the eldest of the trio gave her watch a look. “We’ll discuss all that later on,” she said firmly. “If you mean to read us any of that screed of Emmy’s now, Margot, you’d better get on with it. The bell will go in less than ten minutes.”

“Oh, I’m not going to give you the lot now,” Margot said, sorting through the sheets. “You can hear it later if you want to. Here’s what’s important.” She began to read aloud: “ ‘And now, Margot, I’m coming to what really matters. Dad has to go to England on business some time in May; the end, I think. I’m coming with him for company, as Mummy says she’s had enough travelling around to do her for the next five years and she wants to settle down and take life easily. The idea is that he drops me in Switzerland, probably at Basle, and I come on to the Görnetz Platz and stay there while he’s going walk-about in London and Newcastle and wherever else he has to go. I thought if the school or Millie’s couldn’t put me up, perhaps your Mum would. I know you’ve oodles of room at Freudesheim. Then, and this is the really exciting bit of the whole thing, we want to take you back to Sydney with us when we return. Will you come? Do say “Yes”! We’ll look after you and give you a bonza time.

“ ‘From all I can hear, the Russells will still be here. Dad told me that Sir Jem had told him he was visiting Tasmania and New Zealand, but that Lady Russell isn’t going with him and, of course, Sybil and Josette are staying with her. Dad says he’ll ask the girls to join us in expeditions and we four could have a smashing time together.’ ” Here Margot paused and made a face. “I shouldn’t mind Josette, but I don’t know that I want Sybs on top of me.”

“Why on earth not?” Len exclaimed. “She’s awfully good fun.”

“Too bossy and prefecty for me. I know she’ll think it’s her job to keep an eye on me.”

“Oh, rot!” Len cried. “Why should she? She’ll be out to enjoy herself. And don’t forget that she’s grown-up now. We haven’t seen her for ages. I rather think you’ll find she’s changed a lot.”

Her sisters looked at her. Con was first to speak.

“Gosh! I hadn’t thought of that. Len, you don’t mean she’ll—well, be bothering with—love affairs?”

“Nothing more likely,” Len replied. “She’s—what—twenty, isn’t it?”

Margot grinned suddenly. “Her folk will have something to say if she’s getting engaged to an Australian! Oh, well, I’ll find out when I get there, I suppose. Shall I go on?”

“Better, if you want to read us any more,” Con responded.

“Not a lot. There won’t be time.” Margot turned to her letter again. “ ‘Of course, it’ll be our winter then, but that may be all to the good in case our heat upset you if you were landed right into the middle of summer. It can be hot here, then; my word, it can! Dad says someone will escort you back to the Platz if he can’t and you’ll be back in time for the Christmas term. I suppose you aren’t leaving at the end of the summer——?’ ”

“You? At less than seventeen?” Con exclaimed. “Well, hardly! What’s Emmy thinking about? Doesn’t she know you’ve an idea of going in for medicine?”

“I haven’t exactly told her yet,” Margot said slowly. “I—well, I wanted to feel surer it’s what I want so I’ve said nothing definite.” She went pink. “You know, I have rather swithered over things, and I felt that if I was going to swither over this, I’d just as soon Emmy didn’t know. She does pull my leg about not knowing my own mind ten minutes together. But I really do feel I want my M.B. anyhow. I’ll get that and then—oh, well, you can’t say what may happen in five years or so.”

Len nodded thoughtfully. “I see. I agree that an M.B. will be a good thing to have, even if you never go any further, though I hope you will. You are sure about it? It’s a long training, you know.”

“But that’s just the point!” Margot exclaimed. “Once I begin, I’ll have to stick it out. And it gives me time.”

“Time for what?” Con asked, her deep brown eyes fixed on Margot’s flushed face with some curiosity. “Have you any other ideas?”

“I—I might have.”

“Well, it’s your life and your career,” Len interposed hastily. Con had a habit of blurting out what was uppermost in her mind and the eldest triplet, sensitive to other people, guessed that her younger sister was shy about whatever else she might have in mind. Privately, Len had an idea as to what it might be, but it was Margot’s affair and her sister had no intention of probing any further or allowing Con to do it. Aloud, she said, “Well, go on with Emmy’s letter. I shall have to fly in a minute. I’m on duty with Lower IVb for prep and you know as well as I do that that means being there on the dot or goodness knows what that crew may get up to.”

Con laughed. Margot’s cheeks cooled and she returned to her letter.

“Where was I? Oh, yes. Well, she says there’s always someone going to Europe on the firm’s business, so an escort home for me will be easy. Then she goes on: ‘I hope Len and Con won’t think I’m a pig to leave them out of it, but I’m sure your folk wouldn’t agree to all three of you being away at once and, after all, it’s you and me who are chums and always have been. It’s going on for two years since we met and you can’t tell everything in letters. You beg hard if your folks seem sticky and get the other two to back you up. We really do want you.’ And that’s about all there’s time for.” Margot shuffled the pages together, folded them and slipped them into her blazer pocket. “You will back me up if it’s necessary, won’t you, you two? I’d just love to go and I’d be absolutely all right with the Hopes; only Mother and Dad may say it’s too far for me to go alone. You remind them that, once I’m there, there’s Auntie Madge and the girls if I need them.”

“I can’t possibly say anything now,” Len said, rising from her seat on the pipes. “The bell will go for prep in about ten seconds and I’ve still got to get my books. I don’t say I won’t back you up,” she added in response to a wistful look from Margot. “I just haven’t had time to take it in properly yet.”

“I wish you weren’t always so awfully cautious,” Margot sighed. “Con, you’ll back me, won’t you?”

“I agree with Len. I can’t say yet. We’ll miss you during the hols, you know. Still, we’ve had to do without you before—that time when Auntie Madge took you off to Canada and we were left lamenting. Remember?”

Margot laughed. “Oh, don’t be so silly! It’s nothing like that. That time, we were parted for a solid year. This will be for two months only, for of course I’ll have to come back in time for the beginning of term.”

Len nodded. “That’s true. But I can’t stop now. See you later!” And she sped off to the prefects’ room to collect her books. The other two, not being numbered among the grandees of the school, made their way to their own formroom, to settle down to their preparation. There they were at once surrounded by some of their fellows demanding to know where they had been all this time.

“Have you forgotten that we are hostesses for Saturday night and, so far, we haven’t done a thing about it?” Ted Grantly demanded.

“Oh, glory! So we are! Anyone got any ideas?” Margot queried, pushing her own concerns to the back of her mind. “We haven’t given ourselves much time, have we? What can we do that’s new?”

“You tell us!” Betty Landon retorted. “My mind’s a blank.”

“Carmela was saying we’d better have a form meeting after Abendessen,” Rikki Fry put in. “That’ll give us a chance to think up something among us.”

“And now, stop talking everyone and get down to work,” came from Pen Grant, who had suddenly remembered that she was the form’s sub-prefect, since Rosamund Lilley, its prefect, was also a school prefect and unable to be there always. “Scram and get your books, folks. We can’t play around now we’re Sixth Form. A Junior might land in on us at any moment and shouldn’t we hear about it if we were caught having a good gossip instead of working?” She giggled at the idea.

All the same, what she said was sense and there was a rush of those girls who had not already got out their work. Margot sighed, but she saw no help for it. Con’s words about her work had gone home. If she wanted her parents to agree to her accepting Emerence Hope’s invitation, she had better have decent marks to show them. If she slacked off, they might easily use that as an excuse for refusing her, and she felt that if that happened, life wouldn’t be worth living for her in the summer holidays!

In this, she was doing Dr and Mrs Maynard less than justice, but her mind was in a turmoil at the moment. It was with the greatest reluctance that she put Emerence’s letter out of her mind as far as she could and turned to her biology, English essay and algebra. Luckily, she was keenly interested in the biology and once she began to work she became absorbed in it, and even her thrilling invitation was forgotten for the moment.

Con found it much harder to give her mind to her work. She fully sympathised with her sister’s longing to see Australia and she hoped that there would be no difficulty.

Len, keeping order with that very rowdy form, Lower IVb, was in the same boat. As she answered questions, helped sundry people with work they did not fully understand, and attended to her own preparation in the intervals, she kept thinking about Margot’s unexpected invitation. As a result, Lower IVb found her much sterner over their various devices for wasting time than usual.

“No, Jack; you can understand that problem quite well if you take the trouble to think it out,” she said firmly to a twelve-year-old who had brought some arithmetic for explanation. “I’m not going to do all your work for you. Go back to your seat and worry it out for yourself.”

Jack, who had hoped for better things—she had a Noughts and Crosses tournament to finish off with her nextdoor neighbour, once their legitimate work was done—went back to her seat, grievously disappointed.

Ghislaine Touvet, coming with a difficult piece of English analysis, got even shorter shrift.

“Find your predicate and then go on,” was all Len vouchsafed her.

Ghislaine fetched a sigh from the soles of her slippers and went back to her seat after bestowing a reproachful glance on the sub-prefect. It was wasted, for Len didn’t see it, having turned to her German again.

No one else came off much better, and Lower IVb, who were apt to regard Len Maynard as one of the most helpful members of the prefect body, had quite a good deal to say when at long last prep was over and they were free to go to their commonroom and discuss matters with a vim and point that might have given their elders to think furiously.

Meanwhile Len, having seen them safely there, departed for the library to look up a quotation she wanted for her English essay and contrived, at last, to concentrate fully on her work for the remainder of prep. But when she joined the others shortly before the bell rang, she found that she was going to have no chance for any further discussion with Margot. Rosamund Lilley had called for a form meeting as soon as Abendessen and Prayers were over to discuss their entertainment for Saturday. She also requested that all of them would think hard during the meal and try to have some fresh ideas to put up at the meeting.

On the whole, neither Len nor Con was really sorry for this. They wanted a chance to straighten out their thoughts, and if the form meeting went on till bedtime, as it almost certainly would, that gave them a little more time for it. Neither felt very sure what their parents would, think about it. As Con said to herself, Australia was a long way away—further, even, than Canada.

Once they were assembled in their own formroom again, they had no chance to worry any more about it. Until the bell rang for bedtime, VIb were hard at it discussing their entertainment. It was finally decided to hold an impromptu concert, the items to be given by various people who would know nothing about it until they were called on. Also, as the form had cookery on Friday, they would ask leave to make cakes and creams and provide refreshments. That settled, they had to make out a list of those unfortunates who were to supply the various items for their entertainment.

“And that,” said Rosamund with satisfaction as she looked at their final list, “should fill up the evening nicely. As they won’t know who we’re going to ask, if we have to cut one or two, they won’t be disappointed.”

“Won’t some of them swear, though, when their names are read out!” Ted said with a chuckle. “What sort of notice are you putting up, Ros?”

Rosamund considered. “I think just ‘Come prepared for shocks!’ ” she said finally, and the whole eighteen broke into roars of laughter at what the rest of the school would think about that very cryptic notice.

The bell rang then and they had to go, and the sisters’ talk was definitely off. But before she finally cuddled down to sleep, Len had made up her mind what to do and she slept dreamlessly until the morning came.

As it turned out, there was no need for further discussion between the triplets. In the middle of the morning, just before the school’s mid-morning break, Joey Maynard arrived in the Head’s study, muffled up to the lower rim of the big black coils of hair over her ears. Under her scarlet beret, her black eyes were gleaming and the nipping cold had stung scarlet into her cheeks. She walked in, pulled off beret, scarf and big coat, tossing them down on the nearest chair, turned to grin at the Head, who was one of her oldest friends, and threw herself into a chair near the big stove.

“B-rrr! How cold it is!”

Miss Annersley’s greeting was anything but hospitable. “Joey Maynard! What on earth do you want at this hour?”

“Hospitable creature! What a way to welcome a dear friend! Still, as you ask, I’ve come for a little information. Hilda! I’ve had a letter.”

“Is that anything very extraordinary? I imagine you have half a dozen or more most days in the week. What have you been doing?”

“Nothing whatsoever. I’ve been leading the most blameless life imaginable ever since term began and bereft me of most of my family. As for letters, with a sister and nieces in Australia and sons in England, not to speak of publishers, old friends and sundry relatives scattered about the world, I get my share of them. But this is A letter!”

“What do you mean? Do stop talking to me so cryptically! Who has been writing to you?”

“It’s from the Hopes,” Joey condescended to explain. “Mrs Hope has written me a letter of eight pages, mostly holding six lines of the most sprawly, curly writing I’ve ever beheld. She wants me to let Margot go to them for the summer holidays. Apparently Mr Hope and Emerence are going to England on business—at least he is. The idea seems to be that he parks Emerence somewhere in our midst while he goes on and gets busy. When he’s through, he’ll come round this way to pick up his one and only, and they want to take Margot back with them, sending her home in time for the beginning of the Christmas term.”

“Shall you let her go?” Miss Annersley asked curiously.

“Haven’t actually made up my mind yet. It would be a glorious chance for her to see something of Australia, and I’m all for girls—and boys, too, if you come to that—seeing something of the world, especially of the Commonwealth. It gives them a chance to realise that there are other countries and peoples beside their own and prevents them from becoming parochial and narrow. Jack agrees with me. The only thing that’s worrying me is what, exactly, are the Hopes like—the elders, I mean? I know all about Emmy. What little pests she and Margot used to be!” she added reminiscently.

The Head broke into a peal of laughter. “Don’t I know it! Still, by the time she left us Emerence was more or less of a reformed character. Margot has pulled up amazingly, too. I don’t think you need worry about that side of it. As for the parents, from all I can gather, Mrs Hope is something of a crank. She seems to be always mounting fresh hobby horses and riding them violently until something else comes along that appeals to her, when she drops the last craze like a hot potato. But isn’t Madge still in Sydney? Why don’t you write to her for information? The Hopes got them their flat, didn’t they? You write to Madge and ask her. She’ll know the latest. What’s more, if you do let Margot go, she can keep an eye on that young woman—from a distance, of course. I agree that it would be a magnificent chance for her to go there just at this time. I really don’t know what more you can want.”

Joey looked at her with wide black eyes. “What a complete ninny I am! Of course Madge can look after her at a distance, as you say. Nothing could be better.”

“What about the expense?” the Head asked.

“Apart from pocket-money and some new clothes there won’t be any. Mr Hope has his own plane and a cousin of Emerence’s is his pilot. They’d fly in that so the journey would cost nothing. It might have been different if we had fares to pay for her: it wouldn’t be just to the rest if we forked out four or five hundred pounds for one child only. Besides, I don’t think we could do it. Oh, well, that settles the matter. She may go. By the way, do you know if she herself has heard anything about it?”

“Rosalie told me she had a letter from Australia yesterday,” the Head said.

“Then she knows!” Joey said with conviction. “Emmy could never keep such a proposal to herself—it’s beyond her. Has Margot been at all revved up?”

“Not that I’ve heard of. I’ve had no complaints. I had that form for literature first lesson and she was just as usual—worked well and had prepared her work thoroughly. I was very pleased with her—with all three, in fact. Len has always been a joy to teach and Con can beat most girls at English. If they go on as they’re doing, they’re going to be a credit to everyone.”

Joey laughed. “If I know my Margot, she was sitting on herself good and hard. I expect the other two warned her. Hilda, may I have them for Break? I can’t keep them in suspense—not over such a big thing as this. I expect Margot is burning to know what we’ll say about it and the other two will be equally anxious.”

“Will she have told them yet?” Miss Annersley asked.

“Almost certainly. They still hang together a good deal, even though they’ve branched out in a good many ways and have different chums. I suppose,” Joey spoke reflectively, “the tie between them will always be closer than between ordinary sisters.”

“It’s bound to be, isn’t it?” Miss Annersley said. She had left her seat and was standing scanning the school timetable on the wall. “Yes: I thought I was right. They have gym after Break and they may miss that for once.” She glanced at her watch. “I’ll send for coffee and biscuits, for us, and when Break ends, I’ll send for them to come here and you may have them for the period. I’m teaching the rest of this morning, so the place will be all yours. Don’t keep them when the bell goes, though. They have history after that and Rosemary Charlesworth doesn’t like either late-comers or absentees.”

“That’s O.K. by me. I’ll have to be getting back in any case. The twins will be rousing from their nap and, apart from that, if you ask me we’re in for something like weather.” Joey shivered violently as she gestured towards the window. “Look at that sky! There’s a blizzard on the way or my name’s not Josephine Mary Maynard!”

The bell pealed forth at that moment for Break. When it was silent again, Miss Annersley said, “If it begins to snow, you must go at once, whether you’ve finished all you have to say or not. I don’t want to hear of you wandering round and round the place in a snowstorm.” She touched the bell and when the pleasant Swiss girl answered it, gave her instructions for coffee and biscuits. Joey, standing by the window surveying the prospect, half-turned.

“I can always finish up on the ’phone—unless something happens to it. But I’ll go all right. I know our winters here too well to take any mad risks. You needn’t be afraid of that.”

While they waited for their coffee, the Head joined her former pupil at the window. The prospect was not pleasing. The sky was filled with heavy, yellowish-grey clouds that seemed to be resting their full weight on the mountain peaks. A thin mist was rising and the whiteness of the snow was chilling in the extreme. Such light as there was seemed to be fading, and Miss Annersley whirled round to press the switch by the door and flood the room with a warm light.

“That’s better! And here come our Elevenses. Danke sehr, Anna,” as the smiling maid entered with a tempting tray. “Please go to the Speisesaal and say that I wish to see die Fräulein Maynard here after Break. Danke!”

Anna smiled a “Jawohl, gnädige Frau,” and withdrew.

Karen, the head of the Chalet School domestic staff, was an old stager. She had joined the school when it was in Tirol and had been with it ever since. She had known Joey Maynard as a schoolgirl with a very healthy appetite, and the plate of biscuits and tiny cakes she had sent in were enough to tempt an epicure. Joey enjoyed her snack, but she kept an uneasy eye on the sky. So did the Head, who looked relieved when the bell sounded for the end of Break. She rang for Anna to carry the tray away, gathered up her books and departed to give Inter V a tutoring in the art of essay-writing.

Left alone, Joey sauntered back to the window and stood looking out again. “I’ll take time by the forelock,” she muttered to herself, and was in the act of pulling on her coat when she heard light footsteps outside and a tap at the door heralded the entry of her daughters.

They came in looking slightly apprehensive. Miss Annersley’s message had summoned them to the study without giving them any explanation and they were searching their consciences for possible sins. At sight of their mother, however, this changed. They flung themselves on her with a vim that excused her exclamation of, “Mercy—mercy! Leave some of me for the others!”

“Mother! How did you know we wanted you?” Len cried when they had disentangled themselves and were standing round her.

Joey grinned. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“We would,” Con told her firmly. “Anyhow, we do want you.”

“Come on; sit down and let’s talk,” Margot urged.

“Let me look at you first,” Joey protested.

They were a pleasant sight for any mother. Len, tall, slender, with her dark chestnut locks drawn into a shining pony-tail, her violet-grey eyes thoughtful, the mark of the born student in her serious face; Margot, standing next to her, built on a broader scale, but alive from the ends of her short red-gold curls to the tips of her shoes; Con, smaller than the others, with a certain dreaminess in her brown eyes which was missing in her sisters. All three were most attractive in their school uniforms and Joey nodded approvingly.

“Yes; there isn’t anything the matter with you apart from Margot’s hair which is all on end as usual; and Len’s fingers. What have you been doing?”

“Dyed my old green blouse a darker green and it simply won’t wash off.”

“Oh, well, it’ll vanish in time. Now then, sit down and we’ll talk. We’ve only this lesson at most and if it begins to snow, you won’t see me for dust. Something thoroughly nasty is brewing up there.” She nodded towards the window.

“What’s happened?” Len demanded as they sat down.

“Margot has an invitation. You know all about it already, don’t you? I know Emerence has written.”

“Yes; oh, may I go?” Margot asked with fervour.

“Certainly you may, so long as the Hopes are willing to wait for you till the end of the summer term. You aren’t missing matric for any invitation, however thrilling, my lady. And, of course, so long as you don’t let anticipation spoil your schoolwork. I must make that proviso. But I imagine you knew all that beforehand.”

“Oh, I swear if it depends on my work I’ll be able to go,” Margot told her.

“Good!” Len said with satisfaction. “Margot will love it and we can do without her for once in a way. We’ll all be extra rowdy to make up for her so that you don’t miss her.”

“Well, I like that!” Margot exclaimed; but her cry was drowned by Joey’s own remark of, “Thanks a lot, but I’d rather not. You can make row enough in your own characters without intensifying it for any reason whatsoever.” She turned to Margot. “That’s settled, then. You’d better write to Emmy on Sunday and put her out of her misery as soon as you can. I expect she’s on tenterhooks until she hears. But make it clear to her that you aren’t missing one day’s school. And you are to leave them in time to be here for the beginning of the Christmas term. That must be understood. However, your Aunt Madge will most likely be on hand to see to it. I’m not worrying about it.”

“We wondered if you’d remember about Auntie Madge,” Con remarked. “That really does make it all right for Margot, doesn’t it?”

“It’s more or less the deciding factor.” Joey had kept an eye on the window. Now she jumped up and caught up her scarf. “Here comes the snow and I’m off. I don’t want to be badly caught and that sky means mischief. I’ve no fancy for playing ‘Lucy Grey’, even if it’s only in two gardens I know like the back of my hand.” She swaddled herself firmly and kissed them all round before she made for the door where she turned to add, “If this proves a lengthy business you won’t see me for the next few days. Be good and work hard and sandwich in all the fun you can as well. No: don’t come to the door with me. I’m going out by the french window; it’s the shortest way. You’d better go and see if Peggy Burnett will admit you to the last half of her gym lesson. Ta-ta! Be seeing you!” She fled, for the first flakes of fine, dry snow were thickening as they drifted down and no one knew better than she how bewildering the dervish dances of Alpine snowstorms can be.

Left alone, the three girls looked at each other. Len was the first to speak. “I’d better go and fasten that french window again. If the wind rises it might blow it open, and I can just see Auntie Hilda’s face if she found a young snowdrift piled up in her salon. Mother forgot she couldn’t shut the thing properly. Wait for me and we’ll go to gym together.”

While she was gone, Con gave Margot a matey grin. “We needn’t have fussed about how Mamma would take it after all.”

“So it seems. All the same, I’m glad you two agreed to back me up if I needed it,” Margot replied.

Len returned. “It’s going to be a smasher, let me tell you. I hope Mother gets home before it’s any worse. Just look at it already!”

The triplets surveyed the falling snow with thoughtful faces.

“It’s not too bad so long as the wind doesn’t rise,” Margot said, speaking in German which was the official language of the day, though they had conveniently forgotten that while their mother was with them. “It isn’t far to go, Len. She’ll be nearly home by this time. Tell you what! Let’s wait and see if she rings up to say she’s arrived all right.”

This seemed a good idea to them and they waited until the Head’s telephone—a private one to Freudesheim—rang. Len answered it.

“Len speaking. That you? Did you manage all right?”

“I did, thank you. And now, you three kindly trot off to gym and don’t bother about me. I can manage my own adventures, thank you. Just see that you three keep out of mischief where the snow’s concerned. Bye-bye!” was Joey’s reply before she firmly hung up.

“So that’s O.K.,” her eldest daughter said, replacing the receiver on its cradle. “We’d better go, I suppose.”

Margot held them up a moment. “Just a sec! You two don’t feel I’m being ghastly selfish going off like this and leaving you to do all the odd jobs when the hols come, do you?” She eyed them anxiously.

“Oh, don’t be so silly!” Len said impatiently. “Of course we don’t. And since it’s Thursday,” she went on, changing with stunning abruptness to German, “and therefore German day, we’d better try to remember. I, for one, don’t want to be hauled up for setting the Juniors and Middles a bad example.”

“Nor I,” Con assented. “Auntie Hilda’s a poppet, but she can beat everyone on the staff of this school when she really gets going. We’d better go to the gym and see if we can placate Burnie for being late. Thought up how best we can do it, either of you?”

“Of course!” Margot was ready at once. “All we’ve got to say is that the Head sent for us. She can’t make a fuss then.”

“We’d better say Mummy sent for us,” Len observed. “She’ll be even less likely to say anything then. Come on! We’ve got all we want at the moment.” And she led the race to the gymnasium.

Margot’s invitation seemed to have had the effect of spurring her on to work her hardest. Extreme delicacy as a child, followed by years of slacking alternated at long intervals by sudden bursts of industry, had left her far behind her sisters in some ways. By the time the three were fourteen, Len and Con were forging ahead and Margot was content to stay somewhere in the middle of the form below them. Events during that summer had roused her to a consciousness of what her character might become.^[2] Thereafter, she had worked steadily for the most part. She could always learn when she chose—Joey declared that, so far, she was the most brilliant of the long Maynard family—but her foundations had been lacking, and over and over again this had proved a stumbling-block. It was only now, after two years of intensive work, that she had reached the same form as her sisters. With her excitable temperament it would not have been surprising if Emerence’s invitation had made a break, so it was a distinct relief to everyone when she showed no sign of allowing it to do so.

“If you go on like this,” Francie Wilford told her one day early in the next week, “you’ll be wiping all our eyes—including Rosamund’s and Len’s.”

Margot grinned at her. “Don’t you believe it! Len can still make rings round me. You see, she has one asset that I haven’t.”

“But what, zen, may zat be?” queried Jeanne Daudet from the next desk.

“What is what?” Margot asked. “Do you mean an asset?”

“But no; I know what zat means,” Jeanne returned. “I was asking what it is zat Len has which you have not.”

“Oh, I see. Sorry! All I meant was that Len is a born student and I’m not—definitely not.”

There was no time for more, for quick steps were heard outside and Mdlle de Lachennais, head of the languages department, entered, and the conversation had to cease. It was the last lesson of the morning, and once they had put their books away the girls trooped off to their Splashery to make themselves tidy for Mittagessen. Len and the other prefects and sub-prefects in the form had gone to the prefects’ room where they kept their belongings. Now Len came flying to the Splashery, her eyes shining and her face aglow.

“What’s cooking?” Rikki Fry demanded as she settled her glasses on her pretty nose.

“Ski-ing!” Len announced joyfully. “We’ve been tied to the house for nearly a week now, thanks to the snow. But it’s frozen hard overnight and it’s decently fine today, so Deney says we’re having ski-ing this afternoon—Move over, Francie, and give other folk a chance to wash, please!—No tobogganing——”

“Why not?” demanded half-a-dozen voices.

“Gaudenz says some of the pines by the side of the run aren’t safe. Quite a lot of branches have fallen and there may be others. Anyhow, we may ski but not toboggan. We’re off as soon as rest period is over. No lessons at all this afternoon, praise be!” She went to find her towel and Jeanne turned to Margot with a sudden smile.

“But is zat your born student?” she asked demurely.

Margot chuckled. “Of course it is. Len isn’t just a dig, thank goodness! Not that she’d have much chance of it in our family. Anyhow, we’ve been stuck for days and days and anyone would be thankful to get out! Don’t tell me!”

“When did Deney tell you?” Con asked Len.

“She’d been in and told Maeve just before our crowd arrived at the end of school. Maeve and the rest were chortling. Well, so did we when we heard. I’m just sick of the house!” And Len surveyed herself as well as she could in the square inch or so of mirror she could see. “That’s O.K. By the way, Deney said we were all to wear our glasses. The clouds are breaking and the sun’s coming out and you know what the glare off the snow will be like in that case. So don’t forget. Nobody wants a touch of snow-blindness, I imagine.”

They were all agreed on this. One or two of them had had one experience and the rest had heard all about it from them. No one was anxious to try it.

“Better cock an eye at the Junior Middles before they go out,” Heather Clayton observed. “You know how heedless those young monkeys are.”

This, from Heather who had been a byword for heedlessness in her younger days, brought a series of derisive chuckles from the rest of VIb.

“Listen to the pot calling the kettle black!” Francie said.

“Oh, she’s reformed since she became a member of the Sixth,” Ted Grantley grinned. “O.K., Heather, my sweetie-pie! We’ll watch your little emulators.”

“But what is zat—‘emulators’?” demanded Jeanne, always on the watch for new words.

“Copycats,” Ted said briefly.

By this time they were ready to leave the Splashery, and all streamed off to the Senior commonroom to await the sound of the gong. No one talked of anything but the afternoon’s prospect. Even Margot forgot about her Australian trip. Their chatter was broken by the mellow notes of the great Burmese gong and they stopped talking and marched off to the Speisesaal.

Mittagessen was always followed by a half-hour’s rest period, but once that was ended the girls couldn’t get ready fast enough. During the meal the sun had come out, as Miss Dene, the school secretary, had foretold. The prefects dressed as quickly as they could and then went to oversee their juniors. Quite a number of people had to be sent to retrieve their coloured glasses, but at last everyone was outside, lined up in their forms. Mistresses came to take charge, and they all set off for the great stretch of meadowland beyond the school’s grounds where they usually practised ski-ing. By an unwritten law of the school that novices were helped by those who were experienced, a number of the younger girls had been taken, one between two, so that there was no delay in reaching their goal. Once they were there, they spread out, some practising various movements; others racing; quite a number helping others. The Staff, too, were occupied in this last, but a good share of the teaching was done by the girls themselves.

Con and Margot, experienced ski-ers both, had taken a twelve-year-old between them. Michelle Cabràn came from the south of France and had seen little snow in her short life. She shivered as she looked round when they reached the meadow. Even with the sun shining on the ice-bound snow, it looked bleak to her.

“Cold?” queried Margot, who was looking round herself. “You’ll be hot enough soon. Are you taking her, Con? Then I’m off to help Ruey with Mélanie. Mel still needs a lot of help at times.” She dropped Michelle’s arm and was skimming off with a beautiful birdlike movement.

Con was looking round her, too; but she saw the whole effect as a picture, which Margot did not. She drew a long breath of ecstasy. How wonderful it was—the pale blue sky with great white shoulders of mountains heaved up against it, rank after rank; the tall black trunks of the pines that furred the nearest mountain slopes; the crisp snow sparkling brilliantly under the blaze of the sun; the flying figures in their gay suits giving the needed touch of colour to the scene. Con sighed again with satisfaction before turning to Michelle.

“Come along, Michelle! You mustn’t stand about or you will be cold. See; it’s like this. Slide your foot forward, bending a little at the knee. Now the other. Don’t be afraid; I’ve got you and I won’t let you fall. Ow! Keep the points of your skis apart—keep them apart!” She gripped Michelle firmly as she spoke, only just saving her from a fall as the ski-points rushed together.

Michelle shrieked. “Hélas! Jamais ne pourrai-je le faire!” she wailed.

“Oh, yes, you will,” Con said bracingly. “Keep to English, by the way, Michelle. This is English day, you know, and you ought to know a fair amount by this time. Now try again. You can trust me not to let you go, can’t you?”

“I cannot!” Michelle sounded despairing. “Me, I am so—so stupide!”

“Of course you’re not. You only need practice. I was just as bad when I began. Yes, truly!” as Michelle gave her an incredulous look. “Almost everyone is. You should have seen some of Emmy Hope’s efforts when she first began.” Con laughed. “Never shall I forget her face when she found she’d done the splits!”

“But what is zat—zee splits?” Michelle had forgotten her fear in curiosity.

“One leg going behind and one befront,” Con explained, still chuckling. “Honestly, Michelle, you can if you try. Come along and I’ll hold you. First the right foot; now the left. Oh, good! Now another—watch those ski-points! Now again!”

Frightened Michelle thought Con Maynard was cruel to insist like this, but Con was firm and she had to go on. If now and then the elder girl glanced enviously at some of the others swinging past so happily, her pupil never knew it.

“But it’s going to be a long job,” she thought to herself. “Michelle is so scarey. I wish she’d get a little self-confidence.”

Self-confidence was just what Michelle most lacked. She was a nervous, timid child at best. Jack Lambert of her form had been heard to declare that her middle name must be “Chuchundra”—Jack had been reading The Jungle Books during the holidays—for she was afraid of her own shadow!

Again and again Con guided her steps and, so long as the elder girl held her up, she contrived to manage a little. Once she was left to move under her own steam, over she went! Con wished heartily that someone would come along to help her, but Margot had gone off to join Ruey and Mélanie, the two people nearest to being her chums since Emerence Hope had left school. Len was hard at work with another tyro and most of the others were either similarly occupied or enjoying themselves at the far side of the meadow. However, someone was keeping an eye on her and her pupil. Miss Ferrars suddenly came flying up to them and took over.

“Off you go, Con. You’ve done your share of helping.” She smiled down at Michelle who was thankfully standing still. “Con’s been very good to you, Michelle. We’ll send her off to enjoy herself and see what I can do for you.”

Michelle looked up shyly at Con. “Zank you ver’ mooch,” she said.

Con laughed down at her. “You’ve tried hard and Miss Ferrars will help you far better than I can. Go to it! By this time next week, you’ll be able to move under your own steam if you try.” She glanced at the mistress. “Thanks a lot, Miss Ferrars.”

Miss Ferrars laughed, waved her off, and turned her attention to Michelle. Con swung round on her skis in a beautiful curve and was off, skimming over the ground with the same birdlike movement Michelle had seen in many of the others.

“But nevaire shall I be able to move like zat!” she said with a sigh.

“Oh yes, you will,” Miss Ferrars told her confidently. “It’s just the beginning that’s so hard. Now take my arm and let’s see how you can manage.”

Meanwhile Con, free to enjoy herself at last, was flying along, rejoicing in her own swift movements and the glory round her.

“I believe I could write a sonnet about this,” she thought as she swooped round a gang of Middles who shrieked and cleared out of the way in a hurry.

