'Oh, but I don't _want_ to take them off,' cried Babs, eagerly. 'I only thought----'
But Margaret was too deep in her conversation to pay any attention to the youngest girl in the school; and Barbara knelt down unwillingly and struggled with a stubborn knot in a muddy bootlace. She had hardly begun her unattractive task, when some one dropped suddenly beside her on the floor and laid a hot hand on hers.
'You leave the head girl's boots alone!' said Jean's voice in her ear. 'It's just like your interfering ways, to come sneaking up to her when I wasn't looking. Go away and mind your own business!'
Now, Babs had just been resenting deeply the absurdity of her position at the feet of the head girl. She did not want to take off anybody's boots, and she thought it an exceedingly stupid thing to do. But to give up her task because some one came and got cross about it, was quite another matter. A lurking spirit of mischief, helped by the exhilaration she still felt after her two hours in the open air, made her retain her hold on the knot in the head girl's bootlace.
'I am minding my own business,' she retorted stoutly. 'Ever since I've been here, you and Angela have dinned the head girl's boots into my ears till I'm sick of hearing about the stupid things. Now I'm here, I'm not going to stop till I've done them; so you'd better go away yourself.'
[Illustration: 'What in the name of wonder are you children doing down there?']
Jean glanced at her furiously, and Barbara tugged away at the bootlace and began whistling again, to show how little she cared whether Jean was angry or not. Above their heads, the gossip went on busily about the style of the first hockey eleven.
'How about our chances against the Wilford club next month?' some one was asking.
'As to that,' said Margaret, with confidence, 'if we only keep our heads we shall have no difficulty whatever in standing----'
She did not finish her sentence, for at that instant a violent onslaught on her right foot put a comical end to it by nearly upsetting her balance. She just saved herself by seizing the arm of the nearest girl, and the hockey gossip came to an abrupt finish.
'What in the name of wonder are you children doing down there?' demanded Margaret, wrathfully. The knot had come undone by this time, and Jean was tugging at one end of the bootlace, while Babs, with an elfish glee shining in her bright little eyes, was keeping a firm hold on the other end.