"Would you have given a casting vote yourself?"
"Well, no; but if you'd only stayed and voted by ballot like everyone else, then nobody would have known who'd given the odd one. It was most stupid of you to rush away. You're rather an idiot, Gwen Gascoyne!"
"'Et tu, Brute! Then fall, Cæsar!' I'm like the old man and his ass in Æsop; I seem to end by pleasing nobody."
"Do you wish to compare yourself with the old man or the quadruped, my child? The latter's the more apt, certainly!"
"Oh, good night!" said Gwen, who was getting the worst of it "I wish sometimes I'd never come into your wretched Form."
"You'd be far more at home among the Juniors!" snapped Netta, rather out of temper.
A few days after this was the Rodenhurst Annual Distribution of Prizes. It was always held in the beginning of November, rather an unusual date, to be sure, but Miss Roscoe found it convenient in many ways to have it in the middle of the autumn term. It gave plenty of time to receive examiners' reports, and to chronicle successes in the July examinations, but on the other hand it did not interfere with Christmas celebrations.
The function took place in the Town Hall at Stedburgh, and there was invariably a large gathering of parents and friends. To the whole school it seemed an important occasion, and both Gwen and Lesbia were full of excitement when the afternoon arrived.
"Not that I need alarm myself that I shall be called upon to walk up and receive a prize!" said Lesbia. "Never got one in my life, and never shall!"
"You might get the Sewing or the Holiday Competitions," said Gwen, trying to be encouraging.