Life at the Camp was arranged according to a strict time-table.  Every one rose at seven, and a certain number of volunteers helped to prepare breakfast.  Then came bed-making, crockery washing and potato peeling, at which duties the girls took turns.  From 9.30 to 12.30 they had classes with Miss Huntley, while Nurse Robinson superintended the cooking of the dinner on the large oil stove.  With the exception of an hour’s preparation the rest of the day was free from lessons.  Tea was at four and supper at seven, and by half-past nine every one was in bed, well covered with blankets, and with a hot bottle if she liked, for the nights were apt to be chilly to those unaccustomed to sleeping in the open-air.  The rules of quarantine were of course sternly kept.  No girl might go outside the pasture without special permission.  Sometimes Miss Huntley took her flock for a walk along quiet country roads and rambling by-lanes, but the vicinity of their fellow-creatures was carefully avoided.

“We’re like the lepers in the Middle Ages!” laughed Garnet.  “I feel as if I ought to wear a coarse white cassock, and ring a bell as I go about, to warn people to give me a wide berth!”

“It’s amusing that the farmer has even driven his cows out of the pasture since we arrived,” said Evelyn.  “He let them feed here while the tuberculous children had their innings, and I should have thought consumption germs were as bad as small-pox ones.”

“They weren’t real consumptives though, only threatened!”

“Well, we’re not small-pox patients, either, only contacts!”

“I’m sorry for those poor kids, sent suddenly back to their slum homes after being here for weeks,” said Jess Gardner.

“Oh, the kids have had luck!  There were only ten of them, and a lady at Hawberry has rigged up a tent in her garden, and has them all there, so Nurse told me this morning.  They’re living on the fat of the land, and gaining pounds and pounds in weight, by the look of them.”

“Good!  I don’t feel so bad at having turned them out, then.  It’s great here!”

“Rather!  On the whole, I feel thoroughly grateful to Joyce.”

From the girls’ point of view there really was matter for congratulation.  None of them was ill, and all were having a most delightful and quite unexpected three weeks’ holiday in idyllic surroundings.  Their arms, to be sure, had “taken,” and were more or less sore, but that was a trifling inconvenience compared with the pleasures of living in Camp.  There was no anxiety to be felt about Joyce, she had the disease very slightly, and was being treated with such extreme care that her face would not be marked afterwards.  It was ascertained that she had caught the infection from some Belgians who had come over lately from Holland, and who were now isolated by Dr. Barnes in a Cottage Hospital.  The Seaton High School was undergoing elaborate disinfection, and as June was well advanced, the Governors had decided not to re-open until September, when all possibility of contagion would have passed away.  This was the only part of the proceedings that did not please the girls.