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Title: The Girls of Greycliff

Author: Harriet Pyne Grove

Release Date: May 9, 2020 [EBook #62063]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ***

THE GIRLS OF GREYCLIFF

An active figure leaped down from the shelf and ran to the water’s edge, and as he turned toward the shelf again Betty gave a start.

THE GIRLS OF GREYCLIFF

By HARRIET PYNE GROVE

AUTHOR OF

“The Girls of Greycliff,” “The Greycliff Girls in Camp,”

“Greycliff Heroines,” “Greycliff Wings.”

A. L. BURT COMPANY

Publishers        New York

THE

GREYCLIFF GIRLS SERIES

A Series of Stories for Girls

By HARRIET PYNE GROVE

CATHALINA AT GREYCLIFF

THE GIRLS OF GREYCLIFF

THE GREYCLIFF GIRLS IN CAMP

GREYCLIFF HEROINES

GREYCLIFF WINGS

Copyright, 1923

By A. L. BURT COMPANY

THE GIRLS OF GREYCLIFF

Made in “U. S. A.”

THE GIRLS OF GREYCLIFF

CHAPTER I.

GREYCLIFF GIRLS.

Again the big halls at Greycliff were full of laughter and chatterings. Bright faces peeped from doors, light forms whisked hither and yon, doors banged, trunks bumped or traveled along up the inclines which had been fixed for them at the stairways, where short flights had no elevator accommodations. One of the smaller girls sat on a newspaper to save her dress and slid down one such incline; but concluding that she preferred bannisters, she tried one which curved invitingly down from the second floor, and slid off directly in front of the astonished dean who was starting upstairs with a dignified parent.

Thus is answered the question,—Did the Greycliff Girls come back? Indeed they did. And one of the very prettiest was flying down the wide steps of the entrance to Greycliff Hall. A happy-faced, quietly dressed young girl was just paying the taxi driver and turned in time to embrace at once this eager Greycliffer who threw her arms around her.

“Lil!”

“Hil!”

“How long since you came in?”

“About twenty minutes.”

“No time lost, then;—O, isn’t it great? I never saw anything nicer than even those Greycliff flats we passed, because I knew every minute that we were coming nearer and nearer this wonderful old Greycliff! And who’s back? The girls come yet?”

“Well, some would call them girls,” said Lilian, waving her hand at the groups about the campus and on the steps and on the wide veranda.

“You scamp!” exclaimed Hilary. “Same old Lilian! You know very well what girls I mean.”

“Yes, I do, of course. But I was just going to ask you if Cathalina was really coming back, and when Betty plans to get here.”

The girls by this time had reached the entrance hall, where they stopped to embrace again.

“Aren’t we crazy?” Hilary looked around, though not in embarrassment. “Nobody here I know.”

“Everybody’s crazy. Come on up. Do you know where we’re going to be this year?—Capital B, E, BE!”

“In Greycliff Hall.” Hilary pretended to be very solemn.

“Naturally. But don’t you know, really?”

“No, I guess I missed some of you girls’ letters by not going home again before coming to school, so all I know is that Cathalina is coming and that we are all to be together in a suite. She wrote that early in the summer and said that Miss Randolph was going to arrange it. So I haven’t worried a bit, and, honestly, I’ve been too busy to write letters.”

“So have I. I was just going to apologize for not writing oftener, but if you are as bad as I am, I’ll not need to.”

“I guess this was a full summer for both of us. I love you just the same as ever, though. Did you get my cards from Boston?”

“Yes; did you get mine from Denver? O, now you must shut your eyes and I’ll lead you into our elegant retreat where we shall ‘woo the Muses,’ as Father says. Put down your bag; you can get it in a minute, it isn’t far.”

With red hands over her eyes, Hilary Lancaster, laughing and dancing along by Lilian, was led to a door which was thrown open dramatically before her.

“Lilian North! Our old room improved! Me thought my feet tread upon accustomed ground!”

“Boards, you mean. How touching.” The two excited and happy girls started a “Gym” dance, Hilary counting as they took so many steps to the right, so many to the left, with bows and curtseys, till Hilary suddenly ran over to the window.

“There it is, the same lovely bit of the lake and the lacing trees. O, I can scarcely wait to see the launch and the boats again, and even our nice kind old Mickey. Where’s my bag?—O, yes!” and Hilary went racing down the hall for her traveling bag.

The suite over which these two girls were having such raptures was nothing remarkable, but was the one which Hilary Lancaster and Cathalina Van Buskirk had occupied the year before, their first happy year at this girls’ school. By taking down a partition or two, three large rooms had been made, one sitting room or study in the middle, a good-sized bedroom, with its two comfortable cots, on each side of the sitting room.

“Won’t Cathalina be surprised?”

Hardly had Lilian finished her sentence when a light little rap sounded at the door, which opened to reveal Miss Cathalina Van Buskirk of New York. Dainty and lovely as ever, her expressive face glowing with delight at surprising her friends, she stood a moment while two pairs of arms opened to greet her.

“Cathalina!”

“And Betty is downstairs in Miss Randolph’s room with her mother. It was mean of me to come on up, but I couldn’t wait,—Alma told me that she saw you girls come upstairs, and that by the way you were carrying on she thought you were glad to get back!”

“Is Alma still Miss Randolph’s helper?” asked Hilary.

“Yes,” replied Lilian, “she was the one who brought me up here when I came. I couldn’t find Miss Randolph and nobody but you, Cathalina, knew where we were to be. What do you think of it?”

Cathalina, whose home boasted every luxury, looked around at the room (which was bare of every adornment), glanced into the bedrooms (where dressers needed dusting and a linen cover of some sort), and with an expression of perfect and unassumed bliss, sank into a chair saying, “This seems just like heaven. Do you remember, Lilian, when you came over in the pink kimono last year and invited Hilary and me into your suite to eat fudge and peanuts? I had just gotten over a terrible fit of homesickness and we were in the midst of getting settled. Well, that was the beginning of my absolute a—adoration of this school! But come on,—we mustn’t forget our Betty, and her mother is a dear. You will all like her. Betty is her ‘living image.’ We were motoring, and Phil took me to Betty’s,—so we all came here together, I mean Betty and her mother and I, on the train. My trunk and things were to come by express from home. I must see about them, too.”

In a moment the room was empty again, except for several traveling bags, hats, and a few other articles scattered about. Hilary’s treasured one and only silk umbrella had fallen unheeded behind the steam pipes.

But Betty Barnes met the other girls on the stairs and was duly embraced and admired in an especially becoming new suit. “That is a duck of a hat, Betty, and aren’t we glad to see you, though!” Thus spoke Lilian.

“Cathalina could not wait for me, and I just have to see the room.”

“It was bad of me, and I’ll take you back,” offered Cathalina.

“I left Mother on the porch,” said Betty, “and there was a taxi full of girls just coming around the drive.”

“All right, we’ll be there, and if we see a sweet lady that looks just like you, we’ll introduce ourselves,—shall we?”

“Nothing would please Mother better.”

Lilian and Hilary went on down the stairs and out upon the broad porch with its columns, flowers, and vines. Stopping several times to greet acquaintances, they made their way as soon as possible to a stone bench at one end where they seemed to recognize a familiar figure.

“That is Eloise Winthrop!” exclaimed Hilary.

“And wouldn’t you take her for Betty?” Lilian was looking at Betty’s mother, to whom Eloise was talking.

“Yes, or her twin sister.”

As the girls reached the little group at the end of the porch, Eloise turned and prettily introduced them to Betty’s mother. “I am just apologizing,” continued Eloise, “for I thought that she was Betty and rushed madly up and threw my arms around her. You can imagine how I felt and how surprised the lady was!”

“I haven’t had so fine a compliment for years,” smiled Betty’s mother, slipping an arm around Eloise, “and one whose sincerity I can not doubt. But I don’t know what Betty will think.”

“I rather suspect that Betty knows how huh mothuh looks,” drawled Helen Paget, who was with Eloise. “I came up just in time to see the effect of mistaken identity and to avoid making the same mistake. I see that I shall have to watch my roommate closely this year if this is her impulsive nature!”

By this time Betty and Cathalina, with Pauline Tracy had appeared, and were listening with amusement to Helen’s lofty comments.

“This is Pauline, Mamma, dear old Polly, you know, and I’ve just heard the wonderful news that Eloise and Helen, with Pauline and Juliet Howe, are going to be together, in the next suite to ours.”

“Shall we ever get any studying done?” whispered Lilian aside to Hilary. Hilary gave her only a bright glance in reply, and nodded an affirmative.

“Now let me get all the names straight, Betty,” said her mother. “This dear child who took me for you is Eloise Winthrop, and Helen is the one you wrote me about,—is from the South.” Betty and Helen both nodded.

“And I’m Pauline, from the big ranch,” assisted Pauline, as Betty’s mother hesitated, looking at her.

“O, yes, and Juliet Howe is your ‘Shadow’!”

“She has not come yet, but I’m looking for her any minute. O, the fun we are going to have!”

“But I thought Helen had a different roommate.”

“She did, Diane Percy,—they were the ‘Imps.’ But Diane can not come, at least this first semester. And Eloise’s roommate is not coming back. Hence, therefore, consequently, Mamma, old Helen and old Eloise are going to try to get along together if they can. They are feeling badly about it, but are trying not to show it before company.”

At this, Eloise took out her handkerchief, and turned her face aside a little as if to wipe away an imaginary tear. Helen thrust her hands into her jacket pocket and assumed an expression of stony woe.

“You mischievous girls!” exclaimed Betty’s mother. “I hope that you will have a good time, but don’t forget what you are here for.”

Nobody of this happy company noticed a sober little face and lonely little figure at the far end of the long stone bench with its quaint carvings. “My, what a pretty mother,” she was thinking. “I did not know mothers were like that. My mother had a sweet face, though,” and she opened the small bag which she was carrying and drew out a picture. “Where am I, anyhow? I guess I might as well go back. That plump, homey looking girl is from a ranch, though; I guess it’s a nice one, not like ours. I suppose it can’t be worse here than at home. I’d like to stick it out, but I don’t suppose the girls will have anything to do with me. Look at my clothes!—beside of theirs! I knew my skirt was being made all crooked, and this hideous waist,—I wish I never had anything to say about my clothes. Ugly old heavy shoes to match the rest. But then dear old father did not know that they were awful.” The little girl sat thoughtfully a little longer, then slipped into the building and to her room. First she tipped the mirror in order to get a full length view of herself. “Yes, I said I wouldn’t care for anything if I could only get away. But look at me! Freckles, sandy pig-tails, turn-up nose, collar bones sticking out and red hands. You’re just about the limit, you are,” said she to her image in the glass. “Well, I’m not going to cry about it, not now, anyhow. It’s too near meal time. I’m glad I haven’t any roommate yet. I guess Miss Randolph would hate to put any girl like those girls in with me.”

Sturdy little soul that she was, this thought was too much. Possibly no more unhappy child had come to Greycliff this year. Dropping into a chair she sobbed aloud, not knowing that her door had come unlatched and stood ajar. Hilary and Lilian, passing, heard her and stopped short.

“Somebody’s homesick,” said Hilary.

“Shall we go in?” asked Lilian.

“Maybe she wouldn’t want us to, but it’s heathenish not to pay any attention. You try it all alone, Lil.”

“All right.” Lilian pushed the door open a little wider and rattled the knob as she did so. “Would you hate to have me come in a minute? I’m awfully sorry for whatever is the matter. We all have our turn at being homesick, though, so I thought I’d see if I couldn’t cheer you up. Could I? I’m Lilian North and an ‘old girl,’ you know, so I’m not homesick this year.”

By this time the weeping one had wiped her eyes, taken several long breaths and was able to answer. “Come right in.... I’m ... M—Margaret Hope, and just came today.” Lilian’s suggestion about the common malady of homesickness was fortunate. And what was Margaret’s surprise to see one of the admired girls whom she had first seen so short a time ago on the porch.

Meanwhile Hilary had waited a few moments, observed the cessation of sobs, heard conversation begin, and with a smile had withdrawn, going to see about baggage and several other matters and finally joining the other girls.

Where a grassy terrace with irregular stone steps helped the ascent to a grove at the side and rear of Greycliff Hall, there was a secluded nook formed by clumps of tall bushes and a group of big-limbed, gnarled trees. Sprawling roots invited to more or less comfortable repose. Two or three rustic seats stood about the path, which was an artistic, winding way of flat stones set in the grass. Here a merry party of girls had been gradually gathering; the seats were moved closer together, and a steamer rug and some cushions were in evidence.

“I fished a cushion or two out of my box,” said Cathalina Van Buskirk, neatly aiming one at Hilary, who was sitting on the grass. Hilary caught it, gave it a pat and settled down upon it, her hands clasped over her knees. Evelyn Calvert caught another one. Betty was already curled upon the rug and there Cathalina also sat down. Juliet Howe had recently arrived and was exchanging the summer’s experiences with Pauline Tracy, her nearest chum. Isabel Hunt’s soft curls were no less curly than they had been, her cheeks no less rosy. If she and Avalon Moore were somewhat younger than the other girls of this group, they were no less at home.

“I’d like to take a snap-shot of you girls,—all talking at once,” remarked Isabel, raising her voice that it might be heard above the chatter. “Did you ever see that picture Hilary took last year of Avalon and me? We didn’t know she was ready and were arguing about something. There we are in the picture, Avalon looking at me, and I at Avalon, for all the world like the elocution class, or Lilian making ‘tones,’ jaws dropped and mouths opened. If you want to see it, look at Hilary’s album. We couldn’t persuade her not to put it in. She has us along with the other specimens, the janitor’s lame duck and Micky’s parrot.”

“Where’s Lilian, Hilary?” inquired Betty.

“There she comes,” replied Hilary, waving a languid hand, “leading a forlorn hope.”

The girls watched Lilian, who was approaching, arm in arm, with a “new girl,” a plainly dressed one, apparently younger than Lilian.

“She was crying in her room when Lilian heard her and went to the rescue,” Hilary explained in a lower tone to the girls near her, “You know Lilian.”

“Yes, and if it hadn’t been Lilian, it would have been Hilary,” added Isabel.

By this time Lilian had arrived and found a vacant place on the steamer rug, drawing her companion down with her.

“This is Margaret Hope, girls, from—North Dakota, isn’t it, Margaret? Now you girls can go on talking if you want to, while I tell her all about you and who you are.”

“I like that, Margaret,” said Isabel pleasantly. “No telling how she will describe us, under cover of the conversation.”

“I don’t believe you need worry,” replied Margaret, feeling very shy and awkward in their midst.

“She has recognized your optimism already Lilian,” said Helen, while Margaret thought, “What big words that Southern girl uses.” She had heard the conversation which took place earlier, and recognized Helen. Lilian went on chatting to her for a little while, telling her about Hilary Lancaster, who was the daughter of a minister and her closest friend; of Evelyn, who was Southern, too, and wonderful in dialect stories; of several of the other girls, till Isabel took a hand in entertaining, and drew her into conversation with Avalon. That these girls should take pains to keep her from being unhappy had a great effect upon the girl from the far West, who had at first felt that companionship with these fortunate girls would be an impossibility. Had she only known that intimacy with this charming circle of girls depended entirely upon herself, she might have been discouraged. But in spite of her unprepossessing appearance now, Margaret had resources within, which school was to develop.

What a reunion was there after dinner again, when in groups large or small the girls wandered about the grounds or took a turn down at the beach. Betty’s heart had a wrench when the taxi took away her mother, but it helped much to have a jolly circle of girls with ever so much news to exchange, or plans to make for the new year at school. Rules were “off,” or at least not “on,” except to require safe bounds after dark. It was moonlight and starlight, clear, bright and warm, yet with that cool lake breeze lifting the stray locks about girlish heads. Pretty, light summer dresses moved about on the lawn in front of Greycliff Hall. The spray from the fountain blew in the faces of those who wandered too near. Within the building, the piano of the reception halls or parlors furnished gay music, and the colors of the rainbow showed in the pendants of the old glass chandeliers.

“Just think,” said Lilian to the girls as they gathered in their half straightened suite, “another year, and we are senior academy girls now! We must make all sorts of plans tomorrow for our work and the societies and everything.”

CHAPTER II.

BEGINNINGS.

The next day was full of all sorts of things. With the same general program, it is astonishing how different the school years are. There are new teachers, a new angle from which everything is viewed. There is a new course to be adjusted and there are the new books with their fresh covers and crisp pages of knowledge not yet understood. Lilian was stacking hers on a corner of the table. She was still full of that tensity and suppressed excitement which the busy day and many interests, with the companionship of other girls, had giver her.

“All that and more inside my brain this year, girls. And, O, my violin teacher is so funny. He looks as if he were just caught. He is imported, I guess.”

“Why, Lilian, this from you?” said Hilary.

“Never mind, he thinks I’m just as funny. He has a real mop of black hair, and closes his eyes and sways when he plays himself,—and glares fiercely when your bow scrapes or you get ever so little off the tone. He tried me out this morning. I played scales for him. I know how to torture him if he gets too cross,—just miss getting it right. Really, though, I’m just dying to go in for nothing but music, but Father won’t hear to it. I want voice and piano, violin, harmony, counterpoint, everything. They are going to let me take one stingy little lesson a week in voice and one in violin.”

“Mercy, child, how could you do more with your other work?”

“I suppose it is a sensible thing, but you know I’m a little ahead on the regular course, and wouldn’t have the full number of hours.”

“Where do you practice your violin?” asked Helen soberly, but as Lilian flashed her an understanding smile she laughed, and the other girls leaned forward in pretended anxiety.

“Over in the ‘annex,’ Dixie; don’t worry, no squeaks and squawks around here.”

“Have you seen Dr. Norris?” asked Cathalina.

“Who is he?” asked Lilian and Betty together.

“He is Patty’s lover! But keep it a dead secret. I don’t believe the faculty knows it. Perhaps they wouldn’t have let him come.”

“Maybe they do know it. How did you find it out?”

“By looking at them.”

“Everybody else will know it that way, then.”

“No, I don’t mean that they acted like lovers, but I could see that they are well acquainted, and I remember several things that happened last year. Don’t you remember, Betty, that time when we were with her and she had a letter ‘from a dear friend,’ she said, and was blushing over it? And she spoke of a ‘Mr. Norris’ who was in school with her and was getting his doctor’s degree. Then I’m sure that it was this man’s face in the photograph that she had out on her bureau and wouldn’t tell when we teased her to tell. I wondered why his face seemed so familiar, and then it came to me that it was the man of the photograph. He looks older, though. Probably that was the picture he gave her when they were in college.”

“She wears a ring this fall, did you notice it?” asked Betty.

“Yes; I noticed it at dinner last night. It sparkled very prettily and I thought that Patty was a little—well—conscious that she had it on. Several of the girls called each other’s attention to it, I saw. But suppose we say nothing about it.”

“Patty will manage it. I suppose he has to get money enough to get married on. Do they pay good salaries here?”

“I don’t know, Helen,” answered Hilary, “but he has to get experience somewhere first.”

“He’ll get it here, all right,” said Juliet.

“Why, Juliet, this is a fine school!” exclaimed Cathalina.

“Nobody knows that better than I, but I wouldn’t teach anybody chemistry, physics and the things he has, let alone a lot of girls in a girls’ school. Won’t it be a disappointment to the collegiates when they find that he is ‘taken’?”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Cathalina. “Do you suppose any of them will fall in love with him?”

“Don’t worry, Cathalina. It won’t be our fault if they do. It’s up to Patty to look out for that.”

“I suppose you are all happy to find that Dr. Carver’s back,” and Betty executed a little toe dance in celebration.

“Yes we are—not!” declared Isabel, who had been sitting on the couch in unusual silence. “Patty is to have the beginning Latin classes, but of course, I’m all through with that!”

“Won’t Patty have any other Latin?”

“One Caesar section, but I could not get into that.”

“I am lucky, Isabel, but I’m sorry you did not get into it too. However, I’m doubling on my Latin to catch up, and have the dear Doctor, too, in Cicero. It will be a fight. She will try to catch me up, and I shall try not to be caught. I expect to spend most of my time, girls, with the old Romans. But I will have to acknowledge that when she talks she can make it interesting.”

“Two classes to Dr. Carver! I pity you, Cathalina, from the bottom of my heart.”

“No, Isabel, only one to her, the other to Patty. I read ahead with Phil or Father this summer, and studied vocabulary, too. If I get beyond my depth I’ll come to some of you girls that have the senior Latin.”

“I could not read a line of Cicero now,” declared Helen. “I had hopes that Miss Randolph wouldn’t keep her when she saw how the girls disliked her.”

“She knows that Dr. Carver isn’t popular,” said Cathalina, “but I don’t believe that anybody ever complained to Miss Randolph. I certainly would hate to do it and make a teacher lose a position. And then, anyway, I’m not so sure that Miss Randolph cares about a teacher’s being popular.”

“But if Patty had it, wouldn’t we all love Latin?”

“I like it in spite of Dr. Carver,” said Cathalina, “and it helps me with all the other things.”

“I’ll get you to write an article on the ‘classics’ for our next contribution to the Greycliff Star. Did you know, girls, of my late honor?”

“I am to represent the senior academy on the staff of the world’s greatest newspaper, the Star. Please all of you help me. We can’t have much space, but want it filled with the most wonderful productions that a senior academy class ever offered!”

“‘Ah!’ quoth the correspondent!” said Isabel through her teeth.

“Where are you going, Helen?” asked Betty, as Helen left the row of girls on the couch and started toward the door.

“I must get back to the suite. I’ve so much to do. We are not settled yet.”

“I should say we aren’t,” was Juliet’s comment, as she, too, rose to follow Helen.

“When can we all have a real meeting together?” asked Hilary. “I have several important things to talk over with the whole crowd.”

“So have I,” said Cathalina.

“We’ll have study hours tonight, and real lessons for tomorrow,” reminded Betty.

“Then the only time will be between dinner and study bell,” said Hilary. “Tell the other girls, Helen, please. Where shall we meet?”

“O, down on the beach. Let’s go around to the cliffs.”’

“All right, Betty,” said Helen. “Adieu, ladies, for the present.”

Tap-tap-tap.

“Come in,” said Lilian, starting to open the door. But Alma Huntley had already let herself in.

“Good to see you all back,” she said hurriedly. Alma was always in a hurry, having many hours on duty for Miss Randolph, and studies of her own besides. “Miss Randolph would like to see you, Cathalina, in her room as soon as possible.”

“I can go at once.” Cathalina rose.

“Come along, then,” invited Alma, and the two disappeared. Avalon and Isabel departed and soon no visitors were left. Hilary, Betty and Lilian flew around putting a few last touches on the room and tucking away this or that in box or drawer.

“Haven’t we done well with our unpacking this time?” said Lilian. “We’ll not have a thing but lessons tonight. Anything else can be left till Saturday. Don’t you hope they’ll drive us in to Greycliff?”

“Yes,” said Hilary. “I want a can-opener and some plates at the ten cent store, and a cup and saucer. Mother said I might just as well get the dishes here as to bother with packing any. I like to have enough at feasts, don’t you?”

Dressing, writing a letter or two home, and fixing schedules of study occupied the rest of the time before dinner.

The lake shore at Greycliff was both beautiful and interesting. There were the tall, grey stone cliffs which had given the village and the school their name, and beneath the cliffs a rocky shore with great boulders, around which the waters tossed and foamed. Then there was a long, wide stretch of sand, under bluffs of a different formation. To bathe and swim, the girls naturally frequented the sandy beach and its rolling waves, but the rocks made attractive seats, and on top of the “Cliffs” there was soil, with trees and bushes. Only a part of this belonged to the school.

The appointed meeting could as well have taken place in one of the suites, but none of the girls wanted to miss the time, between dinner and the evening study bell, which was usually devoted to pleasant strolls or outdoor fun of some sort.

Climbing over the rocks, Cathalina, Hilary, Betty and the rest found a suitable place, where a shelf jutted out from the cliff side and irregular rocks and boulders offered seats. There they settled, arranging their light dresses like a flock of sea birds alighting and preening their plumage. Knowing well, however, the strength of the lake winds, they had been wise enough to bring their sweaters or jackets.

“Watch the clouds, girls,” said Lilian, “we ought not to think of such things as lessons and school with all this to look at.”

“See the colors under that golden angel’s wing across the sky!” exclaimed Cathalina, pointing. “Father said I could paint this year if I wanted to. I wish I could mix colors like those! But come to order, ladies,—who shall be chairman? This is a real meeting, you know.”

“I nominate Cathalina Van Buskirk,” said Hilary.

“I nominate Hilary Lancaster,” said Cathalina.

“No, I want to talk, Cathalina.”

“So do I, Hilary!”

The other girls laughed. “All I hope is—,” said Isabel, whose perch upon a round rock was rather precarious, “that no one will call for a rising vote!”

“Eloise! Eloise!” cried Juliet, and the others took it up. Hilary put it to vote, and Eloise was unanimously elected chairman.

“What am I chairman of, girls?” asked Eloise.

“The meeting of the No Name Society, I guess,” said Pauline. “Girls, we must have a real society and a name!”

“That is one of the objects of this meeting,” said Cathalina. “Madame chairman, may I have the floor?”

“There isn’t any,” inserted Isabel.

“I am speaking figuratively, Miss Hunt.”

“O, excuse me.”

“You may have whatever you want,” generously offered the chairman. “I think Isabel’s suggestion very good, considering our location. You need not rise, ladies and gentlemen. Just raise your hand, and voice, if necessary, and I will recognize you. Ahem. Ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate the honor which is mine. What on earth are you doing, Isabel?” For Isabel had jumped down from her lofty seat and was creeping stealthily around a steep rock.

“Looking for the ‘gentlemen.’”

“There are some people who always take everything literally, Dr. Carver says. Miss Van Buskirk has the floor.”

“Some of you know Miss Randolph sent for me today, and I thought that you would like to hear about some of the things she said. For one thing, I asked her if she had any objection to our having a little society and she said no, she wouldn’t unless we were planning to have too many ‘social affairs’ and ‘nonsense.’ I told her ‘no more than usual.’ They do not allow regular secret societies here, she said, but there have been lots of girls’ clubs. We knew of some last year, you know. She asked me if we had any object, and I couldn’t say that we had.”

“That Fudge Club last year was so silly,” said Isabel.

Eloise shook her finger at Isabel: “No interruptions.”

“It was a letter from Aunt Katherine and some private matters that she wanted to see me about, but while I knew she was so busy I did get in a question or two about this club, and I asked her, too, about what Hilary wanted to know,—whether a literary society would be a good thing. Hilary will tell you about that, but I want to tell you one lovely thing that Miss Randolph said about us. I can remember her words. She said, ‘Cathalina, your little group of friends seems to stand for the best that there is in Greycliff, and I hope that you all will take hold of things in the academy classes this year and use your influence.’”

The girls all looked pleased. “Miss Randolph is an old peach,” declared Isabel.

“That is all, Madame Chairman.”

“Won’t you tell us what your idea of this society is?”

“O, don’t believe I have any more than the rest. Only it seems as if we might have a little informal club just as well as not, since we are always getting together anyway, and whenever there is anything important on hand we always call a ‘solemn conclave’ anyhow. I think it would be lovely to belong to something together and have a pin or a ring and a name, and perhaps keep a ‘round robin’ going after we are away from dear old Greycliff.”

“O, yes, let’s!” exclaimed Avalon. Turning to Isabel, she added, “Aren’t you glad that they asked us to come? When I first heard them saying something about it yesterday, I was afraid that the older girls wouldn’t let us be in it.”

“Shall we hear from Hilary now?” asked Eloise.

“Hear, hear! Hilary!”

Hilary then began: “I am very much in favor of having this little society of ours, for, as Cathalina says, you know how often there are important things to talk over, like our athletics. It is funny how several of us have been thinking of it, and yesterday when something was said it brought it all about. I can not think of a name to suggest, but that can come later. Now about the literary society. I thought last year that an academy literary society would be a good thing and was talking about it in our suite. Miss Randolph told Cathalina that no effort had ever been made to start one, though one to have the collegiate societies include academy girls failed. The work in the English classes and in the oratory department has been considered enough for the poor ‘prep’! Miss Randolph thought that it would be an ‘excellent movement’ to start an academy society and have regular meetings, every week, or every two weeks, and if we did start it, we might have the south parlor in the old part of Greycliff Hall, that ducky little room with two or three good pictures and a piano!”

“If I recall how meetings are conducted,” said Eloise, “we are supposed to have motions and then discuss them. Somebody make a motion.”

“I move, Madam Chairman,” said Cathalina, “that we form first a society or club with those present for charter members.”

“I second the motion,” said Lilian.

Eloise put the motion, which was unanimously carried.

“But we won’t have to have formal meetings, will we?” protested Isabel.

“O, no,” exclaimed several.

“Only when we want them so,” said Cathalina. “But we’d better have a president and secretary, no, just treasurer, for our money. Shall we have pins or rings or what?”

“Let’s think it over and wait,” suggested Pauline. “Appoint a meeting and we can elect our officers, select a name, and see if we want to have an ‘object’ and what it shall be, and decide if we want to add any other members now.”

The girls all thought that a sensible suggestion.

“But I think we’d better go right to work at the literary society, don’t you?” queried Hilary.

“Yes,” said Isabel with promptness. “If we don’t, some other society of the collegiates will grab that room.”

“Not if Miss Randolph has promised it to us,” said Cathalina.

“Why not have a committee appointed now,” said Juliet, “to write a little constitution and some ‘by-laws’? I move that the chairman appoint such a committee.”

This was duly done, Hilary, Helen and Juliet consenting to be the committee.

“One other thing, girls,” said Hilary. “We shall have to have a senior academy meeting to organize right away. Don’t you think we ought to speak to some of the girls about it and have a notice of a meeting read in chapel or in the dining room tomorrow?”

