"Do be quiet, Rona!" urged Ulyth, laying her hand on the arm of her too partial friend. "My pendant has a defect in it. I bungled, and couldn't get it right again afterwards." "It doesn't show." "Not to you, perhaps; but any judge of such things would notice in a moment." "Well, your work's as good as Stephanie's any day, and I hate for her name to be put into the catalogue and not yours. Yes, I mean what I say." "Oh, Rona, do hush! I don't want my name in a catalogue. Here's Stephie coming in. Don't let her hear you." "I don't mind if she does. It won't do her any harm to hear somebody's frank opinion." "Rona, if you care one atom for me, stop!" Rather grumbling, Rona allowed herself to be suppressed. She was always ready to throw a shaft at Stephanie, though she knew Ulyth heartily disliked the scenes which invariably followed. She took up Ulyth's pendant, however, and, after ostentatiously admiring it, laid it for a moment side by side with Stephanie's. "There isn't a pin to choose between them," she murmured under her breath, hoping Stephanie might overhear. Ulyth was at the other side of the room, but Stephanie's quick ears caught the whisper. She looked daggers at Rona, but she made no remark, and Ulyth, returning, gently took her pendant away and placed it with the other non-exhibits on the bench. It had been a wet afternoon. No outdoor exercise had been possible that day, and the girls were tired of all their usual indoor occupations. "I wish somebody'd suggest something new to cheer us up," yawned Nellie Barlow. "There's a quarter of an hour more 'rec.' It's too short to be worth while getting out any apparatus, but it's long enough to be deadly dull." "Can't someone do some tricks?" asked Edie Maycock. "All right, Toby; sit on your hind legs and beg for biscuits," laughed Marjorie Earnshaw. "I mean real tricks--conjuring and fortune telling; the amateur wizard, you know." "I don't know." "Then you're stupid. Have you never seen amateur conjuring--coins that vanish, and things that come out of hats?" "Yes; but I couldn't do it, my good child. Being in the Sixth doesn't make me a magician." "We tried a little bit at home," pursued Edie. "We had a book that told us how; only I never could manage it quickly. People always saw how I did it." "Rona's the girl for that," suggested Hattie Goodwin. "Is she? Come here, Rona, I want you. Can you really and truly do conjuring?" "Oh, not properly!" laughed Rona. "But when I was on board ship there was a gentleman who was very clever at it, and I and some boys I'd made friends with were tremendously keen at learning. We got him to show us a few easy tricks, and we were always trying them. I could manage it just a little, but I'm out of practice now. You'd see in a second how it was done, I'm afraid." "Oh, do show us, just for fun!" "What do you want to see?" "Oh, anything!" "The vanishing coin?" "Yes, yes. Go ahead!"