"It's always done with six neophytes and one initiated. If you're ready, we'd best begin, and not waste any more time."

She arranged her neophytes in a line, and gave to each a plate, telling her to hold it firmly in the left hand. Then, taking her stand facing them, she raised her own plate to the level of her chest.

"Now you must do exactly as I do!" she commanded. "All fix your eyes on me, and don't take them off me for a single instant. The concentration of the seven visual currents is of vital importance. Put the middle finger of the right hand beneath the plate exactly in the centre, then describe a circle with it on the under side of the plate. Be sure the circle follows the same course as the sun, or we may break the mesmeric current. Watch what I'm doing. Now describe a circle on your face in the same manner, beginning with the left cheek. Copy me carefully. And now we must repeat the cabalistic formulary (the oldest in the world--Solomon got it from El Zen.o.bi, the chief of the Genii): 'Om mani padme hum'. Let us say it slowly all together seven times, performing the orthodox circles at each."

The neophytes played their parts admirably. They never removed their gaze from the face of their instructress; they copied her every movement, and repeated the mystic words to the very best of their ability. "Om mani padme hum" rolled from their lips seven times, and seemed to suggest the dreamy atmosphere of the occult.

"The mesmeric current is forming! I can feel it working!" declared Betty. "It only requires further visualization for the hypnotic state to follow. To complete the magnetic circle, will you all kindly turn and face each other?"

Still holding the plates, the obedient six swung round, stared at one another, then gasped and shrieked. And well they might, for, one and all, their countenances were besmirched with black in a series of concentric rings which caused them to resemble Zulu chiefs or American-Indian warriors on the warpath.

"Oh! oh! oh!" came from the members of VB, who, having been stationed behind the neophytes, had been in equal ignorance of the trick that was being played on them. Then everybody exploded.

"Oh, you look so funny!"

"Is the magnetic current working?"

"Is it the cult of Isis?"

"Oh, my heart! Oh! ho! ho!" gurgled Betty. "You didn't twig your plates were smoked and mine wasn't! Oh, I've done you! Done you brown, literally!"

"You p-p-p-pig!" spluttered the victims.

"Don't break the plates! Here, put them on the table! Oh, don't look so indignant, or you'll kill me! I've got a st.i.tch in my side with laughing. Here, don't stalk off like offended zebras! I'll apologize!

I'll go down on my bended knees! It was a brutal rag--yes--yes--I own up frankly! I'll grovel! _Peccavi! Peccavi! Miserere mei!_"

"I've got some chocolates here," murmured Annie Pridwell. "I was keeping them for Sunday, but do have them," handing the packet round among the outraged upper division.

The occasion certainly seemed to warrant some form of compensation. Evie hastily followed Annie's example, and sacrificed a private store of toffee on the altar of hospitality. Blissfully sucking, the six seniors allowed themselves to be mollified. As connoisseurs of jokes, they were ready to acknowledge the superior excellence of the trick played upon them; moreover, they found one another's appearance highly diverting.

"Betty Scott, you'll be the death of me some day," remarked Rhoda Wilkins. "Oh, Agnes! If you could only see yourself in the gla.s.s!"

"It's the pot calling the kettle! Look at your own face!"

"Do you think we could possibly work it on the Sixth?"

"No, they'd smell a rat."

"I want my tea," said Annie. "Oh, c.o.c.k-a-doodle-doo! There's the first bell! Hip-hip-hooray! I say, you six, if you don't want to give Miss Birks a first-cla.s.s fit, you'd best be toddling to the bath-room, and applying the soap-and-water treatment to your interesting countenances."

CHAPTER VII

An Invitation

"Zickery, d.i.c.kery, lumby tum, Tip me the wink, and out I'll come, Leave my paG.o.da so glum, glum, glum, To drink green tea with my own Yum-Yum!"

So chanted Evie Bennett on the following Monday, bursting into VB room with a face betokening news, and a manner suggestive of Bedlam.

"What's the matter, you lunatic? Look here, if you go on like a dancing dervish we shall have to provide you with a padded room! Mind the inkpot! Oh, I say, you'll have the black-board over! Hasn't anybody got a strait-waistcoat? Evie's gone sheer, stark, raving mad!"

"I've got news, my hearty! News! news! news!

'What will you take for my news?

I know it will make you enthuse!

There isn't a girl who'll refuse, Or offer to make an excuse.'

Ahem! A poor thing, but mine own. I'm waxing so poetical, I think I must be inspired."

"Or possessed! Sit down, you mad creature, and talk sense. What's your precious news?"

"Mrs. Trevellyan requests the pleasure of the company of the young ladies of Miss Birks's seminary to drink tea with her on the occasion of the natal day of her nephew, Master Ronald Trevellyan," announced Evie, changing suddenly to a ceremonious eighteenth-century manner, and dropping a stiff curtsy.

"Ronnie's birthday!"

"Oh, what sport!"

"It's on Wednesday."

"Has she asked only us?"

"No, the whole school is to go, mistresses and all," returned Evie.

"Mrs. Trevellyan wants to introduce Ronnie's new governess to us."

"There are sure to be games, and perhaps a compet.i.tion with prizes,"

rejoiced Annie Pridwell; "and we always have delicious teas at the Castle. Gerda Thorwaldson, why don't you look pleased? You take it as quietly as if it were a parochial meeting. What a mum mouse you are!"

"Is it anything to get so excited over?" replied Gerda calmly.

"Of course it is! The Castle's the Castle, and Mrs. Trevellyan is--well, just Mrs. Trevellyan. There are the loveliest things there--foreign curiosities, and old pictures, and illuminated books, and we're allowed to look at them; and there's special preserved ginger from China, and boxes of real Eastern Turkish Delight. Oh, it's a fairy palace! You may thank your stars you're going!"

In spite of Annie's transports, Gerda did not look particularly delighted. She only smiled in a rather sickly fashion, and said nothing.

The others, however, were much too occupied with their own pleasurable expectations to take any notice of her lack of enthusiasm. They had accepted her quiet ways as part of herself, and had set her down as a not very interesting addition to the Form, and thought her opinions--if indeed she possessed any--were of scant importance.

Gerda had made very little headway with her companions; her intense reserve seemed to set a barrier between them and herself, and after one or two efforts at being friendly the girls had given her up, and took no more trouble over her. "Gerda the Silent," "The Recluse," "The Oyster,"

were some of the names by which she was known, and she certainly justified every item of her reputation for reticence. If she did not talk much, she was, however, a good listener. Nothing in the merry chat of the schoolroom escaped her, and anybody who had been curious enough to watch her carefully might have noticed that often, when seemingly buried in a book, her eyes did not move over the page, and all her attention was given to the conversation that was going on in her vicinity.

Having received an invitation to Ronnie's birthday party, of course the burning subject of discussion was what to give him as a present. Miss Birks vetoed the idea of each girl making a separate offering, and suggested a general subscription list to buy one handsome article.

"It will be quite sufficient, and I am sure Mrs. Trevellyan would far rather have it so," she decreed.

"It's too bad, for I'd made up my mind to give him a box of soldiers,"

complained Annie, in private.

"And I'd a book in my eye," said Elyned.