“The Ice Carnival!” promptly answered Pauline, while the other girls laughed.
The day arrived. Classes did not go any too well. Teachers felt hurried and pupils distraught, thinking of many more absorbing things.
“I believe I’d almost rather have the girls miss the classes altogether than to have these short periods. We did accomplish a little, however.” So Patricia West concluded.
“They couldn’t do a thing in chemistry,” replied Dr. Norris. “I gave up trying to have experiments and lectured to make them take notes. They could at least do that.”
With a literal blowing of trumpets, the boys arrived, having brought their band. Neither girls nor boys wasted time in getting to the river. It made a pretty scene, the bright costumes of the girls, the white snow, the dark trees, the smooth ice and graceful skaters. Contests among the boys came off first; then followed the skating among the girls. There was only one real contest among the latter, a race in which Betty and Dorothy divided the honors, gliding to the goal together. Cathalina in getting Betty to do a few interesting turns with her, asked her how to do some figures, and Betty showed her, not suspecting Cathalina’s guile till applause from a group of boys near brought her the realization that she had been “showing off.” Great was her surprise and pleasure when the judges announced her as winning the first prize.
“Do you know any of those boys, Pauline?” asked Betty, casting a side glance at the group of boys which had applauded her, and particularly at one young gentleman who had seemed to be especially interested,—standing aside from the rest and watching her with great attention.
“Yes; that one is Donald Hilton. Didn’t you notice him when he received the first prize?”
“O,” said Betty. “No, I wasn’t very near then.”
“He is a fine fellow and a cousin of Dorothy’s. That is John Appleton nearest him; doesn’t he look like Dorothy? Harry Mills goes with those boys a good deal. There, Donald and Harry are skating off together now.”
Cathalina, who had been standing near (if it could be called standing, the uneasy moving of one skate before another, and the turns and whirls, upon occasion, in which the girls indulged), bent toward Betty and said in a low voice, “Look, girls, isn’t that Louise Holley’s brother?”