She raced on, avoiding the others for a few minutes. Presently she would join one of the groups but first she must have a chance to take in the whole scene. More than any of the rest of the family Con had inherited her mother’s writing gifts and imagination. She was deeply sensitive to any kind of beauty and the glories of the winter day appealed to her strongly. Close by a small chalet standing near the road, she halted and stood gazing across the valley, so absorbed in what she saw that she never noticed a flying trio heading for her until they swooped down on her and a voice exclaimed, “Stop dreaming, Con! Come on for a real run. Grab my hand! Now then, everyone off!”

The next moment she was racing at full speed, the dreamy look of absorption leaving her face like magic. Her eyes danced and the icy air stung scarlet into the normal faint pink of her cheeks. Right to the far end of the meadowland they went before they stopped, breathless and laughing, as they dropped hands and swung round to ski back, as soon as they had got their breath.

“Yes; you needed that!” Len said severely. “However long had you been working on that kid Michelle?”

“It seemed ages,” Con said. “D’you think she’ll ever get it? She’s terrified to put one foot before the other, even when she’s hanging on to you like grim death. As for going alone, she can’t take two steps without going over.”

“Oh, she’ll get it in time,” Rosamund Lilley said tolerantly.

“But why were you doing it alone?” Ted Grantley asked. “I though Margot was with you? I know you started out together.”

“She went to help Mélanie Lucas,” Con explained.

“But wasn’t Mel with Ruey?”

“She was; but Ruey’s none too steady herself, even yet,” Con pointed out. “Remember that lovely cropper she came last term? I thought she was trying to do a cartwheel in her skis!”

At the memory they all went off into peals of laughter. It had really been very funny and Ruey’s expression as she finally landed with a wop! flat on her face had been funniest of all.

“Well, what about racing back?” Len inquired when they were grave again.

“O.K. And let’s make a real race of it!” Con cried. “Come on! Bet I beat the lot of you!” And she was off, with the rest in full cry after her.

Len beat her in the end, but, as Con pointed out, if a pair of Junior Middles hadn’t come tumbling in her own path, she might not have done it.

“I had to swerve to avoid running over them—little wretches!” she said.

Len’s clear laughter rang out. “What an excuse! All the same, those kids should keep a better look-out. Hi, you two—Jack and Wanda! Keep your eyes open! You might have sent Con flying on top of you!”

Jack Lambert, a short, black-eyed tomboy of thirteen, grinned at her. “Not when she can swing right out in such a smash—er—gorgeous crescent,” she returned. “But I’m sorry if we spoilt a race or anything,” she added.

Wanda von Eschenau added her apologies before rounding on her chum. “But indeed, Jack, it was your fault. If you hadn’t stumbled against me I should not have fallen.”

“Rot! You jolly ought to be able to keep your feet by this time. You’ve been ski-ing ever since you could toddle!” Jack retorted with vim.

“Stop scrapping you two and scram,” Len said severely. “Best make the most of your time. We’ll be going back shortly. The light’s beginning to fade.” She glanced up at the sky as she spoke and gave an exclamation at what she was. The sun had vanished, and yellowish-grey clouds were boiling up in the north—sure sign that more snow was on the way.

Other people had noticed it, too. The recall whistle rang out, shrill and sharp, halting most folk at once. They knew better than to disobey its call. Everyone formed up in long lines and, without delay, made for the school. Experts were rounding up novices and taking them along in short order. All the girls knew what portended and no one was anxious to be out in the kind of snowstorm that was clearly on the way. Con dived for Michelle who was looking a little happier and glanced round for someone to give her a hand. Len was there and she caught at Michelle’s free hand.

“Come on! We must scram!” she said brusquely. “Keep your feet together, Michelle, and leave everything to us. We’ll take you.”

Michelle obeyed and they were off, tailing on to the long, flying procession which was well ahead by this time. Already the tiny flakes, dry as powder, and betokening a heavy fall, were beginning to drift down. Con knew that it would be almost a miracle if they could reach shelter before it became really bad. By themselves, she and Len could have done it easily, but they were hampered by Michelle, who was a dead weight between them and made no effort to help herself at all. Over her head the eyes of the two elder girls met and each knew what the other was thinking. Len raised her eyebrows in an unspoken question and Con nodded. Both had thought they were going all out already. Now they strained every muscle and nerve. Never had they ski-ed at such a rate before.

Len was thinking that they were ski-ing against death. Already the snow was thickening and coming down in the swirling dance so bewildering to even experienced alpinists. The lines of girls ahead of them had vanished into that dizzying mist and they still had to reach the gate into the school grounds. It was not far, mercifully, and when they were through they never heeded the rule that said it must be closed, but merely ski-ed on, trusting to their sense of direction, since they had nothing else to guide them at the moment. Then Len gave a cry as she bumped into one of the hockey goal-posts. The shock halted them for a moment, but only a moment.

“Keep going!” Len jerked as she gripped Michelle’s hand more tightly. “Keep right, Con!”

Bewildered and frightened by the relentlessness of the storm, Michelle was sobbing under her breath but they dared not pause to comfort her. They dared not even waste words on her. They must keep all their breath for the run. Both knew how easy it would be to lose their direction and wander round in circles.

“I wish we were well out of this!” Con thought as she bore to the right.

Len’s mind was concentrated on feeling her way. If only they could find some landmark! If they didn’t, the playing-fields were wide and they might circle round and round until exhaustion forced them to drop. Then—at that point, she stopped thinking about it. She prayed to herself for help and help came. A dark mass, shoulder high, loomed up in front of them and Con gasped, “The hedge! Thank God!”

Len felt along it. “The hedge it is! We’re off the beam,” she panted. “Must keep going right to the fence! Can guide by that!”

The hedge gave them a little shelter as well as a guide. They had to go slowly, for Len was afraid of losing it if they went fast and she kept her free hand outstretched to feel for it so that they should keep to it.

Con had got her breath now and she asked a sudden question. “How do we manage when we reach the fence?”

“Climb over it. Go round the end of the hedge and climb back,” Len said succinctly.

“On skis?”

“No! Better stop here and take them off. We can’t carry them, but if we shove them into the hedge they’ll be safe enough for the time being.”

They stopped and the two Maynards slipped out of their skis, then turned to help Michelle. They had discarded their ski-sticks earlier. Now, with hands and feet free, Len thought they could manage Michelle more easily.

“Let’s give the kid a queen’s chair,” she said to Con, who assented immediately. They let go of Michelle who gave a cry of fear.

“Oh, ne m’abandonnez pas, je vous en prie!”

“Don’t be such a goop!” Con said crossly. “As if we would! We’re only making a queen’s chair to carry you. Ready, Len? Stoop down, then. Now, Michelle, sit on our hands and for pity’s sake stop talking blether!”

Michelle sat on their hands and they lifted her.

“Put your arms round our necks,” Len directed her. “Now, we’ll soon be under cover. Cheer up, kiddy!”

They carried her down to the fence, going slowly, for the snow was piling up and made walking difficult. At the fence they lowered her, and Con scrambled over into the road. Michelle followed, with the aid of a good boost from Len, who set her hands to the bars and vaulted over, to land into the beginnings of a drift from which she floundered as fast as she could. However, they were still together, and between them the elder pair hauled Michelle past the end of the hedge, then hoisted her across the fence once more.

“Don’t move a step from there,” Con warned her before clambering over herself. She saw the child beginning to sway, sprang forward and caught her, steadying her with a heartening, “Hold up, young ’un! Not much further to go now and we can’t get lost in the garden. We both know it like the backs of our hands.”

But it was not to be quite so easy as all that. For one thing, in the garden there were trees and shrubs to encounter. Before they had gone far, still keeping to the hedge, Con fell headlong over a small bush which seemed to have started up under her feet. All three went down and by the time they had picked themselves up, the storm was worse than ever. A chilling north wind was rising and gave every sign of becoming a howling gale before long. The elder pair joined hands again and got Michelle on to them. She was whimpering now, but she understood nothing of the danger which was filling the Maynards with alarm. They moved on slowly, for everyone was tiring quickly and the storm tore at them like a wild beast trying to rend them. The last dim light had gone and in the dark it was impossible to see any landmarks.

Len and Con were praying to themselves, but Michelle was growy drowsy with cold and weariness. When they reached a dark mass of trees and undergrowth, she was almost too far gone to hear Con’s exclamation.

“The shrubbery! Oh, thank God—thank God! It’s all right, Michelle! We’re past the worst and we’ll be at home in less than five minutes now!”

They found their way to the path running through the shrubbery, and here a fresh difficulty arose. It was much too narrow for them to walk even two abreast. They must set Michelle down and, if nothing else would serve, drag her along.

As soon as they set her on her feet, she sank to the ground, and when they pulled her up, she only murmured, “Oh, je suis trop fatiguée! Permettez-moi à dormir, je vous en prie!”

“No you don’t!” Len ejaculated, hauling at her. “Wake up, Michelle! You can’t go to sleep here!” She threw an arm round the little girl to hold her up.

“Un seul petit moment!” Michelle pleaded drowsily.

Con was on her like a tigress, shaking her violently. “Wake up!” she shouted. “Do you want us all to die here because you won’t make an effort? Wake up—wake up, I say!”

Michelle swayed helplessly in her grip, but the shaking and the sharp words did rouse her for a few moments, and in that time they had dragged her well into the shrubbery, where they found a little shelter from the worst of the storm. But then the dreaded sleepiness overwhelmed her once more and both Len and Con were too nearly exhausted themselves to do more than keep her upright.

Len forced herself to think. “Leave her here to me and you dash on to the school and give the alarm,” she ordered Con. “Quick! She’s well under, but I can keep her up for a few minutes longer.”

Con wasted no time on argument. Summoning every ounce of energy left in her weary body, she set off down the path as hard as she could go—which wasn’t very fast, but faster than she had thought she could manage. Len kept Michelle tightly against her. She even managed to stagger a few steps further with her. She was longing to lie down herself, but knew that to do so might prove fatal.

Mercifully, it didn’t last. There came the sound of voices muffled by the rising storm. Mustering the last remnants of her strength, she called as loudly as she could. Back came an answering yodel. That was the finish for Len. She had shot her bolt completely. With Michelle still clutched fast in her arms, she sank to the ground, and when the rescue party burst along the path, it was to find the pair of them lying in a huddle, both more or less unconscious.

Gaudenz stopped and lifted the elder girl in his brawny arms while big, sturdy Miss Wilmot picked up Michelle. They were borne away to school and the san where Nurse was bustling round, aided by Matey and Matron Henschell of St Agnes’. Con had already been stripped of her clothes and was in a hot bath. Len learned later that she had met the rescue party as it was sallying out of the big main entrance, and contrived to gasp out, “Len and Michelle—in the shrubbery,” before she dropped where she stood, to be carried into the house by Miss Burnett and Miss Armitage and handed over to Nurse. She had come round as they put her into the bath, but she was clearly worn out, and after telling her that the other two had been brought in safely Nurse forbade any more talk. She was left to Matron, who got her into hot pyjamas and saw her tucked up between hot blankets from the airing-cupboard before going to see how the other two were getting on.

Like Con, Len roused up in the bath to ask if Michelle and Con were all right. Then she, too, drowsed off. No one was badly worried about them. Both were blessed with good constitutions and excellent recuperative powers, and both were sturdy girls, able to endure even such fatigue as this had been and be all right once they had had a long sleep and plenty of warmth. Michelle was another matter. She was younger and far frailer, and her long stupor alarmed Nurse and the Matrons. They applied one remedy after another, but nothing availed. She lay there white and still, breathing feebly.

Dr Maynard had been sent for, but he was out when the message came and it was well after eighteen hours before he arrived. Things improved after that. An injection strengthened the heartbeat and further remedies finally ended the child’s torpor. She opened her eyes to smile feebly at Nurse, who was ready with hot milk and brandy; persuaded to sip it, Michelle fell into a natural sleep and the worst of the anxiety was over.

Miss Annersley had been over at Freudesheim at the time, but she had come with the doctor. She had seen Len and Con while he was busy with Michelle. Now she bent over the little girl and her face was white.

“Don’t worry,” said Jack cheerfully. “She’ll be all right now. Oh, fretty and aching for the next day or two, I don’t doubt; but that’s all. She’ll be her usual self by the end of the week, I expect.”

The Head stood up and drew a long breath of relief. “Thank God! And thank God, Joey is down at Montreux this week. I don’t think we’ll worry her with this story until she comes back and can see for herself that her daughters are unharmed, even after such an experience. Call me as soon as any of them rouse, Nurse; but I don’t think that’s likely for some hours yet, is it, Jack?”

He nodded. “Probably sleep the clock round and then some. You stop worrying, Hilda. It certainly wasn’t your fault—so far as I can see, it was no one’s fault. I, for one, never anticipated such a storm. It just blew up out of—er—the blue. And that’s not meant for a pun. Now I’m turning you over to Matey for a rest. You look like something the cat’s brought in!”

But Miss Annersley was still too upset to rise to his insults, though she went with Matron meekly enough. But then, as anyone connected with the school could have told you, that was nothing new!

That blizzard created a record. Even the longest-lived inhabitant of the Oberland vowed that never had he known or heard of one that came up so suddenly. It lasted until evening of the next day, an inferno of dizzying snowfall and high winds shrieking through the mountains like so many unleashed demons. No one who could help it set foot out of doors. Lights burned all day long, for the heavy skies pressing down cut off all but the dimmest daylight. Over the radio, the school began to get news of various disasters. Roads were blocked and so were railway lines. Drifts piled higher and higher until low-lying chalets were buried up to their roofs and even big hotels found their lower windows shrouded. Telephone and telegraph lines were down all over the area, so that communications were cut. A railway tunnel was blocked by a minor avalanche and it was just as well that no trains were in it at the time, for it was all of five days before it was finally cleared. Villages and hamlets on the upper shelves of the mountains were completely cut off and, but for the helicopter service organized by the Government, many of the inhabitants would have come off very badly, for no supplies could be got through by any other means.

Surprisingly enough, comparatively few lives were lost, though a number of people, caught unawares, had to be dug out of drifts and resuscitated. When the sun finally broke through on the Friday morning it shone over a still, white country where there was little movement. That was quickly remedied, for men were at work as soon as possible, clearing roads and railways. Traffic began to move, slowly at first, but presently much faster.

At the school, the Staff were thankful to learn that they were by no means the only ones who had been caught napping. The first overdue bags of mail came up late on Saturday afternoon, and Miss Dene, standing in the office, gasped and groaned at the work that lay before her. Apart from the usual letters, there were piles from anxious parents wanting to know how their daughters had fared. The telephone never ceased ringing once the lines had been repaired, and in the end she stalked up to the Staffroom and demanded help, which was speedily forthcoming. Half-a-dozen mistresses joined her, together with some of the girls. The mailbags were carried to the nearest formroom to be emptied and have their contents sorted. Then, while the girls settled themselves with their own mail, the mistresses set to work to type replies to all parents who had written, while Miss Annersley recruited another party, demanded the use of the Freudesheim telephone and extensions and got in touch with everyone she could to assure them that the girls were safe and well.

Halfway through the evening, a frantic call came from Joey Maynard to know if all her schoolchildren were safe. She was still down at Montreux with the three babies and likely to remain there till after the weekend; the motor road through the mountains had been badly blocked halfway along by an avalanche, which had brought down a bridge as well as making the road impassable. The old road at the Sanatorium end was equally impossible.

“So I’ve just got to stay here,” she wound up a diatribe on the situation to Miss Annersley. “Honestly, Hilda, it’s the worst show I’ve ever known. Now tell me exactly what’s happened to my lot.”

“Ruey, Margot and the twins are all quite all right,” Hilda Annersley began cautiously. “The twins were under cover before the storm began and Ruey and Margot a few minutes later. Len and Con had rather a nasty experience, I’m sorry to say. They stopped to help that child, Michelle Cabràn. She was new last term and can’t ski at all, so that slowed them up and they were badly caught. Mercifully, your two kept their heads and the three of them got back safely. Len and Con were worn out the day after and Nurse kept them in bed. They’re all right now, however, and back in school. It was only fatigue, thank goodness!”

“You’re sure they’re all right?” Joey’s anxious voice came back.

“Not a sniffle between them,” her friend assured her.

“Thank heaven for that! What about Michelle?”

“Not so good. She’s much younger than those two and not nearly so sturdy. She’s still in san—in Isolation, in fact—with a streaming cold. However, her temperature was down today and she was able to use a hanky for the first time since it all happened.”

“What on earth did she have before?” Joey demanded, rapidly becoming her own insouciant self, now she knew that her own responsibilities were well. “Not the sheet, I hope!”

“Joey! As if it would be allowed!” Miss Annersley protested. “She had wads of cottonwool. Her poor little nose was swelled to three times its normal size and she could scarcely see out of her eyes. However, that’s past and she’s coming round nicely, I’m thankful to say. Mercifully, Jack was at home and he contrived to get across and we kept him firmly until the blizzard was over. We haven’t seen him since. He set out for the San yesterday morning as soon as Frühstück was over and, so far as I know, he’s there yet.”

“You were lucky! Usually, he never is at home when he’s wanted.”

“I’ve heard you say so,” Miss Annersley agreed drily. “Now I must ring off. We’re having a hair-raising time with other anxious parents ringing up or wiring or writing. Rosalie and more than half the Staff have been hard at it ever since this afternoon. Goodbye!” She hung up and turned to the next task.

However, she was not yet finished with the repercussions of the storm.

Sunday morning dawned on another sunny day. The ending of the blizzard had brought with it keen frost and the new-fallen snow was hard as iron. The school went to its usual services in one or other of its own two chapels. In the afternoon they went for ski-runs, and in the evening occupied themselves quietly.

“Hope it keeps fine tomorrow,” observed Mary Murrell to Maeve Bettany as they sat in the Prefects’ room chatting together. “I never want to see another storm like that. We didn’t have anything like it when we were down by Geneva.”

Maeve laughed. “If you come to that, we’ve never known such a ghastly one. I don’t suppose there’ll be another like it for years to come, either. Everyone says it was a freak storm.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Monica Garstin joined in their talk. “And it’s as well we are here and not at the new place. At least you people know what to do, but I doubt if anyone at St Hilda’s could have dealt with such a situation.”

“Oh, we’d have coped somehow,” Mary yawned. “I am sleepy.” She stretched, with another cavernous yawn, then she sat up. “On the whole, it’s just as well we had that fire at the beginning of last term and were forced to join up with you. I imagine the place where Miss Holroyd had established St Hilda’s caught it as badly as the Görnetz Platz.”

“So good comes out of evil,” Monica said didactically. Then they all burst out laughing and turned to something else.

More folk than Mary were drowsy. They had been outside as much as possible and, between the fresh air and energetic exercise, everyone was ready for bed when it came. By midnight, the entire school was wrapped in slumber.

At about three o’clock in the morning Matey suddenly roused up with the feeling that all was not well. Matron Lloyd had been with the school since the second year of its inception. Joey Maynard was apt to allude to her as one of its foundation stones and teased her with having school in her very bones. Matey only laughed, but she knew that the Chalet School was bound up with her life. It is a fact that she seemed able to sense any unusual occurrence long before anyone else, even in her sleep. Now, she sat up in bed, listening. All was silence and she lay down again, but not to sleep.

Finally, she scrambled out, muttering aloud, “There is something up. I can feel it in my bones. I’ll just go the rounds and see what’s wrong.”

She pulled on her thick dressing-gown and bedroom slippers. For good measure, she wrapped a big shawl round her shoulders. Then she picked up a mammoth torch from her desk, and, thus armed, stalked forth, prepared to make a tour of the entire place.

It was no light job. The school had begun in what had once been a big tourist hotel. As its numbers grew, sundry chalets had been taken in and then annexes had been built. The whole was linked up by a series of wooden corridors, so that in bad weather no one need go outside to get from one part to another. The only place not so connected was St Mildred’s, the finishing branch, which was about a quarter of a mile away from the school proper.

The upper corridors were all lit by pilot lights which burned all night, but the dormitories, of course, were in darkness. Matey entered each one with the light from her torch thrown on the floor. She peeped between the curtains of every cubicle, but, so far as she could see, not a girl was out of bed, nor was there any sign of anything unusual happening.

From Ste Thérèse de Lisieux, the main House, she went on to St Clare’s, St Hild’s, St Agnes’ and St Scholastika’s. She even invaded the corridor given up to the Staff, though she left the Head’s Annexe alone for the moment. Everyone seemed to be given up entirely to sleeping.

“Dormice!” Matey said to herself with some scorn. “Well, at least no one is midnighting, that’s certain. And Michelle came back to her own dormitory today, so there’s no one in san. What on earth can be wrong?”

A sudden memory of the fire at St Hilda’s School, of which the prefects had been talking that evening, assailed her and she went downstairs at top speed. Like the majority of Swiss houses, the Chalet School was largely built of wood and a fire there could be disastrous.

She went straight to the kitchen regions, though it is hard to say why she should have imagined a fire there. All the cooking was done by huge slow-burning ovens that were hermetically sealed. The boilers for the central heating were also sealed. Sniff as she would, Matey could detect no sign of fire.

“Well, that’s so much to the good,” she thought. “It can’t be burglars. No burglar in his senses would break into a boarding-school of all places! It must be some of the girls. What can those young monkeys be up to?”

She could think of a number of things. Apart from midnights, which were rare in any case, at the end of the previous term, two Junior Middles, Jack Lambert and Gillie Garstin, had created a sensation by climbing out on to the roof to rescue one of the cats who had voyaged up there and then been unable to get back.^[3] There was a lurid legend much further back in the school’s history of how one Biddy O’Ryan had told stories after Lights Out to a pack of her own crowd. Biddy’s stories were mainly Irish legends and one of them had been so horrifying that it had set Alixe von Elsen sleepwalking, uttering the most hair-raising howls as she went. The affair had been complicated by a monumental thunderstorm and the whole lot had been well and truly caught.^[4]

Matron suddenly started as she reached this point. Sleep-walking! That must be it. They had one girl with a history of sleep-walking—Con Maynard. She had done it at intervals throughout her school career. The last had been nearly two years ago and everyone had thought that she must be outgrowing the tendency at long last. No doubt about it! Her experience in the storm must have upset her and she was at it again. Well, she must be found and taken back to bed. But first—Matey was a cautious creature—it would be as well to make sure that Con was out of bed. If she were not, then the Head must be awakened, for it would be a mystery which Matey felt was beyond her.

Back upstairs she went, rather wearily now. She had had the usual full day, and covering such an area of the school had meant a long walk. Luckily, Con was a member of Ste Thérèse’s, so there was not so far to go. Furthermore, she slept in Pansy, which was on the first floor, near the head of the school stairs.

Matey quickly reached it and went in. Con’s cubicle was at the far end of the dormitory, for this term she had been promoted to dormitory prefect. Matey slipped in between the curtains and threw the light of her torch on the bed. It was empty. What she had taken for Con had been the pillow. She remembered now that Con had a trick of pulling her pillow down against her back during the very cold weather. Between this and the fluffy plumeau which all the girls had during the winter months, it had been easy to make such a mistake on her first round.

Relieved beyond measure at this simple solution to her problem, Matey forgot her weariness. She withdrew with swift, noiseless steps and set off once more in search of the wanderer. There was no need to hunt through the other dormitories again. If Con had been anywhere there, someone would almost certainly have wakened and given the alarm. But there were the boxrooms and the trunkroom on the top floor. On the ground floor, there were all the formrooms, the Speisesaal, Hall, the library and the gymnasium as well as the art-room, geography-room, domestic science rooms, and sundry music-rooms. Matey felt that all this was getting beyond her. She must have help, but she did not want to disturb Miss Annersley if it could be avoided. She went quickly along to the mistresses’ corridor. Here, she roused Miss Wilmot, Miss Ferrars and Miss Yolland, who slept in adjoining rooms.

“What’s cooking?” Miss Wilmot demanded as she sat up and stared at Matey.

“I need your help,” Matey told her. “Go and wake Rosalind Yolland and bring her to Kathy Ferrars’ room. I’m going to wake Kathy. And don’t make any more noise than you can help, either, please.”

“Can do!” Nancy Wilmot rolled out of bed as Matey left the room and went to call Miss Yolland, the art mistress, also an Old Girl of the school.

“What is up?” Miss Wilmot demanded when they were in Miss Ferrars’ room. “Are we being burgled? Is the place on fire? Hurry up and relieve our minds!”

Matey fixed her with a chilly eye. “Try to talk sense!” she said.

Nancy chuckled. She knew her Matey. “Sorry,” she said meekly. “I couldn’t think of any other reason why you should dig us out at this unseasonable hour.”

“Pipe down, Nancy!” Rosalind Yolland interposed. “What’s up, Matey?”

“Con Maynard is walking in her sleep,” Matey said briefly.

“Again! I thought she’d outgrown it?”

“Evidently not. At any rate, she must be found and brought back to bed. She isn’t in any of the other dormitories. I’ve been into all of them.”

“And if she had been, she’d probably have disturbed someone and we should have heard yells,” Kathy Ferrars pointed out.

“Unless whoever it was was so scared that she simply shot under the blankets and lay there quaking,” Nancy added irrepressibly.

Rosalind hushed her again. “Oh, don’t be so idiotic! Matey would have noticed that all right. Where can she have got to, Matey?”

“Either she’s somewhere in the boxrooms or else downstairs in the formrooms,” Matey replied, passing over this last exchange.

“She’s not likely to be in the formrooms,” Nancy said, speaking seriously. “They’re locked each night and the keys taken to the office where Rosalie has charge of them. Have you forgotten?”

“Well, there’s the Speisesaal and the library and the gym,” Kathy reminded them. “I know they aren’t kept locked. Hall is, of course. Suppose you and I go and look there, Matey, and the other two take the upstairs department?”

“Very well,” Matey agreed. “I want that child back in bed as soon as possible. I know the house isn’t cold, but it’s not as warm as all that and she had that big strain last Wednesday. I should have kept an eye on her. I ought to know what she is by this time. But it’s so long since the last bout that I didn’t think of it.”

“None of us did,” Nancy said quickly. “She hasn’t done it for so long that even Jack Maynard thought she had outgrown it at last.”

“I sometimes think she never will entirely,” Matey said. “It’s always happened when she’s had something to upset her badly. However, we’ll leave that for the moment. The main thing is to find her as soon as possible. Get off, you two, to the boxrooms and Kathy and I will try downstairs. Remember; you mustn’t wake her. In fact, if you find her up there, you’d better come straight down and fetch me.”

“Very well,” Nancy assented. “Where’s that whacking scarf of yours to put round her if we find her, Kathy. If she’s in the boxrooms, there’s no central heating there and she’ll be starved with cold.”

Kathy Ferrars nodded and dived into her wardrobe for the huge woollen scarf, while Matey shot out of the door, intent on beginning this fresh search as soon as possible. The young mistress caught her up at the foot of the stairs.

“We’d better separate,” she suggested. “We’ll go through the rooms quicker that way. You take the Speisesaal and the odd rooms in that direction and I’ll do the gym and the extras at the other end.”

Matey nodded. “A good idea! Go as quickly as you can, Kathy.”

They parted, Matey to hunt through the Speisesaal, the commonrooms nearby and along the short passage where lay the Head’s study, the office and the stock-rooms; Kathy to sprint off to the gym and, drawing blank there, on to the laboratories, the geography and art rooms and the three rooms where Frau Mieders, the Domestic Science mistress, held sway. She was no more successful there, so she left them and came back to report her failure to Matron.

Just as she was leaving the corridor leading to them, she had a sudden idea. Besides the ordinary stockroom, there was a little cubbyhole where library books that needed repairs were stocked, as well as other library extras. Neat-fingered Con was in great request for assistance in the mending, and only the day before she had been heard complaining that something should be done to keep the younger girls from damaging library books in the way they did.

“I’ve spent an hour and a half this week just sticking in loose pages,” she had grumbled, “and there are goodness knows how many more to do. I’ll have to give up some of my free time to it or the books will be out of circulation for ages. Rosamund and Marie have enough to do without seeing to that.”

The cubbyhole was round the corner in another corridor. Kathy made for it, but as she turned the corner she was brought up short by the sight of a tall, ghostly figure gliding towards her. For a moment, her heart stood still, as she afterwards declared. Con really was a frightening vision at first sight. She wore a long white dressing-gown; her black curls, released from the thick plait in which she wore them during the day, tossed round her, and she came into the bright moonlight streaming through a nearby window, her face between them looked white, too. Her eyes were wide open but quite unseeing and her hands, stretched out before her, seemed to be groping for something. Her whole appearance gave the young mistress a real shock.

Luckily, Kathy Ferrars had plenty of common sense. After that momentary recoil, she moved quietly up to Con, took one of the icy hands in her own warm one, and said gently, “Come along, Con. Time you were in bed. Come with me.”

Con was muttering and Miss Ferrars’ quick ear caught her words. “Must keep going—must keep going! Len and that kid! Can’t risk them dying in the snow! Must keep going! Must—must!”

In a flash Kathy guessed what was troubling her—that final desperate flight through the shrubbery to fetch help to Len and Michelle. She must have been in a state of exhaustion by that time and only sheer force of will had kept her going till she had given her message. A highly-strung girl, the memory of it must have been preying on her subconscious mind until it had released itself this way.

Kathy acted promptly. “They’re quite safe and in bed, Con. Come with me and I’ll see you to yours.”

What she should do if Con proved contumacious, she had no idea, and she longed for Matey, with her years of experience. But Con went with her obediently and the muttering ceased. Matey, coming from the library where she had searched vainly for her lost lamb, saw them as they reached the end of the corridor, and was so relieved that for a moment she felt sick. Then she went forward.

Speaking in an undertone, she said, “All right, Kathy. I’ll see her to bed now. You go and tell the other two she’s found and then go to my room and set some milk on to heat. You’ll find everything in the cupboard outside my door. I’ll join you as soon as I’m sure she’s settled down properly. Yes; go!” as Kathy hesitated. “I can manage her easily.”

She took one of Con’s hands and led her away and Kathy sped off on her errand. She met the other two coming down. Their faces lit up when they heard that the wanderer had been found and was safely in Matey’s charge.

“Thank heaven for that!” Nancy said fervently. “I was beginning to wonder if she had got out somehow.”

“I never thought of that,” Kathy replied, looking startled. “Thank goodness she didn’t! Matey says we’re to go to her room and start some hot milk. We’ll find everything in the cupboard beside her door. Come on! I can do with a hot drink; I’m cold!” She shivered, partly with the cold, partly from reaction.

“I’ll see to it,” Nancy said. “You and Rosalind can go and switch on that electric heater of Matey’s and get yourselves thoroughly warm.”

It was a full half-hour before Matey joined them with the news that Con had been tucked up in bed with a fresh hot-water bottle and was sleeping peacefully and naturally now.

“I’ll just look in on her before I turn in myself,” she said as she gratefully accepted the beaker of milk Nancy had kept hot for her. “You three had better go to bed again. She’s not likely to move now until morning and any talk can wait till then, too. Off you go, all three of you. Fill your bottles again. The bathwater’s boiling and it’ll help you to sleep.”

They obeyed on the word. Most folk did when Matey spoke. When she had looked in at Pansy to find Con still fast asleep, she went on to the Staff corridor; but her trouble was needless. All three were as fast asleep as Con. Finally she returned to her own room, thankful that no more exertions were likely to be required of her that night. She was tired to the bone with her peregrinations through the place.

Next day, she heard the whole story. Later, she sent for Con and that young woman was sentenced to a vile-tasting tonic, much to her disgust. As she said, to have to drink something as poisonous as that and have to put up with the taste lingering in your mouth for hours after was the outside of enough!

The school at large never heard anything about Con’s exploit. The only people to know of it, apart from the four who had hunted her, were the Head, to whom it was duly reported next day, and Joey and Jack Maynard. On the doctor’s advice, even she herself was not told about it.

“Least said, soonest mended,” Jack told Matron and the Head. “Give her that tonic, Matey, and tell her she’s been talking in her sleep and disturbing other people. If you can cut down on her lessons, Hilda, I should do it. I doubt, though, if there’ll be any more of it. We all know what Con is when she’s been revved up, and she was obviously under a bad strain over that blizzard business. We might have expected this.”

“What I can’t understand,” Joey said thoughtfully, “is why it’s been so long delayed. If it had happened the next night, it wouldn’t have surprised me. But why the delay?”

Jack shook his head. “Delayed action is all I can say. Well, we all know that Nature, like every other woman, will have her revenge!”

He finished with a broad grin but no one rose to his bait. It was decided that the best thing was to take Con off lessons for a few days and, as half-term was just round the corner, she was finally sent to Montreux to stay with her mother’s old friend, Mrs Embury, for a long weekend. She returned to school looking her usual self and bearing a note from her hostess to say that she had had a restful weekend, with early bed, plenty of milk and eggs and butter, and no excitement whatsoever. During the daytime she had been kept quietly busy, helping “Aunt Winifred” with housework and shopping, and, between that and her tonic, she seemed to be cured. After watching her carefully for the rest of the week, the authorities agreed that she seemed to be as well as ever and turned their immediate attention to other things.

The weather had become very capricious. Some days were gloriously fine; on others there were snow flurries which kept the girls indoors and spoilt the ski-ing to some extent. Then towards the end of the month came three days of wet, sleety snow, and after that winter seemed to have shot its bolt. Certainly there were no more blizzards, and when March came in, it came with rain. The frost began to give and presently everywhere was covered with a dirty brownish mixture of snow and mud which was soaking wet, and made ski-ing impossible and walks very nearly so.

This went on for a week. Then the rain eased off, blown away by high winds which lasted two days. When they dropped, the mud and snow had dried off the roads, though everywhere else was still sodden. At least, as the Head said, the roads were practicable and that was something for which to be thankful.

“I wish we could do something about those wretched Junior Middles!” Miss Bertram remarked the evening before this, when she and the others were taking their well-earned ease in the Staff sittingroom.