“Yes,” answered several. “You write the notice, Hilary, or see some of the old officers, and we’ll all speak to the other girls,” Eloise suggested. “When shall our meeting for the club and the literary society take place?”

“Saturday evening?”

“That night, the first Saturday, is always sacred to the Y. W. C. A. reception.”

“Friday evening, then. The other societies will be starting and we do not have to keep study hours.”

“All right. I guess a motion is not necessary, is it?” said Eloise.

“No, nor a motion to adjourn,” said Isabel. “The study bell will do that for us. I wish I’d worn my bathing suit. I’d like one little dip.”

“O, no, Isabel,” said Avalon. “We better start up now. My watch says five minutes to the bell.”

As the girls climbed back and started up the patch to the campus Hilary exclaimed, “O, Lilian, one thing we didn’t speak of at all.”

“What is that?”

“Whether we ought to organize our literary society first or invite in the whole academy and organize together.”

“How were the other literary societies formed?”

“They are exclusive affairs, that is, you have to be elected by the members. But I don’t like anything that is snobbish or has ‘special privileges,’ as Father and Mother call it.”

“I suppose all ought to have a chance at improvement, but would the society be as good, and would the girls care for it as much?”

“There is something in that, too.”

“What was Miss Randolph’s idea, if she had any, Cathalina!”

Cathalina, who was walking ahead with Betty and Eloise, waited. Hilary explained and asked what Cathalina thought Miss Randolph would approve.

“She did not say anything about what sort of a society it ought to be, but I just took it for granted that it would be like the others, and you know what she said about our ‘influence.’”

“Still,” demurred Hilary, “that doesn’t mean starting a pleasant society and leaving folks out.”

“Do you think we ought to have everybody in the other?”

“That is different. Not having girls that like to be together would spoil the whole idea of our little club.”

“O, we’d never come to the end of that argument!” exclaimed Eloise. “I’m for starting a small literary society, seeing how it works, taking in a number of good students and the stronger girls to begin with and adding girls that will work later, as seems best. It will start off twice as well with somebody like Hilary for president, a good program committee and a few meetings to see how we ought to do, before we get in so many, or without taking in a lot of girls to ball it all up or elect officers from some kind that haven’t brains.”

“Sensible girl!” quoth Cathalina. “Elo’ always goes to the point.”

“You girls will all have to help us get up the constitution. I don’t know what a constitution is like,” said Hilary.

“Borrow one from one of the societies, or ask Patty. She’ll know.”

From all quarters of the campus the girls of Greycliff were moving toward the entrances of Greycliff Hall. Some were hurrying, but most of them moved with lingering steps, last bits of conversation and laughter. They were loath to leave the delightful September outdoors.

“How I hate to get at it!” groaned Isabel. “With all these beauties of nature,” she added, in her most oratorical style, with exaggerated gesture.

“Are you going to take ‘expression’ again this year, Izzy?” asked Avalon of her roommate.

“O, yes, and I’m going to be in the debate club and the dramatic club.”

“You’ll be ‘clubbed’ to death, with our two new clubs, too.”

“They’ll overlap. What I do in oratory and debate will come in for the literary society. If the program committee gives me other things, I can’t do ’em, that’s all.”

“It won’t do to be too independent, Izzy.”

“No, but don’t you think that debates would be good practice? The other club doesn’t count, for we always get together when we have a chance anyway.”

They had reached their room, and saw Hilary and Lilian just closing the door into their suite.

“I’m glad we’re not far from the girls. Wait till I see if Margaret is all right.” Kindly Isabel rapped on the door next to theirs and was greeted by a bright face as Margaret Hope threw it open. At different times through the day Isabel had helped Margaret with her schedule of work and shown her to the class rooms.

“Thank you, Isabel, I’m just starting in on lessons, and was reading over this letter from Father. I think I’ll have to tell you,—he had good luck in selling some stock and sent me a nice big check to buy some clothes. I guess he saw that my things were not right. O, Isabel, will you help me buy some? I hate to look so different.”

“Of course I will, though my taste is not like Cathalina’s or Lilian’s or some of the rest. Maybe you’d better ask Lilian. You know her best, don’t you?”

“Yes; but I’m afraid to.”

“Afraid of Lilian?”

“Why yes; she’s a regular angel, and I’d hate to have her feel like laughing at me.”

“Angels don’t laugh at folks, and neither would Lilian. You needn’t be afraid to ask her about anything, and she won’t talk about it, either, if you don’t want her to. Say, Margaret, if you’d let your hair down, or let it be a little looser in front it would be more becoming. We’ll talk clothes and things Saturday, and maybe go to town. So long, I’ve got to write a letter to Dad and the boys tonight. They brought me up, you know. I haven’t any mother.”

“Neither have I, Isabel.” The two girls gave each other an understanding look, but Isabel hurried off before any feeling should be displayed. Isabel always declared that she “hated waterworks.” But she had no sooner closed the door than she opened it again.

“I thought I’d tell you, Margaret, that whether the girls like you or not doesn’t depend on your clothes at Greycliff. It’s what you are. Of course we all like pretty clothes, and there is one silly set here that doesn’t think of much else. You can tell ’em by their grades. And you wouldn’t want to belong to that crowd, would you?”

“No, indeed.”

Cathalina was deftly fashioning a placard as Hilary and Lilian entered, and Betty was sitting in a rocking chair by the table, a green shade over her eyes, her elbows on her knees, fists on both sides of her head, and a text book on her lap.

“We stopped a minute to talk to the ‘Y’ president about Saturday night,” said Lilian. “Look at Betty! She has already begun her year’s labors.”

“It’s time,” said Betty without looking up.

“How does this look?” inquired Cathalina, holding up the completed placard.

“Fine,” replied Hilary, reading it aloud. “‘Lakeview. Busy.’ Don’t waste a moment, Cathie, but get it up. Where’s my good old kimono, friend of study hours? Can we keep from talking?”

“Got to,” Betty offered.

“Driving it in with your fists, Betty?” Lilian brazenly looked over Betty’s shoulders, discovered that Betty was studying history, and tiptoed away with pretense of great effort to tread lightly.

Betty, looking out of the corner of her eyes, saw Lilian’s painful limp and giggled.

Cathalina came in from putting up the placard. “I have a suggestion. We’ll all pitch in with all our might till the bell, and then gabble as fast as possible till lights out.”

“Remarkable thought,” said Hilary. “Cathalina proposes that we really study during study hours. All in favor say ‘ay.’ Unanimous.”

Silence descended upon the “inmates,” as they called themselves, of Lakeview Suite on Lakeview Corridor.

CHAPTER III.

GREYCLIFF CLUBS.

The majority of Greycliff girls enjoyed the chapel period. Attendance was compulsory, but there was the home feeling of people with many thoughts and activities in common and the interest of knowing what was going on. From the platform where sat the faculty, the sight of those girlish faces must have been an inspiration. And as to the girls, there were times when they really appreciated the fine array of talent upon the platform. There was Miss Randolph, whose face was beautiful, with fine thoughts and high ideals. There were intellectual men and bright, earnest women, whose chief purpose was to unfold truth in teaching their subjects to these girls. At times, to be sure, members of the faculty would come to the conclusion that none of the girls were endowed with minds and that all their efforts were wasted. This conclusion would be reached over a set of examination papers on which the class had done its worst. On the other hand, in the eyes of the girls at times, the faculty were the most obstinate, particular, insistent group of people that ever existed, when they stood in the way of some cherished plan, or imposed distasteful tasks! But on the whole, the Greycliff relations between girls and teachers were most pleasant. At critical times, real love and appreciation came to the fore.

On Thursday morning of this first week of school, Dr. Norris, who was reading the notices after the brief service, paused with a sheaf of small paper in his hands. “So many notices of meetings have been handed me, that I advise you either to make a note now of those in which you are interested, or to consult carefully the bulletin on which these will be posted. Many of them are only for organization and ought to be brief. Most of them occur on Friday evening or some time Saturday.” There followed such a list of clubs that most of the faculty were smiling and the girls laughing or giggling before Dr. Norris had finished. Some of the clubs had odd names, or Greek letter titles, which rather concealed any purpose the club might have than revealed it. The dramatic club, the musical club, the “Greycliff Orchestral Society,” the art club, the athletic council, the debating club and others, all announced meetings.

“And to think that we have the effrontery to start any more!” whispered Helen to Juliet.

Class meetings were also announced, among them the senior academy meeting. But two busy days of class work came before these important gatherings. Our girls’ minds were in a whirl of studies, plans, and various social relations. There were so many attractive girls, so many forms of activity opening beside the courses of study. One girl could not by any possibility enter into everything, but it was a great temptation to undertake too much.

“Mercy, Cathalina,” cried Hilary, “do you remember how many hours you thought too many last year?” This was after lunch on Thursday, as the girls went for their text books before the afternoon recitations.

“No, but I know that I have some ambition this year,” replied Cathalina. “Father says that I can,—may—paint this year, and that’s that. Then my course is as full as they’ll let me make it. As I have so much collegiate credit ahead, Miss Randolph says that I can have my senior academy rank.”

“Good!”

“Yes, isn’t it? And by taking the French, I get credit for the course, and yet I can read it so easily in the time I have to plan for study that it will hardly count. It hardly seems fair!”

“Why not? You never had credit for it before, and yet with your private lessons and all your practice talking it, even with the French maids you used to have, you really know it.”

“I suppose that is so. The one course is quite advanced and has a lot of new words in it, but that is all. I’ll make a vocabulary list and commit the new words in between times.”

“That’s what I always say I’ll do and never get at it, but I’m going to reform.”

“What athletics are you going into, Hilary?”

“Basketball, of course, and riding lessons, with some Gym work, I guess. How about you?”

“I like tennis, and I’m down for regular Gym work this year. I’ll ride and swim a little, but my work is going to keep me busy. Father isn’t afraid that I’ll hie me away to painting every spare minute, but I’ll be tempted sometimes. You rout me out, will you, Hilary?”

“Yes, indeed. We girls will see to it that the distinguished artist does not ruin her health over her masterpieces. Can’t you make your schedule include your outdoor doings and keep to it?”

“Perhaps I can work it out. I like this life! There’s something to do all the time and all kinds of good times to plan for. Our societies will be such fun! My course is not really hard. Math will take time, and the two Latins. I’m skipping English this year, because I had ‘Lit’ with the collegiates last year.”

“Do you think you will come back for the two collegiate years?”

“I don’t know; I hope so, don’t you want to?”

“Yes.”

After the afternoon classes were over a number of girls strolled back to Greycliff Hall with their books and tablets, while others deposited their belongings here and there, and gathered on the grass, in the swings or elsewhere. Lilian suggested to Hilary and Eloise that they stop to take a look at the south parlor, offered by Miss Randolph as headquarters for the proposed academy literary society.

“Do you suppose we can get in?”

“We can try it.”

The door was unlocked, yielding immediately to Lilian’s rather hesitating attempt to open it, and the three girls walked in, “I don’t believe I was ever in the room before,” said Lilian. “Why don’t they use it?”

“They do sometimes for a practice room,” said Hilary. “I think that Patty practices in here. But since they have the new annex with all the music rooms they don’t need it much, and it is too far from the rest to be used for a bedroom, and they certainly don’t need it for a parlor any more. It was used for a teachers’ parlor for a while, till they took a bigger room in the new part. But what I wonder is that some club has not taken it before.”

“I don’t think that any new clubs have been started for some time. The little private clubs, of course, wouldn’t ask for any room.”

“I love this dark woodwork, don’t you?”

“Yes; we must have it furnished with dark chairs.”

“My, Lilian, have you gotten that far along?”

“Yes, why not? I can just see how it is going to look. That is a good piano—till we get our own.”

“Good!” exclaimed Eloise. “That is the way to think about it. We can raise the money.”

“We’ll just love our little society hall and have the best times! I can see us having candy sales and things for the benefit of the What-do-you-call-it Literary Sassiety.”

“There you are, Lilian. What are we going to call ourselves?”

“Rack your brains, girls. Maybe some bright idea will strike us. Name, motto, officers, constitution, membership,—but it will be fun to think about it. I want Hilary for president, because she thought about it first and is used to societies and things in church work. She will know how to run it.”

“O, no,—” began Hilary, but was not permitted to go on.

“Please don’t begin that way, Hilary,” said Eloise. “We all ought to do our best in starting this, and I think all the girls feel that you will make our best first president. In after years,” she continued loftily, “when our descendants come to Greycliff, they will be shown a handsome painting, done by the world-renowned artist, Cathalina Van Buskirk, of Madam Hilary Lancaster—Somebody, first president of the Shakespearean Literary Society!”

“Listen to the inspired lady! By the way,” said Hilary, “that would not be a bad name.”

“School societies usually have a Greek or Latin name and some unreadable motto that half the members don’t understand.” Thus Eloise.

“It’s classic and all right,” said Lilian. “Father says he does not want schools to get away from the old classical studies, but I, too, think that the name of some great English author would be fine for our society. The collegiate societies have the other sort of names.”

Friday night came at last. In “Lakeview Suite” were Hilary, Lilian, Cathalina, Betty, Eloise, Helen, Juliet, Pauline, Isabel and Avalon. Lilian and Betty had just come in, each with a pan of hot fudge.

“Goody, girls!” exclaimed Isabel. “I was just wondering when we were going to have any eats and parties. Do you girls remember Hilary’s birthday box?”

“Do we remember!” exclaimed Pauline. “I can even taste that chicken yet!”

“Lilian and I are going to celebrate together this year,” announced Hilary, smiling. “Our birthdays come only a month apart, so we shall have two boxes.”

“You know I always did like you, Hilary,” said Isabel with great feeling, moving around to where Hilary stood.

“Little humbug,” said Hilary, as distinctly as she could with a bit of fudge that was a little too warm for comfort.

Isabel pretended to be crushed, but as Hilary added, “You’re all invited to the party,” she “registered” joy, as they do in the moving pictures, and said with satisfaction, “Now there is something to look forward to for October, or is it November?”

“The date will be announced later,” said Lilian, “but we must get down to business tonight.”

The matter of the literary society was taken up first and the committee made its report. Eloise had again been appointed chairman. A simple constitution was presented. On this the committee had had help from Miss West, as had been suggested. That out of the way, the election of officers and selection of a name was proposed. Everybody thought that The Shakespearean Literary Society of the Academy was good, and a committee was appointed to look up some quotations from Shakespeare from which a good motto could be selected.

“To be or not to be,” suggested Isabel, rolling the r in “or.”

“There’s one beginning ‘To thine own self be true’ that is good,” said Pauline.

“There will be plenty of them,” said Lilian. “Let’s leave that to the committee, to hunt them up and bring a good list. Patty can help us there, too, if she will.”

“Is it necessary to have ballots?” ask Eloise.

“We all know, I think, whom we want for officers,” said Cathalina.

“My, we’re getting to be regular politicians,” said Avalon.

“Nonsense; this is for a good purpose,” said Juliet.

“So they think,” said Avalon.

“Honestly, girls,” said Hilary, “do you think it is all right for us to start this by ourselves?”

“Of course we do,” replied Avalon, who did not wish to be thought serious in her comments.

“We argued that all out before, you know, Hilary,” said Eloise. “It is our own idea. It isn’t as if any body else was going to do it and we were trying to get ahead of them. And are we doing it for ourselves? Does Hilary want to be president and do all the hardest work?—Nominations for president are now in order.”

Hilary laughed and settled back with resignation to the inevitable. For with no hesitation her name was proposed, and she was unanimously elected. Lilian was made vice-president and Juliet secretary. Pauline was treasurer and was to be at the head of any plans for furniture or other desired possessions of the society.

“I suggest that we only appoint one member of the program committee from our number and let her select from the new members whomever she wants to work with her. By the constitution, too, our president is to have general oversight of the program.”

“That is a good idea, Cathalina,” said Eloise, “do you so move?”

Cathalina so moved, and as soon as soon as possible nominated Isabel for chairman of the program committee. Isabel protested that there ought to be one of the older girls.

“Get one to serve with you, then,” she was told. “You know most of the girls and what they can do in a literary way, and all of us will help with suggestions if you need any.”

The officers elected, the election of members came next. Hilary suggested a quick way of disposing of this. “Let all of us write the names of girls that we think would make good members and hand the names to a nominating committee. Then let them present the names that are on all the lists, or enough of them.”

“How many new members do we want?” asked Cathalina.

“There are ten of us, aren’t there? What do you say to beginning with twenty-five members? That room will hold twice as many, but twenty-five will be enough for not having the same people on the programs too often, and we can add girls that we get acquainted with later. Isn’t the school full this year? They had to refuse some, Alma said, because they couldn’t squeeze any more in and care for them properly.”

Cathalina, Betty and the rest hurried around to get enough pencils together and tear the paper that they had already provided in several tablets.

“Can we talk the girls over and compare lists beforehand?” asked Avalon.

“Of course,” said Eloise. “Who has the list of girls in the academy?”

“I have,” replied Lilian.

“Will you read it slowly, then?”

Lilian did so, while the girls listened attentively and often jotted down a name on their lists.

“Now take all the time you want for talking it over. I want to do it too. I will call you to order after a little.”

Consultation was in order now, and the full list of academy students was passed from hand to hand.

“Who are ‘Catherine Lawrence’ and ‘Dorothy, Bryant,’ put together on the list?” asked Helen.

“They are two new girls who have entered as juniors,” answered Hilary.

“Yes, and they are fine girls, I think,” added Cathalina. “Catherine was playing for some of the girls in the big parlors the other night, and she plays so well for a girl of her age, classical music, too.”

“She and Dorothy are from the same town,” said Isabel. “Dorothy is taking music, too, and is in one of the elocution classes.”

“Let’s have them, then.” Two names went down on several lists.

Finally all the lists were complete with fifteen names of first choice and five names of second choice, for fear that time would be lost if there were not enough votes for the same ones the first time. But it was proof that the girls thought of ability as well as personal preference that fifteen girls were at once selected and their names returned by the “nominating committee.” Louise Monroe, Jane Mills, Ruth Russell, Alice Scott, and Lucile Houston were strong girls in the senior class. Evelyn Calvert could write or recite such clever dialect stories. Isabel had made a plea for Margaret Virginia Hope, the new girl from North Dakota. “And by the way, girls, she says she wants us to call her Virginia from now on, and she has given her name to the teachers as Virginia.”

“How crazy.”

“She has a reason.”

“Virginia” Hope it was, then, who was elected. She with Mary Johnston, Agnes and Nelle Pickett, and Nancy Gordon, were classmates of Isabel and Avalon. A few more juniors completed the fifteen.

“Do you realize, girls, that we haven’t a single freshman?”

“I hadn’t thought of it, Cathalina, but that is so,” replied Hilary.

“It was natural enough and perhaps just as well,” said Pauline. “Let them make good. They are all new except some that didn’t make the sophomore class last year.”

“And those we don’t want, for we must have some standard of scholarship in a literary society.”

“Hurrah!” exclaimed Isabel. “The literary society is started. When shall we hear Hilary’s inaugural address?”

“There is isn’t going to be any,” declared Hilary.

It was decided to meet regularly, like the other societies, on Friday night at seven-thirty. Hilary and the program committee were to arrange the first program for the following Friday. The first purchase was to be that of a musical bell, to be rung in the halls when the members were called to the meetings.

“There isn’t much time left, I’m afraid, for our other affair,” said Lilian.

“O, yes; look,” and Hilary pointed to her clock. “We did wonders in quick work on the Shakespearean Society.”

“That is because we had thought up what we wanted beforehand.”

“Let’s have an informal meeting now, with Eloise to put it to vote occasionally,” said Betty. “I think she would make a fine president anyhow.”

“O, no,” said Eloise; “Cathalina thought about it, besides.”

“Cathalina positively declined to consider it,” said that young lady. “You know, girls, how I’m doubling up work this semester. I’ll work in the clubs, and I’ll need ’em for recreation, but please don’t ask me to be president.”

Betty put the question after Eloise had been nominated and “seconded,” and the matter was concluded. Helen was to be secretary and treasurer. It was decided to have a pin, since it was not always convenient to wear a certain ring all the time. Cathalina asked permission to see about these pins in New York, to be the great delight of the girls who knew that they would be all the more beautiful and artistic if she attended to it.

“What ‘object’ are we going to have, if Miss Randolph inquires?” she asked.

“What could we have,” asked Lilian, “except to be together and have a good time, and stand by each other and help the other girls all we can?”

“I think she would think that enough,” said Cathalina. “This is just a social club, and of course wherever anything is to be done for the school or anybody we can take hold, too. Father is always quoting, ‘Therefore it is meet that noble minds keep ever with their likes,’ when he is talking about our keeping good company.”

“What is that from, Cathalina?”

“Julius Caesar. A speech by Cassius about Brutus, I think.”

“Girls, we haven’t a name yet,” reminded Eloise.

“Greycliff’s Giggling Girls,” suggested Isabel.

“The Grey Cliff-Dwellers.”

“The Helping Hand Club, with a hand for a pin!”

“The Truth Seekers,—with a lantern!”

“Eloise says that her favorite emblem is a harp, a lyre or a banjo.”

“Get the name to fit the pin, then. How would the Happy Harpers do?”

“Come on, girls, be sensible,” said Hilary.

“I think that it would be sensible to leave the name another week or so. Maybe the designs for pins will help us, or somebody will have a bright thought. There’s the bell now!”

“All right, Helen, shall we, girls?” asked Eloise, the president of this as yet nameless society.

“We’ll have to,” said Juliet. “Good-night, the fudge was awfully good.”

“I begin to think that the ‘Fudge Club’ wasn’t such a bad name after all,” said Isabel. “They probably had a time to think up a name. ‘O, fudge’ is probably their motto.”

CHAPTER IV.

CLASS POLITICS.

Early Saturday morning Isabel flew into the suite occupied by Eloise, Helen, Pauline and Juliet. “I’ve something to tell you,” said she. “Your class meeting comes this morning, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” replied Juliet, “at ten o’clock.”

“Well did you know that some of the girls are planning to put in Myrtle Wiseman for president, and the other girls of that set for all the other offices?”

“What?” Eloise came to the door of the bedroom, her comb in hand, her long, dark hair falling around her shoulders and framing her bright face.

“Margaret told me last night before ‘lights out.’ While we were at our meeting last night, Margaret, I mean Virginia, was in the library reading, and two girls came in and began to talk without paying any attention to her. There was hardly anybody there, she said, on account of all the meetings, and these girls talked in a low tone. They thought she was a new girl and wouldn’t know anybody, I suppose, in our crowd. At first Virginia said that she did not pay any attention, then she caught the names of some of you girls. All she got was that all of your crowd were to be kept from holding any office, and that Myrtle Wiseman was to be president. She remembered that name.”

“Myrtle hates Hilary so, and none of us have been more than polite since she made trouble between Hilary and Lilian last year. She is a trouble-maker, they say. But I wonder that they would put her up for president, because there are stronger girls in that crowd. I wonder who those girls in the library were.”

“Virginia did not know them.”

“I suppose they came in late after some meeting?”

“Probably. I imagine that these are only Myrtle’s special friends and there might be some hope for us that Myrtle might be defeated.”

“Dorothy Appleton would make a good president.”

“She would be too much influenced by Myrtle and the rest, Juliet.”

“O, I don’t know about that, Eloise. Dorothy is pretty independent, especially if anything important comes up. I think Dorothy wants to be fair.”

“Would you mind, Isabel, going over and telling Hilary and the rest, and asking them to come to our suite after breakfast?”

“I’ll go, and I suppose Virginia and Avalon and I are to say nothing about what we heard?”

“If you please for the present. And thank you so much, Isabel, for telling us. We’ll tell you how it all comes out.”

“Did you hear that, Pauline?”

“I’m not sure that I got it all. Myrtle Wiseman for president?”

“Yes. Wouldn’t that be awful!”

“We’ve been too busy with our clubs we’re starting to pay any attention to class doings. But I guess we do not want any offices.”

“No, but we don’t want to be run by people like that, either.”

“Class spirit is rather important sometimes.”

“Yes, I wish we had talked with the other girls more.”

“I just thought that it would be like the usual meetings without any doubt that we could get good officers to represent the class.”

So ran the conversation. After breakfast the other girls came hurrying in. “What shall we do about it? Anything?” was the general query.

“For one thing,” said Eloise, “when they nominate Myrtle one of us can hop right up and nominate some one else.”

“One of our own crowd?”

“Not necessarily, but one not so opposed to us as Myrtle is. She would even work against us, you know.”

“I tell you what I think would be the best thing to do,” said Pauline.

“Hear, hear! Pauline!”

“They would be expecting us to nominate one of our girls and if we pick out a girl outside that everybody likes she would stand a good chance of being elected. They will have to work to get Myrtle in, you know. She is not a popular girl at all.”

“That is a good idea, Pauline,” said Lilian, “and if we could get the best girl in their own crowd they would not know what to do. Do you remember how the great generals always did, Caesar and the rest, plan to divide the enemies’ forces?”

“Well I don’t see that we would make any mistake in putting Dorothy in. She is popular, and independent, and I’m sure she would never stand for anything mean if she knew it, and we’ll see that she knows it if ever anything comes up in the class meetings.”

“Would you or Hilary be willing to nominate Dorothy? It would have more effect if you would, because the girls would immediately think why.”

“O, no, Eloise, please; we want to forget that awful time!”

“Let Pauline do it,” said Cathalina. “Pauline has been here several years and her athletic ‘prowess’ gives her influence.”

“Yes, and I think Pauline could do it without any special feelings being aroused. That would be better,” said Hilary. “We don’t want to split up the class or anything. I don’t hate Myrtle at all. I’m sorry for her, but I wouldn’t want her to run anything I was connected with.”

“Hear our good old Hilary. She is right. Let’s not talk to anybody, but handle it all at the meeting. If we could get one of Dorothy’s chums to second the nomination and give her a little boost, it would be fine. Pick out Julia Merton or pretty little Margaret Brown, Pauline, and sit by her. They are crazy about Dorothy.”

“All right, Eloise,” said Pauline. “I can honestly do my part for Dorothy. I like her very much.”

“Poor Myrtle!” said Hilary.

“Don’t get soft-hearted, Hilary,” admonished Eloise. “If it were just some kind sacrifice you could make for her I wouldn’t say a word, but when it comes to letting a whole class in for trouble it is different!”

“Be on time for the meeting, girls,” was Pauline’s last word, as the girls of Lakeview suite departed.

“Don’t worry. We’ll be there when the meeting is called to order.”

The girls were a little excited, not knowing just what to expect from Myrtle and her friends, but feeling sure that Dorothy would prove more popular and receive a majority of the votes. There was the possibility that more names would be presented, but that did not matter as long as Myrtle were not elected. It turned out better than they had hoped. Myrtle was promptly nominated and the nomination was seconded by a special friend. Pauline rose quickly and nominated Dorothy, who was not present. This made a little stir among the girls and evidently threw confusion into the camp of the enemy, for as Pauline had hoped, Julia Merton, tall and of the studious type, seconded the nomination of Dorothy with great spirit. Dorothy was elected with a large majority, and two sweet girls without “political” attachments were chosen for vice-president and secretary. The danger was past! Isabel and Avalon were coached not to say a word about the matter, and while Myrtle and her friends viewed Pauline and the rest with a bit of suspicion, they finally concluded that it was just the old affair that could of course be counted on to prevent their accepting Myrtle.

“Pauline was terribly prompt in nominating Dorothy,” said Myrtle.

“Yes, but I expected Hilary and Lilian to be on their feet at once,” said her friend who knew something about last year’s difficulty. “I don’t see how they could know anything about our plans.”

That afternoon there was the hoped for trip to the city. Several small parties wanted to go and were put in charge of as many teacher chaperons. Greycliff had a shining new motor ’bus, which took them to the village, and there they caught the early afternoon train for the city.

Isabel had told Lilian about Virginia’s desire to buy some clothes under her oversight and Lilian had run in to see Virginia once or twice to confer. “Better have a list of things we want to get,” she said, “because the city is a dizzy place and I’m always tempted to get something I don’t need.”

“Her check was a nice big one,” Isabel told Lilian. “I think she’d better get her winter fixings, a good coat and a one-piece Sunday dress that she could wear on different occasions, and maybe a skirt that hangs right for school and a pretty sweater.”

“You make a list with her,” said Lilian, “and then I’ll go over it later, and we must think about colors that she ought to wear. Cathalina will be along and her ideas will be good on that.”

Never had Virginia had such a day, from the time when the ’bus with “giggling Greycliff girls,” according to Isabel, started from the school, to the shadowy evening hours when she returned laden with packages, with more to be sent out Monday. She squeezed Isabel’s hand happily, as she sat between her and Avalon and whispered, “Wait till I write to my good old Dad that sent me here where I could know you girls, and sent me that check for clothes.”

“It’s funny about clothes,” said Isabel. “They don’t make your character, of course, but it does seem to have an awful effect on you to have the right things to wear, a sort of support to your—um—moral courage.”

Virginia’s hair was so “scraggly and faded in spots,” as she said, that Lilian had advised her to have it cut nicely while she was in the city, and wear it fluffed about her face, tied on the side with a wide ribbon, as the girls were wearing it then, when their hair was short. This performance so changed her that she insisted on stopping at one of the places of quick photography and having a picture made to send home to her father. “I’ll write under it, ‘This is me, would you know me?’ and tell him that I expect to put something inside of the head, too, before I see him again. He works so hard! O, I can wear my new dress to the Y. W. reception tonight, can’t I?”

“Of course you can,” replied Avalon, “your pretty pumps, too. It’s a good thing we did not want to get much ourselves!”

“Yes. I’m sorry you have had so much trouble for me.”

“O, I did not mean that; it was fun. But as we did not get any big things, we could bring some of yours that you need right away.”

