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   :PG.Id: 38834
   :PG.Title: The Twins in the South
   :PG.Released: 2012-02-11
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Roger Frank
   :PG.Producer: the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
   :DC.Creator: Dorothy Whitehill
   :DC.Title: The Twins in the South
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1920
   :coverpage: images/cover.jpg

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                  THE TWINS IN THE SOUTH
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      Title: The Twins in the South
      
      Author: Dorothy Whitehill
      
      Release Date: February 11, 2012 [EBook #38834]
      
      Language: English
      
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       :alt: Janet and Phyllis looked at her with dangerously calm eyes

       JANET AND PHYLLIS LOOKED AT HER WITH DANGEROUSLY CALM EYES

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   | :xlarge:`THE TWINS IN THE SOUTH`
   |
   | `By`
   |
   | :large:`DOROTHY WHITEHILL`
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   | PUBLISHERS
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   | BARSE & HOPKINS
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   | NEW YORK, N. Y., NEWARK, N. J.

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   | Copyright, 1920
   |
   | by
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   | Barse & Hopkins
   |
   | MADE IN U.S.A.

.. contents:: Table of Contents
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   | :big:`The Twins in the South`

CHAPTER I—Welcome to Hilltop
============================

“I always believe in separating sisters,”
Miss Hull made this astonishing announcement
with a gentle smile.

Janet and Phyllis looked at each other, consternation
written large on their faces.

“But Miss Hull——” Janet began.

It was Phyllis who spoke with grown-up
assurance.

“We couldn’t think of being separated, Miss
Hull,” she said, with one of her winning smiles.
“You see, we found each other only a little over
a year ago, and we’ve such a lot of time to make
up.”

“But if you were separated you’d get to know
the girls so much better,” Miss Hull’s soft
Southern drawl protested. “I’ve planned for
each of you to room with an old girl. I’m sure
it’s the better way.”

Miss Hull was an imperious woman, statuesque
in figure, a smooth level brow, flashing
dark eyes and a mass of wavy gray hair, piled
high on her head. When she said a thing she
expected instant submission. She was surprised
when Phyllis, still with her charming smile, but
with a note of firmness in her voice, replied:

“But you see, Miss Hull, we should both be
very unhappy. We’re twins, you know, and
that makes a difference.”

Miss Hull could not deny the note of decision
in her voice, and like all broad-minded and
imperious people, she admired anyone who had
those same qualities in common with her.

She did not speak down to Phyllis, but rather
as to an equal, when she replied:

“Very well, you will room together. I suppose
being twins does make a difference,” she
added laughingly.

Phyllis thanked her, and with a maid to guide
them, they went upstairs to a big room, with long
French windows, one of which opened onto a
tiny balcony. They sat down in comfortable
wicker chairs and stared at each other.

“Oh, Phyl, you are magnificent!” Janet exclaimed.
“I never was so petrified in my life.
Miss Hull is such a masterful sort of person
that she silenced me with a glance.”

Phyllis tossed her head.

“The person never lived that could silence
me,” she said vaingloriously. “But I don’t
think it was very nice of her to wait until Auntie
Mogs left and then try to separate us.”

“We should have let Auntie Mogs stay at the
hotel for a day or two as she wanted to,” Janet
remarked thoughtfully.

“No; that would have been a kiddish thing
to do; and after all, Jan., Miss Hull was really
doing what she thought was right. As soon as I
explained to her she was very nice about it. I
like her tremendously,” she said.

“Well, I don’t,” Janet announced firmly.
“She tried to separate us.”

“But she didn’t, dearest. It would take more
than Miss Hull to do that.” Phyllis laughed
into Janet’s serious eyes.

The Page twins after a summer in Arizona
with their brother Tom, had come to Hilltop
school. Their aunt, Miss Carter, had brought
them from New York to the Virginia hills, but
had returned almost at once, for they had arrived
early that morning, and she had taken the afternoon
train for home. It was six o’clock now,
and from their window they could see the twilight
creeping closer to the great old trees that
grew in a thick protecting border around the
school.

Hilltop was indeed well named. The white
colonial building crowned the hill, and a roadway,
straight as an arrow, and lined on either
side with tall interlacing elms, ran down the
gentle slope for a mile and a half until it joined
the highway in the valley.

It had been a wonderful mansion in its day.
Now a new wing had been added on, and many
of the rooms had been divided and cut up into
smaller ones, but the outside of the house had
lost nothing of its old-world dignity and charm.

Janet and Phyllis stood in the little balcony
and watched the shadows lengthen on the green
below. They had each other so they were not
unhappy, but the suggestion of a lump in their
throats made them think a little forlornly of
Auntie Mogs and the cheerful rooms of their
New York house.

“I wish Sally would come,” Janet exclaimed.
“I simply can’t wait to see her.”

“Neither can I,” Phyllis agreed. “Just think,
we haven’t seen her since last Christmas.”

“It was a shame Daphne couldn’t come down
with us, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, in a way; but we’ll be acquainted by
the time she gets here, and that will be nice, too.”

“Still, it would have been fun to have her on
the train with us.”

Sally Ladd and Daphne Hillis were old
friends of the twins. They had known them in
New York, and at Miss Harding’s school they
had been known as The Quartette. Sally had
come to Hiltop for the second term the year
before, and it was because of her glowing
accounts of boarding-school life that the other
three girls had decided to come this year.

Sally had not come from New York with the
twins, as they had planned, because at the last
minute she had decided to visit a friend of hers
in Ohio. Her train was due at eight o’clock.

A knock at the door brought the twins in
from the balcony.

“Come in,” Janet called, and a tall, heavily-built
girl with red hair and spectacles entered
the room.

“Aren’t you the Page twins?” she inquired
heartily.

“Yes, we are,” Phyllis and Janet answered.

“Well, Sally Ladd has talked so much about
you that I feel as if I’d known you all my life.
I’m Gwendolyn Matthews, otherwise known
as Gwen.” She held out a large hand covered
with golden freckles, and the twins shook it
gratefully.

“Come along downstairs and be shown off.
The girls are dying to see you, for of course Sally
has told us the thrilling way you discovered each
other last year.”

Phyllis and Janet followed her down the wide
red-carpeted hall to the floor below. They could
see the lights coming from a big room a little
way beyond, and hear a hubbub of voices.

Janet had a sudden and overwhelming desire
to run, but Phyllis hurried forward eagerly.
Gwen pushed them both before her, and they
found themselves in an immense room, brightly
lighted by two crystal chandeliers. The ceiling
was painted with white clouds against a blue
sky, and fat little cupids danced or plied their
art with miniature bows and arrows. It was
the old ballroom untouched and still beautiful
after these long years.

They had barely time to look about them
before Gwen held up an impressive hand and
announced in strident tones:

“The Page Twins.”

There was an instant hush of voices and the
girls looked at them curiously. A dark-haired,
blue-eyed girl, dressed in fluffy white, left the
group she had been talking to and came towards
them with outstretched hands.

“I declare, Gwen, you are just a dreadful
tease.” Her delightful Southern drawl was
lazily good-natured.

“How do you do? We’re mighty glad to
welcome you to Hilltop,” she said cordially.

“That’s awfully sweet of you,” Phyllis smiled
winningly.

“Thanks,” Janet mumbled.

“My name is Hillory Lee, and I’m a Senior,”
she went on; but a rippling laugh interrupted
her.

“A Senior, just one day old. Come now,
Poppy, don’t put on airs. You’re not old
enough.”

“A dear little, new little, Senior, all filled up
with dignity,” another voice teased.

Poppy—Hillory Lee was always called Poppy—led
the laugh that followed, and then suddenly
the girls gathered around the twins, introducing
themselves and talking with a fine disregard
of one another.

The dinner gong silenced them, and out of
the confusion a double line formed down the
length of the room. Phyllis and Janet were
shown their places along with the rest of the
new girls.

Poppy, as the president of the senior class,
stood on the top of the steps that led to a small
stage at the end of the room.

“You all must come to order, and please go
down very quietly to the hall,” she said a little
shyly; but no one attempted to tease her. She
represented Hilltop as she stood on the stage,
and they one and all gave her instant obedience.

The dining hall was under the ballroom of the
first floor. Deer heads decorated the wall, with
other trophies of the chase. A huge fireplace
ran along the side of one wall. The mantel was
filled with big silver loving cups.

Janet and Phyllis were to learn their importance
in the life of the school as the year progressed.
Just at present they could not take in
details. They were too busy trying to sort their
first impressions.

There were four long tables with twenty girls
and two teachers at each. The twelve seniors,
with Miss Hull, sat apart in state on a dais at
the end of the room. The tables were all narrow
and the high-backed oak chairs gave the room
the look of an old monastery.

There was lots of talking at dinner. The
twins did not try to remember all of the girls’
names, but three of them stood out as special
friends of Sally’s. One was Gladys Manners,
a rough-and-tumble sort of girl with mischievous
blue eyes, dark hair and a contagious giggle.

“Do you know Aunt Jane’s poll-parrot?” she
asked at the beginning of the meal, and the twins
loved her at once.

Prudence Standish—called Prue for brevity’s
sake—sat beside Janet, and she was so attentive
and thoughtful during the meal and so careful
to explain what the girls meant by their many
illusions of places and things that had happened
in the past, that the twins’ gratitude ripened into
a sincere liking before the meal was over.

The third girl sat just across from Phyllis.
Her name was Ann Lourie. She hardly spoke
through the meal, but her quiet smile and the
humor that lay at the back of her hazel eyes
gave the twins the impression of a personality
worth cultivating.

The teachers at the table were Miss Remsted
and Miss Jenks. They were both young and
full of fun, and the twins contrasted them with
the teachers at Miss Harding’s, to the latter’s
disadvantage.

When dinner was over Miss Hull stood up.

“You have nothing to do tonight, girls, but
get acquainted; and I want you to do that thoroughly.
Remember, every new girl must be
made to feel at home at Hilltop.”

The bell tinkled, the lines formed, and the
girls marched back to the ballroom.

CHAPTER II—School Chatter
=========================

It was not long after they had returned to the
ballroom until the twins found themselves in
the center of a group of laughing girls.

“It would be a regular game,” Gladys Manners
announced.

“What would?” Phyllis demanded.

“Guessing which was which,” Gladys told her.

“Oh, let’s try it,” half-a-dozen voices exclaimed.

They put the twins side by side, and then the
girls took turns guessing. Between turns the
twins would change places, or remain where
they were.

“Oh, this is too much!” Prue exclaimed, after
she had stared at them for a full minute. “I’m
dizzy with looking from one to the other of you,
but I’m blessed if I know which one I sat next
to at dinner.”

“This is going to be too complicated. I vote
that we do something about it.” Ann Lourie
spoke with a Southern intonation, but it was
different from Miss Hull’s speech and Poppy’s
lazy drawl. She came from New Orleans,
which accounted for the difference.

“What are you all doing?” Poppy, with her
arm around Gwen’s broad shoulders, joined
them.

“We’re playing a new game,” Gladys announced.
“It’s called ‘Guessing the Twins.’”

“You’re it, Poppy,” Prue laughed. “See if
you can do it.”

Poppy tried. The twins looked up at her
provokingly. Their soft brown hair waved back
from their forehead with almost identical curls.
Their heads, exactly the same oval shape, were
pressed close together. Their red lips each
smiled a twisted smile, and their golden-brown
eyes, so like the color of autumn leaves, danced
mischievously.

“I declare to goodness there isn’t anybody on
earth that can tell you two apart,” Poppy
laughed.

“Oh, but there are!” Phyllis told them. “Sally
never gets us mixed up.”

“Oh, that’s easy to understand,” Gwen remarked.
“Sally just asks Aunt Jane’s poll-parrot
which is which, and that bird, you know, can
tell her anything.”

“Just the same, it’s going to be complicating,”
Ann repeated, “and I suggest that we make one
of them wear something to distinguish her from
the other. It need only be something tiny, just
big enough for our select group,” her eyes
travelled from Prue to Gladys and to Poppy and
Gwen.

“That’s a mighty good idea of yours, Ann,
and as representatives of the senior class”—Gwen
was captain of sports—“we endorse it.”

“The question is, what shall it be?” Prue inquired.

“I know.” Gladys unpinned a tiny little gold
pin that she was wearing. It was the shape of
the crescent moon, and was no bigger than a
good sized pea.

“It’s an old class pin I had years ago when
I went to day school. I don’t know what possessed
me to put it on yesterday when I left
home——”

“I do,” Prue interrupted. “You had a snapper
off, and you thought that would show less than
an ordinary pin.”

“Untidy little wretch you are,” Ann agreed.

The rest looked at Gladys’ cuff and, sure
enough, there was a snapper off. Gladys, under
their laughing scrutiny, was no whit embarrassed.

“Course I’m untidy,” she agreed; “that’s
because I’m an artist, and it’s being done this
year. You couldn’t expect me to be as neat as
Prue, the immaculate.”

Prue laughed good-naturedly. “Meaning I
am not an artist,” she remarked. “Well, nobody
will dispute that with you, least of all Miss Remsted.”

The rest of the old girls laughed as at some
well known joke and the twins smiled in sympathy.

“Prue tried to have a crush on Miss Remsted
last year,” Poppy explained. “We don’t encourage
them—crushes, I mean—at Hilltop,
but Prue is stubborn—comes from New England,
you know, where the word was coined—and
she would have a crush in spite of the fact
that she had been here two years and knew that
we would have to take drastic steps to cure her.”

“You did and I’m cured; can’t we spare
them the harrowing details?” Prue protested.

“No; it may be a lesson they’ll need, and
besides, Poppy loves to point a moral,” Gwen
remarked. “Go on, Poppy; let’s hear the awful
end.”

“It’s coming; just you listen.” Poppy directed
her story to the twins. “Prue suddenly decided,
about the middle of the term, that she was a
budding young artist and that all she needed
was a little special instruction, so she went to
Miss Hull and got permission to take special
art. Then she went to Miss Remsted——.”
Poppy paused to chuckle in anticipation.

“Miss Remsted told her to bring her her best
sketch,” she continued. “Now, Prue had never
made a sketch in her life, but she reckoned it
would be easy enough.”

“Prue’s a futurist,” Gwen interrupted.

“So she about made up her mind to draw an
animal. What made you choose something that
was living, Prue? I never did understand.”

“Then you never will, because I’m not going
to tell you,” Prue replied airily.

“Oh, but I am,” Ann smiled reminiscently.
“The day before she did the sketch she came to
me and asked me if a great many artists hadn’t
made their start by drawing pictures of animals.
I thought for a minute and then——”

“To show off the knowledge that you haven’t
got”—Gladys took up the story—“you casually
mentioned Rosa Bonheur, and Prue went
straight to her desk and——” She turned to
Poppy.

“Drew—I mean sketched—the gardener’s
watch dog,” Poppy went on. “He was a nice
dog, but not very sketchable. You all know how
dogs will jump ’round, so you can’t blame Prue
for what happened. She finished the sketch and
took it to Miss Remsted.”

“I did not, I *left* it for her in the studio,”
Prue corrected.

“Left it; excuse me, I stand corrected,” Poppy
continued. “History does not repeat just what
Miss Remsted said or did, but when Prue went
to her desk next morning she found her dog with
this little note pinned to his tail—not literally,
you understand, but figuratively: ‘Prue, dear;
it’s a very nice little rabbit, but it’s a pity he has
the mumps.’”

The laugh that followed was led by Prue.
The twins exchanged glances. They were both
thinking how very differently some of the girls
at Miss Harding’s would have taken such
teasing.

Phyllis always liked and was liked by girls,
so she gave the matter less consideration than
Janet. Janet’s heart glowed; here were the
kinds of girls that she had dreamed about. Their
teasing stopped before it became unkind. Their
laughter held no hint of derision; and, above all,
she was conscious of the feeling of fellowship
and understanding that existed between them.
She found herself wishing that she could be the
brunt of their teasing, for somehow, she felt
that in that way only could she be admitted to
the happy sisterhood.

“There’s a strong bond between sister classes
at Hilltop,” Gladys was explaining. “That’s
the reason that Gwen and Poppy prefer to talk
to us, who are only Sophomores, instead of
joining that group of important-looking Juniors
over there.” She pointed to half-a-dozen girls a
little older than the twins who were laughing
and joking at the other side of the room.

“They’ll adopt the Freshmen and make them
behave,” Prue exclaimed.

“While it is the Senior’s painful duty to see
that our class keeps out of mischief,” Gladys
laughed.

The twins smiled. They liked the way these
girls finished each other’s sentences and interrupted
each other without giving and taking
offence.

Ann looked up at the clock—a grandfather
one—which stood in the corner of the big room
and chimed out the hours drowsily.

“’Most time for Sally to come,” she announced.
“Let’s go and watch for her.”

CHAPTER III—Sally Arrives
=========================

“May we go to the senior’s retreat,
Poppy?” Gladys asked. “Your balcony
is such a dandy place to watch
the road from.”

Once more the twins felt a little tremble of
pleasure. Although the girls were the best of
friends in spite of the difference in their ages,
the Sophomores as a class never failed in their
respect to the Seniors.

“Yes, come along; we’ll go with you,” Poppy
replied.

“I’d like to get the first look at Sally myself,”
Gwen added. “I hope she hasn’t forgotten to
bring Aunt Jane’s Poll-parrot.”

They left the ballroom and walked down the
broad hall all arm-in-arm.

“Seniors all busy tonight, the lights are not
lit,” Prue remarked as they entered a dark room.
Gwen switched on the lights and the twins found
themselves in what seemed to be a delightful
chintz lined nook.

