Page:Girls of Central High on the Stage.djvu/17

Rh honor of the M. O. R. on this particular evening.

Centerport was a lively, wealthy inland city situated on the shore of Lake Luna, and boasting three high schools within its precincts. The new building of Central High was much finer and larger than the East and West Highs, and there was considerable rivalry between the girls of the three schools, not only in athletic matters, but in all other affairs. Out of school hours, basketball and other athletics had pretty well filled the minds of the girls of Central High; and Laura Belding and her particular chums had been as active in these inter-school athletics as any.

In fact, it was Mother Wit, as her friends and schoolmates called Laura, who interested Colonel Richard Swayne, Mrs. Kerrick's father, in the matter of girls' athletics and so made possible for the girls of Central High the finest athletic field and gymnasium in the State.

Incidentally she had interested Mrs. Kerrick in the girls of Central High, too, and reminded the widowed lady that she was an alumna and a member of the M. O. R. In her renewed interest in the affairs of the secret society and in the Girls' Branch Athletic League, Mrs. Kerrick had become very different from the almost helpless invalid first introduced to the reader in the