Page:Angela Brazil--the leader of the lower school.djvu/158

148 "I know, but it was rather horrid. Her story's quite romantic, don't you think?"

"Can't see much romance about our homely German Sausage!" giggled Daisy Scatcherd.

"Put a bunch of forget-me-nots in her hair, and she'll look a heroine!" tittered Norah Bell.

"Yankee Doodle, when you ride a hobby you ride it to death! What's induced you to take such a sudden and violent affection for the Sausage?"

"You'll be standing perennially on the platform now, holding your teeth like a dentist's advertisement, to show us how to 'open ze mouz'!"

"I wish you'd revise the schoolbooks and cut out the difficult parts!"

"Go on! Rag me as much as you like. I don't care!" retorted Gipsy sturdily.

"I've brought this picture of a sausage," piped one of the smaller girls. "I'm going to pin it on to the piano. She knows we call her 'Sausage'! She'll be in such a rage!"

"You little horror!" said Gipsy, seizing the picture and tearing it into shreds before the eyes of its enraged owner.

On the whole, though her championship was treated as a joke, Gipsy's influence had a beneficial effect, and the general behaviour in the singing class began steadily to improve. Her Briarcroft songs were appreciated, and the girls sang them lustily and trolled out the chorus with vigour. The tunes were very catchy and bright, and everybody seemed constantly to be humming them, in season or out of season.