I was now in the third form at school, as I had been moved up with Blanche, Janet, and Cathy, and found myself the youngest in a class which had a reputation both for quick wits and hard work. Miss Percy was our teacher, and, though in many respects an excellent one, she was a woman of narrow sympathies and strict discipline; very different from kindly Miss Buller, who had always tried to make the rough paths of learning as smooth as possible for our stumbling feet. Another disagreeable point of my promotion was that I had Ernestine Salt for a class-mate, and however much I might dislike her I must perforce be thrown continually into her society. As you may imagine, she did not welcome my advent, giving me to understand that she considered me an intruder among girls who were all older than myself, and that my advancement was only due to Mrs. Marshall's partiality. Lucy had remained behind in the upper fourth. Never a very clever girl, she had little ambition, and was quite content if she could scrape along without incurring any specially severe reproof from her teachers. Though I loved her as my cousin, I felt she occupied quite a different place in my heart from my darling Cathy. It is perhaps only possible to have one very dearest friend, and while Cathy seemed to win all my love and admiration, and to appeal to everything that was highest and best in me, Lucy's tastes were based so much on the lines of Aunt Agatha that I found we had little in common. I saw less of her now than ever, for, Mary having come to The Hollies this term, Mrs. Marshall had arranged for the sisters to sleep together, while to my great delight I was allowed to share a vacant bedroom with Cathy. We moved our household gods into our new quarters with much noise and chattering. My case of South American butterflies was accorded the place of honour over the chimney-piece, together with the portrait of my father; the brush which Cathy had won at the Everton Meet hung proudly over her wash-stand; my views of San Carlos were distributed about the walls; while photos of Marshlands and the Winstanley family in every conceivable position adorned our chests-of-drawers and dressing-table. "I feel as if we were relations now you have come to share my room," said Cathy. "I've always longed for a younger sister, so I'm going to adopt you, Philippa dear, and try to believe that you're really and truly mine. You haven't any mother of your own, so I shall put _my_ mother's photo in the middle of the dressing-table that she may belong to us both. She has always called you her second little daughter."