"There!" she thought, with a hasty glance over her shoulder at Betty, as
she dropped the string back into its box. "There's one token that I've
kept tryst, even if I nevah earn any moah. I'm going to have that string
half-full by vacation."
CHAPTER V.
A MEMORY-BOOK AND A SOUVENIR SPOON
THE string of white beads grew steadily, but work went hand in hand with
play at Warwick Hall, as Kitty's memory-book testified. She brought it
out to liven the recreation hour one rainy afternoon, late in the term,
when they were house-bound by the weather. Its covers, labelled "Gala
Days and Bonfire Nights," were bulging with souvenirs of many memorable
occasions. She sat on the floor with it spread open on her lap. Betty
was on one side and Lloyd on the other, while Gay leaned against her
back and looked over her shoulder.
Kitty opened her treasure-house of mementos with a giggle, for on the
first page was a water-colour sketch of Gay as she had appeared on the
welcoming night. She had painted her with two enormous feet protruding
from her flowing skirts, one cased in a party slipper with an
exaggerated French heel, the other in a down-trodden bedroom slipper
painted a brilliant crimson.
"You mean thing!" cried Gay, laughing over the ridiculous caricature of
herself.
"That isn't a circumstance to some of them," remarked Allison, who was
virtuously spending her recreation hour in sewing buttons on her gloves
and mending a rip in the lining of her coat-sleeve. "Wait till you come
to the programme of the recital given by the students of voice, violin,
and piano. The pictures she made all around the margin of it are some of
the best she has done. The sketch of Susie Tyndall, tearing her hair and
shrieking out the 'Polish Boy,' is simply killing."
"Kitty Walton," exclaimed Gay, as she bent over the grotesquely
decorated programme, "where do you keep this book o' nights? I'll surely
have to steal it. Think what it will be worth to us when we are old
ladies. There's one thing certain, you could never pose as a saintly old
grandmother with such a record for mischief as this to bear witness
against you."
Kitty looked up with a startled expression. "You know, it never occurred
to me before that I'd ever look at this book through spectacles. I
wonder if I'll find it as amusing then, when I'm dignified and
rheumatic, as I do now."
"I'm sure _that_ will be pleasant to recall," said Betty, pointing to a
withered rose pinned to the next page. "That will properly impress your
grandchildren."
Underneath the rose was written the date of a private reception granted
the Warwick Hall girls at the White House.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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