he funniest English, but
she was awfully brave, and once a man from Serbia. He was in the Red
Cross and he told us a terrible story about the state of the Serbian
children. We held form meetings the Monday following and voted to give
up candy for a whole term, all of us, and we sent the money to him for
the relief work. I think it's the nicest time of the week."

Judith too was coming to look forward to that last hour of the school
week, very often to schoolgirls a wasted hour at the fag end of things.

This Friday an Old Girl was to speak to them. Miss Meredith held that a
school like York Hill, in order to justify the time and effort, the
money and brains, the service and consecration put into it, should send
out girls who would be leaders and workers in everything which would
make for the betterment of the community in which they lived, and
unconsciously the Nancys and Judiths of the School, through these Friday
morning glimpses of the great world of service, would be steadily and
surely prepared for the part which they were to play. Social service, as
such, was not talked about; most girls dislike what they call
"preachments," but when Form Four decided to make baby clothes as a
Christmas shower for the creche where an Old Girl worked, and when Form
Five promised a woolen sweater from every girl for the Fourteen Club at
the University Settlement, social service became a real and vital fact
in their lives. For, as Judith learned, knitted sweaters mean work, and
wool costs money, which had to be deducted from an already painfully
shrunken allowance, and baby clothes, although fascinating and cute,
represent many hours of careful stitching.

Meanwhile the seeds planted on Friday mornings grew and flourished until
"Noblesse oblige" became a natural and an actual attitude towards life.
Social service of some sort or other, after one left school, was an
established fact like unlimited tea-parties and dancing partners. And
Miss Meredith and many of her staff made it the business of their lives
to see that it should be social service of the right kind.

About once a term the Old Girls' Association provided a speaker. Miss
Meredith had entertained many distinguished guests who had spoken in Big
Hall, but none were made more welcome than the Old Girls, for the Head
Mistress knew the appeal which they alone could, and did make. To-day
the speaker was to be Ruth Laughton, a nursing sister decorated for
gallantry by the King.