Jean awoke on Sunday morning conscious that she was making a fresh start in her life at Hazelhurst with the real Carol Armstrong for her friend. She found Carol waiting for her as the girls were going to breakfast, and they entered the dining-room with their arms around each other. Breakfast over, the Mice made for their hole with speed. They had seen Miss Carlton’s eye turn ominously in their direction.
The Orioles drew Jean into their nest. “Joan of Arc,” said Cecily, “what do you think we girls did last night? We held a meeting and elected officers for the Silver Sword! And Betty’s to be Princess of the Treasure, and I’m Princess of the Scroll, and you’re the Queen!”
“Me!” exclaimed Jean, astonished quite out of good English.
“Yes, you! You’ve been unanimously elected.”
“But I’m not good enough! I behaved so dreadfully!” stammered Jean. “I shouldn’t think you’d want me to belong to the order at all! You ought to be the Queen, Cecily; you’re so sweet and good all the time! You’d make a splendid one.”
“I wouldn’t at all, and I’m not sweet and good a bit!” declared St. Cecilia. “You’re the Queen and you can’t help yourself!”
“You’ll make the best queen of all, Jean. You know how to plan things so beautifully. If we don’t have you, we won’t have anybody! We’ll give up the order! There now!” This was Betty’s ultimatum.
Jean looked at her friends as if she could not believe that it was true,—this honor after her wrathful outburst. Then she dropped her eyes to hide a gathering mist, and while she stood silent, with bent head, she took a strong resolve to prove herself worthy of her crown.
In the afternoon, as Jean was sitting at her desk writing her “home letter,” Frances and Adela came to her, fresh from a penitential half hour in Miss Carlton’s study. Adela drummed on the desk, her cheeks crimson. Frances took up Jean’s pencils and examined them one after another as if she found them very interesting. It was Jean who spoke first.
“Girls, I said hateful things to you, yesterday—I was so angry! I’m very, very sorry. Won’t you please forgive me?”
“Good gracious! You’re the one to do the forgiving!” burst out Frances. “It was perfectly horrid of us to go and take your book! I’m terribly sorry! Won’t you please forgive me?”
“Of course I will!” Jean raised her face as Frances bent over her, and they marked the victory of Caritas with a kiss of peace.
“I’m sorry, too, Jean! I didn’t think you’d mind so. And I wouldn’t have locked you in, only you seared me to death. Will you forgive me too?” asked Adela.
“Of course!” answered Jean. She took Adela’s hand, gave it a hearty squeeze, and held it fast.
As they were going away Frances dropped a kiss on the back of Jean’s neck, and Adela said thoughtfully, “You’ll make a fine queen!”
The initiation ceremony of the order took place on the following Saturday evening. The maids of honor trooped into the studio to find a royal trio awaiting them. There, in an armchair for a throne, sat their sovereign, in her hand a real sword, a revolutionary heirloom lent by Miss Carlton. The princesses of the Scroll and the Treasure stood beside her, Cecily holding a roll of paper and Betty a white silk bag tied with yellow ribbon, as their symbols of office.
The queen rose and welcomed her maidens in a little speech, carefully prepared. Then she called the two princesses to receive the accolade. They knelt before her, and Jean struck Cecily lightly on the shoulder with the blade that had been drawn for liberty, saying, “I dub thee battle maid of the Order of the Silver Sword. Be always faithful to the sword of love and the shield of truth!” Then she pinned on Cecily’s breast a badge painted by the princess of the Scroll herself,—the sword of silver on the shield of gold. “Rise, battle maid!” she said, and Cecily arose, the first warrior maiden of the order. The princess of the Treasure was next given the accolade, then each maid of honor in turn, and last of all the queen herself received it, the two princesses, one after the other, touching her shoulder with the sword.
When every girl in the room had become a battle maid, with the gold and silver badge on her breast, Cecily opened her scroll and read aloud the laws of the order; and the initiation over, Jean said, “Princesses and maids of honor, welcome to our royal banquet!”
Betty and Cecily removed a screen and displayed the painting-table festooned with smilax, upon it a feast of cake and lemonade. The banquet was beginning when there was a knock at the door, and Frances ran to open it. “Ice cream!” she cried, and in came Carol and Eunice, each carrying a tray with saucers of ice cream in the form of fruits and flowers. “An offering to the noble Order of the Silver Sword!” said Carol. She and Eunice set down their contribution; then, curtseying low, they retired amid cheers for the president of the seniors and her room-mate.
The order had an auspicious beginning, with such allies; and among the battle maids there awoke that evening a spirit of firm loyalty to the queen, to one another, and to the sword and shield.
