Hope Benham Part 11

"What do we do?" answered Kate. "Well, in the first place, on New Year's eve, we have a jolly little party of just ourselves,--we girls in the house, none of the outside girls, the day pupils,--and we play games, sing songs, tell stories, do anything, in fact, that we want to do, and at half-past ten there is a little light supper served, such as ices, and the most delicious frosted sponge-cakes, and seed-cakes, and then there is bread and b.u.t.ter, and hot cocoa for those that want it. After this we feel as fresh and rested as possible, and all ready to sit the old year out and the new year in."

"Oh, you _don't_ do that?" cried Dolly, delightedly, for to sit up late was one of her ideas of happiness.

"We do just that"

"Well, and then?"

"Then," went on Kate, laughing, "we begin to grow a little quieter. We tell stories in lower voices; we watch the clock, and as it strikes twelve, we jump to our feet and all break out singing a New Year's song or hymn. Sometimes it is one thing and sometimes it is another. Last year it was Tennyson's

"Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky: The year is dying; let him die."

"And Hope's violin playing," exclaimed Myra Donaldson here. "Don't you remember how Hope played the violin last year? She just made it talk; don't you remember?"

"Oh, yes," went on Kate, hurriedly. "Hope played, and then we all wished each other a 'Happy New Year,' and went to bed. The next day--"

"What did she play?" asked Dolly, breaking in upon Kate here.

"Oh, she played--she played--"

"Robert Franz's 'Good-night' song and Behr's 'Good-morning,'" struck in Myra again, impatient at Kate's hesitation.

"Oh, I know Franz's 'Good-night,' and doesn't the 'Good morning' go like this?" asked Dolly, beginning to whistle the air of Behr's.

"Yes, that is it, and I played the accompaniment," answered Myra. "It was just delicious. We all cried, for it seemed as if the violin sang the very words."

"I never heard either of them on the violin, but my sister sings them both," said Dolly.

"I think these were arranged for the violin by Hope's teacher, specially for Hope," exclaimed Myra. "I think Hope--"

"Don't you want to hear what we did the next day and the next evening?"

called out Kate, exasperated at Myra's harping on Hope and her violin to Dolly.

"Oh, yes;" and Dolly brightened up expectantly. Myra, at that moment receiving a sharp little reminder under the table from Kate's foot, and another reminder from Kate's warning look, subsided into silence, while Kate took up her story of New Year's day and evening.

"Of course, after that midnight watch, we breakfasted late,--oh, so late! and the best part of it was, we breakfasted in our rooms."

"In your rooms?" exclaimed Dolly.

"Yes, at ten o'clock, tap, tap, came on our doors, and enter Susette with a tray, on which was a delicious breakfast for two, and a dear little bouquet of flowers for each of us. Isn't Miss Marr a dear to think of such things?"

"Will she do the same this year?" questioned Dolly, eagerly.

"Oh, yes; she has always done the same in the main things,--the evening luncheon or little supper on New Year's eve, the sitting out, then the breakfast, and the reception party New Year's night. She only varies some of the details."

"Oh, you have an evening party New Year's night?"

"Yes, indeed."

"Who is invited? Who comes?"

"Well, I can tell you one thing,--that everybody comes who is lucky enough to be invited, and the invited are all the outside girls and one friend of each; that is, each girl can invite one friend. We boarding-girls have the same privilege. I always invite one of my relations, and isn't there a scramble amongst them to see which it shall be?"

"And what do you do at the party?"

Kate looked a little disgusted at this question. "What do we do? We do what most people do at a party," she answered rather tartly.

"Well, what I meant was, do you dance?" asked Dolly, in a half-apologetic tone.

"Dance? I should think we did, and we have music, and at the very end the best fun of all."

"I shouldn't think it would be such great fun, just to dance with girls."

"You are not obliged to dance with girls."

"What! You don't mean--that there are young fellows--men?"

"There are _boys_,--that's what I call them,--boys like my brother Schuyler. Schuyler is seventeen."

Dolly gave a long drawn "Oh!" It was evidently an "Oh" of relief; but directly she asked, with demure mischief,--

"Can't you have 'em over seventeen?"

Kate laughed. "Well, we can't have regular grown-ups, you know, and we don't want them. But we can have them all the way from fifteen to eighteen, I believe."

"How odd! Doesn't Miss Marr think we are up to conversation with grown-up young gentlemen?"

"She thinks probably that 'grown-up gentlemen,' as you call them,--gentlemen out in society,--wouldn't care to come to a school-girl party, and that it is much more suitable to have boys of our own age,--boys we all know, or most of us know, at any rate, and who have something the same interests that we have,--school interests, and things of that kind. For my part, I shouldn't know what to say to gentlemen so much older than myself."

"Oh, wouldn't you?" cried Dolly, with an air--a knowing sort of air--that exasperated Kate. "I have a grown-up sister, and I've seen a good many of her gentlemen visitors. I never found it hard to talk to them," went on Dolly, with a still more knowing air.

"And I have a grown-up brother," retorted Kate, "and I've heard him tell how men go on about half-grown girls and their forwardness and boldness and pertness, and how they--the young men--disliked that kind of thing, or else amused themselves with it for a little while, and then made fun of it."

Dolly's face had flushed scarlet at these words, and at the end she burst forth angrily,--

"I suppose you mean that when I talked with my sister's, I must have been forward and bold and pert."

It was Kate's turn now to flush. She saw that in her irritation--Dolly was apt to irritate her--she had been unwarrantably rude, and swallowing her mortification, she at once made haste to say,--

"I beg your pardon, I--I shouldn't have spoken as I did. I am very sorry."

Dolly gave a quick glance at the speaker, hesitated a moment, as if waiting for something further, then jumped up and flounced out of the room with an angry impetus that there was no mistaking.

"Well, that is interesting, I must confess," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Kate. "I begged her pardon; what more did she want?"

"She wanted you to say that you hadn't the least idea of _her_ in your mind,--that you didn't mean that _she_ was forward or pert, and you said nothing of the sort; you only begged her pardon for having _spoken_ as you did," explained Myra Donaldson, giggling a little.

"And that is what I meant,--just that,--that I was sorry for having spoken--"

"Your thoughts," said Myra, giggling again.