XVII. A TANGLED STORY 215

XVIII. GIPSY AT LARGE 226

XIX. THE UNITED GUILD FESTIVAL 241

Illustrations

Page

A SUCCESSFUL CLIMB _Frontispiece_ 177

THE LOWER SCHOOL FIND A LEADER 50

"GIPSY GENERALLY RESPONDED WITH SPIRIT" 118

AN INTERVIEW WITH MISS POPPLETON 188

"HE PAUSED AND PEERED AT GIPSY" 230

THE LEADER OF THE LOWER SCHOOL

CHAPTER I

Gipsy Arrives

ONE dank, wet, clammy afternoon at the beginning of October half a dozen
of the boarders at Briarcroft Hall stood at the Juniors' sitting-room
window, watching the umbrellas of the day girls disappear through the
side gate. It had been drizzling since dinner-time, and the prospect
outside was not a remarkably exhilarating one. The yellow leaves of the
oak tree dripped slow tears on to the flagged walk, as if weeping
beforehand for their own speedy demise; the little classical statue on
the fountain looked a decidedly watery goddess, the sodden flowers had
trailed their heads in the soil, and a small rivulet was running down
the steps of the summer house. As the last two umbrellas, after a brief
and exciting struggle for precedence, passed through the portal and the
gate was shut with a slam, Lennie Chapman turned to her companions and
heaved a tragic sigh.

"Isn't it withering?" she remarked. "And just on the very afternoon when
we'd made up our minds to decide the tennis championship, and secured
all the courts for the Lower School. I do call it the most wretched
luck! I'm a blighted blossom!"

"We'll never persuade the Seniors to give us all the courts again!"
wailed Fiona Campbell. "They said so emphatically that it was only to be
for this once."

"I believe they knew it was going to be wet!" growled Dilys Fenton.

"You don't think if it cleared a little we might manage just a set
before tea?" suggested Norah Bell half hopefully.

"My good girl, please to look at the lawn! Do you think anyone in her
senses would try to play on a swamp like that?"

"It's getting too late in the year for tennis," yawned Hetty Hancock.
"Don't believe we shall get another game at all. We'd better resign
ourselves."

"Resign ourselves to what?" asked Daisy Scatcherd.

"Why,