Number Thirteen--the numbers were painted outside on the doorposts--was the only cubicle in the Pink Dormitory across which the shielding curtain was drawn. In all the other cubicles unpacking was taking place in full publicity. Rules were in abeyance on this the first day of term, and the dormitory hummed with the shrill chatter that was going on all around. The school was reassembling for the autumn term, and there were many accounts of holiday doings to be retailed, and much conjecturing going on respecting new girls, new mistresses, new prefects, and new rules. The school year at Wakehurst Priory began with the autumn term, and any changes in the staff or the school routine were usually made then. Cubicle Number Twelve was as yet unoccupied, but when the bustle of unpacking was at its height, a newcomer burst into the dormitory and rushed helter-skelter down the long corridor, calling out cheerful greetings to various occupants of the cubicles as she passed. Reaching Number Twelve, she tumbled her coat and hat and handbag unceremoniously on to the bed, and flung back the curtain of the next-door cubicle with a gay call of greeting. "What on earth do you want to go pulling your curtains for, you old curmudgeon?" she cried impetuously, then stopped short in sudden surprise at the sight of the strange girl who was sitting on the bed. "Who the dickens are you?" she ejaculated. "And what in the world are you doing in Dorothy Pemberton's cubicle?" The new girl gave a startled jump and rose to her feet. She was a tall, slight girl, some fifteen years old, taller by a couple of inches than her inquisitor, and apparently older. But in spite of her seniority she looked at the intruder in a frightened sort of way, and replied nervously to her questioning. "I--I--don't know. They told me it was my cubicle," she answered, shrinking away from this alarming intruder. "_Who_ told you?" demanded Phyllis Tressider, in such a truculent tone that the new girl retreated yet farther into her cubicle. "The--the person who showed me here. She looked like a hospital nurse. I--I suppose it was one of the mistresses." "You suppose just wrong, then," replied Phyllis, more briefly than politely. "That was Sister. I suppose if she showed you here she meant you to stay. But it's a beastly nuisance, all the same! Dorothy Pemberton always has slept in this cubicle, and it's a sickening shame if she's got to be turned out by a rotten new kid." The "new kid's" face flushed scarlet. She was beginning some murmured apology when the situation was relieved by the entrance of a girl of about seventeen or eighteen years of age, who was hailed rapturously by all the other occupants of the Pink Dormitory. This was Muriel Paget, head girl of Wakehurst Priory, prefect and monitress as well, and Phyllis left for the moment her inquisition of the occupant of Cubicle Thirteen, to join in the chorus of welcome.