"She'd got permission, you see, from Miss Oakley to tell the girls that you weren't the least little bit of a German, that your father had been an ambassador or something, and that you'd lived in Germany when you were small, and that was how you learned to speak their beastly lingo so well, and that you hadn't done any of the sneaky things we thought you had—that they were all accidents the whole way through," Jack informed her friend some days later during one of their tête-à-tête walks, which soon became a regular proceeding.
When the two girls entered the Great Hall, Muriel intercepted Gerry and retained her beside her, while Jack slipped away to her own place amongst the rest of the Lower Fifth.
"Gerry," said the head girl, raising her voice so that every word she spoke could be heard at the farthest end of the Hall, "we've been talking about you, and I've been explaining some things about you to the girls. And Miss Oakley said we might ask you to come down so that we could tell you a little of what we think of you—not only for your courage in stopping poor old Bruno this afternoon, and probably saving any amount of people from being bitten—but also for all the pluck you've shown this term under very trying circumstances."
Then, as Gerry turned suddenly crimson with embarrassment, the head girl turned to the expectant school.
"Now, then!" she called. "Three cheers for Geraldine Wilmott! 'German Gerry' no longer! Hip—hip—hip——"
"Hurrah!" shouted the school, and the cheering went on for so long that Muriel had to intervene at last.
"That's enough," she said, holding up her hand for silence. "There's something else I want to say. I want to tell Gerry—Geraldine, I mean," she added, correcting herself, "that nobody is going to use her horrid nickname any longer. We're all agreed upon that, aren't we, girls? Geraldine is Geraldine from this time forward."
But there came an exclamation of dismay from Gerry at that.
"Oh, Muriel!" she cried, gazing at the head girl with piteous eyes, and forgetting for the moment her confusion at finding herself the centre of interest like this. "But I'd like to keep the nickname, if you don't mind! Every body calls me Gerry now, and I don't want to be Geraldine again at all. I'd ever so much rather go on being just Gerry."
A ripple of laughter ran round the room at this spontaneous outburst from the shy new girl. Gerry coloured up in still greater embarrassment as she heard it, but Muriel put her hand very kindly on the younger girl's shoulder.