"Do the prefects play well?"
"I should think so! They're very keen on it. Dora Stephenson reads up Ranjitsinhji, and Meta Hall goes to all the county matches when she can get the chance. You'll have to play up, Patty, if we want to make any score at all."
"Don't expect too much," said Patty. "I might send a catch first thing. I've played at home with Basil, but I don't know how I shall get on here."
At Enid's special request, Miss Latimer included Patty in the scratch team for the following Saturday afternoon, so that she might be able to show her capabilities and give her companions an opportunity of judging whether she might be considered fit for a place in the Lower School eleven. The prefects went in first, and the mistress, who had a keen eye for the future possibilities of her pupils, noticed with approval that Patty was not fielding like a novice, that she caught her ball neatly in her hands, instead of stopping it with her skirts, and threw it up promptly with an accuracy of aim not always common among girl players. Wishing to test her further, Miss Latimer called to her at the next over, and told her to take her turn at bowling. It was Dora Stephenson's innings, and the Lower School knew that a struggle was in store. Dora's record scores were well known, and it often seemed almost impossible to put her out. Patty walked up, quaking at the prospect of her encounter.
"Oh, Miss Latimer!" said Beatrice Wynne. "Are you sending in Patty to bowl now? It's rather hard on our side, isn't it?"
"I know what I am about, Beatrice," replied the teacher. "Go on, Patty, and don't be nervous. Let us all see what you can do."
Patty's first ball showed a science that made her companions open their eyes wide. It was a curious way of bowling, half under, half over arm, such as none of the girls had seen before, and which seemed to prove most baffling. For three balls Dora merely slogged; the fourth, to her extreme surprise, got her out.
"A duck! A duck!" cried the opposite side, in raptures of delight. To have taken her wicket in the first "over" was a success such as they had never expected, and a triumph for the Lower School not to be forgotten in a hurry.
"It was well bowled, certainly," said Dora, meeting her defeat with dignity. "I didn't think Patty could have done it. Oh, I don't grudge you a wicket! I'm only too glad to see good play, I assure you, for the credit of the school."
"It was nothing but luck, I believe," said Patty, when her friends crowded round to rejoice over her. "I daresay I couldn't do it again."