"The crests looked beautiful when they were pasted into albums," said Avis. "Beatrice Wynne used to paint borders round hers in red, and blue, and gold. Her book was like an old illuminated manuscript."
"It was a difficult craze, though, to keep up," said Winnie, "because we couldn't most of us collect enough crests to fill a book. Post-marks were much easier. We used to arrange them according to the different counties they were in. Miss Harper encouraged that fad; she said it taught us geography."
"So it did; but we made the most absurd mistakes sometimes. I remember putting Abingdon down under Devonshire, and Ilkley under Lincolnshire. I used to have to look the places up in the atlas. It was rather too like lessons to be very popular, so we all took to drawing pigs instead."
"Drawing pigs!" exclaimed Patty.
"Yes, with your eyes shut. It's most amusing to have a pig book. You get each of your friends to close her eyes tightly, and then draw a pig, putting in its tail and its eye, and to sign her name to it afterwards. You can't think what funny pictures people make. The eye's generally in the middle of the pig's back, and the tail twirling away anywhere but in the right place."
"All except Miss Harper's pig," said Winnie, "and that was because she drew the eye first. It wasn't quite fair, because you're supposed to put it in last of all; but of course none of us dared to tell her so. I have it in my book still, signed E.J.H.; it's got the most impertinent snout, and large peaked ears. I'm sure she must have been practising drawing pigs before she did it."
"Ghost signatures were nearly as much fun," said Enid.
"What are those?" enquired Patty, to whom all these schoolgirl pastimes were unknown.
"You have a special autograph book for them," explained Enid. "You double a page in half, and write your name inside exactly on the crease of the paper; then you fold the two halves together again without blotting it and press hard. It smudges your signature into such a queer shape. Everybody's comes out differently. One looks like a caterpillar, and another like a butterfly, or perhaps a fish's backbone. Ella Johnson's was the exact image of an oak tree."
"And Maud Greening's was like a pressed fern," said Winnie. "Do you remember the fad we had for pressed flowers and skeleton leaves? We used to keep them inside all our books."