"It'll be sickening to be the only one in the Form who doesn't take swimming," she said at last. "Every single girl will join except me. I shall have to stop behind and do prep. instead. I'll feel more utterly out of things than ever."
"You could pay for the course yourself, if you like," suggested Beatrice. "What have you done with all your money?"
Gwen's restless hands were hacking notches on the top bar of the gate. Her penknife slipped suddenly, and cut her finger.
"Your own fault, if you will be so clumsy!" said Beatrice. "Come indoors, and I'll tie it up for you. You'd better hold it under the cold-water tap first."
Gwen groaned in spirit as she went to bed that night.
"I shall never hear the last of that wretched fifteen shillings!" she thought "I feel like Mr. Caudle in the Curtain Lectures, when he'd lent a five-pound note to a friend. That money of mine was to have bought Christmas presents, and boots for Johnnie Cass, and a new tennis racket, and paid for the swimming, and I don't know what else, according to my family's ideas. Oh, dear! Being poor's a hateful business! I wish Dad were Archbishop of Canterbury, instead of only Curate-in-charge of Skelwick Bay!"