"But Miss Marlowe knows that your box has arrived," objected practical Nancy.
"Then we'll buy some buns at tuck and have a camouflage supper after the lecture, and the real one at midnight," retorted Sally May, not to be done out of her scheme.
"I wish we could ask Cathy, don't you?" said Josephine; "she's been such a dear that it seems a shame to have a glorification without her."
Catherine, hard at work at her desk in her own room, caught the sound of her name, and the next sentence in an excited voice revealed the fact that a midnight supper was being planned for that very night. Her first impulse, of course, was to tell the crew that she had unwittingly overheard them, and use her influence as captain and prefect to stop the whole proceeding; and then, because she was taking her duties as a prefect very seriously, she stopped to consider the little escapade in a new light.
Sally May, Catherine could see, was going to be troublesome. Already she had chafed at several time-honoured rules and customs, for her sense of reverence for traditions had been stifled by her ceaseless change of residence, and Sally May was becoming exceedingly popular. Her soft Southern voice, with its delicious inflections and its lazy drawl, was most persuasive. The crew of the "Jolly Susan" had so far been a model crew and Catherine had not yet had to enforce discipline, but at the last prefects' meeting Sally May had been mentioned as the cause of two practical jokes perpetrated in other parts of the house, and, "Such things are not done, they are simply not done," said the School captain severely; "Catherine, you must take Sally May in hand." Perhaps this was her chance. She waited until the four o'clock bell scattered the conspirators to practising and gymnasium classes and then went down to the captain's study.
"Come in," said a clear ringing voice as Catherine knocked at Eleanor's door; "you're just in time for tea—here, you toast the crumpets and I'll brew the tea."
"Wait a jiffy and I'll get some jam—wild strawberry with crumpets is heavenly."
Catherine was back in the specified jiffy, and in a few moments the two friends were chatting comfortably over their tea-cups.
York Hill like most modern schools had adopted a modified form of self-government. Each of the four Houses had its quota of prefects appointed by the staff, and a House captain; the Senior House captain was known as the Captain of the School, and this year South House had the honour of providing the School Captain—Eleanor Ormsby. The prefects, usually members of the various Sixth Forms, were girls who had shown themselves worthy of responsibility and privilege and who could be trusted to set the tone of the School.
Eleanor Ormsby was deservedly popular: there was a frankness and a directness about her almost boyishly clear-cut face which inspired confidence, and the girls who brought their difficulties to her found in her a wise and sympathetic counsellor. Eleanor was not beautiful like Catherine, not brilliant like Patricia—in fact it was with difficulty that she held her place in the Sixth-Form classes, but on basket-ball court, hockey-rink, or gymnasium floor she had no rival. Above all she was a born leader, and having spent all her school days at York was steeped in its traditions and ideals.