The Project Gutenberg eBook, Judy of York Hill, by Ethel Hume Patterson
Bennett, Illustrated by Harold Cue


This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org





Title: Judy of York Hill


Author: Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett



Release Date: January 11, 2008  [eBook #24241]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)


***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUDY OF YORK HILL***


E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Emmy, and the Project Gutenberg Online
Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)



Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
      file which includes the original illustrations.
      See 24241-h.htm or 24241-h.zip:
      (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/4/2/4/24241/24241-h/24241-h.htm)
      or
      (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/4/2/4/24241/24241-h.zip)





JUDY OF YORK HILL

by

ETHEL HUME

With Illustrations by Harold Cue







[Illustration: PILLOWS WERE SORTED OUT, AND NANCY WITH THE TINY LIGHT
LED THE WAY (_page_ 59)]



[Illustration]

Boston and New York
Houghton Mifflin Company
The Riverside Press Cambridge

1922

Copyright, 1922, by Ethel Hume Bennett
All Rights Reserved

The Riverside Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Printed in the U.S.A.





           AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
                TO YOU WHO IN
            THE OLD SCHOOL LEARNED

        _"To set the cause above renown,
          To love the game beyond the prize,
          To honour, while you strike him down,
          The foe that comes with fearless eyes;
          To count the life of battle good,
          And dear the land that gave you birth,
          And dearer yet the brotherhood
          That binds the brave of all the earth._

        .     .     .     .     .     .     .

         _To-day and here the fight's begun
          Of the great fellowship you're free;
          Henceforth the School and you are one,
          And what You are, the race shall be."_

                                    HENRY NEWBOLT




CONTENTS


           I. BEGINNINGS                           3

          II. IMPORTANT THINGS                    21

         III. DRESSING UP                         37

          IV. A SUPPER PARTY                      47

           V. "ENOUGH IS AS GOOD AS A FEAST"      54

          VI. PUTTING IT THROUGH                  65

         VII. CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS                  87

        VIII. CASTLES IN THE AIR                 100

          IX. THE ANONYMOUS LETTER               115

           X. JUDITH PLAYS DETECTIVE             133

          XI. FRIENDS                            148

         XII. EASTER HOLIDAYS                    169

        XIII. THE MESSENGER                      186

         XIV. JUDITH WINS THE TENNIS CUP         203

          XV. JUNE SHOWERS                       218

         XVI. A TOAST TO THE SCHOOL              239

        XVII. PRIZE-GIVING                       259




ILLUSTRATIONS


  PILLOWS WERE SORTED OUT, AND NANCY WITH THE TINY LIGHT
    LED THE WAY                                         _Frontispiece_

  JUDITH WAS TUCKED UP IN A FUR ROBE IN THE CUTTER AND
    OFF THEY WENT                                             102

  JUDITH HAD TO HEAR EVERY SINGLE THING THAT HAD HAPPENED
    TO NANCY SINCE THEY PARTED                                182

  THEN CURIOSITY URGED HER TO OPEN THE LITTLE WHITE BOX       248




JUDY OF YORK HILL




CHAPTER I

BEGINNINGS


"YES, we're nearly in," said Uncle Tom, glancing out at the flying
landscape. "There's the lake, and here comes the porter to stir up the
dust."

Judith's heart beat a little more quickly. Toronto and York Hill School
had been the centre of her thoughts for months past, and now she was
almost there and a new life ahead of her!

"I suppose you've read your 'Tom Brown,' Judy, eh? 'Like young bears
with all your troubles to come,'" quoted Uncle Tom as he left her a few
minutes later with Aunt Nell who had come to the station to meet them.
"Can't help having trouble, I'm afraid, but when you're going to be
expelled for not having solved your geometry problem, just drown your
grief in an ice-cream soda in the tuck shop"--and he dexterously
inserted a crisp bank-note into Judith's bag.

"Don't mind him, Judy, darling, he's always teasing. We'll do our
shopping first of all. I've arranged for a fitting at Madame's for you."

"Mother and Daddy sent their love," said Judith a little soberly as they
got into the waiting motor. "Yes, I think Mother seemed a little
better--and she's just sure that Florida will make her perfectly well."

Her lips quivered ever so slightly as she remembered how every hour was
taking her mother farther away from her.

But Aunt Nell, who had promised her sister to finish Judith's shopping,
made haste to introduce the fascinating question as to whether taffeta
or crepe would be best for the afternoon frock, and how many sweater
coats would she need.

They spent a busy and a delightful morning. Who doesn't like to get a
new outfit? And then, after luncheon at Aunt Nell's club, they motored
out to York, for they had an appointment with the Head Mistress at three
o'clock.

"Just around this curve and then we can see the School--there!" said
Aunt Nell, and Judith leaned forward, her eyes shining with excitement.

"Blessed old York! I can't have quite the same affection, of course,
for these new buildings as I had for the old School in town--York
Ladies' College it was then; but this certainly is handsomer, and we've
still got Miss Meredith and some of the old staff, so it's the same
York."

Judith looked eagerly at the great pile of grey stone vine-clad
buildings.

"That's the main school with the bell-tower," continued Aunt Nell in her
character of guide. "The classrooms and offices are there, the two wings
are East and West Houses, farther to the north--there, you see--is North
House, and here is South where you are to be. That's Miss Meredith's
house over there by the maple trees, and back of the main school are the
gymnasium and the tennis courts. I hope you've brought your tennis
racquet; you'll get excellent practice."

Aunt Nell paused for a moment, and then she laughed a little ruefully.

"I'd love to give you a bit of advice or guidance that would help, Judy;
but honestly I don't know how to do it. Fathers and uncles in the school
stories always seem to know what to say. I do know that you're going to
have a splendid time--I wish _I_ were sixteen again and my first year
at York before me." Aunt Nell looked reminiscent for a moment, and then
added, "One thing--York is going to help you to grow; and if I didn't
feel rather like a very heavy uncle who was being listened to for the
tip he was to bestow, I'd conclude by quoting from 'Hamlet'--yes, I
will--it's the soundest piece of advice I know.

                        'To thine own self be true,
        And it shall follow as the night the day,
        Thou canst not then be false to any man.'

There, that's my last will and testament. York is going to show you how
to be true to the best that's in you; perhaps the girls will teach you
as much as the staff will--you've got some very important things to
learn from them."

Judith looked politely astonished, but not very deeply interested. Fancy
having to listen to "Hamlet" when a perfectly fascinating new world lay
just a few yards away! But Aunt Nell really was a dear--that new blue
taffeta was going to be stunning.

Judith had dreaded a little the interview with Miss Meredith; she was
sure that the Head of this great School must be an awe-inspiring
person, stern and somewhat like a judge. But Miss Meredith's welcome was
so warm and gracious that Judith felt surprisingly at her ease. She was
conscious of a dignified presence, kind yet keen blue eyes, a beautiful,
low-pitched voice, and a personality, which, even in that first short
interview, Judith recognized as strong and powerful.

Judith's course of study was discussed, and then a charming-looking
girl--who was apparently waiting in the corridor for the purpose--was
summoned and introduced as Nancy Nairn, a classmate, and member of the
same house.

They made way for another newcomer and her mother, and the moment Judith
had dreaded was come. She kept Aunt Nell a few minutes in the hall
sending messages to Doris and Bobby and Uncle Tom, and a miserable
aching lump rose in her throat, though she swallowed hard.

"Head up, honey," whispered Aunt Nell, holding Judith's hands firmly.
"Ask Miss Marlowe to let you 'phone me if you need anything, and on
Friday I'll come for you. What a lot you'll have to tell me!"

For one desperate instant Judith felt that she must follow her or else
let the wretched lump, which was growing larger and larger, compel her
to tears, but there at her elbow was Nancy whose blue eyes were dancing
and who apparently had no sympathy for tears.

"Let's go over to South and see about your room," she began. "Do you
know any one here?"

Judith shook her head.

"Oh, well, you'll soon know heaps. What a perfectly sweet bag," she
added tactfully, surveying Judith's beaded treasure from Paris. "Do let
me see it."

Judith wondered if she could speak, but Nancy didn't wait. Her soldier
brother had brought her a bag from Liberty's. Would Judith come and see
it? She did hope Judith's room was near hers; at least hers was not a
room, but a cubicle. Judith's eyes questioned. Cubicle had to be
explained as a room with low walls about six feet high, such a friendly
place to live in, "five or six of us in a row and we're never lonely,"
finished Nancy; "but then no one is lonely at York."

By this time they had crossed by a cloister to South House and were
standing at the House Mistress's door.

"Miss Marlowe must be a very popular person," thought Judith. Outside
the green baize door was a chattering mob of girls, all apparently
talking at the top of their voices. Indeed, it seemed to Judith that
they were screaming.

"Nancy, _darling_!" cried one, and Nancy was literally dragged from
Judith by several impetuous young persons who all talked at once.

"Glorious time" . . . "Did you?" . . . "Temagami" . . . "camped out for
three weeks" . . . "Indian guides" . . . "_Such_ diving" . . . "Heavenly
time" . . . "Murray Bay" . . .

Then a louder voice--

"Miss Marlowe wants Peggy Forrest."

"Here, Piggy, hurry along"--and a fat girl was propelled through the
crowd.

"Jane, my dear, I thought you were never coming," heralded a new
arrival.

"Miss Marlowe is a brick; we are to have thirty-three."

Squeals of delight and the retreat of three inseparables.

Judith began to feel that she would drown amidst all the noise, but
Nancy had a tight grip of her arm again, and at last it was her turn at
the door.

Judith never lost that first picture of Miss Marlowe in her study, a
pleasant, sun-flooded room, low bookcases, the gleam of brass, colorful
pictures, a cosy fire, and Miss Marlowe herself, grey-eyed,
ruddy-haired, and low-voiced. The quiet voice began to work a magic, and
after a few minutes' chat Judith felt less like a lost soul and more
like a normal girl again. Then Nancy was summoned from without.

"Judith is to be in number twenty-five, Nancy; will you take her up and
see that she is settled? Her trunk is there already; it came this
morning. You can be very busy at once, Judith"--and Miss Marlowe's smile
was friendly and comforting.

Nancy squeezed Judith's hand impulsively as they left the room to make
way for other girls.

"Twenty-five! I _am_ glad you are in our set of cubicles."

Twenty-five proved to be the tiniest room Judith had ever seen, more
like a ship's cabin than a room, she thought, surveying her new abode
with disfavour. A couch-bed, writing-desk and bookcase, a bureau, a
wicker chair--how was there room for them all? And how dreadful to have
only half a wall--well, three quarters of a wall between you and your
neighbour!

There were five of these little cubicles in a row, she saw; then a
closed door evidently opening into a bedroom at the end, and the six
rooms had their own hall which was closed off from the main corridor by
a big door.

Judith unlocked her trunk and began to unpack her treasures. Wherever
was the clothes-closet? Surely there was one?

In a few moments Nancy's voice was heard again--

"Come and see my new evening frock before I put it away."

Judith began to realize the advantages of a cubicle. How nice to be able
to talk to one's neighbours in this friendly fashion--and a new frock!
Judith adored clothes, and she was soon admiring Nancy's pet frock.

The cupboard was discovered, one of a row in the hall, and the two spent
a happy hour, unpacking.

Nancy explained the use of the shelf on the inside of the cupboard door
to hold toilet articles, and pointed out the towel bars and a wooden
locker for hats on the cupboard shelf.

"It's great luck," said Nancy, "to have our trunks up so soon; we can
get our things put away before the others come, and then we'll have
plenty of time for visiting.

"I wonder who is coming to the other rooms! I know Josephine Burley is
trying to get into this set of cubicles, but Miss Marlowe has her own
ideas about which rooms we're to have.

"You'll love Miss Marlowe. She's a dear--strict, you know, but just--and
she helps with the plays--she can act anything. Aren't you glad you're
in South? Of _course_ South is the crack house! We won the basket-ball
cup last year and our captain is School Captain this year."

While they talked, they finished their unpacking, and Judith, who was
naturally very orderly, soon had everything in its place. Her mother's
parting gift had been couch-cover, cushions, and hangings for the new
room--homespun of a lovely deep blue for cover and cushions, and a
delightful rosy chintz for hangings.

Judith was eager to see how her room would look and worked quickly and
deftly. She was hanging her curtains when she heard excited voices in
the corridor, then a banging of doors and screams of delight as the
newcomers found Nancy.

"Good work, Nancy," said some one in a gruff voice. "How did you do it?
I never thought Miss Marlowe would let us three be together again."

"My blameless character, Miss Josephine Burley, did the trick," retorted
Nancy. "I pointed out to Miss Marlowe the good influence living with me
would have on a reprobate like you."

"Reprobate! I like that," said the owner of the deep, boyish voice, and
sounds of scuffling feet, the creaking of the bed, and bursts of
laughter proclaimed a tussle.

Nancy apparently had the worst of it, and she was sat upon literally and
heavily and then fed with chocolates.

Scraps of conversation floated over the walls:

"Rosamond's in thirty-seven--very, very mad is Rosamond. Hope we'll have
Pat as prefect."

"No such luck. Pat is in number ten."

"There's a new girl in twenty-five"--this from Nancy in a lowered
voice.

In a moment there was a knock at the door and Judith was introduced to
the owner of the deep voice, Josephine Burley, and her satellite, Jane
Fenton.

"Why, you've got your room fixed already," said Josephine admiringly.
"Somebody's been working hard! Look at her lovely curtains! I wish I'd
had rose now, instead of yellow."

"'T wouldn't have made a speck of difference, Jo, and you know it,"
commented Jane with a wicked twinkle. "You know you say you were made
untidy, and untidy you'll stay."

"I promised Miss Marlowe I'd reform. I'm not going to forget anything,
and I'm going to get a _beautiful_ record for my room, and my hair and
clothes are going to be so irreproachable that Miss Watson will have
nothing to do but create masterpieces all term."