“Little pests!” growled Miss Stone, who had Lower IVa. “Prep this evening was simply sickening. I couldn’t do a stroke of my own work, for I didn’t dare to take my eyes off them for a moment. And it isn’t just my form, either,” she added. “Your little lot are as bad as mine, Joan, if not worse.”

“Oh, definitely worse,” Joan Bertram agreed cordially.

“Mine run to brains of a sort, anyhow. Don’t forget that I have Jack Lambert and Gillie Garstin, to mention only two. And if you think Wanda von Eschenau and Arda Peik are the little angels they look, you’ve made a bad mistake. In fact, if I hadn’t believed in original sin before, I’d have believed in it all right a fortnight after I first met that crew!”

“How severe!” Miss Charlesworth laughed. “My own opinion is that it’s partly being kept indoors so long and partly the spring in their blood.”

“In that case, they need spring medicine,” Nancy Wilmot solemnly remarked. “Matey, you’d better mix a good jorum of brimstone and treacle and give a performance of your famous Mrs Squeers act.”

Everyone laughed, including Matey. Thereafter the conversation turned on to another topic.

The prefects also complained among themselves about the Junior Middles. They got a good share of them, as on three nights in the week prefects took preparation duty with them.

“I wish I had a cane and the right to use it!” Maeve Bettany exploded at a prefects’ meeting. “I’d teach some of those brats in Lower IVb a lesson they jolly well need, I can tell you!”

“What have they been up to now?” Mary Murrell demanded.

“Oh, nothing out of the way for them. It’s only rather more so. I hauled Gillie Garstin and Jack Lambert over the coals for coming to prep without their atlases and asking leave to borrow. The atlases were in Lost Property, needless to state, and Jack alone had to pay five fines last Lost Property. I said that if this sort of thing went on, I should have to take strong measures, and she had the cheek to say that it didn’t matter what sort of measures were taken; it wouldn’t stop her things going missing—they went lost themselves and she couldn’t help it. I ask you!”

Len listened to all this thoughtfully. To some extent, Jack and Co were her lambs. Apart from them nearly all being in her dormitory, from the beginning Jack had adopted her as general mentor, and what Jack did, her gang did. Len knew this and also knew that she had been so busy with her own concerns of late, that she had rather left them to themselves.

“I’d better do something about it,” she thought. “Or at any rate with young Jack. It’s rather a case of what Jack thinks now, the rest of her gang think ten minutes later, and that lot just lead Lower IVb by the nose. I must think this over. Can’t very well start in on her without any excuse. I don’t want to put their backs up.” At which point, her opinion on a knotty question was asked so she gave up worrying about Jack and Co for the time being.

As it happened, Jack herself had suddenly awakened to the fact that she was seeing less of the Senior she most admired than at any other time since she had come to the school.

“I’m sick of being in rows all the time!” she thought. “Everyone gets on to me. Look at Charlie this morning!”

That she had thoroughly deserved all Miss Charlesworth had said to her about a history essay which she had scamped badly, didn’t occur to her. “What does it matter about silly old dates?” she thought aggrievedly. “I know what’s happened and that’s what’s important. Everyone’s on to me just now. Things is all colleywest with me and I don’t know why. I’ve done nothing worse than anyone else—or not much.” Honesty compelled her to add the last.

She voiced this feeling aloud during Break to a select audience of her crowd.

“But that was what Charlie meant, was it not?” queried Arda Peik, with supreme innocence in her voice. “And at least you do not get into trouble with your arithmetic. Ferry was really unkind to me this morning. It is not my fault if I cannot understand simple interest. My brain is not of that kind.”

This being Monday and therefore a German day, they were all speaking in German—of a sort. Jack’s complaint had been voiced in English and it was well for her that no one in authority had overheard, though her chum, Wanda von Eschenau, had nudged her and murmured “Auf deutsch, Jack!” As a couple of prefects were moving across the Speisesaal, she took the hint and her next remark was made in German.

“I’m going to do something about it. I’m not going on like this. Anyhow, I’m bored to the teeth!”

“Hear that?” Monica Garstin asked Lizette Falence in an under-tone. “We had better keep an eye on that crew.”

“I heard,” Lizette replied in the same under-tone. “And it is my prep with them tonight, alas!”

Meanwhile, the crowd of young demons were agreeing heartily with their leader.

“But what will you do?” queried Arda, who wore a misleadingly seraphic expression on most occasions and looked positively angelic at the moment.

“Get hold of Len and ask her what to do. She can generally make you see straight.”

“But will she help?” demanded a red-head with a toss of her short curls.

“You bet—I mean—gewiss!” Jack replied.

The bell rang for the end of Break and they went off to German Diktat with Miss Andrews. As she was in the formroom awaiting them, there was no chance of further talk just then; but Jack did not forget. That evening, when Len went up to change after Kaffee und Kuchen, Jack popped out of her cubicle and stopped her.

“Please, Len, I want to talk. When can I come—after Abendessen?” she asked.

“Oh, Jack! I can’t manage it tonight,” Len said, dismayed. “I have a special coaching then, and after that I’m helping with mending books from the Junior library. You’ll be in bed by the time that’s done. But I’ll tell you what,” she added as Jack’s face fell, “there’s a bundle nearly ready to go to old Frau Steinmach and it’s my turn to take it. It’ll be some time this week, though I can’t say just when now. But when I do go, I’ll ask if I can take you and any of your pals who want to come as well. Will that do?”

Jack’s face cleared on the spot. “Rather; and thanks a lot. You really are a whizzer, Len!”

“In German, if you please,” Len said, turning pink at the compliment. “Do you want another fine?”

Jack repeated the first part of her reply in German quite amiably, so pleased was she at the promise. Len spared her the final sentence and Jack shot back to finish her toilet, assured that everyone else had heard and that Len would keep her word, for she always did.

As a result, the pickles in Lower IVb behaved themselves properly that night and Lizette’s worst fears were unfulfilled.

Everyone knew that the school had various pensioners among the old folk in the tiny hamlets scattered along the side of the motor-road. Staff and girls alike contributed, and Joey Maynard also helped. On this occasion she sent word that she had a knitted patchwork blanket ready and when, on the Wednesday, the Head sent for Len to receive the bundle just after morning school, she also told her to call at Freudesheim on her way to collect her mother’s offering.

“It’s such a lovely day, everyone is going for a walk,” Miss Annersley remarked as she passed over the sizeable parcel. “Ask someone to go with you and help you to carry everything—Ah!” as the communicating door opened and Rosalie Dene appeared, an urgent look on her face. “I see I’m wanted. I’ll come at once. Run along, Len. You haven’t much time to make yourself tidy before Mittagessen.” And with that, she vanished into the office, closing the door firmly behind her. Len had no choice but to go with her request unuttered.

“Oh bother!” the girl thought as she went out with her parcel. “Well, I must just catch her as soon as Mittagessen is over. Jack and Co would never forgive me if I didn’t keep my word.” She carried the bundle to the Splashery where she put it down and went to wash her hands and tidy her hair.

It was unfortunate that when, Grace over, Len directed her gaze to the top table she found that the Head was not present. Mdlle had said Grace, as she always did in Miss Annersley’s absence, being the doyenne of the Chalet School Staff. Len kept glancing towards the high table throughout the meal, but no Miss Annersley appeared. She would have made her request to Mdlle or someone else, but by the time she had helped to oversee the clearing of her own table and was free to run upstairs to the Staffroom, every last mistress seemed to have vanished. She tapped on the door three times. Getting no answer, she opened the door a crack and peered in. No one was there. Nor was there any sound from the Staff sittingroom which opened out of the Staffroom. As a matter of fact, they were all in the Head’s salon, whither she had bidden them for their coffee earlier in the day. Even Len did not feel inclined to invade the quarters known as The Head’s Annexe. It was strictly private and the girls were not supposed to go there unless specially bidden.

“Oh drat and drabbit it!” Len thought. “Now what do I do? I certainly can’t take those kids out without permission. Anyhow, this is rest period. I’d better go and rest or I’ll hear about it from someone. Meantime, unless I can get hold of someone after that, I’d better take Maeve and fix up something else with Jack and her pals. But where on earth has everyone gone?”

She went along to Hall where someone had a chair waiting for her. Sundry heads were turned as she entered, but everyone assumed that she had been sent for to the study. Even her sisters and her cousin Maeve merely raised their eyebrows when she appeared. Talking was forbidden just now, so she could say nothing, and the moment the period ended, she caught up her deck-chair, folded it, passed it to Con with a hurried, “Hand that over for me, will you?” and went off again to the study in search of someone who could give consent to her taking Jack and Co. She found no one and finally had to content herself with Maeve, who ran into her at the door of the Splashery.

“I’m taking those things to Frau Steinmach,” she said. “Will you come with me, Maeve?”

“Like a shot!” Maeve replied. “I’ll just fly and tell Ferry while you get your things on. She’s taking Inter V and they’re about the last. The others have all gone. You couldn’t see most of the kids for dust. Let’s hope,” she added piously as she left the place, “that they’ll come back feeling more law abiding! I’ve had the lot of them—little wretches!”

Maeve was back in a few minutes to find her cousin ready.

“Ferry says all right. Is that what we have to take?”

Len picked up the parcel. “It is. We’ve also got to call at home on the way out and collect a blanket Mamma’s been knitting. You can carry that.”

“O.K.,” Maeve said cheerfully. “In that case, I vote we go the garden way. It’s shorter.”

Len was quite agreeable. Joey herself was lying down, so Anna, her beloved factotum, informed the girls. The parcel was lying on the old Welsh dower chest in the hall.

“Mamma isn’t ill, is she?” Len asked anxiously.

“No, mein Vögelein; but she is weary. The little Geoff was awake with his teeth for much of the night and she did not have much sleep,” Anna explained.

“I wish those two would hurry and get done with their teeth!” Len said. “All right, Anna. Give her my love and say I hope she’s rested when she comes down. Oh, and tell her we’re all very fit and all that.”

She kissed her old nurse and went off with Maeve.

“What’s biting you?” the latter asked curiously as she noticed her young cousin glancing round in a hunted way when they left Freudesheim.

“Do you know which way Lower IVb went?” Len asked. “I don’t exactly want to run into them.”

“Why on earth not?”

“I promised I’d take Jack and her pack when I went to Ste Cécilie, but the Head was called away the moment she’d given me the bundle so I couldn’t ask her. I went to find Mdlle or someone—that’s why I was late for rest period—but I couldn’t see a soul, so I’ve had to leave it. I’ll make time for them, all right, but I don’t want them to think I’ve broken my word to them.”

“Oh, don’t be such a mutt!” Maeve retorted. “Do give the kids credit for a little common-sense. They’ll know well enough that if you have, it wasn’t your fault. Breaking your word isn’t in your line and they know it.”

“Do they?” Len asked sceptically. “Oh, I expect they do if they give themselves time to think. The question is—will they? You know what Jack’s like.”

“What a worrier you are! Anyhow, so far as I know, they went with Lower IVa along to the footpath near the San. They were lined up behind that lot when I last saw them. What do the pests want, anyhow?”

“I haven’t a clue. Oh, well, as you say, it isn’t my fault; but if we do run into them, I’ll be in for some explaining!” Len shook herself and changed the subject. “Now get busy and tell me all the hanes.” She used the Welsh word for family gossip. “How are Peg and the baby? Does Bride know yet when her wedding’s coming off? How are Auntie and Uncle and Daph?”

Maeve plunged headlong into family news as they swung along the road at a brisk pace. In the interest of hearing everything, Len forgot the Junior Middles and their wants, especially when Maeve produced some snapshots of her first nephew, now five months old. They caught up with and passed Va who were going in the same direction, so Len decided thankfully that wherever Lower IVb might be, it wasn’t along that road.

She was right there. They were on a mountain path that ran parallel with the road some distance higher up. It took them as far as the brook which crossed the road a little distance further on. Midway between, there was a stout bridge for the use of motor traffic, the road itself having a wooden one for foot passengers. Most of the path was well out of sight of the road, but just before it reached the stream, it dipped a little and the trees thinned out. It was Len’s bad luck that just as she and Maeve reached this point, Jack and her gang also reached it on the upper path. Even then, nothing might have happened, but Maeve had been telling a funny story of her baby sister Daphne, who was the afterthought in their family, and Len broke into a peal of laughter.

Sound carries far in the crystalline air of the Alps and her laugh reached the sharp ears of Jack, who swung round to stare down to the road. She saw the two figures with their burdens and instantly guessed who they were. For a moment, she was unable to speak, so indignant was she at what looked to her like Len’s meanness. Then speech came—and with a burst!

“Look at that!” she exclaimed furiously. “It’s Len and someone else! And after she promised to take us with her when she went! Oh! How mean of her!”

“Where? Let me see!” Gillie Garstin pushed her aside to peer downwards. She just caught a glimpse of the big girls before they passed out of sight, and she was as indignant as Jack. “How utterly piggish of her! And after she promised!”

That was what struck all of them and the woods rang with their recriminations. Then an idea struck Jack and, as usual, she acted on it without further thought.

“She did say she’d take us, didn’t she?” she demanded, looking round at them.

“Of course she did!” came a chorus. “We all heard her in dorm!”

“Well, then, a promise is a promise. If she hasn’t kept it of her own free will, let’s make her!”

“Make her? But how can we do that?” Wanda looked puzzled.

Jack glanced back. They were well ahead of the rest—they usually were. The others were not far behind, though, so they must act at once if they meant to do it. “We’ll dash on to the brook and go down it on the far side. Some of you can grab whoever is with her, and Wanda and I’ll latch on to Len.”

“There’ll be a fearful row if we do,” Mary Candlish warned her.

“Let there!” Jack was beyond worrying about grammar. “It won’t be our faults. Len ought to have kept her word. If a prefect breaks promises, you can’t be surprised if we break a rule. Anyhow, we’ve done nothing but get into rows all this last few weeks. I vote we give them something to row us about!” She clinched matters by adding, “I’m going, anyhow. The rest of you can do as you jolly well like. Funk it if you want to, but I’m going!”

That settled it—even Mary, who possessed a little more common-sense than the rest, joined in. They set off as hard as they could go, making their plans as they went.

“We’ll get across the brook,” Jack said, “and go a little way along and then cut down through the trees. If Bertie and Miss Ashley miss us, they’ll only think we’ve gone a little way down or up off the path and they’ll meet us when they turn back. Come on! We must scram!”

They “scrammed” to such good purpose that they reached the brook when the rest were still little more than halfway along the path from where they had seen the prefects. It was running high, thanks to the melting snow further up, but by this time the giddy crew were much too excited to mind that. Jack, running full tilt, simply leapt across and Gillie followed. Both were good jumpers and they cleared the stream with ease. The others were not quite so lucky. Renata and Arda managed to clear it, but only on the extreme edge, and Arda would have fallen in if Jack had not caught her arm just in time. Valerie got over, too, but she caught her foot in a snag and fell headlong. Her coat was a sight to see when she got up. Mary and Wanda hopped safely across, but Kitty Anderson cleared it only to trip up and send Valerie flying once more. Kitty rolled on her and by the time they were on their feet again, they could hear voices and Jack had to use her wits if they were not to be caught.

“Quick!” she cried. “Behind these bushes! Keep quiet, all of you! Crouch down and don’t even breathe!”

They fled to the tangle of bushes she had marked down and all crouched behind it. Only just in time. As Valerie whisked the tail of her coat out of sight, the van of the others reached the brook and stood exclaiming at the pace of the tumbling water.

“It would take very little more to make it flood, wouldn’t it, Miss Bertram?” they heard Barbara Hewlett say.

Miss Bertram laughed as she replied, “That’s not likely to happen, Barbara. Don’t forget that channels have been dug higher up to carry off any flood water. I don’t suppose it’ll get much higher than this, if at all. Well, if you’ve all had enough of gazing at it, we had better turn and go back. Gretchen and Meg may lead this time. Come along, all of you!”

“They haven’t missed us!” Jack breathed.

She spoke too soon. Ghislaine Touvet’s voice sounded. “But where, zen, are Jack and Gillie? Valerie, also? Zey are not here.”

“Oh, blow Ghislaine!” Kitty muttered.

“Mary Candlish and Kitty aren’t here, either,” someone else observed.

“And nor are Wanda and Renata and Arda,” another person joined in.

“They must have gone a little up or down,” Miss Ashley said, even as Jack had prophesied. “Tiresome monkeys! Keep a lookout for them, girls, and call to them when you see them. If you girls can’t keep up with the walk because you choose to wander away, you’ll have to go in crocodile in future.” She sounded annoyed but certainly not alarmed. In fact, she was only annoyed as yet. No one ever expected that six or eight girls would run away from the main body of a walk for any reason.

The party turned and began to go back. Once they were out of sight, Jack stood up and grinned at the others.

“So that’s that! We’ve got away with it. Well, now for Len and whoever it is she has with her!” She spoke jauntily, but already she was beginning to realise that her fatal habit of doing first and thinking afterwards looked like landing them all into serious trouble. However, she was not going to back out now. She slid her arm through Gillie’s and they led the way down.

If they had kept straight on, parallel to the brook, it would have been all right. They would have reached the road and been met by Len and Maeve who would have brought them back to school in safety, though they would certainly have told the eight exactly what they thought of them for breaking a stringent rule in this fashion. Jack, however, decided to be clever. She fancied that if they went down through the pines slantwise, they would get ahead of the prefects and so have a better chance of catching them. She told the others and they all agreed. It was a case of “in for a penny, in for a pound” now. They might as well, Gillie remarked, be hanged for a sheep as a lamb; so slantwise they went.

The natural result was that, before very long, they were plunging through a thick clump of pines into a little clearing which seemed to be nearly walled round by thornbushes. They found an opening at last and hurried on between tall black trunks of pines and round clusters of thornbushes in the clearings.

It seemed a long, long way and, so far, they weren’t any nearer to the road. Then fresh trouble befell them. Mary ran a sharp stub into her shoe and cried out as it pierced her foot. First aid had to be rendered and by the time they had bandaged the nasty tear with a couple of handkerchiefs, the short afternoon was waning. Under the trees it was much darker than it would have been out on the road. They had no idea just where they were and the end came finally when Wanda suddenly stopped and pointed to a pine which at some time had been blasted by lightning.

“But we have already passed this!” she exclaimed.

Horrorstricken, they all stopped short and stared at it. The unwelcome truth seeped into their minds and there was no need for Valerie to emphasise it as she did with a cry of, “Oh, we’re lost—we’re lost! However are we to get out of this awful wood?”

It speaks volumes for their characters and training that not one of the eight made a fuss at first. Their main thought now was to get back to the brook whence they would be able to find their way down to the road. There would almost certainly be the row of rows over their escapade, but that they must face.

Jack voiced the general feeling as she said, “Oh, gosh! How simply sickening! Well, that just means we’ll have to give it up and get back to the brook. We’ll be O.K. then. But just wait till I get hold of Len Maynard! Now which way, I wonder?” She gazed round her hopefully. So far as she could guess, the brook might lie in any direction. The pines all looked alike. Wanda followed her example and finally pointed to the left.

“I’m not sure, but I think we came that way. Shall we try it?”

“Might as well,” Jack agreed. “Let’s pair off and—and link arms so we don’t lose each other.” She gave a sudden giggle. “We’d better stick together, anyhow. It’s bad enough being lost in a bunch. If we get lost in pairs or singly, we might have to spend the night trying to find each other.”

Arda and Renata exchanged glances. “Do—did you mean we might have to sleep out here?” Arda ventured at last.

“Of course not, idiot! Only we’d better get on with it and not stand here nattering,” Jack returned. “We might have to sleep out if we did that. But once we’re clear of the trees, I don’t suppose we’ll find it’s anywhere near dark. It’s always darker under the trees than outside them. You ought to know that, Arda, by this time! Come on, Van!” She turned to small Wanda. “You link with me. Gillie, you take Val. Kitty and Mary, you join up. You two Dutchies can stick together. Whereabouts did you think we came in? Over there? O.K. Get down to it, folks—and keep your ears open for the sound of the water.”

Cheered by her matter-of-fact manner, they formed up in twos and, with Jack and Wanda leading the way, marched off steadily in the direction in which Wanda had pointed. She happened to be right as to direction and if they could have kept straight on, they would have come up to the brook fairly soon and their worst troubles would have been over. Unfortunately, they fell into the trap that catches most people lost in such a place. Without realising it, they left their line, circling round. After twenty minutes hard walking, they found themselves exactly where they had set off.

It was a nasty blow, and one or two of the weaker members of the gang looked at the blasted pine with horror.

“It—it is the same tree, isn’t it?” Kitty asked tremulously.

Wanda nodded. “Yes; it is. Don’t you remember that queer branch sticking out just there?”

Renata gave a gasp. “But how did we come back to it? We were going straight on—or were we?” she turned to Jack.

Jack was inwardly as horrified as anyone, but she pulled herself together. “We must have got off the beam somehow. Well, anyhow, at least we do know where we are and that’s something! We’ll just have to start again; that’s all. Anyhow, we can’t stand here staring at it. Come on!”

“But I can’t!” Mary suddenly wailed. “My foot’s hurting horribly and I just can’t walk another step on it.” She emphasised this by sitting down on the ground with a flump and they looked at her, aghast.

“But we’ve got to!” Valerie cried. “We can’t spend the night out here!” She achieved a faint giggle. “I say! What a how-d’ye-do there’d be at school if we did! Mary, are you sure you can’t manage? Whatever shall we do?”

“We’re not going to stick here, anyhow,” Jack said sturdily. She knelt down by Mary and patted her shoulder clumsily. “Buck up, Mary! We’ll manage somehow, and once we’re safely back, Matey’ll see to your foot all right.”

“B-but I ca-an’t walk!” The foot was hurting badly and poor Mary had hardly known how to step on it for the last four or five minutes. She smothered a sob. “I d-don’t see what you can do. You c-can’t carry me and—I know you’ll all think I’m a f-funk—but—I d-daren’t be left here all alone with n-nothing b-but these awful t-trees all round me-e-e.” She finished with a wail.

“As if we’d think of such a thing!” Gillie exclaimed. “We aren’t quite such pigs!”

“And of course we don’t think you a funk,” Wanda chimed in. She knelt down on the other side of Mary, mopping at the tears of pain that were trickling down her friend’s cheeks. “I think you have been very brave to go on walking when your foot was hurting so badly.”

“I’m s-sorry,” Mary sobbed. “If only my foot w-would s-stop hurting a moment!”

Jack took her turn. “I’ll tell you what. One of us couldn’t carry you—or not far. But we could manage if we gave you a queen’s chair. Do stop howling, old poop! We’ll get you back to school before so awfully long—won’t we, chaps?”

“Of course we will!” they chorused.

Mary made a valiant effort. She gulped hard once or twice, mopped her eyes with Wanda’s handkerchief, and then said chokily, “I—I’m better now. If—if s-someone will h-help me, I’ll t-try to stand.”

“That’s you!” Kitty cried. “You’re jolly plucky, Mary!”

“And I know what we can do,” Renata cried, struck with a bright idea. “If two carry you, someone else can go ahead of them and hold up your bad foot. I’ve heard that if you hurt your foot you should keep it up so that the blood doesn’t run quite so quickly down to it, and that makes the pain easier.”

Among them, Mary was comforted. She scrubbed her eyes once more while Jack and Gillie joined hands and then stooped down behind her. Arda and Renata had got her to her feet and they helped her to sit on the clasped hands. Carefully they raised her, and Arda was in front at once, lifting the injured foot.

“Now we shan’t be long!” Jack said with considerably more confidence than she felt. “You go ahead, Val and Kitty, and warn us of snags or low bushes. We don’t want to trip up anywhere. The rest of you keep behind, but don’t lose us. Ready, Gill? Right foot forward. Now—right, left—right, left!”

It was slow going and difficult going. With the best will in the world the two bearers couldn’t avoid jolting their burden now and then. Mary made little outcry, but she couldn’t help gasping when it happened.

“But I must keep hold of myself,” she thought as a stumble sent a fiery arrow right up to her knee. “Oh, how I wish I was back at school, even if Matey was telling me everything bad she ever thought of me!”

The rest were wishing the same. They stumbled on doggedly, determined to get Mary back to school as soon as they could. All thought of the nemesis that would surely fall on them had left them. Kitty, glancing uneasily at Mary’s white face, wondered if she would faint before they could reach the brook.

“But if only we can get there, we can at least give her a drink and bathe the foot,” she thought as she plodded along.

Suddenly, Jack and Gillie stopped. Their arms felt as if they must drop off, so badly were they aching. They must have a rest before they went any further.

“Sorry, chaps! We’ll have to have a breather,” Jack panted. “Lower her carefully, Gillie. There; that’s O.K. You’re feeling better now that you haven’t to walk, aren’t you, Mary?”

“I—yes, I am,” Mary said bravely. “It—it’s a long way to the brook, isn’t it? Still, we’ll get there sometime.” Then she stared ahead for a moment before she exclaimed, “Val Gardiner! What are you doing?”

“Blazing our trail,” Valerie said. “Isn’t it luck? I was fishing for my hanky and I found this in my frock pocket.” She opened her hand and showed a hefty scout-knife.

For the life of her, Kitty couldn’t help giggling. “If Matey knew what you keep in your pocket she’d have a fit. Where did you get that—that gully-knife, Val? It’s never yours!”

“My brother’s,” Valerie explained calmly. “I found it when I was packing to come back to school and I thought it might come in handy. But I never expected to use it for this sort of thing,” she added with a grin. She turned back to her work and slashed at another tree.

“Hi! Don’t you go out of sight!” Jack shouted after her. “We don’t want to lose you!”

Valerie laughed and went forward to mark three more trees, looking carefully to see that she kept them as nearly in a straight line as possible. Then she came back to drop down by the others, who were sitting in a circle. Mary was being supported by Kitty. She was very white, but at present the pain seemed to be dulled. Gillie and Jack were rubbing their arms. The rest were just sitting, silent. Wanda suddenly lifted her head and looked at them.

“Do—do you not think—perhaps if we were to—ask God—He’d help us to find the way?” she asked shyly.

“I’ve been doing it in my mind for ages now,” Kitty said unexpectedly.

“So’ve I,” two or three voices chimed in.

It was left to Jack to settle it. “I have myself if you come to that,” she admitted. “Only, doesn’t it say that God will positively hear when two or three do it together. Let’s!”

“You do it, Jack,” Valerie said.

Jack went scarlet. “Oh—I couldn’t. You do it, Van. It was your idea.”

Wanda went pink, but she nodded. “Very well. I will. I—I think we had better kneel. It looks more—respectful.”

Kitty was already kneeling and Mary was incapable of it. The rest came to their knees, folded their hands and bent their heads.

“I’ll say Our Father first,” Wanda said. “We all know that.”

She began it and they joined in, their voices growing steadier as they repeated the well-known words. Something in its very familiarity comforted them. There was a pause when they finished. Then Wanda spoke again.

“Now I’ll say Hail Mary. She’s a Mother, you know. I expect She’s very sorry for us, really. Mothers are like that.”

They all knew the beginning and some of them managed to get through to the end. After that, Wanda went on by herself in a few heartfelt words.

“Oh, please, God, we know we have been very naughty and when we are back at school, we will confess it. We are really sorry. We truly are. Please forgive us and help us to find the right path. Oh, and do please do something about Mary’s foot. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.”

They murmured “Amen” after her. Then she scrambled to her feet.

“Now,” she said with sudden decision, “we have truly done all we can about it just now. The next thing is to go and trust that God will show us the way. I’m certain He will, now we have told Him we are sorry and have asked for His forgiveness. Jack, you and Gillie have carried Mary far enough. Kitty and I will take our turn and then Arda and Renata. If anyone gets very tired and says so, Val will take her place. Oh, and one of us must carry Mary’s foot so that it does not hang down.”

“I’ll do that,” Arda said promptly. “Val should go on marking the trees.”

“Right!” Jack said. “Clasp hands, you two, and Gillie and I will get Mary up. Come on, Mary. It’ll be rotten for a moment, but it’ll be over then. Set your teeth and come on! Got her under the arm, Gillie?”

They slung their arms under Mary’s and slowly lifted her to her feet. As the injured foot touched the ground, she gave a sharp cry; but by that time, Wanda and Kitty had their hands under her and they lifted her, Arda raising the foot gently.

Valerie kept half-a-dozen paces ahead, blazing the trees as she went. It was slow going, but they did make progress, though neither Wanda nor Kitty had the stamina of the first pair and had to give in sooner. They had a short rest and then Arda and Renata took over while Jack held up the bad foot.

On and on they went, with frequent stops now to rest the bearers. They were only thirteen-year-olds and though most of them were sturdy specimens, Mary was a dead weight on them. Presently they came to a clearing and could see the sky. Sunset colours were fading in it but it was not dark yet, much to their surprise.

“Gosh!” Valerie exclaimed. “I quite expected it would be pitch black! It feels like midnight. We’ve been going for hours and hours!”

“That’s where your toes turn in,” Kitty told her after a glance at her watch. “Oh, it feels like it all right; but actually, it’s only 16.55 hours. Well, anyhow we seem to have got away from that filthy tree. Isn’t it odd, though, that we can’t hear the brook? I should’ve thought we’d have nearly reached it by this time.”

They all agreed that it was odd. They all listened intently but there was no sound of running water yet. They must just go on until they came to it.

Never, as long as they lived, did any one of the octet forget that awful walk. Even with frequent rests they were aching from head to foot. Further, the seven were terrified about Mary, though they tried not to show it. For what seemed like hours now she had hung helplessly on their hands, never speaking and only uttering moans now and then. They had lost their berets long ago; their coats were mud from head to foot and torn where the thorns had caught at them; their stockings were no better and their stout shoes were clogged with mud. It was sheer force of will that kept them moving. Their one idea was to get somewhere out of the wood near the brook—somewhere, if possible, where Mary could be taken to safety and proper care. If they had to go on walking themselves, they must; but Mary must be where doctors and nurses could attend to her.

All the time, if they had only realised it, they were descending. Down, down, down they went, Valerie faithfully blazing trees at intervals when she thought of it. Suddenly Jack’s quick ears caught the sound for which they had been waiting. It was faint and far away, but there was no mistaking it—the sound of water hurtling downhill!

She gave a queer, strangled noise. “The brook! I can hear it! Listen, all of you!”

They listened, all but Mary who was too far gone to know or care. Ten seconds assured them that their leader was right. Fresh strength seemed to come to them with the welcome sound and they went on more briskly than for some time. Louder and louder grew the noise and the seven rejoiced. Oh, it was going to be all right after all! Soon they would have reached the water and could give Mary a drink and bathe the poor foot, and after that it wouldn’t be long before they reached the school and safety.

“Sapristi! I could do with a drink myself,” Jack suddenly said, speaking for the first time in half-an-hour. “Come on, chaps! We must be nearly there. Just listen to the row!”

They were: but at a place they had never expected. The trees suddenly ended. Before them a white road glimmered under the pale light of the stars that powdered the dark blue of the night sky—there is no twilight in the Alps—and a little away from where they stood was the footbridge over the stream.

A fallen tree-trunk lay handy. Kitty and Wanda carefully lowered Mary on to it, Kitty coming to support her back and Gillie squatting to hold up the bad foot. She moaned again and her head fell against Kitty. Jack snatched the dirty rag which was her handkerchief from her coat pocket and made for the water.

Presently they were all taking it in turns to go and return with dripping cloths with which they sponged Mary’s face and bandaged her foot. Jack looked at it uneasily. There was not enough light to see properly, but it was certainly swollen halfway up the ankle and it was burning hot. Oh well, Matey would know what to do for it.

Jack and Matey had been at daggers drawn more than once but in this emergency the small girl thought of her thankfully. Finally, when they had done all they could for their patient, they lay down on the bank and lapped the icy water like thirsty dogs. That they soaked their heads and finished the ruin of their coats and frocks mattered nothing to them. Neither did they remember that it was forbidden to drink from mountain streams. All they wanted was to slake the most tremendous thirst any of them had ever known.

Refreshed at last, they crouched round Mary and the log, discussing how best they could get her home: but help was at hand. The figure of a big, brawny man loomed up behind them. A well-known voice ejaculated, “Herrgott! Wass, denn ist?” and they were round him with shrieks of joy. It was Gaudenz!

It was easy enough after that. They left explanations to Wanda since German was her native tongue. After her first two or three sentences, he stopped her.

“No more now,” he said. “I will carry the little lady. More, I cannot. You must walk, weary or not. But it is not far and you will do it, nicht wahr?” He stooped over Mary who was still in faithful Kitty’s arms. “Ach! Das arme Kind!” He produced a small tablecloth which he called his handkerchief. Carefully, he bound it firmly round the foot. Then he lifted the unconscious child in his arms, settling her carefully against his broad chest, glanced over the weary group round him and unerringly picked out the most weary of the lot. “You, Fräulein Kitty, hold this arm, but carefully lest we shake the foot. Now come!”

They crowded round him, doing their best to keep pace with his swift, easy strides. He would have gone more slowly for their sakes, but what he had found about the foot made him anxious to get Mary into Nurse’s care as soon as possible. There was poison there—bad poison! Of that he was certain.

When they began to lag, he urged them on with grave words about the need to have Mary receiving proper attention as soon as possible. They had found out now how very, very tired they really were. It was an effort to put one foot in front of the other; but his words about the danger of delay kept them going. Somehow they managed to keep up with him. They passed Freudesheim; they were through the school gates; they were straggling up the short drive. The great door was wide open and a beam of warm, welcoming light streamed out to greet them as they stumbled along. They were filthy dirty, ragged, a regular band of tatterdemalions, but to the white-faced Miss Annersley who suddenly came to peer out into the darkness to see if there were any sign of her missing lambs, they were one of the most beautiful sights in the world. She was among them in an instant and her cry of joy brought three or four of the mistresses running.

