d if you'd _only_ buck up and
be a bit more daring! You ought to take for your own the motto that
the Red Cross Knight found written up over the door of the castle--'Be
bold, be bold, be bold!'"

"It wasn't the Red Cross Knight; it was Britomarte," said Gerry, and
Muriel smiled approvingly at her for the correction. It was something
for Gerry even to dare to correct a quotation.

"Good for you, kiddie! So it was. Well, you get that thoroughly into
your head by next Saturday and act upon it, and you'll do all right."
And she hurried on her way, leaving a much inspirited Gerry behind her.

"She is a brick!" thought the girl enthusiastically, as she walked
slowly towards the Lower Fifth sitting-room. "I don't wonder all the
girls are so keen about her. I _will_ get that motto into my head, and
I _will_ play up and justify her choice of me for next Saturday, and I
won't let anything the other girls may say or do affect me! I'll just
keep saying the words over and over to myself whenever I feel inclined
to funk, and see if that won't make me braver. Be bold, be bold, be
bold!"

And then some lines of Longfellow's she had once heard came into her
head in the inconsequent way such lines do occur to lovers of poetry:

"Write on your doors the saying wise and old,
'Be bold! be bold!' and everywhere--'Be bold!'
'Be not too bold'--yet better the excess
Than the defect; better the more than less;
Better like Hector in the field to die,
Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly."

Gerry's face took on an expression of rigid determination as she
repeated the lines to herself. And, throwing up her head with a little
gesture of defiance, she said aloud:

"Well, I just _won't_ be a 'perfumed Paris' this time, whatever
happens!"

And with this bold resolve she walked into the sitting-room, and
settled herself down in her usual corner with a book, until the bell
should ring for prayers and bed.

CHAPTER XXII

THE DORMITORY FINAL

Saturday morning dawned at last. It was a splendid day for hockey,
fine and bright, with a touch of frost in the air, not enough to make
the ground hard, but just sufficient to dry up some of the worst of the
mud and to make it exhilarating to run about.

There was great excitement over the match throughout the school. Even
the girls who were not directly concerned in the results of the game,
either as members of the teams or occupants of the rival dormitories,
were