"Hares versus Hatters!" commanded Gwethyn. "You may duck and dodge, but anyone fairly hit is to be considered fallen. The bedrooms are trenches.

Remember, mum's the word, though!"

The battle began, and waged fiercely. The missiles flew hither and thither. Some of the girls were good shots, but others had the proverbial feminine incapacity for a true aim. There were wildly thrilling encounters, frantic chasings, and wholesale routs. In their excitement the combatants completely forgot the necessity for silence; they chuckled, groaned, hooted, and even squealed. Small wonder that, long before the fight was fought to a finish, an avenging deity in a dressing-gown appeared upon the scene and proclaimed a compulsory peace.

"Girls! Whatever are you doing?" demanded Viola. "You ought to be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves. Go back to your rooms at once! You know this kind of thing is not allowed."

The delinquents seized their missiles and beat a hurried retreat, while Viola, who was wise in her generation, sounded the bell as a signal for the rest of the school to rise and dress.

"They'll get into mischief again if I leave them larking about in their rooms, and it won't do anybody any harm to be up a quarter of an hour earlier for once," she decided. "But I'll see they put in the extra time at preparation. The young wretches!"

The head girl was as good as her word. She kept a stern eye on the sinners directly they appeared downstairs.

"The morning's a good time to work," she announced grimly. "If you're fond of early rising, I'll call you all every day at six, and arrange for prep. at half-past instead of at seven. No doubt you'd benefit by it."

The jokers, who had not calculated upon an increased allowance of school hours, sought their desks glumly. But there was a further trial in store for them. When they were seated at breakfast, Mrs. Franklin took her place at the table with an air of long-suffering and injured patience.

"Girls!" she began, in a martyred voice, "I have been most hurt, most pained, at what occurred this morning. Anything more thoughtless and inconsiderate I could not have imagined. I had pa.s.sed a bad night, and I was s.n.a.t.c.hing a short sleep, when I was awakened by an uproar that is without all precedent. When Ermengarde was here, such a thing never occurred. There was a different spirit abroad in the school. Every girl, even the youngest junior, was careful for my comfort, and would not have dreamed of disturbing me. I fear now an entirely selfish feeling prevails in the Fifth and Fourth Forms. I am grieved to see it. Our traditions at Aireyholme have been very high. I beg the standard may never be lowered."

No names were mentioned, but Hares and Hatters were conscious that the eyes of the rest of the school were fixed upon them with scornful reproach. They ate their breakfast in a state of dejection.

"I never dreamed Mrs. Franklin would take it that way!" mourned Rose afterwards to her fellow-delinquents.

"Diana Bennett says we are a set of brutes," sighed Beatrix ruefully.

She admired Diana, and winced under her scorn.

"The others were wild at getting extra prep. this morning. They're ready to take it out of us," remarked Susie.

"Look here," said Gwethyn, "I think the best way to settle the whole business will be to go and apologize to Mrs. Franklin. Say we didn't know she had a headache, and we're sorry. That ought to square things."

"Right-o! Then Diana may stop nagging."

At the eleven-o'clock interval a dozen girls reported themselves at the Princ.i.p.al's study, and with Rose as spokeswoman, tendered an embarra.s.sed apology. Mrs. Franklin was not inclined to treat the matter too lightly; she considered herself justly offended; but after listening with due gravity, she solemnly and majestically forgave them.

"I suppose I cannot expect all to be as naturally thoughtful and kind-hearted as Ermengarde," she added, "but I try to stand in the place of a mother to you here, and I hope to meet with some response."

I am afraid Mrs. Franklin would have been grieved again if she had heard the laughter that ensued when the girls were out of ear-shot of the study. They were really sorry to have hurt her feelings, but the mention of the impeccable Ermengarde was always a subject for mirth.

"I have it on absolute authority that Ermengarde once made another girl an apple-pie bed!" t.i.ttered Susie. "It was Nell Stokes who told me. She was at Aireyholme then, and slept in the same dormitory."

"What happened?"

"History doesn't relate. I should say Saint Ermie got disciplined and did penance. She wasn't canonized then!"

Although Mrs. Franklin was apt to be a little pompous and over stately, she was very good to the pupils on the whole, and they thoroughly respected her. They sympathized deeply with her anxiety for news from the war, where her two sons were serving their country. Many of the girls had brothers or cousins in the Army, and each morning an enthusiastic crowd collected to hear the items which Mrs. Franklin read out to them. They were not allowed to look at the daily papers for themselves, as Mrs. Franklin considered many of the details unsuitable for their perusal; but she gave them a carefully-edited summary of the course of events, with special particulars, if possible, of regiments in which they were interested. The occasional letters received by girls from relatives at the front were subjects for great rejoicing. They compared notes keenly over the experiences related. Katrine and Gwethyn scored considerably, for their brother Hereward was a fairly regular correspondent, and gave vivid accounts of his campaigning. It was at Gwethyn's suggestion that the school held what they called a "Heroes'

Exhibition". Every girl with a relative engaged in the war was requested to lend his photograph, any chance snapshots she might have of him, any newspaper cuttings narrating his achievements, and any of his regimental b.u.t.tons, if she were lucky enough to possess them. These contributions were arranged on a table with an appropriate background of flags and sprigs of laurel. A penny each was charged for admission, and catalogues of the exhibits were sold at one halfpenny. As all the girls, the mistresses, and three of the servants patronized the show, the sum of five shillings and twopence halfpenny was cleared, and put in the Belgian Relief Fund Box. Gwethyn had wished to add a compet.i.tion with votes for the handsomest hero, but Mrs. Franklin sternly vetoed the idea.

