“We shall need that round robin to find out where we all are,” said Betty. “Leave an address by which we can reach you when you give me your names.”
“Strawberries, with ice cream and cake,” announced Isabel, watching the waitress as she brought in the dessert to the next table. “I wonder if they are home grown.”
“Oh, no; they couldn’t be,” said Hilary. “These are from further south. Don’t you remember that the Canada berries were ripe and beautiful about the first of July that year we went to camp. I’ll never forget my sister June’s delight. Dear me, how we go from the sublime to the ridiculous.”
“We couldn’t live on the heights all the time,” said Isabel, “and there are things we don’t dare think about at all now. Think of Betty’s last adventure. Why, the wildest imagination could not have fancied anything like that or thousands of other things that are happening here and in Europe. All the old stories of Robin Hood, and ladies held up in carriages on lonely roads, that we have read and thought so romantic, can’t hold a candle to what happens now. We hear a humming and look up,—there goes a knight of romance in an aeroplane.”
“The great trouble is that these things are not really very pleasant to live through,” said Betty. “I’d rather read about them.”
“Yes. When you know a knight, it isn’t so pleasant to have him ‘go off to the wars’, is it?”
“No, Cathalina,” replied Betty.
The next morning had one exciting hour, that during which the prizes and honors were awarded, after the morning chapel service. At Greycliff the honors for scholarship were considered the most important and were given first, to relieve the tension. Aunt Hilary sat on the platform with the faculty, in a row reserved for visitors, and received the reward of her interest in her niece when she heard Miss Randolph say, “I have the pleasure of awarding the prize, one hundred dollars, for the highest scholarship in the Collegiate classes, to Hilary Lancaster.”
Hilary had held her place in general scholarship throughout the years of her stay at Greycliff. It had meant steady effort, not neglecting her lessons under any circumstances, and a careful planning of her work in order to take her part in other activities. No one but a girl of bright, quick mind and comparative health could have made the record that Hilary’s report showed, but added to that there was necessary that determined progress of which she was capable and which carried her on to a mastery of the subjects that she had taken. It was really a very tired girl that went forward to take the little purse which Miss Randolph held in her hand. She acknowledged the gift and the applause with a little bow, and gave Aunt Hilary a bright look as she caught her eye for a moment. It was worth the effort of the four years to see the sweet approval and satisfaction in Aunt Hilary’s smile.
Lilian and Cathalina took the poetry prizes, Lilian, also, winning a prize in musical composition. Eloise shone both in music and some of the lines in scholarship, and won one of the prizes for short stories. Isabel and Virginia again won honors in debate. Betty and Cathalina both took prizes in the art lines and in English. All the Psyche Club won their “All-around G’s,” and when the silver trophy cup was brought out, to be presented to the “all-around senior girl,” it was Hilary to whom it was awarded. This award considered both scholarship and the athletic record.