A Popular Schoolgirl by Angela Brazil (ebooks online reader txt) 📕

the wardens, separating in a rather unparliamentary fashion to admire a vinaigrette, scented with heliotrope, which Althea took from her pocket and handed round for appreciative sniffs.

All the girls felt that Lispeth Scott was to be trusted. She was a worthy leader for the new order of things. She was a tall, stout, fair girl of almost eighteen, and rather grown-up for her age. She was the youngest member of a large family who had made enormous exertions during the war, and, with sisters who had nursed in Serbia, driven motor-ambulances in France, served in canteens, in Y. M. C. A. huts, and worked at munitions, she had excellent examples of what it is possible to do for one's country. She was a decided favorite in the College, being athletic as well as clever, and of a very jolly merry temperament with a vein of great earnestness. Though the girls sometimes called her "Jumbo," they meant the nickname in token of friendship, and submitted to her dictatorship far more readily than they would have done to that of any other member of the Sixth who had been put in her place. Miss Burd had great confidence in Lispeth, and consequently, when they had talked over the matter of the new society which she wished to be formed in the school, she decided to leave its institution entirely in the hands of her head girl.

"It will be far better for the mistresses not to be present at the meeting," she said. "I can trust you, Lispeth, to explain things, and the girls will like it much more if it seems to emanate from the new Council. Talk to them in your own way, and they'll understand you. I want the Society to be an absolutely voluntary one, or it's of no use. Don't let them think they must join merely to please me. I'd rather have a dozen who are in earnest over it than a hundred half-hearted members. Only those who feel enthusiastic need give in their names. I don't mind if it begins in quite a humble way. Indeed, I only expect a small membership at first."

"On the contrary, Miss Burd, I think it will catch on," replied Lispeth.

In consequence of this conversation, the head prefect pinned a paper on the notice-board, convening a general meeting of all girls over twelve years of age, to be held in the big hall on Wednesday afternoon at 3:30 sharp, the last lesson of the day having been remitted by orders from the Study. There was a universal feeling that something important was on foot, so those forms that were eligible trooped in a body to the hall, while the disappointed juniors tried to console themselves with the reflection that they would be able to go home half an hour earlier than their elders. After considerable shuffling about, places were taken. Unwilling to waste further time, Lispeth mounted the platform, and rang the bell for silence.

"Are we all here? Well, I can't wait for anybody else. Those who come in late will have to hear what they can, and you must tell them the rest afterwards. Oh, here they are! Quietly, please! There's plenty of room over there. Violet, will you shut the door? Now that we're all together, I want to have a talk with you. You know I'm what may be called 'Prime Minister' of our School Parliament, and, though your wardens will report all we say in council, I think it is well to have a public meeting sometimes. This term everything seems to have made a fresh start. We're in new buildings, and we have new rules, and our very Parliament is a new institution. You're all in new forms, and I'm the new Head Prefect. It's not only in school that everything's different, but in the outside world as well. This is our first term since peace was signed. I can remember our first term after War was declared. I was only in IIIa. then—quite a youngster! Hetty Hughes, who was the head girl, made a speech, and told us what we ought to do to try to help our country. I think some of us who were here have never forgotten that. We nearly hurrahed the roof off, and we formed a Knitting Club and a Soldiers' Parcel Society on the spot. You know for yourselves how we worked to keep those up. Well, to-day the Empire is at peace, but our country needs our help as much as ever, or even more. It's making a fresh start, and we want the new world to be a better place than the old. Hundreds of thousands of gallant young lives have been gladly given to establish this new world—in this school alone we know to our cost—and we owe it to our heroic dead not to let their sacrifice be in vain. We want a better and purer England to rise up and make a clean sweep of the bad things that disgraced her before. I expect you'll say: 'Oh, that's for politicians, and not for us schoolgirls!' but it isn't. Popular opinion is a mighty thing. The schoolgirls of to-day are the women of to-morrow, and the women of a country have an enormous amount to do with the formation of public opinion—more nowadays than ever before—and their influence will go on increasing with every year that passes. If each of us tries to help the world instead of hindering it, think what an asset each one may be to the country! It's really a tremendous honor to know that we can all take our part in the reconstruction of England. It's like each being allowed to lay a brick in the foundation of a new building. Of course you'll ask me: 'Well, and how are we going to help?' That's just what I want to talk about. We pride ourselves on being practical at the College. Some of us thought we might start a new society, to be called 'The Rainbow League.' It's a sort of 'Guild of Helpers,' and we want to do all kinds of jolly things to help in the town, something like our old 'Knitting Club' and 'Soldiers' Parcel Society,' only of course different. We could give concerts and make clothes for war orphans, and toys for the hospitals, and scrap-books for crippled children. There are heaps of nice things like that you'll just love doing. It's called 'The Rainbow League,' because a rainbow was set in the sky after the Flood, to help people to remember, and we want, in our small way, not to let the Great War be forgotten, but to do our bit to help with the future of the race.

"I'm not any great hand at speaking or explaining, so I want you each to take a copy of the rules of 'The Rainbow League' and to read them quietly over at home. Then any girl who likes to join can put her name down. All the Sixth want to become members, and I hope lots of others will too. That's all I have to say. I'm afraid I'm rather a bungler, but you'll understand everything if you read the papers. I'm going to give them out now."

Lispeth, very red in the face, came down from the platform, and, aided by her fellow-prefects, began to distribute papers right and left to the girls as they filed from the benches. Amongst the others, Ingred took hers, and put it in her pocket. She did not care to discuss it with the crowd, so retired to a corner of the hostel garden, and, amid a shower of falling autumn leaves, opened the typewritten sheet, and read as follows: