Greycliff Wings

CHAPTER I
A SENIOR PICNIC AND WHITE WINGS

Deepest of sapphire skies, freshest of air, most sparkling of lake waters greeted the senior collegiates, dignified by their position at the head of the school, on their first picnic of the year. By ones, twos, threes and more, they added to the company which sought seats upon the dancing Greycliff , freshly painted during the summer, the black letters of the name showing clearly against a pearl-grey side. The starry-eyed Eloise Winthrop, her dark locks done up in a new way, looked prettier than ever, as she stood up and waved wildly to Cathalina Van Buskirk and Lilian North, who were just climbing into the launch.

“This way, girls!” she called. “Here’s Betty,—and Hilary and Pauline!”

“Cathalina and Lilian are getting to look like sisters,” said Pauline.

“It is more their manner,” said Eloise, “and Lilian dresses more like Cathalina now that she lives in New York. Their features are not alike. Lilian’s look like a cameo. How much older she looks with her hair up, in that way too. Cathalina is still our little dreamer,—isn’t she lovely!”

“Being engaged had made Lilian seem older,” said Pauline. “I noticed it last year when she came back after Christmas, even before she wore her ring. Where is Cathalina’s brother now? Do you know, Hilary?”

“Yes. He and his cousin, Campbell Stuart, and Robert Paget, Philip’s other chum, have all been sent to a Southern camp to train recruits. They are lieutenants or something. You know they were at a military school before they went to the university for their last years.”

“Ah, Hilary Lancaster,—I might have known that you would know all about it. There’s Helen Paget now. Robert is her cousin, isn’t he?”

“Yes, Miss Tracy,” replied Hilary, pretending to be distant because of Pauline’s implied reference to Hilary’s interest in Campbell Stuart.

Lilian and Cathalina had stopped to chat a moment with Isabel Hunt and Virginia Hope, two juniors, who had come down to the beach to see them off. The sun fell on Lilian’s gold locks and Cathalina’s light brown ones as they leaned over the side of the boat talking. Neither girl wore a hat, but each had a silk scarf around her neck to tie over flying hair if the wind proved too troublesome.

“Why didn’t we have a senior-junior affair, Isabel,” Lilian was saying, “So you and Virgie could come along?”

“Couldn’t overload the Greycliff ,” replied Isabel. “Now if it looks like a storm don’t start back in a hurry,” warned she. “I don’t want to walk the floor the way I did two years ago on the night of the wreck!”

“No danger, is there, Mickey,” replied Cathalina, looking at the ubiquitous and efficient Mickey, who was stowing away various impedimenta in the little cabin of the Greycliff . Mickey was still the chief life-saver and mainstay of Greycliff school in more lines than one.

“The weather’s goin’ to be foine,” replied Mickey, without much enthusiasm, for he was used to the ways of girls. “And oime goin’ meself this trip.”

“Thanks, Mickey. An awful load is off my mind. Goodbye, girls, have a good time.”

“Sit here, Cathalina and Lilian, do!” invited Juliet Howe and Helen Paget, as the girls passed them, and pointed to two seats near.

“Yes, do,” seconded Diane Percy, moving along to make room.

“Aren’t you nice—” said Cathalina patting Diane’s red cheeks lightly as she edged her way on, “but the girls are saving seats for us, you see. How does it happen that you are not with your room-mates?” she continued, looking at Juliet and Helen.

“O, we thought that Pauline and Eloise needed a rest,” said Juliet, with a laugh. “We still speak to each other, however.”

There had been some changes in the matter of room-mates, but the personnel of “Lakeview Suite,” so long the headquarters of Hilary Lancaster, Betty Barnes, Cathalina Van Buskirk and Lilian North, was unchanged. The neighboring suite, occupied by Juliet and Pauline, Eloise and Helen, had also earned a name, but the girls were as yet uncertain what to call it, though as Pauline said it was high time they called it something before their last year at Greycliff should be over. When they were making out their schedules of study for the year, Eloise had suggested that it be called the “Labor Union,” but that name was scornfully rejected as not inspirational enough. As Helen was now president of the Psyche Club, Cathalina had suggested that the suite be called the Olympic Portal, or O. P., and while the girls had also rejected this name, she and Betty sometimes referred to the suite as the “O. P.”

Cathalina and Lilian finally settled themselves, Cathalina by Betty, still her room-mate, and Lilian by Eloise, for Lilian had brought her guitar and hastened to get it out of its case. Eloise was already strumming upon her ukulele, and rose to look around for anyone else who had one. But the other girls had either forgotten their instruments or had not wanted to bother with them.

“Start ’em off, Hilary,” said Lilian to her room-mate. “I can’t lead and play too, and neither can Eloise.”

Hilary obediently started the Greycliff songs and some of the war songs so popular then, for the girls never started anywhere upon the water without singing. “The Long, Long Trail,” “Tipperary,” and “Keep the Home Fires Burning,” followed in due order after the Greycliff songs, and Eloise and Lilian sang “I May Be Gone For a Long, Long Time,” which Lilian had brought with her from New York. It was comparatively new to the girls, but one after the other joined, as the catchy tune was supplemented by the chords and “plunks” of guitar and ukulele. Lilian was in a gay humor, for she had just received a bright letter from Phil, who complained that he supposed he would be kept training in this country till the end of the war, but told of many funny experiences, and the fact that he might be in America for some time to come was of much relief to both Lilian and Cathalina.

“Why, where are you going , Mickey?” asked one of the girls in surprise, as she saw that they were going out in the open lake far beyond where they usually turned toward the famous old “Island.” This could now be seen at their left in the distance.

“Oi have a surprise fur ye,” said Mickey, turning the wheel a little. “Wait a minute an’ ye can see a little flag on the shore. The trustees has bought a new playground for ye, where there ain’t no rocks.”

Great surprise and pleasure was evident on the faces of all the girls who could hear what Mickey said, and the word was passed around to the others. They all watched with interest, while the boat chugged on, several miles further on, and then turned nearer shore, toward a sandy beach and a new dock. As they approached, several gulls which had been perching there spread their wings and flew away. “Oh,” exclaimed Lilian, “this ought to be called ‘White Wings.’ Look at the terns fishing out there!”

“It does seem to be a regular feeding place for the birds,” said Hilary with great interest. “Of course, the wings are not all white, really,” she added.

“But they look so,” insisted Lilian. “Have they named the place, Mickey?”

“No, m’am, not as I know of,” replied Mickey.

“I’ll write it up, then, for the Greycliff Star ,” said Lilian who, as chief editor this year was always looking for “copy,”—“and call it ‘White Wings,’ and perhaps the name will stick to it.”

Carefully the Greycliff was docked and the girls helped carry the lunch ashore, hurrying toward a pretty little summer house which Mickey pointed out to them. It stood back among the trees and was screened, with a floor and picnic tables.

“Hurrah!” exclaimed Betty, “no mosquitoes or bugs at our meals. Blessings on the Greycliff trustees!”

“Let’s ask Miss Perin about it,” suggested Hilary. “She did not look the least bit surprised when Mickey was telling about it, and has probably heard all about it at faculty meeting.”

“All right,” replied Betty,—“isn’t it the funniest thing not to have Miss West for chaperone? We always used to ask for her. I had the shock of my life not to find her here.”

“Our dear ‘Patty’ is getting married about now, I suppose,” said Hilary. “Dr. Norris, I mean Lieutenant Norris, was to have leave of absence and they were to be married this week. But Patty is coming back here as soon as he leaves for France.”

“When will that be?”

“Nobody knows.”

“There is Miss Perin now. Ask her, Hilary.”

The girls joined their young chaperone, who was taking Miss West’s place, with English and Latin classes, at Greycliff.

“Yes,” Miss Perin replied, in answer to Hilary’s question, “this is a farm which was willed to Greycliff and they came into possession of it this past summer. The beach was so fine that they decided to make a new picnic place for the girls of the school, and they rented the farm to a man who is supposed to keep an eye on this part of the grounds as well. They say that they were able to secure a real scientific farmer to run the place because he wanted to experiment with a hydroplane here. He has one or two helpers that are very good and the trustees got him for a very reasonable price to furnish certain things to the school. It gives him a convenient market, too.”

The girls scattered about the beautiful place to see what was there. The “picnic grounds” proper were out upon a point or peninsula where the little screened house had been erected, with a small boat house and another building which proved to be an ice house. Easy enough was it to get a supply of ice to last over the summer. Grounds stretched out to left and right toward the lake, and on the right hand was a little bay, an ideal place for the experiments with hydroplanes. Another small dock was here.

Leaving the picnic point behind, the girls crossed a little road to the farm proper, where the usual farm-house and other buildings were located. There seemed to have been an old log house as the original home. This stood back upon a rise of ground, while some distance to the side and front of it was a modern farm-house, a large barn and silo still further over. Back of the bay were open fields. A vineyard of well-trained grape-vines was on a slope and stretched for quite a distance. A big orchard and a pretty stretch of woodland attracted the bird lovers, who ran up the slope to investigate.

Betty and Cathalina were together. Although Lilian loved Cathalina dearly, and for Phil’s sake now as well as her own, still Hilary, her room-mate, was her chief confidante whenever they were within reach of each other. And Hilary had visited Lilian during the summer, enjoying a little of the time with her own as yet undeclared lover, Campbell Stuart, cousin to Cathalina and Philip Van Buskirk. It was plain to all what Campbell thought of Hilary, but he thought that she should be free until after the war. Lilian and Philip, on the other hand, were openly engaged, and by common consent were permitted to enjoy each other’s society in the few days they had together. The Norths had moved further out, for the judge felt too cramped in the apartment to which they had first moved when they went to New York.

Both Lilian and Hilary were lingering near the bay to discuss matters pertaining to their future, while Cathalina suggested to Betty that they go through the rows of vines to reach the woods. They did so, but paused to listen to a wren song. “That’s a Bewick wren, Cathalina,” said Betty. “Take the glass and see if you can find him.”

Betty handed the glass to Cathalina, and turning, saw a man who was tying up one of the vines and had turned to look at her. Betty caught a flashing look of recognition and then the man’s back was quickly turned. Betty was instinctively on guard, and in even tones continued her low conversation with Cathalina. “Do you get it, Cathalina?”

“Yes, Betty. You look now. It is on that low bush. See?”

The girls satisfied themselves in regard to the wren and went on up the slope toward the old log house, on whose step they sat down to look over the whole place with their field glass, for they had decided that one was enough to bring on a picnic.

Betty glanced around to see if any one was within hearing. “I’ve something to tell you,” she said. “Did you notice the man that was tying up the vines as we came along?”

“Why, yes, I believe I did see somebody, one of the hands, I suppose.”

“Yes, and he gave me the funniest look and hurried to turn his back on us. Now where have I seen those flashing eyes before? I certainly haven’t any acquaintances like that!”

“You have had some queer experiences, Bettina, for a timid little lady like yourself. Think of your friend Captain Holley.”

“I have it, Cathalina. Your suggestion fits. This is one of the men in that boat, way back in our second year at Greycliff, there at that place where afterwards Isabel and I heard somebody in the cave, you know, and then saw Captain Holley come out, and the men carried away the box. You remember that we went there once with Patty last year, but didn’t see anything and were afraid to investigate much.”

“Oh yes. You and Isabel told Dr. Norris or somebody about it, but I guess nobody thought much about it.”

“Everybody had too much to do. Do you suppose Captain Holley is still at the military school? He’s an ‘enemy alien’ now.”

“Yes, he is there. Louise is back, you know, and I heard her say that her brother was coming over to dinner with her Sunday. Louise is a lot nicer to the girls than she used to be, and I heard her say that she was very unhappy to think that her country and her adopted country were at war.”

“Oh, well, let’s not think about them!”

“I suppose this man is some one who lives around here. But it is funny that he did not want you to look at him. It looks as if there were something out of the way going on, that time at the cave.”

“It does indeed! Isn’t there a pretty view from here? There come Hilary and Lil. Let’s go on to the woods. The birds are in the fall migration now, perhaps we’ll find something different. Think of it, Cathalina, only one more beautiful spring here! Do you suppose we’ll like it as well at college?”

“It will be different. I don’t believe any place could be to us what dear old Greycliff has been. I can’t realize yet that we are seniors. Wouldn’t it be fine if they would add the two more years of a college course?”

“They don’t want that kind of a school here. Have you any idea where you will go?”

“Yes, in New York, but whether I get right into Columbia or not I don’t know. Perhaps I’ll just take what I want. But mother wants me there. She pretty nearly kept me at home this time. It is hard on her, you know, with Philip away at camp. But Aunt Katherine was strong for having me finish up this course here, and Father said, ‘Your Aunt Knickerbocker’s idea of sending Cathalina to Greycliff worked out pretty well’!”

“He usually calls her that, doesn’t he?”

“Yes. Then Aunt Katherine reminded Mother that she would be head over heels—she didn’t say that—in war work, and Mother is on about forty committees more or less, so it was decided.”

“How about little Cathalina? Didn’t she have any voice in the matter?”

“Yes indeed. But I thought if Mother really needed me I would stay without a word. I’ve been so upset in plans myself, as all of us have been, and I thought I’d like to be where I’d see Phil if he is sent over very soon. But they are to telegraph, and Lilian and I will go on. And say, Betty, the last letter I had from Captain Van Horne said that it will not be very long until the Rainbow Division goes over.”

“Is he with that?”

“Yes.”

“Does he write often?”

“Oh, no, not so very often,—not like Lilian and Phil, or Hilary and Campbell. By the way, what was it you told me about Donald Hilton? I’ve been on such a rush ever since we began school that I have a lot of confused impressions about different things.”

“Donald joined the marines! I never was so surprised.”

“Why, did he know anything about the navy?”

“Not a thing, but it seems he always has been crazy about ships and things. You must read some of his letters,—they are so interesting.”

“I’d love to, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, I always tell you anything flattering that he says in them anyway. Do you ever hear from Bob Paget, or Lawrence Haverhill?”

“Yes, both boys have written since I came here. Lawrence is in a different camp, it seems, and is sorry not to be with the other boys.”

“That was such a lovely house-party that we had last year, just a year ago, after camp.”

“The next one will probably be for Lil’s wedding, after the war.”

“ Lil’s wedding?—and you Phil’s sister!”

“Yes, the wedding is chiefly the bride’s, I guess. I wish I had another brother or cousin for you, Betty, though the future Admiral Hilton wouldn’t thank me for that, I suppose. But to have you ’way off in Chicago!”

“Don’t you think that we are going ahead just a little too fast, Cathalina?”

“I guess we are, especially if the war lasts for years and years!”

“Donald says it can’t after he and the other boys from Grant Academy get over there! He is always joking that way.”

“I wonder where the farm ends,” said Cathalina, looking through the woods which seemed to stretch endlessly along the bluff above the shore.

“We’d better not go too far. I don’t see Hilary and Lilian now. Let’s go back. That looks like another shack or cabin ahead of us. Perhaps it belongs to some other farm.”

The girls retraced their steps, finding other girls strolling about, and joining some of them to go where some fine stock was grazing. Betty leaned over a fence to snap some pictures of the cattle. “Nice old bossies,” she said. “I guess this place is where that grand cream we’re having now comes from. Come on, let’s get the farmer to pose for us with some of the horses, or the family, if they, want to.”

“There isn’t any family there yet, but the tenants live back in that little bit of a house. See?” Eloise was pointing as she spoke. “And it’s no use to ask the farmer. Some of the girls did, and he acted as if he were mad about it. I don’t believe he likes to have the girls come here. Listen! That’s the dinner bell. Doesn’t it make you think of Merry-meeting Camp?”

“Where do we have our lunch?—O, yes, of course, in the little summer house they made on purpose. Say, Eloise, wouldn’t it be fun to snap the farmer when he wasn’t looking? Where is he?” Betty was looking all around to find the new farmer of whom she had had a glimpse as they went up to the wood. “He’s such a straight, fine-looking man that he would make a good picture for our memory books, if we could get him with a good background of the woods and lake, or the vineyard, or some of the pretty surroundings here.”

“He doesn’t look as if hard work had broken him down, does he?” said Diane.

“No, he doesn’t,” said Betty. “I tell you, some of you girls stop and talk to him, and I’ll get behind some bushes or something and watch for a good chance to snap him. There he is now, bringing out that handsome black horse from the barn. Come on.”

The black horse was restive, and Betty, hurrying on, caught an excellent picture of both horse and man, while the farmer was too busy with the horse to observe anything else. When he did observe her and her camera he took pains to keep his face turned away.

“Funny folks around here,” remarked Betty to Cathalina. “One man does not want to be seen at all, and another can’t bear to have his picture taken and doesn’t like girls much, I guess. Now I must get a picture of the beach and some of the birds, if Lilian is going to call the place White Wings. I wonder if they won’t let the seniors name it. I suppose that shed or something down there is where the hydroplane is. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could get that, too. Perhaps we can when it’s finished.”

“And name it White Wings, too,” suggested Eloise.

“Some of the girls started to peek in a while ago, and the crossest man, worse than the farmer, told them that they weren’t to come around there at all.”

“I imagine it upsets them to have us all over the place like this,” said Cathalina, “but they’ll get used to it, unless they make a rule that picnic parties have to keep to the picnic ground. But the girls were told not to break off any of the fruit or do anything ‘destructive’ and I don’t think any of the senior girls would. My, Diane, do you see that wonderful basket of grapes that man is carrying across the road for us!”

“Who wouldn’t be a senior girl at Greycliff Farm?” inquired Eloise of the squirrels or birds or anybody who happened to be listening, as they hurried to the little summer house.

“Really, this is the best part of the place for us,” said Hilary. “There isn’t a better beach anywhere along than this, and about two or three o’clock we can have a fine swim. Have you noticed the swings and seats in that grassy spot under those old trees?—over in that direction. I’m going to get out my knitting as soon as lunch is over and go there to rest my bones.”

“I didn’t bring my knitting,” said Betty, “but have a good story, one that I bought to read on the train, but didn’t read it there, nor have I had any time since. If you like I can read aloud a while. I move that we offer resolutions of thanks to whoever got up all these things.”

“Miss Randolph thought it up, I imagine,” said Lilian. “She hasn’t liked the Island very well, though I suppose they will go there sometimes still.”

“The Island is very romantic,” said Helen Paget, in her pretty Southern way. “There is the cave, you know, and the rocks, and the place where the water rushes through. I’m glad we had it.”

“Speaking of caves,” said Diane, “you girls never took me to that one you told such wonderful tales about last year. Didn’t you and Isabel, Betty, explore one the year that I wasn’t at Greycliff?”

“We didn’t exactly explore it,” replied Betty. “We must go there before it gets cold. As senior girls, we ought to be able to get permission to go beyond the place where the breakwater is.”

“In boats?”

“O, no; just around the cliffs toward Greycliff Heights, you know, where all those big rocks are. But I want to have a lot of the girls along.”

Fruit and rich cream were the chief contributions of the farm to the lunch of the seniors. Sandwiches and other good things had been brought from the school. After the lunch, the girls really rested for some time. Senior days are strenuous at times, with many activities and the home stretch of studies, and a day of freedom from lessons is welcomed.

The sun was warm when the girls splashed in the cool waters, swimming out as far as Mickey permitted, or diving from the new diving board.

It was not until the girls were gathering up their different belongings, as the Greycliff approached the school dock, that Betty missed her camera. “I thought you had it, Cathalina,” she said. “Didn’t you tell me that you would look after it?”

“Yes, I did, but when I went to the place you said you left it, it wasn’t there, and I thought you had taken it after all. You were on the boat first, you know.”

After all the girls were out of the Greycliff , the two girls searched the boat, in the hope that some one had seen the camera and brought it, but no camera was there.

“It’s the funniest thing, Cathalina,” said Betty, as they walked up toward the Hall. “I put it right with Lilian’s guitar and Eloise’s ukulele when I said I’d help Miss Perin carry some of her things to the boat, and it wasn’t five minutes after that when you went to get it.”

“Yes, I told you I would, when you passed Hilary and me and said if one of us would bring your camera you wouldn’t have to come back. Then when I went into the summer house to get it, there wasn’t a thing in the whole place but the guitar and the uke. I even looked into the little cupboards. So I thought that you must have found you could carry it and had gone back after it, or told somebody else to get it. I was jabbering to the girls and didn’t notice what you did or I might have seen you go straight on and get on the Greycliff . It’s a perfect shame!”

“Well, it isn’t your fault, Cathalina. I’m real sorry, because I had some such pretty pictures of the place. I got one gull just spreading his wings to fly, and I thought that perhaps Lilian might have a cut made of that for the Greycliff Star , if she is going to write up ‘White Wings.’”

“We’ll advertise for the camera, but I can’t think of a senior girl who would take it for a joke or on purpose.”

“Yes, I’ll have a little notice read and tell about the pictures, and it may turn up.”

CHAPTER II
“WHITTIERS”

Isabel Hunt and Virginia Hope, juniors, were together in a single room on Lakeview Corridor. It was the same room which Isabel had occupied with Avalon Moore when they first came to Greycliff. While the scholarship which Virginia had won the year before was a great help to her financially, she still felt that she must be as economical as possible, and single rooms cost less than suites, even when the expense of a suite was divided among four. Isabel said that she, too, was well suited by making careful plans, for Jim and her father were saving against the time when all the boys would be in the army and business might suffer. Then, Avalon Moore and Olivia Holmes, who had shared the suite with them, were not back this year. Avalon’s father was an officer in the regular army, and Avalon was with her mother and the other children, while her father was in France. Olivia’s people had moved from the South to California, where her sister lived.

“Honestly, Virgie,” said Isabel one evening, “I believe it is easier to study with just you and me here. It’s such a temptation to talk when there are more of us.”

Virginia looked up from her book with an amused glance.

“I know what you are thinking,” continued Isabel with a laugh, “but I only break out by spells. I wonder what Olivia and Avalon are doing tonight.”

“Getting lessons too, I suspect.”

“Yes, Olivia wrote that she likes her school out there pretty well, but misses all of us girls. There is her letter, Virgie. I forgot to tell you to read it. She says that the girls are crazy about her butterfly pin and want to start a Psyche Club there. And she wants us to write and tell her every single thing about Greycliff, who is back and who isn’t, and where the Grant Academy boys are, if we know, and everything. I wonder what she has done with her fur coat!”

Both girls laughed as they recalled how eager Olivia had been for the new experiences of the North, and how she had run to her closet for the coat as soon as the fire alarm rang, not long after her arrival.

“She got to be one of the best skaters here, and adored skiing!” Isabel shook her head in regret for the lost opportunities of the absent Olivia.

“Oh, well,” said Virginia, “when we’re freezing our noses and toeses this winter, she’ll be picking roses and oranges.”

“That is pretty nearly a poem, Virgie. Can’t you fix it up a little? Noses, toeses and roses are so poetic!”

“No,” said Virgie, “I’m capable of rhyme, but not of meter. Lilian can make up poetry enough for our club. By the way, I’m in favor of Olivia’s starting a Psyche Club out there if they want to. Faith, love, effort, and ‘on to Olympus,’ or immortality, aren’t bad ideals. It certainly impressed me when I first came here, and you all were so perfectly lovely to me. Do you know, it didn’t seem a bit hard to go back to the ranch this summer. I wanted so to see Father that it took away my dread, and when I got there I found the world such a big place to me, after the school life, that it didn’t make so much difference about what happened for a little while on the ranch. Then my stepmother had been sick and worried about Father—she was glad to see me! So I took hold to help, and it was easier, and I had learned to appreciate the big country around us, and instead of its being an awful summer it was one of the best I ever had! I kept thinking, too, that I could probably have at least one more year of education here, and perhaps earn the rest myself.”

“Yes, isn’t it queer how you find out you can do things? Why, if anybody had told me once that I would enjoy debating, I would have thought them, him or her, crazy!”

“It’s a good thing I don’t have to make candy this year to help out the expenses. Isn’t it queer about the sugar?”

“Everything is queer this year, with the boys gone and going. It is a good thing that we have so much to do.”

“I wonder why Myrtle Wiseman isn’t back this year.”

“I’m sure I don’t know. Juliet said that it was so much easier to have the class elections this year without the schemes.”

“Perhaps we could get Dorothy Appleton and Jane Mills in the Psyche Club, then.”

“I think it is too late, at least the girls think so, and they are in the other society, you know. Lilian said that we had all formed different groups. But they are lovely girls and very friendly. When they went into the Emerson Literary Society last year, they were with a different crowd, and now, of course, they are ‘rushing’ against our girls, that is, I suppose we can call them our girls!”

“Do you think they will ask us to join the Whittiers?”

“Do I think so?—with Cathalina president, and Hilary secretary, and Lilian on the program committee? Yes, Miss Hope, I think that it is quite likely. One of the girls in the debating club asked me the other day if it was of any use for the Emerson Society to invite us. She said, ‘With all those girls in your Psyche Club that are in the Whittier Society, I suppose you wouldn’t think of being an “Emerson,” but you and Virgie are such fine debaters that we’d get you in if we could.’ Now wasn’t that nice?”

“Who was it?”

“Lucile Houston, and Jane Mills was with her. I just said something about appreciating their good opinion. I was so overcome by it, you see, that I neglected altogether to state whether or not we were interested in an invitation from the Emersons.”

“Doesn’t it seem funny not to be in society tonight?”

“Yes. I felt as if I ought to rush down to the Shakespearean Society and call the meeting to order tonight. But I am glad of the rest. And I feel so grown up to be in the first real collegiate class that I scarcely know myself. I mean to get ahead on work these few weeks before we get into society work, and say, I can knit like everything while I commit my debate speeches or the other things we have to learn for the oratory class. As soon as I finish a scarf or two, I’m going to begin on sweaters. It is so crazy that I never learned before, with Aunt Helen right there to teach me. But I learned how to knit socks this summer.”

The corridors were full of girls in the pretty dresses which they had worn to dinner, hurrying toward the different society halls. Soft bells were ringing here and there. These were important meetings, for new members were to be elected, matters connected with the sending out of invitations to be decided, besides the usual pressing affairs of girls’ literary societies. There were only two societies in the two collegiate classes, hence the rivalry. One or two others had ingloriously died soon after their birth. Only the devoted Whittiers and Emersons had survived.

Two pink spots burned on the cheeks of Cathalina Van Buskirk, for she was to take the “oath of office” tonight, sit in the famous chair on the little platform and wield the gavel of ebony, presented by a famous graduate who had made a name for herself. The other new officers were also to be initiated, and then the important matters of business were to be conducted. “Hilary, wink at me if I do anything wrong, and then I will find it necessary to consult the secretary,” said Cathalina gayly, as they entered the door.

“You will get along as well as I did when I was president of the Shakespearean Society. Didn’t we read Robert’s Rules of Order together? I shall have to learn the duties of a secretary. It seems funny, but with all the church societies I have been in I’ve never been a secretary, and in this society, recording and corresponding secretaries are one. They usually wanted me to be the president, or treasurer. I suppose they thought they could trust the preacher’s daughter!”

“You will have the old books to go by. I imagine that we can remember what the seniors did last year after we get started in.”

“Hurry up, Lilian,” said Hilary, turning back, “time to begin.”

“Don’t you love this hall?” asked Lilian of both girls. “It was fun working for the Shakespearean Society and getting our new furniture and all, but I believe this seems more artistic because it is older. The tone of the piano is not as good, though. We must have a new one, don’t you think so, Hilary?”

“This hall is a better, larger room with more windows,” said Cathalina. “It was possible in the first place to make a prettier hall of it, and, yes, the furniture is more handsome than we thought we could afford when we started the academy society. The older society really ought to be the more dignified.”

“We didn’t think so when we were in the academy!”

“No, indeed. How we do change!”

No embarrassment could ever make Cathalina awkward. The girls were always sure to be proud of Cathalina’s manner and language either in public or private. Isabel was as devoted to Cathalina as ever and felt an added gratitude since Cathalina had saved her, as she said, “from a watery grave” the year before. Cathalina herself was pleased that the girls had chosen her their president, and had made detailed preparations having in her hand a neat little outline of the affairs to be put through tonight. There was to be no regular program until the new members were brought in at the next meeting, but if the business did not take up the whole time, Evelyn Calvert had promised to give a “reading” in the dialect for which she was famous in the school, and Eloise was to sing. Among girls of so many gifts, the program committee did not have a very difficult task. The only trouble was to make sure that the girls prepared for their duties, for it was easy to be lazy about society affairs when there were so many pressing school duties all the time.

Pretty and dainty Cathalina looked when, after the ceremony with which the officers were initiated, she sat in state in the big chair. “The Secretary will now call the roll,” said she, whereupon Hilary called the names of the members from what she now called the “Sibylline Books.” The treasurer was called upon for a report of the money left over in the treasury from last year, and Pauline Tracy reported a comfortable little sum. A report was called from the chairman of the program committee, Lilian responding.

“Madam President,” said Lilian, “and members of the Whittier Society, nothing has been done yet except the arrangements for the first program at the initiation of the new members. You will remember that it was decided last year to complete a program for one-third of the year, then to pass on the programs, changed as they sometimes have to be when some one fails to serve, to the next program committee, with the list of those members who have not yet been on duty. I would like to remind the society, that every member is supposed to be on duty several times through the year and that the duties will be varied. For instance, if the musical members should only have to furnish music, they would miss the training in speaking before the society, or debating.”

“Madam President,” said Juliet, rising.

“Miss Howe,” responded the president.

“I should like to ask why we have the program divided into three parts,—like ‘all Gaul’.” A titter ran around the room.

Lilian rose again and was recognized by the chair.

“Madam President,—there used to be three terms, and three sets of officers elected, of course. Now with the two semesters, the society has several times considered changing its schedule, but has concluded that it is better to give the opportunity to have the three elections and more girls occupying the responsible positions during the year.”

“Is there any unfinished business?” inquired the president. “If not, a motion to present the names of the prospective members is in order.”

This was the time for careful management on the part of the president. Nothing unkind should be said that could be reported to girls under consideration.

“Madam President,” said Helen Paget, “I so move, that we proceed at once to the election of new members.”

“I second the motion,” crisply said Diane of the distinct enunciation.

