Nat shook her head. "Never heard of it." She turned gravely to Glenda, who was standing behind. "You don't happen to have a dictionary with you, Glenda? This Fourth Form youngster is using such extraordinary words."
"Not on the cricket field," Glenda replied, grinning broadly.
Prudence wriggled uneasily. "I'm sure that's the word," she said, though there was a shade of hesitation in her tone. "It means—it means a thing is good for you, keeps you healthy and all that."
Nat shook her head again, then as if seized with a sudden inspiration: "I know what you're trying to say. You mean 'hypothetical,' not 'hygienic.'"
Whether Prue was convinced or not can never be known, for just at that moment there was a shout from the field and Glenda said hurriedly:
"Betty's wicket's down. You're in next, Nat. Hurry up and get your pads on."
Monica did not stay with the spectators long after Nat's departure. Already rumours of the new girl's wicked record had leaked out in the school, and as she sat there alone she was conscious of curious glances cast at her by many of the younger girls, who were also onlookers of the game—of sly nudgings and whisperings in their ranks, whisperings which she knew were about herself. No one spoke to her or came near her, though they all stared hard enough. She had made no friends in her own form during her first week at the school and even her relations with her own study-mate, awkward, blundering Nat, whom she regarded with some contempt since she had discovered her to be the occupant of the lowest seat in the class, did not progress very much; though that, she admitted, was chiefly her own fault.
There wasn't anything very exciting to watch on the cricket field; privately she thought it decidedly slow. Getting abruptly to her feet she strolled off and, fetching a book from her study, sought out a quiet spot in the summer-house by the now deserted tennis lawn and settled down to read in undisturbed tranquillity.
She was not, however, the only one who sought solitude that September afternoon. She had not been reading many minutes before there was the sound of a footstep outside, a shadow darkened the entrance and Allison entered with her book under her arm, intent upon a couple of hours' hard "swotting."
She stopped when she saw the summer-house already occupied.