ily called 'The Mafia,'" vouchsafed
Carmel.

"Then let us call ours 'The Chilcombe Mafia.' No one will understand
what we mean, even if they get hold of the name. Indeed I shouldn't mind
casually mentioning it now and then, just to puzzle them. When things
get bad, 'The Mafia' will take them up."

"Strike secretly and suddenly!" agreed Dulcie with a chuckle.

"Let's sign our names at once!" declared Phillida enthusiastically.

At Carmel's suggestion, however, they made rather more of a ceremony of
the initiation of their new order. The prospective members retired into
the wood above the garden, and in strict privacy took an oath of
secrecy and service. Then, with Edith's fountain pen filled for the
occasion with red ink, they inscribed their autographs on a piece of
paper, rolled it up, placed it in a bottle, then solemnly dug a hole,
and buried the said bottle under a tree.

"It will be here for a testimony against any girl who breaks her oath!"
declared Phillida. "Carmel says the real Mafia sign their names in
blood, but I think that's horrid, and red ink will do quite as well.
Just as I was coming out now, Laurette said to me; 'Oh, don't go running
away, because I want one of you younger ones to do something for me
presently.' She said it with the air of a duchess!"

"Cheek!" agreed the others. "It's high time we made up a society against
her!"

Many and various were the offences that were laid to Laurette's score.
Lilias had a private grievance, because she fancied that Laurette had
never been so civil to herself and Dulcie since it was known that their
brother was not to inherit the Chase. Gowan, who liked plain speaking,
accused Laurette of telling "fiblets"; Bertha had had a squabble over
the bathroom, and Prissie a wrestle for the piano.

"Laurette always reminds me of that rhyme that the undergrads made up
about the Master of Balliol," said Edith.

"'Here come I, my name is Jowett,
All there is to know, I know it;
I'm the head of this here College,
What I don't know isn't knowledge!'

That's Laurette's attitude exactly. She's so superior to everybody!"

"We'll take her down, don't worry yourself!" smiled Dulcie. "We must
just wait for a good opportunity, and then----"

"The secret hand will smite!" laughed Carmel, who enjoyed the fun as
much as anybody.

Laurette's aggravatingly superior pose was especially apparent in her
attitude towards the mistresses. She monopolized Miss