Thus was begun a friendship between the Viscount of Wainwater and Gene Beavers. People marveled at it, for, though many sought the friendship of the viscount, few were permitted to enter the seclusion in which he chose to live.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE POETRY CONTEST.
“Girls, have you heard that Miss Gordon has offered a prize for the best poem written by a student in any of her English literature classes?”
Faith nodded. “I heard, but I haven’t entered. I can’t make two lines rhyme.”
“Nor could I,” Gladys Goodsell said, and laughed over her shoulder at the newcomer, for she was on the hearth rug roasting marshmallows over the fire.
“Who of our clan is going to try for the prize beside myself?” inquired the flushed and excited Joy Kiersey. “Oh, I’d be the happiest, you can’t think how happy, if only I could win it.”
“Why, Joy!” Gladys changed her position that she might divide her attention between the fire and the group of friends. “Why are you so eager to win the prize?”
“Maybe it’s a basket that Joy covets.” This merrily from Faith.
The golden head shook in the negative. “I adore writing poems,” she confessed. “I wrote dozens of them last summer, but, then, the scenery in Colorado and along Lake Tahoe would have inspired a stump to write verse.”
A month had passed since the tennis tournament and Joy’s strength had returned to her almost miraculously, and, to the delight of her friends, she was able to join them in their daily tramps across the snowy fields and she had even suggested a coasting party for the first moonlight night.