They had wisely not tried to run all round getting things here and there, but had chosen one big department store, which carried good things at all prices, and had taken Virginia from one department to another, shopping for themselves too, till Virginia said she was dizzy with clothes and happiness. And when they were about ready to drop, they met their chaperone at a tea room near, where Virginia sat in silent bliss, eating whatever the other girls suggested, and looking around at the place and people to her heart’s content. They would return too late for the Greycliff meal, but in time for the reception, which was from eight to nine-thirty, probably ten, as the girls thought.

Both Lilian and Isabel came around to assist in Virginia’s toilet. “You can’t make me pretty,” said Virginia, “but I do look nice, and not so different,—and I think that you are the loveliest girls I ever saw or heard of!”

Lilian gave her a bright, sympathetic smile, but told her that she was entirely mistaken as to her character, while Isabel bowed with her hand on her heart and offered her an arm of escort to the parlors.

The “Y. W.” reception was like most receptions for the purpose of having the girls meet each other. There was a receiving line of girls and faculty. Then a committee was on hand to take the girls to a table where they were tagged with their own names. The old girls were told to make themselves useful in introducing themselves and others to the new girls, but the new girls received special attention. At a pretty table, covered with white linen, flowers, and sparkling glasses, lemonade was ladled out of a cut-glass punch bowl, and served with wafers. The faculty were cordial and wore their company apparel, doing their best to meet the girls naturally on a social footing, to forget class work and to remember names. Fortunately, the scheme of having names pinned on prevented many mistakes on the part of both faculty and girls.

“Were your slippers comfortable?” asked Avalon of Virginia on the way upstairs.

“Not very, but they will be when they are not so new,” Virginia replied hopefully.

“Your name is ‘Hope,’” Isabel reminded her. “Well this has been a week! But I’ve had a great time. Is your roommate coming next week?”

“I think so, but I dread it a little.”

“It will be a lot better for you to be with somebody. It’s too lonesome by yourself, especially when you’re new.”

“I can’t like anybody as well as you and Avalon.”

“Don’t say that,—who knows?”

CHAPTER V.

THE SENIOR-FRESHMAN PARTY.

The second week of school was scarcely less full than the first. Among other things, the invitations were to be sent out to the new members of the Shakespearean Literary Society, and the program was to be arranged for the following Friday night. Cathalina made some artistic invitations, and Hilary, with Isabel, made short work of arranging a program. They met in Isabel’s room Monday after recitations. Hilary breezed in with a tablet in her hand, notes already made of the things to be done.

“I’ve just seen the chief janitor, Isabel, and arranged to have enough chairs taken in the south parlor Friday night, and engaged Miss Smith to make us some sandwiches and cocoa, so all I’ll have to do will be to remind them on Friday afternoon. Of course we can’t have sandwiches or other things to eat every time, but I thought we ought to celebrate starting the new society, and entertain the new members. Now for the program.”

“I think that the purpose of the society ought to be explained by you, Hilary, in a sort of ‘inaugural address,’ and then everybody has to pledge themselves to support the society,—wasn’t that what the constitution said?”

“Yes. All that would have to come in the business meeting part, though an inaugural address would naturally be a part of the program.”

“Put it together this time, then.”

“I don’t believe we’d better have a regular program at this first meeting.”

“No. Let’s not. I tell you, you go in and take your chair and we’ll all greet the new president with loud applause!”

Hilary laughed.

“Then somebody will go for the new members who will be waiting in some room near, and bring them in and put them in the front seats. And then is when I think you ought to explain about what the society is for and say anything else that you have in mind.”

“Yes. That would be the natural time. Then the secretary would read the constitution and put the pledge to the new members.”

“Have ’em all stand in a row or circle while they hear and take the pledge of allegiance!”

“Too bad we haven’t pins to badge them with!”

“We’ll pin our colors on them!”

Hilary laughed again. “What are our colors?”

“We’ll have to adopt some. I never thought of that before.”

“Funny some of us didn’t!”

“That will be easy. Call the ten of us together Friday afternoon,—no, because we’ll have to send for the ribbon.”

“No time like the present. We can decide on the colors after dinner tonight.”

“When will Cathalina have the invitations ready?”

“Tomorrow. She is just fixing some tiny cards in envelopes, not much on them, inviting them to ‘become members of the Shakespearean Literary Society.’ I hope nobody will refuse.”

“Well, after they are all initiated, what then?”

“The program. Ay, there’s the rub!”

“Easy. Get Lilian and Eloise to sing a duet. They were trying a lovely one. Then ask Dorothy Bryant to play a piano solo, tell her she is going to be invited to join and we need her. Evelyn will give us a dialect story, I’m sure, and, let’s see. O, there’s Ruth Russell with her violin. Do you remember how well she played last year?”

“Yes. You’re a whole program committee by yourself, Isabel.”

Isabel looked pleased. “We ought to have another literary number,” she said, “but the trouble is that nobody has time to get up anything new. I wonder if Cathalina has that pretty little story that she wrote for the class last year. She tried it out on me, but nobody much has heard it. She got an A on it, but I think she said that when she read it half the girls were out with grippe. Anyhow they were the collegiates. It was the composition with the Lit. class.”

“I’m going to leave it all to you, then, Isabel. May I count on you?”

“You may. Go on and write your inaugural address in peace!”

“Will you get word to the girls about the colors, so they will be thinking about them and be ready to choose them tonight?”

“Yes. Where shall we meet?”

“In our suite, if you don’t mind.”

But of equal importance was a social event of Saturday, to be planned and carried out by the seniors, who always entertained and initiated the freshmen. As the entire class had part in getting this affair ready and had appointed the committees after the election of officers at their first meeting, no great responsibility rested upon Lakeview suite or its chief mate in Lakeview Corridor. Eloise had suggested naming that Sleepy Hollow, one night when everybody was tired and yawning, but the name was too inappropriate to continue.

“Dear me,” said Cathalina, as the girls were discussing the plans for this senior-freshman party, “we’re really seniors this year and have all the duties and honors of our rank. What is the purpose of this?”

“Cathalina,” said Betty, “we must have ‘objects’ and ‘purposes’ on the brain, and no wonder. There isn’t any to this, except to welcome the freshmen. The ‘initiation’ is in place of any hazing. Miss Randolph won’t hear to the least bit of that. If a girl wants to find herself at home in a jiffy, just let her try some of it. But I do hope that the committee will think up something funny.”

At that moment there came a knock on the door and two senior girls were admitted. “May we have Lilian?” they asked.

“She and Hilary went over to the library about half an hour ago, and then were going down to the lake.”

The girls refused the invitation to linger and visit, promising to do so at another time, and continued the search for Lilian. When the bell rang for dinner Hilary and Lilian were seen coming from the direction of the lake arm in arm with these girls, all talking and laughing at a great rate.

“What’s the fun?” asked Isabel, as she passed them.

“A great secret, Isabel,” returned Lilian. “If it were mine, I’d tell you.”

“Of course you’ve been to court lots of times if your father’s a judge,” one of the girls was saying.

“Mercy, no. He won’t let me. O, I’ve been in once or twice for a little while.”

“I suppose we ought to know ‘how the other half lives,’ though.”

“Father says not, not for young people, anyway, and he ought to know. He can convince anybody, too.”

The girls were naturally curious about what Lilian was to do, she explained that what was being done by the committee was to be kept secret and that she had promised. “If any of you are asked to do something too, then I can tell, to a certain extent.”

“How mysterious. I like to be surprised,” said Cathalina.

Lilian, in frantic haste, sent off a special delivery letter to her father, and received one in reply. A large package was brought to the suite for Lilian. Announcement of the senior-freshman party was made at dinner on Tuesday and the freshmen cordially invited for Saturday afternoon, from three to five, “and that means that you are asked to be seated in the hall at three o’clock.” The party was to be held in one of the collegiate society halls. The freshmen were interested and curious to know what was going on, for they had heard rumors of an initiation, The senior girls were paying them a good deal of attention this week, partly to get acquainted with them, partly because of their base designs upon them. Lilian declared that she was almost distracted with the different things she had to think of. She begged off with Isabel in regard to the proposed duet for society with Eloise, and Eloise consented to sing a solo instead.

Hilary kept thinking of matters that must be proposed at the literary society meeting. They had decided that the matter of colors should be voted on by the whole society, also that the matter of society pins was to be considered. There were some other girls that they found they wanted. Those names must be brought up.

Meanwhile Betty struck upon a name that she thought would do for the smaller club. She was reading Guerber’s “Myths of Greece and Rome,” having had to look up the stories about Cupid in connection with a reference to Cupid and Venus in one of her lessons. Suddenly she exclaimed, “Cathalina, here’s our emblem and club name! Listen. Don’t you think that butterfly pins would be scrumptious?”

“They’d be lovely!” exclaimed Cathalina with enthusiasm.

“How about a Psyche club, then? Psyche means soul, and this story means love and faith and effort and reaching Olympus at last. And Psyche is always represented with butterfly wings, that means immortality. There’s such a pretty story told here of ‘undying love,’ how Psyche’s wicked sisters got her to believe that perhaps her husband, Cupid, was some ugly monster because he did not want her to see him. Here is some poetry quoted from Lewis Morris:

“Dear, I am with thee only while I keep

My visage hidden; and if thou once shouldst see

My face, I must forsake thee: the high gods

Link Love with Faith, and he withdraws himself

From the full gaze of Knowledge.”

“But Psyche got a lamp ready and a dagger, ready to kill him if he were a monster, the way they do in those old mythological tales, but she is supposed to be very kind and didn’t want to do it, especially as she loved Cupid so much. Then a drop of burning hot oil fell on Cupid’s shoulder, woke him up, and he flew away with his bow and arrows, right through the open window. Here’s another quotation, from the same author:

“Farewell! There is no love except with Faith,

And thine is dead! Farewell! I come no more!”

“Wasn’t that heart-breaking? Psyche was very unhappy and looked everywhere for Cupid, and finally Ceres advised her to go and be a servant to Venus, who was jealous of Psyche in the beginning and started all the trouble. Psyche worked very hard and even went down into Hades to get a beauty ointment for Venus. On the way back she thought she needed some of it herself, so she opened the box and the spirit of Sleep came out of it and put her to sleep. I wonder if that means that sleep is the best means of beauty! But Cupid came along, and as he still loved Psyche, he made the spirit of sleep get back into the box and took Psyche to Olympus, where Venus was all right, and Cupid married Psyche, and they were happy. Now don’t you like that? ‘The high gods link love with Faith!’”

“I’m not sure that I like the name ‘Psyche Club.’ But I like the idea of it, love, faith, immortality and and keeping on till you reach Olympus. And the butterfly pins would be the dearest things. Would you like enamel ones with butterfly colors, or gold or platinum with a few tiny jewels?”

“We could not afford the platinum, I’m afraid.”

“We’ll talk it over with the girls.”

“If you want some other name, we could put it into Latin or Greek and take the initials.”

“Listen to our classic Betty! So easy to put it into Greek, for instance.”

“Patty could do it for us, or Dr. Norris.”

“True. I hadn’t thought of that. ‘Nothing below Olympus,’ or ‘Nothing less than Olympus.’ I could almost think up the Latin for that myself, Nihil ... minus ... um ... quam Olympus. Wait till I get my dictionary from the girls. Helen borrowed my lexicon for something or other.”

“There’s not much use trying to work anything up for this week. Lessons, society meeting and the senior-freshman party are all I can do. Did you ever see such long lessons as we are having, or do I imagine it?”

“I think it is harder to get started than usual. I have to study nearly all the time. I suppose they think that we are seniors and can do more.”

Again they were looking forward to Friday night and Saturday, but school girls always do that. Every girl who was invited to join the literary society accepted. The first meeting went off without a hitch in the proceedings, Hilary covering herself with glory in her quiet management of it all and her strong, sensible little speech. It was planned to bring in some of the freshmen as soon as they should know them a little better, and to create a few more offices. Miss Randolph thought that enough chairs could be found to equip the hall until the girls had plans and money for their own furniture. Cathalina longed to have her father send on the “whole thing,” but Miss Randolph said that it would not do. “If you want to give them a piano later, that would be a beautiful thing to do. But people love what they work for themselves.”

On Saturday afternoon the freshmen, new, most of them, a little timid and strange, some of them, in these halls of learning, gathered promptly in the society hall to which they had been bidden. They slid into the back seats, while the senior girls who had no part in the plans of the committee sat in front or among them, very friendly and promising more social activity as soon as the program should be over.

“Look at the arrangement of the chairs up front!” exclaimed Betty. “They’re going to have a court! That’s why they came after Lilian,—” But before Betty could finish her sentence, in came an imposing procession. Lilian was judge, in flowing robes. Dignified lawyers carried ponderous tomes. Even the court stenographers and reporters were represented. A comical crew of jurymen filed in. The latter marched in step twice around the double row of twelve chairs, stood till the foreman gave a signal and sat down together. Little freshmen doubled over to laugh, and the seniors in the audience followed their example. “Look at the clothes of the jurymen!” shrieked one. But the bailiff, or some other dignified official, pounded for order. There were, it must be confessed, some differences between the method of conducting this court and the usual procedure. But if anything this only added to the fun.

Lilian wore someone’s senior cap and gown, imported for the occasion by one of the girls. That explained the big package which Lilian had had. Her hair piled high, as much of it out of sight as possible, she made a pretty Portia. Rising with much dignity and solemnity, she announced that the first case called would be that of the state against Edith Fuller. “Bring in the prisoner!” she sternly commanded. Whereupon the bailiff called loudly for Edith Fuller, and two officials marched down the aisle to where the astonished Edith sat. Edith had accompanied a sister to Greycliff, as one of the “little girls,” and had been chosen as the first victim because the senior committee thought that she would not be as likely to be embarrassed as the new girls. Meanwhile the rest could get used to the idea!

“Is the prosecution ready?” inquired the judge.

“The prosecution is ready, your honor,” declared the fierce prosecuting attorney.

“Is the defense ready?”

“Your honor, the defense is ready!”

Edith was wondering of what she was supposed to be guilty, but rather enjoyed it, once she had recovered from her surprise at being a part of the show.

“What is the charge against the prisoner?”

The prosecuting attorney presented the case with an air of great importance.

“On the nineteenth day of September, honorable judge and gentlemen of the jury, the defendant, as we shall prove in this court, assaulted A. Fly, with intent to kill, and upon the same date, within a few hours of the first dastardly attempt, took the life of S. Keeter. The prosecution proposes to show that the attack was premeditated and executed with deadly effect. The remains were viewed by several witnesses for the prosecution, and the act itself had two eye-witnesses.”

A witness was called to the stand. A little delay ensued before this witness was sworn according to custom, and two officials left the room to bring in immediately the unmistakable bulk of Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, upon which the witness pledged herself to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

“Your name is Miss Constant Listener?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What did you hear at four o’clock in the afternoon of September eighteenth?”

“I heard a terrible shriek from the hall outside my door.”

“Describe your movements.”

“I rose, went into the hall, saw the remains of the defunct S. Keeter, and the prisoner with blood upon her hand!”

“Did she say anything?”

“‘I’ve killed him!’ she said, gloating in her crime.”

“That is all.”

“Does the defense desire to question this witness?”

“No, your honor.”

A few more witnesses were called by the prosecuting attorney, all of whom testified to the death of S. Keeter by the hand (indeed, on the hand) of the prisoner.

The defense announced that no attempt would be made to prove that the deed was not committed by the prisoner, although she had pleaded “not guilty,” but that it would be clearly shown that the prisoner acted in self-defense, after an unwarranted and blood-thirsty attack; that, by the opinion of experts, it was committed, also, during a fit of emotional insanity when the defendant was goaded beyond endurance by the aforesaid S. Keeter with a poisoned barb. Several witnesses called by the defense testified to the attack by S. Keeter upon the defendant, to the high character of the prisoner, and her unusual behaviour at the time named by the prosecution. It was also brought out that the prisoner had no weapon at the time.

Edith was called to the stand, but had a bright thought to avoid trouble. To each question put by the prosecution she replied that she would not answer “for fear of incriminating” herself. This added interest and fun, but rather spoiled some of the plans. Finally the charge to the jury was made by Lilian:

“Gentlemen of the jury, you have heard the testimony of the witnesses, and you have seen the guilty face of the prisoner at the bar! Remember to do your duty! Let not the ends of justice be thwarted!”

The jury retired, calling forth a fresh burst of laughter as in their ridiculous costumes they merely paraded around the chairs, the bailiff holding up placards marked “One Hour,” “Two Hours,” “Three Hours,” “Four Hours,” till in the same manner as before the jury took their seats. When the foreman was called upon for his report, in an impressive manner he said, “After the deliberation of hours, the jury has unanimously reached the conclusion that the prisoner is GUILTY, but she is recommended to the mercy of the court.”

“Remove the prisoner!” sternly said the judge. “The sentence will be imposed later. The next case will be heard.”

Edith pretended to faint, and was assisted back to her seat by the same officials who had conducted her to the court.

“Were you in the secret, Edith?” asked one timid little freshman.

“No, indeed, couldn’t you see how surprised I was?”

“Yes, but you began to act just like a play.”

“Order in the court room! Order! Order! Is Grace Hathaway in the room? Grace Hathaway! Grace Hathaway!” roared from the front.

Now Grace was a shy little thing, new, and surprised, for she supposed that one case would end the mock court. But she rose, and timidly went to meet the two girls who came for her. “Don’t be scared,” whispered one of them. “Just answer up, or keep still if you like.”

The case against Grace was quickly put through, with few witnesses. She was charged with disturbing the peace, her alarm clock going off for three consecutive mornings at five o’clock. Grace gasped and said, “But I don’t even own an alarm clock!” She was properly rebuked by the court, and found guilty by the jury. Another freshman was charged with eating bean soup with a fork, on the day that the beans swelled and the soup dishes were full of “beans, not soup,” according to the defense. It was proven, however, without a doubt that bean soup is bean soup, and should be eaten with a spoon. The prisoner was found guilty.

Several other grave offenses were brought up against freshmen girls and finally the rest were brought up in a body, charged with being too popular, and found guilty. The judge then passed sentence upon all the prisoners, who were to eat ice cream and cake till the supply was exhausted. At that sentence, the senior girls scattered to bring in and serve the cooling refreshments, for September usually is a summer month is some respects, at least, and ices still taste as they should. The rest of the time was spent in getting acquainted. The piano was opened and all the sounds of revelry indicated a good time. “It was a splendid party,” said one of the youngest freshmen to Lilian as the company broke up. “And I think you made a wonderful judge!”

CHAPTER VI.

THE WRECK OF THE GREYCLIFF.

Betty and Cathalina strolled away together from the senior-freshman party, and Betty asked if Cathalina thought it possible to have a short meeting after dinner to consider whether they wanted to be a “Psyche Club” or not.

“I have to study like everything tonight,” said Cathalina. “Just think,—I didn’t do a thing last night on account of the Shakespeare Society, and I spent lots of time that I couldn’t spare on the invitations. I’m not ahead on anything, not even French, and I have to keep ahead to get along!”

“‘Keep ahead’ to ‘get along’? Our little Chinese girl would wonder what that meant, I guess.”

“Very likely. Isn’t she a dear? We must take her into the literary society. It will help her to get the English. Well, as I was saying,—O, yes I did get out a Latin lesson with one of the girls in Patty’s Caesar class, right after class Friday afternoon. So much has happened that I had forgotten it. It wasn’t very long and we had part of the first book in the back of the beginning Latin book last year. I looked up the words we didn’t know, in the vocabulary, and she kept the place in the notes, and we finished it in a little while, read it through twice. I love to work for Patty!”

“What do you think, then? Can you spare a little time before study hours? You oughtn’t to go right to work after dinner. It’s bad for your digestion anyhow, and so lovely out of doors!” So Betty enticed her chum. “Let’s go ’way up in the grove, all by our ’lonies.”

“All right. You tell the other girls, and I’ll get my French book after dinner and read over the lesson in between times out in the grove.”

“I’ll bet you don’t look at it,” said Betty, as she scampered off to speak to a few of the girls before dinner and tell them to pass the word around. No time was lost, and soon after the girls came pouring out of the dining room, the ten girls who were forming the little society or circle were back among the whispering pines, birches, oaks and elms of Greycliff’s woods.

They all liked Betty’s idea of the “soul, love, faith, effort” foundation, and the “nothing less than Olympus” or “nothing below Olympus” or something of the sort for a motto. “Cathalina, since you are to see to the pins, suppose you consult Patty or Dr. Norris and get something short either in English or Latin that could be engraved on our pins.”

Cathalina came back with a start, having wandered away into her French story while Betty was telling the girls the details which she had explained to Cathalina when the idea first struck her. Eloise repeated her suggestion and Cathalina consented to be a committee on pin, name, and motto. “‘Psyche Club’ is all right,” continued Eloise, “but we might think of some other way to put it.”

“The girls will be sure,” said Lilian, “to make remarks about our ‘beauty club,’ because Psyche was so beautiful, you know, that even Venus was jealous of her.”

“We needn’t care,” said Isabel, “what I’m so crazy about is the butterfly pin!”

“The motto can go on the back of it, can’t it?” asked Avalon.

“O, yes,” said Cathalina, “with the name and date. I think we ought to have ‘Greycliff,’ too.”

“You can’t have all that on a pin unless you get a big one.”

“Maybe not. Which would you rather leave off?”

“The motto. We ought to have our names and ‘Greycliff,’ whatever else we leave off.”

“All right. I’ll get designs from New York, and if they don’t suit us we’ll make our own design. Lilian, you call the meeting to order. We have a reason, Eloise.” This was to explain why Eloise was not called upon as before. Lilian took the chair, figuratively speaking, for she sat on her bright sweater which was spread over a carpet of pine needles, Eloise was made president, “by acclamation”; Juliet, vice-president; Pauline, secretary. Cathalina, because of the pin proposition, was elected treasurer.

“Besides,” said Isabel, who nominated Cathalina, “it wouldn’t do to have all the officers in the same suite. They might abscond with the whole society.”

“Don’t mind me,” said Helen. “Of course, it is a blow to have all my suite-mates officers, but I’ll try to stand it.”

As all the girls were in the same predicament as regards lessons, the meeting was a short one, and long before the study bell rang they started back to the Hall. Isabel and Avalon had hurried away first. Eloise and Helen had just disappeared within the big doors at the side entrance. Juliet and Pauline were strolling in advance of the other girls when suddenly Juliet turned and waved. “Bright idea!” she exclaimed.

The other girls hurried up. “Pauline and I were just thinking that all this lovely September weather ought not to be wasted in little tramps or beach parties. Why not have a regular Greycliff picnic to the Island?”

“Sure enough!” assented Hilary. “Why not, indeed? When would you have it?”

“Next Saturday. School began earlier than usual this year. It goes that way sometimes, you know, and it isn’t likely to get cold, not until next month anyhow.”

“O, we’ll have picnic days in October,” said Cathalina.

“I’m not so sure about the lake, though,” suggested Betty.

“Let’s hurry up a picnic, then,—a class picnic?” queried Hilary.

“Yes, that would be best, I think,” said Juliet. “If you go outside the class it gets mixed up. We might have a literary society picnic, though,—what do you think?”

“O, let’s have a senior academy picnic,” said Pauline. “We are used to working up class picnics together. Let’s ask right away for the Greycliff for next Saturday, and get Patty and Dr. Norris to chaperone us.”

“How painful that would be for them,” laughed Betty. “Miss Randolph might think they needed chaperoning themselves, though.”

“Our crowd would be chaperones enough for them. He scarcely looks at Patty before the girls, and she has the most polite manner you ever saw.”

“She is always polite to everybody.”

“Well, distant or formal, then.”

“It’s a fine idea, Pauline,” said Lilian, “will you see Miss Randolph about the boat and the chaperones? We’ll call a class meeting for Monday and appoint a committee for the eats, pardon me, the food, banquet, viands and victuals!”

After a Sabbath of much needed rest from lessons and parties, the week fairly flew. It seemed no time till Saturday and the picnic were at hand. There were clouds, but it was warm and the sun peeped through occasionally as the girls brought various articles for the lunch and Mickey packed in the usual equipment for picnics. “Feels like rain to me,” said he, “everybody got a raincoat?” Everybody had, and the Greycliff started with its happy, singing load of senior girls.

Helen, whom the girls sometimes called “Dixie,” had arranged a Greycliff song to that famous Southern tune and the girls started that as a beginning:

“O, Greycliff seniors strong are we,

A giddy, happy company,

Come away,

Come away,

Come away, Greycliff Girls!

Where the surf beats high we swim and dive,

We keep the other schools alive,

Come away,

Come away,

Come away, Greycliff Girls!

O, we love to be at Greycliff,

Hooray!

Hooray!

At Greycliff School

The seniors rule

And work and root for Greycliff!

Away!

Away!

Away to school at Greycliff!”

Next came a song that they used at the competitive games. “Come on, girls,” cried Dorothy Appleton, waving an imaginary baton, “let’s have ‘Greycliff has captured the score’!” In this the words named the tune.

“O, dear, what can the matter be?

Dear, dear, what can the matter be?

O, dear, what can the matter be?

Greycliff has captured the score!

It’s no use to try, for you know you can’t beat us,

No matter how hard you may work to defeat us,

Come on when you will, we invite you to meet us,

And Greycliff will capture the score!”

In the midst of so much fun and singing the girls had scarcely noticed how dark it was getting, nor had they seen the worried looks of Dr. Norris, Mickey and his new assistant, a wiry young fellow known as Jack. Patricia West was very quiet, not joining in the songs. “I don’t like the looks of that sky, Mr. Norris,” said Jack. “It looks squally to me.”

The wind began to come up and the lake grew rough at once. Spray began to sprinkle the girls who sat in the prow.

“We’re not far from the Island, girls,” called Dr. Norris, smiling to encourage the girls, and talking through the little megaphone till he had the attention of all. “And we may make it before the storm, but if it gets pretty rough, keep your heads, and I am going to hand around the life preservers now. Then we shall feel safe.”

Mickey and Jack were beginning to have their hands full in steering and watching the engine. Some of the girls looked a little frightened, but accepted their life preservers and put them on, throwing off their sweaters first, then tying them on outside and drawing their raincoats around them to protect them from the rain which by his time was pouring and beating down. Up and down tossed the boat. The waves were growing bigger and bigger. A few girls in front were thoroughly drenched by two or three curving waves which came over them when Mickey tacked to get on the leeward side of the Island, where they might land more easily, he hoped. There the approach was more shallow, the sand extended farther out, though the dock was not so large as the one at which they more often landed.

The rain was coming in such sheets that the girls could scarcely see each other. Occasionally some wave pounded upon the Greycliff with such force that it threatened to engulf her at once. A few girls would shriek a little, but Dr. Norris continued to talk encouragingly, telling them to keep their seats, to take off their shoes, ready to swim and to try to reach the rope if Jack were successful in getting it to the dock. Jack was standing with the rope in his hands ready to jump to the dock as soon as they reached it. They had already felt a slight diminution in the force of the wind as they drew near the hoped for side of the Island, yet the waves were a dangerous foe.

Then it happened, all in a moment it seemed. The engine, which had worked so hard for them against the wind and waves that beat upon the Greycliff till it quivered, broke. At the same time the steering wheel turned, useless, with connections torn apart. Mickey jumped up in despair. Jack lost the rope as the little Greycliff was whirled around, but as it fell and Jack was tossed out of the boat, Juliet, who had risen, with her arm around one of the supports, caught it and with her practiced hand, threw it through wind and rain to the dock where providentially it caught around a tall post, the one at which Juliet, half blinded by the spray, had aimed it. Not for nothing had Juliet been Polly’s shadow and learned to throw a lariat. But little did the rope avail to hold the Greycliff. The girls found themselves in the water, held up by the life preservers, it is true, but tossed and beaten upon by the heavy waves, scarcely able to get a breath, and only dimly sensing in which direction lay the shore.

As Dr. Norris felt the boat whirl, he had called to the girls to jump, and a few heard him. Now, as he held firmly to Patty, whom he had caught up as he jumped, he groaned as he thought some of the girls might have been caught in the boat as she went over. The Greycliff, however, at first went over on her side, straining at the rope, to which immediately a number of the girls were clinging. Dr. Norris in a few moments felt the sand under his feet, struggled with Patty to the land, and while she was still choking and clearing her throat and lungs of the lake water, he told her to get up out of the reach of the waves and count the girls as he and Mickey brought them in. “And pray, Patty, that we may find every one!”

Jack was nowhere to be seen, but Mickey was already helping some of the girls who were trying to reach the rope, as Dr. Norris threw himself into the water where he saw some bobbing heads drifting out instead of in.

CHAPTER VII.

THE WRECK OF THE GREYCLIFF—CONTINUED.

At Greycliff Hall, meantime, the greatest alarm and concern was felt at the suddenness and fury of the storm. “I tell you, they can not have reached the Island,” declared Dr. Carver. A group of the teachers had gathered in Miss Randolph’s parlor where Miss Randolph herself was standing at her window quietly watching the storm. She had thrown on her raincoat, seized an umbrella and announced that she was going down to have a look at the lake. But when, against the protests of some of the teachers, she tried to open the front door and was thrown back nearly over, she gave up the attempt.

“That was the finest senior academy class we’ve had in years,” sadly asserted one of the music teachers who had been at Greycliff for a long time.

“‘Was!’” exclaimed Alma, who with one of the other girls had come in on some errand. “She is always an old ‘calamity-howler’!”

“Sh-sh! She’ll hear you.”

Miss Randolph, with the air of one who could not bear any more, beckoned to Alma and opening the door of her inner room, disappeared, Alma following and closing the door. “Send for Dr. Matthews, please, Alma. He was in the laboratory this morning before the storm. Have some one hunt him up.” Dr. Matthews was the older professor in sciences and Miss Randolph often called him into counsel. He was already striding down the corridor, feeling that whether anything could be done or not it would be well to have some plan, and met Alma not far from Miss Randolph’s parlor door.

