Part 24 (1/2)
”I'm beginning to be just awfully interested,” Nan declared, rising with a sigh. ”Is the lesson over?”
”Ah! 'tis over,” he growled, looking ruefully at his free-hand elevation of the Colosseum at Rome.
”And when do I come again?” asked Nan.
”Eh? And do you wish to continue this course?”
”I truly believe I'd like to see if I have a talent for architecture.
I'm awfully interested. It's lots more entertaining than drawing b.u.t.terflies and flowers. Can't a woman be an architect?”
”Hoity-toity! what's this?” asked the professor, and sat down again to stare at her.
”I really do like it, Professor,” repeated Nan.
And from that time there dated a friends.h.i.+p between, and companions.h.i.+p of, Nan Sherwood and Professor Krenner that really made a great difference in both their lives.
Just now both chums from Tillbury were, immensely interested in the secret banquet to which twenty-five of their closest friends were to be invited. Nor was it a small task to select those two score and five out of a possible hundred--for, of course, the ”primes,” or lower-grade girls, were not considered at all.
And then, there was the possibility of some of the invited guests being unwilling to attend. They had to face that from the start.
”You know very well,” said Bess, when she had digested Nan's idea for a day or two, and grown more accustomed to it--”You know very well that wild horses wouldn't drag May Winslow to the feast.”
”Why not?”
”You know how she feels about that place.”
”And she's one of the very girls I want there,” cried Nan. ”We want to kill superst.i.tion and have a grand feast at one fell swoop. It's all nonsense! Some of the little girls have got hold of the foolish stories that have been told and they are almost afraid to go to bed at night in their big dormitories with all the other girls about them. It's ridiculous!”
”Oh, dear me, Nan!” groaned her chum. ”You're too, too bold!”
”It doesn't take much boldness to disbelieve such old-wives' fables.”
”And your own eyesight, too?” suggested Bess, slily.
”I'll never admit I have seen anything either spiritual or spirituous,”
laughed Nan.
”But they say there are underground pa.s.sages from the unfinished part of the Hall, down there.”
”What were they for?”
”Maybe smugglers,” replied Bess, big-eyed at her own thought.
”Well! I never!”
”Lots of smuggling about Freeling years ago. Henry says so,” declared Bess, stoutly.
”Goodness! what have you been reading?” demanded Nan. ”Dime novels, I do believe, Bess Harley!”