The School by the Sea

GIRLS! Girls everywhere! Girls in the passages, girls in the hall, racing upstairs andscurrying downstairs, diving into dormitories and running into classrooms, overflowing on to the landing and hustling along the corridor-everywhere, girls!There were tall and short, and fat and thin, and all degrees from pretty to plain;girls with fair hair and girls with dark hair, blue-eyed, brown-eyed, and grey-eyedgirls; demure girls, romping girls, clever girls, stupid girls-but never a silent girl. No! Buzz-hum-buzz! The talk and chatter surged in a full, steady flow round thehouse till the noise invaded even that sanctuary of sanctuaries, the private study, where Miss Birks, the Principal, sat addressing post cards to inform respectiveparents of the safe arrival of the various individual members of the frolicsome crewwhich had just reassembled after the Christmas vacation. In ordinarycircumstances such an indiscretion as squealing on the stairs or dancing in thepassages would have brought Miss Birks from her den, dealing out stern rebukes, ifnot visiting dire justice on the offenders; but for this one brief evening-the firstnight of the term-the old house was Liberty Hall. Each damsel did what seemedgood in her own eyes, and talked, laughed, and joked to her heart's conten