The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation by Annie Fellows Johnston

AS Betty opened the door, she ran into Kitty Walton, who at sight of her / struck an attitude on the threshold, crossing her hands on her breast, / and rolling her eyes upward until only the whites were visible.

"What new pose is this, you goose?" laughed Betty, shaking her gently by / one shoulder.

"Don't laugh," was the solemn answer. "This is pious resignation to / fate." Then her hands dropped and she turned to Betty tragically.

"I've just come from an interview with Madam Chartley," she explained. / "And what do you think? That blessed old soul expects me to live up to / the motto on her teacups! But how can I give Hawkins his just due _if_ I / do? I had the loveliest things planned for his tormenting, but I'd be / ashamed to look her in the face if she ever found me out after this / interview.

"Oh, Betty, I don't want to renounce the world and the flesh and all the / other bad things this early in the term, but I'm afraid that I've / already done it. She's laid a spell on all of us."

"Has she sent for Lloyd and Allison, too?"

"Yes, Allison was the first victim. She came back in a regular / dare-to-be-a-Daniel mood, and announced that she intended to start in, / heart and soul, for the studio honours this year. Then Lloyd had her / turn, and she came back looking like Joan of Arc when she'd been / listening to the voices. I vowed she shouldn't have that effect on me, / but here I am, perfectly docile as you see, fangs drawn and claws cut. I / tremble for the effect on you, sweet innocent. Your wings will sprout / before you get back."

Betty laughed and hurried past her down the stairs. Evidently it was / Madam's custom to make the acquaintance of her new girls in this way, / one at a time. Only fifteen freshmen were admitted each year, so it was / possible for her to take a personal interest in every pupil.

Betty's heart fluttered expectantly as she paused an instant in the door / of the pink room. Madam Chartley had looked very imposing and dignified / as she presided at the lunch-table that noon, with the stately Hawkins / behind her chair and the stately portraits looking down from the walls.

She looked now as if she might be the original of one of these old / portraits herself, as she sat there in the high-backed chair, with the / griffins carved on its teakwood frame. Her gray gown trailed around her / in graceful folds. There was a soft fall of lace at wrists and throat, / and her white hair had a sheen like silver against the pink brocade with / which the chair was upholstered.

With a smile which seemed to take Betty straight into her confidence, / she held out her hand and drew her to a seat beside her. An / old-fashioned silver tea-service stood on a table at her elbow, and when / the maid had brought hot water, she busied herself in filling a cup for / Betty.

"There!" she said, as she passed it to her. "There's nothing like a cozy / chat over a cup of tea for warming acquaintances into friends."

Betty wondered, as she took a proffered slice of lemon, if Madam began / all her interviews in this way, and if she was to hear the same little / sermon about the crest on the ancestral teacups that Kitty had heard. It / certainly was an interesting crest. She lifted the fragile bit of china / for a closer survey. A mailed arm, rising out of a heart, clasped a / spear in its hand, and under it ran the motto, "I keep tryst."

But Madam's conversation led far away from the crest and its lesson. At / first it was about a quaint old English inn, where is served delicious / toasted scones with five o'clock tea. When she mentioned that, it was as / if they had discovered a mutual friend, for Betty cried out joyfully / that she had been there, and had spent a long rainy afternoon in one of / its rooms, where Scott had written many chapters of "Kenilworth." Betty / remembered afterward that not a word was said about school and its / obligations. It was of the Old Curiosity Shop they spoke, and the House / of Seven Gables. Madam promised to show her the autographs of Dickens / and Hawthorne, which she had in her collection, and a pen which had once / belonged to George Eliot.

Then Betty found that Madam had known Miss Alcott, and, before she / realized what she was doing, she had thrown herself down impulsively on / the stool at her feet, and, with both hands clasping the griffin's head / on the arm of the high-backed chair, was asking a dozen eager questions / about "Little Women" and the author who had been her first inspiration / to write.

Nearly an hour later, when she went back to her room, it was with / something singing in her heart that made her very solemn and very happy. / It was the immortal music of the Choir Invisible. She had been in the / unseen company of earth's best and noblest, and felt in her soul that / some day she, too, would have a right to be counted in that chorus, / having done something really great and worth while.

That evening after dinner Kitty bounced into the room where Allison sat / talking with Lloyd and Betty during recreation hour.

"To-morrow night there's to be the Old Girls' Welcome to the New!" she / cried. "Come on in, Juliet, and tell them about it."

Juliet thrust her head through the half-open door.

"Haven't time to stop," she answered, "but I'll tell this much. It's the / first of the great social functions. Everybody wears her party clothes / and a sweet smile. It's the first lesson of the year in How to attain / Ease under New and Exacting Conditions. No matter how the seniors snub / you later on, in order to teach you your proper place, you'll all be / birds of a feather that one time, and flock together as peaceably as pet / hens.