Naturally the monitress did look, and fled into the courtyard in pursuit
of the runaway. Her outraged face, upturned from below, greeted Gipsy as
that irrepressible damsel reappeared at the window waving her _Hamlet_
in triumph.

"Gipsy Latimer, go back down the stairs!" commanded Doreen.

"No, thanks! It's shorter this way, and saves time," returned Gipsy,
dropping her book first, then swinging herself out of the window. She
came down the ivy quite easily, picked up her _Hamlet_, smoothed its
cover, which had suffered in the fall, and flitted back to her place in
the corridor, just as the lecture room door opened to let out the Third
Form and admit the Upper Fourth. Doreen followed grimly.

"You needn't think you're going to play these tricks with impunity," she
said. "You'll report yourself to-morrow at the monitresses' meeting at
four o'clock. We'll see what the head of the school has to say to you!"

"Delighted, I'm sure! I've got my _Hamlet_, anyhow," chuckled naughty
Gipsy, as she disappeared into the lecture hall.

On this occasion I am afraid she was not altogether innocent of cause of
offence, and had taken a distinct pleasure in defying Doreen. Perhaps
she thought, on maturer consideration, that she had gone a trifle too
far, for she turned up at the monitresses' meeting with a countenance
sobered down to the requirements of so solemn a convocation.

"Gipsy Latimer, you are here to report yourself for insubordination,"
began Helen Roper with dignity. "Do you realize that monitresses are
officers in this school, and that their authority is only second to that
of the mistresses?"

Gipsy took a clean handkerchief from her pocket, and, unfolding it
ostentatiously, blinked hard.

"I realize it now," she answered, with a something in her voice that
might have been either laughter or tears; "I'm afraid I was very
ignorant before."

Helen glared at her suspiciously. Was that a twinkle in the dark eyes?
But no; Gipsy was looking grave in the extreme.

"The monitresses must be obeyed," continued the head of the school.
"Every girl at Briarcroft knows that, and anyone who deliberately
disobeys incurs the penalty of being reported to Miss Poppleton."

The corners of Gipsy's mouth were drooping; her face had assumed an
expression of abject penitence.

"Please don't do that to me!" she pleaded humbly. "Remember how badly
I've been brought up! If I'd been at Briarcroft all the time, instead of
other schools,