Separation65Union28Majority for Separation37
Only six of the younger girls, therefore, had voted for the old regime, and the victory of the LowerSchool was complete. A mad scene of triumph ensued. The Juniors clapped and cheered, and waved their handkerchiefs in the exuberance of their enthusiasm; and as the discomfited Seniors beat a hasty retreat, the meeting broke up amid the roar of exultant hurrahs, and an impromptu chorus started by Gipsy and taken up by a dozen jubilant voices:
"Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!Juniors never, never, never, will be slaves!"
Theevents narrated in the last chapter had made an epoch in Briarcroft history. Henceforward the Lower School meant to manage its own affairs, and it set to work at once to settle things upon a firm basis. Needless to say, Gipsy was the heroine of the hour. Except for a half-dozen who envied her popularity, the girls recognized that the revolution was entirely owed to her suggestion, and they were ready to acknowledge her as their leader. She took her honours modestly. Having accomplished what she had aimed at, she was quite ready to retire from the position of dictator until some other good cause needed a champion. After several meetings and much discussion, the Juniors decided that instead of founding a number of separate societies for photography, athletics, acting, &c., they would institute one united Guild, which should include all the various forms of school activity, to be covered by one subscription, payable each term.
"It will be far better than dividing things up," said Hetty Hancock, "because sometimes we want to spend more on one thing than on another, andit's awkward to have to vote the funds of the Photographic Society over to the Dramatic, or vice versa. I think we should manage all right this way. We must elect a Committee, of course, and officers. For President, I beg to nominate Gipsy Latimer. She deserves it."
"Yes! Gipsy! Gipsy!" agreed the girls.
But Gipsy shook her head, and like Oliver Cromwell waved away the tempting offer of a crown.
"No," she said firmly; "I've only been a fortnight in the school, and I don't feel up to the post. Better choose someone as President who understands Briarcroft ways better than I do. I suggest Dilys Fenton. She's the oldest girl in the Upper Fourth, and from what I hear she's been here one of the longest. I'll serve on the Committee, if you like, and be of any use I can, but you want an old-established Briarcroft-ite as President. I don't know any of your arrangements yet about cricket or tennis, and I should always be making mistakes."
The wisdom of Gipsy's remarks appealed to the girls. It was certainly more suitable to choose as President somebody who understood the school ways. They appreciated the motive of her refusal, however; and her generosity in thus standing aside made her, if anything, more popular than before. They insisted upon electing her to the post of Secretary.
"You can keep the accounts, and read aloud the minutes of the meetings, and all those sorts of business things better than anybody," declared Hetty.
"If I don't happen to forget which country I'm in,and add things up as cents and dollars, instead of pence and shillings!" laughed Gipsy.
"We'll soon pull you up if you do, never fear!"
Now that her crusade was successfully accomplished, Gipsy settled down to enjoy life at Briarcroft as well as the limited circumstances permitted. She had already made several warm friends among both the boarders and the day girls. Meg Gordon in particular was inclined to accord her that species of hero worship often indulged in by schoolgirls. She brought offerings of late roses or autumn violets from home, and followed her idol about the school like a love-sick swain. She would sit gazing at Gipsy during classes in deepest admiration, and was ready to accept her every idea as gospel. Meg was rather a curious, abrupt girl in many ways, and though she had been a year at Briarcroft, had hitherto kept very much to herself. Her sudden and violent devotion to the newcomer caused no little amusement in the Form. She was promptly nicknamed "Gipsy's disciple", and subjected to a certain amount of teasing on the score of her attachment.
"You agree with every single thing Gipsy says," laughed Norah Bell. "I believe if she declared the trees were pink and the houses green, you'd uphold her!"
"Do you wear her portrait over your heart?" enquired Daisy Scatcherd facetiously.
"It was a very bad snapshot you got of her," remarked Ethel Newton.
"It certainly didn't do her justice," returned Meg,taking the matter quite seriously. "I'm going to have a new camera for my birthday, then I'll try again. But no snapshot could make Gipsy look as sweet as she really does."
"Not to your love-lorn eyes!" giggled the girls.
"Meg's a perfect joke at present," said Ethel Newton to Daisy Scatcherd. "She copies Gipsy slavishly, even to doing her hair the same, and those two big bows of ribbon don't suit her in the least, however nice they look on Gipsy."
"And yet she's rather like Gipsy, just like enough to be a kind of pale copy—an understudy, in fact."
"You've hit it! Understudy's the very word. She's absolutely forming herself on Gipsy."
Curiously enough, Meg Gordon really bore rather a marked physical resemblance to the object of her worship. She was slim, and dark, and about the same height, and though she lacked Gipsy's vivacity of expression, a stranger might quite possibly have mistaken the one girl for the other. It was perhaps just as well that Gipsy had one such devoted ally, for there were a few malcontents in the Form who were not at all ready to accept her with enthusiasm. Maude Helm had taken a dislike to her from the first, and had allowed her prejudice not only to blind her to Gipsy's good points, but to cause her to try to influence others in her disfavour. It is rarely that anybody succeeds in doing a public service without making any enemies, and Gipsy was no exception to the rule. According to Maude's code, she had violated every tradition of school etiquette by pushing herself,a newcomer, into a position of prominence; and that she had conferred a real benefit upon the Lower School by her championship went for nothing.