This motion duly passed, Eloise Winthrop rose to make a few remarks. “Madam President,” said she, “may we have some discussion of the names proposed last week? I remember how we all agreed that nothing unpleasant should be said, but it seems to me that if there is any real objection to anybody, we ought to know it, and perhaps leave their names until the next election. There are a few girls, too, that I do not know very well, some new ones, and I should like to hear reasons why they should be invited.”

“Chiefly because the Emersons want them,” quickly said one girl, and without addressing the president. The girls laughed and Cathalina tapped for order.

“The names are posted at the sides of the room,” said the president, “but the secretary will read the names proposed last week, and if there are other names that you have thought of since, they may be proposed then. Will the secretary also give some of the reasons why we invite girls to the society?”

As Hilary rose, to read the list and comply with Cathalina’s request, she hesitated a little, smiled, and put down her papers on the little carved table before her. “I suppose the first real reason, if we are honest,” said she, “is that we want our best friends with us in our society, just as we like to be in the same school and the same classes. Then we want to get girls into the society that will do it honor, girls that will try to help and girls that are gifted or have some qualities that make them desirable. A girl may not have any great gift, but be so utterly lovable and perhaps helpful to everybody that we couldn’t get along without her. And then we want girls that need the society work,—indeed we all need it. I remember a girl that was so timid she was afraid to do anything in public, but she was enthusiastic for the society she was in, helped in all the practical ways, finally tried to take part in the programs, and got all over being so scared. We put her on for reading little things at first, or singing in a quartet, or doing other things with several girls, until she found that she was valuable in those places and liked it. You never can tell. I’m in favor of taking in as many nice girls as we can, up to the number we decided upon.”

Hilary then read the list and with the help of several other girls passed the ballots, long ones on ruled paper.

“Now does any one want to speak for her candidate?” asked Cathalina. Several girls did. Isabel and Virginia were heralded as fine debaters and willing to do anything for the society they were in. The new girls were duly considered, as musical, or literary, or valuable additions in one respect or another. Some of the girls had been dreading to do what they ought to do in reference to one name, but when it was enthusiastically pushed by one or two of the girls, Eloise rose, her cheeks flushed and her dark eyes glowing.

“Madam President, I do hate to say what I feel that I ought to say, and I hope you all know that I haven’t a thing against this girl personally. She is pretty and attractive and a good student, but they tell me that she is a regular trouble-maker and always stirs up things wherever she is. I hope that it isn’t so, but she has had a change of room-mates already, and I have noticed myself that she is not on speaking terms with one or two others.”

“Miss Howe,” said Cathalina, recognizing Juliet. “I am sorry to confirm what Eloise says. You know that the Alpha Zetas, which really does not exist, because we are not allowed to have sororities, or any secret societies,”—smiles went round the room at this remark, and one or two of the girls put on a look of supreme ignorance.

“—began to rush her vigorously, and all of a sudden they stopped. I think that she is just a spoiled girl who may find out later that having her own way at other girls’ expense is not the way to get along. I would suggest that we wait a while about electing her.”

“Madam President,” said one of the girls who had recommended this new girl, a recent addition to the junior collegiate class, from some high school. “I haven’t seen a thing disagreeable in Alice, and it’s just going to be a tragedy! She is counting on it so!” The eyes of Alice’s defender were full of tears as she sat down.

Cathalina looked sympathetic and asked if there were any one else who would speak in favor of Alice or any other candidate, but the society seemed to be through with discussion and the election proceeded. Alas for the occasional heartaches, but a girls’ school is a fine place in which to learn to live with other people.

CHAPTER III
THE RETURN OF “PATTY”

The lights from Greycliff parlors shone out over the campus. Here and there, in the rooms above, a light would flash out, as the occupant of a room entered it and turned on her electricity. In the larger reception room, Hilary was at the piano, while Eloise, Lilian and some of the other girls were singing. The sounds of the music and happy conservation floated out and reached the ears of a young woman who had just alighted from a taxi. She paid the chauffeur, hurried up the steps and entered the entrance hall,—so far, alone, but only for a few moments, for exclamations of “It’s Patty, girls!” or “Oh, here’s Patty!” began to be heard. Soon the newcomer was the center of a welcoming group of girls. One took her traveling bag, another her pocketbook, and since the hat with its veil seemed to be in the way, she unpinned the stylish little affair and handed it to another of the girls.

“Oh, Miss West,—I mean Mrs. Norris, it is so grand to have you back!”

“Yes, indeed. Miss Carver is crosser than ever since the——”

“Hush! Don’t say anything about the war; Patty can’t stand it!”

“Oh, are you really married?”

“Yes, girls, I’m really married, and it is wonderful to have you glad to see me, like this,—I’m going to need—lots of company!” Patty put her face for a moment on Pauline’s comfortable shoulder, but lifted it bravely, smiling as she finished, “—he belongs to me anyhow, and he sent his warmest greetings to you all.”

“Who in the world is she?” asked one of the “new girls,” “and who is the ‘he’ she is talking about?”

“It is Mrs. Norris, who was Miss West and has been a teacher here for several years. Dr. Norris came here to teach, too, and they were engaged all last year. Then he was in camp and couldn’t get away to be married, I guess. Anyway, they were just married recently, and I suppose she has seen him off to France.”

Betty, Cathalina and Pauline saw their “Patty” to her room, put away her things for her, and hovered around till Miss Randolph, hearing of the arrival, came up herself to greet the bride. Mrs. Norris hastened to say that her next act was to have been a visit to Miss Randolph, after the dust of travel was removed, but Miss Randolph replied that she was only too glad to come to her. The girls immediately withdrew and went out to join the other interested girls, who wanted to hear all about the romantic wedding.

“We don’t know a thing,” said Betty. “Of course, we wouldn’t ask her, and it must be terrible to come back to teaching after just saying goodbye to your husband. But I imagine that she will tell us things after a while. Isn’t she a dear?”

On the next morning, the returned teacher met her classes as usual, a group of friendly girls clustering around her desk before the first recitation. A little before the second bell, one of the senior girls came in, her finger on a difficult line in Horace’s Satires, and said, “I simply can not understand, Dr. Carver, what he means!”

“Dr. Carver!”

“‘Dr. Carver’, indeed, do you want to insult her?”

The senior looked up wonderingly at the girls who thus exclaimed, for she was not conscious of having used the wrong name. Then she laughed. “Please forgive me, Miss West, I did not realize what I was saying. My mind was on those lines I could not get. Why, what is wrong now ? You are all laughing!”

Mrs. Norris laughed, too, patted the senior’s arm and said, “Never mind, you will get used to the change. I don’t mind at all. If you forget, you need not apologize, but try to get it right the next time. There is the bell. Take your seats, please.”

No one would have known that Patricia West Norris had anything to worry over, and if there was any difference it was only that she was more inspiring. “I am a soldier’s wife,” she said to Betty, as one day they clambered out over the rocks and sat viewing restless waters, floating clouds and flying gulls. “If he can go as cheerfully as they all are going, to face the guns, I certainly will have to live up to him. I shall want to be by myself a little, of course, to think and to write letters, but you girls are helping me very much, and I am not going to mourn till something happens, and I am hoping that nothing will. I shan’t pretend that it is easy, though.”

Betty stroked her hand and they sat silently a little while. Betty had her own reasons for sober thoughts at times, but kept a bright face.

“See, Mrs. Patty (which was Betty’s name for her), there is smoke coming from that little house over the cave, and somebody is out in a boat fishing. We were always going to investigate that place.”

“It is probably the headquarters for some rough fishermen and you girls must keep away.”

“Oh, yes, we will. I have certainly lost all curiosity about it, though it is more or less mysterious. I’ll never get over wondering why Captain Holley was there and what was in the box and what he threw into the lake in such a hurry. It makes me think now of what the boys write about hand grenades and things.”

“Did it explode?”

“I couldn’t tell. We kept as still as mice, Isabel and I, until we thought the boat was far enough away for them not to see us. Even then we kept behind the bushes for a while and near the cliff as we went back to the Hall.”

“What do your hear from Donald Hilton?”

“Donald wrote me that he has a new kind of work, but couldn’t tell me just what it was for a while. It’s as bad as ‘Somewhere in France!’ We hardly know what the boys are doing! However, I’ve had long letters, from both Donald and my brother, telling me lots of things.”

“It is pretty chilly out here,” remarked Mrs. Norris. “Suppose we go back and walk along the beach a while to stir us up before we go in.”

“I am a little shivery,” acknowledged Betty, “for that wind is getting cold. But I love the water. I think that this is the most beautiful spot for a school that there could be. We just have everything —boating and riding, canoeing, the winter sports and all!”

“There come the girls. I suspect that Cathalina is looking for you.”

“I imagine that she is looking for you, too. When I left she was working on a poster for the Latin Club. It meets tomorrow, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Then we are getting up a little stunt for society. All the clubs represented in the Whittier Society have to do something next time we meet. They may take it from what they have had in the regular club meeting, if they want to, but it is to be funny if possible. Isabel and Virgie are getting up a perfectly killing debate. Isabel’s ‘points’ are too funny for words. They don’t mean a thing, and she gets them off with all the oratorical agony she can put on. She goes all around the bush, tells what she is going to prove and doesn’t prove it. Eloise and I just lay back on the bed and laughed, when she was going over it in her room yesterday! They only have five minutes apiece, no rebuttals or anything, and I’m sure that the judges will decide in favor of Isabel, for Virgie declares that she can never get up anything as funny. She can think up points, though, and may capture the judges after all.”

“Oh, here you are, folks!”

Cathalina, with note book and pencil, approached Betty and Mrs. Norris, while walking down the slope behind her came Isabel, Lilian, Juliet and Hilary. The girls all wore their bright sweaters and locks were flying in the wind.

“How will this do for the announcement, Mrs. Norris?” Cathalina handed Patricia a slip of paper from which she read aloud

“Would you say ‘Societas Romana’ instead of ‘Latina’? asked Cathalina.

“I believe I would. That is good, Cathalina. Translate it, Betty.”

“Take notice. The Latin Club meets today. Come, friends—associates?—companions?—come. Let all be present. The Latin language in literature and so forth.”

“What would Greycliff be in Latin, Mrs. Norris?”

“Let me see. ‘Mons’, ‘collis’, ‘saxum’, ‘rupes,’—that is it, ‘rupes.’ Then ‘glaucus’ is blue-grey, sometimes silver-grey, or sea-green.”

“Rupes, is feminine,” announced Eloise. “Q. E. D., Rupus Glauca, Greycliff! Feminae Rupis-Glaucae sumus. Est optima schola omnium gentium!”

“Mercy, Elo’, don’t go so fast; I can’t keep up with you!” cried Isabel. “We are the girls, or women, of Greycliff. It is——”

“The best school in the world,” finished Eloise. “Cathalina found some Latin by Charles Lamb, giving some lines of ‘Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary’ and ‘Little Jack Horner’; so two of the girls are going to dress up as children and recite them, and some others that Cathalina made up. Come on, Cathalina, cheer up your Latin teacher by reciting your latest masterpiece!”

“Mercy, I couldn’t before her.”

“Just ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’!”

“All right.” Cathalina dropped a little curtsey, put one finger to her mouth and took hold of her dress with the other hand.

“There is more, but I have forgotten it. You have to accent the ‘i’ the first time in ‘Maria,’ and the first ‘a’ the second time, to get the right effect. The ‘i’ is either long or short.

“O, give us ‘Vetus Mater Hubbard ad armarium venit’,” urged Isabel.

“Can’t. I’ve forgotten it.”

Mrs. Norris was smiling over the fun. “Have you any serious Latin on your program?”

“O, yes. Most of the program is serious. Dorothy has an article on the famous Latin Hymns and some girls are going to sing the Adeste Fideles. Then one of the Academy girls is going to recite the first part of Cicero’s First Oration against Catiline, and there are some other things,—historia, musica, scientia, et multae res de quibus dicere tempus non est!”

“Listen to her!” exclaimed Isabel.

“I’ve just been writing it out, you know,” apologized Cathalina. “Tomorrow, when we have composition, Mrs. Norris, I probably can’t think of a thing!”

“Who is that waving out there?” inquired Pauline.

The party all turned to look toward the lake. A boat was bobbing over the waves, and soon a voice called. Somebody was using a pair of long glasses and had discovered who they were.

“They’re in sailor costume!” exclaimed Betty. “What do you think of that! It is Donald Hilton standing up there. I should think he would fall in!”

A fine-looking lot of sailors they were, rowing away. At a distance there was a small vessel from which they had come. Presently the boat came up to the dock, where by this time the whole party were waiting. The sailors rested on their oars, smiling in friendly fashion, while the officer in charge gave some order to Donald as he leaped out.

“I’ve just about five minutes, folks,” said Donald, as he shook hands with one and another in turn. “Have I permission, Mrs. Norris?”

“Just as long as you like, Mr. Hilton—I do not know your rank. I am only familiar with the infantry insignia.”

“Not very far up yet, Mrs. Norris. What is the Doctor by now?”

“A first lieutenant.”

“We’re doing a little scouting for Uncle Sam, and I got permission to stop here a few minutes to ‘see my folks’, or some of them.” Donald gave a whimsical glance at Betty.

“I think I’ll give you a little opportunity to visit with Betty,” said Mrs. Norris. “Since you can have so short a time, we will shake hands again and wish you safety and success. Come again.”

Mrs. Norris and the other girls drew away, walking slowly along the beach in the direction of the school. It was quite marked, the appropriation of Betty, yet in those times a few precious moments, with friends perhaps so soon to go across, were of first importance.

“Wasn’t that good of her? Betty, I’ve got your dear little picture safe in here,” and Donald patted the place where his heart was supposed to be. “I live on your letters, and haven’t been where I could get them for a week or two. We’re on a little detail with some secret service men. I can’t tell you about it now, and please don’t mention the secret service.”

“I won’t,” said Betty, rather dazed. “Are you really here, or not?”

“I am. This is me, in the language of the poet. We may be in these parts for a while, cruising around, and we may not. We are going to pretend to leave anyway, and you will see the old tub steaming away shortly. If I get a chance, I’m going to come again. Will you be glad to see me?”

“Oh, yes, Donald, you know I will.” Betty did not know just how glad she would be the next time she was to see him.

They sat down inside the little boat house, on one of the benches, and managed to say a good deal in the short time allotted them. The men in the boat, young men, all of them, talked, joked and sang while they waited. Finally the officer spoke to Donald, who said a last goodbye to Betty and climbed into the boat. Betty felt a little self-conscious, but stood out on the dock, poised like a bird, as she waved to Donald. The sailor lads waved their caps as they pushed off, then bent to the task of rowing back to the ship. Their voices came back to her as they sang one of the old sailor chanteys, though these were mostly college boys, with little experience as yet except in rowing for the championship of their schools.

Betty walked slowly away, looking back and out at the boat and small steamer. “Is this I, or isn’t it?” she thought. “Did anybody ever have such unusual things happen? Here came Donald, out of the lake, so to speak. Presto, a lot of good-looking boys like him, and a friendly officer, appear from ‘the deep,’ serenade Donald and me and the girls, and row off again.”

When Betty caught up with her friends, their comments were not unlike her own. “Betty’s always having adventures,” said Isabel. “Here am I, longing for romance and adventure, and nothing happens.”

“You were almost drowned last year,” suggested Betty.

“Yes, but I was unconscious all the time I was being rescued and missed all the thrills.”

“Mercy, child! You were welcome to all Cathalina and I had!” remarked Hilary.

“If it had only been good form for Mrs. Norris and us girls to get acquainted with some of those nice boys in the boat, life would not seem so barren,” sighed Isabel, with pretended sorrow.

“You very well know that you were the first to leave, and would have been horrified at the thought of talking to them!” exclaimed Cathalina, taking Isabel seriously.

“Perhaps, gentle mentor,” said Isabel, putting her arm about Cathalina.

“Set that to music, Lilian, and sing it to Betty.”

“Is that your own, Isabel?”

“Yes. I thought it up while we were waiting for Betty. Donald is sort of Scotch, you know, so I put in ‘e’e’ and ‘stane’.”

“It seems to be catching,” said Eloise. “Lilian and Cathalina are always making verses, and now Isabel.”

CHAPTER IV
AGAIN THE GREYCLIFF GHOST

“Whither now, Lily Ann?” Diane was strolling out of classroom number five behind Lilian.

“I don’t answer to that name,” replied Lilian, pausing, however, and linking her arm in that of Diane. “How becoming that crimson frock is.”

“Do you like it?”

“Yes. It matches your cheeks and brings out the shepherdess complexion.”

“Shepherdess yourself, Lilian, and you have the golden locks as well. Going up to the library?”

“Yes; I have to read a little for Lit. We have a perfectly terrible book to write on it, all our notes in class and on our collateral reading. The first half has to be ready to hand in at the first of the second semester. I pity the girls who haven’t written up their notes right along.”

“I was sorry that I did not take that advanced course in Literature. It wasn’t required, so I did not try it. I have so much to make up, anyway. But your book prospect does not look so inviting,—I’m not so sorry after all.”

The two girls were climbing the stairs of the library building, tripping up the wide steps with light feet.

“Did you hear about the ghost?” continued Diane.

“No, is that the latest thrill?”

“Yes; Greycliff’s old standby, the Woman in Black, has appeared again. One of the academy girls nearly went into hysterics the other night, they say, after she saw it, or thought she saw it. She said that it moaned and waved black arms, with wide sleeves or something, and glided by as ghosts are supposed to glide, but very rapidly.”

“I haven’t heard anything about the Woman in Black for some time. Let me see. It was Isabel that declared she saw it two or three years ago. How many times has it appeared this time?”

“Several times, according to all accounts. There are all sorts of wild tales about it. One girl said that it started toward her, then turned back and just disappeared.”

“Around a corner probably. If there is any appearance of the sort, I’m sure it’s human. Somebody is trying to trick the girls. The other time, when we had such an excitement about it, Miss Randolph just put some extra folks on guard at night and there was no more ghost.”

“All the same, the halls are sort of spooky at night, and I don’t believe that I’ll watch for it. Diane is going to keep to her little cot!”

“All the more reason for that if it is human. Any account of its getting into the rooms, or has anything been stolen?”

“One girl tells about seeing it standing over her bed, but I think that she was having a nightmare. She had heard about it and dreamed of it!”

By this time the girls were in the library, where conversation was not desired. Lilian went to look over the reference books and Diane consulted the librarian about something. Isabel, Evelyn and Helen were sitting at one of the tables and nodded to the girls. Isabel was scribbling away for dear life, turning page after page of a tablet. Evelyn was drawing cartoons and showing them from time to time to Helen, who appeared much amused. Helen was reading, when not in consultation with Evelyn. Presently Lilian and Diane went over to the same table and drew up chairs. “What’s the fun?” whispered Diane.

Helen smiled broadly, took the drawings from Evelyn and pushed them over to Diane and Lilian. The girls bent their heads over them. Isabel looked up, amused, and continued scribbling. The first picture was labeled “The Greycliff Ghost,” and showed a skeleton, clothed in filmy black, and bending over a terrified girl in her cot. The covers were drawn up over the lower part of the girl’s face, only the big eyes looking up at the ghost. The second picture was called “The Woman in Black” and depicted a veiled figure in motion, arms stretched out before her, wide sleeves and draperies flying, the head wrapped in a veil, but showing a mask and two wild eyes. As the girls looked at these drawings, Evelyn, who was watching them, offered a piece of paper on which was printed “DO YOU BELIEVE IN GHOSTS?”

Lilian promptly wrote her reply “No. Do You?”

“YES. I’VE BEEN IN A HAUNTED HOUSE. LET’S TELL GHOST STORIES AFTER DINNER.”

“All right, but people that believe in ghosts are likely to have bad dreams.”

“WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU SAW A GHOST?”

This last query of Evelyn’s was passed around to the girls. Lilian wrote, “Watch it go by.” Diane wrote, “Run.” Isabel stopped her rapid note-taking long enough to answer, “Try one of the boys’ tricks,—stick out my foot to see if I could trip it.”

“Diane’s answer is the only sensible one,” whispered Evelyn as she read the different replies. Tucking away her pictures in her note book she proceeded with the more serious work for which she had come to the library. The other girls were also absorbed in their books. But later, when they left the library for Greycliff Hall, there was laughter, and stories of mysterious doings were told. “Of course I believe in ghosts,” insisted Evelyn, who had never outgrown the coquettish ways and naive speech with which she had come to Greycliff. “Didn’t my mother’s old Mammy bring me up on ‘ghos’es’ and ha’nts? I never saw any, but she did.”

“You just want to for the excitement of it,” said Isabel. “I wish the seniors would give Hamlet this spring, for their play, and let me play the part of the ghost.”

“That isn’t much of a part,” said Lilian. “I should think you would want Hamlet.”

“I would, but the seniors would want that themselves. ‘To be or-r-r-r-r not to be. That iz-z-z-z-z the question!’ I heard an elocutionist do it that way once. What are you girls going to give for your senior play?”

“We haven’t decided yet, but we thought of having it outdoors and giving ‘As You Like It’.”

“That will be wonderful!” exclaimed Isabel. “There are so many places about the campus that would make a fine setting.”

“Come around to our room after dinner for the ghost stories,” reminded Evelyn, as she and Diane left the other girls on their way to their respective rooms. Like Isabel and Virginia, Evelyn and Diane were occupying a large single room this year. But Greycliff seniors have not so much time for ghost stories and the like, and Evelyn herself, with her knitting, was in the parlors after dinner, listening to some singing, and chatting to Isabel, Lilian, Hilary, Cathalina and Betty.

“I believe that Evelyn has begun two or three sweaters,” said Isabel. “Which one is this for?”

“Oh, I can’t be partial, you know,” said Evelyn, smiling as she recovered a dropped stitch. “Geo’ge and Pehcy ah in the same company, and if I send one a sweatah I must send the otheh one, too. I did think that I would send this one to Cousin Francis,—I used to be engaged to him, you know. We ah only thi’d cousins.”

“Which one are you engaged to now, Evelyn?” asked Isabel, adding hastily, “You need not answer that, of course. It is rude of me to ask.”

“O, I don’t mind,” said Evelyn, putting her hand on one side to survey the sweater which she held up to view. “Do you think that is big enough to go over the head?”

“It looks pretty small to me,” said Cathalina. “Is he big or little?”

“My head just comes to his shoulder. Yes, he is pretty big, Pehcy is.”

“I wonder if that is my answer,” remarked Isabel to Cathalina.

“No telling.”

“Well, girls,” said Hilary, “I’d like to visit longer, but I have to get to work. I see a hectic evening before me. I don’t know when I’ve been so behind with everything. I’ve been doing too much knitting and letter-writing, I am afraid. However, under the circumstances, I can’t regret it. Patriotism before everything!”

“Are you sure that it was all patriotism, Hilary?”

“Quite sure,” laughed Hilary.

In Lakeview Suite there was, indeed, a busy group that evening. It happened to be near examination time. Notes were being brought up to date. Exercise books in the languages were to be put into final shape. Eloise came in to consult Lilian about some exercises in Harmony, which both were taking, Lilian because she wanted to know how to write her little songs, and to catch up with Philip in his knowledge of the subject. The girls were all tired when the first bell rang, and Hilary sat, writing on, without paying any attention.

“You’ll be in the dark pretty soon, Hilary, unless you break rules,” remarked Lilian.

“Don’t mind me,” said Hilary. “Put the lights out when the bell rings. I’ll just write till then; I’m almost through. Then I’ll use my flash light when I get ready for bed.”

Finally, darkness descended upon the suite, and Hilary, her head aching a little, tossed and turned, till finally she wandered off into a dream with Campbell Stuart, both on a vessel, on the way to France, and watching a submarine whose periscope had just appeared close by. In the middle of the night she woke, consumed by thirst, and reaching under her pillow for her flashlight, slipped quietly out of the room after some water.

Just outside of her door she paused and started a little, for around the corner came a ghostly figure, looking very much as Evelyn had pictured the “Woman in Black.” There were two corridors running at right angles to Lakeview Corridor, and it was from one of these, in the direction of which Hilary was headed, that the ghost came. And, without warning, from the other direction, which Hilary, though not the ghost, could see, came running another figure with flying hair, light slippers and pale kimono.

“Two ghosts,” thought Hilary.

It all happened so quickly that Hilary could not have prevented it even had she been able to recover from her surprise. The “Woman in Black” saw Hilary, without doubt, for she waved her hands and moaned, a high quaver of ghostly sound. And right at the corner, plump into the Woman in Black, ran the other flying figure,—bump!

It was Evelyn’s face that turned toward Hilary. The black form recovered from the shock and sped on, but dropped a little roll of papers and, with an exclamation, turned and came back. Evelyn hastened to pick up the papers first—Evelyn, who was afraid of ghosts!

“Give them to me at once!” demanded the “ghost” in a hissing whisper.

Evelyn unrolled the papers in the dim light of the hall and showed no intention of hurrying. Impatiently the black ghost snatched at the little bundle, but Evelyn put it behind her back at first, then with a bow held it out,—“Your property, I believe,—Louise Holley!”

The “Woman in Black” angrily pulled away and disappeared down the hall. Evelyn leaned up against the wall and looked after her, while Hilary moved toward her, saying gently, in little more than a whisper, “Evelyn.”

“Is that you, Hilary?” asked Evelyn, in evident relief. “Did you see that performance? I suppose Louise has been out to meet that precious brother of hers. That is why she is staging the ghost act. How do you happen to be on hand?”

“I woke up and perishing with thirst, or was. I declare I was so taken by surprise that I forgot what I was up for.”

“It’s that ham, that grand baked ham we had for suppeh. I was so thihsty too, that I just had to have a drink and we forget to get any watch for the room, as we usually do.”

“So did we.”

“I happened to think about the ghost stories after I was in the hall, and put on speed just in time to run into the actual ghost! Honestly, I’m shaking all oveh!”

“You did not act afraid.”

“I wasn’t. No ghost is as solid as what I ran into.” Evelyn chuckled. “It was the shock, and being afraid that I would meet a ghost, a real one.”

“Do you still believe in that kind?”

“I must say that my faith is shaken. Didn’t Louise look like the real thing though as she disappeared?”

“She looked like a bad spirit all right. Some of the lights in the hall have been turned out. Did you notice that?”

“I think they always do it.”

“Yes, but they always leave enough to make a little light, and you can’t see any toward Louise’s room.”

“She must have done it on purpose. My, how mad she was when I would not hand her her papers.”

“They were little diagrams, Hilary. What do you suppose that means.”

“I think that Miss Randolph ’d better send her away again. That is what I think. Shall we tell her?”

“Let’s sleep on it. Take me back to my room, will you, Hilary?”

“Don’t lose your courage now, when you were so brave.”

“I always do when I have somebody to lean on. I ought to have a lot of responsibility put on me, I reckon.”

“You nice little thing!” exclaimed Hilary, patting Evelyn’s shoulder. “Let’s get a good drink first.”

“All right. I could drink all the wateh there is! Let it run and run to get fresh and ice-cold!”

All this conversation was carried on in subdued tones. Evelyn decided that she would show her bravely by going back to her room alone, but Hilary paused at the parting of the ways and watched her scampering through the corridor to her room, which she entered, after giving one hasty backward glance to make sure that no ghost or human was entering behind her.

CHAPTER V
SENIOR BASKET-BALL

Upon returning to her room, Hilary was too wide-awake to sleep and dropped upon the window-seat in the dark study room, drawing around her Cathalina’s steamer rug which happened to be there. The wind was sighing through the trees. She could hear the sound of the waves upon the beach not far away, and another louder sound came from the lake as well, that of some motor. “A boat or a plane,” thought Hilary, looking out through tree-tops, “I believe it is a plane. Perhaps they are trying out the hydroplanes though it is rather late for that.” Just then there came a flash from where the shore line was located. “A search-light,” was Hilary’s thought, but no steady sweeping light continued, only two or three flashes. Hilary leaned out of the window, looked in all directions and was rewarded by seeing dim flashes far down the lake. Two or three times the signals were repeated, then no more.

For five or ten minutes, Hilary still sat by the window thinking over the occurrences of the night, then went to the table where her own clock was still ticking out the hours, so carefully watched that evening when they were hurrying their lessons through. Flashing her light on its familiar face, she read that it was one o’clock, yawning a little, she stole gently back into her bedroom without waking Lilian, tucked a comfortable pillow under her head, threw back her heavy brown braids to a position where they would not annoy her, and was soon in a dreamless sleep.

But Hilary had come to a decision while she sat looking out of the window. Whatever it was in which Captain Holley was concerned, it was evident that Louise was meeting him and was taking advantage of the old tradition to play the ghost and make the girls afraid to go through the halls at night. It was no single prank to be winked at. Miss Randolph should know the whole story from beginning to end.

In the morning, therefore, the performances of the night were related to an interested audience of three, as the girls of Lakeview Suite dressed for breakfast, and Hilary said that she had determined to tell Miss Randolph. “What do you think, girls?” she asked.

“You are right, Hilary,” said Lilian, without hesitation.

“Are you going to tell her about me, too?” asked Betty, “and the cave, and everything?”

“Yes, unless you have some objection.”

“Not a bit.”

“I wish you would go with me, Cathalina, and I want to get Evelyn to support my evidence about last night. I think it is our business as seniors to stop this affair of coming and going at night.”

“Louise will be furious.”

“Louise isn’t any too safe herself.”

“I shall be glad to go, Hilary. I have felt like speaking to Miss Randolph about several things before this.”

But it was easier to make a decision than to carry it out, where other persons were concerned. Scarcely had Cathalina finished speaking, when there came a quick rap at the door, and, upon invitation, Louise herself came in. Looking from one to another, she saw knowledge written on the faces of all and hastened to make her appeal. “Say, Hilary,” she began, “you are not going to tell Miss Randolph, are you, about my playing the ghost? Please don’t!”

“I made up my mind to do that very thing,” said Hilary, her face flushing with the effort of doing a disagreeable thing. “I didn’t think that you should be allowed to go on with this sort of thing.”

Louise burst into sudden tears. “I can’t see anything so dreadful about fooling the girls!” she said, as soon as she could control herself.

