"Of course I shall, through thick and thin. You can always count on your own sister."
"That's something to go upon at any rate. I shall need support. I don't believe it's going to be an easy business."
"'Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,'" quoted Mavis laughingly.
"Exactly. I wanted tremendously to be monitress, but I didn't realise all
I was in for. I see many breezes in front."
"You'll weather them all, don't fear! After such a splendid start I've every confidence in you. It's only a question now of keeping it up and going ahead."
Merle was not mistaken in her estimation of the difficulties that lay before her. A certain section of the juniors, led by Winnie Osborne and Joyce Colman, the firebrands of the Third form, offered great resistance to the authority of the monitresses, and put every possible obstacle in their way. To keep these unruly youngsters in order meant a constant clashing of wills, and needed much courage and determination. Some of the new girls also were inclined to rebel and to air their own views. Sybil Vernon, in particular, was a thorn in the flesh. She had been at boarding-school before, and on the strength of her previous experience she offered advice upon any and every occasion. She was very aggrieved that she had not been eligible for election to office herself.
"I know so much more about it than most of you!" she would explain airily. "If Miss Pollard had only chosen me as a monitress I could have organised everything exactly like it used to be done at The Limes."
Sybil was a curious girl, fair, with a fat babyish face, and a vast idea of her own importance. She was very proud of her family, and never for a moment forgot, or allowed anybody else to forget, that she belonged to the Vernons of Renshaw Court, and that Sir Richard Vernon was her second cousin. She expected a great deal more attention than the school was willing to accord to her, and was invariably offended or aggrieved or annoyed about something. The girls did not take her very seriously, and laughed at what they called her 'jim-jams,' which had the effect of making her first very indignant and finally reducing her to floods of tears.
Though Sybil might be annoying there was really not much harm in her, and her criticisms were very easily combated. A different girl altogether, however, was Kitty Trefyre. She also had been at another school, and set forth standards of conduct which were dissimilar from those at 'The Moorings.' She was cautious in airing these, and wisely so, for most of them caused the monitresses to lift their eyebrows in amazement, whereupon she would instantly retract her remarks and declare she was only 'ragging.' How much she really meant Merle never knew, but the latter did not trust her.
"There's a sneaky look about her eyes," she commented to Mavis. "Sybil lunges out and finds open fault, but Kitty hits in the dark. I hope she's not going to spoil Iva!"