A week later, Rosemary, trailing clouds of glory in the family estimation, departed for the cla.s.sic precincts of the College of Music, and Lorraine, left behind, shook off the atmosphere of detachment which always pervades an exodus, and focused her full mind and energies upon The Gables. It was no light thing to be chosen as head girl. Miss Kingsley, in that private talk in the study, had urged the responsibility as well as the honour of the office. Lorraine did not mean to disappoint her if she could help it. She set to work at once to wrestle with the problem of an autumn programme for the school. In virtue of her office she was president of all the various existing guilds and societies, and had the power to enlarge, curtail, or reorganize at her discretion. Although in a sense she was supreme referee, she had no desire to ride rough-shod over the general wishes, so, as a preliminary to any proposed changes, she called a monitresses' meeting.

The seven girls who, with herself, made up the Sixth Form, a.s.sembled in the cla.s.s-room after school, interested and, on the whole, ready for business. Audrey, to be sure, was giggling as usual. Patsie was pulling an absurd face of mock dignity, but Nellie and Claire were pleased with their new importance. Vivien, rather sulky, though submitting perforce to play second fiddle, had patched up a temporary truce with Dorothy, and the pair settled side by side. Claudia, the fresh addition to the form, strolled in late and sat crocheting while the others talked.

Lorraine, her lap full of minutes books, bristled with ideas.

Lily Anderson, the former head girl, had been energetic and enterprising to an extent that was really worthy of a wider sphere. Her standard had soared so high that the school had been quite unable to live up to it.

In her excess of zeal she had founded too many societies, and with such strict and arduous rules that they would have tried the spirit of a candidate for initiation into some mystic Brotherhood. Urged on by her enthusiasm, the members had made a desperate first spurt, and then had slacked lamentably. The records of their brief successes and subsequent fallings-off were chronicled in certain marbled-cover exercise-books.

Lorraine, fresh from a perusal of these annals, began the meeting with a drastic suggestion.

"As things stand at present," she said, "the school seems over-weighted with societies. This is an exact list of them: 'The Research Society', 'The Poker-work Guild', 'The Debating Society', 'The Sketching Club', 'The Stamp Collectors' Union', 'The Post Card Guild', 'The Home Reading Circle', 'The Jack Tar Club', 'The Entertainments Guild', 'The Musical Union', 'The Hockey Club', 'The Cricket Club', 'The Tennis Club', 'The Badminton Club', 'The Basket-ball Club', 'The Natural History League', 'The Elocution Guild', 'The Needlecraft Society', and 'The Home Arts Guild'."

"Nineteen in all!" commented Patsie, who had been checking off the items on her fingers.

"Rather stiff for a school of forty girls!" nodded Dorothy sagely.

"There are far too many to keep up properly," urged Lorraine. "Every hobby we've ever had has been turned into a society. If we'd had no lessons to do, we could scarcely have managed them all, but when they must come out of our spare time it gets quite a tax. I think we mustn't be quite so ambitious this year. Suppose we let some of them drop, and concentrate on just a few."

"I'm your man!" agreed Patsie. "I always thought such heaps of societies were a grizzly nuisance. It got the limit when two or three girls couldn't even compare post cards without being turned into a guild.

Those kids in the Second Form actually had a society for collecting stumps of lead pencil, and used to steal them shamelessly from any boxes that were left about in the gym. The 'guild habit' has grown into a perfect mania with the school."

"Best whittle them down," said Vivien, who had herself suffered at the hands of the too enthusiastic Lily Anderson.

"Which do you propose to shelve and which to keep?" asked Dorothy.

Lorraine opened the biggest and fattest exercise book.

"This is 'The Gables Guild'," she explained, "a sort of foundation society that includes all the others as branches. Miss Kingsley is the patron, and she has written on the first page:

'A UNION FOR SELF-CULTURE AND PHILANTHROPY _Motto_:--BEING AND DOING'."

"Oh, goodness! What does that mean? I'm a duffer at long words,"

protested Audrey. "Can't you put it into English?"

"Well, it means we've got to do something for ourselves and something for other people too."

"That's simpler."

"We've plenty to choose from out of nineteen branches," said Nellie.

"Don't you think it would hit the mark if we had a Games Club to include hockey, cricket, and tennis, an Entertainments Club to get up plays and concerts, and a Nature Study Union that could absorb the Research Society and the Natural History League both together. These would be for ourselves. Then for the 'Philanthropy' side, we could keep on the Jack Tar Club, and let the Needlework Society and the Home Arts Guild send anything they make to that."

"What's the 'Jack Tar Club', please?" asked Claudia, looking up from her crochet.

"It's to give Christmas presents to the sailors and their wives and children. We packed off a huge big box to Portsmouth last year. Lily Anderson and Lottie Watson and Helen Stanley made some gorgeous things, and revelled in doing them."

"And the rest of us toiled and groaned and grumbled, and ended by borrowing and begging from our long-suffering relations," twinkled Patsie. "Don't think you'll keep that crochet edging for yourself, Dame Claudia! It'll be commandeered to go round a tray-cloth for a Mrs. Jack Tar!"

