“We’ll talk it over with the girls.”
“If you want some other name, we could put it into Latin or Greek and take the initials.”
“Listen to our classic Betty! So easy to put it into Greek, for instance.”
“Patty could do it for us, or Dr. Norris.”
“True. I hadn’t thought of that. ‘Nothing below Olympus,’ or ‘Nothing less than Olympus.’ I could almost think up the Latin for that myself, Nihil ... minus ... um ... quam Olympus. Wait till I get my dictionary from the girls. Helen borrowed my lexicon for something or other.”
“There’s not much use trying to work anything up for this week. Lessons, society meeting and the senior-freshman party are all I can do. Did you ever see such long lessons as we are having, or do I imagine it?”
“I think it is harder to get started than usual. I have to study nearly all the time. I suppose they think that we are seniors and can do more.”
Again they were looking forward to Friday night and Saturday, but school girls always do that. Every girl who was invited to join the literary society accepted. The first meeting went off without a hitch in the proceedings, Hilary covering herself with glory in her quiet management of it all and her strong, sensible little speech. It was planned to bring in some of the freshmen as soon as they should know them a little better, and to create a few more offices. Miss Randolph thought that enough chairs could be found to equip the hall until the girls had plans and money for their own furniture. Cathalina longed to have her father send on the “whole thing,” but Miss Randolph said that it would not do. “If you want to give them a piano later, that would be a beautiful thing to do. But people love what they work for themselves.”
On Saturday afternoon the freshmen, new, most of them, a little timid and strange, some of them, in these halls of learning, gathered promptly in the society hall to which they had been bidden. They slid into the back seats, while the senior girls who had no part in the plans of the committee sat in front or among them, very friendly and promising more social activity as soon as the program should be over.
“Look at the arrangement of the chairs up front!” exclaimed Betty. “They’re going to have a court! That’s why they came after Lilian,—” But before Betty could finish her sentence, in came an imposing procession. Lilian was judge, in flowing robes. Dignified lawyers carried ponderous tomes. Even the court stenographers and reporters were represented. A comical crew of jurymen filed in. The latter marched in step twice around the double row of twelve chairs, stood till the foreman gave a signal and sat down together. Little freshmen doubled over to laugh, and the seniors in the audience followed their example. “Look at the clothes of the jurymen!” shrieked one. But the bailiff, or some other dignified official, pounded for order. There were, it must be confessed, some differences between the method of conducting this court and the usual procedure. But if anything this only added to the fun.