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+Project Gutenberg's The Youngest Girl in the Fifth, by Angela Brazil
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Youngest Girl in the Fifth
+       A School Story
+
+Author: Angela Brazil
+
+Illustrator: Stanley Davis
+
+Release Date: June 6, 2007 [EBook #21687]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNGEST GIRL IN THE FIFTH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sankar Viswanathan, and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+             [Illustration: GWEN IS CAUGHT BY THE STORM]
+
+
+
+                          The Youngest Girl
+
+                            in the Fifth
+
+
+                            A School Story
+
+
+
+                                  BY
+
+                            ANGELA BRAZIL
+
+              Author of "The Leader of the Lower School"
+         "A Pair of Schoolgirls" "The New Girl at St. Chad's"
+                    "A Fourth Form Friendship" &c.
+
+
+
+                    _ILLUSTRATED BY STANLEY DAVIS_
+
+
+
+
+                       BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED
+
+                      LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+CHAP.
+
+I.      AN UNEXPECTED REMOVE
+
+II.     THE GASCOYNE GIRLS
+
+III.    A FALSE STEP
+
+IV.     A DELICATE TRANSACTION
+
+V.      TROUBLE IN THE FIFTH
+
+VI.     A CASTING VOTE
+
+VII.    DICK CHAMBERS
+
+VIII.   GWEN RECEIVES A LETTER
+
+IX.     KEEPING CHRISTMAS
+
+X.      A PRODIGAL
+
+XI.     A PRIZE ESSAY
+
+XII.    GWEN TURNS HENWIFE
+
+XIII.   THE SHOE PINCHES
+
+XIV.    GWEN MEETS TROUBLE
+
+XV.     STORM CLOUDS
+
+XVI.    FIRST AID
+
+XVII.   A PRESSING ACCOUNT
+
+XVIII.  GWEN'S BRIGHT IDEA
+
+XIX.    A SCHOOL GYMKHANA
+
+XX.     A DAY OF RECKONING
+
+XXI.    RETRIBUTION
+
+XXII.   THE TENNIS TOURNAMENT
+
+XXIII.  GWEN TO THE RESCUE
+
+XXIV.   THE SENIOR OXFORD
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Illustrations
+
+
+GWEN IS CAUGHT BY THE STORM      _Frontispiece_
+
+GWEN MEETS DICK
+
+"THINGS GO SO HARDLY WITH ME SOMEHOW, DAD"
+
+"OH, I SAY, WELL CAUGHT!"
+
+"YES, YOU CAN EASILY GO MILES OUT OF YOUR WAY"
+
+"IT WAS BASIL WHO SPIED HIM FIRST"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE YOUNGEST GIRL IN THE FIFTH
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+An Unexpected Remove
+
+
+"Gwen! Gwen Gascoyne! Gwen! Anybody seen her? I say, have you all gone
+deaf? Don't you hear me? Where's Gwen? I--want--Gwen--Gascoyne!"
+
+The speaker--Ida Bridge--a small, perky, spindle-legged Junior, jumped
+on to the nearest seat, and raising her shrill voice to its topmost
+pitch, twice shouted the "Gwen Gascoyne", with an aggressive energy
+calculated to make herself heard above the babel of general chatter
+that pervaded the schoolroom. Her effort, though far from musical, at
+any rate secured her the notice she desired.
+
+"Hello, there! Stop that noise! It's like a dog howling!" irately
+commanded a girl in spectacles who was cleaning the blackboard.
+
+"And get down from my desk this minute! Who said you might climb up
+there?"
+
+"Look here, you kid, what are you doing in our classroom?"
+
+"Take yourself off at once! Fly! Scoot!"
+
+The "kid", however, stood her ground.
+
+"Shan't move till you've answered my question," she replied with
+aggravating impudence. "I want Gwen Gascoyne."
+
+"Why, there she is all the time!"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Under your very nose, you stupid baby! Get down from my desk, I tell
+you!"
+
+The Junior cast what was intended to be a withering glance before she
+descended.
+
+"Gwen Gascoyne, why couldn't you answer when I called you?" she
+demanded abruptly.
+
+Gwen paused in the act of sharpening a lead pencil, and eyed the
+intruder.
+
+"Who asked you to come in here?" she retorted.
+
+"You babes must keep to your own classrooms! Hey, presto! Vanish! And
+be quick about it!" interposed Myra Johnson.
+
+"Shan't! Not till I've spoken to Gwen."
+
+"Cheek!"
+
+"Suppress that kid!"
+
+"But I've got a message!" squeaked the babe, as sundry arms of justice
+thrust her summarily in the direction of the door. "Oh, I have
+really--a message for Gwen from Miss Roscoe! She's to go to the
+library--now!"
+
+"Then why couldn't you say so at first?"
+
+"You never gave me a chance!"
+
+Gwen threw the half-sharpened pencil inside her desk and banged down
+the lid.
+
+"What does Miss Roscoe want with me?" she asked in some consternation.
+"Are you sure she meant me?"
+
+A summons from the headmistress rarely boded good fortune to the
+recipient, and the girls stared at Gwen with interested sympathy.
+
+"What have you been doing?" murmured Eve Dawkins.
+
+"Glad I'm not in your shoes!" proclaimed Daisy Hurst.
+
+"Oh, Gwen, I am sorry for you!" bleated Alma Richardson.
+
+"I've not been doing anything!" protested Gwen indignantly. "You've no
+need to look at me as if I were a cross between a criminal and a
+martyr! Here, you babe, what did Miss Roscoe say?"
+
+"Only that you're to go to the library; and you'd better be quick,
+because she said: 'Tell her to come at once!' Said it in her snappiest
+way, too! I shouldn't be a month about going if I were you. Hello!
+There's the bell. Ta-ta, I'm off! I wish you luck!" and Ida Bridge
+fled to the region of her own classroom, with a grin on her impish
+face.
+
+Though she might rail at the impudence of the small fry, Gwen was not
+above taking a hint--headmistresses do not lightly brook being kept
+waiting--so she started at a run up the passage, turning over in her
+mind every possible crime which she might unwittingly have committed.
+
+"Can't remember using the front gate, or not changing my boots, or
+talking on the stairs, or--oh, wow! Here I am at the library! Well,
+whatever I've done, I suppose I'm in for it now! I hope she won't
+absolutely wither me up!"
+
+So far from looking withering as Gwen entered the room, the Principal
+wore an unusually encouraging and benign expression. She was a
+handsome, large, imposing woman, with a stern cast of features, and
+was held in great awe by the whole school. As a rule, Seniors and
+Juniors quailed alike under the glance of her keen dark eyes.
+
+"Come here, Gwen," she said blandly, as her pupil stood hesitating
+near the door. "I want to have a little talk with you. I've been
+looking over your reports for the last few weeks, and I find that
+you've done well--so well, that I consider the standard of the Upper
+Fourth is too easy for you. I think you ought to be able to manage the
+work of the Fifth Form, and I'm going to move you there."
+
+Gwen stared at Miss Roscoe, too surprised to answer. Such a proposal
+as a change of Form was absolutely the last thing she could have
+expected. In the middle of a term it was surely an unprecedented
+happening. For the moment she scarcely knew whether to be alarmed or
+flattered at the honour thus thrust upon her.
+
+"You may find the mathematics a little difficult," continued Miss
+Roscoe; "but Miss Woodville shall coach you until you've caught up the
+rest of the class. She can also go over the arrears of Latin
+translation with you. With that help you shouldn't be so far behind.
+I've spoken to both Miss Slade and Miss Douglas about it, and they
+fully agree with me. Do you think yourself you'll be able to manage
+the work?"
+
+"I don't know, I'm sure," stammered Gwen. "I expect I'm behind in
+maths.--but--"
+
+"But you must try your best. I shall trust you to make a great effort.
+I should be very sorry to have to put you down again. Come with me
+now, and I'll take you to your new Form."
+
+Gwen followed the Principal with her head in a buzzing whirl. It
+seemed like a dream to be suddenly translated from the Lower School to
+the Upper. She wished she could have had a little time to get
+accustomed to the idea: she would have liked a day's preparation at
+least, so as to think the change over and discuss it at home. Miss
+Roscoe, however, always did things in a hurry; she never had a moment
+to waste, and at present she whisked her pupil along the corridor and
+into the Fifth Form room with almost breathless energy.
+
+"Here's Gwen Gascoyne, Miss Douglas," she announced. "We'll try if she
+can manage the work, and I've arranged with Miss Woodville to give her
+the extra coaching we spoke about. She can bring her books from her
+old classroom at eleven."
+
+Thus saying, she bustled away to take a history lecture, leaving the
+new member of the Fifth standing in much embarrassment. The eyes of
+every girl in the room naturally were glued upon Gwen, who felt
+herself twitching with nervousness under the scrutiny; but Miss
+Douglas motioned her to an empty desk in the back row, and went on
+with the lesson as if nothing had happened. I am afraid Gwen was too
+agitated to absorb much knowledge that morning. She had not brought
+notebook or pencil with her, and though at Miss Douglas's request her
+neighbour rather ungraciously lent her a sheet of paper and a stump of
+pencil, the notes which she took were scrappy and inadequate. She kept
+stealing peeps at the other girls, but turning away when she met the
+anything but friendly glances directed at her. The teacher asked her
+one or two questions, then, seeing that she did not quite grasp the
+subject, kindly ignored her.
+
+"Talk of a fish out of water," thought Gwen; "I feel like an eel in a
+frying pan. I believe these girls are going to be detestable. I shall
+have to look out for squalls."
+
+Nor was she mistaken. At eleven o'clock the storm broke. Directly Miss
+Douglas had left the room for the interval the seventeen members of
+the Fifth turned upon the newcomer.
+
+"What are you doing here, Gwen Gascoyne, I'd like to know?" demanded
+Edith Arnold, opening the attack.
+
+"We don't want any Fourth Form girls foisted on us!" proclaimed Rachel
+Hunter.
+
+"You don't belong to the Upper School!" urged Charlotte Perry hotly.
+
+"I didn't yesterday, but I do now," retorted Gwen. "Miss Roscoe's
+moved me up. Yes--and I mean to stay here, too!" she added, facing her
+opponents stubbornly.
+
+"Miss Roscoe must be mad!"
+
+"What can she be thinking of?"
+
+"Better go and ask her yourself," said Gwen, "if you think she's
+likely to listen to you. She isn't generally very ready to enter into
+explanations."
+
+"But this is monstrous! It's an unheard-of thing!" exclaimed Louise
+Mawson excitedly. "A chit like you to be brought into the Fifth! Why,
+how old are you?"
+
+"Exactly fourteen and a quarter--birthday on July 16th, if you want
+exact date," returned Gwen smartly.
+
+"Oh!" "What a shame!" "We shan't stand it!" rose in such a chorus from
+all sides that Gwen took the opportunity to make her escape and go to
+the dressing-room for her lunch. The interval was only ten minutes,
+and she wished both to break the news to her old classmates and to
+fetch some necessary books from her former desk before the bell rang.
+
+The other members of the Fifth lingered behind in perturbed
+consultation. They considered they had a just and most pressing
+grievance. In all the annals of the school such a case had never
+occurred before. It had been hitherto an inviolable though unwritten
+law that no one under the age of fifteen should be admitted to the
+Fifth Form, a law which they had believed as strict as that of the
+Medes and Persians, and here was the headmistress actually breaking
+it, and in favour of a girl only fourteen and a quarter. If Miss
+Roscoe had not brought her herself into the room they would not have
+credited it.
+
+"It's abominably unfair!" broke out Rachel Hunter, a tall girl of
+sixteen. "Because my birthday comes on October 4th I had to stop a
+whole year longer in the Lower School. Yes--though my mother came and
+begged Miss Roscoe to let me go up!"
+
+"Well, you couldn't get moved up on your work, at any rate, Rachel!"
+chirped Joan Masters. "It would have had to be favour in your case."
+
+"That's not the point! It's a different question. If Miss Roscoe makes
+a rule she ought to stick to it. Why, half the girls in the Form might
+have come up sooner if it hadn't been for the age limit."
+
+"You're right, and I can't see why Gwen Gascoyne should be so
+specially noticed."
+
+"She's supposed to be clever, I believe."
+
+"She doesn't look it! Besides, what do we care whether she's clever or
+not? It's the injustice of the thing that makes me angry. A kid like
+her amongst us seniors! The idea!"
+
+"Miss Roscoe may send Gwen up," declared Louise Mawson, "but she can't
+make us accept her as one of ourselves. I vote we send her to
+Coventry."
+
+"We will! She's nothing but a Lower School girl, and we won't tolerate
+her being imposed upon us!"
+
+"She'll be so conceited at finding herself a Senior!"
+
+"We'll soon take her pride down, then!"
+
+"She'll meet with a few snubs here, I'll undertake to say!"
+
+"If Miss Roscoe is going to bring up all the rank and file like that
+there's no credit in being in the Fifth!"
+
+"It's a positive insult to the rest of us!"
+
+So decided Gwen's new classmates, jealous for the prestige of their
+Form, and annoyed at the indignity which they considered they were
+made to suffer in admitting a younger girl among their number. To Gwen
+or her feelings they gave not a thought. If she met with an unpleasant
+experience all the better; it might deter Miss Roscoe from repeating
+the experiment. That the remove was not Gwen's fault, and therefore
+that it was scarcely fair to visit the headmistress's act upon her
+innocent head, did not enter into their calculations. Where they
+consider their rights are concerned schoolgirls rarely hold mercy
+before justice.
+
+Meantime Gwen, who had gone to break the important tidings to the
+Upper Fourth, did not find her old friends as responsive as she had
+expected. They received her communication with marked coldness.
+
+"Why should you have been moved up, Gwen Gascoyne, and not Daisy, or
+Aileen, or I?" enquired Alma Richardson, with a distinctly aggrieved
+note in her voice.
+
+"Miss Roscoe always favoured Gwen!" said Eve Dawkins enviously.
+
+"You're six months younger than Viola Sutton, so it seems absurd you
+should be put above her."
+
+"You'll be so grand now, I suppose you won't care to know us!"
+
+"It's not fair to the rest of the Form!"
+
+"Oh dear! I'm between two fires," thought Gwen, as she hastily cleared
+her possessions from her old desk. "The Fifth don't want me, and the
+Fourth are horribly jealous. You're going to have a bad time, Gwen
+Gascoyne, I'm afraid! I see breakers ahead! Never mind. It's a great
+honour to be moved up, and Father'll be glad and sympathize, if nobody
+else does. The work will be pretty stiff: I expect it'll be all I can
+do to manage it. But I mean to have a jolly good try. I'll show those
+girls I can do something, though I am the youngest! Oh, I say! I've
+only just remembered that Winnie'll be the under-mistress. I'll have
+to call her 'Miss Gascoyne' whenever I speak to her. How perfectly
+idiotic! I'm sure I shall laugh. I wonder if Miss Roscoe's told her
+yet? What a surprise it would be for her to come into the room and
+find me there!"
+
+"I wish you'd be quick, Gwen Gascoyne," said Eve Dawkins; "I'm to have
+your desk as soon as you've moved out. It's a nicer seat than mine."
+
+"Right-o!" answered Gwen, piling her books on top of her big atlas.
+"You're welcome to it, I'm sure. I think you might all have seemed a
+trifle more sorry to lose me! I don't see any display of pocket
+handkerchiefs. No, I can't say I'm shedding tears myself unless
+they're crocodile ones. Please to recollect in future, my dears, when
+you speak to me, that you're addressing a member of the Upper School!
+You're only little Junior girls! Ta-ta!" and with a mock curtsy, in
+process of which she nearly dropped her pile of books, Gwen retired
+laughing from the Fourth Form to take her place and try her luck among
+the Seniors.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+The Gascoyne Girls
+
+
+At fourteen and a quarter Gwen Gascoyne was at a particularly
+difficult and hobbledehoy stage of her development. She was tall for
+her age, and rather awkward in her manners, apt at present to be
+slapdash and independent, and decidedly lacking in "that repose which
+stamps the caste of Vere de Vere". Gwen could never keep still for
+five seconds, her restless hands were always fidgeting or her feet
+shuffling, or she was twisting in her chair, or shaking back a loose
+untidy lock that had escaped from her ribbon. Gwen often did her hair
+without the aid of a looking-glass, but when she happened to use one
+the reflection of her own face gave her little cause for satisfaction.
+
+"I'm plain, and there's no blinking the fact," she confessed to
+herself. "Winnie says I'm variable, and I can look nice when I smile,
+but I'm afraid no one would trouble to look at me twice. If only I
+were Lesbia now, or even Beatrice! People talk about the flower of a
+family--well, I expect I'm the weed, as far as appearances go! I
+haven't had my fair share in the way of good looks."
+
+It certainly seemed hard that Nature, which had been kind to the
+Gascoynes in that respect, should have dowered her brothers and
+sisters so liberally, and have left poor Gwen out in the cold. Her
+bright little face had an attraction all of its own, of which she was
+quite unconscious, but she was entirely accustomed to stand aside
+while strangers noticed and admired her younger sister Lesbia. To do
+Gwen justice, though she might lament her own plainness, it never
+struck her to be jealous of the others. She was intensely proud of the
+family reputation for beauty, and even if she could not include
+herself among "the handsome Gascoynes", it certainly gave her a
+reflected satisfaction to be aware of the epithet.
+
+"I'm like Daddy," she said sometimes; "nobody ever calls him handsome,
+but he's a dear all the same--the dearest dear in the world!"
+
+The Reverend Maurice Gascoyne was curate-in-charge of the church of
+St. John the Baptist in the little fishing village of Skelwick Bay, on
+the coast of the North Sea. He was rich in the possession of seven
+children, but there his luck ended, for his income, as is often the
+case, was in exactly inverse ratio to the size of his family.
+
+"The fact is, we're as poor as church mice," said Beatrice one day.
+"Indeed, I think we're poorer, because the mouse we saw in church last
+Sunday, that scared Winnie so, was very fat and sleek and prosperous
+looking, and didn't bear out the old saying at all."
+
+For the last four years, ever since pretty Mrs. Maurice Gascoyne had
+gently laid down the burden that had grown too heavy for her,
+Beatrice had been the clever, energetic "mother" of the establishment.
+She managed the house, and the children, and the one maid, and the
+parish, and her father, all included, with a business-like capacity
+far in advance of her twenty years. She was a fine-looking girl, tall
+and straight-limbed and ample, with blue eyes and dark brows, and a
+clear creamy skin, and that air of noble strength about her which the
+Greek sculptors gave to their statues of Artemis. Though she did her
+best both for home and hamlet, Beatrice often chafed against the
+narrowness of her limits. It was a sore point that she had been
+obliged to leave school at sixteen, and devote herself to domestic
+pursuits, and while not regretting the sacrifice, she often lamented
+the two years lopped off her education.
+
+"I'm so behind, I never could go in even for the matric. now," she
+sighed sometimes. "If I could have realized my ambition, I'd have
+studied for a lady doctor."
+
+Since the profession of medicine was utterly and entirely out of the
+question, Beatrice often consoled herself by planning that when the
+children were old enough to do without her, she would go as a nurse to
+a big London hospital, and rise to be a ward sister, or perhaps--who
+knew?--even a matron. In the meanwhile her talent for administration
+had to confine itself within the bounds of the Parsonage and the
+parish, where it was apt to become just a trifle dictatorial and
+overbearing. It is so hard for a young, keen, ardent nature, anxious
+to set the world right, to remember that infinite patience must go
+hand in hand with our best endeavours, and that the time of sowing is
+an utterly different season from that of harvest.
+
+Between Gwen and Beatrice there was often friction. The former
+resented being ordered about by a sister of only twenty, and would
+prove rebellious on occasion. Really, the two girls' dispositions were
+much alike, but Beatrice's early position of responsibility had turned
+into strength of character what was at present mere manifestation of
+independence and often bravado in Gwen.
+
+Winnie, a sweet-tempered, pretty girl of eighteen, had just been made
+an under-mistress at "Rodenhurst", Miss Roscoe's school, which she and
+Gwen and Lesbia attended daily. Teaching was not at all Winnie's
+vocation, she hated it heartily, but as her services cancelled her
+sisters' school fees, she was obliged to accept the unwelcome drudgery
+for the sake of the help it gave to her father's narrow income. If it
+was Beatrice's ambition to go out into the world and carve a career
+for herself, it was certainly Winnie's ideal to stop at home. She was
+a born housekeeper, and loved sewing and cake-baking and jam-making,
+and dusting the best china, and gardening, and rearing poultry and
+ducks. It seemed a great pity that she could not have changed places
+with her elder sister, but Beatrice's education had been stopped too
+soon for her to be of any use as a teacher, while Winnie, though not
+clever, had been carefully trained in Rodenhurst methods. Fortunately
+she had a very cheerful, sunny disposition, that was prone to make the
+best of things, so she struggled along, taking Miss Roscoe's many
+suggestions and reproofs so amiably that the Principal, often irate
+at her lack of capacity, had not the heart to scold her too severely.
+Of her own choice, I am afraid, Winnie would never have opened a book,
+but she managed to get up her subjects for her classes, and was a
+conscientious, painstaking mistress, if not a brilliant one.
+
+After Gwen came the beauty of the family, twelve-year-old Lesbia, a
+dear, delightful, smiling, lovable little lazybones, usually at the
+bottom of her Form. Lesbia never attempted to work hard at school. She
+scraped through her lessons somehow, generally with Gwen's help at home,
+and took life in a happy-go-lucky fashion, with as little trouble to
+herself as possible. Lesbia's chief virtue was an admirably calm and
+unruffled temper: she would laugh philosophically over things that made
+Gwen rage, and though she had not half the character of the latter, she
+was a far greater general favourite. She was much petted at school, both
+by her own Form and by the Seniors, for she had sweet, coaxing little
+ways, and a helpless, confiding look in her blue eyes that was rather
+fascinating, and her lovely fair flaxen hair gave her the appearance of
+a large wax doll, just new from a toy shop. Lesbia had one great
+advantage: she was always well dressed. She possessed a rich cousin of
+exactly her own age, whose clothes were passed on to her. Irene grew
+rapidly, so her handsome frocks and coats were scarcely worn when they
+reached Lesbia, and as Aunt Violet invariably sent them first to the
+cleaners, they would arrive wrapped in folds of dainty tissue paper, and
+looking like new. It seemed rather hard that Lesbia should always be the
+lucky recipient of the parcels, and Beatrice, with a strict sense of
+justice, had often tried to adapt some of the things for Gwen. It was
+quite impossible, however--Lesbia's neat, dainty little figure exactly
+fitted into the clothes, while Gwen, tall and big-boned even for her
+extra two and a half years, was so many sizes too large that she had to
+resign all hope of "fineries", and content herself with plain blouses
+and navy-blue serge skirts that could be lengthened easily. Not that
+Gwen troubled much about dress at this period of her existence; indeed
+she was apt to throw on her garments in a haphazard fashion that greatly
+excited Beatrice's wrath, and would raise a remonstrance even from
+Winnie. Life was so full of different things, and so many fresh
+interests and new plans were crowding continually into her brain, that
+she never had time to think whether her tie was neatly knotted or her
+belt properly fastened; it is a sad admission to make, no doubt, but
+then Gwen was no ideal heroine, only a very faulty, impetuous,
+headstrong, human girl.
+
+Three little brothers completed the Gascoyne family--Giles, Basil, and
+Martin, aged respectively ten, nine, and five, bonny mischievous
+urchins, who were alternately Beatrice's pride and despair. By vigorous
+measures she managed to keep them in tolerably good order, but she could
+never be sure what pranks they would play next, and was generally
+prepared for emergencies. She always had supplies handy of arnica,
+sticking plaster, and rags for cut fingers, and would toil away
+patiently mending long rents in small knickerbockers or darning holes in
+stockings and jerseys. Giles and Basil went daily to a branch
+establishment of Rodenhurst, kept by Miss Roscoe for boys under twelve;
+and Martin learnt his letters at home, and trotted about the house and
+parish in Beatrice's wake. He was a sweet little scamp, and the apple of
+her eye, for she had brought him up from babyhood, but she sometimes
+felt it would be an intense relief when he was old enough to go to
+school with the others.
+
+For seven years the Gascoynes had lived at the little parsonage at
+Skelwick Bay. It was a small, low, creeper-covered place, built behind
+a sheltering spur of hill, to protect it from the fierce winter gales
+and the driving spray of the sea. Four latticed bedroom windows caught
+the early morning sun, and a stone porch shielded the front door,
+which opened directly into the sitting-room. There was nothing at all
+grand about the house, but, thanks to Beatrice, it was neatly kept,
+and had an air of general comfort. All articles likely to be broken by
+small fingers were wisely put away, or placed in father's study, a
+sanctum where no one might intrude without express permission; but
+books, paint boxes, &c., were freely allowed, and each member of the
+family had a special shelf on which to keep his or her particular
+possessions. Beatrice had many excellent rules, and though in the
+enforcement of these she was strict to the verge of severity, in the
+main she was just, and had her father's full sanction for her
+authority.
+
+The garden at the Parsonage was a great joy, with its thick hedge of
+fuchsias, and its beds of fragrant wallflowers, and its standard roses
+growing among the grass, and its clumps of Czar violets under the
+sheltered wall. Here Winnie toiled early and late, getting up
+sometimes with the sun that she might put in an hour's work before
+breakfast, weeding, replanting, pruning, raking, and tying up. It was
+chiefly owing to her exertions that the show of flowers was so good,
+though Gwen was her ally in that respect, and even Lesbia gave a
+little desultory help. There was a thick, bowery lime tree under whose
+shade it was delightful to have tea in summer, or to lie reading books
+on hot Sundays; and there was a fascinating corner of the old wall,
+which the girls called "the rampart", from whence it was possible to
+command an excellent view of the main road--a great convenience
+sometimes to the younger ones, who would keep watch, and beat a hasty
+retreat if they saw an unwelcome visitor arriving, leaving Beatrice to
+offer hospitality alone.
+
+Gwen was the worst sinner in this respect. She was bashful, and hated
+to have to say "How do you do?" to callers. In spite of Beatrice's
+efforts to train her in social ways, she would fly at the very
+approach of a flower-trimmed hat or a white parasol.
+
+"You scuttle off like a rabbit into its burrow," said Beatrice
+indignantly on one occasion; "and if you're caught, you behave in such
+a silly, awkward way that I'm ashamed of you. People will think you
+haven't been properly brought up, and blame me. It's not my fault that
+you've got no manners."
+
+"I feel as if I don't know where to look when people speak to me, and
+as if my hands and feet were too big," protested Gwen. "I can't help
+shuffling and wrinkling up my forehead--I can't indeed! You're
+awfully hard on me, Bee!"
+
+"Perhaps she'll grow a little more accustomed to her hands and feet
+when she's older," suggested Winnie, the peacemaker.
+
+"They're useful for catching chickens at present, and that ought to be
+enough for you, Win," laughed Gwen. "You'd have lost those white
+Leghorns if I hadn't rescued them."
+
+Winnie was considered chief "henwife" at the Parsonage. She could not
+give as much time to the poultry as she wished, and had to delegate
+many of her duties to Beatrice, or Nellie, the maid, but nevertheless
+held herself responsible for the welfare of her feathered flock. On
+Saturdays she delighted to array herself in an overall pinafore and
+carry out improvements in the hen-yard. Armed with hammer, nails, and
+pieces of wire netting, she would turn old packing-cases into chicken
+coops and nesting boxes, or make neat contrivances for separating
+various fussy matrons with rival broods of chicks. Winnie was really
+wonderfully handy and clever, and albeit her carpentry was naturally
+of a rather rough-and-ready description, it served the purpose for
+which she designed it, and saved calling in the services of the
+village joiner, an economy which her father much appreciated. Winnie
+was determined to run her poultry systematically. She kept strict
+accounts, balancing the bills for corn and meal against current market
+prices for eggs and chickens, and being tremendously proud if her book
+showed a profit. On the whole she did well, for the fowls had a free
+run on the common at the back of the house, and could thus pick up
+much for themselves. With the help of the poultry, and a good
+vegetable garden, Beatrice was able to make her small housekeeping
+allowance supply the needs of the family, but there were no luxuries
+at the Parsonage. The girls possessed few or none of the pretty
+trifles dear to their sex, their pocket money was scanty almost to
+vanishing point, and they had early learnt the stern lesson of "doing
+without things". Adversity may be a hard task-mistress, but she is an
+excellent teacher in the school of life, and their Spartan upbringing
+had given the Gascoynes a certain resourcefulness and grit of
+character that they might possibly have lacked in more affluent
+surroundings. They were not a perfect family by any means, and had
+their squabbles and their cross moods like many another; but on the
+whole they were ready to give and take, make sacrifices for each
+other, and to try day by day to live a little nearer to that wonderful
+high standard that Father ever set before them, and which he himself
+followed so faithfully and truly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A False Step
+
+
+The morning following Gwen's promotion to the Fifth Form was wet, one
+of those hopelessly wet October days when the grey sky and the
+dripping trees and the sodden grass and the draggled flowers all seem
+to combine to remind us that summer, lovely, gracious summer, has gone
+with the swallows and left her fickle stepsister autumn in her stead.
+It had been raining heavily all night, and it was pouring hard when
+Nellie placed the coffee pot and the porridge on the table and rang
+the breakfast bell.
+
+"It's an atrocious, abominable morning!" grunted Gwen, peering
+disconsolately through the window into the damp garden. "It's sheer
+cruelty to be expected to turn out and tramp two miles through the
+mud. We oughtn't to have to go to school when it rains."
+
+"Wet at seven, fine at eleven!" chirped Beatrice at the coffee pot.
+
+"It's all very well for you to be cheerful and quote proverbs--you
+haven't to go out yourself, Madam Bee!" grumbled Gwen. "I wonder how
+you'd like it if--"
+
+"Oh, Gwen, don't whine! Come and get breakfast," interrupted Winnie.
+"It's five-and-twenty to eight, and I've a strong suspicion the
+clock's late."
+
+"It is," remarked Lesbia calmly, pausing with her porridge spoon
+suspended midway between plate and mouth. "Stumps put it back ten
+minutes last night when Father wasn't looking. I saw him."
+
+A chorus of united indignation followed her information, each member
+of the family trying to bolt breakfast and scold the offender at the
+same time.
+
+"We've only five minutes. Oh, you naughty boy!" shrieked Winnie.
+
+"I didn't want to go to bed--I meant to put it on again this morning
+first thing--I did, honest," protested Giles, otherwise known as
+"Stumps".
+
+"Lesbia, why couldn't you say sooner?" fretted Gwen.
+
+"Only just remembered."
+
+"And the porridge is so hot I've burned my mouth!" wailed Basil.
+
+"You haven't a moment to waste!" urged Beatrice. "Have you all got
+your boots on? I shall tell Father what you've done, Giles, as soon as
+he comes downstairs."
+
+Even the loss of ten minutes was a serious consideration to those
+members of the Gascoyne family who were bound for school. Skelwick was
+such an out-of-the-way place that they had quite a journey to get to
+Stedburgh, the seaside town where Rodenhurst was situated. First they
+had to walk two miles along a very exposed country road to the village
+of North Ditton, where they could catch the motor omnibus that would
+take them the remaining four miles into Stedburgh, and then there was
+a further walk of at least ten minutes before they reached the school.
+The bus always started with the utmost promptitude, so it was a daily
+anxiety to leave home punctually and not be obliged to run the last
+half mile. On this particular morning there was more than the usual
+scramble to get off. At the last moment Gwen could not find her
+galoshes, and remembered that she had broken the rib of her umbrella
+some days before, and had forgotten to mention the fact and ask
+Beatrice to have it mended.
+
+"You're the most tiresome girl!" scolded the harassed elder sister.
+"Why couldn't you tell me and I'd have sent it to Johnson's last
+night? Now I suppose I shall have to lend you mine, and very likely
+you'll go and break that too!"
+
+"I don't want yours!" snapped Gwen, tucking her hair inside her
+mackintosh and putting on her "stormy-weather" cap. "I wouldn't risk
+smashing it for a five-pound note. I'll go without!" and snatching her
+satchel of books she rushed after the others, who had already started.
+
+The rain was driving furiously, and the road was full of little
+running rivers of yellow mud. The strong wind made Gwen's eyes smart
+and water, and she was obliged to hurry to make up for lost time; so
+when she arrived at North Ditton she was a breathless, rather pitiful
+object, and most decidedly cross. The omnibus was so full that she was
+compelled to take Lesbia on her knee and to sit wedged between a very
+fat wheezy old farmer and a market gardener, who nursed a parcel of
+plants.
+
+"It's rather fun, isn't it?" laughed Lesbia, graciously accepting the
+rose that her neighbour offered her. (Somehow people always gave
+things to Lesbia.)
+
+"More fun for you than for me!" growled Gwen. "I wish you knew how
+heavy you are!"
+
+A bad start does not make a good preparation for the rest of the day,
+and Gwen marched into the Fifth Form room that morning in no
+conciliatory frame of mind. She was quite prepared to be ill received,
+so she thought she would meet possible coldness by showing a defiant
+attitude. It was an extremely foolish move, for it brought about the
+very state of affairs she anticipated. Several of the nicer girls in
+the Form had half repented their wrath of yesterday, and were ready
+not only to treat her kindly, but to influence the others in her
+favour. When they saw her enter, however, with a "don't care" scowling
+air and walk to her desk, without even looking in their direction,
+they decided that she was an ill-conditioned, disagreeable girl, and
+that they would not trouble their heads about her. Instead, therefore,
+of going and speaking to her as they had intended, they let her
+severely alone. As a rule, if we go through life expecting slights and
+dislike, we get what we look for: the self-made martyr can find stake
+and faggots waiting round every corner. Gwen raged inwardly at the
+neglect of her classmates, but she did not realize in the least that
+it was partly her own fault. She sat all the morning with a
+thundercloud on her face, hurrying out of the room at the interval and
+eating her lunch alone in a corner of the gymnasium.
+
+"How are you getting on in the Fifth?" whispered Lesbia, who ran up
+for a moment to sympathize.
+
+"Badly," groaned Gwen. "They're boycotting me. Of course the Fourth
+won't have anything to do with me now; so I'm like Mahomet's coffin,
+swung between heaven and earth! It's not pleasant, I assure you."
+
+"I should think not. I wish I could do anything."
+
+"You can't. Go back and play basket-ball."
+
+It was not Rodenhurst etiquette for Seniors to talk to Juniors, so
+Gwen, mindful even in her forlorn state of her new dignity as a member
+of the Upper School, could not indulge in the luxury of a chat with
+Lesbia. She wandered down the corridor, read the time sheets and the
+announcements on the notice boards, peeped into several empty
+classrooms, and was glad for once when the bell rang. At one o'clock
+things were no better. She was given a new place at the dinner-table
+and had to sit between Rachel Hunter and Edith Arnold, both of whom
+behaved as if unaware of her presence, and talked to each other across
+her as though she were non-existent. When she asked for the salt
+(rather shortly, certainly) Edith only stared and did not pass it. By
+the end of the meal Gwen began to feel the situation was getting on
+her nerves. She had been fairly popular in the Upper Fourth, so the
+change was the more unpleasant.
+
+"I'm not going to give in, though," she thought. "I believe what they
+want is to make me ask Miss Roscoe to move me down again. Well,
+they'll find themselves mistaken, that's all! I'll stay in the Upper
+School if nobody speaks to me till next midsummer, and if I have to
+stop up half the night slogging away at my work!"
+
+"How cross that Gwen Gascoyne looks!" whispered Hilda Browne to Iris
+Watson.
+
+"Yes, she doesn't seem to want to know us, does she?"
+
+"She needn't, I'm sure. I think she's horrid!"
+
+It was still raining and impossible to go into the playground, so Gwen
+strolled into the empty classroom, and for lack of anything else to do
+began arranging and rearranging the contents of her desk. She had not
+been there more than five minutes when the door opened and Netta
+Goodwin, one of her new form-mates, entered, humming a tune. She
+glanced at Gwen, went to her own desk, made a pretence of trying to
+find a book, sat whistling for a moment or two, then finally turned
+towards Gwen.
+
+"Well, how do you like being a Senior?" she asked half mockingly.
+
+"Too soon to tell yet," replied Gwen cautiously. "I shall know better
+at the end of a week."
+
+"You've not had a very charming reception so far, have you? I saw how
+Rachel and Edith were behaving at dinner."
+
+"I don't care!" snapped Gwen. "I don't want to talk to them, thanks!
+The Form can please itself whether it's friendly or leaves me alone as
+far as I'm concerned."
+
+Netta whistled softly. There was a rather inscrutable expression on
+her face.
+
+"All the same I suppose you don't always want to go on being a kind of
+leper and outlaw? Not very interesting, I should say, to come to
+school every day and speak to nobody!"
+
+Gwen was silent. She had no argument to advance.
+
+"They're annoyed with you just at present for being moved into our
+Form, but they can't keep it up long. In a little while they'll feel
+accustomed to you and you'll get on all right. Then the question is,
+are you going to belong to the Saints or the Sinners?"
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Gwen.
+
+"We're all one or other here. We call Hilda Browne and Iris Watson and
+Louise Mawson and Rachel Hunter and Edith Arnold and a few more 'the
+Saints'."
+
+"Nothing very saintly about them that I can see!" sniffed Gwen.
+
+"Well, it depends on your standards. Perhaps they thought they behaved
+like saints at dinner."
+
+"More like Pharisees! Which are you?"
+
+Netta's brown eyes twinkled.
+
+"I leave you to guess!" she replied sagely. "I'm not stiff and
+stand-off like some of them are, at any rate. If you'd care to take a
+walk down the corridor, I'll go with you."
+
+A stroll with anyone was better than sitting alone in the classroom;
+it was still only two o'clock, and there was half an hour to get
+through before afternoon school began. Gwen was not averse to
+exploring the upper corridor, for as a Junior it had been forbidden
+ground to her. She and Netta went into the Sixth Form room, the Senior
+French and German room, and even looked inside the teachers' room,
+finding nobody there.
+
+"Miss Roscoe's private sitting-room is at the end of the passage,"
+said Netta. "She's down in the library, so if you like to take a peep,
+you can."
+
+The spirit of curiosity strongly urged Gwen to see what a
+headmistress's private study was like, and thinking themselves
+perfectly safe, the two girls entered, and began eagerly to scan the
+pictures, the ornaments, the photographs, and the various objects
+which were spread about on desk and tables. It was a pretty, tasteful
+room, with choice prints from the old masters in carved oak frames,
+and pots of ferns and flowers, and handsomely bound books, and curios
+from foreign lands. The girls moved softly about, examining first one
+thing and then another with increasing interest.
+
+"Oh, do look at this exquisite little case of butterflies! I never saw
+anything so perfect!" said Netta.
+
+Gwen was standing absorbed in contemplation of a stained-wood blotter.
+She wheeled round, and as she did so her elbow knocked a parcel that
+had been placed on the corner of the desk, and sent it flying on to
+the floor. There was a smashing sound like the breaking of china, and
+at that exact moment somebody entered the room. Hopelessly caught, the
+two girls turned to face the newcomer. It was not Miss Roscoe--that
+was one thing to be thankful for--but it was Emma, the housemaid,
+which was quite bad enough. She looked at them as if she knew herself
+to be mistress of the situation, then waxed eloquent.
+
+"I should just like to know what you two's doing here?" she demanded.
+"You've no business in this room--none at all. And you've gone and
+smashed that parcel as is only come five minutes ago from the china
+shop. I could hear it break. My word! What will Miss Roscoe say to
+this?"
+
+"She mustn't know!" gasped Netta. "Emma, you must promise us
+faithfully not to tell you've found us here."
+
+"Me not tell? And what for, please? Why should I screen you?"
+
+"We shall get into such an awful scrape!" pleaded Gwen.
+
+"You should have thought of that before you came!"
+
+"Oh, Emma!" urged Netta. "We can't, we daren't let Miss Roscoe know.
+She'd be so fearfully angry. She might even expel us!"
+
+"And what am I to say about this parcel you've broken? You don't
+suppose I'm going to take the blame of that on my shoulders! No, thank
+you!"
+
+"The cat," murmured Netta.
+
+"Cat, indeed!" repeated Emma scornfully. "That's too old a story to
+take in Miss Roscoe; besides which, there's not a cat in the house.
+She hates 'em. You'll just have to own up, and serve you both right
+for meddling."
+
+"Is it badly broken, I wonder?" sighed Gwen, feeling the unfortunate
+parcel carefully. "It seems to be a box."
+
+"Yes, but what's inside the box is smashed. You can hear the bits
+rattle when you shake it," returned Emma smartly. "It's her new
+afternoon tea set, I'll be bound. She told me she was going to order
+one from Parker's."
+
+"There's Parker's name on the label," agreed Gwen despondently.
+
+"Yes, and if you think--"
+
+"Look here, I've got an idea," interrupted Netta. "You said the box
+only arrived about five minutes ago, so Miss Roscoe can't possibly
+know that it's come yet. If we could get it taken back to the shop
+and ask Parker's to send some more, and we pay for it, she need never
+know."
+
+"A pretty idea!" snorted Emma.
+
+"Oh, it would be grand!" exclaimed Gwen, grasping at any way out of
+the dreadful predicament.
+
+"You'll help us, Emma, won't you?" entreated Netta.
+
+"Not I! It's none of my business."
+
+"But suppose it were worth your while? Wouldn't half a crown buy you
+something nice?"
+
+"Nothing I'd care for."
+
+"Five shillings, then?"
+
+Emma's face showed signs of yielding.
+
+"I don't want to get you into trouble if I can help it," she replied
+more gently. "I dare say Parker's would replace the things if you was
+willing to pay for them, and nothing need be said. I'm not one for
+wanting scenes, and a scene there'd be if Miss Roscoe found her set
+broken. She's a sharp tongue, as I know to my cost."
+
+"Then, Emma, will you take away the box now, and hide it somewhere,
+and we'll meet you in the pantry at four o'clock, and you can give it
+to us, and we'll take it ourselves to Parker's, and ask them to send
+some more china to-night. We'll bring you the five shillings to-morrow
+morning. It shall be a present from us both, and thank you so much for
+helping us! You promise you won't tell? Well, that's a weight off our
+minds! Come, Gwen, we'll scoot!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A Delicate Transaction
+
+
+Gwen had stood by, listening to Netta's proposals, and offered no
+opposition. She was thankful to find any means of escape from the
+terrible prospect of braving Miss Roscoe's wrath. The Principal was a
+stern, even a severe woman, who never made allowances or admitted
+excuses, and greatly resented any liberties. How would she regard such
+an extreme liberty as an unauthorized visit to her private
+sitting-room, to say nothing of the accident to the tea service? Gwen
+shivered at the bare idea. She was aware that she and her sisters were
+received on rather special terms at Rodenhurst. Winnie's teaching
+scarcely compensated for the two younger ones' school fees, and did
+not include the daily board for the three girls, which was given in by
+Miss Roscoe, who knew of Mr. Gascoyne's poor circumstances. For this
+reason Gwen had been urged to work her hardest, so as to be a credit
+to her Form, and in some degree repay Miss Roscoe's generosity. The
+Principal had shown an interest in her, particularly in relaxing an
+old-established rule in her favour, and moving her up right in the
+middle of a term. If she were detected in such a grave breach of
+discipline, Miss Roscoe might consider her unworthy of any further
+kindnesses, might even ask her father to take her away altogether from
+Rodenhurst. To take her away! Why, the world would come to an end! At
+home she was already regarded as the troublesome one of the family,
+and if she suffered this disgrace, she could never hold up her head
+again. Father--dear, patient, self-sacrificing Father--would be
+grieved and worried beyond expression; he hoped great things, she
+knew, from her schooling, and how could she bear to disappoint him?
+
+Then there was Beatrice, who always seemed ready to find fault, and
+think the worst of her. She would almost as soon let Miss Roscoe know
+as Beatrice! No, at all costs the episode of that afternoon must be
+kept a strict secret. She dared not confide it even to Winnie or
+Lesbia. She must take the burden on her own shoulders, and get out of
+the scrape as best she could alone. Netta had assumed the leadership
+of the affair, so to Netta she turned for counsel and comfort.
+
+"What's the next move?" she asked.
+
+"Why, we must go to Parker's directly school's over, and take the
+parcel with us."
+
+"I shall miss the bus!"
+
+"You can't help that; you must catch the next."
+
+"I shall have to dodge Winnie and Lesbia."
+
+"Dodge them, then, and make up some excuse for missing the bus. You
+can say I kept you."
+
+"How much do you think the china will cost?"
+
+"I haven't the least idea; it depends how much is broken."
+
+"Netta, you won't tell a soul about this, will you?"
+
+"Tell! Am I likely to tell? No, you and I are in the same boat, and we
+must shield each other. I wouldn't trust anybody in the school. One
+never knows how things are talked about and get round from the most
+unlikely quarters. Whatever happens, this mustn't reach Miss Roscoe's
+ears."
+
+The motor omnibus started at 4.20, and as a rule the Gascoynes had
+quite a scramble to rush off and catch it. To-day Gwen managed to
+avoid Winnie and Lesbia, and waiting until they were safely off the
+premises, she went with Netta to the pantry. Emma was not there, but
+they found the parcel behind the door and appropriated it, Gwen hiding
+it carefully under her waterproof. Parker's china store was in the
+principal street of the town, nearly a quarter of an hour's walk from
+Rodenhurst. When the girls arrived there, several customers were in
+the shop, so that they had to wait a little before anyone could attend
+to them.
+
+"You speak to him--I don't know what to say!" whispered Gwen,
+thrusting the parcel into Netta's hand, as an assistant at last came
+to serve them.
+
+Netta had any amount of presence of mind, and did not at all object to
+be spokeswoman. She rapidly explained that they had had an accident,
+and were anxious to replace some broken articles at their own expense.
+The shopman opened the box, and pulling out the shavings in which the
+china was packed, laid the various pieces upon the counter. The girls
+were aghast at the extent of the damage. Several cups were smashed to
+atoms, the teapot had lost its lid, and the cream jug its handle.
+
+"Have you any more like them?" asked Netta anxiously.
+
+"Fortunately we have, miss," replied the assistant. "It is a pattern
+we usually keep in stock, and--yes, I can match them all. I can repack
+the box and send it out by the six-o'clock van."
+
+Gwen heaved a great sigh of relief. Miss Roscoe would receive her
+parcel that night, and would be no wiser for what had happened.
+
+"We shall be very glad if you will do that," she said. "And will you
+please tell us what we have to pay extra?"
+
+The man took the bill which had been enclosed in the box and rapidly
+glanced over the items.
+
+"Let me see--teapot, cream jug, three cups, four plates--the sugar
+basin is all right--ah! but this saucer is cracked! Sixteen and six,
+seventeen and nine--it will be exactly one pound two and sixpence,
+please."
+
+Gwen felt ready to sink through the floor. She had very little notion
+of the value of things, and could hardly believe that china cost so
+much. She looked blankly and helplessly at Netta, who after a moment's
+pause met the emergency.
+
+"We haven't the money with us this afternoon, I'm afraid, but we'll
+bring it to-morrow without fail. Will that do?"
+
+"Yes, thank you, miss, I dare say it will be all right if you give me
+the name."
+
+"Miss Gwen Gascoyne," said Netta promptly.
+
+"At Rodenhurst, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+That ended the transaction, so the two girls left the shop.
+
+"Well, Gwen, my child, you've let yourself in for a nice little bill!"
+laughed Netta, when they found themselves in the street.
