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Page 33
For all her appreciative speeches, Mary approached her task that
afternoon with inward reluctance. Only a grim determination to do her
best to earn that dollar was her motive at first, and she helped herself
by imagining it was the Princess Winsome's sunny hair which she was
lathering and rubbing so vigorously. Ethelinda closed her eyes,
enjoying the touch of the light fingers, and wishing the operation
could be prolonged indefinitely. Somehow this intimate, personal contact
seemed to create a friendliness for each other they had never known
before. Presently Mary was chatting away almost as cordially as if it
were Elise's dusky curls she had in her fingers, or A.O.'s brown braids.
Under promise of secrecy she told of Elise's masquerade the night
before, and of A.O.'s wild curiosity about the lady in black. She had
persecuted them all morning with questions, and they were almost worn
out trying to evade them and to baffle her. Ethelinda appreciated being
taken into her confidence, for she had been more lonely than her pride
would allow her to admit. Her patronizing airs and ill-guarded speech
about being exclusive in the choice of friends had offended most of the
lower-class girls. Slowly she was learning that her old standards would
not bear comparison with Madam Chartley's and the Lady Evelyn's and that
she must accept theirs if she would have any friends at Warwick Hall.
Her friendship with Mary took a long stride forward that afternoon.
The rest of the money came in various ways. Mary found appropriate
quotations for a set of unique dinner cards, to fit the pen and ink
illustrations which one of the Seniors bought to give her sister, a
prominent club-woman, whose turn it was to give the yearly club dinner.
She did some indexing for the librarian and some copying for Miss
Chilton, and by the end of the week not only was Jack's fob on its way
to Arizona, with presents for the rest of the family, but there was
enough left in her purse to pay her share towards the mock Christmas
tree.
It gave her a thrill to think that out of the entire school she had been
chosen as one of the committee of nine for the delightful task of tying
up the parcels for that tree. It was such bliss to share all the secrets
and anticipate the surprise and laughter each ridiculous gift would call
forth. And when all the joking and rollicking was over there was the
carol service on the last night of the term, so sweet and solemn and
full of the real Christmas gladness, that it was something to remember
always as the crowning beauty of that beautiful time.
Old Bishop Chartley came down as usual for the service, and the chapel,
fragrant with pine and spicy cedar boughs and lighted only by tall white
candles, was just as Lloyd had described it, when she told of the
Bishop's talk about keeping the White Feast on the birthday of the King.
When the great doors swung wide for the white-robed choir to enter,
Mary knew that it was only the Dardell twins leading in the processional
with flute and cornet. But as they came slowly up the dim aisle under
the arches of Christmas greens, their wide, flowing sleeves falling back
from their arms, they made her think of two of Fra Angelico's
trumpet-blowing angels, and she clasped her hands with a quick indrawing
of breath. The high silvery flute notes and the mellow alto of the deep
horn were like the voices of the Seraphim, leading all the others in
their pean of "Glad tidings of great joy." Oh, it was good to be at a
school like this she thought with a throb of deep thankfulness. And it
was so good to know that all her plans had worked out happily, and her
Christmas gifts for the girls were just what she wanted them to be. Her
thoughts strayed away from the service a moment to recall the little
bundles she had hidden in Elise's and A.O.'s suit-cases, and the package
she had ready for Ethelinda, a prettily scalloped linen cover for her
dressing-table with her initials, worked in handsome block letters in
the centre.
No regrets clouded her face next morning, when she stood at the door,
watching the last 'bus load of merry girls start home for the holidays.
She was not going home herself. Arizona was too far away. But she had
something more thrilling than that in prospect--a visit to Joyce in New
York, she and Betty, and Christmas day with Eugenia, at the beautiful
Tremont home out on the Hudson. She had been hearing about it for the
last two years. And there was Eugenia's baby she was eager to see, the
mischievous little year-old Patricia, "as beautiful as her father and as
bad as her naughty Uncle Phil," Eugenia had written, in her letter of
invitation.
And Phil himself would be there,--_maybe_. He was trying to get his work
in shape so that he could be home at Christmas time. Mary did not
realize how much her anticipations of this visit were tinged by the glow
of that maybe. Her thoughts ran ahead to that day at Eugenia's oftener
than to any other part of the grand outing. There was to be a whole week
of sight-seeing in New York sandwiched in between the cozy hours at home
with Joyce in her studio, and then on the roundabout way back to school
a stop-over at Annapolis, for a few hours with Holland.
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