But then, who was to know that the night of the governesses' dance she
had bribed the three girls in the small dormitory to silence, and after
some half-dozen of them had gone to bed with their night-gowns over
their dresses, had given the signal to arise directly the dance was in
full swing. After that they adjourned to the small dormitory and
spread out a repast of sweets and cakes, to which such of the younger
masters as were brave enough to risk detection slipped away up the
school staircase at intervals, to be more than rewarded by Lorraine's
inimitable mimicry.

"There will be no boys for you to dance with, dear girls," she told
them gently, "as your parents might not approve," then added, with
roguish lights in her splendid eyes: "No boys, dear girls, only a few
masters to supper in the small dormitory."

Hal's misdemeanours were of a less subtle kind. Neither boys nor
masters interested her particularly as yet; but there were a
thousand-and-one other ways of livening things up, and she tried them
all, sometimes getting off scot free, and sometimes finding herself
uncomfortably pilloried before the rest of the school, to be
cross-questioned and severely admonished at great lenght before being
"sent to Coventry" for a stated period.

But, had she only known it, there were many chicken-hearted girls who
envied her even her disgrace, for the sake of the dauntless, shining
spirit of her that nothing ever crushed. And as for being "sent to
Coventry", well, Hal and Lorraine easily coped with that through the
twopennyworth system.