+
+"It's impossible! I can't pay it!" gasped Gwen, with hot tears
+trickling down her cheeks. "What am I to do?"
+
+"Turn along this quiet road immediately, and don't stand mopping your
+eyes in the middle of High Street! Everybody's staring at you. I
+believe the policeman's going to ask if you're lost!"
+
+And seizing her schoolmate by the arm, Netta hustled her away from the
+unwelcome attention which she was attracting. The road led to the
+promenade, where the girls found an unoccupied bench, and sat down to
+talk matters over.
+
+"One pound two and sixpence!" ejaculated Gwen, with a sob between the
+words.
+
+"And five shillings we promised Emma, so that makes twenty-seven and
+six," agreed Netta briskly. "Of course it was you who broke the china,
+so it's your business to pay for it, but I'll go shares in squaring
+Emma."
+
+"I can't--I can't ever pay it! Oh, I wish I was at the bottom of the
+sea!" wailed Gwen.
+
+"Don't be an idiot! It must be managed somehow. How much have you got
+at home?"
+
+"I've about fifteen shillings in my money-box."
+
+"Well, look here, I'll lend you ten, and that will just do it. We'll
+each give Emma half a crown to make her hold her tongue, and we'll
+settle up Parker, and then the thing will be done with. You may pay me
+back as soon as you can."
+
+"You're a white angel!"
+
+"No, I'm not. I'm anything but a saintly person. I'm ready to help a
+chum out of a hole, though. I'll bring the money to school with me
+to-morrow morning. And now, for goodness sake, do wipe your eyes, and
+put your hat on straight, and try and make yourself look respectable
+enough to walk down the promenade. I want to go home."
+
+"So do I," said Gwen. "What's the time? I mustn't miss the next bus."
+
+"It's twenty past five."
+
+"Oh, horrors! And the bus goes at half-past! Can I possibly catch it?"
+
+"I'll say goodbye if you're going to pelt along the promenade. I hate
+rushing."
+
+"Goodbye! And thank you a hundred thousand times!"
+
+It was only as Gwen was scurrying along the asphalted walk that it
+struck her that, after all, Netta was getting rather easily out of the
+scrape. Of course she, Gwen, had knocked over the box of china, but it
+was Netta who had taken her into Miss Roscoe's room, and who was
+therefore in a sense responsible for the whole affair. Well, she was
+glad enough to find help on any terms; she did not know how she was
+going to repay Netta the money, but that might wait. It was sufficient
+for the present that the tea set could be replaced without any fear of
+discovery. She hurried breathlessly on, fearing to miss the omnibus;
+taking any short cuts she knew, and breaking into a run when she
+reached the Ditton Road. She could see the omnibus standing at its
+starting-place, and hoped it might be just possible to arrive in time.
+As she tore along the footpath, she noticed a boy a few yards in front
+of her who was running equally quickly, or even faster.
+
+"I wonder if he's trying to catch it too?" she thought, and envied his
+longer legs and freedom from hampering skirts. "Oh! it's actually
+going! What a shame!"
+
+The boy made a spurt, and shouted and whistled after the retreating
+omnibus, but it was not of the slightest avail; neither the conductor
+nor the driver took any notice. Realizing the hopelessness of his
+efforts, the boy stopped and saw Gwen, who came panting up.
+
+"No use, it's gone too far!" he exclaimed. "It's an atrocious swindle!
+Those men never look. I suppose you were trying to catch it too?"
+
+"Yes. I always go by the 4.20."
+
+"So do I; so it's a nuisance to miss this. We're out of luck to-day."
+
+Gwen knew the boy quite well by sight, as for the last few weeks he
+had been a fellow passenger morning and evening in the omnibus. He was
+a jolly-looking fellow, about her own age or perhaps a little older,
+with a brown skin and very twinkling, brown eyes. He wore a
+grammar-school cap, and carried some books, so she could guess his
+occupation in Stedburgh.
+
+"I believe the next goes at half-past six," he remarked ruefully. "But
+you won't catch me waiting for it I shall walk."
+
+"So shall I," agreed Gwen. "Walking's better fun any time than
+standing waiting," and she suited her action to her words. The boy
+kept by her side, evidently not unpleased to have a companion to talk
+to.
+
+"You're one of the Gascoyne girls, aren't you?" he began. "I see the
+whole lot of you every day cramming into the bus. Aren't you the one
+they call Gwen?"
+
+"I believe I am."
+
+"It's you who's generally left something behind, or lost something, or
+got yourself into some kind of a pickle; then the one with her hair
+turned up scolds."
+
+"That's Winnie," chuckled Gwen.
+
+"Those two youngsters are cheeky imps. Tell them they'll get their
+heads smacked some day!"
+
+"They often do at home."
+
+"Serve 'em right. I'm glad to hear it. How many more are there of you
+at home?"
+
+"Only two."
+
+"Quite enough, I should think!"
+
+"Thank you! You've asked all about my family, but you haven't told me
+who you are."
+
+"Why, I thought you knew. My name is Dick Chambers. My father is Dr.
+Chambers, who's just taken Dr. Harrison's practice."
+
+"At North Ditton?"
+
+"Yes, we only came six weeks ago. Dr. Harrison has gone to London."
+
+[Illustration: GWEN MEETS DICK]
+
+"I knew Dr. Harrison," said Gwen. "He came to see us when we had
+scarlatina, and gave us some loathly medicine!"
+
+"Dad can do a little in that line!" laughed Dick. "He once made me
+drink asafoetida when I was a kid, to cure me of sampling bottles in
+the surgery."
+
+"Is it nasty?"
+
+"It smells like a defunct rat, so you can imagine the taste."
+
+"Ugh!"
+
+"He doesn't give such bad things to his patients, though. There's some
+quite decent stuff in the dispensary, and sometimes the bottles are
+coloured pink, especially if they're for girls. I'm going to be a
+doctor when I grow up."
+
+"I suppose you'll help your father. Have you any brothers and
+sisters?"
+
+"Not a single one."
+
+"Oh, I should think that's rather slow!"
+
+"I don't find it so. There's always plenty to do."
+
+"Do you like North Ditton?"
+
+"Oh, yes, pretty well! It's nicer than Essington, where we lived
+before."
+
+"Do you like the Grammar School?"
+
+"Fairly. The chaps are rather a rotten set, and the Head's
+unspeakable."
+
+Chatting thus, Gwen found the four miles to North Ditton wonderfully
+short ones, but when she had said goodbye to her new friend, and was
+trudging along the road to Skelwick by herself, she had time for many
+unpleasant reflections. At one blow this afternoon, she had sacrificed
+not only all the money in her savings box, but had got into debt as
+well--a debt which she had no present prospect of paying. It was most
+aggravating to have to empty her private bank; the contents were the
+accumulation of several little gifts that had been sent by her uncles
+and aunts on her last birthday, and even so far back as last
+Christmas. How would she explain, if Beatrice asked what had become of
+her money? She groaned as she splashed, recklessly through the puddles
+left by the morning's rain. She could foresee many difficulties ahead,
+especially at Christmas time.
+
+The family had finished tea when she reached home, and Beatrice, grown
+uneasy at her absence, greeted her with upbraidings.
+
+"Where have you been, Gwen? Why didn't you come with the others?
+Winnie nearly lost the bus with going back to look for you. You know
+quite well you mustn't stay behind like this. Answer me at once! Where
+were you?"
+
+"I went along the promenade with Netta Goodwin, then I missed the 5.30
+and had to walk all the way home. That's where I've been, and you may
+scold as much as you like--I don't care."
+
+"Oh, Gwen!" exclaimed Winnie.
+
+"I don't. I'm not going to be ordered about by Beatrice, and treated
+as if I were a baby. I'm surely old enough to manage my own affairs!"
+
+Gwen was tired out with her six-mile tramp, and hungry, and very
+miserable, or I think she would not have talked in so lawless and
+foolish a strain.
+
+Beatrice gazed at her in amazement. Gwen had often been naughty, but
+had never before ventured thus to wave the flag of defiance.
+
+"I shall have to get Father to speak to you," she replied gravely.
+"He's gone over to Hethersedge to take the temperance meeting. He
+started at five o'clock. You'd better have tea now. Nellie has made
+you some more, in the little blue pot, and we kept you a potato cake,
+though you don't deserve it. Father will be very astonished and sorry
+when I tell him what you've said."
+
+Gwen ate her meal with a big lump in her throat. She had not meant to
+rebel openly, but she had lost her temper, and the words had flashed
+out. Beatrice's threat alarmed her. Through all the tangled skein of
+Gwen's character there ran, like a thread of pure gold, the intense
+passionate love for her father, and the desire to preserve his good
+opinion. She could not bear to see the grieved look that came into his
+eyes when he was forced to reprove her. What indeed would he think of
+her when he heard Beatrice's account? She pushed the potato cake away,
+feeling as if she could not swallow a morsel.
+
+Beatrice was putting Martin to bed. Better follow her now, and try to
+patch up peace. She ran upstairs and met her sister coming out of the
+little fellow's bedroom, candle in hand.
+
+"Bee! I'm awfully sorry for what I said just now! I didn't really mean
+it I can't think what possessed me!" gulped Gwen.
+
+"I try to do my best for you all. It's hard work sometimes to be
+eldest," said Beatrice, and there was a quiver in her voice too. "If
+only Mother were here."
+
+"Don't!" said Gwen huskily. "I miss her so dreadfully still. Oh, Bee!
+If only you wouldn't tell Father about this!"
+
+"If I don't, will you promise faithfully always to come straight home
+from school with Winnie and Lesbia, and never go anywhere without
+asking?"
+
+"On my honour!"
+
+"Then I won't trouble him. He's enough worries, poor darling, without
+adding any more to them! I only wish I could save him some of those he
+already has!"
+
+Early next morning, long before Lesbia was awake, Gwen got up very
+quietly, and unlocked her savings box. It seemed dreadfully hard to
+have to take her treasured fifteen shillings; pocket money was such a
+scarce article at the Parsonage that she did not know when she would
+have the chance of accumulating so much again. There were only two
+threepenny bits and a penny left to rattle when she shook the box, so
+she sighed ruefully as she locked it, and put it back in its place on
+the top shelf of the bookcase. She hoped Netta would not forget to
+bring the half-sovereign she had promised to lend, though how the loan
+was ever to be repaid she could not imagine. For to-day it seemed
+enough if she had avoided Miss Roscoe's anger, and spared casting an
+added worry on Father's already overburdened shoulders.
+
+Netta was faithful to her word; she came to school with both the
+ten-shilling piece and the half-crown which was to be her share of the
+"hush money" for Emma. The two girls held a long whispered conference
+together during the interval.
+
+"I can't possibly go and pay Parker's myself," said Gwen. "You've no
+idea what a row I got into last night for missing the bus. Winnie'll
+keep an eye on me to-day at four o'clock, I can assure you. Could you
+go?"
+
+"Very sorry, but I've got to go straight home too. Some cousins are
+coming to tea, and I have to ask Miss Evans to let me out of the
+drawing class ten minutes earlier. Why not get Emma to go? We shall
+have to see her to give her her tip."
+
+"A good idea," said Gwen. "Emma understands all about it."
+
+They found the housemaid when she was helping to lay the tables for
+dinner, and managed to draw her aside for a private talk.
+
+"Did the fresh china come last night?" they asked eagerly.
+
+"Oh, yes! it came all right, and Miss Roscoe never said a word, so you
+may think yourselves lucky," replied Emma.
+
+"Here's the little present we promised you," said Netta, slipping the
+five shillings into her hand.
+
+"I hardly like taking it!" protested Emma, though she popped it
+hastily into her pocket all the same.
+
+"Could you do something more for us?" begged Gwen. "Will you call at
+Parker's and pay for the broken china? Here's the money--it's one
+pound two and six. Neither Netta nor I can possibly go."
+
+"Oh, yes, I don't mind doing that!" returned Emma. "It's my night out
+this evening, and I shall be down High Street, so I can easily call at
+Parker's on my road. They don't close till eight o'clock."
+
+"And you promise you'll never breathe a single word to anybody about
+this?"
+
+"Not likely!" declared Emma, as she turned away to finish laying her
+table.
+
+"Well, I'm thankful that's done with," thought Gwen. "It might have
+been an awkward affair, and I've come out of it uncommonly well. I
+feel as if I'd laid a ghost, and popped a stone on its grave."
+
+It was all very well for Gwen to congratulate herself, but she quite
+forgot that ghosts have an awkward habit sometimes of disregarding
+tombstones, and rising from their graves to haunt those who have
+interred them. The matter of the broken china was not to be so easily
+disposed of as she had imagined, and though for the present her secret
+seemed safe, there was trouble ahead for her in plenty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Trouble in the Fifth
+
+
+The direct result of Gwen's transaction about the china was to fling
+her into the arms of Netta Goodwin. With such a secret between them it
+was impossible not to be friendly, and though Netta was hardly an
+ideal chum, there seemed no choice in the matter. Moreover, she was
+the only one in the Fifth who had offered advances; the other girls,
+still indignant at the promotion of a Junior, turned the cold
+shoulder. This unfortunate intimacy caused Gwen to be banned the more.
+
+"I see Gwen Gascoyne has taken up with Netta Goodwin," said Hilda
+Browne.
+
+"Then that stamps her," replied Edith Arnold. "I wouldn't touch Netta
+with a pair of tongs myself. I thought better of the Gascoynes!"
+
+Netta was a type of girl that can be found in every school and almost
+every Form. Rather deficient in moral fibre, and badly trained at
+home, her influence was always on the wrong side. She was clever
+enough, as a rule, just to avoid getting into open trouble with the
+authorities, but under the surface she was a source of disturbance.
+She had a certain following of gigglers and slackers, who thought her
+escapades funny, and were ready to act chorus to her lead, and though
+she had never done anything specially outrageous, her reputation at
+headquarters was not good. Every teacher realized only too plainly
+that Netta was the firebrand of the Form, and that while she might
+preserve a smug exterior it was really she who was responsible for any
+outbreaks of lawlessness among the others.
+
+As Junior Mistress of the Fifth no one had more reason to be aware of
+this than Winnie Gascoyne. Teaching was uphill work to Winnie. She had
+not Beatrice's commanding disposition and capacity for administration,
+consequently it was the more difficult for her to keep order and
+enforce rules. She did her conscientious best, but girls easily find
+out a governess's weak point, and at present Netta was trying how far
+she could go. "Ragging Miss Gascoyne" was a favourite pastime of hers,
+and one which afforded much sport to her applauders, if not to the
+victim of her jokes.
+
+A few mornings after Gwen's introduction to the Fifth there was a
+class for memory map drawing with the assistant teacher. Each girl was
+supposed to come prepared to make a map of India, and to mark in a
+large number of places, a fairly difficult task, and one over which
+many of them grumbled in unison.
+
+"It's not fair! It takes such heaps of time to go over it at home, one
+hasn't a second for anything else!" wailed Minna Jennings.
+
+"I'd a raging headache last night, and my mother said she thought
+Rodenhurst was getting too much for me," bleated Millicent Cooper.
+
+"Poor frail flower! You look as if you'd wither at a breath! Better
+pack you off to a sanatorium!" laughed Netta.
+
+"And you to a lunatic asylum, you mad thing! Don't you ever get
+headaches with all this over-swatting?"
+
+"No, my child, for I know a dodge or two! N. G. is no infant in arms,
+I assure you."
+
+"Deign to explain, O commander of the faithful!" begged Annie Edwards.
+
+"Well, as I told you, I'm up to a thing or two, and I flatter myself I
+know just exactly how to tackle Grinnie."
+
+"Who's Grinnie?" asked Gwen rather sharply.
+
+The others roared.
+
+"My sweet babe, my dear ex-Junior, let us initiate you into the
+shibboleths of the Fifth! Yes, Seniors indulge in their little
+nicknames as well as the Lower School, though perhaps we are rather
+more cultured in our choice of them. Be it known to you then that our
+respected Head, vulgarly called The Bogey by ill-trained Juniors, is
+among our elect set yclept Lemonade, partly owing to her habit of
+fizzing over, and partly to a certain acid quality in her temper,
+otherwise hard to define. Miss Douglas, our honoured Form mistress,
+being a canny Scot, goes by the familiar appellation of Thistles,
+intended also to subtly convey our appreciation--or shall I say
+depreciation?--of her prickly habit."
+
+"And Grinnie?" continued Gwen.
+
+"Your sister, by her perpetual smile, courted the title."
+
+"It's no good exploding, Gwen!" said Annie Edwards. "If you've got a
+sister who's a teacher you'll just have to hear her called nicknames.
+You don't suppose we're going to shut up on your account?"
+
+"And you needn't go sneaking, either, or it'll be the worse for you,"
+added Minna Jennings.
+
+"We'd soon know who'd told tales," snapped Millicent Cooper.
+
+"Peace, turbulent herd!" said Netta, holding up her hand. "Our friend
+Gwen, being of a sensible disposition, and a lover, like ourselves, of
+all wholesome jests, fully realizes the exigencies of her peculiar
+situation. Though in the seclusion of her home she may be bound by
+many natural ties, family obligations cease entirely in the classroom.
+If her sister is a mistress, she is a pupil, and therefore bound to
+side with her Form through all those trials of tact known as 'thick
+and thin'. Have I not put the thing in a nutshell, O Gwendolen mine?"
+
+Gwen could not help laughing, for there was undoubted truth in Netta's
+argument. Winnie would, she knew, treat her with the utmost
+impartiality, probably even more strictly, owing to their
+relationship. It would certainly never do if she were to be regarded
+as a sneak in the Form, ready to report misdoings and make mischief;
+such a character would be intolerable to her. Winnie must fight her
+own battles, and she would throw in her luck with her peers.
+
+"You needn't be afraid of me!" she protested. "I'd be the very last to
+blab; and I like fun as well as anybody."
+
+"I knew it, oh, altogether-wise-in-judgment! Have I not proved thee?"
+returned Netta, with a meaning look in her eyes which only Gwen
+understood. "Now, having established thy reputation, I will return to
+my original thingumgigs."
+
+"Oh, Netta, stop being a lunatic, and tell us how you mean to tackle
+Grinnie!" interposed Minna.
+
+"Well, my little dears, it's extremely simple, but a work of genius
+all the same. Genius always is simple, I believe! Behold my mapping
+book with its virgin page. Behold also this spotless piece of blotting
+paper. I turn it over, and hey, presto! a transformation. Here's my
+map, nicely done in pencil, with all the names marked. Nothing to do
+but copy it, you see. At the least approach of danger I turn it with
+its most innocent side up."
+
+The girls sniggered their admiration. Gwen could not approve, but she
+did not protest. It was not her business to preach, so she told
+herself. As long as she did her own work honestly, she could not begin
+her career in the Fifth by assuming the very character she had just
+denied. Minna and Annie, inspired by Netta's brilliant idea, were
+copying the map on to pieces of blotting paper as fast as they could.
+
+"It wouldn't be a bad plan to trace it the wrong way, and then rub it
+off like a transfer," suggested Millicent.
+
+"Just a little too clever, most astute one! Grinnie comes round to
+look, and she'd think you'd got on too quickly, and want to know the
+reason why. You're bright, Millicent Cooper, but you're not
+far-seeing."
+
+"You'll get caught yourself some time," said Millicent.
+
+"True, O Queen! But I'll have somewhat in the shape of a run first,"
+laughed Netta.
+
+Gwen felt rather indignant as she began her map drawing. She hated
+cheating, and it seemed very unjust that Netta and the others should
+win credit for what was not fairly their own work.
+
+"Winnie's not half sharp enough," she thought. "If it were Beatrice,
+now, there isn't a girl in the room would dare to try any tricks."
+
+Possibly even Winnie had her suspicions. She kept a watchful eye on
+the Form, and made an occasional tour round the desks. Netta was
+extremely cautious, but all the same her attention to her blotting
+paper was rather conspicuous.
+
+"Netta Goodwin, hand me your mapping book!"
+
+Netta started in some confusion at the abrupt order, and dropped both
+mapbook and blotting paper on to the floor. Gwen, equally startled,
+moved her hand hastily and sent her book spinning after the other. It
+was a complete accident, but one by which Netta did not hesitate to
+profit. Under the shelter of the desk she rapidly substituted Gwen's
+piece of blotting paper for her own, then passed up the book with an
+air of sangfroid truly heroic in the eyes of Annie, Minna, and
+Millicent. Miss Gascoyne examined the pages carefully, but finding
+nothing incriminating, supposed she had been mistaken. Netta might be
+the chief sinner of the Form, certainly, but she was not invariably at
+fault.
+
+"She thought I was as innocent as Mary's little lamb!" laughed that
+damsel afterwards. "You were a trump, Gwen, to help me. It was a smart
+notion of yours to drop your book too. You did it so promptly!" Then
+putting her arm round Gwen's neck she whispered: "I helped you when
+you were in a tight hole, and I'm glad to see you're going to stand by
+me. I shall always count upon you in future."
+
+So thus it happened that almost in spite of herself Gwen became
+Netta's ally, pledged to support her on all occasions. She was afraid
+to risk a quarrel lest Netta should press for the return of the ten
+shillings she had lent. The debt felt a millstone round her neck, from
+which there was no immediate chance of relief. Netta's particular
+clique of friends, proving Gwen safe, included her in their special
+set, a compromising arrangement which seemed nevertheless inevitable.
+The girls did not really mean much harm, but they were silly and
+flippant, and enjoyed evading rules simply for the fun of the thing.
+Netta loved to show off before the others, and because she found Miss
+Gascoyne an easier victim than Miss Douglas, she kept most of her
+sallies for the junior teacher. She could estimate to a nicety the
+fine distinction between giving trouble and open defiance. She never
+actually overstepped the line, but she contrived to make matters very
+unpleasant for poor Winnie. It was her boast that she could always
+raise a spark out of Miss Gascoyne, and her admirers were ready to
+titter in sympathy.
+
+Winnie, mindful of her position as teacher, never mentioned school
+affairs to Gwen; but one day Beatrice tackled the latter on the
+subject.
+
+"I hear you've struck up a friendship with Netta Goodwin," she began.
+"I'm very surprised, for she doesn't seem a nice sort of girl."
+
+"She's the only one who's been kind to me," returned Gwen, up in arms
+at once at Beatrice's tone.
+
+"Indeed! Well, I wouldn't be too much with her if I were you. I'm
+afraid she's anything but desirable."
+
+"Who said I was much with her? Has Winnie been telling tales about
+me?"
+
+"Don't be nasty, Gwen. You know Winnie never tells."
+
+"There's no particular harm in Netta," protested Gwen, taking up the
+cudgels for her schoolmate out of sheer contrariness. "She's only
+rather lively and funny. I suppose that's no great crime."
+
+"Are you sure Father would like her?"
+
+"Dad doesn't know her, so I can't pretend to say what he'd think of
+her," retorted Gwen, shuffling out of the matter with what she knew
+was a lame excuse.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A Casting Vote
+
+
+Gwen had not been prepared to find the Fifth exactly a bed of roses,
+therefore she was hardly surprised at the thorns which beset her new
+path. In spite of the extra teaching from Miss Woodville, she found
+the work of the Form extremely difficult, especially in mathematics.
+There was a whole book of Euclid theorem which she had not been
+through, and the consequence was that every other problem had some
+little point proved by a theorem of which she had never heard. It was
+a most decided stumblingblock. It is possible to sit and look at a
+problem for hours without getting any further if there is just one
+statement of whose existence one is not aware. More than once Gwen had
+to hand in a blank page, and felt very humiliated at the meaning
+glances which passed between Rachel Hunter and Edith Arnold. Neither
+of these was yet reconciled to Gwen's presence in the Form. Rachel,
+mindful of her own delayed promotion to the Upper School, persisted in
+regarding her as an "intruding kid", and Edith could not forgive her
+intimacy with Netta Goodwin. Manifold small slights and snubs fell to
+Gwen's share, and though she affected to make light of them, they
+hurt all the same. She knew that under happier auspices she might have
+been friendly with Hilda Browne, Iris Watson, Louise Mawson, and
+several others of whom Father would have approved, and whom, with his
+entire sanction, she might have invited occasionally to the Parsonage.
+She was aware that she was in the worst set in the Form, and that not
+one of her new chums would pass muster if judged according to her home
+standards.
+
+"I can't ever ask them, that's all," she declared. "Annie's giggles
+would give Beatrice a fit, Millicent puts on side horribly, Minna
+would probably make fun of everything, Claire Harris is absolutely
+vulgar, and as for Netta--no! Dad mustn't see Netta on any account."
+
+Another not unexpected trouble had fallen to Gwen's share. As a member
+of the Upper Fourth she had, at the beginning of the term, been chosen
+Junior Basket-ball Captain, to arrange Lower School team games and
+matches, and she had worked very hard to get things going. On her
+promotion, however, it had been a greatly discussed point whether she
+should resign or finish the season. Some of the Upper Fourth, knowing
+how much was due to Gwen's exertions, had been anxious for her to
+retain her post, but on the whole the popular verdict was against her.
+To Gwen's disgust, her old friends, Eve Dawkins and Alma Richardson,
+were the loudest in her disfavour, and it was chiefly owing to their
+eloquence that she was requested to resign. She had been proud of her
+captaincy, and to give it up was a wrench. There seemed nothing at all
+in her new Form to compensate for the loss, and sometimes she wished
+heartily that she had never been moved.
+
+The present excitement in the Fifth was a "Literary and Dramatic
+Club", the members of which intended to act a piece at Christmas. It
+was a rather cliquish society, worked with more favour than fairness,
+and was principally among those girls whose homes lay near to the
+school.
+
+"They stay behind at four o'clock to rehearse," explained Netta. "It's
+really only among about half a dozen."
+
+"Are you in it?" queried Gwen.
+
+"I, my dear child? Hardly! You don't imagine the high and mighty Iris
+Watson would ask yours truly? Saints and sinners don't mix in this
+Form, if you please!"
+
+"Do you mean to tell me the whole thing is in the hands of Iris and a
+few others?"
+
+"With your usual astuteness you've hit the nail on the head."
+
+"But that's monstrously unfair!" exclaimed Gwen indignantly. "A
+Dramatic Club ought to be for the whole Form. Everybody ought to have
+an innings, in the name of common justice."
+
+Netta shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"I don't want to act with Iris and Edith and Louise, thank you! A
+pleasant performance it would be! They may keep their precious piece
+to themselves, so far as I'm concerned."
+
+"But that's not the point," persisted Gwen. "It's the fairness of the
+thing I'm talking about. One set has no right to monopolize
+everything."
+
+"It is sickening, certainly."
+
+"It's worse than sickening, it's intolerable, and I'm going to make a
+stand against it."
+
+"You can try if you like, but you needn't expect success."
+
+When Gwen had a cause to champion, she was ready for a fight, even on
+the losing side. One of her characteristics was a strong sense of
+justice, and here, she considered, was a distinct case of oppression.
+She thought over her plan of campaign, and decided that she would ask
+to be admitted to the Dramatic Club. Next morning, accordingly, she
+approached the five or six girls who constituted that society.
+
+"Want to join our Dramatic Club!" exclaimed Louise Mawson almost
+incredulously. "I dare say you do!"
+
+"But you won't!" said Hilda Browne quickly.
+
+"Cheek!" ejaculated Rachel Hunter.
+
+"Why shouldn't I join?"
+
+"On the other hand, why should you?"
+
+"Because a society ought to be open to the whole Form, and not just
+kept amongst a few. We didn't manage things like that in the Upper
+Fourth."
+
+"How very kind of you, fresh from the Juniors, to come and give us
+Seniors a lesson in managing our affairs! Perhaps you'd like to be
+President? Would that content you?" enquired Hilda Browne
+sarcastically.
+
+"I don't want to be President, but I claim the right to have some say
+in the matter. The thing ought to be properly constituted, and every
+girl in the Form ought to vote for officers."
+
+"Well, of all cool proposals!"
+
+"Look here, Gwen Gascoyne, you need suppressing!"
+
+"She's not worth noticing!"
+
+It was only what Gwen had expected, but she felt she had at any rate
+opened fire. She did not mean to retire vanquished after a first
+attempt. She now directed her energies to another quarter. She
+canvassed the entire Form, asking each girl separately if she did not
+consider the Dramatic Club ought to be put upon a general basis.
+Everybody, except those who were already members, agreed. Many had
+thought the present arrangement unfair, and had grumbled loudly,
+though nobody had had the initiative to start a revolt. Now Joan
+Masters and Elspeth Frazer took the matter in hand seriously, tackled
+the clique, and argued the question.
+
+"You may run a private club if you like for your own amusement," said
+Elspeth, "but if you're going to call it 'The Fifth Form Dramatic',
+and give a performance before the other Forms at Christmas, then it
+must be a fair and open thing. Everyone must be eligible for
+membership, and officers should be chosen by ballot."
+
+"Half of you wouldn't be able to join," declared Hilda Browne.
+
+"That's our own lookout. The point is that we ought to be able to do
+so if we want. If you persist in keeping it all to yourselves, you may
+act without an audience, for none of us will come to see you, and
+we'll tell the other Forms what the quarrel is."
+
+"I know they'd back us up," said Joan Masters.
+
+Very unwillingly the clique gave way. They knew they had no just
+ground for their position, but they had hoped it would not be called
+in question.
+
+"It's all the fault of Gwen Gascoyne, with her Lower School notions,"
+said Rachel Hunter.
+
+"She needn't think she's going to act!" asserted Edith Arnold.
+
+"Don't want to!" rapped out Gwen, who happened to overhear. "I should
+miss the bus if I stayed behind after four. I only wanted to see
+things made fair and square."
+
+Though the new arrangements were really owing to Gwen's enterprise,
+nobody was willing to accord her any thanks. Joan Masters and Elspeth
+Frazer received all the credit for having righted the wrong; and
+though a few might remember that Gwen had started the movement, they
+were almost ready to agree with Rachel Hunter that it was rather
+pushing of an ex-Junior to have taken so much upon herself. They had
+not yet forgiven her translation to the Fifth, and only the utmost
+humility on her part would have reconciled them. Humility was
+certainly not Gwen's characteristic, so she still went by the epithet
+of "that cheeky kid" in the Form.
+
+"So much for their gratitude," confided Gwen to Lesbia. "I don't want
+to act, but some of those who have got into the play might at least
+acknowledge what I've done for them."
+
+"They seem a hateful set!" sympathized Lesbia.
+
+"Detestable!" said Gwen with unction.
+
+One thing had not been settled by the Dramatic Society, and that was
+their choice of a President. Names were canvassed freely in the Form,
+and finally Hilda Browne and Elspeth Frazer were put up as candidates.
+Voting was to be by ballot during the interval, but while the papers
+were being given out Gwen bolted. She was feeling cross and forlorn,
+and sick of the whole affair.
+
+"I don't mind who's chosen President," she thought "It makes no
+difference to me. They may elect whom they like."
+
+So she went a solitary little walk round the playground, whistling a
+tune, and trying to look as if she didn't care about anything. She had
+not been there very long before she saw Betty Brierley and Ida Young
+signalling to her from the gymnasium door. She took no notice of their
+beckonings, whereupon they ran after her, and seizing her one by each
+arm, began to drag her towards the house.
+
+"You're wanted most particularly, Gwen Gascoyne!" said Betty
+excitedly.
+
+"We've been sent to fetch you quick!" chimed in Ida.
+
+"Hello! Hands off!" cried Gwen, dragging herself from their grasp.
+"What do you want with me, I should like to know?"
+
+"It's the others who want you."
+
+"What for? Didn't know I was so popular!"
+
+"You've not voted for a President yet."
+
+"No, and I don't mean to, either."
+
+"But, Gwen, you must! We've taken the ballot, and the votes are
+exactly even. You've got the casting vote!"
+
+"Have I, indeed? No, thank you! It's rather too great an honour!"
+
+"But look here, Gwen, it's the only way to decide it. We've got to
+choose either Elspeth or Hilda."
+
+"Then you may fight it out amongst you. You don't suppose, when you've
+all voted by ballot, that I'm going to take the responsibility of a
+casting vote. It's a most unfair proposal. Why, the rejected candidate
+and all on her side would never forgive me!"
+
+"We might have the ballot again," suggested Betty. "Then you need only
+put your cross."
+
+"As if everybody wouldn't know who was responsible for the extra
+cross! I might as well write Gwen Gascoyne on my paper at once! It's
+no use pulling my arm; I'm not coming in to be made a cat's paw. You
+may go and tell the others so if you like."
+
+Betty and Ida departed, grumbling loudly at Gwen's
+"unaccommodatingness", as they called it, and Gwen stayed in the
+playground until the bell rang, fuming with indignation. Every fresh
+little episode seemed to serve to make her more of an alien in the
+Form than ever. But here her decision was absolutely justifiable; not
+one of the girls would have cared to accept the unenviable role which
+they had wished to thrust upon her. Perhaps for that very reason they
+were all the more annoyed at her action. She was received with black
+looks when she re-entered the classroom. Elspeth Frazer whispered
+something to a friend, and turned away. Gwen could not quite hear, but
+it sounded painfully like "beast!"
+
+"Have they settled it?" she asked Netta.
+
+"Yes; Elspeth and Hilda drew lots, and Hilda won. I'm fearfully sorry
+she did. Elspeth says it's all your fault, and that you ought to have
+voted for her when you'd made such a fuss about the clique."
+
+"Would you have given a casting vote yourself?"
+
+"Well, no; but if you'd only stayed and voted by ballot like everyone
+else, then nobody would have known who'd given the odd one. It was
+most stupid of you to rush away. You're rather an idiot, Gwen
+Gascoyne!"
+
+"'_Et tu, Brute!_ Then fall, Caesar!' I'm like the old man and his ass
+in AEsop; I seem to end by pleasing nobody."
+
+"Do you wish to compare yourself with the old man or the quadruped, my
+child? The latter's the more apt, certainly!"
+
+"Oh, good night!" said Gwen, who was getting the worst of it "I wish
+sometimes I'd never come into your wretched Form."
+
+"You'd be far more at home among the Juniors!" snapped Netta, rather
+out of temper.
+
+A few days after this was the Rodenhurst Annual Distribution of
+Prizes. It was always held in the beginning of November, rather an
+unusual date, to be sure, but Miss Roscoe found it convenient in many
+ways to have it in the middle of the autumn term. It gave plenty of
+time to receive examiners' reports, and to chronicle successes in the
+July examinations, but on the other hand it did not interfere with
+Christmas celebrations.
+
+The function took place in the Town Hall at Stedburgh, and there was
+invariably a large gathering of parents and friends. To the whole
+school it seemed an important occasion, and both Gwen and Lesbia were
+full of excitement when the afternoon arrived.
+
+"Not that I need alarm myself that I shall be called upon to walk up
+and receive a prize!" said Lesbia. "Never got one in my life, and
+never shall!"
+
+"You might get the Sewing or the Holiday Competitions," said Gwen,
+trying to be encouraging.
+
+"No fear! One genius is enough in a family! I'll go prepared to clap
+you!"
+
+All the girls wore white dresses and blue hair ribbons, and made quite
+an imposing array as they sat in the central aisle of the large room
+at the Town Hall.
+
+"There seem to be far more of us when we're in white!" said Gwen. "We
+don't look half so many in the lecture hall at school. Have a few
+little angels crept in unawares?"
+
+"You're not one of them, at any rate," laughed Netta, who was sitting
+next to her.
+
+To Gwen the great feature of the occasion was that Father was seated
+on the platform, in company with several other clergymen and the
+Mayor, who was to distribute the prizes. Beatrice was amongst the
+audience, and had brought Martin with her, and Giles and Basil had
+come with the Boys' contingent. All her family were present, and if
+she were to get a prize, how pleased they would be!
+
+The proceedings began with the usual speeches from the chairman and
+others. Gwen had heard these every year, and they were always pretty
+much on the same theme. It is hard to be original at prize-givings,
+and the gentlemen who had been asked to "say a few words" might be
+forgiven if their remarks were somewhat hackneyed. Miss Roscoe read
+the examiners' report on the school, and the successes in the
+Matriculation and the Senior and Junior Oxfords. These the girls knew
+already, so, though they clapped heartily, it did not cause much
+excitement. Everyone was waiting in suspense for the prize list.
+
+Miss Roscoe always began with the lowest Form, so the first to walk up
+to the platform was a small kindergarten child, who had won honours
+for "general improvement". Neither Giles nor Basil had any luck; they
+were too erratic to be serious students, but when it came to the turn
+of the Middle Second, Lesbia Gascoyne was awarded the prize for plain
+sewing. A perfect storm of clapping greeted pretty Lesbia as she
+returned down the hall to her place. She was a tremendous favourite at
+Rodenhurst, and Seniors and Juniors alike applauded. It was the first
+time she had ever distinguished herself in any way, and though it was
+only for plain sewing, the girls were ready to give her an ovation. At
+last the Upper Fourth was reached, and Gwen knew that as she had taken
+her exams with her old Form (the Middle Fourth it had been in July)
+her name would be still on that list.
+
+"First prize for Mathematics, Gwen Gascoyne," read Miss Roscoe.
+
+Gwen's heart thumped, for a moment she did not move, till Netta gave
+her an admonishing push, then she walked up the hall. The Mayor handed
+her a volume of Coleridge's poems, handsomely bound in calf, and
+emblazoned with the school arms; he smiled pleasantly as he did so,
+and added a word of compliment. Gwen murmured "Thank you", and turned
+away. Father was clapping his loudest on the platform, and there was a
+nervous little applause from the rest of the family and from Netta,
+but that was all. Not a single girl in either Gwen's old Form or her
+new one gave her the least sign of appreciation. The colour flamed
+into her face as she made her way back to her seat. It is hard at any
+time to be unpopular, but it is a cruel thing when the lack of favour
+is displayed before a public audience. Gwen stuck her nose in the air,
+and put on the most defiant, don't care expression she could assume,
+but she felt the slight deeply, especially when she heard the hearty
+reception given to Iris Watson, who had won the Languages medal.
+
+"Never mind, childie!" said Mr. Gascoyne, when at "good night" time
+that evening, in the safe sanctuary of Father's study, she broke down,
+and burst out crying; "you did your best, and you deserved your prize.
+That's the main thing!"
+
+"I shall hate the prize now!" sobbed Gwen. "I can't bear to look at
+it; it will always remind me of this horrid afternoon. Why should they
+have been so nasty to me? They clapped Lesbia!"
+
+"Gwen, you're not jealous?" Father's voice was just a trifle anxious.
+
+"No, no!" gulped Gwen emphatically. "Lesbia's a darling; I don't
+wonder people are fond of her. But oh, Dad, it is hard sometimes to be
+left out in the cold!"
+
+"Very hard. Many older and wiser people than you have felt that. Yet
+to bear neglect well is one of the bravest things in life. Don't worry
+about not being appreciated; your own self-respect is worth more to
+you than the opinion of other people. If you're quite sure you're
+doing your duty, you can afford to ignore what the world thinks."
+
+"I don't know why I should be so unpopular," sighed Gwen, squeezing
+Father's hand tightly, and rubbing her cheek against his coat sleeve,
+as if there were something comforting in the very feel of the cloth.
+
+"You must live it down. It may take a long time, and a great deal of
+patience, but I'm sure you'll win, and the girls will be proud of you
+yet."
+
+"Proud! They may get to tolerate me, but I don't believe I'll ever
+make them like me, Daddy!"
+
+"Courage! We never know what we can do till we try. If you want to be
+liked, make yourself wanted. Good night, childie! Cheer up! The
+world's not such a bad place, after all."
+
+"Not while you're in it!" said Gwen, kissing the dear, plain face that
+was so like her own.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Dick Chambers
+
+
+Since the afternoon when Gwen had stopped behind in Stedburgh to
+arrange about the broken china, and had been obliged to walk home, she
+had seen nothing more of Dick Chambers. She looked out for him every
+morning on the bus, but he was not there, and she was just wondering
+what had become of him when he turned up in the most unexpected
+quarter. It was the Saturday morning after the prize-giving. Saturday
+was a whole holiday, and therefore a blissful day, every moment of
+which was appreciated. Gwen was returning about ten o'clock from an
+errand she had been sent to do in the village, and as she opened the
+Parsonage gate she saw in the middle of the front walk a boyish figure
+that looked familiar.
+
+"Hello! What are you doing here?" she exclaimed.
+
+"Come on business of a rather particular character," grinned Dick.
+"Didn't you know your Father's coaching me?"
+
+"He never said so!"
+
+"He is, though. I'm to come three days a week, from nine to ten, and
+I've just made a start this morning. I say, he's a ripping chap!"
+
+"I agree with you there," remarked Gwen. "But why aren't you going to
+school?"
+
+"Thereby hangs a tale! I happened to do an idiotic thing one
+afternoon--fainted in the lab, and had to be picked up in the midst of
+fragments of glass that I'd smashed to smithereens. Then Dad got some
+wretched specialist to come down and see me, and the fellow said I
+must stop school for this term at any rate."
+
+"Oh, I'm so sorry! Do you feel ill?"
+
+"No. I'm all right--but it's rather rotten, for I'm knocked off
+'footer'."
+
+"How sickening for you! I know how wild I should be if I mightn't play
+hockey. What may you do?"
+
+"Only just loaf about--not even golf."
+
+"May you go walks?"
+
+"Oh, yes! but it's rather slow mooning about on the moors by oneself."
+
+"Have you been to see Stack Head, where the sea-birds build? Or the
+chasms? Oh! you ought to go there! I'll show you the way if you like!"
+
+"I wish you would!"
+
+"There'd be heaps of time this morning--that's to say if I may go,"
+added Gwen, suddenly recollecting that she had promised Beatrice on
+her honour not to go anywhere without leave. "Oh, here's Dad, so I can
+ask him."
+
+"Yes, by all means take Dick to Stack Head, the walk will do him
+good," replied Mr. Gascoyne. "Be careful, and don't scramble about too
+much, that's all--those cliffs are dangerous, remember!"
+
+"We'll go as cautiously as two pussy-cats," said Gwen.
+
+"Hardly an apt simile!" laughed Mr. Gascoyne, pointing to Pluto, the
+black Persian, that was careering madly up a tree at the moment.
+"However, you're used to Skelwick rocks, and Dick will have to learn
+his footing. Only please don't learn it at the expense of your neck,
+Dick! We haven't gone far enough with the Latin prose yet!"
+
+"You needn't be afraid for me, sir, though I came a cropper over old
+Cicero this morning," laughed Dick.
+
+It was a beautiful, sunny day in early November; one of those late
+autumn days when a little crisp hoar frost lingers in the hollows, but
+in the full sunshine it is almost as warm as summer. Gwen fetched a
+favourite stick, her indispensable companion on the moors, and,
+discarding her jacket, set forth joyously for a five-mile tramp. She
+loved the great bare headland that rose behind the Parsonage; there
+was a sense of freedom in leaving the houses of the village, and
+seeing only sea and sky around, and feeling the short, fine grass
+under her feet. It was a stiff climb to the top of the plateau, but
+once up there was a tolerably flat walk of about a couple of miles to
+the jagged rocks that formed the end of the promontory.
+
+"Isn't it glorious?" said Gwen, when, the scrambling part finished,
+they sat for a moment or two on a rock to take breath. Below lay the
+clear, grey, even, shimmering surface of the sea, a little hazy at the
+horizon, and changing to deepest green as it neared the cliffs, where
+the sea-birds wheeled round screaming in sheer joy of life. "Don't you
+feel as if you could take a jump from the edge and just go sailing
+down like a gull, and land gently on the water, and float off?"
+
+"Better not try the experiment unless you provide yourself with a
+parachute! An aeroplane could make a good start up here. Do you ever
+get any guillemots' eggs? Or puffins'?"
+
+"Not often; though sometimes the lighthouse men bring us a few. Are
+you collecting eggs?"
+
+"Rather! I've got nearly five hundred. I could do with a razor-bill's
+or a puffin's."
+
+"You'll have to wait till next summer. June and July are the best
+months. I can show you where the birds sit, though. They haven't
+proper nests, they just squat on the rocks, packed as close together
+as sardines. It's wonderful to see them. And the noise they make! No,
+it isn't here, it's over by the chasms; we shall get there soon."
+
+Half an hour's brisk walking brought them to what must have seemed to
+the ancient inhabitants of these islands the end of the world. The
+headland descended in a sheer precipice into the water, while
+wicked-looking rocks showed a black point here and there among the
+surf as a warning to any vessel to give them a wide berth. The cliff
+was hardly less dangerous than the rocks below, for its surface was
+torn into great rugged chasms, each as deep as the sea level, though
+often only a few feet in breadth. These curious natural rents wound in
+tortuous course to the edge of the precipice, sometimes crossing one
+another, and thus leaving islands stranded between, or long
+promontories, from the ends of which there would be no escape except
+by a jump. Gwen and Dick picked their way carefully along. There was
+scarcely need for Mr. Gascoyne's warning; each felt the entire
+necessity for extreme caution. Peeping over the edges of the chasms
+they could see green ferns growing in splendid clumps in clefts of the
+rock, and farther down darkness or a glint of water.
+
+"Ugh! It would be horrible to tumble there!" declared Gwen, shivering
+as she gazed into the dim depths. "You don't feel as if you'd ever
+come up again, do you? Why, what's that? Did you hear?"
+
+"Nothing but the gulls."
+
+"It's like someone shouting. There it is again--behind us."
+
+"By Jove! it is someone calling. Has anybody slipped down one of these
+holes? We'd best go and see, but do be careful. Hello, there! We're
+coming!"
+
+Walking, as Gwen had said, like cautious cats, they threaded their way
+along the narrow strips of land till they reached the particular chasm
+whence the shouts issued. Looking over, they could see on a ledge
+about six feet down a little corduroyed, blue-jerseyed figure, and a
+frightened, freckled face that peered upwards. Gwen recognized the
+urchin in a moment: it was Johnnie Cass, the scapegrace of a family of
+fisher folk who lived in the village, and the naughtiest boy in
+Winnie's Sunday School class. He was in no immediate danger, for the
+ledge was wide, but the wall of rock above him was too steep to admit
+of his climbing up.
+
+"Johnnie, what are you doing down there?" she called.
+
+"Oh! boo-hoo-hoo!" wailed the scared voice from below. "I were
+reachin' after a sea-gurt with a broke wing and down I cooms!"
+
+"Serve you right, too! How do you intend getting back?"
+
+"I don't know--I wish my mother was 'ere!" and again he broke into a
+howl of woe.
+
+"I'm glad she's not--she'd make a worse noise than you, from my
+experience of her," murmured Gwen. "Look here!" she continued, turning
+to Dick, "I suppose we've got to fish this little wretch up somehow."
+
+"If I reach down can you catch hold of my hand and let me pull you?"
+shouted Dick to the snivelling Johnnie.
+
+"Nay! I durstn't stir an inch--oh! where's my mother?"
+
+"He's lost his nerve--that's what's the damage. If I go down for him
+could you give me a haul back?"
+
+Gwen shook her head.
+
+"You're too heavy. Better do it the other way. I'll go down, hand up
+the kid, and then you shall pull me back. Nonsense! I'm not bothered
+with nerves. Shan't mind in the least!"
+
+It seemed the more feasible plan, for the six feet of rock that
+sheered down to the ledge was so steep and smooth of surface as to
+render it impossible for anyone to climb it without assistance; and it
+would be comparatively easy for Dick to drag Gwen's lighter weight to
+the top, though a difficult matter for her to pull him. If her heart
+went into her mouth as she let herself over the edge, Gwen did not
+show it. She was not given to exhibiting the white feather, and both
+at school and at home kept up a well-deserved reputation for pluck.
