Produced by Jana Srna, Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net [Illustration: "I'VE COME TO SAY GOOD-BY TO YOU, SIS"] THE PRINCESS OF THE SCHOOL ================================== By ANGELA BRAZIL ---------------------------------- AUTHOR OF "The Luckiest Girl in the School," "The Harum-Scarum Schoolgirl," "A Popular Schoolgirl," "The Head Girl at the Gables." Illustrated by Frank Wiles. ================================== A. L. BURT COMPANY Publishers New York Published by arrangement with Frederick A. Stokes Company Printed in U. S. A. Copyright, 1920, by FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY All rights reserved First published in the United States of America, 1921 Contents CHAPTER PAGE I THE INGLETON FAMILY 1 II A STOLEN JOY-RIDE 15 III A VALENTINE PARTY 33 IV DISINHERITED 50 V THE NEW OWNER 61 VI PRINCESS CARMEL 73 VII AN OLD GREEK IDYLL 88 VIII WOOD NYMPHS 100 IX THE OPEN ROAD 114 X A MEETING 129 XI A SECRET SOCIETY 145 XII WHITE MAGIC 157 XIII THE MONEY-MAKERS 171 XIV ALL IN A MIST 190 XV ON THE HIGH SEAS 201 XVI THE CASA BIANCA 215 XVII SICILIAN COUSINS 229 XVIII A NIGHT OF ADVENTURE 242 XIX AT PALERMO 261 XX OLD ENGLAND 271 XXI CARMEL'S KINGDOM 283 THE PRINCESS OF THE SCHOOL CHAPTER I The Ingleton Family On a certain morning, just a week before Christmas, the little world of school at Chilcombe Hall was awake and stirring at an unusually early hour. Long before the slightest hint of dawn showed in the sky the lamps were lighted in the corridors, maids were scuttling about, bringing in breakfast, and Jones, the gardener, assisted by his eldest boy, a sturdy grinning urchin of twelve, was beginning the process of carrying down piles of hand-bags and hold-alls, and stacking them on a cart which was waiting in the drive outside. Miss Walters, dreading the Christmas rush on the railway, had determined to take time by the forelock, and meant to pack off her pupils by the first available trains, trusting they would most of them reach their destinations before the overcrowding became a serious problem in the traffic. The pupils themselves offered no objections to this early start. The sooner they reached home and began the holidays, so much the better from their point of view. It was fun to get up by lamp-light, when the stars were still shining in the sky; fun to find that rules were relaxed, and for once they might chatter and talk as they pleased; fun to run unreproved along the passages, sing on the stairs, and twirl one another round in an impromptu dance in the hall.