Then, too, they were congenial in their tastes. They liked the same things, they read the same books, and they almost always agreed in their opinions.
One day the girls were gathered in the gymnasium. It was recreation hour, and the various groups of young people were chatting and laughing.
Patty sat in a window-seat, looking out at the steadily falling rain.
“It’s a funny thing,” she said, “but although a rainy day is supposed to be depressing, it doesn’t affect me that way at all. I feel positively hilarious, and I don’t care who knows it.”
“So do I,” said Hilda; “I’m as merry as a grig.”
“I know most of your English allusions,” said Patty, “but ‘grig’ is too many for me. What is a grig, and why is it merry?”
“A grig,” said Hilda, “why, it’s a kind of cricket or grasshopper, I think. I don’t know Natural History very well, but the habits of grigs must be merry, because ‘as merry as a grig’ is the only thing anybody ever heard about them.”
“Of course grasshoppers are merry,” said Clementine; “you can tell that by the way they jump. But grig is a much nicer name than grasshopper; it sounds more jumpy.”
“Girls!” said Patty, with an air of sudden importance, “I have a most brilliant idea!”
“Your first?” inquired Adelaide, interestedly.