+Five seconds landed her by Johnnie's side, and once there she tried
+not to look into the gulf below. After some amount of cajoling, she
+persuaded the young rascal to take his dirty little fists out of his
+eyes, and allow himself to be hoisted up within reach of Dick's firm
+grip; then a successful heave did the rest. Johnnie was soon in
+safety, but it was much harder work for Gwen to follow; there was
+nobody to boost her, and not an inch of ledge on the rock to make a
+foothold.
+
+"It's good practice for Alpine climbing!" she gasped, as with
+dishevelled hair and grazed face she at last scrambled back. "I
+thought my arms were being dislocated."
+
+Dick was rubbing his own arms ruefully, but he did not complain. He
+had turned very white. Perhaps the effort of pulling up two people had
+been rather too much for him. Gwen suddenly remembered with
+compunction that he was ill, and not even allowed the exertion of
+golf, much less "footer". She wished she had thought of it before and
+gone to the lighthouse for help.
+
+"I'm an idiot," she told herself. "It was I who suggested he should do
+the hauling part. I hope he hasn't done himself any harm."
+
+Meantime Johnnie Cass stood surveying Gwen with the grin of Puck.
+
+"Yer face is bleedin', and yer hair's all over yer eyes. Aye, yer do
+look a sight!" he volunteered.
+
+Gwen shook him! She really couldn't help it; it relieved her feelings
+so very much. After all, it is rather nervy work to go down a chasm;
+and though she wouldn't own that she had minded in the least, her legs
+seemed weak and queer, and her hands were hot and trembling, and there
+was a funny buzzing sound in her head. She was rather ashamed of
+herself for losing her temper, however, and tried suddenly to be
+dignified.
+
+"Johnnie Cass," she protested solemnly, "you ought to be grateful to
+me for saving your life instead of making impertinent remarks!"
+
+Dick burst out laughing.
+
+"Bravo!" he said. "Look here, you kid, if you don't want your head
+punched as well you'd best obliterate yourself."
+
+Johnnie took the hint and fled away over the moor, bolting for home
+with all possible speed and lifting up his voice as he went in a
+melancholy howl. Dick and Gwen sat down on a rock to recover
+themselves.
+
+"You've got some pluck--for a girl," said Dick, throwing a pebble into
+the chasm. "I didn't expect you'd really go down there and fetch him.
+Girls generally stand by and shriek."
+
+"Not modern girls," affirmed Gwen. "They used to do the shrieking
+business in oldfashioned novels. It's gone out of fashion since hockey
+came in."
+
+"I thought ladies were supposed to scream and wring their slim, fair
+hands!"
+
+"Shows you haven't got any sisters! Do my hands look slim and fair?"
+
+"Well, no, they're a good deal more like a boy's," admitted Dick.
+
+"I often wish I were a boy," sighed Gwen regretfully.
+
+"Don't! You're a jolly sight nicer as you are," returned Dick, getting
+up to go.
+
+The pair did not reach the Parsonage until after one o'clock, and
+Beatrice and Mr. Gascoyne were beginning to wonder what had become of
+them.
+
+"I hope Dick's none the worse," said Father rather anxiously when Gwen
+poured out the tale of their adventure. "I'm afraid it's been a tiring
+morning for him. He had better stop to lunch and have a good rest
+afterwards before he attempts to walk home. I'll go and telephone to
+his father from the post office and say we're keeping him. Perhaps Dr.
+Chambers will say he mustn't come here again if we let him do rash
+things!"
+
+The family laughed at the humorous account of the rescue of Johnnie
+Cass which Dick and Gwen gave at the dinner table.
+
+"You needn't have expected gratitude from that imp!" said Winnie, who
+had suffered many hard experiences in Sunday School. "Possibly his
+mother may thank you, but I doubt even that."
+
+"All the same Gwen did her best, and that's a satisfaction," said
+Father. "Johnnie's a clever little lad in spite of his naughtiness,
+and may turn out better than we expect Some day he may even thank you
+for having saved his life. Gwen must keep her eye on him. He owes her
+so much it ought to make a bond between them."
+
+"Well, I wish her joy of her protege," said Winnie, with a dubious
+shake of her head.
+
+After that Dick spent many Saturday mornings at the Parsonage. His
+father would not allow him to invite his own friends as they always
+proved rather too much for him, but the boy was lonely, and found the
+Gascoynes pleasant companions. Gwen especially, who was nearest his
+own age, became his particular chum, and the two carried out many
+experiments together in the way of photography, amateur bookbinding,
+and one or two other hobbies in which they were mutually interested.
+Dick's lessons with Mr. Gascoyne were over by ten o'clock, and he
+generally stayed an hour or two longer, adapting himself so well to
+the household that he soon seemed to be almost one of the family.
+Giles and Basil adored him, and haunted his footsteps as much as they
+were allowed, but their mischievous young fingers generally worked
+such havoc among slides and specimens that Gwen was often forced to
+turn them out and lock the door upon them.
+
+"Monkeys from the zoo are tame and well-behaved compared with Stumps
+and Bazzie," she declared. "If one wants one's things ruined commend
+me to two small brothers!"
+
+Gwen was delighted to have found so congenial a friend. Beatrice and
+Winnie, being both older, were naturally companions for one another
+and were inclined to treat her entirely as one of the younger ones,
+forgetting how fast she was growing up, and it was difficult to make
+childish little Lesbia interested in anything. Here at last was
+somebody who appreciated birds' eggs, and butterflies, and collections
+of shells, and pressed flowers; someone who did pen-and-ink drawings
+a great deal better than herself, and who knew exactly how to make
+lantern slides, and could even manage to mend the toy printing press
+that Giles had broken.
+
+Dick was clever with his fingers, and as he was not allowed to read
+very much he spent long hours at home constructing wonderful boxes for
+birds' eggs, or stretchers for butterflies and moths, or preparing
+slides for the microscope.
+
+"I'm going to be a doctor when I grow up," he confided to Gwen, "so
+microscopic work will be a help to me. Dad's teaching me a little
+scrap of dispensing now, just to amuse me."
+
+"I hope he doesn't let you make up the bottles of medicine!" laughed
+Gwen. "I pity the patients."
+
+"Rather not, but I see what goes in them. If you'll come over to the
+surgery some day I'll make you taste something for laughing!"
+
+"We should be lost without Dick now," said Gwen one day at tea. "What
+shall we do when he goes back to school?"
+
+"I'm afraid that won't be just yet," said Mr. Gascoyne. "He doesn't
+get strong as fast as his father hoped. He's a nice lad, not
+brilliant, but very painstaking over his work. It's quite a pleasure
+to teach him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Gwen Receives a Letter
+
+
+After her talk with Father on the evening of the prize-giving Gwen
+went back to school determined, if she could not feel cordial just at
+present towards her classmates, she would at least bury the hatchet
+and take no notice of the unkindness they had exhibited. It seemed
+much the most dignified course, for Gwen was far too proud to look
+injured, or to show even to Netta that she had felt hurt. Perhaps the
+girls were a little ashamed of themselves. Iris Watson and one or two
+others spoke to her with quite an approach to friendliness, and
+Elspeth Frazer asked her opinion about the costumes for the play. Gwen
+was not taking a part, so she was rather a free lance in that respect,
+and her advice was likely to be disinterested. Each Form got up its
+own particular act with a secrecy worthy of the Freemasons. It was a
+point of honour not to betray the least tiny hint of what was going to
+happen, in order that the performance should be a complete surprise to
+the rest of the school.
+
+Now the Fifth had decided to give the trial scene from the _Merchant
+of Venice_--rather an ambitious and decidedly a hackneyed piece to
+select. The Dramatic Society was influenced in its choice, however,
+by several considerations; the Form was studying _The Merchant_, and
+had learnt the principal speeches for recitations, which would save a
+great deal of trouble to the performers in the matter of studying
+parts. Then Hilda Browne's father was a barrister and would lend his
+wig for the occasion, and Louise Mawson could bring a gown that would
+do excellently for Shylock's gaberdine, also two sets of tights and
+doublets and feathered caps, all of which were invaluable assets in
+the way of stage properties.
+
+"We must manage the rest of the costumes as best we can," said
+Elspeth. "Charlotte Perry knows of a dressmaker who makes fancy
+dresses very cheaply. She does them for other schools. The chief
+question is the scheme of colour: Hilda wants us to copy exactly from
+some celebrated picture, and Louise says it doesn't matter as long as
+everything looks very bright and gay. Here's a book of costumes. Tell
+me what you think."
+
+As Gwen turned over the pages of the little volume, with its
+illustrations of Bassanio, Jessica, &c., a horrible suspicion suddenly
+shot into her mind. Where had she seen that book before? And just
+lately too! Why, at home, of course! She had come into the
+sitting-room suddenly and found Winnie and Beatrice discussing it over
+the fire. Winnie had suppressed it instantly, but not before she had
+caught a glimpse both of the illustrations and the title. She
+remembered them perfectly. Now Winnie, as well as being Junior
+Mistress for the Fifth, was a member of a class for higher mathematics
+composed of a few Senior girls and taught by a professor who came
+weekly from the University at Radchester. On the strength of this
+class she considered herself still one of the Sixth for special
+purposes, and licensed to take part in school performances. Was the
+Sixth going to act in the _Merchant of Venice_? It looked uncommonly
+like it. Why else should Winnie be studying that particular book of
+costumes?
+
+Gwen was in a dilemma. She did not know what to do. Not only did the
+Rodenhurst code of honour regard Form secrets as being inviolable as
+those of the confessional, but further she had been continually warned
+by Father and Beatrice that, now Winnie was a mistress, she and Lesbia
+must be particularly careful never to repeat anything they heard at
+home which might be likely to compromise their sister at school. It
+was clearly impossible to betray the least hint of her suspicion, but
+on the other hand it would be an exceedingly stupid _denouement_ if
+both Forms were to act the same play. She decided to try finesse.
+
+"Have you absolutely decided on _The Merchant_?" she said. "Don't you
+think it's rather stale to choose our Form subject? It's been done
+before too."
+
+"Not for three years," objected Elspeth. "That's quite time enough for
+most of the girls to have forgotten it. Besides, I know the speeches."
+
+"You could learn some fresh ones."
+
+"Oh, I dare say! It sounds easy enough when you haven't to do it
+yourself. One's homework is quite enough just now without learning
+pages of blank verse. Then there are the costumes."
+
+"Wouldn't they come in for _The Rivals_? You might do some scenes from
+that. We've never had it at school before, and it's simply ripping.
+Or part of _She Stoops to Conquer_ would be gorgeously funny."
+
+"You couldn't put Sir Anthony Absolute into Shylock's gaberdine, or
+Tony Lumpkin into a Venetian doublet and tights! And what about the
+wig? Hilda's had hard work to persuade her father to lend it, and
+she'd be fearfully offended if it wasn't used."
+
+These arguments were so conclusive that Gwen sighed. Nevertheless she
+made a last appeal.
+
+"Well, I think you're very silly to act _The Merchant_," she said.
+"You might choose something far more original and interesting. It's an
+opportunity wasted--and, if you'll only believe me, I'm quite sure
+you'll be sorry for it."
+
+"It's you that's silly, Gwen Gascoyne!" retorted the indignant
+Elspeth. "We've chosen _The Merchant_, so why need you go trying to
+upset everything. I was asking you about the costumes, not the play."
+
+"Like Gwen's cheek!" murmured Louise Mawson. "We don't want ex-Juniors
+interfering with our Dramatic!"
+
+Gwen turned sharply away. It seemed most unfortunate that she always
+got across the rest of the Form. In this instance her motive was the
+purest, but as she could not explain, the girls naturally thought it
+was only her love of putting herself forward which caused her to
+suggest such a drastic measure as a change of programme.
+
+"They never will understand me!" she thought bitterly. "Father said
+they would be proud of me yet, but oh, dear! the more I try to do, the
+more I seem disliked. They'll be fearfully sold when it comes to the
+performance. I wonder if I ought to give them just a hint! It's really
+too idiotic to have two _Merchants_. No, I won't! They'd probably only
+slang me for letting out Form secrets. I'm glad I'm not acting, at any
+rate. School's not exactly a terrestrial paradise at present. I wonder
+what other troubles are coming to me? I believe I'm one of those
+people who are born under an unlucky star!"
+
+Gwen's words might almost have been prophetic, for the very next day
+something happened--something so unprecedented and overwhelming that
+she could never have anticipated it, even if she had been expecting
+general ill luck.
+
+At the interval she received a summons to Miss Roscoe's study. She
+went at once, wondering why she had been sent for.
+
+"Hope the Head's not going to put me into the Sixth!" she laughed to
+herself. "That would be rather too good a joke. I'm willing to be a
+prefect or even proctor if I'm asked!"
+
+Gwen's reception at her last visit to the study had been so
+favourable, that this time she tapped lightly at the door, and entered
+confidently. One glance at Miss Roscoe's face, however, showed her
+that she was in dire disgrace. The Principal's rather handsome, heavy
+features seemed to cast themselves in a Roman mould when she was
+annoyed; her brows would knit, and her mouth assume a set, dogged
+expression of authority. All these storm signals being visible, Gwen
+quaked in her shoes. Miss Roscoe had an unopened envelope in her
+hand, and to this at once drew her pupil's attention.
+
+"Gwen Gascoyne, a letter arrived this morning addressed to you at
+Rodenhurst. Now, it is one of our principal rules that no girls are
+allowed to have letters sent to them at the school. Tell your
+correspondent on no account to write to you here again. If I find
+anything further addressed to you, I shall enclose it in an envelope,
+and post it to your father. I will not have Rodenhurst made a vehicle
+for clandestine correspondence. You may go, but understand clearly
+this is never to happen again."
+
+Gwen took the letter, and left the room in silence. She was too much
+astonished to defend herself. She could not imagine who had written to
+her and put the school address. As soon as she was in the corridor she
+tore open the envelope. It contained a bill from "Messrs. John Parker
+& Sons, Glass and China Merchants" for
+
+       "Replacing 10 articles in broken
+          Tea Service ...            L1  2  6"
+
+And at the bottom was written in a business hand:--
+
+     "Messrs. Parker beg respectfully to request Miss Gascoyne's
+     settlement of above. Should she prefer it, they will send
+     the account to her father. They beg to assure her of their
+     best attention at all times."
+
+Gwen gasped.
+
+"Why, I paid it!" she said almost aloud. "At least, I sent the money
+by Emma. Is it possible she can have pocketed it? Oh, the deceiving
+wretch! Where's Netta? I must tell her at once!"
+
+She rushed into the gymnasium, and calling Netta aside, showed her the
+fatal document. The two talked it over, aghast.
+
+"Whew! This is a bad job!" exclaimed Netta. "Certainly it looks as if
+Emma had decamped with the one pound two and six. She's left the
+school, you know."
+
+"I didn't know," sighed Gwen.
+
+"Yes, she went ten days ago. Haven't you noticed there's a new
+housemaid waiting at dinner? You must be as blind as a bat!"
+
+"I'm afraid I am done for," said Gwen dramatically.
+
+"Oh, I shouldn't give up too soon if I were you! I suppose, by the by,
+you wouldn't care to tell your father?"
+
+"I'd rather die!"
+
+"Then you'll have to go somehow to Parker's, and ask if they've made a
+mistake. If, as I strongly suspect, Emma really didn't pay it, then
+you might get them to take part on account now, and leave the rest
+till after Christmas. What could you give them?"
+
+"I don't possess more than sixpence. I'm bankrupt, and in debt to you,
+too."
+
+"But you're sure to get something at Christmas, aren't you?"
+
+"I expect so."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll lend you another ten
+shillings. That will make a sovereign altogether, and you can pay me
+back when you've had your Christmas presents."
+
+"Oh, Netta, how good of you!"
+
+"Not so particularly. It's only a loan, and I expect you to give it
+back."
+
+"Of course."
+
+"You'd better go to Parker's this afternoon at four."
+
+"I daren't!" said Gwen, who felt that she was floundering deeper and
+deeper into a morass of trouble. "You don't know what a scrape I got
+into at home for stopping behind that other time. Beatrice made me
+promise absolutely always to come home with Winnie and Lesbia. I
+should have to give all kinds of explanations."
+
+"I'm supposed to go straight home too, on these dark afternoons. My
+mother's rather particular about it."
+
+"Then what's to be done?"
+
+"You'll have to make a bolt in the dinner hour. There's nothing else
+for it."
+
+"Umph! It's risky."
+
+"You must risk something, O my cautious philosopher! Nobody but
+Thistles is about just then, and I think we can outwit Thistles. I'll
+bring the half-sovereign to school with me to-morrow, and you can take
+it to Parker's, in case it's wanted. I'm afraid you'll find you'll
+need it."
+
+"I should like to prosecute Emma--she richly deserves it!"
+
+"Couldn't do that without giving ourselves away, so you'll have to
+restrain your righteous wrath, my child!"
+
+Gwen spent the rest of the day feeling as if a black shadow had
+suddenly fallen over her life. She had believed the episode of the
+china was completely finished with, and here it had cropped up again
+like some horrible bogey prepared to haunt her. It was worse than
+ever, for she had lost her own fifteen shillings as well as the ten
+which Netta had previously lent her. Between Parker's and Netta she
+now owed thirty-two and sixpence. The largeness of the debt appalled
+her. How was she ever to refund it? She hoped she might get a little
+money at Christmas. Her grandmother and Aunt Violet generally sent
+postal orders for presents, telling the girls to buy what they liked;
+it was these welcome gifts that constituted most of her contributions
+to her savings box.
+
+The hint which Parker's had given about sending the account to her
+father frightened her greatly. Father must not know. He would have
+quite enough Christmas bills to pay without adding an extra one.
+Besides, what would he think of her? Gwen liked to stand high in her
+father's estimation. Beatrice, too, would hear of it, and would not
+spare her.
+
+"I'm always the black sheep of the family," thought Gwen. "None of
+them have ever done anything so dreadful as this. No! I simply
+shouldn't dare to tell at home."
+
+Netta turned up next morning with the half-sovereign, according to her
+promise. She was not an ungenerous girl, and she had plenty of pocket
+money, for her father was well off, and liberal to his only daughter.
+She was willing to help Gwen out of a difficulty for which she knew
+she herself was partly responsible, and perhaps also she rather
+appreciated the sense of power that the debt gave her over her
+schoolfellow. Netta dearly loved to lead: she would have liked to be
+of importance in the Form, and was often annoyed that Hilda Browne,
+Iris Watson, and some of the others looked down upon her. It was
+pleasant therefore to feel that she had one satellite who was bound to
+revolve in her orbit, and could be reckoned upon to support her on all
+occasions.
+
+Gwen had decided to commit a breach of school rules, and to rush out
+between dinner and afternoon school to pay her visit to the china
+shop. As she had said, it was a risky performance. If she were caught,
+she would be reported to Miss Roscoe, and the penalty would be severe.
+It seemed sailing 'twixt Scylla and Charybdis, but it was worth
+trying. The first difficulty was how to put on her outdoor things
+without anybody noticing. Girls kept strolling in and out of the
+dressing-room in the most tiresome manner and after waiting as long as
+she dared for the room to be empty, she was finally obliged to smuggle
+her hat and coat into the passage, and garb herself there.
+
+"I've barely time," she said to Netta, who was acting scout. "For
+goodness sake tell me if you see Thistles about! Is the coast clear?
+Then I'll scoot."
+
+At the end of the passage, however, she encountered danger. Winnie was
+standing by the gymnasium door, and Gwen only just drew back in time
+to avoid her. Chafing with impatience, she waited while Winnie
+leisurely examined some papers on the notice board. Was she going to
+stay there all the afternoon? At last she moved, and went inside the
+gymnasium, and Gwen plucked up courage to make a dash for the street
+door. She hurried along with such enormous strides that passers-by
+turned to look at her and smiled, but careless of the notice she was
+attracting, she even broke into a run as she caught sight of the
+Market Hall clock. She was panting and altogether out of breath by the
+time she reached the china shop, and not at all sure what she ought to
+say. She marched up to the counter, and produced the bill which she
+had received.
+
+"Look here! You've sent me this," she began, "and I want to know
+whether it was really paid or not."
+
+"I'll just enquire, miss," said the assistant, referring to his
+superior; then returning, after a whispered colloquy, he continued:
+"No, miss. Mr. Evans says it certainly never has been paid. You've no
+receipt for it?"
+
+"I gave the money to the housemaid at school, and told her to take
+it," faltered Gwen.
+
+"Have you asked her about it, miss?"
+
+"She's left, and I don't know where she's gone."
+
+The assistant shook his head.
+
+"I'm afraid, in that case, she won't want to be found, though perhaps
+the police could trace her if you cared to prosecute."
+
+"Would it not be simpler if we sent the account to your father,
+missy?" suggested the shopwalker, coming to join the assistant at the
+counter. "Ah! I forget whether we have your home address? Always best
+to refer bills to one's father, isn't it? Then there's no trouble."
+
+His tone verged on the familiar and impertinent. Gwen drew herself up
+very straight.
+
+"I prefer to manage it myself, thank you," she replied icily. "If you
+will take ten shillings on account now, I will pay you the balance
+after Christmas. Will you let it remain till then?"
+
+"I dare say Mr. Parker wouldn't object--that's to say, if you don't
+mind giving me your home address as a reference."
+
+"You can put 'c/o Miss Goodwin, The Thorns, Manor Road, Stedburgh',"
+said Gwen, who wished at any cost to avoid the chance of a letter
+being sent to her at her own home. She got a receipt for the ten
+shillings on account, and put it carefully away in her purse. She
+thought both the shopmen looked at her very inquisitively, but she
+took no notice. She did not mean to gratify their curiosity by
+explaining the details of how she had incurred the expense. She wished
+Netta were with her; it was so much harder to keep up her dignity
+alone. With a curt "Good afternoon!" she left the china stores and
+hurried back to school. She was only just in time, for the second bell
+was already ringing. Fortunately the dressing-room was empty, except
+for one agitated Junior, who was in too great haste to notice
+anything. Gwen scuttled into the Fifth exactly five seconds before
+Miss Douglas, and sat down at her desk, exhausted but congratulating
+herself. She contrived to write a surreptitious note to Netta, and to
+pass it, neatly rolled into a ball, on the waste-paper tray. Its tenor
+was calculated to be ambiguous to outsiders, but intelligible to the
+initiated.
+
+     "All hail, Protector of the Poor! This is to inform you that
+     the deed is done--successfully. I thought I was within an
+     ace of exposure, but things righted themselves, and lo! I
+     triumphed. For the present the supplier of brittle goods is
+     satisfied, and for the future--well, I leave it to luck. I
+     feel like a warrior who has been through a campaign--I'm not
+     sure if I haven't acquired some wounds. My head is swimming,
+     and I'm a broken flower for the afternoon. Expect me to
+     collapse in maths. My brains are capable of nothing more
+     arduous than the three R's. I am living till four, when I
+     can have the exhilaration of reciting my breathless
+     experiences to your sympathetic ear.
+
+"Yours in abject gratitude,
+
+"G.G."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Keeping Christmas
+
+
+The end of the term seemed to arrive very rapidly--too quickly for the
+amount of work that had to be done, yet too slowly in the estimation
+of the three hundred and eleven girls who were looking forward to the
+holidays. Exam week came and went, leaving inkstained fingers and a
+crop of headaches; mistresses were busy correcting papers; "swatters"
+were daring to congratulate themselves, and "slackers" were bewailing
+the difficulty of the questions. Gwen, who had done pretty well on the
+whole, considering her handicaps, ventured to think she must be
+through in most subjects, and not such a disgrace to the Fifth as to
+necessitate her dismissal to the Lower School again, a consummation at
+which one or two of her detractors had occasionally hinted in times of
+irritation.
+
+The few days left were chiefly occupied with what the girls called
+"scratch lessons", just something to keep them employed until the
+lists were out. A good deal of latitude was allowed to those
+rehearsing for the various performances, and though Gwen could not
+claim that excuse for exemption, she managed to make a little work
+spin out a long way without incurring reproof.
+
+She was tired with the strain of the term; it had needed much effort
+to keep up with the rest of the Form, and the daily bus journey and
+walk to and from home were all extra exertion. She had grown
+enormously in the last few months--"grown out of all conscience", said
+Beatrice, who sighed ruefully over boots too small and skirts too
+short--and she had become so pale and lanky and angular in the process
+that Winnie unfeelingly compared her to a plant raised in a cellar.
+Her unlucky hands and feet seemed bigger than ever, and more inclined
+to fidget and shuffle, and to her bad habit of wrinkling up her
+forehead she had added a nervous blink of her eyes.
+
+"Winnie Gascoyne is charming," confided Miss Douglas to a fellow
+mistress, "and Lesbia is about the loveliest child I've ever seen. I
+can't imagine why Gwen should vary from pretty to plain continually.
+But she does."
+
+Unfortunately, Gwen's temper suffered in exact proportion to her
+increased inches. She was snappy at school and snarly at home,
+difficult to please, and ready to take offence at everything. Probably
+a week's rest in bed, on a feeding diet and a good tonic, was what her
+tired body and irritable nerves required, but nobody had the hardihood
+to make such a suggestion. Except in cases of dire necessity, the
+Gascoynes did not indulge in the luxury of medical advice or chemist's
+bills, so Gwen perforce did without a doctor, and the medicine he
+would most undoubtedly have prescribed for her. So far from thinking
+of rest, she was making plans sufficient to fill five holidays instead
+of one; even she herself laughed sometimes at the largeness of her
+projects compared with the brief month in which she was to carry them
+out.
+
+Meantime the two days of the dramatic performances had arrived. The
+Seniors always had the first afternoon and the Juniors the second, the
+audience being composed of the rest of the school together with the
+mistresses. The outside public was not invited, as the little plays
+were only intended to be acted among the girls themselves. The Sixth
+naturally led off, and Gwen quaked as she sat with her Form in front
+of the heavy red curtains. She was afraid an unpleasant surprise
+awaited her comrades, and she wondered how they would take it. Exactly
+what she expected happened. The bell rang, the curtains were drawn
+aside to reveal--alas, alas, for the Fifth!--a very excellently got up
+trial scene from the _Merchant of Venice_. Bessie Manners, the head of
+the school, was a majestic Portia in a handsome scarlet robe; Winnie
+made an attractive Nerissa; while all the other characters were
+arrayed in slightly more sumptuous costumes than Elspeth and Hilda had
+been able to collect.
+
+A shudder of cold horror ran through the unfortunate Fifth, the
+dramatic representatives of which listened with a kind of fascination
+to their own speeches, tripped off lightly and easily by their
+Seniors. It was more particularly galling as all realized that the
+whole thing was on a rather higher scale than theirs; it was better
+staged, much prompter, the actions were more appropriate, and the
+players less stiff and self-conscious, to say nothing of the superior
+dresses. In gloomy resignation they sat the scene out, and had the
+magnanimity to applaud heartily at the end. Then came the crisis.
+
+"We can't possibly give the very same thing all over again," whispered
+Hilda to Elspeth. "We shall just have to announce that ours is 'off'."
+
+Deeply humiliated and disgusted, the Fifth retired to its own
+classroom to discuss the untoward event.
+
+"It's too sickening--when I'd borrowed the wig on purpose!" wailed
+Hilda. "You can't think how I had to pester Dad to lend it."
+
+"And my Bassanio doublet and tights were made at a dressmaker's!"
+lamented Louise Mawson.
+
+"Who'd have thought of the Sixth choosing that very scene?"
+
+"Well, I tried to persuade you to take something else instead,"
+declared Gwen, offering Job's comfort to the disappointed ones.
+
+"Gwen Gascoyne, I verily believe you knew all the time what the Sixth
+were going to have."
+
+"You must have known when your sister was in it."
+
+"I wasn't sure, but I had an inkling," confessed Gwen.
+
+"Then why didn't you tell?" howled the girls in chorus.
+
+"Why? Because it didn't seem fair. Winnie hadn't said a word--I only
+guessed. You know we're all supposed to keep our own secrets."
+
+"In this case you ought to have warned us properly. It was too bad to
+let us rehearse all that time, and get all the costumes together--for
+this!"
+
+"We've made ourselves ridiculous, and it's your fault entirely."
+
+"Couldn't you act it here, just among ourselves?" suggested Gwen
+humbly; but her proposal was squashed by an indignant and scornful
+majority.
+
+"Act it here indeed! Who'd care to do that, I wonder? Don't be so
+idiotic. You've spoilt our performance, Gwen Gascoyne, when you might
+have saved it. Why couldn't you stay in the Lower School? You haven't
+sense enough to be a Senior."
+
+It was not a very satisfactory ending to a first term, even though
+Gwen had done better in the exams than she expected, so that her place
+in her new Form was well assured. She still felt an outcast, and as
+she shut her desk for the last time on breaking-up day, she gave a
+sigh of intense relief to think that she was going to enjoy a whole
+month's freedom from the society of her classmates.
+
+Home at present was the _summum bonum_ of her wishes. She almost
+danced along the road from school, and behaved so jubilantly in the
+bus that Winnie had to interfere, and give her a hint to restrain her
+hilarity before the other passengers. She rushed into the Parsonage
+like a cyclone, and flung her satchel under the bookcase.
+
+"There! That's done with! Hurrah! No more horrid, hateful, scrambly,
+early breakfasts, and tramping off through the mud. Every day's a
+Saturday, and I'm just going to have a glorious time."
+
+"There's plenty for you to do," said Beatrice, fishing out the satchel
+and putting it tidily away on Gwen's special shelf. "I haven't
+finished those texts I was making for the church yet, and--"
+
+"Oh, wow! Don't set me to work too soon! I've a heap of things of my
+own that want doing first. Winnie is far cleverer at cutting texts
+than I am."
+
+"She's more to be depended upon, certainly," said Beatrice dryly.
+
+Each member of the family was mysteriously occupied with special
+secrets. There were still five days before Christmas, time for an
+energetic person to get through a great deal, and Gwen hoped to
+accomplish wonders. She was in a sad quandary about her Christmas
+gifts. Her savings box, which ought to have contained over fifteen
+shillings, only held a threepennybit and two halfpennies; and she
+shook her head dismally as she reviewed her pauper condition.
+
+"I must make presents, that's the long and short of it," she told
+herself. "They can't be handsome ones. And, oh dear! they'll all think
+me so horribly stingy and mean. Well, they'll have to, for I can't
+explain! It's absolutely sickening, but it's inevitable."
+
+So Gwen shut herself up in her bedroom, locked out the injured Lesbia,
+who had plans of her own which she wished to pursue in privacy, put on
+a thick jacket and a pair of mittens to keep herself warm, and set to
+work bravely. It is rather hard to make bricks without straw, and her
+supply of materials, mostly purloined from Beatrice's piece-box, was
+decidedly scanty. She held a review of the articles when she had
+finished, and screwed up her face over them in expressive
+dissatisfaction.
+
+"They're a shabby little lot, that's flat!" she decided.
+
+She turned them over disconsolately--the needle-book for Beatrice, not
+too tidily sewn; the blotter for Winnie, with its brown paper cover,
+hastily painted with a spray of roses, and its one sheet of blotting
+paper begged from Father's writing-table; the pincushion for Lesbia,
+trimmed with a piece of washed ribbon; and the two postcard albums for
+Basil and Giles, made out of pieces of cardboard with slits cut in the
+corners.
+
+"I can afford to spend the threepennybit on Father and Martin," she
+thought; "but I must leave the halfpennies to rattle in my box, so
+that it doesn't sound empty."
+
+The village shop did not offer a very large selection of goods for an
+expenditure of threepence. Gwen was almost at her wits' end what to
+choose, and finally came away with a cake of oatmeal soap and a large
+red chalk pencil. Walking back up the village she met Beatrice.
+
+"I've just been to see the Casses," said the latter. "They're in awful
+trouble. Thomas Cass has sprained his wrist and can't go out in his
+boat, and Mrs. Cass is in bed with bronchitis. Johnnie's running about
+with his toes all through his boots, and says he can't come to church
+or Sunday School because he hasn't another pair."
+
+"Haven't you an old pair of Lesbia's or Stumps's?" suggested Gwen.
+
+"Not one. We sold them all at the Rummage Sale."
+
+"Then he'll have to go barefoot, I suppose."
+
+"I was wondering," said Beatrice tentatively, "if we could manage to
+get him a pair ourselves. Winnie would give something, I'm sure, and
+so would I, and so would Father."
+
+Gwen was silent.
+
+"I thought perhaps as you'd rescued him you might feel interested in
+him, and you'd care--"
+
+Beatrice did not finish the sentence, but looked at her sister
+hopefully.
+
+Gwen stared at the ground and went very red, but she said nothing, and
+Beatrice, after waiting a moment, turned away and entered the post
+office.
+
+"Of all absolute frauds, I feel the meanest!" groaned Gwen. "Beatrice
+will think me a perfect miser, hoarding up my money and not willing to
+spend a farthing on anybody! If she only knew the bankruptcy of my
+box! Was any wretched girl ever in such a fix? Oh! Gwen Gascoyne,
+you've got yourself into an atrocious mess altogether, and I don't see
+how you're ever going to climb out of it."
+
+Gwen's one sheet anchor of hope, to which she clung in a kind of
+desperation, was the thought of the postal orders that Grannie and
+Aunt Violet almost invariably sent at Christmas. If these did not
+arrive, she could not pay Netta, and then--well, any kind of
+catastrophe might be expected to follow. She went about with a load of
+lead on her heart, and a consequent shortness of temper highly trying
+to the rest of the family. She was grumpy with the little boys,
+impatient with Lesbia, and so unaccommodating over doing the
+decorations in church that Beatrice finally begged her to go home,
+saying she and Winnie could finish alone.
+
+"You two always want to get rid of me!" flared out Gwen as she stumped
+defiantly away.
+
+It was not a very happy preparation for Christmas, and Gwen stood
+rather forlornly in the church porch, her hands in her pockets,
+watching a few snowflakes that were beginning to fall silently from
+the heavy grey sky and to whiten the tops of the gravestones and the
+outlines of the crooked yew trees near the gate. The peace and
+goodwill that ought to have been present everywhere to-day seemed to
+have vanished.
+
+"Beatrice was just horrid," thought Gwen, quite oblivious of the fact
+that the quarrel was of her own making. We are so apt to forget that
+the world is like a mirror, and if we insist upon frowning into it, it
+will probably frown back. We sometimes expect other people to do all
+the forbearing, and then are astonished if our much-tried friends fail
+in the very point in which we ourselves are so deficient.
+
+"Why, Gwen, what a woebegone face!" exclaimed Father, who hurried in
+for a moment to speak to the parish clerk. "You'd make a grand model
+for an artist who wanted to paint a picture of 'Misery'. Are the
+decorations finished?"
+
+"Almost; at least my part of them."
+
+"Then go home and open that parcel of Parish Magazines you'll find on
+my study table, and deliver those that belong to the village. You know
+where to find the list. Be sure to tick the names off. And don't go
+farther down the road than Marriott's farm; it's getting dark."
+
+Gwen cheered visibly. She was always glad to do something for Father,
+if it were only distributing Parish Magazines, so she strode off with
+a swinging step, humming the carol that the school children had been
+practising with Winnie that afternoon.
+
+    "Show us, dear Christ-Child, Thy Christmas light,
+    Teach us the song of the Angels bright,
+    And the love of the Mother blest.
+    And help us this Christmas to learn of Thee
+    All we should do, and all we should be,
+    And how we can please Thee best."
+
+Fortunately the Gascoynes were a forgiving family, and when they all
+met at tea-time nobody seemed to remember Gwen's ill humour. The
+evening was a busy one, for there were holly and ivy to be put up in
+the Parsonage now the church was finished, and the usual mirth over a
+bough of mistletoe which old Mr. Hodson, who owned the big farm by the
+mill, always cut off every year from an apple tree in his orchard and
+brought to them with his own hands. Gwen forgot her troubles and
+romped with the rest, accepting Martin's sticky kisses in the spirit
+in which they were intended. The Gascoynes did not hang up their
+stockings, but laid their presents on the breakfast-table, so that
+they could have the gratification of opening all their parcels
+together. It was a point of honour not to take the tiniest peep inside
+even the most tempting-looking package until the whole family was
+assembled. Gwen had tried to make up for the poverty of her offerings
+by the warmth of the greetings she wrote outside, but she did not
+feel proud of her collection as she carried it downstairs. She was the
+last, so she hastily made her distribution, and turned to her own
+plate. She had been well remembered: a book from Father; a nightdress
+case, beautifully embroidered, from Beatrice; a new purse from Winnie;
+a big bottle of scent from dear little Lesbia, who to buy it must
+certainly have gone without the blue-handled penknife she had coveted
+so much in Bayne's window; some pencils from Giles and Basil; and a
+piece of indiarubber from Martin, who had compassed seven presents on
+a capital of eightpence-halfpenny. Gwen looked rather anxiously as the
+others opened the packets she had addressed to them; but whatever they
+thought, they all had the niceness to hide their feelings, and thanked
+her as if she had given them the most expensive objects obtainable.
+
+Father's humour, however, could not help twinkling out at the cake of
+soap: "To Darling Dad, with dearest and best love, from Gwen".
+
+"I hope it isn't a hint I need washing," he said with mock
+seriousness.
+
+"I thought you liked oatmeal soap!" protested Gwen, nearly crying.
+
+"So I do, my dear; and I haven't had any for a long time. Like the man
+in Pears's advertisement, I shall now use no other."
+
+"Here's the postman!" shouted Giles, rushing excitedly to the door,
+where that much-burdened official, with an extra man to help him, was
+sorting out what belonged to the Parsonage.
+
+"Six letters for you, Gwen, and two parcels," said Beatrice, assuming
+command of the correspondence, and distributing it among the eager
+family.
+
+Gwen snatched her share nervously. Would any of the letters contain
+the longed-for postal orders? No, they all had halfpenny stamps, and
+were clearly only Christmas cards.
+
+Then she fell upon the parcels. The first contained a handsome knitted
+coat, and cap to match, "with love from Grannie", and the second, a
+beautiful little set of Wordsworth's poems in a cloth case, "with Aunt
+Violet's best wishes".
+
+Gwen sat down on the sofa, feeling as if she had received a rude
+shock. That both Grannie and Aunt Violet should have sent presents
+instead of money was worse than she had calculated upon. She tried to
+pull herself together, and not show her disappointment too plainly,
+but the thought of what she owed was paramount. It only made it worse
+that the gifts were really acceptable, and that the rest of the family
+persisted in considering her extremely lucky.
+
+"It was kind of Grannie to send that lovely coat: dark green will just
+suit you. Try it on, and the cap too," said Winnie.
+
+"It looks swank!" declared the boys.
+
+"They'll go with your dark green skirt," affirmed Beatrice.
+
+"The Wordsworths are scrumptious!" said Lesbia. "You've done awfully
+well this Christmas!"
+
+"Yes, but how am I going to pay my debts?" thought Gwen, as she ran
+upstairs to get ready for church.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A Prodigal
+
+
+As the next term seemed likely to bring its own crop of troubles,
+Gwen, with a kind of grim philosophy, determined to enjoy herself
+while she could, and make the most of the holidays. She helped
+vigorously at the schools, where tea parties for children and
+grownups, concerts and other entertainments were in full swing, and
+she even wrung a few words of appreciation from Beatrice for her
+active services in the way of slicing up cake, cutting ham sandwiches,
+and pouring out innumerable cups of tea. Gwen liked the village
+festivities, she knew everybody in the place, and found it all fun,
+from listening to the comic songs of the local grocer, to playing
+Oranges and Lemons with the babies in the Infant School.
+
+"We've three real parties too," she said on December 30th, "as well as
+going to the Chambers' this afternoon."
+
+"I hardly think Mrs. Chambers will expect you," declared Beatrice,
+looking out of the window at the dark sky. "It's beginning to snow
+already, and I believe we shall have a heavy fall."
+
+"Then it must keep off till to-morrow, for we've got to get to North
+Ditton somehow!" announced Gwen.
+
+Dick's mother had asked the younger Gascoynes to tea, and amongst
+their various invitations it was to this that Gwen looked forward the
+most. She wanted to see Dick's home, and the collection of birds' eggs
+and butterflies which he had promised to show her, and his magic
+lantern, and his microscope, and all the Natural History books of
+which he had so often spoken. She watched the weather impatiently, and
+when the snow fell faster and faster, and Beatrice decided
+emphatically that the visit was impossible, she broke into open
+mutiny.
+
+"It's too bad! We shouldn't take any harm. What an old mollycoddle you
+are, Beatrice!"
+
+"I've a little more sense in my head than you have! With this wind the
+roads will be deep in drifts. It's quite unfit to go out, especially
+for you with that nasty cough. I should have you laid up with
+bronchitis."
+
+"My cold's better," affirmed Gwen, trying not to sound hoarse; "snow
+doesn't hurt people. Father's gone out in it!"
+
+"Father was obliged to go--it's quite a different thing for him. I'm
+sorry you're disappointed, but really, Gwen, don't be so childish!
+Look at Lesbia, she isn't making such a dreadful fuss!"
+
+"Lesbia never worries about anything, so it's no virtue at all!"
+snarled Gwen, knowing perfectly well that she was unfair, for Lesbia
+undoubtedly added self-control to her naturally sweet disposition.
+"You always hold up Lesbia! You've no right to say we must stop at
+home, just because you're the eldest!"
+
+Beatrice sighed. Sometimes she thought this turbulent cuckoo of a
+younger sister was the cross of her life.
+
+"It's no use talking in this way, Gwen! Somebody must be in authority,
+and you'll have to do as you're told."
+
+"I shan't! I don't care! You're only six years older than I am!"
+
+And Gwen flounced out of the room in a rage. She ran upstairs, her
+eyes smarting with hot tears of temper. She was disgusted with the
+others for not taking the matter more to heart. How could Lesbia sit
+reading so calmly, or the boys amuse themselves with their absurd
+engine?
+
+"They don't care like I do! I wish I could go without them!" she said
+aloud.
+
+The idea was an excellent one. What fun it would be to go alone, and
+have Dick all to herself--no tiresome youngsters to claim his
+attention, finger his books, and perhaps break his birds' eggs; not
+even Lesbia to ask stupid questions about things any ordinary person
+ought to know. She could easily tell Mrs. Chambers that her sister had
+thought it too stormy for the little ones to venture, and probably Dr.
+Chambers would drive her back in the gig.
+
+"After all, Father never told me not to go!" she thought, "and
+Beatrice is getting a perfect tyrant; I can't be expected to obey her
+as if I were an infant. A girl in the Fifth is quite old enough to
+decide things for herself, especially when she's as tall as I am!"
+
+Gwen changed her dress, put on her best hair ribbon, her brooch, and
+her locket, then peeped cautiously down the stairs. Although she felt
+full of self-assertion, she had no wish to risk a further encounter
+with Beatrice. All seemed quiet, so, donning hat and coat, she crept
+to the cupboard where mackintoshes and galoshes were kept, and armed
+herself to defy the weather. It was quite an easy matter to slip out
+by the back door, and in less than ten seconds she was hurrying
+through the village, chuckling at her own daring and cleverness. Thick
+flakes were whirling everywhere: when she looked upwards they showed
+as little dark patches against the neutral-tinted sky, but when they
+passed the line of vision, each soft lump of crystals gleamed purest
+white as it joined the ever-deepening mass below. Every gate and stump
+and rubbish heap was a thing of beauty, glorified by the ethereal
+covering of the snow; the dead clumps of ragwort by the road side, the
+withered branches of oak, the shrivelled trails of bramble all seemed
+transformed by the feathery particles into a species of fairyland.
+
+As Gwen left the village, and took the path that led across the moor,
+she seemed to walk into a cloud of whiteness that enclosed her and
+shut her out from all before or behind. She stood still for a moment,
+and drew in her breath with a sense of intense exhilaration. She was
+all by herself in the midst of this new-found world of snow, and the
+very solitude had a fascination. It is good sometimes for the spirit
+to be alone; strange vague thoughts, half memories, half imaginings,
+fill the brain like a full high tide; strong impressions, unfelt and
+unknowable in the distraction of human company, force themselves
+silently yet persistently upon us; the corporal and the tangible lose
+their hard outlines and begin to merge into the in visible--in such
+moments the soul grows. It is perhaps one of the disadvantages of a
+large family that the members are apt to lack what one might call
+spiritual elbow room, the constant close companionship, the fridging
+and rubbing of the continual, daily, hourly intercourse, though an
+excellent discipline for the temper, leaves scant opportunity for the
+development of the individuality. Gwen could not have explained this
+in the least, but as she stood in the still quiet of the falling snow,
+she felt as if all the little fretting cares and worries and squabbles
+and anxieties dropped away into a subordinate place, and she were
+viewing life with another range of vision, where the proportions of
+things were quite changed.
+
+She walked on, almost as if she were in a dream, without even the
+sound of a footstep to break the intense silence. She was now on the
+open wold, where there were neither hedges nor walls, but only a few
+stones to mark the road from the sedgy, heathery expanse of moor that
+stretched on either side. Gwen knew the way so thoroughly that she
+thought she could have followed it blindfold. Every rock and boulder
+and bush were familiar, and as a rule were so many points along the
+daily path to school. Now, however, all the well-known landmarks
+seemed to have a strange similarity, and to be merging into one great
+white waste, in which tree stump was indistinguishable from stone or
+gorse clump. The light was fading rapidly, for the clouds went on
+gathering, and the flakes came down ever thicker and faster. So far
+Gwen had gone on with the utmost confidence, but now she stopped and
+entertained a doubt. She did not recognize the boulder on her right,
+and the juniper bush on her left was surely strange.
+
+"I verily believe I've come wrong somehow," she muttered. "There's
+nothing for it but to turn back."
+
+She could see her own footsteps in the snow behind, and for some
+hundreds of yards she traced them; then they began to get fainter and
+fainter, and presently they were hidden entirely by the new-fallen
+flakes. The road was completely obliterated, there was nothing round
+her but shapeless indefinite whiteness. Then it dawned upon Gwen's
+soul that she was lost, lost hopelessly on the bare wold, where she
+might wander for miles without seeing the gleam of a farmhouse window
+or hearing even the bark of a shepherd's dog. The solitude that before
+had seemed so inspiring, suddenly became oppressive loneliness. What
+was she to do? Tramp on and on, perhaps in a circle, till she could go
+no farther? Already it was heavy walking, and under the rocks and
+bushes the drifts were deepening. Yet it would never do to sit down in
+the snow. Tired as she was, she must keep moving, and while the
+faintest gleam of daylight lasted she must try and find some
+guide-post to civilization.
+
+"I wish I'd brought Jingles. I never thought of him," she sighed,
+longing regretfully for the shaggy Irish terrier that acted watchdog
+at the Parsonage. "I wonder how soon they'll miss me at home? Not till
+tea-time, I expect, and then they'll probably think I'm at the
+Chambers'. Beatrice would guess where I'd gone. How furiously angry
+she'll be!"
+
+For the first time a little awkward uncomfortable inward suggestion
+began to croak that elder sisters are occasionally right, and may
+even be wiser in their generation than tall girls who have entered the
+Fifth. Gwen's cough, which had been hacking all day, came on much
+worse, and began to hurt her chest: she wished she had brought her
+_thick_ muffler. It was a subject of perennial dispute between herself
+and Beatrice, and she often discarded it simply because the latter
+told her to put it on. She hated to appear mollycoddlish, and
+sometimes indeed did very silly things out of sheer foolhardiness. At
+present she was bitterly cold. The snow had sifted inside her
+galoshes, and made her feet wet, and the chilly wind was creeping down
+her neck and up her sleeves, and whirling frozen flakes at her face.
