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CAPS AND CAPERS

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[Illustration: _Frontispiece--Caps and Capers_.
"NOW, GIRLS, COME ON! LET'S EAT OUR CREAM." See p. 92.]

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CAPS and CAPERS
A Story of Boarding-School Life

by
GABRIELLE E. JACKSON

Author of "Pretty Polly Perkins,"
"Denise and Ned Toodles," "By Love's
Sweet Rule," "The Colburn Prize,"
etc., etc.

With illustrations
by C. M. Relyea

PHILADELPHIA
HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY

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Copyright, 1901, by Henry Altemus

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To
the dear girls of "Dwight School,"
who, by their sweet friendship, have unconsciously helped to make
this winter one of the happiest she has ever known, this little
story is most affectionately inscribed by the AUTHOR.

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER                                                PAGE
     I.  Which Shall It Be?                              13
    II.  "A Touch Can Make or a Touch Can Mar"           21
   III.  "A Feeling of Sadness and Longing"              29
    IV.  New Experiences                                 41
     V.  Two Sides of a Question                         53
    VI.  Dull and Prosy                                  63
   VII.  The P. U. L.                                    71
  VIII.  Caps and Capers                                 81
    IX.  A Modern Diogenes                               89
     X.  "They Could Never Deceive Me"                   97
    XI.  "La Somnambula"                                107
   XII.  "Have You Not Been Deceived This Time?"        119
  XIII.  English as She is Spelled                      127
   XIV.  "Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells"                   135
    XV.  "Pride Goeth Before a Fall"                    143
   XVI.  Letters                                        153
  XVII.  "Haf Anybody Seen My Umbrel?"                  161
 XVIII.  The Little Hinge                               169
   XIX.  "Fatal or Fated are Moments"                   179
    XX.  "Now Tread We a Measure."                      187
   XXI.  Conspirators                                   197
  XXII.  "We've Got 'em! We've Got 'em!"                205
 XXIII.  A Camera's Capers.                             213
  XXIV.  Whispers                                       225
   XXV.  "What Are You Doing Up this Time of Night?"    233
  XXVI.  "Love (and Schoolgirls) Laugh at Locksmiths"   243
 XXVII.  Ariadne's Clue                                 253
XXVIII.  "When Buds And Blossoms Burst"                 261
  XXIX.  Commencement                                   271
   XXX.  "O Fortunate, O Happy Day"                     279

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ILLUSTRATIONS

                                                              PAGE
"Now, girls, come on! let's eat our cream."           Frontispiece
"You could have popped me over from ambush."                    37
"Do you wish to join the P. U. L.?"                             71
"Go, tell Mrs. Stone she isn't up to snuff."                   109
"Sthick to yer horses, Moik."                                  141
"Let us begin a brand new leaf to-day."                        165
"I feel so sort of grown up and grand."                        181
"An' have ye been in there all this time?"                     207
"Away went Marie, vanishing bit by bit."                       231
"Her hand resting lightly on the arm of her friend."           267

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CHAPTER I

WHICH SHALL IT BE?


"And now that I have them, how am I to decide? That is the question?"

The speaker was a fine-looking man about thirty-five years of age, seated
before a large writing-table in a handsomely appointed library. It was
littered with catalogues, pamphlets, letters and papers sent from dozens
of schools, and from the quantity of them one would fancy that every
school in the country was represented. This was the result of an
advertisement in the "Times" for a school in which young children are
received, carefully trained, thoroughly taught, and which can furnish
unquestionable references regarding its social standing and other
qualifications.

It was a handsome, but seriously perplexed, face which bent over the
letters, and more than once the shapely hand was raised to the puckered
forehead and the fingers thrust impatiently through the golden brown hair,
setting it on end and causing its owner to look more distracted than
ever.

"Poor, wee lassie, you little realize what a problem you are to me. Would
to God the one best qualified to solve it could have been spared to you,"
and the handsome head fell forward upon the hands, as tears of bitter
anguish flooded the brown eyes.

