"Why, we're going to have a chestnut-roasting, Nita and I. We were out for a walk with the three Fourth Forms this afternoon. Miss Burton took it. And we went by the chestnut plantation on Sir John Boyne's place—you know it, don't you, up by Southdown Woods? Nita and I gave the rest of them the slip and lay low in the plantation until they'd all gone past. Then we just set to and stuffed our pockets with chestnuts. There were loads of them, all eating ones, you know, and when the walk came back we tagged ourselves on to it without anyone getting wise. And we've planned to roast them in here while the others are at the organ recital. We didn't mean to let anyone else know, but we don't mind you—do we, Nita?"
"Oh no, of course not," said Nita hastily. But there was not quite so much conviction in her voice as Gerry would have liked to have heard in it. However, Jack's evident anxiety for her company made up for Nita's lack of cordiality; and soon the three of them were amicably engaged in scorching their faces and burning their fingers over the chestnuts.
It was very cosy in the sitting-room, curled up on the hearthrug in front of the glowing fire, which Jack had taken care to build up well before tea and which was now a flaming mass of red-hot coals. Jack was in one of her merriest, maddest moods, and her mirth infected the other two as well. Nita forgot her slight annoyance at finding that Gerry was to be a participator in the chestnut-roasting, and Gerry herself was too happy for words as she sat beside Jack in the flickering firelight. For Jack was leaning against her in the friendliest way, and it seemed to the new girl that all her school troubles were over at last, and that nothing but friendship and happiness lay before her.
But suddenly, while the merriment was at its height, the sitting-room door opened abruptly, and a stream of light from the passage outside poured into the room. Nita sprang to her feet, and Jack and Gerry looked round in startled surprise. A thin, angular figure stood in the doorway, and a rasping voice exclaimed in disgusted tones:
"What is this smell of burning?"
"Jemima! It's Miss Burton!" muttered Jack, as she scrambled to her feet. "Quick, Gerry, stuff the chestnuts into your pocket! Anywhere—while I brush the shucks under the hearthrug. She can't have seen anything yet."
Gerry hastily gathered up what chestnuts she could lay her hands upon and stuffed them into the one pocket her dress possessed. Nita did the same, while Jack disposed of the empty shells as best she could. By the time Miss Burton had succeeded in finding the switch and turning on the light, nothing remained except the tell-tale smell of burning to betray the fact that any unlawful feasting had recently taken place.
Jack sniffed innocently into the air.
"Burning, Miss Burton? Is there a smell of burning?"
Miss Burton advanced into the room, looking suspiciously about her. Her days of chestnut-roasting were so long over, that she was unable to detect exactly the nature of the strange odour that assailed her nostrils, although she was well aware that it was something that should not have been in evidence in any well-conducted school. However, there appeared to be nothing that she could pounce upon, and she was obliged to confine her energies to strictures upon the unconventional attitudes in which she had surprised the three girls.