returned with what
speed they could, and thoroughly soused their bonfire. Rachel assured
herself that it was safely out, then commenced further inquiries.

"We didn't mean any harm," explained Peachy, much on the defensive. "We
were only trying to amuse those juniors. They never have a chance to get
hold of the tennis courts, and they're tired of eternal basket-ball, and
they've rather a thin time of it. We started taking them up because they
were so bullied. Bertha and Mabel used to snatch their biscuits away
from them at lunch."

Rachel's face was a study.

"Bertha and Mabel snatched their biscuits?" she repeated.

"Yes; we stopped that though."

"_I_ never saw it!"

"They took jolly good care you shouldn't."

"Why didn't you come and tell _me_?"

Peachy looked embarrassed.

"Well, if you really want to know," she blurted out, "you're so aloof
and superior nobody cares to come and tell you anything. We managed it
by ourselves."

Rachel winced as if Peachy had struck her a blow.

"I'm sorry if--if that's how I seem to you," she faltered. "I must have
failed utterly as head girl if you can't confide in me. The prefects
want to be the friends of all the school."

Peachy shrugged her shoulders eloquently.

"I don't quite see where the friendship comes in," she murmured. "You
bag the best tennis courts and have the best dormitories, and give your
own stunts there. You never ask any of us to them. Do you, now?"

"No, I'm afraid we don't," admitted Rachel, still in the same
constrained, almost bewildered, manner. "We really never thought of it."

The four Camellia Buds, listening to their friend's outspoken comments,
expected an explosion of wrath from the head prefect, but Rachel only
told them to take the buckets back to the house.

"And that too," she added, pointing to the pan. Peachy stooped and
picked it up, turned to go, then delivered herself of a last manifesto:

"It's our own butter and sugar that we saved from breakfast and tea, so
please don't blame anybody else."

"I blame myself most," whispered Rachel, as she was left alone.

The immediate result of the incident was a prefects' meeting, at which
the head girl, full of compunction, stated the facts of the case to her
fellow officers.

"We thought we were doing our duty, but it isn't enough just to act as
police," she urged. "Those girls in the Transition were on the right
track in getting hold of the juniors, though perhaps they did it