"Are we going to have Miss Marlowe for English, by the way?" asked Jane.
"I hope so. And is Eleanor here yet? I've got to see her about a new
basket-ball."

"I never saw three girls so different," thought Judith as she sat eating
chocolates and listening to School gossip. "Nancy's much the
prettiest--I love gold hair, and she has such aristocratic hands and
feet--she's lovely--I do hope we'll be friends. Josephine's almost
rough--and what an untidy mop of hair! I wonder if her eyes are
brown--she shuts them up so tight when she laughs I can't see--and she
seems to be laughing most of the time. She's awfully big--I don't think
I'd like to be quite so tall. Jane's funny--she's almost square--fair
and solid--and how straight her hair is; she's got a wicked grin--she's
a monkey, I do believe."

The dressing-bell rang before the three friends had caught up on the
latest news, but thanks to the low walls conversation could proceed even
while they dressed. Nancy remembered to ask Judith if she needed any
help with dome fasteners, and then they went down to the dining-room
together.

The tables were laid for six, each headed by a sixth-form girl.

"At dinner we usually have a teacher at each table," explained Nancy,
"but this being first night the staff are by themselves."

Judith was introduced to the prefect, Esther Harriman, a tall,
black-haired girl who enquired at once what games Judith played, and
learning that she preferred tennis assured her that she could have a
game the next day.

Nancy continued to point out notables: the brown-haired prefect at the
next table with the frank, boyish look was Eleanor Ormsby, the Captain
of the School, and next to her was Rosamond--

Esther interrupted them in order to introduce a newcomer who had arrived
late, evidently just from a journey.

"This is Sally May Forsythe, Nancy, from Richmond, Virginia, and she's
going to be in your set of cubicles, Miss Marlowe says."

Sally May was almost as pretty as Nancy, Judith decided, but not quite,
though her eyes were big and brown, and her soft Southern voice wholly
charming.

"We're to go back to Miss Marlowe's room so she can talk over your
schedule of lessons with you," announced Nancy as they left the
dining-room, "and then we'll go over to the gymnasium."

"Gymnasium?" gasped Judith.

"Oh, just for a dance," said Nancy, "It'll be good fun. Wait for me in
the corridor outside Miss Marlowe's room."

It _was_ good fun, Judith decided a little later as she had her first
dance with Nancy, and then with Sally May--but bewildering. There had
been only about fifty girls in the dining-room at South, and even there
she had been confused by the number of voices, but here the whole
School, some two hundred girls, were gathered, and there was a perfect
Babel of sound.

Nancy piloted them back to South, and as Sally May's luggage had not
come she was fitted out with what she needed. Nancy went to the
housekeeper's room for soap and a toothbrush--Mrs. Bronson kept a supply
for such emergencies; Josephine donated her best crepe nightie--in which
Sally May was presently to look quite lost, so large was it; and Judith
got out her newest and prettiest kimono.

"You'll feel as if you'd been here all your life by the time you get all
these and my old bath slippers on," said Jane saucily. "Come into my
room as soon as you're arrayed in all this glory--there's a little cake
left and I'm going to do my best to find some ginger-ale."

Judith was brushing out her pretty brown hair and looking rather
solemnly at her reflection in the mirror when shrieks of delight
testified to the arrival of some one, who, to judge by the commotion,
must be very popular.

"Cathy, you darling, are you _really_ to be ours? What precious
luck!--Josephine and Jane, and--yes--two new girls--Judith Benson in
twenty-five and Sally May Forsythe in twenty-one."

There was a knock at the door and a clear voice said, "May I come in?"

Judith opened her door and straightway lost her heart when the newcomer
smiled a welcome. Catherine was adored by every beauty-loving girl in
the School, for she had beauty of a rare type--a slender, graceful body,
a well-set little head crowned with a big braid of softly waving dark
brown hair, and haunting, black-lashed Irish blue eyes.

"Isn't she simply lovely?" whispered Nancy after Catherine had gone to
her own room. "And she's just as good as she looks. Oh, goody, I'm _so_
glad she's our prefect!"

Miss Marlowe put her head in the door to say good-night just before the
"Lights out" bell rang, and then Judith was at last alone. She was
bewildered by the mass of new impressions; the twinkling of the
trainman's lanterns as she looked out of her berth in the early
morning; the cold, chilly touch of homesickness when she followed the
porter out of the Pullman; Aunt Nell's welcome; the exciting shopping;
the first glimpse of the school set high on the hill; Aunt Nell's little
sermon; Nancy's merry eyes; the Babel of voices in the gymnasium;
Catherine Ellison's beautiful face; her mother's proud good-bye, "I can
trust you, Judy, darling--"

Suddenly Judith realized that Mother and Daddy were many hundreds of
miles away, that Aunt Nell had gone, and that she was alone, alone with
these hundreds of strangers. The thought terrified her: the ache in her
throat grew intolerable: she would have to sob and disgrace herself.

There was a rustling of paper on the other side of the partition, and
then--

"Catch," said Josephine in a hoarse whisper, and something dropped on to
Judith's bed.

"Catch," came in a shriller whisper from the other side, and a second
something followed.

Judith groped for them in surprise and discovered a chocolate bar and a
huge sticky Chelsea bun wrapped in tissue paper.

"Promised Cathy we wouldn't have a picnic to-night," said Nancy, "but we
didn't say that we wouldn't sit up in bed like little ladies and partake
of some light refreshment."

Sheer surprise made it possible for Judith to say, "Thank you." A moment
ago she would have felt one word was an impossibility and then--oh,
blessed bun!--one cannot sob and eat a large Chelsea bun at the same
time.

Judith ate slowly and carefully, set her lips, and kept back the
miserable lump. The chocolate was still to finish, and Jane began an
interminable story of a canoe trip in Algonquin Park, but before it was
nearly ended, tired Judith was fast asleep.




CHAPTER II

IMPORTANT THINGS


JUDITH never forgot morning prayers on the first day of school at York
Hill. In some miraculous way the throng of girls, who crowded the
corridors before nine o'clock, formed in lines at the doors of their old
classrooms, new girls were piloted to a special position, and when the
prayer-bell rang, an orderly procession, beginning with the little
"Removes" and ending with the serious and important-looking Sixth Form,
filed into Big Hall and took their places.

The beautiful arching Gothic windows, the soft music from the pipe
organ, the dignity of the high, oak-beamed ceiling, all this to Judith's
beauty-loving mind was curiously satisfying. The service was short but
reverent; a hymn, the reading of the lesson, the prayers for the day,
and then the Head Mistress was reading out the promotion of old girls
and the placing of new girls.

Form Five A was announced; "Judith Benson, Josephine Burley, Sally May
Forsythe, Joyce Hewson, Nancy Nairn, Frances Purdy"--Judith's cheeks
glowed as the list was read. Five A! How pleased Daddy would be, and how
glad she was that she had stuck to the hated mathematics this summer!
And to be in Nancy's form, what joy!

Then followed a busy morning; new books piled high on the waiting desk,
new teachers, each seemingly more interesting than the last, new rules
to be learned, new girls to meet.

Judith was quite ready for buns and milk at eleven-thirty and enjoyed
her fifteen minutes in the open, and by the end of the morning she was
both tired and stimulated, for she found that she was required to think
for herself in order to take part in the discussions. There was to be a
written test to-morrow on the books which had been set for Form Five A's
summer reading and Judith had thought that she was prepared for it. But
as Miss Marlowe proceeded with her keen questioning, Judith began to
wonder if she knew anything at all about "The Idylls of the King." Miss
Marlowe had a way of saying, when answers were given, "Yes--yes--what do
_you_ yourself think?" which Judith, accustomed to teachers who had
spoken with a voice of authority, found disconcerting but highly
interesting.

After luncheon and a rest period, Nancy took Judith for a tour of
inspection; tennis courts, cricket field, gymnasium, common room, and
library were visited in turn, the etiquette of the stairs
explained--Judith learned that it was considered fearful "side" for a
Fifth-Form girl to use the front stairway to the entrance hall--and the
round ended in the tuck shop where Judith was introduced to the
presiding genius--Mrs. Wilcox, the housekeeper's sister--a bright-eyed,
cheerful little Englishwoman, who, to judge by the way the girls greeted
her, was immensely popular.

Sally May and Josephine hailed them from a coveted table by the west
window, and the four of them were soon busily and happily engaged with
peach sundaes and the foibles and peculiarities of teachers new and old.

The four-thirty bell caused a hasty scattering: Judith was enrolled in
music and studio classes and introduced to study hour in the library.

It _was_ a busy day. Judith, as she drifted off into the sleep that
claimed her before she had time to think over the events of the last
twenty-four hours, wondered drowsily whether she had been at York a day
or a week, and however was she going to tell Mother and Daddy _all_
about it as she had promised!

By the end of the week the new girls had been so well shepherded by the
old that Judith had lost her first shyness and bewilderment at living
with so many new people, and was beginning to feel that she herself was
an old girl and ready to uphold and defend York Hill traditions.
Everything had so far been made so easy for her that she had lost sight
of Aunt Nell's cryptic remarks concerning the important things that the
girls were to teach her. But the week was not to end without the
beginning of the discipline Aunt Nell had been thinking about.

When Nancy and Judith ran upstairs after luncheon on Friday, Judith was
surprised to find on her bedroom door a card. There was one on
Josephine's too.

"Oh, dear," groaned that young person, "bedroom inspection already! And
I left my boots under my bed last night. 'C,' of course, and I did want
to have at least 'B's' this term. What've you got, Judy?" And looking
over Judith's shoulder she read aloud, "A. Excellent. A pretty room in
exquisite order."

"My word, Judy, you're in Miss Watson's good books all right. Did you
hear that, Cathy?"--as their prefect appeared in her door dressed for
going out, "Judy has 'A' on her card."

"Splendid," said Catherine approvingly; "I wish the rest of you would
take Judith's room as a model. You may thank your lucky star, Sally
May," she continued as Sally May joined them, "that Miss Watson hadn't
time to inspect your room. It's in a shocking state. Run along now and
have things ship-shape by dinner-time."

"Isn't she simply lovely?" breathed Sally May when Catherine had gone;
"I'd do _anything_ in this world for her. But I don't see how I could
_ever_ be tidy. I never looked after my things before and there's _so_
little space in these tiny rooms."

"They certainly are tiny," agreed Judith. "I couldn't think of anything
but a cabin on board ship when I saw mine."

"Well, if Cathy wants us to be tidy, we've just got to be," said Nancy
with finality, and Josephine and Jane were summoned to help eat the
last of Judith's chocolates, and lend their brains to a scheme "for
furthering extreme and painful neatness," as Sally May put it.

"We might have a box for fines," suggested Josephine hopefully.

"I have it!" cried Nancy. "Judith's idea of the cabin was an
inspiration. Let's pretend we _are_ a ship. Cathy'll be the captain and
we'll be the crew and we'll have to be disciplined if we're not
orderly."

Nancy's plan was received with enthusiasm, chiefly because, since
sororities were not permitted in the school, it gave them a chance to
band themselves together. They had great fun discussing a name before
they finally settled on Josephine's suggestion of the "Jolly Susan."
"'Jolly,' because we _are_ jolly, and 'Susan,' because, well--don't you
think of 'Susan' as tidy, and a ship?"

So the cubicles were formally christened the "Jolly Susan" by Jane, who
donated a bottle of ginger-ale for the purpose, and Judith's empty
candy-box was hung up beside Catherine's door to hold the fines which
were to be used "for the sustenance of disabled (or dejected) seamen."

Sally May entreated Judith to show her how she managed to stow away all
her belongings so neatly, and when the half-past two bell rang for
outdoor recreation, the "Jolly Susan" was ready for Captain Catherine's
inspection.

A basket-ball practice for South House had been posted on the bulletin
board, but Judith felt lazy and wanted to finish "The Scarlet
Pimpernel," so, taking her book, she went across the quadrangle to a
sheltered spot under the big beech tree where she meant to spend a
blissful hour reading and lying at her ease on the soft warm grass.

The story would be sure to be interesting, but she postponed the treat
and lay watching the big white clouds sailing lazily across the blue of
the sky, and enjoying the brilliant splashes of colour in the maples at
the foot of the garden.

It had been a very happy week, Judith decided, reviewing the events
which she planned to chronicle in her letter to her mother to-night. How
nice everybody had been to her! No one could have a better chum than
Nancy! How pleased Mother would be that she had received such an
excellent mark for her room; and Daddy would be delighted at the high
mark Miss Marlowe had given her on that initial literature test; Nancy
and Josephine were loud in their admiration of the way she had
translated for Miss Langton in Latin class. Altogether, as Judith rolled
over on to her elbows and found the place in her book, she was feeling
happy and a bit too complacent. Only a page or two had been turned when
a shadow blotted out the flickering tracings of the beech leaves, and a
surprised voice said--

"Hullo, aren't you Judith Benson of South?"

"Yes," said Judith, sitting up and smiling politely, unconsciously ready
for a little more praise: she knew that this was Catherine's friend,
Patricia Caldwell, another South House prefect.

"Well, then, why aren't you playing basket-ball?"

"Because I don't want to play," said Judith calmly; "I prefer tennis."

Patricia almost gasped; this from a new girl--"She didn't want to!"

"Every girl is expected to join in the first practice matches so we can
pick our players for South," she said pleasantly but firmly. "Weren't
you at the Athletic Union meeting on Wednesday? I suppose you didn't
understand. However, you can join in the second half."

Patricia was Senior basket-ball captain and secretary of the Athletic
Union, and basket-ball was to her at present the most important thing in
the School. Judith felt rebellious, but made no reply. She watched
Patricia's retreating figure and wondered whether she dare skip the
practice.

Nancy, who had come to look for her, was questioned.

"Skip it? You had better not!" she exclaimed in horrified tones.

"But it isn't on my time-table," objected Judith. "Mayn't I do as I
please in spare time?"

"Why, but Patricia said you must," said Nancy.

Nancy, brought up in the traditions of York Hill, felt that it was
almost sacrilegious to question the authority of a senior prefect.

