"I hope mother will let us go on Saturday," said Elsa, as the twins walked in the direction of home. "Why, of course she will, you stupid; how often does she refuse us?" cried her sister, snappishly. She had an uncomfortable sense of having lowered herself somehow in Mrs. Drury’s estimation, and was not best pleased with Elsa for appearing to correct her before that lady. "No, she is always so pleased for us to go to the vicarage," said Elsa, wisely refraining from adding fuel to the fire by saying what she might have said; namely, that she had seen Mrs. Drury’s look of astonishment when Olive calmly accepted the invitation without any reference to their mother. "We must be quick, now, Olive, or we shall be late for tea; it is just upon five by the post-office clock." The three girls met again next morning in the Fourth Form cloakroom, where the pupils took off their outdoor garments, and changed their shoes. They had the narrow, partitioned-off room, with its rows of clothes-hooks and pigeon-holes for boots, to themselves, for a moment. But as they were rather late, Elsa, whose division was nearest to Amethyst’s, could only just whisper, "We may come on Saturday," before the bell, which summoned them all to their places in the large hall, warned them to lose no time. Scrambling into their slippers, and hanging hats and coats on their respective pegs, the trio hastened into the hall, and were each in their own particular place by the time the bell ceased clanging: much to Elsa’s and Amethyst’s delight, as they had no wish to begin so early in the term with a late mark. Olive was one of the happy-go-lucky sort who did not mind a few marks one way or the other. Indeed, she ran the risk of losing a conduct mark by nudging Elsa, and whispering: "Monica Beauchamp is----" just as Miss Buckingham, the head-mistress, who conducted prayers from a raised platform at one end of the hall, announced the number of the hymn. But Elsa only smiled, and resolutely turned her head away from Olive, so that the sentence remained unfinished. Prayers over, and the various notices relative to the new term having been given out, the classes filed into their classrooms, which all opened off the spacious hall, with the exception of the First and Sixth Forms, whose rooms were on the first floor, where were also the studio, music-rooms and others used for various purposes. There was a friendly rivalry among the girls with respect to the appearance of their own particular classrooms, and they had inaugurated a fund among themselves for decorative purposes, by means of which plants and pictures, etc., were purchased for the adornment of the rooms.