Silence, while everybody looked at each other. "Well, what about it?" asked Duane. "Will you do it or not, if the Lower Fifth are willing?" Kitty was the first to respond. "I'm on," she said, impulsively. "Though I believe we haven't the slightest chance of winning. All the same, the idea's a gorgeous one and for pure cheek takes the biscuit. I wish I'd thought of it myself." Carslake's hockey challenge certainly did cause a sensation in the school. Some girls treated it with ridicule, a few were angry, all agreed that it was awful cheek on the part of the much-despised Carslake's. The challenge was accepted, however, with the firm resolution that the challengers should be punished for their cheek by such a beating as had never yet been seen on the school playing-fields. Carslake's tried to assume a careless, confident, nonchalant air, but the only one of them who really succeeded was their head prefect and that because the pose was a natural one. Inwardly they were all quaking at their temerity, even such bold spirits as Kitty and Peggy O'Nell, and looking forward to the match with feelings of apprehension. Duane, with an undue amount of deliberation, had drawn up her team. "I've put Bertha and Edith in their usual positions at right back and goal," she explained. "Kitty, I want you to be the other back. Halves--Margaret, myself, Mary. Forwards, wings--France and Peggy. Yes, France, you must play, and what's more you'll have to run as you've never run in your life before, not even on Sports Day." "I'll do it," said France heroically, "for the honour of the house. Even if it means dropping dead half-way through the match." "Dropping dead! Rubbish!" returned Duane, with unusual energy for her. "Daisy, you must take centre-forward. I'll help you all I can. Inners--Barbara and Rosalie. That's the best we can do, I think!" The match was fixed for Wednesday, and the Carslake girls practised diligently in their team positions whenever they had the chance. Kitty enjoyed these practices immensely and played left-back with great vigour--perhaps, sometimes, with more vigour than skill. Duane's attitude towards these practices amused her very much. She did not play herself, but, wrapped in her coat with its high fur collar, stood by the side of the ground, leaning gracefully upon her stick and giving advice and criticism on the play by means of a remarkable flow of cutting remarks, directed chiefly against the forwards and halves. According to her, they were slow and hesitating, they used neither their sticks nor their feet properly, their shooting was miserably feeble and their passing most inaccurate.