A Popular Schoolgirl, Angela Brazil [big screen ebook reader txt] 📗

so after being pent-up all the evening. Henry Desmond, wandering into the conservatory presently, remarked to his partner, sotto voce:

“That Saxon girl’s chattering sixteen to the dozen now! Couldn’t get a word out of her myself!”

When Quenrede, sometime about five o’clock in the morning, tried to creep stealthily to bed without disturbing her sister, Ingred, refreshed by half a night’s sleep, sat up wide awake and demanded details.

“Sh! Sh! Mother said we weren’t to talk now, and I must tell you everything afterwards. Oh, I got on better than I expected, though most of the people were rather starchy. How did my dress look? Well⁠—promise you won’t breathe a word to darling Mother⁠—it was just passable, and that’s all. Some girls had lovely things. I didn’t care. The second part of the evening was far nicer than the first, and I enjoyed the dances that I sat out the most. The conservatory was all hung with lanterns. There; I’m dead tired and I want to go to sleep. Good night, dear!”

“But you’ve ‘come out!’ ” said Ingred with satisfaction as she subsided under her eiderdown.

“Oh yes, I’m most decidedly ‘out,’ ” murmured Quenrede.

XIV The Peephole

The Foursome League met in Dormitory 2 after the holidays with much clattering of tongues. Each wanted to tell her own experience, and they all talked at once. Fil had a new way of doing her hair, and gave the others no peace till they had duly realized and appreciated it. Verity had been bridesmaid to a cousin, and wished to give full details of the wedding; Nora had played hockey in a Scotch team against a Ladies’ Club, and had been promised ten minutes in an aeroplane, but the weather had been too stormy for the flight; the disappointment⁠—when she happened to remember it⁠—quite weighed down her spirits.

“If there’s one thing on earth⁠—or rather on air⁠—I’d like to be, it’s a flying woman!” she told her friends emphatically. “I’m hoping aeroplanes will get a little cheaper some day, and rich people will keep them instead of motor cars. Then I’ll go out as an aviatress. It’s a new career for women.”

“I wouldn’t trust myself to your tender mercies, thank you!” shuddered Ingred. “You’d soon bring the machine down with a crash, and smash us to smithereens.”

“Indeed I shouldn’t! I’d go sailing about like a bird!”

And Nora, suiting action to words, stood on her bed fluttering her arms, till Verity wickedly gave her a push behind, and sent her springing with more force than grace to the floor.

“You Jumbo! You make the room shake!” exclaimed Ingred. “If that’s how you’re going to land you’ll dig a hole in the ground like a bomb! Do move out, and let me get to my drawer! You’re growing too big for this bedroom!”

“Nobody’s looked at my new hair ribbons yet!” interposed Fil’s plaintive voice. “See, I’ve got six! Aren’t they beauties! Pale pink, pale blue, Saxe blue, navy for my gym. costume, black for a useful one, and olive green to go with my velveteen Sunday dress. Don’t you think they’re nice?”

“Ripping!” agreed Nora. “We’ll know where to go when we want to borrow. There, don’t look so scared, Baby! I’ve chopped my hair so short I couldn’t wear a ribbon if I tried! It would be off in three cracks! Stick them back in their box, and don’t tempt me! They’re not in my line! I’m going in for uniform. You’re the sort who wears chiffons and laces and all the rest of it, but you’ll see me in gilt buttons before I have done, with wings on them, I hope! I may be the first to fly to Mars! Who knows? You shall all have my photo beforehand just in case!”

Everybody at the College, and particularly at the Hostel, agreed that the first few weeks of the new term were trying. After the interval of the holidays, the yoke of homework seemed doubly heavy, and undoubtedly the prep. was stiffer than ever. Only certain hours were set apart for study during the evenings at the hostel, and any girl who could not accomplish her lessons in that time had to finish them as best she could in odd minutes during the day, or even in bed in the mornings if she happened to wake sufficiently early. Fil, who generally succeeded in mastering about half her preparation and no more, railed at fate.

“I’m so unlucky!” she sighed to a sympathetic audience in No. 2. “I knew the first ten lines of my French poetry beautifully, and I could have said them if Mademoiselle had asked me, but of course she didn’t. She set me on those wretched irregular verbs, and they always floor me utterly. As for the dictée⁠—I can’t spell in English⁠—let alone French! It’s not the least use for Mademoiselle to get excited and stamp her foot at me. I shall be glad when I’m old enough to leave school. I never mean to look at a French book again!”

“How about English spelling?” suggested Ingred. “You’ll want to write a letter occasionally!”

“I think by that time,” said Fil hopefully, “somebody will have invented a typewriter that can spell for itself. You’ll just press a knob for each word, you know!”

“There are about 3,000 words in common daily use!” laughed Verity. “If you need a knob for each, your typewriter will have to be the size of a church organ. It’ll want a room to itself!”

“Oh, but think of the convenience of it! No more hunting in the dictionary!” declared Fil.

To add to the aggravations of the new term the weather was doubtful, and seemed to take a spiteful pleasure in being particularly wet on hockey afternoons. Day after day, disappointed girls would watch the streaming rain and lament the lack of practice. To give them some form of exercise they were assembled in the gymnasium, and held rival displays of Indian clubs, Morris dancing, or even skipping. “The True Blues” excelled