"It's sickening, the way everybody truckles to her," declared Maude to a few of her particular chums. "I vote we stick out, at any rate, and don't let her have everything her own way. We don't want the school Americanized to suit her fancy."
"No; Miss Yankee will have to find out we're not all ready to lick her boots!" grumbled Alice O'Connor.
"Glad she wasn't chosen President of the Guild, at any rate," remarked Gladys Merriman. "If she puts up for anything else I shall oppose her. There are other people in this Form quite as capable of taking the lead as she is, if they only got the chance."
"Yourself not excepted, I suppose!" snapped Mary Parsons, who happened to overhear. "You forget Gipsy refused the Presidency voluntarily."
"Clever enough to see it would pay her best!" sneered Gladys. "She evidently knows how to get round the Form."
"Gladys! How mean you are! Well, you can't do Gipsy much harm by your nastiness, that's one comfort."
"It only makes me like her all the more," broke out Joyce Adamson, who had strolled up to take Mary's arm.
"All the same," said Mary to Joyce, as they walked away, "I believe those three would do Gipsy a bad turn if they got the chance."
"But could they?"
"Easy enough. Gipsy's anything but a favourite with the monitresses after this Guild business, and they'd be only too delighted to drop on her if they found a reasonable excuse."
"So they would, and Gipsy's hardly what you call a bread-and-butter Miss!"
"I should rather think not! She's ready for any amount of fun. She's bound to come into collision with Helen Roper sooner or later. I shall give her a hint that she'd better look out."
Gipsy was getting along famously in the Upper Fourth. Though some of the work was rather different from what she had been accustomed to in her former schools, she was a bright girl, and managed to fill up her deficiencies with tolerable ease. In one or two subjects she was actually ahead of her Form, and in all practical matters she had a mine of past experience to draw upon. She approved of her Form mistress, Miss White, adored the Swedish drill mistress, tolerated the German governess, and detested the French master. For Miss Edith she was disposed to reserve a very warm place in her heart, but she frankly disliked Miss Poppleton.
"There are headmistresses and headmistresses," she said. "Of course one expects them to stand on a pillar above the common herd, but some of them condescend to peep down below. Now Poppie doesn't. I'd as soon think of going to the man in the moon, and telling him I felt homesick or headachy or worried about anything, as I should to her. Much she'd care! She'd tell me not to report myself till I was sent for! Nowat Dorcas City Miss Judkins was just a dear! We all went and told her our woes, and she comforted us up like a mother. We might go errands, too, if we asked leave first, and we made Fudge on the play-room stove about three times a week."
"You're always talking about Fudge!" giggled the boarders in whom these confidences were reposed.
"So'd you be if you'd once tasted it, I guess. It was real mean of Poppie not to let me buy that pan. We used to have good times candy making when I was out West," said Gipsy, relapsing into Americanisms at the remembrance of past delights in the States.
"Wish you could make some here, Yankee Doodle! I haven't had even a chocolate drop for three days," declared Lennie Chapman.
"Poppie never said I mightn't borrow a pan," returned Gipsy reflectively. "It would be a pity for you not to see Fudge made. I call it neglect of your education. I believe it's my solemn duty to try and teach you," and her eyes twinkled.
"A duty's a duty," urged Lennie with a disinterested air.
"It's a cruel rule that we may only buy sweets once a week," remarked Dilys Fenton.
"More honoured in the breach than in the observance," added Hetty Hancock.
"I'm not going to break any rules," said Gipsy. "There's no law against borrowing, at least none that I've heard of. It's a good motto to do what you want until you're told not to. Ta ta! I'm off on a foragingexpedition. Expect me back when you see me. I'm going to put my powers of persuasion to the test."
"You mad thing! Don't get into too big a scrape; Poppie can make herself nasty!" called Hetty.
"Don't worry yourself! I'll keep carefully out of Poppie's clutches," returned Gipsy, as she banged the door of the Juniors' sitting-room.
"She'll get into a row with Poppie yet, though," said Dilys; "she's far too free and easy for this school. Did you see how Poppie glared at her this morning in maths.?"
"Yes, but Gipsy didn't mind. She takes Poppie very lightly."
"She'll go too far some day," returned Dilys.
How Gipsy managed to wheedle the cook nobody ever discovered, but she returned in a short time triumphantly carrying a tray.
"Got all I wanted!" she announced. "A pan, and milk, and sugar, and even a bottle of vanilla. Can't you clear a place on the table? The thing's heavy."
A number of willing hands swept away books, needlework, and other impedimenta. It was evening recreation hour, so nearly all the Junior boarders were collected in the room. They viewed the interesting preparations with pleased anticipation.
"There!" said Gipsy, putting her burden down with a slam. "I reckon if any of you care to learn how to make American Fudge, now's your chance! Positively the last opportunity! By the by, 'reckon' is one of the words Poppie said I'd got to avoid, but it slipped out. I'll be more careful next time."
"Does Poppie know you've got these things?" squeaked Aggie Jones, a ten-year-old from the First Form.
