The School Queens

“You won’t whisper more than your share,” said Jackdaw. “I’ve a frightful lot to say to Mags this morning.”

“Hush, boys!” said Maggie; “if you quarrel about me I shall not speak to either of you.”

This threat was so awful that the boys glanced at each other, remained silent and got quietly into their places. Then the hampers were put on the floor just under their feet.

Presently Cicely and Merry came out to join the group. They were wearing pretty pink muslins, with pink sashes to match. Merry’s beautiful dark eyes were very bright. Mr. and Mrs. Tristram inquired for their host and hostess.

“Oh, I have news for you!” said Merry.

“Yes,” said Cicely, “Merry will tell.”

“Well, it’s Just this,” said Merry, almost jerking out her words in excitement: “Father and mother have been obliged to go rather unexpectedly to town.”

“Why?” said Maggie; then she restrained herself, knowing that it was not her place to speak.

“They have gone to town,” said Merry, scarcely looking at Maggie now, and endeavoring with all her might and main not to show undue excitement, “because a great and wonderful thing has happened; something so unexpected that – that Cicely and I can scarcely believe it.”

Maggie glanced at the sweet little faces. She said to herself, “All right,” and got calmly into the wagonette, where she sat close under the box-seat which contained those obstreperous young heroes Andrew and Jack. The others clustered round Merry.

“As I said, I can scarcely believe it,” said Merry; “but father has done the most marvelous thing. Oh Belle! oh Molly! it is too wonderful! For after all – after all, Cicely and I are to go with you to Aylmer House in September, and – and – that is why father and mother have gone to town. Father went up yesterday and saw Mrs. Ward, and he – he settled it; and father and mother have gone up to-day – both of them – to see her, and to make final arrangements. And we’re to go! we’re to go!”

“Hurrah!” cried Molly. Immediately the boys, and Maggie and Belle, and even Mr. and Mrs. Tristram, took up the glad “Hurrah!”

“Well, children,” said Mr. Tristram when the first excitement had subsided, “I must say I am heartily pleased. This is delightful! I take some credit to myself for having helped on this most excellent arrangement.”

“No one thanks me for anything,” thought Maggie; but she had the prudence to remain silent.

“We had better start on our picnic now,” said Mr. Tristram, and immediately the whole party climbed into the wagonette. The horses started; the wheels rolled. They were off.

By-and-by Merry felt her hand taken by Maggie. Maggie just squeezed that hand, and whispered in that very, very rich and wonderfully seductive voice of hers, “Oh, I am glad! I am very, very glad!”

Merry felt her heart thrill as Maggie uttered those words. She answered back, turning her face to her young companion, “To be with you alone would be happiness enough for me.”

“Is it true, Cicely,” said Mrs. Tristram at the moment, “that your cousin, Aneta Lysle, is coming to stay with you?”

“Oh yes; but I had half-forgotten it in all this excitement,” said Cicely. “She will arrive to-morrow. – Maggie, you’ll be glad, won’t you?”

“More than delighted,” said Maggie.

“It is too wonderful,” said Cicely. “Why, it will soon come to pass that half Mrs. Ward’s school will be all together during the holidays. Fancy, we two, and you two” – she touched one of the Tristram girls – “and you, Maggie, and then dear Aneta; why, that’ll make six. What a lot we shall have to talk about! Maggie, you and Aneta will be our two heroines; we shall always be applying to you for information.”

The conversation was here interrupted by Jackdaw, who pinched Maggie on the arm. “You’re not attending to us,” he said.

“Nonsense, Jackdaw!”

“Well, stand up for a minute; I want to whisper to you.”

Maggie, who never lost a chance of ingratiating herself with any one, obeyed.

“Jack dear, don’t be troublesome,” said his mother.

“I am not,” said Jackdaw. “She loves it, the duck that she is!”

“Be quick, Jackdaw; it’s very difficult for me to keep my hold standing up,” said Maggie.

“How many chocolates can you eat at a pinch?” whispered Jackdaw in her ear.

“Oh, forty,” replied Maggie; “but I should be rather ill afterwards.”

“We’ve got some in our pockets. They’re a little bit clammy, but you don’t mind that?”

“I don’t want any just now, dear boy; and I’ll tell you why. I want to be really starving hungry when the picnic begins.”

“That’s a good notion, isn’t it?” said Jackdaw. – “I say, Andrew, she wants to be starving hungry when the picnic begins!”

Maggie resumed her seat, and the boys went on whispering together, and kicking each other at intervals, and rather upsetting that very stolid personage, Mr. Charles, the Meredith Manor coachman.

The picnic was a perfect success. When people are very happy there is no room for discontent in their hearts, and all the members of that party were in the highest spirits. The Cardew girls had no time yet for that period of regret which must invariably follow a period of intense excitement. They had no time yet to realize that they must part with their father and mother for the greater portion of the year.

To children so intensely affectionate as Cicely and Merry such a parting must mean considerable pain. But even the beginning of the pain did not come to them on that auspicious day, and they returned to the house after the picnic in the highest good-humor.

Mr. and Mrs. Tristram, however, were wise in their generation; and although Cicely and Merry begged and implored the whole party to come to the Manor for supper, they very firmly declined. It is to be regretted that both Jack and Andrew turned sulky on this occasion.

As the rectory girls and Maggie and the boys and Mr. and Mrs. Tristam were all going homewards the two girls and Maggie fell behind.

“Isn’t this real fun? Isn’t it magnificent?” said Molly Tristram.

“It’s a very good thing indeed for your friends Cicely and Merry,” said Maggie. Then she added, “Didn’t I tell you, girls, that you would win your bracelets?”

Belle felt herself changing color.

“We don’t want them a bit – we really don’t,” said Molly.

“Of course we don’t want them,” said Isabel.

“You’ll have them all the same,” said Maggie. “They are my present to you. Surely you won’t refuse my present?”

“But such a very rich and handsome present we ought not to accept,” said Molly.

“Nonsense, girls! I shall be unhappy unless you wear them. When I return to mother – which, alas! I must do before many days are over – I shall send you the bracelets.”

“I wish you wouldn’t, Maggie,” said Belle Tristram; “for I am certain father and mother would not like us to wear jewelry while we are so young.”

“Well, then,” said Maggie, “I will give them to you when we all meet at Aylmer House. You must take them; you know you promised you would. You will hurt me most frightfully if you don’t.”

As Molly and Isabel certainly did not wish to hurt Maggie, they remained silent, and during the rest of the walk the three girls scarcely spoke. Meanwhile Cicely and Merry entered the Manor House and waited impatiently for the return of their father and mother.

“We must get everything extra nice for them,” said Cicely to her sister. “I do think it is so wonderfully splendid of them to send us to school.”