“Oh, thank God—thank God!”

Jack called on the last remnants of her strength. “It was all my fault!” she gasped. “I’m awfully sorry—truly I am!”

Her legs buckled under her and she never knew who caught her as she fell. All she or any of them knew was that their ordeal was over at long last. They were safe at school once more.

To go back a little. Maeve and Len finished their errand and returned to school, laughing and talking the whole way. Neither had the least idea that eight of the latter’s lambs were wandering about the pinewood, hopelessly lost. The walks were beginning to come in as they turned in at the gates, but it was not until fully a quarter-of-an-hour later that they knew that Lower IVb was missing eight of its brighter members.

When she heard about it, Len instantly blamed herself and went flying off to the study, where she accused her own stupidity in not hunting further for someone who could give leave to her to take the gang in a wholesale manner. She got no sympathy from the Head, who heard her in grim silence before she finally uttered a crushing rebuke.

“Because you may have seemed to break a promise is that any reason why those eight should break a stringent rule, may I ask?”

“No—no!” Len stammered, looking and feeling foolish.

“Then will you please use your reason? The blame is not yours. They are all old enough to know that if you did not take them it was because something had prevented it. All such promises, as they should know, are conditional on your having permission, and if they had taken the trouble to think for five minutes, they would have realised it. So should you. Go away, Len, and please try to overcome this absurd scrupulosity of yours. If it goes on, you will end up by becoming morbid. No blame attaches to you for whatever they are up to, and no blame is attributed to you. Now please go away. I have too much to do to be worried by the need to soothe your conscience.”

After that, Len thought she had better take a very back seat for the present. She left the study with the thought that when the Head set her mind to it she could make you feel more wormlike than any other member of the Staff.

Parties had already gone out to search the woods for the missing octet. They hunted and hunted and called and called. As they kept to the near side of the brook, the wanderers never heard them, and they got no clue to the wanderers. By 17.00 hours, the seekers began to return to report that their search had been fruitless. The Head contrived to control the wild anxiety she was enduring, but she did ring up Freudesheim to demand Jack Maynard’s presence.

“I don’t want to call in the police unless it becomes absolutely necessary,” she said.

“I don’t suppose it’ll come to that,” he said consolingly. “Get hold of Gaudenz and some of the other men and send them out to search. They know the place as even you folk don’t.”

“Gaudenz went to visit his old mother this morning,” Miss Annersley said slowly. “I’ll send a message round, though, for some of the others.”

“Yes; I should do that,” he agreed. He looked at his watch. “It’s just on 18.00 hours, so if you get hold of them at once, I don’t doubt you’ll have those young sinners safely in bed before 20.00 hours. They can’t be far away. Probably lost themselves and are wandering round and round in circles. I’d advise hot baths and beds ready for them and I’ll pop up to San and mix a nice jorum of something to prevent colds.” He gave her a wicked grin. “I won’t guarantee that they’ll like it, but that’s part of the consequences for—What’s that?” His quick ears had caught the sound of feet. The Head left him without excuse. He gave a chuckle and went off to warn Nurse to be ready.

After her first exclamation, the Head stood back giving quiet orders.

“Take them all straight upstairs to San, please. Nurse and Matron Lloyd are waiting there for them and so, I expect, is Dr Maynard. Rosalie,” she turned to Miss Dene, who had followed her out, “will you see that the school knows that the girls have returned? Oh, and see that the people who have been searching have hot drinks. Gaudenz,” she turned to the beaming giant who had relinquished his burden to Nancy Wilmot, “thank you for all you’ve done. I’ll see you again later and thank you properly. Just now, I must attend to the girls.”

She left him and went back to the house where she mounted the stairs slowly. She was almost as worn-out as the octet, and her legs were trembling as she made her way along the corridor to the set-off rooms over which Nurse reigned.

That worthy met her at the door of the little dispensary where Jack Maynard was compounding his horrid mixture. She gave the Head one look, then took her by her arm and marched her firmly into her own little sittingroom. “Now you sit there,” she said, putting her into a chair. “I’m just bringing the doctor to attend to Mary’s foot, and the others are all in boiling hot baths and will shortly be between hot blankets. I’ll attend to you in a moment.”

She went away and Miss Annersley relaxed. Two minutes later, there was the sound of flying feet and then Joey Maynard had arrived and was hugging her.

“Hilda, you poor darling! Have you any news yet? I couldn’t come before. I was in the thick of bathing Cecil. I came as soon as I could.”

“Oh, Joey, they’re safe! Gaudenz found them—or met them. I haven’t heard the story yet. They’re all in hot baths, but Mary Candlish seems to have hurt her foot. Nurse fetched Jack to attend to it. But oh, what I’ve endured!”

“I know it! Never mind; it’s over now, thank God!” Joey found a chair and sat down. Her eyes searched her friend’s face, drawn and pinched as she had never seen it before. “Those wicked little wretches! Oh, if I could only have them across my knee with a good stout hairbrush in my hand! I’d teach them to drive people crackers with worry about them!”

Her fierceness brought a smile to the Head’s face. “I felt more like hugging them all when I saw them first.”

“I hope to goodness you didn’t!” Joey sounded alarmed.

Miss Annersley sat up. “What do you take me for? I certainly shan’t spank them; though,” she added, her feelings sustaining a sudden revulsion, “I won’t say that I shouldn’t like to do it. But you needn’t be afraid that they won’t get their full deserts. I’ll see to that! The whole school has been upset by this latest antic of theirs and they’re going to have a lesson that will teach them to think before they do anything so mad again.”

Joey nodded. “I’m all for firm discipline when it’s necessary and I honestly think it’s what Jack Lambert and Co need. They’re not babies now. It’s high time they were beginning to think a little.”

The Head gave a faint smile. “You can safely leave them to me. Oh, Nurse! What is this about Mary’s foot? Can you spare time to tell me now?”

Nurse put a glass into her hand. “Drink that, my dear! Yes; I know you loathe brandy, but you need it. Down with it! Don’t leave a drop!”

Miss Annersley made a face, but she swallowed it and felt decidedly better for it. She set down the glass and looked questioningly at Nurse.

“Mary’s punished herself,” Nurse said, sitting down. “No; I’m not needed just now. The Matrons are dosing the rest with Dr Jack’s mixture and Mary’s foot has been treated. As for what’s wrong with it, she seems to have run something into it, right through the shoe. Walking on it hasn’t improved it and whatever it was was dirty, all right. There’s a great deal of inflammation because it wasn’t dealt with sooner. Dr Jack has cleaned it out thoroughly and given her a shot of penicillin and says it’ll be all right. She’ll have a good deal of pain with it, though, and she’ll probably limp for the rest of the term, so no more games for her.”

“Poor child!” Miss Annersley’s kind heart was instantly touched.

“Poor child, indeed! Bad little thing!” Nurse retorted. “She deserves all she’s getting. I’ve no pity for her—nor for any of them.”

“How are the others?” the Head asked anxiously.

“All either sleeping or nearly so. They’re tired out and they’ll need a few days in bed until they recover. But there’s nothing more wrong with them unless they start colds. I doubt it, though. Well, I must get back and you’d better go and rest. You’ve had a time of it!” With which Nurse departed.

Jack Maynard came along a little later and confirmed her report. He had given Mary something to make her sleep, but he agreed that she had spoilt all her games for the rest of the term. However, he expected that the penicillin would clear up the poison quickly. Then he turned round on the Head.

“And now, Hilda, you can just take yourself off to bed and stay there till I see you again tomorrow. You’ll want your strength later on to deal out justice to those young demons,” he added with a grin. “Take her along, Joey, and see her between the sheets. You can come and tell me when she’s there.”

“O.K.,” his wife agreed. “Come on, Hilda! You know it’s no use arguing with Jack.”

Miss Annersley was too done for argument. She went with Joey and before the Maynards went home, she was sleeping quietly, thanks to an injection which Jack had insisted on giving her.

For the next three days, Lower IVb was missing most of its brighter members. When, on the Sunday, they were finally returned to their dormitory, the reception they got was no comfort to them. Warned by what the Head had said in that last interview, Len greeted them in a very chilly manner. Nor did their own kind show much more warmth towards them. A fiat had gone forth that, until further notice, Junior Middles might not ramble, but must take proper walks in crocodile, and everyone knew exactly why it had happened.

They went to church with the rest and afterwards for the usual walk; but they were close to the escort and dared not talk much. Another walk in crocodile took place in the afternoon and the rest of the form had plenty to say about “people who spoilt all other people’s fun because they made such asses of themselves”.

Nemesis fell next day. At Frühstück, the Head rose before Grace to say, “As soon as the following girls have finished their dormitory work, I wish to see them in the study.” She read out the names of the seven. Mary, still in San and feeling very sorry for herself, was out of it for the moment.

Optimistic Kitty had been hoping that everyone would think they had punished themselves sufficiently, but at this, her heart went down into her house-shoes with a thud. Those of the others were already down enough. They got through their duties, overseen by a very icy Len who never once relaxed into the faintest smile. That done, she marshalled them into line and sent them off to the study while the other three went off to their walk.

They trailed unwillingly along the short corridor. Outside the study door they clustered together, eyeing each other doubtfully. No one was willing to tap. Finally, Arda nudged Jack and nodded towards it. Jack summoned up her courage and produced a peck which only someone expecting them could have heard.

“Herein!” came Miss Annersley’s voice; and Jack opened the door and led the way.

They crawled in and lined up in front of the desk. The Head waited until Kitty, the last, had shut the door and joined her fellow-sinners. There was a dead silence during which they squirmed uneasily under Miss Annersley’s calm, dispassionate gaze.

“Stand still, please,” she said in German, the language for the day.

They came to attention. They would have given much to avoid her eyes, but found themselves unable to look away. She kept them like that for what seemed an age, though it was barely sixty seconds. Then she spoke.

“And what have you to say for yourselves?” she inquired.

Silence! They could think of nothing to say that she was likely to hear.

“I am waiting,” she reminded them when the pause had become lengthy.

Characteristically, it was Jack who found her tongue first. “Please, we are all very sorry,” she mumbled.

“Yes?”

“And—and we’ll never do such a thing again,” was all Jack could think of to add. After all, to have to make your remarks in German when you are feeling tongue-tied anyhow, is apt to abbreviate them considerably.

Perhaps Miss Annersley felt this too. She intended to temper justice with mercy, though the culprits were not to know it yet. However, she changed to English, knowing that Wanda and the two Dutch girls were almost as much at home in it as in their own tongues.

“I am still waiting to hear what else you have to say for yourselves,” she said. “You have broken a strict rule and broken it deliberately. You have caused the school a time of terrible anxiety. You have lost your berets and destroyed your coats and dresses and stockings. One of your number is still suffering as a result of your doings. You have given Nurse and the matrons a great deal of unnecessary work. What excuse have you to offer?”

It really sounded awful, put to them like that in Miss Annersley’s icy tones. All were scarlet and one or two not far from tears. Jack gulped. She felt it was up to her to explain, but it was an effort to steady her voice.

“I—well—it was me began it,” she blurted out at last.

“ ‘It was I’. Please don’t forget your grammar. Well?”

Jack wriggled. Whoever would have thought that Miss Annersley’s voice could ever sound like that? But she must go on—and very lame her excuse sounded.

“I was—I was mad—with Len.”

“Indeed? Why?”

“She—she promised to take us when she went to Ste Cécilie—and then—she didn’t! She broke her promise.” Jack ran down. She stood on one leg and rubbed the other foot violently up and down the calf, a trick of hers when she was embarrassed.

“Please stand on both feet.”

Jack brought her feet together with what sounded like a stamp. Not that the Head mistook it. She knew that the small girl had nearly over-balanced.

“And now go on with your story,” she said. “So far, Jacynth, I gather that you decided to revenge yourself on the whole school because one of the prefects had offended you. I’m afraid I don’t understand your reasoning; still, go on with your account.”

“I—it wasn’t just like that,” Jack stammered. “It was just—I was mad. I thought if a prefect—could break a promise—well——”

“Go on,” Miss Annersley said inexorably, as the narrator halted a second time.

Jack muttered something and was told to repeat what she had said and to speak up.

“Well, I—I thought—if a prefect did that—it didn’t matter if—if we—broke a rule.” Even as she said it, it sounded silly to her.

The Head rubbed it in. “Then by your reasoning, if one man commits a robbery his victim has every excuse for committing arson against someone else?”

Jack had nothing to say. She simply looked foolish and, at last, contrived to look down at the ground.

“Is that all you have to say, Jacynth?” Miss Annersley asked.

The use for the second time of her baptismal name finished it. Jack swallowed hard and then began to cry. The Head left her and turned to Arda, standing next.

“And what is your excuse, Arda?”

“I—went with Jack,” Arda muttered.

“Ah! You have no mind of your own, I presume?”

Tears came to Arda’s eyes and dripped down her cheeks. Miss Annersley passed to Wanda.

“Your excuse, Wanda?”

Wanda tried to make a stand. “I thought Len had been mean. I was angry and I did not think.”

“Quite so. We are told that anger flourishes in the heart of a fool. Had you forgotten that, Wanda?”

Wanda reddened, choked and also wept.

One by one the Head asked them in turn for their excuse. Valerie did not even wait for that. As the Head looked at her, she burst into tears and what she did have to say was utterly unintelligible. Finally, Miss Annersley sat back and surveyed them. If they had been able to see, her eyes were very kind. However, their faces were buried in their handkerchiefs and they were all sobbing.

“Stop crying now,” she said at last, and the ice had gone out of her voice. “I am glad to see that you are really sorry for all the trouble you have given. As I think you all know, you people have a great deal of freedom. You will continue to have that freedom so long as you don’t abuse it.”

Jack swallowed the last of her sobs and one or two of the others followed her example. The rest were growing calmer, and Miss Annersley decided to end the ordeal. She pronounced judgment.

“This evening, after Prayers and when the whole school is assembled in Hall, you will come to the daïs and, one by one, you will apologise to the school for all the trouble you have caused. Yes; I know it is a most unpleasant thing to have to do, but it is the least you can do. By the way, in justice to Len I must tell you that she did her best to find someone to ask leave to take you with her. As she couldn’t and she had been told to take the parcels that afternoon, she had to forego her promise to you. So you have misjudged her completely, you see. Now you may go to your formroom. The others will be back in a few minutes’ time. Get out your books, be ready for lessons, and if you are as sorry as you say, I shall expect you to do the best you can both there and at every other school activity. Thank you. That is all.”

They went. They hadn’t a leg left to stand on and if they had been puppies, they would have dragged their tails on the ground.

When they had reached their formroom, Jack heaved a great sigh of relief. “Well, thank goodness that’s over! The Head was awful—I’ve never known her so—so ghastly before, and goodness knows I’ve had my share from her.”

“We’ve still got to apologise—and in public,” Gillie reminded her. “You can’t say it’s over until we’ve done that. I’m not exactly looking forward to it. And Monica will have something to say, I expect. She’s been cutting me dead—never said a word to me all yesterday. She’ll be twice as nasty today.”

“Oh, I know. But she can’t keep on forever and once a thing’s done it’s done here. And another thing, we know now that Len didn’t let us down on purpose. I’m thankful about that. Len’s always been so decent I’d have hated to think she could let us down,” quoth Jack.

“I suppose,” Wanda said slowly, “that if we had stopped to think we should have known it was not like her.”

Jack made a gesture of tearing her hair. “Me again! Why can I never stop to think before I do things? It’s happened again and again. I just get ideas and then go all haywire. Well, I’m jolly well going to stop it. This time, it’s made me be unfair and I loathe unfairness!”

“If you come to that, we were all unfair,” Kitty said thoughtfully. “It wasn’t only you, Jack. Well, it’s over—at least it isn’t exactly over for poor old Mary yet, but she is getting better now. Oh, Jack!” with sudden horror in her voice, “you don’t suppose the Head will make her apologise from the daïs all by herself when she comes back into school again?”

“Oh, gosh! I never thought of that!” Jack was equally horrified.

However, they had no need to worry. Miss Annersley decided that Mary’s punishment had been more than sufficient and she heard no more about the matter than she heard from Nurse. That lady was not sparing in her comments, once her patient was well on the way to recovery. It was a very chastened Mary who rejoined Lower IVb the following Sunday. For that matter the whole eight were more or less chastened, for the Head kept to her fiat that the form must take all its walks in crocodile for the whole of that week and their little playmates did not hesitate to tell the culprits exactly what they thought of them. However, she did rescind the order the next week; and, though no one would ever have called them model schoolgirls, at least Jack and Co did stop to think occasionally before they went baldheaded at anything in the future.

“Well, I hope that after that last episode, we shall have a little peace!” Thus Miss Annersley to a select audience consisting of Mdlle de Lachennais, Rosalie Dene, and her friend and co-Head, Miss Wilson, known to the girls as “Bill” and to her friends and contemporaries as “Nell”. Joey Maynard made up the party, having come over for “a spot of chat and coffee” to quote herself.

At the Head’s aspiration, she gave a deep chuckle. “Don’t you believe it! Once things begin to happen, they tend to go on until there’s a glorious smash-up. Everyone all round gets a violent shock that makes them pull themselves together. After that, you may begin to look for a little peace. Not,” she added, “that I believe you ever can get it for long in any school.”

“Well, that’s a nice comforting statement, I must say!” cried Rosalie Dene, who was Joey’s own contemporary and never hesitated to express her unvarnished opinion to that lady. “Pipe down, Jo, and stop talking rot!”

“Just as you like. But you mark my words; that’s all!” The oracle sat back and sipped her coffee with enjoyment.

She would not have been so unconcerned if she could really have seen into the future. As it was, when the subject changed, she joined in the talk and her earlier remarks were forgotten. Her husband came to collect her an hour or so later and she went off gaily with him, unaware of what was to come.

The first faint shadow appeared when Margot Maynard started toothache the day after the seven were reinstated. It was a rare occurrence among the Maynard family, for their father insisted on regular visits to the dentist as well as toothbrush drill twice a day from the time they were old enough to wield a toothbrush. Sensible diet with not too many sweets helped and, as a result, everyone in the family could show a mouthful of white, even teeth. However, on this occasion Margot ate Edinburgh rock, and later started with a nasty little twinge or two.

Like her mother before her, she had a horror of the dentist and all his works. She kept the trouble to herself, even when the occasional twinges became a steady nagging which upset her nerves and made her edgy. For once, neither of her sisters realised it. Con was absorbed in a delightful secret which, out of school, filled her thoughts completely.

Len, with her faculty for sensing other people, and especially her triplet sisters, was concentrating on keeping an eye on her own lambs. Besides that, she was working really hard at her own subjects and, with three evenings in the week filled with special coaching during preparation hours or immediately after, she saw comparatively little of people who did not work with her. So far as her sisters were concerned, silly Margot was left to go her own way.

Matey would certainly have seen that something was wrong, but just at that time, the Juniors produced a spate of sniffley colds. The victims were isolated at once, but somehow the germ had got loose in the school and by the time San and one dormitory had been filled, she had as much as she could cope with.

The toothache was not violent—merely grumbling. Every now and then the pain eased and Margot decided that it was just the weather which had brought it on. She coaxed oil of cloves out of Anna one Sunday when she and her sisters had gone over to seek some things needed by the St Mildred girls who were responsible for the pantomime given each year in the Easter term. Joey was out, as it happened, and Anna too busy to notice her nursling’s shadowed eyes.

Margot’s contemporaries did notice that she seemed always irritable these days, but most of them remembered that she owned a hair-trigger temper. She had gained pretty good control over it, but even so no one felt like doing anything to rouse it. If she seemed inclined to snub folk they sheered off.

“I expect it’s just the excitement of having Emmy back next term and then going off to Australia with her for the hols,” Betty Landon said wisely.

“But she wasn’t like this when she first knew,” Alicia Leonard pointed out.

“I know. If you ask me, she sat on it hard and that’s what’s wrong with her now. If you try to bottle things up, they always burst out sooner or later, and the later it is, the worse the burst. Anyhow, nothing’s gained by quarrelling with her. Better leave her alone. She’ll snap out of it presently.”

Alicia looked doubtful, but she said no more. She was a retiring girl, little given to broadcasting her views. All the same, she was not satisfied and when she happened to find Len alone one day, she ventured to ask what was wrong with Margot.

“Wrong with Margot?” Len repeated in some surprise. “Why? Isn’t she well? I haven’t seen a lot of her lately. I’m working pretty hard, you know, and we don’t have many lessons together, now we’re both specialising.”

“It’s just that she seems to be—so touchy,” Alicia said hesitantly. “Betty thinks it’s suppressed excitement over Emmy and her visit to Australia.”

“Could be, of course.” Len thought a moment, then shook her head. “No; I don’t think it’s that. I haven’t a clue, but I’m sure that if she’d been going to burst out over that, it would have come earlier. Thanks for telling me, Alicia. I’ll try to keep an eye on her, though I can’t butt in on her unless she asks me.”

They left it at that. Alicia had relieved her mind and Len did her best to keep an eye on her youngest triplet. It wasn’t easy, since they had so few lessons together nowadays, but she did note that Margot wasn’t looking quite herself.

Seizing a chance when they were out in the garden, she drew her sister aside. “Aren’t you feeling fit, Margot?” she asked. “You’re looking tired. I know you’re working like a steam-engine, but don’t overdo it, will you?”

“I’m all right,” Margot said shortly.

“That’s O.K., then.” Seeing that her sister was inclined to be brusque, Len said no more.

On the Saturday before half-term, Margot roused after a wakeful night of pain. She felt that she couldn’t go on like this. Best report to Matey and take what was coming to her via the dentist. Having come to it at last, it was a blow to learn that Matey had gone down to Interlaken by the early train. She could have gone to one of the other matrons, but the only one she liked was Barbara Henschell, who had been a prefect in the school when she was a Junior. Unfortunately, Barbara had been out of school all that week with the current cold. She was coming back that morning, but Margot could not know that.

Of the other three matrons, she did not care for either Matron Wood or Matron Bellenger. As for Matron Duffin, who was in charge of St Clare’s, the pair of them were at daggers drawn ever since the day when that lady, deputising for Matey who was having a free weekend, had seen fit to call Margot over the coals for untidiness. Margot had not been to blame in this instance, having been called to the study before she could finish her dormitory work, and she had replied with an assurance that came within an inch of downright impertinence. Matron had considered it was impertinence and reported Margot to the Head, who had called her to order. Ever since then, Margot had loathed Matron Duffin.

“Oh, why must Matey be non est just when I really need her?” the girl thought as she went up to make her bed. “And I’d have gone to Barbara, but I don’t suppose she’ll be back before Monday. I’m not going to bother any of the others, anyhow. What about asking the Head?” She thought it over and decided that it was the best solution to her problem. As soon as she had finished making her bed and tidying, she would go to the study.

This settled, she got to work with rather more vim than before. She finished the bed and began to dust. Stooping suddenly to dust the legs of her chair made the tooth give an extra sharp stab and she only just muffled a cry of pain. The other five had finished, all but Betty and Alicia at the far end, but Len had come to find her, bringing a letter from their cousin Peggy Winterton to show her, and heard her.

“Margot, what’s wrong?” she demanded.

“Toothache,” Margot said shortly, blinking back tears of pain.

“Toothache? Oh, you poor dear! Have you let Matey know? She’d arrange to take you to Herr von Francius and he’d soon settle it.”

“Would he?” The pain had ceased for the moment, but Margot’s nerves were thoroughly jangled and her sister’s sympathy made it worse.

“Of course he would. Let me go and tell her——Oh, but she isn’t here!”

“Exactly! So you can’t tell her. Anyhow, I wish you’d let me alone. I’ve got a tongue in my head, haven’t I?”

No one likes sympathy flung back in her face. Len was no exception and only her sister’s pale face and heavy eyes kept her from retorting sharply. The bell gave her an excuse to leave Margot and she turned, saying, “There’s the bell. I must go.”

Margot halted her. “Half a moment! You’re to leave it alone! Do you hear, Len? Just stop interfering with me and my affairs. I won’t have it! If you report to anyone, I shall say there’s nothing wrong and it’s just you being fussy as usual.”

Len flushed and her eyes looked angry. She had as hot a temper as Margot’s when it was roused, but she had learned to control it much earlier. For a moment she was tempted to fling a cutting reply at her sister. Then habitual thoughtfulness intervened and saved her from having to blame herself for what followed.

“Very well,” she said quietly. “It’s only because I don’t want you to have any more pain if it can be helped.”

“Oh, shut up!” Margot had reached the pitch where she felt it would be a real relief to let fly. “Don’t try to come the good elder sister over me! I won’t stand for it! Get out and stay out!”

The pair had forgotten that there was anyone else in the dormitory. Betty and Alicia had just finished and were about to go, but Margot’s furious tones reached them. Betty was a well-meaning girl, but tact was not in her composition. Margot Maynard must have gone crackers to speak to Len like that and it was time someone told her where she got off. Without further thought, Betty dashed across to the cubicle and pulled the curtain aside.

“Margot Maynard!” she exclaimed. “If you don’t want half the kids next door to hear you, you’d better pipe down. I should think——”

She got no further. Almost blind with fury, Margot snatched up the first thing that came to hand—a heavy bookend—and flung it straight at her head. Betty tried to dodge, but she was not quite quick enough. Len had tried to catch her sister’s arm, too, but all she did was to deflect her aim slightly so that the bookend struck Betty on the side of the head instead of full in the face, and she went down like a pole-axed ox.

Len acted swiftly. She thrust Margot back on to the bed with a sharp, “Stay there!” before she knelt to examine Betty. A corner of the bookend had caught her and blood was streaming from a nasty cut. Pressing her handkerchief on the wound, Len called out, “Anyone there? You, Alicia? Go quickly and tell Matron that Betty’s cut her head! Be quick!”

Alicia scudded off on the word and Len did her best to staunch the flow of blood. Margot remained where she was, her anger completely drained away in the horror of the damage she had wrought. Len spoke again.

“Margot, go and soak a sponge at the cold-water tap!” Margot got to her feet. For a moment she felt absolutely faint. Then she got hold of herself. Snatching the sponge from her spongebag, she fled to the nearest bathroom and soaked it, tearing back with it to Len, who caught it and pressed it to the wound, merely saying, “Another! Hurry!”

Betty herself lay white and still, with shut eyes. When Len changed the sponges, the blood seemed to Margot to be pouring and she felt sick. What had that senseless rage of hers done? Had she killed Betty? Then Len pressed the stained sponge into her hand and she had to run to the bathroom again.

By the time she got back, someone else was there. Matron Henschell had not been in to Frühstück, but she had met Alicia at the foot of the stairs, heard her story and come up to the dormitory as fast as her legs would carry her. She wasted no time on talk. Kneeling down, she took the sponge from Len’s hand and pushed her aside.

“I see,” she said after a long moment. “We must get her—Oh, San’s full. Very well. We’ll take her to my room for the moment.” She glanced round and saw Margot with the fresh sponge and Alicia who had followed her. “Come along, girls! Stretcher drill! Alicia and Margot, join hands under her feet. Len, with me under her shoulders. Ready? Lift! Now forward to my room.”

Walking slowly and steadily, they carried the unconscious Betty to Matron’s room where they laid her down on the divan and the girls stood back, waiting for further orders.

Matron bent over and sponged the blood away, but it kept on trickling, though even Margot could see that it was not so bad as before. Len had moved round to put an arm round her. Margot was thankful for the support. Reaction had her in its grip. She was shaking all over and almost ready to cry. She bit her lips hard and controlled herself. Betty was the most important thing.

Matron had laid her down again and turned to get her First Aid box. “Len, go to the office and ask Miss Dene to ring through for your father,” she said. “Alicia, go and bring me some hot water—as hot as possible. Margot, hand me these things as I ask for them.”

Len had gone already. Alicia followed at full speed and Margot, her teeth clenched, her face nearly as white as Betty’s, came to the little trolley Matron had set up with swift but unhurrying movements, and waited for orders.

“Scissors!” Matron said as she lifted the sponge she had replaced.

Margot put them in her hand and after mopping away the trickle of blood, she began to clip the hair round the cut as closely as she could. When it was done and the area clear, a nasty jagged place was laid bare. Alicia had brought the water by this time and Matron directed her to pour some disinfectant into it, then she sponged the place carefully. Len arrived a minute or two later. The doctor had been in San to take a look at the patients there and she had caught him as he left, and brought him straight to Matron’s room.

He examined the cut carefully. “I see. Well, a couple of stitches are indicated, I think. And we’ll spare these three now. Off you go, girls! Don’t worry about Betty. She’ll be all right shortly. She’s only stunned and she’s rousing from that already. Matron has certainly spoilt her beauty with her barbering, but the hair will soon grow and there’s nothing deadly in any of this. Now be off!”

They went, Alicia struggling with tears of relief. She was very fond of Betty and it had been alarming to see her lying like that. Margot was still shaking and Len put an arm round her again.

“You go down, Alicia,” she said. “We’ve missed the walk, of course. By the way, don’t say anything about all this until I’ve seen you, will you? Margot, you come back to your dormy. It’s been a shock and I’m going to tuck you up under your plumeau and then get you a hot drink from Karen.”

Alicia glanced at Margot. What she saw in her white face made her say quickly, “I shan’t say a word, Len. It’s not my business!” before she went off downstairs. Len nearly carried her sister back to the dormitory, where she tucked her up under the plumeau before going off to the kitchens to beg a hot drink from Karen. Karen amiably produced a beaker of hot milk and Len, having explained that there had been an accident to one of the other girls and Margot had seen it and was upset, went back to coax her sister to sit up and sip it. She was rather afraid of what she might find. Margot was always an incalculable quantity.

She was lying quietly, but her blue eyes had darkened till they looked nearly black and she was still very white. Len slipped an arm under her shoulders and lifted her, holding the beaker to her lips.

“Drink this, Margot. You’ll feel better then.”

Margot sipped slowly. Gradually, the warmth of the milk spread through her, banishing the icy cold which had gripped her when Betty fell. Halfway through, she stopped and lifted piteous eyes to her sister’s face.

“Len! Betty—Betty——”

“Didn’t you hear Papa? He said she’d be all right in a few days.”

Margot was silent. Suddenly, she pulled herself away from Len’s hold, turned over and buried her face in her pillow as she burst into tears. Len set the beaker aside and gave herself up to comforting her sister.

“Margot! My poor Margot! Don’t cry like that, honey! It’s truly all right. Papa even joked about Barbara spoiling Betty’s beauty by cutting her hair. Didn’t you hear him? Oh, don’t cry like that!”

She got her arms round Margot again and held her close. Margot clung to her, sobbing and shaking, and Len did her best to soothe her. How long they were there, neither could have told, but there came a light footstep. The curtains were drawn aside and the Head was with them. She had just come from hearing the doctor’s report on Betty. He had assured her that an outsize in headaches, a very sore head for the next day or two, and the loss of her locks were the main part of the damage. He had left the girl sleeping quietly and expected she would awake much more herself. Miss Annersley saw him off, went to have a look at Betty for her own satisfaction and then, after a word or two with Matron, had come to ask why Len at least had not come to Prayers. What she saw as she drew back the curtains sent her straight to the bedside, to take Margot from her sister and say, “You two have missed Prayers, but I’ll hear your excuses later. Len, go straight to your lesson. Now, Margot, stop crying at once and tell me all about it.”

Matron Henschell had already told Miss Annersley which girls had helped her. When neither of the Maynards had appeared at Prayers, she guessed that one of them—and most probably Margot—had been badly upset. Barbara had very little information as to how the accident had happened. The Head had noticed that Alicia was paler than usual and looked as if she had been crying, so she decided to leave her until she had had time to recover. Len Maynard was the one most likely to be able to give her a clear story. Hence her arrival in Gentian. Having sent Len off to classes, she turned her attention to the girl who had proved one of the most difficult the school had ever had to deal with.

Margot had struggled into a sitting position and was mopping her eyes. The Head, with an eye to her face, all puffed and mottled with crying, realised that the girl had had a nasty shock. Knowing Margot, she instantly jumped to the correct conclusion that she had had a good deal to do with the matter. The first thing was to get her calmed. Questions could come after.

Miss Annersley’s first remark, therefore, was a minor shock. “Really, Margot, there can’t be any need to scrub your eyes like that. Get up and go and sponge your face thoroughly with cold water. You’ll feel much better then. Run along; I’ll wait here for you.”

She swung the chair round to the window and sat down while Margot, her sobs partly checked by this matter-of-fact way of dealing with things, rolled off the bed and went to do as she was told. When she came back, apart from an occasional choke, she had stopped crying. The water had brought her face to something more like itself and her head, though still aching, felt better. As for the toothache, she had forgotten about it in the throes of her remorse.

“That’s better,” Miss Annersley said, regarding her critically. “Tidy your hair and then come with me. Be quick! I’m teaching next period, so I can’t waste any time.”

Margot brushed her curls and then turned. “I’m ready now, Miss Annersley.”

“Good! Then come along.”

She took the girl into her own quarters. If they went to the study, there might be half-a-dozen interruptions to cope with.

“Now, Margot,” she said when they were in her private sittingroom, “what have you to tell me?”

“That it was all my fault—my beastly temper,” Margot said in low tones.

“What was all your fault?”

“Betty’s accident!”

“How did you manage that, I wonder?” Miss Annersley kept her voice quietly conversational and it helped Margot.

“I lost my temper with her—no; I was in a temper to start with. I was rowing with Len and Betty said something and—well, I just grabbed the first thing handy and chucked it at her.”

“I see. What did you throw? Try to keep from using so much slang.”