It was a small room directly over the front
door. The two-story piazza, with its enormous
pillars, enclosed the balcony that led from it
through long French windows.

“This is the Seniors’ Sanctum Sanctorum,”
Prue explained. “When the cares of school
government grow too much for them they come
in here to rest.”

“It is also the chamber of horrors on occasion,”
Gladys added. “Just wait until you’ve
done something bad, and Poppy calls you in to
give you a racking over the coals.”

“Why, Gladys; what do you mean by talking
like that?” Poppy protested mildly. “I just
never could be severe, and I don’t expect to have
to be either; especially,” she added seriously,
“to any girl in my sister class.”

Prue and Gladys and Ann nodded approval.

“We’ll be good,” Ann said seriously. “We
want to give you all the help possible.”

Once more the twins felt a little glow of
thankfulness around their hearts.

The sound of carriage wheels took them all to
the balcony.

“Sally!” Gladys exclaimed; and with one
accord they rushed down the stairs and out to
the front porch.

Long before the carriage reached the steps,
Sally was out of it. She rumbled to the ground
and ran towards them, her black bag knocking
against her knees.

“Where are my twins?” she demanded breathlessly.

Janet and Phyllis almost smothered her in the
warmth of their embrace.

“Oh, Sally, you old darling!” Phyllis exclaimed.
“You look so wonderfully natural that
I could eat you up for sheer joy.”

“We thought you’d never get here, and we
missed you on the train like everything,” Janet
said.

“Hello, Sally; it’s great to have you back,”
Gladys shook hands heartily.

“How’s Aunt Jane’s Poll-parrot?” Gwen inquired.
“My, how I missed that bird this summer!”

“Well, and wiser than ever,” Sally laughed
as she held out her hand to Poppy.

“It’s mighty nice to have you back, Sally,”
Poppy smiled affectionately.

“We room together until your friend Daphne
comes,” Prue told her.

“Good work. Hello, Ann; what are you
lurking in the shadows for?” Sally demanded.

“Oh, I never rush, even to say how do you do
to my best friend. I much prefer to be the last
on the list. Did you have a good summer?”

“Oh, wonderful!” Sally enthused. “Alice’s
family were awfully nice to me, and I had a
glorious time.”

“It’s too bad Alice isn’t coming back,” Gladys
exclaimed. “I’m going to miss her frightfully.”

“I know, but she really isn’t well enough. Why
girls, she’s lost pounds,” Sally replied. Alice
Bard was a girl Sally had been visiting.
She had been to Hilltop for three years, but
was unable to return on account of ill-health.

“Well, come along; let’s go in,” Prue suggested.
“After all, we’re not the only ones that
want to see Sally.”

They followed into the house, and Sally, after
she had said “how do you do” to Miss Hull,
rejoined them and they went on up to the ballroom.
A shout went up from the girls as they
saw her coming, and she shook hands until the
silence bell sounded.

“That’s the trouble,” Sally protested. “We
no sooner get talking when that old bell rings.
There are loads of girls I haven’t even had a
chance to speak to yet.”

The room emptied in a minute and the
twins, with Sally between them, went upstairs.

“I can’t come in and talk to you, because
there’s no visiting after hours, but I’ll see you
bright and early in the morning,” Sally promised.
“You’re not homesick, are you?”

“Homesick! I should say not,” Phyllis protested.
“I’m so excited I’m ready to die, and
now that you’re here it’s simply perfect.”

“I never knew there were so many nice girls
in the world,” Janet exclaimed. “It’s going to
be wonderful, and won’t it be fun having
Daphne come?”

“Indeed it will; the old quartette together
again,” Sally agreed. “But I’ve got to fly now
or I’ll be caught, and that will never do on the
first night back.”

They parted, Janet and Phyllis, in their own
room with the door closed, stood in the middle
of the floor trying to decide why they were so
happy.

“It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” Phyllis began.

“It’s just like a wonderful dream,” Janet
agreed.

“It’s nice to have Sally back, isn’t it?”

“You bet.”

“And I love Ann.”

“So do I, the best of all.”

They undressed slowly.

“You honestly like it, Jan?” Phyllis inquired
anxiously, after the lights were out, and they
were both in their single white beds.

Janet’s hand found Phyllis’s.

“I do honestly,” she replied seriously.
“There’s something about their spirit, the nice
way they tease,” she added.

“And that sort of understood respect they give
the Seniors,” Phyllis replied. “It’s all so nice
and—and—oh, I can’t think of the word I
want.”

“I can; it’s *happy*,” Janet told her.

They were quiet for a few minutes, and then
Janet suddenly sat up in bed.

“But how awful it would have been if Miss
Hull had separated us,” she said in the darkness.

“She couldn’t have done that. No one ever
can,” Phyllis replied very positively, but very
sleepily.

“Never!”

CHAPTER IV—The Rivalry of the Wings
===================================

“All aboard for the grand tour of inspection,”
Gladys announced.

School for the day was over. All
through a confusing morning the twins
had been shown from one classroom to another
where they had met their teachers. There had
been no attempt at lessons, but the girls had been
encouraged to talk and give their opinions on
the different studies. As a result of this, some
shifting had been necessary. In English, one of
the new girls named Ethel Rivers had been
dropped to the class below. Because from her
hasty remarks it was easy to see that she knew
very little of literature. She protested, but Miss
Slocum stood firm. The twins acquitted themselves
well. They sat together and none of the
teachers could tell them apart, for they did not
know about the tiny crescent pin that Phyllis
was faithfully wearing. But unlike Miss Baxter
at Miss Harding’s school, the faculty at Hilltop
rather enjoyed their own confusion.

Now they were free for the day, and Sally
with the able assistance of Prue and Gladys was
waiting to show the twins over the school and
the grounds.

“You’ve seen the classroom,” Sally began,
“and you know about the assembly hall.”

“Oh, Sally, if you’re not going to do better
than that I’m going to play guide,” Gladys protested.
“The idea of calling a ballroom the assembly
hall! It loses all its romance.”

“And besides, Miss Hull doesn’t like it,”
Prue added.

“Why?” Phyllis inquired.

Sally waved her hand at Gladys as if she were
introducing a speaker.

“You tell it, Glad, and then we’ll be sure to
be amused.”

“I accept the nomination, and I will do my
best for the people under my care,” Gladys said
grandly.

“Well, do start with the explanation of the ball
room,” Janet begged. “I’m so curious.”

“That means the history of Hilltop, but I’ll
do my best,” Gladys replied, and began:

“Fifty years ago, Colonel Hull lived in this
house. He had lots of money and he lived like
a king. He was famous throughout the countryside
for his wonderful hunting, but, if you just
go on spending money and never do anything to
make it, it doesn’t last forever, so when Colonel
Hull died and Miss Hull’s father had the house,
he found he didn’t have any money to run it
with. So for a long time Miss Hull and her
father and mother lived in the old wing and
were terribly poor.

“Then her parents died and the house was
Miss Hull’s, but still there wasn’t any money.
All her friends wanted her to sell it, but she
wouldn’t do it. There had been six generations
of Hulls on this place, and she wasn’t going to
let her ancestors up in heaven see her beaten by
a little thing like no money.”

“Oh, Glad!” Sally and Prue protested.

“Well, she wasn’t,” Gladys persisted. “Maybe
that’s not a very elegant way of putting it, but
it’s exactly as it was. She wouldn’t admit she
was beaten, and, of course, she wasn’t.

“She got together with some teachers that
she knew and she started Hilltop. She started
with ten pupils, and now I wish you’d look at
us. We’re the most wonderful school in the
country.”

Gladys finished as though she were closing a
speech to the Senate.

“But what about the ballroom?” Janet insisted.

“I’m coming to that, if you have a little patience,”
Gladys told her.

“Miss Hull remembered her grandfather,
and she remembered how he liked to have the
rooms called by their special name, so she goes
on calling them the same and so you see, instead
of having lectures in an assembly hall, like
everybody else, we have them in a real ballroom,
that’s the most beautiful room in the state.

“That’s why we call it the ballroom still, and
why we call the dining room the hall, why Miss
Hull’s room is the boudoir instead of an office,
and why we have history in the library instead
of a classroom. You see, it gives us an advantage
over other schools, makes Hilltop original
instead of an ordinary boarding school.”

Gladys paused, and looked at her listeners
for appreciation.

The twins sighed. “It’s just wonderful!”
Janet said.

“Why it makes you think you’re living in the
time of white wigs and patches,” Phyllis whispered,
looking about her as though she expected
to see Colonel Hull walk through one of the
heavy oak doors, ready for a day with the
hounds.

Janet’s eyes held the look of dreamy speculation
that had so often filled them when she was
reading old-world stories in her Enchanted
Kingdom.

Gladys had dropped her mocking tone as the
story unfolded. The realest love in her life was
Hilltop, and she loved to talk about it. She saw
the look in the twins’ eyes that she had hoped to
see, and she smiled contentedly.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, step this way if
you please,” she went on with a return to her
laughing manner. “We will now learn something
of the present history of the school. We
are now in the old building and, I might add,
the only building to live in, but observe this
green baize door. It leads to what is commonly
called the new wing.”

She pushed it open with a contemptuous push,
and they found themselves in a spick-and-span
corridor of white woodwork and gleaming mahogany
doors. In comparison to the old and
stately paneled walls of the old building it
seemed new indeed.

Several girls that the twins recognized came
out of one of the rooms and stopped in mock surprise.

“Why, Gladys! Why, Prue! Why, Sally!”
Louise Brown, a tall and lanky girl, and one of
their own classmates, exclaimed. “Is it possible
that you’ve come for a breath of fresh air to our
light and sunny abode, after the mouldy shadows
of yours?” she asked, smiling sweetly.

Gladys sighed, but it was Sally who answered.

“No,” she said in a bored tone, “we are simply
showing Janet and Phyllis what to avoid in
the future.”

The other girls laughed good-naturedly.

“That’s one on you, Sally,” Louise admitted,
and one of the other girls exclaimed:

“Long live the rivalry between the old and
the new at Hilltop!”

“Well, anyway, now that you’re here, come
on into my room, I’ve got a whale of a box of
candy,” little Kitty Joyce invited.

When they were all seated in her dainty
room, Phyllis said, shyly:

“I wish somebody would explain to me about
this rivalry; I don’t understand.”

“I’ll explain!” Louise jumped up and stood
in the middle of the floor, her hands behind her
back.

“We are two distinct and separate wings,” she
began, “and we represent the old and the new.
For some reason that nobody will ever understand,
a spirit of rivalry started between the
two years ago, when we were very new. Now
it is an established fact. We fight in games, in
art and in lessons for the glory of our wings, and
even at the risk of being rude,” she added with a
little twinkle in her eye, “I’m going to state
last year our house won everything.”

“Everything but archery, history, composition
and dramatics,” Prue reminded her gravely.

“Oh, pouf!” Kitty laughed. “Those don’t
count. We won the tennis cup, the running cup,
the art prize, for sculpture and painting.”

“That was last year,” said Sally severely.

They munched the candy for a while in silence,
and then Kitty said slowly:

“Funny thing the way the wings feel about
each other. Why, look at you, Sally. You were
awfully good friends with Alice Bard, and she
was a new wing girl....”

“Well, for that matter, take us here today,”
Louise put in. “We’re really the best of friends,
and yet—”

“And yet there’s a difference. It’s rather like
two brothers who go to different colleges. They
love each other, but they love their colleges
too.”

“All very well,” said Gladys, “but the truth
of the matter is that both wings enjoy the spirit
of competition. It gives us something to think
about and work for.”

“But you’re so good-natured about it,” Janet
said wonderingly.

“Of course we are,” Sally replied. “Whoever
heard of two basketball teams really disliking
each other, and yet they’ll fight tooth and nail
for a cup.”

“A cup that they really don’t want, either, except
for what it stands for,” Gladys added with
a little laugh.

Kitty threw up her two little hands in mock
despair.

“Mercy on us. We are getting in deep. I
vote we have some more chocolates.”

The girls returned to the candy box with renewed
interest and for the time being the subject
of the wings was dropped, but not before
the twins had grasped the exact nature of the
rivalry.

CHAPTER V—A Fresh Freshman
==========================

“Something’s got to be done about
that little Ethel Rivers.”

Sally sat down in the big tufted
chair in the twins’ room, and made
the announcement with a positiveness that left
no room for doubt.

“What’s she been doing now?” Phyllis
laughed.

“Why, Prue and I met her in the hall and she
walked past us with her nose in the air. Prue
stopped her and asked her where she was going,
and what do you think she said?”

“Can’t imagine,” Janet shook her head. “Tell
us.”

“She said she was hurrying back to the new
wing for a breath of clean air.”

“Impertinent infant,” Ann drawled lazily.
She was lying on the foot of Janet’s bed, almost
asleep. “It wouldn’t have been nearly so bad
if she said fresh, but clean is really outrageous.”

“But of course she didn’t mean it,” Phyllis
said.

“That’s the funny part of it,” Prue came in
from the balcony and stood in the doorway, blotting
out the light. “She really did mean it.
She’s taken the rivalry of the wings as a deadly
serious thing.”

“Being entirely without a sense of humor, she
would,” Sally said crossly. “Remember Mary
Marble last year? I was only a new girl, but I
saw something was going to happen.”

“It did. Our little Mary returned not this
year.”

“What was the matter with Mary?” Phyllis
inquired.

“Didn’t fit,” Sally replied shortly, and dismissed
the subject.

There was a knock on the door and Gladys,
too impatient to wait for Janet’s “Come in,”
opened it. By the expression on her face, all
the girls knew that something was the matter;
even Ann sat up and looked surprised.

“What’s wrong, Gladys?” she demanded.

Gladys stood with her back to the door, her
hand still on the knob.

“The trouble,” she said impressively, “is
Ethel Rivers.”

Sally groaned. “What next?” she inquired.

“She put a sign up on the green door, requesting
the occupants of our wing to be sure and
keep it closed, so as not to let in any of the stale
air.”

“Oh, that’s too much,” Prue said indignantly.

“Just like her,” Ann replied with a shrug.
“What did you do about it, Glad?”

“Didn’t have to do anything. Poppy and
Gwen came along just then and read it. Poppy
said, ‘I declare, that’s no nice way to act,’ and
Gwen settled the whole matter with ‘Very bad
manners for one so young.’”

The girls laughed a relieved sort of a laugh.
The Seniors had the affair in hand, and Hilltop
looked from year to year to that little group of
girls to straighten out all their difficulties.

Another knock sounded on the door. Gladys
opened it, and one of the younger children
handed her a note. She opened it and read:

    “Dear Glad:

    Find Ann and Prue and Sally, and come
    down to the Seniors’ Retreat. We think you
    are better able to deal with the affair of
    Ethel Rivers than we are.

    If we give her impertinence special notice,
    it will be putting too much importance
    to the whole silly thing.

    .. class:: right
    
    | Yours,
    | —— Poppy.”

The girls jumped up quickly as Gladys finished
reading the note aloud.

“Better go right away,” Prue said. “They’re
waiting.”

The rest followed her out of the room.

“Meet you down on the front steps later,”
Sally called back over her shoulder, and the
twins were alone.

Two weeks had passed since the opening of
school, but although Janet and Phyllis felt perfectly
at home in their new surroundings, the
life at Hilltop had never for a second become
monotonous. Every day they had found some
fresh interest, and they were beginning to understand
that apart from lessons every girl had
a big responsibility towards the school.

“What a perfectly silly way for that girl to
act!” Janet exclaimed. “I’d like to box her
ears.”

“So would I,” Phyllis agreed. “Come along;
let’s go down and wait for Sally.”

They went downstairs arm in arm and across
the broad piazza. Phyllis sat down with her
back against one of the big pillars, and Janet
stood on the top step.

The close-cropped green lawn fell away from
the house in a gracious slope to meet a fringe
of trees that deepened into a woods at all sides.
The tennis courts were visible far away to the
right. They were filled with girls, and in the
quiet of the late afternoon their voices floated
laughing on the breeze. To the left the archery
target blazed in its fresh coat of bright colors.

Archery was the chief sport of Hilltop. Each
year teams were chosen from both wings, and
on Archery Day the big silver loving cup was
engraved with the name of the girl who made
the highest score; then it was replaced in the
center of the mantel-piece in the hall to await
the next year.

Archery Day came at the end of the term,
and, although the days before and after it were
filled with tennis matches, basketball, and running,
it stood out in importance above them all.

The tryout for possible candidates was to take
place the following week. The girls in the four
upper classes shot five arrows, and the committee
comprised with the Senior class and the faculty
judged. Those selected worked hard and
practiced, and just before the Christmas holidays
the teams were chosen.

“Did you ever shoot a bow and arrow, Jan?”
Phyllis inquired.

“Loads of them,” Janet replied. “Harry
Waters used to make them for me. Little short
ones made from the branches of trees, and arrows
with a pin in the end of them. Harry was
very good at it, but I was terribly clumsy.”

“I don’t believe it,” Phyllis protested; “you
have a straight eye anyway. Look at the way
you shot Sulky Prescott’s gun last summer.”

Janet gave a little shiver and looked long and
earnestly at the target.

“Don’t talk about it,” she said. “I’ll tell you
a secret Phyl. I’ll die of mortification if I don’t
make some sort of a score next week.”

“That’s no secret,” Phyllis laughed affectionately.
“If you could have seen your eyes when
Gwen was talking about the contest; they were
as big as saucers.”

