"Not so brilliant, perhaps, as Vivien, but, on the whole, more satisfactory," commented Miss Kingsley. "I agree with you that we have never really got to know Lorraine. She's a very reserved girl, and hasn't pushed herself forward, but there's great strength of character in her, in my opinion. Those big brown eyes look in earnest over anything she's doing. She's never made a bid for popularity, like Dorothy Skipton, but I've seen her coaching the younger ones at hockey and cricket. She's inclined to go about in a dream, but I believe if she were placed in a post of authority she'd wake up. I really think we could depend on Lorraine. The first quality in a head girl is that she must be conscientious, and she certainly comes out top in that respect." "If it were put to the general vote----" began Miss Janet, but her sister snapped her up. "I don't believe in allowing the girls a choice! The popular idol of the school isn't always the one with the best influence. I've quite decided, Janet! Lorraine is far and away the most suitable among the new Sixth. I shall send for her the day before term opens and have a private talk with her. Unless I'm very much mistaken in the girl, we shan't be disappointed." "I believe you are right!" agreed Miss Janet, sinking into the easy-chair and resuming her rocking, without further remonstrance from her now satisfied sister. Miss Kingsley and Miss Janet had kept school together at The Gables for the last twelve years. It was not a very large school, but then Porthkeverne was not a very large place--only a little quaint, old-fashioned seaside town, built down the sloping cliffs of a Cornish cove, with its back to the heather-clad moors and its face to the broad Atlantic. Whether you appreciated Porthkeverne or not was entirely a matter of temperament. Strangers, whose pleasure in a summer holiday depended on pier, esplanade, band, and cheap amusements, found it insufferably dull, and left for the more flaring gaieties of St. Jude's or Trewenlock Head. Porthkeverne was glad to get rid of them; it did not cater for such as these. But there were others for whom the little town had a peculiar fascination; its quaint, irregular houses and grey roofs, its narrow streets of steep steps, its archways with glimpses of the sea, its picturesque harbour and red-sailed fishing-boats, its exotic shrubs and early flowers, its yellow sands and great pinnacled crags, the softness of the west wind and the perpetual dull roll of the Atlantic breakers cast a spell over certain natures and compelled them to remain. Visitors would return to it again and again, and some of them, who were free to live where they chose, would take houses and settle down as residents. Over literary and artistic people Porthkeverne seemed to exercise a special charm. Authors and artists had collected there, and, partly attracted by the place and partly by each other's society, had formed an intellectual colony that centred round the Arts