“Please go into the office, Dr. Matthews,” said Alma. “Miss Randolph sent me for you, and I don’t think she wants to consult you with all those other teachers in there. Some of them have already given up hope and are talking about the dear departed!”

Dr. Matthews was a strong, comfortable looking man, well-poised, calm in an emergency and sensible in judgment. He smiled at Alma’s remark and disappeared into the office, which opened upon the same corridor. Alma went back to call Miss Randolph, who in turn summoned one or two of the other teachers and the few went into executive session in the office.

“No,” said Dr. Matthews in reply to a question from Miss Randolph, “it is useless to attempt anything now. I tried to telephone to Greycliff a little while ago and got no reply. I think the wires are down. But this can not last long, I think, and it is only a short distance to Greycliff. And no boat would dare start out now. A storm like this is unusual and has doubtless done much damage to the shipping all along the lake. But Providence cares for those children of ours as much as we do. We must be hopeful and courageous. As soon as the storm lessens a little I will go myself to Greycliff, on one of the horses, for no one knows how the roads will be. With your permission, Miss Randolph I shall engage one of the big boats to go after the girls. Remember that they had two men besides Norris to look after them.” But remembering that Miss West was there, too, with Dr. Norris, did not console anybody very much.

In the parlors were sober girls, talking excitedly, or watching the storm at the front windows. Isabel, who “hated waterworks,” was walking around all unconscious of the tears running down her cheeks. Avalon sat in one of the big chairs, a disconsolate heap. Virginia was trying to keep up her spirits. “Wait till you know it’s happened, kiddie,” she was saying. “Every one of ’em can swim!”

“O, yes, but who could swim in a storm like that?”

“Maybe they got there.”

“Yes, and maybe they didn’t.”

Isabel came wandering back from the windows and drew up a chair near Virginia. “You’ve got a good name, Virginia Hope,” said she.

“Yes, except for myself when I get discouraged,—but look, girls, it’s getting lighter.”

“And it isn’t raining so much!”

“I don’t believe that the wind is so dreadful, either.”

“I haven’t seen any lightning for some time.”

“Listen!” The girls heard the hoof-beats of Dr. Matthews’ horse, as it clattered over the new cement driveway. “He’s going for help!” exclaimed Isabel. “But they’re either safe on shore or not,—nobody could get to them in time.”

“But they always have life preservers,” said Virginia.

“Yes,—if they can stand the waves.”

“Who do you suppose has gone to Greycliff?”

“Don’t you imagine the riding master?”

“No; he lives at Greycliff.”

In about an hour, after the storm was over a reporter appeared upon the scene. He was shown into the reception room, and fearing that the authorities would not see him, he sought whatever information he could get from the girls. This was a good deal, for under excitement some of the girls forgot their proper reserve and told the who, when and where, in all the details which the reporter wanted for a good story. Thus it came about that on the streets of New York and in the other places where dwelt the parents of the senior academy girls the newsboys cried, “Terrible disaster at girls’ school. Read about the storm. More than twenty girls drowned when the Greycliff goes down!”

“The Greycliff!” thought Philip Van Buskirk, as he ran out from the building where his father’s office was located, to buy a paper.

Dr. Lancaster was on his way from calling on a sick parishioner, his thoughts already somber from the near presence of death, when he heard the news called.

In still another city, a white-faced mother read her daughter’s name in the list of those thought to be lost. Mrs. North had picked up the evening papers from her front steps where it had been thrown as usual.

Miss Randolph’s first inkling that the news had been sent over the country was when the first telegram arrived, one from Philip Van Buskirk, who hoped to get better news before his father and mother should hear the first report. Her immediate reply, one which had to be sent out to more than one address, was: “Greycliff in storm. Hope all is well. Will telegraph.”

Dr. Norris was a strong swimmer, but even he was almost exhausted by the time he brought in two of the girls who had been carried some distance out from the shallow waters in which the Greycliff had been upset. Patty, shivering with cold and nervousness, bravely waded into the waters, watching for the treacherous waves and helped the men draw in the exhausted girls. Jack had appeared but had to be helped in, having broken his left arm as a wave tossed him against the Greycliff. Hilary, Pauline and Juliet had been among those who had at once reached the rope, and after a little rest had been able to help the rest. They busied themselves over Cathalina and Lilian first, for both those girls were almost unconscious by the time they were dragged in by Mickey. Helen and Eloise were among those farthest away on the rope, having clutched it just before a pounding wave upon the Greycliff tore the boat away and left the rope loose upon the water except where the weight of the girls drew it toward the sands.

“Have we got ’em all, Miss West?” asked Mickey as he swept the waters with searching eyes and holding to the rope made ready to go in again.

Miss West had been eagerly keeping count and answered promptly, “Every one at last! What shall we do next, Robert?”

“Get a fire, if we can, or find some shelter first for these girls.” He looked around at the various prone figures and added, “Are all of them coming to?”

“I don’t know about Dorothy Appleton, Dr. Norris,” replied Hilary. “I think she must have been struck by the boat in some way. There is an awful bruise on her forehead. And Eloise is breathing all right now, but she doesn’t seem to come to. We’re trying to keep the rain from them.”

The wind was growing colder since the storm began, and though the rain was not so heavy, the party was in much danger from continued chilling.

“Can we get them around to the cave?” asked Patty.

“We will,” replied Dr. Norris and Mickey with one accord. Most of the girls could walk and the men carried the rest, even Jack helping with his one good arm. It was of some relief to get out of the chill wind which penetrated their drenched garments and sapped what little strength the girls had left. Jack gave up to his suffering when all were once in the cave and Dr. Norris set about making him a little more comfortable, if such a thing were possible. Mickey was exploring and found some matches left by one of the picnic parties of the summer, for the Greycliffers were not the only visitants of the Island.

“As soon as the rain stops we’ll have a fire, we will,” said Mickey, picking up a few dry sticks in the cave. “I stuck a bundle of wood to dry here last year,” said he, “and I’ll see if it’s still here.”

Fortune favored them, for not only was the dry wood there, but an old kettle, which they had left because it leaked, turned up, with a can partly full of coffee. The rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun. In a place close to shelving rocks which sheltered them from the wind and where some trees had made a half circle on another side, Mickey and Dr. Norris made a roaring fire and boiled the coffee. “Never mind the lake water,” said Mickey. “We can’t get around to the spring and we’ll boil the germs out of anything with this fire!”

The girls who were able to keep active, warmed themselves by their very activity and turning first one side, then another, to the hot fire. The injured girls were braced up against the rocks as close to the fire as seemed best, while the other girls and Miss West took turns in chafing their hands and trying to get them to swallow a little hot coffee. But it was discouraging, for there was no dry clothing to put on them, sweaters and raincoats having gone to the bottom with the Greycliff. Helen and Hilary were almost in tears as they worked over Eloise, while Lilian and Cathalina could not seem to rouse from their exhaustion, though they drank a little coffee and declared that they were all right, in answer to their friends’ eager inquiries. But at best it was a hard situation for the whole party, and despair seemed near at times, as the outlook for the two girls who seemed to have been injured was not favorable. The lake was still lashed into a fury and it seemed that aid could scarcely arrive before night. Betty kept insisting that Miss Randolph would get a boat to them some way, but even the courage of Mickey and Dr. Norris went under a cloud, and they doggedly kept on bringing wood to the fire. Several hours went by. The wind died down, but the big waves still lashed the rocks and came rolling high upon the sands.

“O, Eloise opened her eyes!” exclaimed Helen, who sat with Eloise’s head on her lap, rubbing it gently and drying her long hair. The girls by this time had dried some of their own garments and slipped them on Eloise and Dorothy as they could, removing the well-soaked clothing and putting it on sticks, or holding it out to the fire to dry.

“Dorothy shivered a little while ago, but I don’t know whether that is good or bad,” said Myrtle Wiseman, who had been very active in the work over the two girls, and had also helped Cathalina and Lilian. Betty had whispered “remorse,” to Hilary, as Myrtle brought some coffee to Lilian. But Hilary answered, “I’m glad she feels like it,” and to Myrtle said, “That is very kind, Myrtle!”

“Would you want to make up with her?” asked Betty.

“Surely. I don’t want to have any enemies. She can never make any trouble between Lilian and me again.”

“I ’spect you’re right, Hilary. And we’ve been pretty near losing our lives today. Do you think that we’ll get back?”

“O, yes, Betty, though I’m pretty worried about Eloise and Dorothy.”

Just then there came three loud blasts from a steamer.

“O, they’ve come for us! They’ve come!” exclaimed one after another, rushing to a point where they could see a large steamer tossing at some little distance.

“But they can’t get near enough to get us!”

“Don’t worry, they’ll manage it,” replied the relieved Patricia, while Dr. Norris and Mickey ran down to the beach to wave. Over the waves came one of the steamer’s life boats, and still another followed! They did not know how the party would be found, if found at all, and blankets, a doctor, and stimulants were brought to shore. The doctor at once examined Dorothy and Eloise. Of Eloise he said, “a slight concussion, not serious”; of Dorothy, that he could “tell better later.” The whole party was bundled into the life boats and taken on shipboard, not without some difficulty, but how different from what had been feared! As it was the big steamer could scarcely land at the dock where the Greycliff ’bus and an ambulance were waiting with some other closed cars. Dr. Matthews was there, with the same swift-footed horse, and after he had instructed one of the professors who lived at Greycliff to telegraph the parents, and had left the list, he galloped back to Greycliff Hall with the good news, arriving before any of the automobiles and earning the name by which he was afterward known among the girls,—“Paul Revere!” Good, practical, stout, unromantic Dr. Matthews!

CHAPTER VIII.

BACK TO NORMAL.

Arrived at Greycliff Hall, the senior academy girls were tucked into bed like babies—every one of them. Hot baths, hot drinks, warm blankets and disagreeable doses prescribed by the doctor, aroused some protest from a few who thought that they did not need them, but protests were of no avail. It had turned decidedly cool after the storm, and there was a frost that night. Dorothy, Eloise, Lilian and Cathalina were taken to the “pest-house,” as the girls called the little hospital quarters, for especial care by the nurse. Eloise was quite herself now, but with a splitting headache. The physician was still watching her and Dorothy Appleton, who was now conscious but seemed quite ill. “I find no serious injury,” said the doctor to Miss Randolph, “and I think that the girls will get over the shock in a few days, but we shall watch them closely and keep the nurse with them.”

Isabel and Avalon and other friends of the senior academy girls were fairly used up with the strain and the relief which came with the safe return of the whole company. The office was busy with receiving and sending telegrams. A correct and reassuring account was sent to the papers and letters were written the next day to anxious parents. For the first time in her career, Miss Randolph took to her bed and spent the entire Sabbath there, though giving directions, writing and reading messages.

“She looked ten years older after those dreadful hours of anxiety,” said one of the teachers to Dr. Matthews.

“Yes?” replied he. “Fortunately there is too much school work ahead for us to stay under this depression. The girls are safe and in a day or two we shall all be back to normal, Miss Randolph included.” Dr. Matthews was much amused over his new nickname, which was reported to him shortly after it had been bestowed. He had been accustomed to that of “Dad Matthews,” the little school paper occasionally using it in some informal account. “I was always regarded, it seems, in a paternal light,” said he, “and now I am ‘Revere’d!”

A few colds, one sore throat, and much lassitude for a few days, were about the only results of the exposure. The senior academy classes were entirely suspended on Monday and Tuesday, but by the end of the week every thing was in running order once more, Lilian and Cathalina in their classes as usual, Eloise back in the suite, and Dorothy fast getting well. Other classes were having beach parties and picnics, but alas, there was no “Greycliff” to take them out from shore any distance. The fall weather was still beautiful, with plenty of sunshine, the air crisp and cool.

One Saturday early in October, the Psyche Club was starting on a beach party and deciding where to go when Isabel said, “Do you remember that day when I was pretending to look all around for the ‘gentlemen’?”

“Yes,” said Eloise.

“Well, when I was peeking around the part of the cliff that juts out so far I saw a place farther down where there seemed to be a nice, flat shelf just above the boulders. It would not be a very comfortable walk, but I don’t think that it would take very long.”

“It was quite a little climb over the rocks to the place where we were, you know,” said Eloise.

“Yes,” said Lilian, “and I don’t believe the girls ever go there. The sandy beach is so much nicer. But we would be sure of being by ourselves.”

“Do you think that we could find wood for a fire there?” asked Cathalina.

“O, yes; probably there would be more than we usually find, if the girls were not in the way of going there.”

“Let’s do it, then,” said Betty. “Nobody has much to carry. I can put my milk bottle in my sweater pocket.”

“So can I,” said several others.

“Divide the sandwiches and things and let everybody carry her own lunch this time.”

Soon the girls were climbing over and past the rocks, gravel and bushes under the cliffs, and at last came to the broad shelf which Isabel had seen. It was not very high, but above the wash of the waves in a storm. Around on the side of the cliff above the shelf there was an opening to some sort of a cave, but the entrance looked dark and gloomy and none too clean.

“Some day when we have on our oldest duds and bring our flashlights,” said Avalon, “it will be fun to explore that cave. There aren’t any wild animals around here, are there?”

“None that I ever heard of,” said Hilary, “but there might be a few snakes.”

“Excuse me, then,” Cathalina remarked. “But they say that the Cliffs are full of caves, something like that one at the island.”

The girls found plenty of drift wood, but instead of building their fire on the wide shelf of rock, as they had intended, they found it easier to collect the material and build the fire on the beach below, where the boulders were few.

“It looks as if the rocks had been cleared away on purpose,” said Helen as she speared a piece of bacon and held it over the fire.

“Why, look at this, girls,” directed Isabel, who was reaching behind a big rock for a piece of drift wood. “It’s an iron ring fastened here and a piece of old rope in it!”

The girls all stepped over to look at the ring. “That’s funny,” said Pauline. “It looks as if there were a sort of path up to the shelf too.”

“Nonsense! We made that sliding down,” said Isabel.

“Have a piece of bacon, Juliet?” offered Pauline.

“What a place for mermaids this is, a rocky cave, a shelf or boulder to sit and comb their locks.”

“Not a very good beach to run around on, though.”

“Mermaids don’t run around, Avalon; they swim or wiggle around on their fishy fins like seals, I suppose.”

“‘Fishy fins,’—that’s good, Pauline,” said Lilian. “May I use that for my next ‘pome’?”

“Yes, fair poetess, I go around dropping pearls of wisdom for my friends! Everything Lil hears is for the paper now, girls.”

“Copy, Pauline, is what we call it.”

“Last year Lil was going to be a singer, I believe.”

“I still am, but it doesn’t hurt to know a few other things.”

“One more sandwich around, girls,” said Eloise, “and then I’m going to call the Psyche Club to order. Wash your milk bottles in the lake and wipe them off with the sandwich papers till they can be better washed in the Greycliff kitchens!”

The last crumb of lunch was finished when Eloise, president of the Psyche Club, rapped with a pebble upon a larger stone to call the meeting to order. “You remember that these meetings were not to be formal, but some order has to be followed if we get things done, so I will call for reports from the committees! Who was to ask Miss West about the name and motto?”

“I said I would,” said Betty. “Cathalina asked me to talk with Patty. She thought that the name Psyche Club was all right, but did not care for the ‘nothing less than Olympus’ idea, and asked why we didn’t get something that would better express the central,—or the real meaning of our name, like ‘faith, love, immortality,’ and if we wanted it in Latin, she suggested ‘Fides, Amor, Immortalitas.’”

“O, that is good!” exclaimed Pauline. “I wonder why we did not think of that ourselves. I move, madam president, that we accept Miss Patty’s suggestion and that the motto of the Psyche Club be ‘Fides, Amor, Immortalitas.’”

“How about the name itself?” asked Eloise.

“I’ll add that to the motion, that the name be ‘Psyche Club.’”

“It has been moved and seconded that our name shall be ‘Psyche Club’ and that our motto shall be ‘Fides, Amor, Immortalitas.’ Is there a second to the motion?”

“I second the motion,” called Isabel.

“Any remarks?”

No remarks were forthcoming. The motion was presented and carried unanimously. Cathalina’s report on pins created great interest. “I’ll show you the booklet I got with designs when we get back, but none of them just suited me, so I made one up. Please don’t say you like it if your idea is different. Some were too big and others too small. I tried to work out a design that would be delicate and yet have room for our names and ‘Greycliff,’ as you said.”

“I think it’s beautiful,” said Juliet, and her opinion was echoed around the circle.

“Then there is nothing more to be done, is there?” inquired the president. “Some day when we feel like it we can get up a little constitution if anybody wants one, or if the society becomes a school society.”

“Time will tell,” said Pauline. “Mercy sakes, what’s coming, girls?”

Scarcely had they all turned to look than a boat shot into the cove headed for the remains of the picnic fire, it seemed. Its one occupant was dressed in rubber coat and helmet as if for a storm, took in the startled company of girls, gave them a keen look from a pair of flashing eyes, smiled a little and with a few strokes of the oars had turned and left the cove as suddenly as he had entered it, before the girls could do more than stare.

“Now why did he do that?” asked Isabel rather belligerently.

“Perhaps he saw that we were scared,” suggested Cathalina.

“We weren’t scared, were we?”

“Startled and surprised, anyhow.”

“But he went as if he didn’t want to come here when we were around. I believe he had some private business here,” said Hilary. “It’s funny. And then there’s that ring.”

“Is there any way to get up to the top of the cliffs here? Maybe people sometimes come here for a short cut.”

“Maybe so, Pauline; anyhow, let’s leave before any more mysterious strangers appear. Some way I didn’t like his looks, if he did smile at us!”

“Neither did I, Hilary,” said Betty. “It made me feel funny, some way and I thought of that time I met the brother of Louise the night of our ghost party last year.”

“He came in a motor boat, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“This man had a rowboat. I wonder where he came from. Greycliff, very likely, the village, I mean.”

“Isn’t the road to Greycliff up there along the cliffs?”

“No; it turns away from the lake shore and there are big thick woods that you could get lost in, they say.”

“By the way, girls,” said Juliet, “we haven’t heard anything of the ‘Woman in Black’ this year, have we?”

“Wow!” said Betty, half in fun, but with a “creepy” feeling, as she said it. “Come on, girls, it gets dark earlier now, and I don’t want to talk about the ‘Woman in Black’ or any kind of ghostesses till we get back home.”

“What’s that about the ‘Woman in Black’?” inquired Pauline.

“Ask Isabel; she saw her, so she says.”

CHAPTER IX.

THE CAVE MAN.

A few days after the beach party, Isabel and Betty fell in together as they came out from the library building after class.

“I’m through for the day!” exclaimed Isabel joyously. “This is my easy day, and by good luck one of my classes doesn’t recite tomorrow. Dr. Carver is sick, hasn’t heard a class today and I heard Miss Randolph tell Miss West to prepare to take her classes tomorrow.”

“‘By good luck!’” laughed Betty. “Poor Dr. Carver!”

“I didn’t make her sick, but since she is,—well, it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good!”

“But if Patty takes her classes tomorrow, how do you get out of it?”

“It happens, my dear Elizabeth, that my class to Dr. Carver comes at the same hour as one of Patty’s other classes.” Isabel turned gayly around with a skipping step. “So you see, I not only get out of work tomorrow, but having in my ignorance of the joy in store gotten my lesson for today’s work, I’m ahead for whenever we do recite.”

“I’m in luck, too, of course,” said Betty, “so far as today’s work is concerned, but will have to recite tomorrow.”

“Let’s get our flashlights and skip out to the cave we found the other day. How about the other girls?”

“Eloise and Lilian have practice hours this afternoon and Cathalina said she would be in the studio painting all afternoon. Perhaps the other girls will be free to go. Where’s Avalon?”

“She has classes.”

“I’m not so sure that I want to go myself, Isabel.”

“Why? It isn’t far, you’re not really afraid of anything, are you?”

“I don’t see what there could possibly be to be afraid of, but I feel funny about that cave.”

“What could there be dangerous about it? There aren’t any wild animal or really poisonous snakes in this country, and the cave isn’t big enough for any wild or crazy person to live there,—”

“But there is that ring, and the boat we saw.”

“The ring has probably been there for ages, and maybe the man just happened in upon us and didn’t like our looks.”

Betty laughed. “I’ll go, Isabel. I believe I have been a little nervous about lake doings since the ‘wreck of the Hesperus.’ Dear old Greycliff in the bottom of the lake!”

None of the girls were in the suites when Betty and Isabel reached their rooms. They put on their bathing suits, dressed warmly over them, and each put a bathing cap, a towel, and a flashlight in the pockets of their long coats.

“It’s warmer today,” said Isabel, “and if the water isn’t too cold a little dip will be fine on the way back.”

“There are Myrtle Wiseman and Dorothy Appleton.”

“Yes, Myrtle has been devoting herself to Dorothy ever since the wreck.”

“Does Dorothy like it?”

“So far as I know. Myrtle can be lovely, you know.”

“Did you know that Myrtle went over to see Lilian in the pest-house and said she was sorry for what she did last year?”

“Did she? That was nice of her.”

“Yes, if you could only trust her, or believe what she says.”

“That is the puzzle of it, and I hate to be thinking of such things about anybody. Perhaps she really is sorry, but you can’t help but think that she wants to stand in with our crowd because it’s more comfortable!”

“I don’t pretend to understand her, Isabel, but I’m going to ‘give her the benefit of the doubt,’ as Mother says, and be friendly.”

“But you wouldn’t take her into the Psyche Club, would you?”

“No, for she wouldn’t fit in with our intimate friends at all; but I don’t see but it would be all right to take her into the literary society. I heard that she was ’most killed that she didn’t get an invitation.”

“That was too bad, but I don’t see that we ought to have done it, either.”

“She isn’t a good student and cheats sometimes to get through, you know, but Miss West happened to tell me the other day how much better she is doing this year. Maybe if we are nice to her it will help her!”

“I haven’t heard of her cheating this year.”

“But there haven’t been any real examinations yet.”

“O, well, let’s not worry about Myrtle. I’m sure all the girls would like to see her do well and if she earns a place in the society, I’m willing to give her my vote, for one.”

“So’m I.”

The two girls by this time had reached the rocks and tripped lightly from one to another, poising sometimes with outstretched arms like sea birds about to take wing, or dropping into a hollow and looking for the easiest path. The rocky, curving shore took them around beyond the waters within the breakwater, which fact accounted for their not having seen the place before when they were out in the boats for a row. The Greycliff naturally would not approach very near these rocks on any of its trips, now, alas, no more.

“I believe I could climb up to the top of the cliffs in some of these places, Betty,” said Isabel, looking up at a more sloping ascent where a little soil had lodged and trees and bushes grew.

“What for?” asked Betty.

“We might find some different bird up there in the spring.”

“We might; I hadn’t thought of that. It must be very wild up in those woods, but we wouldn’t be allowed to go there alone.”

“I’m not so sure that we ought to come so far along the shore, either, but nobody ever said anything about it. After we turn the curve back there we can’t see the other beach where the boathouse is or anything.”

“Let’s go back, then,” said Betty.

“And not look at the cave after all this trouble? We’re almost there, too.”

“O, all right. We can easily go away if we see anything we don’t like. Let’s take a peep into those bushes behind the cliff on this side before we go around to the entrance. I thought I saw a nest there the other day, but we were having so much fun that I didn’t look closely.”

Thus it chanced that the girls slipped up quietly to a tangle of small trees, roots and bushes that filled a deep angle where the cliff jutted out and the shelf began that led to the entrance of the cave. It was just a song sparrow’s nest, and as they were looking to see if there were any other of the season’s empty nests they heard a dull sound as if something fell not far away. Both girls quickly looked at each other.

“In the cave,” whispered Betty. “Maybe a rock.”

“Let’s keep still a minute.”

“Better sit down,” whispered Betty again. “If there is any one there we can’t be seen here.” The girls crouched down behind the bushes, but peered through. They could hear other slight noises and a scraping sound.

“There isn’t any boat down there,” said Isabel. “I’m going to creep around where I can take a look at the shelf in front of the cave.”

“O, don’t,” begged Betty. But Isabel did, ducking back immediately.

“There’s a box in front of the cave. Somebody’s there of course.”

“What on earth would anybody keep in a cave?”

“Hidden treasure!”

“They put it in the bank nowadays.”

The girls listened, but heard nothing more for some time.

“This is getting tiresome,” said Isabel, “I wish they’d hurry up and go away.”

“Do you suppose we’ll have to stay here till dark? I’m getting hungry already.”

“I brought some fudge,” said Isabel, fumbling in one pocket. “We brought our flashlights, anyway, if we have to go home after dark.”

“We’ll not explore the cave this time, will we?”

“I wouldn’t mind, if the person goes away.”

“Mercy, Isabel!”

“Hark!”

There was a popping sound as of a distant detonation, an angry exclamation, a scrambling sound at the mouth of the cave and something was quickly tossed out far over the rocks into the lake water. An active figure leaped down from the shelf and ran to the water’s edge. It was a slight, soldierly figure of a man, and as he turned toward the shelf again Betty gave a start. Both girls were staring with all their eyes. Isabel started to whisper something, but Betty put her hand upon Isabel’s lips, and without vocal utterance formed with her lips the words “don’t move!”

The man seemed to be moving the box which Isabel had seen at the front of the cave, and in a few minutes ran down to the water again and waved an arm as if signaling. Immediately the girls heard the sound of a motor. Still as mice they waited. It was not long before a small motor boat came into sight. Two men joined the one on shore and together they lifted the box, a small one, into the boat, observing great care. The girls could not hear the conversation distinctly, but Betty nodded once as she caught a word or two. In a few minutes the boat moved off and the girls straightened up among the bushes, thankful to have relief from their cramped position.

“We’ll not dare go where they can see us for a little,” said the cautious Betty, “for they may have glasses, you know. And I’m not going near that cave! I certainly feel funny snooping around and watching somebody!”

“We couldn’t help it, and besides do you suppose they own that cave? I think their actions are very suspicious, myself. Could they be smugglers?”

“I don’t know what to think,” said Betty, “but I know I’m going home. Peek out, Isabel, you’re nearer the cliff, and see if you can see the boat.”

“All safe, Elizabeth,” Isabel reported. “I’d like to have a look at that cave now.”

“O, please, Isabel. I’m sure we ought to go away and leave things alone. Wait till the whole crowd can come.”

“I think that you’re a great little fraidy-cat, that’s what I think, but maybe you’re right. Come on.”

“Do you want to look very awfully, Isabel?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Do it. I guess it won’t kill us. There can’t be any one there now.”

Somewhat stealthily the girls crept around on the shelf and peered into the cave. The same big rocks or stones which they had noticed at the entrance before were there, piled in an apparently natural way, and the interior was strewn with rubbish. Isabel leaned over the rocks and turned her large flashlight slowly around and up and down.

“It’s awfully shallow, but there might be an opening behind those big slabs piled in the corner. The little opening in the middle might be crawled through. I’ll try it when we all come up to investigate.”

“Yes, and get stuck, perhaps, in the middle of it!”

“No; I’ll bring a long stick and feel ahead, besides I’ll have my flashlight and won’t crawl in anywhere that I can’t back out.”

“You aren’t afraid of anything, are you, Isabel!” Betty spoke somewhat admiringly, though she was often moved to protest against some of Isabel’s enterprises. Betty herself was not inclined to take risks, yet she was in no sense a weak girl and in a real crisis kept her self-control.

“Not much, I guess,” replied Isabel to Betty’s question. “The boys have seen to that. If ever I was scarey they laughed me out of it. Billy and I had all sorts of adventures, lots worse than this. But I really try not to be reckless, Betty. Father put a stop to some of the training the boys were trying to give me.” Isabel laughed at the thought of her early days at home.

“Dick ought to have trained me a little, I suspect, but you see he is so much older than I. He calls me ‘Mouse’ or ‘Peaches’ and never teased me any more than Father or Mother did.”

“Isn’t it funny that you and Lilian have brothers with the same name?”

“O, I don’t know that it’s so funny. Think how many Dorothys we have in school, and several Marys. Richard is a family name with us, but Lilian says her brother was named Richard just because they liked the name.”

As they talked, the girls moved away from the cave, swung themselves off the shelf to the boulders and picked their way homeward, stopping at the sandy beach, where the bath houses were, for their dip. Rosy and glowing, they went happily toward the Hall a little later.

“Shall we tell the girls about our ‘cave man’?” asked Isabel.

“Suppose we don’t yet; O, you might as well tell Avalon, but we ought not to get up any excitement about it. None of the girls are likely to go there. I’ll ask Cathalina what she thinks about it.”

“We’ll have to hurry a little to dress for dinner, I’m thinking. Aren’t you glad that we didn’t have to wait and wait, as I thought we were going to be forced to do. Luckily the job the cave man had to do was almost done when we arrived. Did you see his face?”

“Yes,” said Betty hesitatingly, “but only for a moment. He was looking the other way when he went back to the cave.”

“He was young and good-looking,” said Isabel, “and I think that one of the men in the boat was the one that we saw in the rowboat that day when we had the beach party.”

“Do you?” queried Betty.

“Yes, his eyes looked the same, but of course I’m not sure.”

“Thank fortune they didn’t see us this time!”

Betty had scarcely reached her room when the bell rang for dinner. “Hello, Bettikins, whither so late?” asked Lilian.

“I’ve been out with Isabel,” replied Betty, as she hurriedly threw off her coat. “Do you suppose I can make it in time? How does my hair look? My cap is good and I didn’t get it wet.”

“Give it a wee brush and slip into your dress and oxfords. Here they are,” and Cathalina brought out Betty’s shoes for her. “Go on, girls, I’ll wait and hook Betty up!”

