Honor slept between the blankets that night, and her slumbers were haunted by a vision of Miss Maitland, as an avenging spectre, arrayed in the mutilated sheets. The dream was certainly prophetic, for the house-mistress was extremely angry on discovering the damage done, and gave Honor a lecture such as she richly deserved. "You will stay in from cricket to-day, and mend the sheets," she decreed, at the conclusion of the scolding. "You will find them ready fixed by two o'clock. I shall expect the seams to be neatly run, and the edges turned over and hemmed." Honor groaned. After the excitement of yesterday's match, she had been looking forward to the cricket practice; moreover, she hated sewing. But there was no appeal. Each house-mistress had authority to suspend games, if necessary, so she was compelled to pass a weary afternoon at a most uncongenial occupation. "It's hard labour!" she exclaimed, when Janie ran in at four o'clock. "Finished! No! I've only run one seam, and hemmed about six inches. I feel like the 'Song of the shirt' (only it's the song of the sheet instead). 'Stitch, stitch, stitch', and 'work, work, work'! My fingers are getting quite 'weary and worn'. There's one comfort, at any rate: Miss Maitland won't be likely to keep me away from preparation, and as the clothes go to the wash to-morrow, perhaps she'll let one of the maids do the rest of this, and give me some other penance instead. I'd rather learn five chapters of history, or a scene from Shakespeare; and I'd welcome a whole page of equations--I would indeed!" "I'm afraid it's a vain hope," said Janie. "Miss Maitland always sticks to her word." She proved right; Miss Maitland was inexorable. The discipline at Chessington was strict, and any mistress who gave an order was accustomed to enforce it rigorously. Honor was obliged to forgo the triumphs of the playing-fields until the very last stitch had been put in her sheets--a punishment which was severe enough, if not entirely to work a reform, at any rate to sober her considerably for the present. CHAPTER VIII A Mysterious Happening "I wonder how it is," philosophized Ruth Latimer, "that one always seems to like some girls so much, and detest others? There are certain people who, no matter what they do, or even if their intentions are good, always rub one up the wrong way." "Natural affinity, or the reverse, I suppose," answered Maisie Talbot. "I'm a great believer in first impressions. I can generally tell in five minutes whether I'm going to be friends with anyone or not; and I find I'm nearly certain to be right in the long run." "I suppose I must have a natural antipathy, then, against Flossie Taylor," confessed Honor candidly. "It didn't take me as long as five minutes to discover my sentiments towards her." "I don't wonder," said Lettice. "Flossie is a bounder!" "What's that?" "Oh, Paddy! You've lived at the back of beyond! A bounder means--well--just a bounder; putting on side, you know."