"Calder and Don," finished Marian promptly, replacing the pens in the box, which she popped on to the desk behind, whispering to Sylvia as she did so: "You're not fit to be top!"
"Marian Woodhouse and Sylvia Lindsay each lose an order mark," said Miss Arkwright, at which they both looked sober, though neither minded very much since the other had the same.
"You needn't have pulled the pens from me just when I was answering," said Sylvia to Marian afterwards. "You put everything straight out of my head."
"If you can't answer without something to play with," retorted Marian, "you'd better go to the baby class and learn kindergarten drawing on a slate. No one would think you were nearly eleven."
It was certainly trying for poor Marian to find a younger girl occupying the position which she had come to regard as her own special property, and she could not yield with a good grace. Fate seemed determined to call her failure into notice. In the afternoon, when singing was over, Miss Denby turned to dismiss the various forms back to their schoolrooms.
"Class Three will go out first," she said. "Balancing order. Now girls be quick! Come, Marian, where are you?" For Marian, with a very red face, had not stepped forward as usual to take her place at the head of the line.
"I'm top!" said Sylvia, who found it impossible to conceal her triumph, and she led the way with the feeling of a rival claimant who has suddenly and unexpectedly been raised to the throne, enjoying Miss Denby's astonishment as much as Marian's confusion.
After that it was a continual struggle between the two children for the coveted seat. Sometimes one gained it and sometimes the other, and one week they were exactly equal, a difficulty which Miss Kaye solved by deciding that Marian was to be head in the mornings and Sylvia in the afternoons. No one else in the class seemed able to dispute it with them, though Hazel Prestbury occasionally won high marks. Linda, a bright enough child to talk to, and fond of reading, had not a very good memory, Connie Camden was incorrigibly lazy, Nina only worked by fits and starts, and both Gwennie Woodhouse and Jessie Ellis were of course out of the question.
Sylvia certainly did not find school life all plain sailing. Among other things Miss Arkwright was a totally different person from her former governess. Miss Holt, anxious to develop her pupil's powers of general intelligence, had allowed her to ask continual questions, and would even argue a point with her in order to encourage her to think clearly upon a subject. Miss Arkwright, on the contrary, did not allow any girl to have opinions in opposition to her own, and Sylvia got into sad trouble if she ventured on original ideas. Once in the geography class she was asked to give the capital of Tuscany.
"Firenze," she replied promptly.