“You are a dear. I don’t want you to miss dinner for me, though.”

“I shan’t and we’ll not be late, either.” Soon they both flew through the corridor and down the stairs to the dining room, entering somewhat breathless, but on time.

“Cathalina, the maid,” said Betty, “world-renowned, the champion quick-dresser! I’ve a tale to tell you after dinner, Cathie, but no references to it till then, please.”

Cathalina responded by a nod as they took their seats. Afterward they sought a quiet corner in one of the halls while Betty related her latest adventure. “And when I saw his face, Cathalina,” she said impressively, “you may know that I nearly went to pieces. It was Louise Holley’s brother!”

“The knight of last year’s adventure, then?”

“The same!”

“Well what do you suppose he was doing around there?”

“What was he, indeed?”

“I did not tell Isabel that I recognized him. I don’t know why, exactly, but I wanted to think about it. And then I have always hated to think about that night anyway. He was a perfect gentleman in his manner, too, such a relief from my first fright at the sight of him. But the scheme of Louise to get me away from the party so she could get in, and the queer meeting that she and her brother had evidently arranged, though he came too early, has made me feel that I wouldn’t like to be concerned in anything with them!”

“I don’t wonder. Don’t think about it, Betty. We’ll all go up together some time and see if there is anything strange about the cave, but we need not do any talking about it.”

“Isabel said she wouldn’t except to Avalon.”

“We have enough school work to do without unraveling any mysteries, but I must confess I am a little curious about it.”

CHAPTER X.

PLENTY OF TIME.

“What time is it, Hilary,—please?” Isabel peeped through a few inches of space as she held the door knob. Girls were not supposed to visit during study hours.

“Well,” said Hilary, laying down her pencil and looking over at the clock, “by the world’s regulator it is eight-thirty.”

“Why, no, Hilary,” protested Isabel, who had decided to enter and was now looking at the clock herself. “It’s eight-forty-five; can’t you count time?”

“That is where you are mistaken, Miss Hunt. We have a very remarkable clock. Subtract fifteen minutes and you have the time. What day is this, Lilian?”

“Wednesday.”

“I thought so. I always set it right on Sunday night, Isabel. It gains five minutes a day. Compute the time till Wednesday night. Q. E. D.”

“Quod erat demonstrandum,” filled in Isabel. “I’m taking geometry myself this year. You girls ought to have heard Dr. Norris call me down in class the other day. I was not sure of the demonstration at all but I went through with it and wound up grinning with ‘which was to be proved,’ and Dr. Norris just smiled and said, ‘and which remains to be proved, Miss Hunt!’”

“Quod erat demonstrandum,” quoted Betty in appreciation and looking off into space, she traced angles and circles with both hands and feet.

“Think what a teacher Betty will make,” laughed Lilian.

“Do let me fix the clock for you,” said Isabel, “Who has the exact time?”

“Cathalina’s wrist watch is at the jeweler’s, Betty left hers on Juliet’s chiffonier and Lilian lost hers last summer. She is promised one for Christmas. But anyhow, we’d forget it was fixed and be all mixed up!”

“I kept mine on one day when I went in swimming, and when I finally took it to the jeweler, he said I’d have to have new works. If I’d put some oil in it or something, or dried it right away, he said, it might have been all right. It seems that works rust. They aren’t just gold or silver or jewels as I thought!”

“Your pretty little watch!” sighed Hilary.

“Yes,” said Isabel, bravely, “I’ve had a weep or two over it, and of course I shan’t break the news to Father till I go home at Christmas, if I do, I’m going to get an alarm clock, too, the first time I go in to Greycliff. Didn’t you ever think of having your clock regulated, Hilary?”

“O, yes. But I find that it will be about as expensive as buying a new clock and I’m hoping that it will take a notion some day to run as it should. You see I’m attached to that clock!”

“So am I,” declared Cathalina. “It’s the very first alarm clock I ever got up by.”

“If you will cling to this timepiece, then, as it is,” said Isabel, “why not make out a schedule and hang it up, so any of us who happen to be here, or who dash madly in, in the course of our wild careers, will not be misled?”

“Very good, Miss Hunt. I like your idea. Cathalina, you are the artist, will you make out the schedule?”

“I’ll put one up tomorrow some time and illuminate in color if you like.”

“Just put at the top ‘Procrastination is the thief of time,’ please, for me,” said Betty.

“By the way, Betty,” said Isabel, whose conscience seemed to have stopped hurting at visiting during study hours. “It looks as if our trip with the girls to the cave will have to be put off indefinitely, doesn’t it? Did you notice what Miss Randolph said this morning?”

Betty and Cathalina both nodded. Hilary and Lilian had evidently not applied Miss Randolph’s remarks as interesting them particularly. Isabel struck an attitude and with ridiculous gestures of which Miss Randolph could never have been guilty, repeated nearly word for word what the principal had announced:

“‘I understand that one or two beach parties have been held beyond permitted limits and it occurs to me that some of you may not be familiar with our rules on that point. Greycliff grounds proper, which include the grove only as far as the ‘high hill,’ are the limits, with the exception of the beach as far as the breakwater on the side toward the Village of Greycliff and the river on the other side. The beach in recreation hours is always guarded during the season. In winter, however, special permission may be obtained for any kind of an excursion. There will be the regular winter sports which will occupy all the time you have to spare from your studies. It will always be announced when the ice on the river is safe for skating. No girl is to attempt it otherwise.’”

“How do you remember like that, Isabel? That is almost exactly what she said.”

“From early youth, Cathalina, I have been committing the words of the wise and great! You should have seen the shows that Billy and I used to get up when we were little. Shall I give a little tragedy now?”

“Spare us!” exclaimed Lilian, with pretended anguish.

“I remember what my opponents say in debate, too, that I may answer their arguments. Honestly, though, girls, I don’t always get the words just right. I must have tried to remember this morning. We’ll have to coax Patty to go with us some time. Miss Randolph did say ‘unchaperoned,’ I forgot that; we could go with some chaperone outside of limits.”

“It’s my opinion that we’d better leave that cave alone,” said Betty, while Isabel and Cathalina looked at her in some surprise, for was not Betty the one who suggested that the last trip should not be talked about?

“Sit down, Isabel,” said Betty, “I think I’d like to tell the girls about our experience. We thought at first we wouldn’t just yet, girls, but it’s rather interesting and some of you might better know about it.”

“There goes the bell, Betty,” said Isabel. “Wait till I get Pauline and the rest who were with us on the first trip to come over.”

In a few minutes the girls of the other suite, with Avalon, too, were in Lakeview, listening to the tale which Betty and Isabel had to relate of their visit and what they had seen. The story did not lose anything in Isabel’s vivid description, and nothing was omitted except Betty’s recognition of the chief actor, of which no one except Cathalina knew.

The next day was a busy one. “It is dreadful the way things seem to pile up toward the end of the week,” sighed Betty.

“Yes, all the things I get ahead in get almost ahead of me, by Friday anyway. I have to study every spare minute today. We wasted a good half hour last night. I’ll not get any schedule made. That is rather silly anyway. It is ridiculous to let the clock get so much ahead. You ought to fix it in the middle of the week anyway, Hilary.”

“Of course I ought,” acknowledged Hilary, “but we have the school clocks and the bells and don’t use it much. I’ll fix it tonight.”

The girls hurried down to breakfast and then were plunged into the vortex of classes and lessons. In the middle of the morning, Juliet brought over Betty’s watch and not finding any one in the suite left it in plain view on the table.

Lunch over, Hilary, Lilian and Betty who were to recite in senior Latin the first hour in the afternoon, hurried upstairs to go over it together, while Cathalina, whose class in Cicero came later, strolled off to the library with her Cicero text.

“Of course we’d have to have a longer lesson than usual in this hard place,” growled Betty. “O, here’s my watch. Somebody brought it over. It’s stopped, of course. Did you change the clock, Hilary?”

“No, and I won’t bother to fix it till night. Allow about three minutes for the gain so far today.”

Betty set her watch, remarking that she would look at the clock in the recitation room and get it just right. They had just decided upon the rendering of a hard passage when a knock came at the door and Dorothy Appleton with two more senior girls came in to see how the girls’ translation accorded with theirs. And while they were all listening to Hilary as she read the disputed lines, a delegation of five others came in, Julia Merton in the lead. “Good,” said she, “we’re just in time, I see. There’s one line that doesn’t make any sense to me at all. How do you read it, Hilary?”

“Read the whole lesson, Hilary,” said Dorothy. “It’s so hard and has so many new words that I can’t remember them.”

“Mercy, no, child,” warned Julia. “Look at the clock. It’s time to go now, but—”

“No it isn’t,” said Hilary. “Our clock is twenty minutes fast, or nearly that. There’s plenty of time!”

“I thought I heard the bell as I came in.”

“It must have been for gym or something. I didn’t hear it,” said Lilian, “but then we don’t always hear it when our windows are down. Are you sure you didn’t fix the clock?”

“Perfectly sure,” said Hilary with decision. Betty was already showing two or three girls the why and how of her reading. Then Hilary began, while the girls listened, took notes and stopped her occasionally to ask a question or two. “The notes do not say one word about that,” Dorothy remarked.

“No, of course, the very thing you want is never mentioned!” replied Julia, quite unfairly to the very learned gentleman who edited the text.

Promptly at a few minutes of the time for class to begin, the senior girls trooped down the stairs and over to the library building where Dr. Carver’s recitation room was located. There was no one in the halls, and the murmurs of voices came from one or two recitation rooms as they passed.

“We must be late after all,” said Hilary. “Perhaps the old clock decided to keep time.”

The door to Dr. Carver’s recitation room was closed. “They’ve begun,” said Lilian. “Do you remember the fun last year when Isabel put up the notice that there would be no Cicero?”

“Do I?” replied Betty.

With some hesitation and not a little trepidation, Dorothy Appleton, who was in the lead, opened the door. The girls all started in and stopped in surprise and embarrassment as with one accord they glanced first at the clock on the wall opposite and then at the astonished portion of the senior class which faced them. Dr. Carver spoke in much annoyance as one or two of the girls started toward her as if to explain.

“We are in the midst of the recitation, young ladies. Take your seats. You may explain this inexcusable tardiness later.” Hastily, and in much confusion of mind and spirit, the “young ladies” sought their own seats and the lesson proceeded.

“What on earth kept you girls?” wrote Juliet on a piece of paper and passed it to Hilary.

“Something wrong with my clock,” wrote Hilary on the back, returning the paper to Juliet. Hilary was not given to writing notes in class, but this whole situation was irregular.

Reading Hilary’s reply, Juliet at first smiled and looking at Hilary formed with her lips the words “poor Hilary,” for she quite feared for the girls’ grades in Dr. Carver’s hands, and wondered if they would be permitted to make up the work, or if they would be counted absent, with a zero to their credit. No one could tell what Dr. Carver would do with her ideas of strict discipline. Then a disagreeable thought came to Juliet. There was a pang of memory, with a sinking of the heart! “O, Hilary!” she wrote, “I set your clock right, when I came in to leave Betty’s watch. Was that it?”

Hilary read, looked up at Juliet, across the two girls who sat between, and at the look on Juliet’s face she could scarcely control her own. She coughed, put her face in her handkerchief, and moved a little in order that she might be screened from Miss Carver’s view. She felt that eagle eye flashed in her direction. It was dangerous to lose the place in any class, but particularly in Dr. Carver’s. That fact soon sobered Hilary, and she prepared to be called on, rather hoping, indeed, that she would have a chance to make a grade. Fortunately, she caught the last phrase in the translation of the girl who was reciting and in the discussion which followed on the syntax of a word managed to find where the class was reading. It was just in time, for “Miss Lancaster” was the next call.

At the close of the recitation hour a group of amazed girls gathered. “For pit-tee’s sake,” said Pauline, “we wondered why you didn’t come and didn’t come, and Dr. Carver looked so mad at having about half the class gone. She asked us what was the matter and nobody knew,—what was the trouble?”

“My old clock,” replied Hilary. Just then the penitent Juliet joined Hilary. “Come on, Hilary, let’s go up to Dr. Carver and explain. I came in to bring Betty’s watch and noticed that your clock was all wrong, so I set it back right by my watch. Betty’s had stopped, but I didn’t wind it, afraid to fuss with it. I never thought—”

“Of course you didn’t. It was all my fault for letting the clock go that way.”

The other girls filed out into the hall, while Hilary and Juliet went up to Dr. Carver’s desk to explain. Cathalina, coming in for her Cicero lesson, was hailed by the crowd and asked why she was on time. She looked blankly at them, while laughter ran round the circle. “I just came from the library,” said she.

“O, you weren’t in your room, then; it is explained!”

Still wondering, Cathalina went on into the class room, leaving the buzzing crowd of girls who moved on and out of the building.

“How did it happen,” asked Hilary, “that none of the rest of you girls had the time?”

“I did,” said Julia, “but by the ‘irony of fate’ I never looked at my watch and swallowed everything you said,—after hearing the bell, too!”

“I am touched at your confidence,” laughed Hilary.

“I had my watch on, too,” acknowledged Dorothy, “but I was just thinking about those puzzling lines in the lesson.”

“We all were,” said one of the other girls, “and when Hilary insisted that there was ‘plenty of time,’ of course we believed her.”

“Don’t blame Hilary,” said Juliet. “It was all my fault. I thought I was doing a kindness instead of upsetting the whole schedule and making half the senior class late! I expected Dr. Carver to be horrid, especially if she remembered last year, but she was real fair and said we could make up the work if we wanted to and she would consult Miss Randolph about the tardiness.”

“After this,” said Hilary, “I fix my clock every day or get a new one.”

“Don’t worry, Hilary, we all think it a big joke, and shall never forget you as you sat—all of us in blissful ignorance that class was in session—reading the whole hard lesson to the crowd!” Thus spoke Dorothy, president of the senior academy class.

CHAPTER XI.

HALLOW-E’EN, WITH OTHER EVENTS.

In a boarding school full of bright girls, the most ordinary weeks contain something new and interesting, but the last week of October in this opening of the year at Greycliff was full of plans and more or less exciting events. First came the arrival of the butterfly pins. They came on the morning mail, addressed to Cathalina, who, on finding them with her mail, immediately called a meeting of the Psyche Club in Lakeview Suite. “Come as soon as you get through with your recitations this afternoon,” she said. “I’ll not open the box till everybody is there, and then we shall know whether we are to be terribly disappointed or perfectly delighted!”

Promptly the girls arrived at a time when they judged that the last one would be through. Eager with anticipation, they watched Cathalina open the larger box in which they came and take out the small individual boxes marked each with the name of the girl for which it was intended.

“How nicely they have fixed everything!” said Hilary.

“This firm knows how to do it just right,” answered Cathalina.

Then came the O’s and ah’s of the girls as they took out the exquisite little pins. “O, Cathalina! what perfect beauties!” exclaimed one.

“I didn’t dream even from your design that they would be as lovely as this,” said Juliet. Cathalina looked pleased.

“Look on the back, everybody,” said Lilian, “and see how prettily they have our names and ‘Greycliff,’ and the date.”

“O-oo-oo!” cried Isabel, “I am just so happy over it that I don’t know what to do. Do you see those tiny jewels just in the right place? O, I’m so glad you girls let me belong to the Psyche Club!”

“Why shouldn’t we? It is yours as much as anybody’s,” replied Cathalina.

But Isabel, who was sitting by Cathalina, gave her a hug and whispered, “I know who I owe being in this club to,—whom, I mean!”

Cathalina laughed. “I think that you are decidedly mixed, not only in grammar but in facts!”

The pins were exactly the right size, the girls thought, neither large nor too small. The engraving by necessity had to be quite small, beneath the body of the butterfly. The pin was of gold, delicate, the main part of the wings with open spaces, but the tips or edges filled in with bits of enamel in butterfly colors, and on the elongated tips downward were the “tiniest” sets of sapphires and diamonds. Two wee jewels were supposed to be the eyes of the insect. The girls tried them on, as girls do, running to the mirror to see the effect.

“I didn’t want to try too many colors,” said Cathalina. “I wanted it to suggest one of those big, handsome blue butterflies, you know, and that blue enamel with the bit of black to set it off, with the gold, too, seems to give the right effect.”

“Now the bill, Cathalina,” suggested Pauline. “Everything has to be paid for, you know.”

“The bill is—just nothing,” announced Cathalina.

Loud protests began at once.

“See here, Cathalina, that simply can not be,” said Lilian. “We could not think of allowing you to meet such a bill as this must be, and you must not ask us to.”

“I should think not!” exclaimed Eloise.

Cathalina was smiling during all this. “Now, girls, if you will only give me a chance to tell you about it,—”

“Hear what she has to say,” said Betty, who was the only one that knew what Cathalina wanted.

“All right, Cathalina, speak up or else forever hold your peace,” said Isabel.

“Now of course, girls, having made the design, you know, I did want it worked out exactly as I wanted it. You don’t blame me, do you?”

“Not a bit of it.”

“On the other hand, it costs a good deal to have a particular design made up, or might, anyway, and I did not want to have you girls put to a great expense. I really wanted to have the privilege of presenting the pins to you, but when I consulted with Betty about it she was quite doubtful. Still, I think it would be mean for me not to do what I want, when I was so self-sacrificing in making that design!” Cathalina’s smile beamed on them as she said that, for all of them knew what fun it had been to her to work out the idea. Various expressions were on the faces of the girls. Eloise sat with her face in her hands, chin uptilted, her elbows on her knees, her bright eyes fixed on Cathalina.

“Make your argument good, Cathalina,” said the judge’s daughter, “if you expect to convince us of anything we don’t want to do.”

“I’m hoping that you will want to do it, Lilian,” replied Cathalina, “by the time I get through, besides wanting to congratulate me!”

“Mercy! She’s engaged to the jeweler, perhaps! He couldn’t let such a designer go!”

“You haven’t come so far from it, Lil, after all,” said Cathalina. “The jeweler wrote about the designs—you know I made several—and offered to make the pins and give me fifty dollars besides if I would give him the exclusive right to the designs!”

“Why, Cathalina! You little old artist! What a pity that you aren’t poor enough to be ‘saved from starvation’ or something!” So said Isabel.

“O, I’m crazy about the money!” said Cathalina, to the girls’ great surprise. “It’s the first money I ever earned, and while I think that art is above all money, I can’t help be glad that mine is good enough to be wanted and have some money value!”

“Well, maybe we aren’t proud of you!” said Lilian. “Tell us what you want and it is yours to the half of our kingdoms!”

“Just this, girls; you see that the pins haven’t really cost me a cent, that making the designs has brought me something unexpected both in money and ‘fame,’ and so I would feel dreadful if you all could not have some share in the good fortune too.”

“We’ll think about it,” said Pauline.

“No, I want it decided now. How would I feel having you hand me cash for these pins?”

“What do you think, Betty?” asked Eloise.

“Her heart’s set on it girls, and I think she’ll be about killed if you insist on paying anything for the pins.”

“All right, then,” said Pauline, “let’s do it before we repent,—all in favor of accepting the pins as our unearned share in Cathalina’s well-earned good luck, say ay!”

“You are dears,” said Cathalina. “A load has rolled off my mind and I’m positively dippy about the sale of those designs. The moral of that is, do something you love to do, for people you love to do it for, and other folks will want it too.”

“It’s almost wicked, though, Cathalina, for us to wear these pins before the other girls, they’ll want some too.”

“Well, they can have butterfly pins. But the jeweler promised me not to make pins exactly like these for anybody, so these are our very own Psyche pins!”

“Our ‘inspiration’ pins,” added Betty. “Now let’s decide what we’re going to do on Hallow-e’en.”

Sometimes Greycliff girls gave a masquerade party all together, but this year it was thought best merely to allow the girls to get up small parties or not, just as they pleased.

“What day does it come on?” asked Hilary.

“In a few days, anyhow; I haven’t looked up the calendar. The question is whether we shall have the Psyche Club only, or the literary society, or some other kind of a party.”

“If we have a Shakespearean Society Masquerade we could have the hall and try all kinds of Hallow-e’en doings, have one end curtained off, and have the girls toss apple-peelings to see what initials they form, you know,—”

“Yes, and the back stairs and steps are right there, you know. We could go down backward with a candle and a looking glass and see our future husband’s face and all that!”

“It wouldn’t be necessary to be masked, would it?” asked Juliet.

“No,” said Cathalina, “but it would be more fun, wouldn’t it?—more mysterious. I brought some costumes from home, thinking of Hallow-e’en. I have a pretty pansy costume for Betty. I always think of a dark purple pansy when Betty looks up with those eyes and lashes of hers.”

“Listen to that, Betty; did she ever tell you that?”

“No, she didn’t.”

“I’ve been saving it till the right time,” said Cathalina smiling at her chum. “Then I brought several others that I will show you, girls. One belongs to Ann Maria, my cousin, and another to Louise, another cousin. I happened to think of our needing something sometimes and asked the girls if I might not bring them. You remember Ann Maria and Louise, Hilary, don’t you?”

“Indeed I do.”

“I’m all right with a gypsy costume that I can get up from what I have,” said Hilary.

“Cathalina thinks I have purple eyes!” pouted Betty, in fun.

“‘I never saw a purple cow,’” quoted Pauline.

“‘I never hope to see one,—’”

“I did not mean the color, Betty,” laughed Cathalina, “but I’ll admit that I did not make that very clear.”

“Well, then, let’s have the society party, no eats except apples, nuts, fudge and cider,” said Juliet.

“That would be clevah,” remarked Helen. “Can you get the ciduh?”

“We had some last year on several occasions. We’ll have to order it right away, and be sure to specify sweet cider. They had to throw away some that came once.”

“May we invite a few outside of the society?” asked Avalon. “I was thinking that Virgie’s roommate will be here tomorrow and it would be too bad not to have her.”

“O, of course, in a case like that it would be all right,” said Hilary. “Besides, it may be that some of the girls have made plans with other groups for some other party.”

It happened that the first written tests of the year came at the last of October, which added to the tensity of the week, and the girls found little time to fuss with costumes until the mystic night arrived. Meantime, Virginia Hope’s roommate materialized.

It was perhaps as well for Virginia that she had had this opportunity to adapt herself to the new surroundings before any girl was placed with her. Perhaps Miss Randolph had thought of this. Virginia was much concerned in fitting herself properly into the Greycliff environment and manners. Quick to observe, she avoided making what she considered fatal mistakes in table etiquette and other matters, taking one of the girls, Lilian, in fact, as her model in deportment. Having obtained clothes which were inconspicuous because suitable, she felt more at ease, and devoted herself chiefly to her lessons in those first weeks. She would have been lonely if it had not been for Isabel and Avalon, but they dropped into her room at all hours and kept her feeling that she had companionship.

Remembering how much kindness had meant to her upon her arrival, she decided beforehand to be responsive and helpful to her roommate, whether she really liked her or not, but it was a real relief when Alma brought up a pleasant, attractive girl, of about her own age, and introduced her as Olivia Holmes from New Orleans. Alma promptly disappeared, leaving it to Virginia to do the honors. But it was easy to entertain Olivia. In less than ten minutes the two girls were talking as if they had known each other for years, and Virginia was helping Olivia put away her clothes in one of the two closets with which the room was supplied. The janitor had seen to the delivery of the trunk at once.

“I saved these drawers for you,” said Virginia. “If you would prefer any of those that I have my clothes in, just say so and it will be easy enough to change.”

“Mercy, no; why take any more trouble than necessary?” replied easy-going Olivia. “This is a nice big closet. See my new fur coat? I’m simply delighted to be up north where I shall see snow.”

“Haven’t you ever seen it?” asked the amazed Virginia.

“No, I’ve never been north before. Father and Mother have gone out to California to visit my sister and the new baby and will probably stay there all winter. My sister isn’t very strong and Mother has been crazy to get there. I had to be sent to school somewhere, so I begged to be sent here. I heard of it through one of the girls at home, and sent for a catalogue. Do you like it?”

“O, yes! You haven’t made any mistake in choosing your school, unless it’s too cold for you!”

Olivia laughed and tossed her head. “No danger of that, I reckon; I could hardly wait, though, till I got my fur coat. Mother said I had all the things I’d ever need for a trip to Alaska! I’m sure I’ll not be homesick, because the folks are away from home anyway.”

“You will miss them, won’t you?”

“Yes, indeed; but they were abroad for a year once and left me with my aunt. We travel a good deal in our family.”

All this was very interesting to Virginia, who wrote to her father that night telling him how exciting it was to live with a girl from New Orleans. “This is a very cosmopolitan place, as one of the teachers said in chapel,” wrote Virginia. “We have a Chinese girl, and a French girl is coming soon. Miss Randolph spoke of it to us all and said that we are not to ask her any questions because she was terribly frightened when the Germans made their first advance and just escaped in time. It seems like living in a story, Father, and I can’t thank you enough for letting me come here.”

Olive was very happy that she should be invited at once to a party and took more interest, if the truth must be told, in getting a costume and mask ready, than in catching up with her lessons. Cathalina helped her, from the supply which she had brought, and such trying on of costumes and deciding on characters as there were! Isabel burst into Virgie’s room on the afternoon of the party with a whoop of satisfaction. “Look here, girls, what do you think of this? I had a bright idea and made my Bluebeard’s blue beard of cotton and colored it with ink. Isn’t it ferocious?” she inquired, adjusting it to her rosy face.

The hall was decorated with pumpkin lanterns, black cats, witches, broomsticks and the like in various forms as they come for such purposes. One end was curtained off for the trying of fortunes and different Hallow-e’en performances, and the sum of five cents was charged for the privilege of taking part. TRY YOUR FORTUNE, FIND OUT WHOM YOU ARE TO WED, AND HELP THE SOCIETY BUY ITS FURNITURE, was printed in large if shaky letters on a banner fastened across the curtain. From the shouts of laughter which came from behind the curtain it was evident that something funny was taking place, and tickets could scarcely be given out fast enough. The door at one end of the hall, or society room, was included behind the curtain, and through this door girls, clad as witches were sending their patrons, equipped with candle and mirror. Just around the corner was a short flight of stairs to the back door and the stars.

“Come on, Betty, try it,” urged Cathalina and Eloise, who were two of the witches.

“Did you see anything, girls?” asked Betty of Isabel and Virgie. Betty in the pansy costume, her mask thrown back, was a pretty sight.

“No, not a thing, go on,” said Isabel.

“Sh, you’re not supposed to tell,” said Eloise.

“I’ll go, then,” said Betty, “you leave the door open, don’t you?”

“Yes, and a witch is behind the curtain at the top of the stairs. Don’t forget to back down and look out for two steps outside the door.”

Betty started. It was pitch dark in the staircase, except for the feeble candle, and sensible as Betty was, she felt the charm of Hallow-e’en night and a bit of excitement as girls do. Slowly she backed down, out the door, down two stairs more, her candle flickering in the breeze, then she looked in the mirror,—O, a face! She gave a little cry, slipped on a frosty leaf and would have fallen but for two strong hands at her elbows. “Pardon me,” said a manly voice, and a quickly moving figure disappeared in the darkness. Betty lost no time either, but flew indoors, up the stairs, and whisked into the gay room again, as if all the witches in poetry and prose were after her.

As she dropped, breathless, into a chair, Cathalina bent over her saying in a hollow voice, “Only the witch may receive your message. What did you see?”

“I’ll tell you afterward, Cathie,” whispered Betty, “I really did see something, but don’t tell anybody.”

“The response is satisfactory. Depart. Take this memento of your adventure,” and Cathalina pinned on Betty a black cat badge. “Refreshments are served at the other end of the hall at the booth.”

Betty adjusted her mask and joined the other revelers outside the curtained place of mysteries. Cider, doughnuts and fudge tasted good after her last exciting adventure, and she parted with several more nickels, for the girls had decided to meet the expense of their refreshments in this way, except in the case of their guests, who were to be served free. It was a pretty scene, the gay dresses, the yellow and black decorations, the odd witches who were in charge, the movement and life among the maskers.

Miss Randolph permitted later hours than usual, and it was a tired but satisfied company of girls who left the society hall after the last doughnut had been eaten and the last drop of sweet cider drained from the little glass cups and the big “punch” bowl. Lilian had been a fairy, and danced into Lakeview Suite as if she were just beginning the evening.

“I couldn’t do that,” said Hilary, as Lilian whirled around two or three times on her toes.

“Poor old Hilary; no wonder, with all the decorating you did, and served all evening nearly in the booth.”

“I just loved my pansy costume, Cathalina; come and help me off with it, and I will help you off with your witch’s garments. Good-night, Hilary, and Lilian, ‘airy fairy Lilian’!”

“Good-night. Shall I set the alarm for six?”

“Yes, Hilary, please,” replied Cathalina, “we hate to, but we have to!”

“It isn’t so awfully late, and we need not talk long,” said Betty, as the pansy costume was hung in the closet, “but I must tell you what happened. It seems that I always have the queerest adventures! When I got to the bottom of the steps, I held up the mirror according to directions and the candle flickered and almost went out in the wind,—and then I did see a blurred face in the mirror! But it wasn’t the spirit of my husband to be, not a bit of it. It was somebody real, for when I squealed a bit and turned to run, my foot slipped and I would have fallen if this young man had not put our his two hands and caught my elbows!”

“A ‘young man,’ you think?”

“Yes, and I’ve been worrying ever since, for fear it was the same one snooping around again. Do you think it could be?”

“Couldn’t you see the face the least bit, enough to know complexion, or eyes, or anything?”

“Just two eyes, nose and mouth, yes, and a grin. You can imagine that with that flickering little light, and my slipping right away, and being so startled, I could not recognize anybody by that moment’s glance at a reflection!”

“Didn’t he say a word?”

“O, yes; he said ‘Pardon me,’ as he caught me, and it was really very nice of him to go away, under the circumstances.”

