the banner bearers and the chief officers, marched round the
courtyard.

Barbara Kendrick had been constituted crier, and, ringing a small
handbell, shouted the opening announcement in true mediaeval fashion:

"Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! Be it known to one and all that this worshipful
companie is the Briarcroft United Juniors' Guild."

As the girls marched they chanted a ditty, the words of which had been
composed by Gipsy for the event, though the music was out of one of the
school song books:

"We've met to-day to celebrate
A very great occasion,
We wish to show by this display
Our Guild's inauguration.

"For be it known to one and all,
This blissful companie
Doth now unite all former Guilds,
So many as there be.

"Athletics, Music, Drama, Arts,
We do include them all
In the United Juniors' Guild
We form at Briarcroft Hall.

"Each member's pledged to do her best
To aid the common weal,
And to the tenets of the Guild
Aye to be stanch and leal.

"Then wave the banner, flaunt the badge,
And Crier, ring the bell!
Good luck to our United Guild!
Long may it prosper well!"

Miss Poppleton, Miss Edith, and the mistresses, who composed the
audience, applauded heartily at the end of the marching song.

It had made a good introduction for the Guild, and an opening for the
proceedings which were to follow. Gipsy's programme had been drawn up
somewhat on the lines of a May Day masque; she herself called it "The
Festival of the Briar Rose". It consisted of a number of songs and
dances, appropriate to the occasion, which she had collected from the
repertoire of the Lower School. Each Form took its own turn. The little
girls of the First performed a charming flower dance, the Second sang a
madrigal in praise of summer and the Lower Third a May Day glee, the
Upper Third executed a lively Tarantella, the Lower Fourth took Sir
Roger de Coverley, the Upper Fourth chanted an Elizabethan Ode to the
Spring, while at the end the whole Guild joined in a morris dance.

Besides wearing their badges, the girls had brought with them some
garlands and a number of bunches of flowers, to be used in the dances,
so that the whole affair, seen against the background of the ancient
tower, had a most romantic and