"I'm glad if I've been of any use," she faltered.
"Use! You've been a jewel. I don't know whatever we should have done without you," said Beatrice, catching Gwen's hand, and squeezing it hard. "Can you spare another week as general slavey? Miss Roscoe would quite understand."
"I'll do anything you like, Bee," said Gwen, returning the squeeze.
CHAPTER XXIV
The Senior Oxford
Gwen went back to school after three weeks' absence, fearing that every chance of the Senior Oxford must have faded into thin air. She had worked as well as she could at home, but it had not been the same as studying with a mistress, and she felt her deficiencies painfully.
"There's no time to make things up now, either," she thought. "The exam. begins on the sixteenth, and that's actually next Monday. Oh dear! If only I were better up in maths! I know the chemistry'll stump me too. That's to say if I'm even allowed to go in at all!"
On this last point her doubts were soon dispelled. At eleven o'clock she received a summons to the headmistress's study.