"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! Now at 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 foraging expedition. 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 of Paradise 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 choose Paradise Lost when 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."



CHAPTER VII

Gipsy takes her Fling

WHEN the 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 ten minutes, 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 could perform 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 my Hamlet. 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 my Hamlet," 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 not think 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 her Hamlet in 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 her Hamlet, 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 my Hamlet, 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 knows that, 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 great clang-clang of 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 electric light 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 occurrence made 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.



CHAPTER VIII

Daisy Forgets

THOUGH Gipsy 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 the boarders, 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 of great 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 and expected 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 act The 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 all the 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."

"A GENERAL MEETING

of the

UNITED GUILD

Will be held on THURSDAY at 4 p.m. in the Dressing-Room.

Business:—To discuss the proposal of starting a Lower School Magazine.

All members are particularly requested to attend."

So ran the Secretary's notice, and the girls who read it were only too eager to respond to the invitation. They felt that Gipsy stirred things up at Briarcroft, and were ready to listen to anything fresh she might have to suggest. As Hetty had expected, the idea was received with enthusiasm, and when Gipsy propounded her scheme in detail, everybody cordially agreed, and the motion was carried unanimously.

"There's one principal matter to be settled," said Dilys, who, as President, occupied the post of chairman. "We've got to choose an editor."

"Then I beg to propose Gipsy Latimer," said Meg Gordon, rising hastily.

"And I beg to second the proposal," said Hetty Hancock.

"Gipsy! Yes, Gipsy!" exclaimed the girls, and a forest of hands went up.

"You'll have to take it, Gipsy," urged Hetty. "You're the most suitable of anybody. It's a new thing in the school, so it's best managed by a new girl. We should none of us understand how to do it. Besides, you suggested it. The whole plan of it is yours."

"Right-o, if you think I'm 'the man for the job'," agreed Gipsy.

Though she had not canvassed for the post, Gipsy was delighted to get the editorship. Running a magazine was work that exactly suited her. She was sure she could make it a success, and she looked forward with immense satisfaction to issuing her first number. A name had yet to be chosen, and after much debate it was decided to call the new venture the Briarcroft Juniors' Journal.

"That'll quite cut the Seniors out of it," said Meg Gordon. "We don't want them to get any of the credit."

"And 'Juniors' Journal' has a nice juicy kind of sound," said Daisy Scatcherd.

"A juicy journal would be a new departure—it suggests oily words and honeyed speeches!" laughed Hetty.

By general vote, the first number was to be issued a week before the end of the term, so Gipsy had to set to work in earnest in her capacity of editress, inviting contributions from likely members, and settling the various departments of her magazine. She intended to conduct it on the lines of a real publication, and to keep separate pages for Sports and Pastimes, Reviews of Books, Nature Notes, How to Make Things, Handy Recipes, Puzzles, Competitions, and Letters from Correspondents, as well as matter of a more original literary character. It was rather a big order, but Gipsy's ambitions soared high; she felt it was a chance for the Lower School to shine, and she spared no trouble to make her scheme a success.

There was very little time for all this, but she worked systematically, apportioning the departments among different girls, and making them promise to write certain things. Joyce Adamson, who was "great" on hockey, was told off for "Sports and Pastimes"; Ethel Newton, a day girl, who lived a few miles away quite in the heart of the country, undertook the "Nature Notes"; Meg Gordon's fertile brain could be trusted to invent puzzles and competitions; neat-fingered Norah Bell contributed an article on "How to make Paper Boxes"; and Gipsy herself undertook the "Library Shelf" and "Answers to Correspondents". Fiona Campbell provided some dainty illustrations, and her example was emulated by members of other Forms, who were also invited to submit articles, stories, nature notes, and puzzles. Gipsy, with the oligarchy of the Seniors fresh in her memory as a warning, did not wish the Upper Fourth to monopolize the Magazine by any means, and the younger girls were strongly urged to try their 'prentice hands at the art of composition. She herself was busy with the opening chapter of a serial, in which she intended to set forth all her adventures in the Colonies, embroidered by the aid of her imagination. Fortunately Miss White was kind, and, sympathizing with the idea of a magazine, allowed the duplicator to be used in its production, so that Gipsy was able to strike off six copies, for the First, Second, Lower Third, Upper Third, Lower Fourth, and Upper Fourth respectively. Each Form undertook to produce its own cover, the younger children being helped by the drawing mistress, who was much interested, and allowed a special afternoon to be devoted to the purpose. The designs were painted on brown paper, and varied from sprays of flowers to conventional patterns, according to the taste of the Form, though each bore in large letters the same inscription: Briarcroft Juniors' Journal.