Cathalina laughed. “Yes, considering that you had gone out there to see the face of your future husband in the mirror, it was wise indeed for the young man to disappear as quickly as possible. But did his voice sound anything like that of Louise’s brother?”

“I couldn’t tell. It didn’t seem so to me, if I can trust instinct, but can I?”

“Don’t know, Betty dear. Let’s get to sleep as soon as possible and we can think it out later. Another mystery: Who is Betty’s future husband, the knight of Hallow-e’en?”

CHAPTER XII.

CLANG-CLANG.

“What shall I do with the pansy costume, Cathalina?” asked Betty the next morning, as she was hanging some articles in the closet.

“Just give it to me. I’ll fold it and put it in my box. We need all the room in the closet.”

“All right,” assented Betty, “but I’ll fold it.”

Betty laid out the dress on the bed, preparatory to the folding process, and looking over it said, “O, one of the pretty little pansy dangle-ums is gone from this sleeve! I’m sorry. I don’t remember catching it in anything.”

“Perhaps it was gone to begin with, or was loose. I didn’t look it over when I gave it to you. It doesn’t matter at all.”

“It shows that one was there, and I don’t see where one can move any other to take its place. I’ll run downstairs and look. Perhaps I dropped it in the society hall. O, Hilary, may I have your key to the hall?”

Hilary handed Betty her shining new key which the girls had had made, and Betty went down, glancing at halls and stairs as she went. No small pansy appeared on the floor or among the decorations of the society hall. Betty even ran down the short flight from the first floor outdoors, unlocking the outer door which had not yet been opened and looked all around as if she expected some light on who had looked over her shoulder the night before.

“I couldn’t find it, Cathalina,” she reported. “They are so unusual that it is a pity. Don’t you really mind?”

“Not a bit, and I still think that it was gone before you ever put it on.”

“If so, that is some consolation to me, then.”

“Don’t worry your head about it, Bettikins; it can be fixed, I’m sure, if we need the costume again for anything.”

“It’s so pretty I’d like to wear it all the time.”

Later in the day Cathalina had a bit of news for Betty. “I heard that some of the boys from the military school were over last night,” she said.

“O,” said Betty, “who?”

“One of the young instructors was calling on Professor Schafer and two or three of the boys came with him.”

“Ha-ha-ho-ho!” exclaimed Betty. “Do you know who any of them were?”

“No; some of the older girls were telling about it and were wondering themselves what brought them.”

“I imagine that it would not be very hard to induce some of the boys to go with you on Hallow-e’en if you were going on an errand to a girls’ school. I’m not a very curious person, I think,” added Betty, “but I really would like to know who was here last night!”

No further information on the subject seemed to be forthcoming, even after a few guarded inquiries, and the weeks flew so fast with work and fun that Hallow-e’en soon seemed like a bright dream. Snow fell, beautiful and fleecy, or crystal and sparkling, rejoicing the hearts of the girls, as it introduced the winter sports. Thanksgiving came and went with its turkey celebrations and parties. As Christmas approached, there were sleighing and old-fashioned bob-sled parties. Skating and skiing and an ice carnival promised much. Olivia Holmes of New Orleans had all the winter that she wanted, but bravely endured the unaccustomed cold for the sake of the fun and the new experience. Luckily for her, her Dakota roommate realized how unused to cold winters Olivia was, and made all sorts of sensible suggestions for her protection. Bundled in furs, Olivia took part in everything with much zest.

“Don’t you love the bells!” exclaimed Olivia on Saturday evening as she and Virgie settled down for a little visit with Isabel and Avalon after a ride in a big sled filled with straw.

“Indeed I do,” assented Isabel. “The snow is so nicely packed now, and the roads are so good. Everybody that wanted to go could have a ride today. The girls in the sleighs thought they were so fine, but I loved it in the big sled and it was not nearly so cold for you, Olivia.”

“I felt just like Santa Claus, though I always wanted to ride behind reindeer! Didn’t the horses prance and enjoy it?”

“Yes, though I thought once that Prince was going to upset the double sleigh in front of us with his cavorting. But Mickey was driving, and can handle horses as well as he can boats.”

“Do you suppose we’ll ever have a ‘Greycliff’ again?” asked Avalon.

“I shouldn’t wonder, probably next fall,” said the cheerful Isabel.

“I shall never forget this day, and my first real sled ride over the country,” declared Olivia, little knowing that she was still to have another memory for the date.

The girls in Lakeview Suite were discussing the Christmas holidays so near at hand. “I wish that you could visit me this year, Cathalina,” said Hilary.

“I’d love to,” responded Cathalina, “but then I can’t be in two places at once, and Mother thinks so much of having all the clan, you know. I’ll have to be there all the time. Can’t you come to us again? Campbell is always asking about you every time I see him.”

“Not this year. You see we just moved this fall, and Mother and Father want me to be there and help with the Christmas entertainments and all. Besides, I couldn’t be away two Christmases in succession. I’ve been trying to persuade Lil that it is her duty to go home with me.”

“I might go for a few days, Hilary. Wouldn’t it be fun! I’ll write and see if I can. But I, too, must be with the folks on Christmas Day. Dick will be at home, and Father, especially, can’t do without me. It may be, too, that my married sister and the kiddies can come.”

“All right, Lilian,” said Hilary gleefully, clapping her hands. “We’ll count on you for a few days anyhow. Then I thought that I’d like to ask Isabel and Virgie to go home with us. Isabel looked sort of wistful when I talked about having Lilian, and while I suppose her family might want her on Christmas Day, perhaps she could have a few days in the city and enjoy some Christmas shopping as I did with you in New York last year, Cathalina. Virgie, of course, can scarcely manage to go so far home. The only drawback is that I don’t know about asking Olivia. There’s plenty of room in the parsonage, though, even with our big family.”

“Avalon is going to take Olivia home with her, Hilary,” said Cathalina. “I heard her ask her the other day, and she accepted gratefully. Avalon has been very much attracted by Olivia. They are really more alike than Avalon and Isabel.”

“Yes, that is so,” said Lilian, “and Isabel and Virgie seem to love to be together. It will be lovely of you, Hilary, to give them both a good time.”

“I like them both and it would be so forlorn for Virgie to stay here. I don’t know whether Isabel could take her home with her or not.”

“I guess the girls that do stay here have a pretty good time,—but it isn’t like a home!”

“We’ll have to go all alone, Betty,” said Cathalina. “Betty has to trot right home, too.”

“Isn’t it a wonderful night, girls?” said Hilary, moving over to the window. “There isn’t a bit of wind and it isn’t very cold, and that gentle soft snow falling again! But I’m rather glad it did not come when we were out riding this afternoon.”

The other girls followed Hilary and sat in the window seat for a little while, looking out at the dim light and the veil of snow which was shrouding the trees and bushes with a fresh mantle.

Some hours later, while youthful heads rested on comfortable pillows and dreams of sleigh-bells, snowy roads and meadows mingled with visions of Christmas celebrations and home folks, there came a sudden clang, clang, clang of the fire gong!

Clang, clang, clang, again; and once more, clang, clang, clang!

After the first three times it began again. Clang, clang, clang! Clang, clang clang! Clang, clang, clang!

By this time, Hilary, who was “fire marshal” for the corridor, was wide awake, out of bed, into bathrobe and slippers, armed with her flashlight, and outside in the hall to oversee the rapid departure from the rooms. Lilian and Eloise, who were “deputies,” each with the flashlight, which was always under their pillows, hurried to the first landing and to the bottom of the stairway, their regular posts in fire drill.

“I smell smoke,” said Eloise, as she hurried past Hilary. “It must be a real fire, for they’d never have a drill in the snow!”

Doors opened and scared or sleepy girls emerged promptly. Hilary was running to rap on several doors. “Coming,” called Virgie, who was trying to explain to Olivia what to do and to get her started. There had not been a fire drill, as it happened, since Olivia had arrived, and no one had thought to say a word about it.

“Wait till I get my purse!” said Olivia.

“Hustle, child,” said Hilary, “no time to gather up money,” and Hilary ran into the room and conducted forth the reluctant Olivia, who was about ready to cry.

“I never knew you had a fire drill, and I was so scared,” she sobbed, as Virgie, holding her fast, she stumbled and slid down stairs by the aid of the bannisters. “I’ve got my fur coat, anyhow!” It was fortunate that the girls had flashlights, for after the first few moments the dim lights in the hall went out. Olivia was the last of the girls on the corridor, and Hilary brought up the rear. The lower hall was full of smoke by this time, and the girls were glad to get outside on the snowy porch.

“All accounted for, Hilary?” asked Miss West. “Then take the girls over to the Gym where they will be warm. Hurry up, girls, and dry your feet when you get there.”

The excited groups of girls from different exits of Greycliff Hall converged toward the gymnasium, where a teacher called together the fire marshals for a report of the girls on each corridor and floor.

Hilary’s girls, like the rest, babbled of many things on the way.

“Oo-oh! I’ve lost off my slippers and the snow is so co-old!”

“I’m most frozen!” declared Olivia.

“Why don’t you put on your fur coat, silly, instead of carrying it?” asked Isabel, who was rather unjustly disgusted with Olivia.

“I d-didn’t have time, with Virgie and Hilary pulling me along so!”

“Well, we didn’t want you burned up, did we?” asked Virgie.

“It is hard on Olivia, girls,” said the just Hilary, who always “kept her head.” “I’m sorry, Olivia, that we had to do it, but you have to obey order in fire drill, or the real thing, as this seems to be. You’ll be all right in a minute.” And after reporting her girls all present, Hilary spent a little while in seeing that Olivia was soothed, and warmed by having her feet rubbed until they were in a glow, while she sat by a radiator wrapped in her big fur coat. The gym teacher was flying around, finding towels and encouraging frightened girls. Most of the girls, however, had good self-control and some of them rather enjoyed the adventure.

“Do you suppose that our things will be all burned up?” asked Avalon.

“I haven’t seen a flame yet,” answered Lilian.

“It does seem as if we might have taken time in a real fire to gather up our most important things, don’t you think so, Pauline?”

“It might turn out all right and it might not. Somebody would be overcome with smoke, perhaps, or stay too long, and after all, life is of more importance. I was in an awful fire once at a hotel, and we just had time to get out. I’ve always said since then that I was going to keep my jewelry and money in a little bag right by my pillow, but I forget to do it. I always know where my flashlight is, though.”

“Let’s ask somebody how things are going,” said Cathalina. The girls were now looking out of the windows, where ever it was possible, toward the Hall. “Look! I do see some flames in the back part!” Everybody crowded up, the teachers, too.

“Take a look around, Betty,” whispered Juliet. “Did you ever see such costumes worn by our revered faculty before? Could you ever have imagined Dr. Carver’s hair looking like that?”

While they watched, the old-fashioned fire-engines arrived from Greycliff, with a capable band of men from their fire department. But it seemed hours to the tired girls, whose excitement soon died down, before the cause and extent of the fire was discovered by the firemen and the fire under control. It was found to be entirely in the back part of the building. This part shut off, the rest of the building was cleared of smoke and the girls taken back to their beds. A guard was kept all night, while the firemen worked, and assured that they were to be awakened at once if there was any more danger, most of the girls slept soundly.

“What next?” said Helen to Eloise, as they crept into their cots once more.

“I am too sleepy to think,” replied Eloise, “but the year has been lively enough so far, hasn’t it?”

For several days there was more or less discomfort or inconvenience in arrangements at Greycliff. The trouble was found to have originated in the electric wiring, all of which was most thoroughly gone over. But work and recitation went on and the routine duties were accomplished.

CHAPTER XIII.

HOME WITH HILARY.

To school girls there is something especially exhilarating about the Christmas holidays. The long stretch at the beginning of the school year has been accomplished. The glorious time of celebrations and gift giving is at hand, with all the mysteries and secrets of the season. Home people never seemed more desirable than after so many weeks of separation. Good times have been planned for the “long vacation,” as the two weeks at Christmas time are often called. A new year will have begun before the girls see each other again.

On Lakeview corridor they all were packing, running back and forth with different articles, talking, laughing, joking. “Give Reginald my love, Eloise,” said Lilian mischievously, looking over her shoulder as she started out of the room. “Reginald” was the fabled name of some mysterious admirer of Eloise, who lived in her home town. Numerous letters had arrived, addressed to Eloise in a bold, manly hand, and as she would not say a word about them or their source and seemed more annoyed than pleased upon the arrival of each missive, the other girls could not resist making an occasional teasing remark. “O, there’s a letter from Reginald,” one of the suite-mates would say, pointing to the mail upon the table. Or, “We’ve received no communication from Reginald for a week or two,—can he be ill?” another would remark in tones of concern. Eloise would sometimes part her lips as if to speak, but only smiled an amused smile and kept her own council. Possibly she confided in Helen, the girls thought, but if so, Helen never betrayed any knowledge.

“You are just crazy, you little old Lilian,” said Eloise on this occasion. “There isn’t any Reginald!”

“We know that. ‘Reginald’ is only the distinguished name we have chosen to represent the devoted knight. We ask no confidences, fair lady, at this stage, at least, and only hope that he may be a worthy knight.”

“Knight!” exclaimed Eloise. “Wait, Lilian, here’s my teeny-weeny Christmas present for you.” And Eloise handed Lilian a square, thin package marked “not to be opened till Christmas.”

Eloise and Lilian, as they stood together for a few moments, were such pretty examples of opposite types. Lilian so fair, like a china shepherdess, though vivid and full of life, and Eloise, dark-eyed, red-lipped and sparkling. Eloise had been embroidering pretty corners on linen handkerchiefs for her friends.

“O, you dear child,” said Lilian, “I’ll have to wait till I come back to give you my remembrance, but I know just what it will be.”

“I ’spect you know what this is,” said Eloise, “because you saw me doing one for Cathalina. But every little stitch was put in for you, with oodles of love!”

Isabel came into Lakeview Suite with the air of a conqueror and dropped into a corner of the window seat out of the way of packing and the general “mess,” as Hilary called it. “I’m all ready,” announced Isabel.

“Smart child,” said Hilary. “I have to get myself ready and finish packing my bag. I’m disappointed that Lilian has to go right home.”

“Virgie is finishing up. Avalon and Olivia have gone downstairs to wait for the ’bus.”

“Mercy! It’s an hour at least before it goes. Their train goes half an hour later than ours, too. They’ll have plenty of time to wait.”

“Anything I can do to help you girls?”

“No, I think not. Just excuse me while I get into traveling garb, and if you want to put those papers into the waste basket for us it will look ‘less worse’ around here, but it isn’t necessary.”

“I’ll have to do something or explode,” said Isabel. “I’m so crazy about going that I can’t keep still. It acts differently with Virgie, she’s going around in a dream, and she is such an intense soul that I’m afraid it will break out seriously later! Aren’t you afraid to take us, Hilary?”

“I should think not!” exclaimed Hilary much amused. “What time did you girls get up this morning that you are ready so early?”

“It was dark, and all I’ve had to do since breakfast was to pack my bag.”

“I barely got into my usual clothes by breakfast time,—it’s so hard to get up these dark mornings,—but I have certainly made things fly in this half hour since.”

“Are these your things laid our for your bag?”

“Yes, except one or two little things.”

Isabel packed the bag while Hilary dressed, telling her that she thought she was mistaken about the time when the ’bus would start. Hilary finished and ran around to say goodbye to the girls who did not start so early. With bright faces and gay farewells, the company of girls going on the morning trains clambered into the ’bus and were off to Greycliff and the station. Isabel settled down into the well-behaved, demure, little rosy-cheeked lass she was at her best and the trip began.

How proud Hilary was of the tall distinguished gentleman who met her and her guests and put them all into a taxi to be taken out to the parsonage. “O, Father, it seems ages since I’ve seen you all! Is Mother as well as she always writes that she is? and the boys? and Mary? and June? Lilian’s married sister came, so she went straight home.”

Isabel and Virginia scarcely knew whether to look with content and admiration at the minister and his daughter or to watch the lights of the city from the taxi windows, for it was late when the train pulled in. At last they reached the parsonage, where the whole family welcomed the girls with enthusiasm. Gordon and Tommy shook hands cordially and viewed the two guests with interest. Mary responded shyly to their greetings, June hugged them both, and Mrs. Lancaster gave both motherless girls a warm, motherly embrace. Hilary took them upstairs at once to the guest room. “This will be your room, unless some bishop or district superintendent comes unexpectedly, and then you will have June’s and mine.”

“And what will you do, then?”

“O, we’ll just hang up on the wall somewhere as usual, won’t we, June?”

June was afraid that Hilary’s remark would be taken seriously and said, “We can sleep on the davenport or up in the attic.”

Isabel and Virginia laughed and Isabel said, “You are very accommodating, then.”

“A minister’s family has to be,” replied June.

“You might call our family life ‘adjustable,’” suggested Hilary, “but we love to have company.”

“We have cots and things, too,” said the serious little June. “It’s very easy for us to manage.”

When the girls came downstairs, Mrs. Lancaster had a warm lunch for them and the whole family, even Dr. Lancaster, sat around and listened to the chatter about school and the doings of the Greycliffers. This was started by a remark of Dr. Lancaster’s to Isabel: “Yours is the school, I believe, where they have little incidents like wrecks and fires.” The girls all laughed at this and started in with more vivid descriptions than they had dared write home for fear of worrying the home people. There was not much that was funny about the wreck of the Greycliff, but the fire was different. June fairly doubled up with laughter, and Gordon and Tommy, too, at Isabel’s graphic accounts of faculty costumes, the array of slippers left in the snow, and the funny things that different girls did under excitement.

“Which was the girl, Hilary,” asked Tommy, “that you wrote about, the one that picked up her fountain pen from the table as she passed and left her pocketbook with a lot of money in it?”

“O, that was Dorothy Appleton,” said Hilary, “but we aren’t supposed to think of anything but getting out as quickly as possible. Of course it was rather thoughtless to pick up a pen and leave your money when it was right there by the pen.”

“We’ll take in a little of the city tomorrow,” said Hilary, as she escorted her guests to their room. “Mother has good help engaged and says that I am to have a good time with you. I haven’t been home enough since we came here to know the city myself yet and shall enjoy the sights as much as you will. Some of the time Father will go with us, or Gordon and Tommy. I think June knows her way around, too.”

The next morning, Dr. Lancaster offered himself as guide and took them all to the “Zoo” first, where they spent a good part of the morning. Although the birds and animals were in winter quarters, it was most interesting. The “Zoo-Eden” car again took them to the Rookwood Pottery, for which Cincinnati is famous, past the Art Museum, for which they wanted more time. The Pottery is a fascinating place and the girls viewed the beautiful specimens of its work, and watched the potter at his wheel while the different processes were explained by a guide.

By the time the round at the pottery was completed, it was time for lunch. “Down the dizzy incline, girls,” said Hilary, pointing to the Mt. Adams inclined plane near at hand.

“My, do we go down those tracks?” inquired Virginia.

“The street car goes on a big platform which is kept on the tracks and pulled up or let down by cables. It does look as if you are running out on the jumping off place! But they keep it in repair and folks don’t seem to think anything of it.”

June pointed out the river and the Kentucky towns on the other side as the car went down. “The bridge looks so pretty at night,” said she, “and all the lights of the town on the other side, as you look out.”

“Mercy, I do feel so citified,” whispered Virgie to Isabel, as they followed Hilary into the dining room of one of the large stores. “Is it only a few months ago that I was out on a North Dakota ranch and had never seen nor heard of you girls?”

“After lunch,” said Dr. Lancaster at the table, “I shall take you to the top of the Union Central building and then leave you to your own devices while I go down to the Methodist Book Concern on business. Do you think you can take the right car home, Hilary?”

“If she can’t, I can,” offered June.

“We’ll be all right, Father,” said Hilary. “We want to shop and look at the Christmas displays this afternoon.”

As the girls stood on the high lookout of the Union Central building, Hilary explained a little. “You see,” said she, “old Cincinnati was built in the ‘basin,’ as they call it, right down on the river, of course, for convenience in business. There was much river traffic in those days. But when the city grew and grew, naturally the residences began to be built out on the surrounding hills. Father, with his favorite alliteration, calls it ‘Cincinnati and her hundred hills.’ I love the down town spires. They give character and beauty to the whole place, Father says. O, I’m so glad that you are going to hear Father preach. He looks like the angel Gabriel and says the most wonderful things!”

“No wonder you are so nice, Hilary,” said Virginia, “with such a dear mother and the father you have,—not that you do not deserve some credit yourself!”

“I am very thankful,” said Hilary, “for my dear people, but I ought to be ever so much better than I am with the bringing up I’ve had!”

“Shall we go over into Kentucky some time?” asked Isabel, looking across at the Kentucky hills.

“O, yes,” replied Hilary. “We can do that tomorrow if you like, go over to Covington, or ride out to Fort Thomas, where there is the army post, you know.” Virginia began to count the number of states that she had been in on her trip from the farm, and concluded that it would be not only fun to see Kentucky towns, but would add a state to her list.

“Shopping next, girls,” said Hilary, as they went down in the elevator. “I’m not going to take you all over town, but into some of the big stores that are not very far apart, and then we’ll go somewhere for some good old sundaes and home again.”

“Isabel and I both need some good gloves, first of all,” said Virginia, “then just Christmas things, and something to remember Cincinnati by.”

In the days that followed so rapidly, there were certain great events that stood out in the life of the little girl from Dakota who had never seen nor heard anything like them. Through it all, too, ran the delightful feeling of being in a real home, with both a father and a mother, and a home built on the highest ideals.

There was the Symphony Orchestra concert, when she sat between Mrs. Lancaster and Hilary and watched the players with their instruments, many of them strange to her. Virginia thrilled to the harmonies and sat tense with enjoyment, not wanting to miss a note. She loved especially the harp and the violins, and in between the numbers asked Mrs. Lancaster about the wind instruments and the general make up of an orchestra, till Mrs. Lancaster realized that there were some things she had not thought of herself. The people, too, were of no less interest to Virginia, especially those who were much dressed for the occasion and sat in the boxes. It was a phase of life which the girl had read about but had never seen.

“Pinch me, Hilary,” she whispered once, after an especially beautiful and dreamy composition, “I must be dreaming, I can’t be really here with you, and actually hearing a Symphony Orchestra!”

Hilary smiled with sympathy and squeezed Virginia’s arm affectionately.

On Sunday morning, the girls sat with the minister’s family in the pew well up to the front, where father was sure to be supported by the confidence of his family! The church was beautifully decorated and the people sat in quiet reverence as the organ began its stately prelude. There was the exquisite Christmas choir music, especially prepared for the occasion, with one or two solos from the Messiah and “O, little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie!” The sweet Christmas story was in the Scripture lesson, and a sermon followed which more than once made Virginia’s throat contract with its tender and spiritual message. She thought of her dear father, working so hard on the distant ranch, and wished that she could slip her hand into his and tell him how dearly she loved him, and she concluded that she had expected too much from the stepmother who had never known anything like this to make her thoughtful and kind. With the rest of the congregation she sang, “When Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night,” and stood quietly to listen to the last note of the Hallelujah chorus from the Messiah with which the organist closed the musical program, the people standing, then bowed their heads for the benediction.

“And you’ve listened to sermons like that and been in wonderful services all your life, Hilary?” she asked, as they walked to the parsonage.

“Yes, and I suppose I can’t really appreciate it as I ought,” said Hilary, sensing what Virginia was thinking.

“I think you do, for you certainly put to practice what you have been taught,” said Isabel. “Still, part of it must be natural, because you just have a generous nature.”

“It’s very dear of you girls to think so,” said Hilary, not a little touched, “but if there is anything good in me at all it is just because I try to keep close to the Source of goodness, and I believe all that Father preaches, even if I can’t live up to it as I ought to.”

The good Sunday dinner brought them down to earth again, and how they did enjoy it! “These chickens came from Uncle Andy Short,” Tommy informed them, as he stowed away a generous slice of the breast.

“O, is he the one that sent or gave your mother the chickens that were in your famous birthday box last year?” asked Isabel of Hilary.

“Yes, and he’s sent us two turkeys for Christmas. He was so disappointed when Father went away, but he and his wife have promised to visit us,—”

“And, O boy, but we’ll have something good to eat when they do!” Tommy interrupted.

“Son!” but Dr. Lancaster smiled, as he gave the mild rebuke.

“They have everything on that farm,” said Gordon, “make the best butter, have bees and honey and apple butter,—it’s a great place to go!”

An Epworth League Christmas party gave Isabel and Virginia the opportunity to meet many of the young people in the church, and the Sunday school entertainment on Christmas Eve was the “dearest, funniest” program they ever heard! Isabel, the student of “expression” and drama, was convulsed over the recitations of some of the smallest tots. “It doesn’t make a bit of difference,” said she, “whether they do it right or not, and if they do forget, it’s only funnier. I’d like to eat up that cute little tot in the blue dress!”

Mary, with some other little girls, sang a Christmas song. Tommy and Gordon took part in several features of the program. Hilary found that she was not needed as much as she had been in the smaller place. Some one else played the accompaniments, and the program had been all arranged before she arrived on the scene. The girls were naturally interested in noting that there was a fine group of young men connected with the Epworth League and Sunday school. “I see where the ‘Campbell’ that Cathalina sometimes teases you about isn’t going to have a chance with these boys right here on the ground,” said Isabel. “My partner at the lunch the other night was a very good-looking boy, and I saw him casting several glances in your direction, Hilary.”

“I couldn’t notice his taking his eyes from you, could you, Virgie?” replied Hilary.

“He did seem to be having a jolly time with Isabel,” Virginia answered, “but I must say that I was too busy trying to think of things to say to my partner to notice much else. It was such a nice party!”

Christmas Day, that best-beloved, long anticipated day, arrived and brought much happiness to the Lancaster home, with greetings and gifts. The girls had been busy decorating the tree, which they enjoyed soon after breakfast. There were presents for the family, with remembrances for Isabel and Virginia. The door-bell kept ringing for a while, as it had the day before, and prettily wrapped packages kept coming in from different members of the church. Mrs. Lancaster was busy overseeing the cooking of the dinner where the most savory smells testified to the skill of the colored woman who was flying about the kitchen. One turkey had been roasted the day before, and the other was in the oven. Quite a little company was to gather for dinner at the parsonage, for some lonely folks without family had been invited in.

After dinner, Isabel, Virginia and Hilary played quiet games with the boys and Mary, while the older folks visited and the usual nibbling of nuts, fruit and candy went on between times. Later in the day other visitors dropped in and the young folks went out for a walk and ride. There seemed no end to the entertainment which the city could provide.

Isabel went home to her father and the boys after Christmas, but Virginia stayed with the Lancasters through the vacation, the happiest she had ever known, and came back to school with Hilary.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE ICE CARNIVAL.

It was in January, cold, sparkling, crisp, the ice on the dam above the river’s mouth thick and smooth as glass. There had been some very severe weather which the girls had welcomed as making it possible to skate. Now the weather was not so cold, but no approach to melting or thawing temperature.

“We haven’t had much skating for a long time,” said Eloise, as she skated around in a circle, chatting to Hilary and Lilian. Betty and Cathalina skated up in time to hear the remark.

“It is glorious!” declared Betty, “and yet it doesn’t freeze our noses or our feet. I hope it will not change before the carnival.”

“O, it can’t! The carnival’s tomorrow, you know.”

“It can do most anything, but I don’t believe that it will,” said Hilary. “I looked in the paper in the library and it said no change in temperature.”

“Is there going to be any competition for fancy skating among the girls?” Eloise asked.

“No,” replied Hilary, “all of us just skate our best during the time set and the judges pick out the most graceful and best skater. There is a second prize, too. But the boys do fancy skating.”

“Do you know what I think?” said Eloise impressively. “I think that Betty can get the first prize if she tries to skate her best. Do it, Betty. You have had practice at your aunt’s up in Canada, and are a born skater, anyway!”

Betty looked pleased, but replied, “I don’t know about that, Eloise, there are some good skaters in this school. Do you girls want me to show off a few extra whirls? Cathalina and I have been trying a few ‘stunts’ together this afternoon.”

“Yes, yes, Betty, for the glory of the Psyche Club!”

“I’ll see what I can do, then, but it’s so much fun that I’m not going to think about competing or I might get scared, and I want to enjoy this carnival.”

“I imagine that Dorothy Appleton will stand well to the front among the best skaters,” said Eloise, “but she can’t do some of the things that you can, Betty.”

“Isn’t Dorothy a fine girl?” said Betty. “I like her better and better the more I see of her.”

“So do I,” declared Lilian, “well enough to ask her to join the Psyche Club some time.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Hilary, in surprise.

“If we asked her roommate, I believe Dorothy would be glad to join, in spite of what Myrtle and some of the others would say. I’m sure she likes us, but Dorothy is too dignified to let us know even if she would like to join us.”

“Wouldn’t that be funny, girls, apropos of our senior elections,” said Cathalina, “electing Dorothy, who was supposed to represent the other crowd, the best of it, and then taking her in with us!”

“Like old politicians again,” suggested Betty.

“But we aren’t,” said Hilary decisively, “and if we are good friends with Dorothy it is because we like her, not to pay off any old grudges!”

“Hear, hear!” cried Eloise. “How we do have to watch our motives, to keep them honorable!”

“I think that Jane Mills is splendid, too,” said Betty. “I don’t know how they managed to change roommates, so they could room together, but it happened.”

“Miss Randolph did it,” Cathalina informed them. “She saw how unhappy Dorothy was and fixed it all up some way not to hurt Madge. Now Dorothy and Jane are as happy as can be.”

“Come on, Cathalina,” said Betty, “I’ll beat you to that pine tree,” and the girls all skated off.

