shook her head solemnly.

“New girls are notoriously callow,” she remarked, “but I should have thought anybody with the slightest grain of sense could have seen at a glance what Raymonde is. Why, she’s simply been playing ragtime on you. Did you actually and seriously believe that the girls at this school were expected to go through such idiotic performances? Don’t believe a word Raymonde tells you again.”

“Whom shall I believe? Everybody tries to stuff me!” wailed the injured Cynthia. “I never treated anybody like this at The Poplars.”

“Trust your common sense—that is, if you happen to have any; and, for goodness’ sake, don’t snivel any more. Wipe your eyes and take it sporting. And, wait a moment. If you want a bit of really good, sound advice, don’t mention The Poplars again, or the fact that you were head girl there, and the idol of the school, and the rest of it. You’re only a junior here, and the sooner you find your level the better. We’re not exactly aching to have our tone improved by you! And, look here! Take that absurd keepsake bracelet off, and lock it up in your box, and don’t let anybody see it again till the end of the term. There! go and digest what I’ve told you.” 32

Having settled with Cynthia Greene, it now remained for the Mystic Seven to turn their attention to the matter of Maudie Heywood. The situation was growing acute. Maudie had been ten days at the Grange, and in that brief space of time she was already beginning to establish a precedent. She was a tall, slim girl, with earnest eyes, a decided chin, and an intellectual forehead. Work, with a capital W, was her fetish. She sat during classes with her gaze focused on her teacher, and a look of intelligent interest that surpassed everyone else in the Form. Miss Gibbs turned instinctively to Maudie at the most important points of the lesson. There was a feeling abroad that she sucked in knowledge like a sponge. Nobody would have objected to her consuming as much as she liked of the mental provender supplied had she stopped at that. Maudie unfortunately was over-zealous, and finding the amount of preparation set her to be well below the limit of her capacity, invariably did a little more than was required. Her maps were coloured, her botany papers illustrated with neat drawings, her history exercises had genealogical tables appended, and her literature essays were full of quotations. This was all very exemplary, and won golden opinions from Miss Gibbs, but it caused heartburnings in the Form. It was felt that Maudie was unduly raising the standard. Miss Gibbs had suggested that other botany papers might contain diagrams, and had placed upon the class-room chimney-piece a book of poetical extracts suitable for use in essay-writing.

“If we don’t take care we’ll be having our prep. doubled,” said Aveline uneasily. 33

It was decided to reason with Maudie before taking any more active measures. The united Seven tackled her upon the subject.

“I promised Mother I’d work,” urged Maudie, in reply to their remonstrances.

“But you’ve no need to work overtime,” objected Ardiune. “We don’t mind how hard you swat during prep., but it isn’t right for you to be putting in extra half-hours while the rest of us are in the garden. It’s stealing an advantage.”

“It’s a work of supererogation,” added Katherine.

Maudie wrinkled up her intellectual forehead anxiously.

“Works of supererogation are supposed to count,” she interposed in her precise, measured voice.

“Yes, if they’re done with intention for somebody else!” flared Raymonde. “But yours aren’t! They’re entirely for your own pride and vanity. Do you come and translate my Latin for me in those extra half-hours? Not a bit of it!”

“Oh, that wouldn’t be fair!” Maudie’s tone was of shocked virtue.

“It’s more unfair to heap burdens on the rest of your Form.”

“I’m bound to do my best.”

“The fact is,” burst out Aveline, “you’re suffering from an over-developed conscience. You’ve got an abnormal appetite for work, and it ought to be checked. It isn’t good for you. Promise us you won’t write or learn a word out of prep. time.”

Maudie shook her head sadly. Her grey eyes gleamed with the enthusiasm of the martyr spirit. 34

“I can’t promise anything,” she sighed. “Something within me urges me to work.”

“Then something without you will have to put a stop to it,” snapped Raymonde. “We’ve given you full and fair warning; so now you may look out for squalls.”

When preparation was over, the girls were allowed to amuse themselves as they liked until supper. Most of them adjourned to the garden, for the evenings were getting longer and lighter every day, and the tennis courts were in quite fair condition. It was Maudie’s habit to take a pensive stroll among the box-edged flower beds in the courtyard, and then repair to the class-room again to touch up her exercises. On this particular evening Raymonde, with a contingent of the Mystic Seven, lingered behind.

“We’ve just about ten minutes,” she announced. “Old Maudie’s as punctual as a clock. She’ll walk five times round the sundial and twice to the gate.”

“That girl’s destined for the cloister,” said Aveline pityingly. “She’s evidently thirsting to live her life by rule. Mark my words, she’ll eventually take the veil.”

“No, she’ll pass triumphantly through College and come out equal to a double-first or Senior Wrangler, or something swanky of that kind, and get made head mistress of a high school,” prognosticated Ardiune.

“In the meantime, she won’t swat any more to-night!” grinned Raymonde. “Wait for me here, girls; I’ve got to fetch something.”

Raymonde performed her errand with lightning 35 speed. She returned with a lump of soft substance in one hand, and a spirit-lamp and curling-tongs in the other. Her chums looked mystified.

“Cobblers’ wax!” she explained airily. “Brought some with me, in case of emergency. It’s useful stuff. And I just looted Linda Mottram’s curling apparatus from her bedroom. Don’t you twig? What blind bats you are! I’m going to stick up Maudie’s desk!”

Raymonde lighted the spirit-lamp and heated the tongs, then spreading a thick coating of the wax along the inside edge of the desk, she applied the hot iron to melt it, and put down the lid.

“It will have hardened by the time Maudie has finished her constitutional among the flower beds,” she giggled. “I’ll guarantee when she comes back she won’t be able to open her desk.”

“It’s only right for her to feel the pressure of public opinion,” decreed Ardiune. “We’re working in a good cause.”

“But we’re modest about it, and don’t want to push ourselves forward,” urged Raymonde. “I vote we go for a stroll down to the very bottom of the orchard, near the moat.”

A quarter of an hour later, Miss Beasley and Miss Gibbs were sitting together in the Principal’s study enjoying a well-earned period of repose and a chat. Their conversation turned upon the varied dispositions of their pupils.

“Maudie Heywood strikes me as a very earnest character,” observed Miss Beasley, toying with the violets in her belt. “Her work is really excellent.”

“Almost too good,” agreed Miss Gibbs, who was perhaps beginning to find out that Maudie’s 36 exercises took twice as long to correct as anybody else’s, and thus sensibly curtailed her teacher’s leisure. “The child is so conscientious. In my opinion she needs to concentrate more on physical exercise. I should like to see her in the tennis courts