“I suppose girls will be girls,” she said, “but I think you’ve been very silly ones today! Why didn’t you keep with the rest of the school, as you ought to have done?”
“It sounds a most horrible greedy confession,” replied Beatrice guiltily, “but I’m afraid it was all the fault of—buns! They just threw us late, and we missed the others. We’ll never buy buns again! Never! Never! O peccavi! We have sinned!”
And she looked so humorously contrite that Mrs. Jackson, who was inclined to scold, laughed in spite of herself, and forgave the delinquents.
“On condition that such a thing doesn’t happen again!” she declared.
“Trust us! We wouldn’t go through such an experience again for all the buns in the world! Next time we’ll cling to the College apron strings like—like—”
“Like adhesive sticking-plaster!” supplied Ingred gently.
“Or oysters to a mermaid’s tail!” murmured Verity.
IX
A Hostel Frolic
“The Foursome League,” which Verity had instituted with her roommates at the hostel, was kept by them as a solemn compact. They stuck to one another nobly, though often in the teeth of great inconvenience. It generally took three of them to urge Fil through her toilet in the mornings and drag her down to breakfast in time. She was always so terribly sleepy at seven o’clock, and so positive that she could whisk through her dressing in ten minutes, and that it was quite unnecessary to get up so soon: even when the others mercilessly pulled the bedclothes from her, and pointed to their watches, she would dawdle instead of “whisking,” and spend much superfluous time over manicure or dabbing on cucumber cream to improve her complexion. She was so innocent about her little vanities, and conducted them with such childlike complacency, that the girls tolerated them quite good humoredly, and even assisted sometimes. One of them generally volunteered to brush her long flaxen hair, and tie her ribbon, and half out of habit the others would tidy her cubicle, which was apt to be chaotic, and put her things away in her drawers. They did it almost automatically, for they had come to look upon Fil somewhat in the light of a big doll, the exclusive property of “The Foursome League,” and to be treated as the mascot of the dormitory.
Mrs. Best, the hostel matron, was what the girls called “rather an old dear.” Her gray hair was picturesque, and the knowledge that she had lost her husband and a son in the war added an element of pathetic interest to her personality. She was experienced in the ways of girls, and contrived to keep order without seeming to be constantly obtruding rules. Among her various sane practices she instituted the plan of awarding marks for good conduct and order to each dormitory, and allowing the one which scored the highest to give an entertainment to the others during the last hour before bedtime on Thursday night. Naturally this was a privilege to be desired. It was fun to act variety artistes before the rest of the hostel, and well worth being in time for meals, preserving silence during prep., or getting up a little earlier so as to leave cubicles in apple-pie order. The Foursome League had not yet earned distinction, chiefly owing to lapses on the part of Fil, and Nora’s incorrigible love of talking in season and out of season. One week, however, after a really heroic series of efforts, they succeeded in establishing a record, and sat perking themselves at dinnertime when Mrs. Best read out the score.
“We’ve not had you on the boards before,” said Susie Wakefield, one of the Sixth, as the girls filed from the room when the meal was over; “we’re all expecting something extra tiptop and thrillsome, so play up!”
“Hope we shan’t let you down!” replied Ingred. “Please don’t expect too much, or you mayn’t get it!”
Dormitory 2 held a hurried conclave before afternoon school.
“It’s a great stunt!” rejoiced Nora.
“What are we to act?” fluttered Fil.
“Especially when we’ve to play up!” twittered Verity.
“What silly idiots we were not to plan it all out beforehand! But I really never dreamt we’d ever get the chance!”
“No more did I,” said Ingred, sitting with her head in her hands, considering. “On the whole, it doesn’t matter. Sometimes a quite impromptu thing goes off best. It’s largely a question of what costumes we can rake up out of nothing.
“The cleverer those are, the more we’ll get applauded. I’ve one or two ideas simmering. Thank goodness it’s drawing this afternoon, and I shall have time to think them over.”
“We’ll all think!” agreed Verity. “Then we’ll compare notes at four o’clock, and fix on what we’re going to do. Great Minerva! It’ll be a hectic evening! I’m shivering in my shoes!”
“And I’m absolutely green with stage-fright! What a life!” proclaimed Fil.
If Miss Godwin, the drawing-mistress, noticed a slacking off in accuracy on the part of four of her pupils, that afternoon, she perhaps set it down to want of artistic feeling. It is difficult to copy with absolute exactness when only your fingers are busy, and your brain is far away. Ingred planned enough entertainments to supply a Pierrot troupe for a month, but abandoned most of them as being quite impossible to act with the very limited resources that were available at the hostel. At a select Foursome Committee after school, however, she presented the pick of the performances, and as nobody else had thought of anything better, or indeed quite so good, her suggestions, with a few amendments and alterations, were carried unanimously.
At eight o’clock that evening, when preparation was finished, the boarders’ room was rapidly transformed into an amateur theater. The trestle tables were carried to one end to form the gallery, rows of chairs represented the dress circle, and cushions in front either the pit or
