4 MISS POTTS'S FORM
ALL the school met each morning for prayers. The girls stood together in their classes—first-formersof North Tower, South, East, and West tower, all together, and so on.
Darrell took a nervous look at her class. What a big one it seemed! About twenty-five or thirty girls,surely. Miss Potts, her house-mistress, was also the first-form mistress. There was Mam'zelle Dupont,singing lustily, and the teacher beside her must be the other French mistress. But how different! Shewas skinny, tall and bony. Her hair too was done up in a little bun, but at the back instead of on top.
Darrell thought she looked bad-tempered¹.
Alicia told her which the other mistresses were. 'That's the history mistress, Miss Carton over there—see her—the one with the high collar and pince-nez glasses on her nose. She's frightfully clever, andawfully sarcastic² if you don't like history. And that's the art mistress, Miss Linnie—she's awfullynice. Very easy-going.'
Darrell hoped she would have a lot to do with Miss Linnie, if she was easy-going. She looked nice.
She was young and had red hair done in little curls.
'That's the music-master—Mr. Young—see him? He's always either in a very good temper or a verybad one. We always try and find out which, when he takes us for music or singing.'
The matrons of the four house were at Prayers too. Darrell saw her own Matron, looking a little stern,as she always did when she was thinking hard of what she was doing. Alicia began whispering again.
'And that's...'
Miss Potts's eye swung round to her, and Alicia immediately stopped whispering and studied herhymn-book. Miss Potts did not look kindly³ on people who whispered at any time, least of all inPrayers.
Prayers over, the girls filed off to their various classrooms. These ran all along the west side ofMalory Towers, and soon that building was filled with the sound of hurrying feet, laughter andchattering. There was no rule about silence in the corridors in the part of the building where theclassrooms were.
The first-formers filed into their own classroom, a room with a lovely view over the sea. It was a bigroom, with the mistress's desk at one end, and cupboards at the other. Desks and chairs were arrangedin orderly rows.
'Bags I one by the window!' said a fat girl and plumped herself down there.
'Bags I one too,' said Gwendoline. But the fat girl stared in surprise.
'You're new aren't you? Well, you can't choose your own seat, then. New girls have to take the desksleft over when the old girls have chosen the ones they want.'

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