“I’m sorry; I forgot. It—it was one of my bookends.” Margot was crimson as she said this and she refused to meet the keen eyes contemplating her.

The Head was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Quite an unpleasant missile! And a most unpleasant confession from you. You are sixteen now and yet you can still behave like one of the little girls in a rage. Really, Margot!”

It was impossible for Margot to go any redder. She shuffled her feet and said nothing. The Head watched her for a moment. When she spoke again her voice was so incisive that Margot jumped.

“Look at me, Margot!” Margot raised her eyes and, even as Jack and Co had found, felt it impossible to look away. “This is no more than a most disappointing return to your earlier childishness. What excuse have you?”

“I—it was toothache.”

“Toothache?”

“Yes!”

“Yours—or Betty’s?”

“M-mine!”

“How long have you had it?”

“Since the beginning of the week—off and on.”

“Why did you not report to Matron at once? You know the rules!”

Margot was tongue-tied. Miss Annersley sat gazing at her. An answer was clearly indicated, but how could she say, “I funked the dentist”? She couldn’t. But those ice-cold eyes were compelling her to speak. Very like the little girl with whom she had been compared, she faltered out, “I—I didn’t want to go to the dentist. I thought—it might go off.”

“Come to the window. Open your mouth and let me see.”

Margot was a tall girl, but the Head was just a little taller. She stooped down and examined the mouth closely. What she saw nearly brought an exclamation from her, but she suppressed it in time. She no longer wondered that the girl was looking white with black shadows under her eyes. The tooth was in a bad way. Secretly, the Head doubted if even Herr von Francius could save it. She said nothing about that, however.

“Yes; that will do,” she said. “Come and sit down again. Now please tell me how long this has been going on.”

Margot thought back. “Really, I suppose I felt it last week—Saturday afternoon. I was eating toffee and it stuck to my teeth. I had to get it clear with my finger and, later, I felt a hole. It didn’t begin to ache till Sunday, though, when I was eating Edinburgh rock.”

“I see.” There was a long pause during which Margot sat wondering what was going to happen now and the Head revolved many things in her mind. Margot’s dread of the dentist was inherited. Joey Maynard had gone to ridiculous lengths in her own school days in her efforts to avoid him.^[5] At the same time it was absurd for a girl of Margot’s age to show such cowardice. She looked across at her and decided to speak.

“And so,” she said in measured tones, “because you are a coward, you have come near to killing another girl. If the blow had been less than half-an-inch nearer the temple Betty might be dead now. Do you realize that?”

Margot stared at her in silence, her face as white as it had been red.

“Is—is that true?” she at last asked tonelessly.

“Absolutely true.”

Margot flinched visibly. “I—I——” she stopped.

“You see,” said the Head, “to what lengths your unbridled rage might have led you. I am sure you never meant to hurt Betty, but you let your temper get the better of you.”

Margot had nothing to say. Miss Annersley looked at her thoughtfully. Between the pain of her tooth and the shock of Betty’s injury, she thought she had had nearly enough. She went on.

“You are almost sixteen-and-a-half, yet your own little sister Felicity, who is nine years younger, would be ashamed to behave as you have done.”

Margot was nearly in tears again. “None—of the others—were born—with such a temper as mine. I can’t—help it!” she gasped.

“That’s nonsense. Len has quite as hot a temper as yours, but she manages to keep it under. Of course you can help it if you try. However, all this is beside the point. I tell you plainly, Margot, that if this is to go on I must ask your parents to remove you. I cannot undertake such a responsibility any longer. I must think of the other girls.”

Margot jumped up. “Not that—oh, please not that!” she cried.

“Sit down and listen to what I have to say,” the Head returned, her tone softening a little. “No; I shall not expel you now. I will give you another chance. I am hoping that the clear knowledge of what might have happened will help you to try harder and to keep on trying. You are to stay here this morning until I come to you again. Until then, I want you to think of what I have said and to pray to God that you may be given strength to fight this bosom enemy of yours. Believe me, child,” her voice was growing kinder, “it is the only way for any of us. Now I must go, but I’ll ask Matron to come and see what she can do to relieve your pain until we can take you to Berne.”

“Th-thank you,” Margot said shakily. “And—and I’ll do—as you said.”

Miss Annersley had risen and the girl rose with her. The Head set her hands on the slim shoulders and looked down into the pale face. “Yes; I know that. And Margot, don’t despair. You’ll win in the end if you really try.”

It was the old kind voice, the old kind glance. The Head left the room and Margot was crying again, but quietly, and the worst of her mental pain had gone.

When Matron appeared, armed with basin, mug and lotion, she had pulled herself together considerably. The lotion tasted vile, but it certainly relieved the pain in her cheek. Matron produced another little bottle from her pocket, painted the gum round the bad tooth and tucked her patient up on the big settee with orders to try to sleep a little if she could. Worn out with all that had happened, Margot did doze most of the morning. When the Head came to her she looked better, though the cheek was swelling, and when she had expressed her penitence she was forgiven and ordered off to bed for a proper sleep. But she had had a lesson that she would never forget.

Meanwhile Len had gone to lessons with a sense of relief. At least the Head would know all about that tooth now and she would soon settle that part of the business. Betty was not nearly so badly hurt as she might have been and would soon be all right again.

“And,” thought Len as she sat down after apologising to the mistress for unpunctuality, “in one way it serves her right. If she’d let Margot alone, it wouldn’t have happened.” After which she gave it up and immersed herself in work until Break.

Con was the first to come to ask questions. “What on earth made you miss Prayers?” she demanded. “Anything wrong?”

“And where’s Margot?” Francie Wilford chimed in as she joined them.

“Margot’s got a vile toothache and the Head walked her off,” Len replied.

“Oh, poor old Margot!” Francie exclaimed. “That means a trip to Berne!”

“Didn’t she report to Matey?” queried Maeve who had overheard. “The silly little ass! Why on earth didn’t she? When did it begin?”

“I haven’t a clue—some days ago, I imagine.”

“And she never reported? Matey will eat her!”

“Oh, well, you know how Margot is. Mamma says she was just as bad and Margot gets it from her.”

“That’s why she’s been so touchy, then,” Con commented. “She nearly bit my head off last night for nothing at all. Oh, well, it’s the dentist now for her. Poor old Margot!”

“It probably means the dentist for a lot more than Margot,” Rosamund Lilley said ruefully. “Tooth inspection the moment Matey hears of it, mes amies! I hope you’re all prepared for the worst!”

“I’m out of it, thank goodness,” Ted Grantley remarked with some complacency. “I had a thorough doing in the hols.”

“So did we,” Len said, carefully running the tip of her tongue round her teeth, “but it hasn’t saved Margot from this last lot.”

“By the way,” Mary Murrell put in, “what’s this yarn about Betty Landon banging her head and being concussed? I saw young Gillie in their commonroom and she and Jack Lambert were full of it. Someone had better jump on them, Maeve, or they’ll make a regular penny dreadful out of it. According to Gillie streams of gore poured in every direction.”

“I’ll streams of gore them!” Len exclaimed, jumping up from her seat on the arm of the settee. “I was there and saw the whole thing. Betty fell when——”

Alicia interrupted her. “You go and blanket down those kids, Len. I was there, too, and can give any poke-nose the whole yarn.”

Len went off to attend to the morals of the Junior Middles and Alicia told the rest the tale she had already thought out during French.

“All that happened was that Betty hit her head against something and cut it. It was rather a nasty knock and she was stunned at the time. Len and Margot and I were there and we got Matron Henschell and helped her to carry Betty along to her own room to have the place plastered up. As for streams of gore, what else do you expect from Junior Middles? Exaggeration is no word for the yarns that crowd can send round!”

“I suppose she slipped and there was nothing handy to hang on to,” Monica Garstin remarked. “I skidded yesterday myself and if old Mary hadn’t been there, I’d have gone headlong. Someone ought to give Karen a hint to tell the maids not to polish quite so vigorously. I’m all for well-polished floors, but there are limits!”

The rest agreed and then someone mentioned the half-term expeditions and the subject was changed at once. The Easter term was generally a short one and half-term was a short weekend, beginning on the Friday afternoon and ending on Monday evening. Very few people went home for it. The remainder were divided up into parties and taken on trips to various places. So far, the lists had not yet appeared, though half-term came the following week-end. By the time Len returned, she found that the accident had been forgotten and everyone was voicing her wishes with regard to places to be visited.

Luckily, the Head had already arranged with Rosalie Dene that the lists should go up that day. During Break, she had requested the secretary to attend to the matter before Mittagessen. As a result, there was little else talked of for the rest of the day, as she had expected.

Margot was allowed to get up after Kaffee und Kuchen and was the recipient of many condolences when she appeared, paler than her wont and with one cheek swelled to such an extent that Ruey Richardson told her she looked lop-sided!

A good many folk had a strong fellow-feeling for her. Matey had duly carried out her tooth inspection that afternoon and seventeen unhappy beings had the melancholy prospect of a dental visit on the Monday before them. Margot remained very quiet all that week-end, but no one wondered at that. With a face like that, she must have a bad time coming to her.

As for Betty, as soon as she was well enough to think over things, she confessed her share in the matter to the Head when that lady came to visit her. She acknowledged that at least half the blame for what had happened was hers and received a straight talking-to on the subject of tact that left her quite subdued. She returned to school on the Wednesday but, though the rest commiserated her on the cut and the loss of her hair, no one was unduly excited. As Maeve Bettany remarked, for the moment the school thought half-term, talked half-term and even, dreamed half-term. No other topic had much chance with them, and it was only the fear of missing their share of the various treats that kept some of the wilder spirits among the Middles from letting anything so unimportant as school work worry them at all.

It was on the Monday morning that the prefects went to Lausanne. There were eighteen from the Chalet School and four from St Hilda’s, so they made up quite a large enough party. Miss Moore and Miss Charlesworth went with them as escorts. The remainder of the VIb girls, together with the twenty-two who formed Va, were bound for Fribourg, so Len, the only one of the Maynards to have attained to the glory of prefectship, joined up with Rosamund Lilley and Francie Wilford. For good measure, they included Alicia Leonard in their group. Betty, not being a prefect, went with the other party. The school’s big motor-coaches were all needed for the younger girls, so the grandees of the school went by train to Geneva where they took the steamer down the lake to Lausanne.

They reached Ouchy, the port of Lausanne, and a trolley-bus carried them to the Avenue de la Gare, where they were decanted and stood in an excited group round the mistresses to hear their plans. Since they had set out shortly after 7 a.m., they had arrived quite early. They were to return by the train which left Geneva eleven hours later, so this would give them plenty of time to see some of the main sights as well as to do some shopping.

“Luckily,” Len said as their quartette walked down the Avenue de la Gare to turn into the Avenue Georgette, “we haven’t to think of the Sale this term. Lausanne has some gaudy shops and stores and I’ve drawn out nearly all my bank money to have a spending orgy for once.”

“Extravagance!” Francie retorted.

“And what have you done, may I ask?”

“Exactly the same. What do you think?” Francie laughed happily.

As they were prefects and to be trusted, there was no question of a crocodile. They strolled along in threes and fours. In the main part of Lausanne, the pavements are wide and they were so early that there were comparatively few shoppers about, and at this season there were not so many tourists.

They came to the Place St François, where stands the church of St Francis, once the church of a Franciscan friary founded in the thirteen century. Here, as Miss Charlesworth informed them, the Reformation was first preached in Lausanne by Pierre Viret in 1546.

“That was after the Bernese had conquered the country,” she said. “They remained masters until 1798. Then, as some of you may remember, Berne collapsed before a Napoleonic army and the Vaud became free. By that time, the canton was Protestant in the main, but later on part of it, now the Fribourg canton, separated and became almost solidly a Catholic canton. Nowadays, of course, both religious divisions are to be found in both cantons, religious persecution having ended here.”

“Is the church very old?” Maeve inquired.

“Largely fifteenth-century, when it was rebuilt after a disastrous fire in 1368. Now come along in. I want you to see the fourteenth-century choir-stalls and the windows, which are mainly modern.”

They went round, commenting on what they saw, but it did not take long. Presently they were walking to the Pont Bessières, headed for the Gothic cathedral which was begun about the year 1000 and dedicated by Pope Gregory X in 1275. Nowadays it is a centre of the Protestant faith, as Miss Charlesworth informed them, and Len was moved to ask if there were no Catholic churches?

“Don’t be so ridiculous, Len!” Miss Charlesworth retorted. “I told you there were. There is the Sacré-Coeur not far from Ouchy where we landed. You can see that later; and there are others as well.”

“And now, we’ll go and see Évèche, which used to be the bishop’s palace,” Miss Moore chimed in.

“What is it now?” Mary Murrell asked.

“A museum—the Musée du Vieux-Lausanne. The exhibits are all connected with old Lausanne and some of them go back to prehistoric times. What about it?” Miss Charlesworth looked round them with raised eyebrows.

Some of them thought it would be good fun. The rest decided that they would rather go on to something else. Finally, it was agreed to separate for the rest of the morning. The history fiends, as Maeve called them, would stay with Miss Charlesworth and visit the Musée; the others were to go with Miss Moore to Ouchy, once a fishing village, but now a suburb of Lausanne. They would meet at the Château d’Ouchy for déjeuner and decide then where else they would go.

Twelve elected to accompany Miss Moore. The rest, including Len and Rosamund, remained with Miss Charlesworth, and enjoyed themselves thoroughly at the Évèche. After that, the mistress took them by way of the old wooden staircase, which is one of the sights of Lausanne, up to the Place de la Palud.

“What a huge place!” Rosamund said as they surveyed the great open square.

Miss Charlesworth laughed. “It has need to be. Every Wednesday and Saturday they hold a market here, and the farmers from the countryside stream in with their produce. There are other stalls as well, and everyone comes to buy.”

“Hard luck we didn’t come on Saturday and see it for ourselves,” Monica Garstin remarked as they turned to view the elegant Hotel de Ville which dates from the seventeenth century and, since it was built under Bernese influence, is typical Bernese in appearance.

“No thank you!” Miss Charlesworth replied with emphasis. “The crowds are far too big for us to bring a group of you folk here. Well, I think that’s all hereabouts and I’m ready for a cup of coffee. What about it?”

No one declined. Coffee was exactly what seemed to be indicated at that moment. They clambered on to a trolley-bus and were whirled away to Ouchy where, in the Restaurant du Parc, they were given coffee and creamcakes on the terrace overlooking the great lake. Halfway through, they heard the sound of familiar voices and Miss Moore and her band arrived on the same quest. Odd seats at the tables were speedily filled up and the girls were soon enjoying their coffee, with plenty of chatter as they exchanged notes on what they had seen and done.

Miss Moore had taken her party to visit the great Sports Stadium, after which they had promenaded along the Quai d’Ouchy, dividing their admiration between the beautiful lake cradled against the great wall of the Alps and the many fine houses and hotels built along the Quai.

“I’d love to spend a holiday here!” Mary Murrell sighed. “Unfortunately, I’m certain it would cost the earth, so that means it’s out so far as I’m concerned; but that isn’t to say I shouldn’t love it.”

“You could do it when you’ve begun teaching,” Len said from the next table. “You could save part of your screw each term and then go a bust in the summer hols.”

Mary laughed. “It won’t work out that way, I’m afraid. The aunt I live with is doing all she can to give me the best chance for getting a really decent job and when I do begin, I want to pay her back some of it, anyhow. She’s getting on now and it’ll be up to me to see that she has a chance of lying back once I’m off her hands.” She laughed again, for she was a happy-natured creature as well as a grateful one.

“I think you’ll find you can do both,” Miss Moore, who had overheard, told her. “Even if you set aside quite a small sum each week you’ll be surprised to find how it mounts up. If you can’t manage your trip the first year, you’ll probably be able to do it the next. Anyhow, why don’t you have a shot at the Thérèse Lepattre scholarship? That would cover all your university fees if you won it. You’re a member of the school this year, so you’re eligible as a candidate.”

Mary looked startled. Maeve, sitting next to her, turned. “Wait until we get back to school and I’ll tell you about it. I’d forgotten it, and anyhow I hadn’t much reason for thinking about it. But I don’t see why you shouldn’t have a go. There’s a decent living allowance as well as all your university fees. By the way, though, aren’t you eligible for a grant from your home county?”

Mary shook her head. “I don’t think so. You see, I was born in Jamaica and lived there until my people died, when I was only nine. My aunt came out to take me home as there was no one else. She was teaching in a school in Kent then. Two years later, she was offered another, smaller one—the headship of it, I mean—in Hampshire. When I was fourteen, she had a very bad operation. She came through all right, but it meant weeks in hospital and ages in a convalescent home after that. Miss Holroyd and she were at London University together, so I was sent to her school and boarded with her. She’s been endlessly good to me. When Auntie was on her feet again, the doctors told her that she must not take another regular job. She would never be strong enough.”

“What rotten luck!” Maeve said warmly.

“It was; and I was only fifteen at the time and she knew, of course, that I meant to follow in her footsteps. I’d have given it up if there’d been nothing else to do, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Miss Holroyd found a little flat for her, close to her own place. Once Auntie was settled in, she got coaching.”

“But wasn’t that almost the same thing?” Monica Garstin, who was at their table and had been listening, queried.

Mary shook her head. “Good gracious, no! For one thing, she had none of the organization nor the heavy responsibility on her shoulders. For another, the hours were much shorter. But with all that moving about you can see why I doubt if I could apply for a county grant.”

Monica and Maeve nodded thoughtfully.

“But you’re headed for a university, aren’t you?” Monica asked.

“Yes—London. Well, what’s wrong with that?” For Maeve had heaved a great sigh. “Oh! You don’t mean that the—what did you call it?”

“The Thérèse Lepattre scholarship,” Maeve said, “and I was sighing with relief. It can be held at either the Sorbonne in Paris, or Oxford, or Cambridge, or——” she paused with a mischievous glance at Mary. Then she went on: “London!”

“Not really? Oh, I wonder if I’d have a chance? It would be simply terrific if I had.”

“I don’t see why not,” Maeve replied. “Judging by what I know of your work I should say you’d a jolly good chance. You’re awfully like my young cousin Len. I mean, once you get your teeth into a subject I notice you never stop worrying at it until you’ve got to the end of it.”

“But what about the others?” Mary asked.

Maeve thought it over. “Apart from Anna Hollman, I can’t think of anyone much. Marie Dupont and Berta Wendl are slated for Basle, which doesn’t come into it. Lizette Faience is going to the Paris Conservatoire and Aimée Robinet to the École des Beaux Arts. Monica Caird is going in for P.T. and has hopes of Bedford. As for Marie Zetterling, she’s to go in with her dad after she’s been properly trained. He runs a big hotel in Berne and when Marie’s finished with school, she’s going to Vienna to a friend of his for a couple of years. Of course, some of the Sixth at our English branch may be in for it. I wouldn’t know about that. But yes; I should think you’d have quite a good chance.”

“What about yourself?”

Maeve went off into peals of laughter. “Oh, my dear! Are you quite mental? I’m the most hopelessly un-exam-minded creature that ever graced our establishment. I can manage our own terminal exams, but face me with a public one and I’ve had it! I go literally haywire. Every single fact I ever learned vanishes and I can’t even express the few facts I can get down, decently. Mummy says I’ll have to go into a shop—and then I doubt if I’d ever get the change right! I’m the family dud, my pet!”

Mary and Monica joined in her laughter and as Miss Charlesworth had risen and was collecting her flock, Mary had to go, but it was not without something very important to consider. All the time they were being shown round the Musée Romain, which had been specially opened for them, she was pondering on her subjects and trying to see if she had any chance against Anna, who was a very studious girl from Alsace and who produced thoughtful work on all occasions. It is to be feared that Mary carried away a very hazy recollection of even the famous “Painted Room” which is the gem of the museum!

They all met again for déjeuner, after which they went in a body to visit Lausanne University, which is housed in the Palais de Rumine together with the Musée des Beaux Arts, the Musée de Palaeontologie, the Musée Historique and the Musée de Zoologie. They concentrated on the first, where there are not only examples of most of the famous Swiss artists but a good collection also of the works of Rembrandt, Brouwer, Wouwerman and David, as well as the Gleyre paintings and some fine pictures by Eugene Burnand.

“Well, now for shopping!” Miss Moore said briskly when they finally left the Rumine and found themselves once more in the magnificent Place de Riponne. “You may have an hour for it, girls, but no more. We still have to have our Kaffee und Kuchen——”

“Café et pâtisseries, surely,” whispered wicked Maeve to Len, who giggled. “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

“——and then we have to go down the lake to Geneva, which takes some time,” the mistress ended serenely, paying no heed to the frivolous pair. “We mustn’t miss our connection at Interlaken or we shall have to walk up to the Platz, which I don’t imagine you want after a day spent in sight-seeing. Now come along; and try to remember that though prices are not so steep here as in Geneva itself, they aren’t exactly low.”

They set off cheerfully and she led them to one of the big stores where she knew they should be able to buy practically everything they were likely to want. They might all have entered its doors much less gaily if they could have foreseen what was going to happen in the very near future!

The mistresses, knowing what girls of their age like, wasted no time on the ground-floor section, but piled them into three of the many lifts to be found in each department of the great building and they were all whisked up to the top floor. Arrived there, Miss Moore informed them that they would come down from floor to floor, thus having a chance to see everything.

“That will take more than an hour,” Miss Charlesworth demurred in an aside to her colleague.

“I know; but there’s a very good café three or four doors further down. I’ll see you started off with them and then I’ll run down and book tables and a meal for 16.30 hours. That gives them nearly an hour and a half. If they haven’t finished their shopping by that time, they must just leave it unfinished!” Miss Moore retorted. “Good enough?”

“It’s good enough for me; but how will you find us again?”

“Wait for me on the third floor down in the lingerie department. I shan’t be all that time arranging our meal, but I have some shopping of my own to do—two birthdays during the next ten days! I’ll get on with it until you arrive.”

“Right! They can’t possibly come to any harm here. I’ll keep them together as far as possible and tell anyone who gets lost to wait for us beside the lifts.”

“Good idea—only make up your mind in which department the lifts are. I believe they have them to every department on every floor. This is a big place!”

“Are you telling me!” Miss Charlesworth returned, descending to slang for once.

Miss Moore went off to book her tables and Miss Charlesworth, having explained the arrangements to the girls, turned them loose, warning them to keep in sight of each other as far as they could. After all, they were all girls in the later teens. Even Len, the “baby” of the party, was nearly sixteen-and-a-half. All spoke French and German with facility and all had been warned more than once during their years at school not to chatter to strangers. It seemed highly improbable that they could come to any harm.

The top floor was given up to what Monica Garstin rather pompously called “Objects of art and vertu”. In one part, prints and reproductions of famous pictures and statuary were shown. Woodcarvings filled two sets of shelves in another. In yet another were examples of the Swiss jewellers’ work from strings of pretty beads and “costume” jewellery to cases of trinkets set with precious stones and costing considerably more than the girls could spend.

Len and Rosamund, together as usual, paused enraptured before one table on which were scattered examples of the delicate filigree work for which Switzerland is famous.

“It’s all lovely, but what prices!” Rosamund sighed as she examined the price ticket on a dainty brooch she longed to send home as a wedding present to her elder sister Charmain.

“This is cheaper and it’s quite as pretty,” Len replied, pointing out another. “Wouldn’t that do, Ros?”

After inspecting it carefully, Rosamund decided that it would and the purchase was made. They wandered on then, some way behind the rest by this time. Suddenly Len stopped and pointed to a sparkling string of baby rhinestones.

“Wouldn’t that be just sweet on Felicity?” she exclaimed.

“I thought your mother didn’t let any of you wear trinkets until you were a good deal older than Felicity,” Rosamund said.

“We three had coral necklets for our eighth birthday and Fee will be eight in September. I could keep it till then. She’d love it and it’s so simple and dainty I don’t think Mamma would object to it then. How much is it?”

Len made a face when she saw the price, but hasty calculations showed her that she could manage it and still have enough to get trifles for her triplet sisters and something for her mother.

“I’ll take it,” she said. “Con and Margot will probably join when I tell them, and we might never have another chance of anything like it.”

By the time it was wrapped up and paid for, the last of the other girls was out of sight. A quick glance round told them that no one they knew was anywhere about.

“Oh, my goodness!” Len exclaimed. “We’ve lost them! Have you any idea which way they went, Ros?”

“Not a clue! I wasn’t watching,” Rosamund replied. She looked round, then gave an exclamation. “Isn’t that Maeve over there?” She pointed. “Come on! Charlie’s a poppet, but she won’t be exactly pleased if she finds us missing when she counts heads. This way, Len!”

They hurried along in the direction in which she had been pointing, only to find that Maeve, if Maeve it had been, had vanished and so had the others.

“Oh, bother—bother—bother!” Len ejaculated. “Well, we’d better find the lifts and go there and wait for them. Which department did Charlie say they were in?”

“The third—I think,” Rosamund said after a little consideration.

“Are you sure? Myself, I thought she said the first.” The pair stared at each other in troubled silence.

“Well—which shall it be?” Len asked at last. “Or—I know what! You go to the third lot and I’ll go back to the first. Whichever they come to, the one there will fetch the other. O.K.?”

Rosamund suddenly laughed. “Solomon! All right; it’s probably the most sensible thing to do since neither of us is certain. It must be one of those two since we’ve both hit on the same sound. I’ll go and wait in the next room and you trot back to the first. I don’t suppose it’ll be for long, anyhow.”

Len waited for nothing more. While Rosamund sauntered on to the next room, she turned and hurried as fast as she could to the first and took up her position by the lifts. Meanwhile Miss Charlesworth, having missed the couple, sent the others to wait in the fifth department and herself went through the other four as fast as she could, searching for her missing lambs as she went.

It was a slow business for by that time in the afternoon, the store was crowded. It had a reputation for its trinkets and bric-à-brac and, though this was not the tourist season, there are generally a goodly number of visitors to the Genevan lake towns all the year round. Miss Charlesworth, feeling annoyed, circled about groups standing together at the various tables, pushed her way through a clump of a dozen or so people standing before a set of shelves laden with cuckoo clocks of every size and kind from a two-inch square one to one a foot-and-a-half each way, adorned with marvellous carving which culminated in a chamois head at the top.

This brought her through the fourth room and into the third where she suddenly spied Rosamund standing beside the lift-shaft. The mistress sped across to her with small heed for the shoppers between them. Finally she reached her.

“Really, Rosamund,” she said crossly, “if two big girls like you and Len can’t be trusted to listen to what is said to you, I think it’s a pity. I told you the fifth department!”

Rosamund flushed. “I’m very sorry, Miss Charlesworth. And Len isn’t with me. We couldn’t decide if you said the first or the third set of lifts, so I came here and she went back to the first. She’ll be waiting there. Shall I go and fetch her?”

“No; I’ll go myself. It’ll be quicker in the end. If you’d only listened when I was speaking, you’d have known I said the fifth and we should have been spared all this trouble and waste of time. Go and join the others while I look for Len. Remember, please, that none of you are to move till we join you. Now go along, and don’t do this sort of thing again.”

“Whew! Charlie is going up the wall and no mistake!” Rosamund thought as she turned to make her way to the fifth department where the others teased her unmercifully for some minutes about losing herself. She laughed and presently had recovered from Miss Charlesworth’s sharp speech. They exchanged notes on their purchases and were so engrossed in themselves that it was ten minutes or more before Maeve, looking round, remarked that it was taking Charlie a long time to retrieve Len and bring her to join them.

“I expect they’re finding it difficult to fight their way back,” Rosamund said easily. “The two first departments were pretty crowded when I came along and they looked like getting worse all the time. Even Charlie can’t go butting her way just anyhow through mobs like that. They’ll be along in a few minutes.”

They weren’t; and by the time twenty minutes had passed, the girls were feeling anxious. Could anything have happened to Len? But what could? She wouldn’t have left the floor by herself. She spoke French and German better than any of them, so it was most unlikely she had got tied up that way. Yet it was definitely taking an abnormally long time for her and Miss Charlesworth to rejoin them. There was nothing they could do but wait. If any of them went off in search, goodness only knew how long it might be before they were all together again. But it was dreary work standing there, being eyed curiously by various folk who clearly wondered why so many of them were clustered together in that corner, not even looking round the place.

“Us for beating the boy on the burning deck!” Francie said once, with a forlorn attempt at a laugh. “I do wish people wouldn’t stare at us as if we were animals at the Zoo!”

She voiced the feelings of all, but it didn’t help and they resigned themselves to continuing with their imitation of Casabianca.

Meanwhile Len, having reached the lift-shaft in the first room, had stood waiting patiently enough at first. A stand showing copies of some of the Dutch masters was nearby. She passed the time by inspecting them, one after the other. Quite a number of the visitors to the store glanced with surprise at the tall, pretty schoolgirl with her long shining tail of curly chestnut hair falling beneath the hat that matched her big coat of gentian-blue. Presently an English lady who had been the round of the department and was on her way back, came over to speak to her.

“My dear, are you waiting for someone?” she asked kindly. “Or have you lost your friends?”

Len turned with a start—she had been staring at the stand again—and at the same time, a small, thin woman who had come hurrying from the trinket department cast a quick glance over her shoulder before colliding with Len. The lady who had just spoken to the girl, caught her arm and steadied her, turning to make an indignant remark to the other woman. Even as she opened her lips, the lift came up, discharging a couple of young girls. The small woman pushed past the other two without a word of apology, snapped “Daunwed!” at the liftman, the doors came together and the lift descended with her.

“How rude!” the Englishwoman exclaimed. “I hope she didn’t hurt you?”

“Not in the least,” Len said politely. “And I’m waiting for some other people, thank you. They ought to be here any moment now.”

There was nothing for the kindly stranger to do but say, “I see. Well, if you are sure you’ll be all right——”

This was as far as she got. There was a sudden hubbub. A bell began to peal, shrilly and incessantly, and a thin, dark man came hurrying along, a scared-looking girl running after him, while a cry of “Thief—thief!” suddenly rang out and was taken up by a good number of people.

The man pulled up at the lifts and accosted Len’s unknown friend in English.

“Madame ’as been standing ’ere—and zee young miss? ’Ave you seen someone go down in zee élévateur—a small, thin woman, comme une belette—a ’ow do you say ’im? —a ouiselle?”

The lady nodded. “A small, thin woman, dressed in brown and—yes; you are right, Monsieur. She was very like a weasel in the face.”

“Zat is zee one! She is a—une voleuse—what is zee Eenglish?”

“Shop-lifter, you mean?” Len exclaimed.

“Zat is zee word. Myself, I ’ave ’ad suspicion for ’er. Zis young lady,” he indicated the assistant at his side, flushed and agitated, poor girl, “she ’ave seen ’er slip some rings in ’er pochette. Me, I ’ad been watching ’er, and I followed vite—vite. She ran; but I ’ave given zee alarm. She will not escape. And now, Mademoiselle,” he turned to Len, “you ’ave stood ’ere a long time. I ’ave seen you. ’Ave you seen zee woman, hein?”

“I couldn’t very well,” Len said. “She barged—er—bumped into me and nearly sent me flying, only this lady caught me in time. But I didn’t see her, really.”

He looked at her suspiciously. “But ’ere you stand a long time. I have observed you—me. Why do you rest ’ere so long?”

“I’m waiting for my party,” Len explained, beginning to feel slightly alarmed, what with the curious crowds thronging round and the look on his face. “I am from school and my friend and I got separated from the others somehow. We knew we had to wait by the lifts, but we were not sure which set, so she is waiting in the third department and I came here.”

“Vraiment!” Len had spoken in French so he used the same tongue and the sneer in his voice made her flush indignantly. “A very ready tale, Mademoiselle. Truly, a ready tale. But young ladies from school do not wander far from their teachers. I must trouble you to come with me to the manager’s office where we may search you. Me, I do not believe this charming fairy-tale of yours.”

Len’s eyes flashed dangerously and she drew herself up to her full height as she replied, “However, my tale is true, as you will see if you will wait until our mistress comes—as she may do at any moment.”

“Oh, I have no doubt of that! But we will not wait here. We will wait in the manager’s office—if he consents to permit it and does not send immediately for the police. Come!”

“No! I was told to wait her and here I stay!” Len retorted. She felt a sneeze coming and dived into a pocket for her handkerchief. She pulled it out anyhow and with it came a handful of oddments she knew had not been there before. Three sparkling rings, a brooch, a pair of bangles studded with rhinestones, a pair of nylon stockings, and a packet of handkerchiefs fell to the floor. Still gripping the arm he had seized, the detective caught at the bangles while the girl with him chased the rings which were rolling away.

The man held up his booty triumphantly. “Aha, Mdlle l’Accomplice! So I have you, at least! Soon, very soon, we shall have your partner in crime also. Of no use to struggle! You are caught and it is I—I, Achille Dupleix—who has caught a bare-faced thief! And it is the first day of my engagement here!”

He tugged at Len’s wrist and she shrank away from him, her face white. The English lady intervened.

“One moment, if you please! There is a broadcasting system here, is there not? Then please have a call sent out at once for any teacher who has lost a pupil. In the meantime. I will stay with this young lady——”

“Len! Why on earth couldn’t you listen when I spoke? You tiresome girl to give me all this trouble!” It was Miss Charlesworth, able at last to push her way through the crowds gathered from all quarters now. She dashed up to her pupil and spoke in her severest tone.

Len gasped. “Oh, thank goodness you’ve come at last! Some horrid creature has been shop-lifting. I suppose she felt someone watching her and was afraid to escape with the things, so she fell over me while I was standing here and she must have shoved them into my pocket to get rid of them. This man thinks—thinks——” She stopped short, her voice shaking on the last words. It had been a horrible ordeal, though she had faced it bravely enough. Now, with the arrival of Miss Charlesworth, it was all she could do to keep the tears back.