Janet flushed a little. “It’s a good thing the
rest of the girls don’t know me as well as you
do,” she said.

“That’s because I’m your twin. Oh, Jan, if
you knew how I love to say that,” Phyllis said
seriously.

“I know,” Janet nodded. “I’m still afraid
sometimes that I’ll wake up and find it’s all been
a dream.”

“Hush,” Phyllis cautioned suddenly. “Here
comes Ethel.”

CHAPTER VI—A Squelching
=======================

Upstairs in the Seniors’ Retreat the
girls were talking seriously.

“Of course, she deserves to be called
down in front of the whole school,”
Helen Jenkins, a very severe type of girl with
big horn-rimmed spectacles, was saying. She
was the editor of the school paper, and the most
studious girl in the school.

“But, as Poppy says, it’s never wise to attach
too much importance to the mistakes of a new
girl,” Marion West, vice-president of the class,
replied.

Poppy looked at the three Sophomores before
her.

“Have you all any suggestions?” she inquired.

Gladys and Sally looked at Ann.

“Perhaps a gentle little boycott might help,”
she suggested quietly.

“It’s just as hard on our wing, if not worse,
than it is on yours,” Stella Richardson, one of
the Seniors who lived in the new wing, spoke
up. “There isn’t one of us who wouldn’t gladly
drown the little wretch, and the trouble is, she’s
gotten some of the new girls and talked to them
until they feel it’s a positive virtue to be rude
every time they see one of you.”

“Oh, it’s all too nonsensical,” Gwen exploded.
“Good old wings, who dares to take our happy
fight and make an ugly thing out of it?”

“My thumbs are down for anyone who dares,”
Ruth Hall announced. She roomed in the new
wing with Stella Richardson.

Gwendolyn Matthews might have been said
to have snorted with rage. She was a splendid
healthy specimen of girlhood; a mind capable
of small and mean thoughts was beneath her
contempt. She walked out on the balcony, her
back to the rest of the room.

A minute later she beckoned cautiously to the
girls to follow her. They crowded out on the
balcony on tip-toe and peered down as Gwen
directed.

Just below them, sitting on the steps, were
Janet and Phyllis. Ethel stood beside them.
She was talking in a loud and excited way and
the girls listened.

“I should think you’d want to get out of the
damp old hole,” she was saying. “There’s an
extra room in our corridor.”

Janet and Phyllis looked at her with dangerously
calm eyes.

“We’ve by far the finest bunch of girls in our
wing,” she continued. “We’re going to take
everything away from you this year.”

“Indeed!” Janet said quietly.

“May I inquire how long you’ve been at Hilltop?”
Phyllis asked politely.

A smile ran around the group of faces watching
from the balcony above.

“Oh, I’m a new girl,” Ethel replied rather
flatly.

“You’d never guess it,” Janet said with so
much scorn that Gwen almost laughed, and
Sally did, but the three on the piazza below
were too intent to look up.

“I think the new girls ought to stick together,”
Ethel announced. “Of course, if you still persist
in living in the old wing, why the fight’s on,
but I rather hoped you’d come over to us.”

Phyllis stood up. She was taller than the
other girl, and she looked straight down into
her pale blue eyes.

“Pardon me,” she said, “but there is no fight
on at all. As a new girl, neither I nor my twin
would presume to act as you advise.” She sat
down again, with her back towards Ethel.

Janet did not bother to stand when she said
what she had to say.

“We saw the sign you put up on the green
door, and as new girls we are thoroughly disgusted
with you. If we banded together, it
would be to show you your proper place.” Janet
did not raise her voice as she spoke, and when
she had finished she looked out over the green
lawns as though the sight gave her pleasure after
Ethel’s sour face.

“It might be well for you to remember,”
Phyllis spoke as though her thoughts came from
a long distance, “that though we are two separate
wings, we are both a part of Hilltop, and
though we each give the best that is in us, it is
that Hilltop may soar the higher—not as you
seem to think it is, for any individual and mean
advantage.”

The girls on the balcony looked at one another,
speechless with admiration and delight.

“Oh, well said!” Alice whispered.

Gwen and Stella hugged each other and
Gladys danced a little jig.

“I declare, I love those children!” Poppy exclaimed.

“They’re *my* twins, I’d have you remember,”
Sally exulted.

They looked back again to the piazza. Ethel
had gone and the twins were strolling arm-in-arm
over the green lawn.

CHAPTER VII—Poetry and Prose
============================

Janet ran down the hall, waving a letter
over her head.

“Sally, Phyllis, where are you?” she
called.

The door of Sally’s room opened, and Prue
came out carrying a drawer piled high with
clothes.

“Hello there!” she called. “Come and help
me move.”

“Oh, then you know Daphne is coming? I
just had a letter from her and I’m trying to find
Sally and Phyllis,” Janet replied, taking one end
of the heavy drawer.

“You’ll find them all in there.” Prue nodded
her head towards the door she had just left.
“They are stuffing my peanut butter, eating my
crackers and making fun of my poetry.”

“Why, Prue, I didn’t know you wrote,” Janet
exclaimed.

“I don’t,” Prue told her; “that is, not for publication,
but every once in a while I put things
down on paper and somehow or other they
rhyme.”

“Why didn’t you show me any of them?”

“They weren’t good enough. I’d never have
let those wild Indians see them. Just as I was
packing, my notebook fell out of my desk, and
a lot of papers I had in it, scattered to the floor.
And, of course, Sally pounced on them.”

“Poor Prue,” Janet sympathized.

They were walking slowly down the hall
carrying the drawer between them.

“Oh, that’s not the worst of it; as I told you,
they are eating my food and laughing at my
most beautiful thoughts, and to think I’m going
to room with Glad and Ann. I suppose I’ll
have no peace.”

“Better start writing poetry about them and
their pet failings,” Janet suggested. “If you
wrote an ode to the freckles on Glad’s nose, she’d
probably keep very still in the future.”

“Oh, good idea! I’ll do that very thing!”
Prue exclaimed.

They reached the room at the end of the hall
and Prue paused to open the door.

“The Countess’s Room,” she announced.

“Oh, what a nice name. I didn’t know you
called it that.”

“We don’t, but Miss Hull does,” Prue corrected.
“You see the beautiful Countess de
Something Something, Camier, I think it was,
came to visit Colonel Hull, and she had this
room; so it’s been called her room ever since.

“Oh, I think that’s awfully nice; Phyllis will
be crazy about it. Wonder who slept in our
room?”

Janet looked around the big room with interest.
It was plenty large enough to accommodate
three beds. Two of them were cots, the
third was an enormous four-poster. It looked
worthy indeed to be the couch of a Countess.
She was so busy exclaiming over the tester, with
its glazed chintz ruffle, that she did not see the
sudden gleam in Prue’s eye. She even forgot
to make any more inquiries about the possible
celebrity that had slept in her own room.

They dumped the contents of the drawer onto
the bed and then carried it empty back to Sally’s
room.

As they paused at the door, a shout of laughter
greeted them, and they heard Glad exclaim:

“Oh, do listen to this,” she cried: “‘The
smoky darkness of a rich Egyptian night.’”

Prue walked into the room, followed by Janet.

“Prue, dear, didn’t you mean a Pittsburgh
night?” Ann asked provokingly as she finished
spreading a cracker with as much peanut butter
as it could hold.

Prue did not deign a reply. Instead she
swooped down upon the unsuspecting Ann and
took her carefully spread cracker away from
her.

“Peanut butter is bad for freckles, darling,”
she said without a trace of ill-humor in her
voice. “Prue will eat it.”

There was a scuffle and the cracker was eventually
ground under somebody’s heel. When
peace was restored, Janet flourished her letter
once more above her head.

“From Daphne?” Phyl cried, recognizing the
writing.

“Yes; she’s coming today, but how did you
find it out?”

“Miss Hull called me down after mail, and
told me,” Sally explained. “She gets in about
five-thirty, just in time for dinner.”

“Oh, I wish we could go to the station,” Janet
exclaimed.

“Afraid we can’t do that,” Sally replied, “but
we can go down to the gate.”

“Oh, good! Then when we see her carriage
we can hop aboard,” Phyllis said.

“To think she’d really be here tonight!” Janet
cried. “Funny, beautiful Taffy.”

“Do tell us about her,” Gladys demanded.

“Yes, do,” Ann and Prue echoed.

The three girls looked at each other.

“You tell them, Sally,” Janet said, but Sally
shook her head.

“No, Jan, Taffy’s more yours than ours,” she
replied, and Phyllis nodded.

“Go ahead,” she encouraged. “If we were
talking about Sally I’d be spokesman.”

“Preserve my character,” laughed Sally.

“Oh, don’t worry; they’d never learn the truth
from me,” Phyllis said airily.

“We know all there is to know about Sally,”
Prue exclaimed.

“Yes, Jan, tell us about this Daphne. She has
a lovely name,” Ann added.

“Well, it exactly suits her,” Janet began, “only
we call her Taffy because she has a mop of hair
that looks exactly like taffy candy, the rich yellow
kind, and her eyes are green, just the color
of the sea, when you look straight down into it
on a misty day, and her cheeks are like rose
petals, not bright pink, but a soft, delicate tint,
and her cheeks are ivory white, like cream. She
has long slender hands and the most wonderful
voice you ever heard; it’s soft and furry; she
always drawls; in fact, Taffy always looks and
talks as if she were half asleep. Her eyelashes
are so long and heavy that they almost cover her
eyes. When she opens them wide she looks as
if she were surprised at what she saw. She’s
got the keenest sense of humor you ever heard
of, and when she says a thing it sounds twice as
funny as if anyone else had said it, because of
her queer little laugh.”

Janet stopped and looked suddenly very self-conscious
while the girls looked at her with a
new expression in their eyes.

“Why, Jan,” Prue exclaimed. “You’re a
poet.”

“I feel as if I’d been listening to a fairy story,”
Gladys said.

“With the lovely Daphne as the enchanted
princess,” Ann added dreamily.

“I never realized before how really lovely
Daphne was,” Sally laughed. “Honestly, Jan, I
felt as if she was here in the room as you talked.”

Phyllis said nothing. She was curled up on
one end of the bed, her head against Sally’s pillows,
her arms stretched above her. Her face
wore an expression of pride and ownership, but
not surprise. Janet was her twin, and everything
Janet did was perfect in her eyes. When
other girls admired her, too, Phyllis just sat back
and smiled contentedly.

“You’ll make a great old quartette,” Gladys
laughed.

“Sort of a mutual admiration society,” Prue
added.

“Phyl, I’d think you’d be jealous of this
Daphne,” Ann laughed. “Won’t your nose be
out of joint when she arrives?”

The twins stared at her in blank amazement.

“Jealous!” they said together. “Why, how
perfectly silly.”

“You might as well say that I might be jealous
of Sally,” Janet chuckled.

“No,” Phyllis shook her head, “Jan and I
couldn’t possibly be jealous. We’re twins, you
see.”

The little phrase ended all argument and
doubt as it always did. The girls realized with
something of a start how close the bond between
them was, and they felt a glow of pride around
their hearts. Affection like this was worthy of
a place at Hilltop, and could be pointed out with
pride.

“My Aunt Jane’s Poll-parrot!” Sally exclaimed,
jumping up. “Look at the time,” and
she held out her wrist watch. “Ten minutes
past five. If we’re going to meet Taffy we’d better
hurry.”

They found sweaters and started off down the
long avenue that lead to the gate.

Prue turned to Gladys and Ann.

“Are the twins elected?” she inquired.

“They are,” they replied. “To the very heart
of Hilltop,” Ann added.

They sauntered back to their room.

“Look at my beautiful bed that a perfectly
good Countess has slept in,” Gladys wailed, as
she saw the contents of three drawers piled high
on the blue and white counterpane.

“Oh, never mind that,” Prue brushed some
of the things aside and sat down on the edge of
the bed.

“Speaking of Countesses,” she began, “Janet
wanted to know if anybody really important had
ever slept in their room, and I thought it was a
good chance for a ghost story.”

“Of course, the very thing,” Gladys agreed decidedly.

“We might as well have a good one while
we’re about it. You’d better make it up, Prue,”
Ann suggested.

Gladys had been gazing out of the window;
she turned half way around now.

“Don’t have to make it up,” she said slowly.
“There’s a perfect cracker-jack about a pretty
lady popping off the balcony when they brought
in her lover who had been shot in a duel.”

“Which balcony was it?” Prue demanded.

Gladys’s eyes twinkled. “Well, it might just
as well have been theirs,” she said.

The other two nodded in understanding.

CHAPTER VIII—More Twins
=======================

The twins and Sally were breathless
when they reached the gate, but they
were in time to see two carriages coming
down the turnpike.

“Two carriages!” Phyllis exclaimed.

“Maybe they’re not both for here,” Janet replied.

Sally smiled a broad smile.

“Oh, but they are,” she said.

“What’s the mystery?” Phyllis demanded.

“Wait and see,” was all the satisfaction Sally
would give them.

They watched the carriages as they crawled
along. The little station of Hillsdale did not
boast taxicabs, but contented itself to the old-fashioned
surreys driven by talkative old negroes.

At last the first carriage turned in at the gate
and the girls saw Daphne and her mother sitting
on the back seat. They jumped on the steps,
and Phyllis climbed in beside the driver.

Daphne at their unexpected appearance was
so delighted that she fairly danced, and Mrs.
Hillis, who had feared Daphne’s silence on the
way up from the station was the first sign of
homesickness, was relieved.

Daphne had tight hold of Janet’s hand. A
year ago she had understood, when things looked
very black for Phyllis’s twin. And now the
tables were turned, and in this new world of
boarding school she looked to Janet.

Janet gave her hand a tight squeeze.

“Taffy, it’s so good to see you,” she said.

“At first we were just sick that you couldn’t
come with us, but really, it’s more fun this way,”
Phyllis turned around in her seat as she spoke
and saw the other carriage still following.

“Why, look,” she said. “That is coming
here, too.” But Sally interrupted her.

“The twins are regular old girls now at Hilltop,”
she said to Daphne. “Oh, isn’t it great
we’re all four together!”

Mrs. Hillis smiled. Her laugh was a little
like Daphne’s.

“How happy you girls are,” she said. “I was
a little worried about Daphne’s coming so far
away from home, but now I know Mrs. Ladd
was right. I can see by your faces that Hilltop
is a vast improvement over Miss Harding’s.”

The girls nodded an eager agreement.

“Here we are!” Sally exclaimed excitedly as
they drew up before the steps.

“What a beautiful place!” Mrs. Hillis said
warmly.

“Don’t you feel like the President in the
White House when you walk up and down these
steps?” Daphne drawled.

“Well, you do feel awfully important,” Janet
agreed.

A maid met them at the door and took
Daphne’s bag.

“If you all-ll come dis way, I’ll show you just
where to go,” she said.

Mrs. Hillis and Daphne followed her, and
the girls waited in the square hall.

“Who under the sun is in that next carriage?”
Janet demanded.

“Wait and see,” Sally replied provokingly.

“Oh, I know,” Phyllis exclaimed. “It’s another
new girl. She’s going to be in the new
wing. I heard Kitty and Alice talking about it
in history class today.

“Indeed,” Sally asked politely.

The maid came back just as the other carriage
stopped. A man and two girls got out and came
up the steps. Sally clutched each of the twins
by an arm and pulled them in to a sheltering
window recess.

“Now don’t scream when you see what’s coming,”
she whispered.

The maid was taking the bags. They could
hear the man’s voice asking for Miss Hull. The
twins looked out from their hiding place.

Two girls stood in the doorway; the old lantern
that swung from the porch illuminated
their faces. They had red hair and they were
dressed exactly alike.

“Twins!” Janet exclaimed in a muffled voice,
and Phyllis looked bewildered.

.. figure:: images/illus-083.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: “Twins!” Janet exclaimed in a muffled voice

   “Twins!” Janet exclaimed in a muffled voice

“Isn’t it a lark?” Sally demanded. “The minute
the old wing gets a pair of twins the new
one has to follow suit.”

They heard Daphne’s voice and saw her with
her mother and Miss Hull coming down the
hall. They went forward to meet them as the
new twins and their father followed the maid
in the same direction, and under the center light
exactly in the middle of the hall they all met.

All four twins looked at each other. Janet
and Phyllis saw that their rivals were easily distinguishable
one from the other. For although
their faces were exactly alike, one was considerably
stouter than the other.

It was Miss Hull’s low musical laugh that
broke the awkward silence.

“How did our little surprise turn out, Sally?”
she asked.

“Oh, beautifully, Miss Hull,” Sally laughed.
“Jan and Phyl never guessed for a minute.”

Miss Hull smiled delightedly and turned to
the gentleman who was waiting for her.

“Mr. Ward,” she said, holding out her hand.

Mr. Ward scowled.

“Yes’m. They’re my twins; May and Bess,”
his abrupt way of speaking contrasted oddly
with his southern voice. “If you can take them
right now and let me get back and catch that
next train for town I’ll be mighty obliged. I
kept the carriage waiting.”

“Certainly, Mr. Ward,” Miss Hull replied,
“You go right on. We’ll take care of May and
Bess.”

Mr. Ward bowed over her hand for a brief
moment, nodded to his daughters and strolled
out of the front door.

The Ward twins’s faces relaxed and they
smiled. It was easy to see that their father’s
departure was a relief rather than a sorrow.

CHAPTER IX—A Question of Names
==============================

“May and Bess are to be in the new
wing,” Miss Hull said. “Will you
girls take them upstairs when you
are going up with Daphne and find
some of the girls on their corridor. Alice and
Kitty will take good care of them, I am sure.
Mrs. Hillis and I are going to have a little chat
until dinner.”

