damsel.

"Oh, nothing, nothing!" said Gerda, hastily rolling up her tape measure, and slipping it into her pocket. "Only just an idea that came into my head. I wanted to know the length of the passage, that was all!"

"What a most extraordinary thing to want to know! Really, Gerda, you're the queerest girl I ever met. Is it having lived in Germany that makes you so odd?"

[33] "I suppose it must be," murmured Gerda, escaping as rapidly as possible into the schoolroom.

[33]

I have said before that owing to the unique situation of the Dower House the girls were allowed an amount of liberty in their play-hours which could not so easily have been granted to them at other schools. They wandered freely about the headland without a mistress, and so far had never abused their privileges, either by getting into danger or staying out beyond the specified time.

Though as a rule they rambled in trios, on the first of February the whole of Form Vb might have been seen walking together over the warren. They had a motive for their excursion, for it was St. Perran's Day, and St. Perran was the patron saint of the district. At the end of the promontory there was a small spring dedicated to his memory, and according to ancient legends, anybody who on his anniversary dropped a pin into this well might learn her luck for the coming year. Formerly all the lads and lasses from the villages of Pontperran, Porthmorvan, and Perranwrack used to come to deck the well and try their fortunes, but their annual visitation having degenerated into a rather riotous and undesirable ceremony, Mrs. Trevellyan had put up extra trespass notices, and given strict orders to her gamekeeper to exclude the public from the headland.

Vb

Knowing of the ancient custom which had been practised from time immemorial, it was of course only in schoolgirl nature to want to test the powers of divination attributed to the old well. The Sixth[34] Form, who considered themselves almost grown up, treated the affair with ridicule, and the members of Va, who copied their seniors slavishly, likewise affected a supreme contempt for so childish a proceeding; but Vb, being still at an age when superstition holds an immense attraction, trotted off en bloc to pay their respects to St. Perran. Each, in deference to the long-established tradition of the neighbourhood, bore a garland of ferns and other greeneries, and each came armed with the necessary pin 

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