Angela Brazil

“ She hurried home as fast as she could, anxious to tell the tale of Gipsy's escape and her own adventure, and rather proud of her share in both. To her surprise her mother took an utterly different view of the case from her own.
"Gipsy run away!" cried Mrs. Gordon in great consternation. "And you changed dresses with her so as to help her? Oh, Meg! what have you done! You naughty, foolish, foolish girl! You little know the dangers you may have thrown her into. We must do our utmost to find her and bring her back this very evening. We should never forgive ourselves if any harm came to her. ”

“ Miss Lindsay read calmly on, quite oblivious of the fact that one of her pupils was crawling through the doorway on all-fours, and that the greater proportion of the rest were consciously aiding and abetting such a scandalous proceeding. Once she had gained the passage in safety, Gipsy sprang to her feet and ran with all speed to the linen room. As she expected, the light was still on, so she switched it off with supreme satisfaction, congratulating herself heartily that Miss Poppleton had not been before her. ”

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

“ I haven't had even a chocolate drop for three days," declared Lennie Chapman.
"Poppie never said I mightn't borrow a pan," returned Gipsy reflectively. "It would be a pity for you not to see Fudge made. I call it neglect of your education. I believe it's my solemn duty to try and teach you," and her eyes twinkled.
"A duty's a duty," urged Lennie with a disinterested air.
"It's a cruel rule that we may only buy sweets once a week," remarked Dilys Fenton. ”

“ Poppie didn't see your privileges! You'll have the pleasure of learning a whole page of French poetry to improve your mind, instead of playing hockey to-morrow!"
"I don't care!" said Gipsy, with an obstinate set to her mouth. "She may give me anything she likes, to learn. When folks are nice to me, I'll keep any number of rules; but when they begin to bully me, I just feel inclined to go and do something outrageous. I'm afraid there's not much love lost between Poppie and me." ”

“ I'm going to play a trick on her, Gladys. It'll be ever such fun! Listen!"
The two girls put their heads together, and laughed as Maude whispered her plan; then they both scuttled up to the empty classroom, and abstracting Gipsy's atlas from her desk, carried it downstairs to the lost-property cupboard, and hid it carefully under a pile of books.
"She won't find that in a hurry!" chuckled Maude.
"There'll be a fine to-do when she misses it," said Gladys.
"People who suffer from 'swelled head' just deserve a little wholesome medicine, to cure them of thinking too much of themselves. ”

“ Now that her crusade was successfully accomplished, Gipsy settled down to enjoy life at Briarcroft as well as the limited circumstances permitted. She had already made several warm friends among both the boarders and the day girls. Meg Gordon in particular was inclined to accord her that species of hero worship often indulged in by schoolgirls. She brought offerings of late roses or autumn violets from home, and followed her idol about the school like a love-sick swain. She would sit gazing at Gipsy during classes in deepest admiration, and was ready to accept her every idea as gospel. ”

“ Come along, you wild gipsy thing! Do you want the monitresses to come out and catch you? You'll get into a really big scrape some day if you're not careful."
"Some people are born wise and proper, and some are born otherwise. I'm one of the otherwise! It's my misfortune, not my fault," laughed Gipsy, as Lennie and Hetty dragged her forcibly away.
Gipsy's wild spirits were undoubtedly liable to lead her beyond the bounds of propriety, and both mistresses and monitresses were inclined, justly or unjustly, to suspect that she was at the bottom of any mischief that cropped up in the school. ”

“ Then I utterly forgot all about it."
"It must be a warning to you, Daisy, against carelessness—a warning to last you the rest of your life," said Miss Poppleton, relieving her feelings by improving the occasion. "Your thoughtless act has had the most unfortunate consequences. It's no use crying now" (as Daisy dissolved into tears) . "You can't mend matters. But I hope you'll take this to heart, and be more careful in future."
"If we could only find that poor, unfortunate child, Gipsy," sobbed Miss Edith, when the weeping Daisy had taken her departure. ”

