"If a tea you would find that is just to your mind,
Yet that won't be too dear for your pocket,
Try our world-famous blend, when your money you spend,
And remember our branches all stock it.
So come to our shop for your tea,
Our famous, rich, syrupy tea;
If once you will get it, you'll never regret it,
But join in the praise of our tea.
"Home's a glad happy place, with a smile on each face,
If our world-famous brand you will sample;
'T is the tea ladies love, as the large demands prove.
And three spoons in the pot will be ample.
So come to our shop for your tea,
Our famous, rich, syrupy tea;
Mansion, cottage, or hall, it is suited to all,
The best that can possibly be."
A few cracker mottoes and Christmas-card verses were also selected, and the whole set put together. Mildred, as the originator of the scheme, took charge of them, and promised to send them off in good time for the competition. It seemed no use forwarding them too soon, as they would probably only lie waiting at the Herald offices, so she put them by in a drawer to post when the right date arrived. Now, unfortunately, though Mildred could be extremely keen upon a thing at the moment, once the first excitement of it was over it was apt to slip from her memory. She had enjoyed trying her 'prentice muse at tea verses, but, having finished them, she turned her thoughts to something else. Music was at present absorbing most of her time, and in the interest of her violin the papers lay in her drawer forgotten. On the afternoon of May 20th she was sitting in the studio working at her drawing copy, with no more idea of advertisements for tea in her thoughts than if that beverage had never existed. At three o'clock she was due for her music lesson from Herr Hoffmann, and she was putting in time rather languidly at her chalk head of Venus, and wondering whether the Professor would be in a good temper, or whether he would scold her for faulty rendering of her study. Myrtle Robinson was sitting at the desk behind, and presently contrived, without attracting the attention of the teacher, to hand her a slip of paper. She opened it carelessly enough, and read:
"I suppose you posted the competitions all right? M. R."
Mildred dropped her pencil and broke its point in her agitation. Posted the competitions? She had done nothing of the sort. They were still lying in her drawer at home, though to-day was the last date for receiving them.
"Oh, what a lunatic I am!" she groaned to herself, "I, who suggested the whole thing, and made the others write, to be the one to forget all about it! Something has to be done, that's clear. And it must be done at once, too. I mustn't on any account let the girls know I failed them."
Mildred was impulsive to a fault. At this moment the one business in life seemed to be to get the competitions to their destination, even at the eleventh hour. It was futile to post them, but they might still be delivered at the offices of the Kirkton Herald. There was nothing else for it, she must take them herself, and that immediately. It was almost three o'clock, and the art mistress knew that she had to go to her music lesson. She rose, therefore, received the nod of dismissal, and, ignoring Myrtle's signal demanding an answer to her question, put away her drawing-board, and hurried from the studio. Instead, however, of fetching her violin, and going straight to No. 6 practising room, where Herr Hoffmann would just be finishing Mary Hutton's lesson, she walked to the dressing-room, and put on her hat and coat. She knew she was going to do a most dreadfully unauthorized and unorthodox act, and she shivered to think of the consequences, but she did not hesitate for one moment.
"That competition's got to go in time," she told herself, "even though the Professor rages, and Miss Cartwright storms, and I get myself into the biggest pickle I've ever been in, in all my life. I can't fail the girls now. I couldn't look them in the face again. It would be too ignominious. No, I've a pressing engagement elsewhere this afternoon, and can't keep my appointment with Herr Hoffmann, though I shan't write a note and tell him so!"
At three o'clock it was extremely easy to leave the school unobserved. Nobody was about, so Mildred simply walked out through the gate. She took the electric car home, and was rather relieved to find that neither her uncle nor her aunt was in the house. She felt she would rather not enter into any explanations just at present. The papers were quite ready in an envelope, and duly addressed, so she took them from her drawer, and caught the next tram-car into Kirkton. The Herald offices were in Corporation Street, a business part of the city she did not know at all, but she thought she could find it. She felt rather adventurous and decidedly naughty, for she was not supposed to go on expeditions by herself without first asking leave at home, to say nothing of having run away from St. Cyprian's.
She left the tram at the High Street corner, and turned down Corporation Street. The town was very crowded, and she was almost jostled off the pavement by the numbers of people who were passing to and fro. By dint of asking a policeman she at last found the offices of the Kirkton Herald. She did not know whether she was expected to ring, knock, or walk in, but she could see no bell, and as business men kept passing in and out by a large swinging door, she plucked up her courage, and followed in the wake of a new-comer. She had done the right thing, for she found herself in a big room, having a counter like a bank to divide clerks from customers. She handed in her envelope with a timid enquiry as to whether it was in time.