would
probably never enforce themselves if they happened to be in authority.
Sometimes, however, the objections were just, and this was a case in
point. The matter floated in Lorraine's mind all the morning, as a kind
of background to English literature and mathematics. She called a
monitresses' meeting for four o'clock that very day.

When afternoon school was over, and Miss Janet, with the big volume of
Milton, had taken her departure, Lorraine assembled her committee,
intercepting Patsie and Audrey, who were trying to sneak from the room.

"Look here, you've _got_ to stop!" she assured them.

"I've to call at the dressmaker's; I've brought my bicycle on purpose!"
objected Audrey.

"Then the dressmaker will have to wait ten minutes."

"And I'm due at the dentist's," declared Patsie.

"The dentist can wait too! It's most important for us all to be at this
meeting. I can't possibly let any one off it."

Rather sulkily, Audrey and Patsie went back to their desks. Possibly
they might have rebelled, but public opinion was plainly against them.
Vivien was looking virtuous, and Dorothy made some pointed remarks about
duty before pleasure.

"If you think going to the dentist's and having that horrible drill
whirling round and round inside your tooth is a pleasure, I wish you'd
go instead of me," retorted Patsie, flinging her books back into her
desk and banging the lid hard. "You'd be only too welcome to take my
place."

"Don't be shrill, child. Business is business, and the sooner we get it
over the better. I want to go home myself."

"I won't keep you all more than a few minutes," interposed Lorraine.
"What I want to say is this, that though I have openly rather held a
brief for the juniors in some ways, I don't mean our authority over them
to be in the least lessened. Please don't misunderstand me about it. We
must thoroughly uphold our dignity as monitresses," (turning a
reproachful eye on Patsie and Audrey) "and enforce the rules as much as
ever."

"Hear! hear! It doesn't do to grow slack," said Vivien pointedly.

"We're certainly not going to grow slack. I put it to every monitress
to make it a point of honour to keep up discipline. There must be no
truckling even with Fifth Form girls. Rules are rules!"

"Right you are, O Queen!"

"We'll be a regular set of dragons!"

"No giving in on our part!"

"Those juniors have been trying it on lately!"

"They're the limit sometimes!"

"Well, I'm glad we'