"Good old Tatie!" purred Lesbia. "She's turning up trumps to-day."
"Don't congratulate yourself too soon, my child," admonished Calla, "you don't know yet what the new arrangements are."
"Take me to the gym at once," commanded Kathleen tragically. "I must have a front seat and know the best or worst. I'm simply palpitating till I hear. Are we to study Sanscrit or start a Cosy Café to supply refreshments at eleven? Tell me which, I beseech you. I can't wait."
"Come along, you mad thing," laughed Lesbia. "We're none of us any wiser than you are. Miss Tatham has got a surprise packet to spring on all of us, that's evident enough. Trust her to let nothing leak out beforehand. She's an absolute Freemason for secrecy."
"Well, if it's Sanscrit, I leave the school, so I give everybody fair warning," chirruped Kathleen, hanging heavily on to Lesbia's arm in an affectation of flutter.
"And if it's a Cosy Café you'll spend all your pocket money there and make yourself ill into the bargain. I know you! Look here, I'm going to drop you! My arm's breaking. You must weigh ten stone if you weigh a pound."
Though the girls laughed and joked as they walked along the glazed covered passage, they sobered down and straightened their faces as they entered the gymnasium. Benches and chairs were arranged here in rows, and were already partly filled with pupils of all ages, from small children in the preparatory forms to tall students of seventeen. Teachers hovered about, restraining excessive conversation, and a few monitresses were distributing books for the opening hymn. Miss Bates, the music teacher, was beckoning to members of the singing-class to come and sit near the piano and form an impromptu choir. Kathleen, somewhat to her bewilderment, was thus pounced upon and borne off to a seat of honour below the platform, where, separated from her own chums, she sat with a rather martyred expression among stars of the Sixth noted for their qualities of voice production. Her anxiety for change was certainly being amply gratified, though she was still doubtful of the extent of the proposed alterations.
The fact of the whole matter was that Miss Tatham, the head mistress, had taken the opportunity during the holidays of attending an educational conference, where she had come in contact with very modern views and fresh schemes of school government. She had returned to Kingfield bristling with ideas, and anxious to test many various theories which had been aired at the meetings. She was a broad-minded woman, and able to steer successfully between being a crank or faddist on the one hand, or a "stick-in-the-mud" on the other. For some time she had been conscious that the school needed rousing up, and now that she had been shown the way she meant to use her opportunities.
She stepped on to the platform at 2.30 with the satisfactory feeling of an architect who has completed a fresh design and has collected his stores of building material.
A dead hush marked her entrance, and immediately all attention was concentrated on her pale intellectual face and dark shining eyes. She possessed sufficient magnetic personality, apart from her office of principal, to rivet the interest of her three hundred girls. With other mistresses they might fidget or even whisper, but during her speeches or classes the bond between teacher and pupil was absolute.