evenings till even Aunt Harriet—­indefatigable worker herself—­would tell her to stop, and wax moral on the folly of burning the candle at both ends.  The coaching from Miss Lever was of inestimable value.  It supplied just the gaps in which she was deficient, and gave her an adequate grasp of her three toughest subjects.  Slowly she began to make headway, she saw light in mathematical problems that had before been meaningless formulae, chemistry was less of a hopeless tangle, and Vergil’s lines construed into understandable sentences instead of utter nonsense.  It was only gradual progress, however.  She had much ground to cover before she caught up the Form.  She was plodding, but not a brilliant all-round scholar like Garnet.  The fact was that Winona was only clever in one direction:  in the realm of imagination her mind ran like a racehorse, but harnessed to heavy intellectual burdens it proved but a sorry steed.

It was fortunate for both her health and her spirits that head work did not represent the only side of school activities.  Miss Bishop was wise enough to lay much stress on physical development.  A ten minutes’ drill was part of the daily routine, a gymnasium practice was held twice a week, and Wednesday afternoons were devoted to hockey.  In addition to this the girls played tennis on the asphalt courts during the winter and spring terms, whenever the weather was suitable, and basket ball was constantly going on in the playground.  Athletics was decidedly the fashionable cult of the school.  Kirsty Paterson, as Games Captain, made it her business to see that nobody slacked without justifiable cause.  She would break up knots of chatting idlers, and cajole them forth to “cultivate muscle” as she expressed it, while her keen eye was quick to note anybody’s “points” and employ them for the general benefit.  Kirsty’s jolly, breezy manner and strict sense of justice made her an admirable captain.  She was highly popular with juniors as well as seniors, for she took the trouble to organize the games of the little girls as carefully as those of their elders.

“It’s insane short-sighted policy to neglect the kids,” was her creed.  “Now’s the time to be training them.  Get them thoroughly well in hand and make them understand what’s expected from them, and in four or five years’ time they’ll be crack players.  Yes, I know it’s looking far ahead, and we prefects won’t be here to see the result, but the school will reap the benefit some day and that’s the main thing to aim at.  I’m proud of my cadets and, in the future, when they’re winning laurels for the Seaton High, perhaps they’ll remember I started them on the right track.  ‘Keep up the standard all round’ is going to be the motto while I’m Captain.”