She dismissed the girls with a nod. Sally
turned to Bess Ward.

“Will you come along?” she said, “and we’ll
find Alice and Kitty.”

“Are you two going to room together?” Phyllis
inquired.

Janet was walking with Daphne. She had
gotten as far away as possible from the new
twins, for she instinctively disliked them on
sight.

“I should say we’re not,” Bess, the fatter of
the two, replied. “May and I were figuring
to see as little of each other as possible.”

“But why?” Phyllis demanded, surprised.

“Reckon we’re not dying of love for each
other,” May explained calmly. “You being a
twin could understand, I guess.”

“We can’t understand any such thing,” Janet
suddenly flared up.

They were on the stairs and they all stopped
to turn and look at her.

“Phyl never wants to be away from me,” she
continued, her cheeks hot in anger.

“I don’t hear Phyl agreein’ with you,” May
remarked.

It was Phyllis’s turn to be angry. The color
left her cheeks and her eyes flashed dangerously.

“No need of my saying anything for people to
know that I agree with my twin,” she said coldly.
“We always agree on every subject,” and she
walked upstairs the rest of the way in silence
with her head up in the air.

The new twins exchanged glances.

“What did you say anything for?” Bess asked
sulkily.

“Oh, keep still,” May replied.

When they reached the new wing, Sally was
glad to turn them over to Kitty and Alice. The
news had circulated that there were to be twins
for the new wing, and the girls had collected
to welcome them. It is only truthful to say that
their faces fell at the first glance. Beside Phyllis
and Janet, the new twins did not show promise
of adding greatly to the new wing.

“Phew! I’m glad that’s over!” Sally sat
down on her bed and pulled Daphne down beside
her.

Phyllis sat in a big chair and Janet perched
on the arm of her chair.

“They haven’t any right to be twins,”
Daphne’s drawl held a note of decision, “and
they really don’t look alike either.”

“They’re perfectly horrid,” Janet replied vehemently.

“I wish they’d leave Hilltop,” Phyllis added.

Sally said nothing for the moment, but she
looked very wise.

“A penny for your thoughts, Sally,” Phyllis
offered.

Sally came back from her dreaming with a
little start.

“I was only wondering what they’d be like
in six months,” she said slowly.

“Horrid,” said Janet without a moment’s hesitation.

Sally smiled. “That’s how little you know of
Hilltop,” she said.

“Oh, who cares what they’re like!” Phyllis
laughed. “They’re in the new wing and we’re
in the old. All that matters is that Daphne’s
here, and we four are together again.”

Daphne gave a queer little laugh.

“It’s pretty wonderful,” she admitted, “to find
you all just the same. I was afraid that perhaps
Sally had found a new pal, and that perhaps
you two have discovered some other girls.
It rather worried me.”

The rest laughed, and Janet said:

“Taffy, my darling, you were growing an imagination.
You kill it before it becomes dangerous.”

Snatches of a song came to them from the hall
and Sally jumped up and ran to the door.

“Come in, you three,” she called.

Prue, Ann and Gladys entered.

“We thought we would let you have the first
few minutes in peace,” Prue began, but Ann
went straight to Daphne and held out her hand.

“You’re the very princess come to life,” she
said. “And we’re awfully glad to welcome you
at Hilltop.”

“We thought Janet was making you up,”
Gladys added, “but we see she wasn’t.” She
smiled her roguish smile at Daphne.

“Indeed, we are glad to welcome you to Hilltop,”
Prue held out her hand, “and specially
glad for the old wing.”

“We’ve been looking over the new twins and
I can’t say that they are very exciting. All they
did was to scrap,” Ann remarked.

“Oh, dear!” Phyllis sighed. “I suppose now
they’ll be the new twins, and we’ll be the old
twins.”

Gladys looked at her and shook her head very
slowly.

“They will not,” she said emphatically. “For
I have already named them the Red Twins, and
Red Twins they shall be,” she ended triumphantly.

She was right. The girls had always followed
her lead, and they followed it faithfully
in the naming of the Red Twins, and Janet and
Phyllis, to the old wing’s secret satisfaction, remained
always The Twins.

CHAPTER X—The Parrot Is Consulted
=================================

“Nice poll, pretty poll!” Gladys stood by
Sally’s window, where the girls had
decided that Aunt Jane’s Poll-parrot
lived in a magic cage.

“Polly want a cracker?” she continued coaxingly.

“What are you flattering my Aunt Jane’s Poll-parrot
for?” Sally demanded with dignity.

“I want to find out if I’m going to make the
Archery Contest tomorrow,” Gladys replied,
“and I don’t know anybody but Aunt Jane’s
Poll-parrot that can tell me.”

“You might ask her about the rest of us,”
Prue suggested, and Gladys turned back to the
window.

“How about Prue, Polly?” she inquired seriously.

“... Oh, is that so?”

“... Well, perhaps you’re right.”

“... Very well, I’ll tell her.”

She turned back to the laughing group of
girls.

“Aunt Jane’s Poll-parrot says that Prue
couldn’t hit the side of a barn door, and he advises
her to serve lemonade on the side lines.”

Prue sniffed contemptuously.

“Just to show you that that bird is a fraud,
I’ll make a bull’s-eye tomorrow.”

A shout greeted her threat. Prue had never
even hit the target, but every year she tried
again, for the hope that she might some day
make the archery team for the old wing burned
bright in her heart.

“What’s the gossip about the new wing?” Ann
inquired. “It would be simply terrible if they
got the cup this year.”

Gladys frowned and shook her fist at imaginary
Polly.

“That’s the trouble with the new wing,” she
said. “They’re so beastly efficient, and they
really have good material to work with.”

“Meaning that we haven’t?” Ann inquired indignantly.

“No, but they have six in the old team back
this year, and we have only three. Gwen’s
really upset about it. Of course, as captain of
sports, she has to be neutral, but everybody
knows she wants the old wing to get it.”

“I heard the Red Twins bragging awfully,”
Daphne said. She had been at Hilltop for a
week now and had found her place already. She
was so thoroughly likeable that the girls gave
her their instant affection. “The twins and
Taffy are just like old girls,” was a constant
phrase.

“Were there ever two girls as bumptious as
those two?” Gladys demanded.

Ann looked up with a twinkle in her eye.

“I know of only one other,” she replied. “She
was an impudent little wretch, named Gladys
Manners.”

“Hum, I knew you were going to say that,”
Gladys replied, her temper not one bit ruffled.
“And it’s almost true. I was an awful smarty,
but then I was only ten years old.”

“And it didn’t take you long to reform, I’ll
say that for you,” Ann admitted.

“It couldn’t have, because butter wouldn’t
melt in her mouth my first year,” Prue laughed
at a sudden memory now two years old. “If I
even raised my voice above a whisper, the little
imp would remind me that I was a new girl,
and here I was a whole year older than she was.”

“Mercy, we must be careful, Jan,” Phyllis
said, and Janet nodded.

“Do you suppose we’ve been here long enough
to call Taffy down if she’s noisy?” she inquired.
“I’d just love to call Taffy down.”

Daphne’s cool gaze rested on Janet, then she
laughed her funny little laugh.

“Guess I’ll have to stay through the Christmas
vacation to get even with you,” she drawled.

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” Sally protested.
“I just had a letter from mother today
and she says she’s planning with Auntie Mogs
Carter the most scrumptious Christmas Eve
party, and I’d like to see you dare stay away
from it.”

Gladys turned back to the window and her
private conversation with Aunt Jane’s Poll-parrot.

“Why, Poll, you never told me that New
York girls gave parties,” she complained.

But the New York girls were too busy discussing
Mrs. Ladd’s letter to notice her.

“Merciful gumption!” Phyl exclaimed a few
minutes later. “There goes sweet dreams.”

The others stopped to listen. From the
farthest end of the hall came the soft chimes of
the grandfather clock. The little melody
sounded like a slumber song, and the girls all
called it sweet dreams.

“I thought it was about eight o’clock,” Ann
protested. “I haven’t even looked at my history.”

“Well, I hate to be inhospitable,” Sally said,
“but I must set the example to Taffy; she’s a new
girl, you know.”

“You never would know it,” Prue said with a
little smile. “Taffy and the twins are part of
the spirit at Hilltop, and have been for centuries.
Who dares to call them new?”

“Very prettily said, Prue darling,” Sally
laughed. “But, out you go, just the same and
seek your own little beds.”

Gladys put her arm protectingly around Prue.

“Never mind, lamb child. You can come and
orate to your two long-suffering room-mates.”

They all left the room, finishing their good-nights
in the hall.

The twins went straight to bed. Each night
at Hilltop saw them thoroughly but happily
tired out.

“Do you think the Red Twins have a chance?”
Phyllis inquired sleepily.

“Awfully afraid they have,” Janet answered.
“I saw them practicing today, and they made
awfully good scores.”

“Well, cheer up, perhaps they’ll be nervous
tomorrow, with the entire school looking on.”

A muffled chuckle came from the depth of
Janet’s pillow.

“What are you laughing at?” Phyllis demanded.

“The idea of the Red Twins being fussed by
anything. Why those girls have got the assurance
of Diana herself. I wish you could see
them string their bows.”

“The responsibility of being the twins for the
old wing is growing daily,” Phyllis laughed.
“I’m worse than Prue when it comes to a straight
eye, so I suppose we’re doomed for one defeat.”

“We’re doomed for no such thing,” Janet denied
hotly.

But an inarticulate murmur was all the response
she received from Phyllis.

“Oh, go to sleep then, lazy bones!” she said,
and snuggled deeper into her pillow.

She was soon dreaming that the Red Twins
were making bull’s-eyes with every arrow that
they loosed.

When the sun, red gold in his morning splendor,
sent his first shafts through the woods,
throwing queer patterns on the green lawn, he
surprised two girls, busy with their bows and
arrows. They had flaming red hair, and the sun
always jealous of competition scowled behind
a tiny white cloud.

CHAPTER XI—The Archery Contest
==============================

On the day of the Archery Contest,
lessons stopped at noon at Hilltop. By
two o’clock all the girls were assembled
on the south lawn. They all wore
immaculate white dresses, that contrasted
prettily with the autumn colors. A stack
of bows, their strings loosened, stood against the
bench near the target and a heap of feathered
arrows lay on the ground.

Under the shade of a big tree, the score board
flashed forth in white letters, “Archery Day.”

Forty girls were competing. You could pick
them out from among the others by their eager
expectant expression.

The faculty in the daintiest of gowns were
making the guests, who had driven in from all
around the countryside, as comfortable as possible
in the grey wicker chairs that had been
brought down from the school, and placed in a
half circle back of the shooters. They came because
they loved the pretty sight of the girls in
their white dresses on the green lawn, with the
old mansion as a background, rather than for any
real interest in Archery.

There were tables under the trees, where,
after the contest, lemonade would be served to
the girls, and tea to the guests and faculty.

Prue at the last moment had decided not to
enter.

“Why swell the number of the old wing failures?”
she said to Gwen, and Gwen nodded, fully
conscious of the sacrifice she was making; and
to repay her for it, she made her official score-keeper.

The twins, with Sally and Daphne, and
Gladys and Ann, formed a little group with her
around the board.

“Prue, if I make a score, will you please write
it very large?” Phyllis requested. “I don’t expect
to make more than one, and it would be a
comfort really to see it.”

“I’m as nervous as a cat,” Sally shivered. “I
have a horrible feeling that the old wing is going
to lose.”

“Oh, don’t even breathe it!” Gladys wailed.
“The very idea makes me turn cold all over.”

“My hands are icy,” Ann held them out for
inspection. They were beautiful hands, firm
and capable, but they trembled ever so slightly.

Gwen and Poppy joined them.

“I declare you all look like picked chickens,”
Poppy protested, “I never saw the old wing
hang its head so low.”

The girls straightened up, every chin lifted
with determination.

“That’s better,” Gwen encouraged. “If you
feel like dropping them again, just look at the
new wing.”

“The Red Twins are positively walking on
air,” Sally ground her teeth and looked appealingly
at Phyllis.

Phyllis put up one hand in entreaty.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she entreated.
“I’m only in the contest because you and Jan insisted.
I won’t even hit the target, and I know
it.”

“Never mind, I will,” Janet comforted;
“though, of course, we won’t beat the Red
Twins.”

“I’ve put them together, and Phyllis and you
directly after,” Gwen explained; “then you’ll
see what you’re up against. It isn’t as bad as
it looks. We still have Agnes Leiter, Puss
Boroughs, and Poppy, all last year’s team girls,
and Marion West has been practicing all summer.
She only missed out by a point for the
team last year. Then there are a couple of Juniors,
that have belonged to archery clubs at home,
so we may pull through.”

“But look what we’re up against,” Gladys
groaned.

A bell tinkled as Miss Hull walked out of the
hall, a soft grey dress floating about her, and a
shade hat on her aristocratic head. It was a
signal for the contest to begin.

Gwen had arranged the order cleverly. The
girls who had been on the team the year before
were played off first. As there were six to three
in favor of the new wing, the score looked very
one-sided, as Prue marked it on the board.

Then came the younger girls, who stood very
little chance of scoring the required six points.
They were worked off quickly, and then the
real work began. Two girls from the new wing,
would alternate with two girls from the old
wing. Cheering followed every score, so that
it was impossible to tell which side was ahead.

“Ann, you’re up after Kitty,” Gwen said as
she hurried by. “Mind, you do us proud.”

“Do my best,” Ann replied shortly. She was
working her fingers to take some of the stiffness
out of them.

Kitty took her place marked by white tape.

“She’s too little to be really dangerous,”
Phyllis laughed, as she strung her bow.

Kitty shot rapidly, but with a nice precision.
Only one of her arrows went astray, and that
pinned the leg in the target.

The other four hit. Two on the white, counting
two, one on the red, counting three. Kitty
waited an effective moment before she loosed
the fifth.

“Make it a bulls-eye,” one of the Red Twins
shouted.

The arrow went its way through the air, and
bore deep into the broad red circle.

“Making eight in all,” Prue said in satisfaction.
“Ann will do better than that.”

“Look,” Sally pointed across the lawn, where
the Red Twins were sitting, their special bows
lying across their knees. Kitty and Louise
Brown were swooping down upon them.

“Don’t you ever do that again, Bess,” Kitty
said angrily. “If you have any silly advice,
and you feel you must yell it out, you’re to wait
until the player has finished. Do you understand?”

“I told her to keep still,” May grumbled, “but
she wouldn’t do it.”

“You see that she does next time,” Louise advised.

The girls walked on. Their lecture had made
no impression whatever on Bess Ward. She
tossed her head with a great show of indifference,
and started whistling.

“Yes, she’s decidedly bumptious,” Gladys said
quietly, as Ann rose to take her place. “If she
so much as breathes aloud, when you’re up, I’ll
murder her,” and Gladys fastened her eyes on
the Red Twins, and looked so threatening, that
Bess squirmed uncomfortably.

Ann did everything that she did methodically,
and though her hands may have been cold,
none of the onlookers, who watched her carefully
string her bow and fit her arrow, guessed
it.

“Don’t watch her, it gives her fits,” Prue
whispered almost in tears.

So the girls directed their gaze towards the
target. One arrow whanged through the air
and hit the red, so near to the bulls-eye, that the
spectators gasped. Another arrow fell just beside
it. The third pinned the blue, and the
fourth and fifth returned to the red, in a little
cluster.

“Fourteen, oh my Aunt Jane’s Poll-parrot!”
Sally exclaimed. “How perfectly beautiful!”

“I knew she’d do it,” Prue exulted, as she
wrote the number down, in broad white letters.

“Your turn, Sally,” Gladys said. “You’ve got
Louise’s twelve to beat.”

Sally groaned, but when she took her place,
her wonderful blue eyes blazed from their setting
of raven hair.

Four arrows sped through the air in quick
succession. Sally did everything with a rush. The
girls counted the total.

“Eleven,” Phyllis groaned.

“If the next one is wide of the target——”
Gladys did not finish the terrible thought.

They looked at Sally. She didn’t look a bit
flustered, but for some reason or other, she was
taking her time.

Then she did a curious thing, but a thing so
like Sally that neither the girls nor the faculty
could repress a smile.

She suddenly closed her eyes very tight, and
without taking aim, let go of her arrow.

“Aunt Jane’s Poll-parrot!” Gladys whispered,
as though she were praying the mythical
bird to carry the arrow safe to the target.

Daphne put her hands over her eyes, and
didn’t take them down until the shout that rose
high and clear told her that Sally’s blind shot
had found its way home.

“A blue!” Janet almost screamed. “Just one
point more than she needed to beat Louise.”

Sally threw down her bow, and came back to
them.

“So much for that,” she said grinning.

“Sally Ladd, I declare you’re a caution!”
Poppy squeezed her hand. “Whatever made you
take such a terrible chance, child?”

“Oh, life’s a chance,” Sally replied airily.
“When I’m in a hole, I always trust in my luck,
and it never fails me.”

From that minute “Sally’s luck” was added
to the phrases of Hilltop.

CHAPTER XII—Janet to the Rescue
===============================

Daphne was the next up, after two
more new wing girls had made creditable
scores.

“She looks like Diana herself,” Miss
Hull said, to the old gentleman who was sitting
beside her, and indeed Daphne’s beauty never
showed to such advantage, as when she stood beside
her bow. But alas! looks are not everything.
Although the beautiful curve of Daphne’s arm,
covered by its sheer angel sleeve, was grace itself,
the refractory arrows fell almost anywhere
but on the target. Only one struck home, and
marked the red.

