"What's the matter with you to-night?" she asked. "I've never seen you so glum before. Have you been getting into a row with Teddie?" "I'm all right. One can't always be talking, I suppose," returned Ulyth rather huffily. "Some people go on like a perpetual gramophone." "Meaning Corona Margarita Mitchell, I suppose? As you like, O Queen! I'll shut up if my babble offends the royal ears. There! Don't look so tragic. I don't want to make myself a nuisance. But all the same it's depressing to see you looking like a mixture of Hamlet and Ophelia and Iphigenia and--and--Don Quixote. Was he tragic too? I forget." "Hardly," said Ulyth, smiling in spite of herself. "Well, I get mixed up among history and literature, can't always remember which is real and which is make-up. It's a fact. I put down Portia as history in my exercise yesterday, and said the story of the Spanish Armada was told by Chaucer. Now you're laughing, and you look more like Ulyth Stanton. Sit down on this bed. There! Open your mouth and shut your eyes, and see what the king will send you!" Rona was fumbling in her drawer as she spoke. She turned round, seized her friend boisterously and forced her on to the bed, then, holding a hand over her eyes, crammed a chocolate almond into her mouth. "Rona! What are you doing?" protested Ulyth, shaking herself free. "Where did you get this chocolate?" Rona pulled a face expressive of mingled secrecy, delight, and triumph. "Rats!" she chuckled enigmatically. "Little girls shouldn't ask questions." "But I want to know." "That's not sporty! Take the goods the gods send you, and don't ask 'em what tree they picked them from." "But, Rona----" "Are you two girls still out of bed and talking?" said an indignant voice, as Miss Lodge opened the door and glared reproval. "Make haste. I give you three minutes, and if you're not ready by then I shall report you. Not another word! I'm astonished at you, Ulyth, for breaking the silence rule." "I didn't hear the half-past nine bell," replied Ulyth, abashed. "Then it's your business to hear it. It's loud enough. Everybody else on the landing is in bed." Miss Lodge put out the light and walked away, with a final warning against further conversation. Rona was asleep in a few minutes, breathing calmly and peacefully as was her wont, but Ulyth lay awake for a long time watching a shadow on the wall cast from the beech-tree outside. Where had Rona got her chocolates? The answer was perfectly plain. With the little brooch for evidence there could be no mistake. "She's not so bad as the others, because I really don't think she quite realizes even yet what school honour means. But Tootie and her scouts know. There's no excuse for them. Well, only two days now, and Mrs. Arnold will be here. What a tower of strength she is! I can tell her everything. Friday will very soon come now, thank goodness!"