"No, no! She's been improving my mind and showing me the path I ought to walk in. How would you like me if I turned out a first-class prig?"
"It couldn't be done. Come along, you wild gipsy thing! Do you want the monitresses to come out and catch you? You'll get into a really big scrape some day if you're not careful."
"Some people are born wise and proper, and some are born otherwise. I'm one of the otherwise! It's my misfortune, not my fault," laughed Gipsy, as Lennie and Hetty dragged her forcibly away.
Gipsy's wild spirits were undoubtedly liable to lead her beyond the bounds of propriety, and both mistresses and monitresses were inclined, justly or unjustly, to suspect that she was at the bottom of any mischief that cropped up in the school. One incident, though shrouded in mystery, was generally laid by Miss Poppleton as a sin to her charge. In the upper corridor, not very far from Gipsy's dormitory, hung a long chain which sounded a fire bell. The boarders at Briarcroft were instructed in fire drill, though a night summons was generally only given in summertime, as Miss Poppleton was afraid of the girls catching cold. Gipsy had read the printed card of "Directions in case of Fire", and had examined the chute with intense interest.
"I'd just love to go sliding down it out of our bedroom window," she exclaimed. "It would be almost as much fun as toboganning."
"Rather freezing work on these sharp nights. There was ice on the puddles this morning," said Dilys. "No fire-drill practice for me, thank you! I prefer to stop snug in bed."
"You've no spirit of adventure in you," returned Gipsy.
"I've got sound common sense instead, and that's what you don't possess, Yankee Doodle!"
"All the same, that summons is going to come off, by hook or by crook!" said Gipsy to herself. "It would be a kindness to the school to give it a chance to see whether it's prepared for emergencies. Gipsy Latimer, I guess you'll have to be the philanthropist! But you've no need to flaunt your noble deed. 'Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame', in fact."
If Gipsy, before she went to bed that night, contrived to tie a long piece of string to the bell chain in the passage, and to secure the other end to her bedpost, she did not blazon the fact abroad, and the string was so neatly laid against the edges of skirting board and under mats that nobody happened to notice it. At 3 a.m., when the whole of Briarcroft was wrapped in deepest slumbers, there suddenly came the great clang-clang of the fire bell, resounding and echoing through the quiet house. Everybody woke in a hurry, and the head of each dormitory at once switched on the electric light and assumed command. The well-trained girls dipped their towels in water and put them over their mouths, threw the red blankets from their beds round their shoulders, and lined up along the corridor. Miss Lindsay was already there, and gave the command to march, and away trooped the boarders downstairs and out of the front door on to the lawn, where they ranged themselves to be counted. The light streaming through the front door revealed a strange sight—all the girls in night gear, with their scarlet blankets trailing on the ground. The juveniles were clasping dolls and other treasures, and some of the others had caught up big sponges in their confusion. The whole exit had only taken about a hundred seconds from the sounding of the bell, and if Gipsy was last, and clutched a roll of string in her hand, nobody remarked the circumstance.