"She's a trump if she let you!" echoed Pamela Harvey, of the Lower Second.
"You kids mind your own business!" said Hetty Hancock hastily.
"Poppie never said I mightn't have them, which amounts to the same thing," replied Gipsy calmly. "She hasn't given me a list of school rules, so I can't break them till I know what they are, can I? There's a law in most countries that a dog's allowed a first bite free. Well, this is going to be my first bite. Do you want to join this cookery demonstration, or not?"
"Rather!" said Lennie Chapman, "if you'll take the responsibility."
"And let us taste some of it afterwards!" added Daisy Scatcherd.
"I'd never be so mean as to eat it all myself. I'll share it round evenly to the last crumb. Now, if you want to help, you may measure out three cupfuls of sugar, and three-quarters of a cupful of milk. Now this tablespoonful of butter. Yes, that's all, thanks. Somebody pull that fender away, please; I want to get to the fire."
Stolen waters are sweet, and schoolgirl nature is the same the whole world over. The Junior boarders all had more than a suspicion that Gipsy's cookery was unauthorized, but who could resist the attractions of toffee making?
"I hope it's a sort that goes cold quickly, and won't take till next morning to harden," said Dilys Fenton. "Last 5th of November I think we didn't boil ours quite long enough, and we really couldn't wait, so we ate it soft."
"You boil this till it threads from the spoon, and then you beat it with a fork till it creams," murmured Gipsy, with her head over the pan.
"Let me stir!" begged Pamela Harvey.
"You mustn't stir it. That's the secret of good Fudge-making, not to stir at all while it's boiling. It makes it coarse-grained if you do."
"Won't it burn, though?"
"It doesn't out in U.S.A. But then we make it on stoves, you see. I can't guarantee it on an open fire. By good rights it ought to have pieces of hickory nut in it, but it won't taste bad without."
"I'd call that fire fierce for ordinary toffee," commented Lennie Chapman.
"I'm sure I smell something," sniffed Dilys Fenton.
"Oh, it's burning!"
"Gipsy! Stir it!"
"It's boiling over!"
"Take it off, quick!"
Half a dozen eager hands snatched at the pan, but it was too late; the sugary compound rose like a volcano and overflowed into the fire. A wail of lament came from the disappointed girls.
"I knew it would!" protested Lennie.
"Oh, it's made an awful smell! Open the window, somebody!" shrieked Gipsy. "If we don't mind,Poppie'll nose it out, and come poking up. Oh! Good gracious!"
Gipsy might well exclaim, for there, just behind them, stood Miss Poppleton herself. She had been walking along the passage, and attracted by the smell of burning, she had opened the door quietly to ascertain the cause. There was a moment of awful silence. Eleven sinners felt themselves most horribly caught.
"Who brought these things here?" demanded Miss Poppleton, eyeing the tray and its paraphernalia.
"I did. I got them from the kitchen," answered Gipsy. "We always made Fudge in the schoolroom in Dorcas City," she added, with a spice of defiance in her voice.
"You won't here!" returned Miss Poppleton grimly. "Take those things back to the kitchen at once. You will stay in from hockey to-morrow, and learn a page of French poetry. Each of you others" (glaring at the crestfallen circle) "will copy fifty lines ofParadise Lost, and bring them to me before Thursday. If you can't be trusted, I shall have to send one of the Seniors to sit with you in the evenings."
With this awful threat she departed, having first seen the exit of Gipsy with the tray.
"I knew Gipsy was bound to get into a scrape sooner or later," groaned Dilys.
"And we're in too, worse luck!" wailed Daisy Scatcherd. "Fifty lines is no joke!"
"It's ironical of her to chooseParadise Lostwhen the Fudge had just boiled over!" said Hetty."She doesn't like Gipsy, it's easy enough to see that."
"Here's Gipsy back. Well, my child, what do you think of your 'first bite', as you call it? Poppie didn't see your privileges! You'll have the pleasure of learning a whole page of French poetry to improve your mind, instead of playing hockey to-morrow!"
"I don't care!" said Gipsy, with an obstinate set to her mouth. "She may give me anything she likes, to learn. When folks are nice to me, I'll keep any number of rules; but when they begin to bully me, I just feel inclined to go and do something outrageous. I'm afraid there's not much love lost between Poppie and me."
Whenthe novelty of her introduction to Briarcroft had somewhat faded, and the excitement of the Lower School mutiny had subsided, Gipsy began to find the life more than a trifle dull. She had an adventurous temperament, and her roving life had given her a taste for constant change and variety, so the prim regime of the English boarding school seemed to her monotonous in the extreme. She chafed against the confinement and the regularity of the well-ordered arrangements.
"I feel as if I were shut up in a box!" she declared. "How can you all go on every day so contentedly with this 'prunes and prism' business? When I was at school up-country in Australia the mistress used to notice when we got restless, and take us for a day's camp into the bush. The day girls would bring horses for us boarders to use (everybody rides out there), and off we'd go, each with our picnic basket on our saddle, and have the very jolliest good time you could imagine. It worked off our spirits, and we'd come back to lessons as fresh as daisies and as meek as lambs."
