A Popular Schoolgirl, Angela Brazil [recommended reading txt] 📗

Old Mr. Haselford had even gone further.

"My son's part of the business is now entirely at Grovebury," he continued. "And I feel I should like him to have a house of his own. I have bought five acres of land above the river at Trenton, on the hill, where there is a glorious view of the valley. I don't ask you to copy 'Rotherwood,' for I know no architect cares to repeat himself, but a place in the same style and with equal conveniences would suit us very well. My daughter-in-law could talk over the details. It would make a fresh interest for her. We are all tremendously keen about it."

The new schemes which occupied the minds of the Haselfords brought great rejoicings to the Bungalow.

"Why, it will almost make Father's fortune!" triumphed Ingred, still in a state of delighted bewilderment.

"It will certainly be an immense pull to him professionally to have the designing of an important public building," smiled Mother. "And I think he will be able to plan a house to satisfy Mr. and Mrs. Haselford. It's just the kind of work he likes."

"Mother, when they leave Rotherwood, shall we have to let it to any one else, or would it be possible——" Ingred hesitated, with the wish that for nearly a year she had put resolutely away from her trembling on her lips.

"To go back there ourselves?" finished Mother. "If Father's affairs prosper, as they seem likely to do at present, I think we may safely say 'yes.' It never rains but it pours, and just as his profession has suddenly taken a leap forward, his private investments have picked up. Colonial mines, that he thought utterly done for, have begun to work again, and pay dividends. Our prospects now are very different indeed from what they were a few months ago. Don't look too excited, Ingred! Houses take a long time to build, nowadays, and it may be years before Mr. Haselford's new place is finished, and we can get re-possession of Rotherwood."

"I don't care, so long as there's hope of ever having it again!"

"It's our own home, and naturally we love it, but we must not forget what a debt of gratitude we owe to the Bungalow. We have been very happy here, and I think we have been thrown together, and have learnt to know one another in a way we should never have done at Rotherwood. All the sacrifices we have made for each other have drawn us far closer as a family, and linked us up so that we ought never to be able to drift apart now, which might have happened if we had all been able just to pursue our own line. We have learnt the value here of simple pleasures, we've enjoyed the moors and the flowers and the birds and the stars and all the beautiful things that Nature can give us. The realization of them is worth far more than anything that money can buy, for it's the 'joy that no man taketh from you.' I have grown to love Wynch-on-the-Wold so dearly that I shall beg Father to keep on the Bungalow as a country cottage, and I shall run out here for holidays when I feel Rotherwood is too much for me, and I want to be alone for a while with Nature."

"I expect we'll all want to do just the same!" said Quenrede, looking from the gay flower-beds, which her own hands had planted, over the hedge to where the brown moors stretched away into the dim gray of the distance. "I thought it was going to be hateful when I came here, but, Muvvie, I think it's been the happiest year of my life! The country may be quiet, but it has its compensation. We'll walk to the Whistling Stones again, Ingred, as soon as you break up!"

"And that will be exactly a week next Friday!" rejoiced Ingred.

The school was busy with all the usual activities that seem to happen at the end of the summer term. There was a successful cricket match with the Girls' High School from Birkshaw, a tennis tournament where Nora and Susie took part after all, and won laurels for the College, a Nature Notebook Competition in which Linda, to every one's amazement, bore off the first prize against all other schools in the town.

Then there was the annual function, when parents were invited to see a display of Swedish Drill, listen to three-part songs given by the singing class, admire the drawings and clay models exhibited in the studio, and watch a French play acted by the Sixth. It was at the close of this performance that (when friends had taken their departure, and Dr. Linton, who had conducted the singing class, had closed the grand piano and had hurried across to the Abbey to keep an appointment with an organ pupil) a certain piece of news leaked out, and began to circulate round the school. Verity had the proud importance of carrying it into the hostel.

"Do you know," she announced, "that Miss Strong is engaged to Dr. Linton, and they're to be married in the holidays?"

Nora, who was changing a crêpe de chine dress for a serviceable tennis costume, collapsed on to her bed.

"Hold me up!" she murmured dramatically. "Why, I didn't know he was a widower!"

"Of course he is," endorsed Ingred, "and a most uncomfortable one, I should say. I went to his house once for a music lesson, and it looked in a fearful muddle. Good old Bantam! We must give her congrats! She'll soon get things into order there! I believe she adores little Kenneth. I've often seen her taking him about the town. She shall have my blessing, by all means!"

"We might give her something more substantial than congrats and blessings!" suggested Verity. "I vote we get up a subscription in the form for a decent wedding present!"

"Oh yes! Think of Sarkie as Mrs. Linton! They'll be the oddest couple! I wonder if she'll get tired of perpetual music, and if he'll rage round his own drawing-room and ruffle his hair when he feels annoyed, like he does with his pupils!"

"Perhaps she'll break him off bad habits! I could trust her to hold her own."

"Oh, she'll be the gray mare, don't you fear! But honestly I'm glad! She has her points, and I hope she'll be happy."

"I wonder who'll have her form next term?"

"That doesn't concern us, for we shall probably be in the Sixth."

"Help! So we shall! I can't bring my mind to it yet. It gives me spasms!"

"Quite a blossomy prospect, though!"

On the afternoon before breaking-up day, the School Parliament met for the last time. Lispeth, rather sad, and inclined to be sentimental, reviewed from The Chair the events of the past year.

"It has been pioneer work," she said. "I dare say we might have done it better, but at least we've tried. We laid ourselves out to set a standard for the tone of the school, and I think it has kept up fairly well on the whole. The Rainbow League seems thoroughly established, and likely to go on. May I read you some of the things it has done during the year? We made four pounds for the 'War-Orphans Fund,' and sent ninety-seven home-made toys to poor children's treats. The Posy Union gave nine pots of crocuses and fifty-six bunches of flowers to cripples and invalids; the penny-a-week subscriptions have kept two little girls all the summer at the children's camp, and the Needlework Guild has made thirty-seven garments. It doesn't sound much when you put it all in hard black and white like that! I hate reports and statistics of societies, they always sound to me somehow so pharisaical, as if we were saying: 'Look how good we are!' You know I don't mean that. What I do mean, though, is that we've tried not to run everything entirely for ourselves. A rainbow shines when the world is clearing up, and perhaps our little efforts, small as they are, show that things are moving in the right direction. Next term all of us girls in the Sixth will have left, and a new set will take the lead. I can't say yet who will be Head of the school, but I don't fancy there's very much doubt about it. I hope whoever has the reins will keep up what we have worked so hard for this year."

Lispeth was looking straight at Ingred as she spoke; her meaning was unmistakable. Ingred blushed a faint rosy pink. It had only just dawned upon her that next term would possibly bring her the greatest honor that the College had to confer.

"Whoever is chosen for head-girl," she stammered bashfully, "I'm sure will try her very best to work for the good of the school. She couldn't do more than you've done—probably she won't do half so well—but she'll make an enormous effort to—shall we say—just 'carry on'!"

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