It was a proud day for Gipsy when she completed her arrangements, and all the six copies were ready in their artistic covers. The contributors had really done their best in the brief time at their disposal. There were two or three short stories, an article on pet dogs, some recipes for sweets and toffee, including Gipsy's favourite American Fudge, and quite a long page of nature notes, the latter being contributed mostly by the day girls. Gipsy had not had time to write any book reviews, but she had enjoyed herself over the answers to correspondents. She had posted up a notice inviting letters when first the scheme for the Magazine was accepted, and quite a budget had been delivered at the "editorial office"—otherwise her school desk. Some were couched in rather a facetious vein, but she answered them as if they were intended to be serious, sometimes with a comic result. A correspondent who signed herself "Honeysuckle" had enquired: "Can you tell me how to stop my feet from growing any bigger? I take fives in shoes and I am only eleven." To which Gipsy replied: "You are evidently eating too much, Honeysuckle! Limit your diet to water and crusts, and abstain from sweets, cakes, and toffee in any form. You will then probably stop growing at all in any direction, either up or down."

Gertie Butler, of the Lower Third, had blossomed into poetry, and had composed an "Ode to the Magazine", the opening lines of which ran:

"Hail, literary gem of Briarcroft Hall! Thou com'st to be a blessing to us all".

The exchange column was voted "ripping", and resulted in the transfer of several families of white mice, some foreign stamps, a variety of picture post-cards, and other treasures. The first instalment of Gipsy's serial, "The Girl Pioneer of Wild Cat Creek", was so thrillingly exciting that its readers could hardly wait for the second chapter, and pressed the authoress for details of "what was coming next"; but as Gipsy had not made up any more, they were obliged to curb their impatience. Altogether the Magazine was a brilliant success; and if it lacked anything in composition and grammar, it made that up in other ways. Miss Poppleton, who examined a copy, expressed her entire approval, and the teachers greatly encouraged the girls to persevere and continue this new branch of the Guild. The Seniors affected to ignore the whole affair.

"But that's just put on," said Hetty Hancock. "They know all about it. I saw Helen Roper and Doreen Tristram sneak into our classroom yesterday when no one was there, at dinner-time. The Mag. was lying on Miss White's desk, and they took it up and began to read it. They simply shrieked with laughing."

"What cheek! Let them write one of their own then!" exclaimed the indignant editress. "I'll undertake to say it wouldn't be half as interesting as ours!"

"Not one ten-millionth part as nice. Ours is just too scrumptiously ripping!" agreed Hetty.



CHAPTER IX

Gipsy grows Anxious

GIPSY spent the Christmas holidays at Briarcroft. Miss Poppleton went away to Switzerland, to refresh her tired mind with the winter sports; but Miss Edith stayed behind, to count linen, and superintend workmen who were making some alterations in the bathrooms. She and Gipsy managed to enjoy themselves in a quiet manner, but the latter hailed the return of her schoolfellows with considerable relief. The house seemed so big and silent and lonely without its usual lively crew of boarders, and the dormitory with its empty beds oppressed her. Miss Poppleton came back more brisk and bustling than ever, and was at once immersed in the business of interviewing parents and rearranging school affairs, and in the thousand and one cares that always occupied her at the beginning of term.

When about ten days had gone by, and Briarcroft had settled down into its ordinary routine, she sent a message to Gipsy to report herself in the study. Gipsy obeyed with a feeling of considerable apprehension. Miss Poppleton's manner towards her, never very gracious, had been markedly cold since the Christmas holidays. For some reason she was evidently much out of favour. She tapped more deferentially at the study door, and entered less confidently than she had done on the morning after her arrival. A term at Briarcroft had taught her many lessons. The Principal was seated at her desk, studying an account book, and to judge from the jerking movements of her mouth, she was in a state of mind quite the reverse of amiable.

"Gipsy Latimer," she began uncompromisingly, "I've sent for you to enquire if you've heard anything at all from your father?"

Gipsy shook her head silently. It was such a sore subject that she could hardly bear to speak about it.

"It's a most extraordinary thing!" commented Miss Poppleton. "Since the day he left you here, he has never written a line either to me or to you. I don't like the look of it at all. Did he tell you where he was going?"

"Back to Cape Town," replied Gipsy briefly.

"Did he leave you any address?"

"No; he said he would be going up-country into a very wild place, but he would write when he got to the Cape."

"Has he any friends at Cape Town who would know of his whereabouts?"

"Not that I know of."

The barometer of Miss Poppleton's face seemed to fall still lower.

"This won't do at all!" she said, frowning. "When your father brought you, he paid for you up to Christmas, but no more. Now, the rule of this school is that fees must be paid in advance at the beginning of each term. I don't make an exception for anybody. Where are your fees for this term, I should like to know?—to say nothing of the holidays you spent here!"

It was such an utterly unanswerable question that Gipsy did not attempt a reply.

"I had a girl left on my hands like this once before," continued Miss Poppleton, "and I said then it should never happen again. Have you any relations in England?"

"Not one!"

"Or friends who could take charge of you?"

"I know absolutely nobody in England."

"Who are your relations, then? Surely you must have some in some portion of the globe?"

"Not any near ones. We have some cousins in New Zealand, at a farm right up in the bush."

"Where did your father come from? Hadn't your mother any relations?"

"Father was born in New Zealand, but his grandfather came out from England. Mother was an American, from Texas, I believe. Her mother was Spanish. I never heard about her relations. She died when I was a baby, and we've always been travelling about ever since I can remember."

"Humph! That doesn't look well. Had your father no permanent address, then, where letters would always be forwarded to him?"

"I never heard him say so."