+No cheery tea in the Chambers' drawing-room, and no delightful chat
+with Dick afterwards about photography and magic lanterns.
+
+"The fact of the matter is that I've been an idiot!" she confessed to
+herself. "Anybody with an ounce of sense would have known it was too
+snowy to cross the wold. I ought to have gone round by the high road.
+I seemed to turn across here just out of habit."
+
+Gwen could not tell how long she stumbled about. It felt like
+interminable hours as she wearily dragged herself along, watching the
+sky grow darker, and the landscape more and more blurred, till she
+could scarcely distinguish which was snow and which was sky. At last
+her aching limbs absolutely refused to carry her any farther, and she
+crouched under the shelter of a big juniper bush that overhung a piece
+of rock. Here at least she was out of the biting, freezing wind. The
+comparative warmth made her feel sleepy. She roused herself with an
+effort. To sleep in the snow, she knew, was fatal, so she fell to
+rubbing her hands and feet to try and restore the circulation. All at
+once she started up and shouted aloud.
+
+In the distance she had heard a short, sharp yelp, and she reasoned
+that where there was a dog, a man might possibly be following. Again
+and again she called, till, to her intense relief, a "Hallo!" came in
+answer, and she made out a snowy form moving in her direction. The dog
+found her first; it bounded at her, whining and sniffing at her
+skirts, then rushed away barking loudly to inform its master of her
+whereabouts.
+
+"Can you tell me where I am? I've got lost!" cried Gwen, wading
+through a drift in her eagerness to meet her rescuer.
+
+"Why, you're close to our house--Rawlins' farm. Who is it? I can't see
+in the dark. Miss Gascoyne? Why, whatever are you doing here all
+alone?"
+
+He might well ask, Gwen thought, but she ignored the question. She
+knew the man, for he was a parishioner, and two of his boys sang in
+the choir at church.
+
+"Can you tell me how to get home?" she said, with chattering teeth and
+watering eyes.
+
+"Better come and have a sup o' tea first; you look clemmed wi' the
+cold," he returned. "We'll tak' you back after wi' the lantern. It's
+nobbut a step to the farm."
+
+He whistled to the dog and moved on, and Gwen stumbled after him,
+wondering how she had missed seeing the house when it was so near. She
+scarcely knew whether to pose in the light of a heroine or a culprit
+as she walked into Mrs. Rawlins' kitchen, but decided to give as
+guarded an account of the matter as she could. There would be
+explanations in plenty when she returned to the Parsonage. She was
+very glad to sit and thaw by the fire and drink hot tea, despite the
+difficulty of fencing with Mrs. Rawlins' questions, that good dame
+being consumed with curiosity, and not restrained by any feelings of
+delicacy from catechizing her guest.
+
+"Yes. No, I wasn't coming back from school, it's the holidays--yes,
+I'm generally with one of my sisters--no, I wasn't delivering Parish
+Magazines, we sent yours by Charlie--yes, I expect my father will be
+missing me. Thanks very much for the tea; I think I must be going
+now," said Gwen, gulping her second cup and making a move.
+
+"Here's the lantern, Jim," said Mrs. Rawlins to her husband, "and take
+Miss Gascoyne round by the road; 'tain't fit to venture over the moor.
+It's scarce a night for a Christian to be out--and her with that
+churchyard cough, too! Goodness, gracious, how it's blowing!"
+
+Gwen reached home so spent and exhausted with her long tramp through
+the snow, that she had only wits enough left wearily to thank Mr.
+Rawlins for his escort, and to stumble in at the front door. Winnie
+ran forward with a cry of relief, and shouted to Beatrice the welcome
+news of the arrival.
+
+"Don't ask me anything! Oh, I just want to go to bed; I'm done!"
+wailed Gwen, subsiding on to the nearest chair.
+
+Beatrice took the hint, and refrained from any reproaches till she
+had tucked up the prodigal in warmed blankets, with a hot bottle at
+her feet, and seen her consume a basin full of steaming bread and
+milk. Then she observed:
+
+"I suppose you know Father and half the village are out hunting for
+you with lanterns? They raised the Boy Scouts and broke up the Band of
+Hope meeting. They telephoned to the Police Station at North Ditton
+too. I expect you're rather proud of yourself!"
+
+And Gwen turned her face to the wall and sobbed and coughed till she
+nearly choked.
+
+Next afternoon a very miserable-looking object, with watering eyes and
+a swollen cheek sat wrapped in a shawl by the fire in Father's study.
+Gwen had made her peace with Beatrice and had been forgiven, but she
+was still "eating the husks" of her escapade in the shape of a
+thoroughly bad cold and a touch of toothache. She refused to stay in
+bed, yet the noise of the family sitting-room made her head throb, so
+finally Father had taken pity upon her, and allowed her to bring her
+troubles into his sanctum. He had said very little about the events of
+the day before, but Gwen knew exactly what he must be thinking. She
+mopped her eyes with her handkerchief, and tried to believe it was her
+toothache that was making her cry. After a long time she said huskily,
+a propos of nothing in particular:
+
+"Things always go so hardly with me, somehow, Dad! I don't know how it
+is. I generally seem unlucky, both at school and at home. I suppose
+it's partly me, but if things were easier, I'd be better. I should,
+really."
+
+[Illustration: "THINGS GO SO HARDLY WITH ME SOMEHOW, DAD."]
+
+Father did not reply: he was busy addressing the motto-cards that he
+was sending to his parishioners for the New Year. He handed one to her
+silently.
+
+And Gwen read:
+
+     "O do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do
+     not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers
+     equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no
+     miracle. But you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall
+     wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come
+     to you by the Grace of God."
+
+--_Phillips Brooks._
+
+Gwen sat staring hard into the fire.
+
+"I'll hang this up in my bedroom, Dad," she said presently.
+
+"Do; you'll find it worth thinking about," replied Father, as he
+blotted the thirty-fourth envelope.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A Prize Essay
+
+
+Gwen went back to school feeling rather tamed and sober. The bad cold
+and face-ache, subsequent on her adventure in the snow, had seriously
+interfered with her plans for the holidays, and she had not
+accomplished half she intended to do in the time. Dick Chambers had
+been laid up in bed with an attack of rheumatism, so she had scarcely
+seen anything of him, and altogether the much-longed-for month had
+held its disappointments. She returned to her desk in the Fifth almost
+glad to begin a fresh term, though she knew many difficulties awaited
+her. First and foremost was the horrible fact that she owed a whole
+sovereign to Netta Goodwin, and had absolutely no prospect of paying
+it. She tried to avoid any private conversation with her chum, but the
+ruse was not successful for long. Netta was a girl who was accustomed
+to get her own way, and she followed Gwen round the school until she
+caught her alone.
+
+"I say, you old slacker, what about that sov.?" she began. "I suppose
+you got your Christmas presents all right?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I got my presents!" said Gwen, trying to pass things off
+airily. "Not quite what I expected, though."
+
+"But you can pay me back?"
+
+"I'm afraid I can't just yet."
+
+Netta's rather pretty face changed its expression considerably.
+
+"When can you, then?" she asked sharply. "I want to know."
+
+"Could you wait a fortnight?"
+
+"It's inconvenient, but I might."
+
+Netta was still scowling. "Will you promise faithfully to bring it by
+the 1st of February?"
+
+"I'll do my best," agreed Gwen, escaping from what was to both a very
+unpleasant interview.
+
+She had mentioned a fortnight simply on the spur of the moment to put
+Netta off, but she knew that the 1st of February would bring no way
+out of her entanglement. It was something, however, to have even a
+respite of two weeks; it gave her time to think and to lay plans. She
+wondered what Netta would do if, as seemed most likely, the debt still
+remained owing. She did not suppose Netta would turn informer to Miss
+Roscoe, but she might very possibly mention the matter to Winnie, who
+would tell Beatrice, who would promptly tell Father.
+
+"Only a fortnight!" groaned Gwen, feeling like a criminal in a
+condemned cell. "Unless 'something turns up', as Mr. Micawber says in
+_David Copperfield_. If I were the heroine of a novel, a forgotten
+uncle in America would suddenly die, and leave me a million just at
+the opportune moment. But I'm only a very unromantic, every-day kind
+of person, not the forget-me-not-eyed, spun-gold-haired,
+wild-rose-petal-complexioned, pearly-toothed sort of girl who gets
+fortunes; I'm solid fact, not fiction. Most things are nowadays, I
+suppose."
+
+Certainly the Fifth Form did not offer scope for romance or sentiment.
+Its daily doings were most prosaic, a round in which Latin,
+mathematics, and chemistry were chiefly to the fore, and the only
+appeal to the imagination was the weekly lecture on English literature
+from the Principal. Gwen liked these; Miss Roscoe had the knack of
+making historical dry bones live, and encouraged the girls to read for
+themselves. All her lessons were interesting, but in this she was
+inspiring. She was accustomed to give themes for fortnightly
+exercises, and at the first lecture of this new term she announced as
+a special subject: "An Essay on any one of the Great Writers of the
+Victorian Era", promising a volume of Browning's poems as a prize.
+
+"I had intended to offer it for Christmas," she said, "but I thought
+you were too busy preparing for examinations to be able to give time
+to such an essay. I hope you'll do justice to the subject now."
+
+It was a large order, thought Gwen, when already their homework had
+about reached its outside limit. Miss Roscoe was quite unconscionable
+in her demands on their time and brains. She fixed the standard of the
+Form so high that only the very bright girls could possibly keep up to
+it. Many slacked off entirely, but Gwen could not, dared not slack.
+She knew Miss Roscoe was watching her work, and that very much
+depended upon her reports for the next year or two. Father had thrown
+out a few hints that had stirred her ambition and raised wild hopes
+for the future. She was aware that there were several good
+scholarships from Rodenhurst, and visions of College began to dawn on
+her horizon.
+
+"'Gwen Gascoyne, B.A.', sounds no end. It would be worth the grind. I
+mayn't be the beauty of the family, but I believe I've got the best
+share of the brains. Beatrice would be proud of me if I took my
+degree. I must make something of this essay if I 'burn the midnight'.
+Miss Roscoe will expect me to turn up trumps. I'll toil like a navvy!"
+
+So Gwen decided, and stuck to her resolution. She had an undoubted
+capacity for work, a power of application and of steady plodding that
+were of immense service, as well as more brilliant gifts. She attacked
+the question at once. The Victorian writers offered a fairly wide
+choice of subject. She hesitated at first between George Eliot and
+Dickens, and finally selected Thomas Carlyle. Something about the
+rugged old prophet attracted her, and she thought he would be a
+congenial theme for her pen. She spent every spare moment in reading
+his biographies or his works, till she felt she had him at her
+fingers' ends. Then, with a mass of notes as a foundation, she began
+her essay.
+
+Most young writers undergo the same first agonies of composition: the
+vainly sought simile, the sentence that will not turn nicely, the
+tiresome word that crops up too often, yet for which there seems no
+adequate substitute; the sudden lack of ideas, or the non-ability to
+clothe those one has in suitable language.
+
+Gwen wrote and burnt, and wrote and burnt again, till at last she
+managed something, not at all up to the ideal of her imagination, but
+the best her limited literary experience could produce. She refused to
+show it to anybody at home, and bore it off to school to read over and
+correct during the dinner hour. She was sitting at her desk, busy
+altering sentences and erasing words, when Netta came into the room.
+
+"Hello, you old solitary hermit!" she exclaimed. "What are you doing
+here, with your nose buried in an exercise book? There's no getting at
+you nowadays. You'll grow old before your time, Gwen, my child! Come
+out this instant, and play basket-ball."
+
+"Can't, so that's flat," responded Gwen. "Netta, if you love me, if
+you've any humanity in you, leave me alone. Basket-ball's off till
+I've finished this."
+
+"Well, you've got to tell me what you're doing, at any rate. Let me
+look! No, Miss Modesty, you're not going to hide your light under a
+bushel. I insist! Oho! What have we got here now?"
+
+Netta dragged the book from Gwen's reluctant hands, and sitting on a
+neighbouring desk, began hastily to skim through the essay, giving
+grunts of approval as she read.
+
+"First rate! I say, this is immense! Gwen, my hearty, I didn't think
+you'd got it in you!"
+
+"Will it do?" demanded Gwen anxiously. She had sat on metaphorical
+pins to hear Netta's verdict.
+
+"Do? I should rather think it would! If Lemonade doesn't mark it A1,
+First Prize, I shall say she doesn't know her business, that's all!
+You're pretty safe for that book of Browning, in my opinion."
+
+"Wish it were cash instead! But I shan't get it in any case," sighed
+Gwen. "If I did, I'd trade it for anything I could."
+
+"You mercenary wretch!"
+
+"I'm so hard up. I'm no nearer paying what I owe you, Netta. I
+literally haven't a penny in my pocket I wish you'd take it in kind
+instead of money."
+
+Netta sat silent, drumming with her fingers on the desk.
+
+"I've a rather decent locket, if you'd care for that--" continued
+Gwen.
+
+"Hush! Be quiet! You've given me an idea, Gwen Gascoyne."
+
+"Or I've a really jolly writing case--almost new--"
+
+"I don't want your lockets or your writing cases; I've heaps of my
+own. I know one thing I do want, though, and if you like to trade, you
+can."
+
+"Done! Only name it, and it's yours with my blessing."
+
+"Well, I want this essay--"
+
+"My essay! What do you mean?"
+
+Gwen snatched back her exercise book as a mother clutches her
+first-born.
+
+"I mean what I say. If you like to hand over 'Thomas Carlyle' to me,
+I'll take it instead of the sov., and call us quits. It would be a new
+experience to win a prize. How amazed everyone would be!"
+
+"You surely wouldn't pass it off as your own?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why, Netta! That would be rather strong, even for you!"
+
+"I told you long ago I was no saint. Besides, what's the harm? It's a
+business arrangement. You offered to pay me in kind, and this happens
+to be the 'pound of flesh', I fancy. It's perfectly fair."
+
+"Um! Don't quite see the fairness myself."
+
+"But it is!" protested Netta rather huffily. "I believe lots of
+popular authors don't do all their own writing themselves. They engage
+secretaries to help them. I've even heard of clergymen buying their
+sermons."
+
+"Oh, oh! Father doesn't!" Gwen's tone was warm.
+
+"Well, I didn't say he did, but I believe it's done all the same. And if
+a vicar can read somebody else's sermon in the pulpit as if it were his
+own, I may hand in somebody else's essay. _Quod est demonstrandum_, my
+child."
+
+"Can't see it!" grunted Gwen.
+
+"Look here, Gwen Gascoyne, you've got to see it! I've been uncommonly
+patient with you, but I don't quite appreciate the joke of being done
+out of that sov. I must either have it or its equivalent. You can
+please yourself which."
+
+Netta's eyes were flashing, and her mouth was twitching ominously. She
+was a jolly enough fair-weather comrade, but she could be uncommonly
+nasty if things went wrong.
+
+"I suppose you don't consider it unfair to keep me waiting all this
+time?" she added scathingly.
+
+Gwen kicked the desk and groaned.
+
+"Well, it just amounts to this: if you don't choose to come to terms,
+I'll tell Lemonade. Yes, I will! I don't care a scrap if I went into
+her room as well as you. You broke the china, and you'd get into the
+worst row. It wouldn't be pleasant for you. I think you'd better hand
+over Mr. Thomas Carlyle to me, my dear."
+
+"And what am I to do, I should like to know?"
+
+"Write another on a different author."
+
+"There isn't time."
+
+"Yes there is, heaps! I don't want it to be as good as this,
+naturally. Well, are you going to trade, or are you not? I can't wait
+here all day!"
+
+For answer, Gwen held out the exercise book. She was in a desperately
+tight corner; everything seemed to have conspired against her. She
+knew Netta and her mad, reckless moods quite well enough to appreciate
+the fact that her threat to tell Miss Roscoe was no idle one. When her
+temper was roused, Netta was capable of anything.
+
+"It's her fault more than mine if it's not fair. I really can't help
+it," thought Gwen, trying to find excuses for herself.
+
+"Oh! Glad you've come to your senses at last!" sneered Netta, as she
+clutched the precious manuscript and stalked away, slamming the door
+behind her. There was no one else in the room, so Gwen laid her head
+down on the desk, and indulged in an altogether early Victorian
+exhibition of feeling. Her essay--her cherished essay, over which she
+had taken such superhuman pains, to be torn away from her like this!
+It was to have brought her such credit from Miss Roscoe, for even if
+it did not win the prize, it would surely be highly commended. And she
+had made herself a party to a fraud, for however much she might try
+to whitewash her act, she knew she had no right to allow Netta to use
+her work.
+
+"Dad would despise me! Oh, what an abominable mix and muddle it all
+is! And I was going to start the New Year so straight!" wailed Gwen.
+
+Netta in the meantime had put the essay away in her locker with the
+utmost satisfaction. She felt she had decidedly scored. Neither
+brilliant nor a hard worker, she had no opportunity of distinguishing
+herself in the Form under ordinary circumstances: here chance had
+flung into her hand the very thing she wanted. It would not take long
+to copy the sixteen pages of rather sprawling writing, then "Thomas
+Carlyle" would be her own.
+
+"And a surprise for everyone!" she chuckled complacently. "Of course,
+it's rather dear--a whole pound! But--yes, most undoubtedly it's worth
+it!"
+
+To Gwen, not the lightest part of the business was that she was faced
+with the horrible necessity of writing another essay. Only two days
+remained, so time pressed. It was impossible to look up any subject
+adequately, so she chose Dickens, as being an author whose books she
+knew fairly well, and by dint of much brain racking and real hard
+labour contrived to give some slight sketch of his life and an
+appreciation of his genius. She was painfully conscious, however, that
+the result was poor, the style slipshod, and the general composition
+lacking both in unity and finish. She pulled a long face as she signed
+her name to it.
+
+"That isn't going to do much for you, Gwen Gascoyne," she said to
+herself. "It won't even get 'commended'. Bah! I'm sick of the whole
+thing!"
+
+She felt more sick still on the day when Miss Roscoe returned the
+essays.
+
+"I had hoped the average standard would be higher," commented the
+Principal. "Very few girls have treated the subject in any really
+critical spirit. There is only one paper worthy of notice--that on
+Thomas Carlyle by Netta Goodwin, and it is so excellent that it stands
+head and shoulders above all the others. I am very pleased, Netta,
+very pleased indeed, that you should have done so well. Your essay is
+carefully thought out and nicely expressed, and is evidently the
+result of much painstaking work. You thoroughly deserve the prize
+which I offered, and I have written your name in the book."
+
+The Fifth Form gasped as Netta, with a smile of infinite triumph,
+marched jauntily up the room to receive her copy of Browning's Poems.
+Each girl looked at her neighbour in almost incredulous astonishment.
+Netta Goodwin, of all people in the world, to have won such praise!
+
+Gwen drew her breath hard, and clenched her fists till her nails hurt
+her palms. At that moment, I am afraid, she hated Netta.
+
+"Who was your author, Gwen? I chose Thackeray," said Louise Mawson
+afterwards.
+
+"Dickens--and I only got 'fairly creditable'," responded Gwen. "It's
+just rotten!"
+
+Which was a word utterly tabooed both at Rodenhurst and at home, but
+the sole one that seemed bad enough for the occasion.
+
+"So I hear Netta Goodwin's was the prize essay," remarked Father that
+evening. "Well, we can't all of us win prizes, can we? It was a
+strange coincidence that she should have written on Thomas Carlyle
+too!"
+
+"Most remarkably strange, and very unfortunate for me," admitted Gwen,
+drinking her cup of bitterness to the dregs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+Gwen turns Henwife
+
+
+To Gwen the spring term seemed to pass much more rapidly than the
+autumn one had done. She was growing used to the Fifth Form; and the
+work, though certainly not easy, was now, thanks to the extra coaching
+that she had received, well within her compass. She did not feel so
+terribly harassed over her preparation, and instead of, as formerly,
+spending the whole evening until bedtime at her books, she was able to
+spare a chance hour or two occasionally for other things. The change
+of thoughts and the extra interests did her good; she lost her worried
+expression, and though she still could not help wrinkling up her
+forehead when trying to answer a question, some of her other bad
+habits began to drop away. Beatrice had not to correct her nearly so
+often, consequently there was less fridging of tempers between the two
+sisters, and a great increase of calm in the home atmosphere. It was a
+matter of tacit understanding at the Parsonage that Gwen raised most
+of the household storms. Winnie and Lesbia had peace-loving
+dispositions, and jogged along very evenly; and the boys, though apt
+to be mischievous, were always good-humoured little fellows, not much
+given to quarrelling unless they were teased. At present such a
+blessed tranquillity reigned at the breakfast and tea-tables that
+Beatrice really began to hope that the family volcano was quieting
+down, and that her eruptions and explosions would be things of the
+past.
+
+Perhaps it was partly the pleasant spring weather that had such a
+beneficial effect on Gwen's temper. She loved the early growing season
+of the year, when every day was a little longer and lighter than the
+last, and the bulbs were pushing up in the garden, and the hazel
+catkins showering clouds of pollen in the lane, and the rooks cawing
+and building in the clump of elms near the mill, and great flights of
+screaming white sea-gulls, noisy, chattering jackdaws, and cheery,
+whistling starlings flew all together in mixed flocks to feed on the
+wolds. The morning walk to North Ditton across the heath, so bleak and
+wretched in December, was a daily delight now the sun was glinting
+over the sea and the gorse was in bud, and the stonechats, which had
+vanished during the cold weather, were back among the boulders,
+darting from stone to stone in short, jerky flight, with that sharp,
+jarring cry which is the prelude to their sweeter spring note. The
+moorland air at 8 a.m. was so fresh and pure and exhilarating that it
+seemed to blow away all the cobwebs, and Gwen often felt inclined to
+dance along the path for sheer joy of the sun and the wind, and the
+birds and the countless green things that were rapidly showing their
+heads through the brown skeletons of last autumn's heather and
+bilberry. The thrill of springtime is a totally different sensation
+from what we experience on even the most gorgeous day in October;
+there is a message of hope in the air, a foretaste of the coming
+summer, a glow of reawakened vitality, an exaltation half physical and
+half spiritual, as every year nature tells us afresh in her own
+fashion the miracle of the Resurrection.
+
+Life was a busy round at the Parsonage. Winnie devoted each moment she
+could spare to the garden and the hen-yard, and Gwen, who at present
+had a craving for out-of-doors, lent a hand as often as she could. She
+whistled and sang over her work as she transplanted forget-me-nots,
+sowed seeds, or tidied up the rockery, and her stalwart arms made the
+lawn mower fly.
+
+"There's some advantage in growing!" she declared, as she trundled
+away the wheelbarrow full of weeds. "My muscles have hardened since
+last year. I'll wheel you back up the garden, Martin, if you like.
+Tumble in!"
+
+Gwen and Winnie had a great scheme between them of building a summer
+house, and every Saturday they managed to get on a little with their
+operations. There was a large pile of young felled trees in the yard
+which Mr. Gascoyne had bought for firewood, and some of these were
+admirable for the purpose. With considerable toil they dragged out
+half a dozen, dug holes in the ground, and planted them as posts to
+make a framework. Smaller boughs were nailed across and across, and
+then bunches of heather were tucked and tied securely into all the
+interstices. The roof was at first a terrible problem, till Winnie
+conceived the brilliant idea of using an old worn-out gate that lay in
+the orchard. It was heavy to lift, but with the aid of Father,
+Beatrice, and Nellie the maid, they managed to heave it up so that it
+rested securely upon the six posts. Then they thatched it neatly with
+heather and fir boughs.
+
+"I don't suppose for a moment that it will be watertight," said
+Winnie; "but we shan't use it in wet weather. What I want is a nice
+shady place to sit in at the end of the tennis lawn. It will be
+perfectly lovely to have tea here. I believe I can make seats with
+some of those stumps."
+
+"I'd back you to do anything in the joinering line," laughed Dick, who
+still came for lessons on Saturday mornings, and generally stayed to
+chat and help the gardeners, though he was yet debarred from any very
+violent exertions, greatly to his indignation. "You ought to be a
+Colonial. I believe you'd be equal to running up a shanty on your own
+and making the furniture out of old boxes."
+
+"Perhaps I'll emigrate some day," nodded Winnie. "It would be more in
+my line than teaching. I'll leave University honours to Gwen, and try
+my luck in another hemisphere. Women are wanted in Canada if they're
+domesticated--and I flatter myself I'm that."
+
+"Don't know that I won't join you when I've got my degree!" declared
+Gwen. "I've yearned to go to Canada ever since I saw those ripping
+pictures on the kinematograph--only Father'd have to promise to come
+and see me every fortnight."
+
+"How particularly possible! Gwen, you're a rotter!" chirped Dick,
+throwing a piece of stick at her. "I thought your last idea was to
+study medicine and go to College with me."
+
+"Perhaps I shan't be able to do either: scholarships don't grow on
+every bush like blackberries. Probably I'll just have to stay at home
+and 'wash dishes and feed the swine'. By the by, we haven't shown you
+our eleven little pigs! They're absolute darlings, as sweet as the
+Duchess's baby in _Alice in Wonderland_. Come along this instant, and
+I'll catch one for you to nurse. We've never had a pet pig before, but
+I declare I mean to tame one of these. They're the sharpest, cutest
+little scaramouches you ever saw: as funny as kittens, and twice as
+intelligent as puppies. Yes; I'm a pig enthusiast at present, and if
+you laugh I'll make you buy one for yourself!"
+
+There was plenty of scope for Gwen's energy as spring came on and
+added hatch after hatch of fluffy chickens and downy ducklings to
+Winnie's hen-yard. She helped to arrange the coops, to make wired
+enclosures for the tiny chicks, and, hardest task of all, to collect
+the young pullets and cockerels that were allowed to roam on the
+common, and lock them up safely for the night.
+
+"No one who hasn't tried henkeeping could possibly conceive the
+difficulty of getting in those wretched long-legged, half-fledged
+fowls," declared Gwen. "They know I'm going to shut them up, and
+they're so clever they come for the Indian corn when I call 'chuck,
+chuck', and eat it with one eye upon me. Then when I try to cajole
+them into the henhouse they fly all ways. Lesbia, you may come and act
+guard, but I won't have the boys; they only rush about and frighten
+the chickens. The last time I took Stumps the Buff Orpington with the
+black feather in its tail flew over the hedge into the turnip field.
+I didn't get him back till it was moonlight, then I caught him
+perching on a stump, and carried him round."
+
+The particular pride of Winnie's heart was a clutch of little
+Partridge Wyandottes, mothered by a comfortable old Plymouth Rock hen.
+The setting of eggs had been given her by a farmer's wife in the
+neighbourhood; they were from a particularly good strain, and ten out
+of the dozen had hatched and thrived. She watched over them with more
+than ordinary zeal, leaving manifold instructions with Nellie for
+their diet during her absence at school, and visiting them the very
+first after her return each afternoon. On the evenings when she took
+the choir practice at church she entrusted them solely to Gwen's
+charge.
+
+"Give them a last feed of 'Chikko', and see that they've got clean
+water, and don't let Jingles go near them, because the old hen gets
+excited, and stamps about and treads on them," urged Winnie one
+Wednesday as she started off with a roll of music in her hand. "Be
+sure you shut them up early, because Nellie says she saw a rat last
+night, and I noticed something had been burrowing near the shed."
+
+Gwen promised complete accordance with all directions, and then went
+off to finish her Latin translation. It was a particularly stiff piece
+of Virgil, and she puzzled over it so long that she utterly forgot all
+about the chickens, and it was only the call of an owl waking up on
+the ivy-covered ash tree at the bottom of the garden that reminded her
+of her henwife's duties.
+
+"Gracious! It's nearly dark!" she exclaimed, flinging down Virgil and
+making a rush for the hen-yard. "I hope to goodness those chicks are
+all right! What an idiot I am! Winnie will be ready to slay me if
+anything's happened to them."
+
+It was growing very dusk indeed, and though none of the doors were yet
+shut, the feathered flock had all gone to roost. As Gwen crossed the
+hen-yard she suddenly saw something dark and shadowy creep from behind
+the shed and dart stealthily in the direction of the coops. It
+disappeared inside the very one where the cherished Partridge
+Wyandottes were cuddling under their foster-mother's wings. Gwen's
+heart almost stood still. She well knew the cunning and daring of
+rats, and how they would snatch the chicks or young ducklings from the
+wariest and most warlike hen. To leave this in the coop for even a
+minute while she went to call help would certainly result in the loss
+of one or more of Winnie's favourites.
+
+Very cautiously she peered inside. The hen, who knew her well, clucked
+softly, and the chickens popped their little speckly heads out from
+the mass of encircling feathers and "peeped" gently. They were not yet
+aware of danger. Where was the rat? It appeared to have vanished into
+thin air. It certainly could not have left the coop. At the opposite
+end from where the hen was sitting there was a billet of wood, and on
+looking at this closely she saw a long tail dangling out underneath.
+Without doubt her enemy had taken refuge there and was hiding in the
+corner.
+
+"These precious chicks have got to be saved somehow or Winnie'll never
+forgive me," muttered Gwen, clenching her teeth to brace her nerves.
+
+Then she did a thing from which her whole spirit shrank. She took her
+handkerchief in her hand to give her a firmer grip and seized hold of
+the tail. She dragged the rat out of the coop and bore it off, hanging
+head downwards and whirling round and round in vain effort to escape,
+while it squeaked with wrath and indignation. Fortunately it could not
+raise its head sufficiently to bite her or she might have suffered a
+nasty wound. Gwen rushed towards the back door, shouting loudly for
+Nellie, but when that worthy domestic saw what she carried she uttered
+a yell of terror instead of offering help.
+
+"Throw it down, Miss Gwen, it'll bite you!" she shrieked. "Oh!
+gracious goodness! throw it down!"
+
+"Bring the poker! Where's Jingles?" screamed Gwen. Then, realizing
+that she could hold her wriggling burden no longer, she dropped the
+rat into the water-butt, and catching up the yard brush which lay
+handily near, held down the victim till it was drowned.
+
+"Miss Gwen! How did you dare!" shivered Nellie.
+
+"Ugh! It's a hateful, horrid, barbarous thing to have to do. I feel as
+if I'd committed a murder. It's made me quite sick," said Gwen.
+"Nellie, do go and shut up those chickens before any more rats get
+into the coop. I don't feel equal to catching another." Then she sat
+down on the pump-trough to recover.
+
+"You're a heroine!" declared Winnie when she came back from the choir
+practice and viewed the interesting corpse. "I shouldn't have dared!
+No, nothing in this world would have induced me to seize the creature
+by its tail. It's a huge one too, with such wicked-looking teeth. What
+a wonder you weren't bitten! You shall have one of those Partridge
+Wyandottes for your very own. Choose whichever you like and I'll call
+it yours."
+
+"I wish you'd help me to finish my Virgil," said Gwen. "I'm only
+halfway through and it's almost bedtime!"
+
+"You're as good as a terrier, Gwen!" said Dick, when he heard the
+exciting story the next Saturday. "I wish you'd come ratting in our
+stable at home. I'd undertake to find you some sport."
+
+"Don't be detestable! You talk as if I'd enjoyed it. I had to bury the
+thing afterwards, for Winnie wouldn't touch it. I made a mull of my
+Virgil in class next day, and I couldn't tell Miss Douglas the
+reason."
+
+"You might have put the episode into Latin. It sounds quite Homeric.
+Did you keep the tail as a trophy? If we want to excite you we'll just
+say 'Rats'. Please let us know when you're on the warpath again and
+we'll come to see the fun;" and Dick dodged round an apple tree and
+fled.
+
+"You've got to be here early next Saturday, mind, and help us to take
+things to the Agricultural Show!" Gwen shouted after him. "You may
+come to breakfast if you'll behave yourself."
+
+"Right-o! I'll act beast of burden provided it's hens I'm to
+carry--not rats! Ta-ta!"
+
+The Agricultural Show was the great event in the year at Skelwick. It
+was held in the big field beside the mill, and all the villagers for
+miles round made holiday to attend it. For days beforehand men were
+busy putting up pens and erecting a tent where eggs and butter and
+dressed fowls could be exhibited, while a few travelling caravans
+arrived with shooting galleries or cheap bazaars and set up a kind of
+fair in an opposite field.
+
+There were many classes for poultry, so Winnie decided to send some of
+her best cockerels, a selection of Buff Orpington chickens, and a pair
+of big white Aylesbury ducks. She and Gwen got up very early on the
+Saturday morning to take a final review of their exhibits. They were
+determined to give the ducks a washing in order that they might show
+them with their plumage in an absolutely spotless condition. Armed
+with a tin bath, a can of warm water, some soap and a sponge, they
+shut themselves in a disused pig sty and commenced operations. It is
+no easy task to wash a large, struggling, flapping, protesting duck,
+and though Gwen held their wings down while Winnie did the scrubbing,
+both girls were splashed all over and drenched with water before they
+had finished.
+
+"But the Aylesburys look gorgeous," said Gwen, flinging her
+dishevelled hair from her hot face. "They're clean to the very tips of
+their beaks. The drake looks as if you'd curled his tail feather with
+the curling tongs. They're fearfully upset and angry, poor dears; they
+think they've been half killed. Winnie, how are we going to get them
+to the Show?"
+
+"That's what's puzzling me. We don't possess a basket big enough for
+them. I believe we shall have to carry them."
+
+"In our arms? Yes, that'll be by far the best way. They'd knock their
+feathers about in a hamper and get dirty again. They've had one
+breakfast already, but I think they deserve a little scrap of Indian
+corn as a reward for what they've gone through."
+
+All exhibits had to be delivered at the Show field by nine o'clock,
+and precisely at half-past eight a procession set off from the
+Parsonage: Lesbia carefully carrying a dozen beautiful brown eggs in a
+basket, the three boys with small hampers of chickens, Dick holding a
+little wooden crate containing Black Minorca cockerels, and finally
+Winnie and Gwen, each clasping a huge white Aylesbury in her arms.
+Dick had offered gallantly to be duck bearer, but the girls preferred
+to transport their own pets.
+
+"They know us so well, you see," said Gwen, "so they won't struggle
+like they would with a stranger. Besides, we know just the dodge of
+holding down their wings so that they can't flap."
+
+They decided to take the short cut to the mill, through two meadows,
+across a small stream, and over a stile that led them direct into the
+Show ground. Gwen and Winnie got on very well with Dick and the boys
+to open gates: it was rather perilous work crossing the stream on a
+single plank, but they accomplished that in safety, and Winnie, with
+infinite caution, climbed over the stile into the mill meadow, still
+hugging her burden. Gwen essayed to follow with equal skill, but the
+stile was a very steep and awkward one, and she needed both hands to
+hold the drake. She was stepping carefully over the top bar when
+somehow her foot caught and she stumbled; she put out one hand to
+save herself, and the cunning drake, quick to seize his opportunity,
+wriggled himself free and made a dash for liberty.
+
+Off he went over the Show ground, flapping and fluttering like a white
+whirlwind and quacking his loudest, and the Gascoyne family, popping
+down hampers and baskets, followed hard behind; Winnie, much
+encumbered by her duck, shouting frantic directions. It was Dick who
+caught the runaway, and pinioned him cleverly until Gwen secured him,
+then with much triumph they shut him up with his agitated mate in the
+wire pen marked "No. 207".
+
+"I thought we'd lost him," panted Winnie. "Oh, dear! It's no joke
+bringing one's beasties to a show. I'm glad we decided not to exhibit
+the pigs! Martin, you're not to open that hamper. We shall be having
+the chickens escaping next! Stop him, Stumps! I feel like the 'Old
+Woman who lived in a Shoe'. Gwen, you take charge of the cockerels
+while I find where the Black Minorcas have to go to."
+
+The public was not allowed in the field while the judging was in
+process; so until twelve o'clock the Gascoynes were obliged to wait
+with what patience they could muster. As soon as the gates were opened
+they trooped into the Show.
+
+"Hurrah! First Prize for White Aylesburys!" exclaimed Winnie
+ecstatically, gazing with rapture at the large pink card that
+decorated No. 207 pen. "It was worth washing them. The darlings! How
+nice they look!"
+
+"And the chickens have got a third!" yelled the boys, who had taken a
+hasty round of the exhibits.
+
+"The eggs haven't won anything, but the cockerels have 'commended'.
+Mrs. Hodges' have got the first."
+
+"We haven't done badly," said Winnie, "considering I can't devote all
+my time to it like the farmers' wives. Gwen, you've helped loyally,
+and I'm going to give you half a crown out of the prize money. I shall
+save the rest to buy some really good White Leghorns; Mrs. Hodges says
+they lay better than any others in the winter. Oh, here's Father! We
+must go and tell him of our success."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+The Shoe Pinches
+
+
+The very first thing which Gwen did, when Winnie had given her the
+promised half-crown out of the prize money, was to go straight to the
+post office and buy a postal order for that amount and a penny stamp.
+She possessed a few odd coppers, but otherwise no funds had come her
+way for a long time, and she had been growing very uneasy about the
+bill which she still owed to Parker's for the broken china. She now
+sent them the postal order, with a note saying that she hoped very
+soon to settle the remainder of the account, and begging them to wait
+a little longer. She also asked them to return her a receipt addressed
+"c/o Miss Netta Goodwin, The Thorns, Manor Road, Stedburgh".
+
+"I dare say Netta'll be angry, and call it cheek on my part, but I
+can't help it," thought Gwen. "I daren't get another letter sent to
+school after the rowing Miss Roscoe gave me, and if it comes home,
+Beatrice will want to know who's been writing to me. It's only fair
+that Netta should take a little of the bother on her own shoulders.
+She's certainly had the best of it in this affair. Oh, dear, I still
+owe Parker's ten shillings. I haven't the ghost of a notion how I'm to
+pay it!"
+
+Gwen could not forgive Netta for appropriating her prize essay. She
+still felt indignant whenever she thought about it, especially as
+there was always an uneasy sensation of guilt on her own part. She
+knew it was not a straight transaction, and poor Gwen, with all her
+faults, loved straightness. For lack of other friendships at school
+she was forced into companionship with Netta, but she never
+whole-heartedly liked her. Lately, especially, Netta had taken a
+rather high-handed tone, and was apt to order her chum about in a
+manner that Gwen's independent spirit greatly resented. The friction
+between the two was sometimes hot, but neither cared to risk a
+quarrel, for each knew that the other, if turned into an enemy, might
+come out with some decidedly awkward revelations. So they went on in
+the old way, squabbling continually over trifles and making it up
+again, but on the whole ready to stand up for each other against the
+rest of the Form. Yes, alack!--the rest of the Form, for Gwen, in
+spite of her well-meant efforts, had not yet won popularity in the
+Fifth. She had tried to be genial and sociable, but nobody seemed to
+want her. If she joined in a conversation, Rachel Hunter or Edith
+Arnold would stare at her as if they thought it great impertinence on
+her part to intrude herself into their concerns. They never asked her
+opinion, or consulted her about anything, but simply ignored her, and
+left her to her own devices. Nearly all the girls lived in Stedburgh,
+and their talk was often of Stedburgh affairs, concerts, amateur
+dramatic performances, and entertainments in which Gwen, living far
+away at Skelwick, could have no possible part. Though she sometimes
+got in a word about school matters, her remarks were never well
+received, and she was always more or less conscious of being an alien
+and an outsider in her Form.
+
+She tried to pretend that she did not care about the opinion of the
+others, but it was hard, all the same. Most of us like popularity,
+especially when we believe we have done nothing to deserve the
+reverse.
+
+"If I'd been as pretty as Lesbia, they'd have made ever such a fuss
+over me," thought Gwen. "She's the pet of her form, and the darling of
+all the big girls. I'd have been a beauty if I could! They never even
+give me a chance to be nice to them--they just leave me alone. Yes,
+it's hard!"
+
+But all the while, Father's New Year motto hung over the dressing
+table in her bedroom, and every morning she could not help looking at
+it. It seemed a stern gospel to pray for strength instead of ease, and
+yet it attracted her. After all, was it not a nobler conception of
+life to work away and not mind what people thought of you, than to be
+always caring whether you were popular? There was a certain joy in
+overcoming difficulties, and surmounting obstacles. She was already
+succeeding in mastering the lessons that had baffled her at first.
+Could she ever win a place for herself in the Form? It would
+undoubtedly seem almost a miracle if she did.
+
+"I wonder if I should be happier at another school?" she sometimes
+thought. "Dad spoke once of the possibility of sending me to one of
+the Clergy Daughters' Schools; he said I might get a scholarship. But
+oh, dear! That would mean leaving home, and being a boarder! Suppose
+I didn't like it any better than Rodenhurst; then it would be
+perfectly awful to have to spend the whole term without once seeing
+Dad or any of the others. No, I won't suggest it. I'd better stick
+where I am, and peg along as best I can."
+
+Gwen was a great home-bird. On the few occasions in her childhood,
+when she had paid visits at relations' houses, she had, after a few
+days, grown so intolerably homesick, and wept so hopelessly and
+inconsolably, that she had had to be packed back, rather in disgrace;
+and though she was now old enough to behave herself, she had not been
+asked again, nor was she very enthusiastic to receive invitations. She
+felt bashful, awkward, and badly dressed under the critical eyes of
+Aunt Violet or Aunt Christina, and much preferred the atmosphere of
+the Parsonage, and the society of her own family. To come back every
+evening from school, and spend Saturday and Sunday at home, seemed
+indispensable at present, though she supposed if she went to College
+later on, she would have to get used to being away.
+
+Eastertide came, and brought welcome holidays. Gwen helped to deck the
+church with daffodils, and great boughs of pink almond blossom, and
+bunches of sweet-smelling wallflowers. She loved the Easter
+decorations far more than those at Christmas, and this time she had
+rather a free hand, for Beatrice was too busy to come, and Gwen was
+allowed to do the lectern and reading desk all by herself, while
+Winnie undertook the pulpit. She gave infinite pains to her work, and
+Father praised the result, which was a tremendous satisfaction. To do
+anything for Father was a joy. Gwen often wished she could play the
+organ like Winnie, but she was not clever at music. Beatrice had made
+a great effort to teach her the piano, with poor success, for she was
+not a docile or attentive pupil, and the lessons generally involved a
+wrangle between the two sisters, Beatrice losing her patience, and
+Gwen arguing hotly. Finally Father had put a stop to the lessons
+altogether, on the ground that it was sheer waste of time, and Gwen
+was better employed at something else. Lesbia, however, played rather
+nicely; she could manage the harmonium at the Sunday School, and was
+just beginning to practise the organ under Winnie's instructions. It
+was the one thing Lesbia did pretty well, for she did not distinguish
+herself at school. She was not a remarkably bright girl, and was very
+childish for her age. Though Gwen was fond of her younger sister, and
+petted her like everybody else, the two were not in any sense
+companions. Lesbia was far more on a level with the little boys, and
+generally amused herself with Giles or Basil; Gwen's schemes and
+projects were miles above her head.
+
+The holidays, though very enjoyable, were quite uneventful. They
+slipped away much too swiftly, and the ordinary round of school and
+home work began again. It was the summer term, however, and to Gwen
+that meant a great deal. She took up tennis with hot enthusiasm,
+practising both at home and at school in any time she could spare. Her
+long arms and strong wrists stood her in good stead, and it began to
+be said in the Form that "Gwen Gascoyne's play was quite decent". She
+mowed and rolled the little lawn at the Parsonage vigorously, marked
+out the courts with a brush, and persuaded either Beatrice or Winnie
+to have a game every evening before bedtime, and Father whenever she
+could catch him.
+
+"If only I'd a better racket!" she sighed one night, "it's impossible
+to do very much with a wretched old thing that's half sprung. You
+should have seen my serves when Netta lent me hers yesterday!"
+
+"Why don't you buy a new one, then?" suggested Lesbia. "You're the
+Croesus of the family. Your money box must be bursting, for you've
+been hoarding up for ages. How much have you got in it?"
+
+"Ah! Wouldn't you like to know!" returned Gwen, suddenly desirous of
+changing the subject.
+
+"You really might get a new racket, Gwen," agreed Winnie. "It's a good
+idea of Lesbia's. We'd all borrow it on occasion."
+
+"Oh, I dare say! Very nice for you all, no doubt. Rackets are rather
+expensive little luxuries, my dear girl. Otherwise I'd be happy to
+accommodate you."
+
+"You're a perfect old miser! What are you going to do with your
+wealth? Invest it in an annuity?"
+
+"Probably speculate on the Stock Exchange, or take up Mexican mines!"
+declared Gwen, trying to turn things off with a laugh.
+
+"Well, you're the only member of the family who keeps any money."
+
+"A good example in thrift to the rest of you, then!"
+
+Gwen did not dare to complain again about the poorness of her racket,
+though it was a serious handicap in her games at school, where most of
+the girls came supplied with the very best. In spite of this
+impediment her play improved steadily, and she several times beat
+Louise Mawson, though she could not vanquish Hilda Brown or Charlotte
+Perry, the champions at present of the Form.
+
+"I suppose you're going to take swimming, Gwen?" said Netta one day.
+"Miss Trent says we begin this afternoon."
+
+"Haven't heard anything about it. Please condescend to enlighten my
+ignorance."
+
+"Why, don't you know? We're going to the baths every Wednesday. It's
+clean-water day, and the whole school's to go in relays. They've a
+ripping teacher of swimming there now, a Miss Morris, who swam the
+Channel halfway, or did something else marvellous, I forget exactly
+what. Anyway, it's arranged we're to have a proper course of lessons.
+I expect every girl in the Form will join."
+
+"It sounds--well, just idyllic!" said Gwen. "Whether I can take it or
+not is another question. I shall have to ask at home first."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Gascoyne's sure to say 'yes'. Why shouldn't he? All girls
+ought to learn to swim."
+
+It was impossible to explain to Netta that the fee for the course
+might prove an insurmountable barrier. Gwen was always too proud to
+plead poverty, and hid her father's narrow circumstances from her
+schoolmates as well as she could.
+
+"You won't have time to ask before this afternoon," said Netta. "I
+advise you to go to the baths, though. I believe the lessons don't
+begin till next week, and this is only what you might call a trial
+trip, so you could see how you like it. Miss Trent says we can get
+bathing dresses there to-day, and bring our own afterwards."
+
+The Rodenhurst girls had not before been taken to the public baths at
+Stedburgh, and the swimming course was a new departure of Miss
+Roscoe's. The idea proved extremely popular, and almost everybody
+wanted at least to sample the experiment.
+
+"Oh, yes, you might go to-day," said Winnie, whom Gwen caught and
+consulted in the passage. "There's no great damage in that. You don't
+pledge yourself to take the course. Lesbia can go too. Miss Roscoe
+said it was to be a special afternoon."
+
+"That's all right, then," said Gwen, rushing jubilantly away.
+
+She was immensely anxious to learn to swim. The bay at Skelwick was so
+dangerous that Father would not allow any of them to bathe there, so
+as yet she had had no chance of testing her skill in natation. She
+loved all kinds of physical sports, they seemed a necessity of her
+active, fast-growing young body, and the prospect of trying a new
+element was alluring. In the very highest of spirits she joined the
+procession of Fifth Form girls that filed off at three o'clock, in
+charge of Miss Douglas.
