It was all so quiet and orderly, and yet it didn’t feel “ruley.” Every girl, as Betty took her place at the corner of her table, seemed cheerily smiling at her neighbour as though thoroughly contented with her lot. The new girl felt contented too, but her feeling of contentment changed suddenly to one of surprise when, after listening to the words of the Grace pronounced by the mistress in charge, every tongue seemed suddenly unloosed all round her, and the room began to buzz and hum with animated conversation. “Well, as I was just beginning to tell you when the gong sounded, we--” burst out somebody sitting close by and speaking to her table neighbour. “The day Paul broke his ankle, I can tell _you_, First Aid came in useful,” pronounced somebody else with enthusiasm. “I started at nine, and I hardly had _any_ lunch,” came a ravenous voice. Everybody seemed to have something to say except Betty, and she didn’t need to talk to Gerry at her side; for Gerry, evidently keen to make her companion feel at home, burst into a glib and speedy description of their immediate surroundings. “That’s Mona opposite to you. She sleeps in our room. She’s talking to Molly now, but I’ll make her look presently. We don’t talk across tables, you know. “Isn’t it nice that you’re a ‘window-table’ girl! It’s much the nicest table, _we_ say, though the ‘wallflower-table’ girls (that’s what we call the girls at the wall table) say they can see far farther over the garden than we can. All the same we sometimes get bees flying right in, and once a butterfly too.” Gerry stopped for breath. “I love this table,” said Betty shyly. “So do I. That’s Joan Struthers taking the head to-night. She’s a prefect. You can tell them--if they _need_ telling--because their hair’s turned up. Even if it’s been bobbed, it has to grow _then_! There’s seven prefects, but only six places are ever laid at the prefects’ table, you see, because one of them always heads a table. Miss Stewart’s at the wallflower table this week; but she will be at this table next week--in fair turns, you see--and the wallflower girls will get a prefect.” Gerry took a mouthful of scrambled eggs. Betty took a mouthful, too, and gazed across at the middle table. Then suddenly she flushed with pride and pleasure as a friendly smile met her inquiring look. For Sybil was seated there--Sybil of the train journey. In all the excitements Betty had almost forgotten her, but it seemed that the older girl had not forgotten Betty. How quiet and dignified she looked, Betty thought, as she sat there with a golden braid of hair wound in a coronet round her head. “There--there’s the girl who told me to stand under the clock,” she whispered, touching Geraldine’s arm.