Page:Angela Brazil--the leader of the lower school.djvu/126

118 sneer or a slight, and could sometimes raise a laugh at Gipsy's expense among the more thoughtless section of the Form. Gipsy generally responded with spirit, but the gibes hurt all the same.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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