“No, Louise, but I can’t feel that that is all there is to it. Now haven’t you been out to meet your brother again? I’d like to know what he is doing, too. It certainly looks queer to us girls that you find it necessary to meet your own brother in this way, when he can come to see you at any proper time. Have you a key to one of the doors?”

“It isn’t your business what I am doing!”

“No, but I fancy that it is Miss Randolph’s, if you are disobeying such important rules. It is a matter of your own safety as well as ours. I don’t intend to do anything but inform Miss Randolph. She can use her own judgment.”

Louise wore an ill and sullen look, then realized what it would mean if Hilary informed Miss Randolph, and began to cry once more. “I didn’t think that you were such a mean girl,—to tell!”

“If I don’t, will you stop going out at night?”

“What good would it do for her to promise us?” inquired Lilian with surprising bluntness. “We can’t sit up nights to see that she keeps her promise.”

“Will you give me your key?” said Hilary.

Louise hesitated. “Y-yes,” she said, “if you will not tell.”

“Well, Louise, I’ve no desire to have you sent away, and I suppose that is what would happen. If you will give me your key and promise not to leave the hall at night, I will at least postpone telling Miss Randolph, and see what happens. There’ll be no more ‘Woman in Black’ nonsense, of course.”

“All right. I suppose I’ll have to do it. Here is the key.” Louise handed Hilary a key, while the other girls looked at each other as if to say, “Funny that she had it all ready like that.”

After the departure of Louise, Hilary sank into a rocking chair and dropped her hands in a gesture of helplessness upon her lap. “Did you ever!”

“Crocodile tears!” exclaimed Betty.

“Oh, her tears were genuine enough,” said Lilian, “and she got what she came for.”

“I suspect I was a goose,” said Hilary, “but perhaps she will be good, and I hate to tell things that will send a girl away from Greycliff.”

“Perhaps Evelyn will tell,” suggested Betty.

“Louise is probably there now,” said Lilian.

Sure enough, Evelyn came in a few minutes before the breakfast bell to ask if Louise had been there. “She wept and carried on till I didn’t know what to do with her, and begged me not to tell any of the teachers. I was so provoked with her that I wouldn’t promise, but finally said that I would do whatever Hilary thought best. You ought to have seen the funny little smile she had when I said that. She just said, ‘Very well,’ and pretended to go out in a bad humor, but I could tell that she thought it would be all right.”

“We’ll just let it go a while, Evelyn, and see. I didn’t promise never to tell.”

On the bulletin board, as the girls went to breakfast, there had already been put up notices of a senior class meeting, a “short meeting” of the Whittier Society, and regular basket-ball practice.

“You will have to have some one else take the minutes, Cathalina,” said Hilary, “for I can’t miss the practice.”

“Of course not. My, I’m glad that you are playing this year, Hilary. Now we shall be sure to win the tournament. It was terrible that we lost that time when you did not play. Of course we can beat the academy classes and I’m not afraid of the juniors now. Do you remember how nearly we came to winning that first year?”

“Indeed I do. How we worked! This will be my last year to play, though. Oh, of course, little games, perhaps, but I mean in competitive games of any consequence. We are getting in pretty good trim. You ought to see Juliet and Pauline make baskets. They almost never miss, if they have any kind of a chance.”

“It is only a few days until the big affair comes off.”

“Yes,—that was one reason why I didn’t want to have any trouble about Louise. I want to keep fit. I don’t feel any too lively today after last night’s late hours.”

“Cut your last class this morning and take a little nap before lunch. I’ll wake you up.”

“Oh, no! I’ll get through all right. I’ll get to bed early.”

For the next few days basket-ball was the chief topic of conversation at Greycliff. All the teams were “getting into shape,” as they said, and all the other girls were watching practice or inquiring about it and trying to prove that their class had the best team in school. “Time will tell,” said Hilary. “I’m glad we have a referee that is so strict about the rules. If we win, it will be a real victory.” Hilary was captain again.

“I declare, I don’t know which class I want to win,” said Isabel. “Of course, I want my own class to beat, but here are all your Psyche Club and Whittier chums in the senior class. Class spirit, however, is the thing in the tournaments,—hurrah for the junior collegiates!”

“I remember your leading the yells, Isabel, for the junior academy class at our first tournament. It was too funny. Avalon led the singing. Who would have thought that such a little mouse as she seemed at first would be so lively? I suppose that the academy girls will make as much noise as we did.”

“Are you going over for the Academy Tournament tonight?” asked Isabel. There had been a meeting of the Psyche Club at the “Olympic Portal” and the girls were chatting on after adjournment.

“Yes, indeed,” replied Hilary. “We want to see what our opponents can do, also get into the spirit of the game. All of us that are on the teams are going, and I guess that the other girls in our suite are going, aren’t you?” Hilary turned toward Cathalina and Betty, who stood near. “I know that Lilian is.”

“Aren’t we what?” asked Betty.

“Going to the Academy Tournament tonight. Old Hilary says that she wants to see her opponents, as if she were sure that it will be the senior collegiate that will play the winning academy class.” Thus Isabel.

“Too bad, Isabel, that you are a junior and can’t conscientiously root for us.”

“She talks as if I wanted to,” and Isabel turned to Virgie in pretended indignation.

There was great fun in the gymnasium that night. “Susan’s Band” had been revived and marched in between games with much playing upon combs, triangles and other difficult instruments. Four different classes had their class songs, class yells and unrepressed enthusiasms. Miss Randolph, who was present from a sense of duty, fairly put her hands over her ears as applause mingled with the closing strains and clashes from “Susan’s Band.” This was a longer performance than the contest between the junior and senior collegiates would be. That was to take place in a few days, provided no accident to the chief performers occurred tonight, to postpone the event of the contest between the winning academy team and that of the collegiates. But it was best to have the collegiates meet in battle early, for they too, might need time for recovery.

It was always determined by lot how the classes were to play. This time the freshmen, academy, met the sophomores and defeated them in a close game. The seniors and juniors played against each other, the juniors defeated. Both games were exciting, the scores nearly even. But the last game, between the excited little freshmen and the seniors was easily won by the senior class, with a score rather humiliating to the freshmen, but on the whole they were pleased to have been in the final game at all.

“It will be the seniors against seniors,” whispered Pauline to Juliet, who smiled at her and said, “Mayhap it will.”

Several days later, the gymnasium was again the scene of a real contest between the two collegiate classes. The seats were full of interested spectators from all the classes, academy and collegiate. Many of the teachers were there and some of the faculty wives who lived at Greycliff Heights. There was no uproar, the two classes contenting themselves with a few yells given at especially appropriate times, and the more dignified class songs of the upper classes, if any of the class songs can be called such at all. Very little nervousness, if any, was shown by either team at first, and the game began with much skill in evidence. Hilary’s forces began with success in getting the ball, and keeping it against much interference; the seniors made one basket after another, and the score was all in their favor. Then luck turned. Calamity of calamities, it was Juliet who fumbled and lost the ball to a junior, who tossed it some distance to a girl under their basket,—into which it went in a jiffy. After the ball was tossed, the juniors were again in possession. How the senior girls worked to get a chance once more, and when one of the juniors missed a basket it was a senior girl who captured the ball. Fast and furious waxed the efforts. For some time nobody could make a basket for the successful interference of opposing forces. But at last it was the senior class which was victorious, and as Pauline had said, it would be the seniors against the seniors in the final tournament.

The greatest interest, perhaps, centered in the first tournaments, for the academy classes were more interested in beating each other than in trying to win over the collegiates, while the senior and junior collegiates felt more eagerness to win from each other. However, at the last tournament the collegiate class always felt that they would be disgraced if beaten by the academy, a thing which rarely happened. The academy class which won in the academy tournament felt, moreover, that they must at least have a respectable score, and make it as hard as possible for their opponents to win. Then there was always the possibility of victory.

The senior academy of this year was especially good. Their team was made up of experienced players; their captain was a girl of good judgment and ability.

“Now, girls,” said Captain Hilary, “don’t imagine that we have already won this game. It may be close however. Remember how well these girls play. I feel sure that we can win if we are not over-confident and think that we need not play our best. Remember to keep your wits about you and feel that the game depends on how well each of you plays. I don’t think that this other team will try anything but straight, clean basket-ball, and let us be as careful. Look out that your interference is within rules.”

The senior collegiates had a little advantage over the other team in poise, but the academy girls were fast and eager. The game began under the close attention of a very much interested audience composed of the whole school, teachers, and as many visitors as the collegiate contest had boasted. The shrill whistle of the referee sounded “ever and anon,” as Isabel said to Cathalina, next to whom she sat, with a firm grip on Cathalina’s hand, which she clutched in her excitement. Cathalina said afterward that she could have shut her eyes and known how the game was going from Isabel’s grip and exclamations. This time, as a collegiate, Isabel had her heart with Hilary’s team. Isabel had grown out of the noisy period, but in tones loud enough to be heard by Cathalina, and by Virgie, on the other side of her, Isabel’s conversation ran on with the game. “O, get the ball, Hilary! That’s fine. Oh, mercy, she is going to try the basket herself instead of giving it to Pauline—she never can make it at that distance!” Quick withdrawal of Isabel’s hand from Cathalina’s, as with the rest of the audience she applauded Hilary’s placing the ball in the basket from an awkward position. “That was great ! A few more plays like that—sakes, we’ve lost the ball now. How in the world did that happen! That guard ought not to have been there! Good work, Juliet. Another basket! For pity’s sake, keep the ball. Pshaw, what a fumble! Jump for it girlie. There,—our ball. Good play. But they are pretty good at keeping our girls from making a basket. ‘Toot-toot,’ time’s up.”

Cathalina turned laughing to Isabel. “You need a rest as much as the team, Isabel. Virgie, did you ever see anybody as tense? I begin to get that way, too, but I don’t dare; it makes me almost sick.”

Virginia assented. “I have to hold myself in hand, too, but it doesn’t make Isabel sick. She thrives on excitement. She will go right to sleep tonight, while I will be seeing the game for half an hour at least. How much are we ahead?”

“Not enough to feel easy about for the rest of the game,” said Isabel. “I’ve got to work just as hard the rest of the time,” she added, with a whimsical smile.

“How did it ever happen that you did not play basket-ball on one of the teams?” asked Virginia.

“Promised my father and Jim that I wouldn’t.”

“Aren’t they interested in athletics?”

“The boys play everything, but Father and Jim said I shouldn’t except in just ordinary games, like the regular practice we used to have at camp. I have to display my prowess in the water sports.”

“You shine there, Isabel,” said Virginia.

“But at that I had to be rescued by Cathalina last year.”

“That was because you were hit by that log or whatever it was.”

“Just the same, I would have drowned, like anybody that couldn’t swim, if it hadn’t been for her. Here they come. Now for the tug of war!”

But in this last half of the game the senior collegiates had no trouble, apparently, in walking off with the honors. Anticipating a close struggle, they made a great effort to hold the ball, and did brilliant playing when it came to baskets, receiving enthusiastic applause. This rather discouraged the younger seniors, who were tired and beginning to feel the excitement. For them, everything seemed to go wrong, as it sometimes does. When they had the ball, somebody would fumble, or the interference kept them from accomplishing anything. The game closed with a good score in favor of the senior collegiates. But they joined with the audience in giving the senior academy yell, and heartily returned the generous congratulations, which the losing team offered them, with many a warm statement about how good a game they had played.

Lilian, Eloise and several others of the guitar and mandolin club had brought their instruments to help lead the singing of Greycliff songs at the beginning of the tournament or contest, and now escorted the winning team home with much strumming and singing. Just before entering the solemn doors of Greycliff Hall, the players lined up and gave the senior yell with great spirit:

“Seniors ’rah! Seniors ’rah! ’Rah-rah, Seniors Col-le-gi-ate!”

CHAPTER VI
THE RUSTLING OF WINGS

“No Ice Carnival, girls,” mourned Betty. “Of course we’ll not have any with just those infants at Grant Academy this year.”

“All the more time for other things, then,” said Eloise. “It will be warm before we know it. I have so many things to do, that if I stopped to count them up I would have to leave school in self defense! There is doing our ‘bit’ with the knitting and everything right along, of course, and I want to have time for canoeing and the other athletics this spring. Hilary, I am going to have as long a bird list as you, or perish in the attempt! Isabel, our canoe is going to beat in the senior-junior race.”

“Is it?” inquired Isabel in a tone which implied doubt. “Try it.”

Isabel was taking a butterfly pin out of a tiny box. She was the secretary and treasurer of the Psyche Club, and had ordered this pin for Betty, who had lost hers several months before. Not a whole year, her senior year, could she do without her butterfly pin, which stood for so much of Greycliff happiness and delightful friendship.

“How did Betty happen to lose her pin?” asked Eloise. “I wonder where it could be.”

“That is what Betty wonders. She doesn’t even know when it was lost, because, you know we keep our pins pinned on something for days at times. She thought that she took it off a wool frock to pin on a silk one, but she has hunted her dresses over, besides bureau drawers and every crack about the suite.”

It seemed that Greycliff days had wings. The girls complained that teachers in every course demanded more and more. “Patty thinks that we are taking nothing but her Latin and English,” remarked Cathalina, “and Dr. Carver is going to have us cover more ground this year in what is college Sophomore Latin than any class ever did. She said so! But she actually complimented the class on doing it, can you imagine it, Isabel?”

“I can not. I should pass into unconsciousness if I heard anything of the sort from her. But I am sorry for her. She had an awful time at first because she studied in Germany and couldn’t believe that they started things, and then she was more than half in love with Prof. Schaefer they say, and mad because the girls didn’t sign up for German, but after a talk with Miss Randolph she came around and there has been a distinct coolness between her and Prof. Schaefer of late.”

“Really, Isabel?” asked Hilary. “Cathalina and I once thought that it would be a match.”

“Once Miss Randolph told me a little about her life, girls,” said Cathalina, “and she has had a pretty hard experience, Miss Randolph said. It did not make me think any more of her methods, but has helped me to stand it. And she certainly does know what she is talking about. There are lots of different people in this world, aren’t there? I don’t suppose I would have known it if I hadn’t come to Greycliff, but it will make me interested in people outside the family circle now.”

“To go back to our work,” said Hilary, “our music director says that there never has been such a concert as he expects to have the girls give this Commencement, when all the parents and everybody can be here. The practice is taking a good deal of time, but it is such fun! There is the Glee Club and the double quartette and the orchestra—all practicing the most beautiful things! Lil is to sing as her second number one of her own songs, and Phil is writing the accompaniment for her now, in between times at camp. Aunt Hilary is coming this time to see her little namesake perform!”

“O, I heard a red-winged blackbird today, girls,” said Juliet, “down by the river near that place where the cattails grow. They will be nesting there.”

“That is fine,” said Hilary. “I must go down there; I haven’t one on my list yet. I was just thinking of how wonderful it all is this morning when I first woke up. I heard a bluebird and a robin singing, and I began to think about all the wings starting North on the spring migration. The Bible says something about the land of the ‘rustling of wings’ and that is what is happening now. Can’t you imagine how it is, some warm night when the wood warblers are flying, tiny little things with their weeny wings, and then the big birds, like the water birds. Then—presto—the sun comes up and lights up all the bright colors, the scarlet tanager and the rose-breasted grosbeak, the indigo bunting and the bluebird, the orange and black of the Blackburnian warbler, the cardinal,—come on, I’m going to get my glass and go down to the beach!”

“All right, Hilary, but remember that your flight of imagination looked forward into May. Don’t expect to find a rose-breasted grosbeak this afternoon.”

“No. Isabel, my imagination is subject to a little common sense. Where’s my note book, Lilian?”

“I put it with mine, right on the book-shelf by our geology notes. If you will wait a few minutes till I get this letter to Phil finished, I will come too.”

“If it is not too long,” replied Hilary, “but I know what happens when you strike a new vein of thought and remember some more things to tell him. Isabel, you might tell Virgie that we are going out to see what we can see. Perhaps she will want to go, too.”

The work of the field classes began a little later than usual that spring. Hilary, because her work and interest in this line had been a little more persistent than that of any others, was put in charge of one bird section. The classes went out in small groups, from the very nature of the study, for few birds would be seen by any large company, except at a distance. Cathalina’s generosity had long since supplied the “bird library” with the finest reference books and some strong field glasses and binoculars. A number of the girls had their own glasses, ranging in power from that of an opera glass to the strong lenses of various sorts. Outside of Lakeview Suite, probably the most enthusiastic bird “hunters” were Eloise and Isabel, and in friendly fashion, whenever any one saw a new bird for the season, word was passed around. Isabel dubbed her particular section “The Stealthy Prowlers.”

By the time the girls were ready to go to the beach, the party numbered six, Hilary and Eloise in the lead, Betty and Cathalina strolling along together, Isabel conducting an investigation by herself, and Lilian running down the hill last.

“It is almost too windy to see anything today,” said Isabel, looking at the scudding grey clouds above tossing waters.

“Let’s start up along the river. The little birds will hide away from the wind and the banks there along under the woods ought to have a number of good ‘finds.’ We ought to see some sandpipers there if nothing else. How chilly those gulls look. Some day we’ll row out to the breakwater and take down the different varieties we always see there every spring.”

“The Island is better, if you are willing to wait until the first picnic.”

Betty was looking off to see if by any chance the same government boat which had brought Donald before might appear upon the horizon. So suddenly had he come before, that she was prepared for anything. But no smoke from passing steamer could be seen in any direction.

“Poor old Betty,” said Eloise, with a little smile. “‘He cometh not, she said, I’m a-weary, a-weary,’— Tennyson! ”

“My bonny is over the ocean,” began Lilian, then with a sober look added, “They’ll all be over soon enough!”

Betty did not mind the teasing, but blew a kiss in fun out to the waves, and turned with the rest where the little river joined the lake. They picked their way along over wet sand and mud in places, as at times they were forced to ascend the bank.

“Here’s where the doughty Cathalina and Hilary rescued the sinking Isabel,” said Eloise, as they passed the famous spot. “More than once have I had it pointed out to me. In after years, when Isabel is famous for,—what are you going to be famous for, Isabel?”

“Debating in Congress,” replied Isabel without hesitation.

“All right,—in after years when the famous Senator Isabel Hunt startles the country with her eloquence, Greycliff will put a tablet here,——”

“And on it will be written,” continued Betty in grandiloquent style, “‘Saved for Greycliff and her country’!”

“Sh-sh!” whispered Isabel. “I saw something fly up stream, and I heard a spotted sandpiper call.”

The girls stopped to listen. The lyre-like notes of a red-winged blackbird came first to their ears, then a meadow lark sang from the fields behind Greycliff. A few grackles flew down to the river’s edge and walked in dignified fashion near the shallows.

“O, look!” exclaimed Cathalina, pointing to a little hollow ahead of them. “We shall find some anemones and bloodroot there I’m sure. Don’t you remember last year they were there, and just beyond is that lovely violet patch, if they are out yet.”

“Wait a minute, Cathalina,” said Hilary in a low tone, “what is that scratching away in those leaves? Could it be the ground robins?”

The glasses were all focused upon the little hollow before them, Hilary’s face growing brighter as she watched. She and Eloise turned to each other and in one breath whispered “Fox sparrows!”

“I’m so glad,” whispered Lilian. “I missed seeing them last year, for some reason. Look, there is a flock of them.” Several more of the pretty brown sparrows flew from across the river and joined those which the girls were watching.

“Can’t he scratch for a living, though?” remarked Isabel pointing to one that was making the leaves fly. “See him fly around with that reddish tail. What’s that little chap over there?—Oh, a junco. You are very pretty, sir, but I’ve got you on my list already and I am seeking other prey! However, I like your pink bill and your black hood and mantle.”

Just at that point, Betty lost her footing and stepped sidewise into a pool of water, exclaiming a little over her wet feet. With a little whir, the fox sparrows, and a small flock of juncos which had been hidden from sight, rose from the old leaves and fresh green of the new plants to fly away. But from across the stream there came a clear little carol which was some fox sparrow’s “goodbye,” so Cathalina said.

“I had no idea that there were so many juncos there,” said Lilian. “I was watching the fox sparrows when all at once those whisking white tail feathers came into view.”

“It’s the vesper sparrow that has those white feathers on the sides of the tail, too,—isn’t it, Hilary?” asked Betty.

“Yes, and other birds, too, but it is easy at a quick glance to identify these little birds that way, as they fly.”

“You’d better get back to the Hall, Betty,” said Cathalina. “We don’t want any cases of tonsillitis in Lakeview Suite. Come on, want a hand up?”

“No, thanks, Cathie, I’m still able to climb up a hillside.”

The girls scrambled up the hillside that led to the wood, while as they did so, Lilian called their attention to the sound of an airplane humming above them. “Another kind of a bird,” said she, “a humming bird.”

“More like a night hawk,” said Isabel, “circling around up there. Somebody is practicing. Perhaps it is the hydroplane.”

“Oh, no. That is a regular plane,—see?”

Out over the lake, back over the fields behind Greycliff, out of sight up river, behind the woods, appearing again and coming toward them, then turning away in the direction of “White Wings,” the plane finally disappeared entirely from view.

“I suppose it is from one of the aviation fields,” said Lilian. “I haven’t gotten used to them yet. I’m so glad that Phil isn’t in the aviation. It’s just as dangerous practicing as it is in battle.”

“Oh, no, not quite,” said Isabel. “There are a few more chances to fall under fire. There’s where I’d be if I were a soldier, sailing over the clouds,” and Isabel’s hand made all sorts of gyrations in illustration.

The girls became rather more sober in the thoughts of their brothers and friends that came to them with the suggestions of aviation and the camps. They hurried toward and into the Hall, Betty to change her shoes, and the other girls to hunt up the evening papers with the latest news from the front. Mail, also, was delivered, and Lilian received a long package from the camp where Philip was located.

“It’s the music manuscript, Hilary; let’s go into the society hall and try it over before dinner. I am crazy to see what sort of an accompaniment Phil has written. O, dear! If I could only hear him play it!—his beautiful hands and voice,—sometimes, Hilary, I think I can’t stand having him go to France and maybe——”

“Don’t say it, Lilian,” said Hilary, with a tender and understanding look. “We have to meet it. Someway I think our boys will come back.”

Lilian looked at Hilary’s sweet, strong face and felt comforted by her friend’s faith.

CHAPTER VII
THE NIGHT HAWK

Real night hawks fly by day as well as by night. It is not unusual to hear and see one as it circles over the city at near noon and calls its loud “Kee-ou.” And at night many a tempting insect, fit for a night hawk’s menu, flutters about the city lights. The name, then, which Isabel had given to the aeroplane was not so inappropriate. “There’s the Night Hawk,” she would say when the droning sound was heard. Whether there was only one plane, which chose this neighborhood for its manoeuvers, or several they did not know.

Greycliff girls were more busily occupied than ever, it seemed. The seniors were practicing and learning parts for the senior play, planning a Collegiate Field Meet with the juniors, preparing for final examinations, paddling, rowing, having beach parties, and rushing out at odd times to see the wood warblers, which were going through or stopping to nest there.

One afternoon about four o’clock, Betty, Isabel and Pauline were over in the meadows which stretched away from the foot of “high hill,” having been lured there by an ever-disappearing warbler, which would sing its little song and then fly to some farther perch. Now the song came from a little clump of bushes and small trees in the center of an expanse of meadow land.

“Oh, I wish it would be a chat,” sighed Isabel.

“It can’t be,” said Betty. “Its song is more like that of a myrtle warbler.”

“If it is a myrtle warbler, after all this chase, I shall be all out of patience,” declared Isabel. “Every other warbler I’ve seen is a myrtle warbler or a chestnut-sided! Hilary has seen ten different kinds already!”

“Listen, girls,” said Pauline, “there’s the plane right over us.”

Betty and Isabel looked up. “The Night Hawk,” said Isabel. “Why, there’s something the matter; it’s coming down!”

“Perhaps it’s just landing,” suggested Betty. “This is a good place.”

Realizing that they might be in the way, they scurried for safety’s sake to the little clump which they had been watching, and stood there to see the aeroplane land.

“There are two men!” said Pauline in surprise, as the aviators climbed out and one of them began to adjust something about the plane. “I’d like to turn the field glasses that way. I wonder if I couldn’t be looking at a meadow lark or something and accidentally swing the glasses around toward them!”

“I fear that it would not be very polite,” said Betty, laughing, “and I imagine that the better part of valor would be for us to start for the Hall.”

But no sooner had Betty spoken than they observed the idle aviator in the act of turning a field glass in their direction. A look seemed to satisfy him, for he touched his helmet in salute, and came hurrying over the grass toward them.

“What shall we do?” asked Betty.

“Wait and see who he is. He might be Donald.”

“No, it isn’t Donald at all,—it looks like,—it is—Oh, dear, help me to be polite, girls!”

“How fortunate I am,” said Captain Holley, as he came up to the girls. “My friend was taking me for my first ride in an aeroplane and something about it was not just right. I was quite glad to reach terra firma in safety. I suppose this is part of a bird class?” The captain was assuming all the dignity and patronage which as a teacher in a neighboring school he could take.

“Yes, Captain Holley,” replied Isabel, with remarkable meekness. “We were looking for a warbler and found a night hawk instead,—I have called this plane that we hear occasionally the ‘night hawk’,” she added on noticing that Captain Holley looked a little taken aback and startled. “Is it an army plane?” she continued, not thinking that as an ‘enemy alien’ he would not be permitted to ride in one.

“No, not exactly,” replied Captain Holley. “A friend of mine is experimenting. By the way, Miss Betty, do you know whether our young friend Donald Hilton has gone across yet?”

“No, I think not, but I think that he is to sail soon with one of the convoys.”

“Do you know the vessel on which he will sail?” continued Captain Holley pleasantly and with an air of slight preoccupation, as he looked back at the plane and the busy aviator. Isabel nudged Betty at this juncture, and replied for her:

“Oh, none of the boys know what vessel they are to go on or when, you know.”

Captain Holley, with perfect poise, paid no attention to Isabel’s reply, but looked inquiringly at the young lady whom he had addressed. Betty hesitated. “I have not heard for some time, but he wrote that he was hoping to go over before long. I know nothing definite.”

“Perhaps Donald will be back to see his friends before he goes,” suggested Captain Holley.

“I do not know as to that,” said Betty. “When men are in the army their time is not their own. Do not the people at Grant hear from their boys?”

“Sometimes,” assented Captain Holley.

The girls began to move off and Captain Holley managed to fall in by Betty and to detain her a little, while the other girls had no choice but to go in advance, though slowly.

“May I call some evening, Miss Betty?” asked Captain Holley.

“Certainly,” said Betty, who did not know how to get out of it, and felt that for some unknown reason she must keep this young instructor in a good humor.

“By the way,” said the young man, after he had thanked Betty and said that he would be over some time soon, “I found something which interested me very much the other day.” Unbuttoning his outer coat a little way, he touched, upon the lapel of the coat beneath, a little butterfly pin.

“O!” exclaimed Betty, “my butterfly pin!”

“But you have one,” smiled Captain Holley, buttoning his outer coat again.

“I had to send for another. Oh, you wouldn’t keep my pin, Captain Holley! Why, it has my name on it, and everything. Please! ”

But the captain merely smiled, made her a bow, and went back with rapid steps to the aeroplane whose aviator was beckoning.

“What do you think, girls!” exclaimed Betty. “He has my butterfly pin and wouldn’t give it to me!”

“Why, the idea !” exclaimed Pauline.

“That is certainly the limit!” said Isabel.

“And worst of all he was wearing it right on the lapel of his coat for everybody to see, and some of the boys over there know all about our Psyche Club.”

“I saw him fixing something before he started over toward us,” said Pauline. “I imagine he was putting it there. I don’t think that for his own sake he would wear it around there at Grant. He just wanted to tease you. He likes you, Betty.”

“He takes a funny way to show it, then.”

“I nudged you, Betty,” said Isabel, “because I thought if you did know anything about Donald’s sailing it would be better not to tell him. He might possibly tell some spy,——”

“Or be one himself,” added Pauline.

“Oh, no,” said Betty kindly. “I guess he isn’t that bad, though he has done some funny things.”

“What are you going to do about the pin?”

“When he comes over to call, I’ll try to persuade him to give it to me, and if he doesn’t, I’ll ask Miss Randolph what to do, though I would hate to have her know anything about it. Oh, I guess I can persuade him. But he has gotten so flirtatious lately whenever I have seen him. At that faculty party they had last week, when we girls served for them, Captain Holley came over to me, and talked and talked.”

“What did he talk about, Betty?”

“Oh, he wanted to know if Louise was pleasant to the girls, and if they like her,—that was a poser, but I got around it some way, and spoke of that compliment Patty gave her on her Latin lessons. Then he talked about me, always a pleasing subject, of course,” Betty’s dimples were in evidence then. “And he talked about himself, also, hinted that his family fortunes were going to change for the better, and asked me if I liked to travel.”

“Betty, you mischief! You are making that up!”

“Indeed, Pauline, I’m not. He would look at me once in a while, to see if I were taking it in. Of course, I was only seeing him out of the corner of my eye, and would raise a bland countenance to him and ask him some question about Grant, or something,—anything!”

“He is very handsome,” said Pauline, “has so much style, but it is hard to be fair now to an enemy alien no matter how innocent he may be.”

“Style?” said Isabel, “I call it pomposity. Look out for him, Betty.”

“I will,” laughed Betty, “but I’ll have to be nice till I get my pin back.”

“He found out whether you wrote to Donald or not, didn’t he?”

“Yes, Isabel, or rather that Donald wrote to me.”

“Well, the night hawk drove away the warblers from this spot and we’d better go back. I think that the aviator of the night hawk is a skilled gentleman. Look at the way it is performing up there.”

“Do you suppose that it really was Captain Holley’s first trip?”

“I doubt it, Pauline,” replied Isabel. “To change the subject, girls, do you mind if Virgie and I come over tonight to talk with you girls about the Inter-Society Debate? We want to have every point that can be thought up for and against. Sometimes it helps to talk it over with somebody who has not been thinking about the subject and has a different viewpoint.”

“We’ll be delighted to have you come,” said Betty, “but we are not a bit worried about the result of the contest, with you and Virgie on our team. It is the first time that there have been two juniors with such responsibility.”

“That is what worries us, for fear we won’t come up to expectations.”

