"It's you that's silly, Gwen Gascoyne!" retorted the indignant Elspeth. "We've chosen _The Merchant_, so why need you go trying to upset everything. I was asking you about the costumes, not the play." "Like Gwen's cheek!" murmured Louise Mawson. "We don't want ex-Juniors interfering with our Dramatic!" Gwen turned sharply away. It seemed most unfortunate that she always got across the rest of the Form. In this instance her motive was the purest, but as she could not explain, the girls naturally thought it was only her love of putting herself forward which caused her to suggest such a drastic measure as a change of programme. "They never will understand me!" she thought bitterly. "Father said they would be proud of me yet, but oh, dear! the more I try to do, the more I seem disliked. They'll be fearfully sold when it comes to the performance. I wonder if I ought to give them just a hint! It's really too idiotic to have two _Merchants_. No, I won't! They'd probably only slang me for letting out Form secrets. I'm glad I'm not acting, at any rate. School's not exactly a terrestrial paradise at present. I wonder what other troubles are coming to me? I believe I'm one of those people who are born under an unlucky star!" Gwen's words might almost have been prophetic, for the very next day something happened--something so unprecedented and overwhelming that she could never have anticipated it, even if she had been expecting general ill luck. At the interval she received a summons to Miss Roscoe's study. She went at once, wondering why she had been sent for. "Hope the Head's not going to put me into the Sixth!" she laughed to herself. "That would be rather too good a joke. I'm willing to be a prefect or even proctor if I'm asked!" Gwen's reception at her last visit to the study had been so favourable, that this time she tapped lightly at the door, and entered confidently. One glance at Miss Roscoe's face, however, showed her that she was in dire disgrace. The Principal's rather handsome, heavy features seemed to cast themselves in a Roman mould when she was annoyed; her brows would knit, and her mouth assume a set, dogged expression of authority. All these storm signals being visible, Gwen quaked in her shoes. Miss Roscoe had an unopened envelope in her hand, and to this at once drew her pupil's attention. "Gwen Gascoyne, a letter arrived this morning addressed to you at Rodenhurst. Now, it is one of our principal rules that no girls are allowed to have letters sent to them at the school. Tell your correspondent on no account to write to you here again. If I find anything further addressed to you, I shall enclose it in an envelope, and post it to your father. I will not have Rodenhurst made a vehicle for clandestine correspondence. You may go, but understand clearly this is never to happen again."