ll stay in from hockey to-morrow, and
learn a page of French poetry. Each of you others" (glaring at the
crestfallen circle) "will copy fifty lines of _Paradise Lost_, and bring
them to me before Thursday. If you can't be trusted, I shall have to
send one of the Seniors to sit with you in the evenings."

With this awful threat she departed, having first seen the exit of Gipsy
with the tray.

"I knew Gipsy was bound to get into a scrape sooner or later," groaned
Dilys.

"And we're in too, worse luck!" wailed Daisy Scatcherd. "Fifty lines is
no joke!"

"It's ironical of her to choose _Paradise Lost_ when the Fudge had just
boiled over!" said Hetty. "She doesn't like Gipsy, it's easy enough to
see that."

"Here's Gipsy back. Well, my child, what do you think of your 'first
bite', as you call it? Poppie didn't see your privileges! You'll have
the pleasure of learning a whole page of French poetry to improve your
mind, instead of playing hockey to-morrow!"

"I don't care!" said Gipsy, with an obstinate set to her mouth. "She may
give me anything she likes, to learn. When folks are nice to me, I'll
keep any number of rules; but when they begin to bully me, I just feel
inclined to go and do something outrageous. I'm afraid there's not much
love lost between Poppie and me."

CHAPTER VII

Gipsy takes her Fling

WHEN the novelty of her introduction to Briarcroft had somewhat faded,
and the excitement of the Lower School mutiny had subsided, Gipsy began
to find the life more than a trifle dull. She had an adventurous
temperament, and her roving life had given her a taste for constant
change and variety, so the prim regime of the English boarding school
seemed to her monotonous in the extreme. She chafed against the
confinement and the regularity of the well-ordered arrangements.

"I feel as if I were shut up in a box!" she declared. "How can you all
go on every day so contentedly with this 'prunes and prism' business?
When I was at school up-country in Australia the mistress used to notice
when we got restless, and take us for a day's camp into the bush. The
day girls would bring horses for us boarders to use (everybody rides out
there), and off we'd go, each with our picnic basket on our saddle, and
have the very jolliest good time you could imagine. It worked off our
spirits, and we'd come back to lessons as fresh as daisies and as meek
as lambs."

"You get hockey here," objected Dilys, who generally stood