Please do not think, because the girls of Kingfield High School resented being obliged to play rounders during eleven o'clock break, that they therefore were not enthusiastic on the subject of games. They were keen on hockey, and their team had won three matches during the season. Unfortunately they had no field near the school, and they were obliged to go two miles by tram to a pitch which they rented in the suburbs. The journey, however, made a pleasant Wednesday afternoon's excursion, and really added to the excitement of the practice. Miss Ormerod often went herself to watch, and on one occasion played in a match "School versus Mistresses", and astonished everybody by her agility. She made a great point of the due training of second and third teams, a matter which had been rather neglected.
"You have to educate your best players," she told the Games Committee, "I always say the strength of a school lies in its reserve teams. Every girl in the first team ought to have an understudy, then there'll be no panic if she has suddenly to drop out for any reason. I've known matches ruined because schools hadn't the sense to train their reserves properly."
But the most zealous advocate of hockey cannot fight with the British climate, and Wednesday after Wednesday during the latter part of the Easter term were hopelessly wet. The girls drilled in the gymnasium instead, grousing at the disappointment of missing their fixtures, and resigning themselves to a lower record than they had at first ventured to hope. Miss Ormerod, who thought games of paramount importance in a school, at last in desperation commandeered Friday afternoon, hitherto devoted to the various outlets of "Self Expression", and turned it into an extra hockey practice.
Before this change there had been a succession of fine Fridays, then the weather seemed to take a spite against the school, and instead of keeping up its good character treated them on alternate weeks to a deluge.
It was on one of these wet Fridays that Miss Chatham suggested taking the Sixth Form to see the City Museum. This was a new development in Kingfield and had lately been opened. It occupied a large room in the old Guild Hall, and was only about five minutes walk from the school. Nothing could be nearer on such a wet day.
The Sixth joyfully snatched the opportunity offered to them, put away books, tools, and other impediments, and went to the cloakroom to change their shoes. Ten minutes later a jolly-looking party, with mackintoshes and umbrellas, followed Miss Chatham down the High Street to the Guild Hall. They went under the ancient archway, and across the courtyard, and through the old doorway, and up the oak stairs, and along the tapestried corridor into the great central hall, hung with the armour and weapons of bygone Kingfield citizens. From this hall led many thick oak doors, and one under the minstrels' gallery gave access to the new museum. It was a fairly large room, built like the rest of the Guild Hall in mediæval fashion, with sandstone walls, a carved roof, and latticed windows. It held a number of show-cases containing various exhibits.
The girls stacked their umbrellas in a corner and prepared to enjoy themselves. There were certainly many interesting things on view, a beautiful collection of stuffed British birds, arranged in most natural fashion with their nests and eggs, a case full of objects from Ancient Egypt, a number of bronze implements, stone hammers, flint arrows, and other prehistoric weapons, lovely shells and corals, a cabinet of butterflies, and some fine illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages. A lady was acting curator for the afternoon, and Marion enthusiastically claimed her acquaintance and introduced Lesbia. The two girls presently found themselves inspecting the show-cases, with Miss Renton at their elbow explaining the exhibits to them.
Naturally the rest of the form came hurrying up and clustered round to listen, so an impromptu museum lecture resulted.
"I'd love to look at some of the other pictures in those old books," said Marion quietly to her friend. "I'm learning illuminating at school, and those manuscripts are simply gorgeous."
"I can't take the books out when so many people are about," whispered Miss Renton, "but if you can wait after the other girls go, I'll unlock the case."