By the end of a few weeks Avelyn began to feel more settled down in her new quarters at Silverside. The old pupils might regret the former régime, but she was tolerably satisfied with the new. She was in the fifth form, and found the work not too arduous, and liked Miss Kennedy, her teacher. She had been accustomed to the bustle of a large school, and, though Laura Talbot might rave against the crowded conditions, to Avelyn it was amusing to be in a room crammed full of girls. School is a separate world of its own, and often a curious one. To outsiders and to its Principal, Silverside might appear as an enterprise that was growing and prospering exceedingly. Its numbers had suddenly more than doubled, it had fresh teachers, and was going to build a cloak-room and a gymnasium; nothing could seemingly have more hope of success. Inwardly, however, it was a seething whirl of opposing factions. The old and the new did not readily amalgamate. The boarders were jealous of their rights, and would not yield an inch of the privileged position they had always been wont to occupy; while the Hawthorners, accustomed to the absolute democracy of a day school, could not and would not understand why boarders should expect to have any privileges at all. Trouble began on the very second day of term. Adah, in her new capacity of head girl, had pinned a paper on the notice board announcing a general meeting of the Dramatic Society for 4.15 in the studio. The old members turned up at the time named, to find a group of Hawthorners already in possession of the room. Adah, after waiting a minute, glanced at the clock and coughed significantly; then, as this produced no result, she remarked: "Won't you be rather late if you're not getting home soon?" "We don't much mind," returned Annie Broadside easily. "Well, the fact is, we want to use this room," continued Adah. "We're going to have a meeting." "I know. That's why we've come." Adah's eyebrows elevated themselves to an astonishing angle. "You've come to our meeting?" she exclaimed incredulously. "Certainly we have. Why not?" Annie asked the question aggressively. "Because you're not members of the Dramatic." "But we want to join." Adah turned to her friends, who stood looking scornfully at the intruders. "Did you hear that?" she remarked. "They actually want to join the Dramatic!" "Cheek!" murmured Consie, and the others giggled. "And why shouldn't we join?" flamed Gladys Wilks. "Why? Because you're day girls, and the Dramatic's only for boarders. That's the reason." "It's no reason at all," answered Maggie Stuart sharply. "The boarders have no right to monopolize any society. It ought to be free and open to the whole school." "But it can't!" snapped Adah. "Surely you can see for yourselves that it wouldn't work. We have all our rehearsals in the evenings, when day girls couldn't possibly come." "You could fix them from four to five instead," suggested Annie.