Can anything be more pathetic than a strong man's tears? And Clayton
Reeve's were wrung from an almost despairing heart.

For ten years his life had been a dream of happiness. At twenty-five he
had married a beautiful, talented girl, who made his home as nearly
perfect as a home can be made, and when, three years later, a little
daughter, her mother's living image, came to live with them, he felt that
he had no more to ask for. Seven years slipped away, as only years of
perfect happiness can slip, and then came the end. The beautiful wife and
mother went to sleep forever, leaving the dear husband and lovely little
daughter alone. For six months Mr. Reeve strove to fill the mother's
place, but until she was taken from him he had never realized how
perfectly and completely his almost idolized wife had filled his home,
conducting all so quietly and gracefully that even those nearest and
dearest never suspected how much thought she had given to their comfort
until her firm, yet gentle, rule was missed.

Happily, Toinette was too young to fully appreciate her loss, and although
she grieved in her childish way for the sweet, smiling mother who had so
loved her, it was a child's blessed evanescent grief, which could find
consolation in her pets and dollies, and--blessed boon--forget.

But Clayton Reeve never forgot, not for one moment; and though the six
months had in a measure softened his grief, his sense of loss and
loneliness increased each day, until at last he could no longer endure the
sight of the home which they together had planned and beautified.

Unfortunately, neither he nor his wife had near relatives. She had been an
only child whose parents had died shortly after her marriage, and such
distant relatives as remained to him were far away in England, his native
land. His greatest problem was the little daughter. Nursemaids and
nursery-governesses were to be had by the score, but nursemaids and
nursery-governesses were one thing with a mistress at the head of the
household and quite another without one, as, during the past six months,
Mr. Reeve had learned to his sorrow, and the poor man had more than once
been driven to the verge of insanity by their want of thought, or even
worse.

At last he determined to close his house, place Toinette in some "ideal"
school, and travel for six months, or even longer, little dreaming that
the six months would lengthen into as many years ere he again saw her. The
trip begun for diversion was soon merged into one for business interests,
as the prominent law firm of which he was a member had matters of
importance to be looked after upon the other side of the water, and were
only too glad to have so efficient a person to do it.

So, before he realized it, half the globe divided him from the
sunny-haired little daughter whom he had placed in the supposed ideal
school, chosen after deliberate consideration from those he had
corresponded with.

But this anticipates a trifle.

As he sits in the library of his big house, a house which seems so like
some beautiful instrument lacking the touch of the master hand to draw
forth its sweetest and best, the sound of little dancing feet can be heard
through the half-open door, and a sweet little voice calls out:

"Papa, Papa Clayton. Where is my precious Daddy?" and a golden-haired
child running into the room throws herself into his arms, clasps her own
about his neck and nestles her head upon his shoulder.

He held her close as he asked:

"Well, little Heart's-Ease, what can the old Daddy do for you?"

The child raised her head, and, looking at him with her big brown eyes,
eyes so like his own, said, reproachfully: "You are _not_ an old Daddy;
Stanton (the butler) is old, you are just my own, own Papa Clayton, and
mamma used to say that you _couldn't_ grow old 'cause she and I loved you
so hard."

Mr. Reeve quivered slightly at the child's words, and with a surprised
look she asked:

"Are you cold, dear Daddy? It isn't cold here, is it?"

"No, not in the room, Heart's-Ease, but right here," laying his hand upon
his heart.

The child regarded him questioningly with her big, earnest eyes, and
said:

"Did it grow cold because mamma went so sound asleep?"

"I'm afraid so; but now let us talk about something else: I've some news
for you, but do not know how you will like it; sit still while I tell it
to you," and he began to unfold his plan regarding the school.