In a way they were practicing for tomorrow’s carnival, but for the past two weeks skating had been the popular pastime between afternoon classes and the six o’clock dinner. The river could be reached by a walk along the beach to its mouth, but the easiest way to the dam was by a gently descending walk from the grove down to the river’s bank at the dam. Nature had been much assisted in making this a pretty part of the grounds, but it was so far from the buildings that some one was always in charge when the girls skated in winter or rowed and paddled in summer.

The carnival was causing more or less excitement because of the fact that the boys from the military school were coming. It was to be on a school day, also, and class hours were to be shortened! How fine that is all school girls and boys know. The boys were to arrive at the Village of Greycliff by trolley and be brought to Greycliff Girls’ School by the school sleighs and sleds, with such additional conveyances from the village as were found necessary. The showing off performances with the trials for prizes, were to be in the afternoon, from three o’clock to five. The boys were, moreover, to be entertained at dinner, and in the evening there was to be a jolly skating party with big bonfires and lights of various sorts.

“How are they going to manage the dressing for dinner?” asked Cathalina of Betty.

“Miss West said that we girls could dress as usual, coming right back to the Hall after the afternoon affair. Of course, we’ll want to dress up a little more than usual. The boys are going to make headquarters in the big Gym, I believe. They will be wearing their uniforms, you know, and any special skating togs they can adjust in the Gym. They will come over to the parlors before dinner and take us in to dinner very formally, I hear!”

“Do you suppose that you will meet your knight of the mirror?”

“I might, but how would I know him?”

“Your little heart should tell you.”

“What I’m worried about is that he may know me, and it was so silly to be trying that old Hallow-e’en test!”

“I don’t believe that he could see you any better than you saw him. You said that the candle flickered in the wind.”

“Yes, but I was shielding it with my hand. Still, I was all dressed up different, with my hair dressed high, too. O, well, what’s the use to worry?”

“None at all. He must have been a gentleman; still, it wasn’t very nice of him to look over your shoulder.”

“O, I don’t know; who could resist the temptation that knew the old superstition?”

“Won’t it be a jolly party,—two ‘skates’ and a dinner! I suppose the officers and instructors will be along, don’t you?”

“Yes; they say that the dinner will be quite an occasion!”

“This is the first they have had for several years, Miss Patty says. Then we’ll have a lawn fete in the spring, or just before Commencement, and invite our ‘soldier boys’ then, too, and the people from the village, I think, because it’s a ‘benefit.’”

Party frocks were looked over that night and occasional stitches taken where necessary. It was very hard to study when there were so many delightful anticipations. “What do lessons compare,” said Juliet, with reckless disregard of tomorrow and the class room, “with being ready for an ice carnival at Greycliff? What shall we remember in coming years,” she added, mimicking Isabel’s style of mock oratory, “the formulas and theorems of our class rooms?—or the scenes of the Ice Carnival at Greycliff?”

“The Ice Carnival!” promptly answered Pauline, while the other girls laughed.

The day arrived. Classes did not go any too well. Teachers felt hurried and pupils distraught, thinking of many more absorbing things.

“I believe I’d almost rather have the girls miss the classes altogether than to have these short periods. We did accomplish a little, however.” So Patricia West concluded.

“They couldn’t do a thing in chemistry,” replied Dr. Norris. “I gave up trying to have experiments and lectured to make them take notes. They could at least do that.”

With a literal blowing of trumpets, the boys arrived, having brought their band. Neither girls nor boys wasted time in getting to the river. It made a pretty scene, the bright costumes of the girls, the white snow, the dark trees, the smooth ice and graceful skaters. Contests among the boys came off first; then followed the skating among the girls. There was only one real contest among the latter, a race in which Betty and Dorothy divided the honors, gliding to the goal together. Cathalina in getting Betty to do a few interesting turns with her, asked her how to do some figures, and Betty showed her, not suspecting Cathalina’s guile till applause from a group of boys near brought her the realization that she had been “showing off.” Great was her surprise and pleasure when the judges announced her as winning the first prize.

“Do you know any of those boys, Pauline?” asked Betty, casting a side glance at the group of boys which had applauded her, and particularly at one young gentleman who had seemed to be especially interested,—standing aside from the rest and watching her with great attention.

“Yes; that one is Donald Hilton. Didn’t you notice him when he received the first prize?”

“O,” said Betty. “No, I wasn’t very near then.”

“He is a fine fellow and a cousin of Dorothy’s. That is John Appleton nearest him; doesn’t he look like Dorothy? Harry Mills goes with those boys a good deal. There, Donald and Harry are skating off together now.”

Cathalina, who had been standing near (if it could be called standing, the uneasy moving of one skate before another, and the turns and whirls, upon occasion, in which the girls indulged), bent toward Betty and said in a low voice, “Look, girls, isn’t that Louise Holley’s brother?”

“It certainly is,” replied Betty, remembering with a creepy feeling her last encounters with the young gentleman, and the girls skated off without further comment. “O, I hope, Cathalina, that it wasn’t that Holley man that looked over my shoulders!”

“So do I!”

“They are starting back to the Hall now. I could skate on all night from now on,” declared Betty.

“You think so now,” said Cathalina, “but you would be one tired little girl without that good dinner that we’re going to have. Who, do you suppose, will take us in to dinner?”

“I hope we’ll have extra nice boys, but we’ll be good to whomever we have,—unless I have that Holley man, and I don’t believe I could stand it if I did.”

“O, he seems to be one of the instructors; one of the older girls will have him. I wonder why they have him at the school. Do you suppose they know where he came from, or that he goes snooping around the way he does?”

“They must know who he is, but he is a mysterious person!”

“What are you going to wear to dinner, Betty?”

“The very prettiest frock I have.”

“The soft light blue silk, then, with the lace, and your white pearls.”

“Yes. How elegant that sounds, my ‘pearls,’ as if they were real.”

“Let me carry your skates for you, Miss Barnes,” said a pleasant voice just behind the girls, who had started from the dam toward the hall.

Betty glancing to the side was rendered almost speechless to behold Rudolph Holley, the instructor, resplendent in the school uniform, reaching out his hand for her skates.

“Our meeting was rather informal, I know,” continued the young man, “but I have always wanted to thank you for the courtesy you gave my sister and me. I had motored over with some of the boys and was in a hurry. I seemed to have missed my sister.”

“Yes,” thought Betty, “because of her trick on me!” But she was too courteous to want to show offense, besides being a little afraid of this man of night and motors and caves.

“You were very welcome for anything I may have done for you and your sister,” was Betty’s reply. “Miss Van Buskirk, this is Captain Holley,” for she noticed the captain’s epaulets on his shoulders. “He must have gotten my name from Louise, and probably knows all about her miserable little performance and is proud of it!” So Betty’s thoughts ran on. “I don’t like him one bit. But how good-looking he is.” There was something not unpleasant in having this courteous young instructor in attendance upon them, while the other girls and boys were going by. Few introductions had taken place as yet, though there were a few old acquaintances among the older members of each school, besides the brothers and sisters in the schools. All were a little hurried, especially the girls, for warm rooms, bright lights, a good dinner and companionship were waiting them.

Captain Holley meanwhile was thinking—though not in English—something like this: “She knows who I am, the little piece, and that was what I wanted to know.” He kept up the conversation with comments on the occasion, compliments to Betty and to Cathalina for their skating, and pleasant anticipations of the rest of the entertainment.

“Have you been an instructor at the school long, Captain Holley?” Cathalina inquired.

“No, not long,” replied the captain. “You know our sad history, I suppose. American is our country now. We came here,—I was a student in one of the schools and could not be recalled for military service because of a slight physical defect, a matter of eye sight, which was fortunate for me. I was very sorry that it was not deemed best to keep my sister here, but Louise is not adaptable like myself. Professor Schafer, whom I met when I was a lad in Germany and he was studying there, has been very kind and I come over occasionally to call on him.”

Captain Holley accompanied the girls to the door of Greycliff Hall, where he handed the skates to the girls, and with a courteous bow departed, following the boys to the gymnasium.

“Did you ever?” asked Betty, as rather silently they mounted the stairs.

“I never did,” replied Cathalina, and then they dismissed the matter, hurried into their pretty frocks, and hurried down into the parlors with the rest of the girls.

CHAPTER XV.

THE KNIGHT APPEARS.

Halls and parlors were full of laughing boys and girls. Their years, perhaps, might entitle them or some of them to be called young men and women, but this generation does not marry off its girls at sixteen or seventeen and its boys at scarcely more than twenty. The military school trained youths from about fifteen to twenty, many of them from families who liked to have their sons in military training for a few years. The ages, then, correspond well with those of the Greycliff girls, and it was not hard to arrange partners for dinner. This had been largely done beforehand by a committee of girls and teachers, a few changes having been made as the personnel of the assembled company was noted, or as personal requests came in. Under or in the midst of palms and other plants not far from the entrance, was a little table where sat Patricia West, Dr. Norris, and one or two others of the younger teachers. There the cadets or officers gave their names or cards and were handed cards which contained the names of their dinner partners.

“You can’t just go in, pick out the prettiest girl and ask her to go to dinner with you, then?” asked one young officer who knew Dr. Norris.

“Not this time,” replied Dr. Norris, “but keep your eye on her and get her to go skating with you this evening; or get with the group at her table.”

“O, you couldn’t do that, you know,” cried Patty, “because we will have place cards fixed from these duplicates, as soon as everybody is here.”

“All right, Doc, how do I pick her out?”

Dr. Norris beckoned to one of several girls who stood near, and who were trying hard not to laugh at this conversation. “Miss Mills will find the lady for you, Lieutenant Maxwell.”

“‘The lady or the tiger,’” murmured this irrepressible youth to Dr. Norris, then acknowledged his introduction to Miss Mills and gallantly escorted her through the throng in the hall. “Do you happen to know whether the fair lady is one of the girls or—ah—a teacher?” the young lieutenant asked Jane as she stopped to look and locate the damsel.

“You will think that you are lucky,” said Jane; “I don’t believe that you could have chosen a more attractive partner yourself,” and she led him to Cathalina, who stood near one of the windows talking to Betty.

Lieutenant Maxwell received an impression of a lovely face, a filmy frock and a courteous smile as he was introduced first to Cathalina and then by her to the other girls, Betty, Helen, Eloise and Pauline, who happened to be close by. But he offered Cathalina his arm to take her over to a group of young officers who had promised to “stand by” each other and gather with their dinner partners in a little group.

Betty was having two requests for her company, at the table in the hall. Fortunately for her, the most agreeable one came first, indeed had been arranged for, as well.

“I think it would be nice if we put the two who won the honors together, don’t you?” Patricia had asked, thinking what a pleasant companion for Betty it would provide. The others agreeing, she wrote Betty’s name on the card for Donald Hilton, who happened to come along after Lieutenant Maxwell.

“May I ask for somebody?” said Donald at once.

“You may, though I think that you will be pleased with what we have arranged,” replied Patricia.

“I would like very much to meet the young lady who won honors in skating, Miss Betty—”

“She is the one we have for you,” and Patty handed out the card to the pleased lad.

“I know her,” said Corporal Hilton. “I mean I know which she is, but I would be glad to have some one introduce us.”

“We arrange for that,” replied Dr. Norris, introducing one of the attendant girls again, just as Captain Holley appeared with a request for “Miss Barnes,” delivered in rather a haughty manner. Donald overheard him, but did not change countenance as he hurried away with his pretty escort.

So it happened that Donald’s first remark to Betty, as after the introduction he led her to a more or less secluded seat in the hall, in one of the recesses, was rather personal. “I came just in time,” said he, “for I heard another man asking for you right after I had received the card with your name.”

Betty smiled and said, “I didn’t know that any of the boys knew me.”

“It wasn’t any of the boys, it was an instructor.”

“O,” said Betty, “how glad I am that you—” then she caught herself before she could go any farther.

“I take it, then, that he is not any too popular with you?” Donald’s air was that of earnestly wanting to know about it, which surprised Betty, but pleased her.

“O, no!” she replied, “not if it is the one I think it is.”

“It was Captain Holley.”

“Yes, I thought it must be, for he is the only one I have met, but I do not know him well at all, and am surprised that he should ask for me. Probably he does not know any of the other girls and thought that I would do.” Betty was laughing.

“That must have been it,” said Donald, with sarcasm in his tone. “Say, I was watching you skate this afternoon and want to congratulate you on the well deserved honor you received.”

“I must return the compliment, then. But you are a real skater. I never saw anybody do the things you did in the contest except a professional skater.”

“I’m glad you liked it,” and Donald wanted to add, “I was doing it for you,” but did not at this stage of acquaintance.

“You are Dorothy Appleton’s cousin, aren’t you?”

“Yes, and Jack’s, of course.”

“O, do you call John Appleton Jack?”

“Most of the boys do. Come, I must let some of the rest of them meet you, but may I have the first skate with you after dinner, and take you down to the river and bring you back?”

“Certainly. It will be wonderful to skate with such a skater as you are.”

Dinner, which had been planned for an earlier time than usual was served later than usual, merely because it was hard to manage the arranging of couples and seating. But at last the gong rang and the gay company gathered about the prettily decorated tables. Place cards were in the form of skates, and a few of the older girls excused themselves temporarily from their escorts, in order to help all find their seats, and relieve the confusion or prevent it. Miss Randolph, in her most elegant gown, led the way to the dining room with the commandant of the school, who was a fine figure in his uniform. “Probably it would have been better,” she was saying, “had we planned the afternoon contests a little earlier. It still grows dark so early. But we can give them a little more time tonight if it does make it later. The dinner must not be hurried,” of which statement the commandant thoroughly approved.

Cathalina was at a table where sat the young instructors of the military school with their companions, but Betty was at the same table with John Appleton and Hilary, Harry Mills and Lilian, Eloise with a tall, over-grown, handsome young “top-sergeant,” and Dorothy with a rollicking soldier boy who kept the table in mirth with his stories of school affairs.

“How I do adore uniforms!” whispered Eloise to Betty, as she passed her in finding their places. Betty smiled and nodded, as if to say, “So do I.”

“There are no old toasts and speeches this time,” said Dorothy to her brother.

“No time wasted, then,” replied John.

“I imagine that Miss Randolph will make a ‘few brief’ remarks,” said Hilary, “to give direction about the rest of the evening.”

“Yes, and the dear old boy will have to respond with thanks for the pleasures enjoyed,” said Harry irreverently.

“Don’t they look fine, though?” said Lilian. “We ought to be proud of them.”

“We are,” replied Harry. “There aren’t many heads of a military school—as strict as discipline has to be—that are liked as well. The boys all respect him.”

“Well, you know, John,” said Dorothy, “what the best girls think of Miss Randolph.”

By the time the dinner was over, Donald knew where Betty lived, all about her family, what studies she was taking and what she thought on various subjects interesting to young people. In turn he gave her bits of information about his own life and incidentally his character. The Hiltons lived in Chicago and Donald was the oldest of three children, the other two girls.

Hilary was right about the announcements. Miss Randolph rose at the close of the meal, greeted the guests in a few cordial words and announced that the bell would ring at the time to stop skating upon the river. “I think that you will have no difficulty in hearing it, but if we have any doubt a gong will sound at the river.”

Then the officer in charge, as Harry had prophesied, thanked the principal, teachers and young ladies of Greycliff for their entertainment and courtesy, and directed his students where and when to meet for the trip home.

“I’ll be in the hall or parlor waiting for you,” said Donald, as if he were afraid some one else would carry Betty off.

The girls rushed upstairs to change back to skating outfits, while the boys ran across to the gymnasium for their extra equipment. The girls were full of fun and further anticipations, but had little time to talk about it.

“Wasn’t the dinner good?” asked Lilian. “I was so glad that the boys had lots to eat! They say that their meals aren’t as good as ours, but then this was extra even for us. How did you like John Appleton, Hilary?”

“He’s a fine young man,” replied Hilary, “looks so much like Dorothy and has some of her ways, too. I like him ever so much.”

“Don’t like him better than Campbell, Hilary,” called Cathalina, to Hilary’s amusement.

“Did you have a good time, Cathalina?” Hilary called back.

“O, yes, though our crowd was older. Lieutenant Maxwell is real joy and very polite, too. He asked to take me down to the river and skate first with me.”

“So did Donald,” said Betty. “I guess all of them would do that.”

“How old do you think Donald Hilton is?” asked Cathalina.

“He told me, when he was telling about his sisters and how old they were, or rather how much older he is than they are. He is not quite nineteen.”

It did not take as long to get ready for the skating as it had to dress up in all their glory for dinner. Betty slipped down the stairs, looked carefully around to be sure to avoid Captain Holley, and brightened when she saw Donald Hilton waiting not far from the stairway. He, too, was running no chances! Out they hurried, Betty’s skates over Donald’s arm. They were among the first to arrive at the river, where a line of great bonfires lit up the place, and Mickey was in charge. Certain limits were placed, beyond which the skaters were supposed not to go, but there was distance enough for a long skate between the banks of the beautiful, ice-clad river, on into the misty white curves over-hung with pine tree branches. A guardian moon was coming up now, and looked through a few drifting clouds.

“Be sure to tell me if you are cold,” said Donald, looking down at Betty, as they skated forward, “and I’ll take your over to a bonfire in a jiffy.” Donald was used to looking after his younger sisters, but that fact did not quite account for a certain tenderness in his attitude, which Betty felt, but could not understand.

“Before I take you back and anybody takes you away from me, I want to tell you something,” said Donald, “and I want you to promise not to be offended till I’ve had a chance to explain,—will you?”

“Why,—no,” replied Betty, wondering, but ready to promise almost anything within reason, for with sure strokes they were gliding along so happily and there was such exhilaration in skating with Donald that Betty felt quite uplifted and as if she were living in a sort of fairyland.

Donald said nothing for a minute, but then took her around a curve where the moonlight shone full upon them. “Let’s stop here a minute,” he suggested. “I’ve something to show you.” Out of his pocket he took a small object and laid it in her gloved hand. “Is this yours?” he asked.

“Oh!” exclaimed Betty. It was the pansy ornament which had been on her sleeve. “Yes, it is,—I hate to think—”

“Please don’t think that I took it on purpose,” said Donald hastily. “I found it hanging to one of the buttons on my sleeve.”

“O, did anybody else see it?”

“No, indeed. Never from that day to this!”

“Why did you do it?” asked Betty, who felt that perhaps her evening was spoiled.

“Look over your shoulders, you mean? That is what I want to explain. I was over there with Holley and two or three of the boys. We had some idea of calling on the girls, but when we found that Dorothy and you younger girls were having a Hallow-e’en celebration, we gave it up, and old John and I strolled around the grounds awhile. Finally John went inside to see if Holley was ready to go, and I noticed the lights around where Dorothy tells me your society hall is, and strolled around there. Just as I was almost at the door, but back in the shadow of that tree close by, the door opened and you came out. You haven’t any idea of what a picture you made with the candle in you hand, so I just naturally stopped to look. Then you turned around to look back down the steps and held up the mirror,—”

“O, don’t!” cried Betty. “I’m so ashamed of it!”

“‘Ashamed of it!’” exclaimed Donald. “Why, girls always try all sorts of things on Hallow-e’en, don’t they?”

“O, yes, but I didn’t dream that anybody’d be there, and of course I don’t believe in that silly old superstition!”

“No, I never supposed you did, but I couldn’t resist stepping up any more than if I’d been hypnotized. I don’t know but I was! But you haven’t any idea of how much I have been thinking of you, and wanting to apologize, and wanting to meet you. I was pretty sure that it was you when I first saw you this afternoon, and after watching you closely while you were skating so near me, I knew it was the pansy girl.” Donald almost said “my” pansy girl, but bethought himself in time. “Now do you think you can forgive me?”

“O, yes,” said the generous Betty. “I, too, have been wondering who it was, and I was so terribly afraid it was Captain Holley, for I heard that he was over that night. I’m really thankful that it was you and that you do not think me too silly.”

“I never thought for a minute that you were ‘silly,’” declared Donald. “But why did you think it might be Captain Holley?”

“Because I’ve had the oddest experiences. I believe I’ll tell you about it. Do you boys think that he is all right?”

“We don’t know what to think about him.”

“Well, neither do I, and I can’t imagine what he was doing at the cave. But if I tell you, you must promise not to tell. It would be too bad to make trouble for him when perhaps he is all right.”

Donald was all attention, though not inclined to be very easy on Captain Holley, for did he not have an eye tonight on the little pansy lady whom Donald already was beginning to consider his “girl.” They were skating again, and Donald tightened his hold on Betty, as she told him of the first time she met the brother of Louise and how it happened that she was there. “You can see why I thought it might be he again,” she said, “and I didn’t have anything but a blurred image of you in the glass.”

“Well, we boys will look out for you,” declared Donald when Betty had finished her story of the cave incidents. “When we skate back, I’ll see that Holley does not skate with you. They are probably fussing at me now, because I’m keeping the prize skater all to myself. It’s funny about Holley. Some of the boys are much attracted to him. He is real popular with a certain set, and makes himself generally agreeable. Then there are others of us that do not like him.”

Fortunately it did not happen that Captain Holley sought out Betty. She had a happy evening skating with one and another of Donald’s friends, closing it with another exhilarating turn with that young man himself. The other girls were as busily engaged as herself till the bell rang and the cadets and officers escorted the maids of Greycliff back to the Hall.

CHAPTER XVI.

“YET A LITTLE SLEEP.”

“I’m glad it’s Saturday,” said Cathalina sleepily the next morning, reaching out a hand across the space between her bed and Betty’s. Betty extracted a hand from beneath the warm covers and took Cathalina’s.

“Let’s not go to breakfast,” said lazy Betty. “I’m stiff from skating so much and we’ve got some fruit if we get hungry before lunch. We’re late anyhow. The rising bell rang ages ago.”

“Won’t we get a mark against us if we don’t appear?”

“I don’t think so, not on Saturday or Sunday, though we’ll be asked why.”

“All right, we’ll risk it. I’m proud of my record, though. Little Cathalina hasn’t missed a meal since she’s been here except on account of sickness.”

“And I suspect you hardly ever used to go down to breakfast at home in the days you were telling me about.”

“My, no. Poor Etta had a life with me before I came to Greycliff. I took a lot of waiting on. I like a certain amount of it yet, about clothes and hair and some things, but I like activity now and I didn’t want to do one thing! Still, I was about sick all the time.”

“I don’t want any activity this morning,” sighed Betty. “I don’t know when bed has felt so good. I’d like to try having a maid wait on me ... and fix my clothes ... and hair....” Betty dropped Cathalina’s hand and curled up to sleep again. It was a little while before Cathalina went back to her slumbers, but she too dropped off and neither wakened till long after nine o’clock, when they roused and began to talk.

“We haven’t heard a peep from Lilian or Hilary,” said Betty. “I wonder if they’re up and if they let the maid in.”

“O, well, we can clean up ourselves,” said Cathalina. “I’ve been lying awake a little while thinking about last night.”

“So have I,” said Betty.

“I didn’t tell you what a pleasant young officer sat on the other side of me. Lieutenant Maxwell talked to everybody, the girl on the other side of him or across the table, and once when Captain Van Horne’s lady was talking to some one else I had the best chat with him. He was with that new music teacher, Miss Hallowell, and he is a very superior person, Betty, is pretty dignified and serious, I think, but easy to talk to. He has the finest face, with the dearest smile and the most inspired eyes!”

“Mercy, Cathalina, this sounds serious. ‘Cathalina Van Buskirk Van Horne’! What a name!”

Cathalina laughed out. “It isn’t as serious as that, Betty, but after all it wouldn’t be any worse than that of my distinguished ancestor, ‘Maria Van Ness Van Buskirk,’ that married the first Martin Van Buskirk that came from Holland—”

“That lived in the house that Jack built,” finished Betty. “Go on. This is thrilling.”

“I’ll not tell you another thing if you don’t stop being so silly! I thought you’d be interested.”

“I am, awfully,” and Betty tried to smother her giggles.

“He spoke to me first about my name and our Holland ancestors. Holland was a great little country once, you know.”

“Isn’t it now?”

“I don’t know. It’s terribly afraid of Germany, they say. Well, I liked him so much. I felt just the way I do with Father and Phil, that you could trust him. I think he’s the finest of all the officers that were here. He talked so well and seemed to know so much.”

“‘Van Horne,’” repeated Betty, musingly. “I believe that is the man that Donald Hilton mentioned when we were talking about Captain Holley. He said almost the same thing that you did, and pointed him out to me, ‘Now there’s a man you can trust.’ Has he blue eyes and very dark brown hair—and is real tall?”

“Yes, but then there are other tall folks among the boys.”

“I think I saw him.”

Betty was in the midst of telling about her evening when a gentle knock sounded on their bedroom door. “Come right in,” called Betty, and Lilian appeared fully dressed.

“‘How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard?’” she quoted, as she went over to put down their window. “‘Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest.’ That is what Father always says to me when he calls me to get up after some party.”

“Have you and Hilary been up long?” asked Cathalina.

“Just got dressed. Have you anything to eat?”

“Yes. I’ll get it as soon as possible.”

“No hurry. We have some crackers and peanut butter and wondered if you had anything.”

“We have oranges, and we can make some cocoa.”

“Yes, if we can get a place to cook it. The hot plates will be popular this morning.”

“I’m due in the studio from eleven to twelve this morning.”

“Poor Cathalina! Hurry up and dress and come out to tell us all about last night. I’ll turn on your heat for you, too, almost forgot that. Wasn’t it a great old carnival?”

It was not long before the girls were all gathered in their little study room eating their somewhat scant lunch. They had given up making the cocoa, “Too much trouble,” said Hilary, “and it isn’t long till lunch.”

“We certainly are tired,” said Betty, “if even Hilary thinks it too much trouble to make cocoa.”

“I wish we had enough to take around to some of the other girls,” said Lilian. “They’re probably doing the same thing we are.” But Lilian had scarcely gotten these words out when a little rap came and Pauline’s head was peeping in.

“O, come on in, Pauline, there are several extra crackers here, and Hilary and I’ll divide my orange with you.”

Pauline was entirely within the door by this time and the girls saw that she carried a good-sized basket. “Excuse my appearance, ladies, but I didn’t take time to dress up, was afraid that you would be suffering for food, and this basket arrived yesterday from my sister. We are just getting about in our suite. I meant to save this till tonight, but thought that we really needed it more this morning.” Pauline threw back the papers and disclosed a large cake in a box, packed about with fruit of various sorts and other interesting packages. “Or can’t you eat cake in the morning?” she added.

“Pauline, you life-saver!” exclaimed Betty. “Of course we can eat cake!”

“And Eloise will be in in a minute with some cocoa for you. Get you cups ready. And may we ‘have the borry’ of your big knife to cut this?”

The girls flew around to find the knife and wash the cups free from dust. “I see that you have oranges,” said Pauline, “but you must have a banana apiece and some grapes, and look at these!”

“Doughnuts!” exclaimed Lilian. “Home-made!”

Amid the exclamations and thanks of the girls, Pauline put out some fruit upon a plate that Cathalina brought her, cut the cake in generous slices for each one, handed around the doughnuts, and with apologies for being hurried, disappeared. “I have to attend to my starving family,” said she, “though Eloise was the only one up when I left. The others will be waited upon in state.”

Eloise was warmly welcomed when she appeared with the steaming cocoa. “Perhaps we, too, might have had enough energy to make cocoa if we had had the inspiration of that basket,” said Hilary.

“I didn’t feel as sleepy as the rest,” replied Eloise, “and when I found that Helen had a little headache I thought she ought to have something hot, consequently I made this for the crowd.”

“How I regret eating those crackers, such a waste of space!” said Hilary, looking fondly at a doughnut.

“It does not trouble me,” said Betty, “I can’t see any effect upon my appetite. When you get through, come and tell us what sort of a time you had last night.”

“We will,” said Eloise, filling the last cup.

“Do you suppose that these wonderfully fresh doughnuts came all the way from the ranch?” asked Cathalina, after the departure of Eloise.

“O, no,” answered Lilian. “Her married sister lives somewhere in this state. I wish mine did.”

The ice carnival had promoted acquaintance with the cadets and officers at the military school, which was known as Grant Military Academy. Distance was too great for frequent calls, but not for occasional ones. Brothers and cousins could sometimes come to Greycliff for Sunday dinner, or called on Saturday afternoon. These calls became more frequent after the skating affair, nor were they limited entirely to relatives. Corporal Donald Hilton was related to Dorothy Appleton, but it was Betty Barnes for whom he asked on several occasions. Once Captain Van Horne called and asked to see Cathalina, who was greatly impressed and felt that she was quite grown up to have so mature a gentleman call upon her. For the girls thought that he must be “at least twenty-four or five.” Captain Holley was seen at Greycliff several times, and was very popular with the collegiate girls, to whom he made himself especially agreeable. Betty and Cathalina failed to understand what he was doing about that cave, but came to the conclusion that he must be all right if everybody else thought so.

“Captain Van Horne’s first name is Allen,” Cathalina informed Betty and Hilary one day after the important call. “He lives in New York, too, and knows where my father has his office and everything, but when I told him who my father was and all, I thought he seemed different. Do you suppose it was the old money? He had been telling me about how he happened to come to the school. He’s going to be a lawyer, and couldn’t afford to keep on going to law school right straight along, so he’s reading law and teaching for a while.”

“Maybe it was a little shock to be real interested in a girl and want to see something of her and then find that she had everything on earth,—if you were poor yourself.”

“It’s really against you, then, to have a rich father,” said Cathalina soberly.

“O, no, Cathalina,” exclaimed Hilary. “If anybody really cared for you, it couldn’t make any difference; you are so dear.”

“No, the poor boys can’t afford to get interested in girls that they feel they can’t do anything for. I’ll see what this one does, not that he has any serious ideas about matters, it is silly to think of it,—but, I mean, to call and pay some attention to a girl, you know. I’m not thinking of Captain Van Horne especially, but any young man.”

