"Do; you'll find it worth thinking about," replied Father, as he blotted the thirty-fourth envelope. CHAPTER XI A Prize Essay Gwen went back to school feeling rather tamed and sober. The bad cold and face-ache, subsequent on her adventure in the snow, had seriously interfered with her plans for the holidays, and she had not accomplished half she intended to do in the time. Dick Chambers had been laid up in bed with an attack of rheumatism, so she had scarcely seen anything of him, and altogether the much-longed-for month had held its disappointments. She returned to her desk in the Fifth almost glad to begin a fresh term, though she knew many difficulties awaited her. First and foremost was the horrible fact that she owed a whole sovereign to Netta Goodwin, and had absolutely no prospect of paying it. She tried to avoid any private conversation with her chum, but the ruse was not successful for long. Netta was a girl who was accustomed to get her own way, and she followed Gwen round the school until she caught her alone. "I say, you old slacker, what about that sov.?" she began. "I suppose you got your Christmas presents all right?" "Oh, yes, I got my presents!" said Gwen, trying to pass things off airily. "Not quite what I expected, though." "But you can pay me back?" "I'm afraid I can't just yet." Netta's rather pretty face changed its expression considerably. "When can you, then?" she asked sharply. "I want to know." "Could you wait a fortnight?" "It's inconvenient, but I might." Netta was still scowling. "Will you promise faithfully to bring it by the 1st of February?" "I'll do my best," agreed Gwen, escaping from what was to both a very unpleasant interview. She had mentioned a fortnight simply on the spur of the moment to put Netta off, but she knew that the 1st of February would bring no way out of her entanglement. It was something, however, to have even a respite of two weeks; it gave her time to think and to lay plans. She wondered what Netta would do if, as seemed most likely, the debt still remained owing. She did not suppose Netta would turn informer to Miss Roscoe, but she might very possibly mention the matter to Winnie, who would tell Beatrice, who would promptly tell Father. "Only a fortnight!" groaned Gwen, feeling like a criminal in a condemned cell. "Unless 'something turns up', as Mr. Micawber says in _David Copperfield_. If I were the heroine of a novel, a forgotten uncle in America would suddenly die, and leave me a million just at the opportune moment. But I'm only a very unromantic, every-day kind of person, not the forget-me-not-eyed, spun-gold-haired, wild-rose-petal-complexioned, pearly-toothed sort of girl who gets fortunes; I'm solid fact, not fiction. Most things are nowadays, I suppose."