"Oh, you shut up! Why didn't you suggest it yourself?" "I'm rather of Maude's opinion," said Alice O'Connor. "I agree with the thing in principle, but I don't like it coming from a new girl." "New girls oughtn't to run the whole show," added Gladys Merriman. "Oh, you three! You'd find fault with an angel! For goodness' sake don't get up these petty little jealousies, and spoil the whole affair. What does it matter if Gipsy's new? Everybody has to be new some time. She's shown she's capable of a great deal more than most of us are." "And she knows it too, doesn't she just?" sneered Maude. "The way she stood on that platform and talked!" "It's sheer nastiness on your part, Maude Helm, to try and belittle her! You won't get much glory for yourself by sticking pins in other people; and I can tell you, if you're going to set up in opposition to Gipsy, you've no chance. I'll undertake there's hardly a girl in the Lower School now who won't side with Gipsy Latimer!" CHAPTER V A Pitched Battle GIPSY ran upstairs to the classroom with a feeling of intense satisfaction. So far all had gone well. She had succeeded in arousing a spirit of righteous wrath and resistance throughout the Lower School, and a desire to combine for the general welfare. There was a certain exhilaration in the discovery that she was thus able to sway the minds of her companions. She had been popular in other schools, but she had never had a chance such as this. To do Gipsy justice, however, she thought far more of the cause she had taken up than of her own popularity. "Fairness" was her watchword, and wherever her lot had been cast she would have come forward as the champion of any whom she considered unfairly treated. A girl of decided ability, her knockabout life had in many ways made her old beyond her years, and she had that capacity for organization and power of making others work with her that belong to the born leader. Having constituted herself practically head of the movement, she assumed the further conduct of affairs, and at four o'clock held a small committee meeting with Hetty Hancock, Lennie Chapman, and Meg Gordon, her three self-elected coadjutors. As the result of their consultations they presented themselves next day in the Sixth Form classroom, at the identical moment when Miss Giles had just retired, and the members of the Sixth were still engaged in putting away their books. "Hello, you kids! What are you doing here?" exclaimed Doreen Tristram. "Just you quit, and be quick about it, too!" "Kids, indeed!" retorted Hetty Hancock. "Not much kids about us, I should think. We're all turned fourteen." "Are you really? What a magnificent age! I'm glad you've enlightened me, for I should certainly have classed you among the babes!" returned Doreen sarcastically. "Define a kid!" drawled Esther Hughes, putting on her pince-nez to regard the intruders.