Part 2 (2/2)

”I know. It was just the same at my last school. Everyone got into a sort of stick-in-the-mud mood, and one felt it was only _kind_ to stir them up. I guess I did it!”

”I shouldn't wonder if you did,” twinkled Wendy. ”I vote we make an alliance, and, if one of us thinks of any rather ripping rag, she just tells the other, and we'll play it off together.”

”Right you are! Let's shake on it!” agreed Diana, extending a small, slim hand, with a garnet birthstone-ring on the middle finger.

The little American did not fit into her niche at Pendlemere without encountering a certain amount of what her schoolmates considered necessary discipline for a novice. She had to go through an ordeal of chaff and banter. She was known by the sobriquet of ”Stars and Stripes”, or ”The Yank”, and good-natured fun was poked at her transatlantic accent. She took it good-temperedly, but with a readiness of repartee that laid the jokers flat.

”One can't get much change out of Diana,” commented Magsie, after an unsuccessful onslaught of teasing.

”I think she's a scream,” agreed Vi.

The baffling part of the new schoolmate was that her powers of acting were so highly developed that it was impossible to tell whether she was serious or playing a part. She ”took in” her teasers times out of number, and in fairness they deserved all they got. Towards the end of the first week she came into the intermediate room one morning fondling a letter.

”From Paris,” she vouchsafed. ”Dad and Mother have got anch.o.r.ed at last.

The journey must have been a startler. Paris is so full of Americans, it's like a little New York.”

”Why do you call it 'Parr-is'?” sn.i.g.g.e.red Sadie.

”It's more like the French than your way of saying it, at any rate,”

retorted Diana smartly. ”This letter's been four days in coming through.”

”You might give me the stamp.”

”Certainly not. You don't deserve it. I wish I were in Paris, too. Yes, I shall call it 'Parr-is'. I'm beginning to want some of my own folks.”

”I've never met any Americans, except you,” volunteered Vi. ”What are they like?”

”What do you imagine they're like?”

”Like the pictures of 'Uncle Sam', with a limp s.h.i.+rt front, and a big tie, and a goatee beard. I want to meet some real out-and-out Yankees.”

”Won't your cousins from Petteridge ever come over to see you, Di?”

asked Magsie.

”Perhaps they may, sometime,” replied Diana thoughtfully. ”I should say it's quite within the bounds of possibility, considering they only live ten miles away.”

”Gee-whiz! I guess I'd just admire to make their acquaintance!” mocked Vi. ”I reckon they'll be _some_ folks!”

Diana's eyes were fixed upon her with an inscrutable look, but she answered quite calmly:

”I'll take care to introduce you if they come.”

It was in the course of the next few days that a parcel for Diana arrived from Petteridge Court. What it contained n.o.body saw except herself, for she did her unpacking in private. Judging from certain outbursts of chuckling, the exact cause of which she steadily refused to reveal, the advent of her package gave her profound satisfaction. The next Sat.u.r.day afternoon was wet: one of those hopelessly wet days that are apt to happen in a land of lakes and hills. Banks of mist obscured the fells; the garden walks were turned to running rivers, the bushes dripped dismally, and cascades poured from the gutters. The school, which had been promised a country tramp, looked out of the windows with woeful disappointment. The seniors consoled themselves by holding a committee meeting, from which all but their elect selves were rigidly excluded. The juniors took possession of the play-room, and relieved their spirits by games which made the maximum of noise. Several of the intermediates peeped in, but, finding the place a mixture of a bear-garden and the Tower of Babel, they retired to the sanctuary of their own form-room, where they sat making half-hearted efforts to read or paint, and grousing at the weather.

”Is _every_ Sat.u.r.day going to be wet?” demanded Magsie in an injured voice.

”Seems like it!” mourned Jess Paget. ”Of course it can be beautifully fine on Friday, when we have to stop in and do dancing; and it just keeps all the rain for Sat.u.r.day. I call it spiteful! I wish I knew what to do with myself. I'm moping.”

<script>