"I'll try!" said Margaret, but she looked by no means hopeful of success. "I did try before tea. She was telling the most extraordinary tales about home, and I said it was not right to repeat such things, but she seemed quite puzzled. She doesn't seem to have the same ideas that we have, or the same feelings about things." Miss Phipps sighed, and shook her head. "She is a difficult subject," she repeated anxiously; then her face lighted up suddenly and she began to laugh. "But you can't help liking her!" she cried. "Funny little mite! I am growing quite fond of her already." CHAPTER FIVE. THE ALICE PRIZE. To the surprise of all concerned, Pixie took a very fair place in the school. The sorely tried Miss Minnitt was by no means an accomplished woman, but what she did know she taught well, and she felt rewarded for her efforts when she heard that Miss Bruce, the English teacher, had remarked that Pixie had been well grounded, and knew more than many girls of her age. The mixture of knowledge and ignorance which the child displayed was indeed incomprehensible to those who did not understand the conditions under which she had lived. She was quite a botanist in a small way, could discourse like any farmer on crops and tillages, was most sporting in her descriptions of shooting and hunting, and had an exhaustive understanding of, and sympathy with, the animal world, which seemed quite uncanny to town-bred girls. Here, however, her knowledge stopped, and of the ways of the world, the hundred and one restrictions and obligations of society which come as second nature to most girls, she knew no more than a South Sea Islander dancing gaily upon the sands, and stringing shells in her dusky locks. "I wish I was born a savage!" was indeed her daily reflection, as she buttoned her tight little frock, and wriggled to and fro in a vain search for comfort. "Now listen to me!" said Miss Bruce, at the end of the examination which was conducted after breakfast the day following Pixie's arrival. "I am undecided which of two classes you shall join, so I am going to give you the choice. The under-fourth would be comparatively easy, the upper- fourth would mean real hard work. I think you could manage it, if you worked hard and determined to do your very, very best; but I tell you frankly it will not be easy. If you would rather have a term in the lower class and work up gradually, I am willing to let it be so; but you must realise that it will be less good for yourself. You seem to have a good memory and to learn quickly; but we don't like to force girls beyond their strength. You would be the youngest girl in the upper- fourth."