“Three,” Prue wrote the number down
slowly.

“What a pity!” Miss Hull said, but she noted
Daphne’s cheerful little smile, and nodded to
herself. “Sally Ladd has very good taste in
friends,” she said, as her eyes traveled to the
Twins, and then back to Daphne.

“Can’t say I made a very brilliant success,”
Daphne was saying, and she threw herself down
on the grass beside Janet.

“Well, one landed, and it was a red anyway,”
Janet tried to be consoling.

“And that’s more than many of the new girls
have made,” Sally added.

“I’ll be with you in a minute, Taffy,” Phyllis
laughed. “Just wait until the Red Twins have
had their turn.”

“Hush, here they come now,” Gladys cautioned.

A silence fell on the spectators as they awaited
the victory of the new wing. Even the faculty
felt it, and though they tried to be happy, they
were conscious of a persistent little feeling of
disappointment.

Bess Ward was the first one up. She shrugged
her shoulders just to show she was not in the
least nervous, then she strung her bow, struck
a rather extravagant attitude, and loosed her
first arrow.

She made a red. A faint cheer followed it.

The Red Twins were far from popular with
their own wing, but anything or anybody that
could enlarge the score was welcome.

“Not so good,” Ann said critically, as the second
arrow glanced off and hit the white.

A slow red mounted to Bess’s cheek. She was
angry, that unpardonable sin in any sport, and
she showed it. The third arrow went to the
blue. Bess forgot to shrug her shoulders. Her
anger was steadily mounting, and the next
two arrows followed each other to the red, making
a total score of twelve.

Prue marked it down on the board very slowly,
and very deliberately.

“Hope her twin does no better,” Gladys said.
“But I suppose she will.”

“One of them has got to make a bulls-eye, after
all their boasting,” Ann laughed. “Look, there
she comes.”

May took her place at the tape. She was considerably
sobered by her sister’s failure. She did
not shrug her shoulders, but went to her bow
with a dark scowl.

Her first arrow hit the blue. She stopped to
readjust her bow, before fitting in the second
arrow, but the blue claimed that as well. Really
angry now, she shot the third with such a vicious
whang, that the arrow glanced off to the white.

“Take your time,” her sister cautioned from
the side line. Her tone held a note of resentment.

May pulled herself together, and took deliberate
aim. Two blues were her award.

“Making a total of nine,” Prue said as she
drew an extra long stem to the figure.

“Jan, if you go in, and get a half-way decent
score, and Phyl does, too, we won’t be so badly
licked after all,” Gladys said.

Janet nodded. There was a lump in her throat
and she could not trust herself to speak.

“If I don’t stop trembling, my arrows will
land over there among the faculty,” Phyl
pointed to the right of the target, where the
faculty sat out of range of any but the wildest
shot.

Daphne looked at her, and saw that she really
was trembling.

“Well, goodness knows I love all the faculty
at Hilltop,” she said in her peculiar drawl. “But
if you must shoot one of them, please choose
Miss Jenks, for I haven’t my history prepared
for tomorrow.”

The one thing that Phyllis needed was to
laugh, and she did heartily, with the result that
when she took her place at the tape, her nerves
were steadied, and her thoughts were on
Daphne’s last remark. She could see Miss Jenks
out of the corner of her right eye. She hardly
gave the target a thought, until her arrow was
in her bow.

Her total score was five, for though she did
some fancy shooting, around the legs of the target,
only two of her arrows scored.

She came back to the girls, a little crestfallen.

“You mean thing!” Daphne said, “you made
two more than I did.”

Phyllis smiled in spite of herself.

“It’s a secret, Taffy, but I’ll tell you,” she
whispered. “That last one was a mistake.”

“Good luck, Jan!” Sally called softly, as Janet
went out to take her place. Her silence seemed
to envelope her as she stood facing the target,
and the bow felt strange to her touch.

She had practiced a good deal during the past
few weeks, but mindful of her brother Tom and
the wisdom of her boy friends, she had rested for
the past two days, content only to keep her hand
in. In this she had the advantage of the Red
Twins, who had practiced for two hours, before
breakfast.

She felt as though she were taking a very long
time, as she strung her bow, and fitted her first
arrow, and then she shot.

She had aimed for the bulls-eye, but the grass
under her feet, worn by so many tennis shoes,
was slippery. Her heel twisted ever so slightly,
and the arrow scored a red.

The girls shouted their appreciation, but before
they could stop, another arrow had hit this
time, just below the bulls-eye, making one above,
and one below. Janet shifted her position ever
so slightly, and a third arrow almost touched the
bulls-eye on another side.

The fourth completed the square; then Janet
did the most spectacular thing, done that afternoon.
She scored a perfect bulls-eye. The
school, united in its admiration, went wild with
joy, and the old man, sitting beside Miss Hull,
shouted, “Well done, little lady, well done!”

.. figure:: images/illus-121.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: Then Janet did the most spectacular thing done that afternoon

   Then Janet did the most spectacular thing done that afternoon

Janet was born high on the shoulders of the
delighted girls, a happy, triumphant, but very
much bewildered heroine.

CHAPTER XIII—Diverse Paths
==========================

It took the school, and particularly the
old wing, several weeks to recover from the
result of the contest. Janet, much to her
surprise, remained a heroine, and was not
forgotten after the flush of the first few days, but
she was not happy.

Phyllis, after her failure on Archery Day,
had steadfastedly refused to have anything more
to do with the sport, and half the pleasure of the
prospect of making the team was gone, when
Janet realized that Phyllis would not be with
her. Daphne, too, refused to show any interest,
and it was Sally that Janet spent most of her
time with, practicing before the target.

They were coming up from the lawn this
afternoon. The warm days of late summer had
chilled with the coming of Autumn, and in the
late afternoon the girls found sweaters comfortable.

When they reached the lower hall they met
Ethel Rivers. She was still incorrigible on the
subject of the wings.

“I hope you know, that even if you did beat
us at Archery, we’re going to win out in Dramatics.”

“Win in anything your little heart wants,”
Sally laughed; “the old wing is never selfish.”

“Well, you just wait and see,” Ethel began
angrily, but she turned suddenly to Janet and
stopped. “I’ve—I’ve—wanted to congratulate
you for a long time,” she said shyly. She was
the same age as the two girls before her, but a
class below. She was feeling the difference
acutely.

“Thanks awfully,” Janet was almost as embarrassed
as she was. She was trying hard not to
feel her position as a future member of the team,
but it was difficult when girls like Ethel forgot
their feeling of animosity long enough to offer
congratulations.

Without realizing it Janet mounted the pedestal
of a personage.

“I—I—really thought you were wonderful,”
Ethel continued grudgingly, “and I’m not a bit
sorry, really, that you beat our twins.”

“That’s awfully decent of you Ethel. I’m
glad to see you’re coming around to the right
way of thinking. Mustn’t take the rivalry of the
wings too seriously, you know. Come down to
target practice some day, while I’m there, and
I’ll show you how to fix your arrow. I saw you
were having trouble with it.” And Janet walked
up the broad stairs, her head held high, as a
queen might have walked on after she had
spoken to her humble courtier.

But when they reached Sally’s room and she
threw herself down on the bed, her face suddenly
fell.

“Sally,” she said seriously. “I think Phyl is
a little hurt that I spend so much time away from
her. She’s going to hate it if I make the team,
so I think, if I am elected, I’ll refuse.”

Sally whistled then she looked seriously at
Janet.

“You are going to do nothing of the kind, if
I can help it,” she said emphatically, “but we
won’t talk about it now. Let’s go find Phyl and
Taffy.”

They went over to the Twin’s room, but there
was no sign of them.

“Maybe Glad’ll know where they are,” Sally
suggested.

But they found Prue and Ann and Gladys
cheerfully munching crackers and peanut butter,
as they studied their English for the next
day.

“Come and join us,” Ann invited shoving forward
the peanut butter. “We’ve got a marvelous
system. Prue reads aloud to us and then we
discuss it.”

“You might as well join us,” Gladys suggested.
“We’ve only just started.”

“We’re looking for Daphne and Phil,” Sally
replied.

“Oh, you won’t find them,” Gladys told her.
“They’re down in the Senior’s Retreat.”

“What under the sun are they doing down
there?” Janet demanded.

“Dramatic Club,” Prue said solemnly.
“Shakespeare meeting and all that sort of thing.”

Sally and Janet looked at each other in bewilderment.
“How did they get down there?
They aren’t Juniors or Seniors,” Sally protested.

“Can’t help it, Miss Slocum sent their names
in to Poppy as shining lights in literature,” Ann
replied. “And Poppy, of course, was tickled to
death.”

“So was Helen Jenkins, by the way,” Prue
added. “She’s really the brains of the club,
while Poppy’s the looks.”

“And they’re both Old Wing Girls,” Gladys
exulted. “Just imagine how they feel at the idea
of letting in two Sophomores!

“But it’s unheard of,” Sally objected, “don’t
you have to be a Junior at least, before you’re
eligible?”

“’Tisn’t a rule, it’s simply a custom,” Ann told
her. “It just never happened before, that the
Sophomores showed very much brains.”

“But, oh my beloved hearers!” Gladys exclaimed
excitedly, “can’t you see that our Phyllis
and our Taffy may be the brilliant exceptions?”

Janet had looked wonderingly from one to the
other of the girls.

“You don’t mean Phil and Taffy could possibly
make the Dramatic Club?” she asked at
length.

“But I exactly do mean just that,” Gladys informed
her. “And, oh my Aunt Jane’s Poll-parrot,
if they should, think what a victory it
would be for the Old Wing!”

Prue picked up the book that she had been
reading when Sally and Janet interrupted her.

“I refuse to think of it,” she said with decision.
“Come on, girls, sit down and make
yourselves comfy, and in my most dulcet tones
I will read to you the lesson in *Guy Mannering*
for tomorrow.”

Janet and Sally curled up on the end of the
Countess’s bed and Prue began.

It is a question whether any of the girls kept
their mind on the book. The Dramatic Club at
Hilltop was a very important institution of
school life. There were hardly ever more than
twelve members, and they were chosen for a
variety of reasons. The principal one was an
understanding and appreciation of literature,
but equally important were good looks and an
ability to act, for the Dramatic Club gave two
plays a year. They were not the usual amateur
performances, for wise Miss Slocum, with the
aid of the Seniors, chose her material carefully
and trained it exceedingly well.

She had hesitated a long time before suggesting
two Sophomores for possible membership,
but Daphne’s bewildering beauty and Phyllis’s
apt reading of lines finally persuaded her.

The Juniors and Seniors had accepted this
innovation of an old custom with surprise, but, as
Poppy had explained, it would not be necessary
to make a decision at once, for the Dramatic
Club was never chosen until just before the
Christmas holidays.

The girls who were interested met in the
Senior Retreat twice a week and read plays of
their own or Miss Slocum’s selection. The
meeting was over at six o’clock.

Daphne and Phyllis hurried to the latter’s
room as quickly as possible.

“Taffy, was there ever such luck?” Phyllis
exclaimed, “wasn’t it adorable of them to let us
be there!”

“Indeed it was,” Daphne agreed heartily.
“And we’re only new girls, too, and that makes
it all the nicer. But, Phil, what do you suppose
they really mean?”

Phyllis shook her head and her brows puckered
in a puzzled frown.

“I wish I knew, Taffy,” she replied slowly.
“When I went in, Poppy squeezed my arm and
Helen Jenkins asked me how I liked the Dramatic
Club pin.”

“And when you said you loved it, she asked
you how you would like to wear one,” Daphne
finished for her. “I know, I heard it, and my
heart just flopped right over.”

Phyllis walked to the balcony and stood looking
out over the lawn.

“Isn’t it funny the way people get jumbled
up,” she said musingly. “We four haven’t paired
off as we ought to. It almost looks as if we had
changed partners. Just look at this afternoon.
Jan and Sally were practicing with their ever-lasting
bows and arrows, and you and I were sitting
in all our glory in the midst of the Dramatic
Club.”

“That’s what makes us such bully good
friends,” Daphne explained. “It doesn’t matter
which two of our four are together, they are
bound to have a good time, and the very best
times of all are when we are not paired off, but
doing something that we can all enjoy.”

Phyllis nodded. “I used to think, at Miss
Harding’s that we weren’t so very remarkable,
and that if we got away to boarding school we’d
find plenty of friendships as strong as ours——”

“What nonsense!” Daphne interrupted, drawling
the words until they held a wealth of scorn.
“Prue and Gladys and Ann are a wonderful
combination but they’re not nearly as wonderful
as we are,” she added with her queer little
laugh.

They both picked up books and pretended to
study.

“Taffy,” Phyllis said suddenly, “it really isn’t
fair.” There was a little catch in her voice.

Daphne looked up from her copy of *Guy
Mannering*. “What isn’t?” she inquired.

“My being chosen, when Janet’s left out. She
knows twice as much about books as I do. Why
she knew every book in *The Enchanted Kingdom*,
and she can quote poetry by the yard.”

“But she can’t recite it the way you do,”
Daphne protested. “You read Rosalind’s lines
in *As You Like It* when we had it in class, until
I honestly thought I was in the Forest of Arden.
I agree with you that Jan loves it and appreciates
it as much as you, but she reads it as though
she hated to have to share it with anybody else.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” Phyllis sounded only
half convinced. “But I’ll tell you this, if Jan
isn’t elected to the Dramatic Club, I won’t join
even if they ask me.”

“Oh, yes you will,” Daphne drawled. Her
words were almost an echo of Sally’s used earlier
in the day under a similar circumstance.

CHAPTER XIV—The Story of the Two Dogs
=====================================

That night Sally and Daphne held a
council of war in their room. It began
by Sally saying: “I want to talk to you,
Taffy, about something important.” To
which Daphne replied, “Very well, go ahead,
but remember to ask me what I have to tell you
when you finish!”

“All right, mine’s about Jan.” Sally made
herself comfortable in the big chair and Daphne
curled up on the window seat. “On the way
back from target practice today, she informed
me that she would not be on the team, even if
she got the chance, because Phyl might be hurt.”

Instead of looking angry or concerned, as
Sally expected, Daphne laughed heartily.

“I don’t think it’s funny, she really meant it,”
Sally protested.

Daphne stopped laughing. “It is funny
though, listen. This afternoon, after we had
come up from the Senior’s Retreat, Phyl told me
the same thing.”

“But I don’t understand.”

“About Jan, of course.”

“You mean she said she would be hurt if Jan
did accept for the team?”

“Oh, no, you ought to know Phyl better than
that. She said she wouldn’t accept for the Dramatic
Club unless Jan was asked, too. There
now, what do you think of that?”

Sally listened and after a mystified minute
understood.

“Well, of all the ridiculous children!” she exclaimed
laughing.

“Yes, but what are we going to do about it?
They simply can’t be allowed to spoil each
other’s chances like that,” Daphne objected.

“Oh, we can fix that, now that we know about
them both,” Sally exclaimed. “Look, we’ll do
it this very minute.” She jumped up and went
to the writing table, found a half sheet of notepaper
and began to write.

Daphne looked over her shoulder.

“Will that do?” Sally inquired as she finished
and carefully blotted the page.

“Couldn’t be better,” Daphne laughed.
“Thank goodness, you can always depend on the
Twins to see the funny side of everything.”

“I can’t wait until morning to give it to them,”
Sally announced. She was half undressed but
she slipped into a kimono and tip-toed into the
hall. She poked the letter under the Twins’s
door and hurried back to the waiting Daphne.

“Wish I could see their faces when they read
it,” she said.

Janet saw the note first.

“What is that?” she demanded, drawing
Phyllis’s attention to it.

“Looks like a letter,” Phyllis replied smiling
at Janet’s apparent concern. “Anyway, I don’t
think it’s a bomb, so it might be safe to pick it
up.”

“You never can tell.” Janet stood looking
down at the white envelope. “It may be a joke,
and then again it may be a communication from
one of the numerous ghosts that haunt Hilltop.
You’d better pick it up, Phyl.”

Phyllis leaned down and looked at the letter.
“Sally’s writing, so it can’t be dangerous,” she
said as she picked it up and opened it.

“Oh, it’s for both of us. It says: ‘Read this
aloud’ in large letters. Listen—

    “Dear Twins: (she read)

    Once upon a time there were two dogs. One
    was an Irish terrier and the other was a
    poodle, and they loved each other as only dogs
    can. The Irish terrier liked to run and jump,
    but the poodle liked to sit still and look very
    beautiful.

    One day they were both very hungry, and
    they both went hunting but they did not go
    together.

    The Irish terrier met a kind old gentleman
    who offered him a bone, but the silly dog
    wouldn’t take it because he thought of his
    friend who was so hungry, too.

    Now the poodle, on his walk, met a kind
    old lady, and she offered him a nice bone, too,
    but he thought of the poor hungry terrier and
    he refused to eat it.

    So both of those nice dogs died of hunger,
    because they were so foolish, but of course it
    would never have happened if they had each
    known that the other was being offered a bone.
    This tale has a moral!”

Janet and Phyllis looked at each other, and
then burst out laughing.

“I know what it means,” Phyllis said at last.
“At least I think I do.”

“Of course, it means the Archery Team and
the Dramatic Club,” Janet answered. “I told
Sally today that if I am elected I didn’t think
I’d accept, because it would take me away
from you so much.”

Phyllis’ arm encircled Janet’s shoulder, and
she rubbed her soft cheek against hers.

