Flattering names like Sugar Plums, Seraphic Peaches or Peris, and Sweet Partners, suggested by their elders, Phoebe had omitted, keeping only to the more ridiculous combinations possible.
“Yes,” said Jean, “we are going to open up the _sanctum sanctorum_, where we have our initiations and everything. To be sure, our secrets are locked away, but you may see the caldron where with incantations the sibyl,--but you will see that I can’t explain any more, of course. And as soon as you’ve seen the room you may have your fortunes told by the High Sibyl.”
Chatting, laughing boys and girls in costumes of all sorts, for the girls came as fairies, Martha Washington, other historic ladies or even gay rovers of a feminine type, all crowded into the room when Jean threw open the door. If some of the girls were a little envious and wished that they, too, belonged to the S. P.’s, they did not express those feelings and admired the gay appointments as generously as they could. The Wizards laughed at the peacocks in the curtains, and tried the locked door of the closet as if they would break it open to discover the secrets of the S. P.’s. One of the boys gave the knob such a pull that it came off. The girls nearest squealed, and the Grand Wizard said, “Look out there, no rough house!”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Jean, as the boy looked rather dismayed and stood with the white knob in his hand. “It was loose anyhow. It can be fixed.”
“I’ll f-fix it myself,” stammered the boy, one of the sophomores, “if you think I can do it without seeing what is in the closet.”
“We’ll see about that,” laughed Jean. “Honestly, Carter, I don’t care one bit! Now who wants her fortune told first?”
Jean had been standing before some draperies in one corner, for she really would have felt rather put out if any one had tried to see behind them. Yet they concealed only a corner fronted by a sort of mortar board partition which the girls had fixed themselves, and a little swinging door, cut out and held in place by strips of muslin.
“This, ladies and gentlemen, is the sibyl’s cave. Even now she is consulting Apollo--I guess it’s Apollo--about your future. You will find on that table some little slips. Write on them your favorite flower, your favorite study, your greatest ambition and the girl or boy you like best. Your name is not necessary. Then, when you are ready, I will hand them to the guardian of the cave and presently you will hear the oracle speak. Oh, yes, number your slips, please, and remember your number, for your own convenience, because they will be handed in order to the Guardian, who will impart their information to the sibyl. It wouldn’t do you any good to hear the first fortune, you know, if you had forgotten that you were number one. The sibyl is very peculiar. She’s something like that mad prophetess Jimmy was telling us about that wrote her prophecies on leaves and let the wind blow them every-which-way.”