Meg was conscious of every eye being turned upon her--Miss Reeves sternly questioning, Miss Pinkett coldly supercilious, Gwendoline, with pursed lips, imploring. She stood up, her little red lips closed tightly, her heart fiercely divided between a desire for vengeance and a sense of loyalty. After a pause she said:

"They called me into the room to make fun of a portrait of my mother which I had drawn."

A murmur of comical disappointment from the girls round the table, an expression of relief on the faces of the two culprits, greeted this answer.

"It was such an absurd portrait, madam," said Miss Pinkett in an explanatory tone; "a lady suffering from the mumps wearing a wreath of roses."

A t.i.tter went round the table.

"Hush!" said Miss Reeves seriously. "It is unkind to laugh at the child.

Sit down, young ladies."

"It was awfully good of you, Meg, not to tell about me," said Gwendoline that evening, when she got Meg alone. "I am awfully obliged. I am sorry I offended you. Will you forgive me?"

"No!" said Meg emphatically, turning her back upon the Beauty and walking stiffly away.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SCHOOL ANNUAL.

Ursula had founded the "Moorhouse Annual." The volume appeared every year just before the midsummer holidays. It consisted of poems and stories by the young ladies, copied in Miss Clara Maxton's beautiful copperplate writing, and edited by Ursula.

Ursula was editress, ill.u.s.trator, and chief contributor. The history of the courtship, squabbles, friendships, and adventures of Mr. Gander and Miss Chilblane, chiefly related in pen-and-ink drawings, with commentaries appended beneath, by Ursula, was a leading feature of the periodical.

The would-be contributors to the annual usually a.s.sembled some Sat.u.r.day afternoon in May, to read aloud their MSS. and submit them to the editorial judgment.

The important Sat.u.r.day had arrived, and Ursula and her staff were a.s.sembled, with Miss Reeves' permission, in the smaller schoolroom.

Ursula sat at the head of the table in an impressive armchair; the spectacles astride her _retrousse_ nose seemed critically brilliant.

Meg slunk in, and sat at the window within earshot.

Gwendoline had asked her on entering, MS. in hand, if she was going to read a story. "I am sure you could write a most bewitching story about that beautiful lady," the Beauty had averred.

"No, no, no!" said Meg, retreating into the veranda.

She had crept back in time to hear Laura Harris read her tale. It appeared to be the history of a confectioner, who owned a famous west-end shop, which was in vogue with the fashionable and wealthy.

Ladies sat there and feasted. The description of its charms had apparently such an overwhelming attraction for the auth.o.r.ess that she could not prevail on her pen to quit it and pa.s.s on with her story.

There was a gigantic wedding-cake, with a sugar-almond top, fully a yard high. The cream puffs, the jam tarts, the ices, the chocolates, the sweets were piled on with profusion.

The conclusion of this story was not arrived at.

Ursula rapped the table with her paper-knife.

"Story declined with thanks," she said briefly.

"Why?" asked Laura indignantly.

"Because, notwithstanding the delicious cakes, we consider it in bad taste," replied Ursula, using the editorial "we" with fine effect.

"Miss Grant, have you a story to submit to us for the forthcoming annual?"

Miss Grant had made a hit the year before by her story of "The Ghostly Postman," who knocked in the ordinary way, and sent summons of death by the letter box.

An audible shiver ran through the audience as she now unrolled her MS., and in a deep voice read the t.i.tle--"The Midnight Yell."

The story told of a beautiful country house, on a moor, in which there was a haunted chamber. Whoever entered that room at night never came out alive. At midnight a yell would ring through the mansion--unearthly, blood curdling. When the chamber was broken into the guest was always found dead, with arms outstretched and eyes starting out of their sockets. Who uttered that midnight yell?--was it the living or the dead?

The visitor or the ghost? None could tell. Some said it was an old hag who haunted the chamber, some said it was a beautiful white lady; but it was generally reported to be a murdered queen.

A sigh greeted this story.

"Accepted," said Ursula, in a business-like tone.

"Will it be ill.u.s.trated?" inquired the auth.o.r.ess anxiously.

"Yes; probably with a spectral donkey braying," said Ursula.

"Oh, no, I cannot allow that!" said the auth.o.r.ess.

"We decline to hold communications about the MSS., refused or accepted,"

replied Ursula, bringing her paper-knife sharply down upon the table.

"Miss Lister's story," she demanded.

"It is ent.i.tled," said Gwendoline in a falsetto voice, "'The Lover's Grave.'" The Beauty proceeded to read how a gypsy with weird, mystic, somber eyes, and serpent-like, coiling, blue-black hair, had scanned the sh.e.l.l-like palm of a lovely Venetian maiden with golden tresses, and warned her with strange fatal mutterings that to her love and death would come hand in hand. Careless of the muttered prophecy, the Venetian damsel with hair like bullion, and clad in a rich violet velvet gown, and with a necklace of pearls clasped about her lily-white throat, set off every morning in her gondola to look for the gallant whom she could love. One day the predicted lover came in another gondola; he was beautiful as Apollo. His mustache was long and silky, his eyes liquid and violet; he had an air of combined tenderness and strength. The gondolas drifted toward each other, impelled by fate. The lady rose impulsively; so did the gentleman. They endeavored to embrace. As they did so, both fell into the water. For awhile they floated on the blue-green flood, smiling seraphically at each other, then they subsided gracefully, and were drowned, and ever after that spot was called "The Lovers' Grave."

"It will make a pretty picture," said Ursula. "I can see the two drowning with that set seraphic smile, as if they liked it."

"Yes," said Gwendoline, who never saw a joke, "it will make a lovely picture."

"I have written a poem," said Miss Blanche Hathers modestly, taking out a roll of paper tied with bows of pink satin ribbon.

A hum of approbation greeted this announcement.

"Go on," said Ursula, with the freezing brevity of the editor.

"The poem is called 'A Lament,' perhaps it might be more appropriately called 'A Deserted Maiden's Prayer.'"

Ursula nodded. Miss Hathers began effectively:

"Oh! star of even My heart is riven, Come thou down and shine In these eyes of mine; 'Twill draw him back."

Ursula, forgetting editorial dignity, completed the couplet, amid giggles and laughter:

"And his cheek I'll smack."