The Princess of the School - Angela Brazil

Скачать книгу

be better?" she exulted. "We've won the record for tidiness three weeks running, so we're entitled to a special indulgence. I vote we ask to bring tea up here, and have a Valentine party. Don't you think it would be rather scrumptious? I've all sorts of ideas in my head."

      "Topping!" agreed Dulcie, pausing in the act of tying her hair ribbon to consider the important question, "specially if we could get Miss Walters to let us send to Glazebrook for a few cakes. I believe she would, if we wheedled!"

      "What about visitors?" asked Lilias. "It would be much more of a party if we had a few of the others in."

      "We don't want a crowd, or we might as well be in the dining-hall," objected Bertha.

      "Well, of course we shouldn't ask the whole school, naturally, but perhaps just Noreen and Phillida!"

      "We must get at the soft spot in Miss Walters' heart," decided Gowan. "Pick a bunch of early violets if you can find them, lay them on her study table, talk about flowers and nature for a little while, then ask if we may have a quiet little party in our bedroom to-morrow afternoon, with cakes at our own expense."

      "Quiet?" queried Lilias.

      "Well, of course you couldn't call it rowdy, could you? We'll send you to do the asking. Those dimples of yours generally get what you want, and on the whole I think you're the pattern one of us, and the most likely to be listened to."

      Tea at Chilcombe Hall was a quite informal meal. It partook, indeed more of the nature of a canteen. The urns were what the girls called "on tap" from four to four-thirty, and during summer any one might take cup, saucer, and plate into the garden, provided she duly brought them back afterwards to the dining-hall. Special permission for a bedroom feast was therefore not very difficult to obtain, and Lilias returned from her interview in the study with her dimples conspicuously in evidence.

      "Well?" asked the interested circle in the Blue bedroom.

      "Sweet as honey!" reported Lilias. "She said 'Certainly, my dear!' We may each ask one friend, and we may spend two shillings amongst us on cakes, if we give the money and the list of what we want to Jones this afternoon, because he's going into Glazebrook first thing to-morrow morning."

      "Only two shillings!" commented Gowan.

      "It will go no way!" pouted Bertha.

      "Well, I can't help it. Miss Walters said 'Two shillings' most emphatically."

      "You might have stuck out for more! Those iced cakes are always half a crown!"

      "I didn't dare to stick out for anything. I was so afraid she'd change her mind, and say 'There's good plain home-made cake with your schoolroom tea, and you must be content with that,' like she did to Nona and Muriel."

      "We could get twelve twopenny cakes for two shillings," calculated Dulcie; "but if there are eight of us, that's only one and a half apiece."

      "Best get eight twopenny iced cakes, and eight penny buns," suggested Bertha, taking pencil and paper to write the important order.

      "Right-o! Only be sure you put pink iced cakes, they are so much the nicest."

      "Whom shall we ask? It won't be much of a beano on two shillings. Still, they'll be keen on coming, I expect."

      Noreen, Phillida, Prissie, and Edith, the four finally selected favorites, accepted the invitation with alacrity. Bedroom tea-parties were indulgences only given to winners of three weeks' dormitory records, so the less fortunate occupants of the Brown and Rose rooms were really profiting by the tidiness of their hostesses. The Blue Grotto was placed in apple-pie order on the afternoon of the fourteenth of February. A white hemstitched cloth and a bowl of snowdrops adorned the center table, and the cakes were set out on paper doilies. Both hostesses and guests were in the dining-hall by four o'clock, awaiting the appearance of the urns, and each bore her cup of tea and a portion of bread and butter and scones upstairs with her.

      It was a jolly party round the square table, and if the cakes were not too plentiful, they were at least voted delicious. The girls carried down the cups when they had finished, shook the table-cloth out of the window, carefully collected crumbs from the floor, so as to preserve their record for neatness, then gathered round the table again for an hour's fun before the bell should ring for prep.

      "It's a Valentine party, and I've got a ripping idea," said Gowan. "We'll put our names on pieces of paper, fold them up, shuffle them and draw them; then each of us must write a valentine to the one we've drawn. We'll shuffle these, and one of us must read them all out. Then we must each guess who's written our valentines."

      "Sounds rather brainy, doesn't it?" objected Noreen. "I don't think I'm any hand at poetry!"

      "Oh! you can make up something if you try. Valentines are generally doggerel."

      "Need it be quite original?" asked Edith.

      "Well, if you really can't compose anything, we'll allow quotations."

      "Cracker mottoes?" suggested Dulcie.

      "Exactly. They're just about in the right style."

      "Are you all getting into a sentimental vein?" giggled Bertha. "Remember 'Love' rhymes with 'Dove,' and Cupid with—with—"

      "Stupid," supplied Dulcie laconically.

      "I'm not going to give my rhymes away beforehand," said Phillida. "Is that shuffling business finished, Gowan? Then bags me first draw."

      Each girl, having been apportioned the name of her valentine, set to work to compose a suitable ode in her honor. There was much knitting of brows and nibbling of pencils, and demands for a few minutes longer, when Gowan called "Time!" At last, however, the effusions were all finished, folded, shuffled, and laid in a pile. Gowan, as the originator of the game, was unanimously elected president. She drew one at a venture, opened it, and read:

      "TO PHILLIDA

       "Fair maiden, who in ancient song

       Was wont to flout her swain,

       I prithee be not always coy,

       But turn your face again.

       My heart is true, and it will rue,

       That ever you should doubt me,

       So sweet, be kind, and change your mind,

       And don't for ever flout me."

      "Who wrote that?" asked Phillida, glancing keenly round the circle. "Noreen, I believe you're looking conscious! I always suspect people who say they can't write."

      "I! No, indeed!" declared Noreen.

      "You may make guesses, but nobody's to confess or deny authorship till the end," put in Gowan hastily. "Remember, valentines are always supposed to be anonymous. Now I'm going to read another.

      "TO LILIAS

       "Cupid with his fatal dart

       Shot me through and made me smart,

       So I pray, before we part,

       Kiss me once, and heal my heart!"

      "Short and sweet!" commented Edith.

      "Very sweet—quite sugary, in fact," agreed Lilias. "It's the sort of motto you get out of a superior cracker with gelatine paper on the outside, and trinkets inside. There ought to be a ring with all that. I believe it's Prissie's, but I'm not sure it isn't by Bertha."

      "You mayn't have two guesses!" reminded Gowan, reaching for another paper. "Hallo! this actually to me! I feel quite shy!"

      "Go on! You're not usually afflicted with shyness," urged the others.

      "TO GOWAN

       "Wee modest, crimson-tipped flower,

       Thou'st met me in an evil hour;

       For I maun gang far frae thy bower,

       And leave thee greeting 'mang the stour.

      

Скачать книгу