"I don't quite see where the friendship comes in," she murmured. "You bag the best tennis courts and have the best dormitories, and give your own stunts there. You never ask any of us to them. Do you, now?"
"No, I'm afraid we don't," admitted Rachel, still in the same constrained, almost bewildered, manner. "We really never thought of it."
The four Camellia Buds, listening to their friend's outspoken comments, expected an explosion of wrath from the head prefect, but Rachel only told them to take the buckets back to the house.
"And that too," she added, pointing to the pan. Peachy stooped and picked it up, turned to go, then delivered herself of a last manifesto:
"It's our own butter and sugar that we saved from breakfast and tea, so please don't blame anybody else."
"I blame myself most," whispered Rachel, as she was left alone.
The immediate result of the incident was a prefects' meeting, at which the head girl, full of compunction, stated the facts of the case to her fellow officers.
"We thought we were doing our duty, but it isn't enough just to act as police," she urged. "Those girls in the Transition were on the right track in getting hold of the juniors, though perhaps they did it in the wrong way. This school isn't really united. We're all divided up into our own sororities, and we're not doing enough for one another. We've got to alter it somehow or confess ourselves failures. Do any of us seniors really know the little ones? I'm sure I don't! Yet we ought to be elder sisters to them! That's the real function of prefects—we're not just assistant-mistresses to help to keep order. Don't you agree?"
Sybil, Erica, Phyllis, and Stella were conscientious girls, and when the matter was thus stated they saw it from Rachel's new point of view. They were ready and willing to talk over plans. They decided, amongst other developments, that with Miss Morley's permission, they would invite the juniors in relays to dormitory teas, in order to win their confidence and establish more friendly relations with them. The Transition were also to be cultivated, and their opinion asked on the subject of term-end festivities and other school affairs about which the prefects had never before deigned to consult them. The altered attitude promised a far more healthy and satisfactory state, and Miss Morley, to whom Rachel hinted some of their reasons for offering hospitality, readily agreed, and allowed the juniors to be entertained with cakes and tea upon the veranda.
"The seniors gave us a simply top-hole time," confided Désirée to Irene afterwards. "We'd cream puffs and almond biscuits and preserved ginger, and we played games for prizes. But don't think we liked it any better than your candy parties. The prefects are awfully kind to us now, but it was you who took us up first! We can't forget that!"