The Lass of the Silver Sword

“Rah! rah! rah! Basket-ball! Carol Armstrong! Hazelhurst Hall!”

Jean Lennox improvised this yell on the spur of the moment, and leaning over the gallery rail shouted it forth at the top of her voice, bringing the eyes of players and spectators upon her fourteen-year-old self. The basket-ball match was over; the senior team had beaten the junior by a score of twenty to thirteen, and the winners had for one of their forwards Carol Armstrong, the champion player of the school. The goals that Carol had made that day! Why, just before the referee’s whistle had announced the end of the game, standing so far to the side that her friends had looked for failure, she had shot the ball high, high into the air, and down it had come safely through the basket, raising the score of the seniors to twenty, and bringing Carol another rousing cheer. And now Jean, too, had distinguished herself.

“Good for you, Jeanie!” cried Cecily Brook, who sat on Jean’s left.

“Rah! rah! rah! Basket-ball! Carol Armstrong! Hazelhurst Hall!”

All the girls in the gallery except the disappointed juniors took up the yell with enthusiasm, for Carol was not only the champion of the school, but also a prime favorite. The sequel to the basket-ball match should have been an instantaneous dash from the gymnasium, but this chorus, which they had never heard before, kept the teams a minute longer on the field of battle.

“Did little Lennox start that?” called up Helen Westover, the senior captain.

“Yes, she did!” answered Cecily.

“That’s fine, Jean!” cried the captain.

Carol Armstrong looked up at the blushing author of the rhyme. Carol was a fine, handsome girl, just eighteen; tall and vigorous and graceful, with an air about her of being all sparkle and life. Her cheeks were brilliant from the hard exercise; her sunny, brown eyes were dancing. She smiled at Jean and blew her a kiss with the tips of her fingers, accompanied by a bow and flourish worthy of the melodrama. Jean blushed hotter, but oh, the thrill of happiness! To be saluted by the leader of Hazelhurst, with whom she had not exchanged ten words in all the months that she had been at school!

Next to Cecily Brook was Carol’s chum, Eunice Stanley. She rose and, leaning over Cecily, patted Jean on the shoulder. “You quiet little puss,” said she, “you came out gloriously! Come down and let’s congratulate the conquerors. Oh, quick! they’re going!”

Eunice ran down the gallery stairs with Jean after her, shot across the gymnasium floor, and caught Carol Armstrong in the act of flight.

“Carol, I’m proud of you! You were perfectly splendid!” she exclaimed, giving her friend an enthusiastic little hug.

“_I’m_ proud of Nancy,” said Carol. “Nan!” she called to the other forward who was hurrying from the room, “we’ll have to challenge the St. Audrey girls again! We’ll beat them all to pieces with you on the team!”

“With you, you mean!” Nancy Newcomb called back from the doorway.

All unnoticed, Jean stood behind Carol and lovingly squeezed the heavy plait in which the champion had braided her curly chestnut hair for the fray. Before she could have the satisfaction of winding around her finger the tempting ringlet in which the plait ended, its owner broke away.

The twelve players in their pretty jumpers and bloomers of navy-blue rushed off to the dressing-rooms. The girls left behind in the gymnasium rah-rah-rah’d for their Alma Mater; and then—for that first Saturday in March was one of drizzle and sleet—they devoted the interval before luncheon to indoor exercise. Jean brandished Indian clubs until her muscles ached. Then she perched herself on the headless, tailless “gymnasium horse” to rest, and absent-mindedly cuddled a club in her arms.

Jean was tall for her age, and pale, and in her own judgment she was homely, for she did not know what charm lay in her strong, yet delicate face, with its constantly changing play of expression. Her eyes were large, deep-set, and of a dark, clear blue; but the times came often when their pupils dilated and they flashed warningly. Her forceful mouth gave quick, responsive smiles; and when, as now, her hair-ribbons had slipped from their moorings, the heavy locks, almost black, which fell about her broad forehead, lent an attractively witch-like air to the bright, earnest face.

