She isn't a bit!
She's twice as much fun as the rest of you girls; but it's nice fun,—not this horrid stuff about students.
I wish your mother wouldn't say such things!"
"I didn't—she didn't—I don't mean exactly that," stammered Lilly, frightened by Clover's indignant eyes.
"All I meant was, that Katy is dreadfully dignified for her age, and we bad girls will have to look out.
You needn't be so mad, Clover; I'm sure it's very nice to be proper and good, and set an example."
"I don't want to preach to anybody," said Katy, coloring, "and I wasn't thinking about examples.
But really and truly, Lilly, wouldn't your mother, and all the girls' mothers, be shocked if they knew about these performances here?"
"Gracious!
I should think so; ma would kill me.
I wouldn't have her know of my goings on for all the world."
Just then Rose pulled out a drawer, and called through to ask if Clover would please come in and help her a minute.
Lilly took advantage of her absence to say,—
"I came on purpose to ask you to walk with me for four weeks.
Will you?"
"Thank you; but I'm engaged to Clover."
"To Clover!
But she's your sister; you can get off."
"I don't want to get off.
Clover and I like dearly to go together."
Lilly stared.
"Well, I never heard of such a thing," she said, "you're really romantic.
The girls will call you 'The Inseparables.'"
"I wouldn't mind being inseparable from Clover," said Katy, laughing.
Next day was Saturday.
It was nominally a holiday; but so many tasks were set for it, that it hardly seemed like one.
The girls had to practise in the gymnasium, to do their mending, and have all drawers in apple-pie order, before afternoon, when Miss Jane went through the rooms on a tour of inspection.
Saturday, also, was the day for writing home letters; so, altogether, it was about the busiest of the week.
Early in the morning Miss Jane appeared in Quaker Row with some slips of paper in her hand, one of which she left at each door.
They told the hours at which the girls were to go to the bath-house.
"You will carry, each, a crash towel, a sponge, and soap," she announced to Katy, "and will be in the entry, at the foot of the stairs, at twenty-five minutes after nine precisely.
Failures in punctuality will be punished by a mark."
Miss Jane always delivered her words like a machine, and closed her mouth with a snap at the end of the sentence.
"Horrid thing!
Don't I wish her missionary would come and carry her off.
Not that I blame him for staying away," remarked Rose Red, from her door; making a face at Miss Jane, as she walked down the entry.
"I don't understand about the bath-house," said Katy.
"Does it belong to us?
And where is it?"
"No, it doesn't belong to us.
It belongs to Mr. Perrit, and anybody can use it; only on Saturday it is reserved for us nuns.
Haven't you every noticed it when we have been out walking?
It's in that street by the bakery, which we pass to take the Lebanon road.
We go across the green, and down by Professor Seccomb's, and we are in plain sight from the college all the way; and, of course, those abominable boys sit there with spy-glasses, and stare as hard as ever they can.
It's perfectly horrid.
'A crash towel, a sponge, and soap,' indeed!
I wish I could make Miss Jane eat the pieces of soap which she has forced me to carry across this village."
"O Rose!" remonstrated Mary Silver.
"Well, I do.
And the crash towels afterward, by way of a dessert," replied the incorrigible Rose.