THE SCHOOL was itself again. For two days Mrs. Prior, Alice, Shirley and a fleet of dormitory maids had been working to bring it to life.
   The mistresses had arrived in the morning, and now, at tea-time, one or two new girls with their parents, having been refreshed from a silver teapot in Miss Bishop's drawing-room, wandered round the garden in disconsolate little groups. The real influx would arrive in the autumn and they were rather conscious of having done the wrong thing.
   Miss Meadows' books were up on the shelves of her room, where Alice's narcissi greeted her with their starry stare.
   On Honor Christow's wall a picture of the rectory garden, in oils, dispensed a little comfort. In the kitchen the range glowed, Timoshenko rubbed ecstatically around familiar legs, and from the mantelpiece, flanked by the china spaniels, the room received the benediction of Jim's blue smile.
   Mrs. Prior's heavy footsteps seemed to shake the house as she swung enormous saucepans and called in her raucous, cheerful voice, upon "Noranmaude" to do her bidding; sisters, and much alike, they appeared simultaneously, like a Greek chorus, to repeat her orders and render assistance.
   In the sunny attic under the sky Shirley had unpacked her scanty treasures. She sighed when she found she was to share it with Doris, for both Nora and Maude had been explicit about her feet.  Partly for this reason and partly because of the view of the sea Shirley chose the bed by the window. On the dressing-table, in its metal Woolworth frame, she had set  the picture of her united family, an impressive spectacle, going down in steps. Doris's young man, in a circle of shells, looked a little superciliously across at them. Recognising "The Fish" in sudden amusement she peered a little closer to see if the camera had included his spots.
   Already, the room was possessed by the stale smell which emanated from Doris's possessions and with which she was to spend the term.
   At six o'clock the girls from the London train arrived. In a confusion of pigtails, tennis rackets and laughter they spilled out of the school bus on to the drive. The games mistress, whose duty it had been to accompany them from town, bounced down behind them and told them not to dally about but to get themselves in an orderly fashion to the cloakroom.  
    She added briskly that she could see she would have to smarten them up again after their lackadaisical holiday ways.
    "Oh, God," said Jasmine, trudging up the gravel.