ld me I might read Scott and Dickens instead. And I'd
just got to the interesting part! It's too idiotic!"

"I can't see why Veronica need act censor to all our reading," agreed
Katherine bitterly. "Why should we be allowed Jane Austen and not
Charlotte Bronte?"

"Little girls mustn't read love stories!" mocked Raymonde.

"But they're all love stories--Scott's and Dickens's and Jane Austen's
and everyone's! How about Shakespeare? There's heaps of love-making in
_Romeo and Juliet_, and we took that with Professor Marshall!"

"I don't think Gibbie ever quite approved of it. She thought it
indiscreet of the Professor, I'm sure, and likely to put ideas into
our heads!"

"Does she expect we'll go eloping over the garden wall? Perhaps that's
why she keeps such a vigilant look-out with the telescope!"

"It's quite bad enough to have Gibbie always on our trail," said
Ardiune gloomily, "but when it comes to Veronica turning watch-dog as
well, I call it an outrage!"

"I think Fifth-Form girls have responsibilities as well as
monitresses," grunted Raymonde. "It's not good for Veronica to take
life so earnestly! She'll grow old before her time. The Bumble's
always rubbing it into us to make the most of our girlhood, and not be
little premature women, so I vote we live up to her theory. It's
Veronica's last term here. She ought to be bubbling and girlish, and
carry away happy memories of her light-hearted school-days when she
goes out into the wide world to be a woman. I consider it's our duty
to look after this. The Bumble says the value of school life consists
in its 'give and take'. We're taking a good deal from Veronica at
present, so we must give her something back. Let's teach her to be
kittenish and playful."

The chums exploded. The idea of the serious-minded Veronica developing
a bubbling or kittenish manner was too much for them.

"We did pretty well when we took Maudie Heywood in hand," urged
Raymonde. "She's wonderfully improved. Never exceeds the speed limit
in her lessons, and if she writes extra essays she keeps them to
herself, and doesn't flaunt them before the Form. And there was
Cynthia Greene, too! We don't hear a word about The Poplars now, or
her wretched bracelet. It may be difficult, perhaps, but we'll do our
best with Veronica. We must regard ourselves as sort of
missionaries."

Having decided that it was their vocation to cultivate a spirit of
artless happiness in the school, the Mystic Seven s