“There will be no boys for you to dance with, dear girls,” she told them gently, “as your parents might not approve,” then added, with roguish lights in her splendid eyes: “No boys, dear girls, only a few masters to supper in the small dormitory.” Hal’s misdemeanours were of a less subtle kind. Neither boys nor masters interested her particularly as yet; but there were a thousand-and-one other ways of livening things up, and she tried them all, sometimes getting off scot free, and sometimes finding herself uncomfortably pilloried before the rest of the school, to be cross-questioned and severely admonished at great lenght before being “sent to Coventry” for a stated period. But, had she only known it, there were many chicken-hearted girls who envied her even her disgrace, for the sake of the dauntless, shining spirit of her that nothing ever crushed. And as for being “sent to Coventry”, well, Hal and Lorraine easily coped with that through the twopennyworth system. If an offender was sent to Coventry, any other girl who spoke to her had to pay a fine of twopence, and if either of these two gay spirits found themselves doomed to silence, they persuaded such of the others as were “game” enough, to have occasional “twopennyworths”. Of the two, Hal was far the greater favourite; she was in fact the popular idol; for though the girls were full of admiration for Lorraine, and not a little proud of her, they were also a little afraid of a wit that could be sharp-edged, and perhaps resentful too of that nameless something about her striking personality that made them feel their inferiority. Hal was quite different, and her unfailing spirits, her vigorous championing of the oppressed, or scathing denunciation of anything sneaky and mean, made them all look up to her, and love her, whether she knew or not. Even the governess felt her compelling attraction, and would often, by a timely word, save her from the consequences of some forgetful moment. At the same time, the one who warned Miss Walton against the possible ill results of the girl’s growing love for Lorraine little understood the nature she had to deal with. When Hal found herself in the private sanctum, being gently admonished concerning a friendship that was thought to be growing too strong, she was quick instantly to resent the slur on her chum. She had been sent for immediately after “evening prep.,” and having, as usual, inked her fingers generously, and rubbed an ink-smudge across her face, to say nothing of really disgracefully tumbled hair, she looked a comical enough object standing before the impressive presence of the head mistress. “Really, Hal,” Miss Walton remonstrated, “can’t you even keep tidy for an hour in the evening?” “Not when it’s German night,” answered outspoken Hal; “where to put the verbs, and how to split them, makes my hair stand on end, and the ink squirm out of the pot.”