blackberries, but you haven't time now. You shouldn't have stayed so long
at the cove if you wanted a blackberry feed! If you don't hurry up I
shall run off and leave you and go home with Uncle David by myself!
There! Oh, you're coming! Good! I thought you'd hardly care to spend the
night upon the cliffs with the sea-gulls!"




CHAPTER II

A School Ballot


Mavis and Merle started for school on Tuesday morning confident of
finding many changes. Hitherto 'The Moorings' had been a modest
establishment where about twenty-four children had been educated by Miss
Pollard and her sister Miss Fanny, who were the daughters of the late
Vicar of the parish. They were neither of them particularly learned or up
to date, but they had a happy knack with girls, and had been especially
successful in the care of delicate pupils. The remarkably mild climate of
Durracombe made the place peculiarly suitable for those who had been born
in India or other hot countries, and so many more boarders had been
entered for this term that the school was practically doubled.
Recognising the fact that this sudden enlargement in numbers ought also
to mean a march forward in other ways, the sisters were wise enough to
seize their golden opportunity and completely reorganise their methods.
They were fortunate in being able to get hold of the house next to their
own, and, turning that into a hostel for boarders, they devoted the whole
of 'The Moorings' to classrooms. They engaged a thoroughly competent and