One evening about the end of November the four girls were dressing for supper in their dormitory.
"It's a grizzly nuisance having to change one's frock!" groused Betty Moore. "It seems so silly to array oneself in white just to eat supper and do a little sewing afterwards. I hate the bother."
"Do you?" exclaimed Irene Andrews. "Now I like it. I think it would be perfectly piggy to wear the same serge dress from breakfast to bedtime. Brackenfield scores over some schools in that. They certainly make things nice for us in the evenings."
"Um—yes, tolerably," put in Sylvia Page. "We don't get enough music, in my opinion."
"We have a concert every Saturday night, and charades on Wednesdays for those who care to act."
"I'd like gym practice every evening," said Betty. "Then I needn't change my frock. When I leave school I mean to go on a farm, and wear corduroy knickers and leggings and thick boots all the time. It'll be gorgeous. I love anything to do with horses, so perhaps they'll let me plough. What shall you do, Marjorie?"
"Something to help the war, if it isn't over. I'll nurse, or drive a wagon, or ride a motor-bike with dispatches."
"I'd rather ride a horse than a bike any day," said Betty. "I used to hunt before the war. You needn't smile. I was twelve when the war began, and I'd been hunting since I was seven, and got my first pony. It was a darling little brown Shetland named Sheila. I cried oceans when it died. My next was a grey one named Charlie, and Tom, our coachman, taught me to take fences. He put up some little hurdles in a field, and kept making them higher and higher till I could get Charlie over quite well. Oh, it was sport! I wish I'd a pony here."
"There used to be riding lessons before the war," sighed Irene. "Mother had promised me I should learn. But now, of course, there are no horses to be had, and the riding-master, Mr. Hall, has gone to the front. I wonder if things will ever be the same again? If I don't learn to ride properly while I'm young I'll never have a decent seat afterwards, I suppose."
"You certainly won't," Betty assured her. "You ought to have begun when you were seven."