Page:Angela Brazil--the leader of the lower school.djvu/68

60 Seniors to rule. But they reckoned without Gipsy. That any girl of her age should be capable of welding the shifting dissatisfaction of the Lower School into one solid mass of opposition had never occurred to them. So far no Junior had exercised any particular influence over her fellows; it had been each for herself, even in clamouring appeals for privileges, and the upper girls looked down on the "kids" as a noisy, selfish, troublesome crew, to be kept well under, and not worthy of very much consideration.

The Annual Meeting of the Guilds was to take place on Friday, 15 October, at three o'clock, in the lecture hall. It was held every year on the Friday nearest to the middle of October, and by old-established custom the last hour of the afternoon was allowed to be devoted to it. The mistresses were never present, and the girls, under the superintendence of the monitresses, were permitted to make any arrangements they thought fit, so long as they did not interfere with the ordinary school rules. Though the meetings had begun in good faith, as representative assemblies for all alike, they had degenerated into a merely formal statement of accounts by the Committee, which the general rank and file were expected to pass without comment, and an election of officers chosen almost entirely from the monitresses. There were favourites, of course, among the candidates, but their number was so limited that they did not even take the trouble to canvass for votes, each one feeling nearly sure of being elected to fill one, if not more, of the numerous posts in the many Guilds. The Fifth,