Gwethyn's fertile brain was continually at work. In spite of the madness
of some of her propositions, she was really an acquisition to the Fifth.
She could always be counted upon for new suggestions, and on wet days
she would invent games, get up charades, or engineer impromptu
entertainments with the ingenuity of a variety manager. One afternoon
the heavy rain prevented the girls from taking their usual outdoor
exercise between dinner and school. Very disconsolately they hung about,
grumbling at the downpour. Only the Sixth Form were privileged to use
the studio on such occasions; the younger ones, flung on their own
resources, killed time as best they could. The Fourth suffered more
particularly, as it was their afternoon for the tennis courts, and they
had had bad luck lately in the matter of weather on their special tennis
days.
"I declare, I'm sorry for those poor kids!" said Gwethyn. "This is the
third Wednesday their sets have been stopped. They are standing in the
corridor, looking like a funeral. Can't we liven them up somehow?"
"All serene! Let's ask them into our form room and play games," agreed
Rose. "Where are the rest of us? Jill, go and hunt up Susie and
Beatrix. It's far more fun when there are plenty. I say, you kiddies
there, come along and have some jinks! Pass the word on."
The juniors responded promptly to the invitation. They flocked into the
Fifth room, and settled themselves anywhere, on desks or floor.
"What's the game?" they asked hopefully.
"It's quite a new one," explained Gwethyn, who had had a hasty private
conference with some of her chums. "It's called 'The Oracle of Fortune'.
I'm to be blindfolded so that I can't see the least peep; then you're
all to march round me in a circle. When I tap with this stick, you stop,
and I point at somebody who comes forward."
"Oh, I know! French blind-man's-buff. That's nothing new!" exclaimed
Madge Carter.
"No, it's not French blind-man's-buff," returned Gwethyn, so crushingly
that Madge was sorry she had spoken. "I don't feel your faces while you
giggle--it's something quite different. I tell your characters. If
they're correct, you walk on. If I make a mistake, you may take my place
as oracle."
"Who's to judge if they're right?"
"The general opinion!" frowned Gwethyn.
"But suppose----"
"Oh, suppress that dormouse!" exclaimed some of the March Hares. "Where
is there a big handkerchief to bind your eyes? You mustn't have the
least little teeny weeny scrap of a peep-hole left. We'll take care of
that."
Bandaged to the entire satisfaction of all spectators, Gwethyn took her
place in the centre of the room, and the girls commenced to circle round
her. At a rap from her stick they halted. She pointed blindly to an
unknown figure, who stepped silently forward.
"List to the Oracle!" proclaimed Gwethyn dramatically. "Sweet temper,
kindness, and modesty here go hand in hand. Pass on, gentle maiden, thou
art worthy!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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