Page:Arthur Stringer - Twin Tales.djvu/24

14 maiden-ladies in attendance. So this, added to the gumming up of one of the grand-pianos in the practise-room with five pounds of prohibited chocolate-creams, led to an interview with the lady-principal herself. And even that interview might not have been a valedictory one had Teddie not been detected perusing a copy of Daudet's Jack during an ancient-history "period," a Daudet's Jack from which was unearthed an excellent caricature of the lady-principal herself. So Teddie awoke still again to the discovery that her dream of personal freedom was merely an ignis fatuus, and she journeyed homeward, a melancholy loss to the basket-ball team and an even more melancholy accession to the paternal acres at Tuxedo.

Nor was the spirit of the home circle very greatly brightened when Teddie attended her first holiday party in the white and gold ballroom of the St. Regis, where she danced very badly with very dignified young partners in Eton jackets. There she not only stumbled on to the bewildering consciousness that there was something