A harum-scarum schoolgirl   By: Angela Brazil (1868-1947)

[Illustration: "COULD YOU DO ME A KINDNESS, MISS?" SHE ASKED Page 252 ]

A HARUM SCARUM SCHOOLGIRL

BY

ANGELA BRAZIL

Illustrated by John Campbell

NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1920, by

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

All rights reserved

Contents

CHAP. Page

I. A PIXIE GIRL 9

II. STARS AND STRIPES 23

III. A PENNILESS PRINCESS 39

IV. THE RUSH BEARING 51

V. DIANA DARES 65

VI. FRENCH LEAVE 77

VII. LAND GIRLS 91

VIII. ARMISTICE DAY 108

IX. DIANA'S ENGLISH CHRISTMAS 128

X. A FIT OF THE BLUES 141

XI. DIANA TO THE RESCUE 153

XII. DIANA BREAKS OUT 167

XIII. CRUSOE ISLAND 178

XIV. SPOOKS 195

XV. JOY RIDING 207

XVI. A FAMILY CREST 219

XVII. THE GREEN EYED MONSTER 235

XVIII. DIANA'S FOUNDLING 247

XIX. AMBITIONS 259

XX. A TANGLED PLOT 271

Illustrations

Page

"COULD YOU DO ME A KINDNESS, MISS?" SHE ASKED Frontispiece

"O O O OH! HOW GORGEOUS TO BELONG TO A HIGH FALUTING FAMILY THAT'S GOT LEGENDS AND GHOSTS!" 48

TWO PAIRS OF BARE FEET WENT SPLASHING JOYOUSLY INTO THE BROOK 72

WE SET OFF AND RODE ALL THE MORNING 144

ITS COWL FELL BACK, AND DISCLOSED A WELL KNOWN AND DECIDEDLY MIRTHFUL COUNTENANCE 200

DIANA CALLED AND SHOUTED TO THEM. THEY TOOK NO NOTICE 240

A HARUM SCARUM SCHOOLGIRL

CHAPTER I

A Pixie Girl

"If I'd known!" groaned Winifred Cranston, otherwise Wendy, with a note of utter tragedy in her usually cheerful voice. "If I'd only known! D'you think I'd have come trotting back here with my baggage? Not a bit of it! Nothing in this wide world should have dragged me. I'd have turned up my hair yes, it's quite long enough to turn up, Jess Paget, so you needn't look at it so scornfully; it's as nice as yours, and nicer! Well, I tell you I'd have turned up my hair, and run away and joined the 'Waacs' or the 'Wrens', or have driven a motor wagon or conducted a tramcar, or scrubbed floors at a hospital, or done anything anything , I say! rather than stay at the Abbey without Mrs. Gifford."

"It's pretty stiff, certainly, for the Head to go whisking away like this," agreed Magsie Wingfield, sitting on the other shaft of the wheelbarrow. "And without any notice either! It leaves one gasping!"

"Stiff? It's the limit! Why didn't she give us decent warning, instead of springing it on to us in this sudden fashion? I feel weak!"

"There wasn't time," explained Sadie Sanderson, who, with Violet Gorton and Tattie Clegg, occupied, in a tight fit, the interior of the wheelbarrow. "It was all done at a day's notice. Geraldine's been telling me the whole history."

"Well?"

"Mr. Gifford got suddenly exempted, and was made Governor of some outlandish place with an unpronounceable name in Burma. He telegraphed to Mrs. Gifford to join him at Marseilles, and go out with him. So she went that's the long and the short of it!"

"Went and left her school behind her," echoed Vi.

"I call it simply running away," commented Wendy. "Why couldn't she have stopped to arrange things say till Christmas and then followed him?"