pers in considerable surprise. Her private room was sacred to
herself alone, and unless armed with a most warrantable errand nobody
ever ventured to disturb her.

"Who sent you here, Gipsy?" she enquired rather sharply.

"Nobody," replied Gipsy, quite unaware of having given any occasion for
offence. "I only came to ask leave to run out and buy a pan, and some
sugar, and a few other things. I reckon there's a store handy, and I
wouldn't be gone ten minutes. There's heaps of time before nine."

Miss Poppleton gasped. She had grasped the fact, at the beginning, that
Gipsy was likely to prove an unusual pupil, but she had not anticipated
such immediate developments.

"What you ask is perfectly impossible," she replied. "The boarders here
are never allowed to go out alone to do shopping."

"So some of them told me last night, but I didn't believe them. I
thought they were ragging me because I'm new, and I'd best ask at
headquarters," returned Gipsy. "I wouldn't lose my way, and I'm
accustomed to taking care of myself. I'd engage you'd find you could
trust me."

"That's not the question at all, Gipsy. I cannot allow you to break
school rules."

"Not just this once?"

"Certainly not. If I made an exception in your case, the others would
expect the same privilege."

"Is that so?" said Gipsy slowly. "It seems a funny rule to me, because
in Dorcas City we might always go to the store if we reported first."

"You're not in America now: you'll have to learn English ways here, and
English speech too. You must make an effort to drop Americanisms, and
talk as we do on this side of the Atlantic."

Miss Poppleton's tone was rather tart, and her mouth twitched ominously.
Gipsy's eyes twinkled.

"I'll do my best," she answered brightly. "I picked up a few words from
the other girls last night that I didn't know before. There was
'ripping' for one, and--what was the other, now, that caught on to me?
Oh, I know!--'rotten'. I won't forget it again."

Miss Poppleton's face was a study.

"Of course I don't mean slang words like those. The girls had no
business to be using them. You must copy the best, and not the worst."

"I guess it will take me a while to learn the difference."

"You'll have to expunge 'guess' and 'reckon' from your vocabulary."

Gipsy heaved an eloquent sigh.

"I'll make a mental note of what I've got to avoid, but I expect they'll
slip out sometimes. But about that pan, please! Might the janitor go o