A Popular Schoolgirl | Page 9

had not known any of them well in
the past, but as they seemed prepared to offer their friendship, she also
was ready to act the part of chum. By exchanging desks with Linda
Slater, she managed to secure a seat next to Verity in school, and
entered into an arrangement with her that they should supply the
missing gaps in each other's notes, for Miss Strong often lectured so
rapidly that it was impossible to keep up with her.
"I wish I knew shorthand," grumbled Ingred, comparing scribbles with
Verity as the girls tidied their hair for tea. "How anybody's expected to
get down all Miss Strong tells us, I can't imagine! It's impossible."

"I don't try," admitted Fil. "At least I do try--I put a bit here and there,
but I write so slowly, I'm only half-way through before she's bounced
on to something else, and I've missed the beginning of it. I have to stop,
too, sometimes, to think how to spell the words."
The others laughed, for Fil's spelling was proverbial in the form, and
was often of a purely phonetic character. Miss Strong had periodical
crusades to improve it, but generally gave them up as a bad job, and
recommended constant use of a dictionary instead.
"Though you can't go about the world with a dictionary perpetually
under your arm," she had remarked on the last occasion. "If you have to
write a letter in a hurry, and you begin 'Dear Maddam' and end 'Yours
trueley'--well! Please don't let anybody know you've been educated
here, that's all, or it will be a poor advertisement for the College!"
Ingred was not at all delighted to be still in Miss Strong's form. She
only moderately liked this mistress. Undoubtedly Miss Strong was a
clever teacher, but sarcasm was one of her favorite weapons of
discipline. Some of the girls did not mind it, indeed thought it rather
amusing, even when directed against themselves, and enjoyed it hugely
when someone else was the victim of the sally. Ingred, however, proud
and sensitive, writhed under the attacks of Miss Strong's sharp tongue,
and would often have preferred a punishment to a witticism. As a
matter of fact, the mistress rarely gave punishments, and was proud of
her ability to control her form without resorting to them. She was short
in stature, but made up in spirit for her lack of inches, and would fix
her dark eyes on offenders against discipline with the personal
magnetism of a circus trainer or a leopard-tamer. Schoolgirls are
irreverent beings, and though to her face her pupils showed her all
respect, behind her back they spoke of her familiarly as "The Bantam,"
in allusion to her small size but plucky disposition, or sometimes, in
reference to her sarcastic powers, as "The Sark," which by general
custom became "The Snark." On the whole Miss Strong's pithy, racy,
humorous style of teaching made her a far greater favorite than
mistresses of duller caliber. She had a remarkable faculty for getting
work out of the most unwilling brains. Her form always made excellent

progress, and she had a reputation for obtaining record successes in
examinations. To judge from the first few days of term, she meant to
keep up her standard of efficiency. Miss Burd had mapped out a heavy
time-table for VA., and it was Miss Strong's business to see that the
girls got through it. Of course they grumbled. After the long weeks of
the summer holidays it was doubly difficult to apply their minds to
lessons, and set to work in the evenings to perform the enormous
amount of preparation demanded from them. To some the task was
wellnigh impossible, and poor Fil would send in very imperfect
exercises, but others, Ingred and Verity among the number, had
ambitions, and boosted up the record of the form.
It was after a most strenuous few days that Ingred came to the close of
the first week of the new term, and, taking her books and hand-bag,
started off to spend the week-end at home. She left the College with a
feeling of intense relief. She had dreaded the return there, and the
confession of her altered circumstances. It had not proved quite so
disagreeable an ordeal as she had anticipated, for, after the first
expressions of surprise, nobody had referred again to Rotherwood; yet
Ingred, on the look-out for slights, imagined that she was not treated
with as much consideration as formerly. Avis Marlowe and Jess
Howard had hardly spoken to her, and, though the omission was
probably owing to sheer lack of time or opportunity, she chose to set it
down to a desire to show her the cold shoulder.
"Now I have no parties to offer them, they don't care about me!" she
thought