The Youngest Girl in the Fifth by Angela Brazil Read Free Book Online Page B

laughed that damsel afterwards. "You were a trump, Gwen, to help me. It was a smart notion of yours to drop your book too. You did it so promptly!" Then putting her arm round Gwen's neck she whispered: "I helped you when you were in a tight hole, and I'm glad to see you're going to stand by me. I shall always count upon you in future."
    So thus it happened that almost in spite of herself Gwen became Netta's ally, pledged to support her on all occasions. She was afraid to risk a quarrel lest Netta should press for the return of the ten shillings she had lent. The debt felt a millstone round her neck, from which there was no immediate chance of relief. Netta's particular clique of friends, proving Gwen safe, included her in their special set, a compromising arrangement which seemed nevertheless inevitable. The girls did not really mean much harm, but they were silly and flippant, and enjoyed evading rules simply for the fun of the thing. Netta loved to show off before the others, and because she found Miss Gascoyne an easier victim than Miss Douglas, she kept most of her sallies for the junior teacher. She could estimate to a nicety the fine distinction between giving trouble and open defiance. She never actually overstepped the line, but she contrived to make matters very unpleasant for poor Winnie. It was her boast that she could always raise a spark out of Miss Gascoyne, and her admirers were ready to titter in sympathy.
    Winnie, mindful of her position as teacher, never mentioned school affairs to Gwen; but one day Beatrice tackled the latter on the subject.
    "I hear you've struck up a friendship with Netta Goodwin," she began. "I'm very surprised, for she doesn't seem a nice sort of girl."
    "She's the only one who's been kind to me," returned Gwen, up in arms at once at Beatrice's tone.
    "Indeed! Well, I wouldn't be too much with her if I were you. I'm afraid she's anything but desirable."
    "Who said I was much with her? Has Winnie been telling tales about me?"
    "Don't be nasty, Gwen. You know Winnie never tells."
    "There's no particular harm in Netta," protested Gwen, taking up the cudgels for her schoolmate out of sheer contrariness. "She's only rather lively and funny. I suppose that's no great crime."
    "Are you sure Father would like her?"
    "Dad doesn't know her, so I can't pretend to say what he'd think of her," retorted Gwen, shuffling out of the matter with what she knew was a lame excuse.
CHAPTER VI
    A Casting Vote
    Gwen had not been prepared to find the Fifth exactly a bed of roses, therefore she was hardly surprised at the thorns which beset her new path. In spite of the extra teaching from Miss Woodville, she found the work of the Form extremely difficult, especially in mathematics. There was a whole book of Euclid theorem which she had not been through, and the consequence was that every other problem had some little point proved by a theorem of which she had never heard. It was a most decided stumblingblock. It is possible to sit and look at a problem for hours without getting any further if there is just one statement of whose existence one is not aware. More than once Gwen had to hand in a blank page, and felt very humiliated at the meaning glances which passed between Rachel Hunter and Edith Arnold. Neither of these was yet reconciled to Gwen's presence in the Form. Rachel, mindful of her own delayed promotion to the Upper School, persisted in regarding her as an "intruding kid", and Edith could not forgive her intimacy with Netta Goodwin. Manifold small slights and snubs fell to Gwen's share, and though she affected to make light of them, they hurt all the same. She knew that under happier auspices she might have been friendly with Hilda Browne, Iris Watson, Louise Mawson, and several others of whom Father would have approved, and whom, with his entire sanction, she might have invited occasionally to the Parsonage. She was aware that she was in the worst set in the Form, and that not one of her new chums