class="smcap">The Highway Woman

Illustrations

LOYAL TO THE SCHOOL

CHAPTER I

New Lamps

"The fault I find with the Kingfield High School," proclaimed Kathleen Wilcox, squatting on the top of a boot locker, and putting on a new pair of patent leather house shoes with a deliberate eye to their effect upon her surrounding friends and foes, "the fault I find—yes, I do find fault and I shall, Lesbia Ferrars, though you are the oldest pupil and take the school under your wing! You needn't make round eyes at me like that! I don't care twopence for your glares! Well, as I was saying—and I won't be interrupted—the fault I find with the Kingfield High School is that it's not nearly go-ahead enough. If you ask me I think it's dropping behind the times!"

"Dropping behind the times!" echoed Phillis Marsh in open-mouthed amazement.

"How far do you want it to go?" retorted Lesbia Ferrars, metaphorically picking up the glove and accepting combat. "It's as decent as any other school and nicer than most. Some people never know when they're well off! If you went to the King's College now you'd have twice the home work. Perhaps that's what you're hankering after? They're go-ahead in the matter of work, if you like, at King's!"

"No more home work for me thanks," put in Etta Pearson hurriedly. "Kathleen may take my share of it and welcome if her tastes run that way."

Kathleen leisurely put down two elegant feet from the locker, reviewed them with a glance of conscious satisfaction, then, grasping mental sword and buckler, condescended to explain herself.

"What a set of lunatics you are!" she said compassionately. "You're not bright, any of you, or you'd have twigged my meaning at once. Of course I don't want any more home work piled on our shoulders. I—of all people—to suggest that! Great Scott! What I do mean is that it's just lessons, lessons, lessons, eternally lessons, and not enough outside things. Some schools have all sorts of jolly clubs, and we've hardly a single decent society except the G. G. I. S. And what's that good for?"

"Good for nothing!" snorted Calla Wilkins scornfully.

"Well, it's all there is anyhow, and though some people may like to sit doing crochet while a teacher drones away reading an improving book, it's not in my line. I call it dull."

"Dull as ditch-water!" agreed Etta Pearson, with unction.

"We got through a whole heap of bazaar work at the G. G. I. S. though," objected Lesbia, who, though half sympathizing, felt bound to stick to her guns in the argument.

"I daresay we did! But even you can't pretend you enjoyed that rubbishy book Miss Yates used nearly to go to sleep over. I call it an insult to our intellects to read us such absolute 'bread and milk' twaddle!"

"I told Miss Yates we didn't like the book," admitted Lesbia.

"Yes, and she nearly snapped your head off and said you were always grumbling," added Calla. "I remember how she jumped on you."

"Well, to go back to my point," continued Kathleen, "here we are on the first day of a new school year. At any other school there'd have been great times. The 'King's' girls meet in the big lecture hall and have speeches and arrange all the clubs for the winter. That's what I call a 'coming back'. We don't come back, we only ooze back. We hang about on the stairs till a teacher says 'Oh, my dear, you're moved into Vb', or whatever the form is. There ought to be a proper reading out of the lists in the gym. Then each form would march to its own room and the thing would be done decently and in order. We're utterly and absolutely old-fashioned, and behind the times. That's what's the matter with the Kingfield High School."

"Humph! Something the matter with your own eyes I should say!" sniffed Aldora Dodson, who had just joined the group. "What about that notice stuck up in the hall?"

"What notice?"

"What notice?" mimicked Aldora. "You don't mean to tell me you all walked past it like blind bats, when it was there as large as life, and actually staring you in the face! If you want to know what it's about go and look at it! I can't waste my time telling you things you're too lazy to read for yourselves."

Aldora's advice, though administered in an uncomplimentary fashion, was sound. Without further parley the girls took it. They hurried from the cloakroom and tore into the hall, to discover the truth for themselves. Quite a crowd was collected round the notice board. It took a little while to elbow their way through. When at last they reached vantage spots, where by dint of craning their necks they could see between or over the heads of those in front of them, their eyes encountered a home-made poster, so large and conspicuous that it was certainly very extraordinary that they should have passed it by unnoticed.

"Hold me up! I'm fainting!" exclaimed Kathleen. "New? Did my eyes deceive me or are we actually going to have something new? Wonders will never cease."

"Good old Tatie!" purred Lesbia. "She's turning up trumps to-day."

"Don't congratulate yourself too soon, my child," admonished Calla, "you don't know yet what the new arrangements are."

"Take me to the gym at once," commanded Kathleen tragically. "I must have a front seat and know the best or worst. I'm simply palpitating till I hear. Are we to study Sanscrit or start a Cosy Café to supply refreshments at eleven? Tell me which, I beseech you. I can't wait."

"Come along, you mad thing," laughed Lesbia. "We're none of us any wiser than you are. Miss Tatham has got a surprise packet to spring on all of us, that's evident enough. Trust her to let