Too, she had taken her place in the classes and was going ahead of the others, as she always did when she was strong enough to really study.
Catherine Lambert looked up from the mysterious pink thing upon which she was sewing. “It’s a Christmas gift,” was all that she would tell about it.
In fact, all were sitting about the rose-shaded lamp in Muriel’s room that stormy Friday night, sewing upon gifts equally pretty and mysterious. That is, all except Gladys, their youngest, who said that her fingers were thumbs when it came to sewing, and that she would far rather sit on the rug before the fire and roast marshmallows. One by one she placed the delicious golden puffs upon a warm plate, and when there was a goodly heap of them, she arose, saying: “Put away your sewing, girls, and partake of the refreshments for which I have spent the last nickle I will have until my Christmas money comes.”
“Poor Gladys,” laughed Joy, as she perched upon the arm of the chair in which Muriel was seated. The island girl glanced up with a softening light in her eyes as she felt the caress upon her red-brown hair. How close these two had grown in the last month. Not that Muriel’s love for Faith had lessened; in fact, all of these five girls were very dear to each other, and yet between Joy and Muriel, who were so unlike, there was growing a love the strength of which even they hardly knew. Joy, exquisite, dainty and as jubilant as her name suggested, had been surrounded from babyhood with every luxury, while Muriel had known but the bare necessities.
“Whose names are entered?” Faith asked, as she put her sewing into a dainty workbag and took one of the marshmallows.
Joy counted them off on her fingers. “Dorothy Daggert first and foremost, and, since she is a senior and always wins A-1 in everything that she writes, there will be little hope for any of the rest of us. Four others in the senior class have entered, two in the sophomore, and, girls, what do you think? One of them is Marianne Carnot!”
Faith’s expression registered astonishment. “You must be mistaken,” she said. “Marianne is in my class and she never writes verse, even when we may choose the form for our composition.”
Miss Gordon had entered Muriel’s name as one competing and it was because of this fact, as yet unknown to either Rilla or Joy, that Marianne Carnot had also entered her name.
Miss Gordon looked up brightly one evening a fortnight later when she heard a familiar tap on the door of her little apartment.
“Good evening, Muriel,” she said in response to the greeting from the girl who had entered. “I have some news for you. Can you guess what it is?”