The first two months at school generally pass very quickly; after that,
the time is apt to move a little slower. The first two months at Miss
Marr's school passed so quickly that the girls all confessed themselves
"so surprised" when December came with Christmas scarcely more than
three weeks away. Miss Marr gave a vacation on Christmas week, when the
boarding-girls, as those who were inmates of her house were called,
could go to their homes, if not too far off, and return by New Year's
eve, for it was a fixed rule that they must all be back by that time,
and not one of them but was delighted to obey this rule, for not one of
them would have lost Miss Marr's New Year's party, which, according to
Kate Van der Berg, was the best fun of the year.
"But what do you do, what _is_ the fun?" inquired Dolly Dering, who was
present when Kate made the above statement.
"What do we do?" answered Kate. "Well, in the first place, on New Year's
eve, we have a jolly little party of just ourselves,--we girls in the
house, none of the outside girls, the day pupils,--and we play games,
sing songs, tell stories, do anything, in fact, that we want to do, and
at half-past ten there is a little light supper served, such as ices,
and the most delicious frosted sponge-cakes, and seed-cakes, and then
there is bread and butter, and hot cocoa for those that want it. After
this we feel as fresh and rested as possible, and all ready to sit the
old year out and the new year in."
"Oh, you _don't_ do that?" cried Dolly, delightedly, for to sit up late
was one of her ideas of happiness.
"We do just that"
"Well, and then?"
"Then," went on Kate, laughing, "we begin to grow a little quieter. We
tell stories in lower voices; we watch the clock, and as it strikes
twelve, we jump to our feet and all break out singing a New Year's song
or hymn. Sometimes it is one thing and sometimes it is another. Last
year it was Tennyson's
"Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky:
The year is dying; let him die."
"And Hope's violin playing," exclaimed Myra Donaldson here. "Don't you
remember how Hope played the violin last year? She just made it talk;
don't you remember?"
"Oh, yes," went on Kate, hurriedly. "Hope played, and then we all wished
each other a 'Happy New Year,' and went to bed. The next day--"
"What did she play?" asked Dolly, breaking in upon Kate here.
"Oh, she played--she played--"
"Robert Franz's 'Good-night' song and Behr's 'Good-morning,'" struck in
Myra again, impatient at Kate's hesitation.
"Oh, I know Franz's 'Good-night,' and doesn't the 'Good morning' go like
this?" asked Dolly, beginning to whistle the air of Behr's.
"Yes, that is it, and I played the accompaniment," answered Myra. "It
was just delicious. We all cried, for it seemed as if the violin sang
the very words."
"I never heard either of them on the violin, but my sister sings them
both," said Dolly.
"I think these were arranged for the violin by Hope's teacher, specially
for Hope," exclaimed Myra. "I think Hope--"
"Don't you want to hear what we did the next day and the next evening?"
called out Kate, exasperated at Myra's harping on Hope and her violin to
Dolly.
"Oh, yes;" and Dolly brightened up expectantly. Myra, at that moment
receiving a sharp little reminder under the table from Kate's foot, and
another reminder from Kate's warning look, subsided into silence, while
Kate took up her story of New Year's day and evening.
"Of course, after that midnight watch, we breakfasted late,--oh, so
late! and the best part of it was, we breakfasted in our rooms."
"In your rooms?" exclaimed Dolly.
"Yes, at ten o'clock, tap, tap, came on our doors, and enter Susette
with a tray, on which was a delicious breakfast for two, and a dear
little bouquet of flowers for each of us. Isn't Miss Marr a dear to
think of such things?"
"Will she do the same this year?" questioned Dolly, eagerly.
"Oh, yes; she has always done the same in the main things,--the evening
luncheon or little supper on New Year's eve, the sitting out, then the
breakfast, and the reception party New Year's night. She only varies
some of the details."
"Oh, you have an evening party New Year's night?"
"Yes, indeed."
"Who is invited? Who comes?"
"Well, I can tell you one thing,--that everybody comes who is lucky
enough to be invited, and the invited are all the outside girls and one
friend of each; that is, each girl can invite one friend. We
boarding-girls have the same privilege. I always invite one of my
relations, and isn't there a scramble amongst them to see which it shall
be?"
"And what do you do at the party?"
Kate looked a little disgusted at this question. "What do we do? We do
what most people do at a party," she answered rather tartly.
"Well, what I meant was, do you dance?" asked Dolly, in a
half-apologetic tone.
"Dance? I should think we did, and we have music, and at the very end
the best fun of all."
"I shouldn't think it would be such great fun, just to dance with
girls."
"You are not obliged to dance with girls."
"What! You don't mean--that there are young fellows--men?"
"There are _boys_,--that's what I call them,--boys like my brother
Schuyler. Schuyler is seventeen."
Dolly gave a long drawn "Oh!" It was evidently an "Oh" of relief; but
directly she asked, with demure mischief,--
"Can't you have 'em over seventeen?"
Kate laughed. "Well, we can't have regular grown-ups, you know, and we
don't want them. But we can have them all the way from fifteen to
eighteen, I believe."
"How odd! Doesn't Miss Marr think we are up to conversation with
grown-up young gentlemen?"