+
+The baths at Stedburgh had only lately been enlarged and re-opened,
+and in their improved shape were now quite a feature of the town. They
+were supplied with salt water, and could boast great conveniences in
+the matter of dressing-rooms, hair-drying apparatus, and plentiful hot
+towels. Gwen had never been inside before, so she gazed with delighted
+admiration, at the ladies' large bath, with its pale-green tiles, its
+flights of steps, and its diving board at the deep end. There was a
+cord across the middle, with a big notice that non-swimmers were to
+venture no farther, and must confine themselves to the shallow end;
+also that water wings could be hired.
+
+"I hear Miss Morris won't let her pupils use those, though," said
+Netta. "She calls it an amateurish dodge. I should think we shall have
+to hold each other up while we practise our strokes!"
+
+Gwen secured a bathing costume that fitted quite tolerably. She had no
+mackintosh cap, but she plaited her hair very tightly instead. She did
+not much care whether it got wet or not. It was most exciting to run
+down the steps and slip into the lovely clear green water. She had
+undressed with such record speed that she was actually the first, but
+she was very soon joined by a bevy of laughing, squealing maidens. It
+was an amusing, but not a picturesque sight. The Fifth Form attired in
+bathing costumes were about as different from the academy pictures of
+classical nymphs as a man in the street from a statue of Apollo.
+Instead of floating about in graceful attitudes, with the "amber
+dropping hair" of Milton's Sabrina, they "larked" like a school of
+porpoises, splashing each other and playing tricks. There was no
+attempt at a lesson that afternoon. The girls just enjoyed themselves
+in their own way, with many cautions from Miss Douglas not to trespass
+beyond the danger line. Gwen, held up by Netta, made frantic efforts
+to try her strokes, though her attempts invariably ended in a plunge
+from which she came up spluttering. Netta, with a very little help
+from Gwen, got on much better, for she had been to the baths before,
+and had had some practice. Several of the girls were already good
+swimmers, and after showing their prowess, were allowed to disport
+themselves at the deep end.
+
+"I shan't be content till I can dive," declared Gwen, watching
+enviously as Elspeth Frazer took a header. "I shouldn't think it's
+difficult when you get the knack. It will be just having the pluck to
+try. I can float the least little scrap already, so I've learnt
+something this afternoon, and so have you."
+
+"We shall both get on grandly at the lessons," assented Netta.
+
+The whole Form agreed unanimously that the experiment was "ripping",
+and everyone was extremely anxious to come again. Gwen went home mad
+with enthusiasm, and Lesbia, whose Form had preceded the Fifth, was in
+equal ecstasies. Both besieged their father with wild entreaties to be
+allowed to take the course.
+
+"You haven't told me the fees, and that's a very important point,"
+said Mr. Gascoyne.
+
+"I quite forgot to ask," admitted Gwen, brought down to the mundane
+side of the question. "Lesbia, do you know?"
+
+Lesbia shook her head. She rarely knew anything; as a rule other
+people were ready to manage her affairs for her.
+
+"Miss Douglas says the swimming course is to be half a guinea each,
+and admission to the baths threepence a time. There is a special
+arrangement for schools," said Winnie, supplying the needed
+information.
+
+"Then I must think it over," returned Father. "Times are bad just now,
+chicks, and I don't know whether I can afford it. A curacy is not a
+fat living, remember, and there are seven of you!"
+
+Very much sobered, the enthusiastic bathers betook themselves to their
+preparation.
+
+"I wish everything nice didn't cost money!" sighed Gwen.
+
+She broached the subject to Beatrice during the evening.
+
+"I've been talking about it to Father," said the latter. "I'm afraid
+he can't manage it for you both, but he might possibly for one. It
+will be a choice between you and Lesbia."
+
+"I'm the eldest!" urged Gwen quickly.
+
+"Yes, I know you are, but on the other hand, it really is Lesbia's
+turn, because you took the St. John's Ambulance last winter at the
+Parish Room, and Lesbia didn't."
+
+"Swimming's a million times nicer than ambulance!"
+
+"It's not any more useful. Don't be selfish, Gwen! You know how hard
+up we are. We can't all of us do everything, and I think this time it
+certainly ought to be Lesbia."
+
+Gwen kicked the orchard gate against which they were leaning, and
+tried to keep down a lump that rose in her throat. Beatrice's
+arguments were unanswerable.
+
+"It'll be sickening to be the only one in the Form who doesn't take
+swimming," she said at last. "Every single girl will join except me. I
+shall have to stop behind and do prep. instead. I'll feel more utterly
+out of things than ever."
+
+"You could pay for the course yourself, if you like," suggested
+Beatrice. "What have you done with all your money?"
+
+Gwen's restless hands were hacking notches on the top bar of the gate.
+Her penknife slipped suddenly, and cut her finger.
+
+"Your own fault, if you will be so clumsy!" said Beatrice. "Come
+indoors, and I'll tie it up for you. You'd better hold it under the
+cold-water tap first."
+
+Gwen groaned in spirit as she went to bed that night.
+
+"I shall never hear the last of that wretched fifteen shillings!" she
+thought "I feel like Mr. Caudle in the _Curtain Lectures_, when he'd
+lent a five-pound note to a friend. That money of mine was to have
+bought Christmas presents, and boots for Johnnie Cass, and a new
+tennis racket, and paid for the swimming, and I don't know what else,
+according to my family's ideas. Oh, dear! Being poor's a hateful
+business! I wish Dad were Archbishop of Canterbury, instead of only
+Curate-in-charge of Skelwick Bay!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+Gwen meets Trouble
+
+
+    "There's a sickening author called Virgil,
+    Don't I wish I were chanting his dirge--ill!
+      As a door-nail he's dead
+      Yet his works live instead,
+    And to me they're a regular scourge--ill!"
+
+So sang Netta, banging down her copy of _AEneid I_ and _II_ with a
+force that almost dissevered its cover and made the desk ring.
+
+"I call it absolute sickening nonsense," she continued energetically.
+"Why in the name of all common sense should we girls in this modern
+twentieth century be expected to bother our precious heads over
+antiquated old rubbish that would be far better consigned to decent
+burial? What's the use of it, I want to know?"
+
+"'An admirable training for the intellect', my dear! to quote
+Thistles," said Annie Edwards. "According to her theory you ought to
+feel your mind sprouting at every fresh page, and sending out shoots
+of wisdom."
+
+"Sprouting, indeed! Just the other way!" grunted Netta. "Latin has a
+paralysing effect upon my brain. Instead of sharpening me it deadens
+my faculties. When I've been trying to construe a page of Virgil, my
+intellect feels a pulp."
+
+"Then the obvious moral is, don't try!" yawned Millicent Cooper.
+
+"I don't."
+
+"No more you do, you old slacker!"
+
+"Why should one try when one can scrape through without?"
+
+"Not an easy thing if Thistles puts you on a difficult bit! Have you
+made any sense out of this part? It's uncommonly stiff."
+
+"Not I--I shall throw myself as usual on Gwen's mercy. Come here,
+Gwendolen mine, that's a sweet angelic cherub, and interpret these
+abominable lines!"
+
+Gwen came rather reluctantly. Of late Netta had grown into the habit
+of applying to her for help with her extremely ill-prepared work, and
+the habit was assuming proportions that Gwen did not like. At first it
+had only been a word or two, then an odd sentence, but it was rapidly
+developing into a demand for a translation of the whole lesson.
+
+"Oh, I say, Netta, you make me a regular henchman!" she objected. "Why
+should I act as providence to you continually?"
+
+"Because you know the lesson, my hearty, and I don't. Ergo, it is your
+duty and privilege to impart your information to me."
+
+"Don't always see my privileges."
+
+"Then you ought. If you're helped, you ought to help others."
+
+"I'm not helped!"
+
+"Oh, Gwen! I'm sure Grinnie helps you at home!" broke out Millicent
+Cooper.
+
+"She doesn't! She doesn't, indeed! I do all my prep, by myself."
+
+"Can you actually swear on your honour she's never once helped you?"
+said Annie Edwards.
+
+"On my hon--" began Gwen, then stopped and stammered lamely. "Well, at
+least, there was once--"
+
+The recollection had struck her of the evening when she had caught the
+rat in the hen-coop. She had been so upset and flurried on that
+occasion that she had certainly applied to Winnie for assistance with
+a passage that she could not have otherwise prepared.
+
+"Once!" sneered Annie. "Oh, no doubt! Everybody in the Form knows how
+it is you get on so well with your work!"
+
+"I get no help at home!" declared Millicent self-righteously.
+
+"Oh, drop drivelling, and let Gwen alone! She's got to tell me these
+lines," said Netta. "What do I care how she prepares her work? Come,
+Gwen, ma-vourneen, be a real friend!"
+
+As Gwen translated the passage Netta wrote it rapidly down in pencil,
+and even Annie and Millicent, in spite of their condemnations of
+assisted preparations, seized their books and followed the words
+carefully.
+
+"A particularly nasty bit--I could never do it if I tried half a year.
+Thanks awfully!" said Netta, slipping the paper inside her _AEneid_.
+
+"Netta, you're not going to--"
+
+"Never mind what I'm going to do. My concerns are my own," returned
+Netta airily. "I'm an unlucky person, and I'm sure to get the worst
+piece if there is one. It's Kismet."
+
+Gwen's desk was close to Netta's, and when the Virgil class began she
+could not help noticing the latter pop the scrap of paper on her knee
+under cover of a pocket handkerchief.
+
+Miss Douglas followed no fixed order in the Form; she called on any
+girl she wished to translate, choosing from back or front desks with
+strictest impartiality. As Netta had predicted, the difficult passage
+fell to her lot. To the surprise of almost the whole Form she came off
+with flying colours. Though Annie and Millicent had strong suspicions,
+only Gwen had seen the little piece of paper hidden under Netta's
+handkerchief. At lunch time she flew out on the subject.
+
+"Look here, Netta," she began grimly, "helping you a little is one
+thing, but I'm not going to act crib for you again; so just don't
+think it."
+
+"What do you mean?" gasped Netta sharply.
+
+"What I say. You'd better prepare your own Virgil next time."
+
+"Aren't you going to help me any more?" There was an unpleasant look
+in Netta's eyes.
+
+"Not when you write it out and crib."
+
+"It was only one scrap. Don't be horrid, Gwen!"
+
+"I like things square, and they've not been quite straight lately. I'm
+going to put a stop to it, so I give you warning."
+
+"Won't you tell me just the hard bits?"
+
+"Not a single sentence."
+
+"Then you're a mean, stingy thing, Gwen Gascoyne! I don't know why you
+should have taken it into your head all of a sudden to be so
+sanctimonious. You've not been so remarkably square before that you
+need turn saint now. You promised you'd stand by me, and this is how
+you keep your word, is it? I'll know better another time than to help
+you. You may get out of your own scrapes as best you can. I'll pay you
+for this, Gwen Gascoyne! I'll catch you tripping some time, see if I
+don't--and then--" and with a significant nod Netta turned away.
+
+"You can do anything you like; I don't care," grunted Gwen.
+
+She was out of temper that morning, for it was swimming day, and the
+thought of the rest of the Form jaunting off to the baths without her
+filled her with despair. She did not speak to Netta during the dinner
+hour, nor did the latter seek her company.
+
+"What have those two quarrelled about? I thought they were ever so
+chummy," said Charlotte Perry to Elspeth Frazer.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know. It would be a good thing for Gwen Gascoyne if
+she did quarrel with Netta, in my opinion."
+
+"Then she'd be in a set by herself! Perhaps she thinks 'better Netta
+than nobody'."
+
+"Better nobody than Netta, I should say. Do you know, Charlotte, I
+don't believe Gwen's half bad by herself, if only Netta would let her
+alone. It's when they get together they're so silly."
+
+"Um--perhaps you're right. Gwen's straight, whatever else she is, and
+one can't say that for Netta."
+
+"Hardly! I vote we watch them, and if they really are out of friends,
+we'll see if we can do anything with Gwen. It's rather rough on her to
+be such an outcast."
+
+"Pity she's not as nice as Lesbia."
+
+"Do you know," said Elspeth reflectively, "I'm not sure that she
+mayn't be at bottom. Of course Lesbia's awfully sweet-tempered, but
+then she's made such a fuss of, and there's really nothing in her.
+Now, I think there is something in Gwen, if she were taken the right
+way. I didn't like her at all at first, I don't know that I even do
+very much now, but I fancy she's one of those girls whom one might get
+to like if one saw the other side of her--I'm certain she has another
+side, only it never comes out at school."
+
+"It isn't nice of her to rag her own sister, though."
+
+"That's Netta's fault; she starts all the ragging and throws it on to
+Gwen."
+
+"I'd be glad if I could really think so," returned Charlotte, and
+there for the moment the matter ended.
+
+That afternoon a joyful, jubilant, rejoicing crew of Fifth Formers set
+off for the baths, duly armed with their costumes and mackintosh caps,
+and from the window of the classroom one dejected, miserable girl
+watched them depart. Gwen thought she had never felt quite so forlorn
+in her life before. She was aggrieved with Fate, and kept muttering,
+"Hard luck! hard luck!" to herself as the last school hat whisked
+round the corner.
+
+"I didn't see Netta," she thought, and then turned, for she heard
+Netta's indignant, protesting voice in the passage outside in loud
+altercation with Miss Trent.
+
+"It's no use, Netta, I can't allow it," the mistress was saying. "With
+that sniffly cold in your head it would be folly to bathe, and as you
+say your mother is away from home, and you could not ask her
+permission this morning, I must be the judge, and I say most
+emphatically no."
+
+"But, Miss Trent! If I just--"
+
+"Not another word, Netta! Go into your own Form room at once, and do
+some preparation. Do you want me to report you to Miss Roscoe? Then
+go, this instant!"
+
+A very sulky, angry, rebellious, disconsolate Netta flung herself
+through the doorway and flounced to her desk. She gave one stare at
+Gwen, and, frowning, began to get out her books.
+
+"We're companions in misfortune!" ventured Gwen, but Netta took not
+the very slightest notice.
+
+"Oh, very well, madam; if you're going to cut me I'll cut you!"
+thought Gwen, and she turned to the window again.
+
+There was no mistress in the room, and Gwen knew that for the next
+hour she could practically do as she liked. She would begin her
+preparation soon and finish some of it before she went home, but there
+was no particular hurry. The window commanded a view of a side street
+and just a peep into the main street, and it amused her at present to
+stand watching the passers-by. They were not remarkably
+enthralling--an old gentleman in a Bath chair, a nursemaid wheeling
+two babies in a perambulator, a baker's boy, a young woman with a
+large parcel, a vendor of boot laces, and a man delivering circulars.
+Gwen looked at them with languid attention, drumming her fingers idly
+on the window sill; then quite suddenly an expression of keen interest
+flashed across her face and she leaned out over the protecting iron
+bars.
+
+"Dick!" she called loudly and impulsively, "Dick!"
+
+The boy on the pavement below stopped and gazed up.
+
+"Hello! Why, Gwen, by all that's wonderful!"
+
+"What are you doing in Stedburgh, Dick?"
+
+"Come in to have my hair cut, Miss Inquisitive, if you must know!"
+
+"Oh, what a shame! I like it curly best. Have you had it done?"
+
+"The fatal operation has been performed," said Dick, uncovering his
+closely-cropped head for a moment.
+
+"And what are you going to do now?"
+
+"Go home again."
+
+"I wish I could," sighed Gwen.
+
+"Are you supposed to be in school?" queried Dick.
+
+"Of course I am, silly! I'm in my own Form room."
+
+"Must be a queer sort of school, then, if they let you talk at the
+window."
+
+"They don't as a rule. But the others have all gone to the baths
+to-day and I'm left here to do prep."
+
+"Hard luck!"
+
+"Just what I've been saying to myself. It's simply sickening. You know
+what it feels like to be out of things."
+
+"Don't I, rather!"
+
+[Illustration: "OH, I SAY, WELL CAUGHT!"]
+
+"I feel like a captive in a tower or a nun in a convent," continued
+Gwen plaintively.
+
+"Not much of the nun about you!" grinned Dick. "I'd be sorry for the
+convent you were in. Look here, if I got you some sweets and chucked
+up the bag would you catch it or muff it?"
+
+"Try me."
+
+"If you muff it I'll expect you to throw it down again."
+
+"Right-o!"
+
+"Then wait half a mo. and I'll cut round the corner to Sherrard's and
+see what I can fish up for you. You really look like an object for
+charity."
+
+"You philanthropist!"
+
+"Better wait till you've caught your catch before you bless me!"
+chuckled Dick.
+
+He was certainly not gone long; he returned almost immediately with a
+most interesting-looking paper bag in his hand.
+
+"Oh, do tell me, is it chocolate or caramels?" asked Gwen eagerly.
+
+"Find out, madam! Now we'll see if I'm a good shot and if you're a
+butter-fingers. Are you ready? All right then, here goes! Oh, I say,
+well caught! Good old girl!"
+
+"Told you I'd do it. Thanks most awfully! Have you kept any for
+yourself? Then take--"
+
+"Gwen Gascoyne!" said a stern voice suddenly at her elbow.
+
+Gwen jumped as if she had been shot, and turning guiltily, found
+herself face to face with Miss Trent. By the door stood Netta in
+visible triumph.
+
+"Gwen Gascoyne," said Miss Trent again, "is this the way you conduct
+yourself when you're left to do your preparation? You're a disgrace to
+the school--an absolute disgrace! We had thought our Rodenhurst girls
+could be trusted to behave themselves."
+
+"I was only talking to Dick," urged Gwen in self-defence.
+
+"Is Dick your brother?"
+
+"No--but--"
+
+"Then you ought to be utterly ashamed of yourself. Such an affair has
+never happened at Rodenhurst before. I sincerely hope nobody in the
+street or in the houses opposite noticed the occurrence. It would be
+enough to spoil the reputation of the school."
+
+"I didn't know I was doing anything so dreadful!" retorted Gwen.
+
+"Then it's time you learnt. Miss Roscoe will have to hear about this.
+Report yourself in the study at four o'clock, and go at once to your
+desk and begin your preparation. Put that paper bag on the
+mantelpiece, I can't allow you to keep it."
+
+Miss Trent sat down on Miss Douglas's vacant chair, evidently with the
+intention of staying in the room to act Gorgon. Gwen walked to her
+desk in the depths of humiliation. She caught Netta's glance as she
+went by, and it seemed to add insult to injury.
+
+"I know who sneaked," she thought. "Very well, Netta Goodwin, I've
+done with you. You may tell any tales of me you like now; nothing
+would ever induce me to be friends with you again. In for a penny in
+for a pound. I expect you'll cut up nasty about that china business,
+but I feel as if I don't care. I'm booked for an awful row with Miss
+Roscoe! Oh, Dick, your sweets were well meant, but you little know
+what they're going to cost me!"
+
+Gwen had a very hazy remembrance of how she did her preparation that
+afternoon. She wrote a French exercise almost automatically, feeling
+the mistress's eye upon her the whole time. At four o'clock, with her
+heart somewhere in the region of her shoes, she reported herself in
+the study. Miss Trent had been beforehand; so when she entered Miss
+Roscoe was already aware of the nature and extent of her crime. The
+headmistress was not disposed to make light of the affair; like Miss
+Trent, she considered that the reputation of the school might be
+seriously compromised by Gwen's behaviour, and she did not spare the
+culprit. Gwen did not often cry at school, but on this occasion she
+left the Principal's room weeping like Niobe, and poor Winnie, who had
+been called in to hear the tail end of the lecture, followed blinking
+a little on her own account.
+
+"You do such lunatic things, Gwen," said Winnie on the way home.
+
+"I meant no harm," protested the still tearful Niobe.
+
+"I dare say you don't, but they're stupid things all the same. You
+might have known you'd get into trouble. I shall scold Dick about it."
+
+"It wasn't his fault."
+
+"Well, it's been a silly business all round, and why Miss Roscoe
+should send for me and talk as if I were partly responsible I can't
+imagine," said the aggrieved Winnie. "It's bad enough to have to teach
+in class without being blamed for what no person in her senses could
+consider my fault."
+
+"That's Miss Roscoe all over," gulped Gwen. "If she's angry she must
+fizz whether there's justice in it or not. I'm fearfully sorry, Win!
+It's too bad you were dragged in."
+
+"Well, I suppose it can't be helped now," said Winnie, somewhat
+mollified. "Miss Roscoe's storms are soon over, that's one blessing. I
+expect by to-morrow she'll have calmed down. You'll be in disgrace for
+a while, but she'll forget about it."
+
+"What became of the sweets?" asked Lesbia.
+
+"Left them on the chimneypiece and I expect the housemaid will
+commandeer them. I daren't ask for them, I can tell you."
+
+Next morning the lower sashes of the Fifth Form room windows were
+found firmly screwed down, and the glass had received a coat of white
+paint put on the outside, so that not even a peephole could be
+scratched from within. The girls whose desks had formerly commanded a
+view were savage; even Miss Douglas wore an air of plaintive
+resignation.
+
+"Might have known it would be Gwen Gascoyne who would bring herself
+into such a mess!" said Charlotte Perry.
+
+"Um--I've a notion Netta set the ball rolling," returned Elspeth
+Frazer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Storm Clouds
+
+
+It was only a few days after this that a letter arrived for Mr.
+Gascoyne which almost turned the little Parsonage upside down. Gwen
+could tell from Father's manner that something had happened, he seemed
+so unusually agitated, so perplexed, and sometimes so absent-minded
+that he forgot all that was going on around him. Something was wrong,
+argued Gwen, and as she did not like to question Father himself, she
+plucked up her courage and asked Beatrice.
+
+"Well, I suppose there's no reason why you shouldn't know, so long as
+you don't chatter about it," said the latter. "I think you can be
+trusted to keep a secret?"
+
+"If it's Dad's secret," returned Gwen.
+
+"Well, the fact is, Dad's had a living offered to him. You needn't
+jump and clap your hands, for it's nothing at all out of the
+way--indeed he hardly knows whether to accept it or not. It's a good
+deal better from a money point of view than this curacy, but there are
+objections."
+
+"Where is it?"
+
+"That's one of the chief objections. It's in a very poor part of a
+crowded manufacturing town, a place black with huge chimneys that send
+out clouds of smoke, where there's hardly a blade of grass, and the
+very trees are all blighted with the chemicals in the air. Father
+knows the place well; he was curate there for a short time just after
+his ordination. He called it Sodom-and-Gomorrah-mixed then, and it's
+probably worse instead of improved, for they've built more chemical
+works, he hears."
+
+"Oh!" said Gwen, her enthusiasm very much damped. "But he's surely not
+going to accept it?"
+
+"I don't know. There are many things to be considered. We're a big
+family, and the boys have got to be educated somehow. I don't know how
+it's to be done here."
+
+"There's the Stedburgh Grammar School."
+
+"Yes, but how are we to manage the fees? Winnie can't go and teach
+there to equalize their school bills! If we went to Rawtenbeck, they
+could all three be sent to King Edward's College. It's certainly an
+inducement."
+
+"And we should have to leave the Parsonage, and the garden, and
+everything at Skelwick!"
+
+"Yes; that's the terrible part. Father's simply torn in two. He's done
+so much for Skelwick. Think what it was when he came! And now there's
+the Mission Room at Basingwold, and the Lads' Club, and the Library,
+and the Men's Class, and the Temperance Union, and all the Guilds.
+Perhaps, if he went, another curate might come who took no interest in
+them, and they would all go to pieces."
+
+"Dad would be fearfully missed if he went."
+
+"Yes; but there's another side even to that. He's only curate here,
+and if Mr. Sutton were to die, and a new rector came to North Ditton,
+Dad would be expected to resign. Curates always do when there's a
+change of incumbent; it's clerical etiquette. Mr. Sutton is such an
+old man that, you see, this may happen any time, so Dad can't feel
+really settled here."
+
+"I wish he were rector instead of only curate!" sighed Gwen.
+
+"Ah, so do I! But Skelwick isn't a parish by itself, it's only a part
+of North Ditton. If Dad accepts the living of Rawtenbeck he'll be a
+vicar then, and he says there's any amount of work to be done in the
+place. The church has been fearfully slack! He hardly knows which
+needs him most, Skelwick or Rawtenbeck."
+
+"When must he make up his mind?"
+
+"Fortunately, not immediately. The Bishop has given him six weeks to
+think it over before he need decide."
+
+"Then we've six weeks' reprieve," said Gwen.
+
+She was extremely agitated at the news. She had often thought in a
+vague way how nice it would be if her father were appointed to a
+living, but she had never anticipated such a change as this. To remove
+to a smoky, dirty manufacturing town, where even the trees were
+blighted with chemicals! The proposition seemed intolerable. Gwen
+hurried out of the garden and climbed a little way up the headland at
+the back of the house. It was Saturday morning, and there were plenty
+of tasks to be done at home, but at the present she felt she must be
+alone with her thoughts. To leave Skelwick--to go away from all this
+and perhaps never see it again! She sat down on a rock, and took a
+long comprehensive look over the whole landscape.
+
+There were the cliffs, and the headland, and the great wide stretch of
+rolling, shimmering sea, and the little red sails of the fishing
+smacks far out on the blue horizon; below her stretched the village,
+with its irregular red roofs and gay patches of flower gardens, and
+the shingly cove where some of the boats lay beached. She could just
+see the chimneys of the Parsonage, and the corner of the tennis lawn
+where Martin was playing with Jingles, and a scrap of the common where
+Winnie's hens were pecking in the coarse grass. Above the village, a
+conspicuous object against the sky, rose their little church of St.
+John the Baptist, standing on the high headland at the very edge of
+the bare wold, as Father often said, like a voice crying in the
+wilderness. Who would come there, she wondered, if Dad went? Skelwick
+was only a chapel-of-ease to North Ditton, and before Mr. Gascoyne's
+time the place had been much neglected. No resident clergyman had
+lived there, and though a curate had come from the Parish Church at
+North Ditton to take Sunday services, no attempt had been made to get
+hold of the rough fisher folk in the district. It had been uphill
+work, and with very little assistance or encouragement, for Mr.
+Sutton, the rector, was old and in delicate health, and quite unable
+to take any active part; indeed, for many years he had never visited
+Skelwick or the neighbouring hamlets.
+
+"Everything worth having here is owing to Dad," thought Gwen. "I
+don't know how he'd ever bear to leave it."
+
+She could not contemplate the idea of the smoky Vicarage at
+Rawtenbeck. Though she sometimes dreamt of how she would go out into
+the world and do things when she grew up, she had always imagined the
+Parsonage as a place that would still be there for her to come home to
+whenever she wished, even from the wilds of Canada. She loved every
+inch of the dear little house, and every clump of flowers in the
+garden was like a friend.
+
+"As far as homes and houses go I'm a rank old Conservative. I hate
+being uprooted," said Gwen to herself.
+
+She felt so unsettled she could not go back at present. Her
+preparation must wait, and she would take a walk higher up on the wold
+to try and recover her equanimity. The fresher air of the headland
+always calmed her when she was annoyed or irritable.
+
+For some time she strolled on rather aimlessly among the heather and
+the gorse bushes, watching the birds or the grasshoppers, and sitting
+down every now and then to drink in a fuller enjoyment of the scene.
+She was quite alone, and to-day at any rate Gwen loved solitude.
+No--after all she had not the moor entirely to herself. Over a ridge
+of bracken loomed a funny little black figure, which seemed to be
+moving in her direction. As it came nearer she could make out that it
+was a little old gentleman, very small and thin and wizened, with a
+face as yellow as parchment, and a long, hooked nose, and eyes set in
+a mass of wrinkles. His clothes did not fit him particularly well,
+and were ill cut, and his hat was decidedly shabby. He walked along
+peering through his glasses as if he were shortsighted, and
+occasionally even feeling his way with a cane which he carried. When
+he saw Gwen he hastened towards her with an appearance of relief.
+
+"I'm so glad to find somebody in this wild place," he began, in a
+funny little cracked voice that matched his face and figure. "Can you
+tell me if I am very far away from the village of Skelwick?"
+
+"About two miles," replied Gwen, wondering who the stranger could be.
+
+"Indeed! And in which direction may the place lie? I'm afraid I am
+rather out of my reckoning;" and he pulled a road map from his pocket
+and held it within two inches of his eyes.
+
+"It's down there to the left, but the path's a little hard to find.
+You have to be careful you don't go through the wrong gap and walk
+over the edge of the cliff."
+
+"Tut-tut-tut! Such spots ought to be marked 'Dangerous' on the maps. I
+shall write to the publishers and tell them so. As far as I understand
+now I am standing exactly here?" and he handed the rather dilapidated
+sheet to Gwen for verification.
+
+"What a queer old crank!" she thought; but she answered civilly, and
+tried to identify the particular spot, as he seemed so anxious about
+it.
+
+"Thank you! If you will put a cross at the point where you consider
+there is a dangerous gap I shall be obliged, and will endeavour to
+avoid the place," he remarked.
+
+[Illustration: "YES, YOU CAN EASILY GO MILES OUT OF YOUR WAY"]
+
+"I am going back to Skelwick myself, and I could show you the way if
+you like," returned Gwen, moved with a sudden compassion for the frail
+little figure, a whole head shorter than her stalwart self.
+
+"If it will not be incommoding you, I shall be glad to avail myself of
+your offer. I am a trifle shortsighted, and these moorland paths are
+confusing."
+
+"Yes, you can easily go miles out of your way," agreed Gwen, wondering
+again who the stranger could be.
+
+He did not look like an ordinary tourist, and as they walked together
+over the wold he began to make a number of enquiries about Skelwick
+and the people who lived there. He was an artful questioner, and Gwen,
+almost before she realized what she was doing, gave him a full and
+detailed history of the neighbourhood, including what it had been
+before Father came, and what it was now.
+
+"Of course some of them still drink, but they're better than they
+were," she said. "Six years ago most of the fishermen wouldn't go near
+a service, and spent all Sunday with bottles of whisky in that little
+cabin on the shore, the very one Dad's made into a newsroom now. I
+don't know what the place would do without him if he really--" but
+here she stopped in great distress, remembering she was letting out
+the secret which Beatrice had strictly enjoined her to keep.
+
+The blinking, shortsighted eyes did not seem to take any notice of her
+confusion. The old gentleman twitched his mouth hard, and then merely
+remarked:
+
+"It's well to be a favourite in one's parish."
+
+"I wish it were Dad's parish!" said Gwen, following up her private
+train of thought. "If Skelwick were a separate living of its own,
+quite apart from North Ditton, he could do so much more. It's
+fearfully hampering to be under another church that's such a long way
+off. It doesn't give Dad a free hand at all."
+
+"Yes--yes--yes; exactly so," commented the stranger, wrinkling up his
+forehead into thick lines.
+
+He was very silent after this, as if he were turning something over in
+his mind, and Gwen, who began to think she had chattered too much,
+walked along trying to remember what she had said. They had almost
+reached the village by now; the sun was glaring on the red roofs below
+them and on the white highroad which led to North Ditton.
+
+"This is my short cut back to the Parsonage," said Gwen, stopping at a
+stile; "but if you want the 'King's Arms' you must go along that
+footpath to the right."
+
+"Thank you! I shall get some lunch there, and then go on to North
+Ditton. By the by, what time is your evening service on Sunday?"
+
+"Half-past six," replied Gwen, wondering as she turned away why a
+stranger who was evidently only passing through Skelwick should ask
+such a question.
+
+"Mere curiosity, I suppose," she thought. "He seems an inquisitive old
+fellow."
+
+She told her experiences to Beatrice and Winnie, but they had no more
+idea than herself of the identity of the little old gentleman.
+
+"Some tourist on a walking tour, I expect," said Beatrice. "You were
+quite right to show him the way; but you really must be careful,
+Gwen, and not talk so freely to chance people whom you meet. I'd
+rather you didn't go on the moors quite alone. Take one of the boys
+next time."
+
+"Stumps is a far worse blabber than I am!" laughed Gwen. "He'd have
+given the most intimate details of our household arrangements, and
+what we were going to have for dinner to-day. Perhaps have added an
+invitation!"
+
+"Which would surely not have been accepted."
+
+"I don't know! Such an eccentric old fellow might be capable of
+anything. I shall look out for him in church to-morrow evening."
+
+And much to Gwen's surprise he was actually there. He turned up rather
+late--during the singing of the first Psalm, in fact--and left in the
+middle of the hymn after the sermon. He sat on one of the benches
+close to the door, and Gwen would hardly have known of his presence
+had she not recognized the peculiar way in which he cleared his
+throat, which attracted her attention to him.
+
+"Who was that stranger, Robert?" she asked the clerk afterwards.
+
+"Don't know at all, Miss Gwen. I never see him in my life before.
+Funny old chap, weren't he? But he put a half-crown in the plate
+before he left! We don't get many half-crowns at Skelwick; it's mostly
+pennies and threepennybits, with a few sixpences, as I collect."
+
+"Perhaps he just came over from North Ditton for the walk; he seems to
+be fond of walking, and perhaps he wanted to see the village by
+sunset," said Gwen. "I wish he'd stayed five minutes longer and
+spoken to Father. He always likes to welcome strangers who come to the
+church."
+
+"And those bean't a-many," returned the clerk as he locked the big
+door.
+
+It was a little incident, and seemed quite unimportant at the time.
+Gwen dismissed it quickly from her mind, for she had very many other
+things to think about just then, things that seemed paramount and far
+more interesting and exciting than chance tourists who asked
+questions.
+
+But she was to hear of the eccentric old gentleman again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+First Aid
+
+
+Gwen's quarrel with Netta was so complete that the two were no longer
+on speaking terms. Gwen was very apprehensive lest her former chum
+should carry out her old threat and betray the secret of the broken
+china, and in the first heat of her anger Netta had been inclined to
+do so; on further reflection, however, she decided that the
+consequences might be too compromising to herself, and that it would
+be safer to preserve silence. She had already scored by fetching Miss
+Trent into the schoolroom during Gwen's conversation with Dick, and
+the trouble which had ensued was almost enough to satisfy her. Really
+Netta had been rather tired of Gwen before this, and she was not sorry
+to seize upon an excuse for breaking their friendship. She now took up
+hotly with Annie Edwards, and the pair were for the moment
+inseparable.
+
+"I believe it's as I thought," said Elspeth Frazer to Charlotte Perry;
+"Gwen Gascoyne's quite off with Netta. Now, if she can only get into a
+better set she may be a different girl. I want to find out what she's
+really like, so I'm going to be nice to her to-morrow when we go the
+geological excursion."
+
+"Perhaps we have been rather horrid to her," returned Charlotte
+thoughtfully.
+
+"It was mostly her own fault for putting on airs when she first came
+up, and then making such friends with Netta. She couldn't expect any
+of us to have anything to say to her after that."
+
+"Probably she didn't know Netta."
+
+"I dare say not; but it shows she's a bad judge of character. All the
+same I've got Gwen a little on my conscience, and I'm going to try
+what I can do. She may improve now."
+
+Elspeth spoke the truth when she said that she had Gwen on her
+conscience. It had occurred to her several times lately that perhaps
+she had misunderstood her schoolfellow, and that she might have done
+more to help her. "Am I my brother's keeper?" rose uneasily to her
+mind. She had an uncomfortable feeling that in happier circumstances
+Gwen might have made a better impression on the Form, and that she and
+Hilda and Edith and Louise were partly responsible for her ill
+reception.
+
+"I'm very sorry if we've been Pharisees!" she thought. "Of course one
+wanted to keep to one's own set, and not have anything to do with the
+tag-end of the Form--but--Well, I mean to give Gwen Gascoyne a chance
+now, anyhow."
+
+The geological excursion was rather an event of the term. The Form had
+been learning geology with Miss Roberts, who promised to take the
+girls for an afternoon to Riggness, a place a few miles away on the
+coast, greatly noted for its fossils, where they could have a
+practical demonstration to supplement the information in their
+textbooks. On the Friday afternoon chosen for the ramble everybody
+started armed with hammers of all varieties, from Miss Roberts's
+beautiful geological pick to stout tack hammers and even toffee
+hammers.
+
+"One never knows--one might find an ichthyosaurus embedded in the
+cliffs!" declared Charlotte Perry, brandishing a wooden mallet and an
+iron wedge, as if she were prepared to clear away tons of rock in the
+pursuit of her researches.
+
+"Don't I wish we could!" said Miss Roberts. "But I'm afraid a few
+ammonites and belemnites will have to content us; those are quite
+difficult enough to get out intact. We shall do very well if we can
+only bring back some really perfect specimens for the school museum."
+
+Riggness was on the other side of Stedburgh from Skelwick, and Gwen
+had never been there before, so the excursion was new to her. It was
+great fun going with the whole Form; the girls had come well prepared
+to enjoy themselves, and Miss Roberts also was in a jolly frame of
+mind, and had even brought with her a box of chocolates, which she
+handed round impartially till the contents vanished. Three
+compartments seemed to overflow with Rodenhurst hats. Gwen had just
+been following Millicent Cooper and Minna Jennings when Elspeth Frazer
+gripped her by the arm.
+
+"Come in here with us, Gwen," she said, and Gwen, too much astonished
+for words, complied. Why she should be invited into a carriage with
+Hilda Browne, Charlotte Perry, Iris Watson, Louise Mawson, and Edith
+Arnold, the most elect set in the Form, was beyond her comprehension,
+but it was a very pleasant circumstance all the same. To be sure,
+they did not take much notice of her, but they were not disagreeable,
+and Elspeth spoke to her more than once in quite a friendly fashion.
+It was so utterly different from their former attitude towards her
+that Gwen almost believed she was dreaming. Perhaps it was only
+because they were on a holiday this afternoon, she thought, and
+to-morrow they would be as usual again. Well, at any rate, she would
+take advantage of to-day, and make the most of her opportunities, so
+she chatted a little with Elspeth, and sat ruminating over this
+amazing change of front on the part of those girls whom Netta, in
+mockery, had nicknamed "The Saints". Riggness was reached in twenty
+minutes, the train stopped at the small wayside station, and the
+Rodenhurst party got out in a hurry. They were to descend to the
+beach, and walk along the shore to Linkthwaite Bay, a distance of
+about three miles, geologizing as they went. A steep zigzag path led
+down the side of the cliff to the sands, and when once her flock was
+all collected at the bottom, Miss Roberts improved the occasion by
+giving a short lecture on the formation of the rocks which formed the
+headland, then, leading the way, she showed them how to hunt about for
+the ammonites embedded in the face of the cliffs, or the long
+belemnites that could be seen in flat terraces of rocks at the water's
+edge.
+
+"Miss Roberts is right--they're uncommonly difficult to get out
+whole," said Elspeth, tapping gingerly round a particularly fine
+specimen; "just when you think you've done it, they go smash."
+
+"It's most aggravating," agreed Gwen, whose heavy hammer, borrowed
+from Winnie's hen-yard, had been rather too forcible in its effects.
+"I'd almost got the loveliest, biggest belemnite, and it broke into
+three pieces like a slate pencil."
+
+"I like my toffee hammer best," said Charlotte, tenderly fingering one
+or two good specimens which she had managed to secure. "I mean to save
+up and buy a real geological one like Miss Roberts's."
+
+Tapping the rocks was a fascinating occupation, and a fairly
+profitable one, for this part of the coast was rich in fossils. By the
+time the girls had walked a mile along the shore they had all been
+able to procure some souvenirs, though as yet nothing of very special
+importance. Miss Roberts looked about with a practised eye, and the
+pick end of her hammer would withdraw a specimen neatly, where
+clumsier blows worked havoc.
+
+"We'll hurry on a little farther now," she said. "Those cliffs in the
+middle of the bay are a particularly good hunting ground, and if
+there's anything interesting to be found, we ought to find it there."
+
+At the place in question the rocks were intersected by a narrow gorge,
+where a small stream trickled its way from the moorlands above. The
+shelving platforms of the cliff were here comparatively easy to climb,
+and the action of water and weather combined had carried down a mass
+of stones and debris that would be worth investigation. Miss Roberts
+was as active and enthusiastic as any of the girls; she jumped lightly
+from stone to stone, tapping likely spots with her hammer, and
+finally, seeing something protruding from a rock above, began to scale
+the face of the cliff.
+
+"I believe I've got something here at last!" she called.
+
+"Oh! what is it?" cried the eager girls.
+
+"I can't tell yet till I've cleared it a little."
+
+"Oh! Is it an ichthyosaurus, do you think?" cried Charlotte Perry.
+
+"I'm going to send down a shower of stones--stand out of the way!"
+commanded Miss Roberts, and balancing herself nimbly on a narrow
+ledge, she swung her hammer vigorously.
+
+Then exactly what happened nobody quite knew. Down came the stones,
+rattling like an avalanche, and down with them came Miss Roberts,
+falling with a heavy thud upon a piece of rock below. It was so
+utterly sudden and unexpected that the girls stood for a moment in
+speechless consternation, then Hilda, Elspeth, and one or two others
+ran to the teacher's assistance. Miss Roberts lay at first as if she
+were almost stunned, then she tried to rise, and fell back with a
+groan.
+
+"Do you know," she said quite calmly, "I'm very much afraid I've
+broken my leg." And then she closed her eyes, and turned very white.
+
+The girls stared at one another in helpless dismay. Miss Roberts, the
+leader and head of the expedition, who was accustomed to give orders
+which they promptly obeyed, to be lying there injured and half
+fainting! The situation was unparalleled. Hilda Browne looked at
+Elspeth Frazer for inspiration, and Elspeth shook her head and looked
+at Charlotte Perry, but Charlotte only began to cry, while Iris
+Watson, Louise Mawson, Edith Arnold, and Rachel Hunter stood in utter
+indecision. Not one of them had the least idea what to do.
+
+Then Gwen stepped forward. Seeing the elder and more influential
+members of the party collected round the governess, she, the youngest
+girl in the Form, and the one whose opinion had been hitherto scouted,
+had not ventured to interfere, but as nobody seemed to be doing
+anything at all, she felt licensed to come to the front.
+
+"I took the St. John's Ambulance Course last winter, and passed the
+examination," she said quietly. "I know how to give first aid. Perhaps
+I'd better try and find out where Miss Roberts is hurt. Can't any of
+you get some water?" and she knelt down by the mistress's side, and
+began very gently to feel for the extent of the injuries.
+
+The girls were so relieved that anybody had a knowledge of what ought
+to be done, that they readily allowed Gwen to assume the
+responsibility. Louise Mawson flew to the stream, and fetched some
+water in her hat, while Iris helped to unbutton Miss Roberts's boot.
+The unfortunate teacher revived a little with the water.
+
+"It's my left leg, below the knee--I felt it crack as I fell," she
+gasped painfully.
+
+"I'm afraid it's rather a bad fracture, too," said Gwen, when she had
+finished examining her patient.
+
+"Oh! what are we to do?" moaned Louise.
+
+"Can we carry her back to Riggness?" suggested Hilda.
+
+"We mustn't move her an inch till we've put her leg in splints," said
+Gwen. "I believe it's only a simple fracture, but it might become
+compound with the least jolt. Elspeth, will you take hold of her
+foot--yes, the left one, of course--and pull it very gently."
+
+"I--I daren't touch her!" shivered Elspeth, who had turned almost as
+white as Miss Roberts.
+
+"I will--I don't mind!" said Charlotte, and she did what was required
+under Gwen's directions.
+
+"Now you must hold it like that till we get some splints," continued
+Gwen. "You see, if the muscles contract, the rough ends of the broken
+bone might pierce a blood vessel, or do dreadful damage. Some of you
+bring some sand and make a pillow under her head, then she'll be more
+comfortable. What we want next are the splints."
+
+Many willing hands obeyed Gwen's orders. In less than a few minutes
+the sand was heaped under Miss Roberts's head and shoulders, while
+Louise constantly wetted her forehead and lips with water. Gwen, with
+a few assistants, had gone in quest of splints. She had spied some
+hazel bushes farther up the gorge, which she thought might suffice for
+her purpose. Up the steep bed of the stream the girls climbed,
+splashing recklessly in and out of the water, to save time being their
+main object.
+
+"They'll have to be thick pieces, and long too," said Gwen. "They
+ought to go from above the knee to below the foot. Whose penknife is
+sharpest?"
+
+Nobody's was very sharp, and the girls had to hack and hew away slowly
+and painfully before they could make the least impression on the tough
+hazel boughs. At last Gwen secured several lengths which satisfied
+her, and she returned to her patient.
+
+"Now, I want all your handkerchiefs to make bandages. Thanks!
+Charlotte, pull her foot just a trifle more, no--her toes should be
+up--so! That's better. I'm sorry to hurt you so dreadfully, Miss
+Roberts! I shall very soon have finished. There! I think those
+bandages are right. Give her some more water, Louise, quick!"
+
+Poor Miss Roberts had indeed nearly fainted again with pain, but she
+recovered herself, and even smiled as she thanked her helpers.
+
+"I've spoilt the excursion!" she murmured.
+
+"What's to be done next? Can we carry her?" asked Hilda.
+
+"Better not try. The quieter that leg is kept the better. She ought to
+be lifted on a stretcher."
+
+"There isn't even a farm near here."
+
+"I know. I think for the present she's best where she is, while some
+of you go to the station at Riggness for help. Possibly they may have
+a railway ambulance, or at any rate they could bring a door."
+
+"Is there a doctor there?"
+
+"I'm afraid not, it's only a tiny village, but the stationmaster would
+telegraph to Stedburgh for one. Perhaps he could come by motor, if
+there's no train."
+
+It was amazing what thoughtfulness and self-reliance had come to Gwen
+with the emergency. She made her plans and arrangements as calmly as
+if she were accustomed to deal every day with accidents. No one
+questioned her authority, and all were willing to do what she told
+them. Iris Watson and two others who were judged the quickest walkers
+volunteered to go to the station for help, and they listened
+attentively while Gwen gave instructions as to what they were to ask
+the stationmaster to send.
+
+"It's such a comfort you know!" said Hilda. "I wish I'd learnt
+ambulance."
+
+It seemed an interminable age to poor Miss Roberts and the girls
+before a railway porter and two labourers who had been working on the
+line, arrived with a stretcher, which fortunately was kept in the
+inspector's office at Riggness. It was a tedious slow journey along
+the shore, and up to the station. The patient was nearly worn out by
+the time they placed her in the waiting-room, and was thankful to have
+the cup of tea which the stationmaster's wife brought her. A doctor
+arrived from Stedburgh half an hour afterwards, armed with proper
+splints and bandages, and he carefully examined and reset the broken
+limb.
+
+"I must thoroughly congratulate the young lady who contributed first
+aid," he said. "She managed most skilfully. This would have been a
+serious thing but for her prompt measures. If the bone had been jolted
+about before it was put in splints, the consequences might have been
+permanent lameness or even loss of life. I wish it were obligatory for
+everybody to study ambulance."
+
+The doctor took Miss Roberts back to her home in Stedburgh in his own
+car, and the girls followed by the next train, all equally anxious to
+get away from Riggness. They were much distressed about their teacher;
+the excursion had been a fiasco, and the whole party felt limp and out
+of spirits, like sheep without a shepherd.
+
+"I'm thankful to get the whole crew packed off safe," said the
+stationmaster to his wife. "My word! It was a nasty accident to
+happen, down there on the shore. Good thing one of those lassies had a
+head on her shoulders!"
+
+"An ordinary enough looking girl, too," remarked his wife. "I wouldn't
+have guessed she'd be the one to come forward. But there, one never
+can tell!"
+
+"There must be more in her than shows on the outside," agreed the
+stationmaster.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+A Pressing Account
+
+
+When Gwen took her place at her desk on the following Monday morning,
+she was aware of a subtle difference in the general attitude towards
+her. She had earned the respect of the Form, and though nobody gushed,
+she felt she was no longer regarded as an interloper and upstart.
