‘Of course she is!’ declared Babs, warmly. ‘She’s beautiful, and–and classic!’
The others laughed, and she wondered why. Somebody had said, only the other day, that Jill Urquhart had classic features; and how was she to know that, although she was every bit as fond of Ruth as of Jill, the same adjective would not do for both?
‘Look at Margaret Hulme,’ whispered Mary Wells, as the vaulting-horse section marched past them. ‘She’s quite white!’
The little remark was enough to set them all wondering afresh; and Barbara, moved by a sudden impulse, darted up to Ruth Oliver.
‘Did Margaret go wrong in the wands?’ asked the child, in an anxious whisper.
The smile that had made Ruth look so surprisingly pretty died out of her face, and she glanced gravely down at her little questioner.
‘Never mind, baby,’ she said gently. ‘Go back to your place.’ And she came as near snubbing any one then as she ever did in the whole of her school career.
A burst of applause put every one in the anteroom once more on the alert.
‘What is it?’ passed eagerly from one to another. The answer, given by Charlotte from her point of vantage near the doorway, was soon circulated. Margaret Hulme had easily surpassed her seven companions by a brilliant performance on the vaulting-horse; and the spirits of the anteroom went up with a bound. Hurly-Burly had mounted the platform at the farther end of the gymnasium, and was comparing notes with Miss Finlayson and the expert from the London training-college, who was acting as one of the judges; so there was no one to restrain both senior and junior divisions from falling out of rank and pressing round the head girl, as she once more marched back to them. They had never once made so much fuss over their idol as they did now that she had shown, for the first time, that even idols are capable of failure.
Hurly-Burly returned and restored order in a stern voice; and they saw Finny standing in the middle of the platform, waiting for Scales to bring the Erlkönig to a thundering close. The next moment she was speaking in that low voice of hers that went straight to the ears of every one in the room.