Johnston Annie Fellows - The Little Colonel at Boarding-School стр 19.

"The beauty of this club," remarked Kitty, as she opened her paint-box and carefully selected a brush, "is that there's no fuss and feathers about it. No election of officers, no dues, no rules, no tiresome minutes to read. All we have to do when we begin is to begin."

"And to remember our motto," suggested Betty, to whom the purpose of the club appealed strongly.

"Ida has made something to help us do that," said Lloyd. "Give them to us now, Ida, while Mrs. Walton is here to see them, please," she urged.

Ida, who had delayed showing them for that very reason, glanced shyly toward her hostess, and then hesitatingly opened the case which held her pyrography outfit.

"It's only some little blotting-pads for your writing-desks," she said, with a blush. "It seems to me that the verse is especially appropriate at letter-writing time, when we consciously cast our shadow-selves where we cannot be."

There was a chorus of delighted exclamations as she passed the packages around. Only two narrow slips of white blotting-paper held together by a white silken cord, but the cover was of soft gray kid, on which she had burned with her pyrography needle the club's motto in old English letters. Mrs. Walton leaned over the table to read the one on Allison's:

"The club is certainly to be congratulated on having a member who can not only make such pretty things, but who can think of such sweet, suggestive ways in which to keep its purpose always in view."

Lloyd's hand, groping along under the table, found Ida's and gave it a squeeze of sympathetic delight.

"There's something to write to your aunt," she whispered. While the girls were still admiring their blotters, the maid came in to announce a visitor for Mrs. Walton in the library.

Several minutes after she had left them to themselves, Kitty exclaimed, "Oh, mamma forgot to give me those little brass clamps to fasten the candle-shades, and now she has company, and I haven't the faintest idea where to look for them."

"They may be in the hat-rack drawer in the hall," suggested Allison. "I think I saw them in there this morning, but I am not sure."

Kitty skipped out of the room to look for them, and a few minutes later came back, her black eyes shining teasingly.

"I have a trade-last for you, Ida," she said. "Mrs. Mallard is in the library, discussing our club, and I heard mother say something awfully nice about you."

"Tell it!" demanded Lloyd.

"No, I said a trade-last."

"Oh, fishing for a compliment!" sang Katie. "Don't tell her, Ida, even if you have heard one. It will make her vain."

"Besides," put in Allison, "Miss Bina McCannister said it was common and silly to play trade-last."

"Oh, bother old Miss Bina!" said the disrespectful Kitty. "Well, I'll tell you, anyhow. I heard mother tell Mrs. Mallard that she thought you were a charming girl, one of the sweetest that she had met in a long time. She said she was glad we had chosen you in the club instead of a younger girl, for she thought you would have a quieting, refining influence on us, especially me ! Think of that now! Me! And she said on that account she would like to have you here often."

Again Lloyd's hand met Ida's under the table in a quick squeeze. "Something else to write to your aunt," she whispered.

Several pretty candle-shades, two doll tam-o'-shanter caps, and three calendars in water-colours were laid aside finished, as the result of that afternoon's work. Besides, Lloyd and Betty had each made considerable progress on the centrepieces they had undertaken to embroider, and the magazine-cover Ida was burning in an elaborate design of dragons was half-done. Allison packed the finished articles away in a hat-box after supper, and put them up on a shelf in her closet.

"Our first meeting has surely been a success," she exclaimed. "At this rate we'll have enough things made by Easter to hold a splendid big fair. We ought to be able to cast our shadows quite a distance with the money we'll make, if we do this well every time."

"Come cast your shadows on this sheet, girls," called Mrs. Walton from the next room, where she had pinned some strips of white paper to a sheet hung on the wall, and placed a lamp at the proper distance for making silhouettes. "The name of your club suggested an old amusement of ours. Come, see how clever you are at drawing each other's shadows."

It proved to be an amusing undertaking, for whenever they laughed during the process, it changed their profiles into all sorts of ridiculous outlines. But finally some very creditable silhouettes were made, and each member of the club carried home her own shadow as a souvenir of the first meeting.

Katie's father called for her at half-past eight, and escorted the seminary girls as far as the high green gate.

"What a perfectly lovely time we've had!" exclaimed Betty, as she and Lloyd and Ida strolled slowly on toward the house, when they had bidden Katie and Mr. Mallard good night.