Page:Angela Brazil--the leader of the lower school.djvu/81

Rh "Easy enough. Gipsy's anything but a favourite with the monitresses after this Guild business, and they'd be only too delighted to drop on her if they found a reasonable excuse."

"So they would, and Gipsy's hardly what you call a bread-and-butter Miss!"

"I should rather think not! She's ready for any amount of fun. She's bound to come into collision with Helen Roper sooner or later. I shall give her a hint that she'd better look out."

Gipsy was getting along famously in the Upper Fourth. Though some of the work was rather different from what she had been accustomed to in her former schools, she was a bright girl, and managed to fill up her deficiencies with tolerable ease. In one or two subjects she was actually ahead of her Form, and in all practical matters she had a mine of past experience to draw upon. She approved of her Form mistress, Miss White, adored the Swedish drill mistress, tolerated the German governess, and detested the French master. For Miss Edith she was disposed to reserve a very warm place in her heart, but she frankly disliked Miss Poppleton.

"There are headmistresses and headmistresses," she said. "Of course one expects them to stand on a pillar above the common herd, but some of them condescend to peep down below. Now Poppie doesn't. I'd as soon think of going to the man in the moon, and telling him I felt homesick or headachy or worried about anything, as I should to her. Much she'd care! She'd tell me not to report myself till I was sent for! Now