“Have you gotten your main speeches ready?”

“Yes, and notes on all the points that we think they can bring up, ready for rebuttal. We’ve even spouted against each other, taking the different sides, either finding a weak point or defending a point. It is lots of fun, but takes so much time from our lessons!”

“All for the glory of the Whittiers, though, and it will soon be over with victory for us,—depend upon it.”

“I hope so, but Jane Mills will be fine, has so much self-confidence and a splendid memory for what her opponents have said.”

“Your memory is just as good, and your enthusiasm, united with having real arguments, will certainly carry the day for us. Hurrah for the Whittiers!”

“There go Eloise and Hilary, comparing bird lists, I suspect,” said Pauline. “Mercy, Cathalina, how you startled me!”

The girls were passing a tall hedge of bushes not far from the “pest house” just as Cathalina and the slim Juliet slipped between bushes, without seeing the girls, and crept along a step or two, on the bird trail also.

“Cathalina, you looked just like an ovenbird then,” said Isabel,—“like this,” and Isabel gave an exaggerated imitation of a stealthy walk. “Anyone would know that you and the ovenbird belong to The Stealthy Prowlers. Pauline scared your bird away, didn’t she?”

“That’s right, blame it on Pauline,” said that young lady.

“You were the one that called out, weren’t you?”

“I was, but then we were all hurrying along and talking. Cathalina, what do you suppose is the latest adventure of your giddy room-mate?”

“I’m sure I couldn’t guess,” said Cathalina, tucking back a sunny lock and brushing a dry leaf or two from her blue sweater. “What have you been doing now, Betsey?”

“Nothing at all but trying to find a warbler.”

“She found a night hawk instead,” said Isabel. “A gay young Lochinvar came out of the skies, and doubtless would have carried her off had it not been for Pauline and me.”

“Listen to Isabel’s raving!” exclaimed Betty. “I’ll tell you how it was, girls. It was an interesting adventure, but I was a passive observer.”

Betty’s account of the descending plane was a spirited one and the climax thereof was the sight of the butterfly pin on the lapel of the Captain’s coat.

“Oh, Betty!” exclaimed Lilian. “I don’t think that was a gentlemanly thing to do at all. I wonder what will happen to you next!”

CHAPTER VIII
THE BRIDLE PATH

The next Sunday came, bright and sunny. Girls who were busy bringing up their work mourned because they had to “waste so much time in study.” Early after lunch, a number of girls started off for their ride, one groom in charge. Most of these were seniors, whose experience in horseback riding guaranteed a good time. Greycliff boasted handsome horses, for some of which the girls felt a real affection. Juliet and Pauline were already mounted and holding in their impatient steeds, when Cathalina and Betty came down to the pavilion. Grooms were bringing out the horses, helping the girls to mount, which most of them did most easily.

Cathalina patted the black head of her pretty horse and whispered to him, “Nice old Prince, I think I like you best of all our horses. But we’ll have to change your name, I guess, because, as Kipling says, ‘the captains and the kings depart’ in these days. Come, Boy, quiet now.”

Betty called the groom to her and asked him to fix her saddle a little. “It feels loose, some way. Thank you.”

Cathalina pulled her horse beside Betty’s, as they waited for the entire company to assemble, and asked her what she was going to do after she came back. “I’d like to take a row, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, I’d love to, but I can’t. I’m going off by myself and bone, as Donald says, for that Lit. quiz on Monday. There are some things I haven’t read at all! I’ll try not to think of you girls out rowing. I’m just going for this ride and that is all the outing I’ll dare take. I love the bridle path through the woods, don’t you? There are so many lovely places along the shore, too. Do you remember that wonderful picnic we had before the boys went away?”

“Oh, don’t I!”

“There they go. Pauline is a fine rider, isn’t she?”

“Yes, but Juliet is even better, and I think that you are the prettiest thing on horseback that I ever saw.”

“Thanks, but you are partial.”

“Not a bit of it. It is my artistic eye.”

“Shall we bring up the rear? Come on, Calico. This horse has Arabian blood in him. See his spots?”

“Is that why they call him that ridiculous name?”

“I suppose so, but they often call horses that. Let’s catch up with Pauline if we can. There come Lilian and Hilary, I guess they are going. They are dressed for it, at least. See, they are explaining why they are late.”

In the woods, vines trailed down over their heads, branches met above them and the sunlight flickered down through lacy leaves once more. The riders slowed their horses to a walk or jogging trot, while the path wound between tall trees or spindling saplings. Further on, they had a gallop on the country road until they struck the bridle path along the shore, where a beautiful view of the lake was one of the attractive features. Miss Perin, the teacher who had “substituted for Patty,” as the girls said, on the picnic at White Wings, was with the girls and let them stop occasionally to examine a wild flower or pursue some new bird a little distance.

“There’s a wonderful old farm-house over there, Miss Perin,” called Juliet. “Can’t we ride up their drive and see if we can get some milk?”

“You are not hungry now, are you?”

“I am starved, aren’t you, Pauline?” The girls laughed, but looked at Miss Perin with beseeching glances. “Girls are almost always hungry on a ride, you know, Miss Perin.”

“Or anywhere else,” said Miss Perin, “All right; lead the way, Juliet.”

It was a modern place up whose concrete drive they trotted, Juliet bringing up her horse in style at a side entrance, where a very small girl sat on a stool just inside a latticed path. She ran out upon the upper step to see who was coming, then quickly ran back and hid behind the lattice, peeping out at them.

“Little girl, will you ask your mother if we can have a drink of milk?” asked Juliet, in coaxing tones. A bareheaded, barefooted little boy next came running around the corner of the house and stood still, blinking in the sun and staring at the girls and horses. The girls sat on their horses and looked in turn at the clean lawn, the flower beds, the comfortable looking brick house with its newly painted grey blinds and wide front porch, the big barns and tall silo, the stretching fields, one of them with a herd of handsome Holstein cattle.

“Here is wealth, health and contentment,” said Juliet, just as a thin, tall woman came from the porch and descended the steps, an inquiring look on her face. “Pardon me,” continued Juliet. “One time when some of us were riding we got some milk here, and we think that it would taste very good again.”

“Are you the girls from the school?” asked the woman, smiling a little.

Miss Perin replied this time, “Yes, these are the girls from Greycliff.”

“Oh, yes, I see. Once in a while some of them stop, but we can’t always let them have the milk. And we charge a good price for it,” she warned. “We have enough today, though.”

The girls dismounted, tying their horses, or letting the groom do it, to the fence that ran along one side of the driveway.

“Don’t tie yer horse to no tree,” said the little boy, waving back one of the girls who was about to fasten her horse to a young peach tree. “They either breaks the branches or gnaws the bark,” he added.

The little girl had overcome her shyness by this time and was edging outside of the porch, trying to make up her mind whether she dared descend or not, among so many big girls. A big man, dressed roughly for his chores, came from one of the barns and added to the audience as he stood and watched the girls and his children from a distance.

Presently the woman reappeared carrying a big, white pitcher, and a young girl of about the same age as the Greycliff girls brought a tray of glasses, shining and clean.

“It can’t cost more than a Buster Brown or a pecan fudge sundae,” said Pauline. “Doesn’t it look good?” The milk was being poured by this time, creamy and cool.

Lilian, meanwhile, had found a few pieces of candy in her pocket and was coaxing the little girl to talk to her. The candy was left from Phil’s last tribute, ordered from New York, since he was not there to send it to her. Cathalina, too, fumbled in her pockets and discovered a little red pencil, with a silk cord attached, which had been used for some society doings and recently put in her pocket as convenient for taking her bird notes when afield.

“What is your name?” asked Cathalina.

“Charlotte,” replied the child, much taken with the red pencil.

“I have a cousin Charlotte, who is just about as old as you are, I think. Do you go to school yet?”

The child shook her head and broke away from the girls to show her treasures to her mother, who was too busy, however, to pay much attention.

“It’s a shame we haven’t anything for the little boy!” exclaimed Cathalina. “I haven’t another thing in my coat pocket but a handkerchief.”

“I believe I’ve got one of those pencils,” said Hilary, “and I put a little memorandum book in my pocket this morning. I though we’d certainly see something new, but I haven’t made a note in it.”

Hilary searched her pockets to see if she, too, had brought one of the pretty pencils, for she usually preferred a more substantial kind and had provided one of that sort for this trip. But she found a bright blue one, which she hastened to offer to the small boy with the memorandum book, and received a beaming smile as a reward.

By this time the farmer himself had joined the company and took the empty glasses from Miss Perin and Betty, who happened to be standing together. “Did you hear about the bomb explosion?” he asked.

“No, where?”

“O, a piece up the road, about ten mile, I reckon,—railroad bridge. Something went wrong and it wasn’t hurt much, but a troop train was about due. They’ll have to guard all them bridges. Some queer doin’s around here.”

Betty’s mind immediately flew to the cave and the queer men. Miss Perin’s brow contracted. “You wouldn’t think there was anybody who could do anything like that.”

“Easier to kill ’em off here before they get over, I suppose—a bombed train or a ship sunk by a submarine, not much difference.”

The girls settled for their milk and the contents of a jar of cookies, not a trace of which remained, and the cavalcade moved on, this time toward Greycliff. Cathalina and Betty fell back to the rear, though all the horses traveled at a pretty good pace, as horses do when their faces are turned homeward.

“Really I don’t want to hurry,” said Betty, “even if I ought to. Perhaps I can study better.”

“I wonder what time it is,” said Cathalina, “I did not put on my watch.”

“Neither did I,” said Betty, “but the wood thrushes have been singing steadily for some time and I’ve noticed that they begin to tune up about three o’clock sun time. We lost lots of time at the farm-house. It will be pretty late by the time we get home, I mean, late to begin studying. Don’t worry if I’m not at dinner. I’ll get excused afterwards. Would you mind making me a sandwich and putting it somewhere in the suite where nobody will eat it up?”

“Oh, Betty, you ought to take time to eat!”

“Dinner takes too long. I’d rather have the time here.”

“I feel more like hurrying, if we get a row before dinner.”

“Let’s catch up, then.”

The girls had been lagging behind the rest for a few minutes, as they were in the bridle path in the woods, the last lap before the final gallop to Greycliff Hall, and the groom who kept behind them, according to orders, had shown some slight restlessness, though he did not interrupt their conversation. The column of riders closed up, and some one from in front called to the groom to come and fix something. He passed a dozen of the girls till he reached the one who needed assistance, and as they were in sight of the school, he did not return to his position as rear guard, but kept along with the rest.

“Don’t wait for me, Cathalina,” said Betty, “I see something I positively must have for my book of Greycliff flowers. Gallop along, I’ll be there in a minute.” So saying, she waved her hand to Cathalina, who gave reins to Prince. He needed no urging to hurry through the rest of the way in the wood and to gallop, with clattering feet, on the road which led so shortly to Greycliff.

At the point where Betty stopped, the wood was open for a little way in the direction in which Betty had seen the bright flower. Instead of dismounting, then, Betty turned her horse aside and advanced toward the spot, thinking that she would hold “Calico” while she picked the flower. But Calico was nervous. He wanted to get on with the rest, and when a rabbit started up from almost under his feet, he suddenly bolted, and before Betty could tighten her loose reins he darted ahead where the woods was still open, paying no attention to Betty’s “Whoa, whoa, Boy! Whoa, Calico! Steady now!”

Betty shook her feet lose and prepared for the worst. “If he goes under those trees, I’ll try to catch hold of a limb,” she thought. But being unexpectedly whirled among the trees does not give one much of a chance for any gymnastic exploit. Calico stopped suddenly in front of an apparently impenetrable wall of bushes, and as Betty shot over his head, wheeled and started in another direction.

Meanwhile, Cathalina, galloping with the gay company of seniors and others, had never a thought that anything could happen to Betty. At the pavilion she slipped quickly from her fiery Black Prince, as she called him, ran to catch up with Hilary and Pauline who were ahead of her, hurried to Lakeview Suite, donned more suitable attire for the lake, and joined Hilary, Lilian and some of the other girls who were bound for the same place. Arrived at the lake, they found the waters smooth, and to their delight, the Greycliff ready to take any of the girls for a ride. It had recently come in from a trip to White Wings and was only waiting to be filled up again.

“This is better for lazy folks like me than rowing,” said Cathalina.

“We are all pretty tired after our long ride anyway,” said Hilary. “Poor Betty! I don’t believe she could have resisted this, if she had known that the Greycliff was going out. Had she come when you left Cathalina?”

“No; I was only a few minutes behind you girls. I was almost ready when I told you to start on. She was going to gather a flower or two she saw for her book. I imagine she stayed to talk to some of the girls at the pavilion.”

“Eloise couldn’t come, either, had a music lesson. She had forgotten it and went back, after she saw the Greycliff and everything. ‘O!’ she said, ‘There’s that music lesson!’ The next minute she was running up to the hall on the double-quick.”

“How lovely the sky and lake, and the shore, with its trees and cliffs, look when everything is safe and happy!” said Lilian, who was sitting in the bow, watching the water and the clouds, and thinking of Philip.

“Were you thinking of the ‘Wreck of the Hesperus’?” asked Isabel, who sat next.

“No, I was thinking of the boys and of how quickly sometimes things can change.”

Isabel patted Lilian’s hand. Quietly the girls sat as the boat cut through the water and rocked a little when Mickey turned it about to take them back. Nobody felt like singing, but if they had, Betty, lying in the woods, could not have heard them.

Dinner-time came. “Where is Betty?” asked Hilary, who sat at the head of a table now. When there were not enough teachers to go around, senior girls were chosen to grace the head of tables. Betty and the rest of the suite-mates sat at the same table.

“Betty asked me to make a sandwich for her and put it where it would not be eaten. I think she meant to stay in the library. Dorothy, you were reading in the library, weren’t you? Did you see Betty?”

“No, but she may have been in the stacks. I was over by the reference books.”

“She ought not to do this,” said Hilary, “but I won’t see you if you make a sandwich, Cathalina. She will be starved.”

“We had that milk in the afternoon,” said Dorothy.

“I think we have a few crackers in the suite, too,” added Cathalina.

After dinner the girls had their usual time of recreation, some of them outdoors, some at the pianos, some visiting in different parts of the hall; then the three girls of Lakeview Suite met in their rooms and prepared to study. Hilary declared that she could scarcely keep her eyes open and was going to bed as soon as she finished reviewing her French.

“I think I will go early, too,” said Lilian. “Not having ‘society’ last night put me ahead with my work.”

An hour or so went by, then Hilary and Lilian began to take down their locks and braid them, while they finished the last of their student tasks.

“Thanks, Lil, I was hoping you would bring me my comb when you got yours, but couldn’t quite bring myself to ask you.”

Cathalina yawned. “I wonder how late Betty will stay up.”

“What time is it?” asked Hilary, whose back was toward the clock.

“Eight-thirty, almost. I believe I’ll go over to the library and hunt up Betty,—O, I forgot. I certainly can’t do it in this rig.” Cathalina looked down upon her silk kimono and smiled. “Oh, hum. I guess it’s moonlight, isn’t it?” she said as she crossed the room to the window. Kneeling on the window-seat, she looked out to see a fitful moonlight and a moon crossed by floating clouds. Then she startled the girls by an explanation,—“Why, girls! Here are all Betty’s books!”

“Well?” said Lilian inquiringly, “Wasn’t she going to read at the library?”

“Not altogether, and besides, here are her notes, and everything that she told me she had all ready to use when she came back. Why, girls ! I’ll have to go to the library now.”

Nobody was sleepy then. Cathalina dressed as quickly as possible and started over to the library. Hilary and Lilian started on the rounds of the rooms and suites in which Betty might possibly be visiting. No Betty, and the first bell rang for the close of study hours.

Cathalina came back looking frightened. “She isn’t anywhere over there, or in the practice rooms, or the chapel, and I even went over to the pest house, thinking that she might have slipped in there to see somebody. But after all, girls, those books on the window-seat tell the story, because I know that she was going to use them.”

Hilary and Lilian had been the rounds, too, but agreed with Cathalina that the presence of the books indicated something wrong, or at least a different plan.

“I’m going right down to Miss Randolph and she will tell us what to do,” decided Cathalina.

“We’ll dress and come down, too,” the girls assured her.

Miss Randolph listened gravely to Cathalina’s story, sandwich and all. “The first thing to do,” said she, “is to find out if the horse Betty was on came in. I can’t see, though, if the groom was riding according to orders, how Betty could have been left behind. It was a new groom, however.”

“Oh, yes, Miss Randolph, I remember that he was called up front to fix one of the girls straps or saddle or something, and Betty said she was just going to gather that one flower and for me to hurry on. I supposed she was coming and I don’t remember a thing but hurrying to get to the Hall. There was such a crowd of us at the pavilion.”

“I’ll call up the stables. It is possible that with the horses turned into the pasture, the absence of one would not be noticed. What horse did you say Betty had?”

“Calico,” replied Cathalina with a smile. “Betty was talking about his being part Arabian.”

There was some delay. Miss Randolph called again and several men went out into the pasture to see if the spotted horse were there. It would not have been hard to see in the moonlight, but Calico was not in the pasture. Cathalina was waiting for the report. When it came, Miss Randolph’s voice shook a little, as she told Cathalina to go up and put on a wrap. “You will have to go with us to show us the place where you saw Betty last,” she said. “Don’t alarm the girls, or tell anybody but those who already know. Tell them to go to bed. The bell for lights out has rung, so only your suite-mates will have to know about it. Perhaps Betty is all right. I hope so.” Miss Randolph turned again to the telephone and Cathalina flew upstairs as fast as her feet could carry her.

Miss Randolph had too much faith in her girls’ keeping the rules, or pretended to have, though pretence and Miss Randolph were scarcely acquainted. When Cathalina got upstairs, out of breath and excited, the room was full. Hilary and Lilian were fully dressed. Pauline, Helen, Eloise and Juliet were still in their usual study-hour habiliments. Isabel’s slippered feet peeped out from her white night-robe, and her kimono was only gathered around her shoulders.

“We went down, Cathalina, as we said we would, but Miss Randolph was telephoning and we did not dare knock. What is it? Any news? Hilary and Lilian were both speaking at once, while the other girls, in hushed silence, waited for Cathalina to get her breath and reply.

“Calico isn’t in. I’m to go at once and show them where I saw Betty last. Miss Randolph said for me to get a wrap and come down, and for everybody to go to bed. I guess she meant for me to think that Betty is just lost in the woods. Oh, girls, if I just hadn’t gone on! Here we have been having a good time and maybe Betty——”

“Hush, Cathie,—it wasn’t your fault,” said Hilary. “Come, now, let’s not imagine the worst. I’ll go downstairs with you, Cathalina, even if we do get scolded. Here is your coat. You’d better have a scarf or something on your head, too. Miss Randolph is right; everybody ought to go to bed. Come over in the morning, girls, and you will probably find Betty here.”

Such was Hilary’s influence that the girls, Isabel and Virgie shivering with nervousness, departed at once to their rooms to crawl into bed, and after declaring that they should not sleep a wink, to fall sound asleep not to waken until the rising bell should wake them.

By the time Cathalina had gone downstairs, Miss Randolph was ready. She smiled at Hilary and Lilian, told them to go to bed, took Cathalina’s arm and started. Capable Mickey was on hand, as Cathalina was glad to see, and helped them into the small car which had been brought around in front of Greycliff Hall. There was several men on horseback, armed with large flashlights.

It seemed only a minute before they came to the bridle path which started off the main road. Then Cathalina and Miss Randolph were put on horses and led along the path until they came to the spot where Cathalina said Betty had stopped. With flashlights they examined the place and saw the hoof marks where Calico had stampeded. Cathalina wondered why she and Miss Randolph had not been put on horseback at first, then shudderingly realized that they might need the car for Betty. As soon as Cathalina had identified the spot, she and Miss Randolph were led back to the car to wait while the search went on; but just as they started, a loud whinny was heard from the depths of the woods further on, and the men started in that direction. “That is our horse!” exclaimed Miss Randolph. “It must be!”

“Why don’t they call to Betty?” asked Cathalina.

“They will pretty soon,” replied Miss Randolph, and sure enough, there were a few loud hails that came to their ears as they sat in the car.

Presently, one of the men came to report that the horse had been found, the saddle partly off, and the bridle so caught in a strong branch that the animal could not get away. “Miss Betty was not anywhere near the horse, nor near the place where the horse must have bolted. We think that it would be better for you and Miss Cathalina to go back to the Hall. We are intending to stay out all night, if necessary, to find the girl.”

Cathalina looked around at the shadows, the dark trees and bushes, wondering if Betty were somewhere among them and thought of what Lilian had said in the afternoon about its all being so beautiful “when every thing was safe and happy.”

CHAPTER IX
WATER WINGS

It looked very much as if this were Betty’s final adventure. She lay upon the ground, on one side, where she had rolled from the elevation about the trunk of a huge tree. Both arms were over her head, for she had tried to catch the branches as she was thrown. Tossed over the bushes, she had just escaped being hurled against the tree, but had struck her head on one of its large roots as she fell. Her face was pale, her hands and arms limp, her brown hair a tumbling mass about the dark collar and shoulders of her riding coat. For a long time she lay so, then gradually began to come to a very sick consciousness of her condition and surroundings. Her arms were stiff as she drew them down to hold an aching, dizzy head. She tried to raise herself on her elbow, but fell back again and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they rested on a little ground squirrel that sat at attention on a projection of the root which had made the large lump on Betty’s head, as she later discovered by the stain there.

“Hello, little chap,” she said, whereat the chipmunk whisked out of sight behind the tree. Betty tried to think what had happened, and turned over on her back, her arm under the bruised head, looking now into the leafy branches of the big elm. A fat wood thrush flew upon one of the lower limbs and sang “Come to me,” most consolingly. Every dark spot upon his breast was in view, and he spread his wings, preened his feathers, turned this way and that, changed the key of his song, went from major to minor, and tinkled his little musical bell from time to time.

“Aren’t you a darling?” asked Betty, smiling a little crooked smile. “Oh, yes; I got thrown. It was Calico. I’m supposed to be ‘boning’ on Lit., and it’s little Betty who will have to get herself out of this mess. I can’t be so awfully far in this woods. But I imagine that Calico has found his way home. Maybe they will come after me. No broken bones anyway, unless my head,” and Betty smiled again her drawn smile. “Now I’m going to sit up!” And sit up she did. She gathered up her loose hair, wet and stained, and finding still a hairpin or two, fastened it on top of her head, away from the aching lump. “My, it’s getting dark. I’ll have to hurry.”

But there was no hurrying for Betty. She crawled to the tree and drew herself up against it. “If I could only see where the sun is, I could tell the direction,” she thought. Then she wondered if she were near enough to the lake to hear it and listened attentively. She could not be very far from the bridle path, and yet the horse had run into the woods for quite a distance. Oh, well, she didn’t know what would happen, but she might as well try to get out of the woods some way. Deciding on the direction, she staggered from tree to tree at first, but came to no clearing, and it kept growing darker. It was hard to keep in any one direction when there were so many thick bushes to go around, and the time seemed very long. Every little while Betty would have to sit down, all sick and dizzy, to rest. The night air was chilly and little noises startled her.

Finally, she seemed to come into a narrow path, and presently she heard the sound of waves. She had at last come through that almost impenetrable woods to the lake shore. “Now I can find the way home,” she thought, though what part of the shore she would reach she had no idea.

Feeling her way along slowly, Betty would lose the path at times, then find herself back upon it again, and while she watched, for fear she might walk over the edge of some bluff, she saw a glimmer through the trees, then found herself before an open door from which shone the feeble light of a lantern. She staggered in, and dropped into a straight chair which was propping open the door. At once she heard voices outside, and began seriously to doubt the wisdom of her walking into the place. She looked around. There was a long table roughly made and upon it stood bottles of chemicals and different tools. This was no real house,—what had she stumbled upon? Could this be the house over the cave? But it was too late to get away, for they were almost at the door. Betty could hear the conversation now. It was partly in English, partly in simple German, and Betty thought to herself that, after all, having studied German was not such a waste of time as she had felt. There were words here and there which she did not recognize, but to her horror she realized that these were the men who were responsible for the attempt on the bridge. They were explaining to some one evidently in authority over them, and excusing themselves for their failure. The other man spoke harshly, telling them that there would be a search and they must conceal the evidences of their work at this place.

“Tomorrow the government boat will be down here. Fishing pretence will not deceive them. They will search everywhere. The secret service men are already on the trail. Signal for the hydroplane. You can work for White Wings till this blows over. Throw all that stuff into the lake. Did you remove all the bombs from the cave?”

Betty’s heart sank as she recognized the voice. It was that of Captain Holley. She rose, having some wild idea of trying to escape, but did the best thing that she could have done under the circumstances. Fright, chill, and the injured head were too much for her, and she sank to the floor by the chair in a faint.

Round the corner of the little house walked the three men and stopped astonished at the sight of the fallen figure in the doorway. Betty would have been still more frightened if she could have seen the revolvers drawn, and heard Captain Holley’s angry exclamation as he discovered who she was. “It is one of the young ladies from the school,” said he, stooping over her. Betty was regaining her senses, but did not dare move. Stepping over her, still with revolver in hand, he went inside and looked around to see if she had any companion.

“She has seen too much. Throw her in the lake,” growled one of the men.

“There is no one else here,” said Captain Holley, returning. Lifting Betty he laid her on a bench which stood against the wall inside. “She has been thrown, I judge, and has come through the woods.”

“They will be hunting for her, too,” said the same man who had spoken.

“If they catch us, it will be better if we have treated her well,” spoke the second man.

“If they get us, they can prove nothing unless she tells them something. Throw her in the lake, I say.”

A sharp reproof from Captain Holley stopped further remarks, and the two men began to bundle up various articles, with the bottles and other things on the table. “Row out a little distance before you drop them,” was the order.

As the men left the room, Betty moaned a little, to give warning that she was conscious, and Captain Holley came over to look at her. Taking a flask from his pocket, he poured a small dose of something into a dingy glass which stood by a pitcher on the table, diluting it with water from the pitcher. Betty opened her eyes and stared at him without a word as he lifted her head and gave her the stimulant. She drank, not knowing but it might poison her, for she had little confidence in the gentleman who was giving it to her. But she felt much better after swallowing the hot dose and said, “Thank you, Captain Holley,—can you take me home, please?”

“I do not know,” he replied non-commitally,—“what can I do. I have a serious errand. I dare not leave you here alone, and I can not take you home now.”

“Oh, I am afraid of those men,— do not leave me!” cried Betty.

“Did you have a fall?”

“Yes; I waited to pick a flower and told the girls, or Cathalina to go on.”

“What became of the horse?”

“I don’t know. If he had gone home, I should think they would have come for me right away. I must have been unconscious a long time.”

“Miss Betty, I have been interested in you for some time. Could you think of going away with me tonight. Could you forget your prejudice against my nation? I shall have large sums of money and could make you happy.” The young man’s eyes sparkled as with perfect poise he stood looking down on the forlorn Betty.

Betty’s eyes closed in sick surprise. Surely no girl ever listened to a proposal under such difficult circumstances. While not an actual assassin, the man had been planning death for her countrymen and justified it under the name of patriotism for another country. He had been playing a part at Grant Academy.

“Oh, Captain Holley!” she cried—“I’m too sick to think of anything! No, of course I would not go away with anybody without my parents’ knowledge! But I do trust you to be good to me,” she added, her lips trembling.

“You are a very beautiful girl,” said Captain Holley, his cold face expressing no feeling now. “You will think of me and change your mind. Come.”

Betty had heard the humming of a motor, but remembered that she must not show any knowledge of what had been said about the hydroplane.

Putting his arm around the shaken girl, the young officer led her down some rude steps at the rear of the building to the foot of the bluff. She thought as she went how cleverly these must be concealed. But as she reached the bottom, she felt so sick again, that she reeled against her companion, who picked her up, carried her over the rocks and put her into something at the water’s edge, something with wings, a dark shadow in the night, for the moon was hid by clouds.

Betty was fastened in and off they glided, presently rising from the water and cutting through the cold night air. Betty had ceased to care what became of her, though she drowsily longed to get to some comfortable place and go to sleep. These were water wings indeed, more interesting than the “night hawk,” but how cold it was! Next, they were descending, upon the water once more, and approaching some landing.

Dazed and stiff, she was lifted out. Captain Holley gave a sharp whistle and a man came running to the landing. “Take it right back, for they have need to hurry. They were destroying the contents of the hut, but it is too late. I saw the vessel lying off to the east as I came. Look out for the marines. Our men were to row off from land and wait for you, signaling when they heard the motor. I shall be waiting for you in the plane, at the accustomed place.”

This was in English, and the reply was in the same language. The young captain was evidently under strong excitement. He half carried Betty some little distance to a house, where a stern looking woman opened the door. To her the officer used a strange language which Betty thought might be Russian, and they talked rapidly while a fire was being made and a kettle of water put on the stove. Another man appeared and all three left the room. There was the noise of furniture being moved, of people going up and down stairs and talking.

After a little, the woman came in again, made Betty a cup of strong hot tea and brought it to her on a plate which also contained a piece of bread and butter and a small, round cake. The little meal was very refreshing. Betty ate it and watched the woman making hurried preparations for another lunch, setting several plates on the kitchen table, for it was into the kitchen that Betty had been brought and placed in an old-fashioned rocking chair near the stove.

She had just finished the last drop of tea when Captain Holley came running lightly down the stairs, as she could hear, and entered the room, drawing up a chair. Catching the eye of the woman, he pointed to the door and she obediently went out.

“I have had a cot put in the attic with everything that you will need. It will be safer. Whatever you may hear, do not come downstairs until morning. Will you remember?”

“Yes.”

“Come in, Sofia. Help this lady upstairs and give her the key .”

As Betty left the kitchen, she turned and saw her strange admirer standing erect and still, in his aviator’s costume, looking after her with an expression almost stern. She stopped a moment. “Thank you, Captain Holley, more than I can tell, for your protection.” He did not reply, but raised his hand in salute.

