"Well, of course I mean aristocratic ones. The others don't count. It must make a difference whether your grandfather was a gentleman or a farm-boy. Rona says herself she's a democrat. I'm sure she looked the part when she arrived."
"I don't know that she exactly looks it now, though," said Gertrude, championing Rona for once.
Everyone at the school realized that the Cuckoo was trying to behave herself. The struggles towards perfection were sometimes almost pathetic, though the girls mostly viewed them from the humorous side. She would sit up suddenly, bolt upright, at the tea table, if Miss Bowes' eye suggested that she was lolling; she apologized for accidents at which she had laughed before, and she corrected herself if a backwoods expression escaped her.
"Am I really any shakes smarter—I mean, more toned up—than I was?" she asked Ulyth anxiously.
"You're far better than you were last term. Do go on trying, that's all!"
"Will they take me as a candidate in the Camp-fire League?"
"I expect so, but we shall have to ask Mrs. Arnold about that."
Since the great reunion by the stream in September there had been no meetings of the Camp-fire League. Mrs. Arnold had been ill, and then had gone away to recruit her health, and no one was able to take her place as "Guardian of the Fire". She was recovered now, and at home again, and had promised to help to make up for lost time by superintending a gathering at the beginning of the new term. It was to be held in the big hall of the school, though the girls begged hard to have it out-of-doors, pleading that on a fine evening they could keep perfectly warm, and it would only resemble a Fifth of November affair.
"That may be all very well for you, but I'm not going to risk Mrs. Arnold's catching cold," returned Miss Bowes; which argument put a final stop to the idea.
"We'll have ripping fun in the hall, if we can't be outside," beamed Addie. "I always enjoy a stunt."