Part 21 (1/2)

The two were still busily sc.r.a.ping chocolate icing out of a bowl when the strains of the wedding march were heard in the next room, and, peeping through the crack of the kitchen door, they beheld a rather fl.u.s.tered-looking Miss Ashwell trying to guess the first parcel.

Helen shooed them off, declaring they had no manners at all, and that they had better see that they were ready for their own party.

Judith and Nancy were indignant at the implication that they were not well prepared for the morrow, but just before ”Lights out” bell sounded, Judith asked Sally May to let her see the rhyme for the Canterbury bells tag.

”Why--I thought you and Nancy were doing it. I heard you trying to get a rhyme for 'Susan.'”

”Well, we couldn't,” said Judith weakly; ”I thought you had one written already.”

”We'll have to get up at six o'clock, every one of us,” declared Nancy; ”put a pencil and paper beside your bed; each of us has got to have a rhyme and then we'll choose the best.”

There was much yawning and stifled groaning next morning, but Nancy was firm and refused to retire to her own cubicle until she had seen each member of the crew provided with pencil and paper.

The fires of poetic genius burned low at such an early morning hour, but they knew, as well as Nancy did, that there would be no time after breakfast. So after much frowning and biting of pencils, five verses were written, and handed to Catherine to choose the best.

It was an exciting afternoon. There was a Senior cricket match being played and the Fifth-Formers were loath to lose one minute of that.

Judith and Nancy were especially keen to watch Catherine's play. They would dash over to the match for ten minutes, and then race off to squeeze lemons, or see if the cakes had come, and then back again to the match.

Josephine and Joyce had made a huge bouquet of tea-roses interspersed with samples of the trees and shrubs and flowers which were to be planted in the ”White Cottage” garden. Day girls had been requested to bring samples of cherry trees and gooseberry bushes and such things as were not to be found at York Hill. It was a somewhat curious-looking bouquet, however, for to each spray was attached a little wooden tag bearing the donor's name, and a bit of paper with the accompanying rhyme.

Miss Ashwell looked adorably pretty, they all agreed, when she and Miss Meredith joined them in the latter's garden after the cricket match. The guests were escorted to the wicker chairs under the trees and the girls seated themselves on rugs.

There was a moment's pause. Miss Ashwell confessed afterwards to a feeling of nervousness as to what was going to happen to her, for the day before, without a moment's notice, she had been literally showered with hankies by the little First-Formers. However, Sally May was discovered on her feet about to make a speech. Sally May, usually so glib of tongue, moistened her lips several times, and then, holding out the bouquet, she delivered at breakneck speed the little speech which she had composed--and fortunately memorized--for the occasion.

”Had the fright of my life, my dear,” she whispered to Judith afterwards. ”I felt like Alice in Wonderland growing taller and taller every moment--expected to be lost in the tree-tops. I'll never, never, never try to make a speech again.”

Miss Meredith, who had also been presented with a bunch of lovely roses, leaned forward to examine Miss Ashwell's.

”Yours seems to be an unusually interesting bouquet, my dear,” she observed. ”May I see one of those b.u.t.terflies? He seems to be on an apple-tree bough.” And unfolding the wings of the b.u.t.terfly--the b.u.t.terflies were Five B's idea--she read:

”Drifting from the apple boughs, foam of pink and white Rippling through the branches in the green spring light; All the elfin breezes in the world, you see, Have come to play at snowflakes in your apple tree.”

”_Your_ apple tree! how charming!” said Miss Meredith; ”who is the fairy G.o.dmother who is going to give you such a fascinating tree?” And taking up the little wooden tag she read, ”St. Lawrence Apple, Frances Purdy.”

”Miss Ashwell must read the next one,” said Joyce after Frances's rhyme had been applauded, and she grinned rather wickedly as Miss Ashwell took the green branch held out to her and read the tag:

”Black currants, you know, In your garden which grow, Have more uses than perhaps you would think; When hubby's in bed, with a cold in his head, You may give him a black-currant drink.”

Miss Ashwell's cheeks were as pink as the lovely rose from whose stalk she hurriedly took the next verse:

”Roses pink and white and nodding, Roses drenched with dew; What would you have but roses By a cottage built for two?”

Rosamond's effort was the signal for a burst of merriment:

”This bush will bring you wit and mirth, You'll happy be and merry, For in your house you'll never have A goose, but nice goose-berry.”

”I wanted to say gooseberry pies,” said Rosamond, ”but it wouldn't rhyme.” And she couldn't understand why their laughter was redoubled.

The crew of the ”Jolly Susan” were becoming uneasy. Would Miss Ashwell overlook the bluebells in Five A's bouquet? Nancy held up the flowers for Miss Ashwell to choose, and rather ostentatiously turned the bluebells towards her, but she perversely chose Olivia's pansies. Five o'clock had rung and the maids were crossing the lawn with trays of the inevitable cake and lemonade. The crew felt desperate. Perhaps it was a case of telepathy, for, with her hand hovering over Marjorie's hollyhocks, Miss Ashwell seemed to change her mind and took up instead the bluebells: