A World of Girls by L.T. Meade

If Hester Thornton went to sleep that night under a sort of dreamy, hazy impression that school was a place without a great deal of order, with many kind and sympathizing faces, and with some not so agreeable; if she went to sleep under the impression that she had dropped into a sort of medley, that she had found herself in a vast new world where certain personages exercised undoubtedly a strong moral influence, but where on the whole a number of other people did pretty much what they pleased -- she awoke in the morning to find her preconceived ideas scattered to the four winds.

There was nothing of apparent liberty about the Lavender House arrangements in the early morning hours. In the first place, it seemed quite the middle of the night when Hester was awakened by a loud gong, which clanged through the house and caused her to sit up in bed in a considerable state of fright and perplexity. A moment or two later a neatly-dressed maid-servant came into the room with a can of hot water; she lit a pair of candles on the mantel-piece, and, with the remark that the second gong would sound in half an hour, and that all the young ladies would be expected to assemble in the chapel at seven o'clock precisely, she left the room.