Gipsy stood with her little brown hands pressed hard together, and her mouth set tightly while she answered this unwelcome catechism. Miss Poppleton might have pitied the sad look in the dark eyes, but she went on bluntly:

"I'm afraid it's only too evident he wants to get rid of the burden of your education. We've got to trace him somehow. It's all very fine for him to leave you here and desert you!"

Gipsy's face turned crimson, and the big sob that had been gathering in her throat nearly choked her for a moment.

"Father would never desert me!" she gasped at last. "He promised faithfully he'd come back and fetch me. Oh! you don't know Dad, to say that. I'm afraid something's happened to him—out there!"

She did not tell Miss Poppleton how she had hoped against hope, and lain awake at night wondering, and searching her mind for any possible solution of his silence, but she looked such a forlorn little figure that in spite of herself the Principal slightly relented.

"Well, Gipsy," she said more kindly, "I'm afraid it looks a bad business. I'm sure you understand that it would be impossible for me to keep on my school if pupils did not pay their fees. I can't afford to be kept waiting. In your case, however, we'll let matters stand for awhile, and see if we hear from your father. In the meantime I might write to your cousins in New Zealand. It will take three months, though, before I can get a letter back."

"More," sighed Gipsy. "They only go down to the town once a month for letters, and not then if the river's in flood. They live in such a wild place—right up in the bush."

"At any rate they're your relations, and ought to be responsible for you," snapped Miss Poppleton. "If the worst comes to the worst, I could send you out to them through the Emigration Society. It's a very awkward position to be placed in—very awkward indeed. You're absolutely sure you know of nobody, either in England or at the Cape, who could give information about your father?"

"No one at all. I didn't know anything about Dad's business. I was at school, and he used just to come and fetch me for the holidays," confessed Gipsy sadly.

Miss Poppleton shut her account book with an annoyed slam.

"Well, there's no further help for it at present. We must see what turns up. Of course, I can't pretend to keep you here indefinitely. Give me the address of your cousins in New Zealand, and I will write to them to-day. That seems the best we can do. The whole thing is most unfortunate."

Gipsy dictated the address as steadily as she could, then taking advantage of Miss Poppleton's brief "That will do; you may go now!" she fled to the most remote corner of her dormitory and sobbed her heart out. There she was found later on by Miss Edith, who came to put away clean clothes. Poor Miss Edith was generally torn in two between strict loyalty to her sister and the promptings of her own kind heart. She knew the cause of Gipsy's trouble well enough. She sat down beside the forlorn child, and comforted her as best she could.

"I wish Dad would write! Oh, he can't have forgotten me! I wish I'd anybody to go to; I haven't a soul nearer than New Zealand!" wailed Gipsy.

"You mustn't make yourself so miserable, Gipsy dear!" said Miss Edith nervously. "I'm sure Miss Poppleton will keep you here for a while, and perhaps your father will write after all. My sister will do everything that's right—she always does. Oh, don't sob so, child! She'll see that you're taken care of. Do try to cheer up, that's a dear! You must trust Miss Poppleton, Gipsy. There, there! You'll feel better now you've had a good cry. Wash your face in cold water, and take a run round the garden. It's a good thing it's Saturday!"

Gipsy didn't feel equally confident of Miss Poppleton's benevolence, but she gave Miss Edith a hug, and took her advice. She had not lost faith in her father, only his silence made her fear for his welfare. She was aware of the many dangers of life in the rough mining camps where his work lay, and shuddered as she remembered his tales of attacks by desperadoes, skirmishes with natives, or perils of wild beasts. Almost directly, however, her naturally cheerful and hopeful disposition reasserted itself. She knew letters sometimes miscarried or were lost, or perhaps her father might have been ill and unable to write.

"He'll let me hear about him somehow," she said to herself. "I must just try and be very patient. Dad desert me! Why, the idea's ridiculous. And I've a feeling I'd know if he was dead. No! He's alive somewhere and thinking of me, and it will all come right in the end. His very last words were: 'I'll soon be back to fetch you!' I mustn't let folks at the school think I don't believe in Dad. That would never do! I'll show them how I can trust him!"

True to her intention of vindicating her faith in her father, Gipsy, after the first outburst of tears, took a pride in concealing her feelings, and preserving at least an outward appearance of calm confidence. It certainly needed all her courage to face the situation, for there were several circumstances which rendered it peculiarly trying. Miss Poppleton, with whom she had never been a favourite, snapped at her more frequently than before, and was harder to please as regarded both lessons and conduct. Gipsy often felt she was treated unfairly, and received more than her due share of blame for any little occurrence that cropped up.

A great many small things contributed to make her feel her position. Her morning glass of milk, which all the boarders and some of the day girls took in the pantry at eleven o'clock, was knocked off, as were all concerts and lectures where there was a charge for admission. It was not pleasant, when the other boarders were taken into Greyfield, to have to stay behind for the sake of the price of a ticket and a tram fare. She had long ago spent all her pocket-money, and there was no more forthcoming. Not only was she denied such luxuries as chocolates, but she was not even able to pay her subscription to the Guild, which, by the new arrangement, was due at the beginning of each term. The Committee, who knew the reason and sympathized with her, ignored the matter; but poor Gipsy, as Secretary, felt her deficiency very keenly when she made up the accounts. She was a proud, sensitive girl, and the knowledge that she alone, of the whole Guild, had not rendered her dues to the Treasurer was a bitter humiliation.