"It would have been ever such fun, and the girls would have loved it!"

Gwethyn a.s.sured her chums in private, "but of course I see the reason.

Mrs. Franklin's sons may be very estimable, but they're both plain, and of course Hereward's photo would have won the most votes; he's by far the best-looking!"

"You utter goose! That wasn't the reason," snubbed Rose Randall.

"Besides which, if it comes to a question of looks, your brother isn't in the running with my cousin Everard."

Gwethyn's fertile brain was continually at work. In spite of the madness of some of her propositions, she was really an acquisition to the Fifth.

She could always be counted upon for new suggestions, and on wet days she would invent games, get up charades, or engineer impromptu entertainments with the ingenuity of a variety manager. One afternoon the heavy rain prevented the girls from taking their usual outdoor exercise between dinner and school. Very disconsolately they hung about, grumbling at the downpour. Only the Sixth Form were privileged to use the studio on such occasions; the younger ones, flung on their own resources, killed time as best they could. The Fourth suffered more particularly, as it was their afternoon for the tennis courts, and they had had bad luck lately in the matter of weather on their special tennis days.

"I declare, I'm sorry for those poor kids!" said Gwethyn. "This is the third Wednesday their sets have been stopped. They are standing in the corridor, looking like a funeral. Can't we liven them up somehow?"

"All serene! Let's ask them into our form room and play games," agreed Rose. "Where are the rest of us? Jill, go and hunt up Susie and Beatrix. It's far more fun when there are plenty. I say, you kiddies there, come along and have some jinks! Pa.s.s the word on."

The juniors responded promptly to the invitation. They flocked into the Fifth room, and settled themselves anywhere, on desks or floor.

"What's the game?" they asked hopefully.

"It's quite a new one," explained Gwethyn, who had had a hasty private conference with some of her chums. "It's called 'The Oracle of Fortune'.

I'm to be blindfolded so that I can't see the least peep; then you're all to march round me in a circle. When I tap with this stick, you stop, and I point at somebody who comes forward."

"Oh, I know! French blind-man's-buff. That's nothing new!" exclaimed Madge Carter.

"No, it's not French blind-man's-buff," returned Gwethyn, so crushingly that Madge was sorry she had spoken. "I don't feel your faces while you giggle--it's something quite different. I tell your characters. If they're correct, you walk on. If I make a mistake, you may take my place as oracle."

"Who's to judge if they're right?"

"The general opinion!" frowned Gwethyn.

"But suppose----"

"Oh, suppress that dormouse!" exclaimed some of the March Hares. "Where is there a big handkerchief to bind your eyes? You mustn't have the least little teeny weeny sc.r.a.p of a peep-hole left. We'll take care of that."

Bandaged to the entire satisfaction of all spectators, Gwethyn took her place in the centre of the room, and the girls commenced to circle round her. At a rap from her stick they halted. She pointed blindly to an unknown figure, who stepped silently forward.

"List to the Oracle!" proclaimed Gwethyn dramatically. "Sweet temper, kindness, and modesty here go hand in hand. Pa.s.s on, gentle maiden, thou art worthy!"

Bertha Grant, a small and inoffensive junior, retired into the ring amid the applause of the audience, and the march continued. At the next halt Myrtle Goodwin, a particularly turbulent and mischievous member of the Fourth, responded to the rap.

"Whom have we here?" murmured the Oracle. "Alas! my inner sense tells me this is imp, not angel. Go and amend thy misdeeds. I feel the darkness of thy shadow."

Again a round of clapping certified to the correctness of the character given. The girls began to think the game rather fun. Laura Browne happened to be the next chosen.

"Fair on the surface, but false below," was the verdict. "The professed friend of everybody, but the chum of n.o.body. Full of promises, but shy of performance."

"She can see! She must be able to see!" shouted the girls, much struck by the aptness of the remarks.

"No, I can't. Not one hair-breadth. Look at my bandages for yourselves,"

declared Gwethyn emphatically (though she murmured "Done you, Laura Browne!" under her breath). "Does anybody imagine I can see through two silk handkerchiefs? I haven't Rontgen-ray eyes!"

The real fact was that Gwethyn and Rose had arranged beforehand a code of signals. The characters were to be of three cla.s.ses--good, moderate, and bad. When the march stopped and a girl stepped forward, Rose was to give her confederate the required information by means of a cough, a tap on the floor, or a laugh. For certain of the girls, special signals of identification had been arranged. Laura was one of these, and as luck would have it, the lot had fallen to her early in the game.