It was a tiresome climb to the attic for one in Betty’s lame condition, but at last the woman opened a door at the head of the stairs and ushered her into a dusty, close place, pointing toward a clean cot in a space which had been hastily cleared from rubbish. An old wash-stand had been moved up near the cot and contained water-pitcher and towels, which Betty was very glad to see. Handing Betty the key, the woman went downstairs, and Betty turned the key in the lock with great satisfaction, feeling almost safe, if she was in a strange garret, as she said afterward. She had known the time when she was afraid of attics at night, but this was so safe by comparison that she did not think of being frightened. When she had bathed her face and carefully combed as much of her hair as was not matted over the wound, she felt more like the old Betty. Cold compresses felt good to the sore spot and loosened the hair over it. “I am whole up to date,” she thought, “and perhaps I can persuade his highness to let me go in the morning. Why, this is an electric light! I don’t know any place in the country around here that has it but White Wings. Of course it is White Wings. Where else could a hydroplane come from? If I hadn’t been so stupid, I would have recognized it.” A cord dangled from the ceiling with a dingy little bulb swinging at its end, and Betty carefully located it relative to the bed before she turned off the light and crawled into a slightly lumpy but very welcome cot. The coarse gown provided was clean, and the little pillow soft. Air came from somewhere, though she had seen no windows. The atmosphere of the place would soon be improved, she concluded.

The tea had made her less sleepy. For some time after she had thanked Providence for her safety, she lay awake, wondering what Greycliff folks were doing, what would come of this adventure, and how she was going to get back. “I need a doughty knight to come and rescue the princess in the tower!” Betty giggled at the thought and grew drowsy, her head aching less, until finally she dropped into a slumber perhaps less disturbed than that of her suite-mates, who were still dressed and curled up on the outside of their beds. Miss Randolph was sleeping scarcely at all, and there were men searching the woods and shore for her all night. Although she knew that Captain Holley was concerned in this dreadful work as a spy, she felt that he had a fancy for her and that she was comparatively safe in any refuge of his choosing. The last sounds that Betty heard were of people hurrying about, an occasional door closing noisily. The ever-shifting moonlight crept into a little round window behind some heavy furniture and threw long shadows from the dusky objects in the attic over the lonely little figure in the old cot.

CHAPTER X
BETTY FINDS HER CAMERA

In the morning, Betty wakened with the feeling that she was too stiff to move. She had taken cold from the exposure and ached all over. Her head seemed “two sizes too large,” as she thought, and she lifted it cautiously from the pillow to look around. Not having her watch, she did not have any idea what time it might be. Everything was still about the house, but from the outside she heard bird songs, the chickens, and the farm animals. “It’s White Wings all right,” said Betty, as she decided to dress. She turned on the light again, though there was sunlight, if dim, and she could see at one end of the room a window covered with a dark curtain. She did not care to traverse the dusty floor till she was dressed, but when that was at last accomplished, she peered around in such parts of the place as she could go without fear of bumping a head already too sore, and found the open, round window behind an old highboy and a tall bookcase. As she peeped out of the window, she could see the little ice house and the shed which had been built for the hydroplane. “Probably they kept the ‘night hawk’ there too,” she thought.

Retracing her steps, she noticed a familiar object, among a pile of things on a large box near her cot. Could it be? Yes, there was the Red Cross seal which one of the girls had stuck in one corner. She reached over, threw aside a pile of old clothing and drew out her camera. It was covered with dust, but seemed to be unharmed. She looked at once to see if the film were there, the film with the pictures of the birds, the scenes and the people of White Wings,—but it had been taken out.

“H’m,” said Betty to herself, “that was why my camera disappeared. That man was into this work and did not want any pictures of himself thrown around.” Betty shivered, looked around the attic, and was seized with a desire to get out of it as soon as possible. Gathering up the few articles which she had not yet put on, she hurried to the door, key in hand. The light was dim, and as she fumbled with the key in the lock, she saw something on the floor, an edge of something white. When she opened the door, this proved to be folded paper, which she picked up. She listened a moment. Not a sound inside the house as yet. Betty ran down the stairs, opened another door, and found herself on the second floor, in a hall from which bedroom doors opened, bedrooms all upset from hurried packing. She stopped and listened again, then ran down to the first floor and unlocked and opened the front door. Ah, freedom felt so good! But she went into the house again and went through the first floor, determined to find out if she really were alone. There was no one in the house. Dishes unwashed and food left standing were on the kitchen table.

Betty thought of the telephone, then, and took down the receiver before it occurred to her that the wires would be cut. They would not risk her waking and trying to communicate with Greycliff. There was, of course, no response. “Very well,” thought Betty, “if no one comes, I could walk it and swim the river, or walk around to the bridge. Or, of course, there are other farm-houses between here and Greycliff. I believe I’d better get something to eat.” But the chances were that some one would come, for if these people had been obliged to leave so hurriedly, they must have been quite sure that they were or would be under suspicion. Something had happened.

On the pantry shelf stood a bread box containing the best of home-made bread. There was a refrigerator, also, in which she found butter, milk and cream, with other things which she did not want. Jam, jelly, pickles and canned fruit on the shelves might have looked good to her under other circumstances. But she cut herself one slice of bread, and found a clean glass into which she poured some milk. Spreading the bread thinly with butter, she ate it slowly, sipping the milk, preparing herself to get back to Greycliff if she had to walk! Then she thought of the horses which she might saddle and ride. And what about the stock, anyhow? Had they used the horses to carry them away? Very likely. Who had fed the other stock? She had heard the cows lowing. All that was to be discovered. She had forgotten about the note. What had she done with it. Oh, yes, she had put it in her pocket.

Having finished her breakfast, Betty pulled the note from her pocket and read:

Little Bettina:

A word of goodbye. Our cause is discovered. I wish that I could take you with me, but my strange duties forbid. Do not marry that stupid American boy,—but no danger. Our armies will see to that. After the war we shall see. I can make you a countess.

In haste—

Rudolph Von Holle.

Betty dropped the note into her lap in perfect surprise. “He came up and left that note, and has gone, run away from Grant and everything! ‘Stupid American boy,’ indeed! I wonder if he really did care about me. It’s funny way of caring, and still he has kept anything from hurting me. Oh, dear! I wish somebody’d come! If it were Juliet or Pauline, the stock would get fed and the milking would be done, but I don’t feel like poking about the barns. There might be somebody left around.” Betty stood a moment, thinking what she ought to do, then decided that her father and mother would want her to be cautious. Slowly she walked again to the front door and looked out. She saw nothing, but heard a motor and quickly withdrew, locking the door. The other outside doors were locked she knew, for she had carefully tried them before settling down to her little breakfast. What she feared was the return of the “night hawk” or the hydroplane, in spite of the note in her hand. Perhaps not all were suspected and after helping the others off were coming back. There was the White Wings motor boat, too. These things flashed through her mind while she stood looking out of the front window in one of the rooms.

It was not the “night hawk.” The sound was different. It was a boat. She could not see through the trees what sort of a boat it was that was landing, and waited, all ready to whisk upstairs to the attic and lock herself in, or to slip out the back way and hide in the woods, if she could reach them without being seen. The sheltering vines of the little vineyard on the hillside were not so far away. Like a little Indian maid she might perhaps slip from covert to covert.

But all this planning was unnecessary. To Betty’s great relief, she saw marines running rapidly across the way from the picnic grounds and up the ascent toward the house. But their guns were ready for action, and Betty drew back from the window, undecided just how to let them know she was there. In a moment the house was surrounded and a loud voice called, “Open the door and surrender!” Another voice which she recognized immediately called, “Betty! Betty! Are you there?”

“Oh, Donald,” she answered. “Yes, I’m here all alone. Tell them not to shoot!”

Betty hastened to unbolt and unlock the front door and greeted with smiles of joy the tall captain, who stood there, and Donald, close behind.

“This is Captain Stone, Betty,” said Donald as the captain stood aside waving Donald toward the pale little lady who leaned against the doorway, for Betty was not altogether steady on her feet as yet.

“I surrender, Captain Stone,” said she, with a smile.

“I thought that there might be some of the miscreants left,” said the captain, returning her smile. “But I prefer to find you this time.”

“No, there does not seem to be a soul here, though I was a little afraid to go down to the barn. The poor stock is in need of being fed, I think.”

“I’ll set some of my lads to work,” replied Captain Stone, and turning, he gave a few orders and disappeared around the corner of the house.

“Are you all right, Betty?” asked Donald anxiously. “You must not stand here,—come in and sit down and tell me what happened to you.”

“Yes, I will. You look pretty tired yourself, and I imagine that you have some things to tell, too. My, but I’m glad you came. I was just wondering what I should do!”

“I suppose the horse threw you.”

“Yes. Did it get home all right?”

“Not until it was found. The bridle got caught in some branches, a sort of Absalom affair, you know. We did not know what had happened to you, of course, though the men thought that they could tell by the hoof marks that the horse got frightened and bolted. You see we were after the men in this affair and ran into the men that were hunting you.”

“I see. What made you think that I was here?”

“I found one of your gloves in the bushes by those steps that lead down from the hut.”

“O, Donald! To think that you should find it! I tossed it there on purpose, but knew that the men would take it away if they found it. I was terribly stupid and dazed by my fall, but I had sense enough to think of that. I dropped a handkerchief, too, in another place, but it did not occur to me while I was in the woods. I was just thinking about finding my way out.”

“We didn’t find the handkerchief. They must have seen it and picked it up. We got them just as they were rowing off.”

“The hydroplane did not get there in time, then Captain Holley gave orders for it to go after them. They were removing bombs and things, chemicals and everything.”

“Holley! Was he the fellow that brought you here?”

“Yes. But if he hadn’t been there they would have killed me, I guess. One of the men said, ‘She has seen too much. Throw her in the lake!’”

Donald clenched his fist. “The scoundrel! He is in jail by this time.”

“Did they get Captain Holley?”

“No. He and that ‘scientific farmer’ of Greycliff’s got away. We really had no proof that any one at White Wings was concerned in this till one of the two fellows we arrested said something by mistake. I suppose they thought that the whole affair was discovered and did not take any chances. Some of the neighbors on the farms around here have been suspicious of these people, not in any definite way, though. You ought to have heard all the talk last night and this morning. Several of us were detailed to help look for you. We were to arrest Holley, or Von Holle.”

Betty rapidly outlined what had happened the night before, while Donald possessed himself of one of her hands and held it firmly, living through the events of the night before with Betty. This was a little distracting, but Betty was so thankful for Donald’s protection that it only seemed natural, nor did she have any doubts as to Donald’s state of mind toward her. She even told him word for word of the strange proposal, but was not quite prepared for the way in which Donald took it. Placing her hand back upon her lap, Donald sprang to his feet and walked across the floor and back.

“Betty! Tell me that you could not think of such a man!”

“Donald Hilton! Sit right down here by me and apologize for thinking that I could!” Betty dimpled, but was in earnest, as Donald could see. He dropped down upon the sofa again and duly apologized.

“It makes me go crazy to think of what danger you were in. Betty, could you wait for me? If I get through this war, may I come back to you? You know well enough how dearly I love you,—don’t you? If I could only think you cared enough for me!”

“Don’t be too humble, Donald. Who was it that looked into the mirror of my fate?”

“Betty!”

“Besides I need somebody to take care of me,—no more adventures for me!”

Foolish, perhaps, but happy conversation followed, about when they first met, the mirror on Hallowe’en, the skating at the Ice Carnivals, and other occasions at school. “I knew that you were my girl when we first skated together,” said Donald. “See here,” and Donald took from his pocket a little leather case. “Here is the picture of the girl of all the world for me, and the little pansy that caught on my button that Hallowe’en night. They never leave me.”

Betty noticed how white and worn Donald seemed and thought to ask him if he had had any breakfast.

“Why no, Betty, none of us have. We thought that there would be something here, though if you had not been here, we would have kept on hunting.”

“There is plenty here. Let me show you the things in the pantry. I’ll fix you something nice.”

“Indeed not. You are going to lie down and rest here, while I shut the doors and keep the boys out. Everybody will want some hot coffee. Chuck Williams will do the cooking. It was not by chance that he was put on this detail. Wait till you taste his coffee. I don’t think it will hurt you for once.”

“Oh, I take a cup occasionally. You are so good, Donald,” she added, as Donald covered her with a light cover which was folded on the end of the sofa. The marines were now coming to the house, and she and Donald could hear their conversation.

The stock had been fed and watered. Pails of warm milk were being carried into the kitchen, and Betty could hear the voice of some one in charge whom she supposed to be “Chuck Williams.” Donald warned the sailor lads not to disturb the weary lady in the front room and listened to some good-natured joking at his expense. A fire was made in the stove and it was not long before the aroma of fresh coffee stole into the front room where Betty lay resting. How different this was. She was perfectly safe, in the hands of her own people, and, best of all, with Donald to manage everything. He came in soon with a cup of coffee and a little sandwich made of bread and butter and blackberry jam.

“Have you had anything yet?” asked Betty.

“No, but I shall in a minute. I was just thinking that I had not finished telling you how we knew you were here. After I found the glove I went right back to Greycliff. That was early this morning,——”

“Then you were up all night!”

“Surely; that is what soldiers and sailors are for.”

“I have made everybody so much trouble,—but go on, Donald.”

“Well, there was great excitement at Greycliff, of course, over your disappearance, and more when I told of the arrest of the two men. I showed the glove to Miss Randolph and I never saw such a look as she gave me. I know that she thought the men had put an end to you, but I did not think so, someway. I saw some footprints on the wet sand, small ones with the big ones,—you see it could not have been long after you had gone that we caught the men. I thought that they would hardly injure you because of the hue and cry there would be, and the approach of the hydroplane and its swift retreat made me think of White Wings as the most likely place. I can’t say that there was so much sense in my reasoning, but it proved to be true.

“Now for the part that I will have to give Holley credit for, though you can imagine how I feel toward him ! While I was trying to cheer up Miss Randolph and telling her that I was going to try to hurry off our party to White Wings, one of the girls came running in with a note in her hands. She had gone into Louise Holley’s room for something and had seen this note on the bureau,—it was more of a notice, that read, ‘Tell Miss Randolph to look at White Wings for Betty.’ Louise had had a telephone message last night about nine o’clock, Miss Randolph said, but nobody thought anything of it, for her brother often telephoned. It must have come from White Wings instead of from the academy.”

“Then Louise was gone?”

“Yes, and Prof. Schaefer, too. One of the stable men who had gone with me to Greycliff, and was waiting outside to see if there had been any news, said that he came rather late from the village, and saw the professor taking Louise to the station. They seemed to be in a hurry, and were carrying suitcases and bags, but as the girls are sometimes called home he thought nothing of it, and the excitement over you put it out of his mind. They were getting ready to come after you with the Greycliff when we put off, and I am surprised that they have not gotten here before this.”

“Perhaps the motor is out of fix. I thought that perhaps you had come in the Greycliff .”

“No. We had our own launch.”

“Now do go and get a good breakfast, Donald, please.”

Protesting at being sent away, Donald yielded and carrying Betty’s empty cup, for she drank the coffee to please him, went into the kitchen to do full justice to such food as remained.

It was not long before Betty heard a boat, then girls’ voices, and knew that the Greycliff had arrived. Donald heard them, too, and joining Betty, went out in front to meet them. There were Cathalina, Hilary, Lilian and Helen, with “Patty” and Miss Perin.

“Oh, Betty, Betty, Betty!” was the chorus. “All the girls wanted to come,” said Lilian, after the first greetings were over, “but Miss Randolph wouldn’t let them. How are you Betty?”

“All right,—a little shaky. Oh, how glad I shall be to go back to the good old every-dayness!”

“You won’t wait to pick a flower or two?”

“Indeed not!”

Mickey was conferring with the captain of the marines, and the Greycliff janitor and his wife, with bags and bundles, hastily packed, were going into the house, where they would stay a few days, or until some one could be found to run the farm. “We’ll send ye a couple o’ hired men tomorry,” said Mickey to the janitor, as he left their dooryard to go back to the boat.

Donald went with the party to the boat, helped Betty into a comfortable seat and said his farewells with rather a sober face.

“Keep out of danger, Betty,” said he.

“I will. I wish I could ask the same of you, but I wouldn’t be very patriotic, would I?”

Several interested marines joined Donald and watched the Greycliff and the girls disappear over the white caps.

Betty, too, watched Donald as long as she could see him, then turned her attention to her friends, who were looking at her with affection.

“I look like a battered war casualty, don’t I?”

“Not very much battered, but pretty pale. You have been through enough to kill you. Weren’t you frightened terribly?” asked Cathalina.

“My fall dulled my intellect, I guess,” laughed Betty. “I was frightened several times and then I got used to it. Was any word sent to father?”

“Fortunately not,” said Cathalina. “Miss Randolph was considering a telegram when they found the word from Louise. She may have sent one; no,—I think that she would wait till we actually had you at Greycliff, then telegraph, so they would not worry if anything were in the papers. When Donald came to the Hall, he said that the woods had been thoroughly covered by the men hunting for you, and by the marines hunting for those men, and that they were going down to White Wings. After they had arrested the men, a hydroplane came nearly to the shore and went away again, seeing their lights, I suppose. Since the only hydroplane anywhere around was at that place they thought some one there must be interested.”

“They must have found out some more, for Donald seemed to know about our farmer and Captain Holley.”

“My, Betty, what a heroine you are,—kidnapped and imprisoned in a tower till the prince arrived.”

“Something like that. I thought of it myself this morning, but it began to get on my nerves.”

“How would you like to own a flying machine?”

“Not at all. You girls may have all my rides in hydroplanes.”

The experience put Betty to bed for several days, more because of the exposure and excitement than because of any trouble from the blow upon her head. She was disgusted at being put in the “pest house,” but quite enjoyed the rest and the attentions of the girls, who brought her her books, kept track of the lesson assignments for her, and were forbidden by the nurse to mention the late adventure. By Wednesday she was in her class again and preparing for a special examination in “Lit.” A bright letter from Donald expressed concern for her hard experience, but much happiness over their understanding. “I will write you how many submarines we sink, for I sail with the next convoy. The ‘stupid young American’ is on his way and isn’t worried now in regard to whom you will wait for! That note was characteristic, but he would regard you as a beautiful possession. I wish that I could tell you on what boat and when we go, but that is something I do not know myself.”

CHAPTER XI
THE COLLEGIATE FIELD MEET

Isabel Hunt was gracefully flying over wooden horses in the gymnasium and landed, after the last jump, in front of Lilian and Cathalina, who had just arrived after a swim in the pool. Fresh and pink after their shower, they were considering whether to take any further exercises or to let well enough alone.

“Think of swimming in the pool when there is a perfectly good lake outside!” exclaimed Lilian. “Don’t you hope this miserable cold spell will soon be over? If it doesn’t warm up before Commencement I shall be perfectly disgusted!”

“Oh, it always does. Besides, if the lake weren’t so rough, we would go in,—the lake water is always cold anyhow. We have to have a few storms once in a while. But it is fine and sunshiny today. Let’s take a run out to the athletic field.”

“All right. There are Pauline and Hilary, Isabel. I wonder if they would not like to come, too. We can practice for our fifty-yard dash.”

Lilian beckoned to Pauline and Hilary, who joined the girls presently, and the group walked to the athletic field. This was back of the gymnasium and separated by a fence from the pastures where grazed the riding horses. There were very few interscholastic events and games, but the trustees had provided enough seats under a canopy to accommodate about five hundred spectators. The tennis courts stretched beyond.

“Do you suppose that we shall be able to remain friends after the contests?” asked Isabel. “There is the collegiate field meet, in which seniors and juniors will be pitted against each other in a desperate battle. Then there are the canoe races in which the non-beatable juniors meet the unsurpassable seniors. What will happen then, who can foretell?”

The girls laughed, and Lilian said, “I was needing some new words for a poem on our athletics for the Star. ‘Non-beatable’ and ‘unsurpassable’ are good, though I am not sure how they will fit into the meter.”

“There is one thing, Isabel,” said Hilary, “which may soothe the disappointment of either side; the future success of the Whittiers, when you and Virgie win honors for us all in the inter-society debate. All our crowd are Whittiers, you know.”

“It is a great responsibility,” said Isabel, gravely shaking her head. “Absolute split in the Psyche Club unless the Whittier Society wins in debate!”

“Come on, girls,” said Hilary. “I’ll beat the bunch in a dash to the fence where the horses are looking over at us. The first one who touches it wins.”

“I accept the challenge,” said Isabel. “Line up, girls. On your mark. Get set. Go!”

The five girls scampered like mad. Five gym suits, five pairs of gym shoes on flying figures crossed the field. Cathalina gave it up when she was two-thirds of the way across and sat down in the grass to laugh. Prince, Poky and Lady Gay, were looking over the fence and had hoped for lumps of sugar, threw up their heads, snorted, and with cavortings and kicking of heels, fled, galloping over the pasture.

Isabel and Hilary touched the fence at the same time; Lilian, breathless, bumped into Pauline and both sat down suddenly. Both were convulsed with laughter, and Pauline leaned back against the fence remarking that it was by intention that she sat there. “If Lilian and I had not run into each other I would have beat you, Hilary,” she continued.

“You were laughing too much,” returned Hilary. “Isabel and I paid strict attention to business and won. Shake hands, Izzy.”

“You shake hands with the defeated , Hilary,” said Lilian, holding out her hand to Hilary, who pulled her to her feet, and hastened to hold out her other hand to Pauline. She scrambled to her feet without assistance, however.

Cathalina was still sitting on the ground embracing her knees, as the rest of the girls came toward her. “Anything the matter, Cathalina?” inquired Hilary.

“Oh, no; I was just laughing so hard I had to stop. And you ought to have seen yourselves and the way the horses looked at you. They ought to be used to such performances by this time.”

“They probably enjoyed it.”

“I shall enter the result of this contest upon the sporting page of the Greycliff Star ,” said Lilian. “Will you write it up, Cathalina? You saw it all.”

“I will. Prince won in the pasture, and I suppose you want him mentioned.”

“Yes, indeed.”

On the day of the Collegiate Field Meet, almost the entire school was out to see the events. The ranks of the Faculty were invaded for judges. Patty West Norris and Miss Perin were among the popular ones. Music teachers and instructors, indeed, almost all the women teachers were present, including Miss Randolph and even Dr. Carver, who was daily becoming more human. She even had a favorite pupil among the seniors, one who had Ph.D. aspirations, in whom she was very much interested, and who returned great admiration for Dr. Carver’s attainments.

The girls were all in good spirits, the day was bright, cool but too cool, and the athletic grounds were in fine condition. There were little jokes and some fun, but this was more or less of a serious occasion, for success in the events might mean a good deal in the final athletic honors. The All-Around G’s, the class trophies, and the senior silver trophy to go to one girl for her entire school record,—all were worth striving for.

Most of the spectators were assembled, either in the seats or scattered about the field when the junior and senior teams came over from the gymnasium.

“Start up the new song, Lilian and Eloise,” said Juliet. “Here, get in front.”

There was some shifting, and Eloise and Lilian, as the “World-renowned senior songsters,” according to Isabel, took their places in front. They had collaborated on this newest of senior songs, and the singing seniors made an effective entrance on the athletic battlefield, eliciting great applause from the bleachers, where academy girls and such juniors and seniors as were not taking part in the contest, with the faculty not engaged as judges, were gathered. The tune was lively, and the girls made great effort to have the words clearly sung:

The senior girls wore their colors, silver and blue, around their arms in a band, and after parading in front of the spectators they settled down on the benches, to wait until the contests began. The juniors, likewise wearing their colors, green and gold, modestly let the seniors have their little parade, applauded the song, and scattered around in groups. As usual, there were more juniors taking part than seniors.

“Deeds, not words,” announced Isabel.

Cathalina and Betty were going to take part in the broad jump, the relay broad jump, and in the basket-ball and base-ball throwing, but would not run. Juliet was the star runner among the seniors and they expected her to score high in the high jump. Eloise, too, was quick and good at either high or low hurdles. After much practice, in the gymnasium and outside, for these several school years, the girls knew pretty well the ability of the different girls entered for the events. The great question, however, was who would win. There is something exciting about any contest, for often the most surprising things occur, and no one is sure of the result until the end.

First a fifty-yard dash was called. Four ran at a time and four teachers were taking the time for each heat. Two seniors and two juniors ran first, Juliet and Jane Mills, Isabel, and a chubby little junior, who did not look as if she could run, but did. It was quite evident that Juliet made the best time. Sometimes it was hard to tell, when the contestants were more evenly matched. Hilary and Lilian were called next and ran with Virginia Hope and another junior.

“Hilary and Lilian are pretty nearly even,” said Cathalina to Betty. “I shouldn’t be surprised if they do pretty well.”

“Look at Virgie!” exclaimed Betty. “She is just skimming over the ground! I didn’t know she could run like that! Good for you, Virgie,” she called, as Virginia came off the track and toward them.

“Thanks, dear enemy.”

There were many entered for the first dash and some time was spent, but at last it was finished; the judges and timekeepers consulted, and presently announced the winners as Juliet Howe for first place, Hilary Lancaster, second, and Virginia Hope, third.

“Two seniors!” exclaimed Eloise. “First place counts five, and second place three, and the juniors only one point. That is a fine start for us.”

The standing broad jump came on next. In this, again, there were many entries. Cathalina, to her horror, was called on first to jump. She had not outgrown all her timidity and the eyes of all this audience were almost too much for her. Her first effort was graceful but short. “Try it again, Cathalina,” called Hilary encouragingly when her turn came again. “Never mind how you look, but jump for your class!” Spurred on by this, Cathalina gave a prodigious leap and did very well indeed. She took her third chance, but did not surpass her second attempt. Patricia Norris and Miss Perin were very busy measuring and recording. To her own surprise, Lilian had made the best record in this event, Virginia won second place, and Dorothy Appleton, third.

“Six points for the seniors,” was Betty’s comment, “and three for the juniors in this event.”

“We are still ahead,” said Eloise, “and a good deal ahead.”

“Yes, on this, but is anybody watching the ball throwing? I guess we can’t keep track of it all.”

“Evelyn is watching that. Diane and Pauline are doing some fine basket-ball throwing. They’re calling you, Betty, now.”

The bleachers were deserted, everybody wanting a closer view of the jumping and ball throwing, which were going on at the same time. The spectators stood around in groups, according to their interest in the several events.

“Let’s have the relay broad jump, Miss Perin, while everybody is in the jumping mood, can’t we?” asked Cathalina.

“It is on next,” replied Miss Perin, “then the hurdles, and last the relay race.”

The relay broad jump started badly for the seniors. Jane Mills fully expected to break the record, she said afterward, but slipped, digging her heel firmly into the ground, yet, alas, sitting down back of them. The distance measured from where she sat to the starting place was not one to boast about. Hilary really did break the record, but Isabel, roused to a supreme effort, landed six inches beyond Hilary’s mark, and although she fell, it was forward and did not spoil her feat. The juniors loudly applauded her, both then and later when they had won the event.

In the ball throwing, meanwhile, Pauline, Diane and Juliet were making fine records, but Hilary went over from the relay jumping to win first place in throwing the basket-ball, and was second to Diane’s first in throwing the base-ball. Juniors scored among all those entered for the hurl ball event.

“There are so many of them,” sighed Evelyn, “that they have more chances to win.”

“I don’t know that it makes so much difference,” replied Dorothy, “if we have an expert or two on.”

“But we haven’t enough experts to be in everything when we are limited in entering events.”

“They don’t want us to overdo our little selves,” answered Dorothy with a smile.

Lilian in the “sixty yard low hurdle,” and Eloise in the high hurdle were light and graceful, carrying off the honors. Juliet, to the surprise of every one, was only second in the high hurdle. Juniors won second and third place in the low hurdle event.

“Oh, why didn’t you do the low hurdle, too?” Lilian regretfully asked Eloise.

“They wouldn’t let me enter any more, and I really forgot it when I entered to my limit in the other events.”

A seventy-five-yard dash followed the hurdle events, and last came the interesting relay race. One senior and one junior ran, handing the stick to the next senior and junior, and so one. This was the most exciting of all the events. The spectators stood as close to the track as they were permitted to come, the academy girls rooting for their favorites.

In this event, the juniors started under a handicap, for one of their best runners turned her ankle, and could scarcely get over the remaining distance. It was to Virginia that she handed her stick, but although Virgie ran like the wind, the seniors were already much in the lead. Some of the ground lost was recovered by the juniors, but at the end the junior stumbled and fell.

“Goodbye, juniors!” exclaimed Isabel as the senior covered the distance to the final goal before the junior had risen to her feet. “I most certainly didn’t think it would be as bad as that!”

The events were over. All that remained was the announcement by the judges of the winning class, and the awarding of the trophy. The girls who had not kept account of the results in the separate events were uncertain, some hoping, each for her own class.

“I am sure that we have it,” said Evelyn, running over her record and comparing it with that of another senior girl.

At last Miss Randolph rose from a seat in the bleachers where she had been conferring with the judges, and announced that the silver cup was awarded to the senior class. The events have been of unusual interest said she. “Both classes deserve great credit for their good work and spirit of good sportsmanship. I congratulate the seniors, and remind the juniors that they have another year.”

CHAPTER XII
ON THE RIVER

“Girls, we’ve simply got to beat the seniors this time,” announced Isabel to her crew, as they made ready to take out the junior canoe one afternoon.

“I’d like to know how,” said one of the junior girls. “They have so many good paddlers and girls with a good deal of endurance, too. Then they are having regular practice, too.”

“Not any too regular,” said Isabel. “If I didn’t have to work so on that debate, I could do more, but after all, I think we can manage to get enough practice in if we are only determined enough. It’s determination and management that we need, girls. Now listen. The senior girls are interested in a lot of other things. There is the senior play, you know, and practices for that, besides the glee club and other things.”

“We are in those, too.”

“Some of them,” Isabel admitted. “But if we practice regularly and often say nothing to the seniors about our extra practice, and make up our minds to learn to paddle as no juniors ever did before , we shall win that race, depend upon it.”

“Some of those girls are your very best friends, Isabel. Can you and Virgie stoop to such base deception?”

“‘Base deception’ is good,” laughed Isabel. “How about it, Virgie? Didn’t I tell the girls that we were going to beat them in the canoe race?”

“You did.”