“I told Taffy exactly the same thing about the
Dramatic Club,” she said, “and of course you
might know they would have a fit.”

“I didn’t know about the Dramatic Club until
after I’d told Sally,” Janet admitted.

“And I didn’t think about Archery when I
talked to Taffy. I was just angry at the thought
of Miss Slocum choosing me when you know
twice as much,” Phyllis protested.

“But I don’t,” Janet denied. “Imagine my
acting in anything! Why, I’d perfectly hate it
in the first place, and in the second I’d die of
fright.”

Phyllis looked at her doubtfully. She still
hated the idea of being in something that had no
place for Janet.

“Then I suppose—” she began.

“That we may as well each eat our own
bones,” Janet finished laughing, “as long as there
are two of them; and after all if you should
make the Dramatic Club and I the Team it
would help the old wing.”

“Yes, of course, it would,” Phyllis agreed.
“But you’re sure you don’t care, Jan?”

“Of course, I don’t, silly. I was only afraid
you might. Let’s answer Sally’s letter.”

They thought for several minutes, and the
final result seemed to please them, for Janet stole
softly across the hall, slipped the note under
Sally’s and Daphne’s door, and knocked ever so
lightly, before she hurried back.

Sally was almost asleep, but Daphne heard
the knock. She jumped up, switched on the
lights, and woke Sally.

“The Twins’s reply,” she announced as she
opened the note.

“Read it quick,” Sally said sleepily.

“The Story of the Two Dogs, continued (she
read).

    And so the two little dogs went home to die.
    But just as they were about to draw their last
    breath, the nice old gentleman met the nice
    old lady, and they told each other about the
    dogs they had met on their walk, and about
    how foolish they had been.

    ‘But Aunt Jane’s Poll-parrot, this can’t go
    on,’ said the old gentleman.

    ‘It would be silly to let it, wouldn’t it?’
    drawled the nice old lady.

    ‘We will go and tell them how foolish they
    are,’ they said together.

    So they went, and the two dogs were very
    glad to see them, and when they learned that
    there was two bones, they jumped up and
    barked, and they each promised to eat one
    apiece, and never again to be so silly; because
    they realized that if they ate enough bones
    they would grow strong, and perhaps some
    day they would be a credit to the wing, it was
    a very old wing, of the dog kennel where they
    lived.”

“The satisfying thing about the Twins is that
they always do what’s expected of them,”
Daphne commented as she folded the note up.
“The beginning of the Two Dogs was brilliant
enough but the end—”

“The end is a masterpiece,” Sally replied, now
wide awake.

“Aunt Jane’s Poll-parrot marked you as the
old gentleman.”

“Well, how about ‘drawled the nice old
lady’?”

“Oh, it was a masterpiece all right, and I
loved the touch about the wing.” Daphne went
back to her own bed.

“That, my child, is the first real stirring of
the spirit of Hilltop—loyalty. Oh, for the day
when we are Seniors!” Sally yawned and
stretched her white arms high above her head.
“Think of it, Taffy, Seniors, our four!” she
added drowsily, but this time Daphne was
asleep.

CHAPTER XV—Making Plans
=======================

“Well, it would be a calamity anywhere
else in the world, but nothing
is ever bad at Hilltop.” Gwendolyn
Matthews and Poppy were in the
Twins’ room, and a crowd of girls were listening
to what they had to say with flattering
attention.

“Not even Thanksgiving away from home?”
Prue demanded with a little pout.

It had just been decreed by Miss Hull and the
faculty that there would be no Thanksgiving recess
this year. Several cases of measles had
broken out in the past week, and the school doctor
had ordered a quarantine. Such a thing had
never happened before, and the seniors were
doing their best to cheer up the many disappointed
girls. Gwen and Poppy had selected
Twins’ room to go to first of all, for they were
pretty sure that they would find a goodly number
of the girls there.

“It’s only four days, Prue,” Poppy said consolingly,
“and Miss Hull says we are to have a
longer Christmas vacation to make up, besides
no lessons for the four days now. You all must
admit, that’s fair enough.”

“Of course, it’s fair,” Prue agreed readily;
“but, well I had a very special engagement this
Thanksgiving, and I hate to give it up.”

“I was going to visit Ann’s uncle,” Gladys
said sadly, “and now, of course, I can’t.”

“Well, you will some other time,” Prue suddenly
turned cheerful.

It is always so easy to make light of other
people’s disappointments, particularly when you
are comparing them with your own. They always
seem small in comparison.

“Don’t be too sure of that,” Ann laughed her
quiet little laugh. “Uncle Lacey doesn’t offer
invitations very often, and he is not so terribly
fond of me. He’s probably delighted to receive
my telegram, and has already made up his mind
that he has done his duty to his sister’s only
daughter, and with a sigh of relief returned to
his library.”

“Poor Glad!” Sally laughed, “cruel uncle refuses
second invitation and Ann and Glad have
to find other host for Christmas.” Both girls
lived at a considerable distance from school.

“Not for Christmas,” Ann denied. “I am going
home for that blessed day, and so is Glad,
aren’t you honey?”

“I most certainly am,” Glad replied. “Christmas
is one day when I must be with my mother,
not to mention my small brothers and sisters.”

“What were *you* going to do that was so exciting,
Prue?” Janet inquired carelessly.

“I was going to New York,” Prue replied.
“I have never been there in my whole life.” She
spoke as though she were ninety. “And Daddy
promised to take me this year. We were going
to meet my brother John, he’s a freshman at
Princeton, you know,” she added with pride.
“And, oh dear, we were going to have a simply
wonderful time, and now just because the
Red Twins and that horrid little Ethel Rivers
have the measles, I can’t go. John will be so
disappointed.”

“Don’t worry about brother,” Gladys teased.
“It’s my opinion that he will be quite relieved.
Grown-up boys are never very crazy about their
baby sisters, especially when their friends are
around. You know, Prue darling, you may feel
terribly grown-up, but you still wear your hair
down your back, and to boys that means you are
still a babe and beneath their notice.”

“That isn’t so at all, Glad,” Prue protested.
“John and I have always been the best of friends
and he would like to introduce me to his friends,
I know he would.”

“John is in college now,” Gladys spoke with
cool and perfect assurance, “and that makes all
the difference in the world. I guess I ought to
know, I’ve had three brothers at Yale.”

“Perhaps that accounts for it, Yale isn’t
Princeton.” Prue was almost in tears but she
managed to smile as she said this.

The other girls laughed.

“I reckon you’d better admit defeat,” Poppy
teased. “Prue got ahead of you that time sure
enough.”

Gladys drew herself up, and tried to make her
roly-poly little self look imposing as she replied:

“When Prue has had as much experience with
brothers as I have, she will come to me and
humbly beg my pardon and tell me I am right,”
she laughed suddenly. “Never will I forget the
dance my youngest brother took me to when he
was home for his first Christmas vacation. It
was at the Country Club, and because it was
Christmas all the younger kids went.”

“I know about that kind of dance,” Poppy interrupted.
“Nobody has a very good time.”

“Well, I know *I* didn’t,” Gladys admitted.
“I felt very elegant when I left home. Ted had
on full dress and looked magnificent, and I had
let my best party dress down—” she stopped abruptly
and fell to playing a tatoo on the arm of
her chair.

“Go on, Glad, we’re listening,” Phyllis urged.
“What happened when you arrived at the
dance?”

Gladys looked from girl to girl, then she said
quietly: “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Sally protested. “Oh, Glad, don’t
be irritating!”

“I’m not trying to be,” Glad replied. “Simply
nothing happened. Ted left me as soon as he
found some of my old maid cousins that he could
leave me with, and he only came back and
danced with me once. He brought a boy to
meet me that wore glasses because he was cross-eyed,
and he stuttered. I danced with him once
and then I went into the dressing room and took
off my slippers. My feet were almost broken,
and the next day they were black and blue. He
had tramped all over them.”

“Well?” several voices demanded as Gladys
paused.

“There’s nothing more to tell. I wept into
somebody’s opera cape until it was time to go
home, and during the drive I fell asleep on
Ted’s shoulder. I didn’t think he understood
until the next day, when Mother asked me if
I’d had a good time. I said I had, and after
breakfast Ted took me to the village and filled
me full of ice cream, and on the way home he
explained very gently what a nice thing a sister
could be, a sort of little comfort, you know, and
then on the other hand, what a dreadful little
bore. I didn’t need the talk, I’d learned my lesson.
I stay at home now and fix the studs in
their dress shirts when they want to go out, and
if it’s cold I stay up and make hot soup for them,
but I never ask to tag along.”

Nothing was said after Gladys stopped, for a
minute or two. The girls were all thinking
hard. Most of them had brothers or cousins
and they all understood.

“Perhaps if I’d treated my brother like that,”
Gwen said with a laugh that held sadness in it,
“he might have been a better friend of mine now
than he is; but I always tagged along and he got
thoroughly sick of me. I dance about as well
as your cross-eyed friend, Glad.”

Phyllis was thinking of Tom, and being
thankful that he was so much older than she
and Janet, that they had never had the chance
to make Gwen’s mistake.

Janet was thinking of Peter and wondering.
Peter Gibbs was a boy she had known back in
Old Chester. They had shared the Enchanted
Kingdom together, and he had taken the place
of her brother long before Tom had arrived to
claim the right. Janet was fonder of Peter than
she really knew, and she found herself suddenly
wondering if he had outgrown her, now that he
was in college. She made a firm resolve to take
Gladys’s advice.

“Well, thank goodness, Chuck isn’t in college
yet,” Daphne said suddenly, and Sally and the
Twins laughed.

Then, as so often happens, when a room-full
of people have been quietly thinking, everyone
began to talk at once. They dismissed the subject
of brothers and returned to the holidays.
They made plans for all of the days, except
Thanksgiving Day itself.

“Something’s bound to happen then,” Gwen
assured them. “Miss Hull will probably ask
one of the classes to entertain.”

“You know it will be the Seniors,” Poppy
replied reproachfully, “and what we will do at
so short notice I’m sure I don’t know.” This in
Poppy’s complaining tones made the girls all
laugh.

“Cheer up, Poppy, we’ll all help you, no matter
what,” Sally promised. “We might have a
real old-fashioned pillow fight between the
wings; that would liven us up a bit,” she suggested.
“I admit I feel rather depressed myself.”

CHAPTER XVI—More Plans and Plots
================================

But the plans for Thanksgiving Day
were not entrusted to the Seniors as they
expected. That night after dinner Miss
Hull got up from her place at the Senior
table, before she rang the little silver bell that
always signalled the close of each meal.

Instant silence fell over the dining room, and
the girls all turned to her expectantly.

“Girls,” she began, “I was more than sorry
to have to ask you to give up your holidays, and
I want to say how much I appreciate the splendid
way you have all accepted the disappointment.
You must make your own plans for most
of the time. You are free to do as you like. I
would suggest a picnic for one of the days. It
is really not a bit too cold and it would be a
good way to keep out of doors.

“On Thanksgiving day, I want you to be my
guests at a Thanksgiving dinner.” The girls
clapped their hands enthusiastically but Miss
Hull had not finished.

“Just one more thing, girls please,” she went
on. “Remember the girls that have the measles.
They are sick in the Infirmary, and although
you must remain on their account, just think
how very much worse it is for them, and do what
you can for them. Notes are always welcome
when one is in the Infirmary, aren’t they?” she
turned to Poppy.

“Yes, Miss Hull, most anything is,” Poppy
replied, a worried expression on her usually
placid face. She was wondering whom she
could persuade to write to the Red Twins and
Ethel Rivers. Kitty Joyce and Louise Brown
she knew would be well taken care of. Miss
Hull had a way of making a suggestion, and then
leaving it to the Seniors to see that it was carried
out.

The same thought was reflected on the face
of every Senior. Gwen and Poppy found their
solution in the Sophomore class. Their own
particular pets could be depended on they know.

“We’ll ask them after dinner,” Gwen said,
and Poppy nodded.

So, soon after dinner found the same group in
one corner of the ballroom that had discussed
the subject earlier in the day.

“We’ll write, all of us,” Ann announced,
speaking as was her right as the oldest girl. She
had been at Hilltop a year longer than any of
the others. “And what’s more, we will write
really nice notes.” She looked around the circle
defiantly as though she dared any one of
them to contradict her.

“We will,” Prue agreed.

“Suppose so, though what I’ll say, I’m sure I
don’t know,” Gladys scowled at the prospect.

“Thank goodness, the measles stayed in the
new wing. I hope none of us catch it,” Sally
remarked. “What else are we to do besides
writing the notes?”

“I don’t know. We’ll have to think of something,”
Gwen replied.

“Why don’t we serenade them?” Daphne suggested.
“It’s always fun to hear people sing,
especially if they sing all the songs you like.”

“Good idea,” Poppy agreed. “We’ll do that
very thing. We’ll sing some of the old plantation
melodies and the old ballads that Miss Hull
loves. Daphne, you and Janet come down to
Seniors’ Retreat in the morning. You have
awfully pretty voices, both of you. I heard you
singing in church, last Sunday.”

“Sure it wasn’t Phyl?” Ann inquired. “If
you can tell the Twins apart in church, when
their heads are bent reverently over their prayer
books, you are doing more than I can.”

Poppy laughed and pointed to the tiny crescent
pin that Phyllis was still wearing.

“I couldn’t at first,” she admitted. “But
Phyllis took off her coat and I saw that pin,
then I watched them when the next hymn began,
and she never opened her lips, so I said to myself,
‘Janet has the voice.’”

“And, of course, Taffy looks as if she ought
to sing, and she does,” Gwen added.

“She looks like Diana at the chase, with a bow
in her hand, too,” Sally teased, “but she can’t
shoot.”

Daphne blushed ever so slightly. “What an
unfortunate turn the conversation has taken,”
she drawled. “Poppy, we will meet you in the
morning, of course any time you say.”

Janet nodded. “Love to, Poppy, I think it
will be a lot of fun,” she said.

“It’s awfully decent of Miss Hull to give us
a party,” Sally remarked. “I know it will be
something rather nice, she always does things so
beautifully!” She paused and added after a second,
“Wish we could do something for her.”

It was only a germ of an idea, but it grew with
amazing speed.

“I wish we could, too,” Gwen said first.

Then Prue added, “So do I.”

The rest nodded and it was Sally’s turn again.

“Well, why don’t we?” she said.

“Let’s.”

“Good idea.”

“But what?” came the replies.

“I don’t exactly know,” Sally admitted. “The
idea just popped into my head.”

“A serenade,” someone suggested.

“Not nice enough.”

“How about tableaux, living pictures? Miss
Hull loves those.” It was Poppy who spoke.

The rest thought for a few minutes in silence.
Just tableaux were not exactly the thing somehow.
The idea lacked originality.

At last Gladys jumped and executed a silent
but triumphant dance.

“Well, let’s hear it.” Ann knew Gladys better
than any of her other friends, and she felt
that the question had been solved.

“Well, I don’t want to be forward or cheeky,”
Gladys began shyly, “and anyway it’s just a suggestion.”

“Let’s have it,” Gwyn demanded.

“Well,” Gladys began again, “you all know
how fond Miss Hull is of the stories that have
come down about Hilltop.” The rest nodded
eagerly.

“Why couldn’t we have tableaux representing
all the Hilltop stories we know about?” she finished
with a rush.

The girls looked their admiration.

“We can and we will,” Poppy declared. “I
declare, that’s just the sweetest idea I ever
heard!” She and Gwen went off to confer with
the other Seniors, and the rest went back to
Gladys’ room.

“What tableaux would you have, Glad?”
Prue inquired respectfully.

“Well, there’s our Countess,” Gladys replied.
“There’s a miniature of her own in the library,
in the bookcase, that has all the souvenirs in it,
and, as I remember it, she looks like Taffy.”

“But where shall we find the costumes?” Phyllis
inquired.

“Up in the attic. It’s loaded with cedar chests
full,” Ann told her. “Miss Hull always lets us
wear them when we give masquerades.”

“Tell us about the rest of the characters,”
Sally said impatiently.

“Well, there’s the poor unhappy lady that
haunts the Twins’ balcony,” Gladys suggested
with a perfectly straight face.

“The Twins’ balcony?” Sally showed her surprise
at this new adaption of an old tale, but
neither Ann nor Prue moved a muscle as Gladys
continued. It was the opportunity they had been
waiting for, ever since Janet had expressed the
wish that their room had a ghost.

“Yes,” Gladys went on in a matter-of-fact
tone, “the poor pretty lady that was standing
on the balcony and looked down, and saw them
bringing home the dead body of her lover. He
had fought a duel with her brother, and the
brother had killed him.”

“Oh, Glad, and you never told us!” Janet protested.
“Was it really from our balcony?”

Sally who had caught Prue’s warning wink
did not question any further. She knew as well
as they did, that the famous haunted balcony was
on the other side of the house, outside of one of
the class rooms.

“Truth of the matter is, I didn’t intend to tell
you at all,” Gladys said seriously. “Those things
are not nice to know about. The servants, you
know, all vow they have seen the ghost.”

Phyllis shivered. “Poor lovely lady” she
said, “I’m awfully sorry for her, but I know I
shall never sleep again.”

“What nonsense” Janet exclaimed. “The idea
of believing in ghosts.”

The other girls did not agree with her that
it was nonsense; they merely exchanged rather
knowing glances.

Then Poppy and Gwen and some of the other
Seniors came in, and the talk changed to plans
for the tableaux.

It was decided to give six in all. They talked
earnestly until the clock chimed the Happy
Dreams, then the Seniors went back to their
rooms, and the rest of the girls, after a few minutes’
more talk, to theirs.

