'Wonders will never cease,' said Jasper. 'I would not disgrace the bonnie dear by stupid old kisses.'
'But you are a boy, Jasper. You 're quite different,' said Leucha.
'Well, I'm thinking not so very. I'm first cousin to her, remember, which happens to be next door to brother. But there, let's talk of something else. What mischief is the dear up to now?'
Leucha related a few harmless little pranks, for Hollyhock did not dare to give vent to her real spirit of mischief while Leucha clung round her like the kitchen cat.
The next day Leucha and the Flower Girls returned to the school, and, as Hollyhock had predicted, Mrs Macintyre called her flock around her and said that she had an announcement to make regarding an arrangement winch would be a yearly feature in the school. Six prizes of great magnificence were to be awarded at the Christmas 'break-up.' These were as follows:
(1) For efficiency in learning.
(2) For those games now so well known in schools.
(3) For the best essay of about one thousand words, the subject to be selected by each girl herself. The only proviso was that she must not tell the other girls who were competing what subject she had chosen; otherwise an absolutely free choice was given, and even Mrs Macintyre was not to know the subjects selected before the momentous day when the papers were given in.
(4) A prize for good conduct generally.
(5) A prize for progress made in French, German, and Italian history and conversation, the girls choosing, however, only one of these three great languages.