Judith was aggrieved and a bit defiant. She wanted to finish her story.
It was extremely pleasant out under the beech trees. She didn't want to
get up and dash about getting all hot and untidy, and making all kinds
of mistakes in a silly old game that did nobody any good as far as she
could see. Anyhow, her afternoon was spoiled now, and she began to wish
that basket-ball had never been invented. The very idea of action grew
more and more distasteful, but at the sound of the three o'clock bell
she got up very reluctantly and crossed over to the basket-ball court.
Fortunately she was dressed ready for the game, since at four o'clock
she was due at a gymnasium class.

Esther Harriman, who was umpiring, gave her a red scarf to tie on her
arm and briefly explained where she was to play and what she was to do.
Unfortunately the girl she was to check was Georgia Fisher for whom
Judith had taken an unreasonable dislike; partly because she disliked
the way Georgia giggled, and partly because she thought her impossibly
stupid. Judith hadn't much patience with stupid people!

"No, I haven't played much," Judith said loftily in answer to Georgia's
question. "I don't care about basket-ball--I'd sooner play tennis. Last
year I won the tennis prize." Georgia wasn't to think that she, Judith,
couldn't play games if she wanted to.

Esther blew her whistle, and instantly the two centres were leaping for
the ball, and before Judith could remember that she was supposed to be
on guard Georgia quite easily caught the ball, and passed it neatly to
Josephine who threw for the basket and made the first score for the Blue
scarves.

Judith looked annoyed and Georgia giggled, sympathetically.

"You got to keep your eye on me, _and_ on the ball," she explained
good-humouredly, and proceeded to take the ball again in spite of
Judith's utmost endeavors to prevent her.

An exhausting half-hour followed. Georgia seemed to be _all_ arms,
thought Judith despairingly, trying in vain to check her. Once she did
get the coveted ball, and in the excitement of at last outwitting
Georgia, she threw it straight into the outstretched arms of Josephine
who wore the enemy's Blue scarf. Josephine threw her a kiss of thanks
when the ball was safely landed in the net, and Georgia's unfailing
giggle helped to heighten the colour in Judith's cheeks.

Up went the ball again and then swiftly it came, passed from one Red
scarf to another. "I _will_ have it this time," said Judith fiercely to
herself, too engrossed in a desire to win from the Blues to remember the
most elementary rules of the game; she caught the ball and ran, yes,
just ran to the goal and threw. The proverbial good luck which attends
the beginner was hers, but instead of the applause which Judith expected
there was a burst of good-natured laughter. She had run with the ball
and all in order to throw it into the Blues' goal!

Poor Judith, it was all she could do to smile feebly when Georgia met
her with a grin, and, "This ain't football, you know." She hated being
laughed at, and when the practice was finally over, left the campus
humiliated, cross, and hardly able to bear herself or any one else.

On the way back to the beech tree and the story-book, she consulted her
time-table to make sure of the time of the gymnasium class. Yes! thank
goodness, she was free until four o'clock--there was just time to finish
the chapter.

Four o'clock found Judith in line, a pair of dumb-bells tucked under her
arms, ready to march into the gymnasium as the three-thirty class
marched out. She had had two lessons already and was beginning to like
her class. Last year's instructor had been adored by the girls and
consequently their work was excellent. Miss Evans, a young teacher, new
to York Hill, busy finding out what her new classes could do, scarcely
realized how much _she_ was on trial. This afternoon she called out a
last year's girl to lead the class while she stood aside to watch and
criticize.

"Wrong, wrong," she cried, and held up her hand as figure five was
concluded. Now Miss Evans, as we said, was young and new at her job, and
did not count on the adoration which the girls had given her
predecessor.

"Quite wrong," she said again.

"That is the way we did last year, Miss Evans," stiffly replied Jane who
was leading.

"Indeed!" said Miss Evans, who did not like Jane's tone; "that doesn't
make it right. Is there any one here who belonged to another class who
can do this figure correctly?"

Alas, Miss Evans, your Irish impetuosity will cost you dear!
Condemnation shone forth from thirty pairs of eyes, the hot, unreasoning
condemnation of the young. Alas, Miss Evans, it will take you many a day
to recapture what you have just lost! Alas, poor Judith, here was the
opportunity to regain her lost self-complacency. It happened that she
had been taught figure five in a different fashion, and, eager to show
that she at least knew how, her hand went up.

"Ah, Judith knows how? Judith, stand out and do the figure."

The music began and Judith went through it accurately and perfectly,
entirely to her own satisfaction and to that of Miss Evans.

"Good," said Miss Evans, "that's right. Now once more, Judith, so that
the others may follow."

Judith's eyes flew to Nancy's. She loved to see the admiring affection
which she had been finding there. But Nancy's eyes were cold and
unseeing. Judith, like most clever little girls, was extremely sensitive
to public opinion, and she almost dropped her dumb-bells in an agony of
shame and humiliation as she saw the coldness of Nancy's eyes faithfully
repeated in all the eyes about her. Alas, poor Judith! "Teacher's pet,"
terrible phrase, was whispered as the class filed out, and when Nancy
and Josephine rushed down to the tuck shop for an ice-cream cone they
affected not to see Judith, who at first followed disconsolately, and
then fled to her room, where, with head buried under the pillows, she
sobbed herself into a misery of self-pity and supposed homesickness.

Five o'clock bell rang. Horrors! She had forgotten that Aunt Nell was to
be here at five o'clock to take her out for dinner. Aunt Nell would be
cross at being kept waiting. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Would she never find
her gloves? Where was her new scarf? She must have left them down in the
cloakroom after morning walk. A hurried flight to the cloakroom, another
search, and an entirely discomfited Judith presented herself in the
drawing-room.

Aunt Nell would look displeased, she thought, as she entered. Judith
really did not care that Aunt Nell had been inconvenienced, but merely
that disapproval, instead of the approbation for which she thirsted,
would be her portion. But Aunt Nell looked amused. Indeed, when they
were once in the motor she laughed outright.

"I must say, Judy, considering that you have been in school only a week,
you seem to have got rid of any superfluous neatness very quickly." And
she pointed to a mirror at the side of the car.

Judith's eyes rounded with horror; she had washed her face, but a grimy
streak still outlined one side of her chin, her hair was rough in spite
of a hasty brushing, and her hat was comically askew.

"I have been so busy," said Judith, turning scarlet and blinking to keep
back the tears of mortification at this last straw.

"Busy!" said Aunt Nell quizzically; "busy learning important things?"

"Very important things," said Judith.




CHAPTER III

DRESSING UP


"GOT your costume ready for to-night, Judy?" asked Nancy one glorious
sunshiny morning a few weeks later.

"I have _not_," came from Judith in dismayed tones; "I absolutely forgot
about it. Why didn't you remind me? I haven't heard any one mention it
all week."

"Well, there hasn't really been time to do anything, has there? And,
anyway, we usually concoct something at the last minute. I do love
dressing up, don't you?"

"I do if I don't have to make up the dress," said Judith honestly, as
she finished making her bed and leaned out of the window to take deep
breaths of the glorious October air. "Nancy, do come and look at the
maple grove, and the oaks and the beeches against that lovely sky, and
isn't the vine on Miss Meredith's house simply a gorgeous colour? I
could almost eat the sunshine, it's so good. Tell me what to wear
to-night. I don't know what I should have done without your help last
Friday."

"Let's think it over," said Nancy, pulling on a sweater and cap and
running off to play tennis with Jane; "see you at recess and we'll
decide then."

But when recess came Judith confessed to not having given it a thought,
she had been kept too busy for the consideration of such frivolities as
a Friday party, and Nancy on her part had a doleful tale of returned
lessons to be made up during the afternoon.

"Oh, _why_ didn't I prepare that French prose?" she wailed when the crew
of the "Jolly Susan" foregathered after luncheon in her room. "I begged
Madame to let me make it up _any_ other time, but of course she
wouldn't."

"Oh, well, we're not going to dress alike this time," said Sally May,
"so it doesn't matter. It _was_ fun, though, wasn't it, making
sailor-boy costumes out of sheets and pillowcases, and I never laughed
so hard in my life as when North House came in. You really ought to have
seen them"--this to Jane who had been away for the week-end--"not one of
them looked more than six months old--they pasted paper over their teeth
and had on the cutest little bonnets and long dresses and carried
bottles--really cold-cream bottles with a glove finger on top--"

"I think the Hindus were the cleverest," said Judith.

"The question before the house is, what are we going to do to-night?"
observed Josephine. "Now my idea"--

But what Josephine's idea was the rest never knew, for Rosamond put her
head in at the door and called, "Long distance 'phone for you, Jo; Miss
Martin says hurry"--

Judging by the speed with which Josephine vanished down the corridor she
was anxious to oblige Miss Martin.

The half-past two bell rang and Nancy and Judith went off to music
lessons without deciding anything about the costume for the party, and
when Judith came upstairs after an early dinner she was still as
undecided as ever. The corridor was as busy as the proverbial beehive,
for the "borrowing-rule" had been suspended for the day, and everybody
seemed to be making the most of the opportunity.

Judith was besieged with requests the moment she appeared.

"I bag your white slippers, Judy, if _you_ don't want them," called
Rosamond.

"And I want your black beads--"

"Your blue scarf, please, Judy," called Catherine from her room, "I'll
be awfully careful of it."

Squeals of delight came from the various rooms where tryings-on were
proceeding. "Every one seems happy but me," thought Judith dismally when
the borrowers had departed.

What would a Southern costume be like, anyway? Africa? No that would be
too hard and she hadn't the least idea how the Australians dressed.
South America? India? Was India south? No, it couldn't be, because she
had heard Audrey Green of East House describing a perfectly sweet Hindu
costume which her roommate was going to wear. Southerner? How stupid of
her! Why not a Virginian lady of the Colonial period? Why not? That's
settled. Now as to the how; whom could she ask? But no sympathetic
friend presented herself and Judith again began to feel aggrieved.

"Hurrah! hurrah!" cried Josephine excitedly rushing into the room.
"Jim--my brother--arrives to-night from Alberta and he'll call here
to-morrow first thing. I believe," she added in a lower, confidential
tone, "I believe I must have been a bit homesick and didn't know
it--there'll be letters and messages, and probably a box, too, from
home. Oh, I can hardly wait till to-morrow! Jim says Mother is all
right, though she misses me dreadfully--you see our nearest neighbour
lives fifty miles away, and sometimes she doesn't see a white woman all
winter."

"Fifty miles!" repeated Judith in amazement.

"Yes, we have to have a lot of land for the horses, and sometimes Dad is
away for several days visiting the outlying parts and Mother gets pretty
lonely."

"You're joking, Jo--your father couldn't spend several days travelling
on his own farm."

"Not farm, Judibus," said Josephine, laughing, "it's a ranch, and it has
to be big, as I said, for the horses."

"How big?" demanded Judith, still thinking of the farms she had seen in
Ontario and Quebec.

"We had twenty-five thousand acres last year, but Dad has leased another
ten thousand on the other side of the river. Oh, Judy, my dear, if ever
you come to the West I'll show you what real fun is! Sometimes I ride
all day--and such riding! I've a gem of a little mare--Patsy's her
name--she's as good a chum as I ever had until I came here last year.
Aren't mothers bricks?" she added with a little catch in her voice.
"Mother really needs me, but she just insisted on my coming--she taught
me in her spare time until I came here last year, and because spare time
wasn't plentiful there are big gaps in what I know, and as I'm stupid to
begin with, the lessons sometimes seem so hard that I just want to give
up and run home. But of course I'm not going to," she finished, laughing
at Judith's sober face; "that _would_ be a poor way to say 'thank you'
to my blessed little mother. What are you going to be to-night?"

"A Colonial lady from Virginia," answered Judith superbly.

"Good--isn't that funny? I'm going to be be a Virginian Colonel. Let's
be partners. Molly was to be mine, but she certainly can't go with a
sprained ankle. We'd better get busy--there isn't much time left." And
Josephine disappeared into her own cubicle where Judith could hear her
opening and closing drawers and singing in her funny boyish voice their
new nonsense song:

        "Of all the ships that sail on land,
         There's none like 'Jolly Susan.'
         Her crew works well with heart and hand,
         And sometimes they're amusin'."

Sally May and Jane whirled into the "Jolly Susan" like small hurricanes
in time to sing the verse over again, and then the snatches of talk she
could hear told Judith that her neighbours were thoroughly enjoying the
fascinating business of dressing up, and had evidently forgotten all
about her.

Perhaps it was a little reaction after several weeks of new and exciting
experiences; perhaps Josephine's reference to mothers being "bricks";
whatever it was Judith felt lonely and homesick. She didn't know how to
make her costume; she didn't think of Sally May, and she hated to
confess to Josephine--to whom, it must be confessed, she had always felt
a little superior--that she hadn't a ghost of a notion how to make, out
of nothing at all, the dress of a Virginian lady of fashion.

But although Josephine had convulsed the class and enraged Madame
Phillippe by translating _hors de combat_ as "war-horse," and although
her ideas as to angles and triangles were so hazy as to be of no service
to her in a geometry class, she was not at all stupid where her fellow
humans were concerned, and she had seen the quickly restrained quiver on
Judith's lips when mothers were mentioned.

"I guess she's homesick and doesn't know it," said Josephine to herself.
"I'd better buck her up a bit and give her a good time." But because she
had a generous admiration of Judith's cleverness she never thought of
offering her any suggestions as to how to put her costume together.

A little later she appeared in Judith's doorway in black tights, blue
silk stockings, buckled shoes (cardboard buckles covered with silver
paper), a white shirt blouse buttoned high, and a long black ribbon in
her hand.

"Please wind it round my neck, Judy, several times as high up as you
can. Why, where is your dress?" she asked in surprise.

Poor, proud Judith, how she hated to confess that she simply could not
think of anything. But the despised Josephine rose to the occasion: she
took charge with an assurance which immediately dispelled Judith's
gloom.

