“You like games, too, don’t you? Of course I shall miss hockey to-morrow, as I’m going home with Stella, but there’s that match next Saturday week against the Redford School. I’m longing to watch it. Oh, I wonder if I shall ever be in the team!”
“Of course you will,” replied her cousin in all good faith. “I love games, too, of course, but I know I’ll never be much good. I’m not half so fast a runner as you are, Margot; and then your wrists are so strong and you’re so much quicker in every sort of way than I am.”
“Well, you’ve got your fiddle; that’s your sort of thing, I suppose. No, I dare say it wouldn’t do, Gretta, to go to the ‘Little House’; I’ll tell Sybil I can’t go, and she’s not to, either. Just for a minute I thought what fun it would be, as well as being a most ripping way of trying for that prize. But I suppose we can’t; I’d forgotten we were at school. There she is. I’ll tell her now. Sybil! Sybil!”
The damsel addressed, who was emerging from the cloak-room door that opened on to the playground, came running up.
“Have you seen Adela?” she inquired in rather a fretful voice. “She’s simply _got_ to tell me what the French preparation is; I didn’t write it down.”
“No, I haven’t. Why didn’t you take it down yourself?” replied her cousin, who had no sympathy with Sybil’s lazy ways. “And look here, why aren’t you at hockey? Helen’s coaching all the little ones, and Adela’s sure to be there. Hurry up; you’ll be late.”
“I _hate_ hockey,” said the child, shrugging her shoulders; “it’s a most stupid game!”
“Stupid! Well, I like _that_,” rejoined Margot; “if there’s anything it’s _not_, it’s that! It’s just the most ripping fun.”
“Well, perhaps at first. When I hit the ball the first day Miss Carter said ‘Bravo!’ and Helen said I’d be in the team some day, and _now_--why, they don’t even smile at me!”
“You juggins!” laughed Margot. “Why, you couldn’t see them if they did.”
“I could, because I look to see--_always_,” complained Sybil, “and everybody’s always looking at the ball; and once, yesterday, when I’d nearly got a goal, Helen said I oughtn’t to have hit the ball so hard, but that I ought to have passed it to someone else. They can just hit their old ball themselves; I’m tired of hockey!”
