For minutes there was silence in the commonroom except for the rustling of turning pages and occasional exclamations as the girls discovered whose contributions were in. This was always something that could not be known until the magazine arrived in all its glory. All contributions went to the editor who sorted them—generally assisted by any of the other prefects she chose to co-opt. When they had mulled over everything and made their choice, all they had picked out were put into one heap and taken to the mistress in charge of The Chaletian—Miss Derwent at present. They usually selected a good deal more than could finally be used for funds were limited and printing is costly everywhere, these days.

“I just wanted to say that we want all contributions for The Chaletian as soon as possible,” Len said with a side glance at Con, who was the editor of that noble work of literature. “I know it seems soon to be talking about it, but last term quite half the contributions came in during the last week before they were sorted out. We’d like this term’s number to be better than usual, so please may we have any articles, stories, reports or poems and so on in good time for once?”

. All contributions went to the editor who sorted them—generally assisted by any of the other prefects she chose to co-opt. When they had mulled over everything and made their choice, all they had picked out were put into one heap and taken to the mistress in charge of The Chaletian—Miss Derwent at present. They usually selected a good deal more than could finally be used for funds were limited and printing is costly everywhere, these days. The mistress went through that lot herself, first. She, also, was apt to call on her friends for help and it was as well that some of the aspiring authors never heard the staff's remarks on their efforts!
When that had been done and the mistress had made her decisions, she summoned the editor, the Head Girl and the Second prefect and discussed everything with them. Finally, the sheaf that remained was handed over to Miss Dene who sent it to the printers and also saw to correcting the proofs when they arrived. The remainder was packed up and put into a closet in stockroom in case material ever ran short later on. It had happened only twice during all the years The Chaletian had been running and, warned by what had happened on the first occasion, everyone had seen to it that it never occurred again. Sundry school essays had had to be pressed into service then and even so, the result had been a very slim magazine.
Anyone who had had anything to do with the final choices was under bond not to tell anything to anyone and the girls generally awaited the arrival of their magazine with a good deal of impatience.

"Mother and Dad will be awfully pleased," Verity said, as she skimmed through it. "It reads better in print than it did in your scrawl."
"Shut up, ass!" was Mary-Lou's response to this. "Here's a short story by Betsy. It's a Guernsey legend, it says. What's next? Oh, a sonnet by Nan Herbert. I say! I'd no idea she could write like this! It's rather decent isn't it?"

I may be making this up, but did the prefects and mistresses know whose selections were being considered? I seem to remember reading something about the girls not putting their names on their work so that the prefects wouldn't be biased when choosing which ones to include. I might be thinking of an EB book...

But it was the Fiction Page which most interested the committee. At least ten girls had sent in contributions to this page, and four had been chosen by Joey for Miss Maynard to select from. As this had been done at the last minute, no one but she knew whose had been taken, so they were all agog to know. A groan of dismay went up as they discovered that the contributions had been printed unsigned, and only Jo and the authors themselves could know whose they were.

The Poetry Corner came next, and the Chaletian discovered the interesting fact that the Chalet School contained quite a number of would-be poets. Like the stories, all the verses were unsigned, but it was a comparatively easy matter to name the writers.