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but he was very quick on his feet, and could catch marvellously. The game was played with a hard rubber ball which had to be thrown from one player's net to another, caught, and sent hurtling at the goal-net.
    The job of the other side was to knock the ball away, or make the player who had the ball toss it to someone else, when the enemy might perhaps be able to get it, As soon as Robert saw that Elizabeth was becoming good enough to play in a school match, he made up his mind that he would be better than she was, and take her place in the match.
    He knew that only one person would be chosen from their form, for only one was lacking in the numbers that made up the team. What sport it would be if he could play better than Elizabeth! So that was another thing for him to do-practise catching the ball whenever he could get someone to throw to him. But he wouldn't let Elizabeth guess that he was trying to he better than she was-no, he would let her think he wasn't trying very hard, else she would begin to practise as well, In the meantime, school life went on much as usual, Elizabeth began to work very hard with John in the school garden. They cut down all the old summer flowers, and piled them in heaps on the place where they had their bonfires. They dug over the beds, and made themselves very hot and tired but very happy. They each made out plans for the spring and gave them to each other, and John actually said that Elizabeth's plan was better than his, "It's not very much better," said John, looking at the two plans carefully, "but I do like one or two of your ideas very much, Elizabeth. For instance, your idea of having crocuses growing in the grass on that bank over there is lovely."
    "Well, your idea of having rambler roses over that ugly old shed is lovely too," said Elizabeth. "I say, John, won't it look marvellous!"
    "I wonder if the School Meeting will allow us extra money this week for the crocus corms," said John. "We should want about five hundred crocuses to make any sort of a show, Let's ask, shall we?"
    "Well, you'd better ask, not me," said Elizabeth, her face going sulky. "You know what happened at the last Meeting, John, It was horrid to me."
    "No, it wasn't, Elizabeth," said John, leaning on his spade and looking at Elizabeth across the trench he was digging. "I think the Meeting was quite fair. Don't be silly.
    You can be such a sensible girl, and yet you're such an idiot sometimes."
    "I sha n't help you in the garden if you call me an idiot," said Elizabeth.
    "All right," said John. "I'll get Jenny. She's jolly good."
    But Elizabeth did not walk away in a rage as she felt inclined to do. She took up her spade and began to dig so hard that the earth simply flew into the air. She wasn't going to let Jennifer take her place!
    John burst out laughing "Elizabeth! You'll dig down to Australia if you're not careful!
    And really I'd rather you didn't cover me with earth whilst you're doing it,"
    Elizabeth looked up and laughed too,
    "That's better!" said John. "You'll get a face like Kathleen Peters if you aren't careful!"

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    "I hope not!" said Elizabeth. "That's another person I don't like, John, She's so quarrelsome, and she seems to think we are always saying or thinking nasty things about her-and honestly, we just don't bother about her half the time."
    "Well, don't start making an enemy of her too," said John, beginning to dig again.
    "Friends are better than enemies, Elizabeth, old thing, so make those instead."
    "Well, nobody could make a friend of Kathleen!" said Elizabeth. "Honestly they couldn't, John. You're not in her form, so you don't know what a tiresome person she is."
    It was quite true that Kathleen was tiresome. She was always grumbling about something, and she spent the whole of her two shillings each week on sweets, which she never shared with anyone else, "No wonder she's spotty!" giggled Belinda unkindly. "She's eating sweets all the time-and her mother sends her heaps too, only sac never