Judith and Nancy were indignant at the implication that they were not well prepared for the morrow, but just before "Lights out" bell sounded, Judith asked Sally May to let her see the rhyme for the Canterbury bells tag.
"Why—I thought you and Nancy were doing it. I heard you trying to get a rhyme for 'Susan.'"
"Well, we couldn't," said Judith weakly; "I thought you had one written already."
"We'll have to get up at six o'clock, every one of us," declared Nancy; "put a pencil and paper beside your bed; each of us has got to have a rhyme and then we'll choose the best."
There was much yawning and stifled groaning next morning, but Nancy was firm and refused to retire to her own cubicle until she had seen each member of the crew provided with pencil and paper.
The fires of poetic genius burned low at such an early morning hour, but they knew, as well as Nancy did, that there would be no time after breakfast. So after much frowning and biting of pencils, five verses were written, and handed to Catherine to choose the best.
It was an exciting afternoon. There was a Senior cricket match being played and the Fifth-Formers were loath to lose one minute of that. Judith and Nancy were especially keen to watch Catherine's play. They would dash over to the match for ten minutes, and then race off to squeeze lemons, or see if the cakes had come, and then back again to the match.
Josephine and Joyce had made a huge bouquet of tea-roses interspersed with samples of the trees and shrubs and flowers which were to be planted in the "White Cottage" garden. Day girls had been requested to bring samples of cherry trees and gooseberry bushes and such things as were not to be found at York Hill. It was a somewhat curious-looking bouquet, however, for to each spray was attached a little wooden tag bearing the donor's name, and a bit of paper with the accompanying rhyme.
Miss Ashwell looked adorably pretty, they all agreed, when she and Miss Meredith joined them in the latter's garden after the cricket match. The guests were escorted to the wicker chairs under the trees and the girls seated themselves on rugs.
There was a moment's pause. Miss Ashwell confessed afterwards to a feeling of nervousness as to what was going to happen to her, for the day before, without a moment's notice, she had been literally showered with hankies by the little First-Formers. However, Sally May was discovered on her feet about to make a speech. Sally May, usually so glib of tongue, moistened her lips several times, and then, holding out the bouquet, she delivered at breakneck speed the little speech which she had composed—and fortunately memorized—for the occasion.