“What?” Miss Charlesworth ejaculated. She stared at white-faced Len, at the English lady who had slipped an arm round the girl and was holding her firmly, at the little stores assistant with her hands full of the very mixed bag Len had pulled out with her handkerchief. Finally, she turned on the stores detective, drawing herself up to her full height. “I desire you to take us to the manager’s office at once,” she said. She repeated the demand in both French and German so that there should be no mistake. “This young lady is one of my pupils. I can see that she has been made the victim of some thief, but I can vouch for her honesty as I can for my own. Be good enough to escort us to the manager where we will have a proper explanation.”

The other girls had heard the bell and seen the rush to the farther room. If they had dared, they would have followed. As it was they waited where they were, together with the assistants who, perforce, must also stand fast to guard their own goods. There Miss Moore found them when she joined them, having grown tired of waiting beside the lingerie. By that time, Miss Charlesworth had released Len from the detective’s grip and, in company with him and the English lady, they were taken to the manager’s room.

His secretary tried to stop them but Miss Charlesworth, as Len said later when she was telling her family about it, simply tanked over her. She marched through the outer office into the manager’s own sacred sanctuary, followed by the other three. Standing before the desk, at which a tall thin man with snapping black eyes was seated, was the weaselly woman in the grip of another of the store detectives. On the desk lay a handful of other trinkets and a positive magpie’s collection of oddments from the various departments.

The manager started up in protest as Miss Charlesworth and her party burst in on the scene.

“Madame! I must request you to excuse me! I am engaged!” Then his eyes fell on Achille Dupleix, who burst forth into his own tale immediately.

He did not get very far. Miss Charlesworth swung round on him, anger blazing in her face, and snapped, “Taisez-vous donc! Vous avez fait une grosse erreur et je l’expliquerai, moi-même!”

Before her wrath he fell silent and the English lady spoke. Between her account, Len’s faltered story, Miss Charlesworth’s comments and information as to who they were and whence they came, everything was finally made clear. By that time, chairs had been brought for the three and a glass of wine had been pressed on the bewildered and weary Len by the manager himself.

When he got to the bottom of everything, he was alert to make all the amends he could for his detective’s mistake. He apologised profusely all round before sending for the rest of the party, insisting on regaling the lot with the best coffee and cakes to be found. The English lady—a Mrs Molesworth—had to decline as she was already late for an engagement, but she handed her card to Miss Charlesworth with the remark that she would try to fit in a visit to the Platz before she had to go home.

After all this, as Rosamund Lilley remarked sotto voce, the manager looked ready to burst into tears. He all but wrung his hands and the volley of abuse he directed at his employee was masterly and comprehensive. Retailing a vivid account of it to her confrères that night, Miss Charlesworth said that it looked as if he was on the verge of offering the entire contents of the store to them by way of recompense for the insult offered to Len, the school and the Sanatorium. Mercifully, he stopped short of that. But when they had had their meal, he had ordered a motor-coach to take them back to the Platz, for which most of them were devoutly thankful. As for Len, she was too upset to do more than taste a cake, though she drained three full cups of coffee. It had been a horrible experience and, full of common-sense though she might be, she was a sensitive creature at bottom and the shock had been stunning.

For the next two nights, her sleep was disturbed by bad dreams in which she relived the whole thing over again. She had lost her fresh colour and her appetite was badly to seek, though Matron dosed her with a tonic three times a day.

Joey was in Basle, paying Frieda von Ahlen a brief visit, and the doctor was hard at work at the Sanatorium where they were short-handed at the moment, or one of them would have been sent for. In fact, neither knew of the contretemps until the middle of the week when Joey, having returned home, breezed in to deliver all sorts of messages and was regaled with an account of it in full detail.

Her comments were peculiarly her own. “Well, I know I may expect anything to happen with a family the size of mine, but I’m bound to admit that never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that one of them would be accused of being the assistant of a professional shop-lifter! One lives and learns!” Then she added rather anxiously, “How is Len? Has she been very much upset?”

Matron, who had come into the room at the tail-end of the story, took charge. “I’m sorry, Jo, but she has. She’s lost her appetite and she looks white, and during a session with her before I came here, I dragged it out of her that she’s been dreaming about it. I’ve just been down to ring up Jack and ask him to come and see her. Bad dreams aren’t in Len’s line as a rule.”

Joey bounded to her feet. “My poor lamb! Where is she, Gwynneth? I’ll go and have a word with her. What’s more, if I see fit, I’m going to take her home. Where’s Hilda Annersley?”

“Over at St Mildred’s discussing business with Nell Wilson,” Nancy Wilmot told her. “Rosalie Dene’s there, too. Suppose you bag the study and I’ll go and send Len to you. I’d no idea the young ass was having nightmares.”

“No one had,” Matey said austerely.

Joey nodded. “It’s preying on her mind, I expect. Oh, well, I can stop that. Send the three to me, Nancy. I’ll fill their little brains with something far otherwise. No; I’m saying nothing to you folk yet, but you may all prepare for shocks before long. Now I’m off.” And she departed, followed by Miss Wilmot, who was as good as her word and sent the triplets along to the study in short order.

They arrived as demurely as any seniors, but when they saw who awaited them, they hurled themselves on her with cries of joy.

“Let me look at you!” Joey exclaimed, freeing herself at last. “Yes; well, you look under the weather, Len. I’m not exactly surprised after such a nasty business, but now, you’re going to forget about it. I’ve a secret for you three and it’s to remain a secret for the moment. Come and sit down and lend me your ears and remember that this is not to leak out until Easter. I’ve got a plan and it’s working out nicely—so far. But I’ll want your help, so clear your minds of shops and shoplifting. You haven’t any time for them just now. Now listen! Oh, and spare me your comments until I’ve done.”

She proceeded to unfold her plans and by the time she had finished, even Len was looking a little more like herself. She swore them to secrecy and then departed for home, certain that her firstborn’s nightmares would be a thing of the past, for the scheme she had evolved was startling and would certainly give them all plenty to think about.

As for what it was, that must wait for the Easter holidays. But it was exciting enough, and that night Len fell asleep and slept peacefully all night, her nightmares in very truth a thing of the past.

“Len! Just run along to the office for me with these, will you?” Miss Wilmot dropped a pile of attendance registers on the table in the library at which Len Maynard was sitting, struggling with Spanish grammar. “I’ve been checking up on the registers as usual and now that they’re done, I prefer them to be someone else’s responsibility. Tell Miss Dene that they’re correct up to date. Thank goodness there’s only another fortnight to add to them!”

“She isn’t there,” Len said. “She went down to the valley early this morning. I met her in the entrance hall when I went to see if there were any letters for me and she said she was off to Basle to stay with Tant Frieda to make up to her for not being able to come to the panto this afternoon.”

Nancy Wilmot laughed. “Poor old Frieda! It’s hard luck she had that fall. Well, take them to the office, anyhow. If the window’s open, mind you weight them with something. We should hear all about it if Miss Dene came back to find her registers flapping all over the floor!”

“We should!” Len stood up and picked up the bundle. Tall as the mistress was, the girl was barely two inches shorter. Nancy Wilmot stared at her and laughed again.

“What a height you are, Len! You’ll be beating your mother at this rate.”

Len shook her head. “We’re exactly the same height. Papa measured us three on half-term Sunday when we were there and I haven’t grown in the least since last summer hols. Neither has Con. She’s still the shortest of us three; but Margot has beaten me now.”

“Yes; she’s a fine hefty specimen,” the mistress agreed. “Well, I can’t stay here gossiping. I’m due for a coaching.” Nancy nodded to the girl and sped off. Len followed her out of the room and went off to the office.

She heard the telephone ringing as she hurried along the corridor and she looked round before she dropped the registers and went to answer it. She knew that the Head was busy with a visitor and unlikely to hear. She picked up the receiver and a well-known voice spoke at almost the same moment.

“Miss Dene! Thank goodness! I thought no one was coming!”

“Barbara Chester!” Len exclaimed. “Is that you? You sound slightly agitated. Miss Dene is away and the Head’s up to the neck with a visitor. Can you give me a message?”

“A Maynard! Which is it—Len or Con or——”

“It’s Len. Barbara, what is biting you?”

“Plenty! Anyhow, you’re the one I was going to ask for so it’s all right.”

“You want me? What on earth for?”

“The Fairy Queen this afternoon, my love. And don’t say you can’t do it because you jolly well must!”

“The Fairy Queen? Have you gone crackers? I thought your Fairy Queen was that fair, pretty girl who came from Halidon House—what’s her name? Nicola Tredgold, isn’t it? One of twins, I know.”

“You’ve said it—with the right tense, too!” Barbara replied.

“What do you mean—‘With the right tense’? You must be crackers!” Len retorted. “What’s all this in aid of, anyhow? What’s happened?”

“Everything!” Barbara replied comprehensively. “Listen! This morning a call came for Nick and Nat—on the inter-continental. Their people have been in a ghastly motor-crash. Their mother got off with bad bruises and shock but the friend who was with them was killed and Mr Tredgold nearly. They had to perform an emergency operation at midnight last night. He’s come through, but he’s awfully ill and he keeps on calling for the twins—the hospital folk think he imagines the girls were with them—and everything depends on his being kept quiet. Bill and Matron rushed Nick and Nat off at once to catch the mid-morning plane from Geneva. We all did every blessed thing we could to help and it wasn’t until they were well away that some bright spirit suddenly remembered that Nick was the Fairy Queen and Natalie was Fairy Nettlesting! And the show comes off this afternoon!”

“Oh, Barbara! No!”

“I know; but it’s ‘Oh, Barbara, yes!’ Now do you see why we want you?”

“I definitely don’t. I’m terribly sorry, but I don’t see how I can help.”

“You wouldn’t! Listen to me and don’t interrupt, for there isn’t a moment to spare. We can manage Nettlesting all right. Clem Barras is at Zermatt with a sketching party. She came up for the show this morning and she says she more or less remembers the part and will take it on. She’s hard at it this minute, swotting it up again. But the Fairy Queen when we did it before was Verity Carey! She’s in London and even if there was time to get her here—which there isn’t!—I’ll bet she doesn’t remember the first word. It’s not a long part—mainly singing, anyhow. You can sing—all you Maynards can. You’ve got a flypaper memory. We want you to come over at once to learn as much as you can of it and take it on this afternoon. Can do?”

“Definitely not,” Len said calmly. Then, rather hurriedly, “Barbara! Shut up! Don’t moo at me! Now listen to me. I’d do it if I could, but you haven’t thought. Whoever heard of a Fairy Queen that was head and shoulders above practically everyone else in the show? It would make complete nonsense of it!”

“What?”

“I should be, you know. I doubt if you have more than two who are my height. One of them’s that girl Gillian Watson, and the other is Gwen Parry. I’ll bet they’re playing Principal Boy and another man’s part.”

“Oh, Christmas! I hadn’t thought of that!” Barbara wailed. There was a pause. Then she spoke again. “You there still? Are you really as tall as all that?”

“I’m exactly the same height as Mamma—five-foot-eight.”

“That’s torn it! What on earth do we do now?”

Len had been thinking. “Would Con suit you? She’s the shortest of us three—always has been since we were nine. She’s a good inch-and-a-half smaller than I am and she’s on the skinny side. You know yourself that when it comes to verse she has only to look at it to know it. The Fairy Queen’s part is all verse, isn’t it?”

“It is; but what about the singing? Would she tackle that, d’you think? She’s always kept so much in the background I don’t really know her properly.”

“Keep calm—keep calm! Con’s developing a Voice! She’s going to have a really lovely alto, Mamma thinks. Anyhow, she’s begun extra singing-lessons with Plato this term. I suppose the songs will have to be transposed, but that won’t worry him. Wasn’t Verity a soprano?”

“No—mezzo-soprano. The songs won’t be much too high for an alto, if at all. That would be all right. Of course, there’s her trick of going off into a dream——”

“Hold your horses! Con never dreams when it’s anything important.”

“Well—O.K.! You scram and tell her she’s got to take it on—just got to! We can’t possibly put the thing off. Crowds of people are coming for it and we couldn’t get on to most of them to stop them. I’ll hold on and you go and get Con. Hurry up and come back and tell me what she says.”

“O.K.! You hang on!” Len dropped the receiver and fled to find her sister.

Con was in their formroom busy over an essay. She looked up with a start when Len touched her, murmuring, “You’re wanted in the office. Come on!”

The rest looked up from their own work for a minute, but time was precious and they did no more. Con got up and followed her sister out of the room.

“Who wants me? And why?” she demanded when the door was closed.

Len hurriedly told the story as they went. Con heard her out in silence but with growing dismay in her face. Len gave her no time to think. She bustled her sister into the office, caught up the receiver, called Barbara and added, “I’ve brought her to hear from you yourself. She’ll do it, of course. We can’t let you Millies down!” before she passed the thing over to Con with, “Carry on, Con, while I go and get leave for you to go to St Mildred’s pronto.”

She whirled out of the room, paying no heed to Con’s panic-stricken cry of “But Len!” and that young woman had to turn to the telephone where Barbara was pouring out her tale of woe all over again, winding up with, “So you’ll do it, won’t you, Con? You’re our only hope. You and Len are the only two people who could hope to get any idea of the part in the time. None of ours can take it on, worse luck! We are a most unenterprising lot this year—couldn’t even write our own panto but had to make-do with an old one! However, it’s all to the good in the circumstances. Clem can take over Nettlesting again. It’s a mercy, for it would have been a headache if we hadn’t had her on tap. If you’ll take on the Queen, we’ll manage. Oh, and the dress will be all right. From what Len says you and Nicola are much the same size.”

Just what Con might have done about it will never be known, for at that point the Head entered with Len who had met her in the corridor and poured out a summary of the dilemma and the Millie’s request. Miss Annersley was thoroughly understanding and before Con could do or say anything, she was told that she must certainly go, shooed off to get ready at once, the receiver wrested from her grasp and the Head herself assuring Barbara that it would be all right.

“You can go as far as St Mildred’s with her, Len,” she broke off to say, knowing that the company of a sister would encourage the girl. “Don’t stay, though. You’re having games after Break as the playing-fields have dried up so nicely and you’re wanted for lacrosse. Hurry off, both of you! Now, Barbara!” She turned again to the frenzied Barbara and soothed her as well as she could.

Barbara, who had been in the middle of declaring that the Head would be certain to agree because she was a jolly sport and had been stricken dumb when the Head herself spoke, contrived to collect her self-possession to say demurely, “Thank you very much, Miss Annersley. It really has been a frightful impasse!”

Miss Annersley grinned to herself before she replied, “Oh, we couldn’t let you people down. And thank you for the compliment, Barbara!” Then she hung up, leaving Barbara breathless and stunned.

Len marched Con over to St Mildred’s, doing her best to encourage her every step of the way. She needed it! She was very quaky as to her ability to manage the part at all. It was all very well for Len to remind her that learning verse was one of her highlights. It was one thing to do it in form and quite another to have to spout it in a pantomime. The Millies’ standard was very high and if her memory failed her or she messed up any of the scenes she knew that not only would they find it hard to forgive her, but she would feel a complete fool into the bargain. Con did not like that idea at all.

“It’s all wrong!” she broke in halfway through a speech of Len’s on the need to support the Millies in such a case as this. “Whoever heard of a dark Fairy Queen? And what are the songs, anyhow? I can’t just sing them at sight!”

“You’ll manage,” Len said confidently, passing over the first complaint. “You’ll have to get some idea of the words, but I do remember that that ballady thing about the spell was set to ‘Barbara Allen’, so that’s all right. And there was another that went to the tune of ‘Flowers in the Valley’. I rather think Plato did the rest. And you haven’t a frightful lot of words to get hold of. There’s that scene where Nettlesting defies you and you tick her off. And the one with the Beast where you cheer him up and tell him that Beauty will break the spell. What else? Oh, that business where you appear to him by moonlight and he’s just a man during the night-hours which shows that half the job is done.”

“And there’s the one where Robin Hood and the Foresters swear to be loyal to him,” Con chimed in rather more hopefully. “The Queen has something there.”

“Yes, of course!” Len was silent for a minute, searching her memory. “Oh, and there’s the bit where the sisters are trying to keep Beauty from going back to him and you and Nettlesting have a kind of duel over it and you win.”

Con suddenly chuckled. “You’ve missed out the wedding-scene and Nettlesting’s ghastly curse! Oh well, I suppose I’ll get through somehow. But shan’t I be thankful when it’s all over by this evening!”

“But you’ll have done it by that time. It isn’t such a tremendous lot after all.”

“Quite enough for me, thank you!” Con said tartly as they reached St Mildred’s, the finishing branch of the school. “I only hope I don’t wreck the entire show! That’s all!”

“Not you! You’ll come out on top and get a round all to yourself!” Len prophesied as Con stalked through the gate and slammed it behind her. “Keep smiling! And good luck!”

“I’ll need it!” Con flung back at her before she ran up the path to be seized on by Barbara the moment she reached the door and whirled off to Miss Wilson’s study, where Clem Barras was already hard at it, reviving her memories of the Bad Fairy which she had played with such success in her own day.

Len, left alone, gave a chuckle and then turned and raced back to school. The bell had rung for Break and the moment she appeared in the Speisesaal to claim her milk and biscuits she was assailed on all sides with questions as to where she and Con had gone.

“Hi! Hold your horses till I get my Elevenses!” she exclaimed.

Rosamund came up to her with them. “Here you are! Now then, tell us what’s cooking.”

Len obliged, and they listened eagerly. Most of them voiced their sympathy with Con for having to face such an ordeal. Maeve, however, who six years before had been summoned from school because her mother was to undergo a very dangerous operation and she might be needed at a moment’s notice, thought more of Nicola and Natalie Tredgold.

“Poor kids!” she said, sublimely ignoring the fact that the Tredgold twins were more than a year older than herself. “It may be a trial for Con, but it’s very much worse for them. I’m most awfully sorry for them.”

Len glanced quickly at her. “So am I. But I must admit I feel worried about Con, too. It’s rather an appalling thing to be shoved into the limelight like that at a moment’s notice.”

“Don’t you worry,” Margot put in. “Con will come to the top all right. Oh, I don’t say she isn’t loathing it now, but she’ll manage all right.”

And that, when they had thought it over, was the opinion of most of the two Sixth Forms.

When Con arrived at St Luke’s Hall, which stood near the gates of the great Sanatorium and was the scene of all their plays and major concerts, she was not very sure if she were on her head or her heels. From the moment Barbara had met her until the gong sounded for Mittagessen, she had been hard at work doing everything she could with the Fairy Queen’s part. She had alternately learned and rehearsed the entire morning. The solos had been easy on the whole. She had pitched in on these first, for they made up the greater part of her scenes. The Millies had been out to exploit Verity Carey’s lovely voice and Con benefited by it now.

That wasn’t so bad, and she thought hopefully, when she finally sat down to learn the words, that at least if she fluffed her lines someone would be able to prompt her. Len had been right when she said that her sister found it easy to learn verse. Con, getting down to her first scene, soon had it fixed in her memory. Clem Barras, an old friend, had greeted her with a matey grin and as soon as the younger girl knew that scene, she insisted that they go through it together.

“I know mine,” she said, “and I can prompt you if you fluff. Anyhow, all you Maynards have memories like glue where words are concerned. Go ahead and I’ll give you your movements at the same time.”

Con went through the scene and proved practically word-perfect. The next one was also with Clem, and that astute young woman proved to her conclusively that she had no reason to worry about anything.

“Go on like that, and you’ll do as well as Nicola ever did,” she said.

The next was with the Beast, played by Gillian Watson, the tallest girl at St Mildred’s and quite a good amateur actress. She was stately with her height and somewhat stand-offish in manner, which made shy Con shrink. Gillian was word-perfect, naturally, but Con stumbled over her lines more than once and Gillian, though making no verbal comment, expressed her feelings quite clearly by her glances and little shrugs. Miss Wilson, who had come to go through the scene with them, nearly tore her hair over it, for both grew stickier and stickier and do what she would, she could not induce naturalness from either. Finally, she dismissed the Beast and left Con to get on with the scene of the duel with Nettlesting, which went with a swing, smoothing down Con’s ruffled feathers considerably.

The rest of it, even the scene where the Queen had to persuade the dying Beast to fight on for his bride was coming, went much better; but when the gong sounded for Mittagessen, Con still thought despairingly of that scene with the Beast. Not that she had much time for thought of any kind. The moment the meal was over, the girls were rushed off to the hall to get dressed and made up.

The Queen’s robes fitted her nicely. Nicola was much the same height and build, and if Con was a shade more slender, the loose, floating draperies of white ninon fell gracefully enough. She was made up with touches of blue and green to emphasise the difference between mortals and fairies. Carefully drawn lines gave her eyes an upward tilt and when her long black curls had been banded with a silver crown, glittering with frosting and tinsel edges, with three tall silver antennae rising above her brows, Con did manage to look unearthly.

Clem also looked unearthly—but with a difference! She had combed every strand of her thick, red-brown hair backwards until it stood in a complete fuzz over her head and about her shoulders. She was made up in shades of green and blue and she had given herself a horrible hooked nose with the aid of nose-paste. She had made-up her eyes until she might have stood for Mephistopheles, and her robes of shimmering green and brown—which, incidentally, were on the tight side, Clem being sturdily-built—added to her appearance. In place of the Queen’s silver sceptre, she bore a crooked stick, and when Con first looked at her, she doubled up in fits of laughter.

“Clem, you look disgusting!” she proclaimed. “I should hate to meet you alone after dark!”

Clem grinned, drawing fresh shrieks from all present. She had covered every other tooth with black court plaster and it was the last thing needed to complete the effect.

“How Clem, who is really quite decent-looking, can make up into anything so horrible is more than I can tell!” observed Clare Kennedy, a Chaletian, and Barbara’s great friend.

“You can’t talk!” Clem flung back at her. “Anything more unpleasant than you and your sister Mariella I’ve yet to behold. So the less you say, the more you’ll shine, Adeliza my love.”

During the laughter which greeted this sally, Con slipped away into a quiet corner and began to read through that sticky scene with the Prince. All round her the other principals were putting the finishing touches to dress or make-up. Clem had stayed where she was, gaily chatting with old friends and, as she said, catching up on school news. Suddenly, across Con’s absorption a clear voice cut.

“That girl Con Maynard is simply impossible! She scarcely knew a word of her part when I rehearsed with her this morning and she can’t act for toffee! She’s a regular stick! Couldn’t you have found someone even a shade better for the part, Barbara?”

Someone, glancing round, caught sight of Con who seemed to be buried in her study and hushed her.

“Pipe down, Gil! She’s just behind us. You don’t want her to hear you, do you? Anyhow, apparently she’s been pitchforked into it, so you can’t expect her to be so very wonderful.”

“Well, I did hope she’d at least know her lines,” Gillian returned. “According to Barbara she’s a wizard at memorising verse, but I must say I didn’t see much sign of it this morning.”

Diana Laking broke in again. “Perhaps you didn’t give her much encouragement. Jolly decent of her to take it on at all if you ask me. I know I shouldn’t have liked it!”

No more was said and the group scattered as the sound of the orchestra tuning-up came faintly to them. Con stayed where she was, her face burning under the make-up. For two pins she’d have thrown up the whole thing and let them get on with it as best they could without her. Then her head went up. Throw it up, indeed! Not she! She would go ahead and show them all, including Gillian Watson, just what she could do! The call for beginners came and the people who opened the show scurried to take up their places. Gillian went with them and Con was left alone.

A moment later, Clem came up to her, grinning ferociously and spreading out the fingers of both hands. Con nearly shrieked at the sight. Clem had provided herself with lengthy artificial finger-nails and given herself most unpleasant-looking talons.

“Complete for the part, aren’t I?” she asked complacently. “Incidentally, so are you. Come on! Let’s get a place in the wings and enjoy the fun as far as we can.”

She drew Con to the door in time for them to hear a positive gale of laughter from the audience. Con remembered how she had enjoyed the pantomime the first time it had been given and she went willingly with Clem, her draperies floating about her as she moved.

“You’ll have to mind that stuff doesn’t hook on to anything,” Clem muttered in her ear. “You’d look well if it did! The Fairy Queen hooked up and unable to come or go!”

Con smothered a giggle. “What a vision! Oh, I’ll be careful all right.”

The scene continued to the accompaniment of shrieks of laughter from the audience. It was very funny and the Horse brought roars with its antics. It came off at last, bearing the Merchant the three or four paces into the wings which hid him from view. There, it stopped dead and a muffled voice remarked, “Someone should have seen to it that you dieted before this show, young Gwen! You’ve nearly broken my back!”

Gwen Parry remarked with vim, “You should work harder at gym!” Then she caught sight of Con. “Hello, Con! You look like something entirely out of this world! I say, you know, I think you’re a Trojan to come to our help like this! Good luck to you!”

There was no time for more, for the front-cloth scene which gave the scene-shifters time to set the Fairy Court was drawing to a close and Con had to go and assume her throne. It was an armchair painted silver and wreathed with white flowers. It stood on a daïs draped with green, and curled up on the steps of the daïs were the two first forms and the Kindergarten who had been recruited for elves, fairies, gnomes and goblins. The dozen or so goblins were not there, as they belonged to Nettlesting’s train; but the others were crowded all about the throne.

The previous scene ended to a thunder of clapping. The stage was darkened, and when the curtain rose it was to show A Forest Glade, lit with blue and green limes mixed with amber. The orchestra broke into a song, “The Fairies”, and the chorus whirled in singing it. It modulated into a Strauss waltz and while most of the chorus took up their positions round the sides of the stage, the ballet swung into a graceful dance. This ended with the chorus singing again, asking the Queen to tell them the story of Prince Charming.

Con rose and sang the ballad which her cousin, Bride Bettany, had produced some years before. The beautiful alto voice swelled out as she foretold that a maid as good as she was beautiful and as beautiful as she was good was even now to come and break the spell which bound the Prince to his Beast’s appearance. If encores had been allowed, Con would certainly have had one, but there was no time. She swept the wildly-applauding audience a deep curtsy—Joey among them, was sitting spellbound and muttering to her nextdoor neighbour, “But why was I never told about this?”—resumed her throne, and a merry air from the orchestra brought the little fairies to skip and jump gaily all over the stage.

The music ended with a long drum-roll and the elves and fairies rushed to seek refuge from the evil to come as Nettlesting entered, uttering highpitched cackles of laughter and waving her stick threateningly. She suddenly spread out her free hand, exhibiting her talons, and quite a number of the chorus were just able to save themselves from attacks of the giggles. Con was the only one expecting the sight.

A green lime spotlighted her and she stood well down centre and screeched at the Queen that she might save her trouble. No such girl existed in the whole world and the Prince must wear his hideous transformation for ever.

Now very few of her own crowd knew that Con was quite a good actress when she chose. She sprang lightly from her throne, her draperies helping to give the appearance that she floated down, faced Nettlesting and defied her to do her worst with so much power and feeling that Gillian, watching from the prompter’s corner, was amazed.

So was Clem, who snarled out her lines as malevolently as she could, and between them the two girls gave a most dramatic performance. It ended when the Queen told her rebellious subject that the spell would surely be broken and soon. When that happened, Nettlesting would be banished from the Fairy Court for ever and sent to her own place in Green Goblin Land.

Instantly a band of Green Goblins came tumbling in to hail the Wicked Fairy as their future monarch in a song which had a chorus that promised little future happiness for the lady.

All the time they were turning somersaults, throwing cartwheels and jigging and kicking everywhere, until Barbara Chester was moved to mutter to Clare Kennedy, “Honestly, I’d no idea we had such a collection of Boneless Wonders in the school!” Whereat Clare nearly giggled aloud.

With a final shriek of rage, Nettlesting strode off, her future subjects tumbling after her. The ballet began again, this time to music of Chopin, and the curtain fell to furious applause. Con and Clem had to take a curtain before the audience could be persuaded to let them go. Then they fled to the dressingroom and drew long breaths of relief. Con, especially, was thankful. She had got through her first important scene and she had not disgraced herself.

Her next one was with the Beast. She had to console him for his horrid metamorphosis with the promise that it would not be long before the maiden would appear who would love him despite his appearance and whose love would break the spell at last. Gillian was inclined to be a little stiff at first, but Con, with the memory of that unkind comment in the dressingroom to spur her on, continued to play her part well. She fired the other girl to do her best and before the chorus danced on to bring the curtain down with a song, both of them were proving themselves very competent actresses.

In the audience, Miss Wilson sat back with a sigh of relief. It was true that now and then Con stumbled over the hastily-learned lines. She forgot positions which she had been given only once, and only Gillian’s adroitness on one occasion saved the scene from a laugh which would have spoiled it. On the whole she did amazingly well and twice, when the actual lines had vanished from her memory, she supplied others which fitted in so well, that the Prince was able to pick up his cue and the whole thing went smoothly.

The Queen and the Prince were sung off; the chorus danced after them and the Merchant entered, very travel-worn and weary. The well-known story of the plucking of the rose followed and the Merchant, having given his promise, made his exit while the Prince sang a solo with chorus of the lovely girl who was to put an end to all his troubles. Gillian had quite a good voice and she deserved the round of applause she got when the scene ended.

The next was so funny that before long, the audience was writhing with laughter. Given a Boatman who is addicted to spoonerisms, a Cook whose chief remark is “Pepper it!”, a trick Horse that would have made the fortune of any circus proprietor, and a pair of cruel Sisters who alternately squabble with everyone and break off to snub their youngest Sister, and you have all the ingredients for low comedy of a very good order. The Merchant arrived with his gifts and his news and the Sisters were overcome with Beauty’s luck. They offered themselves in turn to become the Beast’s bride only to learn that he would have no one but the girl who had asked for a rose. It ended with them rushing round trying to get ready to escort Beauty to the Palace and everyone getting into everyone else’s way until the curtain descended on a most riotous scene.

It rose again on the Wedding, which gave opportunity for both singing and dancing, and the audience were nearly in convulsions at the antics of the Sisters with Little John and Allan-a-dale whom they had marked down for their own husbands. But when the Captain of the Guard and the Lord Chamberlain invited them to dance, they hurriedly changed their minds. Then the bridal party arrived and the comedy ended with a song of welcome set to the wedding march from Lohengrin as the Fairy Queen led on Beauty and the Beast and, in another sweetly-sung solo, showered every blessing she could think of on them.

Meanwhile, Nettlesting, with her retinue of Green Goblins, were to be seen peeping round the trees in the garden and when the whole party went off to enjoy the wedding banquet, she came forth and shrieked out a most comprehensive curse at the top of a falsetto voice. On and on she went for at least thirty lines, the Green Goblins, evidently anticipating their future duties, breaking it now and then by a united peal of highpitched laughter or shrieks and growls of approval. It wound up with a goblin dance during which they seemed to do everything but turn themselves inside out.

Con, watching from where she had to make her next entrance, gasped aloud at their antics and she had to be given a nudge before she remembered to float on as gracefully as she could, surrounded by her Court. Nettlesting faced the Queen with uplifted claw of defiance, but the Queen dared her to accomplish one of the very mixed bag of curses she had just pronounced.

The Wicked Fairy cried that though the pair were married Beauty had no real love for her bridegroom. She was merely ratifying her father’s promise. The spell would remain therefore.

Very stately, Con spoke her lines:

The orchestra stole in softly and the Queen sang a charming song in praise of love while Nettlesting, overawed for once, shrank back, her nails to her mouth, and glowered at them.

The interval followed, with ices and coffee for everyone, including the actors. They had to be careful to avoid spills and the whole of the fairy band—not including the ballet, of course—were made to sit round a table while they were eating and drinking.

“Con, you’re a positive miracle!” Gwen Parry proclaimed as she carefully resettled the beard she had removed during refreshments. “D’you think you can keep it up? I don’t mind saying that I wouldn’t have taken on the job for all the tea in China myself.”

The Queen scraped the last remnants of ice-cream from her dish and picked up her part. “If you wait you’ll see. Meanwhile, go away and give me a chance to get some more of this firmly in my mind.” She glued her eyes to the page, stuffed her fingers in her ears and became deaf and blind to anything that might be going on round her.

The first scene of the second act showed the Merchant pining for his Beauty. Various people pressed all sorts of remedies on him but he refused them all—“No wonder!” Joey remarked after the Cook had suggested “a nice sago pudding well peppered”—saying that the only medicine for him was to see his Beauty. Eventually, it was decided to send for her, and the Sisters had a lovely scene in which they quarrelled violently over the wording of the letter. It was finally composed and the Horse arrived to bear it. It rolled its eyes, tossed its head and proposed to kiss the Cook who shrieked and fled. Finally, the creature went off with the letter tucked beneath its saddle and the curtain came down on the Merchant saying plaintively, “I wish you wouldn’t bring that animal upstairs! I expect it has fleas, and anyhow, it isn’t healthy to have a horse in your bedroom!” Everyone left the room and he fell asleep, whereupon Nettlesting suddenly irrupted into the room and proceeded to confide to the enthralled audience that she had concocted a wonderful plan whereby Beauty should forget her husband and stay at home with her father and thus the spell would never be lifted. Her usual followers were with her and executed another wild dance, led by their mistress, while the chorus sang behind the scenes a song which gave away the secret. Nettlesting finally cavorted off, full of triumph, and the curtain fell.

It went up on the Rose Garden again, with some palace servants busily arranging seats, tables, and attending to the fountain, which was composed of cardboard and strands of fine wire, while they sang a song of the happiness the Beast and Beauty were finding, thanks to their own hard work.

