6 Half-an-hour in the Sun
“When’s dear Gwendoline Mary coming back?” asked Alicia, as they all lay out in the sun after their dinner at a quarter to two that day. It was so warm and sunny that it was like summer. All the girls had found warm places out of doors, and the grounds were full of little companies of girls happily sunning themselves.
“Gwen? Oh, she’s arriving at tea-time,” said Darrell. “Dear Gwendoline Mary! Would you think she’s what Catherine would call a ‘pet-lamb’?”
“I could think of much more suitable names than that,” said Belinda, busy drawing Mavis, who had gone to sleep with her mouth open.
“Is Gwendoline nice?” asked Maureen. “She sounds nice, to me.”
Darrell winked¹ at Alicia.
“Nice? Oh, you’ll love her!” she said. “So sympathetic and ready to listen! So interesting to talk to—and the tales she tells about her family and her dogs and her cats—well, you could listen for hours, Maureen.”
“Is she fond of sports?” asked Maureen, who quite definitely wasn’t. “At Mazeley Manor² we didn’t do games unless we wanted to. I mean—they weren’t compulsory³, as they are here—such a mistake, I think.”
“Oh, Gwen hates games,” said Alicia. “But because she’s fat she has to do them as much as possible and walk miles, too.”
“Poor Gwendoline!” said Maureen, sympathizing deeply with the absent fifth-former. “We shall have a lot in common, I can see. Has she—has she a special friend, do you know? Of course—that’s a silly question I know—a girl like that’s bound to have a special friend. But I just thought—you know, I’m rather one on my own—it would be so nice to find someone here who wasn’t already fixed⁴ up with a companion for walks—and talks.”
“Let me see,” said Alicia, blinking up at the sky. “Has Gwendoline Mary a friend?”
Everyone appeared to think very deeply.
“Well—perhaps not a special friend,” said Irene, with a small snort of laughter. “Let us say she’s a little-friend-of-all-the-world, shall we?”
“Ah—you’ve just hit the nail on the head,” said Darrell, trying not to

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