“Did they hesitate to beat us in the field meet? The answer is ‘no’! Will they be just as good friends of mine if we beat ’em? Yes. If they notice how we are practicing, will they care? No.”

“I think that the main thing is to learn to do it together,” said Virgie. “Most of this crew are pretty good paddlers, but we need to learn to make the stroke exactly together and practice speed. Nobody can lose her head at that critical time.”

“I should think not!” exclaimed Beatrice Lee, the junior who had rallied Isabel on deceiving her friends. “The seniors have ever so much on their minds, too. Commencement doings soon, and friends coming and everything,—clothes and all. It may be mean to gloat over hindrances to your enemies, but one can’t help thinking of those things when considering the chances.”

“We are not gloating, but we need encouragement when we think of entering any contest against that crew. There are Hilary and Pauline, strong as can be, and fine in any of the water sports. Then Eloise and Diane are wiry and quick, and the rest are right at home in a canoe. I felt a little discouraged when I thought about them, but then I began to think of our own crew, and I tell you girls, I feel sure that we can do it if we will!”

“Both shall and will, then,” declared Beatrice.

Later, on the same afternoon, the senior canoe came out. “Do you know, girls,” said Pauline, who was captain of the crew, “we shall have to do some good practicing. We have not rowed or paddled together since last year. The way we paddled the last time was a disgrace, everybody for herself!”

“Remember that it was the first time we had been out in the big canoe.”

“Yes, Diane, I know, but we must be accustomed to paddling together.”

“We did pretty well by the time we stopped.”

“‘Pretty well’ won’t do in a race. That is a good crew of juniors.”

“You are right, Pauline,” said Hilary. “If we want to beat we shall have to work.”

“Isabel declared that they were going to beat,” remarked Cathalina, who had come down to watch the proceedings. “They were out a long time this afternoon.”

“Is that so? Well, stand by me, girls, when I call a practice, and I believe that we can beat our ‘jolly juniors.’ Nobody is to worry, just work.”

Some of Isabel’s crew complained at times that she would not let them do anything else. “We can’t even get any swimming in, nothing but paddle, paddle, paddle,” said Beatrice, half in fun, half in earnest.

“Wait till this race is over and then you can swim all you want to. I have great hopes, for the seniors had not begun to paddle in their canoe until after the field meet, whereas we had some practice right away, as soon as the river was fit for it. Some of their crew are down in the lake swimming this minute, and if I’m any judge, Pauline will not be able to get them out till late.”

“Don’t you think this is fun, though, Beatrice?” asked Virgie, who thoroughly enjoyed the canoeing.

“Oh, yes, I do, but it is work, too. The senior academy crew is out today, let’s get them to race us. We ought to practice on paddling against them.”

“That is a good idea, Beatrice. It will be more fun. Hoo-hoo! Senior academy!”

The senior academy captain answered Isabel’s hail and agreed that it would be great fun to race. “Pretend that we are the senior collegiates,” said she.

“We will,” answered Isabel. “Let’s go back to the starting place and race as long as you feel like it.”

“Maybe we can beat you,” bravely spoke the academy captain.

“All right, mayhap you can. Try it. If you do, I’ll bring you a pan of fudge tonight.”

“I’d like that fudge, as scarce as candy is now.”

Laughing and joking the two crews paddled back to the place up the river from which the race always started, leaving a little group of judges at the tree which marked the goal. “Look out for them a little,” said Isabel to her crew. “They are pretty good, but if they get nervous, no telling what will happen. They are taking it seriously. Give them lots of room.”

“They are good,” said Virginia. “I watched them the other day when I was waiting for you all. But I think we can beat them.”

“Mercy, Virgie, if there is any doubt of that, let me ‘bend to my oars’!”

“They are only one class behind ourselves, remember, Beatrice.”

“Did you hear that, Martha, and the rest of you?”

Not having any one up river to give a signal, Isabel herself, after asking if the other crew were ready, gave it after her usual fashion,—“On your mark, get set, go!” Onward glided the two canoes, the girls all striving for absolutely correct paddling, and increasing speed as they thought necessary. The juniors had in mind the coming race and shot ahead very soon. The seniors, academy, redoubled their efforts in order to gain lost ground, and as they were not equal to the juniors either in strength or in practice, found it a difficult task. The juniors slowed down a little, because they had entered this race chiefly to see how it would seem to have company, most of the way, at least. The other crew thought this their opportunity, and with all their might sent their canoe ahead of the other. But, alas, one paddle “caught a crab,” as the girls said; her paddle flew out of her hands; she leaned after it, causing great disturbance among the crew, and the canoe, whirling across the stream, struck the junior canoe. In a moment the girls were in the river, both crews.

Isabel came up, blowing the water from her lips, and found Virgie opposite to her as both reached the overturned canoe and clung to it. Other heads were bobbing up around them.

“Virgie,” said Isabel, “You see if our girls are all here while I swim after the kids. I think they can all swim, but you never can tell what they may hit.”

Isabel did not stop to think that the girls were never permitted to go canoeing unless they could swim, but had very clearly in mind her own accident. The presence of one of the best swimmers in the school was of great encouragement to the younger girls, some of whom were frightened by the sudden overturning. All had come to the surface, however, and were swimming for dear life, or floating to rest. Isabel helped catch the canoe, but took one white-faced girl to shore immediately. It was not far, and there was no such current as there had been when Cathalina and Hilary had gone after Isabel.

“All’s well that ends well,” called Isabel as the other girls brought in the canoe. “You S. A’s won the race, if you did upset us to do it. I’ll be over with that fudge. At what time do you want it? I’ll make it right after dinner.”

“Just before study hours, Isabel. Will it be patriotic to eat it?”

“If it is patriotic to make it. But this is some sugar that Virgie had left over last year and we discovered it in a box she left at Greycliff. It was only hard, and isn’t hurt for candy.”

“Isn’t Isabel Hunt wonderful!” inquired the senior academy captain as Isabel left the group.

“Indeed she is. She can do anything .”

“It was good of the girls not to be mad at our accident, upsetting them and everything.”

“Oh, Isabel is like that. She wouldn’t be cross unless you meant to do something. And I think she felt responsible because they got us to race with them.”

The senior collegiates, meanwhile, heard that the senior academy had beaten the junior collegiates in a race, and Isabel did not enlighten them, nor would she say which of further conflicting reports were true. She only looked mysterious and remarked, “It was a sad blow. O, what a fall was there, my countrymen!”

“She quoteth Shakespeare, girls. It’s no use. Anyhow Mickey said that the two canoes upset.”

“Then I, and you, and all of us fell down,” continued Isabel, with a dramatic gesture. “By the way, I have to see Mickey. Please excuse me, fair hostesses.”

Virgie had offered to make the candy, and the girls of Lakeview Suite had beguiled Isabel into their headquarters in the hope of getting the truth about the latest excitement. Isabel had seen Mickey cross the front lawn and bethought herself of an errand.

“Mickey,” said she as soon as she had reached that busy man without whom it seemed Greycliff could scarcely exist. “Mickey, I wish that you would investigate that place in the river. I really believe that there is something sticking up that caught that girl’s paddle. And we are going to have some real races pretty soon.”

“Oi think the only ‘crab’ was hersilf, miss. She did not know how to handle a paddle,” returned Mickey.

“That may be. I know the girls were excited, but I thought when I was swimming after the girls that my feet hit something there.”

“All right, thin. Oi’ll row out tomorry.”

“Thank you, Mickey, a thousand times! If you have time now, I’ll show you where I think it is. Here are Bee and Martha now. Come on, girls, let’s show Mickey where we think there might really be a ‘crab’.”

The girls accompanied Mickey, showed him the exact spot at which the canoes upset, and on the following day, Mickey and one of the other men rowed out with a pole to investigate. There, indeed, he found part of an old tree that had doubtless drifted down with the early spring floods and had become lodged in the mud, and perhaps other driftwood at the bottom of the stream. The branch that was sticking up nearly to the surface was not very large, but sufficient to catch a paddle or oar. Some of the girls were watching, as Mickey dislodged the obstruction and it came to the surface, floating down and guided shoreward by the pole.

“There! I knew something caught my paddle the other day,” said one of the girls who had had a similar upset in a single canoe. “You all laughed so when I said that it had, that I did not dare speak of it again, but I was sure something caught my paddle. It was just those sprangling twigs.”

Everything was quite safe for democracy, then, on the day of the great event, the race between the juniors and seniors. The winning crew were to give a consolation party to the defeated, and the girls had amicably decided on the menu and ordered the feast together, through a committee from each class, including the captains of the crews. Pauline said that it might just as well be charged to the seniors, but Isabel, who was at the telephone, ordering something from Greycliff Village, soberly said, “Charge it, please, to the junior class, Isabel Hunt ordering. A check will be sent as soon as possible, the next day, in fact.”

Pauline laughed and said, “Well, if you do win, you will have to pay the price.”

“That’s the point of this fine old jamboree, to make the defeated feel good. I’m prepared to be jolly whoever wins, but of course we are going to win!”

“It is usual for the defeated to treat the other side.”

“Yes, adding insult to injury. We shall welcome the opportunity to entertain you!”

“How generous. Don’t you hope it will be fine weather?”

“We’ll have to put it off if it isn’t.”

But the day of the race was ideal. Never crews wore prettier bathing suits, ready for any experience like that of the junior and senior academy crews. Each canoe floated a little streamer of class colors and the crews were in the best of spirits. The Greycliff side of the river bank was lined with girls, spectators of this contest, so long prepared for, so soon over. Cathalina, Helen, Betty and Juliet selected a high point from which they declared they could see nearly the whole course, at least the finish.

“Which do you think has the better chance, Juliet?” asked Helen.

“Oh, ours, of course,” replied Juliet. “Our girls are so much more experienced. They have not had as much practice as I had hoped they might. Several times, when Pauline thought she had them all together, one or the other would have arranged to practice something or have some appointment with a teacher. But they do row beautifully together. It seemed almost perfect the last time I watched them.”

“O, of course, we’ll win,” said Betty.

Cathalina remained silent, considering the affair, as Cathalina was apt to do.

“You haven’t said a word, Cathalina,” said Betty. “Don’t you think we are going to win?”

“Ordinarily I would, and Isabel’s being so sure might be an argument against them if they were bluffing, as Phil says. But you don’t know how they have been working. I haven’t said anything because I knew our girls were giving all the time they really could to it, and they are more experienced in general than most of Isabel’s crew. So, girls, I don’t know how it will turn out, but I think I can tell you in about fifteen or twenty minutes!”

“So can we all.”

“Really, I should not mind if Isabel did beat. We beat them in the field meet and it’s their turn.”

“Why, Cathalina, where is your class spirit?” asked Helen.

“We shall have to deal with you,” said Juliet.

“Oh, Cathalina’s hopeless. She always sees the side of the other party as well as her own,” declared Betty. “Whatever happens, Cathalina adjusts herself in two minutes. You can’t disturb the even tenor of her way for long.”

“Why, Betty, did you get that remark from Father?”

“No, that is my own wise observation. It’s a real comfortable way, Cathalina, if not popular among what my brother calls boosters.”

“You’re a nice old Betty,” said Cathalina to express her appreciation of Betty’s refusal to criticise her, “but I shall ‘root’ for the seniors, for all that.”

“There they come!”

Sweeping around a little curve came the two canoes, the juniors a short distance in the lead. Their faces were sober and they paid no attention to the cheering crowd on the bank. With a spurt of speed, the senior crew overtook the juniors and passed them, but the juniors steadily regained the ground and crept up on the seniors, who were already doing their best. Nearer and nearer the goal they came, almost together. Juniors and seniors on the bank were almost holding their breath. Now the juniors were on a line with the seniors. Now they had passed them. Could the seniors regain the advantage?

“Oh, dear,” said Helen, “not much time now; hurry up, seniors! Just a little more speed, Pauline!”

The seniors redoubled their effort, but it was too late. The junior canoe shot past the goal more than its length ahead of the seniors. Such rejoicing of juniors followed! Cheering and clapping of feminine hands greeted the crew as it disembarked. Isabel was hugged, pounded and shaken till she cried for relief. “Why, girls didn’t you expect us to beat? I told you so!”

“We were afraid that it was just your optimism,” said one.

“It was just my determination! I was so scared at first for fear we would not that I resorted to suggestion for the crew and auto-suggestion for myself.”

“Gracious! Isabel is studying psychology this year, girls.”

“Oh, don’t think it was all psychology. Not a bit of it. We have practiced early and late. I’m sure I’ll be paddling is my sleep for a month.”

“Well, Isabel,” said Pauline, coming up and holding out her hand, “we’ll have to fold our tents like the Arabs and quietly steal away, won’t we?”

“Not a bit of it. Think of that party tonight! Say, Pauline, I owe you an apology for my ordering over the telephone in that way, but I was only trying to make myself believe that we would win. I can scarcely realize it yet, though we practiced day and night to do it against such foes.”

“That is very nice of you to say so, Isabel. We did our level best, and you earned your victory. Now, for the party! But we really ought to give it.”

“Not at all. The juniors entertain the seniors tonight. Senior yell, girls,—Seniors, rah! seniors, rah; Rah, rah! Seniors!”

The “Consolation Party” that night presented quite a different scene from the afternoon. The new summer gowns, in white or bright colors, were brought out from closets or wardrobes to grace their owners. One of the society halls was decked for the occasion with flowers and junior colors and the winning crew composed the reception committee. The refreshments were served from a pretty table at one end of the long room, and two junior girls pinned on the guests little canoes of folded crepe paper, prepared beforehand by the joint committee. They now bore the label “Junior,” added since the race.

“Do you mind much, Cathalina?” asked Isabel, in almost repentant tones.

“No, Isabel! To tell the truth,—but I must remember that I’m a senior. Only it seems nice for you to have put it through so wonderfully. The glory is all yours, so have no regrets.”

CHAPTER XIII
MUSIC AND MASKS

“Oh, the music for our play is too lovely!” exclaimed Lilian, entering Lakeview Suite and starting to put away her violin.

Isabel who was visiting the girls, looked up inquiringly.

“It’s the Mendelssohn music, you know, written for the Midsummer Night’s Dream. I wish I were playing in the orchestra. I’ve been helping practice.”

“Couldn’t you play part of the time with them?”

“Not very well in costume. I might do it for a while, though. I don’t come on until the third act, and the second scene at that,—Enter Titania, with her train.”

“Fine, Lilian,” said Isabel, applauding. “Are you glad you decided on Midsummer Night’s Dream?”

“Yes, indeed; it is going to be too pretty outdoors, the fairies and everything, and the costumes are perfectly lovely. Miss Randolph bought new ones, because they have never given this before, and she is gradually getting a good collection of costumes. Patty and the other English teachers are just crazy about it.”

“I should think that they would be really crazy by the time all the practicing and drilling are over. Don’t you think that Patty looks thin, Cathalina?”

“Yes, Isabel, and it is no wonder. I heard that she is going to France this summer, but I have not said a word to her about it. She will tell us if she is.”

“Why, Lilian,” said Hilary, who was reading the play, “you are all wrong about not coming in until the third act, second scene. It is the second act, scene one.”

Lilian looked over Hilary’s shoulder at the text. “Sure enough. I forgot my converse with Oberon. That is what Mrs. Norris is scolding us for, just learning our parts, without having the whole play in mind, but we have so many other things to do. It is a good thing that the senior examinations are all over so early. I don’t know what I would do without senior week. I wish Mother and Father could come for Commencement week. They would love seeing the play and all, at least Mother would.”

“Can’t they come?”

“No, not without risking not being in New York when the boys leave. Dick is expected to be sent over at any time now.”

“Aunt Hilary is coming,” said Hilary, “but Father and Mother will not this time. Aunt Hilary was the one who wanted me to come to Greycliff.”

“Yes,” said Cathalina, “Hilary and I both owe our Greycliff days to the suggestions of our aunts.”

“What part have you, Hilary?” asked Isabel.

“I’m Theseus, duke of Athens, aha! And my fair Hippolyta is Pauline, because, as she says, they thought she was cast for an Amazon. Hippolyta is queen of the Amazons, you know.”

“I read the play once,” said Isabel, with a laugh, “but I’ll have to read it up before the play is given or I won’t enjoy it so much. Let me see,—who’s Hermia?”

“Evelyn, because she is little and dark, and Lysander is Helen. Won’t it be great?—Lysander and Hermia making love in that soft southern accent?”

“Yes, and Evelyn using her eyes as Hermia. Evelyn couldn’t help it if she tried.”

“There is another pair of lovers—?”

“Yes, Helena, you know, who is terribly in love with Demetrius, and he wants Hermia, till the fairies fix that all up.”

“Modern interpretation of Shakespeare by Hilary Lancaster,” murmured Cathalina.

“Wait till you hear me say with dramatic effect as Theseus,—‘but earthlier happy is the rose distill’d, than that which withering on the virgin thorn, grows, lives and dies in single blessedness.’”

“Is that where we get ‘single blessedness’?”

“It is. You have heard of the person, haven’t you, that didn’t like Hamlet very well when she heard it played, ‘because it was so full of quotations’?”

“Nor original enough, I suppose,” laughed Isabel.

“Oh, I must tell you girls something funny,” said Cathalina. “Yesterday I was in here alone, and practicing my lines. I am the first Fairy, and was saying the lines instead of singing them. I had just broken out with ‘You spotted snakes with double tongue,’—when I saw that new academy freshman, who has only been here this spring, standing in the door and looking at me with eyes as big as saucers. Whether she had knocked or not I don’t know. I stopped, laughing, but I haven’t the least idea that she understood at all. She gave me a message from Miss Randolph as quickly as she could, and hurried off without letting me explain.”

“She probably thought that you were in the habit of addressing your room-mates in that happy way,” said Isabel.

“I have wondered several times what she did think, and laughed right out in the middle of the night last night and wakened Betty. You thought I had lost my mind, didn’t you Betty?”

“Yes; but I was glad that you wakened me, for I was having a horrible dream about Captain Holley’s coming back for me, and it was nice to be wakened by somebody’s laughing.” Betty’s nerves were not what they might be since her last experience, but the girls purposely made light of it all.

At this moment, Diane Percy and Eloise arrived to join the company, and Virginia peeped in to see if Isabel were there. “Come on in just a minute, Virgie,” called Isabel. “The girls are telling about the play. Have you a part, Diane?”

“Yes, I’m Demetrius, and Edith Lane is Helena, because she is the tallest fair girl we have and we have to have a contrast between her and Evelyn.”

“What are you, Eloise?”

“Oberon. Neither Lilian or I are really small enough for fairies, but in the costumes we look smaller. I hope the play will go all right. The girls are all really working now that the time is so near. They are rehearsing some of the scenes now out on the campus.”

“Wouldn’t it be awful if it rained and we had to give it indoors?”

“If it rains one day, they will whisk around the program and put the Glee Club concert on or something.”

“Just think, girls, only two more weeks now for us at Greycliff, and then we go away forever!” This was Cathalina. “I came with tears, and I shall probably leave in tears or something like it!”

“I certainly shall shed tears if we don’t win that debate,” said Isabel.

“You will,” said Cathalina. “That comes off next week, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, on our regular night, next Friday night. Come on, Virgie. Even thinking of it is enough to start me thinking of the arguments.”

Isabel and Virgie departed, while Diane took exception to Cathalina’s statement that they had two weeks still as seniors. “This is Saturday, Cathalina, and you know that the exercises of Commencement week are cut short this year. I don’t imagine that we shall have half the company we usually do, either. The Inter-Society Debate will be on Friday night; the play a week from today; Sunday, the baccalaureate sermon in the Chapel; Monday, our honors presented, and class day exercises in the afternoon, Glee Club concert in the evening; Tuesday, diplomas.”

“When are we going to have our society reception and our senior society diplomas?” asked Betty.

“When are we? I had forgotten that. Hilary, you are president, what about it?”

“I was counting on the usual time, but why didn’t I think of it? Well, it can be posted. Why wouldn’t it do to go right from the class day exercises to the society hall. It will be appropriate then. We have asked Patty to make a little speech and present the diplomas; then we’ll serve lemonade and cake and ice cream. The juniors will see to it while we are having our other exercises. They are rather short this year.”

“I think that will be a good idea, Hilary,” said Eloise. “The class day exercises will probably take only an hour and a half. We could have the society reception from four to six.”

“So we could. We’d better arrange it that way. I’ll call a meeting of the executive committee Monday.”

On Monday, as it happened, another and more important matter came up. As Cathalina sat calmly eating her cereal breakfast, a note was passed to her. “Mercy me!” she exclaimed as she read. “Listen to this, girls.”

Betty, Hilary and Lilian, who sat nearest, looked up with interest.

“‘Dear Cathalina: Edith Lane has measles! You will have to be Helena. Please let me see you right after breakfast.—P. Norris.’ Now isn’t that like Patty? Takes it for granted that I will do it because it is to be done. Lilian, you are as tall as I am, you do it.”

“No, I’m not quite as tall, but I don’t think it makes so much difference for that reason as that I already have a part and have learned my lines.”

“So have I.” Cathalina’s lips were curling in amusement, however, as she reflected on her prominent part as first fairy. “How can she expect me to learn a part in a week?”

“We haven’t any lessons,—that is one thing,” suggested Hilary. “You can do it, Cathalina. You have heard the play several times.”

“Yes, I am familiar with the play,” said Cathalina, “but Helena has a good deal to say, if I remember. I know four lines of hers:

“Think what a start you have,” said Betty, her dimples beginning to play.

“I’ll think about it,” said Cathalina, “but it shan’t spoil my breakfast. Please pass me the cream, Betty. Mine has all disappeared somewhere, and I like to see a little on my oatmeal.”

After breakfast Cathalina, who had hoped to escape a prominent part, since she was not in the Dramatic Club, hunted up Mrs. Norris and finally consented to do her best with the part of Helena.

“There are some other girls, Cathalina, who are anxious to have such a part, but I do not feel that any one of them will do as well as you will. You have seen the play several times in New York and know how the different characters are represented and I don’t want this part overdone. Edith looked the part very well, but she says the lines in an absolutely uninteresting way, and I don’t know but it is just as well that she has the measles, poor child. By the way, all of you must keep away from the hospital. We can’t have an epidemic of measles starting here just before time to start home.”

“That would be a calamity,” assented the smiling Cathalina. “All right, Mrs. Norris, I’ll try it. Shall I come to the practices and read the lines I do not know?”

“Yes. Would you like to go over the lines, as you learn them, with me?”

“I imagine that I’d better. I will get the other girls to hear me, too.”

“It is work for Cathalina this week,” said that young lady, as she entered the suite after the conference with Patricia Norris.

“Good girl,” said Hilary, with approbation. “Cathalina has the right kind of class spirit. She is right there when there is anything to be done.”

“I do hate to do this, though, Hilary.”

“All the more credit to you, then, for doing it. Here are your first lines,” and Hilary, who had begun to study over again her own part, turned the pages to Helena’s first speech. “Here you are, addressing Evelyn as Hermia:

“I do like her lines , the words are so musical,—‘your tongue’s sweet air more tuneable than lark to shepherd’s ear’.”

“Oh, you will like it when you get at it. You ought to have heard Dorothy Appleton rave about being Bottom, but she thinks it great fun now. Did you see her at the last practice? She said she was not sure which string she was pulling in the donkey’s head. She might make his ears wiggle when his eyes ought to blink, but we told her that we didn’t think it mattered.”

Greycliff days were taking wing. The week fairly flew till its important close. On Friday night, the Whittiers and Emersons gathered in the chapel for the Inter-Society Debate. Isabel, with pink cheeks and cold hands, had bid her friends goodbye with the remark that she was marching to her doom, but Virginia was “as calm as an oyster,” to quote Isabel.

“Do you think that Isabel was nervous enough to hurt?” asked Cathalina, who was a little worried. “You know how sure she was over the canoe race.”

“That was different,” replied Juliet, who sat next to Cathalina. “She has to remember a speech this time, and while Isabel is such a fine debater, I think she dreads this occasion. It is more important to the girls.”

But if Isabel was nervous beforehand, when she appeared on the stage platform she was perfectly at ease and never had debated with more brilliance. Virginia, too, never appeared to better advantage, and Lilian thought as she looked at the fine-looking girl on the platform, so earnest, so well prepared, of what Greycliff had meant to Virgie since that day when she had gone in to comfort the discouraged girl from the Dakota ranch. It was scarcely possible to believe that Virginia was the same girl, nor was she quite. A bigger outlook, a more unselfish ambition and a sweeter poise was hers.

The judges were not out long, and the decision was unanimous for the Whittier team. The annual banner, which for another year would grace the Whittier hall, was presented by one of the trustees, and accepted by Isabel, representing the team.

What sort of a day would Saturday be? This was the most important consideration to which the seniors wakened that morning. Everything was ready for the presentation of the play outdoors, and the girls had gone to sleep on Friday night saying over their lines. There had been a thunderstorm on Friday afternoon, but it had cleared for the evening, and the stars came out. The evening paper had promised a good day, but as Isabel said, you never can tell. The last practice had not gone off very well. That was on Friday morning, in costume. But girls forgot their speeches, girls who had never done that before, several came on at the wrong moment, forgetting their cues, and Patty was nearly distracted.

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Norris, remember that Miss Perin was not here to help you manage behind the scenes. Nobody will go on at the wrong time tonight.” Lilian was trying to comfort her teacher as they happened to meet on the way to the scene of action.

“Oh, thank you, Lilian. I am not worried now. We have everything fixed better now, all the stage property at hand and some one in charge. Miss Perin will attend to sending the folks on, if they forget, and I have the text, as prompter.”

“Behind the scenes,” in the lovely spot chosen, consisted of a thick clump of evergreens behind which a green curtain had been stretched to screen the players. Through arching branches was the stage entrance. The background was the woods behind Greycliff Hall and its adjacent buildings. An even stretch of ground on the level of Greycliff Hall made a woodland spot easy of access, yet with the wildest of surroundings. Part of the elevation, finally resulting in what was called “high hill,” ascended gradually from level ground, and there it was that the girls brought cushions and newspapers and sat, on the slope, to view the play. There were a few chairs for the faculty, ladies, alumnae and guests. The orchestra sat at one side of the “stage,” not to obstruct the view of the players, and were next to the evergreens before mentioned. Aunt Hilary had arrived and occupied a place of honor next to Miss Randolph. Girls in costume were coming up the path from Greycliff Hall, the orchestra were tuning instruments, and the whole place was taking on a festival appearance. Prettiest of all were the fairies, and most ridiculous were the costumes of those taking the parts of Bottom and the rest of the Pyramus and Thisbe players.

“I’ll not forget, Mrs. Norris,” declared Cathalina, “but I shall draw a long breath when my part is over. However, I have had lots of fun this week. I hate to think that all this is so nearly over.”

“‘Lots’?”

“A great deal,” corrected Cathalina. “But sometimes I rather like our more blunt way of speaking.”

“If my girls will remember their parts tonight and not rant, I shall be happy.”

But often the simple acting of amateurs is more attractive than that of any but the best professionals. The cast of Greycliff’s Midsummer Night’s Dream could have no fault to find with the appreciation of their audience. That delightful atmosphere established itself which means players who are enjoying their work and an audience entirely held and entertained. Long would they remember the pretty scene.

“How did you like it, Aunt Hilary?” asked an excited Hilary, as she took her aunt’s arm and led her back to the Hall. The rest of the suite-mates followed, all interested in the one relative which their company boasted.

“I thoroughly enjoyed every moment, Hilary, and I think that all the girls did so well. Of course I was more interested in you, and in the girls that I know and have heard so much about during these years.”

“You must come to our suite now. We are going to make some lemonade to refresh you. The play did not take as long as I feared.”

“They cut some of the speeches, you know,” said Cathalina. “I was surely glad to have mine cut, and Patty was kind.”

“Cathalina had to learn her part in one week, Aunt Hilary. One of the girls who was to have the part came down with measles. Imagine it,—in your senior year and just at Commencement! So Cathalina was asked to do it.”

“I thought that I should hate it, but I rather enjoyed it, after all.”

“What was that perfectly heartless remark of Patty’s, Cathalina?”

“Oh, she did not mean it, but Edith had not been doing very well with her part. No wonder, if she was coming down with measles. I remember when I had them.”

“Have another lady-finger, Aunt Hilary. The Glee Club concert is our last performance at Greycliff. One by one our duties lessen. Did you like the music tonight?”

“It was beautiful. I had no idea that you would have so excellent an orchestra.”

“It was short two good players in Lilian and Eloise tonight, but it is really very well trained.”

“I am very fond of that music anyway, and out under the trees and stars it sounded particularly sweet. Goodnight, girls, I am glad that I am to have some more of Greycliff’s entertainment.”

CHAPTER XIV
GREYCLIFF GIRLS TAKE FLIGHT

The next day was a blessed one of rest, for it was not hard to go to the chapel and listen to the sermon for them and for the seniors of the academy. Aunt Hilary and the other guests watched with great interest the procession of girls in their white dresses, as they took their places in the front rows. The choir of girls sang their favorite anthems and led in the good old hymns which were so often called for at Greycliff.

“Four years at Greycliff,” thought Cathalina, and wondered what the next one would bring, for she was facing possible changes. Her thoughts ran to her brother and cousins and one fine soldier in France, from whom she had not heard for a long time.

“Four years at Greycliff,” thought Hilary. “How kind of Aunt Hilary to make it possible. Now two years of college, somewhere, perhaps at one of our church schools, perhaps at home, if Mother does not want me to go away. If—” Hilary’s thoughts, too, ran on, to a certain soldier boy who might want her some day to make a home with him, if he came back,—and perhaps it would be as well to stay with Mother and Father.

Many, many thoughts came to these girls, so fair and so young, looking forward to the fulfillment of dreams even in that sad year.

When they came down to earth after the service, Greycliff outdid herself in serving a chicken dinner beyond the memory of the oldest inhabitant. Aunt Hilary sat with the dignitaries at Miss Randolph’s table and at Hilary’s table, joy was unconfined, for Isabel had given up her seat to a visitor and occupied a chair next to Lilian. Lilian, too, had thrown off care for the day, sparkling as Lilian could when her mood was gay. Her shining hair was piled high, one little bit of short down curling in her neck. On her arms was the bracelet Philip had given her, and on her neck his latest gift, a delicate chain with a jeweled lavaliere, of a pattern then most popular. The engagement ring was on her finger, and all together, according to Isabel, Lil presented a picture of a “fine lady with jewels.”