The Horse suddenly arrived and by dint of nods and becks and head-tossings got them to understand that he wanted their mistress. She came with her husband, and the Horse nudged the saddle with its nose. Beauty guessed what was meant, found the letter, which she read, and begged leave of the Beast to go to save her father’s life. He protested at first, but she promised that she would return in one short month when the Merchant must be better. He finally agreed, helped her to mount the Horse—luckily, she was very small and slight—and it gallumphed off. The Beast was left alone, but the Fairies poured in and the Queen sang a solo with chorus in which he was promised that when his bride returned, the spell would finally be broken and all would be well ever after.

The next scene was the Merchant’s house. Beauty pleaded with her father to let her go, now that he had fully recovered. He begged her to stay and the Sisters, who knew about the spell, joined in his pleadings. They flourished enormous artificial onions which they kept holding to their eyes, then mopping the resultant tears. Together they sang a funny duet about this, full of all kinds of coaxing alternated with various asides about the onions. Beauty tried to hold her own and the argument swayed backwards and forwards. Nettlesting at the prompt side appeared to gloat in the intervals over the success of her plot. The Fairy Queen at the O.P. side softly sang reminders to Beauty of her promise.

She nearly gave way before the pleadings of her family and Nettlesting was seen to wave her stick exultingly at what looked like victory. The Fairy chorus sounded again, faintly. Beauty suddenly shook her head and pulled herself away from the Sisters.

“He is my husband!” she cried. “He wants me—he needs me! I must go!”

And go she did, helter-skelter across the stage in such a hurry that she nearly forgot the narrow bar across the bottom of the doorway and would have fallen headlong if Adeliza had not suddenly extended an arm to steady her. The Fairy Chorus swelled out fortissimo. Nettlesting, determined to the last, clenched her fists and shook them, incidentally forgetting her stick and dropping it so near one of her Goblins that he squawked. Then with a stamp, she turned and fled, cackling out, “I’m not beaten yet—ha-ha-ha!”

End of the scene!

The finale was set in the Rose Garden where the Beast lay at full length at the foot of the fountain. Enter to him the Fairy Queen to sing her final solo urging him to be patient. All would be well and Beauty was on her way to him.

Nettlesting arrived to gloat over him and croak that she had seen to it that if Beauty did arrive, it would be too late. She must tell him she loved him before midnight that night or the spell would bind him forever.

“Hark!” she gloated, “it’s just on midnight. The clock will chime in ten seconds and then, my lad, a Beast you’ll remain till the end of your days. Victory will be mine—he-he-he!—and I shall have defeated the Fairy Queen!”

A bell struck, but before the sound died away, Beauty was there, flinging herself down by the Beast, spreading out her arms and cloak to prevent the audience seeing him yank at the zipp which fastened the skin. Fairies danced in, singing, and when they swung apart, the Beast had vanished and Prince Charming stood in his proper guise and embraced his faithful Beauty. Nettlesting uttered an indescribable sound and hobbled off, chased by the Green Goblins, while the Fairy Court, Prince Charming’s courtiers and servants, the Merchant and his entire household—including the Horse—and even Nettlesting and her Goblins swarmed on to the stage to sing the final chorus. The final tableau was the happy pair standing centre, the rest around them and, over all, mounted on a small step-ladder which was hidden by the tallest members of the cast, the Fairy Queen.

The audience clapped and cheered vociferously, but at last the National Anthem, played by the orchestra, told them that the end had come. The curtains fell for the very last time and the company began to leave the stage.

Con turned to scramble down the steps and that happened of which she had been previously warned. Her floating draperies flew out. One end got hitched on to a cut-out tree which was part of the scenery. She felt the tug and jerked impatiently at her robes to free herself, even as one of the Courtiers, bumped heavily into the step-ladder. Over it went and between the bump, the tug and everything else, the flat wobbled and fell, obliterating Queen, Courtier and two other minor characters. They were quickly rescued and as the flat was light no one was hurt. Con, on her feet again, looked round. No one said anything at first, but just as an agitated Miss Wilson arrived, she spoke.

“Well, I got through that, anyway,” she said. “But don’t anyone ever ask me to do such a thing again at such short notice. And now, will someone please see if there’s any more coffee going. I’m thirsty!”

It was breakfast-time at Freudesheim. Since this was termtime, the party consisted of Joey Maynard, her husband and Cecil, her fifth daughter, who was so nearly four that Joey had ordained that she was old enough to come to that meal with the rest of the family. The mailbag had just arrived and Jack Maynard was sorting the letters.

“Here you are, Joey, my love,” he said with a wicked twinkle, for Joey was known to detest that particular form of endearment. “Three for you. One for Anna and the rest for myself. Cecil, pet, take this to Anna for Papa.”

Cecil put down her porridge-spoon and trotted off with the letter for Anna in the kitchen. Joey, having exchanged a cup of coffee for her letters, spread them round her plate and eyed the envelopes.

“Simone—Mollie, from Jamaica—and Mary-Lou! I heard from her last week. Why is she writing again so soon? And,” as she saw the postmark, “from Howells. What’s up now? Easter vacation doesn’t start for another fortnight or so.”

“If you opened the letter instead of trying to mesmerise it, you might find out,” Jack told her with a grin.

Joey grimaced at him. “Funny!” she said scathingly, picking up a knife and slitting the envelope. She pulled out the closely-written sheets and began to read. Suddenly she gave a cry of dismay. “Oh, no! Jack! This is ghastly news!”

He looked up from his own correspondence. “I have a letter from Talbot here. I imagine yours contains the same information as he gives me.”

“About Doris Trelawney—Carey, I mean. Yes! What does he say?”

“Tell me first what Mary-Lou says.”

“Her mother is very ill and Sir James Talbot has ordered her out here as a last hope. Oh, Jack! The poor child! Poor little Verity, too. Doris has been all the mother she’s ever had and she adores her! Whatever will those two poor girls do if Doris goes?”

“What, exactly, does Mary-Lou say? Read it to me.”

“She says: ‘I have some dreadful news for you. Mother has been very frail all this winter with a nasty, husky cough that nothing has seemed to shift. I grew so worried that last week, I went to the Warden and asked for an exeat which she granted at once. Dr Jenkyns wasn’t eager to tell me much but I insisted and finally he said that one of Mother’s lungs was touched and he wanted her to go and see Sir James Talbot, that big man on T.B. I rang up the Warden and got my leave extended. Then I made an appointment with Sir James and yesterday Mother and I went to London to see him.

“ ‘When he had finished with her and while she was dressing, I insisted on his telling me just what was wrong. Oh, Auntie Jo! It’s the worst news of all. He says that one lung is practically gone and the other very badly touched. She is to go at once to Switzerland. He’s getting on to Uncle Jack to arrange for her to go to the San and he hopes it will prolong her life for another year or so. He tried to be very hopeful, but it didn’t come off. I can see that he thinks she’s too far through to come round. He’s taking her himself. He was going out in any case—but I expect Uncle Jack knows all that. He’s to ring me tonight to let me know the exact details, but she’s to go within the next day or two. Just the same, it’s a last hope and a poor one at that.

“ ‘You see what all this means, don’t you? I’ll have to close the house and attend to all the business side of it. If the Russells had been at home, I’d have got them to help me. As they aren’t, will you do it? You’ve always been so decent and I don’t feel I can quite cope with everything—not by myself.

“ ‘I’ve written to Oxford to explain that I can’t finish my term. I doubt if I shall finish my year. Mother will want me and she comes before anything else. I won’t do anything about that until I hear what Uncle Jack thinks. In the meantime, there’s all the rest to see to—including Verity. I suppose I can manage alone if I must, but if you could come, I’d be grateful to you forever.’ The rest can wait,” Joey wound up as her quick ear caught the patter of Cecil’s feet outside. “I’ll join you in Doc’s Den later. Well, Cecil my pet? Was Anna pleased with her letter?”

Cecil climbed up on her chair and nodded until her feathery black curls flew. “She was velly pleased. Mamma, my polladge is cold and nasty. May I leave it?”

“Very well!” Joey drew the basket of rolls to her and spread one lavishly with butter and honey. “There you are. Try not to cover yourself with the honey!”

“Oh, sank you!” Cecil bit into the roll with a beatific expression and Joey, laying aside Mary-Lou’s letter, dealt with the other two.

“Simone seems to be very thrilled with her second daughter. She can’t complain now. She has Pierre and Jean as well as Tessa and Anne-Claire. I hope they don’t mean to call the poor baby by both names! Here you are!” She passed over the letter and picked up her sister-in-law’s, skimming it carelessly. “Mollie’s is full of raptures over her grandson and the Jamaican scenery. Peggy’s very fit and the boy is doing well, though Giles is sending them both to Canada next month to escape the heat. That’s about all.” She folded up the many pages and turned her attention to her daughter. “Heavens, Cecil! Honey from chin to curls!”

“Send the kid to Anna to get washed and come to the Den,” Jack said as he stood up, gathering up his correspondence. “I want a talk.”

“Can do. Cecil, bless yourself and say Grace and then go and ask Anna to sponge you.”

Cecil obeyed and when she had trotted from the room and Jack had gone off to the Den. Joey only waited to clear the table at railroad speed before following her husband. He was re-reading Mary-Lou’s letter. She perched on the corner of his desk and waited till he put it down.

“You’ll have to go, Joey,” he said. “We can’t leave those poor girls alone at a time like this. Mary-Lou may be nearly twenty and out-of-the-way capable, but it’s asking too much to ask her to cope with a situation like this unaided. As for Verity, she’ll be no help—more like another liability.”

To his surprise, his wife made no reply at first, she ran her forefinger up and down the big blotter before she said anything.

“What’s biting you?” he demanded.

“My babies.”

“Bless me, girl, I’m here! And there’s Anna as well.”

“You can’t be relied on, as you very well know. No doctor’s time is ever his own. Anna is single-handed this week. Rösli won’t be back from her sister’s wedding before Friday. I don’t see that we can recall her till then at soonest. It’s asking rather a lot of Anna to leave the children and you and this big house in her sole charge for five days. And yet I must go to Mary-Lou as soon as I can.”

“Is there no one you could get to hold the fort till Friday?”

“Not a soul! I’d have asked Mrs Everett, but——”

“You can’t have her, my child! Win’s sickening for measles or I miss my guess. Biddy Courvoisier’s out, too. The new baby’s due any time now.” He frowned. “The only thing I see for it is to ask Hilda to spare us one of the girls. You say Rösli will be back by Friday and she and Anna can cope quite well. Ask Hilda for Len or one of the others. At sixteen-and-a-half they’re quite old enough to see to things with Anna in the background.”

Joey considered. “It’s an idea! Hilda would agree all right. The school owes Mary-Lou a big debt for everything she did for it while she was there. She was one of the best Head Girls we’ve ever had and her influence was tremendous. We can’t let her down at this juncture. The only snag is that whoever comes will be very lonely after the babies are in bed. I can’t possibly take even Cecil with me in these circumstances, so they must stay. In any case, I ought to get off as soon as possible. I’d like to be there to help get Doris away.”

“Yes; I think you ought. Let’s see; how much longer is there of term?”

“About a month. Easter comes late this year. They break up on April 18th and this is March 25th.”

“Good! Then the only thing to do is to ask Hilda to let you have all three. Anna can keep an eye on them when I’m out of the way. They can bring their books and get on with revision in their spare time. Even our sinful Margot can be relied on to work steadily, especially when she knows how things are.”

“I’m not worrying about that,” Joey said quickly. “I think you’re right, Jack. It would solve all difficulties and I could go with an easy mind. I’ll do that. I’ll run over now and fix things with Hilda. You be looking up a plane for me. I don’t want to leave those two girls alone a moment longer than necessary. Write me a cheque, by the way. Luckily, I drew the month’s housekeeping money last week, so I’ve plenty for the journey and you’ll have to let Anna have what she needs. But I must have money to draw on in England. Tell Anna to pack a case with warm things for me, will you? Oh, and tell her I’ll let her know about rooms for Mary-Lou and Verity. They’ll live here, of course, and goodness knows we’ve plenty of room. Now I’m off!”

“Put a coat on! The wind’s nippy this morning!” he called after her as she sped from the room.

“O.K.!” drifted back to him. A moment later he saw her tearing over the side-lawn to the gate set in the hedge which divided the school grounds from their own, her Capuchin cloak, which was the first thing that had come to hand, streaming round her in her flight.

Joey raced madly down the shrubbery path, round the main building and to the Head’s annexe, where she found the french window of the salon wide open and dived in as the shortest way to the study. Just as she turned into the corridor, the study-door opened and a stately Miss Annersley appeared, exclaiming, “What is the meaning of——” She saw the culprit and changed her speech. “Joey! What is the matter? Come in and sit down!”

“Thank goodness you’re on tap!” Joey panted. “I was afraid you mightn’t be.”

“What’s wrong, Joey? You’ve had bad news?” Her friend looked at her sharply.

“Read that!” Joey had snatched up Mary-Lou’s letter as she left the den. She pressed it into the Head’s hands and flung herself down on the windowseat to recover her breath.

Miss Annerslcy sat down and read the letter. She gave one exclamation but otherwise said nothing until she had finished. Then she looked at Joey. “When are you going?”

“At once—this morning, if possible! I left Jack hunting up planes for me. The sooner I get there, the better. Mary-Lou may be the last word in capability, but she is only nineteen. Verity will be no use—she’s a leaner! I can’t leave our one and only Mary-Lou to face such awful responsibilities alone. She knew that when she appealed to me like that.” Joey’s tone suddenly changed. “She’s right, of course. This is the end of the road for Doris—short of a miracle. In one way, I can’t be sorry. It will set Mary-Lou free; and it’s the best thing for Doris herself. Even her girl can’t make up for losing her two husbands, and if it ever struck her that she was being a stumbling-block to Mary-Lou she’d break her heart. But we can talk of that later on. At the moment I’ve come to ask for my triplets at home while I’m away. Someone must see to the babies. I can’t take them with me, you know. Rösli is away till Friday and Anna can’t cope alone—not with those three imps of mine on top of Jack and the house. Neither do I want just one of them. It would be a lonely job for her after the babies were in bed. Let me have the three. They can revise in their spare time and there isn’t a month left of this term. They won’t hurt so far as lessons are concerned. They shall come back on Monday morning. I don’t suppose I’ll be away more than a few days after that and if Anna has the Coadjutor, she’ll be all right.”

The Head nodded. “Very well; as soon as they come in from their walk, I’ll tell them to pack clothes for a week and their books and send them over to Freudesheim. Don’t worry about your family. We’ll keep an eye on all of them for you. Give Mary-Lou and Verity our love; and tell them we’ll all be thinking of them and praying for them. Oh, by the way, how are you off for money?”

“Plenty, thanks. I’ve got the month’s housekeeping. Now I must go and see to my own arrangements. I’ll try to find time to write to you, but if I don’t you’ll understand. Send the girls quickly, please. I’d like a word or two with them before I go if it’s possible. By the way, can Rosalie cable Carn Beg to say I’m on the way? Thanks a lot. Goodbye! Expect me when you see me!”

She was off and the Head rang her bell for her secretary. She gave her Joey’s message and then departed to seek Matey and ask her to have cases packed for the three so that all they had to hunt up would be their books.

“Just enough for a week, Gwynneth,” she said.

“Where will Mary-Lou and Verity be staying?” Matey asked.

“With Joey, I expect. She said nothing about it, but that’s the most likely thing.”

When the prefects returned from their early morning walk, a summons awaited the Maynards and they went off to the study, eyeing each other askance while they racked their brains for the reason for such a peremptory message. They had clear consciences and, so far as they knew, all was well at home.

The Head explained quickly. “Your mother is flying to England this morning. Mary-Lou’s mother is dangerously ill and is being brought out here as soon as possible. Mary-Lou will have to see to everything and it’s more than she can do alone, so your mother is going to help her. As she can’t take the babies she wants you three to be at home for the rest of this week to look after them. Matron has had your cases packed and if you want anything else, you may come and get it. Take your books with you and try to do some revision in your free time. Now you must hurry; your mother wants to see you before she goes.”

She sent them off, and in less than twenty minutes’ time, they were hurrying through the gardens, laden with cases and books. At home, they found everything in train. Their father had hurriedly rearranged matters with a colleague at the Sanatorium so that he could take his wife to the airport and see her safely off. Anna and Joey had packed a big case, and Anna was fastening the last strap as the three schoolgirls dashed into the hall.

Joey had time for only a word or two with them.

“Look after my babies for me and write to me how they are. Don’t forget to do some revision or I shall hear about it when I come back. Anna will see to the housekeeping, but I want you to look after the tinies. Len is head and if there are any arguments, she must settle them. Now I must go or I’ll miss my plane. Goodbye, my darlings! Take care of yourselves and send me news as often as you can!”

She kissed them all round and sprinted down the steps and into the car which Jack had brought round. The door slammed behind her; the car started up and she was gliding down the short drive. A wave of the hand; they turned the corner; she was gone!

The triplets picked up their tiny brother and sisters and bore them off to the playroom where they established them with plenty of toys to keep them amused until the twins’ naptime came round. Then they drew close together, regarding each other with immense gravity. They had a good deal to settle.

The triplets soon settled down to a steady routine. They divided the day into three parts, beginning at 7.00 hours when Cecil and the twins were bathed and dressed by whoever was on duty. At 11.30 someone else took over until 15.00 hours when Anna took charge till 16.30, after which the last girl was responsible until the babies were safely in bed. Needless to state, help was forthcoming from the two at liberty at any time when it was needed. Cecil was a good little soul and little Philippa was like her; but Geoff was a rumbustious young man like the two brothers who had immediately preceded him. Mike and Felix were both demons of the first water!

“It’s a pity Mum didn’t ask for Ruey as well,” Margot remarked on the Wednesday morning after she had emerged barely victor in a tussle with Geoff. “She is one of the family and it would have been a lot easier with four of us.”

“Yes; and can’t you see Auntie Hilda agreeing?” Len demanded scathingly. “Ruey, my lamb, has G.C.E. in July.”

“We have exams, too,” Margot argued as she tossed herself into a chair and held out her hand for her coffee.

“Ours is mainly revision. Anyhow, Ruey’s only Fifth and we’re Sixth,” Con pointed out.

“Oh, well, Mum didn’t.” Margot gave it up. “Biscuits, please—unless you two want to hog the lot.”

Len handed them to her. “Help yourself! Who has Mother’s letter? I want to read it again. I only skimmed it at brekker.”

Con gave her the letter and she settled down to read it. They were gathered round the french window in the big sunny salon. Cecil was curled up nearby with a big picture-book and the twins had been put down for their nap at the far end where the girls could hear them if they roused.

Len read the letter thoughtfully. Joey had not minced matters to her eldest.

“Auntie Doris is gravely ill,” she wrote. “Short of a miracle, I’m afraid Mary-Lou will be motherless by the autumn—for that matter, so will Verity. Papa cabled Sir James Talbot and he met my plane and I got everything out of him. He’s bringing Auntie D. to the Platz himself. He tells me that he hopes it may help to prolong her life a little, but he’s promising nothing. The ambulance came for her this morning with such a nice nurse. Auntie took to her, which is a good thing, for she is terribly weak and ill.

“Mary-Lou is being very plucky. At the moment, she’s too busy to brood; the house is to be closed for the present and there’s piles to do, such as packing all the valuables and taking them to the bank. We’ve got two women from the village to help with the cleaning. Later on, the place is to be let, furnished, for a few months. It does a house no good to be shut up for any length of time.

“Tomorrow, Mary-Lou and I are going to Oxford to arrange with the Warden for her to have leave off until the autumn, anyhow. As she says quite rightly, her mother must come first and they want to be together as long as they can.

“Verity arrived last Saturday. She is inclined to be tearful, but we don’t give her much chance. There’s far too much to do and, in any case, it wouldn’t help anyone. She will come out with Mary-Lou until after the Easter vacation. I’m not sure what will happen after that. So I want you girls to see about getting rooms ready for them. There are the two rooms Auntie D. had when she stayed with us last summer. Prepare those and the bedroom on the far side of the sittingroom as well. Tell Anna I don’t know when we are likely to come—probably around the middle of next week—but I’ll let her know in plenty of time. I may send the girls on and stay to finish up by myself. It all depends on the reports we get from the Platz.”

There was more, including a page of questions about the babies, but this was the main part. Presently Len dropped the sheets and looked at the others.

“It’s pretty bad, isn’t it?”

“Looks to me as if Auntie Doris wasn’t going to make it this time,” Margot said bluntly. “I’m most awfully sorry for Mary-Lou—and Verity, too.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Con said meditatively. “All the same, once the first shock is over, don’t you think it’ll be better for Mary-Lou?”

“Better to lose her mother!” Margot cried. “Con! What are you saying? How could it be better?”

But Len nodded. “I know what you mean. I saw it myself at once.”

“What are you talking about! I think you two are bats!” Margot said despairingly. “Mary-Lou’ll have no one left and no home to go to. I think it’s horrible for her!”

“She knows that she’ll always have a home here,” Len replied instantly. “But don’t you see, Margot? If Auntie Doris dies she can go ahead with her career. And it’s pounds better for Auntie than living on as an invalid—perhaps realising that she’s spoiling Mary-Lou’s life. That would be ghastly!”

Margot nodded. “Oh, I see now. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“What about young Verity?” Con asked. “She’s a clinger, you know.”

Len looked thoughtful. “She is—but somehow I don’t think it’s Mary-Lou she’ll cling to—or not for long.”

The other two turned startled eyes on her.

“But, my dear! What do you mean?” Con queried.

“Just what I say. Verity’s a clinging vine all right, but it won’t be Mary-Lou who has to be her oak-tree.”

“Do you mean that Verity will marry early?” Margot asked slowly. “But, Len, she’s not much more than a kid.”

“She’ll be twenty in May. Mamma wasn’t much more when she married. And I rather think there’s someone already. In her Christmas letter to me Mary-Lou talked of a girl she’d met at the Royal College. This girl—Enid Trevor, I think is her name—has a brother with a job in London. Verity and Enid are in the same hostel and they got pally. The brother—his name’s Alan—took her to concerts and theatres and so on sometimes, and they included Verity. During the vac, the Trevors came over often to Carn Beg—they live near Monmouth—and Mary-Lou said they were all very good pals. By the way, she also said she liked them both herself. She didn’t make a definite statement, but I could see that——”

“That it won’t be too long before Verity becomes Mrs Alan Trevor? That it?”

Len nodded. “I’m almost positive. I only hope it works out. It would be the best thing all round for everyone. Verity would have someone decent to look after her—Mary-Lou seems to think they’re awfully nice people—and it would leave Mary-Lou herself free to do as she likes. And Auntie Doris would be glad, too, I should think, for both their sakes.”

Con grimaced. “Rather her than me!” she said with vile grammar. “If ever I do marry, it won’t be for another ten years at least.”

“Oh, I’d like to marry some time,” Len said. “I’d love to have a home and babies of my own. But I agree that twenty’s on the young side. I’d like to teach after I’ve collected a B.A. and get about the world a little. But I’d love a home and family of my own later on.”

Both girls looked at Margot, but she avoided their eyes, merely remarking, “Look at the time! I must get those kids off for their walk. Either of you coming with us?”

“I will,” said Con. “I’ve been swotting Anglo-Saxon all the morning till my head feels muzzy. A nice brisk walk would clear it. You two see to the babies and I’ll fetch Bruno. He likes a walk, too.”

“I’ll give you a hand with getting the babies ready,” Len offered. “Then I’m going to have a good go at my Spanish.” She got up, piled the crockery on to a tray and went off with it to the kitchen before coming to help Margot dress the babies for their outing.

She saw the party off, Con pushing the big double pram, Margot with Bruno, the big St Bernard, Cecil trotting ahead. She was an independent young person.

“Lunch at one!” Len called as they turned out at the gate. “Don’t be late!”

“O.K.! We’ll be on time, so don’t worry!” Margot shouted back.

Len waved and then went to her mother’s study where she settled down to a good grind at Spanish vocabulary and irregular verbs. She was still hard at it when her father came in.

“Hello, old lady! So buried in your book you can’t hear the gong?” he teased her.

Len swung round in her chair. “Dad! What on earth time is it?”

“13.15 hours. Where’s the rest of the bunch?”

“Upstairs, feeding the infants, I imagine. I’d no idea it was so late.” She closed her book and stood up. “You carry on and I’ll go and call them.”

“Please do! And tell them to hurry. I’ve got to be back at the San by 14.15 hours and I’m waiting for no man!”

Len ran off, calling her sisters as she went. Jack turned into the Speisesaal and began to carve for the party. He was halfway through his task when she returned, looking puzzled.

“They aren’t there—they aren’t in the house so far as I can see.”

“Not there? Then where are they?”

“I haven’t a clue! They ought to have been back ages—Oh, listen! That’s Geoff yelling! I’ll go and buck them up!” She dashed to the front-door, exclaiming, “Where on earth have you all been? It’s past 13.00 hours! Oh, my Geoffy!” as that young man lifted up his voice in good earnest. “Come to Len!” She lifted the bawling baby as Anna arrived on the scene, and cuddled him. “You two, scram! Dad’s got an appointment at the San and he’s wrathy because you’re late. I’ll see to the kids. You go and smooth him down.”

Anna had lifted Philippa and now took Geoff from his sister, settling one on each broad hip. “Na, mein Liebling! Leave them with me. Go thou to the father and I will see to these Vögelein. In the kitchen there are Pflaumentorte and cream to follow.”

When Anna spoke like that, her nurslings obeyed without question, even the sixteen-year-old triplets. She stalked off with the twins, Cecil trotting after her. Len gave a chuckle and went back to the Speisesaal.

“The worst of people who’ve bossed you since you were a howling babe is that they never seem to think you grow up,” she announced across the excited chatter of her sisters. “What happened to you folk?”

“A strange woman—and we couldn’t get away from her,” Margot proclaimed.

“Or not without being frightfully rude,” Con added.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“You may well ask!” The doctor took a hand. “Some yarn about a stranger stopping them to admire Cecil and they couldn’t get away. You should have got away, you two!”

“We couldn’t,” Con repeated. “You wouldn’t want us to be rude, Papa?”

The Maynards had all begun with “Papa” and “Mamma” but as they grew older and, more especially since the boys had gone to their prep school, other terms had crept in. Joey fought them strenuously at first, but she had to give in at last.

The doctor snorted at Con’s query. “Rubbish! All you had to do was to tell her you were due at home. Don’t tell me!”

“But honestly, Dad, we couldn’t,” Margot told him. “We did try and Geoff was whimpering all the time, but we might just as well have held our tongues for all the good it did.”

“Not to speak of Bruno growling like a thunderstorm,” Con put in. “We didn’t like that woman a little bit; but she was clutching Cecil’s hand and we couldn’t very well yank the kid away.”

“But what did she want?” Len asked wide-eyed.

“The yarn is this!” Con plunged into it. “We took them as far as the brook—you know how they like to watch the water dashing down—and we were on the bridge, letting them look. Then Margot said it was time to turn and we were just going to when SHE arrived through the bushes. She rushed up to us and began to exclaim about the kids——”

“And Geoff was hungry and he put up his lip—you know his trick—and I knew we were in for a bellow any moment.”

“Only I had some chocolate in my pocket, so I shoved a piece in his mouth and that stopped him for the moment,” Con took up the tale again. “Then she left the pram and started on Cecil—nattered about how lovely she was and what beautiful curls she had. We two were furious! You know how Mamma loathes that sort of soppy talk! Margot said we must be going or we’d be late but it didn’t do a scrap of good. She just stood there, nattering on and hanging on to Cecil till the kid looked scared and I didn’t blame her.”

“What happened then?” Len asked as Con stopped to finish her plateful.

“Most mercifully,” Margot answered, “Dr Morris turned up with Scottie. He was walking for once and I don’t know if he twigged anything, but he told us to come along with him or we’d be late and Dad had a consultation at 14.30. She let go of Cecil then and he picked the kid up and Con swung the pram round and we got away at last!”

“Did Morris say anything else about it?” Jack demanded. “Go and fetch the sweet, one of you; I haven’t a moment to lose!”

“Not a word. I expect he thought it was someone we knew,” Con replied as Margot began to clear away the used dishes before going to fetch the sweet. “We didn’t say anything of course—couldn’t! Geoff had got going good and hearty.”

“How weird!” Len said.

“That wasn’t the word for it,” Con returned. “Honestly, Papa,” she turned to her father, “I began to think she was bats! I was thankful Dr Morris had come!”

Margot paused in the act of wheeling out the trolley. “She was definitely on the queer side. She looked at Cecil as if——”

“As if she could have eaten her,” Con interrupted.

Margot nodded. “Exactly!” she said and went off to bring the Pflaumentorte.

“Aren’t you exaggerating, you two?” Jack asked as he poured cream over the portion Len passed him, serving him first.

“Honestly, Dad, that’s what she looked like,” Margot replied earnestly.

“I see.” He considered as he ate his sweet. “Well, I don’t think it was anything more than some mad artist or other raving over a pretty kid. Just the same, there’s no need for Cecil to be told she’s a picture at her age. Neither your mother nor I will have it. In future, you’d better keep to the Platz when you have the babies with you. The motor-road can be pretty lonely. And don’t go talking to strangers or letting them talk to you. Understood?”

“Of course,” Len said. “We don’t, either. We’ve had it rubbed into us all our lives. But we’ll stick to the Platz for the next few days.”

“Right! Give me some more pudding, please, Len. Then I must be off.”

There, the matter dropped, though the triplets discussed it among themselves later. As for Jack, he made a few inquiries but could hear nothing of any artist staying up at the Platz or in the nearby villages and ultimately dismissed it as the exaggerated admiration of some gushing tourist for small Cecil’s undoubted beauty. But he did warn the girls to say nothing about it in their letters to Joey.

“Your mother has quite enough on her plate at present,” he told them. “I’ll tell her myself when she comes back. Meantime, you keep to the Platz and if you see any more of the woman, come straight to me. Meantime, as Rösli returns this evening and this is my free weekend, I’ll take you three off with me tomorrow. What about a trip to Berne? That suit you?”

It did! All thought of the odd stranger passed out of their minds.

That evening Rösli, commonly known as the Coadjutor, turned up full of her sister’s wedding and laden with a great slab of bride-cake for the family. Her return freed the triplets from set duties with the babies and a game of Mah-jongg that evening with their father helped to banish the last remnants of memories of that odd encounter. Anna had been told all about it, but she took the matter easily. Cecil was a lovely child—the pick of the basket for looks, her father was wont to declare. It was natural for anyone who was not blind to admire her. How often did you see such beautiful black curls, such great dark eyes and such a delicate pink-and-white colouring? As for her mouth, Anna thought it and her dainty nose the last word in mouths and noses! She never even mentioned the tale to Rösli, finding far more to interest her in that young person’s descriptions of the wedding.

No more had been heard of the stranger and by the next morning both Jack and the girls had settled down comfortably to the belief that she was just passing through. He told the girls that he was going along to the Sanatorium to see how Mrs Carey, who had reached the Platz the evening before in not too good shape, had passed the night, and to look in on another patient who was giving him anxiety. Then they would get off for a good long day in Berne.

“Mind you’re ready to come as soon as I hoot from the gate,” he told the girls. “I don’t want to be hung up by any odd phone calls.”

“We’ll be out in the road watching for you!” Len promised him. “It’s such a gorgeous day, the school’s going off, too. We met the walk when we were out a few minutes ago and Maeve told us. They’re all off in various directions and now that the days are growing longer, they won’t be back much before 19.00 hours.”

“Right!” he said.

He was rather longer than he had thought. Mrs Carey was a shade stronger, but his other patient was in a poor condition and he asked Matron to ring up the pâtisserie where he meant to take the girls for Kaffee und Kuchen at 16.00 hours to let him know how things were going.

“If he’s no better, I’ll just decant the girls at Freudesheim and come straight on,” he told her.

Meanwhile, his daughters were grumbling heartily at having to waste so much of the glorious day waiting for him. They were accustomed to it, as the members of a doctor’s family always are; but that didn’t prevent them from expressing their feelings freely.

“There are times,” said Len, “when I wish Dad was anything but a doctor! Men in offices and banks and places like that have set hours, but a doctor has to be on tap any old time. What’ll you bet that wretched phone goes while we hang about here?”

“I’m not betting,” Con returned, “but I vote we go along the road and meet him. Fly in, Margot, and tell Anna we’re just going. Then she won’t feel she has to come screeching after us if it rings before we really get off.”

Margot was nothing loath. She raced off, nearly falling over the pram which was waiting to take the babies for their morning walk, but duly delivering her message to Anna. Then she tore back and the three girls, satisfied that nothing could break into their treat now, set off at a brisk pace and met the car at the end of the school’s playing-fields.

“Let’s go down by the old road!” Len cried. “This is the small car, so it’ll be all right. We’ll get down a lot quicker, too.”

Jack laughed and agreed. He turned the car and presently they were negotiating what was known as “the old road”. It was a breakneck performance to a newcomer, but the Maynards were well used to it and they enjoyed it. Once in the valley, he set himself to showing his car’s performance.

“I love going as fast as this,” Margot said. “How’s Auntie Doris, Dad?”

“A shade stronger. She had a very fair night and enjoyed her breakfast—what there was of it.”

The girls knew better than to ask if there were any chance that Mrs Carey might recover after all. They knew that, humanly speaking, it was only a question of time. Still, if she went on improving, it would mean longer for her and Mary-Lou and Verity to be together.

They reached Interlaken where the doctor had to slow down perforce. Indeed, at one point, they were held up by a traffic jam. Con, glancing out of the window, gave an exclamation and touched Margot. “Look, Mag! Isn’t that the batty woman who made such a fuss over Cecil—over there on the pavement by the pâtisserie?”

“Stop calling me Mag!” Margot said sharply; but she stared across in the direction in which her sister was pointing with interest. “Where? I don’t see her!”

“She’s gone into the shop, I think,” Con said relaxing. “Anyhow, I only got a glimpse of her so it might be a mistake.”

