The chums had instinctively avoided the owner of the black hat with the cherries, but thus urged they were bound to fulfil their social obligations. They offered a selection of ginger-nuts and fancy biscuits, and the best silver cream-jug, and murmured some polite nothings on the hackneyed subject of the weather. The lady helped herself, and regarded them with an offended eye. "I believe you're the two girls who sat behind me during the lecture!" she remarked tartly. "I should like to say that I considered your behaviour disgraceful. It would serve you right if I were to tell your governess." Overwhelmed with confusion, Raymonde and Aveline beat a hasty retreat. "Oh, dear! Does she think I was laughing at her?" whispered Aveline. "What must I do? Ought I to go and explain and apologize? I simply daren't!" "She's a nasty old thing!" returned Raymonde in an indignant undertone. "I hope she won't sneak to Gibbie! You can't explain. I shouldn't go near her." "Gibbie's working round towards the piano!" "No, Mrs. Horner's stopped her." Fortunately for the girls, at this moment Professor Marshall cleared his throat violently, and, obtaining by this signal a temporary respite in the babel of small talk, announced that on the following Saturday afternoon he proposed to lead a party to Littlewood Quarry to examine the geological formation there, and search for fossils. He hoped that all the present company would be able to attend, as the expedition would be of great educational value. The general conversation in the room immediately turned upon geology. The black hat with cherries bore down upon the Professor, and its owner plunged into a lengthy discussion on the flora of the carboniferous period, so apparently absorbing that it left her no opportunity to lodge complaints as to the behaviour of the pupils. The chums, whose social duties were now finished, slipped thankfully away to prep. "I'm disgusted with the Professor!" groaned Morvyth. "It's too bad of him to take up another of our precious Saturday afternoons with his geology excursion. The tennis match will be all off now, and I know we could have beaten the Sixth! I don't want to hunt for fossils! I'm tired of continually having my mind improved!" "We really don't get a fair chance for games at this school," Ardiune grumbled in sympathy. "I wish Gibbie were sporting instead of intellectual!"