"Nat Sandrich," replied Monica. "She's tremendously fast, and clever too. I can't think how it is she hasn't got a place in the first eleven."
Deirdre was not at all a clever girl. Her interests were chiefly in outdoor pursuits, particularly games, a subject on which she was always willing to talk.
"Why, what do you know about it?" she demanded.
"You see, I'm rather interested in hockey, though I don't play much myself," was the airy reply. "As for the girl I was telling you about—Nat—lots of these crack players I've seen in county matches weren't much better than her."
"County matches?" queried Deirdre eagerly. "What county matches have you seen?"
"Oh, several. And last year at that International game at—let me see, what was the name of the place?"
"Merton Abbey perhaps," interjected the hockey captain.
"Yes, that was it. As I was saying, I really can't think why you overlooked one of the best players in the school," and Monica, shaking her head wonderingly, sauntered off down the field, her hands in her coat pockets, still gazing critically at the twenty-two perspiring players rushing frantically up and down the ground. Deirdre, somewhat impressed, repeated the conversation between herself and Monica Carr to Madge and Pam Preston as they went off together at the end of the practice. (Pam had been persuaded into promising to play for the hockey club in the shield matches.)
Madge burst into a roar of laughter.
"International matches! County matches!" she gasped. "Why, Nat herself told me that the new kid didn't know a hockey stick from a cricket bat and had never bothered to watch a game of hockey in her life. I don't suppose she's even seen Nat play. I'm afraid she was just pulling your leg, Deirdre. She seems the sort that's up to anything."