"You look like a middy going up the main-mast," said Ruth.
"That's the voice of jealousy," remarked Chatty. "Lettice is green with envy because she can't do it herself."
"A squirrel would be a happier simile," suggested Ruth.
"She's getting along very quickly," said Pauline.
Half-way up the tree Honor paused and looked down.
"Hallo!" she cried, "I'm just by Miss Maitland's study. I shall go in, and pay her a call. Ta-ta!" and she disappeared suddenly through the open window.
"What will Miss Maitland say if she's there?" exclaimed Lettice.
"I don't believe she'd be cross," said Maisie. "She'd be amused to see anybody come in so funnily."
Honor was absent only about a minute, then her beaming face peeped from the window once more.
"Miss Maitland's not at home," she announced. "I've left my card with the footman, and said I'd call again another day, in my aeroplane. Keep out of the way down there--I'm coming!" and down she came, with a rush and a scramble, arriving quite safely, however, with only her hair ribbon untied and her hands a little grazed.
"You see, it's really a very easy matter," she explained; "we do far harder things in the gym."
"Can you find a good foothold?" asked Flossie.
"Oh, yes! There are heaps of places that seem made on purpose to put your toe in. It's almost like a ladder."
"Here's Vivian!" said Chatty. "I'm afraid she's come to call us in."
"What a nuisance! I don't want to go to bed."
Chatty had accurately guessed the monitress's errand.
"It's nearly nine o'clock," proclaimed Vivian. "Didn't you hear the bell? I rang it at the side door."
"We didn't hear a sound," replied Lettice. "But then, we were all laughing so much. Honor Fitzgerald has just been climbing the lime tree, and she went right through the window into the study."
"Honor Fitzgerald is a hoyden, then," said Vivian. "And what business had she to go inside Miss Maitland's room? It was a piece of great impertinence."
"I'm sorry I told you," said Lettice ruefully.
"I wish Vivian could have heard the verse you made about her!" whispered Pauline to Honor. "Is hoyden a dictionary word, or not? I'm afraid I should have said 'cheek' instead of impertinence, but I'm not a monitress."
The girls had entered the dressing-room, and were putting away books and sewing materials in their lockers, when Maisie exclaimed: