The Nicest Girl in the School Part 7

"Some of the girls were quite sentimental over them. Cissie Gardiner had a pansy picked from Wordsworth's garden at Grasmere, and a sprig of rosemary that she said came from the grave of Keats. Her aunt brought it to her from Rome, where he's buried. She pasted it on to a piece of paper, and wrote underneath: 'Here's rosemary, that's for remembrance. I pray you, love, remember.' She said Keats was her favourite poet. She thought it was so romantic for him to die so young of a broken heart, and she admired his portrait at the beginning of his poems, and if only she could have lived a hundred years earlier, then perhaps she might have known him."

"It was all Cissie's fault that we lost our collections," said Avis.

"What happened?" asked Patty, who found the reminiscences interesting.

"Well, we used to keep the leaves and flowers inside our books, and look at them during cla.s.s whenever we had an opportunity. One day, during grammar, Cissie was sitting gazing at her piece of rosemary, and, I suppose, thinking of Keats, for she didn't hear when she was asked a question. Miss Rowe repeated it, and Cissie gave such a start that all her treasures fell from her book on to the floor. Miss Rowe looked very grim, and told her to pick them up, and ordered each girl to take every single leaf and flower out of her book also. Then she made Cissie collect them all, and fling the whole pile into the grate. Poor Cissie was in tears. She tried hard to save her sprig of rosemary: she begged Miss Rowe to let her keep it, and said she'd put it away in her drawer, and never bring it to cla.s.s again; but Miss Rowe said she wouldn't encourage such nonsense, and the best place for it was the fire."

"It was just like Miss Rowe," said Enid; "she always uses what my father calls 'drastic measures'. Cissie's tired of Keats now. She's made a hero of General Gordon instead, and has his portrait hanging up in her bedroom, with a piece of palm over it. She says she should like to marry a soldier some day, only she'd be so afraid of his getting killed."

"Cissie's a goose," said Winnie; "she can think of nothing but soldiers since her brother went to Sandhurst. She even drew one in my alb.u.m, and it's not particularly well done. Patty, are you going to paint anything for me, or are you not? I'll leave the book with you for a week, and at the end of that time I shall expect to see something nice."

Patty was rather clever at drawing. She could copy very exactly, and even make original sketches sometimes. Mr. Summers, the art master, thought well of her work, and had praised her study of a group of apples more highly than those of the other girls. It was quite a consolation to Patty to excel in something. She found the afternoon spent in the studio the pleasantest in the whole week, and wished the drawing lessons came oftener. She was not without a secret hope that some of her work might be considered good enough to secure a place in the small exhibition of Arts and Crafts which was held yearly at the school, and to which only very creditable efforts were admitted. The neat drawings with which she ill.u.s.trated her botany schedules were the admiration of her cla.s.smates, though they did not always meet with the appreciation from Miss Harper which they deserved. On one occasion Patty had taken immense trouble to copy a harebell as an example of the order _Campanulaceae_. She had shaded it carefully in Indian ink, with very fine cross hatchings, and hoped it might win an extra mark, or at any rate a word of approbation.

Disappointment, however, was in store for her. Miss Harper handed back the book with the remark:

"If you would spend less time on drawings, and more on the subject-matter of your exercises, Patty Hirst, I should be better satisfied with your work."

"It's so difficult to remember all those long, hard botanical terms,"

Patty complained afterwards to Jean. "I love the flowers, and I like to paint them and learn their English names, but I don't care in the least if their stamens are hypogynous or their cotyledons induplicate! I think it spoils them to pull them to pieces. They look so much prettier just as they're growing!"

The painting of a spray of honeysuckle which Patty did for Winnie was so beautifully done, that it was greatly envied by the other girls, all of whom begged for contributions to their own alb.u.ms, and kept the little artist quite busy on half-holidays, or in any other leisure moments which she could spare. It was such a pleasant occupation that Patty did not grudge the time spent over it, and she was magnanimous enough to forget old grievances and to allow even Vera Clifford, Maud Greening, and Kitty Harrison to have specimens of her work, though Enid said they did not deserve it.

"They wouldn't any of them sit next to you when we were playing games last night," she declared, "and they were quite rude, and left you out altogether in the proverb questions. I think it is very cool of them to ask you. As for Muriel, I wonder she can bear to look at the lovely poppies you painted in her book, when she treats you so horridly."

It was Patty's birthday on the 24th of October, and for fully a week before that event she could not help noticing an unusual amount of mystery in the conduct of her friends. Several of them would be talking together with the greatest animation, and would drop suddenly into silence on her arrival. Enid twice began a sentence and stopped in the middle at a warning glance from Jean; and once, when Patty came unexpectedly into the cla.s.sroom, there was a scuffle, the lid of Winnie's desk was banged down violently, and Winnie herself, together with Avis Wentworth and Cissie Gardiner, looked extremely conscious, as though they had been almost caught in some act which they wished to keep a secret. Patty wondered mildly why Enid seemed so anxious to ascertain whether she preferred red or blue, and whether she did not think a bright colour was always nicer than black; and she could not understand why her friend should one day be poring over a catalogue from the Stores, nor why she shut it up in such a hurry, remarking rather pointedly that Miss Lincoln had lent it to her.

"It's a queer book to choose!" laughed Patty. "I thought you were halfway through 'A Chaplet of Pearls'? I shouldn't think it's very amusing to read lists of groceries and household linen."

"On the contrary, I find it most interesting," replied Enid. "I never knew before how much shopping one could do at the Stores. They seem to have a department for everything."

On the morning of the birthday most of the members of the Fourth Cla.s.s hurried away after breakfast with conspicuous haste. Patty stayed for a few minutes in the refectory to talk to some of the fifth cla.s.s girls, and was in the middle of a conversation with Olive Hardman and Bella Ashworth, when Jean entered in search of her.

"Come, Patty," she said, "you're wanted in the cla.s.sroom."

"Why, it's too early. It's only twenty-five minutes to nine," said Patty.

"Never mind. The girls are all there waiting."

"Waiting for what?"

"Waiting for you."

"Why for me?" asked Patty, in much surprise.

"Come along and you'll find the reason," replied Jean, taking her arm and leading her down the pa.s.sage without further delay.

Considerably mystified at Jean's impatient hurry, Patty was still more astonished to discover the whole of both the Upper Fourth and the lower division collected round the fire in the schoolroom, and evidently antic.i.p.ating her arrival with much eagerness.

"Here she is!" cried Jean. "Now, Enid, you can begin."

"We want to wish you very many happy returns of the day, Patty," said Enid, who seemed to be acting as mouthpiece for the rest. "And we hope you'll accept this birthday present; it's from us all."

"Thank you so much," said Patty, taking the offered parcel and beginning to untie the string. "I never expected that any of you would remember my birthday. Why, how lovely! Oh, it is good of you! The very thing in all the world I'd rather have than anything else."

The object which lay under the many folds of tissue paper was an alb.u.m.

It was bound in bright-blue morocco with gilt edges, and had smooth pages inside for writing, interleaved with pages of drawing paper for water colours. At the beginning was neatly printed:

PATTY HIRST

With love from the Fourth Cla.s.s.

It was certainly a very appropriate present for the girls to have made, and one which Patty appreciated immensely. She had greatly longed to possess an alb.u.m of her own, but had not liked to ask her mother to buy her one, and the beauty of this handsome gift far surpa.s.sed all her dreams.

"You'd done such lovely paintings in our books, that we felt we wanted to put something in yours," said Avis, "though I'm afraid our productions won't be very nice. I can't draw a stroke, and my writing's not at all elegant. I think you'd better not ask me."