"You get hockey here," objected Dilys, who generally stood up for Briarcroft institutions.
"Not enough of it," sighed Gipsy. "I like hockey, but it's nothing to a day's riding."
"Did your headmistress ride too?" enquired Lennie.
"Rather! Miss Yorke was Colonial born, and could have sat a kangaroo, I should think! She was a different article from Poppie, I assure you."
"Can't imagine Poppie controlling a fiery steed," giggled the girls.
"I should like to see you on horseback, Gipsy," said Hetty.
"I'd be only too glad to accommodate you, my dear, if you'd provide the gee-gee. I can tell you I'm just yearning for a canter."
"Nothing but a clothes horse here," remarked Dilys facetiously.
"Or the colt in the meadow beyond the hockey field," said Lennie.
"The colt! Of course I'd forgotten the colt!" exclaimed Gipsy rapturously.
"You'd never sit that wild thing! You'd have to ride him bareback. Even your wonderful cleverness can't do everything, I suppose!" said Gladys sarcastically.
"I can ride bareback," returned Gipsy. "It's nearly as easy as with a saddle."
"I'd like to see you catch him first."
"That's perfectly possible—he wears a halter. Do you dare me to do it? How many chocolates will you give me if I do?"
"A dozen, and a whole boxful if you ride him round the field."
"Then I'll show you a little prairie practice this afternoon. I haven't lived in the Colonies for nothing!"
"Don't, Gipsy, don't! It's too dangerous!" besought Hetty and Lennie.
"She won't really—it's all brag!" sneered Gladys.
"Is it indeed, Miss Gladys Merriman? Just wait till this afternoon, and I'll undeceive you."
"I'll wait to buy the box of chocolates, though," sniggered Gladys.
None of the girls really believed that Gipsy was in earnest, yet they sallied forth to the hockey field that afternoon with a certain amused anticipation. The news had been spread abroad in the Lower School, so the Juniors had assembled ten minutes in advance of their ordinary time on the chance of witnessing what Hetty called "the circus-riding". The hockey ground was divided from the meadow by a strong wooden paling, on the farther side of which the colt, a shaggy, ungroomed, raw-boned specimen of horse-flesh, was feeding.
"It is as frisky as—well, as a colt!" said Mary Parsons. "You'd better not try to catch that creature, Gipsy."
"It'll pretty soon kick her off if she does!" said Alice O'Connor. "Well, Gipsy? Going to turn tail at the last minute? You'd best give in!"
"Rather not!" returned Gipsy. "When I'm dared to do a thing, I do it—or have a good try, at any rate. If I'm not galloping round the field in tenminutes, you may count me done. Hetty, you keep time!" And without stopping to listen to any more remonstrances, she climbed over the palings.
She had brought some bread with her, and she walked very gently towards the colt, holding out her bait, and making a series of chirruping sounds calculated to win its confidence. The rough little creature paused in its task of tearing the grass, and eyed her doubtfully. It had been petted, however, by the boys at the farm to which it belonged (a fact of which Gipsy was well aware when she accepted Gladys's challenge), and had a marked partiality for such dainties as bread, sugar, and carrots. Though Gipsy was a stranger, it evidently considered she was familiar with horse language, and encouraged by her chirrups it advanced cautiously, rolling its eyes a little, and sniffing suspiciously. Gipsy stood still, and without moving a muscle let it come quite near and inspect her. She held the bread on the palm of her left hand; her right hand was ready for action when necessary.
The row of girls leaning over the palings watched in dead silence. Summoning up its courage, the colt stretched out its nose to take the tempting bread. Gipsy let it get the coveted morsel well within its lips, then seized the halter with her left hand and the long chestnut mane with her right, and with a sudden agile bound and scramble flung herself across its back. It was so quickly and neatly done that the bystanders held their breath with admiration. Gipsy's horsemanship was evidently no idle boast, if she couldperform so difficult a feat of gymnastics with such comparative ease. Meantime the colt, astonished and enraged at finding a burden on its back, was trying buck-jumping, and Gipsy had to cling to mane and halter to keep her seat. At this critical moment the Seniors and the mistresses arrived on the scene. Miss Poppleton's amazement and horror at finding one of her pupils mounted on the back of an unbroken colt were almost too great for words.
"Stop her! Stop her!" she gasped wildly. "Oh, for pity's sake, somebody stop her!"
But as it was certainly in nobody's power to stop her, Gipsy had to take the consequences of her own foolhardy act. The colt, after an amount of kicking and plunging, stood for an instant stockstill, then, rolling its eyes, set off at a furious gallop round the meadow. That Gipsy managed to stick on to its back even she herself afterwards confessed was almost a miracle, but she kept her seat somehow. Up and down the field fled her steed in furious career, till, tired of galloping, it changed its tactics and stood still and kicked, when Gipsy seized the opportunity of sliding to the ground. She just escaped its hoofs as, relieved of her weight, it scampered off to the farthest limit of the boundary fence. Very dishevelled and rather bruised and shaky, she picked herself up from the muddy spot where she had fallen, and limped back to the palings. The girls cheered. They couldn't help themselves, even though Miss Poppleton was present.
"She's as good as a cowboy!" exclaimed Lennie.
"Or a circus rider!" added Hetty proudly.
"Well done, Gipsy!"
"Bravo!"
Miss Poppleton, however, did not share the popular enthusiasm, and received her adventurous pupil with a scolding instead of congratulations.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Gipsy Latimer," she said sternly. "It's a mercy you were not killed. Understand once for all that I forbid such mad proceedings. If you have hurt your leg you had better go indoors. The sooner you learn that these are not Briarcroft ways, the better. This is a school for young ladies, not young hoydens!"
Slightly abashed, Gipsy beat a retreat to the house, where Miss Edith, who had been an agitated spectator from the linen-room window, bathed the wounded leg, put arnica on the bruises, and comforted the sufferer, while she proffered good advice.
"It was very naughty of you, you know, Gipsy dear!" she said in her kind-hearted, deprecating manner. "I don't know anything about riding, but it looked most dangerous, and of course, if Miss Poppleton said it was wrong, it was wrong. My sister is always right. Please remember that. Why, child, you're all trembling! I'll make you a cup of Bovril, and you must lie down on your bed for an hour. And promise me faithfully you'll never do such a foolish, silly, mad thing again! We want to hand you over to your father in good health when he comes to fetch you, and he'd blame us if you were hurt."
"He knows me only too well," twinkled Gipsy."But there—I'll promise anything you like, dear Miss Edith! Yes, the bruises feel better now, and the Bovril would be delicious. And you're a darling! Let me give you one hug, and I'll lie down like a monument of patience, though I don't feel the least scrap ill."
While the Seniors, with whom Gipsy was out of favour, viewed her escapade with lofty contempt as a madcap proceeding, the Juniors regarded her as an even greater heroine than before. Gladys Merriman redeemed her promise, and brought the box of chocolates she had offered, and Gipsy with strictest impartiality handed them round the Form till they were finished.
Gipsy had certainly established her record for horse-breaking, and though, according to Miss Poppleton, it was scarcely a lady-like accomplishment, there was hardly anyone in the Lower School who did not admire her prowess.
"You're like the girl in the cinematograph who tracks the villain to his mountain retreat, or finds the hero, bound with cords, lying in the brushwood, and then rides off post-haste to inform the sheriff. She always catches a wild-looking horse, and gallops full speed!" laughed Dilys.
"I wish we'd a cinema camera!" sighed Hetty. "We might have taken some gorgeous records this afternoon for the Photographic Society. No one even got a snapshot."
"Your own faults, not mine! You should have brought your cameras!" returned Gipsy.
"We never thought you'd really do it."
"Is that so? Well, when I allow to do any special thing, I guess I admire to see it through!"
"Oh, you Yankee!" roared the others.
Though the girls laughed at her Americanisms and Colonial ways, and often teased her about them, Gipsy continued as great a favourite as ever, she took all the banter so good-temperedly, and returned it so smartly. There was always a delightful uncertainty also as to what she would do next, and the prospect of an exciting interlude by "Yankee Doodle", as she was nicknamed, was felt decidedly to relieve the monotony of the ordinary Briarcroft atmosphere. Not that Gipsy really ever meant to behave badly; but, accustomed as she was to the free-and-easy conduct of her up-country Colonial schools, she found it almost impossible to realize that what would have been tolerated there with a smile was in her new surroundings counted a heinous crime. The silence rules and the orderly march in step from classroom to lecture hall filled her with dismay. She appeared to expect to be allowed to tear about the passages, talking at top speed, even in school hours, and many were the admonitions she incurred from indignant monitresses.
"A fine model you are for the Lower School!" said Doreen Tristram sarcastically one day. "Can't even walk decently in line, and prance about for all the world like a monkey tied to a barrel piano!"
Doreen had taken the defection of the Juniors much to heart, and could not forgive the leader of the opposition.
"Thanks! I wasn't aware my movements were so original!" retorted Gipsy. "There's method in my madness this time, though. I was trying to dodge Miss White, and dash upstairs to get myHamlet. I've forgotten the wretched thing, and if I go to class without a book, Poppie—h'm! I mean Miss Poppleton" (as Doreen's eyebrows went up)—"will want to know the reason why."
"I expect she will," returned Doreen dryly. "And serve you right too, for forgetting! No, I shall not allow you to go and fetch it. I'm here to keep order, not to help you out of scrapes."
The Upper Fourth, under Doreen's superintendence, had just filed from its own classroom to attend a Shakespeare lecture by the Principal. The girls were a few minutes early, and in consequence were drawn up like a small regiment in the corridor to wait until a previous class was over and they could enter the lecture hall. Waiting is often dull work, and Gipsy had considered herself a public benefactor in seeking to enliven the tedium of her form mates. Doreen's notions on the subject of discipline did not appeal to her.
"But I can't go to the Shakespeare lesson without myHamlet," she remonstrated. "Suppose I'm asked to read?"
"You should have thought of that before!" snapped Doreen. "Be quiet, Gipsy Latimer; if you speak another word I shall report you!"
