"All right! Don't get baity! As a matter of fact, I never come in to Harlingden on Saturdays, so you've no need to envy me!"
"Envy you! Envy a weekly boarder!" sneered Laura, with a whole world of condescension in her voice. "My dear child, I think you really don't understand what you're talking about! After all, you've only been at Silverside two months!"
It is not a particularly pleasant matter to find the public opinion of your dormitory dead against you. You are apt to get awkward knocks in consequence. Avelyn put up with some very withering remarks that Tuesday evening, and consequently felt sore.
"They're absolute blighters to-day," she thought. "I wish I could play a rag on them! It would just serve them jolly well right!"
CHAPTER X
Mischief
Avelyn, I regret to say, was no ideal heroine of fiction, but a particularly human girl, with a strong spice of mischief in her composition. She considered that she owed her room-mates a grudge, and she cast about for a suitable opportunity of paying the debt. As it happened, fortune favoured her. Miss Kennedy sent her to the study to fetch a book that was required. She knocked at the door, and as nobody answered she turned the handle and went in. The room was empty. She found Volume III of the Encyclopædia Britannica, and as she turned from the bookcase she cast an eye on Miss Thompson's desk. It was spread with papers, and in front, just beside the inkpot, was a whole pile of exeat forms. They were little printed sheets bearing the words:
SILVERSIDE
I hereby certify that..............................is allowed leave of absence for the afternoon.
Signed.............................
Date.................................