"Yes, Mummie darling, I'm just strapping up my books. There, I'll leave them here on the hall-table. I promise you I won't take them upstairs. Hello! Here's my jersey! I was hunting for it everywhere after tea and couldn't find it. It feels wet! How funny! Has anybody been out in it?"
"Give it to Alice and ask her to put it by the kitchen fire to dry. Father wants to hear that Devon folksong you're learning. It will do you good to have a little music after such hard brain-work."
Merle marched into school next morning joking about her fortune. She told the girls what the oracle had said, and how she had ground up those particular bits of information.
"I'm sporting enough to give you the tip!" she laughed.
"Clive was only making fun and ragging us!" qualified Mavis. "He's a silly boy."
There was no time for any more last looks, however. The bell was ringing for call-over, and all books must be put away. In the Fifth form room a clean sheet of blotting-paper was laid upon every desk, and the inkwells had been newly filled. Miss Mitchell dealt round typewritten sheets of questions, and the agony began. The English Language and Literature paper was not nearly so bad as Mavis and Merle had expected, and curiously enough there were questions both on William Cowper and on Keltic words. It was such a coincidence that Merle could not help looking at Mavis and smiling. They were both well prepared, and wrote away at full speed, almost enjoying themselves, and worked steadily till Miss Mitchell said, "Pens down." After eleven o'clock came the examination on the text-book geography, which had this term—owing to Miss Pollard's influence —supplemented the lantern lectures on that subject. When she saw the first question, "Describe the products of Java and Borneo," Merle gave such an audible chuckle that many eyes were cast in her direction, and Miss Mitchell glared a warning. Again Mavis and Merle found themselves well prepared, and scribbled continuously till the bell rang.
"How did you get on?" said Merle to Muriel, as they walked downstairs from their classroom. "I say! Wasn't it funny about my fortune? Why, we had the exact questions! I never heard of anything so queer in my life!"
"Very queer!" answered Muriel, with restraint in her voice. She was looking at Iva, who shrugged her shoulders significantly.
"Some people have all the luck!" remarked Sybil.
"Well, it was lucky, for it was pure guessing of Clive's."