"Or possessed! Sit down, you mad creature, and talk sense. What's your precious news?"
"Mrs. Trevellyan requests the pleasure of the company of the young ladies of Miss Birks's seminary to drink tea with her on the occasion of the natal day of her nephew, Master Ronald Trevellyan," announced Evie, changing suddenly to a ceremonious eighteenth-century manner, and dropping a stiff curtsy.
"Ronnie's birthday!"
"Oh, what sport!"
"It's on Wednesday."
"Has she asked only us?"
"No, the whole school is to go, mistresses and all," returned Evie. "Mrs. Trevellyan wants to introduce Ronnie's new governess to us."
"There are sure to be games, and perhaps a competition with prizes," rejoiced Annie Pridwell; "and we always have delicious teas at the Castle. Gerda Thorwaldson, why don't you look pleased? You take it as quietly as if it were a parochial meeting. What a mum mouse you are!"
"Is it anything to get so excited over?" replied Gerda calmly.
"Of course it is! The Castle's the Castle, and Mrs. Trevellyan is—well, just Mrs. Trevellyan. There are the loveliest things there—foreign curiosities, and old pictures, and illuminated books, and we're allowed to look at them; and there's special preserved ginger from China, and boxes of real Eastern Turkish Delight. Oh, it's a fairy palace! You may thank your stars you're going!"