Page:Angela Brazil--the leader of the lower school.djvu/41

Rh leave to run out and buy a pan, and some sugar, and a few other things. I reckon there's a store handy, and I wouldn't be gone ten minutes. There's heaps of time before nine."

Miss Poppleton gasped. She had grasped the fact, at the beginning, that Gipsy was likely to prove an unusual pupil, but she had not anticipated such immediate developments.

"What you ask is perfectly impossible," she replied. "The boarders here are never allowed to go out alone to do shopping."

"So some of them told me last night, but I didn't believe them. I thought they were ragging me because I'm new, and I'd best ask at headquarters," returned Gipsy. "I wouldn't lose my way, and I'm accustomed to taking care of myself. I'd engage you'd find you could trust me."

"That's not the question at all, Gipsy. I cannot allow you to break school rules."

"Not just this once?"

"Certainly not. If I made an exception in your case, the others would expect the same privilege."

"Is that so?" said Gipsy slowly. "It seems a funny rule to me, because in Dorcas City we might always go to the store if we reported first."

"You're not in America now: you'll have to learn English ways here, and English speech too. You must make an effort to drop Americanisms, and talk as we do on this side of the Atlantic."

Miss Poppleton's tone was rather tart, and her mouth twitched ominously. Gipsy's eyes twinkled.