"You--you've only just come, I suppose?" she gasped, as politely as she could. The stranger gave a sickly giggle. "Are you my new schoolfellows?" she asked in a low creaking voice. "Miss Todd said you'd be pleased to see me, and I must make friends with you. I've been wanting a bosom friend, so I'll just pick one of you out. Let me see"--running her vacant eyes over the group and singling out Wendy--"I may as well choose you as anybody. Are you ready to be my chum?" Wendy flushed scarlet, and, jumping up from the grass, brushed some dead leaves from her dress. "It's too soon to think about chums yet," she returned. "You haven't even told us your name, and you don't know ours. Where do you come from?" "That means, I suppose, that you don't want me for a friend!" rasped the creaking voice. "Don't you like the look of me? What's wrong with me now? Please tell me, for I'd really like to know. I'm just crazy to make friends." In huge embarrassment Wendy and her companions stared at the extraordinary stranger. She bore their united gaze without flinching. She even turned round slowly, so that they might have an adequate view of her foolish profile, protruding lips, and retreating chin. "Do tell me what's wrong with me?" she repeated. No one volunteered a criticism, and for another whole minute there was dead silence. Then a brisk voice remarked: "Would this style suit you better now, I wonder?" The girls caught their breath in amazement. The stooping, slouching figure had suddenly straightened itself up, the protruding lips had set into a small, neat mouth, the receding chin had come forward, and the vacant eyes were twinkling with mirth. Instead of a half-idiotic, and wholly unattractive, specimen of girlhood, a very charming little personality stood before them. The transformation was so utter that at first the audience simply gaped, then with one accord they exploded into laughter and words. "Oh, I say!" "You fraud!" "I really thought you were dotty!" "How _did_ you do it?" "You looked too awful for words!" "You haven't told us your name yet!" "Can you do it again?" The stranger curtsied, dropped her jaw, set her eyes in a glassy stare, and, resuming the creaking voice, bleated forth: "Thank you! Thank you for welcoming me! I'm called Miranda Jane Judkins, and I come from Conic Section Farm, Squashville, Massachusetts. Which of you wants to chum with me? Don't all speak at once!" "Oh, for goodness' sake drop that awful face! It absolutely gives me spasms!" hinnied Magsie. "It's the very image of a village idiot who used to terrify me when I was a kiddie. Don't look at me with those horrid eyes! I shall have a fit!" "Look here, you mad thing!" said Vi. "Can't you tell us who you really are?" "Miss Judkins." "No, no! Your real name! Stop ragging!" Once more the half-witted, shambling figure gave place to a sparkling, self-possessed, laughing young witch of fourteen, who with another mock curtsy introduced herself.