"Colonial lady--um--you will look awfully nice with your hair
powdered--let me see--your chintz curtains will do for panniers--put on
your frilliest blouse and a white skirt, pull down your curtains, and
I'll drape you in a minute or two."

Josephine was as good as her word. Blouse and skirt by means of an
overdrape of window curtain were made into the dress of a lady of
quality; Judith's pretty hair was piled high and liberally powdered with
talcum, and Josephine even produced a tiny bit of rouge and a black
patch, and insisted that to make the picture complete Judith must have
the buckled shoes, and as there wasn't time to make more buckles she'd
wear her old pumps.

Josephine was having such a good time admiring the result of her
handiwork that Judith accepted the shoes with a good grace, and off they
went to join the throng in the Big Hall. So successful had Josephine
been that Judith had quite a little triumph as she entered the hall on
her colonel's arm, for she had discarded the spectacles she wore during
school hours, and the powder and rouge had discovered a hitherto
unnoticed pair of beautiful arching eyebrows, and altogether her
appearance was so distinguished that numbers of girls turned to ask,
"Who's that pretty Virginian with Jo?"

It _was_ a thrilling evening. Indeed, it is to be doubted whether
bona-fide balls of later years would ever bring such thrills and such
intoxicating happiness to the Pierrots and Pierrettes, gypsies and
Arabs, Spanish dancers and flower girls, Elizabethan ladies and
cavaliers, Red Cross nurses and college dons, Indian chiefs and squaws,
cowboys and "habitant" girls, who were so thoroughly enjoying
themselves.

Judith laughed and danced away her blues, and to all the compliments
paid her was glad to be able to say with honest admiration, "Oh, _I_
couldn't do it--Josephine did--isn't she just _wonderful_?"

And when, after "the loveliest party ever," Judith tucked up in bed and
her thoughts ran to the absent mother, instead of tears she smiled
happily and whispered, "What a _lot_ of nice people there are in the
world, mummy, dear--I've got an awful lot to learn--but I'm going to try
_hard_ to be unselfish and kind like Josephine and Nancy."




CHAPTER IV

A SUPPER PARTY


"OH, goody!" Judith heard Nancy saying, "isn't it splendid that it came
on Friday! We never have anything but buns and milk after a Friday night
lecture. Your mother is an _angel_, Sally May; she must have guessed
that this was going to be a Friday without a party."

"That you, Judy?" came in Sally May's pretty voice; "come on in." And
Judith was soon seated on Sally May's couch.

The crew of the "Jolly Susan" were invited, she learned, to partake of
an elegant cold collation consisting of roast chicken, meringues, cakes,
candies, etc., etc., which Sally May's mother was thoughtfully sending
them from a caterer in town.

"Have you asked Miss Marlowe if we may have the small sitting-room?"
asked Nancy after Judith had been informed of the feast awaiting her.

"Asked--Miss Marlowe?" gasped Sally May; "well, of all the queer
schools! Ask a teacher if we may have a midnight supper? Well, I reckon
_not_!"

"Why, that's the way we do," returned Nancy; "the lecture will be over
early and then we'll go up to the sitting-room and have our feed."

"Oh, that," said Sally May, "is ridiculous and no fun at all. Why, at
Knowlton Manor we always waited until twelve o'clock, at least, and had
our feasts in the loveliest places. Once we had supper in the cellar,
and the engineer caught us and we had a terrible time bribing him; and
last June, at Miss Gray's school, five of us were caught in the
teachers' own sitting-room at three A.M."

Her hearers looked horrified enough to satisfy even Sally May, who loved
to tell a story, and she related one epic after another, until the York
audience were convinced that life would not be worth living unless they
too could recount similar tales when they went home for the Christmas
vacation.

Miss Marlowe and her rules were forgotten, and they laid their plans for
a midnight supper.

"But Miss Marlowe knows that your box has arrived," objected practical
Nancy.

"Then we'll buy some buns at tuck and have a _camouflage_ supper after
the lecture, and the real one at midnight," retorted Sally May, not to
be done out of her scheme.

"I wish we could ask Cathy, don't you?" said Josephine; "she's been such
a dear that it seems a shame to have a glorification without her."

Catherine, hard at work at her desk in her own room, caught the sound of
her name, and the next sentence in an excited voice revealed the fact
that a midnight supper was being planned for that very night. Her first
impulse, of course, was to tell the crew that she had unwittingly
overheard them, and use her influence as captain and prefect to stop the
whole proceeding; and then, because she was taking her duties as a
prefect very seriously, she stopped to consider the little escapade in a
new light.

Sally May, Catherine could see, was going to be troublesome. Already she
had chafed at several time-honoured rules and customs, for her sense of
reverence for traditions had been stifled by her ceaseless change of
residence, and Sally May was becoming exceedingly popular. Her soft
Southern voice, with its delicious inflections and its lazy drawl, was
most persuasive. The crew of the "Jolly Susan" had so far been a model
crew and Catherine had not yet had to enforce discipline, but at the
last prefects' meeting Sally May had been mentioned as the cause of two
practical jokes perpetrated in other parts of the house, and, "Such
things are not done, they are simply not done," said the School captain
severely; "Catherine, you must take Sally May in hand." Perhaps this was
her chance. She waited until the four o'clock bell scattered the
conspirators to practising and gymnasium classes and then went down to
the captain's study.

"Come in," said a clear ringing voice as Catherine knocked at Eleanor's
door; "you're just in time for tea--here, you toast the crumpets and
I'll brew the tea."

"Wait a jiffy and I'll get some jam--wild strawberry with crumpets is
heavenly."

Catherine was back in the specified jiffy, and in a few moments the two
friends were chatting comfortably over their tea-cups.

York Hill like most modern schools had adopted a modified form of
self-government. Each of the four Houses had its quota of prefects
appointed by the staff, and a House captain; the Senior House captain
was known as the Captain of the School, and this year South House had
the honour of providing the School Captain--Eleanor Ormsby. The
prefects, usually members of the various Sixth Forms, were girls who had
shown themselves worthy of responsibility and privilege and who could be
trusted to set the tone of the School.

Eleanor Ormsby was deservedly popular: there was a frankness and a
directness about her almost boyishly clear-cut face which inspired
confidence, and the girls who brought their difficulties to her found in
her a wise and sympathetic counsellor. Eleanor was not beautiful like
Catherine, not brilliant like Patricia--in fact it was with difficulty
that she held her place in the Sixth-Form classes, but on basket-ball
court, hockey-rink, or gymnasium floor she had no rival. Above all she
was a born leader, and having spent all her school days at York was
steeped in its traditions and ideals.

Just now Eleanor was keen upon getting the two plays given just before
the Christmas vacation well started before the busy time at the end of
term: it was the custom for the Old Girls to entertain the New Girls at
a play and for the New Girls to return the compliment.

So the absorbing topic of Queen's new hockey coach being exhausted for
the time being, "Got any good stuff for the play in your cubicles,
Cathy?" asked Eleanor; "looks to me as if they are a nice lively little
bunch. What a little witch Sally May is, and what lovely eyes Judy has!
I'm glad she and Nancy are such pals--they make a good team."

"They're darlings, all of 'em," said Catherine enthusiastically; "but
'not too good for human nature's daily food.'" And she unfolded the plan
for the midnight supper.

"Well, of course," said Eleanor, laughing reminiscently, "you couldn't
expect them to go home for the holidays without a story of some such
adventure as that. Remember the time we went down to the gym and Pat
fell over the dumb-bell rack."

"And it was such a mean supper to get punished for," added Catherine,
grinning; "only cold baked beans and apples. The trouble is that Miss
Marlowe is death on suppers since Christine Dawson caught pneumonia last
year when they climbed out on to the sun-parlour roof, and of course now
that I know--"

"Oh, of course we'll have to do something. But what?"

Various plans were discussed, but nothing satisfied their desire for
poetic justice until suddenly Catherine exclaimed: "I've got it! Let
them have their supper, and then we'll make them wish they hadn't--let's
lock the door of the common room (that's where they mean to go) and give
them a good long time in which to repent of their sins. I've got the
key--Miss Marlowe loaned it me for the dress rehearsals."

"Good," said Eleanor. "I'll see that the windows are kept shut during
the evening so that they won't catch cold, and I'll oil the lock at
tea-time."

And in spite of the solemnity befitting prefects, their eyes danced as
they pictured the dismay of the young sinners when they discovered
themselves caught; for prefects, notwithstanding their dignity and
general "high and mightiness," are not by any means above a bit of a
lark themselves.




CHAPTER V

"ENOUGH IS AS GOOD AS A FEAST"


THE crew of the "Jolly Susan" did little work during the evening study
hour; Judith, especially, found that she could not keep her mind on her
tasks. This was the full flavour of life at a boarding-school, surely,
to break the rules, and creep down the corridor in the dark to eat
forbidden food! She even let her mind play round the food
itself--chicken, meringues! She could hardly wait for bedtime.

If Catherine had not been in the secret, she would have been amazed at
the swiftness with which her family went to bed. Josephine was usually
incorrigibly slow, and Sally May always needed reminding that the
devotion bell would ring in two minutes' time. To-night clothes were
neatly arranged ready for the morning, rooms were in impeccable order,
hair was properly brushed, and there was no mad rush to be at one's own
door when the fatal bell sounded.

At last "Lights out" bell rang and silence descended on South House.
Ten o'clock, and the prefects put out their lights, only the tiny red
fire-escape lamps shone dimly at intervals down the corridor. Eleven
o'clock, and the night watchman had creaked by on his way to East House.
The way was clear.

Out of bed slipped the conspirators. Judith's cheeks burned with
excitement as, obedient to orders, she put on her warmest kimono, and,
carrying mug and sofa pillow, followed Josephine and Jane to the
corridor.

Nancy and Sally May had already gone, Josephine informed her in a
piercing whisper, and Nancy had said to be _very_ careful of the boards
opposite Miss Marlowe's door because they sometimes squeaked horribly.

Stealthily in Indian file they crept down the corridor.

Horrors! The boards certainly did creak! Miss Marlowe's light was still
on! What if she should open her door!

Judith, with her eyes glued on the crack of light, clutched her kimono
more tightly as if to escape being seen, and in some inexplicable way
her mug slid from her cold fingers.

The fate of Sally May's party hung in the balance for just so long as it
takes a mug to fall to the ground, and Judith for a nightmare second
felt the bitterness of having betrayed her friends to the enemy; but
Jane, with a magical dexterity, caught the mug "on the fly" as Judith
described it later, and for the time being they were saved.

Judith's heart was still thumping from their narrow escape when they
joined the rest of the party in the common room at the head of the
stairs. The blinds had been pulled up to let in the pale moonlight, and
in the semi-darkness Judith could see five shadowy forms seated on their
pillows around the precious box.

"Are we all here?" said Sally May in a sepulchral whisper.

"We are--thanks to Jane," said Judith, and the episode of the mug was
told to appreciative listeners.

"Put on your flash, Nancy," commanded Sally May; "no one is going to
pass this door and we'll never manage to carve the chicken with this
miserable knife unless we have more light."

With infinite precautions the papers were unwrapped, and mouths began to
water as certain favorite goodies appeared.

"Who's going to carve?" asked Sally May surveying with a certain dismay
a plump brown bird and a seemingly inadequate pocketknife.

"Draw lots," suggested Rosamond.

        "Uggledy wuggledy doo,
          Rackety wackety boo,
          Out goes you!"

"Here, Jane, you're it." And Jane lost no time in attacking her job.

"My children! what _do_ you think? Here's a jelly or a mousse or
something--it's all creamy and quivery, anyway, and we haven't any
spoons!"

"I asked you--" began Jane reproachfully.

"Yes, I know you did, but Mother never mentioned a jelly and I thought
spoons would make a noise."

"Well, we'll have to have some," said Nancy practically.

        "Uggledy wuggledy doo,"

Judith felt in her bones she was going to be _it_. And she was.

"Let me go," said Nancy generously.

"No," said Judith, "Certainly _not_. Where'll I get spoons?"

"Oh, just collect what you can," said Sally May, handing round rolls
and sandwiches. "I've got a shoe-horn and a medicine spoon, and so has
Jane. Watch out for Miss Marlowe."

Fear and the desire to partake of the "eats" speeded Judith on her way,
and she lost no time in gathering up what utensils the "Jolly Susan"
could offer. Her thoughts flew to Catherine for a moment as she passed
her door and she wished their beloved captain could be with them. She
little knew how nearly her wish was fulfilled.

On the return journey as she hurried up the corridor, having safely
passed Miss Marlowe's door, she suddenly heard a soft footfall or the
swish of a kimono, and then discovered a dark form bearing down upon
her. Could it be Miss Marlowe? No, it wasn't tall enough. It must be
Miss Ashwell. Judith flattened herself against the wall, which was
fortunately in the shadow, in the hope that she would not be seen. But
it was a very slender little hope, and for the second time that evening
Judith was sure that their plans for a good time were ruined, when, just
as she had given herself up for lost, the figure turned about and a
voice, unmistakably Miss Ashwell's, said, "Bother! I've forgotten my
sponge again."

Another disaster averted!

What a _gorgeous_ time they had! What a heavenly chicken!

What luscious meringues! And if you have never in semi-darkness balanced
a precious morsel of jelly on the end of a nail-file, you have missed
one of thrills of _real_ living.

"The spiffingest feed I ever had," declared Judith as they began to pack
up the remains and remove all traces of their feast.

"Well, we haven't had all the thrills that you've had to-night, Judibus,
but for once I've had a perfectly good meal," confessed Rosamond, who
was holding the useful little flashlight, "and now I'm good and ready
for my perfectly good bed." She was voicing a unanimous thought--they
had had a jolly time, but their feet had gone to sleep and their eyes
were beginning to feel drowsy--yes, certainly bed would be good.

