"Well, yes; just a little bit," said Gwin, her eyes dancing.
"It's more than a little bit," said Bessie. "Oh, Gwin, you don't know what a nuisance it is to keep my room in order, and sometimes I forget the things dear mother tells me, and I am impatient with poor little Judy, who takes, I must say, a fiendish delight in putting my things in hiding. Now, our rules might include tidiness of person and order generally. It's no trouble to me to keep my books in order, nor my mind in order; but I do hate washing my hands before every meal, and brushing my hair and doing it up in a fashionable roll at the back of my head."
"Oh, my dear child," said Elma, "do you imagine for a moment that that excrescence at the back of your head is fashionable? I never saw anything more dowdy."
"Dowdy? Is it?" said Bessie. "I spent five minutes over it this morning, and twisted it up three times in order to give it that horrid little handle of a jug look which you all aspire to. Well, well, I don't suppose we need add to our rules that the girls who belong to the society are to be fashionable."
"It would be a really good idea if we did," said Elma. "I cannot see why schoolgirls should be a lot of frumps. Our society is to effect a certain object which can never be acquired unaided in a great school like Middleton. We want to be as ladylike, as refined, as nice as if we belonged to a very small and select school. We get the best teaching at Middleton, but I don't suppose we get the best manners."
"Well, let us add all these things to the rules," said Gwin, "and let us begin to put them down at once. First, as to the name. Until we can think of a better we must call it the 'Mutual Improvement Society.'"
"A hateful word," said Bessie. "The M.I.S.!"
"Yes, it does sound priggish," said Elma.
"Well, I dare say some one will have genius enough to think of a more flashy and brilliant name," said Gwin, "but for the present we will call it the 'Mutual Improvement,' for that is exactly what it means. Now then for the rules."
As Gwin spoke she drew in front of her a sheet of foolscap paper; and, dipping her pen in ink, looked eagerly at her three young companions.