The Youngest Girl in the Fifth | Page 9

a chat with Lesbia.
She wandered down the corridor, read the time sheets and the
announcements on the notice boards, peeped into several empty
classrooms, and was glad for once when the bell rang. At one o'clock
things were no better. She was given a new place at the dinner-table
and had to sit between Rachel Hunter and Edith Arnold, both of whom
behaved as if unaware of her presence, and talked to each other across
her as though she were non-existent. When she asked for the salt (rather
shortly, certainly) Edith only stared and did not pass it. By the end of
the meal Gwen began to feel the situation was getting on her nerves.
She had been fairly popular in the Upper Fourth, so the change was the
more unpleasant.
"I'm not going to give in, though," she thought. "I believe what they
want is to make me ask Miss Roscoe to move me down again. Well,
they'll find themselves mistaken, that's all! I'll stay in the Upper School
if nobody speaks to me till next midsummer, and if I have to stop up

half the night slogging away at my work!"
"How cross that Gwen Gascoyne looks!" whispered Hilda Browne to
Iris Watson.
"Yes, she doesn't seem to want to know us, does she?"
"She needn't, I'm sure. I think she's horrid!"
It was still raining and impossible to go into the playground, so Gwen
strolled into the empty classroom, and for lack of anything else to do
began arranging and rearranging the contents of her desk. She had not
been there more than five minutes when the door opened and Netta
Goodwin, one of her new form-mates, entered, humming a tune. She
glanced at Gwen, went to her own desk, made a pretence of trying to
find a book, sat whistling for a moment or two, then finally turned
towards Gwen.
"Well, how do you like being a Senior?" she asked half mockingly.
"Too soon to tell yet," replied Gwen cautiously. "I shall know better at
the end of a week."
"You've not had a very charming reception so far, have you? I saw how
Rachel and Edith were behaving at dinner."
"I don't care!" snapped Gwen. "I don't want to talk to them, thanks! The
Form can please itself whether it's friendly or leaves me alone as far as
I'm concerned."
Netta whistled softly. There was a rather inscrutable expression on her
face.
"All the same I suppose you don't always want to go on being a kind of
leper and outlaw? Not very interesting, I should say, to come to school
every day and speak to nobody!"
Gwen was silent. She had no argument to advance.

"They're annoyed with you just at present for being moved into our
Form, but they can't keep it up long. In a little while they'll feel
accustomed to you and you'll get on all right. Then the question is, are
you going to belong to the Saints or the Sinners?"
"What do you mean?" asked Gwen.
"We're all one or other here. We call Hilda Browne and Iris Watson
and Louise Mawson and Rachel Hunter and Edith Arnold and a few
more 'the Saints'."
"Nothing very saintly about them that I can see!" sniffed Gwen.
"Well, it depends on your standards. Perhaps they thought they behaved
like saints at dinner."
"More like Pharisees! Which are you?"
Netta's brown eyes twinkled.
"I leave you to guess!" she replied sagely. "I'm not stiff and stand-off
like some of them are, at any rate. If you'd care to take a walk down the
corridor, I'll go with you."
A stroll with anyone was better than sitting alone in the classroom; it
was still only two o'clock, and there was half an hour to get through
before afternoon school began. Gwen was not averse to exploring the
upper corridor, for as a Junior it had been forbidden ground to her. She
and Netta went into the Sixth Form room, the Senior French and
German room, and even looked inside the teachers' room, finding
nobody there.
"Miss Roscoe's private sitting-room is at the end of the passage," said
Netta. "She's down in the library, so if you like to take a peep, you
can."
The spirit of curiosity strongly urged Gwen to see what a
headmistress's private study was like, and thinking themselves perfectly

safe, the two girls entered, and began eagerly to scan the pictures, the
ornaments, the photographs, and the various objects which were spread
about on desk and tables. It was a pretty, tasteful room, with choice
prints from the old masters in carved oak frames, and pots of ferns and
flowers, and handsomely bound books, and curios from foreign lands.
The girls moved softly about, examining first one thing and then
another