Pillows were sorted out, and Nancy with the tiny light led the way. She
tried to open the door; it would not budge! She pulled hard. Josephine
pulled harder; Sally May tried; and then consternation took possession
of their souls. Some one _had them_, had them with a vengeance! Whatever
would they do now?

Sally May was not in the least daunted, whatever the others might feel.
"I'll tell you," she said; "it's some one who wanted to come to the
party doing it for a joke"--but that brought little comfort. The party
was a secret, and who would know where to find them? Forebodings as to
to-morrow's punishment filled their minds.

Sally May, however, was accustomed to punishments. "Sufficient unto the
day" was evidently her motto. "Come on, let's tell ghost stories," she
said, and the others obediently seated themselves on the floor again.
Sally May produced a large box of chocolates which they were keeping for
another time, and began a long tale of a ghost who followed, and
followed, and followed a man up and down, up and down, the corridors of
an old manor house. The hero could hear the ghost's footsteps and its
blood-curdling laugh, but he was afraid to turn his head, and when he
did--very, very, very, slowly--the muscles of seven little necks
stiffened obedient to Sally May's suggestion--he saw a terrible--but
here Rosamond broke in with an hysterical cry, "Please, Sally May, I
can't bear any more"--and Sally May's spell was broken.

Indeed they all began to be frankly miserable, for they were chilly by
this time, and even schoolgirls' stomachs are susceptible to unlimited
cake and candy. Nancy fell asleep and leaned on Judith, making her most
uncomfortable. Sally May confessed quite openly to a feeling of
sickness, and in a steady whisper poured into Judith's ear the ghastly
details of how ill she had been at Knowlton after a lobster supper. The
night wore on. Most of them finally went to sleep in uncomfortable
attitudes, but about four o'clock in the morning, Judith, who was much
too unhappy and too uncomfortable to sleep, got up stiffly from the
floor and walking about the room, tried the door once more. To her huge
astonishment and joy it opened! Catherine had come up a couple of hours
before, but the striking of the big clock in the hall had covered the
very slight noise of the turning of the lock.

"It was open all the time," protested several unhappy voices.

"You didn't try it properly."

"We did," said other cross voices, and sulkily and stiffly they creaked
down the hall to their longed-for beds.

The rising bell rang in about an hour's time; at least so it seemed to
eight very sleepy girls. Pancakes and maple syrup, the favourite York
Hill breakfast, brought them no solace; indeed, to the surprise of their
friends, they refused them. Sally May, who demanded much sympathy,
reported to the nurse after breakfast.

"I don't feel well, Miss Anderson, I don't really. I'm tired all over. I
think if I had a little rest--" she added plaintively.

"Put out your tongue," said Miss Anderson cruelly. "Hm, blowing up for a
bilious attack. Oh, yes, you can go to morning lessons, but report at
the Infirmary this evening for a dose of calomel."

Poor Sally May! The thought of the horrid dose haunted her all day, and
when evening came her punishment was indeed complete.

Judith, Nancy, and Josephine had separately and independently resolved
by hook or by crook to escape the hated morning walk or "crocodile." A
walk after their wakeful night seemed simply impossible and the weather
was too bad for games. Many excuses were thought of and rejected, but
eventually they presented themselves to the mistress-in-charge, a
certain zealous Miss Martin.

"Too tired to go out, Nancy? Very well, early bed, of course"--and she
chalked up Nancy's name with "Bed at eight-thirty." Judith and Josephine
were treated in like manner; not that they minded very much, for bed at
eight-thirty had a soothing sound. But Madam Retribution was not done
with them yet.

For a week or more they had been expecting an invitation from Catherine
to supper in her room. It was a regular first-term institution that a
prefect should entertain her set of cubicles, and rumours of other
suppers had already reached the ears of the crew of the "Jolly Susan."
Judith, especially, had been looking forward to this treat. An evening
in Catherine's room, what a delight!

At evening prayers it was announced that to-night's lecturer would not
be able to come, and promptly afterwards Catherine gave the longed-for
invitation. "Supper in my room at eight-thirty," she whispered to each
of the five; "we'll have a jolly time." Her surprise and astonishment at
their stammered refusals were great.

"Slacking the walk?" she said coldly. "Of course, then, you can't have a
treat"--and she wasted no sympathy on them. Judith could have wept with
vexation and disappointment.

At half-past eight the crew of the "Jolly Susan" crept sadly into bed
and listened to the laughter of the prefects gathered in Catherine's
room, devouring _their_ supper. Sally May had gone to the Infirmary, but
one vow was registered by the other chastened souls in the "Jolly
Susan"--"No more midnight suppers!"




CHAPTER VI

PUTTING IT THROUGH


THE last two weeks had been so full of other things that lessons and
their preparation had taken a somewhat secondary place in the thoughts
of Form Five, and, in consequence, they had merited and received many
rebukes.

Sally May had spent two hours of a precious Saturday afternoon learning
poetry, for she had failed miserably in the last literature test;
Josephine had been her companion in disgrace, and had even had to spend
a precious Friday evening "in durance vile" because of returned lessons.

Judith's pride had been badly hurt by Miss Hilton's comment written in
her geometry exercise book, "Very poor work, indeed, untidy and
careless," and, worse still, when the lists were posted for the mid-term
Latin examination, Judith's name had been halfway down with fifty-six
marks to her credit. At Miss Graham's she had always headed the list.
Just for a moment she almost thought that there must be some mistake,
and then she realized that Five A standards were high and first-class
standing meant first-class work.

Literature and history were Judith's strong subjects, and on the morning
when she saw her Latin marks she made a mighty resolve to head the list
in at least one of these. It wouldn't be easy. Joyce Hewson and Phyllis
Lovell had been steadily piling up marks all term, and the whole form
was watching their tussle for first place. Christmas reports and class
standing for the half-year were made on class work and on the
examinations at the end of the term.

"I've just _got_ to have one 'first' on my report," said Judith to
herself as she put away her books after morning school. "I've just _got_
to--Daddy'll be awfully disappointed if I don't." And then, taking her
place in the line that was filing into Big Hall, she whispered to Nancy,
"What're we going to have this morning?"

"I'm not sure," said Nancy, "but I think Ruth Laughton's going to speak.
I saw her going into Miss Meredith's study this morning."

The last period of Friday morning school belonged to Miss Meredith.

"It's like a grab-bag," Nancy had inelegantly told Judith; "you never
know what you are going to get--sometimes it is a lecture, sometimes
Miss Meredith reads us a story, sometimes we have carol singing--I do
like that--and during the War we had talks from people who had been
there. Once we had a Polish Countess who spoke the funniest English, but
she was awfully brave, and once a man from Serbia. He was in the Red
Cross and he told us a terrible story about the state of the Serbian
children. We held form meetings the Monday following and voted to give
up candy for a whole term, all of us, and we sent the money to him for
the relief work. I think it's the nicest time of the week."

Judith too was coming to look forward to that last hour of the school
week, very often to schoolgirls a wasted hour at the fag end of things.

This Friday an Old Girl was to speak to them. Miss Meredith held that a
school like York Hill, in order to justify the time and effort, the
money and brains, the service and consecration put into it, should send
out girls who would be leaders and workers in everything which would
make for the betterment of the community in which they lived, and
unconsciously the Nancys and Judiths of the School, through these Friday
morning glimpses of the great world of service, would be steadily and
surely prepared for the part which they were to play. Social service, as
such, was not talked about; most girls dislike what they call
"preachments," but when Form Four decided to make baby clothes as a
Christmas shower for the creche where an Old Girl worked, and when Form
Five promised a woolen sweater from every girl for the Fourteen Club at
the University Settlement, social service became a real and vital fact
in their lives. For, as Judith learned, knitted sweaters mean work, and
wool costs money, which had to be deducted from an already painfully
shrunken allowance, and baby clothes, although fascinating and cute,
represent many hours of careful stitching.

Meanwhile the seeds planted on Friday mornings grew and flourished until
"Noblesse oblige" became a natural and an actual attitude towards life.
Social service of some sort or other, after one left school, was an
established fact like unlimited tea-parties and dancing partners. And
Miss Meredith and many of her staff made it the business of their lives
to see that it should be social service of the right kind.

About once a term the Old Girls' Association provided a speaker. Miss
Meredith had entertained many distinguished guests who had spoken in Big
Hall, but none were made more welcome than the Old Girls, for the Head
Mistress knew the appeal which they alone could, and did make. To-day
the speaker was to be Ruth Laughton, a nursing sister decorated for
gallantry by the King. Catherine had been a Junior when Ruth was Captain
of South House, and she had pointed out to Judith Ruth's name on the
tablet in Big Hall where the names of House and School captains were
printed in letters of gold.

Judith considered, as Form Five marched into the Hall, what it would be
like to carry out wounded soldiers under fire. Nursing Sister Laughton
must be big and strong and brave, perhaps she was always brave and did
not really mind the explosions. What was courage, anyway? And then,
before she could decide this puzzling question, Miss Meredith was coming
down the centre aisle with her distinguished guest. The School gave a
thunderous welcome and settled back after Miss Meredith's brief
introduction to hear a thrilling story.

Form Five confessed among themselves afterwards to a distinct feeling of
disappointment when the speaker came forward. She was small, "not a bit
pretty," the girls decided, and her voice seemed tired and lacking in
vitality. The decoration on her breast appeared to be the only
significant thing about her. Evidently Ruth was nervous.

"If she is not afraid of bombs, she is afraid of us," thought Judith,
for the Sister's face grew white, her lips dry, and her assertion that
she was glad to be back at dear old York Hill seemed to be all that she
could remember of her speech. Three hundred pairs of hands had clapped
her a warm welcome, but now she confronted three hundred pairs of
critical eyes. She faltered, began again, and finally looked
appealingly, a schoolgirl once more, at her Head Mistress.

"Never mind about your own experiences just now, Ruth," said Miss
Meredith's calm, reassuring voice, "we'd like to hear a little more
about the children's hostels in the north of France. We are all
interested because we are sending clothes to Jean Warner to
distribute."

And then a miracle happened, the whole School saw it. Ruth was
transformed before them, her eyes brightened, her shoulders
straightened, her voice had an inspiring ring in it as she told the
story of the heroism of other Old Girls.

She had an interesting story to tell and she told it well: even the
First-Form wrigglers sat with their eyes glued on her face as she told
of the brave fight which was being made for the life and health of the
children of Europe. "There is one thing especially I should like to tell
you," she finished, looking down into the sea of upturned faces,
"wherever I found a York girl--and you know my duties have taken me into
all sorts of queer places these last four years--whether she was a
V.A.D. ambulance driver, a nurse in hospital, a Y.W.C.A. secretary, or a
Child's Welfare worker, always the record was the same, that when a York
Hill girl undertook something, she _put it through_--especially if it
were a hard job! That's what the General said when he pinned on Gwen's
Mons Star--'Another of the ladies from Canada! They have taught you out
there to put things through with a will!' York Hill Old Girls look to
York Hill present girls to maintain the record of the School."

And if the applause meant anything, it surely stood for a determination
on the part of her listeners to maintain the York Hill tradition.

Without considering the matter overmuch, Judith was convinced that the
thing she was "to put through" during these last few weeks of term was
hard study, and she bent to her tasks with a will.

        "But the best laid schemes of mice and men
         Gang aft agley."

The School seemed suddenly to become very busy, though about what Judith
did not know. Much whispering was heard in the "Jolly Susan"; Nancy and
Josephine looked very mysterious, girls from all parts of the School
seemed to be in the same secret, and Judith heard tantalizing phrases,
"scenery committee"--"scene shifters"--"costume committee"--"the Play."
Very soon she herself was in a big secret, for a meeting of all New
Girls was called by the School Captain, and Eleanor explained that the
New Girls would be entertained at a play in the last week of November;
that the custom was that the New Girls should return the compliment by
an entertainment given during the last week of term; that since the New
Girls were decidedly in the minority, two of the prefects and she
herself would help in any way they could; and that, in a word, she was
now ready to receive nominations for the various committees.

An exciting hour followed. To her dismay Judith found herself on the
Costume Committee and she hated sewing. Sally May gave her little
comfort--"just be glad you don't have to paint scenery; that's a dirty
and hard job if you like," said Sally May. "Miss Ashwell makes us work
like demons. If she didn't work like a demon herself, we just wouldn't
do it," was her sage comment. Committee meetings multiplied. The play
chosen was to be kept a secret from its audience and a delicious air of
mystery pervaded the whole School.

After much discussion and help from Eleanor and Miss Marlowe, the New
Girls chose the "Christmas Carol." Many other things were suggested, but
Scrooge and Tiny Tim had apparently a warm place in their affections,
and the appropriateness of the Christmas story for the end of term was
irresistible.

The choosing of the cast was a difficult and a tedious job, and Miss
Marlowe and Eleanor spent much time trying out various candidates, but
at last the list was complete, and, a little to her relief, and, it must
be confessed, a little to her regret, Judith was not included. She had
never acted, and she had a firm conviction that she could not, so that
the regret was merely that she didn't like to think that other people
had the same conviction.

Her membership on the Costume Committee was no sinecure. Coveted
Saturday afternoon and evening leisure had to be given up to the
stitching of long seams. Mathilde LeBrun, who was another Josephine in
that her brain seemed to be in her fingers, was convener of the
committee, and under her direction Judith sewed and cut out, and, it
must be confessed, ripped. Tiny Tim's coat and trousers were her task,
and although the smallest of the new girls, Edith Holland by name, had
been chosen for this role, Judith found the utmost difficulty in making
her look like a Tiny Tim. Twice did she make and un-make that wretched
little suit, but she was nothing if not conscientious, and at last it
was finished.

"Twelfth Night," which was the Old Girls' play, was a huge success.
Nancy and Josephine had been so excited all week that Judith had found
it about impossible to keep her own attention on her lessons. Catherine
must be a chief character in the play, decided Judith, for Catherine's
room was the centre of numberless committee meetings and endless
discussions, and Genevieve Singleton--who, to Judith's envy had
established herself as Catherine's chief messenger--ran hither and
thither, bursting with importance. Nevertheless the secret was kept, and
as Judith sat with Sally May and Frances Purdy and all the other new
girls on Friday night and listened to the noise behind the green
curtain, she felt that she could bear the suspense no longer.

