"Well, I guess it's taken the bounce out of me. I'm as stiff as a rheumatic cat! Oh, I'll get back to school somehow, don't alarm yourself! I'm absolutely starving for tea. Good-bye, you wood-demon; you nearly finished me!" and Rona shook her fist at the offending oak-tree as a parting salute.
"She called it demon to rhyme with lemon!" gurgled Addie, almost sobbing with mirth as she followed, holding Merle's arm. "The Cuckoo will cause me to break a blood-vessel some day. It hurts me most dreadfully to laugh. I've got a stitch in my side. Oh dear! I wonder whatever she'll go and do next?"
[CHAPTER V]
On Sufferance
"Scratch, scratch, scratch,
Scratch went the old black hen!
Every fowl that scrapes in the barn
Can scratch as well as your pen!"
So sang Rona, bounding noisily one afternoon into No. 3, Room 5, and popping her hands from behind over Ulyth's eyes as the latter sat writing at a table near the window.
"What are you always scratching away for? Can't you finish your work at prep.? Why don't you come downstairs and play basket-ball? You're mighty studious all of a sudden. What have you got here?"
Ulyth flushed crimson with annoyance, and turned her sheets of foolscap hastily over to hide them from her room-mate's prying eyes.