Illustrations

THE HEAD GIRL AT
THE GABLES

CHAPTER I

A Momentous Decision

It was exactly ten days before the opening of the autumn term at The Gables. The September sunshine, flooding through the window of the Principal's study, lighted up the bowl of carnations upon the writing-table, and, flashed back from the Chippendale mirror on the wall, caught the book-case with the morocco-bound editions of the poets, showed up the etching of "Dante's Dream" over the mantelpiece, and glowed on Miss Kingsley's ripply brown hair, turning all the silver threads in it to gold. Miss Kingsley, rested and refreshed after the long summer holiday, a touch of pink in her cheeks and a brightness in her eyes, left as a legacy from the breezes of the Cheviot Hills, was seated at her desk with a notebook in front of her and a fountain pen in her hand, making plans for a fresh year's work.

Miss Janet, armed with a stump of pencil and the back of an envelope, ready to jot down suggestions, swayed to and fro in the rocking-chair with her lips drawn into a bunch and the particular little pucker between her eyebrows that always came when she was trying to concentrate her thoughts.

"It really is a difficulty, Janet!" said Miss Kingsley. "A suitable head girl makes all the difference to a school, and if we happen to choose the wrong one it may completely spoil the tone. If only Lottie Carson or Helen Stanley had stayed on! Or even Enid Jones or Stella Hardy!"

"It's hard luck to lose all our best senior girls at once!" agreed Miss Janet, biting her stump of pencil abstractedly. "But if they're gone, they're gone."

"Of course!" Miss Kingsley's tone savoured slightly of impatience. "And the urgent matter is to supply their places. It's like making bricks without straw. Haven't you any suggestions? I do wish you'd stop rocking, it worries me to hear your chair creak!"

Miss Janet, seasoned by thirty-five years' acquaintance with her sister's nervous temperament, rose and walked to the window, where she stood looking out over the sunlit tennis court to the bank of exotic shrubs that half hid the blue line of the sea. There was a moment's pause, then she said:

"Suppose you read over the list of 'eligibles', and we'll discuss their points each in turn."

Miss Kingsley reached for a certain black-backed shiny exercise-book and opened it. The entries were in her own neat hand.

"There will only be eight girls in the Sixth Form this term," she volunteered. "Taking them in alphabetical order they are: Nellie Appleby, Claire Bardsley, Claudia Castleton, Vivien Forrester, Lorraine Forrester, Audrey Roberts, Dorothy Skipton, and Patricia Sullivan."

Miss Janet smiled.

"First of all you may cross off the last," she suggested.

"Decidedly. Patsie Sullivan as head girl would be about as suitable as—as——"

Miss Kingsley paused for an appropriate simile.

"As making Charlie Chaplin Archbishop of Canterbury!" finished Miss Janet with a chuckle.

"It's unthinkable! Most of the others are soon weeded out too. Nellie Appleby and Claire Bardsley—good stodgy girls, but quite unfit for leadership—Claudia Castleton, a new girl, so of course not eligible; Audrey Roberts—could you imagine silly little Audrey in any post of trust? It really only leaves us the choice between Lorraine Forrester, Vivien Forrester, and Dorothy Skipton."

"In last term's exams these three were fairly equal," commented Miss Janet.

"So equal that I shan't take the results of the exams into consideration. It must be a question of which girl will make the most efficient head. Each has her points and her drawbacks. Take Vivien, now: she's smart and capable, and would revel in exercising authority."

"Too much so. I should be sorry for the school with anyone so domineering as Vivien Forrester at the head of affairs. She's too forward altogether, and inclined to argue and pit her opinion against that of the mistresses. If she were singled out for special office, I believe she'd grow insufferable. Dorothy Skipton, with all her faults, would be preferable to Vivien."

"And Dorothy has faults—very big ones too!" sighed Miss Kingsley. "I never can consider Dorothy to be absolutely straight and square. I've several times caught her cheating or copying, and she's not above telling a fib if she's in a tight place. She's clever, undoubtedly, and decidedly popular, and in that lies the greatest danger, for a popular head girl whose moral attitude is not of the very highest might ruin the tone of the school in a single term. I'm afraid Dorothy is too risky an experiment."

"Then that leaves only Lorraine Forrester?"

"Yes—Lorraine."

Both the sisters paused, with the same look of puzzled doubt on their faces.

"She's a child I never seem to have got to know thoroughly," said Miss Janet. "I must say I've always found her perfectly square and a plodding worker. She has given very little trouble in class."

"Not so brilliant, perhaps, as Vivien, but, on the whole, more satisfactory," commented Miss Kingsley. "I agree with you that we have never really got to know Lorraine. She's a very reserved girl, and hasn't pushed