"It will be a nice little surprise for the other schools when we trot it out at the next Alliance function!" exulted Bess.
"They'll be absolutely green with envy!" affirmed Ivy. "I prophesy they'll all try to go one better."
"Let them try, then! We shall have had first start, and they can't get over that, anyway."
"I expect it will end in all the schools joining in an Alliance banner."
"Then there'd be six quarterings, and that's not heraldic!"
"No, no, there'd be eight, because the British lion and the Kirkton unicorn would still have to come in, and each school could have its emblem or its flower."
"Right you are, my youthful Solomon!"
Like all other terms, the spring session came at last to an end. The sufferers from mumps and measles had returned to their respective schools duly armed with doctors' certificates, quarantine was over, and after the interval of the Easter holidays the Alliance was able to meet again, and pursue its various avocations with renewed vigour. It had been a great source of regret to Kitty Fletcher, as head of the Games department, that St. Cyprian's had had no opportunity of wiping the stain off its reputation in regard to hockey. By next season she would have left the College, and could no longer "lead her hosts to battle as of yore". She impressed upon Edna Carson, who would succeed her in office, the mission of supremacy in the hockey field, urging her to spare no efforts to make the team realize its responsibilities. Meantime she turned her attention to cricket, determined to do the best for St. Cyprian's in the one term which remained to her.
As she had prophesied, Rhoda Somerville was a great source of strength, and promised to rival Joan Richards in batting. Under Kitty's careful tuition she improved immensely, and the captain began to regard her new pupil with much complacency. Edna Carson, of "hat-trick" fame, Daisy Holt, nicknamed "the Lobster", and Peggie Potter were well up to their last year's form, so there seemed reasonable hope that the College would win its due share of matches. At tennis, too, it was not behindhand. Lottie and Carrie Lowman had come to the fore, and proved the best champions that St. Cyprian's had yet had. Lottie had a more than usually good opportunity for practice this summer. She had been unwell in the spring, and the doctor had advised that she should not attempt to go in for the matriculation, as had been intended, recommending as much outdoor exercise as possible. She gleefully took him at his word, and, curtailing her hours of home preparation, played singles with her sister Carrie till both reached a pitch of excellence that caused Kitty to purr with delight. As Games delegate Kitty did not approve of any girl trying to sit on two stools. She had sternly discouraged Daisy Holt and Peggie Potter from, as she said, "wasting valuable time at the courts"; but as the reproach had been thrown at her that she encouraged cricket to the detriment of tennis, she was thankful that two such champions had arisen to give their whole-hearted attention to the latter without drawing from the team of the former.
Mildred formed one of the rank and file at games; she had not the skill to excel, nor could she spare the hours required for practice. Her violin required all her present energies; Professor Hoffmann was inexorable in his demands, and kept her rigidly up to the mark. Her music time-sheet was now a very different affair from the irregular register she had shown when this story began, and was indeed the best in the school, not excepting that of Elizabeth Chalmers, who had always been held up as a model for slack workers to emulate.