Gipsy refrained from further unavailing speech, but her active brain was by no means silenced. I do notthink anybody but herself would have dreamed of doing what followed. The outer door of the corridor was standing open, and when the monitress's back was for the moment turned, Gipsy slipped out into the playground. On the opposite side of the quadrangle stood the open window of her classroom, ten feet or so above the ground. The wall of that part of the house was thickly covered with ivy, and in less time than it takes to tell it she was scrambling up with as much agility as the monkey to which Doreen had unfeelingly compared her. A few girls who happened to be standing near the door and witnessed her achievement gasped audibly, but I verily believe Gipsy would have been back before she was missed, had not Maude Helm officiously chirped out:
"Oh, I say! Look at Yankee Doodle!"
Naturally the monitress did look, and fled into the courtyard in pursuit of the runaway. Her outraged face, upturned from below, greeted Gipsy as that irrepressible damsel reappeared at the window waving herHamletin triumph.
"Gipsy Latimer, go back down the stairs!" commanded Doreen.
"No, thanks! It's shorter this way, and saves time," returned Gipsy, dropping her book first, then swinging herself out of the window. She came down the ivy quite easily, picked up herHamlet, smoothed its cover, which had suffered in the fall, and flitted back to her place in the corridor, just as the lecture room door opened to let out the Third Form and admit the Upper Fourth. Doreen followed grimly.
"You needn't think you're going to play these tricks with impunity," she said. "You'll report yourself to-morrow at the monitresses' meeting at four o'clock. We'll see what the head of the school has to say to you!"
"Delighted, I'm sure! I've got myHamlet, anyhow," chuckled naughty Gipsy, as she disappeared into the lecture hall.
On this occasion I am afraid she was not altogether innocent of cause of offence, and had taken a distinct pleasure in defying Doreen. Perhaps she thought, on maturer consideration, that she had gone a trifle too far, for she turned up at the monitresses' meeting with a countenance sobered down to the requirements of so solemn a convocation.
"Gipsy Latimer, you are here to report yourself for insubordination," began Helen Roper with dignity. "Do you realize that monitresses are officers in this school, and that their authority is only second to that of the mistresses?"
Gipsy took a clean handkerchief from her pocket, and, unfolding it ostentatiously, blinked hard.
"I realize it now," she answered, with a something in her voice that might have been either laughter or tears; "I'm afraid I was very ignorant before."
Helen glared at her suspiciously. Was that a twinkle in the dark eyes? But no; Gipsy was looking grave in the extreme.
"The monitresses must be obeyed," continued the head of the school. "Every girl at Briarcroft knowsthat, and anyone who deliberately disobeys incurs the penalty of being reported to Miss Poppleton."
The corners of Gipsy's mouth were drooping; her face had assumed an expression of abject penitence.
"Please don't do that to me!" she pleaded humbly. "Remember how badly I've been brought up! If I'd been at Briarcroft all the time, instead of other schools, and had had the advantage of the monitresses, I might have been different."
"I expect you would," said Helen freezingly. "And you'll please to remember that now you're here, you'll have to conform to our standards."
"I know I'm a heathen. I'll be only too grateful to be taught better," murmured the subdued voice that was so strangely unlike Gipsy's usual sprightly tones.
Lena Morris turned away to hide a smile. She was possessed of a strong sense of humour, and moreover had a sneaking liking for Gipsy.
"Mind you do as you're told next time, then," commanded Helen. "I'll excuse you this once, but if it happens again, I warn you that I shall send you straight to Miss Poppleton. You may think yourself very lucky to be let off so easily. You can go now."
Gipsy's big brown eyes looked like two wells absolutely overflowing with gratitude and humility.
"Thanks so very immensely much! It's far more than I deserve!" she sighed, and, flaunting the clean handkerchief, beat a hasty retreat.
The monitresses would have been edified if they could have seen the war dance she executed in the passage as soon as the door was shut.
"Couldn't have kept my face a moment longer!" she choked to one or two friends who were waiting for her. "Oh, you should have seen me as the penitent! I think I did the thing rather neatly."
"You mad hatter! I wonder Helen didn't see you were shamming," said Hetty.
"No, no! She's been improving my mind and showing me the path I ought to walk in. How would you like me if I turned out a first-class prig?"
"It couldn't be done. Come along, you wild gipsy thing! Do you want the monitresses to come out and catch you? You'll get into a really big scrape some day if you're not careful."
"Some people are born wise and proper, and some are born otherwise. I'm one of the otherwise! It's my misfortune, not my fault," laughed Gipsy, as Lennie and Hetty dragged her forcibly away.
Gipsy's wild spirits were undoubtedly liable to lead her beyond the bounds of propriety, and both mistresses and monitresses were inclined, justly or unjustly, to suspect that she was at the bottom of any mischief that cropped up in the school. One incident, though shrouded in mystery, was generally laid by Miss Poppleton as a sin to her charge. In the upper corridor, not very far from Gipsy's dormitory, hung a long chain which sounded a fire bell. The boarders at Briarcroft were instructed in fire drill, though a night summons was generally only given in summertime, as Miss Poppleton was afraid of the girls catching cold. Gipsy had read the printed card of"Directions in case of Fire", and had examined the chute with intense interest.
