"You'll be rid of me on Sat.u.r.day and Sunday, remember," returned Avelyn bitterly.

At this crisis, the clamour of the gong for tea fortunately put an end to an extremely embarra.s.sing situation. The four room-mates fled, leaving their new companion to follow them to the dining-room as best she could. When she entered, they were already seated at table, and did not look in her direction. She took a seat next to a complete stranger, who indeed handed her the bread and b.u.t.ter, but vouchsafed no single word of conversation.

When the meal was over, the original inmates of the Cowslip Room retired to a secluded portion of the garden, and held an indignation meeting.

For the first frenzied five minutes they allowed their wrath full swing, and vibrated between a dormitory strike and writing to their parents to beg for instant removal from the school. Then reason rea.s.serted itself, and decided the impracticability of both methods. Previous experience had shown them that their head mistress was a tough dragon to tackle, and scarcely likely to be coerced by even the best organized dormitory strike, while in her heart of hearts each knew that, after paying her term's fees in advance, her father would need some very solid cause of complaint to justify so extreme a measure as a return to the bosom of the family. They began to discuss the matter more sanely.

"The fact is, she's here, and I suppose we can't get rid of her,"

admitted Irma.

"After all, she's a boarder!" ventured Ethelberga.

"Only a weekly one," qualified Janet.

"And a Hawthorner!" added Laura.

"She said she hadn't been to school since last Christmas," commented Ethelberga.

"Why, so she did! Then she's had a sort of a break from The Hawthorns, and in a way she's making a fresh start here."

"I suppose so."

"If she'd be loyal to Silverside, though we could never like her, we might bring ourselves to tolerate her."

"A boarder's a boarder!"

When the girls returned to the Cowslip Room, they found their new companion with emptied box putting the last of her possessions into her drawers.

"Look here, Avelyn Watson," said Laura. "We've been talking you over.

Although you go home for the week end, you're still a boarder, and at Silverside boarders are a very different thing from day girls, as you'll soon find out. If you've had two whole terms away from those Hawthorners, just forget them, and consider yourself entirely one of us.

If you do that, we'll count you on our side; but if you've anything to do with day girls, we'll cut you dead."

"I don't quite understand," returned Avelyn.

"You soon will!" said Janet significantly.

"I advise you to think it over," added Laura.

CHAPTER II

An Invasion

The changes which were taking place this term at Silverside certainly marked a new era in its traditions. Up till now it had been essentially a boarding school. There had, indeed, been day girls, who had shared the cla.s.ses and some of the games, but they were in the minority, both in numbers and in influence. They had had no part in the various guilds and societies, and had been made by the boarders to feel that they were inferior beings who did not count. The mistresses, themselves resident, had been accustomed to view the boarders as the more important factors, and arranged everything to suit their convenience. It had been the unwritten code of the school that to be a boarder meant to procure preferential treatment.

Miss Thompson, however, was a level-headed woman, who marched with the times. When the opportunity arose of acquiring the connection of The Hawthorns, the large day school at the other side of the town, she closed with the bargain, and decided upon an entire change of tactics.

Henceforward Silverside was to be run as _the_ girls' day school of Harlingden. The house was large, its accommodation had hitherto exceeded the needs of the pupils, there was plenty of room for added numbers, and even in war-time it would be possible to run up a corrugated iron or portable wooden building to serve as lecture hall and gymnasium. The big garden already contained several tennis courts, and there was a field close at hand which might be rented for hockey. Altogether, Miss Thompson congratulated herself that she had performed a most excellent stroke of business, and she looked forward to establishing a very flourishing educational centre, and to laying by a comfortable provision upon which she might retire when the burden of teaching grew too heavy for her to bear.

Certainly, Silverside was most excellently situated for the purpose she had in view. The property had been bought some years before the town of Harlingden had expanded, and while land was still cheap. The house stood in its own beautiful grounds, on the top of a hill commanding a fine view over the estuary. It was breezy and healthy, with large lofty rooms, big windows, and ample accommodation in the way of side doors and bathrooms: just sufficiently in the country to allow of walks through fields and woods, yet near enough to the town to permit most girls to return home for their mid-day dinners. As a day school, it was far more conveniently situated than The Hawthorns. Harlingden, formerly a moderate-sized and not particularly important town, had since the outbreak of the war been turned into a great munition centre; the Government, attracted by the advantages of the estuary, had established large permanent works there, together with a shipbuilding industry. In a few short years the population had doubled. Fresh suburbs sprang up like mushrooms. In the Silverside district this was particularly noticeable, for where formerly there had been quite a rural walk between hedges, leading to the town, there now stood rows of neat villas with stuccoed fronts and balconies, and conspicuously new gardens.

