"Like them! Sophonisba! How can you ask such a question? We've always looked down on them so fearfully. Why, if we met any of them in the street, we used just to stare straight through them, as if they didn't exist. They wore dark-blue coats and horrid stiff sailor hats with coloured bands, for all the world like an institution. I tell you we simply wouldn't have touched them." "You'll have to know them now." "To a certain extent, worse luck! But they needn't think we'll be friendly with them, for we shan't. We shall keep a strict line drawn." Avelyn had lifted the tray of her box on to the floor, and was busy taking books from the bottom portion. She was too intent on her occupation to reply. Irma, whose writing pad and fountain pen had just come to hand, was hastily scribbling a letter home; Ethelberga, leaning out of the window, exchanged greetings with a schoolmate in the garden below; Janet's vision was focused on her drawers; and Laura had just come across the postcard album, which she was afraid she had forgotten to pack, and was rejoicing in its possession. For five minutes or so the girls were engrossed with their own affairs, then the attention of the room was concentrated again on Avelyn. "You haven't told us yet where you live," said Laura, looking up suddenly from the contemplation of post cards. "My home is at Lyngates just now." "Where's Lyngates?" "About twenty miles from here." "You say 'just now'. Haven't you lived there long?" "Only since last spring." "You've brought very few clothes and things with you," commented Irma, who had been watching the unpacking of the new girl's box with critical eyes. "You'll never get through a term on those, I should say." "There isn't any need to bring so many things when I'm going home for the week-ends." "For the week-ends? Heavens! You don't mean to say you're a weekly boarder?" "Why not?" An expression of deep consternation spread over the faces of Avelyn's four room-mates. Their disapproval was evident, and they voiced their objections. "We've never had such a thing as a weekly boarder before!" "You'll be away all Saturdays and Sundays!" "You'll be out of all the fun!" "Almost as bad as being a day girl!" "Miss Thompson said once that she didn't approve of weekly boarders." "I can't understand Tommiekins, she's changed so lately." "Have you ever been to school before?" "Why, yes," replied Avelyn, smoothing out the folds of her evening dress, and hanging it on the hooks behind the curtain. "Though not since last Christmas." "To boarding school?" "No; it was a day school." "Where?" "I went to The Hawthorns in Harlingden." If a bomb had fallen in the dormitory it could not have caused a greater upheaval. For a moment the girls stared at Avelyn as if scarcely crediting her statement. "Do you mean to say you're one of those wretched Hawthorners?" exploded Janet at last. "I used to be, but I suppose I'm a Silversider now."