The Rebel of the School

by L. T. Meade

"I have managed everything," she said in a whisper. "It's all right; it's splendidly right. We are all coming; not one of us will stay behind. We know what it means, of course."

"You look very mysterious," said Kathleen. "I wonder why you talk like that. What does it mean, in your opinion?"

"Oh, Kathleen, can't you understand? And one does it sometimes in life. I have read about it in story-books, and there are cases of it in history; you have one great tremendous fling; you do what is wrong; you have a good—a very good—time, and you know it won't last; you know that afterwards will come—the deluge."

"You are a silly!" said Kathleen. "Why, what could happen? Nobody need know; we will be far too careful for that. I can't tell you how splendidly I have planned things. I have got up my headache already, in order to go to my room and thus avoid all suspicion."

"Oh dear!" said Susy. "It doesn't sound right, does it?"

"Right or wrong, it is fun," said Kathleen. "I am going to have it so. I have got the money, and I mean to have a magnificent time. Now don't keep me; I must run into school. It is horrid of them to grudge us our little bit of amusement."

Susy agreed with her friend; indeed, during those days she was nearly lifted off her feet, so excited was she, so charmed, so altogether amazed at Kathleen O'Hara's condescension to her. Before Kathleen arrived at the school Susy was a good little girl, who helped her mother in the shop, and had dreams of going into another shop herself by-and-by. In those days she did not consider herself a lady, nor expect ladies to take any special notice of her. But those dull and stupid days were no more. Gold and sunshine and rich color and marvellous dreams had all come into her life since the arrival of Kathleen at Merrifield. For Kathleen had discrimination; it mattered nothing to her whether a girl paid or did not pay for her lessons, whether she belonged to the despised foundationers or was respected and looked up to by paying girls. Indeed, if anything, Kathleen had a decided leaning towards the foundationers; and she, Kathleen, was a lady—she belonged to what her mother and Aunt Church called the "real quality." "None of your upstarts," Aunt Church had said, "but one who for generations has belonged to the aristocrats; and they are of the kind who are too great in themselves to be proud. They are proud in the right way, but they never look down on folks." Yes, Susy was a happy girl now.

But, after all, was she quite happy? Was she not at this very minute more or less oppressed by a secret fear? Suppose any single individual in Merrifield heard of the midnight picnic—the great, daring, midnight excursion

into the heart of London. Susy knew far better than Kathleen what a mad action the girls were about to perpetrate. She knew because she lived with the class who discussed such things very openly. If their frolic was not discovered, all would be well; if it was, it would be ruin—ruin complete and absolute. The ladies of the town would fight shy of her mother's shop. Aunt Church would be very unlikely to get her little almshouse in Ireland, for surely even Kathleen's friends would be very angry with her if they knew. Susy herself would be expelled from the school, and she in her fall would bring down her mother and brother. Yes, terrible would be the consequences if they were discovered. But then, they needn't be. Plucky people were not as a rule brought into trouble of that sort. It only needed a brave heart and a firm foot, and courage which nothing could daunt; and the other girls, the thirty-eight who were to join Kathleen and Susy, would keep them company. Nevertheless Susy was as unhappy as she was happy that day. She was so absorbed in her feelings, and in wondering what would happen during the next twenty-four hours, that she was not attentive at her lessons, and did not notice how the teachers watched her and made remarks. It was very evident to an onlooker that the teachers were particularly alert that morning, and that their gaze was principally fixed upon the foundationers.

No remarks, however, were made. The school came to an end quite in the usual manner. Immediately afterwards Kathleen dashed off to find Ruth. Ruth was waiting for her just outside the gates.