And then, when the curtain rose, the Master Magician waved his wand and
Judith, who had seen very few plays, was transported to a land of
beauty, romance, and sweet adventure. Helen made a noble Duke, and
Catherine an enchanting Viola. Judith had never quite recaptured the
thrill of delight she had felt when on the opening night of term she had
first seen Catherine, but now to the charm and witchery of first
impressions of beauty was added the knowledge of Catherine's sweetness
and gentleness. Nancy might be a witty Maria, and Josephine a rollicking
Sir Toby; Judith had eyes and ears for Viola only, and as the play
progressed she envied passionately the Duke who seemed criminally stupid
in his misunderstanding of Viola's love. The surprise of the play was
Genevieve Singleton's Malvolio. Even Judith was moved out of her trance
of adoration to laughter and admiration.

"That was real acting," said Sally May with the air of a theatre habitue
as Malvolio pranced off the stage in the immortal scene of the yellow
stockings and cross-garters.

After the last bravos had died away and the actors had bowed their
thanks before the footlights, both audience and players were refreshed
with lemonade and cakes, and Judith transferred her envy to the
fortunate ones who stood talking over the evening's triumph with
Catherine and Genevieve and the rest of the cast. She envied Genevieve
who had had such a success, and she wished, but did not dare, to join
the group. "Perhaps," thought silly Judith, "if I run upstairs now and
get her room ready for her, Catherine may kiss me good-night." Judith
was on the verge of what is technically known as a "crush."

Meanwhile preparations went forward in earnest for the "Christmas
Carol," and "All costumes must be finished for Monday. Full rehearsal at
eight o'clock in the Big Hall." So ran the Order-in-Council.

"I'm certainly glad Tiny Tim's costume is done," thought Judith as she
ran downstairs for the rehearsal; "four more days till the literature
exam. I'm going to work like everything."

"Come on, Judy," Sally May hailed her as she found her place behind the
curtain where she was to help shift scenery; "you're late, but who ever
heard of a rehearsal starting on time?"

"Seems to be some sort of a row on," said Judith as a distinct groan
reached their ears. "What's up?" she asked as they joined the group on
the stage.

"Marjorie Jones has measles," answered Eleanor, their stage manager:
"come here, all of you, and think _hard_. Who can take Scrooge at such
short notice? Is there any new girl with a good memory? It's the longest
part by far."

Various names were proposed and rejected for one reason or another, and
then Eleanor's eye fell on Judith, who saw her consider for a moment,
speak in a low tone to the two other prefects; then very reluctantly she
answered the summons, "Judith, come here and read this page for me, will
you, please? Perhaps you'll do."

Judith read the page and a tiny feeling of resentment began to make
itself felt. She hadn't been asked to do anything nice, or anything she
wanted, and now they weren't even asking her if she would be willing to
take Marjorie's place.

"I guess you'll do," was Eleanor's uncomplimentary comment when Judith
had finished.

"There's really no one else," she said, turning to Patricia, "and I
think Judy can be word-perfect by Friday. I'll coach her every spare
minute myself. Come along, Judy," she added, "and read over the part
before we begin."

Somewhat breathless from this prompt decision, Judith obediently took
the manuscript and seated herself at one corner of the stage. Suddenly
as she read, the full meaning of this new turn of events flashed into
her brain. The final term examination in literature was listed for
Friday morning, and Judith had planned to spend all her spare time
between now and then in the thorough revision of her work, for there was
still much to be done, and this examination would really decide whether
she or Joyce or Phyllis would head the list.

For a long ten minutes Judith read her part and at the same time debated
within herself, while Eleanor settled some difference of opinion about
exits and entrances. Self number one tried to hoodwink self number
two--"Top Self" and "Deep-Down Self," Judith as a little girl had
christened these two voices within her. "Daddy would like you to come
out first; you oughtn't to disappoint him. Lessons must be done. Just go
and tell Eleanor you can't do it and then your time will be your own."

"No," said Deep-Down Self, "be fair, Judy. You know you can't act well,
you won't be a success like Genevieve. You don't want Catherine and the
others to see you fail, and honestly, do you want to come out first for
Daddy's sake or for your own? I really believe you don't think enough
fuss has been made over you. You'd _rather_ work at your literature and
come first, perhaps, but you can memorize quickly and they need you.
Which _ought_ you to do?--never mind whether it's hard or not."

Judith had always been honest with herself and she knew quite well what
the real issue was.

The struggle was hard, the hardest, perhaps, which Judith had ever
fought. Mechanically she turned the pages while the argument continued
within her. She seemed to have no way of deciding, when suddenly she
remembered Nursing Sister Ruth's words, "York Hill girls have the
reputation overseas of being willing to tackle any job--no matter how
hard--and of _putting it through_." Top Self hadn't a chance after that.
Filling in here seemed her most immediate duty and Judith settled down
grimly to her task.

The rehearsal was long and tiring, and twenty times during the first
hour Judith was tempted to give up. But she did her best, and although
Eleanor was distracted by all the numberless things demanding attention,
she found time to stop and say at the end of the first act, "Good work,
Judy! I knew I could depend on you. You'll make a first-rate Scrooge,
and you are a brick to get to work without any fuss." And although
Judith did not believe the remark about her acting, her face flushed
with pleasure and she determined that she would not spend another moment
in questioning. This job must be put through.

And it was. She woke early in the morning and learned her part by the
light of Nancy's flashlight. She cut her recreation time and scamped her
lesson preparation. She thought and lived Scrooge, and as she had a good
memory she was word-perfect before Eleanor had thought it possible.
Eleanor and Patricia coached her whenever they could, and Miss Marlowe
gave her Wednesday evening and Thursday afternoon.

       *       *       *       *       *

Friday morning, and with it the literature examination! Judith read the
paper with a sinking heart. She would not fail, but, as she had guessed,
the extra reading which she had planned to do during these last few days
would have given her paper "The little more, and how much it is" which
would have lifted it to the first rank. Came Friday afternoon with its
last rehearsal and then the fateful night.

Judith will never forget the thrill of terror that ran through her as
the curtain rose and she saw the rows of faces staring at her out of
the semi-darkness. For an instant she was paralyzed with terror, and it
was only the audience's delight at finding Frances arrayed as Scrooge's
irrepressible nephew that covered the gap between "Merry Christmas,
Uncle," and "Bah! Humbug!"

The first short scene was wooden enough in all conscience, but Judith
remembered her words, and as the story progressed she got a better grip
on herself surprising and delighting Eleanor and those who were in the
secret by her spirited acting.

But at the end of Act Three, Nancy, who had slipped behind the scenes to
congratulate her chum, and to tell her that her wig was the least bit
askew, was surprised and alarmed to find Judith almost in tears.

"I can't do the last act, Nancy, I simply can't. My face feels all stiff
and solemn. I can't laugh and joke, I can't, no matter how I try"--and
two tears actually rolled down her cheeks. She was tired out, and the
very imagination which had made it possible for her to be for the moment
the gloomy old miser, now made it seem impossible for her to change him
in a few minutes into a jolly, generous, incarnation of old Father
Christmas.

Nancy was horrified and distracted. She did her best, but with seemingly
no avail, and then she had one of those inspirations, which seem almost
heaven-sent. Hurrying back and learning that there were still four or
five minutes before the curtain would rise, she sought Catherine, who
luckily had left her seat during the interlude.

"Captain," she said, saluting, "there is one of the crew who needs your
help; can you come at once?"

And then, as they neared the stage--

"It's Judy, Cathy," she whispered; "do buck her up. She has been such a
brick, but she is so tired that she feels that she can't do the last
act."

Catherine waited for no more explanations, but went swiftly behind the
curtain, where she found Judith trying to look cheerful, but making a
dismal failure of it. "Careful," said Cathy to herself. "I mustn't be
sympathetic or she will break down."

Judith looked up, and instead of the dreaded warning that the curtain
was going up, here was Catherine saluting her merrily.

"Good work, Judy! The 'Jolly Susan' needs a first mate; can I induce you
to accept the job?" And she put a steadying arm round the new mate's
shoulders. "You've been splendid; we're all proud of you, and especially
we of the 'Jolly Susan.'"

No more question of can or can't. Judith felt that she could do anything
for her captain and here was a chance. She threw herself into the
unforgettable scene of Scrooge's awakening, and the whole school was
infected with the joyousness of her declaration: "I am as light as a
feather. I am as happy as an angel. I am as merry as a schoolboy. A
Merry Christmas to everybody, a Happy New Year to all the world. Hullo,
here, whoop! Hullo."

And every one was quite ready to agree with Scrooge's declaration at the
end of the scene, "Wonderful party, wonderful games, wonderful
unanimity, won-der-ful happiness!"

The New Girls were cheered to the echo by the School, and the party
which was voted a great success ended with cake and lemonade and a
delightful Sir Roger de Coverly in which every one took part.

Judith, dancing with Bob Cratchit, felt supremely happy, and her cup was
filled to overflowing by Miss Meredith's words as she said good-night.

"Congratulations on your success, Judith, you gave us a fine
presentation of Scrooge, and Eleanor tells me you had very little time
for preparation."

And then the delightful whispered conferences upstairs after "Lights
Out" bell had rung--Catherine turned a deaf ear, for discipline must
occasionally be relaxed.

"Did you see Mr. Fezziwig's coat, Judy?"

"Wasn't Mrs. Cratchit too funny for words?"

"Wasn't the ghost splendid?"

"I shivered all over when he was speaking," Nancy declared; and so on
and so on, until Judith fell asleep and dreamed that she was dancing the
Sir Roger with Miss Meredith arrayed as Mrs. Cratchit, and that, so
arrayed, Miss Meredith had proceeded to the platform and had read out
the term's marks beginning with Five A. First, Judith Benson; second,
Joyce Hewson; third, Nancy Nairn.

It was a good thing that Judith had the fun of her dream because in the
lists read out after prayers next morning our heroine stood fourth, in
Five A, but that didn't spoil her morning, such a happy morning. Desks
were tidied, Christmas presents tied up, suitcases packed, and at
twelve o'clock a short Christmas service was held in Big Hall.

The carols which they had been learning the last few weeks at morning
prayers were sung now with a right good will to the accompaniment of the
School orchestra. And then Miss Meredith, having read the beautiful
Christmas story, explained the meaning of its message so clearly, so
simply, and yet so earnestly, and with such a passionate longing that
from York Hill there should indeed radiate "Peace and good will towards
all men," that not the stupidest nor the most frivolous girl but was
touched to a sense of higher ideals and nobler living.

Every girl in the School knew that the Head Mistress was humbly striving
to embody in her own life the high ideals she held before her pupils,
and because of this they listened. Doubtless some of the seed fell by
the wayside, some into hard and stony ground, some was choked by the
deceit and riches of this world, but other seed fell into good ground
and brought forth abundantly, "some thirty, some sixty, and some an
hundred-fold."




CHAPTER VII

CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS


THE Christmas holidays brought a much-needed rest.

"No parties these holidays," said Aunt Nell firmly, as she ushered
Judith into a pretty sunshiny room; "bed at nine o'clock, breakfast at
nine o'clock, and any amount of skating and tobogganing in between. I
promised your mother that you should have a very quiet time."

But a very quiet time was not just the holiday that Judith had planned
to have, and after a long night's sleep and a peaceful day devoted to
letter-writing she was lively as a cricket and ready for anything.

Christmas shopping absorbed the first two days: Aunt Nell found it
tiring, but to Judith the shops all glittering with Yuletide gaiety were
wholly fascinating. There were toys to be bought for six-year-old Doris
and little Bobbie and Baby Hugh, and something very nice for Nancy.
Nothing seemed good enough for Nancy, but at last she found a little
string of white coral faintly touched with rose which she was certain
would look "just perfectly lovely" with Nancy's roseleaf complexion,
and, after much anxious calculating as to what money would be left for
pocket money during the holidays, the corals were finally bought and
sent off to Quebec.

Up to the day before Christmas the weather had been very uncertain, and
Judith, who had bought Bobbie a new sled was afraid that she would have
to pull him on bare sidewalks, and that the stories of Santa Claus and
his reindeer would fall rather flat if there were no snow on the ground
to add a touch of reality to the tale.

But on Christmas Eve to every one's joy the snow fell softly but
steadily all day, and next morning the sky was so blue, the sun so
bright, and the ground so dazzling white in its snowy covering, that
Judith running out to the verandah fairly danced with joy.

"Do come out and see!" she cried to Aunt Nell; "it's exactly like a
Christmas-card Christmas if only a little English robin would hop into
the picture."

Stockings had already been emptied and their contents exclaimed over,
and no wonder Judith was happy. Perhaps Santa Claus had an especially
soft corner in his heart for schoolgirls whose mothers were far away at
Christmas-time. Judith had never had such enchanting presents--a string
of beautiful amber beads from Daddy; the daintiest of shell-pink crepe
kimonos with satin slippers and cap to match from mother; a pretty
camisole from Nancy; a woolen skating-set of palest primrose from Uncle
Tom; and--joy of joys! a new white and silver evening frock from Aunt
Nell.

Judith promised to take Bobbie for a sleigh-ride, but ran upstairs to
have another peep at the new frock first, and Aunt Nell found her
gloating over it.

"I know," she said, smiling at Judith's raptures; "I've been there
myself. I'm sure your mother thought two frocks ample for a
sixteen-year-old, and I expect you have worn them so often already that
you never want to see them again. Hannah shall help you freshen them up
with a new flower or a bit of gauze, and I hope you will have jolly
times in the new one."

Judith folded away the delicious bit of finery in its tissue wrappings,
and then, standing at her dressing-table and looking dreamily and
happily into the mirror, she made a picture of herself dancing in her
silver frock with Catherine, admired by Nancy and Josephine, and envied
by all the girls of South House, and she privately resolved at once to
save enough out of her allowance for silver shoes.

