“Don’t be cross,” laughed Maude, slipping her hand under Miss Woodruff’s substantial elbow. “I just came down to apologize. I know I’m bad but if I didn’t keep this place cheered up, think how dull we’d be. We’d all get in a rut. And you know I do respect you, tremendously, even if I do seem a little disrespectful towards your clothes at times. And I do like you a lot, even if I can’t help teasing you. Come on and be a sport. Let’s show the girls what lovely twins we make.”
“But—”
“Come along, do,” pleaded Maude’s sweetly persuasive voice. “You know you aren’t really cross about this. Let’s be friends.”
“You’re incorrigible,” sighed Miss Woodruff, falling into step with her wheedling tormentor. “I don’t know what ever will become of you, but, in spite of my better judgment, I can’t help liking you. And just to show you that I can do it, I will be a sport just for once.”
“Hurrah for the Woodruff twins!” cried Maude, enthusiastically. But Maude’s enthusiasm was doomed to wane. Sturdy Miss Woodruff, with a wicked gleam in her eye, kept her absurd twin walking back and forth on the veranda for a good two hours. The day was warm and the pillows tied firmly about Maude’s waist added nothing to her comfort; the girls on the railing were obviously enjoying her predicament; but unmerciful Miss Woodruff proved tireless. Maude was tired of being a twin long before her teacher was; but revived somewhat when that surprising lady said, at last:
“Now, I will be a sport. I’m going to excuse you from learning that history. I think we’re just about even without it.”
“I didn’t think she had it in her,” commented Maude, reclining at length on the pillows she had gladly removed from her person. “There’s more to that lady than I supposed there was.”
There was much talk these days of Commencement. The three Seniors were to be graduated and, by some mysterious process, the five Juniors were to become Seniors. No wonder the Miller girls, quiet Virginia Mason, Sarah Porter and studious Mary Sherwood of the North Corridor had led a life apart from the younger girls. Of course, with a solemn thing like that hanging over them, and only a year away, they couldn’t associate with a flock of careless infants in the lower grades.
There were to be Commencement clothes—white dresses, white shoes, white stockings for everybody, young or old. There was to be a class photograph of the Seniors, framed like all the rest, and hung in the big drawing room for future classes to admire. There were to be Exercises. Miss Julia’s pupils were to play solos and duets; and everybody was to sing the songs that they were now practising daily and there were to be Essays. One of the Seniors, Miss Pratt, was known to be laboring over a strange thing called a Valedictory, Miss Wilson was struggling with the Class Prophecy and Miss Holmes was having a harrowing time with the Class Poem. Mabel hoped that none of these mysterious things would ever fall to her lot. Cream puffs and unlimited chocolate creams, it appeared, were not the only things that happened to a Senior.
And now, everybody was discussing clothes. Should they wear silk stockings or cotton ones? White pumps or Oxfords? Should their dresses be tucked or ruffled, full or scant? Should their sleeves be long or short or half way between? The Seniors were keeping their clothes a dark mystery; but all the other girls were willing to tell all they knew.