"EVERYTHING'S GONE WRONG!" DECLARED LORRAINE TRAGICALLY 144 "CLAUDIA! HOW _COULD_ YOU FORGET?" 192 CLAUDIA FLUNG HER ARMS ROUND ROSEMARY'S NECK AND HUGGED HER 216 SHE STOOD UP CAUTIOUSLY 240 THE HEAD GIRL AT THE GABLES CHAPTER I A Momentous Decision It was exactly ten days before the opening of the autumn term at The Gables. The September sunshine, flooding through the window of the Principal's study, lighted up the bowl of carnations upon the writing-table, and, flashed back from the Chippendale mirror on the wall, caught the book-case with the morocco-bound editions of the poets, showed up the etching of "Dante's Dream" over the mantelpiece, and glowed on Miss Kingsley's ripply brown hair, turning all the silver threads in it to gold. Miss Kingsley, rested and refreshed after the long summer holiday, a touch of pink in her cheeks and a brightness in her eyes, left as a legacy from the breezes of the Cheviot Hills, was seated at her desk with a notebook in front of her and a fountain pen in her hand, making plans for a fresh year's work. Miss Janet, armed with a stump of pencil and the back of an envelope, ready to jot down suggestions, swayed to and fro in the rocking-chair with her lips drawn into a bunch and the particular little pucker between her eyebrows that always came when she was trying to concentrate her thoughts. "It really _is_ a difficulty, Janet!" said Miss Kingsley. "A suitable head girl makes all the difference to a school, and if we happen to choose the wrong one it may completely spoil the tone. If only Lottie Carson or Helen Stanley had stayed on! Or even Enid Jones or Stella Hardy!" "It's hard luck to lose all our best senior girls at once!" agreed Miss Janet, biting her stump of pencil abstractedly. "But if they're gone, they're gone." "Of course!" Miss Kingsley's tone savoured slightly of impatience. "And the urgent matter is to supply their places. It's like making bricks without straw. Haven't you any suggestions? I _do_ wish you'd stop rocking, it worries me to hear your chair creak!" Miss Janet, seasoned by thirty-five years' acquaintance with her sister's nervous temperament, rose and walked to the window, where she stood looking out over the sunlit tennis court to the bank of exotic shrubs that half hid the blue line of the sea. There was a moment's pause, then she said: "Suppose you read over the list of 'eligibles', and we'll discuss their points each in turn." Miss Kingsley reached for a certain black-backed shiny exercise-book and opened it. The entries were in her own neat hand. "There will only be eight girls in the Sixth Form this term," she volunteered. "Taking them in alphabetical order they are: Nellie Appleby, Claire Bardsley, Claudia Castleton, Vivien Forrester, Lorraine Forrester, Audrey Roberts, Dorothy Skipton, and Patricia Sullivan."