“But how?” inquired Adela, who was not very original-minded, and who considered her friend to be a monument of wisdom.
“I’ll not go _near_ their old hockey match,” bragged Sybil; “and I’ll have--yes, I _will_ have a dormitory feast!”
“Oh, _how_?” Adela’s eyes opened wide, and her mouth wider. “In _our_ dormitory, do you mean? Oh, could we really have one?”
“It’s easy enough,” said Sybil, drying her tears, and wondering how on earth it was to be done; “only--I’m not going to tell anyone--not even you!”
Repeated entreaties from her excited friend only served to render Sybil’s silence more profound. Truth to tell, she was feeling quite concerned as to how she was to carry the affair through and thus maintain a reputation for daring with Adela. She, therefore, with the courage born of despair, made up her mind recklessly that it would be “all right in the end,” and implicated herself still further by acquainting her remaining dormitory companion with the fact of her intentions.
“_We’re_ going to have a feast on Saturday, _too_!” she announced that night from behind her cubicle curtains; “and if either of you say one single word about it you shan’t have one tiny crumb of anything!”
“Does nurse know?” inquired Joan Curtis, aged eleven-and-three-quarters, and previously mentioned in these pages as being the youngest of the Cliff School girls.
“No, she doesn’t,” snapped Sybil; “but if we don’t ask her about it she can’t say we’re not to, and so it’ll be all right.”
This logical remark seemed to appear unanswerable to the other two, probably because the prospect of a feast of their own was such an alluring one, and there the matter rested--for _them_; while for Sybil began a time of wild and exciting imaginings and brain-rackings as she wondered however she could procure enough materials for the longed-for festivity!
It was small wonder, then, that during the following days she went about her duties and played her games with a somewhat pensive expression of face; and sympathetic Margot, guessing--wrongly--what was the matter with her little cousin, cast about in her mind for some way to mitigate the dreadful disappointment. Her ideas voiced themselves in a letter written with Miss Slater’s express permission and received by Mrs. Fleming during the middle of the week.