"I shake in my shoes at the very sight of Dreda Saxon!" said Norah West of the spectacles and freckles. "There's no peace in life while she is on the rampage. This school has never been the same since she came. She seems to have upset everything." Nancy offered to contribute an article on "Characteristics of School Celebrities--Literary and Sportive," and refused to be coaxed to a more decorous subject. "That, or nothing!" was her mandate, so down it went on the synopsis, followed, by way of contrast, by Mary Webster's "Essay on Ancient Greece," and the head girl's "Great Women of History." Beryl Turner, who had a passion for figure drawing, unjustified by skill, submitted half a dozen sketches of an impossible young woman apparently entirely devoid of joints, to explain which she proposed to write a story, thus entirely reversing the usual process of illustration; and, fired by a desire to show her own artistic superiority, Dreda hastily embellished her own paper with two vignette paintings of her own heroines. Leila, with luxuriant locks of yellow, splashed with green, and Dolores with inky hair and eyes of a rich gamboge. On the afternoon of the fourteenth day of the month Dreda spent her recreation hour in arranging the collected sheets to the best advantage, and in fastening them within the cover of an old exercise book. She was aglow with self- satisfaction at having accomplished her task in time, and intended to lay special stress on the fact in her next letter home and so win from the home circle that admiration and praise which her schoolfellows were so slow to bestow. On the whole, she was well pleased with the result of her labours, and looked forward with a lively curiosity to Miss Drake's comments and criticisms. When the booklet was finished and a printed label pasted in the middle of the black cover, she laid it carefully inside her desk and went to rejoin her companions by the study fire. They stopped talking as she approached, and began to "rag" in true school fashion. "Here comes our literary friend. Quite worn out with the strain of her intellectual efforts! Sit down, my love, and calm your fevered brow!" This from Barbara, while Norah cried scornfully: "Look at her fingers--inked to the joints! Anyone could tell she was a budding author!" "Did you tie the papers together with blue ribbon? That's an absolute necessity. I have a piece I could give you." "Thank you, Nancy. I'll accept it with pleasure--for my hair. The book is finished and needs no trimmings. It looks beautifully neat and professional. I can't show it to anyone until my--my colleague has seen it and made her alterations; but as soon as it comes back--" She nodded in condescending fashion, and the girls chuckled and exchanged twinkling glances. "`My colleague'! That's good!" "Good word, Dreda! Bring that in in your story. It has a fine effect."