+Especially was this noticeable in the case of the nicer girls, several
+of whom spoke to her in quite a pleasant manner, and included her in a
+discussion about the tennis tournament. To Gwen, who had so long been
+left out in the cold, it was a most welcome change; she had never
+expected popularity, but she had always hoped that in time she might
+be able to conquer the prejudice that existed against her. It was a
+new thing to be asked to lend her dictionary to Hilda Browne, to
+compare chemistry papers with Iris Watson, or to play a game of tennis
+with Elspeth Frazer, Edith Arnold, and Charlotte Perry. The ban which
+had hitherto excluded her from the better set in the Form seemed to
+have been suddenly removed, the girls were looking at her from a new
+standpoint, and were ready to allow that after all she was different
+from what they had previously supposed.
+
+Naturally Miss Roberts's accident and consequent absence from her
+post made a great upset in the school: classes had to be rearranged,
+and lessons delegated to other teachers. It was particularly awkward,
+because the Fifth Form was working for the Senior Oxford, and though
+only a few girls were actually to take the examination, the
+preparation was the same for everybody.
+
+"I call it too bad," said Betty Brierley, an acknowledged slacker, "to
+make the whole Form grind--grind--grind--like this, all on behalf of
+about four candidates. They ought to have a special class to
+themselves."
+
+"There's method in the madness, though," said Joan Masters. "Miss
+Roscoe isn't going to tell till the very last who's to go in for it,
+so nobody knows if she mayn't be destined as a victim for the
+sacrifice, and her name already entered."
+
+"Oh! Not me!"
+
+"Don't alarm yourself. But there are one or two others who, I expect,
+are on the secret list. It depends entirely on our weekly reports."
+
+"Then I'm safe, for mine are always bad. I wouldn't go in for a public
+exam, for the whole world, the school ones are quite enough for me,
+and too much, as a rule. Who's likely, do you think?"
+
+"I'm not quite sure. Elspeth Frazer, for one, and--yes, I shouldn't be
+so very much astonished if Miss Roscoe's chosen Gwen Gascoyne."
+
+"Gwen--yes. She's been bucking up no end lately in maths."
+
+"And in Latin too. However, it's not our business. But I think
+there'll be some surprises."
+
+Gwen, whether or not with the idea of the Senior Oxford in her head,
+had certainly been working hard. She had not only caught up, but even
+overstepped most of the Form, and her reports kept a steady average of
+improvement. Miss Roscoe, who was generally scanty in the matter of
+praise, said little, but there was an air of encouragement about her
+which urged Gwen to her best efforts.
+
+"I made up my mind I'd let them all see I could do the work as well as
+anybody, though I am the youngest," she said to herself. "They don't
+sneer at me now."
+
+Her translation from the Lower School was beginning to feel quite an
+old remembrance. Her thoughts went back sometimes to that first day in
+the Fifth, the day when Netta had taken her into Miss Roscoe's private
+sitting-room, and she had broken the box of china. That was a
+recollection which always stung, and which she would thrust away
+uneasily into the lumber-room of her mind. So far she had heard
+nothing more from Parker's, but the consciousness of the debt was
+there, and she knew that sooner or later she would be called upon to
+face the difficulty.
+
+Nor was she mistaken. One Saturday morning, when she was taking a
+little vigorous exercise with the lawn mower before breakfast, she saw
+the postman coming in at the gate, and obeying a sudden impulse, ran
+to receive the letters, instead of allowing him to deliver them as
+usual at the door. There were four circulars for Father, a postcard
+for Beatrice, and one thin business envelope addressed to "Miss Gwen
+Gascoyne, c/o Miss Goodwin, The Thorns, Manor Road, Stedburgh," and
+re-directed in Netta's handwriting to "Skelwick Parsonage, North
+Ditton". Full of apprehension Gwen turned it over, and saw the name
+"J. Parker & Sons" printed on the flap. So it had come at last!
+Without even opening it she knew perfectly well what must be inside.
+She wondered they had waited so long before sending in the account
+again. What a mercy she had intercepted the postman that morning and
+taken the letters herself! If Beatrice had got hold of this it would
+have been impossible to conceal the matter any longer. Why had Netta
+sent the letter on by post instead of giving it to her at school?
+Surely it was a piece of spite on her part. Gwen turned quite hot as
+she thought of what Beatrice would have said. She hastily put the
+postcard and circulars on the breakfast-table, and ran down the garden
+to a retired place in the orchard, where she could open her ill-fated
+envelope in privacy.
+
+Yes, it was just what she anticipated--a bill for ten shillings, and a
+polite but urgent request that the amount should be paid without
+further delay. She crushed it angrily in her hand, then stuffed it
+into her pocket and stood thinking. What was she to do? What could she
+do? All sorts of desperate schemes came running through her mind, and
+she gave each its due consideration.
+
+"If I were a girl in a magazine story," she thought, "I suppose I'd
+disguise myself as a pierrette and go and sing on the promenade at
+Stedburgh. I dare say I'd get heaps of pennies. But--oh! I wonder if
+girls ever really do such things out of books? Father'd rather I owed
+pounds than went singing for pennies. He stopped the Sunday School
+children going round on Christmas Eve, but then they went into the
+public-houses, and of course I shouldn't. No, I couldn't risk it, and
+besides, I'd be too shy to sing, and somebody would be sure to find
+out. Shall I ask Dick to lend me half a sovereign? He would in a
+minute. No! I've not sunk to sponging on my boy friends, at any rate.
+I'd rather do a day's charing than that. A good idea! Why shouldn't I
+turn charwoman? If Beatrice would let me clean out the schools every
+Saturday, instead of Mrs. Cass, and pay me the money, I'd work off the
+bill in time. I wonder if I dare suggest it?"
+
+The breakfast bell ringing loudly and clamorously at that moment put
+an end to Gwen's meditations, and she went indoors, but she was much
+preoccupied during the meal, so that she never noticed how Giles was
+peppering her piece of bread and butter till she incautiously took a
+bite and choked.
+
+"You hateful boy! You're always up to some monkey tricks!" she
+exclaimed indignantly.
+
+    "'For she can thoroughly enjoy
+    The pepper when she pleases!'"
+
+jeered Giles, adroitly dodging the smack she designed for him.
+
+And the rest of the family laughed--yes, laughed, in a most heartless
+and inconsiderate manner.
+
+"Your wits were wool-gathering, Gwen!" said Winnie, quoting a local
+proverb. "Stumps did it so deliberately and openly that anybody could
+have caught him who wasn't absolutely dreaming. We were all watching
+to see if you'd notice."
+
+"The absent-minded beggar!" piped Basil.
+
+"I think you're all very horrid and unkind!" complained the victim,
+still sneezing.
+
+"Don't be grumpy, Gwen!"
+
+"You must learn to take a joke, childie!" said Father, pushing back
+his chair and going away to his study.
+
+Father so generally stood up for her that Gwen felt aggrieved. She had
+always flattered herself upon her capacity for accepting "ragging"
+with equanimity, but this, she considered, was beyond a joke.
+
+"It might have got into my eyes and blinded me," she declared with
+plaintive dignity, and leaving the peppery remains on her plate,
+stalked off to the garden. She had certainly been too busy thinking
+during breakfast to notice her plate. It had struck her that if she
+really wished Beatrice to allow her to do charwoman's work at the
+school, she must give some proof of her capacity in that direction.
+
+"Mrs. Cass never begins till one o'clock," she thought. "I'll go down
+this morning and get it all done before she comes, and then I can show
+Beatrice."
+
+It seemed the only possible way of earning money open to her, so
+stealing one of Nellie's coarse aprons and a tin of soft soap from the
+kitchen, she hurried off to the school. She knew where Mrs. Cass kept
+the bucket and scrubbing-brush which she used for her cleaning
+operations; they were in a cupboard at the end of the passage. Being
+Saturday, the place was, of course, empty, and no one would disturb
+her. She had brought the Parsonage key to unlock the door, and after
+filling her bucket at the pump in the yard, she put on the apron,
+tucked up her sleeves, and set to work. And it was work! Gwen had
+never in her life before tried to scrub a floor, and though her arms
+were sturdy and strong at wielding a tennis-racket or the lawn mower,
+they soon began to ache at the unwonted exercise which she had set
+herself. The room seemed most enormously large, and she was sure it
+was abnormally dirty. The school children's boots must have been caked
+with mud. She began to have a wholesome respect for Mrs. Cass. She
+grew stiff and cramped with kneeling, and was obliged to stand up
+occasionally and take a rest.
+
+"There are the two classrooms to do yet," she thought ruefully, "to
+say nothing of the passage. I'm getting rather fed up with scrubbing."
+
+But she was only half through, so she set grimly to her self-imposed
+task again. She had very nearly finished the big room when the door
+softly opened, and who should appear but Beatrice! At the sight of
+Gwen and her occupation she nearly dropped the books she was carrying.
+
+"Gwen! what's the meaning of this? You do look an object!" she
+exclaimed.
+
+Gwen jumped up hastily, well aware that she thoroughly merited any
+aspersions on her appearance. Both her dress and the apron were soaked
+with water, her face had accumulated some of the dirt, her hair ribbon
+had fallen off, and her hair was dangling in her eyes. A more untidy
+young person could not have been found in the whole village. She
+flung back her hair with a wet, grimy hand, and finding her pocket
+handkerchief, tried to wipe her face.
+
+"What freak is this, Gwen? Whatever will you do next?" continued
+Beatrice.
+
+"I didn't expect you here till I'd finished," answered Gwen, sitting
+down exhaustedly on a form.
+
+"You know I often come to practise the hymns, now Winnie takes the
+mission-room at Basingwold. That doesn't explain why you're washing
+the floor."
+
+"I wanted you to see that I could do it. I thought perhaps you'd let
+me scrub every week, and pay me instead of Mrs. Cass," said Gwen,
+blurting out her scheme in the baldest outline.
+
+Beatrice took another comprehensive glance at her sister's
+disreputable figure, then sat down hilariously.
+
+"You needn't laugh so--I mean it seriously," protested Gwen. "I want
+the money."
+
+"Oh! oh! You look so funny!" screamed Beatrice; then, suddenly
+sobering down, she changed her tone. "I couldn't help laughing," she
+continued, "but it was a good thing it was only I who came in and
+caught you in this dirty mess. What prompted you to be so silly?"
+
+"I've told you already."
+
+"Gwen, don't be idiotic! How could you scrub the school every week.
+Besides, we couldn't take the work away from Mrs. Cass. She'd be most
+indignant She needs the money badly, poor body, with that large family
+to keep."
+
+This was an utterly new aspect of the case that had not before
+occurred to Gwen.
+
+"I want money too," she groaned.
+
+"So do I, and so does Dad, and so do we all, but we can't get it,"
+replied Beatrice rather tartly. "We have to make up our minds to go
+without. You're no worse off than the rest of us."
+
+Gwen paused. A half impulse was stirring within her to tell her sister
+her difficulties. If only Beatrice looked a little more sympathetic!
+
+"How do you know I'm no worse off?" she began.
+
+"I've no patience with you, Gwen! You're always thinking about
+yourself! You've done a silly, mad prank to-day, and I don't know what
+Mrs. Cass will say when she arrives. Really, at your age you ought to
+know better and remember your dignity. You're not a child now, though
+I'm sure you behave like one. Go and put that bucket and
+scrubbing-brush away, and wash your face before you walk home. I shall
+have to explain to Mrs. Cass, or she'll think I've been giving her
+work to another charwoman. It would be enough to make her leave the
+church! She's fearfully touchy. I wonder when you'll learn sense."
+
+Very crestfallen, Gwen turned away. No, it was quite impossible to
+confide in Beatrice. Beatrice never understood, never even seemed to
+want to understand. In her superior, elder-sisterly position she
+simply condemned everything without hesitation.
+
+"I wonder if she used to do silly things herself?" thought Gwen.
+"She's always been six years older, and preached to me since I can
+first remember. Shall I ever catch her up, or will she seem those six
+years ahead to the end of the chapter?"
+
+And having performed some very necessary ablutions, she walked home,
+looking tired and woebegone.
+
+Beatrice, with a sigh, opened the harmonium and chose her hymns for
+to-morrow's Sunday School, wondering on her part why this particular
+sister was so difficult to manage, and so utterly different in
+disposition from the rest of the family.
+
+"I'm sure I do my best," she thought, "but Gwen has always been a
+trial. I can't imagine whom she takes after. If the ugly duckling's
+ever going to turn into a swan, it's time she began!"
+
+All Sunday Gwen was haunted by a horrible black shadow. She kept
+Parker's letter in her pocket, and the remembrance of it never left
+her. Gwen generally enjoyed Sundays, but this particular day was like
+a nightmare. How to get out of her scrape she could not imagine. The
+debt felt like a heavy millstone tied round her neck. In the
+afternoon, when the others sat reading and chatting under the trees in
+the garden, she mooned about the orchard by herself, too miserable
+even to be interested in a book. How was the affair to end? She did
+not dare to go to Parker's and explain that at present it was
+impossible to pay the bill. She supposed she would simply have to let
+things drift and await further developments. What steps Parker's would
+take next, she could not foresee. They would probably wait a week or
+even more before further pressing the account, and any respite was
+welcome. Trouble was ahead, doubtless, but it was better ten days off
+than to-morrow, because there was always the faint hope that some
+circumstance might arise at the eleventh hour to smooth over the
+difficulty. On Monday morning Gwen seized an opportunity to catch
+Netta alone.
+
+"I say," she began, "it was awfully mean of you to send that letter of
+Parker's on to me by post. Why couldn't you have brought it to school
+instead?"
+
+"Why should I?" retorted Netta. "I'm not going to act postman for you,
+I can assure you! And look here, Gwen Gascoyne, you'll please not have
+any more letters directed to you at our house! We don't want to
+receive your bills, thank you! You must give your own address to the
+shops. Haven't you settled that affair with Parker's yet?"
+
+"No, and I don't want it to be found out at home. Beatrice always
+takes in the letters and deals them round. It was by the merest good
+luck she didn't get hold of mine on Saturday. Netta, do let me use
+your address! You might do that much for me!"
+
+"Why should I? I've done quite enough for you, and too much already.
+I'm tired of the whole business. I was silly to be mixed up with it in
+the beginning."
+
+"But you started it! You took me into Miss Roscoe's room, and then you
+suggested going to Parker's and replacing the china."
+
+"Are you trying to throw the blame on me?" flared Netta.
+
+"Not altogether; but I think you were partly responsible, and that you
+got off cheaply."
+
+"That's uncommonly fine," sneered Netta. "No, no, my good Gwen, that
+little dodge won't work. This child isn't going to be burden-bearer
+for your sins. If you get into scrapes you must get out of them
+yourself. I've lost a sovereign over you already."
+
+"And for what?" exploded Gwen angrily. "What about my beautiful essay,
+that you took and used as your own?"
+
+"Wasn't worth it! It was a freak of mine just then to win that prize,
+but I've never looked at the book since. I'm sorry I troubled about
+it. I'd rather have the sov. now."
+
+"And I'm sorry too, because it wasn't fair and square, and I've felt
+vile about it ever since. I hate all these underhand things."
+
+Netta smiled sarcastically.
+
+"Of course you hate them when they don't turn out to your advantage.
+Pity you didn't pursue your course of virtue a little earlier! You
+were ready enough to trade the essay for the sov. at the time, so what
+are you grumbling about now?"
+
+"Your meanness."
+
+"Look here, Gwen Gascoyne, I've had enough of this! I won't hear
+another word about your wretched affair. As I told you before, you
+must get out of your own scrapes, and not expect other people to act
+Providence for you. If you mention the subject again, I simply shan't
+listen."
+
+Gwen had scarcely expected either help or consolation from Netta,
+though she felt indignant that her old chum should show her so little
+sympathy in the matter. After all, it was only in accordance with
+Netta's character. Grapes do not grow on thistles; and a girl so
+destitute of all sense of conscience was not likely to prove a stanch
+and faithful friend. Gwen was learning by slow and painful experience
+that bright amusing manners may be worthless unless allied to more
+sterling qualities. She had been wont to admire Netta's easy style,
+and even to try to copy it; now it struck her as hollow and vapid. If
+only she could have started quite afresh, with no guilty memories to
+disturb her, she felt she had the chance of getting into a better set
+in her Form. But what would Elspeth Frazer, Hilda Browne, Iris Watson,
+or any of the nicer girls think of her conduct, both in regard to the
+broken-china episode or the transferred essay? She knew it would not
+accord with their code of honour.
+
+"I wish I had the courage to tell Miss Roscoe everything," groaned
+Gwen. "It would have been the straightest course if I'd gone and
+confessed at once when I smashed the china. It would have saved a
+great many complications. Dare I possibly tell now?"
+
+She walked along the passage to the study. The door was open, so she
+peeped cautiously in. Miss Roscoe sat correcting papers, and nobody
+else was in the room. If she wished to make her confession, here was
+certainly her opportunity. Her heart beat and thumped, and the words
+seemed to freeze upon her lips. Miss Roscoe looked so stern as she sat
+at her desk making pencil notes on the margins of the exercises; there
+was a hard, uncompromising expression on her face which Gwen knew only
+too well, and which did not tend in the direction of tenderness
+towards wrongdoers. Gwen was still smarting from the scolding she had
+received for her conversation with Dick out of the window. If Miss
+Roscoe viewed that peccadillo so seriously, what would she say to the
+tale which her pupil had to unfold?
+
+"I daren't! I daren't!" thought Gwen. "No, I really can't screw up the
+courage. I loathe myself for a deceitful wretch, and yet--oh,
+dear!--there's nothing in this world I dread so much as being found
+out!"
+
+She ran down the passage again with a sense of relief. One voice in
+her heart assured her that she had escaped a danger, though another
+upbraided her for her cowardice.
+
+"If Miss Roscoe hadn't looked quite so severe I might have ventured,"
+she sighed in response to the latter. "I don't believe I'll get even
+so far as the study door again."
+
+So a golden opportunity was lost, and Gwen, who might even thus late
+have chosen the straighter, harder path, shirked the disagreeable
+experience, and was left perforce to reap the harvest of her own
+sowing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+Gwen's Bright Idea
+
+
+As Gwen went down the corridor she noticed a small crowd collected
+round the notice board, and, edging her way in among the crush, read
+an announcement which Bessie Manners, the head girl, had just pinned
+up.
+
+"There will be a General Meeting of the Seniors at 2 p.m. in the Sixth
+Form room. Business--to consider what steps can be taken for an
+adequate celebration of the school anniversary. All are urged to
+attend."
+
+"Hello! Whence this thusness?" exclaimed Gwen. "What have we got to do
+with the school anniversary? I thought Miss Roscoe engineered the
+whole of it!"
+
+"So she does, ordinarily," answered Moira Thompson, one of the
+prefects. "But we want this to be a very special festivity; not just
+the usual picnic or garden party."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Haven't time to explain now. Come to the meeting and we'll expound
+our views. I think it's a ripping notion of Bessie's myself."
+
+"Do give me a hint!"
+
+But Moira shook her head and passed on, leaving Gwen to curb her
+curiosity until two o'clock, for the prefects had not imparted their
+plans to anybody as yet, and none of her own Form could enlighten her.
+
+At the hour stated nearly all the Seniors presented themselves in the
+Sixth Form room. Bessie Manners was voted to the chair, and at once
+began an explanation of why she had called the meeting.
+
+"Girls," she said, "you all know that we're accustomed to have some
+kind of festivity on 1st June, the day of our school anniversary. Now
+it happens that this particular occasion is one of more than usual
+interest. Miss Roscoe has been Principal of Rodenhurst for exactly ten
+years, and it seems only fitting that due recognition should be made
+of the circumstance. The question that we have met to discuss is the
+shape and form in which we can adequately celebrate this event. We
+feel that the suggestion ought to come from the girls themselves,
+though we may need aid from the mistresses in carrying it out. I shall
+be glad if anyone who has a plan to lay before the meeting will
+propose it."
+
+"I am sure," began Moira Thompson, rising in response to Bessie's nod,
+"that everybody would like to show Miss Roscoe how we value her as a
+headmistress. For my part I think there should be a testimonial,
+subscribed for in the school, and that we might have a public
+presentation of it."
+
+"Hear! Hear!"
+
+"What kind of a testimonial?" asked one of the girls.
+
+"That remains to be discussed, and would, of course, depend upon how
+much was collected."
+
+"A silver tea service, or something of that kind?" enquired Natalie
+Preston, one of the prefects.
+
+"Probably: we shall have to find out what Miss Roscoe would like
+best."
+
+"And where would the celebrations come in?" asked Iris Watson.
+
+"That also must be talked over. So far, Miss Roscoe has always
+arranged a treat for the school on anniversary day, but we think this
+year it ought to be the other way, and the girls arrange a treat for
+Miss Roscoe and the mistresses. I'm sure they'd appreciate it."
+
+"Each Form might have a collecting book. We ought to raise quite a
+handsome sum," said Bessie Manners. "Then there could be a garden fete
+for the presentation."
+
+"Only for the school? Or would parents and friends be allowed to
+come?" asked one of the Sixth.
+
+"I don't see why they shouldn't. It would make the affair seem of more
+importance. We could get up an extra fund to provide afternoon tea."
+
+"Or get it catered for, and let people pay for their own."
+
+"Like one does at a bazaar?"
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"The idea is feasible. Anybody any amendments to offer?" said Bessie.
+
+Then a sudden and brilliant suggestion came to Gwen--one of those
+lucky flashes of inspiration that occasionally, in our happier
+moments, strike us.
+
+"May I speak?" she cried impulsively, starting up.
+
+"By all means," nodded Chairman Bessie.
+
+"It seems to me," said Gwen, "that if we're going to do this thing at
+all, it might just as easily be on a large scale as a small one. Miss
+Roscoe, no doubt, would be very pleased with a silver tea service, but
+I know something I believe she'd like far better. Don't you remember
+how frightfully interested she is in the new Convalescent Home? She
+urged us all to help it if we could. Suppose we could raise enough
+money to found a cot, and call it the Rodenhurst Cot, wouldn't that be
+a nice memorial?"
+
+"After Miss Roscoe's own heart!" gasped Bessie.
+
+"Ripping!" agreed most of the girls.
+
+"But what would it cost? Is it possible?" enquired Olga Hunter.
+
+"I believe it is. We have some papers at the Parsonage about the
+Convalescent Home. I was looking at them only yesterday. Any donor of
+L100 is to be allowed to name a cot, and nominate the special children
+who occupy it. Now in this big school we ought to be able to raise
+L100."
+
+"A large order," said Natalie Preston.
+
+"Not if it's undertaken systematically. As it's for a charitable
+object we can ask subscriptions from outsiders."
+
+"I see your point," said Bessie. "Yes, we could beg for the
+Convalescent Home when we couldn't ask for contributions for a
+personal testimonial to Miss Roscoe. But this would please her far
+more. A Rodenhurst Cot! She'd love it!"
+
+"If each girl in the school could collect five shillings," continued
+Gwen, "that would be over seventy-five pounds. Then suppose on
+anniversary day we had a grand gymkhana, and charged a shilling
+admission. Surely every girl could persuade two people to come, which
+would make at least six hundred guests. Six hundred shillings mean
+thirty pounds, so there you are!"
+
+"We could have tea extra and perhaps sell flowers," added Olga Hunter,
+as an amendment "I'm willing to second the proposal."
+
+"It certainly sounds feasible on these lines. We might even raise more
+than the hundred pounds," said Bessie.
+
+"In that case we could add a personal testimonial to Miss Roscoe."
+
+"Hear! Hear!" shouted several.
+
+"Put the motion in due form, Gwen."
+
+"I beg to propose that in order to celebrate the tenth year of Miss
+Roscoe's headmistress-ship, and the seventeenth anniversary of the
+school, we should endeavour to collect L100 to found a Rodenhurst cot
+in the Convalescent Home," proclaimed Gwen.
+
+"And I beg to second that proposal," said Olga Hunter
+enthusiastically.
+
+"All in favour please signify!" murmured Chairman Bessie.
+
+Such a chorus of "Aye!" came in response that the motion was carried
+unanimously, and nothing remained but to discuss details.
+
+"We shall have to let the Juniors know about it, and start them
+collecting," said Natalie Preston.
+
+"We'd better each collect as much as possible in our own district or
+parish," suggested Gwen. "Lesbia and I, for instance, can undertake
+Skelwick. I'm sure some of the people there would give towards a cot."
+
+"Then we'll have cards or books to enter the amounts?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"What about the gymkhana?"
+
+"We must appoint a special committee to arrange a programme and
+competitions, and ask people if they'll offer prizes."
+
+"I vote we appoint the prefects, then, as a committee."
+
+"Right-o!"
+
+Gwen came away from the meeting with flying colours. She had certainly
+made a proposition which nobody else had thought of, but which all
+acknowledged was exactly the most fitting to meet the circumstances.
+For the first time in her experience she found her remarks receiving
+the attention not only of her own Form, but even of the Sixth. The
+prefects, mindful of their dignity, generally held themselves aloof,
+so it was indeed a triumph for Gwen to be seized upon, after the
+meeting was over, by Bessie Manners, and consulted upon the general
+working of the scheme. To walk down the corridor linked arm in arm
+with the head girl was a distinction that fell to few, and Gwen,
+though she accepted the honour with apparent unconsciousness, knew
+perfectly well that it would make an enormous difference to her
+position in the school. For the moment she was talked about. Her plan
+for the cot was called "Gwen Gascoyne's scheme", and to her was given
+the entire credit for originating it. The more the idea was discussed,
+the more everybody liked it. The mistresses sympathized heartily, and
+the Juniors promised earnest co-operation. Gwen, for once, was
+appreciated to her heart's content. It was wonderful how gracious the
+prefects were towards her, and how the members of her own Form
+suddenly treated her with respect. After so long a period of
+unpopularity it was very sweet to find general opinion had thus veered
+round, and Gwen enjoyed her new character of organizer to the full.
+She threw herself heart and soul into the working of her scheme, and
+thanks partly to her parish experience at Skelwick, and partly to a
+practical element in her composition, she was able to give really good
+and helpful advice, both as to the collecting of the fund, and the
+arranging of the gymkhana. There was very little time before the day
+of the anniversary, so those in authority were obliged to push matters
+as fast as they could. Each girl in the school begged in her own
+circle most assiduously, and from the reports that began to be
+circulated the result seemed most encouraging.
+
+"I believe we're going to get the L100 just by collecting, and that
+the gymkhana will be extra," said Bessie Manners exultingly. "By the
+by, Miss Roscoe wishes it to be known that she would much prefer not
+to be offered a private testimonial, but that everything should go
+towards the cot."
+
+"Oh, we wanted to give her some remembrance, though," cried several of
+the girls, rather disappointed.
+
+"I'd set my heart on her having a silver teapot at least," said Iris
+Watson.
+
+"It's just like Miss Roscoe not to want anything personal," said
+Gwen. "I must say I admire her for it. She always reminds me of an
+ancient Roman--the State first and foremost in her estimation, and
+herself nowhere."
+
+"Yes, she'd sacrifice a good deal for the sake of the school," agreed
+Bessie Manners.
+
+It was decided to turn the anniversary into a kind of floral fete, to
+be held in the large cricket field. There were to be morris dances, a
+maypole dance, a procession of decorated bicycles, and numerous
+athletic competitions. Tea, coffee, and lemonade would be served at
+tables on the ground, and flowers and sweets could be carried round in
+baskets and sold during the afternoon. It was wonderful when once the
+ball had been set rolling how quickly offers of help flowed in. The
+girls' parents and friends approved of the idea of a "Rodenhurst" cot
+for the Convalescent Home, and were most kind in their contributions.
+Enough cakes were promised to provide amply for afternoon tea. Bessie
+Manners's mother undertook to send a supply of ices, and a generous
+store of sweets and flowers seemed forthcoming. To have such an
+excellent mutual object to work for seemed to unite all the members of
+the school, and especially to break down the barrier between Seniors
+and Juniors which had hitherto existed. While before it had hardly
+been considered etiquette for the Sixth and Fifth to talk to those in
+the Lower Forms, they might now be seen conferring on quite pleasant
+terms about the gymkhana, comparing notes on subscriptions, and making
+arrangements for flower selling and sweet vending.
+
+Considering the large amount of home preparation that was expected
+from her in view of the forthcoming examinations, Gwen found she had
+set herself a task in undertaking any more work, but by arranging her
+time very carefully, she managed to perform one set of duties without
+neglecting another. She and Lesbia collected fifteen and ninepence for
+the cot among their friends in Skelwick, and wrote down the various
+items with much satisfaction in a notebook supplied for the purpose.
+The Gascoynes did not possess bicycles, so could not join the cycle
+parade, but Lesbia was to sing in one of the glees, and Gwen meant to
+enter for certain of the athletic sports. Her long arms and legs
+would, she hoped, stand her in good stead in a contest of running or
+jumping, and even if she did not win a prize, it was worth competing
+for the mere fun of the thing. Giles and Basil were scarcely less
+excited, for the Boys' Preparatory Department was to have its share in
+the celebrations, and they looked forward to showing their prowess in
+public. They spent much of their spare time in training for various
+Olympic games, an occupation of which Beatrice heartily approved.
+
+"It keeps them out of mischief for the whole evening," she declared.
+"I bless the gymkhana."
+
+"It's wonderful how it's drawn everyone together at school," observed
+Gwen. "Even Miss Roscoe isn't nearly as starchy as usual, and Miss
+Trent was quite jolly when we were talking over the programme. As for
+Upper and Lower School, we just ignore any distinction between the two
+when it's a question of the fete."
+
+"I'm glad to hear it," said Beatrice, "I always thought the Seniors at
+Rodenhurst were much too stand-off. It will do them a world of good to
+forget their dignity for once, and mix freely with the rest of the
+school."
+
+"Yes, it's quite a comfort to be able to talk to Lesbia in the gym.
+now," agreed Gwen.
+
+"Do you mean to say you couldn't before?" exclaimed Beatrice. "Things
+weren't so bad as that when I was there."
+
+"Etiquette's been getting stricter and stricter since you left. The
+prefects of about two years ago started the notion that Seniors must
+keep to themselves, and not have anything to do with Juniors, and you
+know when an idea like that gets broached how everybody takes it up
+and sticks to it. It's impossible to defy a rule of that kind just 'on
+one's own'."
+
+"I know; rules the girls make for themselves are generally better kept
+than those made at headquarters. I agree that you couldn't break
+through the etiquette of your Form. Still, I'm glad the barrier is
+down at last, and hope it will never be raised again."
+
+"I shan't be the one to plant a stake in the fence of division!"
+laughed Gwen.
+
+Practising for the various items of the fete proceeded briskly at
+Rodenhurst. The younger girls, during the winter course of dancing
+lessons, had learned to plait the maypole, and to execute some lively
+morris dances. Though Miss Robins, their teacher, was not in Stedburgh
+during the summer, they remembered their steps quite well enough to
+enable them to give a performance, with the aid of a little
+supervision from some of their elders. Various members of the
+Seniors, who understood morris dancing, undertook to superintend
+rehearsals, and drill the small girls in any details they had
+forgotten. It was thought that this portion of the entertainment would
+form a great attraction of the fete, and give it somewhat the
+character of a May Day celebration. The Juniors who were fortunate
+enough to be taking part were immensely important, and keenly anxious
+to make their contribution to the programme a complete success. They
+turned up loyally for rehearsals, and were unwearied in practising any
+difficult bits where there was a likelihood of a hitch occurring.
+
+One afternoon, about two o'clock, Gwen, with her Virgil in her hand,
+sauntered down the Rodenhurst garden into the playing field which lay
+at the back of the school. She was anxious to seize the half-hour for
+preparation, as she knew she would have scant time in the evening for
+all she was obliged to finish, and she hoped to find a quiet corner in
+the open air, where she might study in peace. As she walked along,
+seeking a shady spot, she was attracted by the sound of angry voices,
+and peeping over the hedge that divided the small playing field from
+the larger hockey and cricket field, she saw a selection of Second
+Form girls collected for a rehearsal. Netta Goodwin was the Senior in
+command, and with Netta these Juniors were evidently having an excited
+altercation.
+
+"But Moira Thompson didn't do that!" shrieked an indignant voice.
+
+"Do as I tell you!" ordered Netta tartly. "You lot go over there, and
+begin your dance, and Ida Bridge and Peggie Weston stop here and hold
+this rope."
+
+"But I'm the leader!" wailed Ida. "They can't get on without me!"
+
+"They'll have to, for once."
+
+"But it's not fair! You've come to help us to practise--not for us to
+help you!"
+
+"That's as I like to arrange it!"
+
+"Oh, you are a beast!"
+
+"Apologize for that word, or I'll spiflicate you! Where are your
+manners?"
+
+"If you're not fair, we shan't mind manners, so there!"
+
+"Ida Bridge, do you intend to hold this rope?"
+
+"Shan't! I'd rather tell Miss Trent first."
+
+"You miserable little sneak!"
+
+"I'm not a sneak! It's your fault! Why can't you take our rehearsal
+properly, like the others did? We're wasting time."
+
+"So we are! Get to business, you kids over there. Why don't you begin
+your precious dance?"
+
+"We can't without Ida and Peggie--specially Ida!" fumed the
+performers.
+
+"Well, I've told you I want them myself, and you'll just have to
+manage as best you can. Now then, off you go--one--two--three! Bother
+the lot of you! What are you waiting for?"
+
+"For Ida Bridge."
+
+"You won't get her!"
+
+"Then the rehearsal's off!"
+
+"No, it's not off, you lazy little wretches! You can manage all right
+if you like; I know perfectly well you can! It's just a piece of
+obstinacy. Pig policy doesn't pay with me, I assure you! I've been put
+in authority for this afternoon, and I mean to have my own way, so I
+give you warning. Start that dance instantly, and Ida and Peggie hold
+this rope."
+
+Instead of obeying, the Juniors crowded round Netta uttering protests
+and reproaches in a perfect chorus of mutiny. Gwen, who could not
+quite grasp the cause of the quarrel, made her way through a gap in
+the hedge and entered the large field.
+
+"What's all the shindy about?" she enquired. "You're like a set of
+wild Irishmen at a fair. I thought you were supposed to be
+rehearsing?"
+
+"How can we rehearse by ourselves?"
+
+"And without our leader?"
+
+"Netta won't conduct!"
+
+"She told us to go and dance by ourselves, while she practised her own
+jumping."
+
+"And she wanted to make Ida and Peggie hold the rope for her."
+
+"How can we do our morris dance without Ida and Peggie? It spoils the
+figures."
+
+"Netta!" gasped Gwen. "Did you actually mean to practise jumping
+instead of taking this rehearsal?"
+
+Netta shrugged her shoulders easily.
+
+"The kids know their steps so well, they can do the thing perfectly,"
+she replied. "What was the good of wasting my time drilling them? I
+thought I'd make them of some use, and let them hold a rope for me.
+They're an ungrateful little set of sneaks--won't do a thing for their
+seniors!"
+
+"Why, I should think not, in this case, when you'd been specially
+told off by the Committee to superintend their dance. I sympathize
+with the kids. They've right on their side. It's you who are the
+sneak."
+
+"Oh! Am I indeed, Miss Gwen Gascoyne? Thank you for nothing. It's a
+pretty name to have called me, and I shan't forget it."
+
+"But it's true!" returned Gwen with warmth. "It's simply abominable
+behaviour to pretend to act dancing mistress and use the time for your
+own purposes. Why should these kids hold a rope for you?"
+
+"And why should you take me to task, I'd like to know? You're not a
+prefect."
+
+"I only wish I were."
+
+"No doubt you do!" sneered Netta. "You've been so stuck up since your
+Cot scheme was adopted, that you seem to imagine yourself as good as
+the head of the school."
+
+"Gwen, you take our rehearsal instead--we've wasted ten minutes or
+more over wrangling!" pleaded one of the Juniors.
+
+"I will, if Netta will let me."
+
+"Oh, I yield my place with pleasure to the all-important,
+all-necessary Gwen Gascoyne!" retorted Netta. "We humbler members of
+the Fifth don't get a look-in nowadays. But just let me give you one
+word of good advice, my lofty Pharaoh--pride occasionally comes before
+a fall!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+A School Gymkhana
+
+
+Thanks to the vigorous efforts of the Committee and of the various
+organizers of the entertainment programme, everything was in good
+training by the first of June, and anniversary day seemed likely to
+prove a huge success. It was decided that the gymkhana should begin at
+three o'clock, and be held in the large cricket field, admission being
+either by ticket or gate money. There was a little discussion about
+the arrangements in that respect, some members considering the
+printing of the tickets an unnecessary expense, and others their sale
+beforehand an essential feature.
+
+"It's far better to sell them in advance," urged Bessie Manners,
+"because people will often buy them, even if they're not certain of
+going. If it were a showery afternoon many might stay away--then if
+they hadn't taken tickets it would be so much loss to the funds."
+
+"We'll accept money at the gate, though?" queried Olga Hunter.
+
+"Yes, we must have a gatekeeper, and provide her with shilling and
+sixpenny checks. I think children ought to be half-price. So many of
+us have little brothers and sisters who would like to come, and a
+shilling seems too much to pay for a child."
+
+"Right you are! Who'll be gatekeeper?"
+
+"Oh, some sturdy Fifth Form girl. I propose Gwen Gascoyne."
+
+"Yes, Gwen would do splendidly. She deserves some post of honour for
+evolving the scheme. Besides, she's got a head on her shoulders. She'd
+keep the gate like Horatio kept the bridge."
+
+"One could trust Gwen, I know. Now Rachel Hunter or Edith Arnold would
+make mistakes in the change, and lose their presence of mind, and
+perhaps let half a dozen people push in free while they were reckoning
+up the sixpences."
+
+"Gwen it shall be, then. I'll ask her to-day if she'll undertake it."
+
+Gwen was only too proud to be invited to assume such a responsible
+position. She felt much flattered that it should have been offered to
+her instead of to Elspeth Frazer, Hilda Browne, Iris Watson, or other
+of the older members of the Form.
+
+"I'm the youngest of all, and yet I'm to be trusted the most!" she
+said to herself with a sigh of gratification. "Gwen Gascoyne, I
+congratulate you! You're coming on!"
+
+There was great excitement at Skelwick Parsonage on the day of the
+fete. Beatrice had made several boxes of sweets to be sold on the
+ground, and Winnie picked the very choicest flowers in the garden for
+the same object. Mr. Gascoyne, Beatrice, and Martin were to come to
+the gymkhana, and had promised to clap their loudest at Giles' and
+Basil's performances in the sports. Those two heroes kept examining
+the muscular development of their young arms like a pair of practised
+Roman gladiators, and ate quite a double allowance of breakfast on the
+strength of the trials that were in store for them. They were so eager
+to start for school, that for once Beatrice had no need to urge them
+to hurry, and they departed in excellent spirits, vaulting, for
+practice, over the orchard hurdles instead of going out through the
+front gate.
+
+Morning school was held as usual at Rodenhurst, but ceased at twelve,
+so as to give time for preliminary arrangements to be completed. The
+classrooms were to be used as dressing-rooms for some of the
+performers, and the gymnasium was turned into a repository for the
+parcels of sweets, cakes, and flowers which kept arriving from the
+generous friends who had promised such gifts. To unpack these and
+apportion them to different tea tables or vendors' baskets was a task
+which needed all the energies of the members of the Committee, who
+were kept so busy at the work that they had scarcely more than ten
+minutes to spare for dinner. As a rule, unpunctuality at this meal was
+visited with direst penalties, but to-day Miss Roscoe only smiled as
+the prefects rushed in very late, hastily bolted their meat course,
+and fled minus the pudding. Their zeal and virtuous example had the
+desired effect. Everybody upon whom any responsibility devolved made
+an extra effort, so that by half-past two everything was in perfect
+order and readiness.
+
+"Thank our lucky, lucky stars it's a decent day!" said Gwen, gazing up
+at a sky which, if not blue all over, held only clouds of an
+apparently harmless character. "I don't believe it intends to rain at
+all, and I expect everybody will come, and the audience be 'large and
+appreciative', as the newspapers say. If I don't clear a good sum of
+gate money, I shall be amazed."
+
+"Are you ready, Gwen, to act Horatio?" said Bessie Manners, bustling
+up in a hurry. "You understand the business, don't you? Those with
+tickets you of course let in free. Everybody else must pay a shilling,
+or children under ten sixpence. Here are two rolls of checks, sixpenny
+and shilling ones. You must hand checks to all comers for the amount
+they have paid you, and they will present the checks at the entrance
+to the big field. You will stand at the gate that leads from the
+garden to the smaller field."
+
+"I understand all right!" laughed Gwen. "I've brought a satchel to
+hold the money, and I'll undertake not a soul gets in without paying.
+It will have to be 'over my body' if they do!"
+
+"Moira will be at the second gate, and she won't allow anyone through
+without handing her a ticket or a check, so I think we shan't lose
+anything there," replied Bessie, turning away satisfied.
+
+Gwen took up her station at once, for visitors were already beginning
+to arrive at the school, and she was soon fully occupied in receiving
+coins and tearing off checks. She rather enjoyed being at the receipt
+of custom, and was particularly gratified at the amount that went into
+her satchel. The fine afternoon had tempted people to come to the
+gymkhana, old Rodenhurst girls and their friends had turned up, as
+well as parents and relations of present pupils, so the gathering was
+quite considerable. The many pretty summer dresses and bright parasols
+gave a most festive appearance to the ground, even before the
+performers arrived on the scenes. Various girls, furnished with
+tasteful baskets, had been chosen to sell sweets and floral
+buttonholes, and soon began to find customers for their wares, while
+the lemonade and ice-cream stalls were already doing a roaring trade.
+
+Lesbia had been selected as a flower vendor, and looked absolutely
+charming in a white China-silk dress and Tuscan hat trimmed with
+daisies, which, by her usual good luck, she had received from Aunt
+Violet only the week before. Pretty Lesbia, with her pink cheeks and
+her lovely flaxen hair, really made quite a picture as she carried
+round her basket, and many people bought flowers from her, just
+because they could not resist the entreaty in her blue eyes, and the
+soft little voice that pleaded the cause of the Rodenhurst Cot.
+
+"She's just twice as good at selling as I should have been," thought
+Gwen, watching her sister rather wistfully. "There's a fascination
+about Lesbia which I don't possess in the very least. She must be
+making a little fortune with those posies. Well, never mind. I'm
+keeping the gate. That's more important still. To business. Here's
+someone else coming. Hello! Why, Dick! This is awfully good of you!"
+
+It was Dick Chambers who presented himself and paid his shilling. "I
+hardly knew whether I dared come," he grinned, "after the row I got
+you into that afternoon when you fished out of the window for sweets.
+Will any of the teachers seize upon me and turn me out as a pernicious
+character? I shall demand the return of my money if they do!"
+
+"They're too busy," laughed Gwen, "and besides, I don't think anyone
+would recognize you. Miss Trent didn't see you, you know; she only
+caught me leaning out of the window."
+
+"Then you think I may venture without fear of consequences? I feel
+rather like Romeo going into the Capulet mansion. Can you give me a
+watchword to use if I get into difficulties?"
+
+"The Rodenhurst Cot and Coin of the Realm are our two watchwords this
+afternoon. Stick to those and you can't go wrong, even if you beard
+Miss Roscoe herself. She is over there if you'd like to shake hands
+with her."
+
+"No, thanks! I've no wish to risk such an ordeal. In fact I'll give
+her as wide a berth as possible. Should you be allowed to negotiate an
+ice if I brought you one?"
+
+"Not while I'm on duty. Look here: 'You are requested not to speak to
+the Woman at the wheel'. Here's a fresh batch of people arriving."
+
+"Mayn't I tear off the checks?"
+
+"Certainly not. Go along and buy some of Lesbia's flowers, if she has
+any left by now. If you don't scoot quick, I'll report you for
+impeding me in the performance of my work. Then they'd turn you out,
+with a vengeance."
+
+"I'll be good," chuckled Dick, as he moved on to find Lesbia, and
+invest in her wares.
+
+The cycle parade was about to begin, and those who meant to take part
+in it were wheeling their machines through a private door which led from
+the stable yard into the field. Not only had the competitors decorated
+their bicycles, but they themselves had donned fancy costumes, many of
+which were of quite an elaborate description. There was a Dutch maiden
+with white sleeves, velvet bodice, starched cap and wooden sabots, a
+sweet little Miss Jap-Jap-Jappy in gay kimono, a flower tucked into her
+dark hair, an Indian squaw with bead-embroidered garments and fringed
+leggings, several pierrettes, a Red Riding Hood, a Goody Two Shoes, and
+other characters of nursery fame or fairy-tale lore. But the best of
+all, so everyone agreed, was Rachel Hunter, who came arrayed as a cat.
+Her costume, cut on the pattern of a child's sleeping suit, was most
+cleverly contrived out of brown plushette, painted in bold bars to
+represent the stripes of a tabby. She wore a cat's mask on her head, and
+made such an excellent representation of a gigantic specimen of the
+feline race that the effect was quite appalling. The younger children
+squealed when she appeared on the field, especially as, to keep up her
+character, she made an occasional claw at one of them as she passed, or
+gave vent to a tremendous "Miau!" or "Fuff!" She had decorated her
+bicycle with chocolate mice, and halted now and then to eat one with
+great apparent gusto, hugely to the delight of the juvenile portion of
+the audience, who clapped her again and again. But the real triumph of
+her costume was her tail, a splendid appendage fully a yard in length.
+By a most ingenious contrivance of a strong wire spring, worked with a
+piece of elastic, she was able to curl and uncurl it, or to lash it to
+and fro in the most diverting fashion. Altogether Puss was a huge
+attraction, she acted her part capitally, and when on reaching the
+judge's stand she purred loudly, and pretended to wash her face with her
+tawny paw, the general cheering easily secured for her the first prize.
+
+The second prize was won by a classmate of Basil's from the Boys'
+Preparatory Department, who came attired as a golliwog, with blackened
+face, fuzzy hair, and a selection of Dutch jointed dolls slung from
+his bicycle. His laurels were closely contested by a dainty Miss
+Butterfly and a picturesque Cavalier, but on the whole the funny
+costumes seemed to find greater favour with the majority.
+
+Everybody voted the cycle parade an entire success, and the audience
+looked quite regretful as the long line of troubadours, Dolly Vardens,
+brigands, fairies snow queens, Italian peasants, Kate Greenaway
+rustics, and other interesting characters took their departure through
+the gate. But there were further items on the programme, and all eyes
+turned eagerly to the band of quaintly dressed little maidens who now
+ran out joyously hand in hand to perform the ancient ceremony of
+plaiting the Maypole. The children had been well drilled, and had
+practised assiduously, so each took her ribbon with confidence, and
+started off at the sound of the music, to tread the intricate steps
+required for the due twisting and combination of the colours. The
+affair went without a hitch, the maypole was plaited and unplaited,
+and the effect was so pretty that the audience encored the
+performance. Feeling that they had covered themselves with glory, the
+May-maidens retired to make room for the morris dancers, who were
+waiting anxiously to have their turn. The oldfashioned costumes, with
+their decorations of flowers, ribbons, and bells looked well with the
+green field for a setting, and when the band struck up, and the
+dancers began their lively yet graceful motions, everyone felt
+transported back to mediaeval days, when the world was young and
+joyous, and our country merited its title of "Merrie England". The
+Second Form girls, to whom had been assigned this portion of the
+programme, contrived admirably to convey the original spirit of the
+dance; their steps seemed so fresh and spontaneous and gay, their
+actions so prompt and appropriate, and all went in such excellent time
+to the music that the approving spectators accorded them an encore,
+much to their satisfaction, for they were anxious not to be beaten by
+their rivals the maypole plaiters.
