the course of
my life. She ought to have a Form all to herself, instead of being
plumped into the Fifth. I see dangerous possibilities in Maudie. Do
you realize what she did this morning? Learnt the whole of that
wretched poem instead of only the twenty lines that were set us."

"I heard Gibbie complimenting her, and thought she'd get swelled
head."

"Swelled head indeed! It's the principle that's involved. Don't you
see that if this girl goes and learns whole poems, Gibbie'll think we
can do the same, and she'll give us more next time. It's raising the
standard of work in the Form."

"Great Minerva! So it is!"

"We'll have to put a stopper on that," urged Aveline indignantly.

"There are a good many things that have given me spasms since I came
back," proclaimed Raymonde. "They're things that ought to be set
right. What I vote is, that our set form ourselves into a sort of
Watch Committee to attend to any little matters of this sort. It would
be a kindness to the school."

Ardiune chuckled softly.

"By all means! Let us be the Red Cross Knights, and go out to right
the wrong. We'll attack Duessa straight away, and teach her to mend
her morals. You'll let Val be in it?"

"Rather! And Fauvette and Katherine. Seven's a mystic number. You know
there were the Seven Champions of Christendom, and there are the Seven
Ages of Man, and the Seven Days of Creation, and seven years of
apprenticeship, and--and----"

"Seven deadly sins!" suggested Aveline cheerfully. "And the Seven
Vials--and----"

"Well, anyhow it's always seven, so we'll make ourselves into a
society. We'll have a star with seven rays for our secret sign. It has
a nice occult kind of smack about it. When we chalk that mark upon
anybody's desk, it means we've got to reform her, whether she likes
it or whether she doesn't."

"She probably won't," twinkled Ardiune.

"Then the sooner she submits the better. She'll find it's no use
fighting against fate--otherwise the Mystic Seven!"

"We'll start business with Cynthia Greene to-morrow," decided
Aveline.

Fauvette, Valentine, and Katherine were duly informed of the existence
of the new society and their initiation thereinto. They offered no
objections, and indeed would have been prepared at Raymonde's request
to join a Black Brotherhood, or a Pirates' League with a skull and
cross-bones for its emblem. A special committee meeting was held to
discuss the matter of Cynthia Greene.

"It needs finesse,