"I'd just love to go sliding down it out of our bedroom window," she exclaimed. "It would be almost as much fun as toboganning."
"Rather freezing work on these sharp nights. There was ice on the puddles this morning," said Dilys. "No fire-drill practice for me, thank you! I prefer to stop snug in bed."
"You've no spirit of adventure in you," returned Gipsy.
"I've got sound common sense instead, and that's what you don't possess, Yankee Doodle!"
"All the same, that summons is going to come off, by hook or by crook!" said Gipsy to herself. "It would be a kindness to the school to give it a chance to see whether it's prepared for emergencies. Gipsy Latimer, I guess you'll have to be the philanthropist! But you've no need to flaunt your noble deed. 'Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame', in fact."
If Gipsy, before she went to bed that night, contrived to tie a long piece of string to the bell chain in the passage, and to secure the other end to her bedpost, she did not blazon the fact abroad, and the string was so neatly laid against the edges of skirting board and under mats that nobody happened to notice it. At 3 a.m., when the whole of Briarcroft was wrapped in deepest slumbers, there suddenly came the greatclang-clangof the fire bell, resounding and echoing through the quiet house. Everybody woke in a hurry, and the head of each dormitory at once switched on the electriclight and assumed command. The well-trained girls dipped their towels in water and put them over their mouths, threw the red blankets from their beds round their shoulders, and lined up along the corridor. Miss Lindsay was already there, and gave the command to march, and away trooped the boarders downstairs and out of the front door on to the lawn, where they ranged themselves to be counted. The light streaming through the front door revealed a strange sight—all the girls in night gear, with their scarlet blankets trailing on the ground. The juveniles were clasping dolls and other treasures, and some of the others had caught up big sponges in their confusion. The whole exit had only taken about a hundred seconds from the sounding of the bell, and if Gipsy was last, and clutched a roll of string in her hand, nobody remarked the circumstance.
There followed a hurried enquiry among the mistresses as to the whereabouts of the fire, and the discovery that no fire existed. Miss Poppleton hastily gave the order to return, and the boarders trooped back shivering to the dormitories, not a little disconcerted to have been disturbed for nothing on a chilly night in November. The Principal made every enquiry next day as to the source of the alarm, but she could discover nothing. Dilys Fenton was able to assure her that when she had switched on the light in No. 3 Dormitory Gipsy Latimer had been asleep, and she had been obliged to shake her violently to awaken her, so it was quite impossible that Gipsy could be responsible for the practical joke. The occurrencemade a great excitement among the boarders. For days they talked of scarcely anything else.
"It was over too soon, and they didn't use the chute after all," said Gipsy disconsolately.
"Gipsy! you never—you couldn't— Oh, surely——!"
But Gipsy's brown eyes looked such absolute mirrors of innocence that even Hetty's suspicions were laid to rest.
ThoughGipsy was accustomed to try to enjoy herself in any place where circumstances chanced to fling her, and though she had contrived to settle down fairly happily at Briarcroft, she nevertheless thought often of her father, far away on the opposite side of the Equator. He must long ago have arrived at the Cape, and it was high time that she received news from him, telling her of his whereabouts. Every morning she looked out anxiously for the post, but day after day brought the same disappointment. She was the only boarder who had no letters, and she often felt her isolated position keenly when she saw her schoolmates tearing open their welcome budgets. It would be nice, she thought, to have a mother and brothers and sisters to write to her, and a home to go to in the holidays. In her roving life she could not remember a real home; a log hut for a few weeks in a mining camp had been the nearest approach to it.
"But I've Dad, and he's better than a whole family; and it's fun to go about the world with him, though I do live mostly at hotels when I'm not at school,"she said to herself. "I'm not going to worry my head. Dad will send me a letter as soon as he possibly can, I know. He's not in the least likely to forget me."
So she tried to comfort herself, but every day she looked out wistfully for the postman—how wistfully nobody but Miss Edith ever noticed. It was growing towards the end of November, and already the boarders were beginning to talk of the holidays. The evening recreation time was devoted to the making of Christmas presents; even the little girls were busy embroidering traycloths and constructing pincushions. Gipsy began to work a pair of slippers for her father, a rather lengthy proceeding, for she was not clever at needlecraft, and was apt to pull her wool too tightly, having to unpick her stitches in consequence. There was no particular hurry in her case, though, for it was impossible for her to dispatch the parcel in time for Christmas when she did not know where to address it. If there was a forlorn look in the brown eyes sometimes when others talked about home, they twinkled again so readily that her schoolmates never realized she could feel lonely, and a stranger in a strange land. To them she appeared the very epitome of fun and happy-go-lucky carelessness, and they would have been surprised indeed if they had known what a very sore heart she carried occasionally under her outward assumption of jollity.
Daisy Scatcherd's birthday fell on the last day of November. Daisy, though she merited her nickname of "Scatterbrains", was rather a favourite among theboarders, so she came off very well indeed in the matter of presents. Her home people had also remembered her, and many interesting parcels arrived for her during the course of the morning. Between four and half-past, in the afternoon, she was taking a run round the garden in company with a few friends, when she spied the postman walking briskly up the drive.
