"Understand, there are to be no tricks played in each other's rooms. You have been making very good progress so far this year and I am sincerely pleased. As many of you will go away on Sat.u.r.day there can be no Christmas festivities, but this may be quite as pleasant."

"Oh, Mrs. Barrington, it will be just delightful!" cried Phillipa with enthusiasm. "Thank you a dozen times for thinking of it."

"You have accepted some invitations from outside and it seems the thing to return them. Every girl will be at her liberty to ask one guest and there are several I wish to invite. I hope you will have a happy time."

"Oh, we are sure of that."

"And now I hope your scholarship will be excellent at the winter examinations. It will be the last year for some of you and for your parents' sake I hope you will stand high."

The leisure of the next two days was spent working out lists.

"Oh," declared May Gedney, "I'd like to invite at least four. Ally and Archie Holmes, and the Pridhams. I suppose we can ask a young gentleman?"

"Let us make a list and divide up. Archie Holmes is such a delightful dancer, and Allie is so full of fun, and so many of us were at her birthday party."

"Do you suppose the smaller fry will invite their friends?"

"I think not, though they may be allowed to come in as spectators."

"That Nevins girl is a pretty dancer. What lots of fancy things she knows."

"I don't imagine we will have any high flings," laughing.

"Well, May, you ask Ally, and Nelly White ask Archie. That's the way we must pair off, and divide up the Pridhams. We must only ask one girl in a family. I'm afraid we won't have boys enough to go round."

"Then some of the girls will have to play Knights as we do in the practices."

After much study they presented their list to Mrs. Barrington who thought it very judicious. She said she had several gentlemen to add.

Then there was a time about the frocks. Miss Nevins unpacked two party gowns that had remained in her trunk when it was taken up stairs. A pretty rather simple white cluna silk and a pink satin.

"Oh, the satin is altogether too ornate, too really old," declared Phillipa.

"But it's so much prettier," longingly.

"I don't know about that, and I can tell you Mrs. Barrington will hustle it back in the box mighty quick. The party is for the older girls. You will simply be allowed in to look and partake of the treat if you are well behaved little girls."

Miss Nevins pouted.

Her new winter suit had come home and it was really admirable, making her look like quite a different girl.

"I don't see what that New York dressmaker can be thinking about. She makes a regular guy of her. And since Mrs. Barrington shut down on so much sweet stuff how her complexion has improved. But the morning baths are a terror to her. She is sure she can keep clean on a wash once a week."

"And girls, every time her mother wrote she enclosed five dollars. She didn't give any account of that for awhile, and Mrs. Barrington was quite affronted when her mother advised her to go to a restaurant now and then to get a good meal. I must say our living here is of the very best."

There was no dissenting voice.

They were all in a gale about the party. There was always a lawn fete when school closed in June at which the girls invited relatives and friends. Hallowe'en had been devoted to tricks in each other's room, sewing up sheets, sprinkling cayenne pepper and rice, and occasionally putting a toad in the bed if one could be found, or an artificial one would answer the purpose. Mrs. Barrington had made some appeals, but this new plan was a decided success. The girls were gay and eager with delight, and wonder who of the young men of the town would be asked.

Mrs. Barrington called Lilian in her room and spoke of the party, giving her a special invitation.

"It is very kind of you," the girl answered, "and I hope you will not think me ungrateful if I decline. I am not used to gayeties of this kind, and"--with a smile--"I have no party dress."

"That can easily be remedied. I really think you are making a mistake by effacing yourself so readily on all occasions. You are becoming a fine scholar and I am much interested in your welfare. Your hour in the study room is not at all detrimental--"

"There are other things. Oh, Mrs. Barrington let me keep to my own sphere. I have always been poor, I have not been much among what are called better cla.s.s girls, but I do know they have better advantages and are trained in pretty and attractive society ways. Public schools are more on a level. I am not finding fault. My heart is full of gladness for this lovely offer that came to my mother and me. Some of the young ladies have been very kind. Believe me I am happy, but I should feel out of place in a gay party."

She looked really beautiful standing there, the bright flush coming and going over her face, her mouth with its winsome curves, her eyes so full of grat.i.tude and candor. What was the elusive remembrance?

"You shall do as you like in this matter," returned Mrs. Barrington.

"But at the beginning of the new term I propose to have matters on a somewhat different footing. You will end by being my best scholar."

"Oh, thank you a thousand times for taking so much interest in me. I hope I shall be able to repay you."

"My dear child some of the best things in the world are done without pay. Appreciation is better and you have a great deal of that."

The party was a great success. Several of the older graduates were asked in. There was music, some conversational plays where quick wit was necessary and in this Phillipa excelled. Then the dancing was charming to the young crowd. They were very merry over the refreshments, then dancing again.

"It's been just delightful! I never had such a good time in my life. Oh, Mrs. Barrington, how can we ever thank you," and a dozen other glad acknowledgments. They were all tired enough to tumble into bed, with no thought of tricks to disturb them.

Miss Nevins admitted that she had a first cla.s.s time. "Only I wish I had been up in more dances. And if they'd had some fancy dances! I do love them so!"

"Hardly at such a party," said Phillipa, dryly. "And the maid of the evening who did not come. Do you suppose she was asked?" inquired Louie Howe.

"Oh, she would have come quick enough if she'd had anything to wear,"

subjoined Miss Gedney. "Well, I'm glad she didn't or wasn't. It would have been rather embarra.s.sing."

"When I meet her abroad in the capacity of attendant to some charming young lady I should not know her, of course."

There was a laugh at that.

Then began the mouth of real study though there were a few heart burnings that Miss Boyd should come up to the best in some of the cla.s.ses.

November was unusually beautiful and the week of Indian summer a dream for a poet. Lilian's afternoon hour out of doors was the concentration of delight. The handsome town, the picturesque houses, where late blooming flowers were a delight on many a lawn, the peaceful winding river whose shadows seemed to depict a fascinating underworld, the rising ground beyond with its magnificent trees, its tangled nooks of shrubbery with scarlet berries, so stirred Lilian's fine nature that she felt as if she must burst into poesy.

No, she would never give up the splendid, inspiriting dreams of youth.

Ambitious and n.o.ble natures are often haunted by romantic ideals and glimpses of the future reaching up to unharmful standards that did seem possible. These dreams were better than the feverish, vitiating novels some of the girls poured over in private.

She was making a warm friend of Edith Trenham, who was often puzzled by her. How did she get this wonderful insight into such a beautiful world full of possible endeavor.

The simple prettiness of the Trenham home was very charming to her. This was what she would make for her mother, only there would be a little more. Portfolios of engravings, a vase from j.a.pan, a curious Indian ornament with ages back of it. Already Barrington House was shaping her taste in many matters.

Then it was a pleasure to talk to the imaginative Claire who reveled in the Knights of Arthur's time, the tastes of Mythology which she twisted about to suit her fancy.

"I like Miss Lilian so much," she would say. "She has traveled in so many countries. She knows all about Eskimo babies and little Chinese girls who can't go anywhere because they have such crooked feet. And we play at going to see them, and they give us such curious things to eat.

And there are real little Greek children, who lived in Bible times. Oh, it's just lovely!"

"You make Claire very happy," Edith would say in a fond tone.