“ Miss Poppleton, however, did not share the popular enthusiasm, and received her adventurous pupil with a scolding instead of congratulations.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Gipsy Latimer," she said sternly. "It's a mercy you were not killed. Understand once for all that I forbid such mad proceedings. If you have hurt your leg you had better go indoors. The sooner you learn that these are not Briarcroft ways, the better. This is a school for young ladies, not young hoydens!" ”

“ How is it you're the only one to forget? Been taken from your desk? What nonsense! Things don't lose themselves. If you were tidy, you'd be able to find your books. No, I'm not going to accept any excuses. You all know what you want for the lesson, and it's your own fault if you come without it. Lose two order marks for leaving your atlas behind, and a third for arguing! Will you never learn that the monitresses have some authority here?"
Very much snubbed, poor Gipsy went into the lecture hall, to be further rebuked by Miss Poppleton later on for the lack of her atlas. ”

“ They knew there was no time to be lost, so, swinging themselves over the balcony railings, they began creeping cautiously down the greenhouse roof. They had just about reached the middle when Meg, who was first, suddenly stopped with a stifled exclamation, and lay as flat and as still as she could. Gipsy naturally followed suit, and looking downwards saw the reason for the alarm. They were in horrible and imminent danger of discovery. Miss Poppleton herself had entered the conservatory below, and with a little watering can in her hand began to attend to her plants. ”

“ But she stuck tenaciously to her faith in her father.
"Dad promised to come back for me, and he will!" she said, with a gleam in her dark eyes.
"I'm afraid I know more of the world than you do, Gipsy, and it looks bad—very bad indeed!" replied Miss Poppleton, with a dismal shake of her head. "Some men are only too anxious to cast off their responsibilities."
Even Miss Edith, kind as ever though she was, seemed to take a gloomy view of the case. ”

“ As long as she sets me right with Poppie I don't care," returned Gipsy.
"She seems to want to be expelled," said Dilys.
"Poppie's pet won't be expelled, no fear!" laughed Hetty. "Catch Poppie parting with her millionairess! She's much too good an advertisement for the school."
"I think Poppie'll have somewhat to say on the subject, though!" remarked Dilys.
Both Dilys and Hetty proved right. Leonora was not expelled, but Miss Poppleton gave her a severe lecture on the error of her ways, and a warning against any further transgression of Briarcroft rules. ”

“ We must have our growls—it lets off steam. I think it's the wretchedest, miserablest, detestablest, most altogether sickening afternoon that ever was—there!"
"If only something would happen, just to cheer us up a little!" said Lennie Chapman, opening the window rather wider and putting her head out into the rain.
"What do you want to happen?"
"Why, something exciting, of course—something interesting and jolly, and out of the common, to wake us up and make things more lively." ”

“ Oh, how could anybody?" choked Gipsy.
Hetty Hancock seized upon the sheet, which had fallen to the floor, and after one brief glance at its contents turned upon Maude with blazing eyes.
"I never thought much of you, Maude Helm, but I didn't believe even you could have invented such a detestably mean, dastardly trick as this. You deserve to be boycotted by every decent girl in the school."
"It was only a joke," blustered Maude. "Everyone expects to be taken in to-day." ”

“ The great throb, like a pulsing heart to the vessel, that had never ceased day or night since they left Durban was suddenly still. The engines had stopped working. A moment afterwards her father burst into the cabin.
"Gipsy, child!" he exclaimed. "We must go on deck! Here, fling this coat round you! No, no! You can't wait to dress! We've sprung a bad leak, and the captain says we must take to the boats. Hold tight to my arm, and be a brave girl!" ”

“ I can tell you I'm just yearning for a canter."
"Nothing but a clothes horse here," remarked Dilys facetiously.
"Or the colt in the meadow beyond the hockey field," said Lennie.
"The colt! Of course I'd forgotten the colt!" exclaimed Gipsy rapturously.
"You'd never sit that wild thing! You'd have to ride him bareback. Even your wonderful cleverness can't do everything, I suppose!" said Gladys sarcastically.
"I can ride bareback," returned Gipsy. "It's nearly as easy as with a saddle." ”

