There was so much to be done at Birkwood during the summer term that the days did not seem nearly long enough, though the school rose half an hour earlier than in winter. The girls played cricket as well as tennis, worked in their gardens, and were taken for walks on the downs or on the shore. These expeditions generally had a scientific object in view, wild flowers being brought home to be pressed and added to the school collection, or the pools left by the tide investigated for specimens to enlarge the already flourishing aquarium. There is an old saying: "If you are good, you are happy"; but Miss Drummond believed in the reversing of that moral process, on the theory that "if you are happy, you are good", considering that young girls, at any rate, would be more likely to grow up with nice minds and true instincts if all their environment was beautiful, and their days were filled with pleasures calculated to elevate and refine. There were few of her pupils on whom her system had not the desired effect, and the one or two failures had been gently eliminated, so as not to contaminate the rest. With Aldred especially Miss Drummond's method had worked well. She was very different from the ill-disciplined girl who had arrived at the Grange last September. The pleasant but carefully ordered regime seemed quite to have counteracted her aunt's injudicious management, and she would have been utterly ashamed now of behaviour in which a year ago she had gloried. This improvement was largely due to Mabel's influence. The latter's implicit faith in her began to rouse a desire to become actually what her friend believed her to be. She conquered many little weaknesses, lest Mabel should notice them. She had soon found that a cross word or an unkind speech, the evasion of a rule, or the shirking of some small duty, would bring a look of puzzled surprise to the latter's face; and rather than that Mabel should be disappointed in her, she kept a tight hand on herself, and would repress anything of which her friend did not approve. It was not the loftiest of motives, but it was the first time in her life that Aldred had ever really tried to join the ranks of those who are striving upwards, and even a faint-hearted effort is better than none at all.