"I expect he's got something more for me," she exclaimed, and dived under the laurels to take a short cut to the drive and intercept him.
"Give me the letters, please! It's my birthday!" she said breathlessly.
"Only three this afternoon, missy! Don't know whether any of 'em's for you or not," said the man, laughing.
"Let me see! Yes! yes! I'll take them, please. It's all right."
Not sorry to save the extra walk to the house, the postman departed. He was late, and had a long round before he could return home. Daisy was looking eagerly at the letters. One, a thin foreign envelope, was addressed to Miss Gipsy Latimer, and that she thrust hastily into her coat pocket; the other two were for herself. They both contained postal orders, which elevated her to such heights of satisfaction that she never gave a thought to the letter she had stuffed in her pocket: indeed, in her excitement she had put it away so automatically that the incident faded from her memory almost as soon as it happened. She rushed into the house in a state ofgreat exultation, to ask Miss Edith to take charge of her orders, and put them away safely.
"A whole pound! Isn't it lovely? I shall buy a new camera, or perhaps a bookcase like Hetty Hancock's; or I want a bracelet watch most fearfully badly, and I expect I'll get some more money at Christmas that I could put to it. What would you advise, Miss Edith?" she chattered.
"Wait till you go home and consult your mother," said Miss Edith. "What a cold you've got, child! You oughtn't to have been running about the garden. And this coat is much too thin. You must wear your thick one now. Put this away in your wardrobe, to take home at Christmas."
"Mother said I needn't take my autumn clothes back with me," objected Daisy. "It only crams up my boxes. She said they might as well be left here."
"Very well. I'll put it away in my big cupboard until the spring. Here are some cough lozenges, and I shall rub your chest to-night with camphorated oil. Go and sit by the fire, and mind you don't get into draughts."
"I've got all my birthday letters to answer," replied Daisy, as she tripped gaily away. "I don't particularly want to go out again."
Miss Edith folded the coat neatly, placed a packet of camphor balls with it to keep away moths, and laid it with a pile of similar garments inside a large cupboard in the linen room. It never struck her to look in the pockets, so the letter so longed for andexpected lay upstairs in the dark, and Gipsy waited and hoped, and hoped and waited, all in vain.
To forget her troubles she threw herself with enthusiasm into the working of the Dramatic Section of the Lower School Guild. The Juniors intended to actThe Sleeping Beauty, and she had been chosen as the wicked fairy, a part which she rehearsed with much spirit. She was unwearied in her efforts at arranging costumes, constructing scenery, and coaching her fellow performers in their speeches. She soon had the whole play by heart, and could act prompter without the help of the book—a decided convenience to those whose memories were liable to fail them at critical moments.
Though the Guild comprised a number of separate societies, it lacked one feature which Gipsy considered it certainly ought to possess. Briarcroft had no school magazine, and not even among the Seniors had one ever been suggested.
"Yet it's really a most necessary thing," urged Gipsy. "How else can one give notice of coming events, and reports of what has taken place? It's such fun, too! Why shouldn't we steal a march on the Upper School and start one of our own?"
"There's the expense, my child, for one thing," replied Mary Parsons, who was treasurer of the United Guild. "The subscriptions don't go very far when we want to buy so many things with them. I'm sure they wouldn't run to printing."
"I never intended having it printed. I know that would be beyond us."
"Perhaps we could have it typed," suggested Fiona Campbell, whose father was a journalist. "Dad always sends his articles to a typing office, and it looks just as good as printing when it's done."
"I don't think the Guild could afford even that," said Mary. "The costumes for the play will about clear out the funds for this term, and next term, you know, we voted to buy a developing machine."
"It was mean of the Seniors to stick to all the properties of the other Guilds! They might have given us something," put in Norah Bell.
"Trust them! They wouldn't part with so much as a twopenny music sheet!" said Gipsy. "But about the Magazine; it needn't cost us anything. My idea was to ask Miss White to lend us the duplicator, and we'd make a copy for each Form. They could be lent round and round. If we liked we might put in a few illustrations. You're good at drawing, Fiona."
"That certainly sounds more simple," said Dilys. "And the Mag. would be ripping fun. We'd have articles and poetry and stories and reviews and all sorts of things."
"Would it be a monthly?" enquired Hetty.
"I should say about twice a term would be enough," said Gipsy. "It would be difficult to get contributions if you had it too often."
"We couldn't duplicate the illustrations," objected Fiona, whose mind was already turned to things artistic.
"No; each Form would have to provide its own pictures for its own copy. That would make it allthe more interesting. There'd be no two quite alike."
"And we could even have advertisements, and a kind of Exchange and Mart!" exclaimed Dilys, who was immensely taken with the idea. "It would just suit the First and Second; they're always trading white mice or silkworms with one another."
"We'll add a Beauty Bureau, with hints about the complexion, if you like," suggested Gipsy demurely.
The others laughed, for Dilys was rather vain of her appearance, and kept many bottles of toilet requisites upon her portion of the dressing-table.
"Best call a general meeting of the Guild; then we can propose the thing, and have it carried through in proper order," said Hetty. "I believe it will catch on. Gipsy, you write out some notices and pin them up in the classrooms."