“Do you think I have too much on, Isabel?” asked Lilian, rather taken back by Isabel’s careless remark. “I love to wear them,—you know why.”

“And we love to see them,” returned Isabel. “I beg your pardon; I wasn’t criticising.”

“Let’s arrange about the round robin,” said Betty. “I can’t stand it not to know about all you girls, and never can write regularly to so many. It will be much easier to pass on the letters. Then if we want to write any oftener to any one we can. Meanwhile the history of the chief events can be going the rounds.”

“I’m afraid we’ll give it up,” said Juliet.

“I know some girls who have kept one going for nearly ten years.”

“How many of them are there?”

“Ten.”

“Somebody will be sure to be careless and keep it too long or something.”

“We might make it a rule not to keep it more than a month, and if one had time for only a few lines that would be acceptable. It could get around at least once a year.”

“I think it will be fine,” said Eloise. “Count me in. Betty, you write to me and I’ll send it out with a letter of my own to Pauline, next up to Virgie, then east to New York, no, to Isabel first. The New York folks could gather up their epistles, or write one all together. Suppose all of us who want to have a round robin, or to take part in one, leave our names with Betty and let her start it. Who has more adventures than Betty?”

“If it depends upon my telling adventures, there will not be any round robin, for I’m not going to have any more. But I will receive names for the round robin after dinner in Lakeview Suite.”

“I can’t believe that we’re not coming back next year,” said Hilary. “It does not seem possible. Here we are, all around the table, and in a few days it will be like a dream.”

“I think I’m coming back,” said Isabel, “but sometimes I don’t care much if I don’t come. It is going to make so much difference to have you all gone. And yet I’d like to finish up here. Virgie thinks that she will teach next year, though it isn’t quite decided, you know, depends on what school she can get, and she has not heard.”

“We shall need that round robin to find out where we all are,” said Betty. “Leave an address by which we can reach you when you give me your names.”

“Strawberries, with ice cream and cake,” announced Isabel, watching the waitress as she brought in the dessert to the next table. “I wonder if they are home grown.”

“Oh, no; they couldn’t be,” said Hilary. “These are from further south. Don’t you remember that the Canada berries were ripe and beautiful about the first of July that year we went to camp. I’ll never forget my sister June’s delight. Dear me, how we go from the sublime to the ridiculous.”

“We couldn’t live on the heights all the time,” said Isabel, “and there are things we don’t dare think about at all now. Think of Betty’s last adventure. Why, the wildest imagination could not have fancied anything like that or thousands of other things that are happening here and in Europe. All the old stories of Robin Hood, and ladies held up in carriages on lonely roads, that we have read and thought so romantic, can’t hold a candle to what happens now. We hear a humming and look up,—there goes a knight of romance in an aeroplane.”

“The great trouble is that these things are not really very pleasant to live through,” said Betty. “I’d rather read about them.”

“Yes. When you know a knight, it isn’t so pleasant to have him ‘go off to the wars’, is it?”

“No, Cathalina,” replied Betty.

The next morning had one exciting hour, that during which the prizes and honors were awarded, after the morning chapel service. At Greycliff the honors for scholarship were considered the most important and were given first, to relieve the tension. Aunt Hilary sat on the platform with the faculty, in a row reserved for visitors, and received the reward of her interest in her niece when she heard Miss Randolph say, “I have the pleasure of awarding the prize, one hundred dollars, for the highest scholarship in the Collegiate classes, to Hilary Lancaster.”

Hilary had held her place in general scholarship throughout the years of her stay at Greycliff. It had meant steady effort, not neglecting her lessons under any circumstances, and a careful planning of her work in order to take her part in other activities. No one but a girl of bright, quick mind and comparative health could have made the record that Hilary’s report showed, but added to that there was necessary that determined progress of which she was capable and which carried her on to a mastery of the subjects that she had taken. It was really a very tired girl that went forward to take the little purse which Miss Randolph held in her hand. She acknowledged the gift and the applause with a little bow, and gave Aunt Hilary a bright look as she caught her eye for a moment. It was worth the effort of the four years to see the sweet approval and satisfaction in Aunt Hilary’s smile.

Lilian and Cathalina took the poetry prizes, Lilian, also, winning a prize in musical composition. Eloise shone both in music and some of the lines in scholarship, and won one of the prizes for short stories. Isabel and Virginia again won honors in debate. Betty and Cathalina both took prizes in the art lines and in English. All the Psyche Club won their “All-around G’s,” and when the silver trophy cup was brought out, to be presented to the “all-around senior girl,” it was Hilary to whom it was awarded. This award considered both scholarship and the athletic record.

“What next, Hilary?” asked her aunt as she joined Hilary back of the entrance to the platform.

“We might stroll around the grounds a while till lunch, Auntie, or how would you like a canoe ride?”

“No canoe ride, please, for me. I think that I’m quite modern till I see all the things that you girls do. I can ride and row and drive a car, but I dare not try a canoe!”

Aunt Hilary was a good deal like an older edition of Hilary Lancaster. Her hair was quite grey, but her face was young, with a fresh color and animated expression. “Suppose we just go down to the beach a while and watch the waves and birds,” said she.

“All right. By the way, we can point out the ‘pirates cave,’ too. We had forgotten that. Lil, get your guitar. You need practice anyhow, for this afternoon. The mandolin, uke and guitar club will furnish music for the class day exercises, Auntie.”

Hilary and her aunt strolled down to the beach, while Lilian went for her guitar and attached Cathalina, Betty and some of the other girls along the way.

“Whither with sweet music, Lilian?”

“Down to the beach to help entertain Aunt Hilary. Come along.”

“If you are going to the beach I think I’ll not go,” said Betty, who had not cared for the lake and its environs this spring.

“We might see Donald,” suggested Cathalina by way of replacing unhappy memories with happy ones.

Betty smiled, hesitated, and finally started with the girls. “I ought to carry away a better impression of this lake that I have really loved most of the time. Perhaps, if we have a good time there, I can remember it and the time when Donald so suddenly appeared.”

“That’s a brave Betty. Hurrah for Greycliff’s grey cliffs!”

Taller, older, more serious seemed these Greycliff girls who were to receive diplomas so soon and leave the scenes of so many girlish exploits. They joined Hilary and her aunt, who were sitting out on the rocks, discoursing of many things. Dorothy Appleton, Diane Percy and Evelyn Calvert were coming down from the wood, and Eloise, Pauline and Helen came from the boat house to add to the company as Hilary beckoned. “Come on and sing Greycliff songs for Aunt Hilary,” said she.

Lilian’s guitar started them. Aunt Hilary turned back a page or two in memory of her own schooldays, as the girls ran through their songs, athletic songs, class songs, the whole accumulation of the best efforts.

“This is a good one for today,” said Eloise, and hummed a strain to Lilian.

“Oh, yes,” said Lilian, playing a few chords in a different key.

“All ready, one, two, sing!” This song had a lively accompaniment of chords that came in with most surprising irregularity. Aunt Hilary asked afterward if it were rag-time, and was told that it was.

Not all the stanzas were as serious as this, one beginning There’s an Island; another, There’s a Cave; still another, There’s a Boat, and all recounted Greycliff doings in ballad form,—the rag-time ballad. At the close, the first stanza was repeated and the guitar finished up in great style.

“Oh, Lilian,” mourned Isabel, who had been a member of this chorus since some one had informed her where “all the girls” were. “ Aren’t I going to hear any more the plunk of your glad guitar?”

“I hope that you are, Isabel, many times. But if you come to New York, as you must, I hope that Phil will be there to play much better than I can.”

Betty and Cathalina stood for a moment after the others had gone and looked out over the dancing sparkles which the sunlight made upon the water. Then Betty turned away. “I’ll carry away all the memories, Cathalina,—picnics, boat rides, the wreck and the hydroplane. Do you not think that I have had a varied career for one so young?”

Cathalina laughed at Betty’s affected tone. “Yes, I should say that if variety is the spice of life, you have been having it. Let’s hurry a little. I thought I heard the gong for lunch. I’m glad it is cool today. Everything looks so fresh and pretty. I think that there was a little shower early this morning.”

“Haven’t you the class history this afternoon, Cathalina?”

“Yes, haven’t you seen me racking my brains over it?”

“No; I remember your saying something about it, but I wondered what had become of it.”

“I wanted it to be new to the girls, so haven’t asked them many questions, except the girls that have been here since the freshman academy days.”

“Jane Mills has the class prophecy, hasn’t she?”

“I think so. There were some changes and I was not at the last class meeting.”

The last class exercises, for the senior collegiates of that year, were held on the front campus, and the other classes, as well as the guests, were invited. Girls sat or stood in groups to hear the program. The front steps of Greycliff Hall served as platform, and the members of the mandolin, uke’ and guitar club sat on the upper steps and the porch. The spray from the fountain blew in a fine mist under the shadows of the great trees and across the sunny stretches between them.

“It is hard,” said the class prophet, “to forecast the future for our Lilian. I seem to see her standing before a large audience, holding them spellbound by the cadences of her beautiful voice.” At this point, Jane turned to look at Lilian behind her, and Lilian was busy with her guitar. “Then, upon the shelves of a public library I see a handsomely bound volume of poems, with the name of Lilian North inscribed.—Ah, what is this picture that comes so rapidly upon the screen? A stately home upon the Hudson. But the film is torn here and the figures are indistinct.

“The screen shows Hilary Lancaster doing deeds of mercy. First, I see a schoolroom and Hilary surrounded by a group of scholars. Now I see her in the slums, holding a wee baby and bending over a sick mother. She wears no deaconess bonnet and I can not tell whether she is a home missionary, a minister’s wife, or merely a ‘friend to man,’ as here in school.”

Betty was seen as a bride, going away with a handsome naval officer.

Cathalina carried a degree from Columbia and was dean of a woman’s college. Pauline galloped about a large ranch, and was finally seen to ride off into the distance with a picturesque cowboy. Jane’s imagination was equal to the emergency of providing a future of thrilling interest for everybody, and the audience enjoyed her fancies. The orchestra burst forth into a mad medley of popular music at the close of the prophecy, while the rest scattered, after being reminded of the reception and ceremony of bestowing the society diplomas upon the seniors in the society halls.

“Things move rapidly this afternoon,” said Aunt Hilary.

“Yes, Auntie,” replied Hilary, “but there isn’t much to do at ‘society.’ We have about half an hour before that begins and I think that I’d better go and see if they need me to help get ready. Will you come? The girls will probably begin to come in pretty soon.”

“Indeed I will. I get as much entertainment from watching the girls as from any of the exercises.”

When they entered the Whittier Hall, Isabel was placing a little bundle of neat, white diplomas, tied with the society colors, on the corner of the piano, their new baby grand. Virgie was placing a step-ladder near one of the windows, preparatory to fixing up some of the decorations which had fallen down.

“Come and taste this,” Virgie called one of the juniors who was adding a little fruit juice to what looked like a very cooling drink in a large glass bowl.

“I’ll put this up,” Hilary offered. “You’ll have to add more ice later, so have it strong enough.”

“Look out for the ladder,” Virgie cautioned, “it’s a bit rickety.”

“All right.”

But it was not all right, unfortunately, and as Hilary mounted the ladder it tipped. Down came Hilary, not very far, to be sure, but without a chance to save herself.

“Dear child!” exclaimed Aunt Hilary. “Are you badly hurt?”

Two or three of the girls rushed to help Hilary up, but she waved them away, and sat up slowly with a white face. “I’ve turned my ankle and fallen on it. Just a minute, girls.”

“We shall have to attend to it, dear,” said Mrs. Garland, and as Hilary protected the hurt foot, with one of the girls to help, she lifted Hilary to a chair which one of the other girls drew up, ready.

“Don’t mind, Aunt Hilary, if I groan a bit,—it hurts so!” Poor Hilary put her face in her hands a moment.

“Wait a minute,” said Cathalina. “I’ll bring a rocking chair from the nearest room and we can draw her to the suite,—lucky that it is on this floor.”

In a few minutes Hilary was being drawn in a rocking chair to the suite and could not help laughing at Isabel who dashed by carrying a large enameled pail which the girls had often used on picnic. By the time Hilary’s pretty Commencement slipper was off, Isabel was back with hot water. “I’m not sure that this is the latest thing they do for sprains, but Aunt Helen always puts the boys’ sprains in as hot water as they can stand.”

“Does she detach them from the boys?” inquired Hilary, wincing a little as she tried the temperature of the water.

“Here’s cold water, too; Virgie, hurry up with that pitcher, please. Detach what, Hilary?”

“The sprains. You said she always put them in water. Ah—that feels good!”

“What’s the matter? Mercy! Is Hilary hurt ?” Lilian from the doorway viewed the scene with troubled face. In her hand she carried what everybody recognized as a telegram.

“Oh, I just thought I would get up a little excitement, Lilian. Things were going too smoothly—Oh, is that our telegram from New York?”

“Yes, Oh poor Hilary!”

That was, indeed the last straw, and Hilary, in pain, knowing that the boys were on their way from the southern camp to New York and that she had a serious hurt, burst into tears. Hilary, the strong, the patient, the self-controlled, in tears! The girls all looked distressed, but Aunt Hilary now came to the fore.

“Come, Hilary, perhaps it isn’t so bad as you think,” said she. “Isabel, will you go down and ask Miss Randolph to send up the nurse and telephone for a physician? Now it is time for your little program, Hilary; which of the girls shall preside in your place?”

“Juliet is vice-president, but one of the juniors will take the chair while we—the other girls, are receiving their diplomas. Be sure that Patty is there, Cathalina. She makes the speech, you know. And see that all the seniors are there, too, before the meeting is called to order. Tell the girls about me, please, and one of you can bring my diploma.”

“I do hate to go, Hilary,” said Lilian, “and leave you like this.”

“You couldn’t do a thing. The nurse will be here in a minute and Aunt Hilary will take care of me. Oh, I’m so glad you are here, Aunt Hilary, but it just spoils your visit!”

“I am very glad to be on hand, and I already have had a wonderful visit, renewing my youth.”

“Oh, Lilian,—please let me see the telegram.”

“I’ll leave it with you, dear girl, and I’ll get back the first minute I can.” Lilian came over close to Hilary and put her arm around her neck. “Are you just a little easier?”

“Yes, Lilian, ever so much,—I’m sorry I was such a baby.”

Isabel came back, a little in advance of Miss Randolph and the one of the nurses who was not taking care of the measles patient.

“Thank you, Isabel,” said Hilary’s aunt. “Now you join the girls. Hilary will feel better to know that everything is going as usual, and it will be better for her to be alone with the nurse and the doctor, as soon as he comes.”

“Well, Hilary, child, what sort of a performance is this?” asked Miss Randolph with kindness, as she came into the suite and the nurse followed. “Mrs. Garland, this is Miss Knight, one of our nurses.”

Miss Knight had a little dose for Hilary to take, and then proceeded to examine the foot, very carefully. She was a good nurse, but very matter-of-fact, and said in reply to Hilary’s question, “No I don’t think there is anything broken.”

Hilary’s heart descended to its lowest location. “Possibly something broken. Now there was not the least hope of getting to New York in time to see Campbell before he sailed! Why did this have to happen just at this time?”

But Hilary had little opportunity to mourn at present. The janitor brought in a wheeled chair in which Hilary was conveyed to the elevator and thence to the hospital room. It was only a short time until the doctor came, a genial soul who was as gentle as a thorough examination would permit. “Nothing broken, Miss Lancaster, and I have seen worse sprains. I am afraid I can’t promise your being able to walk up for your diploma tomorrow, but you will feel a good deal better than you do now.”

“Oh, could I travel to New York in a day or two?”

“Is that necessary?” asked the doctor, hesitating.

“I want to very much.”

“Well, I’ll tell you, Miss Lancaster, I will give directions for good care of that ankle and I can tell better tomorrow, when the swelling goes down, what the prospect is.”

“He wasn’t very encouraging, was he, Aunt Hilary?” Hilary was lying in bed now, her bandaged foot and ankle on a soft pillow. “I suppose I am crazy to even think of getting to New York, but it does seem—as if—I can’t give up seeing Campbell before—” Hilary was crying again. “Please forgive me for—crying!”

“Poor little girl!” Aunt Hilary was smoothing the hot forehead. “Cry all you want to; perhaps it will do you good. You are all tired out, and I can understand what the disappointment means to you.”

“You will go to the concert tonight, won’t you?” Hilary could always think of some one besides herself.

“Yes if you want me to and if you are fit to be left.”

“Oh, I will be. I guess I am pretty tired and nervous this spring. After you have put it all through, you know——”

“Indeed I do know. Now let me tell you what I am thinking about. The telegram said that the boys were on their way from the south, didn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“That means a day or two yet before they even arrive, and they have to get their overseas outfit. It is rarely that they are rushed right to sea. Suppose you let the girls go, as they intend, tomorrow night, and then you and I will leave as soon as the doctor says it is safe.”

“Oh, Aunt Hilary,—‘you and I’—would you go with me?”

“Do you suppose I’m going to fail the dearest niece I have at such a time as this, if there are trains and comfortable drawing room to get you to your sweetheart? Besides, I want a look at the boy.”

Aunt Hilary laughed at the blissful expression that dawned upon Hilary’s face. “Do you like the idea? How very fortunate that I came.”

“Do I like it! ‘Fortunate!’ Aunt Hilary have you ever been lifted from the depths of despair to the heights of—” Hilary was hesitating for a word.

“Happiness?” suggested her aunt. “If you want to follow the alliteration.”

“Oh, I don’t mind this, if I can only go.”

“Go you shall,” asserted her aunt. “Now, child, I want you to be perfectly quiet and if you can, take a good nap. You are worn out.”

“I believe I can take a little nap before dinner. When the gong rings you will go, won’t you?”

“Oh, yes, and I shall be all the more likely to do so if you go to sleep.”

“All right, Aunt Hilary. Isn’t it funny how quickly things can change? I know better how Betty felt now. But she fell from a horse and did not sprain a limb, while I only fell a little way.”

“Sh-sh, Hilary. I used to put you to sleep when you were a little girl; can’t I be successful now?”

Hilary laughed and obediently closed her eyes.

The other girls, meanwhile, had received from the hands of their favorite teacher their society certificates and were busy talking to a few visiting alumnae, friends, and each other, while serving and being served with the light refreshments offered.

“Isn’t it the most unfortunate thing that Hilary had to have an accident right now!” Cathalina was filling a plate with macaroons to pass around a second time, while Lilian was putting more ice in the bowl and filling it up with the mixed fruit juices again.

“Just dreadful!” exclaimed Lilian. “What are we to do about it?”

“I have a plan, if there aren’t any bones broken. We’ll talk about it as soon as this is over. I wonder if Hilary could drink some of this?”

“We’ll take her over some. Of course, she is at the pest house now. I believe everybody’s been served and the cakes have been around twice, except these.”

“It is only five o’clock, an hour before dinner.”

Laden with good things, the two girls and Betty started over to the hospital building. “My plan is this,” said Cathalina, “that I take a stateroom, if we can get a reservation, and just put Hilary to bed and take her along. We girls can take care of her, don’t you think so?”

“Indeed we can. The nurse will show us how to bandage her foot. Or perhaps her aunt will go along. I’ll ask her to come to our house.”

“Oh, no, Lilian. They’d better come to our house because we have so much extra room. I’ll tuck Hilary away in her own rose room.”

“Do you suppose Hilary could manage on crutches?”

“We’ll have to see about that.”

Aunt Hilary was on guard, sitting outside the building on a rustic bench under a tree. As the girls hurried up with their hands full, she smiled and said, “Hilary had orders to go to sleep, but I will tiptoe in and see.” Carefully she peeped inside the door, to discover Hilary with wide open eyes, and surprise a long sigh from the injured senior.

“You bad child, you did not go to sleep at all.”

“I couldn’t, Aunt Hilary. I’m sorry.”

“Come in, girls,” called Aunt Hilary.

“Oh, the girls! Good!”

“You poor dear, how are you by this time? What did the doctor say about your foot?”

“There isn’t a thing broken, Lilian, but of course it hurts. It’s all bandaged up as tight as anything and he is going to see what the prospect is in the morning.”

“Cathalina has thought up a wonderful plan and we are going to take you with us if your aunt will let us, and we were hoping that she would go too.”

“Yes,” eagerly assented Cathalina. “We girls can take care of you just as easy as pie, put you in a stateroom,—I will arrange for one tomorrow, and Mrs. Garland, if you can possibly come, please come and add to our happiness and Hilary’s comfort by being our guest. I know that you will like my mother.”

“Aren’t you the dearest girls in Greycliff or anywhere else!” exclaimed Hilary. “Everybody is planning for poor me. I feel ashamed of my broken heart, but honestly I thought, it was cracked in two at first. And Aunt Hilary, too, had the plan to take me East.”

“Have you, Mrs. Garland?—Look, Hilary, here come more girls with more ice cream!”

Hilary, her aunt and the nurse were soon supplied with cooling and delicious refreshments, for Eloise, Helen, and Pauline had been seized with the same thought, and unaware of Lilian’s mission, had also brought the entire menu.

“This will spoil our dinner,” said Aunt Hilary.

“Let it,” said Hilary. “I’d rather have this.”

“It will probably be better for you than a heavy meal,” said the nurse. “I wasn’t planning to bring you much tonight.”

Hilary patiently bore her disappointment in not singing with the glee club that night. The thought that she might not have to miss the trip to New York made her able to bear lesser ills. The girls took Aunt Hilary to dinner and to the concert, brought her back to say goodnight to Hilary, and took her to her room at the Hall, when Hilary and the nurse both insisted that it would be absurd for her to stay with Hilary. The nurse had had special directions from the doctor and bathed, rubbed and bandaged the ankle several times during the night, that first night so hard to bear unless something is done for relief. So the time passed till morning.

When the doctor came in the morning, he was surprised to find the sprain in such good condition. “How would you like to be wheeled on the platform, with the rest of the girls, when they get their diplomas?”

Hilary was feeling so frisky and free from discomfort that she wanted to ask him if the rest were to be wheeled on too,—but did not.

“Do you mean it, doctor?”

“Indeed I do. I don’t want you to walk on it today, but you can go to everything if some one takes you. Come back for the treatment regularly and don’t have any more accidents. I would not try to leave tonight, as I believe you had planned. But by tomorrow night, I think you will feel quite comfortable. Stay in the hospital tonight and have the same treatment you had last night.”

Aunt Hilary walked out with the doctor, to make sure that Hilary was really in good condition, and came back rejoicing. “We shall really go tomorrow night, then, but I shall be on hand all day to see that nothing more happens to that foot.”

So it happened that Aunt Hilary did see her niece receive her diploma. Hilary, dressed in the pretty white graduate frock, a white shawl thrown over the bandaged foot, was carefully wheeled from the back entrance of the platform to a place in the line of girls who had been called forward and had mounted the platform to receive their diplomas. Her name had just been called, and Miss Randolph, departing from custom, stepped back to hand the diploma to Hilary. Returning to the front of the platform again, she said, “It would have been disappointment, indeed, if Miss Lancaster, who is the student receiving highest honors in scholarship, had not been able to receive her diploma in person.”

Finding that Hilary would be able to leave Wednesday, the other girls also decided to stay, help her pack and be on hand to “do her bidding,” as Lilian put it, while they made the journey. They were able to change their reservations, the railway authorities glad to get back the berths, and able to make better arrangements for them, it happened, for Wednesday night. Aunt Hilary, not Cathalina, engaged the stateroom, but promised to stay at Cathalina’s instead of at a hotel. “It would be terrible not to be all together!” Cathalina had exclaimed.

The packing was a great undertaking. The girls were all thankful for that extra day at Greycliff. The three at Lakeview Suite, though worn out with much Commencement, finished their packing early Wednesday morning while Hilary was still at the hospital, and with Aunt Hilary packed Hilary’s things later. Most of the girls had left Tuesday night, but there were still some trying goodbyes to be said. Fortunately, some of the girls could still look forward to schooldays together.

Miss Randolph paid a special visit to Lakeview Suite and earnestly expressed her pleasure at having had such loyal, fine girls at Greycliff. The girls tried to tell her how much they had appreciated what she had taught them, in so many inspiring ways, but felt that they had not been equal to the occasion. “But she knows, girls,” said Hilary consolingly, as she watched Aunt Hilary and Miss Randolph stroll off down the hall together.

At last they were on the train, Hilary so comfortable that she declared she could not have planned it better to travel in luxury, with some one to anticipate her every need. Her companions knew, however, that if Hilary could have her way she would exchange all that for a well foot. But it made a happy little company, after all. There was time for much conversation, some confidences, and many plans for the coming days. They missed Betty after she changed cars to go in another direction, but there were promises of full accounts in letters. And now the Hudson, the approach, the city.

CHAPTER XV
WHEN LADS BECAME MEN

It was a new East to Cathalina and the other girls. There had been many a long stop on the way, for the troop trains had precedence. Everywhere was the uniform, and in the Hudson were strangely camouflaged ships. Cathalina and Lilian had telegraphed about their changed date of arrival and were met by the fathers this time. No dashing Philip, blue-eyed Campbell or brotherly Dick at the station. But the first question asked by Cathalina and Lilian of their respective parents was “Have the boys come yet?”

“We do not know,” answered Mr. Van Buskirk. “If so, they are detained at camp. They promised to send us word at the first opportunity, but they might not have that for a time.”

Hilary managed to hobble around pretty well and reached the Van Buskirk car without much difficulty. Aunt Hilary and Cathalina followed Hilary into the machine and they started off, after saying goodbye to Lilian and her father.

“Not much need of goodbyes, is there, daughter?” inquired the Judge. “I suppose you will be over there most of the time till the boys sail.”

“I may be at home a little, a very little, Daddy, so make the most of me!”

“Very well, but even you will have to take second place when Dick arrives. Your mother lives in anticipation.”

“Poor mother! Is Dick still in camp?”

“He was shifted to another camp, but telegraphed, a night letter, saying that the indications were for a start in a day or two and that he would let us know. He will come to Camp Merritt also.”

Aunt Hilary received a warm welcome from Mrs. Van Buskirk, while Hilary was petted and waited on until she said she would be spoiled and never would want to wait on herself again. The big Van Buskirk house was cool and comfortable, electric fans going, flowers about the rooms, cold salads and ices served. It was perhaps as well that the soldier lads had not arrived, for the girls were so tired that they did not need any extra excitement. Mrs. Van Buskirk suggested that both Cathalina and Hilary should spend most of the time in bed for the next day or two and sent for some one to give special treatment to the rapidly improving foot. None of the relatives were invited in, no reunions planned, until Philip and Campbell should arrive. Lilian, however, called up occasionally. She, too, had been put to bed to rest, but felt anxious to know about Hilary’s progress.

“I feel it in my bones,” said she, talking over the telephone to Cathalina, “that the boys are not far away. We got the telegram Tuesday, you know, and your people had just heard, and then the boys had started. I don’t see how it could take more than three or four days. Do you suppose they can be at camp?”

“They might be, but Mother is expecting Phil either tomorrow or Sunday. She has given orders for all the good things that Philip likes to eat, and such spreads as we’ll have for the next few days!”

“Here, too. Well, I suppose it takes a long time to move so many troops and we must be patient.”

“Yes, but you come over tomorrow and stay all day and the next. If you are here we shall have Phil in the house just that much more! Mother told me to ask you to come.”

“All right, Cathalina, I’ll be over in the morning.”

“Better bring all the clothes you want, for Phil will not want you out of his sight.”

“Oh, he could drive me home.”

“Yes, and then we wouldn’t have him.”

“I see. By the way, little sister, have you any overseas news since you came home?”

“Not a word. And Captain Van Horne’s unit is right in the thickest of the battles.”

Lilian joined the Van Buskirk “unit” the next day, spending much of the time up in the rose room where Hilary sat with her foot up, doing her best to take care now in order to be around with the rest soon. Mrs. Van Buskirk and Aunt Hilary came and went, all the ladies knitting vigorously.

“I must try to match this yarn,” Hilary was saying. “Isn’t it funny that there are different shades of khaki. I thought I had enough to finish the sweater, but haven’t. I do hope that I can match it exactly.”

“Listen!” said Cathalina.

Lilian jumped to her feet. Cathalina reached for her and drew her out into the hall. Hilary looked at Aunt Hilary and dropped her work, wondering if Campbell could possibly come with Philip, whose voice they now heard downstairs. Yes, who was that asking, “Is it all right to go up now, Aunt Sylvia?” The answer must have been affirmative, for rapid steps were coming up the stairs, and Hilary limped out of the room so quickly that she met him at the top.

There was no question of being engaged or not engaged. Campbell had just heard of Hilary’s accident and gathered her up, fairly carrying her to the end of the hall where there was a convenient window-seat.

“Hilary, Hilary, were you badly hurt?”

“No, Campbell,—but how tired you look!”

It took only a few happy minutes for all explanations and expressions that were necessary for a complete understanding.

“I did not mean, Hilary, to tell you this until I came back,—but I couldn’t help it.”

“I’d rather it were this way, Campbell. If you know that I care for you, you will write more freely and it will seem so different.”

“What a heavenly difference!”

Mrs. Van Buskirk ascended the stairs and stood at the top without the lovers’ being aware of her presence, and Mrs. Garland came from the rose room to join her. “There is another pair downstairs,” remarked Mrs. Van Buskirk with an expression of amusement. “But our lads will go more happily for having their sweethearts waiting for them. I thought that Campbell and Hilary were going to be so sensible and wait.” Mrs. Van Buskirk raised her voice purposely as she said this, though she and Aunt Hilary had their backs turned to the window-seat.

“What was that, Aunt Sylvia?” Campbell had risen, and now was walking slowly toward them, helping Hilary.

“Come and meet Mrs. Garland, Campbell. Mrs. Garland, this is my nephew and Hilary’s friend.” Trust Mrs. Van Buskirk not to take for granted any new relation.

“It’s my Aunt Hilary, Campbell,” said Hilary as her aunt cordially greeted the young man.

