"You'd better not try! No, I believe Gipsy's pride wouldn't let her borrow so much as a yard of hair ribbon, however badly she needed it."
"Rather different from Leonora, who borrows everything she can persuade people to lend her."
"Don't speak to me of Leonora! I rue the day she came into our dormitory. She snores at night till I have to get up and shake her. We call her 'Snorer' now, instead of 'Leonora'. I wish Poppie'd put her in the attic, instead of Gipsy."
"Trust Poppie not to banish the millionairess! She's ever so proud of having her at the school."
"H'm! Her company's a doubtful privilege, in my opinion."
"Yet Poppie had the cheek to suggest that we ought to make her a Guild officer."
"No! Did she?" exclaimed the girls. "It's not Poppie's business to interfere in our affairs. We'll manage them for ourselves, thank you! We've got rid of the Seniors, and we're not going to let her dictate what we must do."
Under Gipsy's fostering care the various branches of the United Guild had prospered exceedingly. She was a most zealous and enterprising secretary, sparing no trouble to make things a success, and capable of organizing all kinds of new departures. She had got up a photographic exhibition, and collected quite a nice little show of snapshots, neatly mounted on brown paper, and pinned round the play-room. She persuaded Miss White to allow the Form to start a museum in an empty desk that stood in a corner, and spurred on the day girls to bring specimens for it of birds' eggs, stones, pressed flowers, and any curiosities with which they would consent to part. She made a neat catalogue of the exhibits, with the names of the donors, and then broached a scheme for a series of museum lectures; but at that even her stanchest adherents turned tail.
"Got too many irons in the fire already to find time to write learned papers on Natural History, Yankee Doodle," objected Lennie. "One would have to cram it all up out of the encyclopædia, and that's too hard work for this child!"
"Wait till we have a museum anniversary, then we'll appoint you curator, and you shall spout for the occasion," suggested Hetty.