'And let down your frock,' added two or three voices together.
'What's the matter with my frock?' asked Babs, opening her eyes. 'It's nearly two inches longer than any frock I ever had before.'
The laughter began afresh, and Barbara gave up trying to explain things. She was a little hurt, in reality, and was afraid of showing it; for it would never do, after being teased by five brothers all her life, to be ruffled by the laughter of a few schoolgirls. All the same, there was something in their way of laughing at her that hurt, and she did not care to provoke them into doing it any more.
The loud ringing of a bell brought her a sudden respite, by clearing the room of her tormentors. They poured hastily out of two large doors, that slid back in the wall and revealed another square hall beyond, similar to the one at the front of the house. The wide staircase up which the girls were trooping evidently led to their bedrooms, for Barbara, left deserted and forgotten in the playroom, could hear them, directly afterwards, moving about overhead. As she waited there alone, wondering what she was supposed to do next, Jean Murray came hurrying back into the room and looked round for her.
'Oh, bother!' she said, in her ungracious manner; 'what a nuisance you are! I wish you'd do things without waiting to be told.'
Babs explained submissively that she was quite ready to do things if she only knew what to do; but Jean still grumbled.
'Any one with any sense would know,' she declared, hastening out of the door again as she spoke. When she was half-way across the hall, she shouted, without looking back, 'Can't you come along? There's only a quarter of an hour to dress for supper.'
Babs hurried after her, and managed to keep her in sight up the wide staircase and along the gallery at the top. There were doors all round the gallery, and at one of these, marked number twelve, Jean stopped and waited impatiently.
'What a time you are,' she complained, when Barbara caught her up.
'I'm very quick, when anybody doesn't take such an enormous start,' answered Barbara, panting. 'I can beat Peter twice round the Square and up to the gate, _easily_! And you're not in it with Peter.'
Jean looked at her, and her expression was not a pretty one. However, she only jerked her head at the door in front of them, and told Babs it was her bedroom. 'Finny said I was to show you,' she added. 'Don't know, I'm sure, why everybody thinks I've got to show you things. And you'd better look sharp and dress, because when you're ready you've got to cut along to number two and do the head girl's hair. It's always the business of the youngest in the school to do the head girl's hair. See?'
