For the School Colours Part 22

"Suppose you break out in spots at your cousin's?" suggested Irma.

This was a new view of the case that had not before occurred to Avelyn.

"I'd _welcome_ them!" she declared. "I'd get Cousin Lilia to put me in an ambulance and pack me off home."

"Suppose they wouldn't? They might say it was too far, and send you to the fever hospital instead."

"I wouldn't stay. I'd run away and manage to get home somehow. By the by, don't tell anybody else about this. Miss Thompson told me to keep it dark."

"Right you are! We won't blab."

All five girls were busy packing. Their beds were strewn with blouses, stockings, and other impedimenta. In the midst of the proceedings entered Miss Hopkins, rather fl.u.s.tered and overdone with the responsibility of seeing that thirty-six boarders took their essential possessions home with them.

"Dear me, you're very slow in this dormitory!" she observed. "The Violet Room have finished and gone downstairs. If there were less talking you'd get on a good deal quicker. Here are your reports," dealing out from a packet in her hand five envelopes, addressed respectively to Mrs.

Watson, E. A. Ridley, Esq., Mrs. Talbot, Colonel Duncan, and the Rev. F.

Carnforth. "Now, make haste! I shall expect to find your boxes strapped when I come up again."

Miss Hopkins departed to do her duty in other dormitories, leaving a sensation as of east wind behind her. Avelyn stood staring at the envelope. She was anxious to see her report for this term. The Watson family were lax as regarded letters; at home they usually pa.s.sed round their correspondence as common property. She tore open the envelope, therefore, and read the report. It was quite a good one, and ended: "Has done conscientious work, and shows marked improvement."

Avelyn purred with satisfaction.

"Tommiekins is a dear! Mother will be ever so pleased. Even Hopscotch has given me 'satisfactory', which is more than I expected from her, and Mr. Harrison has put 'painstaking' for music, though I know he thinks I'm rather a duffer at it."

"I wonder what they've said about me?" speculated Laura, fumbling in her box for the envelope which she had just packed.

"And me?" echoed Janet.

There is force in example. In another moment Laura, Janet, Irma, and Ethelberga were all perusing their reports.

"'Good' for botany! Oh, how precious!"

"Wonders will never cease! I've actually got 'fair' for general knowledge."

"Oh, hold me up! I've pa.s.sed muster in maths."

"What does Miss Kennedy mean by this: 'sadly lacking in order, and wants more application'? I'm sure I'm no worse than the rest of you,"

exclaimed Janet indignantly.

"Has she put that?"

"Yes, I call it spiteful of her!"

"Poor old sport!"

"It isn't as if I'd been so very behindhand all the term. Miss Kennedy knows I haven't. I declare I shall go and ask her what she means by it!"

The offended Janet, in a furious temper, flounced out of the room in search of her form mistress. She found her in the study addressing luggage labels.

"Miss Kennedy, I do think it's too bad to give me such a horrid report!"

burst out Janet. "Why am I specially 'lacking in application'? I'm sure I've worked just as hard as most of the other girls; and if it's a question of order, Irma's far more untidy than I am, and so is Ethelberga! I don't call it fair. You've no right to say such things about me!"

Miss Kennedy looked up in extreme astonishment.

"How do you know what I've said about you?" she queried.

"Why, it's here, in black and white!"

"What paper have you there?"

"My report."

"Do you mean to say that you have opened your report?"

Janet's face fell. She shuffled her feet uneasily, and did not reply.

"It was addressed to your father. Who authorized you to open it, I should like to know?"

"Well, Avelyn Watson read hers, so we all thought we could read ours,"

urged Janet in exculpation.

"Indeed!" Miss Kennedy's tone was as iced vinegar. "What an extremely honourable proceeding! Miss Thompson will have to hear of this! It's something new in the school for girls to open their parents' letters."

Miss Kennedy abandoned the labels she was directing, and went at once in search of the head mistress, to whom she told her astounding tale. Miss Thompson took off her convex gla.s.ses, wiped them solemnly, and put them on again.

"I couldn't have believed they would have _dared_!" she said, with a note of battle in her voice. "Send Avelyn Watson to me. I must deal with the matter at once."

Miss Thompson might not be very tall, but she was thoroughly capable of managing her school. Every inch of her bristled with dignity. Avelyn entered the room a trifle jauntily, but one steady glance from those convex gla.s.ses caused her feathers to fall.

"Avelyn Watson, I understand that half an hour ago Miss Hopkins gave you a letter addressed to your mother, to take home with you."

"Yes, Miss Thompson, but I'm not going home for the holidays."

"So I'm aware. In the circ.u.mstances the letter should have been posted, but that has nothing to do with it. What I want to know is on what authority you have presumed to open it?"

Miss Thompson's grey eyes were almost hypnotic in their power. Avelyn's fell before their keen scrutiny.

"Mother always used to let me see my reports," she faltered.

"That's quite a different matter, to allow you to look at what she had already seen herself. To open a letter addressed to anyone else, without permission, is one of the most dishonourable things that anybody can do.

No lady would disgrace herself by such an action. I am amazed beyond measure to find that any girl in this school could be capable of it. I thought you knew our standards better. Have you been a whole term here, Avelyn, and not yet learnt the very elements of honour? Silverside has always prided itself upon its traditions."

Avelyn stood aghast. It had never struck her that anyone would construe her thoughtless and impulsive action in such a light. She had no further excuse to urge.

"Have you the report here? Then go and fetch it," commanded the Princ.i.p.al.

Avelyn went without a word. When she returned and handed Miss Thompson the paper, the latter took out her stylo and appended another line:

"Conduct unfortunately not strictly honourable."