Page:Angela Brazil--the leader of the lower school.djvu/149

Rh her approving teacher would frequently beckon her on to the platform with the invitation:

"Dear friendt, com here and show ze ozers how you do open ze mouz."

The letters "th" were an impossibility to Fräulein's German tongue, and the girls giggled continually at the "z's" that replaced them. Gipsy was not at all proud of being forced to set an example to the class, and would ascend the platform with an ill grace, and look the reverse of flattered at the encouraging pats that were bestowed upon her shoulders. Really Fräulein had the kindest heart in the world, and tried, in her heavy fashion, to be on excellent terms with her pupils, but she did not in the least comprehend the mind of the British schoolgirl.

"She treats us exactly as if we were kindergarten babies!" sneered Hetty Hancock. "I don't know how German girls of our age would enjoy her silly jokes, but I think she's a rotter!"

"And she's so sentimental!" hinnied Daisy Scatcherd. "I nearly had a fit when she began to troll out that love song, with her hand laid touchingly on her heart."

"That sort of rubbish may go down in the Fatherland, but it doesn't here."

The girls had waxed restive at many of the Lieder which they were obliged to learn, but when Fräulein turned up one morning with a volume of songs of her own composition, their discontent verged towards mutiny.

"Ze original vords are, of course, in German," explained Fräulein, "but I have had a translation made