"She thinks probably that 'grown-up gentlemen,' as you call
them,--gentlemen out in society,--wouldn't care to come to a school-girl
party, and that it is much more suitable to have boys of our own
age,--boys we all know, or most of us know, at any rate, and who have
something the same interests that we have,--school interests, and things
of that kind. For my part, I shouldn't know what to say to gentlemen so
much older than myself."
"Oh, wouldn't you?" cried Dolly, with an air--a knowing sort of
air--that exasperated Kate. "I have a grown-up sister, and I've seen a
good many of her gentlemen visitors. I never found it hard to talk to
them," went on Dolly, with a still more knowing air.
"And I have a grown-up brother," retorted Kate, "and I've heard him tell
how men go on about half-grown girls and their forwardness and boldness
and pertness, and how they--the young men--disliked that kind of thing,
or else amused themselves with it for a little while, and then made fun
of it."
Dolly's face had flushed scarlet at these words, and at the end she
burst forth angrily,--
"I suppose you mean that when I talked with my sister's, I must have
been forward and bold and pert."
It was Kate's turn now to flush. She saw that in her irritation--Dolly
was apt to irritate her--she had been unwarrantably rude, and swallowing
her mortification, she at once made haste to say,--
"I beg your pardon, I--I shouldn't have spoken as I did. I am very
sorry."
Dolly gave a quick glance at the speaker, hesitated a moment, as if
waiting for something further, then jumped up and flounced out of the
room with an angry impetus that there was no mistaking.
"Well, that is interesting, I must confess," ejaculated Kate. "I begged
her pardon; what more did she want?"
"She wanted you to say that you hadn't the least idea of _her_ in your
mind,--that you didn't mean that _she_ was forward or pert, and you said
nothing of the sort; you only begged her pardon for having _spoken_ as
you did," explained Myra Donaldson, giggling a little.
"And that is what I meant,--just that,--that I was sorry for having
spoken--"
"Your thoughts," said Myra, giggling again.
"Dorothea is generally a good-natured girl," spoke up Anna Fleming here,
with a kind impulse to be just.
"Oh, _I_ like Dorothea very well. I should like her better if she didn't
bounce and flounce so. You can't say that her manners are as nice as
they might be, can you?" said Myra, looking appealingly at Anna.
"N--o, I can't say that her manners are really nice," answered Anna.
"_I_ think she is vulgar!" Kate suddenly snapped out, with a vehemence
that quite startled the other two girls.
"Vulgar! why, Kate, she's one of the Boston Derings."
Kate made a little face, and then in a sarcastic voice, "Who are the
Boston Derings?" she asked.
"Now, Kate, you know perfectly well that the Boston Derings belong to
the best society in Massachusetts, and that they have always belonged to
it from the first," protested Anna, getting things rather mixed in her
eagerness.
"From the first!" repeated Kate, laughing derisively. "I suppose you
mean from the time of Adam."
"Now, Kate, you know perfectly well what I mean. The Derings came from
an old family."
"Like Sandy MacDougal."
"Eh--what--who is Sandy MacDougal?"
"Our gardener. He came straight to us from Scotland, and he's as proud
as a peacock of his family. He says the MacDougals have been first-class
gardeners for generations."
Myra Donaldson gave another of her giggles, but Anna did not join in her
levity. Instead of that she said with dignity,--
"What _I_ mean is an old family like the Van der Bergs."
Kate flushed rosy red. This was "a retort courteous," and for a moment
she was dumb; but a moment after, she sat up in her chair, and cried
laughingly,--
"The Van der Bergs are not proud, except of one thing in their family
history."
"What's that?" inquired Anna, quickly.
Kate laughed again. "It is the performance of a long-ago ancestor,--a
Dutch boatman named Van der Berg. It was in that early time when the
Netherlanders were struggling against Spain to establish their own
liberty and independence. William the Silent, Prince of Orange, you
know, who had been the Netherlanders' best friend when he was at the
head of their commonwealth, was dead, and his son, Maurice, Prince of
Nassau, was working with John of olden Barneveld to help the
Netherlanders, as his father had been doing, to become strong enough to
get altogether out of the clutches of Spain. But how ridiculous of me to
talk history to you like this, just because of that old story! To change
the conversation, what is it you are knitting, Anna,--a shawl or a
cape?"
"No, no, we don't want to change the conversation," protested Anna and
Myra, who knew quite well what a delightful story-teller Kate was, and
never more delightful than when she was "talking history,"--telling
"true stories," as they expressed it. Neither of the girls was very fond
of _studying_ history, but they were very fond of listening to Kate
whenever she would "talk it," or whenever she would pick out of it
its--to them--labyrinthine mazes some stirring incident, and read it to
them. So their protest now was very decisive against any change of
conversation; and thus urged to go back to her subject, Kate went on
with the story of her ancestor. She had not gone far, however, when she
stopped short again, saying,--
"But wait! Motley tells the story so beautifully in his 'United
Netherlands;' let me read it to you in his own words. It's too bad to
try to tell it in _my_ words; and here's the book right on this lower
library shelf."
[Illustration: "IT WAS THE WORK OF A MOMENT TO POSSESS HERSELF OF THE
BOOK"]
It was the work of a moment to possess herself of the book; and the
girls, settling themselves comfortably in their chairs, gave themselves
up to the pleasure of listening to the following spirited narrative:--