At the stroke of the hour, Margaret Howell strode on to the platform.  She was a tall, fine-looking girl of seventeen, with bright hazel eyes, regular features, and a thick brown plait that fell below her waist.  Her ready powers of speech, clear ringing voice, brisk decisive tone, and a certain personal magnetism showed her to be that rara avis, a born leader.  It was fortunate indeed for the school that its headship this year should have fallen to Margaret.  The need for a firm but judicious hand on the reins was great.  During the two previous years of the school’s existence the self-government had been in a state of evolution.  For the first year, when everybody was new together, comparatively little could be done.  The school must find itself before it began to form its private code of laws.  In the second year ill-luck had raised to the post of honor Ivy Chatterton, a clever but most untactful girl, whose quick temper had brought her into constant collision with her prefects.  Many were the squalls which had swept over the school, of so serious a nature sometimes as almost to wreck several of the guilds.  The younger girls, following the example of their elders, had quarreled hotly, and indulged in an incredible amount of petty spite, and altogether the current tone had been anything but desirable.  Miss Bishop, who had seen, to her sorrow, this downward trend, had welcomed the advent of Margaret, believing her to have the ability to cope with difficult situations, and at the same time to have the grit and self-control not to allow her head to be turned by her elevation to office.

“You will have a great responsibility:  I am giving you unusual power, and I trust that you will make the highest use of it,” she had said to the girl, during a certain quiet ten minutes’ talk in her study, and Margaret had held herself very straight, and had answered:  “I’ll do my level best, Miss Bishop!”

All eyes were now fixed on the head girl as she stood in the center of the platform, ringing the bell for silence.  The clamor subsided as if by magic, and in the midst of a dead hush she began her speech.

“Girls!  We’ve been back now for a whole fortnight—­time for most of us to shake down into our places, isn’t it?  The school year’s fairly started, and we’ve met together this afternoon to talk about a number of things that are of very great importance to us all.  You all know that a school—­to be worth anything—­has two sides.  There’s the inside part, with classes and prep. and exams.—­what’s generally called the ’curriculum’—­that’s managed by the mistresses.  And there’s the outside part, the games and sports and concerts and guilds—­that’s run by the girls themselves.  Now I think, if we arrange well, we ought to be able to look forward to three very jolly terms.  Everything depends upon making a good start.  I’ve been getting to know how they manage in several other big schools, and I propose that we frame our code by