The girls were a little excited, not knowing just what to expect from Myrtle and her friends, but feeling sure that Dorothy would prove more popular and receive a majority of the votes. There was the possibility that more names would be presented, but that did not matter as long as Myrtle were not elected. It turned out better than they had hoped. Myrtle was promptly nominated and the nomination was seconded by a special friend. Pauline rose quickly and nominated Dorothy, who was not present. This made a little stir among the girls and evidently threw confusion into the camp of the enemy, for as Pauline had hoped, Julia Merton, tall and of the studious type, seconded the nomination of Dorothy with great spirit. Dorothy was elected with a large majority, and two sweet girls without “political” attachments were chosen for vice-president and secretary. The danger was past! Isabel and Avalon were coached not to say a word about the matter, and while Myrtle and her friends viewed Pauline and the rest with a bit of suspicion, they finally concluded that it was just the old affair that could of course be counted on to prevent their accepting Myrtle.
“Pauline was terribly prompt in nominating Dorothy,” said Myrtle.
“Yes, but I expected Hilary and Lilian to be on their feet at once,” said her friend who knew something about last year’s difficulty. “I don’t see how they could know anything about our plans.”
That afternoon there was the hoped for trip to the city. Several small parties wanted to go and were put in charge of as many teacher chaperons. Greycliff had a shining new motor ’bus, which took them to the village, and there they caught the early afternoon train for the city.
Isabel had told Lilian about Virginia’s desire to buy some clothes under her oversight and Lilian had run in to see Virginia once or twice to confer. “Better have a list of things we want to get,” she said, “because the city is a dizzy place and I’m always tempted to get something I don’t need.”
“Her check was a nice big one,” Isabel told Lilian. “I think she’d better get her winter fixings, a good coat and a one-piece Sunday dress that she could wear on different occasions, and maybe a skirt that hangs right for school and a pretty sweater.”
“You make a list with her,” said Lilian, “and then I’ll go over it later, and we must think about colors that she ought to wear. Cathalina will be along and her ideas will be good on that.”
Never had Virginia had such a day, from the time when the ’bus with “giggling Greycliff girls,” according to Isabel, started from the school, to the shadowy evening hours when she returned laden with packages, with more to be sent out Monday. She squeezed Isabel’s hand happily, as she sat between her and Avalon and whispered, “Wait till I write to my good old Dad that sent me here where I could know you girls, and sent me that check for clothes.”
“It’s funny about clothes,” said Isabel. “They don’t make your character, of course, but it does seem to have an awful effect on you to have the right things to wear, a sort of support to your—um—moral courage.”
Virginia’s hair was so “scraggly and faded in spots,” as she said, that Lilian had advised her to have it cut nicely while she was in the city, and wear it fluffed about her face, tied on the side with a wide ribbon, as the girls were wearing it then, when their hair was short. This performance so changed her that she insisted on stopping at one of the places of quick photography and having a picture made to send home to her father. “I’ll write under it, ‘This is me, would you know me?’ and tell him that I expect to put something inside of the head, too, before I see him again. He works so hard! O, I can wear my new dress to the Y. W. reception tonight, can’t I?”