“Hear, hear!” cried Eloise. “How we do have to watch our motives, to keep them honorable!”
“I think that Jane Mills is splendid, too,” said Betty. “I don’t know how they managed to change roommates, so they could room together, but it happened.”
“Miss Randolph did it,” Cathalina informed them. “She saw how unhappy Dorothy was and fixed it all up some way not to hurt Madge. Now Dorothy and Jane are as happy as can be.”
“Come on, Cathalina,” said Betty, “I’ll beat you to that pine tree,” and the girls all skated off.
In a way they were practicing for tomorrow’s carnival, but for the past two weeks skating had been the popular pastime between afternoon classes and the six o’clock dinner. The river could be reached by a walk along the beach to its mouth, but the easiest way to the dam was by a gently descending walk from the grove down to the river’s bank at the dam. Nature had been much assisted in making this a pretty part of the grounds, but it was so far from the buildings that some one was always in charge when the girls skated in winter or rowed and paddled in summer.
The carnival was causing more or less excitement because of the fact that the boys from the military school were coming. It was to be on a school day, also, and class hours were to be shortened! How fine that is all school girls and boys know. The boys were to arrive at the Village of Greycliff by trolley and be brought to Greycliff Girls’ School by the school sleighs and sleds, with such additional conveyances from the village as were found necessary. The showing off performances with the trials for prizes, were to be in the afternoon, from three o’clock to five. The boys were, moreover, to be entertained at dinner, and in the evening there was to be a jolly skating party with big bonfires and lights of various sorts.
“How are they going to manage the dressing for dinner?” asked Cathalina of Betty.
“Miss West said that we girls could dress as usual, coming right back to the Hall after the afternoon affair. Of course, we’ll want to dress up a little more than usual. The boys are going to make headquarters in the big Gym, I believe. They will be wearing their uniforms, you know, and any special skating togs they can adjust in the Gym. They will come over to the parlors before dinner and take us in to dinner very formally, I hear!”
“Do you suppose that you will meet your knight of the mirror?”
“I might, but how would I know him?”