“Oh—if loving the School were all——” The twins hesitated.
“Why, it’s ninety per cent. You two care awfully for the School, and you’ll never let it down. The honour of the School means a heap to you, and it will mean more. You know how high we stand, and what is expected of us. Merriwa isn’t a new thing: lots of our mothers were here before us, and we’ve got traditions as well as present honour.”
“But that makes it all the worse!” Jean said. “Of course, Mother was here, and she told us about the School from the time we could walk. She’s terribly proud of it. She regards us as about six, and she’ll be horrified if she thinks there is a chance of slumping to people like us for prefects!”
“Well, you have got to see that it isn’t a slump.” The Captain swung the dusty racquet slowly to and fro, looking at them thoughtfully. “You’ll be sixteen; I was only that when I got my prefect’s badge——”
“Oh, but you——!” broke in the twins.
“Oh, of course, I know I was a marvel!” The tall girl laughed at their eager faces. “Just between you and me, I wasn’t a marvel in the least. I was fairly harum-scarum, and the idea of responsibility appalled me. I thought the girls would just yell with laughter at the idea of my being a prefect.”
“They certainly will at us!” said Jo, ruefully.
“Well, they didn’t—much. And they stop laughing after a while, as you’ll find. You don’t want to get fussed or worried—only go straight ahead. If you get it into everybody’s mind that certain things are done, just as certain things aren’t done, simply because it’s the School—well, you won’t have much trouble. You two have a tremendous start, because your mother was here before you, and because you grew up with the School in your bones. Just remember that.”
“Why, I thought it was the other way round!” Jean said.
“Oh, you owls, how can it be? Who’s likely to do best for the School—you, brought up on its traditions, or young Pearlie Alexander, who’s not quite happy that her people didn’t send her to Kooringal, ’cause she thinks it’s a shade smarter than Merriwa? And smartness, to her type, simply means richer fathers and bigger motors. If she went to Kooringal and thought Eversleigh College had a few more Rolls-Royces pulling up before it, she’d want to go there. What does the school itself matter to the Pearlie type? They make me tired!” She laughed. “I can say what I like about her because she’s leaving!”