Upstairs in the Seniors' Retreat the girls were talking seriously.
"Of course, she deserves to be called down in front of the whole
school," Helen Jenkins, a very severe type of girl with big horn-rimmed
spectacles, was saying. She was the editor of the school paper, and the
most studious girl in the school.
"But, as Poppy says, it's never wise to attach too much importance to
the mistakes of a new girl," Marion West, vice-president of the class,
replied.
Poppy looked at the three Sophomores before her.
"Have you all any suggestions?" she inquired.
Gladys and Sally looked at Ann.
"Perhaps a gentle little boycott might help," she suggested quietly.
"It's just as hard on our wing, if not worse, than it is on yours,"
Stella Richardson, one of the Seniors who lived in the new wing, spoke
up. "There isn't one of us who wouldn't gladly drown the little wretch,
and the trouble is, she's gotten some of the new girls and talked to
them until they feel it's a positive virtue to be rude every time they
see one of you."
"Oh, it's all too nonsensical," Gwen exploded. "Good old wings, who
dares to take our happy fight and make an ugly thing out of it?"
"My thumbs are down for anyone who dares," Ruth Hall announced. She
roomed in the new wing with Stella Richardson.
Gwendolyn Matthews might have been said to have snorted with rage. She
was a splendid healthy specimen of girlhood; a mind capable of small and
mean thoughts was beneath her contempt. She walked out on the balcony,
her back to the rest of the room.
A minute later she beckoned cautiously to the girls to follow her. They
crowded out on the balcony on tip-toe and peered down as Gwen directed.
Just below them, sitting on the steps, were Janet and Phyllis. Ethel
stood beside them. She was talking in a loud and excited way and the
girls listened.
"I should think you'd want to get out of the damp old hole," she was
saying. "There's an extra room in our corridor."
Janet and Phyllis looked at her with dangerously calm eyes.
"We've by far the finest bunch of girls in our wing," she continued.
"We're going to take everything away from you this year."
"Indeed!" Janet said quietly.
"May I inquire how long you've been at Hilltop?" Phyllis asked politely.
A smile ran around the group of faces watching from the balcony above.
"Oh, I'm a new girl," Ethel replied rather flatly.
"You'd never guess it," Janet said with so much scorn that Gwen almost
laughed, and Sally did, but the three on the piazza below were too
intent to look up.
"I think the new girls ought to stick together," Ethel announced. "Of
course, if you still persist in living in the old wing, why the fight's
on, but I rather hoped you'd come over to us."
Phyllis stood up. She was taller than the other girl, and she looked
straight down into her pale blue eyes.
"Pardon me," she said, "but there is no fight on at all. As a new girl,
neither I nor my twin would presume to act as you advise." She sat down
again, with her back towards Ethel.
Janet did not bother to stand when she said what she had to say.
"We saw the sign you put up on the green door, and as new girls we are
thoroughly disgusted with you. If we banded together, it would be to
show you your proper place." Janet did not raise her voice as she spoke,
and when she had finished she looked out over the green lawns as though
the sight gave her pleasure after Ethel's sour face.
"It might be well for you to remember," Phyllis spoke as though her
thoughts came from a long distance, "that though we are two separate
wings, we are both a part of Hilltop, and though we each give the best
that is in us, it is that Hilltop may soar the higher--not as you seem
to think it is, for any individual and mean advantage."
The girls on the balcony looked at one another, speechless with
admiration and delight.
"Oh, well said!" Alice whispered.
Gwen and Stella hugged each other and Gladys danced a little jig.
"I declare, I love those children!" Poppy exclaimed.
"They're _my_ twins, I'd have you remember," Sally exulted.
They looked back again to the piazza. Ethel had gone and the twins were
strolling arm-in-arm over the green lawn.