erty!" continued the head girl. "As
Games Captain you are responsible for the school play and for the
fixtures, but you're certainly not to take upon yourself a matter of
this kind. Why, you're not even a prefect! And no prefect would have
dreamed of calling such a meeting on her own account without consulting
her colleagues."

"I--thought--there wasn't time--to ask," stammered Winona, overcome with
confusion.

"As a matter of fact the suggestion had already been placed before the
prefects, and it was proposed to form an Old Girls' Guild, which would
include several branches, a Hockey Club being among the number. An
initial committee meeting is to be held next Thursday. Margaret Howell
was perfectly well aware of this, and could not understand why you
should have stepped in and called a meeting at the hostel, thus
forestalling our arrangements."

"It's the most abominable cheek I ever heard of!" burst out Agatha
James.

"What were you dreaming of?" demanded Grace Olliver.

Poor Winona! She suddenly saw her innocent, impulsive act in the light
in which it must appear to the prefects. It had never struck her that
she was exceeding her authority, and that she ought to have referred
the matter to the head of the school. The urgency of getting the club
started, so as to enter a Past _v._ Present in her list of fixtures, had
been her uppermost thought. She had indeed made a most terrible blunder.
The feeling against her was evidently one of general censure. Even
Garnet looked grave, and Bessie Kirk was bridling. Linda's manner was
coldly official. The stateliness of her speech was more cutting than
Agatha's explosive wrath. Winona collapsed utterly, and groveled.

"I'm most fearfully sorry!" she apologized. "Indeed I'd never have done
it if I'd thought about it. I was an utter idiot! I really don't know
what possessed me! I just sent off those cards in a hurry. What shall I
do? There isn't time to write back to everybody!"

"I think I can send messages to most of the girls, and if any turn up at
the hostel this afternoon they must be told." Linda's tone was slightly
mollified. "I hardly need impress upon you the necessity in future of
referring everything to headquarters. No school can be run on the basis
of individual enterprise."

Duly chastened, Winona left the prefects' room. She had the further
annoyance in the afternoon of explaining the situation to several comers
who turned up in answer to her invitation. No