It was not in regard to the Guild alone that she was hampered by lack of money. During the spring term the girls at Briarcroft were accustomed to get up a small bazaar in aid of a home for waifs and strays. They were already beginning to work for it, and Gipsy, who would gladly have helped, made the unpleasant discovery that it is impossible to make bricks without straw, or in other words that she had no materials. Each Form generally took a stall, so one afternoon there was a little informal meeting of the Upper Fourth, to discuss what contributions could be relied upon.

"I vote that each girl undertakes to make a certain number of articles; that would be far the easiest, and then we should know how we stand," suggested Alice O'Connor. "We'll draw up a list, and write it down."

"Need we do it quite that way?" said Hetty Hancock. "Wouldn't it be enough if each promises to do what she can?"

"Why? It's much better to nail people."

"Well, you see, it mightn't suit everybody. There's one girl I know who perhaps really couldn't undertake to make several things. We don't want her to feel uncomfortable."

Gipsy was not in the room at that moment, so Hetty was free to give her hint.

"If you mean Gipsy Latimer, I don't see why we should spoil the bazaar to spare her feelings!" returned Alice bluntly.

"I don't want to spoil the bazaar. I only thought we might do it some other way that wouldn't hurt her pride."

"What nonsense! People oughtn't to have such ridiculous pride!" expostulated Gladys Merriman. "I think Alice's idea is a good one. I'll vote for it if she proposes it properly."

"But surely you wouldn't like it yourself—" began Hetty.

"Hush! Here's Gipsy!" said Dilys hastily.

Neither Alice nor Gladys bore any special love for Gipsy, and they were not particularly desirous to spare her the unpleasantness of an open confession of her inability to make her contribution. Perhaps it was with a spice of malice that Alice rose immediately and offered her suggestion.

"Each girl could surely undertake at least three articles—that ought to be the minimum—and as many more as she's capable of doing," she said in conclusion.

There was a moment's pause in the room. On the face of it, Alice's proposal was excellent. Everybody felt it ought to be carried out, but many shared Hetty's motive in objecting to it. It was Lennie Chapman who saved the situation.

"I beg to propose an amendment," she put in quickly, "that, instead of each girl promising things separately, we may be allowed to form ourselves into working trios. Three of us could promise a dozen articles between us, to be made just as we like, all stitching at the same piece of embroidery if the fancy took us—just joint work, in fact. We'd spur each other on in that way, and get far more finished than if we did it singly."

"Excellent!" commented Dilys. "Who votes for the amendment?"

It was carried by half the Form, much to Lennie's relief. She and Hetty promptly proposed to form a trio with Gipsy, and were thus able to rescue her from rather a difficult position.

"But I haven't even a skein of embroidery silk!" sighed Gipsy afterwards to them in private.

"Never mind! Hetty and I can get the silks, and you shall do some extra work to make it square. We shall be exactly quits in that way. You can do all the painting part, too, on those blotters; you paint far better than either of us. My flowers are always scrawny, and yours are lovely. There's an enormous advantage in working threesomes!"

"Yes, for me!" said Gipsy gratefully.

There are some unworthy natures who cannot resist the temptation of kicking anyone who is down. It was very quickly realized at Briarcroft that Gipsy was in ill favour at headquarters; and though most of the girls were sorry for her, with a certain number her changed fortunes undoubtedly lessened her popularity. Maude Helm never lost an opportunity of a sneer or a slight, and could sometimes raise a laugh at Gipsy's expense among the more thoughtless section of the Form. Gipsy generally responded with spirit, but the gibes hurt all the same.



"When are you going to get some new hair ribbons, Yankee Doodle?" asked Gladys Merriman one day. "Those red flags of yours are looking rather dejected."

"The American turkey's losing its top-knot," sniggered Maude tauntingly. "It doesn't soar up aloft like it used to do! Been a little tamed by the British lion!"

"If you imagine a turkey to be the crest of the United States, you're a trifle out," said Gipsy scornfully.

"I'd take to a pigtail if I were you," tittered Maude. "It only needs one ribbon!"

"If you were me, then I suppose I'd be you—and, yes, it might be necessary to change my style of hair-dressing," retorted Gipsy, with a glance at Maude's not too plentiful locks.

Some of the girls giggled, and Cassie Bertram murmured: "Rats' tails, not pigtails! Or even mouse tails!"

Maude scowled. She had not intended the laugh to be turned against herself.

"I wouldn't wear limp, faded red bows at any price," she commented, banging her desk to close the conversation, and stalking from the room.

"That Gipsy Latimer's too conceited altogether! I should like to take her down a peg," she confided to Gladys, as the pair walked arm-in-arm round the playground.

"Well, so you do, continually!" said Gladys.

"That's only by the way. She deserves something more for her American cheek. I'm going to play a trick on her, Gladys. It'll be ever such fun! Listen!"

