"Bow-wow! All right, Grannie! I'm drinking at the fount of your wisdom."
"As for Lesbia," put in Calla, "I think she was a regular mascot about that cover. No one knows how she swatted over it. I'm sure it turned the scale."
"Oh, don't mench! I enjoyed it."
"Look here!" asked Marion, suddenly and anxiously. "Does the clock belong to us or to our form? If we go up into the Sixth next year can we take it with us?"
"Oh, I never thought of that!"
"We'll want a Solomon to settle such a question," said Calla. "Meanwhile the clock's ours for the whole of next term, and that's quite far enough ahead to look forward in my opinion. It may have broken its mainspring before we're in the Sixth, and then we shouldn't want it. Sufficient unto the day is the tick thereof."
"Right you are, O Queen of Wisdom!"
CHAPTER XI
A Holiday Governess
When Easter drew near, Lesbia began to be very anxious as to where she was to spend her holidays. From various hints thrown out by the Pattersons, she gathered that they wanted to use her bedroom, and were making arrangements for her to go away. She sincerely hoped it would not be to Mrs. Newton's. The remembrance of Christmas was hardly enlivening. Another three weeks in that elderly mid-Victorian atmosphere was certainly not a tempting prospect to a girl of sixteen. At last, only a few days before the vacation began, Mrs. Patterson, putting on her pince-nez and, taking a letter from her bag, announced to Lesbia that she had some news for her.