"Let's sign our names at once!" declared Phillida enthusiastically.
At Carmel's suggestion, however, they made rather more of a ceremony of the initiation of their new order. The prospective members retired into the wood above the garden, and in strict privacy took an oath of secrecy and service. Then, with Edith's fountain pen filled for the occasion with red ink, they inscribed their autographs on a piece of paper, rolled it up, placed it in a bottle, then solemnly dug a hole, and buried the said bottle under a tree.
"It will be here for a testimony against any girl who breaks her oath!" declared Phillida. "Carmel says the real Mafia sign their names in blood, but I think that's horrid, and red ink will do quite as well. Just as I was coming out now, Laurette said to me; 'Oh, don't go running away, because I want one of you younger ones to do something for me presently.' She said it with the air of a duchess!"
"Cheek!" agreed the others. "It's high time we made up a society against her!"
Many and various were the offences that were laid to Laurette's score. Lilias had a private grievance, because she fancied that Laurette had never been so civil to herself and Dulcie since it was known that their brother was not to inherit the Chase. Gowan, who liked plain speaking, accused Laurette of telling "fiblets"; Bertha had had a squabble over the bathroom, and Prissie a wrestle for the piano.
"Laurette always reminds me of that rhyme that the undergrads made up about the Master of Balliol," said Edith.
"'Here come I, my name is Jowett,
All there is to know, I know it;
I'm the head of this here College,
What I don't know isn't knowledge!'
That's Laurette's attitude exactly. She's so superior to everybody!"
"We'll take her down, don't worry yourself!" smiled Dulcie. "We must just wait for a good opportunity, and then——"