The boarders at Silverside, who preferred country to town, greatly deplored this suburban growth. They had always begged to take their walks in an opposite direction, and had ignored Harlingden and its industries as persistently as possible. The advent of about fifty day girls into Silverside they regarded as neither more nor less than an alien invasion. They sat together in a tight clump when school opened at nine o'clock on Wednesday morning. Until the new gymnasium could be erected, it was difficult to find a room large enough to accommodate everybody. The old drawing-room had been emptied of furniture and fitted with forms, and here, by sitting very close, the girls managed to cram themselves in for the opening ceremony. Miss Thompson, elated at heart, but more stately and dignified than ever in manner, addressed her pupils in a short speech.

"As Silverside is entering on a new chapter of its career," she began, "I should like to put before you all, as briefly as possible, what I consider to be the ideals of the school. Those who have been here some years already know our traditions, but it will do them no harm to hear them again, and those of you who are new will, I hope, understand, and be prepared to accept them with equal readiness.

"First of all, we stand for Work. We are living in very strenuous times, and it is the duty of all who love their country to do their best. Every faithful struggle with your lessons here makes you more fit to help your country by and by. If you have no ambition for yourselves, remember that you are part of a great nation, and as such you must not slack, but do your bit to raise the general standard of education. You'll find there's a joy and a satisfaction in mastering rules of arithmetic or irregular verbs, when you feel that you are doing it not only for yourselves but for the general good. Then there are certain other things for which Silverside has always stood--truth and straightforward dealings, and a spirit of unity and of loyalty to the school. We have striven to establish a high tone here, and at all costs let us preserve it.

"This term there is a very large proportion of new girls, and hence a big opportunity for everybody. There will be inevitable changes, and much pioneer work to be done, and each girl may find a chance of taking a share in consolidating our traditions. I trust that old and new will join hands and do their utmost to work together harmoniously for the good of the school, and the influence which, through you, it may exercise on the community later on."

At the end of Miss Thompson's speech the girls separated, and went to their cla.s.s-rooms. At the eleven o'clock "break" they poured into the garden. They stood about in little groups, eating packets of lunch, and talking. Adah Gartley, Isobel Norris, and Joyce Edwards, the three eldest boarders, kept together. To them presently advanced two of the invaders, a ruddy-haired girl of perhaps seventeen, and a stout, dark-eyed girl a trifle younger.

"Our names are Annie Broadside and Gladys Wilks," began she-of-the-chestnut-locks. "If we'd stayed on at The Hawthorns, one or other of us would have been head this term. You look about the oldest of the old lot here, so perhaps you'll tell us how this school's managed.

Do you have monitresses, or prefects, or what? Miss Thompson didn't mention a word about that in her speech. We'd like to know."

Adah glanced at her rather superciliously.

"We've never had anything of the sort here," she replied.

Annie Broadside's eyes grew round with amazement.

"What? No prefects or monitresses? How in the world did you manage, then?"

"We didn't find them necessary," maintained Adah stiffly.

Gladys Wilks whistled, and looked eloquently at her friend.

"Of course it was a very small school," she remarked, "so I dare say you somehow muddled on; but _now_--surely there'll have to be something of the sort inst.i.tuted?"

"Those juniors will give trouble if there's no one to tackle them,"

added Annie. "Just look at them over there!"

The juveniles in question were certainly behaving with a lack of decorum entirely foreign to the former atmosphere of Silverside. They were, in fact, engaged in jumping over Miss Thompson's most cherished flower beds, with disastrous consequences to the pet geraniums and calceolarias.

"The little hooligans!" exclaimed Adah, rushing to the rescue of the unfortunate flowers. "Here, get away, you kiddies! this sort of performance isn't allowed. Stop, this minute!"

The five long-legged children who were making a display of their jumping agility called a temporary halt, and stared aggressively at Adah.

"Who says it's not allowed?" enquired a pert ten-year-old, who was evidently the ringleader.

"_I_ do."

"Are you a teacher?"

"No."

"A prefect or a monitress?"

"No."