and in the meantime, though life was dark, for the sake of her own
self-respect she must show a brave front. Gipsy certainly needed all the
courage and fortitude of which she was possessed.

If last term had been hard, the present term was harder still. Miss
Poppleton's hint about making her useful was no idle remark, as she soon
found to her cost. Instead of joining the other girls at tennis and
croquet in her play hours, she was expected to sit in the linen room,
darning stockings and hemming dusters, or mending damaged garments. She
was made into a kind of attendant for the little ones who slept in No. 1
dormitory, and was responsible for brushing their hair, seeing that they
had their baths, putting away their clothes, and keeping their room in
order. It was a recognized thing that she was to be at the beck and call
of all the mistresses, to run errands, take messages, fetch articles
wanted, and do innumerable little "odd jobs" about the house.

She was willing enough thus to help to earn her salt, but the
unfortunate part was that the extra work made serious inroads upon her
time. Her new dormitory duties took a large slice out of each evening,
and no allowances were made in class for the fact that her hours of
preparation were curtailed She resented the injustice of being
reproached for badly learnt lessons, when she had been busy the night
before washing the hair of her little charges, copying some notes for
Miss Lindsay, sorting music, filling inkpots, and stitching fresh braid
on Miss Poppleton's skirt. The mistresses did not really mean to impose
upon Gipsy, but having been told to make the girl of use, it was so easy
to hand over all the tiresome extra things for her to do, and completely
to forget that an accumulation of trifles may make a large sum. It never
struck anybody that Gipsy's legs could grow weary with constantly
running up and down stairs, or that she preferred tennis to darning and
croquet to brushing children's coats; all were supremely busy with their
own concerns; and though Miss Edith sometimes noticed that she looked
tired, loyalty to Miss Poppleton forbade the least interference. So
Gipsy plodded away, with a grim determination to do her best, and not to
give in under any circumstances whatsoever. She was much too proud to
make complaints to her friends, even if they could have helped her, and
met their compassion for her non-appearance at the tennis courts with an
assumption of indiffer