* * *
Some good fighting was done between the initiation night and Commencement week. If a pupil or a teacher was ill “Caritas” was sure to be drawn in her behalf, and she received a cheery present of flowers “with best wishes from the Silver Sword.” And from the founding of the order Miss Carlton dated a marked improvement in the standing of Jean’s class. To be sure Adela’s Latin exercises were faultier than they had sometimes been, but they were at least the work of her own brains.
No one fought more valiantly than Jean herself, for when she least expected him that fiery old enemy of hers was certain to challenge her to combat. Sometimes the sword was not drawn in time; but whenever she was overthrown, there, ready to help her to her feet again, was Carol, who had been through many a hard battle and knew just how to encourage the disheartened queen. And little by little the enemy was mastered; more and more easily he yielded; less and less often the battle maid had to own defeat; and another and another victory was gained.
The Easter vacation was a season of sunshine, when Jean was so happy that it seemed as if the foe had declared a truce. Not the least of her trials was her great-aunt, Mrs. Pyncheon, with whom her holidays were to be passed. The Christmas at Adamsville might as well have been spent in a grave-yard, she declared. But Carol saved her from a gloomy Easter-tide by taking her off to New York to spend the vacation in the Armstrongs’ home. Jean never forgot that delightful visit, and refreshed by the glorious holiday she came back to school to work with new enthusiasm for prizes at Commencement.
The battle maids toiled hard for love of their Alma Mater, but still they had time to give a play for the benefit of their society. Early in May they acted a dramatization of “The Rose and the Ring.” Jean made a captivating Prince Giglio in a white suit trimmed with cherry-color, a mantle bordered with swan’s-down and a cap with a snowy ostrich plume. Cecily was the Princess Rosalba; and whether in peasant dress, serving as the housemaid Betsinda, or in her pink court robe with flowers in her hair, standing in her true character as a maiden of royal blood, so lovely was she that no magic rose or ring was needed to help her conquer the hearts of the spectators. Betty, in her great-grandmother’s blue brocade, was the Princess Angelica, haughty and capricious; weighty Blanche, in the role of Prince Bulbo, looked her part to perfection; and Frances, who had insisted on being the severe Countess Gruffanuff, brought down the house again and again. The play was pronounced by the enthusiastic audience a brilliant success; Prince Giglio and the fair Rosalba were acknowledged to be the brightest stars in the whole troupe; and at the end of the evening the battle maids found themselves rich enough to order the gold and silver badges which they had determined should replace the paper ones.
And now Commencement was less than a month away. One afternoon, as Carol and Eunice were studying for their senior examinations, Jean came into their room, bringing a bunch of wild violets for her “Big Sister,” as she loved to call her friend. Carol stole a minute from the classics to enjoy the bit of spring freshness, and Jean dropped down beside her on the divan.
“Carolie,” she said, “isn’t it just too bad! Cecily’s had the biggest disappointment!”
“What’s happened?” asked Carol. “I thought she looked like a funeral to-day.”
“Why, she can’t go to Halcyon Lake this summer. They have to rent their camp. She’s just had a letter from her mother.”
“Where’s Halcyon Lake? I never heard of it,” said Carol.
“It’s in the Adirondacks,” answered Jean. “It’s way back in the woods. They have the loveliest camp there, right on the edge of the lake! They sleep in tents! It used to be a boys’ camp. Her father was a minister, you know, and he used to take up youngsters from Philadelphia. And since he died Cece and her mother have gone up just by themselves; but now some people want the camp for the summer, and her mother says she’s got to let them have it, because she needs the money so much.”
“Why, I didn’t know the Brooks were poor!” exclaimed Carol.
“Yes, they are. And Cecily says Miss Carlton’s educating her for nothing, because she was her mother’s best friend. Oh, dear! I think it’s a real shame they have to rent their camp! An uncle of hers has a little camp there too, and she has such fun with her cousins! They canoe all day, and have picnics and camp-fires and everything!”
“I’d like to go there, myself, for the canoeing,” interrupted Carol. “I have the dearest little canoe! Poor little St. Cecilia! I don’t wonder she looked ultramarine! It’s too bad she can’t go! Camping out’s the only proper way to spend a summer, I think.”
Her eyes wandered to the stretch of sunny landscape that could be seen from her open window. Suddenly she whistled; then she sprang up and clapped her hands. “Queenie, I’ve hit it!” she cried. “My mighty brain has evolved a scheme. The fortunes of the Brooks are made forever! We’ll have a girls’ camp!”
“Carolie, what do you mean?” Jean was on her feet too, all excitement.