“Would your father want you to marry a poor man?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. I never thought of it before.”

CHAPTER XVII.

THE MISSING WORDS IN THE MOTTO.

How the girls of Lakeview Suite were working at their lessons these winter days! Nor were they the only ones. Eloise came in one day from a long practice on piano and said as she threw herself wearily into a chair, “I think we left out the most important word in our motto.”

“Which motto?” asked Hilary, “Psyche Club?”

“Yes.”

“‘Fides, Amor, Immortalitas.’ What would you put in, Madam President?”

“Didn’t we include ‘effort,’ before Psyche attained Olympus?”

“We did.”

“Then why not ‘Labor,’ just before Immortalitas? Faith, love, work, immortality.”

“You’re right, Eloise,” said Cathalina with approval. “You mean, I suppose, that we are all working hard and ought to have something in the motto to express it.”

“You have the idea.”

“And I’m one of the workers this year. Here I am working my head off, in the language of the poet, and yet Hilary will carry off the honors at Commencement time! Hilary,”—Cathalina laid a hand on Hilary’s knee and bent forward to look up into her face—“do you want ’em all?”

“No, worthy club sister, and if I did, do you suppose for a minute that I could get ’em all?”

Cathalina gave a little laugh and settled back in her chair. “Ah, but Hilary’s been in the race from the start, and I only got in this year, so to speak.”

“I’m no artist, Cathalina, for one thing,” reminded Hilary. “Who made money on designs for pins?”

“That was an accident, luck.”

“That was genius wedded to labor,” corrected Hilary. “And who can talk French as well as the French teacher?”

“Cathalina!” exclaimed Lilian, Betty and Eloise in chorus.

“Don’t get discouraged so easily, Cathalina,” said Lilian. “I’m sure that Hilary will get a big prize in scholarship and other things, but even I who sit in the shadow of her greatness, as it were, am going to try for a literary prize or two,—O, Hilary, you, don’t mind, do you?” for Lilian thought that Hilary looked hurt.

“We’re proud of you, Hilary, not jealous,” said Eloise. “Now Lil and I nearly come to blows over who has the most,—more,—beautiful voice. If Madame puts Lilian on the big Spring Recital and doesn’t put me, I shall have a spasm or something. Really, I mean it.”

“How you do rattle on,” said Hilary, who had had one startled moment when she thought Lilian was in earnest.

“Yes,” said Lilian in reply to Eloise, “if Madame should show so much preference and put Eloise on and leave me off, I’d know that she thought Eloise could sing and I couldn’t. However, I do think that Eloise is exaggerating a little when she speaks of ‘blows.’”

“Perhaps so,” admitted Eloise, “but I will say that when it comes to piano I shall not be jealous of anybody. If my beloved teacher will only leave me off the program I shall be happy, but I can see that this ‘beautiful little study’ that I am working on and have been all year is aimed at the Spring Recital!”

“They have to have somebody,” remarked Hilary.

“Now, Hilary! The most unkindest cut of all!”

“I have to get even on general principles.”

“You have given me a most unhappy thought, Eloise,” said Lilian, “what if my violin teacher should make me play ‘The Violet’!”

“What is that?” asked Eloise.

“O, it is a simple little thing for beginners. I am working on ‘Simple Aveu’ now and the professor is in despair. Honestly, girls, if I did not like violin so much I’d give it up. He has such agonies over my bowing and fingering and if I do not get the tone,—the sparks fly. I don’t blame him for that, though. I nearly perish myself when any one is off pitch in singing or violin. I know better than to make some of the mistakes I do, but when he has to show me I get confused, and he hasn’t a bit of patience. I suppose that is the sign of a great artist.”

“Indeed it isn’t,” said Hilary, “not to have patience, but I suppose it is hard to teach.”

“Patty West has patience,” said Betty. “She takes music all the time, too, doesn’t she?”

“I think so, one thing or another. I should think she would be taking chemistry, or botany or something with Dr. Norris this year.”

“She’s had all the easy things that we take, of course, but maybe she can get out on the field trips with us this spring in bird study.”

Cathalina’s ambition had stirred early in the year when she found that there was a possibility of her being graduated from the Academy with the other girls. And having set to work on making up some necessary lines of study she became interested in doing it well.

Lilian was trying for one of the “Van Buskirk” prizes, offered this year by Cathalina’s father. One was for the best original poem; another, for the best short story; another, for the best essay, and a fourth for the best bird list, with dates and descriptions. Second prizes also were to be awarded. Lilian was writing “yards of poetry,” as she said.

Scholarship prizes were always offered by the school, with some special prizes in the different departments, as in the English, French, Oratory, Science and Music departments. These prizes were offered both to collegiates and academy pupils, but separately.

“I want to call a meeting of the club,” said Eloise. “We haven’t done a thing about Dorothy and Jane and I want to find out whether the girls all want to take any more into it. How about pins, Cathalina?”

“I can get those at a moderate price.”

“Another thing, do we want to take in any of the younger girls for Isabel and Avalon. There are Virginia and Olivia, you know. Isabel and Virginia are together so much, and Avalon and Olivia.”

Each girl hesitated to be the first to speak.

“What do you think, Hilary?”

“I feel this way about it. Isabel and Avalon are satisfied to be with us. If we take in the other two it may make two groups of us. It seems to me that the younger girls might wait till later, till next year any way. About the two others, at first I thought I did not want to make any change at all. We want this to be a group of intimate friends. But on second thought I changed my mind. Dorothy and Jane are strong girls and we do not know surely that they will be back next year, so I’m for taking them in if they’ll come.”

“That is what Pauline and Juliet think. Helen did not know, but said that she was willing to do what the other girls wanted. It has to be unanimous, you know. Come to our suite, then, either before or after dinner, which?”

“After, if you don’t mind,” said Hilary, “before we begin anything. I have to finish my French composition now and do a little other work, or I’ll not be able to get through tomorrow. Every minute of study hours tonight is planned for. But after dinner we’ll be care-free for a little while.”

The other girls indicating their approval, Eloise fixed the time as suggested. “I’ll go to see Isabel and Avalon now,” said she.

In due time, a circle of smiling faces surrounded Eloise, who called the meeting to order.

“We have talked this matter over pretty well among us,” said Eloise, after stating why she called them together. “Will somebody make a motion?”

“I move,” said Hilary, “that we make Dorothy Appleton and Jane Mills members of the club and so notify them. Are there any remarks?”

“We’ll have to have an initiation, won’t we?” said Isabel, in happy anticipation of such an event. No other remarks forthcoming, the motion was put and carried unanimously.

“Nobody’s said a word to the girls,” said Lilian. “Who’ll ask them?”

The girls all thought a moment. No one wanted to take the responsibility.

“You do it, Lilian,” suggested Hilary. “You have tact, and you were a fellow victim at the time of the wreck.”

“You wouldn’t have to persuade anybody to belong, in my opinion,” said Avalon. “Who wouldn’t want to?”

“Go on, Lilian,” said Isabel. “Let’s all wait here till we find out. I’ll go and make some fudge. Who has any sugar and butter and chocolate?”

The girls laughed at that, but managed to hunt up the desired material, while Lilian went to hunt up the two girls who had just been elected. Dorothy she found in a group of girls who were listening to some rollicking piano music in the parlors, but Jane was not in sight. Lilian beckoned to Dorothy, who detached herself and joined her.

“Come take a stroll in the halls with me, Dorothy, while I ask you something,” said Lilian. “Do you know where Jane is?”

“No; around with some of the girls somewhere.”

“Perhaps we’ll run across her. I want to tell you both the same thing, but I can tell you now. Here’s a good place to sit down in this alcove. You know our little club, Dorothy, with the butterfly pins?”

“Yes, those lovely little pins!”

“You know the girls pretty well that wear them, too.”

“Yes.”

“We’ve been hoping, Dorothy, that you would like to wear one, too, and join us, you and Jane.”

“That would be very nice, Lilian,” replied Dorothy slowly. “Do you mean that I am invited to join?”

“Not only invited, but urged!” Lilian was disappointed at Dorothy’s hesitation, which was unlike her, but just then she caught sight of Jane and ran to call her, leaving Dorothy to think the matter over. As they walked toward Dorothy she explained her errand to Jane. Jane looked brighter and more pleased than Dorothy, but shook her head. “I’m afraid we can’t,” she said. Lilian went on to explain a little.

“You know that it is only a club of rather intimate friends, no dues, only the expense of the pins, and Cathalina gets special rates on them, and we meet when we feel like it. We girls like you two so much that we thought we would like to have you with us. But if you do not want to go into it, it wouldn’t be best.”

Dorothy looked at Jane. “Now, Lilian,” said she, “it is very embarrassing to refuse an invitation like this. I really can’t tell you how much I appreciate your wanting us. I didn’t dream of your doing it, or—well, I don’t see how I’m going to explain, do you, Jane?”

“You see, Dorothy is president of the class,—”

“You can’t explain without telling what we ought not,” interrupted Dorothy. “Just tell the girls, Lilian, if this invitation is official, that we appreciate it beyond words, but can’t.”

“And we are very sorry, indeed,” replied Lilian. “I am sure that they all will be very much disappointed.” With smiles and a wave of the hand she left them and went slowly upstairs, wondering.

“Have a piece of hot fudge, Lilian,” called Isabel, as she entered the room. “How soon do we initiate?”

“Not at all!”

“What? Why Lilian!”

“What was the trouble?”

“Dorothy wouldn’t?” This was Betty.

“Listen, girls, and I’ll give you the whole conversation, and then you can perhaps tell me what is the matter, for of course something is.”

“I consider that they should have explained,” said Eloise.

“They were taken by surprise, though. For pity’s sake let’s not let them know that we feel turned down!”

“Being ‘president of the class’ means something. They are under some pledge to the crowd that doesn’t like some of us.”

“I believe you’re right, Betty,” said Lilian. “But don’t ask me to invite any more members!”

“We are very nice just as we are,” remarked Isabel. “Let’s stay ten of us.”

“I’ll not order any more pins yet,” said Cathalina. “But I am surprised. Dorothy has been so lovely and so has Jane, and we have seen so much of them lately.”

“I think that the best way is to let it go and treat them the same as ever, and maybe they will tell us some time, unless it really is because they do not like us, and I can’t believe that.”

“You are right, Hilary,” said Eloise. “You think so too, Lilian?”

“Yes. Please let me have another piece of fudge, Isabel.”

CHAPTER XVIII.

SPRING DAYS AT GREYCLIFF.

Early the wild ducks returned. Other birds came in due season, and the bird classes began their yearly prowlings. The Greycliff Bird Club prospered. Never had they had such lists, which they had started with the winter birds, and under the generalship of Dr. Norris, there was little that they missed. Tennis, rowing and riding were popular and engaged in when the girls had time. Miss Randolph tried to curb the modern tendency to let athletics seize the place and dominate the interests. Nor was any one girl permitted to take part in everything and waste her time in too many forms of the physical activities. But each had enough to keep her healthy and happy.

One Saturday morning Dr. Norris took the bird class out for a field trip. According to Isabel, a “field trip” need not have anything to do with fields. “We may even go up the river in a boat,” said she, “but it’s a field trip, just the same.” Virginia, now chiefly called Virgie, had joined the enthusiasts and had a field glass of her father’s, which was very good indeed, much better than some which were of more modern form and more expensive, for these were fine lenses.

“Now if you girls do not mind climbing over the rocks,” said Dr. Norris, “there is an easy, or fairly easy, ascent to the woods on the edge of the bluff above, and we shall save a long detour and an almost impossible tramp through the woods toward the lake.”

They were starting for the shore, and Betty and Isabel looked at each other as the girls called out, “We don’t mind rocks a bit, Dr. Norris.” The class was divided into two groups, one with Dr. Norris, the other with “Paul Revere,” more properly known as Dr. Matthews. Betty, Isabel, Hilary, Lilian and Cathalina were in the group with Dr. Norris.

“When we get up into the woods,” said Dr. Norris, “you may scatter along the bluff, though not too far, but do not attempt to penetrate the woods except when I am in the lead. We ought to see wood warblers in numbers this morning, and perhaps some birds that are too wild to come to our campus.”

It was the rocky way toward the cave which they took, but they passed it, looking very uninteresting in the gray, early morning light, still misty from the lake. Some little distance beyond the ledge and cave was an irregular ascent, not easy to climb, but far from impossible, and what bird class minds a little trouble, when perhaps a dozen of the migrants as yet unseen will be flitting in their dainty spring costumes among the trees? And there they were, the beautiful black-throated warbler with its shining coat and excuse of a voice; the bay-breasted, and the orange-trimmed Blackburnian warblers. Shy thrushes slipped away in front of them and hid behind branches and leaves. Hilary was stealing away alone to follow a blue-headed vireo of whose identification she wanted to make sure. She kept to the edge of the woods along the cliff, according to directions, and was somewhat surprised to come upon a low, one-roomed house or hut of rocks or stone from the cliffs. She stopped and whistled a tune of the wood thrush, the call note of the Greycliff bird club. It meant, “come softly and see something.”

Lilian, who was not far away appeared, then Betty and Isabel came, parting the branches of the thick growth and creeping up quietly. Hilary made motions which might have made one outside of the bird atmosphere think that she was a fit subject for a brain specialist. She pointed up to where she had just located and identified the bird, then to the building, and described, as if drawing in the air, an interrogation mark.

Isabel the brave made an immediate choice between bird and hut, softly making her way up and trying to peer through the high window, which was curtained with a dark curtain or shade. All around the little stone hut she walked, slipping through the bushes, and trying the door which she found locked. “Nobody at home,” she said to Betty, who had come up. Then she crept out on the edge of the bluff and looked over. “As I thought,” she said, nodding, “just over the ledge of the cave.”

“That is queer,” said Betty, “I think some smugglers must have lived here, don’t you?”

“It looks like it. Perhaps this was only a sort of storehouse.”

Doctor Norris had drawn near, investigating the source of the whistle, and Hilary was now pointing out the little house to him. “We might as well tell him the funny history of the cave, Betty,” said Isabel, as they joined the rest.

“All right, I told Donald, and he promised to keep still about it, but to keep his eyes open, too.”

“Doctor Norris, that is a funny cave,” began Isabel, “and I find that this stone house is right above it. Let me tell you what we girls all saw, and what Betty and I did.”

Dr. Norris was interested enough to let the bird instruction and observation wait till he had heard what there was to tell. “It does seem odd,” said he. “I can’t think what Holley would be doing there. But he seems to be a fine fellow. Dr. Schafer has known him for a long time, and Dr. Carver likes him very much.”

“Her liking him wouldn’t be any recommendation to me,” whispered Isabel to Betty.

“Had you ever seen this hut before?” asked Lilian.

“No; I only found this place to climb up a day or two ago, when I was looking for places to take you.”

“I wish we could get inside,” said Isabel.

“Could you see anything through the windows?”

“Not a thing, and there is only one door.”

“Well, keep away from the place and I will make some quiet inquiry.”

“We are not permitted to come this far without some chaperone now,” Hilary informed him.

“Very good,” said Dr. Norris.

But not very soon was the purpose of this little building discovered. Perhaps it might have been, if any one had taken it up seriously. But both girls and teachers at Greycliff had their hands full with their daily tasks and the different occasions of importance that marked the year.

The time of the recital came all too soon, according to the performers, who, if the truth were told, never would be quite ready. Much was made of it by the faculty and the program was conducted with a graceful formality. The girls wore their best frocks and fluttered about in a state of excitement. Lilian in a pink dress that matched her cheeks, and Eloise in a creamy, lacy frock, were both on the program in song, and, as they said, were now able to remain friends. Lilian, alas, as she had feared, was obliged to appear with her violin. But as she was waiting for the announcement which would call her to the platform, she was amazed, so she told Hilary afterward, to hear her teacher tell one of the other teachers that “Mees North” was one of the most intelligent pupils he had. “She have the gift,” he added. Hearing this, Lilian determined to do her best for him, and was nerved to put a little more expression into her playing than she would have done, perhaps, without that encouragement.

Hilary drew much interest with a difficult composition on the pipe organ. The recitals were always held in the chapel in order to have this instrument.

The Girls’ Glee Club sang, and the Collegiate Orchestra, with violins, cellos and harp, played the sort of dreamy, rippling music that Lilian loved. “I hope that I can play in that next year,” said she. “Miss Randolph may let the girls give a concert or two next year, here in the village, anyway.”

The recital closed with the playing of a concerto by one of the collegiate girls, with her teacher at the other piano. This was well done and made an impressive ending to the evening which meant so much in work and attainment.

But the entertainment to which the girls probably looked forward with most anticipation was that of the lawn fete. It was a yearly “benefit” to some Greycliff enterprise, which varied from year to year. The military school, the village and any friends near or far were invited. Not much money was expected, to result, only some small return to be applied to the grounds, the buildings, one of the departments, or whatever happened to be the chief interest of the year. At this, the young gentlemen were permitted to invite the young ladies and buy for them ice cream, cake or other of the light refreshments offered. A candy booth on the front lawn was always a great attraction. In case of rain all could retire to the dining room, but it never rained, according to the Greycliff girls.

One day a square, white envelope to “Miss Cathalina Van Buskirk, Greycliff Hall,” came in the mail. Cathalina and Betty were in the crowd which always gathered around the “post-office,” as they called it, where the mail was given out. Cathalina at once started off with it, but Betty begged her to wait for her till the mail was distributed. “I’m looking for a letter from home,” she said, with twinkling eyes. Cathalina understood and smiled as she moved off a little from the rest and opened her note.

Nothing, alas, for Betty, no pretty white invitation, for all the girls recognize the military school stationery and there were a number of such notes in the mail today. Betty was wondering if Donald would ask her to be his guest at the lawn fete, or if possibly he was asking some other girl. Dorothy Appleton would know, but naturally Betty would not ask any one. The girls were just as friendly to Dorothy as ever, but could not help but feel that Dorothy and Jane had refused their closer intimacy, and Myrtle Wiseman was constantly with both Dorothy and Jane.

“It’s Captain Van Horne, Betty,” said Cathalina, as Betty joined her. She handed Betty the invitation.

“Isn’t it nice! Very grown up, written in the third person and all.”

“I feel very much flattered that a young man who knows as much as he does should think it was interesting to call on me. What shall I wear, Betty?”

“Your newest, prettiest summer frock.”

“Mother is sending me some clothes for Commencement. They ought to be here in a day or two.”

The next mail brought Betty’s invitation from Donald Hilton. The other girls, too, were invited by different ones. Lilian, Hilary, Eloise, Helen, Juliet, Pauline and others were planning for a happy evening. Isabel had had a fine time at the ice carnival with a young cadet as full of life and fun as she, and was quite overwhelmed at receiving her formal invitation from him. “My sakes, Cathalina, how do you make up a reply? I suppose you have to answer ’em.”

Cathalina showed her her own reply to Captain Van Horne, which Isabel duly copied, as closely as possible. “Wouldn’t it be funny if I should forget and write in ‘Captain Van Horne’ and sign your name?”

“Indeed it wouldn’t be funny at all! You’re not to make any such mistake, Miss Hunt. Let me look over your note before you send it, then.”

“All right, Cathie; I was going to ask you to anyway.”

CHAPTER XIX.

ACADEMY GRADUATES.

“A pretty sight,” said Juliet, as she looked out of a Lakeview Suite window at the front campus, all aglow with lights that cast yellow beams across the well-trimmed grass. A certain portion had been wired for electric lights, which would be left until after Commencement; elsewhere, Japanese lanterns were hung around. The fountain sparkled, and near by, the brilliantly lighted candy booth was an attractive place. Freshman academy girls were not permitted to have engagements with the military youths, but served refreshments, sold candy, and had great fun on the side. Many of the younger boys, who came in groups, not having invited any particular girl, hung around the booths, offering, their services to carry ice cream, buying as much candy as they could carry, or took ice cream and cake several times in order to converse with the fair waitresses.

At Juliet’s remark, Lilian and Eloise started to hum, “Can I Forget That Night in June,” sung by their mothers, grandmothers and perhaps their great-grandmothers in bygone days! After helping in various ways about the decorations and the candy, the girls had dressed early and were visiting before it should be time to go downstairs.

“There come the first lot of them,” said Hilary, who was sitting in the window seat with Juliet. One of the Greycliff Village motor buses was dashing in at the entrance of the drive and the much admired uniforms could be seen inside.

“How do we do this time?” asked Cathalina.

“We go down to the parlor and wait for the card of the cadet,” said Juliet. “It is taken to Miss Randolph first to be O. K.’d.”

“Doesn’t that sound funny?” remarked Lilian. “Does she write ‘O. K.’ on it, Juliet?”

“Scarcely,” replied Juliet.

“Come on, let’s all go down and sit in the parlors. There comes the village band. I wish the boys had theirs tonight.”

“But the boys wouldn’t have any fun if they had to play,” said Betty.

“They could do as they did the last time, play at the beginning and at the end.”

“By the way, Lilian,” said Pauline, “I’ve been wanting to ask you for the longest time—and would forget it—how you could play so well at the recital if this is your first year in violin.”

“Well, Pauline, I did not intend to make you think that I had never had any lessons before, but I certainly considered myself a beginner this year. I have had teachers at home, chiefly in the summer, you know, but they weren’t very good, and I didn’t know how to use the bow correctly, nor get the fingering right, and I made everything so dreadfully different from what the teacher here wanted that I was discouraged enough sometimes to give it all up.”

“I see, Lilian, but I guess you knew more than you thought you did.”

“O, yes, girls,” said Eloise, “did you know that Patricia West has been a councillor in a girls’ camp in Maine and is going again next summer? Wouldn’t it be great if some of us girls could go?”

“O, wouldn’t it!” exclaimed Isabel. “I believe I could get my father to let me go, I’m going to write to him about it!”

“Just think,” said Pauline, “Commencement is only a week off!”

“I can’t believe it,” said Cathalina, “all the hard work nearly over and I’m going to be graduated with the rest of you at the academy exercises! I wish my family could come, but they can’t. However, I’m hoping for Aunt Katherine. She is the one who thought first about my coming here, bless her heart! Have you finished your class prophecy, Hilary?”

“Not yet,—but come, it is time we were downstairs. Perhaps some of those ‘youths of culture and valor’ are our callers.”

With much fluttering and floating of light dresses of various hues, the girls, like so many bright butterflies, descended the stairs and went to the parlor designated for them.

Acquaintances prospered at the lawn fete, for groups of laughing, chatting young people mingled, sipped their lemonade together and passed around boxes of home-made candy, and as they ate ice cream together, they planned all sorts of happy gatherings for next year, provided the faculty approved.

“Are you returning next year, Miss Van Buskirk?” asked Captain Van Horne.

“O, yes; I expect to finish the two collegiate years here, and then, perhaps, go to some eastern college for two years more. Will you be back next year?”

“It is a little uncertain, but I think so. And if I am, may I engage you ahead for the next lawn fete?”

Cathalina laughed. “That is a long time ahead, but I shall be ‘most happy.’” As the future had it, there would not be any lawn fete next year, but neither of them knew that now.

“What are you going to do this summer?”

“We have just been talking about it a little. Miss West is going to a summer camp in Maine and spoke to Betty and me the other day, saying that she wished she could have some of us with her. Then tonight some of the other girls were talking about it. We have been so rushed with work that we have left all other plans to the last minute as usual.”

“I am sorry that you will not be in New York, for I expect to be there, reading law, of course.”

“But I shall be there for a little while before going, if it is decided that I may go, and in the fall again before school opens.”

“Let me take down your address, then,” and Captain Van Horne took out his note book and pencil.

How quickly those last days of the year vanished into the past. There were the final examinations for which to study, reviewing the different subjects, and preparations for the Commencement program must be made. The climax would be reached in the class day exercises and the Commencement proper, with its diplomas won by much endeavor.

Hilary’s class prophecy, over which she had sighed or laughed, was published in the last number of the Greycliff Star, which appeared on the horizon of Commencement morning. Lilian’s poem and Jane Mills’ short story, which had won Van Buskirk prizes were also published, with the list of the girls who won prizes in any line. They had been announced at the chapel exercises of the day preceding Commencement, and great was Cathalina’s delight when Aunt Katherine Knickerbocker appeared in time to see her receive hers, for excellence in French. Hilary won the first prize of fifty dollars for the highest average in general scholarship, and Betty received honors in drawing and designing. There was not the sadness of parting among the academy girls which often shadows the last days. The older collegiate girls were deploring their separation, so soon to occur, but many of the academy seniors were so in love with Greycliff Girls’ School that they longed to take their first two years of college work under her kindly auspices. For them Greycliff life would go on.

How Cathalina enjoyed taking Aunt Katherine all over the place, introducing the girls to her, and visiting with her and Miss Randolph, who was as delighted as Cathalina, and had many things to say to her old friend, chief of which was of her satisfaction with Cathalina and her work. The girls were much impressed with Aunt Katherine, her dainty apparel, her beautiful speech and her kind friendliness. She had brought to Hilary from New York an especially handsome bracelet, as a Commencement present and in recognition, as she said, of the inspiration that Hilary had been to Cathalina. To the other girls of the suite she gave suitable presents as well, and the room was strewn with the pretty things that arrived from parents and friends. Cathalina and the others took Aunt Katherine to the library to show her the alcove which held the books given to the school by Mr. Van Buskirk, and down to the society hall to see the new piano, from the same generous source.

“We made the money or gave it ourselves, for the furniture, Aunt Katherine,” said Cathalina. “Just think! I had that fifty dollars, that the jeweler paid me, to give.”

Aunt Katherine, who had one arm around her favorite niece and the other around Betty, gave that favorite niece a little squeeze. “Smart child,” she said. “I’ll see if Uncle Morris can’t spare a picture or two from his collection, next year. Do you need anything else?”

“O, yes, to have the walls done over and a piece of statuary or two!”

“You don’t want much, do you? I suppose you need some Grecian marbles in your ‘statuary’ or something by Michelangelo at the least.”

“No, we’ll take what we can get,” replied Cathalina, “and with thanks.”

“We’re giving you a fudge party tonight,” said Hilary, “do you drink cocoa, or would you rather have tea or lemonade?”

“Nothing hot in this weather, please; cold water will be good.”

“We shall have iced tea and lemonade, and you may choose then. This is our final party. O, we do have the best times when we are not studying!”

“Make the most of it,” said Aunt Katherine. “School life has a charm of its own, and you will always remember the happy times. I know, because I had them, too, and I laugh yet recalling some of the fun.”

It was not very hard to imagine Aunt Katherine a girl, though, of course, it must have been ages ago, when they wore such funny clothes!

“Have you seen the ‘Woman in Black’ this year?” asked Aunt Katherine of Isabel.

“You mustn’t laugh at it, Mrs. Knickerbocker,” said Isabel with pretended solemnity. “The Greycliff Ghost is not to be trifled with,—but I haven’t seen her. Some of the girls think that I didn’t see anything last year, but I really did. However, I could not say that it was a ghost. I think it was something or somebody that had no business to be there at all, though. This year we have had somebody inside to go around the halls occasionally during the night.” Isabel spoke as if it were rather a grievance that such a guard should be posted. “But we have several mysteries that may or may not be cleared up. I rather enjoy them myself.”

“What do you think of the camp idea, Aunt Katherine?” asked Cathalina.

“You would have a pleasant time together, and they say that the girls learn many things at these camps, besides having a sensible, outdoor life.”

“I want to go so much, and Betty hopes to go. We can all tell better about it when we get home.”

Commencement day in early June. The suggestion of it brings a picture of bright-faced girls, sheer white frocks, and June roses. Aunt Katherine, sitting with Isabel in the chapel, meditated quietly while waiting for the seniors to enter. Dr. and Mrs. Lancaster sat not far away, having arrived in time for the occasion, with regrets that they had missed class day and the other exercises. Aunt Hilary had had to content herself with sending gifts to her namesake.

And now came the time for the presentation of diplomas. On the platform sat the faculty with the trustees. It was an old story to some of them. Yet never did Miss Randolph fail to rise to the inspiration of the hour. “Beautiful woman,” thought Aunt Katherine, as she looked at the shining eyes and spiritual face of the woman who had so many young souls under her influence every year.

“Isn’t she wonderful?” whispered Cathalina to Hilary, as the girls, impressed with the dignity of the occasion, listened to her address to the class.

But it was when Cathalina’s name was called and she went up to receive her diploma that Aunt Katherine surreptitiously wiped away a tear, and looking over at Mrs. Lancaster, saw her putting away her handkerchief. For what our young people do means much to those who hold them dear.

“O, it’s over!” exclaimed Hilary, as she greeted her father and mother again and started to bring the girls, of whom she had so often spoken at home, to meet them. Cathalina was making a low bow to her aunt and presenting her diploma.

“Have it framed, Auntie! Put it in Uncle Morris’s collection of pictures; it has one of Greycliff on it.”

“You have earned it. I think we shall let you put it away among the Van Buskirk archives,” returned Aunt Katherine.

But there was still packing to be done. After a lunch, rather more elaborate than usual, the girls scattered to their rooms and the exodus began. Another year at Greycliff was completed.

THE END

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Table of Contents

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Girls of Greycliff, by Harriet Pyne Grove

THE GIRLS OF GREYCLIFF

I: Greycliff Girls

II: Beginnings

III: Greycliff Clubs

IV: Class Politics

V: The Senior-Freshman Party

VI: The Wreck of the Greycliff

VII: The Wreck of the Greycliff—Continued

VIII: Back To Normal

IX: The Cave Man

X: Plenty Of Time

XI: Hallow-e’en, with Other Events

XII: Clang-Clang

XIII: Home With Hilary

XIV: The Ice Carnival

XV: The Knight Appears

XVI: “Yet a Little Sleep”

XVII: The Missing Words in the Motto

XVIII: Spring Days at Greycliff

XIX: Academy Graduates

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE