Afternoon attendance at the High School was not nominally compulsory.  All the principal subjects were taken in the morning, but there were classes for drawing, singing or physical culture from half-past two until four, and practically very few girls had more than one free afternoon in a week.  Any who liked might do preparation in their own form room, and many availed themselves of the permission, especially those who came from a distance, and stayed for dinner at the school.  When Winona first examined her time-table she had not considered its demands excessively formidable, but before she had been a week at Seaton she began to realize that she would have very few spare moments to call her own.  Miss Bishop believed in girls being fully occupied, and in addition to the ordinary form work, expected every one to take part in the games, and in the numerous societies and guilds which had been instituted.  Winona found that she was required to join the Debating Club, and the Patriotic Knitting Guild, while a Dramatic Society and a Literary Association would be prepared to open their doors to her if she proved worthy of admission.  So far, however, she considered that she had enough on her hands.  The demands of her new life were almost overwhelming, and she lived from day to day in a whirl of fresh experiences.  It took her some time even to grasp the names of the seventeen other girls in her form.  Audrey Redfern, her left-hand neighbor, was friendly, but Olave Parry, at the desk in front, ignored her very existence.  She gathered that Audrey, like herself, was a new-comer, while Olave had attended the school since its foundation; but she did not realize the significance of this in the difference of their behavior to her.  The fact was that the three new girls in the form were on probation.  The others, who had come up from the Lower School, and were well versed in the traditions of the place, were not willing to admit them too quickly into favor.  They talked them over in private.

“Audrey Redfern seems a decent enough little soul,” said Estelle Harrison.  “There’s really nothing offensive about her, to my mind.  Garnet Emerson I rather like.  I fancy she could be jolly.  I’m going to speak to her in a day or two, but not too soon.”

“What do you think of Winona Woodward?” queried Bessie Kirk.

“Much too big an opinion of herself.  Began bragging about her scholarship first thing.  She needs sitting upon, to my mind.”

“She’s pretty!”

“Yes, and she knows it, too!”

“Well, she can’t help knowing it.  I call her most striking looking.  Her eyes are lovely, though I never can make out whether they’re dark gray or hazel under those long lashes.  Her hair’s just the color of bronze, and such a lot of it!  It beats Joyce Newton’s hollow; besides, Joyce has absolutely white eyelashes.”

“Like a pig’s!” laughed Hilda Langley.  “I agree with you that Winona’s pretty, but I don’t think she’ll ever be a chum of mine, all the same.”