"You know," said Annie, staggered for a moment, "that it is against the rules for any girl to lock her door at night." "It will be a much lesser transgression on my part to lock my room door than to allow you and Mabel in," answered Priscilla. "Well, we will come on the chance," replied Annie. "Ta-ta for a time, Pris. Oh, what a jolly year you will have, and how hard you will work! How I shall rejoice to see it!--for, whatever you must think of me, I at least am not selfish. I lose my dear friend Mabel by this scheme, and I keep you, who have never yet been my very special friend; but you will be when we return together to Lyttelton School next autumn. Good-bye, till to-morrow morning." Annie tripped from the room. CHAPTER FIVE. ANNIE'S SCHEME. There are at all schools girls of different degrees of talent. There are the brilliant girls, the idle girls, the plodding girls. Now Annie belonged to the middle class. She knew how essential it was for her to work hard unless she were to accept a fate which she considered too horrible to contemplate--namely, that of companion to kind Uncle Maurice in the country rectory. Her hope was to do so well at school that she might, when she left, induce her uncle to send her for at least a year to Paris in order to put what might be called the final polish on her education. Then, if her present plans went well, she might go into society with the aid of Mabel Lushington, who of course would be from henceforth in her power. Now Annie had a fairly good gift for writing, and this gift on the present occasion she put absolutely at the disposal of her friend. Poor Mabel, excited by the scheme which Annie had proposed, trembling with fear that it might be found out, could not have written a single line of coherent English were it not for Annie's clearer and cleverer brain. As they sat for hours together in the summer-house, Annie's thoughts really filled Mabel's manuscript. "I will dictate to you, and you will put down exactly what I say," remarked Annie. "Now then, fire away. Idealism. You must get a sort of epitome of what your thoughts are on the subject." "I have not any," said Mabel. "I can't give an epitome of what I know nothing about." "Oh, come, Mabel; you are a goose! Here, let me dictate." She began. Her sentences had little depth in them, but they were at least expressed in fairly good English, and would have passed muster in a crowd. After a long time the task was completed, and an essay was produced--an essay, compared to the one which poor Mabel had already written, almost fine in its construction. Annie, as she read it over, was in raptures with it. "I only trust it is not too good," she said. "Don't you think it sounds very nice when I read it aloud, Mabel?" "I suppose it does," answered Mabel. "I have got a horrid headache; I hate sitting up all night."