Nothing but the entrance of Finny would have calmed the noisy tumult; but when they saw her standing on the platform, looking down at them with her best Saturday smile on her face, the clamour ended in a burst of laughter; and five or six of the more eager of them invaded the platform, and danced round her appealingly.
‘Do, do say who’s going to win,’ begged Barbara, catching hold of her sleeve.
‘It’s Margaret and the Babe, isn’t it?’ cried Jean.
‘No!’ shrilled Angela. ‘You mean Margaret and––’
‘Charlotte Bigley!’ gasped Mary Wells, squeezing herself into the front rank.
Miss Finlayson put out her arms and encircled as many of them as she could, and spun them round the platform with her.
‘Dear, dear little girls!’ she exclaimed, when she was out of breath and could dance no more. ‘Do you know what the Canon ought to have done, if he wanted to please me?’
‘What? What?’ cried a dozen voices.
‘He ought to have offered thirty-two prizes, and then I should not have been afraid of any of my children feeling disappointed,’ answered Miss Finlayson, nodding at them wisely; and, somehow, it seemed to Jean as if the head-mistress’s eyes rested longest of all upon her.