Page:Emily Climbs.pdf/217

 I wish she didn’t hate me. It hurts me to have Teddy’s mother hate me. I don’t know why this is. Dean is just as dear a friend as Teddy, yet I wouldn’t care if all the rest of the Priest clan hated me.

“Ilse and the other seven applicants were elected Skulls and Owls. I was black-beaned. We were notified to that effect Monday.

“Of course, I know it was Evelyn Blake who did it. There is nobody else who would do it. Ilse was furious: she tore into pieces the notification of her election and sent the scraps back to the secretary with a scathing repudiation of the Skull and Owl and all its works.

“Evelyn met me in the cloakroom today and assured me that she had voted for both Ilse and me.

“‘Has any one been saying you did not?’ I asked, in my best Aunt Elizabethan manner.

“‘Yes—Ilse has,’ said Evelyn peevishly. ‘She was very insolent to me about it. Do you want to know who I think put the black bean in?’

“I looked Evelyn straight in the eyes.

“‘No, it is not necessary. I who put it in’—and I turned and left her.

“Most of the Skulls and Owls are very angry about it—especially the Skulls. One or two Owls, I have heard, hoot that it is a good pill for the Murray pride. And, of course, several Seniors and Juniors who were not among the favoured nine are either gloatingly rejoiced or odiously sympathetic.

“Aunt Ruth heard of it today and wanted to know I was black-beaned.

“Aunt Laura and I spent this afternoon, the one teaching, the other learning, a certain New Moon tradition—to wit, how to put pickles into glass jars in patterns. We