“I came up to tell you all that lunch will be ready before long. You will stay, will you not, Campbell? Have you seen your mother yet?”

“No, I haven’t been out home. This was on the way, and I couldn’t resist stopping to see if the girls had come.” Campbell looked down at Hilary with content.

“Why not telephone her that you are in the city and will be right out after lunch. Phil will drive you out. Perhaps Hilary will feel like going too.”

“No, Mrs. Van Buskirk, I think not. His mother will want him all to herself for a little while at least.”

“It is very thoughtful of you, Hilary, to appreciate that. You might ride out, though, and come back with Phil and Lilian.”

“That is a great plan, Aunt Sylvia. You have a heart!” exclaimed Campbell.

Mrs. Van Buskirk laughed. “I haven’t wholly forgotten my own youth,” she replied, as she started down the stairs again, Aunt Hilary accompanying her.

Campbell said something in a low tone to Hilary, who laughed. “Aunt Hilary,” said she, “Campbell wants to know if he may carry me down.”

“It will be the very simplest way of getting her down,” assented that lady. “She has been having her meals carried to her, but will want to be with the family now.”

“If I want a permanent job as porter, then,” began Campbell, but Hilary told him not to be silly, and he promptly obeyed, lifting Hilary and carrying her down quickly, when the coast was clear of descending ladies.

“She has begun to boss me already,” said Campbell as he helped Hilary into the library where were Lilian and Philip.

“Oh, Campbell, as if I would do that!” began Hilary.

“What, what, what?” exclaimed Philip, jumping up to come and shake hands with Hilary. “You don’t mean to say that everything is fixed up and——”

“It is,” said Campbell. “Congratulate me. Hilary says that she’ll have me, though I’m terribly afraid that it is the uniform that she likes.”

“Irrepressible,” said Hilary to Lilian.

“Yes, but isn’t it wonderful to have them here for a little while?”

“It makes me feel a little better, Campbell,” said Philip, seriously. “You were so noble and self-sacrificing that I felt horribly selfish to have asked Lilian.”

The boys looked older and were thin after their strenuous months in a southern camp. There was a firmness to young mouths in those days and a lift to the chin, for boys had become men in the training and under the new responsibility, as they met the evils wrought by the wrong ambitions of wicked men.

“How did it happen to take you so long to come, Philip?” asked Mrs. Van Buskirk at lunch.

“They brought us by such a round-about way, Mother. It was not by any means a direct route.”

“How long can you stay this time?” asked Cathalina.

“We are off for over Sunday, but I don’t think that our bunch will go over for a week or ten days. You must all come out to see the camp. Have any of you been over?”

“Your father and I have been there several times in connection with the work for the boys,” replied Mrs. Van Buskirk. “We shall go when you can’t come to us, but this is better when you can.”

“I should say so!” assented Philip, accepting further attentions from old Watts, who could not keep his usual impassive countenance under the circumstances. Louis had come with Philip and had been warmly greeted by both the family and the servants. He was in Philip’s company, but the relation was not of master and man.

After lunch Philip drove Lilian, Campbell and Hilary to the Stuarts, but Hilary did not return with Lilian and Philip, for Mrs. Stuart insisted upon her staying and promised to take Campbell off by himself for a talk if she would stay. And the family all made much of Hilary. It had been well known among them how long Campbell had admired her.

“He has been so uneasy at times, Hilary,” said Mrs. Stuart, in a little private conference, “and I had wondered how it was,—if you could not care for my boy.”

“It was only too easy to do that, Mrs. Stuart, but I could scarcely offer myself to him, could I?”

“No, I suppose not.”

“You see you can’t be perfectly sure that a boy cares for you very very much until he tells you so. And I think that Campbell was surprised into it as it was! Perhaps I should have said ‘No’!”

Hilary felt well acquainted with them all because of her previous visits among the relatives, and Sara, who was a tall slip of a girl in her teens now, quite openly adored her. Hilary told Sara and Emily all about her sinking heart when she thought that she would not be able to come.

“Oh, suppose you hadn’t!” exclaimed Sara. “Then you and Campbell wouldn’t be engaged, and you couldn’t have seen him before he left.”

“That was it, Sara. I really did not expect to be engaged to him, but I thought I must see him, after having expected to all these months.”

“But now you belong to us,” declared Sara emphatically. “Aunt Hilary must come to see us, too.”

“Yes,” said Emily. “I imagine that we’ll all go over there to see Phil and call on Mrs. Garland after dinner. I told Phil that he need not come for you, that we should want a visit with him, too, and would probably be over. Aunt Sylvia will want a quiet day with him tomorrow, I think.”

It turned out so. Cathalina telephoned around to the different relatives and to Judge and Mrs. North, asking them to call after dinner. Philip, however, had driven Lilian home, after delivering Hilary at the Stuarts, and was warmly welcomed by the Judge and his wife.

“Dick is at camp,” announced Philip, “and will get off in the morning.”

“I will go home with you tonight, Mother,” said Lilian, “and help you get dinner for Dick tomorrow morning. I want you to have a chance to visit with him while he can be here.”

“I shall have dinner nearly prepared tonight, Lilian, and there will be little to do tomorrow, but you are a good child and I will let you finish it up. Can’t you come over and help her, Philip?”

“If I only could! But Mother would be disappointed if I were not at home. I’ll come over for Lilian right after dinner if you don’t mind.”

It took a great deal of planning for every one to see the soldier lads, but the time was precious for memories. At Camp Merritt, Philip pointed out a little hut where food was sold to the soldiers.

“See that sign?” he asked. “‘No Pies.’ That never comes down, because the boys know when the pies come in, and go at once to buy them out!”

At the little station in Dumont, out from which town the camp was located, troop trains were being unloaded. Processions of worn, dusty men were marching away toward the camp and were carrying immense packs that looked heavy for any one not a giant. The girls watched them and the great loaded trucks that sped away to take all kinds of supplies to Camp Merritt. “I grow more and more indignant,” said Hilary. “All this hardship and risk and worse, and what for?—Just because it happens to be our job to help defeat some murderers. But it has to be done.”

Those were sober days, and when several days later it was evidently their last visit to the boys in camp it was hard to say the farewells. Not far from where Philip and Lilian stood talking, sat a young soldier and his wife, the latter a frail little woman with a patient, sad look upon her face. They were not saying a word, only sat with clasped hands till such time as he would have to go back to quarters. But Philip and Lilian said goodbye with a brave smile, each to the other, and Lilian stood watching Philip till he had disappeared within the barracks.

CHAPTER XVI
BUTTERFLY WINGS

Free from school duties, Greycliff girls made plans for the coming year and threw themselves into the relief work. There were letters from somewhere in France, boxes sent and mementos received. The great drive was on in Europe and haunting fear hovered over American homes thus far untouched. Yet men, women and maids went courageously forward doing “their bit.”

Cathalina and Lilian had already made their arrangements to study in New York. Lilian was giving up her music temporarily, for she said that she did not have the heart to sing while Philip was in France. But she was continually singing, after all, in patriotic gatherings or in the hospitals.

Hilary had decided to go to the denominational school which her parents had selected. Always considering what would be to her advantage, they concluded that school life would be less distracting for her away from home, unless she really preferred to be at home and attend the excellent university in the city. But Betty wrote that her father was considering the same school for her, and that Eloise and Helen were waiting for her decision, hoping that they all might be together again. After a little correspondence, the matter was settled and the girls were greatly delighted at the prospect.

Pauline Tracy and Juliet Howe were to attend a western state university miles and miles away from any of the girls they knew,—so they wrote.

Virginia Hope’s application for a school near her home was successful. Poor Isabel, perhaps, would have the most lonely time. All the older Hunt boys were in the army now, even Jim, who had shared the fatherly responsibility for discipline and finances. It was Isabel’s form of service to stay at home, put as much cheer as possible into the house, for the sake of the two younger boys, Aunt Helen and her father, and take up again the friendships of the home town. To this end Isabel was bending all her energies when school opened for the rest in September.

About this time, the first round robin spread its wings, carrying epistles somewhat brief on this first flight, and flew with surprising speed from one to another, because the girls knew that a quick report of where they all were was needed. Betty, who started it before she left home for school, wrote across the top of her first page, in large capitals, “Procrastination is the thief of time,” and under this, in smaller but heavily underscored letters, “Do It Now.”

The girls followed her advice and wrote without delay, before the freshness of the news had been lost.

When this round robin reached Betty again, it had grown much in size. Taking out her first letter, she replaced it with another and started the robin anew. But it was delayed this time. Things were happening. The war was being won, the armistice came, Christmas time, soldiers coming home—what wonder that girls found little time to write to each other in this fashion. Betty and Cathalina wrote often, and Lilian heard regularly from Hilary; but three weeks after Betty had handed the round robin to Hilary she inquired for it, to find that it was in Helen’s portfolio.

Hilary had been writing a theme and was late in handing the letters to Eloise. Eloise was to sing at a recital, and Helen had just forgotten it. Such is sometimes the fate of round robins! By the time the letters reached Pauline and Juliet, it was nearly time for the Christmas vacation, and when they arrived in New York the March days were on, many of the soldier boys at home, and life changing very fast for some of the Greycliff girls.

“Round robin coming home again,” said Hilary, as she threw the fat envelope in Betty’s lap one spring day. “Let’s all read it together.”

“Yes, let’s do,” said Helen, “and I will make a few extracts for Evelyn. I had a forlorn letter from her today, asking why I did not write and saying that she was starved for news from everybody.”

“She ought to have joined the round robin company.”

“So she says; I will put her name on the list, Betty, and this time I will just tell her the main things. I’ll call it ‘feathers from the round robin’.”

“That is good, Helen, and be sure to give her our special love. Is Percy back?”

“Yes, but Evelyn is interested in one of the wounded boys now, a sort of cousin of hers.”

“The one she was engaged to once?”

“Oh, yes.”

Betty was opening the large envelope and sorting out the letters which had been written by the “assembled company,” as she said. “Shall we glance through each other’s letters?” she asked.

“We know all each other’s news,” reminded Hilary.

“Yes, but we might have said something brilliant, you know,” suggested Eloise. “It would be a pity to miss anything.”

“Oh, here’s something characteristic from Isabel,” said Betty a little later. “Listen! She says, ‘I have just devoured the round robin! Query,—what can you devour and not destroy? The answer is,—a round robin. It was so good to hear from you all again.’” Here Betty exclaimed, with a sympathetic “Oh, poor Isabel!”

“What is it?” asked all the girls.

“I’ll just go and read it: ‘You will be sorry for us when I tell you about Lou, who is still in a hospital in France, and we have been so worried. At first we got such good news about him, we thought, but he was gassed and wounded, too, and is not doing very well. Milt is with him, though, and will bring him home in a few weeks, he thinks. Jim is a casual now—I’m thankful to say not a casualty—and is wandering around at the pleasure of various authorities. It is so aggravating when we want him to come home so much and he is needed. But there are other men in the army that are worse off.’”

“Take the New York letters next, Betty, will you? We’ve finished reading these from Pauline and Juliet,—or would you rather read them first.”

“No, I don’t care in what order I read them. Here are those from Cathalina and Lilian. Shall I read Cathalina’s to you?”

“Yes,” said Helen, “and Hilary can read Phil’s.”

The news from New York was especially interesting, though Hilary had heard some of it through letters from Campbell Stuart. The cousins, however, had been widely separated and knew little of each other’s movements.

“Think of it,” said Helen, “another school year almost gone, and the boys coming home!”

“It has been a long year,” said Hilary, “and some of them are sleeping ‘on Flander’s Field’.”

But it was in April that the most astounding news came to Betty and the other girls. It came in a letter from Cathalina, who told how Lilian’s brother Dick came home looking more ‘fit’ than ever in his life, and how he and Captain Van Horne, who was growing strong after his wounds, were in the law office with every chance of success, how Philip was trying to build up the business which had suffered during the war, with much more about everybody. Then she asked, “Are you girls prepared to be bridesmaids in June?”

“Oh, now Lilian and Phil are going to be married!” exclaimed Hilary. “Funny that she has not said so to me!”

Betty shook her head. “Guess again,” said she.

“Dick and Louise Van Ness,” said Helen.

“But they would not want us to be bridesmaids.”

“I see a dawning intelligence on Hilary’s face,” laughed Betty. “It is, Hilary, it’s Cathalina.”

“Cathalina!” exclaimed Helen.

“Bless her heart, it was his wound that did it,” said Eloise.

“I can’t read you all the letter, and yet I know in my bones that she will tell you all about it when you see her. Cathalina is shy about some things, you know.”

“Cathalina!” exclaimed Helen again. “Now I would have said that Lilian would be the first and Hilary the second bride, unless Betty, possibly,——”

Helen was looking at Eloise as she spoke, and Eloise assented to her statement.

“Not I,” laughed Betty. “I’m thankful that Donald escaped the submarines, but it will be some years yet before we can get married. Both of us have to finish college and then Donald will have to get a start in business. Philip and Dick and Cathalina’s lover are lucky.”

“When did you say the wedding is to be?” asked Helen.

“In June, but the date is not fixed yet. She wants us all for bridesmaids and will fix the time after school is out, is writing to all the girls to find out if they can come.”

“Whom do you mean by all the girls? She couldn’t have the whole Psyche Club, could she?”

“No; she said that she was afraid Pauline, Juliet and Virgie could not even get to the wedding from things they have written about their plans, you know. She wants me for maid of honor,—think of it—her mother wants to have a big wedding and Cathalina doesn’t mind. Then she wants to have you three girls, of course, with Lilian and Isabel, and then that cousin of hers that is about her age, Nan Van Ness. And Charlotte Van Ness is to be flower girl. She says that is as far as she has planned. No, for there is one thing more,—she wants us to have delicate colors, different colors, and be the ‘butterfly girls’ of the Psyche Club.”

“Oh, that will be lovely. Cathalina will make a beautiful bride. Did she say how she is going to be dressed or anything more about how she wanted the bridesmaids’ dresses to be?”

“No, only that she hadn’t thought it out yet, and she wants us to be planning to come as soon as school is out in June for a real house-party again.”

“A house-party, and while they are getting ready for a wedding?” asked Helen in surprise.

“Cathalina wrote—well, I’ll read it to you: ‘I have not thought out the details yet. It is all so new and wonderful to be engaged to a man who,’—maybe I’d better leave out that—anyway she says that it’s love’s young dream as yet. ‘But Mother and I will sit down some day and put it all on paper, just what we want, and then the housekeeper and the decorator and the caterer will carry it all out. I’m going to let Mother plan my clothes. We’ll do some shopping together right away, and perhaps Lilian and Mrs. North will go with us some time. Aunt Katharine will take an interest, too. So about all little Cathalina will have to do is to try on clothes and say whether she likes them or not. At first I did not like the thought of a big wedding, but Mother has just one girl to be married, and believes in being married in church, and then we have so many friends and such a family connection that there isn’t any other way.’”

“I see,” said Helen. “I suppose that Mrs. Van Buskirk is used to planning for big entertainments.”

“I think that they usually have small companies, but they can have the others and do occasionally,” said Hilary. “Then they have plenty of help always. In some ways it’s more fun to do things yourself, but this will be as perfect as money and good taste can make it. And we shall have a glorious visit.”

“What shall we give her for our wedding present?”

“The Psyche Club might give her a pretty little white marble Psyche.”

“A fine idea, Hilary. Cathalina would love that, I know,—a real beautiful one. But perhaps she has one.”

“No; she spoke about it once and that is what made me think of it, but I’m pretty sure that she has not bought one.”

“Then that makes the club present provided for. I’m afraid it will be hard to think up presents for one who has everything she wants—almost.”

“I felt that way, too, at first,” said Hilary, “when I first visited Cathalina, but there are ever so many real simple things that Cathalina likes and I never knew anybody that appreciated being thought of more than Cathalina. Not that she expects it at all, but she shows so much real pleasure and delight that it warms your heart to do anything for her.”

“Cathalina admires my embroidery,” said Eloise, “and I’m going right down street tomorrow and buy the finest linen I can find and start something. What shall it be?—doilies? table cover?—Oh, well, I can think it out better after I look around the shops a little.”

“I could hemstitch and embroider some ‘hankys’,” said Helen.

“Wouldn’t it be fun to have a shower while we are at Cathalina’s?”

“Yes, Betty, but we would not be there long enough beforehand.”

“Cathalina says that she wants us two weeks beforehand, if it is possible.”

“Let’s hope that school closes early, then.”

“We can plan to leave right after examinations, and not stay for the Commencement. We are not graduating, and what is a Commencement compared with a wedding?”

“If we had not been to so many Commencement exercises at Greycliff we might not think so, but I fully agree with you,” said Hilary. “We can go right on now with plans for our little gifts and have our clothes ready for the trip. Think of it!”

On the next mail there came a letter from Cathalina directed to Hilary and addressed to all the girls, inviting them to be her bridesmaids and telling of her plans. The date was the same as that of Betty’s and the two letters had been mailed at the same time. “I’m going to write to each one of you, separately, and later will have more to tell you about plans. If you have any suggestions,—mail them on!” There was much more, all in the happiest vein. Later the formal invitations were sent.

In New York, there was among the relatives a pleasant excitement over the engagement and approaching marriage of Cathalina. Nan Van Ness, who was the only one of the girls in the family to be a bridesmaid, was at the Van Buskirk house a great deal of the time. Lilian ran in and out, of course, and the girls were in the gayest of spirits. Philip suggested to Lilian that there be a double wedding, but Lilian said that it would not do.

“I’m sure that your mother would want this to be Cathalina’s own wedding, Philip. I know I would in her place. And besides, I believe I should prefer to have a wedding of my own, too. Then I can’t leave Mother for a little while. Hearing that Dick was ‘missing’ and not knowing any better for a month nearly finished her and she has not gotten over it yet.”

“All right, best and dearest,” said Philip. “We’ll give our little sister the finest wedding ever, and then I shall not have to wait too long, shall I?”

“Not very long, Philip. You have been through enough, and I’ll try to make you forget the sad things in being happy with me. Mother will not want to keep us apart. I’ve just been so pleased to see how she fusses over you since you came home, almost as much as she does over Dick.”

The older girls in the family connection did not expect to be bridesmaids for this wedding. Cathalina had worried about it a little at first, although Nan was the only one who was of her own age. She loved the older girls, but did want her “butterfly girls,” as she sometimes called the girls of the Psyche Club. And after Cathalina learned through Aunt Katherine and Louise Van Ness that Ann Maria would be married some time in the summer or fall to a young officer, she knew that Louise and Emily and the other girls in Ann Maria’s circle of friends would be bridesmaids for her.

June came and brought the “butterfly girls” to New York. Leaving before Commencement permitted them to arrive about the close of the first week in June, and ten days before the wedding. The pretty bridesmaid gowns were carefully boxed and came through in good condition. Cathalina’s and Mrs. Van Buskirk’s maids unpacked for the girls and put their clothes in drawers and closets. Hilary and Betty were in the rose room, Eloise and Helen near, Isabel in a small room, to sleep by herself in the few hours which they spent in that occupation, though Mrs. Van Buskirk came around herself to see that they did not talk too late, reminding them that they must keep in fine condition for the great event.

There was so much to talk about! Nearly a year, and a strange year, had some of them been separated Cathalina waited till all the girls had arrived and then showed them her pretty trousseau. “Dainty and lovely, like you, Cathalina,” said Isabel.

“I haven’t had anything packed yet, because I wanted you all to see everything,” said Cathalina, “but the maid is going to begin as soon as Mother and I select what I shall want with me. We are going to Canada for our wedding trip, not much of a trip, just to get there and stay in a perfectly beautiful country place. We shall be there a month and then may join the folks at the seashore. It’s all beautifully indefinite, and Allan and I don’t care where we are just so we are together.”

“‘Allan,’—Captain Van Horne! I was going to ask you, Cathalina, if you called him by his first name.”

Cathalina laughed. “He doesn’t seem so old to me now as when he was an instructor at Grant. He’s a good deal of a boy, now that he is happy and does not have to worry about law school and making a living and all that. He works too hard, of course, I suppose he always will, but he has such a fine opportunity now that he need not worry. We are not going to begin on any large scale of living. Just think, girls, what if I had never learned anything but just being waited on and wanting everything. We are going to get a darling little apartment as soon as we come back and start in that. Mother mourns a little and says, ‘Think of this big house and nobody but your father and me pretty soon!’ But I think that Father admires both Allan and Phil for wanting to be independent. If the presents keep coming at the rate they are, a little apartment will not hold them all. However, I can store them here.”

“When did it happen, Cathalina?” asked Isabel.

“Getting engaged, you mean?”

Isabel nodded. “I do not mean to be inquisitive, but we thought that you did not hear from him very often,—and so I just wondered when.”

“No, I did not hear from him often, neither was I sure that he cared in that way for me. I dreamed of him, but was more or less ashamed of it, and scolded myself for having such a hero when he probably only thought of me as a good friend—though there were times——”

“Yes,” said Betty. “If ever there was adoration in a man’s eyes, it was in Captain Van Horne’s one time, on that picnic at Greycliff. I told Cathalina so, but she made light of it.”

“What else could I do?” asked Cathalina. “The reason I didn’t hear was that he was in action so much of the time, and he was wounded twice. The first time it didn’t amount to much and he went back, but the second time he was in the hospital over there a long time, and was sent home from there. He came to New York, but got sick on the way, and had to go to a hospital here. Then he wrote me a little note and I went to see him.” Cathalina stopped. “I can just see him now,” she went on in a moment, lowering her voice. “He was so thin and white and he stretched out both his hands to me and called me his darling. I felt like his mother and went right to him and slipped my arm under his head! Wasn’t it dreadful? He says that he had just waked up and when the nurse showed me in he thought it must be in heaven. Philip jokes me about it and tells me that Allan was out of his mind and that I took advantage of it! But if he were out of his mind for a minute it would not explain all he told me when he was in his right mind a few minutes later and it all came out; so I have no reason to wonder about whether he loves me or not.”

“It’s funny how suddenly these things do happen,” said Hilary, thinking of her own experience.

“Yes,” said Betty, “but you must remember that everything has been so different with our boys, and such tragedies of separation have happened that there has been good reason for romantic and sudden——”

“Episodes,” finished Isabel.

The girls were all sitting on Cathalina’s bed from which the pretty dresses and other things had been cleared after the display, or on chairs drawn close as they held this rather intimate conversation, all so interested and sympathetic toward the prospective bride. Isabel was on one side of Cathalina and Betty on the other, and all the girls were so delighted to have the short reunions, so eager to hear the confidences.

“As soon as Allan was able he went into the office and besides that he had a little bit of good luck in getting some property sold that had been only an expense, something from his father’s estate, I guess,—you know, Betty, how beautifully indefinite I am. I don’t really know, except that he can afford to get married now. He is coming to call this evening and see you all. Now ask Lilian how her love affair is coming on.” Cathalina turned with a smile to her future sister-in-law.

“Yes, Lilian,” said Eloise, “tell us when that event will be.”

“Before so very long, Eloise, but Mother is not well and I shall just quietly get ready and have a small wedding, though probably in the same church, and just have the family in afterwards. Mrs. Van Buskirk wants to give a reception for us after our trip, so that will probably happen. Could you girls get back for it? I hate to be married without you.”

The girls looked doubtful and regretful. “We always expected to have this reunion at your wedding, Lilian,” said Eloise, “and did not dream that Cathalina would be the first one to leave our ranks; but perhaps you are really more free to visit than you will be later when you are getting married yourself.”

“There is something in that, Eloise,” acknowledged Lilian. “But come, if you possibly can,” she added, and the girls all promised that they would.

That first evening, Allan Van Horne duly appeared. It was the first time that the girls had seen him not in uniform, either that of the school where he taught or that of Uncle Sam, and they came to the conclusion that he appeared well in citizen’s ordinary attire.

“He is handsome even without the uniform, Cathalina,” said Isabel when she had opportunity for a private remark.

“I don’t know that he is what you would call a handsome man,” replied Cathalina reflectively, looking across the room at her prospective husband, who was chatting with Philip, Lilian and Betty. “But he carries himself so well and has such a fine face. Of course, I think that he is just about the most adorable man there is.”

“What color are his eyes? I thought they were blue, but they look like brown eyes tonight.”

“Isn’t that funny? Betty insisted that they were blue, and I thought of them as brown, and they really are, I guess, though Allan says that he was said to have hazel eyes. Anyway they are nice, kind eyes.”

Hilary and Campbell were having a little visit now, their chairs drawn near the piano, where Philip had gone to look over some music for Lilian to sing. Mr. and Mrs. Van Buskirk had settled down to read a little or visit the young people, as it might happen. It was like the good old days before the war, and the sound of young voices and young laughter cheered their hearts.

Campbell was telling Hilary a piece of good news. “They want me at the college, Hilary. I had a letter today from the president. I will be an instructor at first, but with a fair salary, and a chance to get out my master’s degree right there. And summers I can work on my line, too. They will make me an assistant professor as soon as I get the master’s degree and I can take care of you then. Will you marry me as soon as you graduate?”

Hilary clasped her hands and exclaimed. “Why, Campbell, what an opportunity! So I’m to be the wife of a distinguished professor of economics?”

“I don’t know how ‘distinguished,’ but a respectable teacher, I hope,” replied Campbell.

“Perhaps you ought to wait until you have all your study accomplished,” said Hilary.

“The college—university—is big enough for me to do most of it right there; besides, I want to get a great deal of my material from life and a study of actual conditions. That is what the department there wants, and the president was good enough to say that he thought I was the man who could bring them what they want. Then they don’t know what a wonderful wife I’m going to take there!”

Hilary laughed. “Well, I do not see but we could marry next summer some time, while you have your vacation. I shall be graduated about this time, and you will be through with your first year’s work.”

Just then from the hall came several young men in uniform, ushered by Watts. “Bob Paget!” exclaimed Cathalina, and the whole company rose while Mr. and Mrs. Van Buskirk, Philip and Cathalina went forward to greet the callers. They were Robert Paget, Lawrence Haverhill and two other young officers who had recently arrived from France and were still in uniform. This was very thrilling to Isabel, who began to feel that she was not altogether left out of romance when Robert, having renewed acquaintance with his cousin, Helen, selected Isabel as the object of his chief attentions for the rest of the evening, saying to Cathalina as he left. “She is as sweet and pretty as a rose. How did it happen that I never met that one?”

“You were away, I think, when she was here,” Cathalina replied, and saved the remembrance of his words, to repeat to Isabel.

Cut glass, silver, linen, china,—the gifts came pouring in these last few days. Then there was a little of the old Van Buskirk silver which was Cathalina’s share. “I’ve found out, girls,” said she, “that Martin Van Buskirk was not the first one at all and did not come from Holland to fight in the Revolution. We had it all looked up when somebody wanted to go into the Daughters of the Revolution. It was a Laurens Van Buskirk who came from Denmark and bought a lot on Broad Street, New Amsterdam,—’way back in 1655. And what do you think,—a John Van Buskirk married an Esther Van Horn about 1750! So this isn’t the first time that Van Buskirk and Van Horn have married. We are going to see if she is an ancestor of Allan’s, if we can find out. She was Esther Van Horn Van Buskirk, and I’ll be Cathalina Van Buskirk Van Horne. See Isabel shaking her head! What’s the matter, Isabel?”

“All these ‘Vans’ are too much for me, It’s a good thing you can keep them straight, Cathalina.”

At last there came the eventful occasion, a mid-June night. Everything was ready at the Van Buskirk home and an extra maid or two helped the girls with their dressing. Cathalina had disappeared from view entirely several hours before, as her mother insisted upon a little rest for everybody that afternoon, and trays were brought to the rooms about five o’clock. Bags and trunks were already at the station, checked for the trip and Allan Van Horne had his tickets safely in the suit to which he would change from his dress suit. Phil remarked that as there were so many details to attend to about a wedding he thought that he would “just kidnap Lilian, stop at a minister’s to be married, and catch the first train out of New York, or take the boat.”

“Where to?” asked Lilian upon this occasion.

“Heaven,” promptly replied Philip. “Anywhere with you would be that.”

There had been plenty of fun in this time of visiting, but some seriousness, too. And now the wedding promised to be as beautiful as Mrs. Van Buskirk wanted it to be for Cathalina.

The night was star-lit, warm, but not stifling, and the June roses in the vases gave the proper atmosphere to the house. Mr. Van Buskirk told the girls, as they gathered downstairs preparatory to the ride to the church, that they did indeed look like “butterfly girls,” with their vari-colored frocks of soft silk and filmy tulle. All the colors were pale, Betty’s frock, blue; Lilian’s, peach; Hilary’s, green; Eloise’s, yellow; Helen’s, orchid; Isabel’s, pink; and Nan’s, lavender. Smiling, girlish faces above these pale shades and the flowers made a charming picture for the bride to look upon as she entered to see the girls before leaving.

They had been talking a little, as they waited these few minutes, but all conversation stopped as Cathalina came in. Graceful and sweet in her white satin, the white veil floating back from where it was caught in a coronet of lace, she was, indeed, their own Cathalina. Betty swallowed a lump and the tears almost came to Hilary’s eyes. “Oh,” said Isabel, “when Captain Van Horne sees you coming down the aisle, he will think it is an angel!”

“Not much of an angel, I’m afraid,” said Cathalina, as she went around and kissed every one. “Come on, everybody,” she said. “I wanted to tell you, and Mother is waiting. Have you my flowers, Father?”

“They have been put in the car, little daughter.”

It seemed only a minute before they were at the church getting ready the little procession which would accompany Cathalina. Philip was best man, and stood at the altar, with Allan Van Horne, wondering how it would seem when he was the groom. He suffered one pang when he thought “what if I haven’t the ring,” but a distinct recollection of putting it in his pocket consoled him. The old minister, too, was waiting, the same minister who had baptized Cathalina and was now to marry her.

Then they came, first, Charlotte Van Buskirk, as flower girl. Betty, as maid of honor; Lilian with Hilary, Eloise with Helen, and Isabel with Nan followed, and the bride on the arm of Philip Senior. Now the hush, the solemn words of the service, and Cathalina Van Horne, with her bridal flowers, walked out of the church on the arm of her husband.

THE END