The Leader of the Lower School: A Tale of School LifeBrazil, Angela
General
The Leader of the Lower School: A Tale of School Life
Brazil, Angela
Girls -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction; Schools -- Juvenile fiction
Her second trouble was the fact that she was still supposed to be guilty
of that surreptitious outing in the evening, and to have flatly told
falsehoods to screen herself. Gipsy had many faults, but she was
strictly truthful, and this imputation against her honour rankled
sorely. Miss Poppleton had not pressed the matter, probably thinking it
a secondary consideration to her greater crime of running away. In her
relief at receiving a handsome cheque from Mr. Latimer's bankers, the
Principal had decided to forgive Gipsy's past indiscretions, and to
start afresh on a different basis. By a little rearrangement she managed
to find room for Gipsy again in her old dormitory, and the manifold odd
duties which had been assigned to her were entirely removed. Once back
in her favourite No. 3, with a new set of summer clothes and an ample
supply of pocket-money, Gipsy felt reinstated in her former position in
school. With the utmost satisfaction she paid up her arrears of
subscriptions to the Guild, and put straight several other little
matters where she felt she owed a moral if not an actual debt.
"There's only one thing that makes me savage," she declared one evening
to some of her own set who were assembled in the Juniors' room, "and
that is that Poppie still believes I told those awful fibs about not
going out that wet evening. On my honour I spoke the truth. Somebody
else must have gone out in my waterproof."
"What does it matter, now it's all over?" asked Leonora. "Poppie's
forgiven you."
"Why, it matters a great deal. I don't want to be forgiven for what I've
never done. And I don't care to possess a reputation for telling fibs.
Whoever went out in my cloak ought to own up, and if she doesn't, she's
a mean, detestable, contemptible sneak!"
"Shielding herself at your expense!" added Hetty indignantly.
Leonora turned as crimson as the woolwork she was stitching.
"I never thought of it in that way! It really never struck me!" she
gasped. "I'm sure I've no wish to shield myself at anybody's expense.
Why, if you want to know, it was I who went out in your waterproof and
galoshes."
Leonora's announcement made the sensation it deserved.
"You! You!" cried the amazed girls.
"But why did you go?"
"How could you do such a thing?"
"Why didn't you tell?"
"I went for a very simple reason," replied Leonora coolly. "You know how
fond I am of sweets, and what an abominably mean rule there is here
about our not buying them. Well, I just couldn't stand doing without my
chocolates, so I used to dodge out whenever I dared to that little shop
in Mansfield Road, and buy some. On that particular wet evening I was in
a fearful hurry to go before I began practising, so I rushed to the hall
cupboard and seized on the first waterproof and hat and galoshes that
came to hand. I didn't know they were Gipsy's."
"And yet you let her bear the blame!" exclaimed Dilys heatedly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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