Janet went straight to the balcony, when she
and Phyllis were alone in their own room. She
looked out into the lovely night, and in her vivid
imagination she saw the whole scene, as Gladys
had told it to her, unfold before her.

If Miss Slocum had seen her stretch out her
arms, as she looked down with the eyes of the
poor maiden upon the body of her lover, she
might have wondered. In literature, Janet kept
her emotions to herself, and the more a scene
from Shakespeare touched, the more colorless
was her voice as she read it. As she would have
hated to have shared the Enchanted Kingdom
with any one but Peter, so she hated to share her
love of the romantic, and hold it up for possible
ridicule.

“Jan, do come in from that horrible balcony,”
Phyllis besought her. “I have the creeps every
time I look at it.”

“Nonsense,” Janet replied shortly, but she
came in, and it was not many minutes before she
was in bed. Phyllis, in spite of her predictions
to the contrary, was soon fast asleep, and Janet,
though she tried to keep awake and think about
the pretty lady, soon followed.

Neither of them ever knew how long they had
been asleep, before they were conscious of a low
moaning sound that came from the balcony.

Phyllis heard it first, and she leaned over and
shook Janet’s arm.

“Jan, listen, what is that horrible noise?” she
demanded.

Janet, still very sleepy, sat up to listen. For a
minute there was no sound, but the whisper of
the wind in the trees. Then very faintly at first,
but coming nearer and nearer, they heard a low
moan.

Phyllis was in Janet’s bed in a second, and was
shivering against her. For the best part of a
minute Janet was frightened, then her good
sense came to her rescue. She had not lived in
an isolated house in Old Chester, where the
wind played queer tricks with echoes and the
waves beat dismally against the shore, to be easily
frightened.

“Oh, Jan, it’s that woman, I know it is!”
Phyllis was sobbing.

“Rats!” Janet replied inelegantly.

Before Phyllis could stop her, she had slipped
out of bed and was creeping softly to the window.
Phyllis was too frightened to speak. The
moan came again, and this time a white arm
waved through the open door. Phyllis put her
head under the covers and did not see what followed.

Janet crept closer. She was conscious of the
pounding of her heart, but she was not afraid.
Instead, she rather enjoyed the possibility of
catching a real ghost.

She watched the window for a minute and
then, acting on a sudden impulse, she walked to
the door. She put her ear to the keyhole, and,
as she had half expected, she heard a very cautious
whisper.

Without waiting a minute she caught the handle
of the door and opened it suddenly.

Two kimonoed figures fell into the room. The
noise was so loud that Phyllis felt no ghost could
have been responsible for it, and she uncovered
her head.

She saw, by the silver moonlight that was
pouring in through the window, the prostrate
forms of Prue and Ann, and she heard Janet
say,

“Come in, won’t you? If you are looking for
Glad, she is out on the balcony.”

CHAPTER XVII—The Tableaux
=========================

“Really, you girls choose the oddest
time to visit!” Janet said the next
morning after breakfast.

Gladys sneezed. “Don’t rub it in,”
she begged; “it’s bad enough as it is. I do think
though, that when we took all that trouble to
give you a real ghost, and I make an excellent
ghost, if I do say so, that the least you could
have done was to play up to it.”

“Phyl did,” Prue looked reproachfully at
Janet. “Will you please tell me whatever made
you think of opening that door?”

“She was going to call for help,” Ann suggested.

Janet smiled a superior smile. “Hardly. I
knew, of course, that it was a joke, and I rather
suspected whose. I knew there was only one of
you on the balcony, but I knew the other two
would not be far off, so I tried the door, with
what results, you already know.”

“Jan Page, I am perfectly willing to take my
medicine, but I will not be gloated over.”

Gladys made a dive for Janet, and they rolled
together in a rough-and-tumble fight.

In the midst of it Poppy came in.

“What are you two young ones up to?” she
demanded. “Do stop, or you’ll hurt yourselves
and not be fit for the tableaux.”

“We’ve decided about the one for the little
lady that fell off the balcony,” Gwen began.
“We’re going to have it in two scenes.”

The girls could hardly keep their faces
straight as they listened.

“Is Glad going to be the pretty lady?” Janet
inquired innocently.

“No, we thought we’d use you and Phyl for
that,” Gwen went on with her explanation.

They discussed and changed their plans many
days before Thanksgiving Day arrived, but
when it did come, a little over a week later, it
found them ready.

The rest of the school, when Poppy had told
them of the scheme, had heartily endorsed it,
and Thanksgiving morning found them all busy.

Some were fixing the ballroom with bows of
evergreens, and some were busy preparing the
refreshments. The girls who were interested in
the Dramatic Club were taking care of the stage.

They had ransacked the old barn, where the
scenery from year to year was stored, with a
happy result. They had found a balcony that
rather resembled a pulpit, a woodland back drop
for the Countess to pose against as she had in
the miniature, and an old spinnet for a famous
composer.

The actors themselves were not allowed to do
anything, for fear of tiring them, and no famous
actress could have been taken more care of, than
was Daphne.

The new wing had been a little difficult at
first, for the suggestion had come from the old
wing, and they were jealous, but the Seniors had
smoothed things over, and when the day came
it found them all united.

Church took up most of the morning. It was
a long walk to the little building set in a clump
of protecting pines, where the school worshipped.
The sermon was long, and it was not
until after one o’clock that they reached Hilltop.

Luncheon was spread informally on the two
long service tables, and the girls helped
themselves. Dinner was to be at six o’clock, so that
there would be plenty of time afterwards for the
final preparations.

Miss Hull had been invited to come to the
ballroom at eight o’clock, but apart from that,
she had no idea what was going to happen. The
girls had all kept it a profound secret, and only
Miss Slocum of the faculty knew the plans.

“Daphne, darling, please don’t stuff so,” Janet
implored in an agonized whisper behind Miss
Jenks’s back. “If you eat another mouthful, you
will never be able to get into that bodice this
evening.”

“More secrets,” Miss Jenks laughed. “It’s a
good thing we won’t have to wait much longer,
for I couldn’t stand it.”

“Neither could I,” Miss Remsted agreed. “I
can’t remember ever being so curious or so excited.”

“Tell us who’s idea it was anyway?” Miss
Jenks begged.

“It was a combination,” Prue exclaimed.
“Sally started it, and Glad finished it.”

“What a truly wonderful combination!” Miss
Remsted said smiling.

“I’m very proud of our table,” Miss Jenks
added.

The girls looked at Daphne, and the Twins
and winked at each other. Their favorite teachers
would have more cause to be proud later in
the day.

After luncheon the entire school plunged into
a whirl of work that lasted until time to dress for
dinner.

“Best clothes, mind,” Poppy had warned the
girls; “white if you have it, Miss Hull loves to
see the whole school in white.”

The girls nodded, and hurried to their rooms,
to appear a half-hour later in filmy white
dresses, their hair tied by pink and blue bows.

“You look like a lot of dainty butterflies,” Miss
Hull told them delighted at the pretty picture
they made. “I appreciate your wearing white,
for I am sure you did it to please me. But I
mustn’t talk any longer, we have still that surprise
ahead of us and it would never do to delay
it.”

They took their seats and there followed a
meal of the kind one reads about in books—a
typical southern dinner.

At every girl’s place there was a dainty place
card. Miss Remsted had painted them all, and
every one was a little joke in itself. The Twins
had green pods with two little peas in each, and
written above it was “alike as.”

Sally had a green poll-parrot with “My Aunt
Jane’s” written in front of it. Daphne’s read, “I
excel with” and then a bow and arrow.

The tables were all decorated with baskets
of fruit and nuts, and the snowy linen and shining
silver gave the beautiful old hall a splendid
aspect.

Everybody was very merry and happy. The
old darkies who had waited on the tables at
Hilltop since it started were immaculate and
grinning in white aprons and red bandanas.

“And now for the surprise,” Miss Jenks said
as they left the table after the nuts and fruit.

The girls hurried upstairs. Gwen came into
the Twins’s room to help them, and Poppy
stayed with Sally and Daphne.

At last everything was ready. The stage was
set for the first tableaux, and the lights in the
ballroom were out.

The curtain rose slowly to discover Sally,
dressed as a boy in a velvet suit, a broad, white
lace collar and shoes with big buckles. She was
posed on a rock with the woodland screen behind
her, and she looked so like the first owner
of Hilltop, whose painting hung in the library,
that Miss Hull and the rest of the faculty
gasped.

The next picture was a copy of another painting,—Ann
and Prue, dressed in long, very full
skirts that showed frilled pantelets beneath
them, stood side by side before a tiny grave.
They were “Delia and Constance Hull beside
the grave of their favorite spaniel.”

Prue was kneeling on a tack in the green
denim floor cover, and her knee was so paralyzed
after the curtain fell for the third time, that
Sally had to lift her up. She limped for a week.

The Twins came next in two scenes from
The Haunted Balcony. In the first, Phyllis,
dressed in a soft white robe, sat with her chin
cupped in her hands and her eyes looked out
toward the rising sun. At the back of the stage
behind a net curtain, to give the effect of a vision,
were Gladys and Janet. They wore black satin
knee breeches and white shirts, open at the
throat. They held old pearl-handled duelling
pistols pointed at each other’s hearts.

The curtain fell, to rise again on the sad scene
of the poor demented lady, about to throw herself
from the balcony. Attendants were carrying
in the crumpled body of her lover. Gladys
looked very dead, while her brother stalked behind,
his arms folded, a smile of triumph on his
youthful face. Gwen was imposing as the old
doctor carrying a very dilapidated bag.

The next illustrated the story of Mrs. Fanmore
Hull’s bravery. Poppy was seated before
a spinning wheel, in a soft gray dress and cap
and kerchief. At the door three villainous looking
bandits peered in at her. One had a patch
over his eye and they all looked very rakish.

Mrs. Hull went on spinning for a minute or
two, and then she rose with dignity and grace.
She approached the robbers, and just as she
reached the door she picked up the thin apron
she was wearing and as one would scare the
chickens off the grass, she said, “shoo!” The robbers
disappeared.

Everybody laughed, for they knew the old
story, and Miss Hull clapped delightedly.

The next was the famous Countess de Camier.
Daphne in all her radiant loveliness was so like
the miniature of the Countess, kept carefully in
a locked case in the library, that Miss Hull was
stunned. Like her charming model, Daphne
wore a quaint shepherdess dress, that spread
about her dainty slippered feet in soft billows.
Her hat was a white leghorn with just a flat bow
of blue velvet on top, but a mass of tiny forget-me-nots
snuggled beneath the brim, against her
wonderful hair, at the back.

She sat on a small, straight-back chair, leaning
a little forward, her lips parted in a haunting
little smile, and her eyes bright.

“Oh!” gasped everybody, the girls, the faculty,
and Miss Hull, and then held their breaths,
fearful lest the curtain drop and shut out the
lovely picture.

At last it dropped slowly only to rise again
and again.

“What a beautiful Juliet she would make!”
Miss Hull said, and Miss Slocum nodded.

The last picture was hardly worth showing.
Helen Jenkins, dressed in man’s clothes, sat at
the spinnet and tried to look as though she were
composing a masterpiece, but everybody was too
full of Daphne to look at her.

The curtain dropped, the lights came on, and
the girls came from behind the scenes in their
costumes to join in the dance that followed.
Phyllis and Daphne made a beautiful picture as
they walked arm in arm through the room, for
Phyllis, with her hair over her shoulders and
the soft ivory folds of her robe falling about
her graceful body was very beautiful. They were
almost rivalled in loveliness by Sally and Janet,
for they made dashing boys and they swaggered
about in fine style.

Miss Hull’s usually remote disposition was
touched by the nature of the surprise. She loved
the history of her house, and she was delighted
to see the genuine feeling the girls put into their
impersonations, and she did not stint her praise
as she said good night to each girl in turn.

It was a sleepy but very happy school that
sought their beds as the grandfather clocks
throughout the house struck eleven.

“I told you it wouldn’t be hard to stay here
for the hols, and it hasn’t been, has it?”

“Certainly not.”

“How about the trip to New York, Prus?”

“Oh, bother New York!” Prue replied, and
the evening ended as the day had begun, with
laughter.

CHAPTER XVIII—The Elections
===========================

The low-ceilinged white-washed gym at
Hilltop had originally been the store-room
and the dairy. The rooms were
thrown into one, and made an excellent
gymnasium. A balcony ran around the sides
for spectators, and the walls were lined with
racks for dumb bells and other apparatus. Basket
ball posts stood at either end, and hooked up
to the ceiling were trapezes and bars.

Hilltop preferred to take its exercise out-of-doors,
but the gym was a very good substitute
in bad weather.

It was nearing the Christmas holidays, the
most exciting time of the year. Teams were
chosen and new members were elected to the various
clubs.

Because of the unusually cold and rainy
weather, the archery target had been brought in
and put up in the gym. A soft, small mesh curtain
hung behind it to catch stray arrows. The
bows were piled up along the wall, and the arrows
kept a neat pile beside them.

“It looks stuffy to me,” Sally complained. “I
never shot indoors and I don’t think I’m going
to like it.”

Janet eyed the arrangements critically.

“Oh, well, it will have the same effect on
everybody,” she said. “And seriously, Sally,
you know we haven’t a chance. There are loads
of girls up for election.”

“I know and we’re only Sophs,” Sally agreed.
“Still I can’t give up hope.”

“But Sally, there are only ten to be chosen, six
regulars and four subs,” Janet reminded her.
“Why, we haven’t a chance. There’s always
next year though, and the blessed year after.
You’ll be captain of sports then.”

“I will not, you will be. I decided that ages
ago. Phil is to be president of the Dramatics,
and Daphne of the class.”

Janet eyed her affectionately. “And what are
you going to be when you have disposed of the
rest of us?”

“Oh, guide, philosopher and friend to you
all,” Sally laughed. “Then I can have my finger
in every pie.”

“That’s the way our four does things anyway,”
Janet laughed. They always spoke of themselves
as “our four” since Daphne had happily
thought of the name. The rest of the girls, old
and young, looked on in approval. A school is
apt to be proud of its close friendships.

Ann, Prue and Gladys, in imitation, called
themselves “We and Co.,” and the school smiled
and approved again.

The Red Twins came in and put an end to
further discussion. They had recovered long
since from their attack of measles and they had
returned from the Infirmary very chastened in
spirit—as Sally said, “the spirit of Hilltop was
beginning to work.” They were still too serious
about every competition they entered, and they
had not grown any fonder of each other during
their illness.

It was the rules of the contest that everyone
must use the regulation bows. The Twins had
their own special make that they practiced with,
preferring them in a superior way to the ones
the school supplied.

They had them with them now and Sally and
Janet stopped to admire them.

“Don’t you think it mean we can’t use them in
the contest?” Bess asked in aggrieved tones.

“No, I don’t, it would hardly be fair. You
wouldn’t want an advantage, would you?” Sally
replied.

“I don’t see why not,” May said sulkily. “If
we can have them, then we’re lucky and we
ought to benefit by our luck.”

Janet and Sally did not bother to reply. They
left the gym and climbed the steep back stairs.

“The more I see of those girls, the more I detest
them,” Janet said with feeling.

“I know,” Sally agreed. “I begin to think
they are possible and improving, and then they
say a thing like that.”

“Hopeless,” Janet announced, and the Red
Twins were discarded as unfit for further conversation.

“Hello, you two!” Daphne called from the
door of the library as they passed. They went
in and found Phyllis with her nose in a copy of
the *Merchant of Venice*.

“Down looking at your miniature, Taffy?”
Sally teased.

“I am not, indeed; I’m trying to learn Little
Ellie by Mrs. Browning,” Daphne protested.
“It is a lovely thing,” she added, turning to
Janet.

“I knew you’d love it,” Janet’s eyes glowed
with enthusiasm. “I wanted Phyllis to learn it
but she stuck to ‘the Quality of Mercy Is Not
Strained,’ and I don’t know that I blame her,
it’s so beautiful.”

“And short,” Phyllis added, putting down the
book. Sally went over and sat beside her and
she slipped her arm about her neck.

“Tell us again, Sally, just what happens this
afternoon,” she said.

“At two o’clock the gong sounds,” Sally began,
“and everybody troops to the gym. There’s
a game of basket ball first. Every girl who is
eligible gets a chance to play. After that comes
the archery practice. We shoot, the same as we
did on Archery Day, that is, all the eligible
girls. Then there’s the jumping and pole vaulting
and the drill. Then cold tubs, supper, and
the Dramatic Club girls recite in the evening.
After that a dance and refreshments.”

“But when do we know?” Phyllis insisted.

“Tonight when we go to our rooms. If we are
the lucky ones we find notes under our pillows.”

“My, I mean your Aunt Jane’s Poll-parrot!”
Janet exclaimed, “I wish it were over.”

“So do I. The suspense is awful. Of course
we all have a chance, but it’s such a little one.”

“My hand is so shakey now that I’ll never be
able even to lift my bow, let alone string it,”
Janet complained laughingly.

“Well, never mind, darling, your twin will
probably get up and forget every line she ever
knew,” Phyllis comforted.

“Let’s go out for a walk, and don’t let’s talk
about it,” Daphne suggested suddenly. “I had
a letter from mother today,” she began, and until
lunch time they discussed home plans, for this
was the last Saturday before the holidays.

At two o’clock they went to the gym.

The basket ball game was long and uninteresting.
The New Wing supplied most of the
players, and it looked as if they would be the
final winners of the cup.

