"Then keep it, you old slacker!" said Bess Harrison. "We'll leave you to your dreams of a Mahomet's paradise. I like something livelier, and to go back to my original proposition, I think every school ought to provide a new sensation after the Easter holidays, just to wake us up, and keep us from stagnating."
"Of course there are tennis and cricket this term," suggested Maggie Orton, half apologetically.
"That I admit—but so far at St. Cyprian's we've only carried them on rather languidly. I wouldn't for the world confess it outside, but between ourselves I don't mind saying that we're far and away behind other schools at games. In music I grant you we can give anyone the lead, in languages we're fair, but at athletics we're a set of duffers."
"We oughtn't to be, then!" exploded Nell Hayward. "We're surely as physically fit as most girls, and if we laid ourselves out to train we'd astonish people. It's merely a matter of management. No one's bothered much about it before, or tried to keep us up to the mark, so of course we slacked. It's not our fault!"
"But the fact unfortunately remains the same!"
"We want some new life, certainly, put into the tennis and cricket," said Maudie Stearne. "Something to make it go. It's never been the same since Miss Pritchard left."
"She was A1."
"We shan't get another Miss Pritchard!"
"None of the Sixth seem over-keen."
"We may make up our minds that St. Cyprian's is no good at games!"