"Only this, only this, this, that once you loved me.
Only this, I love you now, I love you now—I lo-o-ve you-u-u now."
The song ended upon a high, quavering note just as the retiring bell clanged in the hall.
The visiting girls waited a few moments, then reluctantly scrambled to their feet and started for their rooms. But Amelia still knelt by the window.
"I'm positive he has raven black hair and an olive complexion," she said to Laura May as finally she drew the shade and began to get ready for bed.
The next morning the Youngest Teacher took the girls for their after-breakfast walk. Trailing up and down the streets at the tail of the "crocodile" was one of the features of the boarding-school work which she particularly disliked; but, as a rule, the proceeding was commonplace enough.
For a few mornings past Belinda had noticed something unusual about the morning expedition. She was used to chattering and giggling. She had learned that the passing of a good-looking young man touched off both the giggles and the chatter. She had even forced herself to watch the young man and see that no note found its way from his hand to that of one of the girls; but this new spirit was something she couldn't figure out.
"For a few mornings past Belinda had noticed something unusual about the morning expedition"