“Perhaps, gentle mentor,” said Isabel, putting her arm about Cathalina.
“I would not love a sailor lad, However bright his e’e; A deck would have his roving feet, No hearth-stane warm, with me!”
“Set that to music, Lilian, and sing it to Betty.”
“Yes. I thought it up while we were waiting for Betty. Donald is sort of Scotch, you know, so I put in ‘e’e’ and ‘stane’.”
“It seems to be catching,” said Eloise. “Lilian and Cathalina are always making verses, and now Isabel.”
“Whither now, Lily Ann?” Diane was strolling out of classroom number five behind Lilian.
“I don’t answer to that name,” replied Lilian, pausing, however, and linking her arm in that of Diane. “How becoming that crimson frock is.”
“Yes. It matches your cheeks and brings out the shepherdess complexion.”
“Shepherdess yourself, Lilian, and you have the golden locks as well. Going up to the library?”
“Yes; I have to read a little for Lit. We have a perfectly terrible book to write on it, all our notes in class and on our collateral reading. The first half has to be ready to hand in at the first of the second semester. I pity the girls who haven’t written up their notes right along.”
“I was sorry that I did not take that advanced course in Literature. It wasn’t required, so I did not try it. I have so much to make up, anyway. But your book prospect does not look so inviting,—I’m not so sorry after all.”
The two girls were climbing the stairs of the library building, tripping up the wide steps with light feet.
“Did you hear about the ghost?” continued Diane.
“Yes; Greycliff’s old standby, the Woman in Black, has appeared again. One of the academy girls nearly went into hysterics the other night, they say, after she saw it, or thought she saw it. She said that it moaned and waved black arms, with wide sleeves or something, and glided by as ghosts are supposed to glide, but very rapidly.”
“I haven’t heard anything about the Woman in Black for some time. Let me see. It was Isabel that declared she saw it two or three years ago. How many times has it appeared this time?”
“Several times, according to all accounts. There are all sorts of wild tales about it. One girl said that it started toward her, then turned back and just disappeared.”