"I shall probably never finish enough of it even to edge a d'oyley,"

admitted Claudia calmly.

"Look here, this is side-tracking!" said Lorraine, rapping her pencil on the desk. "Please to remember that this is a Committee Meeting, and you must speak to the Chair. Won't anybody make a proposition?"

"I propose that we have what you've just suggested, then: a 'Games Club', an 'Entertainments Club', a 'Nature Study Union' and the 'Jack Tar Club'," said Dorothy.

"And quite enough, too," murmured Patsie.

"I'll second it!" declared Nellie.

"I'd like to add an amendment," said Lorraine. "I want to suggest that we have a School Social every month, where we can show specimens and drawings and photos."

Vivien pulled a face of discouragement.

"We've got enough on," she urged. "Leave us our Sat.u.r.days."

"We needn't have them on Sat.u.r.days. They could be from four to five on Wednesdays. I think it's just what is wanted at The Gables. Day girls never get an opportunity of meeting and comparing notes, and having fun together like girls do at boarding schools. It would be a sort of party every time."

"I think it sounds ripping!" said Claire. "Stick it in with the proposition, as far as I'm concerned."

"Hands up for the amendment, then!"

Five hands went up promptly, two doubtfully, and Vivien's hands remained on her lap--not that she really objected very much to the idea of "Socials", but she was not disposed to give in too readily to all her cousin's suggestions. The feeling that she herself ought to have occupied the presidential chair still rankled.

Carried by a majority, however, the new scheme became law, and the committee, with an eye on the clock, and tea-time looming near, hurriedly settled minor details, appointed Wednesday fortnight for the first "Social", subject to the approval of "the powers that be"; and, having triumphantly concluded their business, stamped downstairs with more noise than was absolutely consistent with the dignity of monitresses--but then, the juniors had gone home, and were not there to hear.

Lorraine, highly satisfied with the results of the meeting, was determined to make the first "Social" a success. She had always felt strongly that there was not a sufficient bond of union among the girls at The Gables. She remembered her own days as a junior, when the seniors had seemed distant and unapproachable beings, whose doings were a mystery.

"I used to long to see their collections and drawings and things," she ruminated, "but, if I ever tried to b.u.t.t in, I got a jolly good snub for my pains. It's going to be different now. Those youngsters shall have a chance. They can't learn unless we show them how. I don't call it sporting for the Sixth to do good work and hide it under a bushel. We'll have a nice jinky little exhibition, and encourage everybody to try and make it a bigger one next time. It'll spur the juniors on to see some of our attempts. I'll put the screw on Vivien to bring her b.u.t.terflies, though I know she hates moving the cases."

Miss Kingsley heartily approved of the idea of the social gathering, and smoothed the way for its adoption by allowing school to be suspended at half-past three instead of four o'clock on those special Wednesday afternoons. She promised to provide tables in the gymnasium for the display of specimens, and to do anything else in her power to help matters forward.

"It will give you a splendid opportunity for getting to know the younger girls," she a.s.sured Lorraine. "I'm very glad you thought of it."

Determined to make the first exhibition as representative as possible, its enthusiastic originator divided it into sections, and put up notices inviting contributions of all sorts from all quarters. At home she held a review of her own possible exhibits and Monica's, and shook her head over them.

"I don't call ourselves a really clever family!" she acknowledged. "We plod along in our own way, but we don't blaze out into leather work or ribbon embroidery or hand-made lace."

"What about my fretwork basket for Rosemary?" demanded Monica, rather nettled.

"Mervyn made the best half of it, and it was crooked at that," returned Lorraine frankly. "I shouldn't have cared to show it as a specimen of Forrester handicraft. I don't think any of our efforts are much of a credit to us. I vote you and I go in for Natural History instead. Let's make a collection of all the ferns in the neighbourhood. Dorothy's bringing pressed flowers, and Vivien her b.u.t.terflies, but I haven't heard of anybody taking up the ferns. We'll rummage round on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and get all the kinds we can, and plant them in that tin dish that's under the greenhouse shelf."

"Is it to be your collection or mine?" asked Monica doubtfully.

"Don't be nasty! We'll each have one if you like. You may have the tin for yours, and I'll use that big photographic developing dish for mine.

Will that content you, you spoilt baby?"

"Right oh!" conceded Monica magnanimously. "But if I do any more fretwork before the exhibition, I'm going to show it. It'll be as nice as Jill's or Greta's, you bet!"

Having decided upon a representative collection of ferns as their _piece de resistance_ for the social gathering, the next and most important step was to get the specimens. Armed with baskets and trowels, Lorraine and Monica made several expeditions into the country lanes, and came home burdened with spoils. To identify their treasures was a harder task. Lorraine pored over the ill.u.s.trations in Sowerby's _British Ferns_, and got horribly mixed between Lastrea dilatata and Athyrium Felix-fmina.