No more was said. Len, who had been chattering with her father and had missed this, turned round at that moment to point out a string of their own Junior Middles, demurely promenading along towards the Schiffstadt, on route for the gay little town of Thun. The triplets waved to their Juniors and Con and Margot forgot about the stranger again.

Jack made such good time on the road that they rolled into Berne before midday. Len had secreted a large tin of golden syrup and they demanded to visit the bearpit first. Here, they handed the tin to a grinning keeper who pierced holes in it before tossing it into the pit where it was seized on with joy by a big brown bear. For the next few minutes, all the spectators had a joyous time, watching him deal adequately with it. He tilted it upside down and the syrup poured in a viscous mass over his muzzle and paws and down his enormous chest; his youngsters scrabbled furiously to lick it up from the ground while Father, having made certain that the tin was empty, set to work to clean himself thoroughly, to the accompaniment of screams of laughter from the onlookers.

That done, the Maynards strolled round the quaint old streets and did some shopping, mainly oddments Anna wanted and little gifts for the babies. Jack presented each of his daughters with a sparkling brooch of rhinestones.

“A reward for being good girls!” he said with a grin. “Well, what about a meal? Come along and let’s see what the Bernerhof can do for us.”

It did them very nicely with Käsesuppe followed by Kalbsbraten, or veal stuffed with a delectable mixture of herbs, eggs, barleymeal and lemon, and accompanied by tiny golden potatoballs, crisp outside and melting and piping hot inside. For a sweet the girls chose the great hollow buns, stuffed with whipped cream which are so popular. Jack abjured this, preferring cheese and rolls.

“There’s one thing,” he told his family, “if you’re bilious after all this, it’ll be tonight and tomorrow. At least I shan’t have Matey on my track!”

Margot grimaced at him. “Don’t worry! We aren’t in the least likely to be upset by just one meal like this!”

“Cheeky brat!” he retorted. “Finished? Then I’ll pay up while you decide on the afternoon’s entertainment. Only remember that we have to be at the Pâtisserie Bernhardt at 16.00 hours as there may be a phone-call for me, though I hope not. Off you go!”

When he came out to the car to join them, they informed him that they wanted to visit the Zeitglockenturm in order to see the gay procession which passes in front of the clock-dial every time the hour strikes. After that, they would like a stroll to the terrace flanking the Munster to see the view. By that time, they would have to think of Kaffee und Kuchen.

“You haven’t much mercy on my aged legs!” Jack grumbled.

“Aged legs my foot!” Margot commented simply. “We’ll wait till you’re bald before we think of calling you aged!”

He chuckled, but made no further demur. They piled into the car and he drove them to a parking space not far from the pâtisserie he had fixed on, and presently they were walking briskly in the direction of the clock-tower, where they enjoyed the hourly spectacle. The cathedral was the next place, and here they lingered some time, enjoying the fresh air of the heights and revelling in the wonderful view from the tree-lined terrace high above the green and swiftly-flowing Aare. The girls would have stayed some time but Jack, with an eye to his call, marched them down the hill and into the busy streets again to cross the Kirchenerbrücke over the river and so to Thunstrasse where they found their pâtisserie. Here he inquired of the manager, but no call had come so far, and he enjoyed his coffee, thick with cream, tiny rolls of fancy bread served with great pats of the delicious ivory-tinted butter, and pastries of every kind. Halfway through, however, a waitress came to murmur to him and he stood up at once.

“Better eat up!” he warned the girls. “Unless I miss my guess this is the finish to our expedition. I’ll be back with you in a few minutes.”

He went off and the three girls looked at each other anxiously.

“I hope it isn’t Auntie Doris,” Len said at last.

“He said it was that Herr Rollen,” Con reminded her.

“And it mayn’t be either. It may be some new case,” Margot wound up. “Anyhow, we’d better finish our cakes and coffee so as to be ready if we have to go at once.”

This was commonsense. They turned to the table again and did as she suggested. They had just finished when he came to rejoin them. They turned querying faces to him and he nodded.

“Sorry, but you’ve had a very good day of it already. We’ll have to get off at once.”

“It isn’t Auntie Doris?” Len asked.

“No; Matron says she’s resting nicely just now. It’s another patient and I’m wanted as soon as I can get there. Finished? Come along then! I’ll drop you people at our end of the Platz and go straight on to San. Oh, by the way, if there have been any calls for me at home, you can’t ring up. Some of the lines on the Platz seem to be down and the phone’s off. So if it’s anything urgent, one of you must cycle along to tell me. But I don’t expect anything.”

He wasted no time in getting out of the city and once they were on the autobahn leading straight to Interlaken, he let the car out. It was still only 17.00 hours when he finally dropped them to walk the short distance to Freudesheim while he drove straight on to the Sanatorium at the other end of the Platz.

“It’s early yet. Let’s go round and in through the rose-garden,” Con proposed.

The other two were quite agreeable. A narrow lane ran between the limits of the Freudesheim garden at that side and the wall of the great mountain. It was not often used, for in wet weather it was a sea of mud and, being sheltered by the mountain and the high thick hedge of the garden, it did not dry out very quickly. However, it would be dry enough today. The triplets turned down it and sauntered along, talking quietly. Three steps led up to a gate set in the hedge. They passed through and into the sunken rose-garden which Joey and Jack had created out of what had once been a great cabbage-patch. To give shelter to the roses, Jack had had the ground dug down to a depth of some four feet and had planted a sturdy hedge of arbor vitae round three sides of it, leaving part of the side facing the house open. A path at one corner led down to the Chalet School shrubbery and Joey often used it when she was in a hurry.

“They’ll be unpacking the roses soon,” Margot said, pointing to the bushes muffled in straw and sacking, a necessary precaution during the winter. “As soon as I see that, I know winter’s done with, thank goodness!”

“I thought you loved winter and all the fun we have,” Len said.

“Oh, I do. But as soon as March comes, I’m in a hurry for the summer.”

“What do you think, Con?” Len turned to the sister who had not spoken yet.

For reply, Con waved her hand at the house. “Look at that! Every window lighted up! Mamma must have come! Come on!”

The three raced across the garden and up the short flight of steps. One glance told them that the french windows were shut, so they shot round the house to the steps at the other side and in at the front door, which was standing wide.

“Mamma!” Con shrieked. “Where are you? Mamma!”

Len and Margot joined in her calls. They got their answer, but it was not Joey who came to hush their noise with laughter. Instead, down the stairs stumbled Anna. And oh, what an Anna she was! Her hair was dropping from its high coronal of plaits; her clean apron was smeared with dust and she had smudged her face, too. Behind her thick glasses, her eyes were red and swollen and as she reached them, she burst into sobs again.

Len flung an arm round her. “Anna! Anna! What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

Anna fought with her tears, but it was in a voice choking and thick that she told them. “She is gone! Our Blümchen—our little Cecil has vanished! Rösli and I have hunted and hunted since 16.00 hours and nowhere can we find her! Our Blümchen is lost!”

For at least thirty seconds the triplets stood stunned by this appalling news. Impetuous Margot, first to recover, made a wild dive for the study. Len caught her and checked her.

“What are you going to do? It’s no use trying to ring the San. Father told us that Matron said the phone was off up here—wires down or something—and it wasn’t likely to be put right for some hours.”

“I forgot that!” Margot stared in horror at her sister. “Then we can’t get on to anyone! Oh, gosh! This is too awful for words!”

“You’ve said it! We’ll have to tackle the thing ourselves—in the beginning, anyhow. Anna, where’s Rösli?”

“With the twins. The little Phil began to fret. I think she, too, has trouble with her teeth,” Anna said dully.

“She would! Oh, well, Rösli must just cope on her own.” Len accepted the explanation for Phil’s fretfulness without demur. “Right! Look here, everyone, let’s go to the kitchen and plan. Anna, shove on the coffee, please. We three have got to go and hunt for Cecil and we’d better have a hot drink inside us first. Now!” as they spread round the kitchen and Anna set the percolator going. “There’s no one to do anything but we three. Margot, you’re best on a bike. Snaffle Mum’s and scram to the San for Dad as soon as you’ve drunk your coffee. If you can’t get hold of him—he may be doing an emergency op.—then grab one of the other doctors and tell them. They’ll organise search parties. Con, scribble a note to the school and then go and stick it on the front door where they won’t miss it. Come straight back here. I’m going to get Bruno.”

“Why?” Con asked involuntarily.

“To be a bloodhound, of course. We must have something of Cecil’s for him to smell and we ought to get a pointer that way.”

“Good idea!” Margot exclaimed, as she took the cup of coffee Anna had poured out for her. “He can do it, all right! He’s played hide and seek with us often enough!”

“But our Blümchen!” Anna wailed. “It is well to plan, but what is become of her all this time?”

Con and Margot looked at each other. Con spoke.

“I don’t suppose she’s come to any harm—apart from being scared.”

“But how can you know that, Liebling?”

Margot glanced at Con. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“If you mean that weird woman—yes; I am.”

Len nodded. “I wondered that, too. The ass who made you all late for lunch on Wednesday?”

“Of course! It strikes me she’s kidnapped Cecil!”

Anna shrieked and they united to hush her.

“Pipe down, Anna!” Len said sharply. “I’m certain the kid won’t come to any harm. From what these two said, she was in a hopeless state of adoration.”

“The only way she could harm Cecil,” Con said in her tranquil voice, “would be if she talked silly rot to her about being pretty. And she won’t have her long enough for that. We three will see to that!”

“Don’t worry,” Margot added. “We’ll soon have young Cecil back.”

“The——!” Anna spat out a most uncomplimentary epithet.

“We’re pretty sure of it,” Len said. “Makes it a little easier in one way.—Oh, Rösli!” as that individual crept into the kitchen. “The very one we want! Now stop looking like Niobe and tell us where you were when you first missed Cecil—and when. And don’t howl over it!” she added firmly.

Rösli gulped down her tears. “I took the babies up the coachroad to the brook. It was a fine afternoon and I had my knitting. I sat down on the bench before the bushes and the little Cecil was running about playing. Then Geoff began to weep and I was soothing him. His teeth trouble him, das arme Kindchen! Then I look round and Cecil is gone—vanished!”

“When, exactly, did this happen?” Len demanded as she ran down.

“But I cannot say! I do not look at my watch! We went out at 14.30 hours and we had been there a little time. I searched and called—how I searched and called! I returned to tell Anna and that——”

“That was 15.45 hours,” Anna interrupted. “We have hunted since then.”

“Along the road you mean?” Margot queried.

“But no. Rösli could not find her. I thought perhaps Cecil might have returned here and we have looked everywhere—in every room and cupboard. Then we have searched the garden. No part has been left unsearched—none!”

“Cecil wouldn’t have tried to come off home by herself,” Len said. “She could never do it all by herself. What’s more, she wouldn’t. She doesn’t like being alone.”

“Was Bruno with you?” Con asked Rösli.

Rösli crimsoned. “But no. He is so big and with the babies I cannot hold him. I left him at home.”

“It’s a pity!” Margot told her severely. “If he’d been there, Cecil would have been safe in bed this very minute! He’d never have let any stranger walk off with her and I’ll bet that’s what’s happened!”

Rösli broke into a howl, but Len was as stern as her sister.

“Oh, stop howling! It won’t help matters and you’ll only upset yourself and give us more trouble!” She turned to her sisters. “Bruno’s the best bet. I’ll take him and you come after me, Con. Anna, where’s something of Cecil’s for him to smell?”

“In the basket for the soiled linen I put the vest our Blümchen wore only yesterday,” Anna said more cheerfully now that someone else had taken charge, even if it were only her eldest nursling. “I will get it. The dog is a good thought, meine Liebste.”

She bundled off to the nursery bathroom while Margot departed to get her mother’s bicycle from the garage, Con to scrawl her note and tear round to school with it, Len to seek Bruno, who was outside in the garden, and Rösli, at the sound of a familiar howl, to rush upstairs to the twins. Margot got off first, pedalling madly along the road to the Sanatorium. Con came flying back from affixing her note to the front door at school and met Len with Bruno on his chain. She had found time to collect a torch with a new battery, a whistle and a pocket compass, this last when a sudden memory of Lower IVb’s earlier exploit assailed her. She had also picked up her own big woollen scarf and another for her sister.

“What’s the why of that?” Con demanded as she wound it round her neck.

“If we have to go up to one of the higher shelves, it’ll be jolly cold. If we don’t need them ourselves, we might for Cecil,” Len explained. “There’s a slab of chocolate in my pocket and I’ve got my purse in case we need any cash. Now come on! Anna, we’re going! Better have Cecil’s cot warm for her. We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

The two girls swung off down the drive with Bruno gambolling ahead as far as the chain would let him. An extra walk never came wrong with him.

“I only hope that creature lives somewhere around,” Len remarked as they made good time up the road to the brook.

“I hope she didn’t have a car,” Con said soberly. “That would be a bind!”

“I’ve been trying not to think of it,” Len owned. “My main hope is that as she was on foot when she met you two and the babies, she’s staying somewhere at hand—probably one of the upper shelves.”

The talk ceased and they hurried on, inwardly praying hard that they might find Cecil before too long. They reached the brook and crossed the bridge to the bench further along where Rösli had been sitting. Here, Con gave a shriek.

“One of Rösli’s needles!” she cried, as she stooped to pick it up. “Now where do you think that woman came from?”

“The bushes, somewhere,” Len said promptly. “Rösli would have seen her if she was on the road. Scout round and let’s see what we can find.”

They found their first clue behind the bush—Cecil’s handkerchief. It had caught on a twig and Con cried out again as she held it up.

“O.K.! This must be right. Which way through the woods, Len?”

“We’d better try up,” Len said. “It’s past 18.00 hours and it’ll be dark soon. I don’t want to waste time. Come on!”

They unrolled the tiny vest and held it for Bruno to smell.

“Find Cecil, Bruno!” Len said. “Find Cecil, old man!”

He sniffed at the vest and began to quarter the ground. At the same moment there came the frenzied ringing of a bicycle bell and Margot arrived, scarlet and breathless.

“How can you have done it in this time?” Len exclaimed.

“I didn’t. I met that nice Soeur Anne-Marie of yours and gave her a message for Dad. Then I came scorching back to find you if I could—Oh, look at Bruno!”

“I can feel him!” gasped Len, who was holding his chain and was now being towed rapidly up the slope. “She’s gone this way. Come on!”

Bruno had got the scent all right. He went straight ahead through the pines and the girls after him. His long, purposeful lope took him at such a pace that they had to run to keep up with him. No one spoke. They needed all their breath for running. The dog turned slightly and presently they reached the place where the naughty Middles had jumped the brook. Here, Bruno stopped and began circling round and round before he stood still and looked at his young mistresses for further instructions.

Len jumped to it at once. “That woman must have picked up the kid and carried her. Cecil would be about dead with all this climb. But I’m certain we’re on the right track. We’d better just keep on up.”

The others agreed and they set off again, climbing higher and higher and finding the going worse as they went. There was no proper path on this side of the water and the bushes clustered along the bank so that they had to keep on making détours to avoid them. To make matters worse, the sun was reaching setting point and among the pines it was very dark.

“Thank goodness I brought a torch!” Len said.

“I snaffled Papa’s as I came past his den,” Con informed them.

“Here’s the lamp off the bike! I grabbed it before I shoved the thing behind the seat.” Margot held it up.

“We’ll manage then!” Len sounded confident.

“You’re sure they went this way?” Con queried. “Bruno hasn’t got on to Cecil’s scent again.”

“Fairly sure. Anyhow, it’s the only idea we have of where she might be.”

“Where do you think it leads?” Margot asked. “The Rösleinalp?”

“Shouldn’t think so. We must be well above that by this time. I haven’t a clue where this goes, but probably to some shelf a little way round the mountain. Half a jiff till I see what the compass says.”

They halted and Margot switched on her lamp while Len consulted the compass.

“That’s right,” she said. “We’re turning south a little. When you come to think of it, if it had been the Rösleinalp, people up there know Cecil.”

“That woman mightn’t think of that,” Margot said shrewdly.

“Possibly not; but you bet someone would have wanted to know what a stranger was doing with a Maynard baby!” Len retorted.

“Better switch off that lamp,” Con put in. “We don’t know what we may need.”

Margot switched it off and they went on. Up and up they climbed, finding the going pretty hard, now that it was getting dark. They came on boulders and stranded logs where, in former years, the brook had flooded badly. Then they had to jump one of the channels dug the previous year to prevent such flooding. Con, watching her feet, failed to notice a low-growing bough and gave herself a knock which promised to develop a great bruise presently. Further on, Margot tripped over a sunken rock and went headlong. She got up, holding her left wrist and grimacing with pain. They paused long enough to bind it firmly with one of their handkerchiefs. Then they went on.

At intervals, Bruno whined in a puzzled manner. He liked walks, but this one was something quite out of his experience. The climax came when Len took a toss over a fallen branch and cut her knee badly. A second handkerchief tied that up, but she was limping now and Con took Bruno’s chain from her. If he picked up the scent again, Len could hardly keep up with him. Now and then they paused to try him but, so far, without success. The kidnapper must have carried Cecil the whole way up. By this time, all were very tired and only their own grit and determination kept them going. Then Margot shouted and pointed ahead.

“We’re getting somewhere!” she cried. “Look! It’s lighter over there!”

Her sisters stared and, sure enough, the darkness lightened ahead. They were coming to some shelf or other. That knowledge winged their feet and they redoubled their pace, finally climbing up a steep little slope to find themselves on a little grassy platform they had never seen before.

“There’s a chalet over there!” Con exclaimed, flinging out an arm to point. “Oh, and two or three huts further on. Where on earth are we?”

“I haven’t a clue!” Len stared round. The next moment, she grabbed Margot’s arm. “Where are you going?”

“To that chalet to see if that creature is there and demand Cecil from her!”

“O.K.; but let’s look round first. That’s a tiny place and other people are living near. I’d expect her to be more on her own. Come on! Let’s explore.”

They turned to the south and found that the shelf narrowed to a path some six foot wide. They went along this for about fifty yards. There, a great boulder lay at one side and the path widened out suddenly into a kind of green bowl. Len held out the vest to Bruno. He sniffed and promptly made off across the grass, round the boulder and a clump of bushes and they found themselves looking at a much larger chalet standing alone. It was almost dark by this time, but there was enough light for the girls to see that someone was making a garden here. Flowerbeds had been cut in the turf, though they were empty at present. The path had borders on each side. Lights shone in the curtained windows on either side of the door and in one above the door, which stood open.

Bruno made no mistake. He trotted along the path to the door and the girls realised that they had reached their goal when he stopped short before it. The next minute, they were completely sure. From the open window came an angry wail and a voice they recognised.

“Go away!” it howled. “I want Mamma! I want Papa! Anna—Yösli! Turn to Cecil! Mamma—Mam-ma-a!”

The first part of their quest was accomplished!

Impetuous Margot would have burst into the house on the spot. Len held her back, however.

“Just a tick! We can’t go gate-crashing too badly on total strangers. At least we know where Cecil is now!”

“We do!” Con spoke with feeling. Cecil was roaring at the top of her voice. For once, she was in a regular tantrum and she meant to let everyone know it.

Len tucked a hand through the arm of each sister and drew them away. Not, however, before they heard a strange voice saying in German “My Cecilie—my dearest—my little bird! Do not cry so! Mamma is here, my darling! Oh, my Cecilie, have you come back to break Mamma’s heart? Hush then, little flower!”

At the sound, Len’s eyes widened until they looked as if they would fall out. She said nothing, but she got her sisters away out of earshot, though Cecil’s yells were still to be heard clearly.

“Did you hear that?” she demanded when they came finally to a tall bush behind which she pulled them, Bruno following with his chain trailing over the grass. “We’ve got a loonie to tackle!”

“Then why are we leaving Cecil with her?” Margot sounded frantic.

“Cecil’s all right! At least she’s having a lovely paddy! I’d no idea she had such an outsize in tempers. I’m not worrying so much about her for the moment. But how on earth are we to tackle anyone like that?”

“Barge in on her and insist that she gives us our little sister,” Margot returned promptly.

“Talk sense! You don’t want to set her off raving in front of Cecil, do you? That would be bad for the poor kid if you like! No; we’ll have to get her away, of course, but we shan’t manage it by dashing in and churning things up.” Len spoke imperatively and Margot calmed down.

“What are we to do, then?”

“We’d better find out if she’s alone in the house,” Con said thoughtfully. “If she is, we can deal with her a lot more easily than if she has half-a-dozen folk to back her up.”

“She may have one more. I don’t believe it’s any more, though,” Len answered. “Look here, Bruno’s restless. He’ll be barking his head off in two minutes. Better take him further off and then we can consult. I’ve got an idea, if we can only work it out; but it’ll mean waiting a little.”

“What time is it?” Con inquired. “My watch has stopped.”

Len switched on her torch for a moment while she looked. “It’s close on 20.00 hours. Heavens! I thought it must be nearly midnight!”

“Oh, so did I. But never mind that! Tell us your idea!” Margot spoke eagerly.

“Let’s get back to the beginning of the path. Then we can talk. Oh, goodness! Listen to Cecil!” as the squalls floated across to them.

Bruno moved uneasily. He would have set up a loud barking, but Con had the chain and Len was holding his muzzle firmly to keep him quiet.

“Sh, Bruno! You can’t make a row yet! Look here! I’ll take Bruno and go and knock at the door and ask if they’ve seen our little sister. I’ll give him that vest again to smell and when she comes to the door, I’ll drop his chain—No! We’ll take it off and leave it in the porch. The instant the door opens, he’ll be off after Cecil. Yes; that’s better. I can go after him and grab the kid and then you two must come instantly and between the four of us, even if that woman goes clean off her head, we ought to be able to get Cecil away. O.K.?”

“But how?” Con persisted.

“One of you must pick Cecil up and dash off with her. The rest of us must cope with the loonie to give you time to get away with the infant.”

“Can you cope, do you think?” Con asked doubtfully.

“We must,” Len said stubbornly. “Con, you’d better grab Cecil and you get her clothes if you can, Margot. Bruno and I can hold the fort. That window’s open, Margot. You chuck the clothes out, and Con must snatch what she can. Once you’ve done that, Con, go as hard as you can along the path and down by the brook. There’s a good path down at the other side and it’ll be easier. We’ll come after as soon as we can get away. Now have you got all that?”

“I’ll go one better,” Con said. “That porch is quite climbable. I’ll go up it and through the window and when I hear you coming upstairs, if I’ve got Cecil, I’ll slide out with her. You wait below, Margot, to catch the babe in case anything happens. Your one hand is all right, and it isn’t very far. There aren’t any steps to the door or anything like that.”

It was about as mad a plan as could be imagined, but the three were determined to get their little sister back. Cecil’s roars were becoming wails infinitely more plaintive, and rescue her they must and would, even if it came to a stand-up fight with a madwoman!

When Joey heard the story, she vowed that her hair nearly stood on end. And then Jack told her that it was only what might have been expected from any daughters of hers! They were merely following in their mother’s footsteps!

Len peered round the bush, but there was no sign from the house that anyone knew they were there. Holding Bruno’s chain after a stern order to him to be quiet, she limped down the path, followed by her sisters. Arrived at the door, Con set to work to scale the side of the porch. She was an excellent climber and the porch itself was a long structure with plenty of crevices for toes and fingers. Margot made a back for her to help her to start as far up as possible and once Con had a firm hold on the woodwork, her sister came to stand behind Len while that young woman knocked firmly on the door.

Cecil’s wails had died down by this time. Len judged that the poor child was worn-out and falling asleep. As no one had come in answer to her knock, she tapped again. Margot, who had been peering round the corner of the porch, whispered excitedly.

“The light’s gone out—and Con’s on top of the porch. Anyone coming?”

“I think—yes! Here, Bruno!” She unclipped the chain with one hand, holding the vest to his nose with the other. “Find Cecil! Find Cecil!”

The door opened and everything seemed to happen at once. Bruno, finding himself free, thrust his great body through the doorway, nearly upsetting the tall, slim woman who had opened it. Along the hall and up the stairs he tore, barking furiously. At the same moment, Con swung herself over the sill of the open window into the little room where a very cross Cecil was howling again, but with such a tired note in her voice, that it was clear she was almost too done to do it. Len followed Bruno into the narrow hall and Margot dashed in after her.

The owner of the chalet gave an exclamation. “Wie!” Then, “What is this? Who are you? How dare you force your way into my house? Why are you here?”

Len turned and faced her with Margot standing close behind.

“You took our little sister away and we have come to take her home,” she said steadily. “I’m sorry, but this seemed the only way to do it.”

The dark eyes looking into hers became blank. “I do not know what you say. I have no little sister of yours—only my own little girl—my Cecilie. She is asleep and you will wake her with that noise. Be quiet!” She stretched out a thin, long fingered hand and gripped Len’s arm. “You must go away at once—at once, you understand! I cannot have my child frightened by rude girls forcing their way into my house and telling lies—lies—lies!”

Her voice rose in a shriek on the last word and the blankness left her eyes as she tried to pull Len to the door. Margot slipped between them.

“That’s all rot,” she said, while Len, taking advantage of a loosening of that fierce grip, pushed the door to and shut it firmly. “You took Cecil this afternoon when she was out with the twins and the Coad—our nurse. You stole her! That’s kidnapping and kidnapping’s breaking the law. You could be imprisoned for that. Anyhow, Cecil is ours and we’re taking her back with us!”

“No—no!” the stranger panted hoarsely. “It is you who have stolen my Cecilie and kept her from me. But now I have her and I will never let her go again—never! Go away! You have no right here!”

Len shook herself finally free and a moment later, in a flurry of gold and white and furious barking, Bruno arrived downstairs. In his mouth he carried the little frock and matching knickers which Cecil had worn that morning. Len caught them from him and he subsided beside her, growling deep in his throat. The strange woman looked at the determined young faces before her and then down at the angry dog. A crafty look came and she moved to throw open a door showing a sittingroom with a glowing stove and lit by electric light.

“There is some mistake here,” she said, her voice changing from anger to a smoothness that seemed almost miraculous. “We had better talk it over quietly. Will you come in here and I will bring some coffee while we talk.”

Margot looked puzzled at the sudden change. Len, who had caught the first look, shook her head.

“There’s nothing to discuss,” she said. “I’m terribly sorry if your own little girl is lost, but Cecil really does belong to us and we must take her back home. I’m sorry we’ve been rude, but we couldn’t think of anything else.” She was playing for time to let Con get as far away with Cecil as possible, but neither she, Margot nor Bruno were going a step further than the hall. She only hoped they could get away without a scene of some kind.

“But we must talk it over,” the woman said. “I know you are mistaken and for the rudeness, if your little sister is lost, I can pardon that—I who know what it is to lose my child. But you must not wake my baby. She would be frightened. Come, you shall taste my coffee and the cakes my good Bette has made and then you will go and leave me alone with my little angel who has just been restored to me. You would not spoil that happiness for me? I am sure you have good hearts.”

Len stood her ground. “Honestly, we can’t wait. We must take Cecil and go.” She took a step towards the foot of the stairs. She hoped that by this time Con was well away from the ledge, perhaps even across the brook. If she could get upstairs and look out of the window, she would feel surer. But the owner of the house was before her. She sprang to the foot of the stairs. The bland look left her face. Her eyes flamed with sudden rage and she shrieked, “No; you shall not! You shall not take my baby away again! Come one step nearer and I will strangle you—I will tear your eyes out! Do you hear me?”

“Open the door a crack,” Len muttered to Margot in English. “Be ready to fly!” Aloud, she replied to the poor crazed creature, “You wouldn’t, you know. Think what a dreadful shock to Cecil if she heard you!”

It was the first thing that came into her head and, by a miracle, it worked. The woman calmed a little and that frightening light left her eyes.

“Yes,” she said. “You are right. I must not frighten my baby. But you must go—you must go at once and never come back here again! Oh, if only Bette had been here, she would have helped me to make you understand. She would never have let you in. But go, now, and take that great, horrible dog with you. Cecilie is afraid of big dogs. Go—go! And take him away!” Her voice rose to a shriek again.

Margot flung the door open and in stalked a tall man, followed by three others. Margot gave a wild yell of, “Dad! Oh, thank goodness you’ve come!”

Len swung round and in that moment, the demented woman leapt on her, her hands groping for the girl’s throat as both went down.

It was quickly over. Jack and the huge man who had entered behind him were on the pair before those clutching hands could grip the girl. They tore the two apart and a slim, younger man, whom Margot realised to be Dr Courvoisier, came quickly to lift Len from the floor and carry her out into the open air, helped by Dr Graves, another of the staff at the Sanatorium. Meanwhile Jack and the big man, in whom Margot now recognised Gaudenz from the school, had succeeded in carrying the woman into the lighted sittingroom where they laid her on the sofa. Jack had a small case with him and while Gaudenz held her down, he swiftly opened it, extracted his syringe and a bottle of tiny capsules and administered an injection. For a few minutes he watched. Then the injection took effect. The fury died out of her face, the lids fell over the staring eyes and she relaxed. Jack, who had been kneeling beside her, rose with a sigh of relief.

“Thank God that’s done it!” He turned to Margot who had stood watching from the doorway. “Well, you three seem to have excelled yourselves this time! Go and see how Len’s getting on. Graves,” as the doctor came into the room. “I think we must take her down with us. She’s settled for the next hour or two, but I want her under observation when she wakes. Thank God that old maid of hers had the sense to come to us this evening or we might have had a tragedy.”

Margot came back. She cast a glance, half terrified, half relieved, at the quiet form on the sofa. “Len’s all right again, Dad. And—and—Con has Cecil somewhere——”

“I know all about that,” her father said. “We met Con on the way here and Dr Entwistle is taking her down. You and Len can come with me. Graves, the ambulance-men should be arriving shortly. I’ll leave Gaudenz with you, but you won’t have any trouble with her, I imagine.” His glance fell on the sleeping woman. “I want to get these girls back as soon as possible. O.K.?”

“Quite O.K. by me,” Dr Graves said. “You might give Hilary a ring when you get back and tell her I’ll be along later.”

“Can do. Come along, Margot! Time you three were all in bed. Coming, Eugen?”

Dr Courvoisier nodded and came to put an arm round Margot who was beginning to shake in the reaction from all the wild excitement. “Come, Margot! We’ll soon have you safely at home. And then I must hurry back to Biddy. Our little new son is only a few hours old and she will wish to hear all that has happened if she is awake.”

Volatile Margot forgot her fright at this news. “Oh, has Auntie Biddy got another boy? Cheers! Mind you give her our love and say how thrilled we are!”

He laughed as he steered her from the room and into the garden where Len, very white and shakey, was waiting, seated on a queen’s chair made by Dr Morris and, of all people, Miss Wilson. She had had a bad shock and it would be some days before she was herself again.

So bed was the end of it for that day. Cecil, having shrieked herself nearly hoarse, had dropped off to sleep in the arms of Dr Entwistle, a newcomer to the San, though the Maynards had known him for more than twelve years now.

As for Bruno, he needed no help from anyone. He padded along cheerfully and when Anna set a great bowl of his preferred supper before him, cleared it in short order.

It was not until Joey had returned to the Platz, accompanied by Mary-Lou and an engaged Verity, that the triplets heard the remainder of the story. They had been kept at home till the Wednesday which saw the return of the other three by the morning plane, but they would go back to school next day, though Margot’s wrist was still in plaster, Con’s head was marked with a nice assortment of colours, and Len still limped.

It was their mother who told them after the evening meal was over and she had come down from taking a look at her babies.

“It’s a very sad story, girls, but I hope things are going to be better for poor Frau Schumacher presently. She was left a widow with one little girl, Cecilie. When the baby was three, she died of polio. Her death affected her mother’s brain. She refused to believe that little Cecilie was dead, but thought she was lost or stolen. She wandered about looking for her and if it hadn’t been for Bette, her own old nurse, I don’t know what might have become of her. Bette stuck to her and eventually, they landed up at the Rundbrett and there they have lived for the past eighteen months or so. Bette says she was more at peace there than anywhere since she lost Cecilie. She saw our Cecil one day when she had come down to the Platz during a ramble. She heard Con and Margot call our little Cecil by her name and she got it into her head that Cecil was her own little Cecilie. Bette showed me a miniature of Cecilie that her mistress kept beside her bed and the likeness is really amazing.

“She made up her mind to get hold of the child. She seems to have watched our little crowd as much as she could and when she saw her chance, she took it—and Cecil. She seems to have tempted the monkey to her with a promise of ‘kitties.’ Cecil has been very firmly told that she is never to go off again for any reason. I’m saying no more to her, but she’s promised me she won’t.

“Frau Schumacher’s old Bette was in a terrible state about the whole thing. She was afraid to say much to her mistress, but while she was occupied with Cecil, the poor old thing slipped away to ask for help from the San. Being an old woman, she took some time to get there, or Papa would have known in time to stop you three going off in the mad way you did. Oh, I’m not scolding, but I’m thankful I wasn’t here at the time. I’d have gone out of my mind with worry, I think.”

She left it at that. Instead she told them what she knew of Verity Carey’s plans.

“She’s to be married in July from here,” she said, “as Auntie Doris wants it. Mary-Lou will be chief bridesmaid and——”

“We three will be the others!” Margot cried.

“You’ve been invited. Auntie Doris wants Verity to have a proper wedding. All I ask is that for the rest of the year you three pipe down a little and don’t go off on any more wild exploits.”

The triplets eyed her severely. With one voice they crushed her.

“What else do you expect? We take after you!”

Transcription Note:

The frontispiece by Dorothy Brook (1895-1975) is not included as it is not in the public domain.

[The end of The Chalet School Triplets by Elinor Mary Brent-Dyer]