With a certain amount of help from Miss Joyce Lesbia contrived to make a really very nice stencil design of water-lilies. It was submitted to Miss Tatham, who gave her approval and permission for it to be transferred to the walls of Va. It was a proud occasion for Lesbia when Tuesday afternoon saw her installed in her own form room with stencil, paints, and brushes, actually beginning the delightful task of decoration. The room was vacant only on that one afternoon in the week, and Miss Tatham would not allow her to stay and work after school hours, so her plan must proceed piecemeal with about a couple of yards painted at a stretch. It gave an added interest to spread out the enjoyment from week to week, though the wall looked horribly unfinished with a half-completed design. She had been a little doubtful as to how the form would receive her handiwork, and whether they would consider it an improvement or an eyesore. Fortunately, they liked it, and told her to hurry up and get along with it as fast as she could. The girls whose desks adjoined the finished portion even crowed over those who sat near bare walls. Miss Pratt—practical, hard-headed, inartistic Miss Pratt—after carefully ascertaining that the work did not trespass upon Lesbia's preparation hours, condescended to approve, though she added grimly that she would like to see an equal amount of care and attention put into the Latin exercises and the Algebra classes. Every rose has its thorn, and Miss Pratt's praises were never without a sting.
Meantime the exponents of song-drama had waxed wildly enthusiastic over the preparation of The King of Tara, which they intended to produce before the school at Christmas. They had already held one or two practices with the orchestra, and were much thrilled to hear how well their choruses sounded in conjunction with the instruments.
"We've just been learning the music so far, but we're to begin the acting next week," purred Marion to Lesbia, "and when we get the dresses it will be absolutely tip-top. I wish you were in it."
"So do I," said Lesbia half wistfully, "but Miss Tatham won't let us swop; besides I've got to finish the lotus pattern. It'll take me till very nearly the end of the term. I have to do it so carefully. If I try to hurry I don't get the edges neat. It's my nightmare that some day I'll let the stencil slip and make a smudge on the wall."
"Aren't you getting tired of everlasting waterlilies?"
"No—not the teeniest, weeniest bit!"
Though the girls were perhaps keenest upon what Miss Tatham termed the "emotional" side of her new department of self-expression, they nevertheless found something to attract them on the "mental" side. The Antiquities Section, for which Lesbia had put down her name, held out fascinating attractions. As a part of its activities the girls were to form a "Scheduling party" to visit any interesting old buildings in the city, to write full particulars of them in notebooks, and if possible to add photographs and drawings. Under the escort of Miss Chatham, companies of a dozen at a time made expeditions of inspection, and were as a rule kindly received by curators and caretakers, and were shown over extra rooms and premises that were not generally open to the public. The girls scribbled their notes on the spot, then wrote them out carefully afterwards in exercise books. There was rivalry as to who should produce the best book. Lesbia made an artistic cover for hers, out of dull-green paper, with a pen-and-ink drawing of the picturesque Bolingbroke Arms Inn, and the title "Antiquities of Kingfield" printed in old English characters. She wrote the text neatly, pasted in photos which she had taken, and cut out any pictures she could find in the local papers to supplement them as illustrations. It was whispered in the school that when the books were finished they were to be shown to the Kingfield Archæological Society, who had hinted at giving prizes for the best efforts.
It was amazing when the girls really began to study their city how much information came to light. The very names of the streets revealed ancient history. Long, long ago the ownership of the town had been divided between the Earl of Dudley and the monks of the Abbey, and lord and abbot waged continual war over the boundaries of their respective properties. It was significant to notice in one quarter of the city such names as Earl Street, Castle Gate, Dudley Gate, Tower Lane, Castle Moat, Earl's Barn, The Butts, Falcon Mews, and Bull Ring, telling their tale of mediæval castle, where archery, hawking, and bull-baiting were favourite pursuits, and in the other quarter ecclesiastical names, Abbot's Orchard, Pilgrims' Inn, Greyfriars' Yard, Monks End, Whitefriars Street, and Priory Gardens, all showing that they had formerly been part of the church lands. The girls each bought a street map of Kingfield, and marked with coloured chalks the old boundaries of earl and abbot, and the course of the city wall, large pieces of which were still left standing in spite of Oliver Cromwell's cannon. Carrie Turner covered herself with immortal glory for the ancient wall actually ran through her father's garden, and she invited the members of her scheduling section and Miss Chatham not only to come and inspect it, but actually to have tea upon the top of it. It was nine feet wide, so there was quite room to accommodate a table and some chairs and stools. The girls, in a flutter of delight, mounted by a ladder, and sat aloft drinking tea and eating cakes, with a fine view over neighbouring gables and gardens, and a romantic feeling that they ought to be garbed in coif and wimple, and watching the prowess of their knights who fought in tournament in the lists below.
The antiquarian section really caught "mediæval fever", and visited the Free Reference Library to consult books which would tell them the ancient history of Kingfield. They copied out the most interesting stories into their notebooks, and anybody who could borrow an out-of-print guide-book, and collect any fresh legends to add to the list, scored considerably.
Another valuable and well-nigh inexhaustible source of information was discovered by the girls in their friends at home. Grandfathers and grandmothers recalled tales of their childhood, and would relate how, as youngsters of ten, they had hurried past Greyfriars Gate in the twilight, because the ghost of a wicked abbot was supposed to haunt the vicinity, and you might see his grey robes gliding among the shadows when the sun set. Some of them remembered when Miller's Pond, now quite a suburban piece of water, was known as Dragon's Pool, and had been a romantic spot half-smothered in willows, with a legend of a dragon who lived there and would come to the castle walls to demand victims.