Now Olive turned again to Jack. “Do you know about everything, my grandmother and all my queer history?” she asked.
“DON’T TALK ABOUT SURPRISES.”
Jack nodded. “Yes, Olive, I do know,” she returned, “and I am awfully glad and awfully sorry, for somehow it seems to make you belong to us less than you used to do. Ruth told me as soon as she thought I was well enough to hear. Didn’t you know that I have even had a letter from your grandmother thanking me for rescuing you from a person by whom she had been deceived, meaning old Laska, I suppose. But goodness gracious, who are all those persons coming towards us now?”
Half a dozen persons were approaching, Madame Van Mater and Miss Winthrop, Ruth Drew and Gerry Ferrows, and bringing up the end of the line Jessica Hunt and Peter Drummond, smiling at one another and apparently unconscious of every one else.
With great solemnity introductions were soon exchanged and then immediately afterwards Gerry Ferrows slipped over next Olive.
“Miss Winthrop said I might be first to tell you that you have received the Shakespeare prize,” she whispered. “The judges voted your speech the most effective, and as you already had the best record for the year in the Junior Shakespeare class, why of course the honors are yours and I want to congratulate you.”
With entire good feeling Gerry put forth her hand toward her victorious rival.
But Olive quickly clasped her own hands behind her. “I won’t be congratulated, Gerry, and I won’t have a prize that I don’t deserve,” she answered. “Tell me, please, who was the second choice?”
“I was, or at least the judges said so, though I entirely disagree with them,” Gerry returned, blushing furiously, for Olive was almost forcibly trying to drag her over to where Madame Van Mater and Miss Winthrop were standing together.