"She's like a volcano," declared Lettice Talbot. "Sometimes if you tease her she starts with a bang, and lets off steam for five minutes. Then it's all over, and she's quite pleasant again, until next time." "I'd rather have that than sulking, at any rate," said Dorothy Arkwright. "A storm often clears the air." "It's not much use chaffing her, either," said Madge Summers, "for she always seems to get the best of it." "Yes; if she's down one minute she'll bob up again the next, like a cork." Honor's humours were apt to overflow into the region of practical jokes. These were generally played on such genial recipients as Lettice Talbot and Madge Summers, but occasionally she would venture on more dangerous ground. One afternoon, at the end of her first week at Chessington, she was in the dressing-room, changing her shoes in preparation for cricket, when Ruth Latimer interposed. "I forgot to tell you, Paddy! Games are off to-day." "Why?" asked Honor in astonishment, for the hour and a half in the playing-fields was as strict a part of the college curriculum as the morning lessons. "Because it's the Health Testing." "What's that?" "A kind of medical examination," explained Dorothy Arkwright. "We always have it at the beginning of each term, to make sure that, as Miss Cavendish expresses it, we are 'physically fit for the duties of school life'." "Oh!" said Honor, looking rather aghast at the prospect. "You needn't pull such a long face, Paddy," said Lettice. "We none of us mind; indeed, we think it's a joke." "We have a lady doctor, you see," said Ruth, "and she's so jolly, she keeps one laughing all the time." "What does she do?" "Oh! weighs us, and sounds our lungs, and tests our eyes, and measures our chests." "You'll have to draw a deep breath, and to put out your tongue, and to let her look at your teeth," added Lettice. "And if any girl is really very much below standard," said Dorothy, "she is 'turned out to grass'. That means that she only does half-lessons." "Of course, she has to be rather bad for that," remarked Ruth. "It's never been my luck yet!" lamented Lettice. "I should think not, with those fat, red cheeks! You couldn't look delicate, however hard you tried." "It happened to Janie Henderson, though, in her first term. How little did you weigh, Moonie?" "I'm sure I forget," returned Janie, who had joined the group. "But you had to be fed up on cream and beaten eggs and all kinds of things. I remember how we envied you." "Are you weighed in stones or pounds here?" asked Honor. "In stones. It's very puzzling to some of the Colonials, because they're accustomed to American machines that register in pounds. They have to do a sum before they can calculate the result." "When does this exam. come off?"