+
+After the dancing was finished there was an interval for refreshments
+before the sports began. Tea and coffee were served on tables which
+had been carried out from the school, the ices were much in demand,
+and lemonade and ginger beer bottles maintained a brisk series of
+pops. Gwen, whose duties had kept her by the entrance gate, had only
+been able to view the festivities from a distance, and she could not
+yet desert her post as late comers were still arriving.
+
+"I've brought you a cup of tea, Gwen, if you can manage to drink it,
+and a slice of cake. It's rather hard you have to act sentry all the
+afternoon," said Iris Watson.
+
+"I don't mind. It's prime fun taking the tolls. I feel like an ancient
+turnpike man. Thanks immensely for the tea! I'm more thirsty than
+hungry, but I shan't despise the cake. Isn't it a piece of the one
+your mother sent?"
+
+"Sweets, sixpence a box! Peppermint creams! Chocolate caramels! Almond
+toffee! All home made! The best value for the money in all Stedburgh!
+Perfectly delicious! Buy a box and taste them!" called a well-known
+voice, and Lesbia marched up, smiling at her own eloquence.
+
+"Why, you young Cheap Jack, I thought you were selling flowers!"
+exclaimed Gwen.
+
+"So I was, but I completely cleared out my stock, and Miss Trent set
+me up in the confectionery line instead. I'm doing equally well, or
+even better. By the by, can you give me change for a two-shilling
+piece? Miss Douglas has just bought sixpenny-worth, and she has
+nothing but a florin. I've this moment handed my money to Miss Trent
+to take care of. I've no pocket in this dress, and I gave my bag to
+Miss Barton with the proceeds of the flowers in it. Here's the
+florin--I want a shilling and two sixpences for it, or else four
+sixpences."
+
+"Right-o!" said Gwen, opening her satchel. "Oh, bother! Here are some
+more people arriving! You'll have to wait!"
+
+"Do give it me, quick! Miss Douglas is in a hurry," pleaded Lesbia.
+
+"Then take it out of my satchel yourself. Be sure you put in the
+florin."
+
+Lesbia hastily complied and ran off, for Miss Douglas was beckoning
+to her impatiently, and teachers may not lightly be kept waiting.
+
+"Have you managed to get change? That's right--give me three
+sixpences," said Miss Douglas, hurriedly putting the money in her
+purse. "I have to rush indoors now and help to dress the 'Elizabethan'
+girls for the final madrigal. The whole affair's going very well. We
+may all congratulate ourselves on what we're making."
+
+"Hurrah for the Cot!" sang Lesbia, tripping away with a step that was
+meant to be in imitation of the morris dancers.
+
+The athletic sports, open to all comers, were naturally a great
+feature of the afternoon. The prizes had been given by various friends
+who had responded so generously to the appeal made to them that the
+Committee had been able to place a large number of competitions upon
+the programme. The proceedings led off with a boys' flat race, in
+which Giles and Basil took part with great credit, though neither was
+fortunate enough to outstrip the winner, a fleet-footed little brother
+of Charlotte Perry. The obstacle races were voted immense fun, the
+humorous feature being the performance of such feminine tasks as
+needle threading or button stitching by the boys, and rapid bean
+sorting by the girls. Giles and Basil were successful in a
+three-legged race, and Martin, to his huge delight, won the sack race
+for visitors under seven. He bore away his prize--an indiarubber
+ball--with great pride to show to Beatrice. Long jumping and high
+jumping proved equally popular both with boys and girls, some of the
+records being excellent. Linda Browne a younger sister of Hilda
+Browne, particularly distinguished herself in this respect, and won
+laurels for the Lower Third. Vaulting over hurdles of varying heights
+made a graceful competition, and one in which Elspeth Frazer came off
+a victor. She was an athletic girl, and possessed a wonderful power of
+spring that caused her to clear the bars like a bird.
+
+"Our Form hasn't done badly," said Iris Watson, running to Gwen to
+tell her of Elspeth's triumph. "Must you stick at this gate all the
+time? Can't you leave it and compete for the dart-throwing contest?
+It's always ripping. Surely nobody else will come now?"
+
+"Don't suppose they will, and I'd love to try the darts. But what am I
+to do with this satchel? It contains solid wealth."
+
+"I'd give it to Miss Roscoe if I were you and ask her to take charge
+of it. Can you lock it?"
+
+"Yes, I have the key in my pocket. I'll put the unused checks inside
+with the cash. There! That's safely locked up. The bag is quite heavy!
+The gate has made a splendid contribution towards the cot I feel so
+jubilant I want to 'cock-a-doodle'!"
+
+Miss Roscoe readily took charge of the precious satchel, leaving Gwen
+free to enter for any of the remainder of the sports in which she
+might care to try her skill. The dart-throwing contest was just about
+to take place, so she promptly joined the ranks of the competitors.
+Each in turn had to throw six darts at a target, the one obtaining the
+highest score securing the prize. It was a task that needed a true eye
+and a firm hand, and proved far more difficult than most of the girls
+anticipated. Some of them failed altogether to hit the target, and
+others only achieved a chance dart in the outside rings. One or two of
+the Sixth Form did fairly well, but did not secure a bull's-eye.
+
+"They've fixed the distance too far. It's impossible to shy properly
+when one's such a long way off," declared Charlotte Perry, retiring
+disconsolately after a series of bad shots. "It's your turn now, Gwen.
+I wish you better luck than I've had."
+
+Gwen took her six darts and advanced to the white circle which was
+marked on the grass as the throwing place. It was a game which she had
+played frequently at the Parsonage, where she had often matched her
+skill against that of her father and Beatrice. She had a strong arm
+and a very true aim, two great essentials for success, and though the
+number of paces was certainly greater than that to which she was
+accustomed at home the increased distance did not seem an insuperable
+difficulty.
+
+"I must throw a little higher and harder, that's all," she said to
+herself. "Fortunately there's no wind blowing to speak of."
+
+Gwen's first shot went wide, but her second lodged in the outer ring
+of the target. Profiting by the experience she regulated her aim, and
+sent her third dart into the second ring. Her fourth and fifth were
+nearer the centre still and the spectators began to cheer. Only one
+dart remained; it was the best feathered of the six, and she had
+purposely kept it until the last. She poised it carefully, calculated
+for the slight breeze, then with a neat turn of her wrist hurled it as
+swiftly as possible at the target. It whistled rapidly through the
+air and lodged full in the bull's-eye. A storm of clapping greeted her
+achievement. She was the last on the list of competitors, so she had
+gained a full and complete victory over her rivals in the contest. She
+beamed with satisfaction as she went up to receive her prize--a pretty
+little silver brooch.
+
+She had no further good fortune, though she tried her luck in the
+potato race and the ball-catching competition, which concluded the
+sports. It was now after five o'clock, and a procession of girls in
+Elizabethan costume came on to the field to sing the final madrigal
+which was to wind up the fete. As the last strains died away and the
+band began "God Save the King", everybody joined in the National
+Anthem and gave three hearty cheers for the Rodenhurst Cot.
+
+"It has been a splendid afternoon," said Miss Roscoe, as the crowd
+began to disperse and the sweet vendors and flower sellers came to
+hand over their gains. "I'm sure we shall have realized quite a large
+sum. It's too late to count our proceeds this afternoon. You must all
+go home now, but if you have each labelled your own bag I will lock
+them up in my safe until to-morrow. I think we may congratulate
+ourselves on the success of our anniversary. It has more than answered
+our expectations."
+
+Gwen went home in high glee. She had enjoyed her part of the
+celebrations thoroughly, and the consciousness that she had originated
+the cot scheme gave an added degree of pleasure to the general sense
+of prosperous termination of the affair. As she walked with Lesbia
+round the orchard that evening she indulged in a little
+self-congratulation.
+
+"It is nice to have engineered all this!" she admitted. "Miss Roscoe's
+pleased about it, I'm sure. She was so gracious to me when I took her
+my satchel. She actually called me 'dear'!--a thing she's never done
+in her life before. It's been a ripping day. School will seem quite
+flat again after it. I wish there were another fete to look forward
+to!"
+
+"There's the tennis tournament," suggested Lesbia.
+
+"Yes; but I shan't have much chance for that with my wretched old
+racket!" sighed Gwen.
+
+"Suppose I'd a new one, and could lend it to you?" said Lesbia
+quickly. "A lovely half-guinea one!"
+
+"You don't possess half a guinea to buy one, my child!"
+
+"But I do! I've got the money, and I'm going to get the racket I shall
+go to Graham's to-morrow for it."
+
+"I thought your savings box was empty again? How in the name of wonder
+did you come by ten and sixpence?"
+
+"Never you mind--I've got it, and that's the main point," replied
+Lesbia, turning very pink.
+
+"But how?"
+
+"I shan't tell you! Leave me alone, Gwen! You've no right to pry into
+my affairs. I never bother about yours. Let go my arm!" and Lesbia,
+blushing even more furiously, wrenched herself free and fled towards
+the house.
+
+Lesbia seldom had secrets, so her conduct was the more astonishing.
+Gwen gazed after her in great surprise, half inclined to follow her
+and press the point; but remembering that her Latin for the next day
+was still unprepared, she fetched her books instead, and buried the
+remembrance of her sister's strange behaviour in Virgil and a
+dictionary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+A Day of Reckoning
+
+
+Gwen went to school next morning in the jauntiest of spirits. She was
+satisfied with the part she had played both in organizing the fete and
+in helping to make it a success, and she fully expected approval from
+headquarters.
+
+"This will set me all right with Miss Roscoe now," she thought.
+"She'll quite forgive me that business about Dick and the sweets on
+the strength of a 'Rodenhurst Cot'. I think I've scored considerably."
+
+When at eleven o'clock, therefore, Gwen received a summons from the
+Principal, she was not at all dismayed, and presented herself in the
+study with a smiling face. To her surprise, however, she was hardly
+welcomed with the enthusiasm she expected. Miss Roscoe looked grave
+and annoyed, and greeted her more as if she were a culprit than a
+praiseworthy collector of money.
+
+"Sit down, Gwen," she said coldly, motioning her pupil to a chair near
+her desk. "You can unlock your satchel and go over your accounts with
+me; then there is another matter that I wish to talk to you about
+afterwards."
+
+Feeling decidedly chilled, Gwen produced her key. Miss Roscoe emptied
+the contents of the bag on to a tray, and proceeded to count the
+various coins. She reckoned them twice over, frowned, consulted a
+paper, then turned to Gwen.
+
+"See how much you make it!" she said abruptly.
+
+Gwen carefully went over the piles of half-crowns, florins, shillings,
+and sixpences, and added them together.
+
+"I get thirteen pounds seven and six," was her conclusion.
+
+"So do I, so we must both be correct," returned Miss Roscoe. "Now the
+checks that Moira Thompson received at the second gate register
+thirteen pounds seventeen shillings. How is it you are nine and
+sixpence short?"
+
+"Am I that much short?" cried Gwen. "It can't possibly be!"
+
+"Look for yourself," said Miss Roscoe. "The checks are all numbered.
+There are two hundred and fifty-one shilling admissions and fifty-two
+sixpenny ones. Examine the numbers on the rolls of checks left in your
+satchel; you will see they begin at Nos. 252 and 53. That means that
+you certainly issued 251 checks at a shilling and 52 at sixpence. The
+right amount ought to have been in your bag."
+
+"Is there nothing left stuck in the corners?" asked Gwen, utterly
+dumbfounded at the defalcation.
+
+"Nothing whatever. Look and satisfy yourself."
+
+Gwen seized the satchel, and almost turned it inside out in her
+eagerness, but there was no remaining coin to be found.
+
+"Did you give any people checks without receiving the money in
+return?" enquired Miss Roscoe.
+
+"No, certainly not. I was most particular. I didn't let anybody in
+without paying. If they had no tickets I sold them checks. I don't see
+how I can be all that amount wrong."
+
+"Unfortunately both our reckonings show the same deficit. What I want
+to know, Gwen, is what has become of this missing nine and sixpence?"
+
+"I can't imagine."
+
+"But it is your duty to account for it. You alone are responsible; and
+it is my duty to enquire where it has gone."
+
+"Miss Roscoe! You surely don't think I've pocketed it?" broke out
+Gwen, the drift of the Principal's remarks suddenly dawning upon her.
+
+"I say nothing except that it is a very strange circumstance that you
+cannot produce it. Was the satchel in your own possession the whole of
+the afternoon?"
+
+"Yes--at least--yes, it was!" stammered Gwen, looking very red and
+confused. The remembrance had just struck her that she had allowed
+Lesbia to take some change from her bag, and at the same instant
+Lesbia's extraordinary behaviour of the evening before flashed across
+her mind. Could there possibly be any connection between the two
+incidents? The idea was so horrible that she blushed at entertaining
+it even for a moment.
+
+Miss Roscoe glanced at her keenly.
+
+"Do you assume the full responsibility for this?" she asked in a
+strained voice.
+
+"Absolutely. Nobody except myself had anything to do with the gate
+money."
+
+The Principal's face, which had been grave before, took a yet sterner
+expression.
+
+"I am sorry, Gwen. Very sorry and most concerned. I thought I could
+have trusted you entirely. It pains me beyond measure to find you have
+betrayed my confidence."
+
+"But I didn't take that nine and six! I didn't, indeed! I don't know
+where it has gone; but I haven't got it! How can you accuse me of such
+a dreadful thing?" blurted out Gwen indignantly.
+
+"You can't deny the deficit," returned Miss Roscoe icily. "There is
+the evidence of the checks and the cash to prove it. As you are not
+able to account for it, I can only draw my own conclusions. As it
+happens, I was this very morning made aware of the reason which must
+have prompted your most dishonourable act."
+
+"What do you mean?" cried Gwen with a choke in her voice.
+
+For answer Miss Roscoe handed her a folded piece of paper. She opened
+it nervously. It was a bill from Messrs. Parker & Sons, Glass and
+China Merchants, to Miss Gwen Gascoyne, for ten shillings "to account
+rendered", and written at the bottom were the words: "Your immediate
+settlement will oblige". It seemed such a bolt from the blue that Gwen
+turned all colours, and her hand trembled till she nearly dropped the
+paper.
+
+"Ah, you may well look conscious, Gwen! I have just learnt the full
+history of this most deceitful business. I have had a letter from
+Mrs. Goodwin, telling me that her daughter had confessed her share of
+it, and as another bill for the broken china had arrived for you,
+directed under cover to Netta, she considered it best to forward it on
+to me, with an account of what had occurred, as it was only right that
+I should know about it. She is most pained that her daughter should
+have been even slightly implicated in such an affair, and Netta
+herself seems truly to regret countenancing the deception and
+screening you. I had a talk with her before school this morning. I
+cannot exonerate her, but she is at least sorry for her conduct. With
+this knowledge of your debt, Gwen, and your reasons for concealing it,
+of course I realize plainly enough why you have been foolish and
+wicked enough to take some of the gate money. No doubt you yielded to
+a desperate temptation; you had much better make a clean breast of
+it."
+
+Gwen was trembling so greatly that she could hardly utter a reply.
+Several times her white lips framed the words before she gasped out:
+
+"I did break the china, and I owe the ten shillings for it, but I
+never took a penny from the satchel. I may be naughty, but I'm no
+thief!"
+
+Miss Roscoe shook her head sadly.
+
+"What's the use of persisting in denying a fact that's absolutely
+palpable?"
+
+"But I didn't! Oh, I didn't!"
+
+"It's little use arguing the matter at present, Gwen, if you take up
+this stubborn attitude. If you think things over, you will see it is
+much better to confess. I have probably startled you by springing the
+news upon you that I was aware of your substitution of my china tea
+service. When you are calmer you will be more ready to acknowledge
+what you have done. Go to the little music room at the head of the
+stairs--it is not in use this morning--and stay there until I come or
+send for you. Reflect seriously upon what I have said, and make up
+your mind to be brave enough to tell me everything."
+
+With feet like lead, and a head that throbbed and burned, Gwen walked
+upstairs. The little music room was unoccupied. It only contained a
+piano, a stool, and a chair, and on the last-named piece of furniture
+she sank down wearily. Her thoughts flew so rapidly through her brain
+that she could scarcely regulate them. She felt as if a net had been
+spread for her, and had entangled her unawares. First and foremost was
+the sense that Netta had betrayed her. Netta, who had promised at all
+costs to keep her secret, had basely revealed it. She saw how cleverly
+her old chum had managed to whitewash herself by making a confession
+and feigning penitence, and how much darker this act caused Gwen's own
+share in the matter to appear by comparison. Naturally Miss Roscoe
+viewed Netta as the one with the tender conscience, and Gwen as the
+unrepentant sinner.
+
+"Why didn't I tell her myself that day I meant to, and got as far as
+the study?" wailed the unfortunate culprit. "Then I should have been
+spared all this!"
+
+Why, indeed? How many of us mourn over our past follies and
+cowardices, bitterly regretting the wasted moment or the lost
+opportunity? Gwen's fault was indeed being visited heavily upon her
+shoulders. She had sown the wind and reaped the whirlwind. She felt
+keen resentment against Netta. It was a dastardly trick to have played
+upon her. Netta might at least have warned her that the bill was to be
+sent on to Miss Roscoe--then she could have been prepared for the
+worst. It was surely mere spite on the part of her friend, who, having
+quarrelled with her, was anxious to find some means of annoying her.
+Netta had been jealous of her new-found appreciation in the Form, and
+had taken this opportunity of trying to humble her. The deficit in the
+gate fund filled Gwen with surprise. There seemed only one way of
+accounting for it, and that was so painful that she shrank from facing
+it. Lesbia had taken change out of the satchel, and that same evening
+Lesbia had acknowledged the possession of ten shillings, but had
+refused to reveal how she came by the money.
+
+Gwen groaned as she remembered her sister's conscious looks and
+evasive replies. Could it actually be possible that Lesbia had
+abstracted this money? She was rather silly, flighty, and
+irresponsible, but she had always been truthful and honourable. No, it
+was surely absolutely foreign to her character! Then where had she
+obtained half a guinea to buy a new tennis racket? And what was the
+reason of her extreme embarrassment? Gwen abandoned the question in
+despair.
+
+"If she really did take it, I must shield her at any cost," she
+decided. "She'd get into such frightful trouble, and scolding Lesbia
+is like breaking a butterfly. I can bear things better than she can.
+But--oh, dear! What am I to say to Dad if he asks me? I can stand
+Miss Roscoe's wrath, but I can't face making Dad look sorry."
+
+The Principal left Gwen until one o'clock to reflect upon her sins,
+then summoned her again to the study, and urged her in strong terms to
+confess.
+
+"I will forgive you if you only acknowledge it, but if you persist in
+denying it, I shall have to go more deeply into the matter," she said
+sternly. "I cannot allow such things to happen at Rodenhurst. It is a
+very grave fault, Gwen. Do you wish me to send for your father?"
+
+"No, no!" cried Gwen hastily.
+
+"Then will you confess?"
+
+"I can't! I didn't do it! Oh, I don't understand!" responded Gwen,
+torn in two between the desire to defend herself and the fear of
+involving Lesbia. She did not dare to tell Miss Roscoe that her sister
+had taken change from the satchel, yet by that circumstance only could
+she account for the loss.
+
+"Miss Douglas is as distressed as I am," continued the Principal. "I
+was obliged to tell her, in order to explain your absence from your
+classes. Here she comes now. Perhaps she will be able to persuade you
+better than I."
+
+"Oh, Miss Roscoe," exclaimed Miss Douglas, entering the study with a
+hurried step and a heightened colour, "I have just made the most
+astounding discovery! I happened to look in my purse, and to my
+amazement and consternation I found half a sovereign which certainly
+ought not to be there. I am sure I know how I came by it. Yesterday,
+just before I went into the house to dress the girls who were to sing
+the Elizabethan madrigal, I bought a box of sweets from Lesbia
+Gascoyne. I gave her a two-shilling piece, and as she had no
+sixpences, she ran to Gwen to ask change for my florin. She came
+hurrying back, and handed me, as we both imagined, three sixpences. I
+put them in my purse without looking at them. Now I am quite sure that
+one of these supposed sixpences must in reality have been half a
+sovereign, given by mistake. I undoubtedly had no ten-shilling piece
+in my purse. The difference of giving half a sovereign in lieu of
+sixpence would be exactly the nine-and-six that was missing from
+Gwen's satchel. Let us exchange the two coins, and the deficit will be
+made up."
+
+It was such a natural, simple, and self-evident explanation of the
+situation that its truth could not be doubted. Miss Roscoe heaved a
+sigh of intense relief.
+
+"I am grateful to you beyond words, Miss Douglas," she returned.
+"Gwen, I am most delighted that your honour is cleared, and regret I
+harboured so unjust a suspicion against you. I confess it was the
+affair of the broken china that prejudiced me in your disfavour. It
+supplied so strong a motive. Why didn't you come and tell me about
+that right away when if happened instead of trying to settle it in
+such a crooked fashion? It wasn't straight and square, was it? Have I
+heard the whole story?"
+
+Gwen, who had not shed a tear before, was crying bitterly now. Miss
+Roscoe's present kindly tone hurt more than her former severity.
+Almost in spite of herself the girl began to blurt put her version of
+how she had accidentally broken the tea service, had intended to pay
+for it at once, and how Emma had absconded with the money. The
+housemaid's part in the drama was news to Miss Roscoe, and she
+hastened to ask for particulars.
+
+"This must be investigated immediately," she declared. "I shall send
+for Emma Dalton this afternoon. I happen to know that she has a place
+as parlour-maid at a house not far away. If I had heard of this I
+could not have given her a character. Indeed she deserves to be
+prosecuted for theft. I must write a note to her present mistress."
+
+Miss Roscoe never let the grass grow under her feet. In this case she
+acted with her usual promptitude, and by two o'clock Emma, in much
+alarm, and weeping like a waterspout, was ushered into the study and
+confronted with Gwen and Netta, who were both summoned for the
+occasion.
+
+"Now, Emma, this is a serious charge. Have you anything to say for
+yourself?" enquired Miss Roscoe, seating herself at her desk with the
+air of a magistrate about to try a case.
+
+"I didn't pay the money at Parker's, and I don't deny it," sobbed
+Emma. "I meant to, but I saw a coat and skirt I wanted, so I thought
+I'd borrow it, and the bill might just wait for a bit. I've intended
+to go and settle every month when I got my wages, but it's never
+seemed the right time. I didn't know Parker's were pressing for it.
+Oh, dear, I've been a bad girl!"
+
+"You have indeed," said Miss Roscoe. "It was wrong of Miss Gascoyne
+to ask you to help her to deceive me, but worse for you to defraud
+her."
+
+"It wasn't Miss Gascoyne that suggested sending back the broken china
+to Parker's and saying nothing about it; it was Miss Goodwin,"
+declared Emma, pointing at Netta. "She planned the whole thing! Yes, I
+can tell you she did. She's a deeper one than the other. It was half
+her fault, I'll be bound!"
+
+Netta's face was a study, especially as Miss Roscoe looked at her
+keenly, though she made no remark.
+
+"I've brought the money with me," continued Emma, still sobbing, "if
+Miss Gascoyne will please take it and forgive me."
+
+"You don't deserve any consideration, Emma," said Miss Roscoe.
+
+"For the sake of my mother!" pleaded Emma. "Oh, don't prosecute me! It
+would brand me for life!"
+
+"Don't send her to prison, please!" interposed Gwen.
+
+"Well, we don't want to be too hard on you and ruin your life. Let it
+be a warning to you to be honest in future. I am sure Miss Gascoyne
+has no wish to prosecute you. I shall be obliged to let your mistress
+know about this, however. I gave you so good a character to her, that
+it is not fair she should remain in ignorance of so serious a slip.
+She must be the judge whether she keeps you in her service or not."
+
+"I'll go home to my mother and work at dressmaking," snivelled Emma as
+she prepared to depart. "Here's the money, Miss Gascoyne; I'm sorry I
+took it, and thank you kindly for not prosecuting."
+
+Netta fled from the study the moment Miss Roscoe gave her leave to go.
+She was anxious not to have to speak to Gwen, for she knew she had not
+behaved well towards her. Emma's unexpected accusation had given
+rather an awkward turn to the affair, and she had hardly come out of
+it with the credit she expected. Gwen lingered behind. She felt she
+could not leave without offering the apology which for seven long
+months she had wished to make.
+
+"Please, Miss Roscoe, I'm most dreadfully sorry about all this. I know
+I ought to have come and told you at once when I knocked over the box
+of china," she blurted out abruptly. "I've been miserable the whole
+time about it."
+
+"Well, Gwen, it's a lesson to keep square, isn't it? One little step
+from the straight road often sends us farther out of our way than we
+have any intention of going. I don't think you will descend to
+anything so underhand again, will you?"
+
+"Never in all my life!" protested Gwen with energy.
+
+"Then we'll say no more about it."
+
+The news that Gwen had been suspected of appropriating some of the
+gate money had leaked out, as news always leaks out, and was received
+with great indignation by the rest of the Fifth.
+
+"Gwen Gascoyne simply isn't capable of doing such an abominable
+thing!" declared Elspeth Frazer.
+
+"No. Gwen's gauche and brusque, but she's unimpeachable," agreed Hilda
+Browne.
+
+"I'd rather suspect myself!" said Charlotte Perry.
+
+Much satisfaction was expressed in the Form when the report of the
+mistake in Miss Douglas's change was circulated, and Gwen's complete
+acquittal secured. Everybody congratulated her heartily when she
+returned to the classroom.
+
+"You're the heroine of the hour," said Louise Mawson. "It was an
+uncommonly disagreeable thing to happen. But in a bag full of change
+it's very easy to confuse a half-sovereign and a sixpence. By the by,
+has Miss Roscoe added up all the accounts yet? How much have we made?"
+
+"One hundred and fifty-three pounds altogether," replied Gwen. "We got
+a hundred and nine pounds by collecting, and the gymkhana has made
+forty-four."
+
+"Hooray! Then the cot is an accomplished fact."
+
+"We shall all have to pay a visit to the Convalescent Home and see it,
+as soon as the name is painted up over it," said Hilda Browne.
+
+"Won't it look scrumptious to see 'Rodenhurst Cot' in black and
+white?" chuckled Charlotte Perry.
+
+"We shall have to publish reports of our special convalescents in
+every number of the school magazine," suggested Iris Watson. "It will
+be so interesting to read about them."
+
+At four o'clock, by Winnie's express permission, Gwen went to Parker &
+Sons and made a final settlement of their account. The relief of being
+free from her load of debt was very great, and she came out of the
+shop happier than she had been since the day she first entered it. As
+Emma had refunded the one pound two and sixpence in full, Gwen had
+twelve and sixpence in hand, and, in consequence, felt rich beyond the
+dreams of avarice. The vision of a new tennis racket began to dawn on
+her horizon. That evening she managed to cajole Father for a short
+stroll on the moor. It was seldom she could secure such a
+_tete-a-tete_ walk, but she was longing so much to unburden her mind
+that she gave him no peace until she had got him all to herself. Once
+they were seated on the heather, with the wold behind and the sea in
+front, Gwen began to pour out the story in her usual abrupt, jerky
+fashion, not omitting the matter of the prize essay which she had sold
+to Netta.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me all this before, Gwen?" asked Mr. Gascoyne
+when she had finished.
+
+"Because--oh, Dad, I thought it would worry you! Beatrice said you
+were so dreadfully hard up."
+
+"It would have worried me far more to feel that you owed money. How
+much did Netta Goodwin lend you?"
+
+"A sovereign."
+
+"Then I will make up your twelve and six to twenty shillings, and you
+shall pay her back. I don't like that transaction about the essay at
+all."
+
+"Netta doesn't deserve it!" exclaimed Gwen.
+
+"I dare say not, but your conscience demands it. Honour forbids you to
+expose Netta, but the affair was so discreditable that I want your
+part at least to be set straight. That sovereign was ill-gotten gains,
+Gwen!"
+
+"Oh, Dad! Are you very angry with me?"
+
+"No, not angry, but I wish you'd trusted me. The whole business,
+childie, hasn't been on the square."
+
+"I knew it wasn't, all the time," confessed Gwen, scrubbing her eyes.
+"But--oh, Dad, it was so hard! Why do such hard places come into one's
+life?"
+
+"To give one the opportunity to get strong. If everything were always
+pleasant and smooth and easy, we should be poor sort of creatures in
+the end, with no character worth having. I feel that every day myself,
+and give thanks for the hard things, and I've had my share of them."
+
+Gwen looked at Father, and a sudden perception of his meaning swept
+over her. Young as she was, she knew something of the struggles and
+disappointments, the lack of appreciation, the mistrust, the
+misconstructions, the slights which had met him in his parish work,
+and the burden of poverty which he carried so bravely and
+uncomplainingly--somewhat, too, perhaps, she divined of the hopes he
+had left behind. Her own little struggles faded into nothingness in
+the shadow of his.
+
+"Yes, you've had a hard life, Dad," she repeated slowly.
+
+"Sentry duty. That's all! A hard life is the soldier's post of
+honour," said Father.
+
+He looked far out over the sea as he spoke, and it almost seemed to
+Gwen as if his face shone.
+
+There was still one point which Gwen was anxious to elucidate, and
+that was the reason of Lesbia's peculiar conduct in the orchard on the
+evening of the gymkhana, and where she had obtained the ten and
+sixpence of which she had spoken. Lesbia seemed very unwilling to
+discuss the subject, but when the two girls were in their bedroom that
+night, Gwen held her to the point.
+
+"Oh, Gwen, you've got me in a corner!" protested Lesbia. "I didn't
+mean to tell a soul about it, except Kitty Macpherson! Well, if you
+must know, this is what happened. One day Kitty brought a copy of _The
+Gentlewoman's World_ to school. It had a beauty competition in it, and
+she urged me to try my luck, so I sent up my photo--that one which
+Aunt Violet had taken of me when I was staying at Greylands. It
+actually won a prize, and the magazine sent me a postal order for ten
+and sixpence. I didn't dare to tell any of you at home, because I knew
+you'd all think me so terribly vain and conceited. Beatrice is
+fearfully down on me for that kind of thing, and I knew the boys would
+tease, and call me 'Proudie' and 'Madam Conceit'."
+
+Gwen laughed long and heartily. She did not tell her little sister of
+the unjust suspicion she had for a short time harboured against her.
+The whole affair was so exactly like Lesbia, from the competing for a
+beauty prize to the careless taking of wrong change.
+
+"How will you explain your new tennis racket?" she enquired. "Beatrice
+will ask where you got the money to buy it."
+
+"I never thought of that. I suppose I shall have to confess, then, and
+be labelled 'Miss Vanity'," sighed Lesbia. "It's a ripping racket,
+Gwen. It's exactly the same that Kitty Macpherson has. I'll lend it to
+you whenever you want it. Are you cross with me for not telling you
+before?"
+
+"No, dear; it wasn't such a fearful crime after all," returned Gwen,
+half sighing, for Lesbia's secret seemed so much more innocent a one
+than her own had been.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+Retribution
+
+
+Gwen took back the sovereign next morning to Netta, who received it
+with amazing coolness.
+
+"An unexpected blessing," she remarked. "I'd put that sov. down as a
+bad debt. Better late than never. We're quits now, Gwen Gascoyne."
+
+"Not altogether," returned Gwen. "I've set my part straight, but
+you've still got the credit for my essay. You haven't put that to
+rights."
+
+"Catch me telling!" laughed Netta. "No, my good Gwen, that's a little
+too much to ask. Don't expect more than you're likely to get, and then
+you won't be disappointed. I'm afraid I must still consider Mr. Thomas
+Carlyle my special property. You really can't eat your cake and have
+it."
+
+"That's exactly what you're doing," retorted Gwen. "You took my essay,
+and now you've got the sovereign as well."
+
+"But I helped you out of a temporary difficulty. You forget that, and
+don't show as much gratitude as you might."
+
+"Not much cause for gratitude," grunted Gwen.
+
+"This is what comes of being too philanthropic. I won't help anybody
+out of scrapes again. One never gets thanked for it."
+
+"Not when you give your help on such terms."
+
+It was no use arguing with Netta, so Gwen turned away, glad to have
+closed the transaction, even though she had been decidedly the loser.
+There were plenty of other matters to occupy her mind, as this
+afternoon the tennis trials were to take place as a preliminary to
+playing for the Form trophy, and later for the County shield. Gwen had
+given in her name to Moira Thompson, the head of the games committee,
+and expected that she would be accepted at least for the trials. Nor
+was she mistaken, for when, at two o'clock, Moira pinned her paper on
+the notice board, the fourth couple down for singles were Gwen
+Gascoyne against Geraldine French. All the school was assembled to
+watch the play, since on this afternoon's victories would largely
+depend the future choice of champions.
+
+"Here's my new racket. Do use it--it's a perfect beauty," whispered
+Lesbia, edging through the crowd, and pushing her treasured possession
+into her sister's hand. "It will just make all the difference to your
+play."
+
+Gwen accepted the loan thankfully. Her old racket had been her
+greatest impediment, and she had not liked to borrow often from her
+classmates. As Lesbia had prophesied, it made all the difference to
+her serves, and she played up in a way that astonished everybody.
+Geraldine French, who was considered almost invincible by the Sixth,
+had not taken Gwen seriously, and was therefore most electrified and
+disgusted to find herself beaten by a Fifth Form girl of no particular
+reputation in the world of tennis. The Fifth were in a state of
+immense delight.
+
+"Gwen's serves to-day were unique," declared Iris Watson. "If she can
+keep this up our Form may have a chance for the trophy."
+
+"I'd no idea Gwen could do so well," agreed Elspeth Frazer. "She's
+suddenly developed into quite a crack player."
+
+"And she's such long legs and arms, she seems all over the court, and
+scarcely misses a ball."
+
+"She's shown up in a new light this afternoon. We shall have to think
+her over for a championship."
+
+The match for the Form trophy was to be played in a week's time. At
+present the beautiful silver cup was in the possession of the Sixth,
+but the Fifth were not without hopes of winning it, and transferring
+it to the chimney piece of their own classroom. It was an
+old-established custom at Rodenhurst that after the trials had taken
+place each Form competing for the trophy should vote its own
+champions. The election was naturally a highly exciting event; all the
+points of the various candidates' play were carefully discussed, and
+the two who were considered the most likely to do credit to the Form
+were returned. On this occasion five girls appeared of such equal
+merit that the running between them would be very close. Hilda Browne
+and Charlotte Perry were last year's champions, and were steady
+players, though many thought that Charlotte had gone off a little in
+her serves. Betty Brierley was brilliant but unreliable, sometimes
+making more splendid scores than anybody in the school, and sometimes
+playing love games. Netta Goodwin had a special reputation for back
+work, in which she excelled, and this circumstance might very
+possibly cause her to be chosen in conjunction with a good net
+champion. Gwen's unexpected prowess had been a complete surprise to
+the Form, and had made such a favourable impression that many were
+inclined to vote for her. To none of the five girls did the vision of
+a championship appear more attractive than to Netta. She loved to
+shine, and it was a sore point with her that she was not more popular
+in her Form. Here, at any rate, seemed a chance to gain the applause
+of her schoolfellows. She was conscious of playing well, and though
+she was not a general favourite, she knew the girls did not allow
+individual preferences, as a rule, to bias their judgment when it was
+a question of winning or losing the trophy. She canvassed diligently,
+put any pressure she could bring to bear upon her particular friends,
+and began carefully to reckon up how many votes she could reasonably
+count upon. The result was not altogether reassuring. Both Hilda
+Browne and Gwen seemed powerful rivals to her pretensions, and the
+chances were that the election would return Hilda for first champion,
+and either Gwen or Charlotte Perry for second. The prospect of being
+beaten in an affair upon which she had set her heart filled Netta with
+dismay.
+
+The voting was by ballot, and took place in the classroom immediately
+after morning school. When the bell rang the girls did not immediately
+leave their desks as usual, but sat still while Miss Douglas
+distributed to each a half sheet of notepaper and an envelope. All
+that was required was to write down the names of two champions, fold
+the paper and put it in the envelope. No signatures were allowed, so
+that even Miss Roscoe should not know who had voted for which
+candidate. The whole affair did not take more than a few minutes. The
+girls hastily scribbled the names of their favourites, many of them in
+feigned handwritings, fastened their envelopes, and then returning
+them to Miss Douglas, left the classroom.
+
+"I wonder how soon we shall know the result!" said Netta, as the Form
+trooped downstairs.
+
+"It depends upon how soon Miss Roscoe has time to count them," replied
+Iris Watson. "She may be in her study now, or she may be too busy to
+look at them until four o'clock."
+
+"Too bad to leave us in suspense."
+
+"I'm not going to think about it," said Charlotte Perry. "It will be
+time enough to rejoice or moan when one knows."
+
+"Oh, bother the election!" said Betty Brierley. "Come and see if we
+can get a court and have a set before dinner."
+
+Netta did not follow the others to the tennis grounds. She was much
+more anxious about the result of the ballot than they, and had no
+heart at present for playing. Instead, she walked into school again,
+and finding the door of Miss Roscoe's study open, she peeped in. The
+room was empty, and on the desk lay the nineteen envelopes, each
+marked solely with a large V, that represented the voting of the Fifth
+Form. Netta looked at them wistfully. How she longed to open them and
+learn their contents! Such a proceeding was, of course, impossible,
+and she turned away with a sigh. As her glance wandered round the
+room, she noticed a large parcel of stationery which had just been
+unpacked, and lay spread upon a side table. Miss Roscoe had evidently
+opened it to get the paper and envelopes needed for the election, and
+had not yet had time to put it away in the drawers of her secretaire.
+Then suddenly an idea occurred to Netta--an idea so original and
+daring that she almost laughed at her audacity in entertaining it. It
+was a scheme which no other girl in the Form would have dreamt of for
+a moment, but Netta was troubled with few scruples of conscience, and
+was never deterred by a question of honour from attaining her wishes.
+Very quickly she abstracted nineteen envelopes and ten sheets of
+notepaper, and fled with her spoil to her own classroom. She bolted
+along the passage and upstairs in such a tremendous hurry that she did
+not notice the impish face of Ida Bridge peering from the Second Form
+room as she passed.
+
+"Oho, Miss Netta Goodwin! What's the matter with you?" thought Ida.
+"You have an uncommonly guilty look about you, almost as if you were
+committing a crime. What's up, I wonder? I think I'm just going to
+track you and see."
+
+Since the stormy episode on the day when the Second Form girls were
+rehearsing for their morris dance, Ida Bridge had detested Netta. She
+felt she owed her a grudge, which she was most anxious to pay if a
+reasonable opportunity could only be found. She followed now post
+haste, and adopting the tactics of a scout, waited till Netta was
+safely inside the Fifth Form room, then peeped cautiously round the
+door. What she saw did not particularly enlighten her. Netta was
+busily tearing sheets of notepaper in half, was scribbling something
+on them, blotting them and putting them into envelopes. No one else
+was in the room, and there was nothing to suggest an explanation of
+this rather mysterious employment.
+
+"I'm sure she's up to something, though," murmured Ida to herself,
+still keeping a watchful eye on the enemy's movements. Netta wrote
+away, and kept folding her pieces of paper with record speed; there
+was a complacent look on her face, and she chuckled occasionally, as
+if with deep satisfaction. At the sound of the dinner bell she
+started, and hurriedly swept her correspondence into her desk. Ida,
+with admirable presence of mind, bolted into the empty Sixth Form room
+opposite, and having seen Netta depart down the corridor, took the
+liberty of going to make an inspection of what she had been doing.
+
+"Um--indeed! What have we here?" said Ida, opening the desk.
+"Envelopes marked with a V, and sheets of paper with names on. Let's
+take a look at them. 'Hilda Browne--Netta Goodwin.' 'Netta
+Goodwin--Gwen Gascoyne.' 'Betty Brierley--Netta Goodwin.' 'Charlotte
+Perry--Netta Goodwin.' All in such different styles of writing, too! I
+believe I begin to see daylight. Now, shall I go and call Miss Douglas
+at once to look at this? No--it's incriminating, but not sufficient
+evidence to convict. I must let things develop a little further first.
+I think I'd better have a witness, too. Miss Netta Goodwin, I believe
+you're going to be rather too clever for once, and that you'll find
+yourself outwitted by one of the despised Juniors."
+
+Ida Bridge was late for dinner that day, but she took Miss Roscoe's
+reproof with a sangfroid at which her Form marvelled.
+
+"I don't care if I have to write fifty lines as a punishment," she
+murmured to her neighbour and chum, Peggy Weston. "What I've just
+discovered is worth a thousand lines. I can't explain why now, but the
+moment dinner is over you and I must stalk Netta Goodwin, and, without
+letting her know it, never take our eyes off her till afternoon school
+begins."
+
+Quite unconscious that two small spies had resolved to keep her
+movements under surveillance, Netta slipped away from her friends
+after dinner, and returned to the classroom. It did not take her long
+to finish her task; she had soon fastened her nineteen envelopes,
+then, concealing them in an exercise-book cover, she hurried
+downstairs. Miss Roscoe's study was still empty, and nobody seemed
+about, for Netta never noticed the cautious pair who were dodging and
+watching in her rear as cleverly as a couple of young detectives.
+After a hasty glance round the room she advanced to the Principal's
+desk, and deeming herself quite unobserved, rapidly exchanged the pile
+of envelopes there for those which she had brought with her. She gave
+one look of satisfaction at the substituted set--they were such an
+excellent imitation--and bore off the genuine ballot to the Fifth Form
+room. Ida and Peggie, with breathless interest, followed, and saw her
+putting the stolen goods into her desk; then, having witnessed as
+much as they considered necessary, they flew in hot haste to lodge the
+information with their own Form mistress. Miss Broughton, amazed at
+what they told her, sought Miss Roscoe, who summoned Ida and Peggie,
+and listened attentively to their story.
+
+"This must be enquired into promptly," she declared. "Come with me at
+once to the Fifth Form."
+
+The girls had just assembled for afternoon school when the Principal
+entered, bearing the substituted pile of envelopes, and accompanied by
+Ida and Peggie.
+
+For Miss Roscoe to arrive at such a time was an absolutely
+unprecedented occurrence. A dead silence at once reigned. Everybody
+wondered what had happened, and why Miss Roscoe should have brought
+the two children with her. The headmistress walked straight up to
+Netta's seat.
+
+"Netta Goodwin," she said, "such an extraordinary incident has just
+been reported to me that I feel it is my duty to investigate it
+immediately. I wish to see what you have here," and, throwing up the
+lid, she began to investigate the contents of the desk.
+
+Netta gave a gasp as if an earthquake had opened at her feet, and
+turned deathly white. She did not venture to say a word. All in the
+room waited in mute suspense, realizing that the matter must be of
+vital importance. With a sad face Miss Roscoe drew out the nineteen
+envelopes and compared them with those which she held in her hand.
+
+"I have a very serious charge against you, Netta Goodwin," she said
+sternly. "You were observed in the act of taking these letters from my
+study, and substituting a similar set which you had yourself written.
+Ida Bridge and Peggie Weston can testify that they themselves
+witnessed your deed. I have a strong suspicion of your motive, and I
+am going to open the envelopes to ascertain if I am correct."
+
+Putting each pile separately, Miss Roscoe rapidly tore open the two
+ballot sets, and glanced over them.
+
+"It is a peculiar circumstance," she remarked icily, "that in the
+original voting papers your name occurs only nine times, and in the
+substituted papers eighteen times."
+
+A wave of indignation passed round the Form. The girls at last
+understood the point, and realized the full significance of Netta's
+action. The excitement was intense, though awe for the headmistress
+forbade anybody to speak.
+
+"To make absolutely certain," continued Miss Roscoe, "we will take the
+voting again. Miss Douglas, will you kindly deal a sheet of exercise
+paper to each desk? Now I put everyone on her honour to repeat the
+names of the two candidates that she wrote this morning."
+
+For a moment the girls scribbled, then folded the papers and handed
+them to Miss Douglas, who went round the room to collect them. Miss
+Roscoe examined them attentively, and compared them with some figures
+she had jotted down.
+
+"They correspond absolutely with the papers which I have just found in
+your desk, Netta Goodwin! Ida Bridge, come here! It is only fair that
+Netta should hear your accusation. Tell me again, in her presence,
+exactly what you witnessed."
+
+"Please, Miss Roscoe," began Ida in her high-pitched voice, "I saw
+Netta come out of your study before dinner, and come here. I peeped
+round the door, and she was writing something on half-sheets of paper,
+and putting them inside envelopes. Then I told Peggie, and afterwards
+we watched her go into your study again and put her pile of envelopes
+on your table, and take yours away and pop them into her desk."
+
+"Do you endorse this statement, Peggie Weston?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Roscoe, it's quite true," murmured Peggie nervously.
+
+"Netta Goodwin, have you anything to answer in reply to this charge?"
+
+But Netta kept her eyes on the ground, and did not reply. Miss Roscoe,
+who was still standing beside the open desk, began to turn over some
+of the loose pieces of exercise paper which it contained, and shook
+her head as she noticed the names of various candidates scrawled in
+different handwritings, evidently for practice. Determined to
+investigate the affair thoroughly, she pulled out yet more papers, and
+among them a small roll fastened by a brass clip. At this she glanced
+with attention, then with marked surprise. "Netta Goodwin," she
+continued, "this is an entirely different matter, but one which I
+should like explained nevertheless. Last term you gained a prize for
+an essay on Thomas Carlyle. How is it that there is a manuscript of
+this essay in your desk, signed 'Gwen Gascoyne'? Yes, and in Gwen's
+handwriting, too, which I know well."
+
+Netta glanced hastily at Gwen, who had turned as red as fire. Perhaps
+feeling that she had already been so entirely exposed that an added
+circumstance would make little difference, and wishing to get Gwen
+also into trouble, Netta suddenly resolved to make a full confession.
+
+"I suppose I may as well tell everything," she volunteered sulkily.
+"Yes--I did want to get the tennis championship, and I altered the
+names because I didn't think I had a chance otherwise. About that
+essay, it was Gwen Gascoyne's. She wrote it, but she sold it to me for
+a sovereign."
+
+"And you passed it off as your own?"
+
+"I'd paid for it, so I just copied it. I couldn't see where the harm
+came in!" said Netta doggedly.
+
+"Netta Goodwin, have you absolutely no sense of right and wrong, or
+any vestige of conscience?"
+
+"I can't see that I'm worse than some other people," replied Netta,
+with a spiteful glance at Gwen.
+
+"Gwen Gascoyne, did you sell this essay to Netta?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Roscoe," gulped Gwen, covered with shame, and too much
+embarrassed to offer any explanation.
+
+"I shall have a word with you later on. Netta, by your own confession
+you admit appropriating a schoolfellow's work last term, and altering
+the voting papers this afternoon. Forgery is a very ugly word and one
+which I am sorry to use, but there is no other name for what you have
+done. In all the years of my headmistress-ship here such a thing has
+not occurred before. I have had unruly and disobedient girls
+occasionally, but in the whole of my experience never a girl so
+deliberately bad as you. It is well for the school that this has
+occurred, and that I have discovered your true character; your
+influence must have been most pernicious, and I can only hope that it
+has not already done harm. It is, of course, impossible for me to
+allow you to remain at Rodenhurst. It is the first time I have been
+obliged to expel a pupil, and I much regret the necessity, but I feel
+that to keep you would be to retain a source of moral infection. You
+will go home at once. Your books and any other articles belonging to
+you will be sent after you, and I shall write to your parents,
+informing them of the circumstances under which you have been sent
+away. I am grieved for the sorrow which I know it will cause them.
