"Like! I'd sell my birthright to do it!" gasped Winona. "But I'm fearfully sorry; I'm cataloguing for Margaret!"
"Then I mustn't take you away from the General! It's a nuisance though, for you'd have done very well, and I don't know who else I can get."
Winona considered it was one of the sharpest disappointments she had ever gone through.
"Oh, the grizzly bad luck of it!" she wailed to Garnet. "It would have been idyllic to coach those kids. And it would have given me such a leg up with Kirsty! To think I've lost my chance!"
"I suppose Margaret might get some one else to do cataloguing?"
"I dare say: but I couldn't possibly ask her, and I'm sure Kirsty won't. No, I'm done for!"
School etiquette is very strict, and Winona would have perished sooner than resign her library duties. She felt a martyr, but resolved to smile through it all. Garnet contemplated the problem at leisure during her drawing lesson, and arrived at a daring conclusion. Without consulting her friend she marched off at four o'clock to the prefects' room, a little sanctum on the ground floor where the minutes' books of the various guilds and societies were kept, and where the school officers could hold meetings and transact business.
As she expected, Margaret was there alone, and said "Come in" in answer to her rap at the door. The members of the Sixth kept much on their dignity, so it was rather a formidable undertaking even for a Fifth Form girl to interrupt the head of the school. Margaret looked up inquiringly as Garnet entered.
"Yes, I'm fearfully busy," she replied to the murmured question. "What is it? I can give you five minutes, but no more, so please be brief."
Thus urged, Garnet, though greatly embarrassed, did not beat about the bush.