There was an opening of desks, a rustling of Bibles and notebooks, and then the work of the morning began. The period in Scripture that had been chosen for that term’s study was the book of Exodus, and the girls grew quite interested as Miss Churchill graphically described the position of the Israelites in bondage. Elsa and Amethyst, who shared a double desk between them, listened intently, for they thoroughly enjoyed the Divinity lesson always; but Olive paid scant attention. It was far too dry, she thought, to trouble about listening properly, and so her thoughts wandered, first to one thing, and then to another, until she had quite lost the thread of the lesson, and gave up trying to follow it. So she looked about her, to see what the others were thinking, and found Monica Beauchamp’s eyes were fixed on her. She was too far away from her to whisper, as she would undoubtedly have done if she could, so she contented herself with smiling and making various grimaces, to show her feelings, when Miss Churchill was engaged with the blackboard. Monica, who had felt terribly "out of it" the day before, was only too ready to make advances towards this girl who seemed to have plenty of fun in her, and was not a goody-goody like her sister; so she returned the gesticulations with interest. For a few minutes Miss Churchill noticed nothing wrong, but presently as she looked round from the blackboard she heard a decided titter, and turning in the direction from which the sound came, she saw that one of the girls, Hetty Warner, a quiet, inoffensive child, was endeavouring to conceal her merriment by means of her handkerchief. "What are you laughing at, Hetty?" she said, somewhat sternly. "Nothing, Miss Churchill," muttered the girl, as best she could. "There must have been some reason, and I insist upon knowing it," and Miss Churchill came a few steps nearer to the culprit’s desk. A hasty movement between two of the girls did not escape her, and quick as thought she intercepted a small piece of paper which Olive Franklyn was frantically trying to put out of sight. The girls held their breath as their teacher opened and smoothed out the paper, which Olive had screwed up into a ball rather than hand it up as it was. Those who had been in the form before remembered a similar occasion when Miss Churchill had confiscated a little scribbled note which was being passed along, and the punishment that had been inflicted for such an underhand trick. But that was as nothing to the present scene, for Miss Churchill held aloft, so that all could see it, the paper on which was an unmistakable caricature of herself, in the attitude she assumed when delivering a lesson. "What a shame!" cried several of the girls simultaneously, but she stopped them with a motion of her hand. "Who drew this?" she enquired, in a well-controlled voice; but her eyes flashed, and it was evident that she was very, very angry.