"O Sophonisba!" ejaculated Raymonde. "Well, it strikes me we've got the tone of this school to look after. We can't allow Fourth Form kids to bring those notions and run them here. She won't find herself queen of this establishment!" "Hardly!" chuckled Aveline. "Aren't her own Form attending to the matter?" enquired Morvyth. "Naturally. They're giving her as bad a time as they know how, but they don't make much headway. She tells them she fully expects to be ragged, and she simply won't believe a word they say. They haven't taken her in once yet." "That's because they're not skilful," said Raymonde thoughtfully. "They don't do the thing artistically. There's a finesse required for this kind of work that their stupid young heads don't possess. I'm not sure if it wouldn't be philanthropic to help them!" "Set your own house in order first!" grunted Ardiune. "You'll have your hands full with Maudie Heywood." "I'm not going to neglect Maudie; don't alarm yourself! She's the best specimen of the genus prig that I've ever come across in the course of my life. She ought to have a Form all to herself, instead of being plumped into the Fifth. I see dangerous possibilities in Maudie. Do you realize what she did this morning? Learnt the whole of that wretched poem instead of only the twenty lines that were set us." "I heard Gibbie complimenting her, and thought she'd get swelled head." "Swelled head indeed! It's the principle that's involved. Don't you see that if this girl goes and learns whole poems, Gibbie'll think we can do the same, and she'll give us more next time. It's raising the standard of work in the Form." "Great Minerva! So it is!" "We'll have to put a stopper on that," urged Aveline indignantly. "There are a good many things that have given me spasms since I came back," proclaimed Raymonde. "They're things that ought to be set right. What I vote is, that our set form ourselves into a sort of Watch Committee to attend to any little matters of this sort. It would be a kindness to the school." Ardiune chuckled softly. "By all means! Let us be the Red Cross Knights, and go out to right the wrong. We'll attack Duessa straight away, and teach her to mend her morals. You'll let Val be in it?" "Rather! And Fauvette and Katherine. Seven's a mystic number. You know there were the Seven Champions of Christendom, and there are the Seven Ages of Man, and the Seven Days of Creation, and seven years of apprenticeship, and--and----" "Seven deadly sins!" suggested Aveline cheerfully. "And the Seven Vials--and----" "Well, anyhow it's always seven, so we'll make ourselves into a society. We'll have a star with seven rays for our secret sign. It has a nice occult kind of smack about it. When we chalk that mark upon anybody's desk, it means we've got to reform her, whether she likes it or whether she doesn't." "She probably won't," twinkled Ardiune.