“‘The Cup!’ Well, it’s just the Guide Cup. It belongs to the Daisies this year,” explained Gerry proudly. “You’ll see it. It’s in the Oak Room, and if you had been watching yesterday you might have noticed that our patrol was standing just underneath it when Miss Carey called us all up. On the wall, on a bracket, that’s where the Cup stands,” went on Gerry. “The Daisies lead out first always this year, because we won it. Well, on Midsummer Day Miss Carey will decide again which patrol has been the best; and whichever she decides on will call the Cup theirs, and stand under it in Hall, and file out of Hall first, and take first place.” Gerry stopped.
“I should like to see it,” said Betty, with sparkling eyes; “most specially as I’m a Daisy too.”
“You can’t till to-night. We don’t go near the Oak Room all day. Unless—” Gerry broke off. “You can see it through the window now, if you like. Come along. The Oak Room window looks out this way. Just across here, between the Daisy and the Cowslip gardens on this strip of grass. (We did grow daffs and snowdrops in the grass two years ago, but we couldn’t help stepping on them when we went by, and that was so horrid that we stopped growing them!) Here, you can see!”
Betty could see quite plainly. They had arrived under one of the big windows of the Oak Room, and there, just inside, was the little ledge on which stood a small silver cup.
“You could see it better—you could even touch it,” said her guide proudly, “if the window were open. But all the same——”
All the same Betty feasted her eyes on it as they stood there in joy and pride. The Cup was the possession of her patrol, she thought—until Midsummer Day at least!
That had happened on the first morning after her arrival; but a whole week of term had passed by since then—a week which had really seemed as full as a year.
On the evening of that first day the new girl had found herself called into the headmistress’s room again to answer Miss Carey’s promised inquiry whether Betty was shaking down happily into “school ways.” There had been no doubt, from the look in the child’s eyes, what her answer would be, even before she had stammered out the words,—
“Oh, yes. I never guessed——”
No, Betty had never guessed the evening before that next day she would stand gazing round the Daisy garden feeling like this. As she stood on the same spot a week later, she felt as happy, or perhaps happier than before.