"We've never had such an excitement at school before," declared Ruth Harmon. "It's the most interesting thing I've ever come across in my life." "We don't know what to call you now," laughed Mavie Morris. "You're Dorothy Greenfield, alias Rosamond Clarke. Which is it to be?" "Dorothy Greenfield, please, till the end of the term. Next session my new name can be entered on the College register, and I'll start in a fresh character." "Then in the meantime we'll call you Rosador, as a compromise." There was very little of the term left now, for the examinations were to begin the next week, and after those were over would come the annual speech day, which always concluded the school year. Dorothy's studies had naturally been somewhat upset by the recent course of events, but she had made an extra spurt at her work, and did not feel herself ill prepared. She rather liked examinations. She had a clear head and a good memory, and a neat, concise method of setting forth her information. "I think it's quite inspiring to see a pile of fresh sheets of foolscap and a paper of questions," she declared. "Yes, if you can answer the questions," returned Mavie. "It's a different matter if one's stumped. I'm utterly against the competitive system." Dorothy laughed. "State your reasons, Mavie," urged Ruth Harmon. "We'll set 'The Competitive System' as a subject for the Debating Society." "Well, to begin with, emulation is the wrong spirit in which to promote work." "A grand sentiment--but nothing would promote work in you, you dear old lazybones, so it's no use arguing the point." "Very well. If I'm content to absorb my knowledge in homeopathic doses, why must I be worried into swallowing more than I can digest? If I were running a school I'd allow the clever girls who wanted to go in for exams, to take them, and let the others alone. I call it sheer cruelty to put the ordinary rank and file on the rack. Next week will be purgatory to me. You'll see me pining day by day, and gradually wasting away." In spite of Mavie's forebodings, she survived the ordeal of the examination, and presented her usual appearance of robust health at the end of the dreaded period. "I've done badly, though," she protested. "I expect I've failed in at least half my subjects. The maths. was detestable and the geometry simply wicked. Rosador, you're looking very smug. I believe you liked the papers." "They weren't bad, as papers go," returned Dorothy. She did not care to boast, but she was conscious that she had done well, and reached a mark far above her average standard. "Still, one never knows," she thought. "Exams. are uncertain things, and heaps of other girls may have done better than I have. I just won't think about the results."