night."

"What does Miss Oakley want me for, Jack?" Gerry inquired, as Jack
hurried her through the passages. But Jack only mumbled something
indistinctly under her breath, and Gerry was obliged to control her
curiosity until the Great Hall was reached.

The girls were drawn up in the Hall as usual, but, rather to Gerry's
surprise, Miss Oakley was not there. Instead, Muriel Paget occupied
the post of honour by the door. Muriel had been making a speech, it
seemed, though it was not until some time afterwards that Gerry learned
what it was all about. Then it was Jack who told her.

"She'd got permission, you see, from Miss Oakley to tell the girls that
you weren't the least little bit of a German, that your father had been
an ambassador or something, and that you'd lived in Germany when you
were small, and that was how you learned to speak their beastly lingo
so well, and that you hadn't done any of the sneaky things we thought
you had--that they were all accidents the whole way through," Jack
informed her friend some days later during one of their _tete-a-tete_
walks, which soon became a regular proceeding.

When the two girls entered the Great Hall, Muriel intercepted Gerry and
retained her beside her, while Jack slipped away to her own place
amongst the rest of the Lower Fifth.

"Gerry," said the head girl, raising her voice so that every word she
spoke could be heard at the farthest end of the Hall, "we've been
talking about you, and I've been explaining some things about you to
the girls. And Miss Oakley said we might ask you to come down so that
we could tell you a little of what we think of you--not only for your
courage in stopping poor old Bruno this afternoon, and probably saving
any amount of people from being bitten--but also for all the pluck
you've shown this term under very trying circumstances."

Then, as Gerry turned suddenly crimson with embarrassment, the head
girl turned to the expectant school.

"Now, then!" she called. "Three cheers for Geraldine Wilmott! 'German
Gerry' no longer! Hip--hip--hip----"

"Hurrah!" shouted the school, and the cheering went on for so long that
Muriel had to intervene at last.

"That's enough," she said, holding up her hand for silence. "There's
something else I want to say. I want to tell Gerry--Geraldine, I
mean," she added, correcting herself, "that nobody is going to use her
horrid nickname any longer. We're all agreed upon that, aren't we,
girls?