THE GIRLS.
It was a lovely day in the beginning of June, and, being Wednesday, was
a half-holiday. The girls of the Upper school, numbering seven in all,
were assembled in the cherry garden. The cherry garden stood a little
apart, to the left of the great general garden, and was entered by a
low walled-in door.
Mrs. Clavering was so proud of her cherries and so afraid that the
neighbors might be tempted to help themselves to the luscious fruit,
that she kept the door locked between the cherry garden and the other,
and only those girls who were very privileged were allowed to sit in
it. But the girls in the Upper school were, of course, privileged, and
they were now enjoying a fine time seated on the grass, or on little
camp-stools and chairs, under the trees, which were already laden with
the tempting fruit.
They were all eagerly discussing the great event of the year, the
Cherry Feast, which was to take place in three weeks from the present
day. Their names were Mabel and Alice Cunningham, two handsome
dark-eyed girls, aged respectively seventeen and fifteen; Florence
Aylmer, who was also fifteen and the romp of the school; Mary Bateman,
a stolid-looking girl of fourteen; Bertha Kennedy, who had only lately
been raised to the rank of the Upper school; Edith King, a handsome,
graceful girl, who competed with Mabel for the honors of the head of
her class; and Kitty Sharston, who had only lately come, and who had
some Irish blood in her, and was very daring and very much inclined to
break the rules. She was a hobbledehoy sort of girl, having
outstripped her years, which were only thirteen, and was considered by
some of her companions very plain and by others very fascinating.
Mrs. Clavering did not quite know what to make of Kitty, but hoped to
break her in by and by, and meanwhile she was very gentle, and Kitty
loved her, although she never could be got to see that so many
restrictions and so many little petty rules were not good, but
extremely bad, for her character.
On this particular lovely summer's afternoon Kitty was the last to make
her appearance. She came skimming gracefully through the orchard under
the cherry trees, with her hair down her back, her skirt awry, and a
great stain on the front of her pinafore. In the seventies girls as
old as Kitty wore long white pinafores. The stain was caused by some
cherry juice, for Kitty had stopped many times as she approached the
others to take great handfuls of the ripe fruit, and thrust them into
her mouth. Mabel called to her to sit down.
"We are all busy discussing the great event," she said, "and I have
kept a seat for you near me, Kitty; wasn't it good of me?"
"Awfully good," answered Kitty. She flung herself on the ground by her
friend's side and looked up at her with affectionate eyes.
"I like you all," she said, glancing round at them, "and yet all the
same I hate school. The great thing that I look forward to in the
treat is that immediately afterwards the holidays follow. I shall go
down to join my father in Cornwall. He said he would take me to
Ireland, but I doubt if he will. Now, Tommy, what are you frowning at?"
This remark was made to Florence Aylmer. Kitty from the first had
insisted upon calling her Tommy. She was the first girl in Cherry
Court School who had dared to adopt a nickname for any of her
companions, and Florence, who had begun by being indignant, could not
help laughing now as the saucy creature fixed her with her bright eyes.
"What are you frowning at, Tommy? Aren't you glad, too, that the
holidays are so near?"
"No, I am not--I hate the holidays," replied Florence Aylmer. As she
spoke Mabel took one of Kitty's hands, gave it a slight squeeze, it was
a sort of warning pressure. Kitty looked up at her with a startled
glance, then she glanced again at Florence, who was looking down.
Suddenly Florence raised her face and returned the girl's gaze fully.
"I have no home like the rest of you," she said; "my mother is very
poor and cannot afford to have me at home."
"Then where are you going to spend the holidays?" said Kitty; "do say,
dear old Tommy, where--where?"
"Here probably, or wherever Mrs. Clavering likes to take me," replied
Florence; "but there, don't talk of it any more--I hate to think of it.
We have three weeks still to be happy in, and we'll make the best of
that."
"Do you know, Mabel," asked Mary Bateman, now bending forward, "if Mrs.
Clavering has yet decided what the programme is to be for the 25th?"
"I think she will tell us to-night," replied Mabel; "she said something
about it this morning, didn't she, Alice?"
"Yes, I heard her talking to Mademoiselle Le Brun. I expect we shall
hear at tea-time. If so we will meet in the oak parlor, and Mrs.
Clavering will have her annual talk. She is always very nice on those
occasions."
"She is nice on every occasion--she is an old dear," said Kitty.
"Why, Kitty, you don't know her very well yet."
"She is an old dear," reported Kitty; "I love her with all my heart,
but I should like beyond words to give her a right good shock. I
cannot tell you girls, how I positively tremble to do it. At prayers,
for instance, or still more at meals, when we are all so painfully
demure, I want to jump up and utter a shout, or do something of that
sort. I have suppressed myself hitherto, but I really do not know if I
can go on suppressing myself much longer. Oh, what is the matter,
Edith--what are you frowning at?"
"Nothing," replied Edith King; "I did not even know that I was
frowning. I was just thinking how nice it was to be trained to be
ladylike and to have good manners and all that. Mrs. Clavering is such
a perfect lady herself that we shall know all the rules of polite
society when we leave the school."
"And I hate those rules," said Kitty; "but there, somebody is coming to
meet us. Oh, it is little Dolly Fairfax; she is sure to be bringing a
message."