"No," said Janet, trying to speak in a calm, indifferent voice; "of course I don't mind; I can't mind, but one of Mrs. Freeman's strictest rules is that seniority goes before all else. I am not the head girl of the school, Lady Kathleen; the head girl's name is Evelyn Percival, and, although I was the one to think of the Fancy Fair, and although Evelyn was away from the school during the first two or three weeks while the matter was being planned out and we were getting materials ready for our stalls, still, the moment she came home, Mrs. Freeman insisted on our asking her to join the committee, and since then she has taken the lead, and hers will be the principal stall on the day of the fair."
"And you'll be nowhere, so to speak?" said Lady Kathleen.
"Well, I don't know that; I hope to have a pretty stall too; Bridget is helping me with my stall; aren't you, Biddy?"
"I don't know that I am," replied Bridget. "Father sent me a little money to buy a few pretty things, and that was about all that I could do. I love pretty things, but I am no worker."
She turned away as she spoke, and once more looked out over the sea with longing in her eyes.
Lady Kathleen had a keen perception of character. Janet had spoken in a very quiet, subdued voice, but the fact was by no means lost on the good lady that she was terribly chagrined at the position she was obliged to occupy at the fair.
"Confess, my little one; you don't like being second," she said, bending over her and tapping her fair head with the large crimson fan.
Janet colored faintly. "'What can't be cured,'" she said, shrugging her shoulders.
Lady Kathleen took up the proverb and finished it. "'Must be endured,'" she said. "But I don't believe that this position of affairs can't be cured. It strikes me as extremely unfair that you should have had the trouble of getting up this fair, and then that you should be pushed into a second position. I don't care if fifty Mrs. Freemans say you are not to be first. I don't choose that my niece, Bridget O'Hara, should have anything to do with a second-rate stall; or a second-rate position. Wake up, Biddy, child, and listen to me; I insist upon one thing—you and Janet are to be first on the day of the fair."
Janet's eyes began to sparkle, and the faint glow in her cheeks grew bright and fixed. Her eager expression spoke volumes, but she did not utter a word. Bridget, however, exclaimed wearily: