“Then I mustn’t take you away from the General!  It’s a nuisance though, for you’d have done very well, and I don’t know who else I can get.”

Winona considered it was one of the sharpest disappointments she had ever gone through.

“Oh, the grizzly bad luck of it!” she wailed to Garnet.  “It would have been idyllic to coach those kids.  And it would have given me such a leg up with Kirsty!  To think I’ve lost my chance!”

“I suppose Margaret might get some one else to do cataloguing?”

“I dare say:  but I couldn’t possibly ask her, and I’m sure Kirsty won’t.  No, I’m done for!”

School etiquette is very strict, and Winona would have perished sooner than resign her library duties.  She felt a martyr, but resolved to smile through it all.  Garnet contemplated the problem at leisure during her drawing lesson, and arrived at a daring conclusion.  Without consulting her friend she marched off at four o’clock to the prefects’ room, a little sanctum on the ground floor where the minutes’ books of the various guilds and societies were kept, and where the school officers could hold meetings and transact business.

As she expected, Margaret was there alone, and said “Come in” in answer to her rap at the door.  The members of the Sixth kept much on their dignity, so it was rather a formidable undertaking even for a Fifth Form girl to interrupt the head of the school.  Margaret looked up inquiringly as Garnet entered.

“Yes, I’m fearfully busy,” she replied to the murmured question.  “What is it?  I can give you five minutes, but no more, so please be brief.”

Thus urged, Garnet, though greatly embarrassed, did not beat about the bush.

“I’ve come to ask a frightfully cheeky thing,” she blurted out.  “Kirsty wants Winona to coach the kids at hockey, and Winona’s cataloguing for you, so of course she can’t—­and—­” but here Garnet’s courage failed her, so she paused.

“Do you mean that Winona would prefer to help with the juniors?”

“She’d be torn in pieces rather than let me say so, but she’s just crazy over hockey.  I hope I haven’t made any mischief!  Win doesn’t know I’ve come.”

“All right.  I understand.  I’ll see what can be done in the matter,” returned the General, opening her books as a sign of dismissal.

Garnet was not at all sure whether her mission had succeeded or the reverse, but the next day Margaret sent for Winona.

“I hear Kirsty wants you for a hockey coach.  Just at present I think games are of more importance in the school than the library, so please report yourself to her, and say I’ve taken your name off my list.  You’ve done very well here, but I’m going to lend you to Kirsty for a while.”

Winona was so astounded she hardly knew whether to stammer out apologies, gratitude, or regrets, and was intensely relieved when the head girl cut her short kindly but firmly, and sent her away.  She lost no time in seeking out the Games Captain.