The two girls put their heads together, and laughed as Maude whispered her plan; then they both scuttled up to the empty classroom, and abstracting Gipsy's atlas from her desk, carried it downstairs to the lost-property cupboard, and hid it carefully under a pile of books.

"She won't find that in a hurry!" chuckled Maude.

"There'll be a fine to-do when she misses it," said Gladys.

"People who suffer from 'swelled head' just deserve a little wholesome medicine, to cure them of thinking too much of themselves. Now she's editor of the Magazine, Yankee Doodle's unbearable, to my mind. There are others in the Form who can write stories as well as herself."

"Yours about the brigands was lovely!" gushed Gladys obediently.

"Well, I don't boast, but I flatter myself it wasn't the worst in the Mag. I don't call it fair that everything should be in the hands of one girl, and she a foreigner, as one might say! I'll talk to you again about this, Gladys, for I've got an idea I mean to exploit later on. Come along now, there's the bell!"

That afternoon the Upper Fourth had a lesson with Miss Poppleton on "The Work of our Great Explorers". The class was held in the lecture hall, and each girl was required to bring with her an atlas, a blank book for drawing charts, a notebook, a pencil, and indiarubber. Gipsy's desk was not always a miracle of neatness, but she understood its apparent confusion, and could generally lay her hand in a moment upon anything she wanted. This afternoon, however, she rummaged for her atlas in vain. She turned books and papers over and over in her futile search, till the desk was in a chaotic muddle.

"Where's my atlas? Who's had my atlas? It was here yesterday!" she asked agitatedly.

"Really, Gipsy Latimer, I don't wonder you can't find your things in such an untidy desk!" remarked Miss White. "You must stay after four o'clock and put your books in order. Be quick, girls! Ada is waiting. Are you ready? Then take your places and march!"

Miss White hurried off to give a botany demonstration to the Lower Fourth, and the Upper Fourth filed downstairs to the lecture hall under the superintendence of Ada Dawkins, monitress for the time in place of Doreen Tristram, who was absent with influenza.

As the Form stood waiting for a moment or two in the corridor before entering the lecture hall, Maude Helm began ostentatiously to count her belongings.

"Pencil—indiarubber—map book—notebook—and atlas. I've not forgotten anything!" she said in a particularly audible whisper.

Ada Dawkins heard, and it reminded her of her duties. She was anxious to show herself a zealous monitress.

"Have you all brought your things?" she enquired authoritatively. "Face about into line, and hold them out so that I can see."

The single file of girls wheeled round into a row, each exhibiting what she carried. Ada passed along like a commanding officer inspecting a regiment, and immediately pounced upon Gipsy.

"Where's your atlas, Gipsy Latimer? How is it you're the only one to forget? Been taken from your desk? What nonsense! Things don't lose themselves. If you were tidy, you'd be able to find your books. No, I'm not going to accept any excuses. You all know what you want for the lesson, and it's your own fault if you come without it. Lose two order marks for leaving your atlas behind, and a third for arguing! Will you never learn that the monitresses have some authority here?"

Very much snubbed, poor Gipsy went into the lecture hall, to be further rebuked by Miss Poppleton later on for the lack of her atlas. It was only after a long hunt that she discovered her missing book in the lost-property cupboard.

"I've a very shrewd guess who put it there, too!" she remarked to Hetty Hancock. "Maude and Gladys were giggling something to Alice O'Connor, and they all looked at me and simply screamed."

"You don't mean to say they've played a low, stingy trick like that upon you?"

"I'm almost sure."

"Then they're mean sneaks! If ever I catch them at such a thing again, I'll spiflicate them!"



CHAPTER X

The Millionairess

"HEARD the news?" enquired Barbara Kendrick one afternoon towards the end of February, lounging into the Juniors' recreation room with a would-be casual air, and whistling a jaunty tune which she fondly hoped was expressive of superior indifference to news of any kind. Two girls sitting reading by the fire closed their books, and three at the table, who were in the agonies of three separate games of patience, temporarily laid aside their cards.

"No; what's up? Anything decent?" asked Norah Bell.

Barbara strolled leisurely to the fireplace, and spread her hands to the blaze. Being a member of the Third, and having a most interesting piece of information to communicate, she did not intend to make it too cheap, and wished to excite the curiosity of the Fourth Form girls before she vouchsafed to enlighten them.

"Oh! something I heard just now downstairs. I was passing the Seniors' door, and Allie Spencer came out and told me."

"Well?"

"She said it concerned your Form."

"Why us particularly?"

"What's going to happen?"

"Is it anything worth knowing, or not?"

"Really, that depends how you take it," said Barbara, enjoying herself.

"Look here, kiddie, you get on and tell us!"

"Gee up, stupid!"

Barbara paused, prolonging for one more blissful moment the joy of tantalizing her audience; but in that moment her chance was lost, for the door opened suddenly, and in burst Hetty Hancock, like a tempestuous north wind, proclaiming without either hesitation or reserve the important tidings.

"I say, isn't it a joke? There's actually a new boarder coming to-morrow."

"New girls seem to choose odd times to come nowadays," said Lennie. "Why didn't she wait till the half term—it's only about two weeks off?"

