cakes were hopeless, and the milk was beyond recall. Doris Deane,
the champion swimmer of the school, dived for the can next morning and
brought it up empty; the lid was never recovered, probably having been
washed into a hole.

The Guild sat down that afternoon rather disconsolately to milkless tea.
Addie had begged a small jugful from the kitchen, enough for their
guests, the mistresses, but it was impossible to replace the big
two-gallon can at a moment's notice.

"I begin to wish the school had never supported an orphan at the
'Alexandra Home for Destitute Children'," sighed Gertie, eating plain
bread and butter, and thinking regretfully of her spoilt cakes. "I vote
next term we ask to give up collecting for it, and keep a monkey at the
Zoo instead. We could send it nuts and biscuits at Christmas."

"And currant-buns?" giggled Beth Broadway.

"You are about the most unfeeling wretch I ever came across!" snapped
Gertrude.

CHAPTER XV

A Point of Honour

"Lizzie," announced Ulyth, sitting down on a stump in the glade, and
speaking slowly and emphatically, "The Woodlands isn't what it used to
be."

"So Stephanie was saying the other day," agreed Lizzie, taking a seat on
the stump by the side of her friend. "She thinks it's a different place
altogether."

"It is; though not exactly from Stephie's point of view. I don't care
the least scrap that there are no Vernons or Courtenays or Derringtons
here now. Stephie can lament them if she likes. I never knew them, so I
can't regret them. There's one thing I can't help noticing, though--the
tone has been going down."

"Do you think it has?" replied Lizzie thoughtfully. "Merle and Alice and
Mary are rather silly, certainly, but there's not much harm in them."

"I don't mean our form; it's the juniors. I've noticed it continually
lately."

"Now you come to speak of it, so have I. I don't quite know what it is,
but there's a something."

"There's a very decided something. It's come on quite lately, but it's
there. They're not behaving nicely at all. They've slacked all round,
and do nothing but snigger among themselves over jokes they won't tell."

"They're welcome to their own jokes as far as I'm concerned, the young
idiots!"

"Yes, if it's only just fun; but I'm afraid it's something more than
that--something they're ashamed of and really want to hide. I've seen
such shuffling and queer business going on when any of the monitresses
came in sight."