"We've always bought sweets and kept them in our desks," declared Joan Butler. "I believe Veronica used to do it herself."
"Life wouldn't be worth living without chocolates!" mourned Nora Fawcitt.
"And we always used to scramble for the bathroom in the mornings, ever since I've been here," groused Dorothy Newstead. "It's no fun to wait in a queue."
The Fifth fared no better than the Fourth, and being older, their indignation was even hotter.
"Veronica took away _Adam Bede_, and said it wasn't 'suitable'!" fumed Aveline. "She told me I might read Scott and Dickens instead. And I'd just got to the interesting part! It's too idiotic!"
"I can't see why Veronica need act censor to all our reading," agreed Katherine bitterly. "Why should we be allowed Jane Austen and not Charlotte Brontë?"
"Little girls mustn't read love stories!" mocked Raymonde.
"But they're all love stories--Scott's and Dickens's and Jane Austen's and everyone's! How about Shakespeare? There's heaps of love-making in _Romeo and Juliet_, and we took that with Professor Marshall!"
"I don't think Gibbie ever quite approved of it. She thought it indiscreet of the Professor, I'm sure, and likely to put ideas into our heads!"
"Does she expect we'll go eloping over the garden wall? Perhaps that's why she keeps such a vigilant look-out with the telescope!"
"It's quite bad enough to have Gibbie always on our trail," said Ardiune gloomily, "but when it comes to Veronica turning watch-dog as well, I call it an outrage!"
"I think Fifth-Form girls have responsibilities as well as monitresses," grunted Raymonde. "It's not good for Veronica to take life so earnestly! She'll grow old before her time. The Bumble's always rubbing it into us to make the most of our girlhood, and not be little premature women, so I vote we live up to her theory. It's Veronica's last term here. She ought to be bubbling and girlish, and carry away happy memories of her light-hearted school-days when she goes out into the wide world to be a woman. I consider it's our duty to look after this. The Bumble says the value of school life consists in its 'give and take'. We're taking a good deal from Veronica at present, so we must give her something back. Let's teach her to be kittenish and playful."