CHAPTER XVII
A Tangled Story
Meg rushed to the lecture hall just in time to enter unobtrusively among a crowd of other girls, and to take her seat for afternoon call-over without attracting special notice from mistresses or monitresses. She congratulated herself on having been promoted to Mr. Cobb's painting class. The fact of her change of costume would be quite lost upon him, though Miss Harris, the ordinary drawing mistress, might possibly have recognized Gipsy's dress. One or two of her Form mates stared at her curiously, but the greater number were too much preoccupied with answering "present" to their names, and filing away to their various classes, to pay any particular attention to her. The girls at the painting lesson, with the exception of Fiona Campbell, were all Seniors. If they realized any difference in Meg's appearance, there was no opportunity either for them to make comments or for her to give explanations. I am afraid the study in oil colours of carnations, upon which she was engaged, did not make much progress that afternoon, for her thoughts were entirely about Gipsy, wondering how far she had got upon her travels, and whether Miss Poppleton had yet discovered her absence.
Directly the four o'clock bell rang and the class
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