"Perhaps she's been shipwrecked, like I was," suggested Gipsy.

"Not a bit of it! She doesn't come from far. Her home's only about ten miles off, I believe. Her name's Leonora Parker."

"Parker! Parker! Surely not the Parkers of Ribblestone Abbey?" commented Norah Bell.

"I really don't know."

"But I know!" put in Barbara Kendrick, delighted to score at last by her superior information. "They are the Parkers of Ribblestone Abbey."

"Then they're most enormously rich people."

"Yes, millionaires! And Leonora's the only child."

"So she's an heiress!"

"Rather—an heiress of millions."

"You might call her a millionairess, in fact," chuckled Gipsy.

"Good for you, Yankee Doodle!"

"I say, it's rather a joke her coming here, isn't it?" said Norah Bell. "A millionaire's daughter! I wonder what she'll be like?"

"Sure to have the best of everything," said Daisy Scatcherd; "the loveliest dresses and the most expensive hats."

"She won't be able to wear anything but her school 'sailor' here!" commented Dilys. "You needn't imagine she'll come decked out with diamonds, Daisy."

"She'll have absolutely unlimited pocket-money."

"And be able to buy chocolates and walnut creams by the pound!" added Barbara enviously.

"Wonder what Form and what dormitory she'll be in?"

"Well, at any rate I shan't be the last new girl," said Gipsy. "I'm glad to retire from the position."

"Yes, Yankee Doodle. Your little nose will be quite put out of joint."

"A millionairess at Briarcroft! Doesn't it sound magnificent?"

"What a set of sillies you all are!" said Dilys. "I'm not going to make any fuss over Leonora, even if she can buy chocolates by the pound. I'll wait and see how I like her before I give my opinion. She mayn't be nice at all."

In spite of Dilys's attitude of aloofness the others could not help anticipating with the keenest eagerness the advent of a fresh fellow boarder. The personality of the "millionairess", as they nicknamed her, was a subject of much speculation, and a whole row of noses was flattened against the panes of the Juniors' sitting-room window to witness her arrival. The glimpse the girls got of her was distinctly disappointing. She wore a tweed coat and skirt, and the orthodox Briarcroft "sailor", with its narrow band and badge.

"I thought she'd have come in a velvet coat and a big picture hat full of feathers!" said Barbara, with rueful surprise in her tone.

"I never dreamt she'd drive up in only a station cab!" said Norah Bell. "Why didn't she arrive in her own motor?"

When Leonora was introduced by Miss Poppleton to her schoolfellows at tea-time, she certainly did not answer the expectations which had been formed of her. She was short and rather squat, with heavy features and nondescript eyes and hair.

"A most stodgy-looking girl," whispered Hetty. "I don't take to her at all. She's not one half as nice as Gipsy. By the by, where is Gipsy? I haven't seen her since four o'clock."

Gipsy came in just then, and took her seat at the table, looking cold and rather dejected.

"Where've you been?" whispered Hetty.

"Arranging my new room. Didn't you know? I've been moved out of our dormitory to make way for Leonora. Miss Edith carried all my things upstairs this morning."

"How sickening! Is that girl to have your bed?"

"Of course."

"And where are you put?"

"In that little box-room on the top floor. The boxes are all piled at one end, to make room for a camp bed."

"You don't mean it? Well, I didn't think Poppie was capable of such a horrid piece of nastiness."

"There's no other place for me at present. I may be extremely grateful to have that attic, so I'm informed. You forget I'm a charity girl!" said Gipsy bitterly.

Poor Gipsy was smarting sorely from a brief conversation she had had with Miss Poppleton. The Principal had reminded her in very plain terms of her dependent position, and had questioned and cross-questioned her as to whether she could remember any possible clue by which her father's whereabouts might be traced. Gipsy had already told all she knew, so the fresh catechism only seemed to her like the probing of an old wound. She felt so utterly helpless, so unable to offer any suggestions, or any way out of the difficulty. But she stuck tenaciously to her faith in her father.

"Dad promised to come back for me, and he will!" she said, with a gleam in her dark eyes.

"I'm afraid I know more of the world than you do, Gipsy, and it looks bad—very bad indeed!" replied Miss Poppleton, with a dismal shake of her head. "Some men are only too anxious to cast off their responsibilities."

Even Miss Edith, kind as ever though she was, seemed to take a gloomy view of the case.

"I'm sorry, dear—very sorry!" she said, as she introduced Gipsy to her attic bedroom. "I don't like to have to turn you out of your dormitory—and I'm sure Miss Poppleton doesn't either! But, you see, we're obliged to put Leonora there—and there's no other place but this. If your father hadn't behaved so queerly, of course it would have been different. I'm very sorry, Gipsy—it's hard on a girl to be left like this. I wonder he could have the heart to do it. And it's hard on my sister too. She has to think of ways and means. Dear, dear! what an amount of trouble there is in the world! And you're young to have to begin to feel it. There! I've made you as comfortable as I can here, child. After all, you'll be downstairs most of your time."

