Page:Angela Brazil--the leader of the lower school.djvu/222

210 "Come in and I'll tell you. But you'll have to whisk out pretty quickly if we hear Poppie's fairy footsteps in the passage. We must listen with both ears open while we talk."

"Trust me! Oh, Gipsy, we're all so sorry for you!"

"You believe in me, then? How does the school take it?"

"Variously. Some are for you, and some are against. Dilys and Lennie and Hetty of course stand up for you hard, and funnily enough so does Leonora. She took your part this morning quite hotly, and had such a quarrel with Maude and Gladys that she won't speak to them. I didn't think Leonora would have behaved so decently. The Seniors are very dubious, especially Helen Roper."

"Yes, Helen lashed into me when she brought my dinner. She's always ready to think the worst of me."

"Poppie's furious," continued Meg. "She says you're only making your punishment worse by obstinate falsehoods, and she means to make an example of you."

"What's she going to do?" asked Gipsy with apprehension.

"I don't know—she didn't condescend to tell us."

"Look here, I'm sick of the whole business!" said Gipsy bitterly. "I'm not wanted at Briarcroft. Poppie'd be only too delighted to get rid of me. I'm not going to stay here any longer to be ordered about and scolded, and accused of things I've never done. I'll run away. If you can climb up the greenhouse roof, I can climb down it."