“ The day girls would bring horses for us boarders to use (everybody rides out there) , and off we'd go, each with our picnic basket on our saddle, and have the very jolliest good time you could imagine. It worked off our spirits, and we'd come back to lessons as fresh as daisies and as meek as lambs."
"You get hockey here," objected Dilys, who generally stood up for Briarcroft institutions.
"Not enough of it," sighed Gipsy. "I like hockey, but it's nothing to a day's riding." ”

“ There's one girl I know who perhaps really couldn't undertake to make several things. We don't want her to feel uncomfortable."
Gipsy was not in the room at that moment, so Hetty was free to give her hint.
"If you mean Gipsy Latimer, I don't see why we should spoil the bazaar to spare her feelings!" returned Alice bluntly.
"I don't want to spoil the bazaar. I only thought we might do it some other way that wouldn't hurt her pride."
"What nonsense! People oughtn't to have such ridiculous pride!" expostulated Gladys Merriman. "I think Alice's idea is a good one. ”

“ Gipsy was in her element, marshalling, conducting, directing, and acting leader, while all the time taking her own part in the singing and dancing. As the members ranged themselves at the end, and wound up the programme with "God Save the King", she felt a thrill of delighted gratification. The Guild, which had begun under her auspices, and which she had so carefully fostered, seemed a well-established institution of the Lower School, likely to continue and flourish among the Juniors for many years to come. ”

“ But they reckoned without Gipsy. That any girl of her age should be capable of welding the shifting dissatisfaction of the Lower School into one solid mass of opposition had never occurred to them. So far no Junior had exercised any particular influence over her fellows; it had been each for herself, even in clamouring appeals for privileges, and the upper girls looked down on the "kids" as a noisy, selfish, troublesome crew, to be kept well under, and not worthy of very much consideration. ”

“ Yes, Gipsy!" exclaimed the girls, and a forest of hands went up.
"You'll have to take it, Gipsy," urged Hetty. "You're the most suitable of anybody. It's a new thing in the school, so it's best managed by a new girl. We should none of us understand how to do it. Besides, you suggested it. The whole plan of it is yours."
"Right-o, if you think I'm 'the man for the job'," agreed Gipsy.
Though she had not canvassed for the post, Gipsy was delighted to get the editorship. Running a magazine was work that exactly suited her. ”

“ I think there ought to be a law against naming a girl till she's old enough to choose for herself. Well, as I told you, I was christened Azalea, but everybody saw from the first it didn't fit. 'She's a regular little gipsy!' Dad said; so they called me Gipsy, and Gipsy I mean to be. I made Dad tell Miss Poppleton so, and enter me Gipsy on the school books. I wasn't going to start in a new place as Azalea."
"So you've been to school before?" said Dilys Fenton.
"Rather! I told you I've been to seven schools—three in America, two in New Zealand, one in Australia, and one in South Africa. ”

“ I'm afraid, myself, he must be dead."
"She's fighting a battle against fearful odds," said Hetty, shaking her head. "She's keeping her self-respect when most girls would have given way utterly. I suppose there's nothing to be done but just look on and admire her pluck. I should like to speak my mind to Poppie sometimes!"
"You'd do Gipsy no good, I'm afraid."
"I wonder Miss Edith doesn't stand up more for her."
"Miss Edith! She's a jellyfish—a crushed worm—a mere serf and vassal! She's frightened to death of her sister, in my opinion, and hardly dare call her soul her own. ”

“ Leave me to deal with them," said Helen, and turning on the Juniors with flashing eyes, she poured forth her scorn.
"Guilds of your own, indeed! Nice Guilds they'd be! Why, the meetings would be bear gardens. What do you know about how to conduct a Society? When I was a Junior I trusted to the wisdom of the Seniors, instead of listening to every newcomer who talked frothy nonsense. I tell you, it is the monitresses who are your best friends, and who can decide what's good for you. ”