Then came the Archery Contest. Once more
Janet beat the Red Twins. The change of bows
hurt their form. It was never necessary to do it
again. Sally’s luck held, and she made a very
good score, but there were so many girls, Juniors
and Seniors competing, that neither Janet nor
Sally felt at all hopeful.

At dinner there was a quiet lull over the dining-room.
Hilltop insisted that her girls be
good losers above everything else, and there was
very little grumbling, but every girl tonight was
busy with her own thoughts.

At last the recitations came. Girl after girl
stood on the stage in the ballroom and recited
lines from Shakespeare.

Not until Phyllis stood quietly before them,
were they conscious of a personality. She said
Portia’s famous speech simply, but with understanding.
She made the girls listen, and when
she finished they gave her her just dues.

Daphne followed her, and as she told the story
of Little Ellie, Janet felt again the spell of the
Enchanted Kingdom.

Daphne’s beauty always called forth instant
appreciation from her school-mates, and tonight
they were more than generous in their applause.

Dancing ended the evening, but tonight there
was no lingering after sweet dreams had chimed
out bed-time.

The girls hurried to their rooms.

Janet and Phyllis stood and looked at each
other, and then dived under their pillows.

Only Janet found a note. She opened it listlessly.
What was the fun if Phyllis had missed
out? She read that she was duly elected to the
Archery Team.

“Oh, Phil!” she whispered, as she dropped
her note carelessly, but she did not have time to
finish, before Sally and Daphne rushed in, both
flourishing notes. They stopped aghast at the
sight of the Twins.

Phyllis managed a very little smile.

“Congratulations,” she said.

“Phil, do you mean?” Daphne demanded and
poor Phyllis nodded.

Ann and Prue and Gladys came dancing in.
Gladys had made the Archery Team as a substitute.

They stopped, too shocked and surprised at
the news of Phyllis’s failure.

“But you deserved it, Phil,” Ann insisted.

“Nonsense, I did no such thing. You don’t
deserve things just because you want them,”
Phyllis replied. “Goodness me, I’ve enough joy
in your good luck to last me a life-time. So do
forget about me.”

“What’s that?” Gladys demanded, and she
swooped down under the bed and stood up with
a note for Phyllis in her hand.

“It just fell down,” she cried. “Read it, Phil,
quick!”

Phyllis read. She was a member of the Dramatic
Club.

“Oh—oh, Jane!” was all she could find to say.

CHAPTER XIX—The Tennis Games
============================

Christmas came, and with it the joys
of long holidays and home. The Twins
had a particularly good time, for Auntie
Mogs, Mrs. Ladd, and Mrs. Hillis all
entertained for them, and Mr. Keith, Donald’s
father, gave them a marvelous party.

They found Chuck very much changed and
inclined to be superior, but it was not long before
he was back on his old footing with the
Twins, showing a marked preference as always
for Phyllis.

The last four days of the vacation were spent
at Major Harrison’s, Ann’s uncle, who had surpassed
all expectations by inviting Gladys and
Prue, the Twins, and Daphne and Sally to stay
with his niece for the entire three weeks.

They had all accepted for the last four days,
and glorious days they had been. There were
horses to ride, dogs to play with, and for Janet
the library of her dreams.

Major Harrison, a taciturn old gentleman,
had been very gruff at first, but towards the end
of their visit he had sought out their companionship,
and seemed to enjoy their good times as
much as they did.

Janet was his especial pet. He rode with her,
and together they visited the kennels each morning;
and when Janet showed her skill in caring
for a sick puppy, he had been so pleased that he
had given the little brown-and-white ball to her.
She had accepted the gift delightedly, but it was
understood that the dog should stay at Glenside,
for her own Boru would not welcome a rival in
New York, and she could not keep him at Hilltop.

They had great fun at the christening, when
the puppy was duly named Janet and recorded
in the club annals.

After Christmas came the long term at school.
But Easter was early, and thanks to the beautiful
weather that came soon after the first of the
year, the girls did not feel the usual mid-year
strain.

When this chapter opens, Spring was in full
sway at Hilltop. The great bushes of lilac that
fringed the lawn were ready to blossom, and
everywhere spring flowers added their brilliance
to the deep blue and white of the sky.

Sports Week was in progress. Basket Ball
Day had come and gone, leaving a victory to the
new wing. The relay races had been run the
day before, another victory for them.

Only Archery and Tennis remained, and unless
the old wing won both they would be beaten
at sports.

“I don’t care as much about tennis as I do
about archery,” called Sally as they dressed that
morning. All the doors were open and the remarks
floated from room to room.

“Oh, I do, as a point, if nothing else,” Ann
called back from the end of the hall.

“Do me up, somebody,” she added, as she
struggled with a refractory button at the back
of her white linen dress.

“If the new wing wins points in sports this
year, I am not coming back,” Gladys announced.
“Here, Ann, turn ’round and stand still, I’ll do
you up. Think how awful it would be to have
the Red Twins gloating all next term,” she
added. “I simply couldn’t stand it.”

“Who plays them in the finals in doubles?”
Prue asked.

“We do,” Phyllis answered. “We played off
yesterday, and, and of course they had to beat
Poppy and Helen.”

“Cheeky of them, I call it,” Gladys commented.

“Oh, well, if you are up against them, we
don’t need to worry. How’s your game?” Prue
had never held a racket in her hand, but she always
spoke in tennis terms.

“Very bad, thank you, Prue,” Janet informed
her. “I twisted my wrist yesterday, playing
against Kitty and Louise, and Phyl hurt her
foot.”

“I suppose the Red Twins are in high feather
then. How they love an advantage!” Sally said
crossly.

“Well, they don’t happen to know about this
one?” Janet replied. “I have kept mighty still
about it. My hand goes behind my back when
I see any of the faculty, so they won’t notice the
adhesive plaster on my wrist.”

“Is it as bad a sprain as that?” Daphne inquired.

“Yes, it’s terrifically painful,” Janet replied.
“I can’t see how I am going to manage,” she
added in a much louder voice than was necessary
to carry across the hall.

“Who was that?” Gladys exclaimed suddenly.
She was dressing in the corridor as well as in
her own room.

Janet went to her door, and stood smiling after
a retreating figure that was hurrying softly down
the stairs.

“Hush, Glad, don’t spoil my party,” she said
laughing. “That was Ethel Rivers, over scouting
for the Red Twins. I saw her reflection in
my mirror, so I gave her what news I could.”

“But why tell her how sore your arm is? The
Red Twins will gloat,” Prue protested.

“Wait and see,” Janet replied.

And the Red Twins did gloat. They even
asked the Twins if they would like a handicap.
Janet did the refusing in such a way, that it
left them perfectly sure that she would have
gladly taken it, had it been possible.

“What are you up to, Janet dear?” demanded
Daphne, who had heard the conversation.

“A rather mean trick, Taffy,” Janet admitted,
“but I can’t help it. They are so funny when
they are sure of themselves. Do look at May
condescending to Phyl. On my word I do believe
she is giving her points.”

Daphne took her by the shoulders and shook
her. “Jan, tell me the truth. How much of a
chance have the Red Twins?” she demanded.

“Not a chance in the world,” Janet replied
calmly.

And Daphne went back to the eager group of
girls who were crowding for places near the
court, and smiled her sweet dreamy smile in response
to all the new wing girls’ boasts.

The match began. Gwen and Stella Richardson
played off the finals in singles, and after a
hard fought fight, Gwen won.

“She has a back hand stroke that is a perfect
whiz,” Phyllis exclaimed admiringly. “Wish I
could get it!”

“Oh, well played, Gwen, well played!” Janet
called as flushed but triumphant Gwen left the
court.

“Well fought!” Sally called as Stella followed
her. She was smiling broadly.

“I’d hate to be beaten by any other girl, but
it’s a positive honor to be beaten by Gwen,” she
said good-naturedly.

“All right, you girls, already for the finals
in doubles.” Gwen blew her silver whistle. She
was once more captain of sports.

The two sets of twins took their places.

“Awfully sorry about your arm!” Bess said
with patronizing kindness as she passed Janet.

Janet nodded her thanks. Her arm did hurt,
in spite of the way she had joked about it, and
she could not help thinking of the Archery contest
next day. She looked ruefully at her bandaged
wrist as she took her place.

The Red Twins served first. Bess sent a tricky
drop to Phyllis but her racket was waiting for
it and she sent it back, just dribbling it over
the net.

The old wing shouted with delight, and Bess
stormed.

“Why don’t you stand into the net? You
know that’s one of her tricks,” she said angrily.

“Oh, keep still,” May muttered.

“Love—15,” Gwen called.

With more feeling of assurance, Bess served
again. This time to Janet. She chanced the
first ball and tried a new cut. It fell the wrong
side of the net, but she tossed up the second
undaunted.

Janet ran forward to meet it, and sent it back
easily, to the extreme right hand corner of the
court.

“Oh, pretty place!” Sally applauded from the
side lines.

The Red Twins lost the first game of their
serve and the second fell before Phyllis’ smashing
delivery. They won the third and fourth.

The twins had an easy time with the fifth and
sixth. Bess and May were quarreling so that
they were easy victims before Phyllis and Janet’s
perfect team-work.

After the first set, the result of the match was
a certainty. They stopped after the fourth game
and were received with salvos of applause.

Janet swayed a little as she walked off the
court. Her wrist was sending blinding pains up
her arm and she could not wait to tear off the
strip of adhesive plaster that bound it so cruelly.

Sally and Daphne noticed her pallor and went
to her.

“Get me a drink, will you, Taffy?” Janet said,
weakly sitting down on the bench in a sudden
fit of awful weakness.

She pulled off the bandage and disclosed an
angry red swelling.

“Oh, Jane, and we thought your wrist was all
a joke!” Sally exclaimed. “How awful, and
archery—”

“Don’t,” Janet said swiftly. “If you remind
me of it, I’ll weep.”

Phyllis meanwhile was talking to the Red
Twins.

“I can’t see why we lost,” Bess said stubbornly.
“We are better players than you are, and
you know it.”

.. figure:: images/illus-207.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: She pulled off the bandage and disclosed an angry red swelling
   
   She pulled off the bandage and disclosed an angry red swelling

“Of course you are,” Phyllis agreed, “much
better, but you have no notion of team-work.
You both want to do it all, and get all the credit.
I can’t see why you are twins. The way Jan
and I feel, it amounts to the same thing, as long
as *we* do it. That’s because we are twins, I suppose.”

“Well, it’s because *we* are twins that we can’t
get along together,” May explained. “We don’t
want the other one to get ahead, and it’s natural
that we shouldn’t,” she added in justification.

“It’s not natural,” Phyllis contradicted; “and
let me tell you this, until you learn to work together,
you will never be any earthly good to
each other or to Hilltop.”

Having given them this little thought to think
over during the summer, Phyllis turned her back
on them and went over to Janet.

CHAPTER XX—The Dramatic Club
============================

Archery Day was a dismal one for
Janet. She had to give up her place to
Gladys, for her arm was so swollen
that she could not even string her bow.

The old wing won, however, and it was Sally
who had her name engraved on the cup as the
winner of the highest score.

It was an exciting day, but the most thrilling
thing happened in the evening. All preparations
had been made for the play to be given on the
night before Commencement. The Dramatic
Club had decided on *Romeo and Juliet*. Daphne
was to play Juliet, and Poppy Romeo.

Phyllis had a small part as one of Romeo’s
friends. Rehearsals had been going on for the
past month, and the cast felt that they were word
perfect in their parts at least.

Then the night before the performance Poppy
fell down stairs. She cut her face and bruised
her shoulders and was carried unconscious to the
infirmary.

The Twins and Sally and Daphne heard the
news in horrified silence.

“Who will play Romeo?” Daphne demanded.

The question was settled for them by Helen
Jenkins. She knocked on the door and strode
in in her usual business-like way.

She saw by their faces that they knew the
news, so she went straight to the point.

“It’s the worst possible thing that could have
happened,” she said decidedly; and then without
a word of warning, added, “Phyllis, *you*
will have to play Romeo.”

“I play Romeo—”

“Phyl!”

“How wonderful!”

“But it’s tomorrow,” were some of the exclamations
that greeted Helen’s news.

“Well, can you, or can’t you?” Helen demanded.
“I must hurry back to the Infirmary,
and put Poppy’s mind at rest. She is making
herself sicker by worrying.”

“Of course I’ll do it,” Phyllis answered
promptly though her knees trembled beneath
her.

“Good girl!”

“Tell Poppy that I will do my best, and now
everybody please get out, I’ve got to study lines.”

“Don’t worry about lines,” Janet said quietly.

“But why not?”

“Because I know the whole play backwards
and frontwards, and I will sit in the wings and
follow you with every letter,” Janet promised.

Phyllis’s face relaxed. “Then that’s all right,”
she said. “I’ll brush up on them, for I know
them myself, of course, only I’m not sure of the
cues.”

“I’ll give you those.”

Sally and Daphne paused at the door.

“Call me when you want to go over it with
me,” Daphne said. “And oh, Phyl! I didn’t
like to say it before Helen, but I am so thrilled
that I don’t know what to do.”

“Taffy, you’re a darling,” Phyllis replied.
“I’ll probably spoil all your nice scenes, too.”

“Oh, no you won’t,” Sally returned decidedly.

“How do you know?” Phyllis asked laughing.

“Aunt Jane’s Poll-parrot told me,” Sally replied
as the door closed on them.

It was a busy twenty-four hours that followed.
Janet stayed with Phyllis every minute and gave
her of her own courage.

The dress rehearsal was a decided failure, but
the old girls were not at all alarmed.

“I’m hopeless,” Phyllis protested.

“You are not,” Janet denied hotly.

“How do you feel, honey?” Poppy inquired.
She was downstairs, but a sad sight indeed, with
her face covered with little pieces of gauze
slapped on with bits of adhesive plaster.

“Terrified, Poppy,” Phyllis admitted.

“That’s just right. I wouldn’t have you sure
of yourself for a second,” Poppy comforted.

“Oh, dear, I must go and study some more,”
Phyllis sighed.

“You are to do nothing of the kind. You are
to go out and take a walk, and then come in and
have a nice nap.”

Phyllis laughed at the idea, but Poppy, with
the aid of Sally and Janet won her point, and
with Daphne, nearly as frightened as Phyllis,
they went for a long walk.

When they got back they were glad enough
for a little nap.

At last the evening came, and with it all the
attendant excitement of a performance. The old
girls were as calm as they could be. They were
used to it, but poor Daphne and Phyllis!

They felt the difference in their ages and class,
and were conscious of a tiny feeling of resentment,
not in the girls of the Dramatic Club, but
in some of the Juniors who had not been elected.

The curtain rose on time, at exactly eight
o’clock. The setting was charming and Phyllis,
sure of Janet’s support, accredited herself well.

The ballroom was filled with strange faces,
for there were lots of guests, and after the first
terrified glance at them, Phyllis kept her eyes
on the stage.

By the time the balcony scene came, she was
almost calm, and her voice floated clear and
mellow as she began—

  “He jests at scars who never felt a wound—”

Daphne was a beautiful Juliet, with her soft
hair bound down by a fillet of pearls. When she
leaned from her balcony to ask—

  “What man art thou, who thus bescreened
  in night so stumbleth on my council?”

The guests caught their breaths from sheer wonder.

Phyllis, perhaps under the witchery of
Daphne’s smile, forgot her self-consciousness,
and threw herself into the part with the result
that she wooed her Juliet with all the ardor of
old Verona.

It was a triumph for the Dramatic Club, but
for Daphne and Phyllis in particular. They
went to their rooms that night with their pretty
heads buzzing with all the flattery they had received.
But, like the sensible children that they
were, they soon dismissed it as unimportant.

“Aren’t you the happiest person in the whole
world?” Janet demanded. “You ought to be.”

Phyllis shook her head. “No, I can’t be perfectly
happy, for every once in a while I remember
that this is our last night, and then I
could weep.”

“I know, Taffy said the same thing,” Janet
agreed. “But, Phyl, think of next year. We’ll
be old girls then.”

Phyllis gave a happy little sigh and snuggled
into her pillow.

“Phyl,” Janet whispered after a minute, “I—I’m
awfully proud of you.”

Phyllis leaned over and kissed her.

“There!” she said, “that’s the only compliment
I have wanted all evening, and I didn’t
think I was going to get it.”

They fell asleep almost simultaneously, and
the spirit of Hilltop watched their slumbers,
equally proud of them both.

CHAPTER XXI—And Last
====================

The twins stood in the Hall waiting for
their carriage to come for them. Sally
and Daphne were with them.

“Aunt Jane’s Poll-parrot, how I hate
to go!” Sally exclaimed.

“Hasn’t it been a simply perfect year?”
Phyllis agreed.

The rest nodded.

“But next year will be even perfecter,”
Daphne said happily.

“We didn’t make such a bad record,” Sally
remarked contentedly, knowing full well that no
Sophomore class had ever done as much.

Their eyes traveled to the mantel. The big
tennis cup bore Gwen’s name, and under it “The
Page Twins.” Sally’s name glittered from the
smooth surface of the Archery cup, and on the
Dramatic Club’s, Phyllis and Daphne’s names
stood out.

“How about this summer?” Janet inquired.
“You are both surely coming to Old Chester for
July aren’t you?”

“We are,” Sally and Daphne replied together.

The carriages arrived at that moment, and
singing and cheering Hilltop, all the school
drove off down the long hill, leaving the white
house that crowned it a little forlorn in the
drowsy sunshine.

THE END

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