"You're surely not going to be such an ass as to try and take up with Gerry Wilmott again, are you, old thing?" she succumbed entirely.
"Of course I'm not going to take her up again," she said, with dignity. "She's such a little coward that I couldn't be friends with her, however much I might like her otherwise. But I do hate to hear Dorothy ragging her so. She and Phyllis are perpetually nagging at her and making beastly remarks in her hearing. It's so jolly mean to be always doing things like that!"
"I agree with you, there," said Nita. "I think we all do, except Dorothy and Phyllis. I vote we just let her alone now. As Jack says, it's beastly mean to keep on saying rotten things about her being German and a sneak, however much she may be one really."
"Who wants to keep on saying rotten things to her?" Dorothy said testily, realising that for once popular opinion was against her. "I'm sure I don't. I never want to see or speak to her again! I wish to goodness she'd never come to the school! Nearly every row we've had this term has been through her or about her in some way."
"There's the bell for prep," said Jack suddenly, glad of the opportunity of breaking off the conversation. "Come on, Nita, let's buck up and go in."
And the Lower Fifth ceased its wrangling over poor Gerry and hastened into the class-room.
CHAPTER XIX
THE LITTLE BLACK DOG
The next few days were very miserable ones for Gerry. It is true that, following Jack's example, the majority of the Lower Fifth did refrain from hurting her feelings by making unkind remarks. But the girls left her very severely alone, and after the happier conditions of the week-end, Gerry found her renewed solitude very hard to bear. The news that she was in trouble with her form for "sneaking" spread through the school, and although they had no part in the Lower Fifth's grievances, the rest of the girls refrained from speaking to the culprit as well. Nobody troubled to inquire just what shape her "sneakiness" had taken—that was the unjust part of it! Without hearing Gerry's side of the case, the whole school—with the exception of the Sixth Form, to whose august ears the rumour had not as yet penetrated—joined with the Lower Fifth in leaving poor Gerry out in the cold.