"You've failed again hopelessly, Rhoda Somerville," scoffed Carrie. "I suppose you're aware that any girl who gets only ten per cent of her problems right three times running has to go and report herself to the monitresses?"
"I didn't know!" gasped Rhoda.
"It's a solid fact!" declared Beatrice Blair.
"They're having a meeting at one o'clock, so you'll have to turn up now, and confess your sins and cry peccavi!" added Carrie. "Laura Kirby's A1 at maths., so I'm afraid you won't meet with too tender a reception."
Poor Rhoda, who still had not grasped all the rules of St. Cyprian's, and was constantly encountering new ones, went off at once in a panic of compunction. It was a decided ordeal to face all the monitresses, even though Mildred was one of them, and she felt it humiliating to be obliged to confess her failure. She knocked timidly at the door of the sanctum, and entered, looking decidedly dejected, in response to Laura's "Come in!"
"Well, what do you want?" asked the head girl rather impatiently.
"I—I've come to report myself," stammered Rhoda.
"What for?"
"For failing three times running in maths."
"Why, that's no business of ours."