"Hurry, hurry!" shouted Uncle Tom, and hastily donning her new skating
outfit Judith joined the group in the hall.

They had glorious fun in the snow. Doris and Bobbie, rolled up in furs
so that they looked like little 'possums, had turns riding in the new
sled to the park, and then the whole family were packed into the big
toboggan and Uncle Tom had more fun even than Bobbie. Oh, it was good to
be alive!

Next morning brought a welcome letter from Sally May who was spending
the holidays with Nancy in Quebec. Judith had just been thinking about
them and wishing she could compare notes about Christmas presents, and
have a really good gossip.

"Quebec is the most enchanting place," wrote Sally May; "you know how
I've hated learning Canadian and British history--well, here the history
is _real_--Nancy's father is awfully keen about the monuments and
things and I'm getting to be keen myself. Jack has a couple of R. M. C.
boys here for the holidays, and then there's His Lordship Brother
Tim--Mrs. Nairn is a dear and is giving us an awfully good time. If only
you were here, Judy, it would be perfect."

If only she were! Judith sighed and wished _she_ had two big
brothers--or at least that Nancy had included her in the invitation. She
was right in her surmise that Sally May had been chosen because she was
so far from home, but she couldn't help wishing--

Judith had heard Aunt Nell talking to a gentleman in the drawing-room
across the hall, and now, to her surprise, Aunt Nell left him and came
into the library looking somewhat puzzled.

"Mr. Nairn, Nancy's father, is here, Judith. I find that Mrs. Nairn and
I are old friends. I hadn't guessed that your Nancy's mother was the
Elizabeth Dalton I knew years ago. She has sent a very kind invitation
for you to spend the New Year's week-end with them. Mr. Nairn is going
to Quebec by to-night's train, and could take you with him and bring you
back on Tuesday. I don't know whether I ought"--but at the sight of the
ecstatic joy on Judith's face she did not finish her sentence. "Run
along, dear, and pack the new frock. I don't need to ask you if you want
to go. You have been a good child and I think you have had enough rest.
Come first and be introduced to Mr. Nairn. It _is_ kind of him to take
you."

A radiant Judith packed a club bag and suitcase. Could Uncle Tom and
Mother have guessed that such a fairy-tale was going to happen when they
planned their gifts?--But, of course not. Where were her skates and
plenty of handkerchiefs? Silver shoes she must have sometime, but here
were the old white ones in the meantime.

Nancy and Sally May were in the limousine waiting for the travellers at
the station next day, and as Judith caught sight of them she realized
with a joyous leap of her heart how homesick she had been for the sound
of Sally May's pretty voice and the sight of Nancy's dear, merry face.

Ever so many things had happened, and better still were going to happen.
Sally May had had her hair bobbed, and very _chic_ it looked curling
under the rim of her little fur hat. Nancy had a thrilling tale of
Christmas presents to tell, and they had not reached the end of the
Christmas happenings when the car drew up before a comfortable-looking,
rather old-fashioned house surrounded by what was evidently a big garden
under a thick mantle of snow.

Mrs. Nairn's welcome made Judith feel at home at once, and she gave her
aunt's messages to her hostess so prettily and so modestly that Mrs.
Nairn was quite charmed with Nancy's new friend.

At dinner the sons of the house appeared, and with them Tom Southam,
Jack's roommate at college. Jack had the same merry blue eyes and sunny
smile as his sister, and Judith forgot to be shy with him. Thomas was a
cheery youth, whose chief interest at the dinner-table was the food, and
Judith gave him scant attention. But Tim, the elder brother, who had
been in the Flying Corps and had several enemy machines to his credit,
who still limped from injuries received during an air-fight, and whose
grey eyes had the keen, piercing, and yet dreamy look of the genuine
bird-man, was sufficiently a hero to prove undeniably attractive. Tim
was courteous and kind, but from the height of his five-and-twenty
years a trifle condescending, and indeed he was wishing within himself
that "Mum wouldn't fill the house with such kids."

The boys had planned to go skiing next day and after some private
suggestions from Mrs. Nairn, they asked the girls to come and watch the
fun. Neither Sally May nor Judith had ever been on skis, but here was a
splendid chance to try.

"Drive us over to the Ramparts, Tim, please," said Nancy as they started
off. "I don't want Judith to be in Quebec another hour without seeing
our view."

"Right you are," answered Tim, "we'd better go while it's clear--though,
of course, the only way to see Quebec is from the river."

"I always get thrills," said Nancy, "when I come down the river and see
the big rock and the town. Think of being Jacques Cartier--the first to
see it. For a while, you know, I used to put at the top of my letters,
'Quebec--the Rock Fortress of New France.'"

"Cheek, that's what," said Jack; "I hope you apologize to Wolfe when you
do it--there, by the way, is the Wolfe-Montcalm Monument--see, shining
over the tops of the trees--I bet you can't recite the inscription,
Nan, for Judith, who ought to improve her mind."

"Lost your bet," returned Nancy promptly--"a pound box, if you
please--no, half a pound will do, for I can't say it in Latin, but I
certainly can in English.

        "'Valour Gave Them a Common Death,
                History a Common Fame,
          And Posterity a Common Monument.'"

"Bravo--I'll make it a pound--but of course you looked it up to show off
to Sally May."

"Well, I did look it up," confessed Nancy, "but Father promised to take
us to see the sights as soon as Judy came and he would have disowned me
if I didn't know that much."

They had reached the Ramparts and Judith caught her breath in amazement
at the wonderful scene. Away below them flowed the majestic St.
Lawrence, its snow-clad banks pierced here and there by tiny villages
each with its heavenward-pointing spire; to the north were the
Laurentian Hills, now glistening in a dazzling white mantle; at their
feet was the town, quaint and picturesque, its spires and monuments
reminders of its romantic past.

"There's the Ursuline convent, Judy," said Sally May, eagerly pointing
out the group of buildings. "Mr. Nairn told me the most interesting
thing about it--there's a lamp there that was lighted over two hundred
years ago by a girl, Marie de Repentigny--just imagine all the things
that have happened since that flame was lit."

"En avant--forward march," said Jack; "this is not Mr. Nairn's
personally conducted tour--we, I might observe parenthetically, intend
to ski this afternoon."

They bundled into the motor once more and were soon on the slopes a
little lower down where several flying figures could already be seen. It
was an ideal place for the thrilling sport--for there were a number of
high places where experts could take high jumps, and lower slopes in
plenty for the learners and the more timid, and great snowy fields
beyond where the whiteness was broken by the gay-coloured caps and
scarves of tobogganers and skaters.

Tom took Nancy down to one of the ponds to skate, while Tim and Jack
gave Judith and Sally May their first lesson.

Tim proved a splendid teacher and Judith made such progress in the
management of the long clumsy skis that at the end of an hour the boys
left Nancy in charge of their pupils, and went off to try some of the
higher jumps.

Judith found that she couldn't do as well without Tim's precept and
example, and neither she nor Sally May was sorry when Nancy declared
they could have just one more jump--they had no idea how stiff they
would be to-morrow.

Judith stood for a moment enjoying the scene. The sky was still blue,
but there were bands of colour in the west and the shadows of the pine
trees had lengthened considerably. She drew a deep breath of unconscious
enjoyment drinking in the wonderful air that tasted like clear spring
water, and then, making sure that both skis were quite straight, she
pushed off.

For a moment like a bird she felt herself flying through the air. How
glorious! Then quite suddenly came a sense of suffocation and thick
darkness. In some way the long curved wings on her feet had tripped her
and she had pitched head foremost into a deep snow-bank. Nancy, who saw
her disappear, halloed to the boys as she sped to the place where Judith
was buried, and they appeared with magical swiftness.

They pulled Judith out--not without difficulty--and wiped the snow off
her face.

"Are you hurt?" said Jack anxiously.

Judith struggled to get her breath.

"It's--too--beautiful," she said, without opening her eyes, her mind
evidently still on the river view,--"perfectly glorious!"

Jack burst into relieved laughter.

"Judith's a game little thing," he said to his mother later on; "I
suppose we shouldn't have left them so soon, but she seemed to get the
hang of it very quickly--she slid into that bank as neatly as an
arrow--I'm mighty glad she isn't hurt."

       *       *       *       *       *

Judith could hardly keep her eyes open at the dinner-table, and she was
glad enough to accept Mrs. Nairn's suggestion that she go to bed early.

Nancy and Sally May perched on the foot of the bed ready to talk over
the day's happenings, but found to their astonishment that Judy seemed
asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow. They tiptoed
gently away, but they need not have been afraid of wakening her.

"Doesn't she look sweet?" whispered loyal Nancy to Sally May as she
turned off the bedside lamp. Judith was smiling happily, for in her
dreams she was flying, flying through sunlit skies, and Tim, of the grey
eyes and the half friendly, half quizzical smile, was flying beside
her.




CHAPTER VIII

CASTLES IN THE AIR


NEXT morning Judith could scarcely move; her limbs were stiff from the
unaccustomed exercise and one shoulder was bruised and wrenched from her
fall, so Mrs. Nairn kept her in bed all morning and gave her much
petting and mothering.

The plans for the afternoon had included a skating party on the river,
ending with a drive out to the Nairns' summer cottage, which had been
opened in preparation for this week of winter sports. A neighbouring
farmer's wife had promised to have a roaring fire ready for the skaters
when they should appear about five o'clock, and the farmer himself was
to meet them at the river with his big sleigh. Clearly Judith could not
skate to-day, so other plans were made for her. Nancy, of course, must
be with the skaters, since she was the hostess, but Sally May insisted
on staying at home with Judith. Naturally this embarrassed Judith, for
she knew that Sally May loved skating, and an outdoor party of this
kind would be a novelty to a Southerner. Finally Jack talked things over
with his mother, and, as Judith declared that she was well enough to go,
Mrs. Nairn agreed that she should drive with Jack to the cottage and he
would leave her there with Mme. Berthier, while he rejoined the skaters
on the river.

Tim, to Judith's disappointment, declared that he had an engagement and
couldn't come.

"I can't think what's happening to Tim," grumbled Nancy as they changed
into warm clothes for their long drive; "usually he's a dear about
helping to entertain, but he's not a bit like himself, he looks so glum
and 'grouchy.'"

"Oh, Nancy!" Judith protested, "I don't see how you can say such a
thing! I think he looks just lovely!"

"Just lovely," Nancy laughed wickedly; "he'll be pleased when I tell
him."

Poor Judith crimsoned.

"Oh, Nancy," she begged, "you wouldn't, surely you wouldn't. I just
meant that he had nice eyes."

But Nancy would make no promises.

Promptly after an early lunch the skaters set off, and Jack appeared
with a horse and a little old-fashioned cutter which he had borrowed
from an uncle who scorned motors and still clung to his horse. Judith
was tucked up in a fur robe in the cutter and off they went.

[Illustration: JUDITH WAS TUCKED UP IN A FUR ROBE IN THE CUTTER AND OFF
THEY WENT]

"It's almost as good as skiing or flying," laughed Judith as the light
sleigh flew over the snow and the bells on the horse jingled a merry
accompaniment to their talk. It was another day of magical
colouring--all blue and gold and dazzling white, and "Little Oaks" was
reached all too soon in Judith's opinion. To their dismay there was no
friendly column of smoke announcing the fire that Mme. Berthier had
promised.

"It's a good thing the Berthiers are only a mile away," said Jack;
"whatever can have happened?"

He came out of the little whitewashed cottage with a grave face.
"Jacques is away at the lumber camp and Toinette and the two younger
children are down with flu--Toinette seems very ill; luckily Jeanne is
old enough to do the nursing, but they need a doctor, and I'm afraid
I'll have to go off at once. Nancy will be disappointed, but it can't be
helped. We'll pin a note on the door for her as we go back--it would
take too long to open the house and get a good fire going--and a wood
fire wouldn't keep in all afternoon anyway--and I couldn't leave you
alone--"

"Oh, please, please," begged Judith, "do let me stay--couldn't that
small boy by the door be coaxed to stay with me for company--I couldn't
bear to have Nancy's party spoilt."

Judith knew how to be very persuasive and Jack finally gave in. Little
Pierre came with them to carry the wood, he was told.

Jack opened up the house, carried in the baskets of provisions, and lit
a fire of blazing logs.

"I'll 'phone to you when I get in, and if you should need anything, or
if you feel lonely, ring up Mother in the meantime."

"I shan't have a minute to spare for feelings," declared Judith, "Pierre
and I have plenty to do."

She didn't quite realize how much was to be done when she watched Jack
drive off. The living-room to be swept and dusted--that would come
first--and no small task when one's arms and back are bruised and
aching; then to the kitchen, and judge of her dismay when on opening
the baskets she found that, though there were cakes and fruit and salad
stuff in plenty, of bread there was only one small loaf. Whatever
could--oh, here was a small bag of flour and a tin of baking powder.
Judith groaned as she remembered hearing Nancy tell Sally May that Mme.
Berthier was a splendid cook and had promised to make heaps of waffles
and hot biscuits for them to eat with their baked beans and salad.

Twenty hungry skaters appearing in an hour and one small loaf to feed
them! Judith had never made waffles, but she had made baking-powder
biscuits once or twice, though only, of course, in small quantities. Her
first thought was to walk to Mme. Berthier's cottage and ask for
directions. No, that wouldn't do--the precious hour would be gone. And
Nancy must _not_ be disappointed.

"Put on some more wood, Pierre, please. I want a good hot oven," she
called to her little helper, and then as he looked blank she tried first
her scanty stock of French words and then showed him what to do.

While she was thinking, she was rapidly unpacking the baskets and
setting the table, disregarding meanwhile the twinges of pain from her
hurt shoulders. At last everything was ready but the biscuits--she
couldn't remember, try as she might, the proportion of baking-powder and
flour and milk. A mistake would be such a tragedy! Then just as she had
decided to make three or four batches and hope that one or two might be
good, she suddenly thought of the telephone.

