"I've had such a lovely time!" said Cissie. "My brother Cyril was home from Sandhurst, and he took me to the Military Tournament. I think there's nothing in the world equal to cavalry. I mean to be an army sister when I grow up. We saw a staff of nurses do field drill, and carry a wounded officer to a Red Cross tent. (He wasn't really wounded, of course, but he pretended to be.) They looked just too sweet in their uniforms. Grey always suits me, doesn't it? I wish there'd be another war in South Africa, so that I might volunteer to go out."
"You won't be grown up for four years, dearest, and then perhaps you'll be tired of soldiers, and like poets again," said Maggie, putting her arm affectionately round her friend's waist. "Did you have nice holidays too, Patty?"
"Yes, thank you," replied Patty, as truthfully as she could.
She had decided that it was wiser not to tell any of her friends how unhappy she had been at Thorncroft. For Uncle Sidney's sake she would be as loyal as she could to Muriel, so, suppressing all mention of the many disagreeable episodes of her visit, she merely described the parties and the afternoon at the pantomime with as much detail as possible, leaving it to be inferred that she had enjoyed herself. The spring term was generally regarded at The Priory as a time of particularly close study and increased work. In the autumn there were lectures, concerts, or other little dissipations to break the monotony of school life; the summer term was arranged specially to allow extra time out-of-doors; but from January to April the girls were expected to put their shoulders to the wheel, and commit to memory such a number of pages in their textbooks, that Avis declared it amounted to hard labour.
"The worst of it is," she complained, "that each teacher expects you to give all your time to her particular subject. Miss Harper looks reproachful if I can't say my history, and Miss Rowe scolds if I miss in my grammar. Then Mademoiselle gives me yards of French poetry and two or three irregular verbs to learn, and Miss Lincoln asks me why my essay is so short. I could spend the whole of prep. over just one lesson, and then not know it properly in the end. Unless I take my books to bed, I can't possibly get through everything that's set me."
"You should do as I do," said Enid. "I learn the beginning of the history portion almost by heart. Then I look very intelligent and attentive, and when Miss Harper asks me a question, I rattle off a long answer nearly word for word from the book, at such a tremendous rate that she can scarcely follow me, and says, 'That will do, Enid'. It makes her think I know the whole lesson, and she keeps questioning the other girls who've hesitated and stumbled."
"She'll catch you some day," said Winnie. "Miss Harper's too clever to be taken in by any such tricks. She's sure to ask you a question at the end quite unexpectedly, and what will you do then?"
"Trust to luck," said Enid. "She'll perhaps think I've forgotten for once. I manage my essays for Miss Lincoln rather well, too. When I can't remember any facts I make up a line or two of appropriate poetry, and put 'as the poet says'. It fills up splendidly. Miss Lincoln said once she didn't recognize all my quotations, but she always gives me a high mark!"
"You can't do that kind of thing with Mademoiselle," said Avis.
"No, I own it would be no use to try. When one has forty lines of French poetry to recite, one's obliged to set to work and get it into one's head. But I mean to manage better in the conversation class. My eldest sister has just come home from Paris, and she's taught me the French for 'How is your throat?' and 'Do you feel a draught?' Mademoiselle always has a cold, and wants the window shut. She'll think I'm so sympathetic, and be sure to put 'excellent' in my report."