“A girls’ camp it is!” said Carol, “Una, wake up! You’ll get blind if you fuss over that Greek any longer! The cream of Hazelhurst Hall is going to camp out all summer at Halcyon Lake,—sleep in tents,—fish,—hunt,—canoe!”
“What are you rattling on about?” asked Eunice, looking vaguely up from her Greek.
“Una, put down that book this instant!” Carol commanded. “Do you hear me? Obey your president! I’m not going to let you study any more; you’ll be valedictorian anyway, so what’s the use of working yourself into nervous prostration! Now listen,—don’t put on that patient expression!”
“Go ahead! Chatter away! You won’t keep still till you’ve said your say out, I suppose,” Eunice answered resignedly.
Carol repeated the story of Cecily’s disappointment. “Now,” said she, “Mrs. Brook has to rent her camp because she needs the money. Well, if she gets the money and stays there too, so much the better. Now it’s all settled! The whole senior class and all the other nice girls are going to board at her camp all summer. Let’s telegraph to her; ‘Don’t rent. Your fortune’s made!’”
“Oh, Carolie, how perfectly glorious!” screamed Jean, with a jump of delight.
“Well, you certainly are an inventive genius!” said Eunice. “I suppose there’s not the slightest chance our families will want us to be with them this summer!”
“Our families will be only too glad to be rid of us,” replied Carol. “Now, don’t talk about visiting your married sister, Una. If she knows you as well as I do, she won’t want you. You’re not to be trusted with your baby niece. You’d carry the poor darling around as if she were a dictionary, and absent-mindedly stuff her into a bookshelf.”
Eunice laughed. “I think it’s a perfectly ideal plan,” she said. “But I’m afraid we couldn’t collect enough girls.”
“We can, we must, we shall, we will collect them!” declared Carol. “We’ll boom ‘Camp St. Cecilia-by-the-Lake’ so hard we’ll fill it in less than no time. There won’t even be standing room left! You’re coming, you know, Jeanie.”
“Oh, oh! I’d love to go!” cried Jean. “Then I’d be with you, all summer! If only I can get off from visiting Aunt Lucretia!”
“She’ll have to let you off,” said Carol. “I’m going to steal you for the summer, wherever I am. But we’ll get to camp. We’ll have shoals of girls,—don’t you worry!”
“I wonder how many we could get together,” said Eunice.
“Well, there’s Marion,” said Carol. “She’d love to go! It would be such a chance for her to sketch. And there are Nan and the wild, woolly Westover—we can count on them, they’re so daft about fishing. That’s six already. Let’s call a class meeting this evening, Una, and start the Halcyon Lake boom.”
The camping project was advertised with signal success. Miss Carlton, herself, favored the plan, and she as well as radiant Cecily wrote to Mrs. Brook, whose answer was an offer to take as many girls as the tents would hold, and the assurance that she would give up all thought of renting her camp. If parental consent could have been gained by all the damsels who had caught the camping fever, Mrs. Brook would have found nearly the whole school begging for accommodation, but many were doomed to disappointment. At last, however, seventeen girls were enrolled, with Miss Hamersley, the teacher of athletics, and Fräulein Bunsen, as the chaperones of the party. There were Carol and Eunice and four more seniors, six juniors, and four “sophs.” Last on the list came Betty Randolph, she and Cecily being the only members of the order as yet represented. Jean still waited to know her destiny. She had sent an eloquent appeal to her mother and father imploring them to allow her to go to camp, but the letter had to travel all the way to Brazil, and while in a fever of impatience she watched for the answer to come, she was haunted with the dread of spending the summer with Aunt Lucretia Pyncheon.
Commencement Day arrived, bringing diplomas and prizes. The battle maids reaped a rich harvest after their months of hard fighting, and wore for the first time their new badges, tiny gold and silver clasp-pins, in the form of shields crossed by swords and bearing the motto “Caritas et Veritas.” On that day of triumph Jean won both the English and the Latin prizes, but there was a cloud upon her happiness, for still no word had come from Brazil.
The play of Romeo and Juliet, given by the older girls, brought the Commencement festivities to a close. Eunice was the golden-haired Juliet of the evening, and Carol, in cloak and tunic of deep red velvet, was the dashing Romeo. The play over, the actors reappeared on the stage to bow to the audience and to receive their bouquets. Jean brought Romeo a bunch of Jacqueminot roses as a love-token, and what was her astonishment when he dropped on one knee before her, and, doffing his plumed cap to the ground, presented his sword, on the point of which he had just placed a bouquet of pink sweet peas and—a cablegram! The message was from her father and said, “Jean may go to camp.”