When Miss Edith had gone away, Gipsy sat down on the one chair in her room, with a blank, wretched feeling that was beyond the relief of tears. It was not that she minded a camp bed in the least, and she had often slept in far rougher places than her new attic; but the change seemed the outward and visible sign of her forlorn circumstances. Both Miss Poppleton's uncompromising remarks and Miss Edith's well-meant sympathy hurt her equally, for both expressed the same doubt of her father's honour. Not until that afternoon had Gipsy thoroughly realized how utterly alone she was in the world. Every other girl in the school had home and parents and relations, while she had nobody at all except a father who had—no, not forgotten her! that she would never allow; but for some strange, mysterious reason had been kept from communicating with her.

Gipsy had too generous a nature to bear Leonora any grudge for having taken her place in the dormitory. She even volunteered to give some valuable hints to the newcomer, knowing by experience the thorns that were likely to beset her path. Leonora, however, did not seem at all afflicted by many things which would have been most trying to Gipsy. She went her own way stolidly, without reference to her schoolfellows' comments, good or bad. This attitude did not satisfy Briarcroft standards, and by the time she had been there a week she had been weighed in the balance of public opinion and found decidedly wanting. She was the exact opposite of what the boarders had expected. Far from being liberally disposed, and inclined to spend her superabundant pocket-money for the good of her companions, she appeared anxious to take advantage on the other side. She readily accepted all the chocolates and caramels that were offered her, but made no return; and if she bought any sweets she ate them herself in privacy. She appropriated other girls' hockey sticks, books, or fountain pens unblushingly, but had always an excuse if anyone wished to sample her possessions.

"She's the meanest thing I ever met in my life," said Lennie Chapman indignantly one day. "She borrowed my penknife three times this morning, and when I asked her what had become of her own, she said it was such a nice one, it seemed a pity to use it."

"She spoilt my stylo. yesterday," complained Norah Bell, "and she never even offered to buy me another."

"She's greedy, too," said Daisy Scatcherd, swelling the list of Leonora's crimes. "When I handed her my box of candied fruits, she picked out the very biggest!"

"How piggie!"

"And yet she's plenty of pocket-money."

"Oh, yes, heaps, as much as she likes to ask for."

"I don't see what's the use of being a millionairess if you're a miser at the same time!" remarked Dilys scornfully.

A girl who receives everything and dispenses nothing is never popular among her companions, so it was scarcely surprising that Leonora won no favour. A few mercenary spirits, encouraged by the reputation of her millions, made tentative advances of friendship, but rapidly withdrew them on the discovery that it was likely to prove a one-sided bargain.

"I wouldn't be friends with her if she owned the Bank of England!" declared Lennie. "I think she's too contemptible for words."

"By the by, girls," said Dilys, "it's Miss Edith's birthday on the 1st of March. Aren't we Junior boarders going to get up anything in the way of a present? I know the Seniors are giving her one."

"Rather!" said Fiona Campbell. "I'd stretch a point for Miss Edie if I was on the verge of bankruptcy. I vote we open a subscription list. I'm good for half a crown."

"I expect most of us are," replied Lennie, taking paper and pencil to write down names. "Except Leonora Parker!" she added with a laugh.

"Don't you think she'll give?"

"Not generously."

"Oh, she'll have to!"

"I declare, we'll make her for once!" said Dilys indignantly. "She shan't sneak out of everything."

"I don't see how you're going to make her."

"The millionairess won't fork out unless she feels inclined, I can tell you that, my child."

"Just you leave it to me. I'll manage it by fair means or foul."

"Won't a subscription list make it rather awkward for Gipsy? You know she can't give anything," whispered Hetty Hancock to Dilys.

"Not at all, the way I'm going to do it. I'll take care of Gipsy, you'll see—make it easy for her, but nick in Leonora for more than she bargains."

"You're cleverer than I thought you were."

"Ah, you haven't plumbed the depths of my genius yet, my good child. Now when Leonora——"

"Hush! Here she comes."

The millionairess walked to the fireplace, and stood leaning over the high fender, sharpening a cherished stump of lead pencil.

"We're getting up a subscription," began Dilys, opening the attack without further delay. "It's to buy a present for Miss Edith's birthday. You'd like us to put your name down, wouldn't you?"

"Well, I'm not sure," replied Leonora cautiously. "What are most of you giving?"

"Half a crown," replied a chorus of voices.

"I've been at Briarcroft such a short time," demurred Leonora. "Perhaps it would really be better if the present came from you, who are all old pupils."

"There's something in that," said Dilys. "Both you and Gipsy Latimer have only been here a little while, so it would be more appropriate, after all, to leave you both out of it, and let it be an old girls' gift. Lennie, do you hear? You're not to put down either Gipsy or Leonora, however much they beg and pray."

"Right-oh!" said Lennie rather sulkily. She thought that Dilys, in her delicacy for Gipsy, was sparing Leonora too much. But Dilys gave her a withering look, which so plainly implied: "Trust me to mind my own business" that she began hastily to hum a tune.

"Perhaps you'd like to give Miss Edith something on your own account," suggested Dilys craftily to the millionairess.

"Exactly. It would be far better than my joining with the rest of you," agreed Leonora, jumping at such an easy way out.

