Chapter Seven.
The Poet.
The days which passed between the occurrences related in the last chapter and the great prize day went on wings. The girls were all exceedingly busy. If there were many prizes to be won, and there was hard work beforehand to win them, there was the thought, too, of the long and delightful summer holidays to gladden each young heart; the reunion with fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters; the pleasures of the seaside resort or the country house; the knowledge that lessons, however useful in themselves, might be put away for six long, delightful weeks.
The girls were in the best of humour; and, as though Nature herself were in sympathy with them, the sun rose day by day in a cloudless sky, the flowers bloomed in more and more profusion, and the whole world seemed preparing for a grand holiday. Lyttelton School was famed for its roses, and the profusion of roses that blossomed during this special summer was long remembered by every member of the school.
Mabel Lushington was not a girl especially remarkable for conscientiousness. She was now completely under Annie’s spell, who, having won her point, was determined that there should not be a single flaw in her grand scheme. Her whispers about Mabel had spread a rumour in the school that Mabel Lushington, who had long been remarkable for her fine figure, handsome face, and a certain haughtiness of bearing, was also exceedingly clever. It is no easy matter to convert a girl who has hitherto been renowned as a dunce into a genius. Nevertheless, clever Annie managed to effect this object.
“She writes such good verses, you know,” Annie said first to one girl, and then to another; and as Mabel had been forewarned on the subject, she was not taken by surprise when the girls used to crowd round her and beg to see some specimens of her art.
“Oh, I can’t, I can’t!” Mabel would say, blushing and even giggling a little. “Don’t, don’t ask me; I should die of shame.”
These were her invariable retorts, and, as a rule, she managed to excuse herself with a certain amount of success. But schoolgirls are tenacious. The subject of Mabel’s gift for poetry became the general talk of the school, and finally a whole bevy of girls waited on Miss Lushington with the request that she would allow them to sample her poems.
“The fact is,” said Constance Smedley, “seeing is believing. You most read us something, Mabel; you really must.”