Page:Angela Brazil--the leader of the lower school.djvu/95

Rh "We never thought you'd really do it."

"Is that so? Well, when I allow to do any special thing, I guess I admire to see it through!"

"Oh, you Yankee!" roared the others.

Though the girls laughed at her Americanisms and Colonial ways, and often teased her about them, Gipsy continued as great a favourite as ever, she took all the banter so good-temperedly, and returned it so smartly. There was always a delightful uncertainty also as to what she would do next, and the prospect of an exciting interlude by "Yankee Doodle", as she was nicknamed, was felt decidedly to relieve the monotony of the ordinary Briarcroft atmosphere. Not that Gipsy really ever meant to behave badly; but, accustomed as she was to the free-and-easy conduct of her up-country Colonial schools, she found it almost impossible to realize that what would have been tolerated there with a smile was in her new surroundings counted a heinous crime. The silence rules and the orderly march in step from classroom to lecture hall filled her with dismay. She appeared to expect to be allowed to tear about the passages, talking at top speed, even in school hours, and many were the admonitions she incurred from indignant monitresses.

"A fine model you are for the Lower School!" said Doreen Tristram sarcastically one day. "Can't even walk decently in line, and prance about for all the world like a monkey tied to a barrel piano!"

Doreen had taken the defection of the Juniors much to heart, and could not forgive the leader of the opposition.