"Tell me what it's to be, then, and we'll ask Miss Lindsay to order it."

"Oh! I can get it myself, thanks."

"We're not allowed. All shopping has to be done through Miss Lindsay. I should suggest a book."

"I dare say that would do. There was one of yours that Miss Edith was looking at yesterday."

"Do you mean my small 'Christina Rossetti'? All right. Lennie, put down that Leonora Parker wants to order a copy of Christina Rossetti's poems."

Thus cornered, Leonora was obliged to consent. Dilys's little book was a shilling edition—not ruinous, certainly, to the purse strings; so comparing that with a subscription of half a crown she considered she had escaped cheaply.

"You've let her off too easily," grumbled Lennie afterwards, as she added up her list. "It's a shame the richest girl in the class should give the least."

"I haven't finished with her yet, my friend—I've only begun!" chuckled Dilys. "Let me go to Miss Lindsay."

Dilys had a deep-laid scheme, which she considered too good to be divulged at present, but which she hoped would be the undoing of Leonora. She went to the mistresses' room with the subscription list, and handed the collection of half-crowns to Miss Lindsay.

"Would you please order a Russia leather blotter for Miss Edith?" she said. "We've decided on that, unless you know of anything she'd like better. Leonora Parker would like to give her a separate present, quite on her own account."

"Indeed?" said Miss Lindsay, who had not yet grasped the new pupil's economical tendencies. "Then I suppose she wishes it to be something handsome?"

"She mentioned a copy of Christina Rossetti's poems, but she said nothing about the price," returned Dilys stolidly.

"Christina Rossetti's poems? Then she must surely mean that beautiful illustrated edition that we were talking about at tea-time yesterday. I remember Miss Edith said how immensely she would like to see it. No doubt Leonora made a mental note of it. It was a kind thought of hers, which Miss Edith will appreciate, I am sure."

"Is the edition expensive?" enquired Dilys casually.

"Fifteen shillings net, but of course to Leonora that is a mere nothing—no more than sixpence to most girls. Still, perhaps I'd better send for her and ask her."

"She's having her music lesson," put in Dilys quickly.

"The order ought to go off at once, if we are to have the presents in time for the 1st of March," said Miss Lindsay, glancing at the clock. "I must write now to catch the post. I think I may venture to send Leonora's commission without consulting her. She must certainly mean the illustrated edition, and in her case we really need not trouble to consider the question of the price."

Dilys went away, rubbing her hands with satisfaction.

"Serves you right, Leonora Parker!" she chuckled to herself. "Your little effort at economy is going to cost you rather more than you bargained for. Miss Lindsay's an absolute trump. I hate mean people who hoard up their money and keep it all for themselves."

She confided her success to the others, but exacted a promise of strict secrecy.

"We'll simply say Miss Lindsay has sent for the book," she advised. "I believe Leonora would be capable of countermanding the order if she knew the amount of the bill. It will be a surprise for her later on."

"And a ripping joke for us!"

"It's Miss Lindsay's fault, though. She named the edition."

"Oh, yes, of course! We understand that, my dear girl!"

The presents arrived by return of post, just in time for Miss Edith's birthday—a splendid blotter of delicious-smelling leather, and the edition of Christina Rossetti's poems, a large and handsome volume full of beautiful illustrations. Miss Lindsay brought them into the Juniors' sitting-room, and showed them to the delighted girls.

"It was so nice of you, Leonora dear, to think of giving such a lovely gift to Miss Edith all on your own account," she remarked; "so thoughtful to have fixed upon the very thing she wanted. You meant this edition, of course? I knew I could hardly be mistaken. Miss Edith will be particularly pleased that a new girl should show such appreciation. The pictures are perfect gems. We'll wrap the book up again in its various papers, and you must hide it carefully away until to-morrow. Would you like to give me the fifteen shillings now, or will Miss Poppleton stop it out of your allowance?"

Leonora's face was a study. Blank amazement struggled with disgust, and for a moment she seemed almost tempted to deny all responsibility for having given the order. Pride, however, at the sight of the sneer at the corners of Dilys Fenton's mouth, came to her rescue. She knew the girls had tricked her, and she was determined not to afford them the satisfaction of an open triumph.

"Thank you very much, Miss Lindsay, for getting the book," she replied calmly. "I'll give you the money now, please. I'm glad it's the edition Miss Edith wants," and taking her parcel, she sailed from the room, without deigning to glance at the others.

"Done her this time!" chuckled Dilys. "It'll do her good to shell out for once."

"She took it awfully well, though! Perhaps on the whole she wasn't altogether sorry. Miss Edie's such a dear, anyone would want to give her nice things who'd got the money," sighed Gipsy, whose own offering was limited to a little pen-and-ink drawing of the house.

"She's not so bad on the whole, though she isn't liberal in the way of sweets," remarked Daisy Scatcherd.

"You greedy pig!" said Dilys. "We don't want her to keep us provided with chocolates. As long as she's fair, that's all I care about. I think it's sickening to try and truckle to her because she's so rich. If you wanted to get anything out of her, I'm glad you were disappointed. 'Give and take' and 'Share and share alike' are the best mottoes for school."