Next day Adah pinned up a notice, announcing that hockey would begin on the following Saturday afternoon, and asking all girls to sign their names as members of the games club, and to pay their subscriptions to the treasurer. She watched the day girls come and surge round the notice board, then she ran upstairs to her form room. She considered that she was performing her duties admirably as head of the school. Meantime, downstairs, a ferment was going on that would have surprised her. The grumblings and dissatisfaction increased till a whisper began to circulate. "Annie Broadside says, don't sign or do anything yet, but let the 'Old Hawthorners' League' meet on the common this afternoon at 4.15. Pass this on, and all turn up." The boarders could not understand why, that afternoon, the day girls scuttled away so promptly at four o'clock, and seemed in such a frantic hurry to get on their boots and be gone. As a rule they loitered about in an annoying fashion, and were seldom clear of the premises till half-past four. The prefects ventured the opinion that Silverside rules were at last beginning to be properly kept. They would have been immensely electrified if they could have seen what was really happening. Not far from the house was a small common, which most of the girls were bound to pass on their way to and from school. To-day, instead of going home they trooped here. There was an old tree stump at one side, and Annie, scrambling to the top of it, and holding on by a branch, made it serve as an orator's platform from which to address her audience, which stood below. She first of all looked round critically. "Are we all here?" she began. Several voices replied: "All who could come." "Some girls had to catch trains." "And the Potters had music lessons." "And Trissie Marsh had to go to the dentist's." "But they sympathize. They'd have come if they could." "I'm glad to hear that," continued Annie. "I like to know I have your sympathy. Are we all old Hawthorners?" "Yes, yes!" "And no spies among us?" "Certainly not!" "Then I can speak freely. I want to say, what I'm sure we all think, that we're perfectly disgusted with the way those boarders have been behaving. They speak as if the school existed for them, and them alone. Some societies we aren't allowed to join at all, and those that we may belong to are kept well in their own hands, because they appoint themselves as presidents, and secretaries, and treasurers, and members of committee. We simply haven't a look in anywhere. Now, I ask you, is this fair?" "Not at all!" howled the girls. "We're exactly in the position of serfs, and it's monstrous. What right have those boarders to rule over us?" "None!" "It's quite time we showed our spirit. I've been wondering for a long time how we could checkmate them, and now I see my way clear. They're going to start the hockey season." "Yes!"