“Winona Woodward, you’ve been placed in V.a., first room to the right, round the corner.  You’ll find the number on the door.”

Other girls were hurrying in the same direction.  Winona entered with what seemed to her quite a small crowd.  Everybody appeared to know where to go, except herself.  She stood in such evident hesitation that one, more good-natured than the rest, remarked: 

“You’d better seize on any desk you fancy, as quick as you can.  They’re getting taken up fast, if you want a front one!”

Winona slid into the nearest seat at hand, and appropriated it by placing her note-book, pencil-box, ruler, atlas and dictionaries inside the desk.

The room was filling quickly.  Every moment fresh arrivals hurried in and took their places.  Marjorie Kaye was nowhere to be seen, but in the second row sat the dark-eyed girl with the red ribbon in her hair.  She turned round and nodded pleasantly.

“So she’s got the other scholarship!” thought Winona.  “I shouldn’t have expected it.  I’d have staked my reputation on the sandy-haired one.  Well, I suppose her answers weren’t correct, after all.  I’m rather glad on the whole it’s this girl; she looks jolly.”

At that moment Miss Huntley, the form mistress, entered and took the call-over, and the day’s work began.  Each girl was given a time-table and a list of the books she would require, and after that, class succeeded class until one o’clock, with a ten minutes’ interval for lunch at eleven.  The conclusion of the morning left Winona with a profound respect for High School methods.  After the easy-going routine of Miss Harmon’s it was like stepping into a new educational world.  She supposed she would be able to keep pace with it when she got her books, but the mathematics, at any rate, were much more advanced than what she had before attempted.  As she walked down the corridor, the girl with the red hair-ribbon overtook her, and claimed acquaintance.

“So you’re Winona Woodward?  And I’m Garnet Emerson.  We had the luck, after all!  I’m sure I never expected to win.  It was the greatest surprise to me when the letter arrived.  Yes, five of the other candidates are at school, but they’ve been put in IV.a., and IV.b.  Marjorie Kaye?  You mean that girl in spectacles?  No, she’s not come.  I heard her say that if she didn’t win she was to be sent somewhere else.  Where are you staying?  With an aunt?  I’m with a second cousin.  She’s nice, but I wish they’d open a hostel; it would be topping to be with a heap of others, wouldn’t it?  We’d get up acting in the evenings, and all sorts of fun.  Well, perhaps that may come later on.  I shall see you this afternoon, shan’t I?”

“Yes, I’m coming for my books.  It’s too late to stop and get them now.”