Lizzie, as she munched her peppermint creams, turned over the pages of a volume of Dryden's poems, and made an occasional note. Each form kept a "Calendar of Quotations" hung up in its classroom, the daily extracts for which were supplied by the girls in rotation. It was Lizzie's turn to provide the gems for the following week, and she was hunting for something suitable.
"I wish Miss Bowes had given me Shakespeare," she said. "I could have got heaps of bits out of my birthday-book, just suitable for the month, too. I don't know why she should have pitched on Dryden. No one's going to be particularly cheered next week with my quotations. I've got:
"'When I consider life, 't is all a cheat; Yet, fooled with hope, men favour the deceit, Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay; To-morrow's falser than the former day.'
"'All human things are subject to decay, And when Fate summons, monarchs must obey.'"
"That's dismal, in all conscience!" put in Ulyth.
"'Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide.'
"That sounds quite as dismal, does it not? I wonder why Scott calls Dryden 'glorious John'? I think he's rather a dismal poet. Listen to this:
"'In dreams they fearful precipices tread, Or, shipwrecked, labour to some distant shore, Or in dark churches walk amongst the dead: They wake with horror, and dare sleep no more.'
"For goodness' sake don't! You'll give us all the creeps," laughed Ulyth.
"I'll tell you what you might do. Draw some illustrations round the mottoes. That would make them more interesting."
"Oh, I dare say! I haven't time to bother."
"Nonsense, you have! I'll do some of them for you. You needn't be original. It doesn't take long to copy things."
"All serene. I'll begin this evening if you'll give me the cards."
Ulyth dashed off quite a pretty little pen-and-ink sketch in ten minutes after tea, and put the cards by in her drawer, intending to finish them during "handicraft hour" the next day; but she completely forgot all about them, and never remembered their existence till Saturday, when she came across them by accident, and was much dismayed at her discovery.
"I'll have to do them somehow, or Lizzie'll never forgive me," she ruminated. "I must knock them off just as fast as I can. I could copy those little figures from the _American Gems_; they're in outline, and will be very easy. Oh, bother! It's cataloguing day, and one's not supposed to use the library. What atrocious luck!"