LITMIR.BIZ

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to answer a dozen times before she had been at Chesson's two hours.

      "No, I haven't been presented," Louie had said, finding herself waylaid almost at the door of Miss Harriet's room as she had come out again. "My cousin has; that's where I learned it. We practised it together."

      "I've seen them go in," Richenda had murmured, a little wistfully, a little dully; "the carriages and things, you know. I live in London."

      Thereupon she had volunteered some of the information stated above, as if inviting a confidence in return. "I'm glad you're in my posse," she had concluded, as Louie had turned away without giving any information whatever about herself.

      The remaining members of "Earle's posse" were the two Burnett sisters ("B Major," the girl who was to be presented, and "B Minor," the sixteen-year-old beauty-to-be), a Scotch girl called Macfarlane, and one other girl, half French, Beatrice Pigou. There were four other posses at the college, and each was told off each day to put itself under the direction of one or other of the four gardeners, to pot, "prick out," water or whatever the task might be. The gardener at present in charge of Louie's posse was a sullen young Apollo called Priddy, whose face and neck and forearms ozone or the Gulf Stream had turned to the hue of some deep and old and mellow violin; and Burnett Minor and the younger girls, talking in terms of the life to which their eyes were yet sealed, discussed Priddy with a freedom perfectly innocent and entirely appalling.

      Louie had not been at Rainham Parva two days before she was wondering whether after all she wanted to stay. She didn't know really why she had come. Not one of the three commonest reasons for girls being there—a stepmother, to be able to earn a little pocket-money, or to get over a youthful love-affair—quite fitted her case. And then there were those ridiculous Rules. She supposed that if she stayed she would be on the same footing as the juniors, and she hardly thought she could submit to that. Not that the Rules did not seem to justify themselves; on the contrary, they did. Merely because Mrs. Lovenant-Smith affirmed that students did not do this or that, students as a matter of fact either did not do these things, or else consented to class themselves as transgressors when they did.

      But Louie's own attitude in the face of a prohibited thing, inherited from her mother and now made inveterate by her upbringing, was invariably that of a wonder what would happen were the prohibition to be disregarded.

      It was just a wonder, nothing more.

      Then, on the night of her third day at Chesson's, she made up her mind to forfeit her fees and leave in the morning. The reason for her decision was this:

      During the vacation certain digging had been allowed by the gardeners to fall into arrears; and Earle's posse, together with another set of six girls, had been set to do it. Now digging was the hardest work the girls were ever called upon to do, and at the beginning of the term at any rate they were spared it as much as possible. But education or output required that this digging should be done, and accordingly the twelve girls had digged for the whole morning, and in the afternoon had varied the labour by carrying heavy pots from House No. 6 to House No. 10—a distance of perhaps sixty yards. The next morning twelve girls (or rather eleven, for Burnett Minor's unset muscles had suffered but little) were half incapacitated by stiffness, and that night there was an outcry for hot baths and arnica. Louie, clad in dressing-gown and slippers and carrying her soap and sponge and towel, hobbled to the bathrooms, and came, in the box-room, upon an indignation-meeting.

      This box-room was the common meeting-ground for students who awaited their turns at the baths. It lay over the back courtyard arch, and the four bathrooms adjoined it, two on either side. It was piled almost to the ceiling with trunks and boxes and dress-baskets, the white initials of which glimmered in the shadows cast by a couple of candles on the floor; but there were isolated boxes enough to make seats for the seven or eight girls already assembled there. They had slippers on their naked feet and single garments on their aching bodies; and on one of Louie's own boxes Burnett Major was peering at the little blue flame of a spirit-kettle and mixing in a row of cups the paste for that beverage of revolt—cocoa. Burnett Minor had traitorously turned the general righteous anger to private account, had "bagged" the hottest bath, and was now carolling at the top of her lungs in the right-hand bathroom.

      "——then if Earle won't do it I vote we draw lots!" Macfarlane was exclaiming shrilly as Louie opened the door. "Those lazy louts of gardeners are supposed to have all the digging done before we come up——"

      They were not—not if Chesson knew it; but "Of course they are!" cried five voices at once.

      "Well, I'm just not going to stand it—there——"

      "And I'm not——"

      "Nor me——"

      "And for two pins I'd tell Priddy so!"

      There was a moment's silence, but only because, all having spoken at once, all had to take breath at once.

      "It's abominable——"

      "Disgusting——"

      "Celà m'embête——"

      "Here's Causton—what do you vote, Causton?" they cried, turning to her.

      "What about?" Louie asked.

      "Why, everything, of course—this beastly place—and setting us to dig the first week—and Priddy's beastly cheek——"

      Then every tongue was unloosed.

      "And a row every time we want an extra blouse washed——"

      "And washing two guineas a term extra——"

      "And only the vuggles for dinner that aren't good enough for the market——" ("Vuggles" were vegetables.)

      Another pause for breath.

      "Let's what-d'-you-call-it—strike——"

      Louie laughed as she sat stiffly down by Burnett Major.

      "Oh, I'll vote for anything you like; I don't care," she said.

      Then they began anew.

      "Earle's head of the posse—she ought to do it——"

      Richenda Earle's voice broke in in loud complaint.

      "How can I? You know I would like a shot if it wasn't for my scholarship. But I should just be told that if I didn't like it I could go. Elwell's head of your lot. Elwell ought to go."

      "I don't care who goes, but I will not be told to do things by Priddy."

      "Priddy!——"

      (Louie smiled again as there came from the bathroom the joyful voice:

      "Early one mo-o-orning—as the su-un was a-rising!——")

      "And those pots hadn't got to be moved—he was only making work——"

      "—gros tyran!——"

      "—like they kept us three weeks grading and packing tomatoes last autumn, and called it 'study'——"

      "—and the bruised ones for us——"

      "—not even fit for ketchup——"

      "—Dothegirls Hall this establishment ought to be called!——"

      Another momentary pause: then:

      "—let's all sign a petition——"

      "—no, a what-d'you-call-it—an ultimatum——"

      "—just telling them straight——"

      "Your bath, Earle——"

      From the bathroom had come the gurgle of escaping water. Boiled pink, turbaned with her towel, smelling of somebody else's scented soap and radiating unrepentance that Earle's bath must be a tepid one, Burnett Minor bounced in.

      "Friends, Romans, countrymen, do lend me a dry towel, just to finish with. Oh,

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