In spite of Avis's protestations, Patty naturally asked her and the rest of the cla.s.s for contributions, and the twenty-one souvenirs which resulted went a long way towards filling her volume. They varied much, both in quality and quant.i.ty, from Maggie Woodhall's fine pen-and-ink drawing to May Firth's washy little attempt at a landscape, or the short poetical quotation signed "Beatrice Wynne". Cissie Gardiner, always of a romantic turn of mind, copied "Has sorrow thy young days shaded?" from Moore's _Irish Melodies_, in her neatest handwriting. Naughty Winnie, who liked to make fun of Cissie, added a version of her own on the opposite page, which greatly destroyed the sentiment of the first, and provoked much laughter in the cla.s.s. It ran thus:--

"Has sorrow thy young days shaded?

Are schoolbooks and inkpots thy fate?

Too soon is thy fair face faded By working at Euclid so late.

Doth French thy bright spirit wither, Or Grammar thy happiness sear?

Then, child of misfortune, come hither, I'll weep with thee tear for tear."

"It's too bad!" said Cissie. "It spoils my verses; and Moore's my favourite poet just now. I like him far better than Keats; I think his pieces about soldiers and glory are simply splendid."

All the girls exerted themselves so much on Patty's behalf, that her alb.u.m seemed to bring out an amount of talent lying dormant in the cla.s.s which n.o.body had suspected before. Inspired by Winnie's original lines, several of the others set to work to make up verses, and the results were so satisfactory, that the authors felt themselves quite budding poetesses. Ethel Maitland, a quiet girl in the lower division, astonished everybody by the following composition, which was the more unexpected as n.o.body had ever considered her in the least clever.

TO PATTY

I thank the chance that doth afford Th' occasion fair and happy, Upon this page to thus record My grat.i.tude to Patty.

Within my alb.u.m she hath wrought A picture of red roses, All painted with most cunning skill, The prettiest of posies.

Had I but talent, in return A masterpiece I'd draw her, But failing that, I pen these lines Which now I place before her.

"It's not very good," declared Ethel. "It was so hard to make it scan properly. I know 'happy' and 'Patty' don't really rhyme, but what else could I put? The last line's rather tame, but then again I couldn't find a rhyme for 'draw her'. I thought at first of putting 'And hope they will not bore her', or 'To show how I adore her', but perhaps it's better as it is."

Patty, who had no talent for poetry, was immensely impressed by these lines. She showed them to everybody in the cla.s.s, and Ethel's work was much admired until it was entirely eclipsed by a contribution from Jean Bannerman. Jean had drawn a funny picture of a kitten with a pile of books under its arm. She had copied it from a magazine, but the verse which she wrote under it was her own composition. She called it:

AN ENTHUSIAST

Her head well stored with copious knowledge, Miss Fluffy Purrem goes to College, Secure that never yet she's failed.

Her subjects will not be _cur_tailed: On _cat_acombs she'll wax ecstatic, Yet much objects to be _dog_matic.

She's great on ornithology, And also on astrology; She lets the Dog Star go astray, But revels in the _Milky Way_.

She claims the _Manx_ to be a nation, And holds strong views about cre(a)mation; At _Mew_nham they declare she's sure A first-cla.s.s try_puss_ to secure.

This delighted the girls, because the kitten's face really looked a little like Patty's, which was round too, and what Jean described as "purry",--"that's to say, looking pleased at everything, as if she were purring," she explained.

Enid had reserved her efforts until the last, and her page in the alb.u.m was considered the very best of all. It was headed by a picture which was a curious notion of her own. When glanced at casually it might be taken for a sketch of a crocodile, but when examined closely it showed that the body was made up of girls walking along two and two, the smaller ones tapering down in height, and vanishing in the distance to form the tail. Though the details were not particularly well drawn, the whole effect was wonderfully good, and as "crocodiling" was the popular term at The Priory for walking two and two, the idea was most appropriate. Enid described it in the accompanying verses:

THE BALLAD OF THE SWEET CROCODILE