"Thanks," replied Gipsy, not too utterly overwhelmed by the honour. "I'm a bad sewer, but I dare say I'd manage to cobble up something."
"Then I'll put your name down, and you can bring me the shilling to-morrow. Have you got a camera? Then I expect you'll like to belong to the Photographic Guild—the subscription's a shilling for that too. Remind me to give you a card of the rules if I forget."
"You'll do!" whispered Lennie Chapman, who had watched over Gipsy's introduction with anxious interest. "If Helen Roper's spoken to you, you're sure to get on. You'll join the Guilds, of course? There's the Dramatic as well, and the Musical, and the Athletic."
"If they want a shilling for each, it will soon run away with one's pocket-money," laughed Gipsy.
"Why, yes, so it does, but then one has to join. It is the thing to do."
"I don't mind the subscriptions if the Guilds are fun."
"Well—um! I can't say they're very much fun for us. We're only Lower School, you see, and we don't get a look-in."
"What do you mean?"
"Why, of course it's all in the hands of the Sixth. They arrange everything. We mayn't so much as express an opinion."
"No, it's really rather too bad," said Hetty Hancock, joining in the conversation. "We Lower School aren't fairly treated. The Photographic Guild spent all the society's money on a gorgeous developing machine last term, and no one's allowed to use it except the Committee."