Page:Angela Brazil--the leader of the lower school.djvu/25

Rh we're not allowed to make toffee except on the 5th of November. They let us have a pan then, and we boil it over this fire."

"We'll have a pan of our own here," said Gipsy cheerily. "I'll go out and buy one to-morrow. I can't exist without Fudge."

"But we aren't allowed to go out and buy things," exclaimed the girls in chorus.

"Do you mean to tell me we mayn't go on the least scrap of an errand if we ask leave?"

"Not if you ask ever so!"

"Why, that's dreadful! I can't be boxed up like that. I'd as soon be in prison. I'm afraid you'll find me walking out on my own sometimes."

"You'll get into an uncommonly big scrape if you do!"

"Dad warned me I'd have to be very prim and proper in England," said Gipsy, looking serious, "but I didn't know things were as bad as that. I'll begin to wish I hadn't come here. Oh dear! we were going right through to Chicago if we hadn't been shipwrecked, and I love America."

"Shipwrecked!" shrieked the girls. "Do you mean to tell us you've been in a real wreck?"

"Only just come from it," replied Gipsy calmly. "A very wet, cold, unpleasant affair it was, too! Especially in only one's nightdress! Every rag of clothing I possessed went to the bottom. Dad had to rig me out again at Liverpool. That's why I've come to this school in such a hurry. Dad lost his papers, and had to go back to South Africa, and he