In her form Marjorie was making fair progress. She liked Miss Duckworth, her teacher, and on the whole did not find the work too hard; her brains were bright when she chose to use them, and at present the thought of the Christmas report, which would be sent out for Daddy to look at, spurred on her efforts. So far Marjorie had not made any very great chums at school. She inclined to Mollie Simpson, but Mollie, like herself, was of a rather masterful disposition, and squabbles almost invariably ensued before the two had been long together. With the three girls who shared her dormitory she was on quite friendly, though not warm, terms. They had at first considered Marjorie inclined to "boss", and had made her thoroughly understand that, as a new girl, such an attitude could not be tolerated in her. So long as she was content to manage her own cubicle and not theirs they were pleasant enough, but they united in a firm triumvirate of resistance whenever symptoms of swelled head began to arise in their room-mate. One evening about the end of November the four girls were dressing for supper in their dormitory. "It's a grizzly nuisance having to change one's frock!" groused Betty Moore. "It seems so silly to array oneself in white just to eat supper and do a little sewing afterwards. I hate the bother." "Do you?" exclaimed Irene Andrews. "Now I like it. I think it would be perfectly piggy to wear the same serge dress from breakfast to bedtime. Brackenfield scores over some schools in that. They certainly make things nice for us in the evenings." "Um--yes, tolerably," put in Sylvia Page. "We don't get enough music, in my opinion." "We have a concert every Saturday night, and charades on Wednesdays for those who care to act." "I'd like gym practice every evening," said Betty. "Then I needn't change my frock. When I leave school I mean to go on a farm, and wear corduroy knickers and leggings and thick boots all the time. It'll be gorgeous. I love anything to do with horses, so perhaps they'll let me plough. What shall you do, Marjorie?" "Something to help the war, if it isn't over. I'll nurse, or drive a wagon, or ride a motor-bike with dispatches." "I'd rather ride a horse than a bike any day," said Betty. "I used to hunt before the war. You needn't smile. I was twelve when the war began, and I'd been hunting since I was seven, and got my first pony. It was a darling little brown Shetland named Sheila. I cried oceans when it died. My next was a grey one named Charlie, and Tom, our coachman, taught me to take fences. He put up some little hurdles in a field, and kept making them higher and higher till I could get Charlie over quite well. Oh, it was sport! I wish I'd a pony here."