"It's your own faults," moralized Veronica. "After that disgraceful business on Thursday, you couldn't expect anything else. We heard you plainly enough, and we were utterly disgusted. I'd like to know who locked that passage door. I have my suspicions," with an eye on Raymonde. The babyish innocence of Raymonde's face at that moment might have served an artist as a model for a child angel. "Have you? It's a pity to harbour suspicion!" she returned sweetly. "We ought to learn to trust our schoolfellows! I loathe Veronica," she added in a whisper to Ardiune, as the monitress tripped cheerily to the door. CHAPTER IX A Week on the Land The vacations at the Grange were arranged in rather an unusual fashion, a full week's holiday being given at Whitsuntide instead of the ordinary little break at half-term. This year Miss Gibbs, who was nothing if not patriotic, evolved a plan for the benefit of her country. She saw an advertisement in the local newspaper, stating that volunteers would soon be urgently needed to gather the strawberry crop upon a farm about fifteen miles away, and begging ladies of education to lend their services. Such a splendid opportunity of war work appealed to her. She wrote at once for particulars, and after some correspondence and a visit to the scene of action, announced her scheme to the school. She proposed that any girls who cared to devote their holidays to a useful end should join a camp of strawberry-pickers who were to be employed on the farm. "It is being arranged by a Government bureau," she explained, "and many people will be coming who, like ourselves, want to help to bear their country's burdens--university students, journalists, social workers, hospital nurses, matrons of institutions, and mistresses and scholars from other schools. We shall sleep in tents, and lead an absolutely outdoor life. It will be a healthy way of passing a week, as well as a benefit to the nation. Any girl who would like to do her share may give me her name this afternoon, and Miss Beasley will write to her parents for permission for her to join the camp." Outside in the quadrangle the school talked over the proposition at its leisure. "Will they let us eat the strawberries?" asked Fauvette anxiously. "Certainly, you little glutton!" snapped Veronica. "You'll be allowed to stuff till you loathe the very thought of swallowing a strawberry. But you'll have to pick hard and do your share, or they'll turn you off!" The monitresses were fired with the idea, and all, except Linda, had decided to "do their bit." Their enthusiasm spread downward like a wave. Before the day was over, eighteen girls had given in their names as volunteers, Raymonde, Morvyth, Katherine, and Aveline being among the number. "I would like to have joined you, really!" protested Fauvette, "only I know I'll be so dreadfully home-sick all the rest of the term if I don't go home, and----"