Part 101

"I guess I'm not making as much noise as some other people," said Clem, with a wry face.

"Well, Polly's going to begin; and as she's chairman, we've all got to be still as mice. Hush!"

"I think," said Polly, "the best way would be, instead of wasting so much time in talking, and--"

"Getting into a hubbub," interpolated Alexia.

"Who's talking now," cried Clem triumphantly, "and making a noise?"

"Getting in confusion," finished Polly, "would be, for us each to write out the things that Miss Anstice might like, on a piece of paper, without showing it to any of the other girls; then pass them in to me, and I'll read them aloud. And perhaps we'll choose something out of all the lists."

"Oh, Polly, how fine!--just the thing."

"I'll get the paper."

"And the pencils." The ring was in a hubbub; Alexia, as usual, the first to hop out of her place.

"Sit down, girls," said Polly as chairman. So they all flew back again.

"There, you see now," said Alexia, huddling expeditiously into her place next to Polly, "how no one can stir till the chairman tells us to."

"Who jumped first of all?" exclaimed Clem, bursting into a laugh.

"Well, I'm back again, anyhow," said Alexia coolly, and folding her hands in her lap.

"I'll appoint Lucy Bennett and Silvia Horne to get the paper and pencils," said Polly. "They are on my desk, girls."

Alexia smothered the sigh at her failure to be one of the girls to perform this delightful task; but the paper being brought, she soon forgot her disappointment, in having something to do.

"We must all tear it up into strips," said the chairman, and, beginning on a sheet, "Lucy, you can be giving around the pencils."

And presently the whole committee was racking its brains over this terribly important question thrust upon them.

"It must be something that will always reflect credit on the Salisbury School," observed Alexia, leaning her chin on her hand while she played with her pencil.

"Ugh! do be still." Lucy, on the other side, nudged her. "I can't think, if anybody speaks a word."

"And fit in well with those old portraits," said Clem, with a look at Alexia.

"Well, I hope and pray that we won't give her anything old. I want it spick, span, new; and to be absolutely up-to-date." Alexia took her chin out of her hand, and sat up decidedly. "The idea of matching up those mouldy old portraits!--and that house just bursting with antiques."

"Ugh! do hush," cried the girls.

"And write what you want to, Alexia, on your own slip, and keep still," said Silvia, wrinkling her brows; "you just put something out of my head; and it was perfectly splendid."

"But I can't think of a thing that would be good enough," grumbled Alexia, "for the Salisbury School to give. Oh dear me!" and she regarded enviously the other pencils scribbling away.

"My list is done." Amy Garrett pinched hers into a little three-cornered note, and threw it into Polly's lap.

"And mine--and mine." They all came in fast in a small white shower.

"Oh my goodness!" exclaimed Alexia, much alarmed that she would be left out altogether. "Wait, Chairman--I mean, Polly," and she began scribbling away for dear life.

"Oh dear me!" The chairman unfolded the first strip, and began to read. "A piano--why, girls, Miss Anstice can't play."