Page:Betty Gordon at Boarding School.djvu/107

Rh to cut her regular gymnasium period and devote the time to some thrilling novel. When the other girls discovered this they good-naturedly made up a schedule for the week, assigning a different day to every girl whose duty it should be to "seal, sign and deliver" the reluctant Libbie at the gymnasium door at the appointed time.

Mrs. Eustice, rather peculiarly some people thought—Ada Nansen's mother among them—held the theory that school girls should spend a fair proportion of their time in study. She had small patience with the faddist type of school that abhorred "night work" and whose students specialized on "manners" to the neglect of spelling.

"I dislike the term 'finishing school,'" she had once said. "I try to teach my girls that what they learn in school fits them for beginning life."

So from seven to half-past eight every night, except Friday, the pupils at Shadyside were busy with their books. They might study in their rooms, provided their marks for the preceding week were satisfactory, but those who fell below a certain percentage were sentenced to prepare their lessons in the study hall under the eye of a teacher.

The second Friday night of the term the new students were warned by little pink cocked notes to remain in their rooms after dinner until they had been inspected by the "Mysterious Four."