The sensation caused by the events of the last few days was soon forgotten by the majority of the girls in the excitement of the examinations. For the next week the whole College lived in a whirl of perpetual effort to marshal scattered facts, or recall forgotten vocabularies. The classrooms, given over to pens, ink, and sheets of foolscap paper, were the abodes of a silence only disturbed by the occasional scratching of a pen, or the sigh of a candidate in the throes of attacking a stiff problem. To Honor the experience was all new. She tried her best, but found it difficult to curtail her statements sufficiently to allow of her answering every question, in spite of Miss Farrar's oft-repeated warning against devoting too much time to one part of the paper. She was, of course, at a great disadvantage, as she had spent only one term at Chessington, and the examinations were on the work of a whole year; but she nevertheless acquitted herself creditably, and actually gained higher marks than several girls who had come to school the preceding September.
"I feel as if I'd been in a battle!" she announced, when at length the ordeal was over and the last set of papers handed in. "My fingers are soaked with ink, for my fountain pen leaked atrociously; but it wrote so much quicker than an ordinary one that I didn't dare to abandon it."
"You'll soon get the ink off," said Lettice. "Miss Maitland always puts plenty of pieces of pumice stone and slices of lemon in the dressing-room at examination time. I'm sure I've failed in geometry, and I shall be very much surprised if I find I've scraped through in physics."
"I feel just as doubtful over English language," said Chatty Burns. "But it's no use worrying ourselves any more; we can't correct mistakes now, whatever stupid ones we may have made."
"And we can just have a few peaceful days until the sports," added Lettice.
The end of the term was always celebrated by a gathering of parents and friends, at which the girls gave exhibitions of their skill in running, jumping, or some of the physical exercises that they had learnt with Miss Young. This year the programme was to include military drill and flag signalling. The latter was a new departure in the school, but one that everybody had taken up with enthusiasm. Little bands of the most expert performers had been selected, and these practised diligently in the playing-fields, waving their messages with great accuracy and dispatch.
"It might come in useful if there were a war," said Lettice; "and, at any rate, it will be very convenient at home. I mean to teach some friends who live at a house close by, and we shall be able to stand at our bedroom windows and talk with our flags."
"It will be fun out yachting," said Madge Summers. "We can signal any vessel we pass, and ask her name, and where she is going, and all kinds of questions."
"I wish Miss Young would teach us heliography next term," said Honor. "I should like flashing messages with looking-glasses."
"We'll ask her; but we shall have to wait nearly a year. We only have hockey in the winter term, with gymnasium work when it's wet. Are any of your people coming over on Thursday?"