A very little more Shirley added, then folded the letter and put it in its envelope, sighing as she did so, for she thought of all the girls to whom she must write at least once. Dozens of cards she had sent home from different places, and jolly, friendly cards they were, for Shirley could write a good message in small space when she tried. But there would be more to tell that the girls in the senior class of the home high school would enjoy after Shirley became better acquainted and had a greater supply of real boarding-school lore to impart.
Putting home, her people, and even her present surroundings, including her “double,” out of her mind with determination, Shirley plunged into her lessons, in which she was still absorbed when Madge came back from the library.
“Say, Shirley,” said Madge as she entered. “Hope Holland says that they want you to do something on the program of the classical club that meets next week. She said that anybody who can ‘walk away with Virgil’ the way you do should be able to step right in on our programs. I told her that I thought your father was a teacher or something from what you said about his having you read some Virgil with him. Was that right?”
“Yes, he is,” demurely Shirley replied. “Why, yes, I suppose I could do something. What do they want?”
“I guess they’ll let you do anything you wanted to, for the program committee is having a time to think up things.”
Shirley thought a moment. “I brought some of my old themes and things,” she said, “and there is a short one on Latin poetry that might do, since we are all studying Virgil now.”
“Just the thing! May I run back to tell Hope that you will? She is worrying about it. Nobody wants to do anything, and we are supposed to have a decent program.”
“Of course I will do it. It certainly will not be much trouble to get up and read something that I’ve already written.”
“Does your father teach Latin?”
“Yes. You see why I have to get my Latin lessons, don’t you?” Shirley was laughing, and Madge nodded brightly at her as she ran off to tell Hope that Shirley had something on Latin poetry and that it probably was good because her father taught Latin.