"If a teacher tells me to wear one, I shall obey. If it is a rule, some one in authority will tell me. I won't be ordered by you." There was a gasp of astonishment throughout the room, and one head after another peered out to stare at the rebellious spirit who dared to defy that important personage, the Head Girl. Thomasina closed her eyes and smiled in maddening fashion. "That's where you make your mistake, sweet love, for it's just exactly what you've got to do! I'm Head Girl, and don't you forget it. The Queen on her throne is not more absolute than I am in this room. If you don't do what I tell you, it will be my painful duty to report you for insubordination, and it is a sad thing for a girl to get a mark on her first day. I must trouble you for that pigtail, if you please." She was speaking the truth, that was evident! Confirmation was written on every watching face, in every warning frown. Rhoda's pride battled with a sense of helplessness so acute that she had much ado not to burst into tears on the spot. The two girls stood confronting each other, the new-comer flushed and quivering, like a beautiful young fury, with her flaxen hair streaming over her shoulders, and her blue eyes sending out sparks of fire; Thomasina composed and square, with her lips pursed up in a good-humoured, tolerant smile. "Hurry up!" she said, and Rhoda whisked round and dashed behind her curtain, which flew out behind in an aggrieved fashion, as if unused to be treated with such scant courtesy. The next few moments seemed to have concentrated in them a lifetime of bitterness. The comb tugged remorselessly through the curling locks, but the physical pain passed unnoticed; it was the blow to pride which hurt--the sharp, sharp stab of finding herself worsted, and obliged to give in to the will of another. It was nothing at that moment that the pigtail was ugly and unbecoming; Rhoda would have shaved her head and gone bald for ever if by this means she could have escaped that verdict; but to appear again before all the girls with that hateful, hateful wisp hanging down her back--she felt as if she would die rather than do it; yet would it not be even more degrading to wait for a summons? She stalked forth, straight and defiant, and was received with a bland smile. "Pretty fair for a first attempt. Plait it down further next time. I must have my girls neat and tidy. Now then, forward please--Right, left! right, left!"