he girls in
chorus.

"Do you mean to tell me we mayn't go on the least scrap of an errand if
we ask leave?"

"Not if you ask ever so!"

"Why, that's dreadful! I can't be boxed up like that. I'd as soon be in
prison. I'm afraid you'll find me walking out on my own sometimes."

"You'll get into an uncommonly big scrape if you do!"

"Dad warned me I'd have to be very prim and proper in England," said
Gipsy, looking serious, "but I didn't know things were as bad as that.
I'll begin to wish I hadn't come here. Oh dear! we were going right
through to Chicago if we hadn't been shipwrecked, and I love America."

"Shipwrecked!" shrieked the girls. "Do you mean to tell us you've been
in a real wreck?"

"Only just come from it," replied Gipsy calmly. "A very wet, cold,
unpleasant affair it was, too! Especially in only one's nightdress!
Every rag of clothing I possessed went to the bottom. Dad had to rig me
out again at Liverpool. That's why I've come to this school in such a
hurry. Dad lost his papers, and had to go back to South Africa, and he
wouldn't take me with him this time. So you see I've been sprung upon
you suddenly--an unexpected blessing, you might call me."

"Oh, do tell us about the wreck!" implored Hetty Hancock. "I've never in
all my life met anybody who'd really and truly been shipwrecked."

"All right! Come and squat by the fire. I'm tired of the table, and
prefer the floor for a change. Please don't expect anything extra
blood-curdling, for you won't get it, unless you'd like me to romance a
little. Where do you want me to begin? All my adventures in all the
places I've lived at? That's rather a big order. You'll have to be
contented with a piece. Here goes!"

But as Gipsy's descriptions, though graphic, were not of a remarkably
lucid character, it will perhaps be well to omit her version of the
story, and, for a better understanding of her independent, whimsical
little self, give a brief account of her previous career in a separate
chapter.

CHAPTER II

The "Queen of the Waves"

INTO the fourteen years of her life Gipsy had certainly managed to
compress a greater variety of experiences than falls to the share of
most girls of her age. She had been a traveller from her earliest
babyhood, and was familiar with three continents. Her father was a
mining engineer, and in the course of his profession was obliged to
visit many out-of-the-way spots in various corners of the globe. As
Gipsy was