+Go!"
+
+Miss Roscoe pointed peremptorily to the door, and Netta, all her
+jaunty, self-confident airs gone for once, with downcast eyes that did
+not dare to meet the scorn of her schoolfellows, and white lips that
+quivered with passion, slunk ignominiously from the room. The
+Principal waited a few minutes to allow her time to go downstairs,
+then she ordered Ida and Peggie back to their own classroom, and
+turned with a sigh to Gwen.
+
+"You will come with me to the study," she said briefly. Gwen followed
+in a state of abject misery. Was she never to finish reaping that
+harvest of tares, the sowing of which she had already so bitterly
+repented. One initial slip had indeed plunged her into undreamt-of
+trouble.
+
+"Well, Gwen, you had better tell me all about this unhappy business,"
+said Miss Roscoe as soon as they were alone. "Let us get to the bottom
+of everything this time, and leave nothing concealed."
+
+Hard though it was to make confession, Gwen was almost glad to have
+the opportunity of doing so, and of at last setting straight the last
+threads of the tangled web she had woven. She felt that she would have
+told before about the essay if Netta had not been implicated, but her
+father had agreed that she could not in honour expose her
+schoolfellow. By skilful cross-questioning Miss Roscoe soon gathered
+the facts of the case.
+
+"I understand," she said thoughtfully; "I am glad you paid back that
+sovereign, Gwen! It gives me a higher opinion of you than I should
+otherwise have had. I judge that your own conscience and your father's
+disapproval have punished you so severely that I can add little more
+in the way of reproof. I can trust you not to do such a thing again.
+Do I now know absolutely the whole of that transaction?"
+
+"Every scrap!"
+
+"Then we will consider the slate wiped clean."
+
+"Thank you just a thousand times!" said Gwen, as Miss Roscoe with a
+nod dismissed her from the study.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+The Tennis Tournament
+
+
+Netta's expulsion naturally made a great sensation in the school. To
+prevent misconceptions Gwen told her classmates the entire story both
+of the breaking of the china and the selling of her essay. They
+already knew so much, that she felt it was better for them to learn
+the whole; they could then form their own judgment of the case, and
+decide upon what terms they would receive her back amongst them.
+
+"I'm fearfully sorry about it," she said in conclusion; "I know I
+don't deserve you to be decent to me."
+
+"I'm extremely glad you've told us," said Hilda Browne, acting
+mouthpiece for the rest. "It explains so very much. We never could
+understand why you were friends with Netta, and it made us think badly
+of you that you seemed so chummy with such a girl. But of course this
+accounts for it. I won't whitewash you, but since you're sorry, I vote
+we all agree to drop the thing."
+
+"Yes, anyone who refers to it will be a sneak," agreed Elspeth Frazer.
+"Gwen's made a fresh start, and it's not fair that any old scores
+should be raked up against her. Netta's gone, of which I'm heartily
+glad, and I hope now there'll be a better tone altogether throughout
+the whole Form."
+
+Elspeth mentioned no names, but she looked meaningly at Annie Edwards,
+Millicent Cooper, and Minna Jennings, and the three reddened beneath
+her glance. They were not bad girls, but they were weak, and under
+Netta's sway they had been very silly, and sometimes dishonourable.
+
+"We must all try and help each other to keep rules," said Hilda Browne
+quickly and tactfully. "I'm sure none of us like cheating, and that
+we'd every one be willing to promise to be absolutely square in our
+work, and in games and everything. Shout 'Aye!' those who agree."
+
+Eighteen voices were raised in unison, Annie's, Millicent's, and
+Minna's among the heartiest.
+
+"Carried unanimously!" said Hilda, with a sigh of satisfaction.
+
+"Now the matter's thrashed out, let's talk about tennis," said Edith
+Arnold. "Do you know, Gwen Gascoyne, that you were elected one of our
+Form champions?"
+
+"Oh! oh!" gasped Gwen.
+
+"Yes, you and Hilda Browne were the pair chosen, and we look to you
+both to win the trophy."
+
+"You take net, then, Hilda, and I'll take back," suggested Gwen.
+
+"Netta was certainly very good at back-balls," began Minna Jennings,
+but Elspeth Frazer struck in immediately:
+
+"Let us please agree that Netta Goodwin's name is not mentioned again
+in this Form. She's best forgotten. I think Hilda and Gwen will work
+together splendidly. They must practise as much as they can before
+Friday."
+
+Thus forgiven and reinstated both by Miss Roscoe and the Form, Gwen
+felt she had at last started quite anew, with her bygones to be
+remembered only as danger signals for the future. Her elevation to the
+proud position of Form champion half elated and half weighed her down.
+It was an enormous responsibility to have to compete for the trophy,
+and she hoped her play would justify the girls' choice. Friday
+afternoon was to be given up to the match, the Forms allowed to take
+part being the Sixth, the Fifth, the Upper, Middle, and Lower Fourth,
+handicaps, of course, being arranged by the Committee. The event was
+one of the chief excitements of the term, and when Friday arrived the
+whole school turned out to act audience. The Fifth was drawn to play
+first with the Lower Fourth, and in spite of a heavy handicap scored
+an easy victory.
+
+"Not much triumph in beating those kids," remarked Gwen. "They're
+simply not in the running."
+
+"Our trials are all to come," agreed Hilda. "We're against the Upper
+Fourth now, and if we beat them, then we may expect our tussle with
+the Sixth."
+
+"I'm shaking in my shoes already!"
+
+"Don't make too sure; the Upper Fourth are better than the Lower, and
+need taking seriously. We may lose on this."
+
+"I think the handicap's too big," grumbled Gwen.
+
+As Hilda had prophesied, the Upper Fourth proved adversaries worthy of
+their skill. Eve Dawkins and Myra Johnson were both as old and nearly
+as tall as Gwen, and they played up with grim determination. At first
+the score went against the Fifth, and the spectators watched with
+keenest interest, but in the end Gwen's swift serving told, and Eve
+and Myra retired vanquished. The Middle Fourth had already been beaten
+by the Sixth, so it was now the Final between Sixth and Fifth.
+
+"When Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug-of-war!" said Hilda.
+
+"I found a four-leaved clover this morning on the wold, and I've
+pinned it on to my dress as a mascot," returned Gwen.
+
+"May it bring us luck! though I believe in play more than in mascots.
+Keep as cool as you can, Gwen, and remember Olga's nasty balls."
+
+"I'll do my best, though I'm afraid you'll all rue choosing me for a
+champion," said Gwen, as she took her place.
+
+Geraldine French and Olga Hunter, their two opponents, were renowned
+players in the school, and very few of the lookers-on expected the
+Fifth to have any chance at all.
+
+"I'm afraid we'll lose!" sighed Edith Arnold.
+
+"Oh, we won't give up too soon!" declared Elspeth Frazer. "Geraldine
+is in form to-day, certainly, and Olga is serving swifter than I've
+ever known her before, but we haven't proved yet what Hilda and Gwen
+are capable of."
+
+It was Olga's serve. She sent one of her famous invincible balls,
+which hardly rose from the ground, and Gwen missed it. A suppressed
+cheer rose from the adherents of the Sixth. Gwen clenched her teeth
+hard, and watched for the next ball with the expression of a Red
+Indian. It skimmed over the net as swiftly as its predecessor, but
+Gwen was prepared this time, and returned it.
+
+"Well played!" cried the Fifth ecstatically.
+
+All four champions were on their mettle, and the fight that ensued was
+of the keenest. Gwen was not a graceful player, but, as her friends
+observed, she seemed capable of being everywhere at once, she was so
+extremely lithe and quick.
+
+"Very good! Excellent!" were the remarks that passed round at certain
+of the strokes.
+
+"I'd no idea Gwen had it in her!" commented Miss Trent.
+
+In spite of Gwen's exertions the first game fell to the Sixth. They
+were heartily clapped, and the Fifth began to look rather blue. Each
+side now played with extreme caution. They had taken one another's
+measure, and knew what they had to expect. Hilda Browne kept her nerve
+well, and her serves were acknowledged to be what the girls called
+"clinchers". As for Gwen, her arms seemed elastic. This time the Sixth
+were beaten, and the Fifth began to breathe.
+
+"It would be just too ripping if we really won!" exclaimed Betty
+Brierley.
+
+"We mustn't crow too soon, we're not out of the wood yet," returned
+Irene Platt.
+
+The excitement had risen to high-water mark. Some of the school were
+for the Sixth, and some for the Fifth, and their rival claims were
+discussed eagerly.
+
+"Try and think you don't mind, and then you'll be far less nervous,"
+whispered Hilda to Gwen.
+
+Gwen nodded. She had almost passed the stage of nervousness.
+
+"We can't do better than our best," she replied.
+
+Perhaps Olga and Geraldine were nervous too; they made one or two bad
+strokes which seemed to put them out considerably. Gwen, on the
+contrary, surpassed herself. Never in her life before had she played
+so well. She seemed able to take every ball in whatever awkward spot
+it landed. Thanks largely to her ubiquity, the set ended in the
+triumph of the Fifth. A tremendous clapping and cheering ensued. For
+three years the Sixth had held the trophy, so it was indeed an honour
+to have won it from their possession. Gwen and Hilda were absolutely
+feted by their Form, and even the vanquished Sixth had the magnanimity
+to praise their play.
+
+"Gwen Gascoyne is simply A1," was the general verdict. "She's a
+perfect surprise. We didn't know we'd anyone so good in the school."
+
+"Look here, Gwen, you and Olga will have to enter for the shield. You
+and she have proved yourselves far and away the best champions this
+afternoon," said Bessie Manners.
+
+"Compete for the shield!" cried Gwen, turning hot with pleasure at the
+bare idea.
+
+She and Hilda were called up then to receive the trophy, and bore
+away the silver cup with much pride. All the Form marched into the
+school to see it put in its place upon the mantelpiece of their
+classroom.
+
+"Well done, the old Fifth!" said Betty Brierley.
+
+"And hurrah for its champions!" added Rachel Hunter.
+
+To Gwen, though the winning of the trophy had been a wild delight,
+Bessie's hint was a cause of even greater excitement. Rodenhurst
+belonged to the County United Schools' Tennis League, which every year
+played a big tournament in Stedburgh. Ten different schools were in
+the league, four being from Stedburgh and the others from various
+places in the neighbourhood. Each sent their two best champions; the
+prize, a large brass shield mounted on oak, becoming for the year the
+property of the winners. Though Rodenhurst usually did fairly well, it
+had not been able to compete with some of the boarding schools in the
+district, and at each successive tournament had been obliged to see
+others bearing away the coveted honours. Last time the Radcaster High
+School had come off victorious, a circumstance particularly annoying
+to Rodenhurst, as they felt they had been beaten by day girls like
+themselves.
+
+"Boarding schools get more time to practise, and have always more
+courts in proportion than we have," so they grumbled. "One expects a
+boarding school to have an advantage, but we mustn't let the Radcaster
+High score over us again."
+
+The tournament always occupied a whole Saturday, and was held at the
+Stedburgh Pavilion Gardens, an excellent place for the purpose, for
+not only could the best-kept courts in the county be hired, but there
+was plenty of accommodation for spectators, and refreshments could be
+obtained at the restaurant, a consideration for those schools which
+came from a distance. It was necessary for entries to be sent in at
+once, and when, as Bessie Manners had suggested, Olga Hunter and Gwen
+Gascoyne were appointed champions, all Rodenhurst joined in approval
+of the choice.
+
+"But it's to-morrow week!" quavered Gwen.
+
+"You'll just have to practise like billy-ho!" said Betty Brierley, who
+was addicted to slang.
+
+Nobody dared to indulge in any very particular hopes. It was one thing
+to gain a Form trophy, but quite another to win the shield of the
+league.
+
+"I hear Miss Crawford's girls are in good form this year," said Rachel
+Hunter, who had a cousin at a school at the other side of Stedburgh.
+"Nell says they're pretty confident."
+
+"They won't beat those twins from Appleton House. Their serves were
+ripping," returned Betty. "I forget their names, but I sometimes see
+them on the Parade."
+
+"Unless they've gone off in their play."
+
+"Yes, of course--people occasionally do. One can never tell from year
+to year. Do you remember Freda Harmon? She swept everything before
+her, and then she grew too fat and was a dismal failure."
+
+"Would you like me to bant in case of accidents?" laughed Gwen.
+"You'd better weigh me daily, like they do jockeys."
+
+"There's a great deal in luck," said Charlotte Perry. "If you draw the
+crack school you may be done for straight away."
+
+Gwen practised her utmost during the brief week before the tournament,
+and congratulated herself that her play improved. She had her choice
+of rackets, for everyone was not only willing but anxious to lend her
+the best obtainable. She tried a selection, until she found the one
+that suited her best. It was the property of Natalie Preston, who
+gladly relinquished it in her favour.
+
+"If it wins the tournament I shall be proud!" declared Natalie.
+
+"'If' is sometimes an important word!" answered Gwen, with a dubious
+shake of her head.
+
+On the eventful Saturday every member of the Fifth and Sixth and
+numbers of the Juniors turned up at the Pavilion Gardens to watch the
+contest. Miss Roscoe and most of the mistresses were there, and many
+friends who were interested in the fortunes of Rodenhurst. Most of the
+other schools were equally well represented, so that the audience was
+a large one. Olga Hunter, who was a pretty girl with chestnut hair,
+looked charming in a white dress, and large ribbon knots of pink and
+light blue--the Rodenhurst colours--pinned beside her badge. Gwen, in
+plain serge skirt and low-necked muslin blouse looked prepared for
+business, if not so ornamental as her companion. Winnie had made her a
+little bouquet of roses and forget-me-nots to match her colours, and
+Beatrice had lent her a pale-blue belt for the occasion.
+
+"I haven't got a hobble skirt, at any rate!" laughed Gwen. "Do you
+remember that girl from Ravensfield last year, and how fearfully
+hampered she was?"
+
+Gwen was most tremendously excited at the greatness thrust upon her.
+To represent Rodenhurst at the tournament seemed honour enough even if
+she were vanquished in the very beginning.
+
+"I wish Dad could have been here!" she sighed.
+
+But neither Mr. Gascoyne nor Beatrice could spare the time on this
+particular Saturday, so Winnie and Lesbia were the only members of the
+family present.
+
+Rodenhurst had been drawn against Hetherby College for the first set,
+much to their relief, for Hetherby had no particular reputation. Gwen
+and Olga played carefully nevertheless, for, as Olga justly remarked,
+"You can never tell beforehand how a school may have improved." The
+Collegians were better, certainly, than last year, but their game was
+not up to much, and they were easily beaten. At the conclusion of the
+first round, Rodenhurst, being among the winning couples, drew again,
+and this time was matched against Appleton House. The twins of whom
+Betty Brierley had spoken were again champions, and proved no mean
+rivals. Gwen had an anxious moment or two when she thought the credit
+of Rodenhurst trembled in the balance, but by frantic efforts on her
+part and Olga's, the set was secured, and the twins conquered.
+
+"You're getting on splendidly!" said Bessie Manners at lunchtime,
+plying the so-far victorious pair with ham sandwiches and lemonade.
+"Everybody says Rodenhurst is looking up. I feel so proud of you!"
+
+"Too soon to rejoice! We haven't tackled Miss Crawford's girls yet,
+and then there'd be Radcaster," replied Gwen.
+
+"It makes one wildly hungry!" declared Olga.
+
+"You mustn't have more than four sandwiches and a bun, or it'll spoil
+your play," interposed Bessie, who considered herself in the light of
+a trainer for her special champions, and enforced her rules with
+Spartan severity.
+
+Olga sighed humorously, but obeyed.
+
+"There was a rumour that Ravensfield lost the shield one year on
+buns," she remarked. "I don't wish a like fate to befall Rodenhurst."
+
+It was immensely encouraging to hear that their play had attracted
+notice; they felt braced up for the next contest, and went back to the
+fray in quite good spirits.
+
+"One wants to strike the happy medium between faint heart and over
+confidence," said Olga.
+
+"I prefer to strike the ball!" laughed Gwen.
+
+There was no doubt that Rodenhurst was this year increasing its
+reputation by leaps and bounds. Instead of falling out among the early
+sets it had kept steadily on, and spectators began to speak of it as
+likely to carry off the prize. Radcaster had also done excellently, so
+when it came to a final struggle between those two rivals, the
+excitement of their respective adherents knew no bounds. The
+Rodenhurst girls could hardly keep still, and each held a handkerchief
+ready to wave in case of victory. That it would be a tremendous
+battle Gwen and Olga knew only too well. The Radcaster champions were
+the same girls who had won the tournament the year before, and many
+people deemed them invincible. They seemed inclined to hold that
+opinion themselves, for they glanced at their opponents with a rather
+superior and almost pitying smile. That look put Gwen on her mettle.
+"They shan't have it this time!" she murmured grimly as she took her
+place. Whether Gwen really excelled herself, or whether the Radcaster
+girls were a little tired or too secure of victory was a debatable
+point, but at the end of a splendidly played set Rodenhurst stood as
+the winner. The two successful champions turned to each other almost
+incredulously. The shield was theirs! A perfect storm of applause came
+from the crowd. The Rodenhurst girls were beside themselves with joy,
+and clapped and waved and hurrahed till they were hoarse.
+
+"Well done! This is indeed a triumph!" said Miss Roscoe, who hurried
+up to congratulate her victorious pair, looking as pleased as any of
+her pupils. This afternoon's success would wipe away the former
+reproach of the school, and lift it to a point of importance in the
+tennis league.
+
+"The shield will hang in the lecture hall!" rejoiced Bessie Manners.
+"It will be sent to us as soon as our name is engraved upon it."
+
+"I wish we could erase Radcaster!" said Gwen.
+
+"Oh! I like to see the names of the other schools upon it. It gives me
+all the more joy of present possession."
+
+"Gwen, you were just splendid!" declared Olga. "How you managed it I
+can't imagine, but you seemed to jump at the balls and catch them."
+
+"I'm a spread-eagle player, I know; not nearly so graceful as you,"
+laughed Gwen. "Well, I've 'done my possible', as the French say. Now I
+shall have to drop tennis and grind, for Miss Douglas has been
+grumbling most horribly, and declares she'd have stopped my being
+champion if she'd known how my prep. was going to suffer. It's been
+Latin and maths. versus tennis this last week."
+
+"She'll forgive you when she sees the shield!" chuckled Bessie
+Manners.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+Gwen to the Rescue
+
+
+It was now the middle of June, and the weather, even at Skelwick, was
+hot and enervating. There was thunder about, and frequent rain. It was
+trying for everybody. The constant heavy showers necessitated carrying
+mackintoshes to school, as if it were winter; the lawn was too wet and
+sopping for tennis, and most outdoor plans had to be abandoned. The
+boys, overflowing with high spirits, chafed at confinement to the
+house, and their noise was a serious impediment to Gwen, whose evening
+preparation was a matter of vital importance at present. It was
+impossible to get out of earshot in the little Parsonage, and though
+she retired to her bedroom and stuffed her fingers in her ears, Latin
+translation and mathematical problems were sadly disturbed by the din
+below. Gwen was working tremendously hard just now. Miss Roscoe had
+not yet announced the names of those who were to take the Senior
+Oxford. It was rather a curious notion of hers to preserve silence on
+the subject, for she was obliged to send in the entry forms for her
+candidates early in May, and must therefore already have made her
+decision. Her motive was to spur on the whole of the Fifth to equal
+effort. Her past experience had shown her that when a few top girls
+only were taking an examination, the rest of the Form was apt to slack
+and lose interest, and she considered there were several who, though
+not actually candidates, would benefit by the special preparation, and
+would make efforts on the chance of having been selected. Gwen did
+not, of course, know whether her name was on Miss Roscoe's private
+list, but she secretly cherished the possibility. She knew her work
+had improved; indeed that it was equal to that of anyone in the Fifth.
+There was no age limit for the Senior Oxford, and though she was the
+youngest in her Form, her fifteenth birthday would fall on the first
+day of the examination. Gwen was very ambitious; to be chosen as a
+candidate, and to pass with distinction, seemed a goal worth all the
+hard work of the school year. It brought visions of other and higher
+examinations in years to come; honours and scholarships which were
+waiting for those who had the pluck and the ability to win them, a
+rosy dream of college and university success on a distant horizon.
+
+"I'm going to be Gwen Gascoyne, B.A., somehow before I've finished,"
+she thought. "I've made up my mind to that!"
+
+It was just at this crisis that Beatrice caught a severe chill.
+She--the wisest at health precautions where others were concerned--did
+a series of exceedingly rash and foolish things, with the result that
+she was obliged most reluctantly to give in, and allow Dr. Chambers to
+be sent for. Though Beatrice tried to make light of her own illness,
+the doctor took a different view of the case, and greatly to her
+consternation ordered her promptly to bed.
+
+"I can't stop in bed! It's impossible!" she protested indignantly.
+"What's to become of the household? Nellie can't do everything;
+besides, she's no head, and she'd forget to feed the chickens, or
+she'd burn the bread, and let Martin tumble down the well if nobody
+was there to look after her."
+
+"Then one of your sisters must stop at home, for you've got to stay in
+bed!" commanded Dr. Chambers. "Yes, I insist, and if you won't obey
+me, I shall send for a hospital nurse to make you!"
+
+At this awful threat Beatrice subsided into unwilling obedience, only
+stipulating that her enforced retirement should be as brief as
+possible, and that she might be allowed to direct domestic affairs
+from her bedroom.
+
+"I suppose I can't stop you worrying over the household, but you're
+not to stir out of bed till I give you permission, and I'll probably
+keep you there for a fortnight. The rest will do you all the good in
+the world," replied the doctor. "As for managing without you, they'll
+just have to manage!"
+
+Dr. Chambers's autocratic orders were, of course, to be followed to
+the letter, everybody realized that; the only difficulty was how it
+was going to be done. The family held an immediate conclave on the
+subject in the invalid's room.
+
+"I suppose I shall have to stay at home," said Winnie, "though I
+hardly dare suggest it to Miss Roscoe. With Miss Roberts still away,
+it makes things doubly difficult. I'm already taking four extra
+classes, and who's to teach those, and my own as well? It's enough to
+disorganize the school."
+
+"Miss Roscoe would be furious if you stopped away!" said Gwen. "I
+don't see how you can."
+
+"I'll write to Cousin Edith, and ask if she can help us," suggested
+Mr. Gascoyne.
+
+"No, don't!" groaned Beatrice. "If Cousin Edith comes, I shall get
+straight out of bed, in spite of Dr. Chambers. I warn you I will! She
+and I don't get on."
+
+Nobody was anxious for Cousin Edith's presence, so the suggestion
+dropped.
+
+"A charwoman wouldn't meet the want," sighed Winnie. "It must be
+somebody who knows all the ropes of the household, or she'd be no use.
+Lesbia's too young; but how about Gwen? She ought to be able to
+manage."
+
+Gwen did not wait to hear Beatrice's reply, but bolted straightway to
+her own bedroom. The proposal was as unwelcome as it was unexpected.
+To stop at home now, for a whole fortnight, just when every moment at
+school was of such great importance! Why, such a proceeding might
+wreck every chance she had for the exam.! Of course she was not sure
+whether she was really a candidate, but she had a shrewd suspicion
+that she was one of the selected number. She wished Miss Roscoe had
+openly given out the names, then she would have known exactly what to
+do in the circumstances. Could anything be more exasperating? It was
+impracticable for Winnie to fill the breach; with one teacher short,
+Miss Roscoe could not possibly spare her, especially at such a busy
+time as the end of the term. Gwen realized that perfectly.
+Lesbia--little, childish Lesbia--would be about as much use as Stumps
+or Basil--why, she would be playing with Martin in the orchard while
+the fowls went hungry and Nellie burnt the bread. As for Cousin Edith,
+she was not a favourite with the Gascoynes, and the fact of her
+presence would be hardly conducive to the invalid's recovery.
+
+"I verily believe Bee would get up if she knew Cousin Edith were
+poking about downstairs," thought Gwen. "I know I ought to stay--but I
+can't, I can't! It means so much to pass that exam. It would be horrid
+to stop at home, too, with Bee in bed directing everything. If she
+were going away, and would leave me to it, I shouldn't mind. It's not
+the work I'm dreading. But I know Bee only too well. She'll ring a
+bell and have me up to her room every five minutes to ask how things
+are getting on, and what I've done and what I haven't done, and she'll
+worry, worry, worry, and scold, scold, scold the whole time. There'll
+be no credit in my slaving, not the least. No, I don't think it can be
+expected from me. It's too hard."
+
+Gwen made the last remark aloud, and she repeated it again
+emphatically, because she just happened to catch sight of the New Year
+motto that hung over her dressing table.
+
+     "Oh do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do
+     not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers
+     equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no
+     miracle. But you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall
+     wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come
+     to you by the grace of God."
+
+"I thought it meant school work," she said to herself. "But after all
+I suppose it means home work as well, or any kind of work that comes
+uppermost. I wonder if I could. Look here, Gwen Gascoyne, it's rather
+a big sacrifice, but you've got to make it for once. With four
+daughters, Dad has a right to expect somebody to keep the house
+comfortable, and just at this critical moment you're the only one
+available. It's hard, but it'll have to be. Your little ambition, my
+dear, must take a back seat for the present, while you go and 'wash
+dishes and feed the swine'. You'd better make the plunge and get it
+over!"
+
+Father and Winnie had adjourned to the garden, so Gwen hurried
+downstairs before she repented her resolution.
+
+"Dad! I believe I can manage, if Bee will let me try," she blurted
+out, for Gwen generally did things abruptly.
+
+Winnie drew a sigh of relief.
+
+"I believe you could, too," she said hastily, "and I've been telling
+Beatrice so. Miss Roscoe will think I'm playing her a very nasty trick
+if I stop away. She'd never forgive me. You're strong, Gwen, and you
+know all about the hens and the pigs, and you can keep an eye on
+Nellie."
+
+"Yes, try, childie. It will be a good practice for you--and there's
+nobody else," agreed Father.
+
+Thus it came about that Gwen entered upon an entirely new experience.
+She had, of course, helped in the house before, but only under
+Beatrice's personal supervision; it was quite a different matter to
+have to take the responsibility of the whole establishment.
+
+"Bother your sister as little as you can, I want her to have a
+complete rest," said Dr. Chambers. "You mustn't let her worry about
+what's going on downstairs."
+
+It was easy enough for the doctor to give orders, thought Gwen, but a
+difficult matter to carry them out. She was determined, however, to do
+her best, and she made a most heroic effort to be patient with the
+invalid. The fact was that poor Beatrice, who never spared herself,
+was overworked, and the hot, damp weather had affected her nerves. Dr.
+Chambers knew his patient when he prescribed a fortnight in bed, and
+was well aware that it was the only way of persuading her to take the
+rest she needed. At first Gwen's anticipations of a trying time were
+literally fulfilled. Beatrice's bell was ringing constantly, and she
+had to keep running up and down stairs and listening to endless and
+minute directions, and to answer a perfect catechism of questions as
+to how affairs were progressing in the kitchen. Nellie also was in a
+grumpy mood, and difficult to conciliate. She did not like having
+instructions sent to her through Gwen, and showed her resentment by
+clattering about the kitchen and banging doors. It required more tact
+than Gwen had ever made use of in her life before to keep the peace.
+Then Martin was no slight anxiety, for the little scamp thought he
+could take advantage of Beatrice's absence to get into as much
+mischief as a magpie, and Gwen hardly dared trust him five minutes out
+of her sight. Between Martin, household tasks, and certain parish
+duties which could not be omitted, there was plenty to be done, and
+the days seemed full from morning till night.
+
+Gwen had never before realized how very much lay in Beatrice's hands,
+and she began slowly to appreciate how heavy a burden her sister
+carried year in and year out, with scarcely ever a holiday to relieve
+the tension.
+
+"It's far worse than any amount of lessons," she thought. "Going back
+to school will be quite a holiday after this."
+
+One resolve Gwen had made, and stuck to with grim determination--to
+spend a certain time every day over mathematics and one or two other
+subjects in which she feared she was weak. She got Lesbia to bring her
+books from school, and every night, long after the latter was asleep,
+she would sit up in their joint bedroom studying. It was impossible to
+snatch five minutes during the day, but when the house was still and
+quiet it was easier to concentrate her thoughts, and she was surprised
+sometimes what progress she was able to make. Night after night she
+heard the clock strike twelve before she put out her lamp, and once
+even the early midsummer dawn stole in and caught her unawares. None
+of the family knew that she sat up working so late, or probably Father
+would have forbidden it, for it was certainly burning the candle at
+both ends. It was very difficult to rise at six o'clock and help to
+prepare breakfast when she seemed only to have had a few hours' sleep,
+and it was often a great temptation to ignore the alarum and turn
+over on her pillow. But having accepted the household drudgery, Gwen
+had enough grit to carry out her duties thoroughly, however unwelcome
+some of them might be, and to secure breakfast in time was a cardinal
+virtue at the Parsonage. To her credit she never once let the others
+start late for school, or forgot to place their packets of lunch
+ready, and Beatrice herself could not have been more solicitous about
+drying wet boots and stockings.
+
+"You're getting quite grandmotherly, Gwen," laughed Basil. "You never
+used to care about damp feet before. You're nearly as big a fusser as
+Bee. You made my cricket flannels look no end, though. I will say that
+for you."
+
+"I like Gwen's housekeeping, she puts so much jam in the tarts!"
+remarked Giles approvingly.
+
+"Gwen lets me feed the chickens my own self," said Martin with a
+satisfied chuckle. "And she mended my kite, too."
+
+"I wish you'd mend my blue print dress, Gwen," said Lesbia. "I tore it
+again at school yesterday. That last darn of yours was uncommonly
+neat."
+
+"Are they really getting to appreciate me more now I do more for
+them?" Gwen asked herself. "I never thought they cared an atom about
+me before. I was always the odd one at home. It's hard work, and a
+fearful trouble to do all those extra things, but oh!--it is nice to
+feel one's wanted."
+
+At the end of a fortnight Beatrice was decidedly better, but Dr.
+Chambers was still unwilling to allow her to come downstairs.
+
+"Best complete the cure while we're about it, and take another week in
+your room," he decreed. "If you begin to bustle round the house too
+soon, it may undo all the good of this enforced rest.
+
+"I feel such a slacker," groaned the invalid.
+
+After the doctor had gone the family held another conference in
+Beatrice's room.
+
+"I had a letter from Cousin Edith this morning," said Mr. Gascoyne.
+"She offers to come and take full charge, both of you and the
+household. What do you think, Bee? Had we better let her come for a
+while, just until you're fit to be about again?"
+
+"It isn't worth it for a week--and I mean to be down then, doctor or
+no doctor!" announced Beatrice, with characteristic firmness. "In the
+meantime I'd rather have Gwen than anybody, if she doesn't mind
+staying at home a few days longer. She's a kind little nurse, and
+she's kept things going wonderfully. I'd never have believed she'd
+manage so well."
+
+Gwen's eyes filled with tears. Beatrice, of all people in the world,
+to yield her so high a tribute of praise! Beatrice, who had been so
+captious and hard to please as she lay in bed giving elaborate
+directions, and whose fidgety ways had needed so much patience!
+
+"I'm glad if I've been of any use," she faltered.
+
+"Use! You've been a jewel. I don't know whatever we should have done
+without you," said Beatrice, catching Gwen's hand, and squeezing it
+hard. "Can you spare another week as general slavey? Miss Roscoe would
+quite understand."
+
+"I'll do anything you like, Bee," said Gwen, returning the squeeze.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+The Senior Oxford
+
+
+Gwen went back to school after three weeks' absence, fearing that
+every chance of the Senior Oxford must have faded into thin air. She
+had worked as well as she could at home, but it had not been the same
+as studying with a mistress, and she felt her deficiencies painfully.
+
+"There's no time to make things up now, either," she thought. "The
+exam. begins on the sixteenth, and that's actually next Monday. Oh
+dear! If only I were better up in maths! I know the chemistry'll stump
+me too. That's to say if I'm even allowed to go in at all!"
+
+On this last point her doubts were soon dispelled. At eleven o'clock
+she received a summons to the headmistress's study.
+
+"Well, Gwen," said Miss Roscoe. "It has been very unfortunate that you
+were obliged to stay away so long, but you must do your best,
+notwithstanding. I entered your name as a candidate for the Senior
+Oxford, so you will, of course, take the examination. Miss Trent has
+arranged to give you some extra coaching in the dinner hour every day
+this week, and I think you ought to be able at least to secure a pass.
+You're fairly certain all round."
+
+"Except in maths.," said Gwen.
+
+"Well, you must give all the time you can spare to that. But don't
+overdo the cramming. It's sometimes a fatal mistake to work early and
+late till your brain's utterly exhausted. I did that once myself and
+missed a scholarship through it. Take an hour at tennis every evening
+before you go to bed. Exercise is an absolute necessity if you're to
+be in form for next week. You're looking pale, and you mustn't break
+down before Monday. Tell your father to buy you a tonic."
+
+Miss Roscoe spoke kindly, more sympathetically indeed than Gwen ever
+remembered to have heard her before. She had a wide experience with
+girls, and could estimate their capacities to a nicety. She had chosen
+her candidates carefully, and would ensure that they were sent in well
+prepared. So far she had had few failures in public examinations, and
+every pass brought extra credit to the school.
+
+Five members of the Form were to take the Senior Oxford; Elspeth
+Frazer, Edith Arnold, Louise Mawson, and Betty Brierly, being the
+other four, all of them considerably older than Gwen.
+
+"We call you the five victims!" said Charlotte Perry. "I'm glad I'm
+out of it. I sang a jubilee last week when Miss Roscoe read the list
+and my name wasn't on it."
+
+"There were eight girls sent in last year," said Hilda Browne.
+
+"Yes, and two failed--Majorie Stevens and Daisy Wilson. I don't think
+Miss Roscoe has forgiven them yet."
+
+"Oh, dear! I'm afraid she'll be very down on me then," wailed Gwen.
+"I'm a doubtful quantity!"
+
+"You? Oh, you'll be all right! She'd never let you try if you
+weren't--trust her!" said Charlotte Perry, and the rest agreed.
+
+In spite of her schoolmates' assurances Gwen did not feel at all
+certain of success, and it was in very blue spirits and a state of
+woeful apprehension that she betook herself on the fateful sixteenth
+of July to the Stedburgh Town Hall, which was the local centre for the
+examination. It was her fifteenth birthday, and it seemed a funny way
+of celebrating the day. She had been so agitated that morning that she
+had scarcely been able to realize her presents, except the fountain
+pen which Father and Beatrice and Winnie had clubbed together to give
+her, and which she had brought with her to the exam. room.
+
+At her first paper, however, she cheered up a little. It was easier
+than she had expected, and though one or two questions were beyond
+her, the rest were well within her capacity. Her new pen flew over the
+sheets of foolscap, and if she was too nervous to do herself full
+justice she at least acquitted herself with credit. The time-table
+only allowed an hour between one and two o'clock for lunch, which was
+provided for the candidates in a room at the Town Hall. Gwen anxiously
+compared notes with Elspeth, Edith, Louise, and Betty, as they hastily
+demolished plates of beef sandwiches and drank tumblers of lemonade.
+On the whole she had done as well or even better than they, and she
+began to cherish hopes.
+
+As the week went on, Gwen, though not daring to be too sanguine,
+could not help feeling that her papers had reached a fair standard
+even in her weakest subjects. She had grown so accustomed to the
+examination room that she was no longer nervous and was able to
+express the facts she knew at their best advantage.
+
+"There!" she said, when she had at last handed in her final sheets.
+"It's a toss-up whether I'm through or not. I expect it depends on the
+temper of the examiner who reads my papers. I'll hope he'll get his
+dinner before he tackles them!"
+
+"Your writing's clear at any rate," said Elspeth. "Mine's such a
+scrawl I'm afraid that will be against me. Aren't you thankful the
+thing's over?"
+
+"Thankful hardly expresses my state of bliss."
+
+"It's rather sickening to have school exams, next week, after all
+this!" said Louise.
+
+"They'll seem a mere trifle compared with the Oxford!" declared Gwen.
+
+After the ordeal they had passed through in common the candidates were
+on terms of good comradeship, and with Elspeth Frazer Gwen felt there
+was a prospect of permanent friendship.
+
+The last days of the term passed rapidly away. To Gwen the great event
+of the school year was over. Though she did her best at them,
+Rodenhurst examinations were a matter of quite minor importance. She
+welcomed the breaking-up with intense relief. After the strain of the
+past few weeks the holidays seemed an imperative necessity. It was
+delightful to have a complete rest, to idle about in the garden or on
+the shore, or take long invigorating walks on the moors. It would be
+five or six weeks before she could hear the result of the Senior
+Oxford, so she was obliged to endure the suspense as best she could.
+
+In the meantime something happened--something so very unexpected and
+extraordinary that for a time it almost put even her examinations in
+the shade. It was Beatrice who told her the good news. Lately Beatrice
+had begun to treat Gwen as one of the grown-up members of the
+household, and to include her in their discussions of family affairs.
+
+"It seems almost too wonderful to believe," said Beatrice. "Old Mr.
+Sutton has resigned his incumbency of North Ditton, and do you know
+the living is to be divided, and Skelwick, Basingwold, Hethersedge,
+and Rigby are all to be one big new parish by themselves. And who's to
+be Vicar, do you think?"
+
+"Not Dad?" gasped Gwen incredulously.
+
+"Yes. It has been formally offered to him, and he's going to accept
+it. Oh! and, Gwen, the funny part is, do you know, that queer old
+gentleman you met upon the wold turns out to be Sir Benjamin Hazlett,
+the patron of the living."
+
+"He didn't look like a Sir Anything!" exclaimed Gwen. "He was the
+oddest, shabbiest, crankiest old fellow, and so inquisitive!"
+
+"I hear he's very eccentric, and of course one sees now why he asked
+so many questions. He'd actually never been at Skelwick before,
+although he's the patron, and nobody here in the village knew him. He
+told the bishop you'd suggested dividing the parish!"
+
+"I!" shrieked Gwen, "I wouldn't have dared to suggest such a thing. I
+only said it would be nice."
+
+"Well, you put it into his head, anyway. He said the idea had never
+occurred to him before, and he saw at once its extreme advisability.
+He talked it over with the bishop, and they both agreed it ought to be
+done. I suppose he came to church that evening to hear Dad preach, and
+judge for himself what he was capable of."
+
+"He evidently liked him. But who wouldn't?" returned Gwen. "Then Dad
+has refused Rawtenbeck?"
+
+"Yes; thank goodness we needn't go and live amongst chemical works and
+factory chimneys! The Diocesan Society's going to build an extra
+bedroom on to the Parsonage. Isn't that lovely?"
+
+"It will be the Vicarage now, if you please!" declared Gwen, rubbing
+her hands with satisfaction.
+
+That her father's hard work should be recognized and rewarded at last
+was indeed a triumph, and the thought that she had perhaps had an
+unconscious share in bringing this about added a special element of
+joy.
+
+"It was like entertaining an angel unawares!" she chuckled. "Though
+anybody less angelic-looking than poor old Sir Benjamin one couldn't
+imagine! I'm glad I took that solitary walk on the wold, Bee!"
+
+"So am I, as it happens, though it's the exception that proves my
+rule."
+
+The appointment to the new parish was indeed an important event for
+Mr. Gascoyne in more ways than one. It not only gave him a better
+position and larger opportunities of carrying on the work he had
+begun, but it meant also pecuniary benefit. The living of Skelwick was
+to be worth treble his curate's stipend, and though he was an
+unworldly man, his children's future was a necessary consideration. He
+would not be opulent, but he would now at any rate be free from money
+troubles, and the family could carry out many precious schemes which
+before had seemed mere dreams. The boys could be educated in course of
+time at Stedburgh Grammar School, Lesbia could take music lessons, and
+Gwen's visions of college might actually some day see fulfilment.
+Winnie could give up the teaching she hated and become housekeeper at
+home, that her elder sister might be free to take her training at a
+great London hospital, for Beatrice's heart was still set on entering
+the nursing profession.
+
+"You'll see me a matron yet!" she announced. "I warn you that I'm
+ambitious, and mean to get on!"
+
+"I'll be a B.A. by then, and we'll shake hands over our mutual
+success!" laughed Gwen.
+
+"Don't forget you promised to be a lady doctor and study at college
+with me!" put in Dick, who had become almost one of the family at the
+Parsonage.
+
+"You'll have to look out then, or I'll get ahead of you!"
+
+"You won't do that, madam! I'm going back to school next term,
+remember."
+
+Dick was fortunately quite strong again. The specialist who had
+examined him before declared he had outgrown his temporary delicacy,
+and even gave him permission to play football when the season began,
+as well as to recommence his work at Stedburgh.
+
+"I shall be sorry to lose my pupil," said Mr. Gascoyne. "The children
+will miss you here on Saturdays."
+
+"I'll see them all every day in the bus," returned Dick cheerfully.
+
+As the holidays wore on and it grew nearer and nearer to the time when
+she might expect to hear the result of the Senior Oxford, Gwen waxed
+impatient. The suspense was hard to bear, and seemed harder the longer
+she waited.
+
+"I want to be put out of my misery," she declared. "If I've failed I'd
+like to know and have done with it."
+
+"But you thought you'd done pretty well," said Winnie.
+
+"How can I tell? Every day I think of something more that I left out
+in my papers, and it makes me less and less hopeful. I've borrowed one
+of Dad's big pocket handkerchiefs all ready to weep into! I warn you I
+shall cry gallons if I've not passed."
+
+Miss Roscoe had arranged that a telegram should be sent to each of the
+candidates announcing the lists, and on the day when the news was
+likely to arrive the Gascoyne family haunted the rampart on the wall,
+watching eagerly for the advent of the telegraph boy. It was Basil who
+spied him first, and Giles who got to the gate quickest to meet him,
+and Beatrice who tore open the yellow envelope and read the message to
+the excited audience.
+
+"'First-class Honours, and Geographical Society's Silver Medal!'"
+
+Gwen nearly dropped on the grass.
+
+[Illustration: "IT WAS BASIL WHO SPIED HIM FIRST"]
+
+"Let me look at it!" she quavered. "Are you sure you haven't made a
+mistake, Bee?"
+
+"Here it is in black and white. Look at it yourself, then, you
+sceptic, and be convinced! I do congratulate you!"
+
+"Hip, hip, hooray!" yelled the boys with such vigour that their shouts
+aroused curiosity in the village, and several parishioners came to
+enquire the cause of the rejoicings.
+
+Gwen had known that the Royal Geographical Society offered two medals,
+one of silver and one of bronze, to the two Senior candidates who gave
+the best answers to the geography papers, but in her wildest visions
+she had never contemplated winning one of them. To come out first in
+all England in geography seemed an honour almost above the flights of
+ambition.
+
+"Miss Roscoe will be so rejoiced!" said Winnie. "She always thought
+you'd do well, Gwen. Why, you'll be a credit to the school. She'll
+boast about this silver medal for evermore. I expect it will go down
+in the prospectuses! You'll get coached up for a scholarship next,
+you'll see."
+
+"I still can't quite, quite believe it--it's too absolutely,
+perfectly, deliriously scrumpshus!" bleated Gwen hysterically.
+
+"Dad's big pocket handkerchief won't be wanted after all to dry your
+tears," laughed Lesbia. "Oh, there's Dad coming up the road now--go
+and meet him, Gwen, and tell him your own self!"
+
+The next prize-giving at Rodenhurst was a more than usually special
+occasion, for not only had four girls matriculated, but five had
+passed the Senior Oxford, two of them in the Honours Division. Gwen's
+medal was acknowledged the triumph of the school, and both pupils and
+mistresses spoke of her as likely to win more laurels in the future.
+
+"She's one of the best workers we have," said Miss Roscoe to the
+Mayor, who was acting chairman; "a very clever girl. I believe she has
+a career before her."
+
+As Gwen went up to receive her prizes and certificate the girls
+clapped and clapped till, not content even with the noise they were
+making, they broke into ringing cheers. Half-dizzy with emotion, Gwen
+returned to her place--these were the very same schoolfellows who,
+only one short year ago, had allowed her to walk down the hall without
+a sign of recognition or appreciation. From being the outcast of her
+Form she had risen to the height of popularity.
+
+"I always said, childie, that if you only bided your time and worked
+your very hardest, the girls would be proud of you in the end!"
+declared Father when the celebrations were over and the Gascoynes had
+returned to the Parsonage.
+
+"Oh, it was ripping to hear them all clapping and cheering, Gwen! And
+after last year, too--it's like a miracle!" exclaimed Lesbia
+rapturously.
+
+"Yes, that's just what it is--a miracle," said Gwen, thinking of the
+motto that hung on her bedroom wall.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+BY ANGELA BRAZIL
+
+     "Angela Brazil has proved her undoubted talent for writing a
+     story of schoolgirls for other schoolgirls to
+     read."--Bookman.
+
+A Patriotic Schoolgirl.
+
+     "A capital story for girls--breezy, healthy, and full of
+     interest."--Ladies' Field.
+
+For the School Colours.
+
+     "Angela Brazil knows what schoolgirls like to read and she
+     gives it to them."--Scottish Educational Journal.
+
+The Madcap of the School.
+
+     "A capital school story, full of incident and fun, and
+     ending with a mystery."--Spectator.
+
+The Luckiest Girl in the School.
+
+     "A thoroughly good girls' school story."--Truth.
+
+The Jolliest Term on Record.
+
+     "A capital story for girls."--Record.
+
+The Girls of St. Cyprian's: A Tale of School Life.
+
+     "St. Cyprian's is a remarkably real school, and Mildred
+     Lancaster is a delightful girl."--Saturday Review.
+
+The Youngest Girl in the Fifth: A School Story.
+
+     "A very brightly-written story of schoolgirl
+     character."--Daily Mail.
+
+The New Girl at St. Chad's: A Story of School Life.
+
+     "The story is one to attract every lassie of good
+     taste."--Globe.
+
+For the Sake of the School.
+
+     "Schoolgirls will do well to try to secure a copy of this
+     delightful story, with which they will be
+     charmed."--Schoolmaster.
+
+The School by the Sea.
+
+     "One always looks for works of merit from the pen of Miss
+     Angela Brazil. This book is no exception."--School Guardian.
+
+The Leader of the Lower School: A Tale of School Life.
+
+     "Juniors will sympathize with the Lower School at
+     Briarcroft, and rejoice when the newcomer wages her
+     successful battle."--Times.
+
+A Pair of Schoolgirls: A Story of School-days.
+
+     "The story is so realistic that it should appeal to all
+     girls."--Outlook.
+
+A Fourth Form Friendship: A School Story.
+
+     "No girl could fail to be interested in this
+     book."--Educational News.
+
+The Manor House School.
+
+     "One of the best stories for girls we have seen for a long
+     time."--Literary World.
+
+The Nicest Girl in the School.
+
+The Third Class at Miss Kaye's: A School Story.
+
+The Fortunes of Philippa: A School Story.
+
+
+LONDON: BLACKIE & SON, LTD., 50 OLD BAILEY, E.C.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Youngest Girl in the Fifth, by Angela Brazil
+
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