When Marion went back to her room it was quite time for study hours to begin; but her room-mates had so many questions to ask about Kate’s object in inviting her out to walk, that a good half-hour passed before they began their lessons.
Marion did not feel at liberty to repeat what Kate had said, and so she frankly told them.
CHAPTER XV.
MISS ASHTON’S FRIDAY NIGHT.
Miss Ashton, a little timid from the use made of the liberty she had given for the Friday night entertainments, decided for a time to take the control of them into her own hands, and as something novel, that might be entertaining, she proposed that the school should prepare original papers, to be read aloud, the reading to be followed by “a spread” given by the Faculty. She made no suggestion with regard to the character of the papers to be sent in, other than to say that she knew very well there were some good writers in the school, and she should expect every one to do her best.
This proposal was gladly accepted. The girls clapped when she had finished, and some began to stamp noisily, but this a motion of the principal’s hand checked.
There began at once to be conjectures as to whose piece would be the best. Nine-tenths of the girls agreed it would be Kate Underwood, the other tenth were for Delia Williams, who, when she tried for an honor, seldom failed to secure it; and hadn’t she once written a piece on Robert Browning, of which 92 not a scholar could understand a word, but which, it was reported, Miss Ashton said “was excellent, showing rare appreciation of the merits of a great poet”?
One thing was certain, there was hardly a girl in school who had not, before going to bed that night, wandered around in her dazed thoughts for some subject upon which she could write in a way that would surprise every one.