At school, Jean was regarded in the light of an interesting curiosity; she had among other things the distinction of having lived for two years in Brazil. Her father’s business had called him to Rio Janeiro for a few years, but her parents had decided that when their only child came to fourteen she must be sent back to the United States to be educated. Poor Jean! Shy and homesick, she had come to Miss Carlton’s boarding-school, Hazelhurst Hall. She had stayed in her shell while the other newcomers were choosing their best friends; and so most of the intimacies had been formed while she was still left out in the cold. But if she had no bosom friend, at least she had the luxury of an ideal to adore, and that ideal was Carol Armstrong. Jean had fallen in love with her at first sight, when, just arrived at the Hall, she had seen Carol laughing and talking with her friends, her head against the window through which the sunlight poured, her chestnut curls gleaming with red and gold. Alas! the course of true love never did run smooth! Jean had not dared to confess her admiration to any one but Cecily Brook, whom she had pledged to keep her secret. Now and then she made offerings of candy and flowers anonymously, leaving them on Carol’s desk, and so far all Carol’s attempts to play detective had failed, and it looked as if her admirer would remain forever unknown.

While Jean was still mounted on the horse, Carol came back to the gymnasium, this time in her school dress, and was captured by a devoted mob, who drew her to the piano and made her play for them to dance. Couples were soon waltzing to spirited music, but awkward Jean found dancing more work than play, and she sat still, no one claiming her for a partner.

“Let’s go and poke up crazy Jane! It’s too silly for her to sit there when she ought to be dancing!” said Frances Browne to her room-mate, Adela Mears, when the girls had stopped to rest. Frances was a piquante little brunette, small for her age, slight and nimble. Her bright, black eyes, sparkling with mischief, and her elfin quickness had won her the nicknames of “Brown Mouse” and “Frisky Mouse”; and Adela, with her flaxen hair and small, pointed features, had been dubbed “White Mouse,” and the room which they shared together “The Mouse Hole.”

“Jean, Jane, do wake up! It isn’t time to go to bed yet,” said Frances.

“Why don’t you come and dance?” asked Adela.

“I don’t care to,” replied Jean, frigidly. Between herself and Adela there was no love lost.

The day before, as they sat side by side in the Latin class, Jean had found that the translation she was writing was being stealthily copied by the White Mouse, and her indignant start and look of scorn were still rankling in Adela’s memory. “I know what you’re doing,” she said teasingly. “You’re making up your novel.”

“Why, what do you mean?” Jean demanded, looking startled.

“Blanche, isn’t Jean writing a novel?” Adela turned to Blanche Humphreys, Jean’s room-mate, who stood near.

“I shouldn’t wonder. She’s all the time scribbling in a blank-book, and she won’t tell me what it’s about,” drawled Blanche. She was blonde, and overplump, slow speaking, and slow moving.

“Well, I know it’s a novel, and that’s why she’s so moony all the time,” said Adela.

“How did you find out about it?” asked Blanche.

“Don’t you wish you knew?” laughed Adela.

“I guess you were in our room without being invited,” suggested Blanche. “Was that it?”

“‘Guess’ is not a proper substitute for ‘think,’” said Adela.

“You were in the room, or you couldn’t have seen her book!” remarked Blanche.

“It’s big enough to be seen a mile away,” said Adela. “When is it to be published, Jean?”

“Adela Mears, what business did you have to sneak into my room and look at my private book?” Jean demanded, the color rising in her pale cheeks.

“I haven’t touched your private book,” replied Adela.

“You were peeping through the keyhole, anyway!”

“No, I wasn’t!”

“You were hiding in the closet, then,” put in Blanche.

“Well, I had to,—to get away from Miss Sargent,” stammered Adela, who had gone farther than she had meant in teasing. “She said I was to stay in my room yesterday, just for nothing at all; but I wasn’t going to, so I scooted upstairs to see you. But you weren’t there; and I heard Miss Sargent in the hall and skipped into the closet. And then Miss Sargent came in with Jean,—she was lecturing her about something or other,—and as soon as she went out again Jean began raging around the room, and said she hated everybody, and went on as if she was crazy, and I was so scared I didn’t dare come out. And then she threw herself down on the bed and cried and howled!”