"How did he know what exams you were going to have?"
"Oh, he's heard us talking about them, of course."
"I wish I had a cousin who could guess the questions beforehand."
"We'd all get Honours on those lines."
When Mavis and Merle returned to school after lunch, they each found a little note laid upon their desks marked 'Urgent.'
You are requested to attend a most important meeting to be held in the boarders' sitting-room at the hostel immediately after four.
There was no signature, but the writing was Iva's. The Ramsays were much mystified. As day-girls they had nothing to do with the hostel, and could only go there by special invitation. When afternoon school was over they asked some of the boarders the meaning of the missive. Nobody would explain.
"You'll find out when you get there," was Nesta's cryptic reply.
Puzzled, and considerably distressed at a certain offensive attitude exhibited by Sybil and others, Mavis and Merle walked across the garden to the hostel. Iva had cleared all the younger girls out of the boarders' sitting-room, and was waiting in company with Nesta, Muriel, Aubrey, Edith, and Kitty. As soon as the Ramsays and Sybil came in, she closed the door.
"I've called a general meeting of the Fifth," she said, "because there's something we all feel we ought to go into. Would you like to elect some one into the chair?"