"Well, I am a silly, petit Pierre, now we'll be all right--Yes, Mrs.
Nairn, it's Judith--Jack will explain--please tell me how to make
biscuits!"

The explanation must have been easy to follow, for when Nancy and her
party arrived a little later three pans of beautifully browned fluffy
tea-biscuits were ready to put on the table. Judith had never been as
proud of anything in her life as of those same biscuits, and when later
the company toasted her in hot cocoa and sang, "For she's a Jolly Good
Fellow," with Nancy and Jack looking their special thanks, Judith
decided she could never be any happier than she felt right then.

Mr. Nairn was as good as his word next day and took them on a
sight-seeing tour ending with a delightful luncheon at the Chateau
Frontenac. Judith had never lunched in such a big hotel and felt very
important and grown-up. Jack and Tim refused to be instructed on
historical matters, but were on hand for the luncheon.

"I guess you two have won Dad's hard heart and no mistake," Jack
confided to Judith while they waited for Mr. Nairn, who was speaking to
an acquaintance. "I see the favors are 'chien d'or' bonbon dishes,"
pointing to the quaint little china dishes. "He always presents a copy
of 'The Golden Dog' to highly honored visitors."

"Your father has been telling us about it," said Judith, "and he
promised me a copy when we get home."

"I'm coming back to sketch here some summer," announced Sally May;
"Quebec's simply full of places wanting to be painted."

After the luncheon the boys took them home, and as Judith was still
tired from her exertions of the last two days, they voted to spend the
afternoon at home, and curled themselves up in comfortable chairs in the
sitting-room prepared to discuss a box of chocolates and the universe in
general.

"What're you going to do after school, Judy?" demanded Nancy; and then
without waiting for an answer--"I believe Mother is going to let me
train to be a nurse. I've just been crazy to be a nurse ever since I was
about ten. Mother has laughed at me and said I would get over it, but
she sees that I really mean it, and I think she is willing now. I don't
know where I'll go. Florence Matthews says you can get the best training
in New York, but Mother thinks New York is too far away, and anyway I
have to take a Domestic Science course first."

"You'll look perfectly sweet in a uniform, Nancy," said Sally May; "I
simply adore the kerchiefs the nurses wear in some of the hospitals.
It's too bad the war is over. Wouldn't it have been thrilling to nurse
soldiers!"

"I'm going to be an artist," Sally May continued, "with a studio in New
York. I'm going to buy all sorts of lovely embroidery and pottery in the
East--I know a perfectly lovely shop in Shanghai--and I'll make a
gorgeous room. I'm sure I could make it perfectly fascinating, full of
atmosphere, you know," she continued vaguely. "I'll have afternoon tea
every day and invite heaps of people, interesting people, who do
out-of-the-ordinary things. Patricia Caldwell's cousin had the
loveliest time. Patricia says her studio is just like an old-fashioned
French salon."

"What about your pictures?" asked Judith slyly.

"Oh, of course I'll work hard," said Sally May happily. "I simply love
to draw."

"What are you going to be, Judy?"

"I'm not sure," said Judith slowly, "but I think I'd like to be a
teacher."

"A teacher?" chorused the other two in surprise. "Why, Judy, what a
funny idea!" said Sally May.

"I don't see why it's funny," Judith objected. "I think it would be
splendid to be like Miss Marlowe or head of a school like Miss
Meredith."

"Well, you'll never get married if you are a teacher," said Sally May
with finality; "at any rate, not for ages and ages."

"Why not?" said Judy.

This was a poser.

"W-e-l-l--you'd have to learn so much, you see."

Judith laughed. "I hadn't thought of that, but I thought you were going
to be an artist," she added teasingly.

"But not all my life," expostulated Sally May, and Judith and Nancy
laughed to think of Sally May's picture of a hard-working artist.

Judith considered the matter of her future seriously as she dressed for
dinner.

It might be nice to be married--think how lonely she and Mummy would be
without Daddy--but of course she couldn't marry Daddy; and then she
laughed at herself as she remembered Daddy's story of the small girl who
sobbed that she didn't ever want to get married because, as she couldn't
have daddy, she'd have to marry a perfect stranger.

"Perhaps some one like Tim would be nice," thought Judith, and after the
fashion of most sixteen-year-olds she began to weave a shadowy romance
with a Prince Charming as its central figure. Tim had walked to the
Chateau with them this morning, and although he had not condescended to
talk beyond the merest civilities, this silence had merely served to
enhance his romantic value in Judith's eyes. She wondered what he was
thinking of. Perhaps he was living over again a battle in the clouds--as
a matter of fact, Tim was wondering why he hadn't received a certain
letter which he had hoped for on Christmas Day. Judith hoped he would
like her new frock, and wondered how many dances he would ask her for on
New Year's night.

The Nairns were a musical family. Nancy always went to the piano and
played for her father after dinner, sometimes Mrs. Nairn joined in with
her violin, and to-night Tim appeared with his 'cello.

Judith loved to attend symphony concerts and the tuning-up of the
orchestra never failed to give her delicious thrills, but she had never
had a speaking acquaintance--so to speak--with a 'cello before this, and
the beautiful mellow tones delighted her more than anything she had ever
heard before. As she undressed that night she revised her plans for the
future. She would devote herself to music and study hard so that when
they were married she might be her husband's accompanist. "On wings of
music" they would soar, and when they did come back to earth it must be
to a bungalow, a dear little grey-stone bungalow. She spent a happy time
planning the furnishing of her music-room and fell asleep before she had
decided on the respective merits of old oak and mahogany.

Next day began with "Happy New Year" and ended with the jolliest of
family parties. All the members of the house-party spent a busy day, for
Mrs. Nairn had plenty for the two maids to do in the kitchen. Sally May
was discovered to have a talent for decorating, so she and Jack and Tim
hung evergreens and holly and placed ferns and flowers where they would
show to the best advantage, while Nancy and Judith whisked about with
dusters and brushes.

"Music in the living-room, dancing in the drawing-room and hall, and
cards upstairs in Mother's sitting-room," said Nancy as they set the
small tables. "That's what we always have, and then everybody dances a
Sir Roger de Coverly--you should see Uncle Phil and Aunt Maria
dancing--and afterwards we have supper."

They had a picnic tea at six o'clock in the sitting-room as the maids
were arranging the supper-table in the dining-room, and then came the
fun of dressing.

Judith had kept her new silver frock as a great surprise, and now it was
thrilling to burst into Nancy's room in all her new finery. Nancy and
Sally May said it was "perfectly sweet," and even Jack, "who never
notices" (according to Nancy), looked and whistled his admiration as
Judith came downstairs, her eyes shining, her cheeks glowing with
excitement, and her pretty frock swishing about her in a highly
gratifying manner.

Guests were arriving at an unfashionably early hour, since it was
largely a family party, and Judith was introduced to a bewildering
number of cousins and cousins' cousins and aunts and uncles.

But where was Tim? He had not been home for tea, and although Judith
listened and watched there was no sign of him.

"Tim went out early this afternoon to pay calls and he isn't back yet,"
Sally May informed Judith. "I think Mrs. Nairn is rather worried about
him."

The younger set had been dancing for an hour or more and Jack had proved
an attentive host, but Judith was still half unconsciously looking for
Tim when suddenly she saw him in the doorway with an exquisitely pretty
girl beside him. Perhaps it was Tim's radiant look which he was making
no effort to hide, perhaps it was his partner's radiant looks which she
was trying to hide, but however it was Judith had the quick conviction
that this was a very special partner. The newcomer was slim and
graceful, and Judith saw with sudden envy that her hair was like spun
gold and her eyes as blue as forget-me-nots.

Tim danced with no one else, and in spite of Jack's attentions and no
lack of interesting partners, Judith began to feel a little
disconsolate. However, it was hard not to be merry at such a merry
party; there was happiness in the very air.

The Sir Roger was a great success, and Uncle Phil, aged seventy-two,
upheld his reputation as the gayest dancer of them all.

At supper-time Nancy and Judith were helping to serve the little tables
in the library when Judith saw Tim with his partner come in and go over
to Mr. and Mrs. Nairn. Nancy suddenly squeezed Judith's arm.

"Oh, Judy, Judy, they're engaged! I'm sure they are! Look at Tim! We
were pretty sure he was in love with her, and Lois is such a darling!"

Then she rushed over to put her arms around Lois, and Judith was left
alone feeling bereaved of husband, home, and career at one cruel
stroke.

"The nicest party I ever was at," said Sally May enthusiastically as the
three said good-night after a long discussion of the evening's fun, "and
I think you looked nicer than anybody else, Judy. I do hope you won't
get conceited about the way you look in that new frock. I know I
should."

"The nicest party I ever was at," thought Judith before she fell asleep,
"and the very nicest people. Jack is a brick--he's been awfully kind to
me. I wish I was half as pretty as Lois Selkirk. What _would_ it feel
like to be engaged?--I guess it would be exciting! However, then I
wouldn't be going back to York Hill--and that will be exciting next term
and no mistake. Oh, how glad I am that I've got Nancy!"




CHAPTER IX

THE ANONYMOUS LETTER


WHAT fun it was to get back to York Hill!

As Judith stood in the front hall waiting her turn to sign the register,
she almost laughed aloud as she remembered how, standing in this very
spot, she had clung desperately to Aunt Nell five short months ago. How
different it was now! She could hardly wait to get over to South, and
see Nancy, and Catherine, and Jane, and Josephine, and all the rest of
them.

She peeped into the drawing-room, and there sat a stiff, solemn little
figure--a new girl, no doubt--and, yes, here was Eleanor bringing Peggy
Forrest to introduce to the newcomer. And as Judith ran across to her
own house, she felt a warm glow of gratitude that Miss Meredith had
chosen Nancy to be her "pilot" during those first difficult days.

Cries of welcome greeted her in the corridor.

"Hi, there, Judibus! Had a good time?"

"Sally May was looking for you, Judy."

"Good old Scrooge!"

"Merry Christmas, everybody--Happy New Year to all the world," quoted
Judith promptly, seizing her letters and making her way through the
crowd around Miss Marlowe's door down to the good old "Jolly Susan" and
Nancy.

Yes, there was Nancy's pretty yellow head, and in another minute she was
looking into Nancy's merry eyes and trying to answer three questions at
once and say "hullo" to Josephine and Jane and Sally May.

Judith was the last to arrive, so they all crowded into her room and
sampled Aunt Nell's Christmas cake--thoughtfully provided for the
occasion--and the big box of chocolates which Josephine's brother had
sent.

Five tongues wagged merrily in spite of cake and candy, for there were
endless things to tell--Josephine had been to her first real dance, and
Jane had been down to New York with Phyllis Lovell, and you may be sure
that Nancy and Judith were not behind the others in their accounts of
"perfectly gorgeous" times. And when Catherine joined them and added her
tale of a gay winter fete in Winnipeg, Judith felt that no home-coming
_could_ be happier.

"Oh, isn't it nice to _belong!_" said Judith to herself as she dressed
for supper. "I wonder how that new girl is getting on--I guess she's in
our form when Eleanor got Peggy for her--I wish I could do something to
make her feel at home--"

Josephine's head appeared in the door and she whispered mysteriously,
"Come on down to the common room when you've finished."

"What _do_ you think," she said when Judith joined her, "that mean
Genevieve Singleton has been trying to get in here in Jane's room! Jane
said once at the beginning of last term that she wished she was down in
Peggy Forrest's cubicles, but that was ages ago. Genevieve went to Miss
Marlowe and said that Jane wanted to change her room, and may she please
have Jane's room, as she hasn't been very well during the holidays and
her mother doesn't want her to climb stairs. Miss Marlowe sent for Jane,
and you should have heard her when she came back! Genevieve is in
Catherine's room now telling her how heartbroken she is, I suppose.
Silly thing, I wish she would try holding _my_ hand."

Judith laughed at Josephine's disgusted expression, and blushed a little
as she remembered her own foolishness about Catherine.

"Genevieve's queer, isn't she? I can't make her out--you remember how
crazy she was about Helen, and Helen didn't seem to like her a bit."

"She's a silly owl," said Josephine decidedly, "but--my word--wasn't she
a dandy Malvolio?"

At supper Judith, who was talking as hard as any one else, realized what
a Babel of sound they were making when she saw the bewildered look on
the face of the new girl whose name she learned was Florence Newman. She
smiled across at Florence in a friendly manner and said, "Did you know
that we're going to dance afterwards--give me the first spare one you
have, will you--and I want to introduce you to Josephine Burley--she's
from Alberta, too--and she's a perfect dear, although she doesn't look
it."

The talk about Christmas presents and parties and new frocks and next
term's doings buzzed on, but Florence felt less lonely and frightened.
The "girl from Alberta" sounded friendly and comforting: _she_ would
know what this turmoil meant after the silence of the prairies.

Judith was as good as her word and shared with Peggy the duty of
"piloting" the new member of Form Five. But she found Florence very
quiet and unresponsive, and gradually the excitement of the new class in
figure-skating and the inter-form and house hockey matches absorbed her
attention.

There was plenty of hard work done in the various classes, and the staff
congratulated themselves that the School was in good working form, but,
judging from the conversation in the sitting-room and at table, the
girls apparently did nothing but think and talk and play hockey and
figure-skating.

Judith did not join a hockey team, but Josephine was one of the Junior
captains, and as she kept the crew of the "Jolly Susan" well informed as
to the "points" of her team, Judith was an interested "fan" at all the
matches.

There were two cups given for the fancy skating and Judith and Nancy
resolved to enter the competition. After a long morning in the classroom
they could hardly wait to get out to the rink to begin again on the
figure eight. A beautiful curve seemed the most important thing in the
world.

The rink these zero days was a pretty sight. Miss Meredith, on her way
out for a walk, used to love to stand for a few minutes and watch the
charming scene. "What lovely things girls are," she would murmur to