CHAPTER II

"A TOUCH CAN MAKE OR A TOUCH CAN MAR"


The school was chosen and Toinette placed therein. What momentous results
often follow a simple act. When Clayton Reeve placed his little girl with
the Misses Carter, intending to leave her there a few months, and seek the
change of scene so essential to his health, he did not realize that her
whole future would be more or less influenced by the period she was
destined to spend there. No brighter, sunnier, happier disposition could
have been met with than Toinette's when she entered the school; none more
restless, distrustful and dissatisfied than her's when she left it, nearly
six years later.

If we are held accountable for sins of omission, as well as sins of
commission, certainly the Misses Carter had a long account to meet.

Like many others who had chosen that vocation, they were utterly incapable
of filling it either to their own credit or the advantage of those they
taught. While perfectly capable of imparting the knowledge they had
obtained from books, and of making any number of rules to be followed as
those of the "Medes and Persians," they did not, in the very remotest
degree, possess the insight into character, the sympathy with their pupils
so essential in true teachers.

It is not alone to learn that which is contained between the covers of a
book that our girls are sent to school or college, but also to gather in
the thousand and one things untaught by either books or words. These must
be absorbed as the flowers absorb the sunshine and dew, growing lovelier,
sweeter and more attractive each day and never suspecting it.

And so the shaping of Toinette's character, so beautifully begun by the
wise, gentle mother, passed into other and less sensitive hands. It was
like a delicate bit of pottery, the pride of the potter's heart, upon
which he had spent uncountable hours, and was fashioning so skilfully,
almost fearing to touch it lest he mar instead of add to its beauty;
dreading to let others approach lest, lacking his own nice conceptions,
they bring about a result he had so earnestly sought to avoid, and the
vase lose its perfect symmetry. But, alas! called from his work never to
return, it is completed by less skilful hands, a less delicate conception,
and, while the result is pleasing, the perfect harmony of proportion is
wanting, and those who see it feel conscious of its incompleteness, yet
scarcely know why.

We will skip over those six miserable years, so fraught with small trials,
jealousies, deceptions and an ever-increasing distrust, to a certain
Saturday morning in December.

The early winter had been an exceptionally trying one, and Toinette, now
nearly fourteen years old, had seen and learned many things which can only
be taught by experience. She had seen that in some people's eyes the
possession of money can atone for many shortcomings in character, and that
certain lines of conduct may be condoned in a girl who has means, while
they are condemned in a girl who has not; that she herself had many
liberties and many favors shown her which were denied some of her
companions, although those companions were quite as well born and bred as
herself, and with all the latent nobility of her character did she scorn
not only the favors but those who showed them, and often said to her
roommate, Cicely Powell: "If _I_ chose to steal the very Bible out of
chapel, Miss Carter would only say, 'Naughty Toinette,' in that smirking
way of hers, and then never do a single thing; but if Barbara Ellsworth
even looks sideways she simply annihilates her. I _hate_ it, for it is
only because Barbara is poor and I'm--well, Miss Carter likes to have the
income I yield; I'm a profitable bit of'stock,' and must be well cared
for," and a burning flush rose to the girl's sensitive cheeks.

It was a bitter speech for one so young, and argued an all too intimate
acquaintance with those who did not bear the mark patent of
"gentlewoman."

The six years had wrought many changes in the little child, both in mind
and body, for, even though one had been cramped, and lacked a healthful
development, the other had blossomed into a very beautiful young girl, who
would have gladdened any parent's heart. She was neither tall nor short,
but beautifully proportioned. Her head, with its wealth of sunny, wavy
hair, was carried in the same stately manner which had always been so
marked a characteristic in her father, and gave to her a rather dignified
and reserved air for her years. The big brown eyes looked you squarely in
the face, although latterly they had a slightly distrustful expression.
Hurry home, Clayton Reeve, before it becomes habitual. The nose was
straight and sensitive, and the mouth the saving grace of the face, for
nothing could alter its soft, beautiful curves, and the lips continued to
smile as they had done in early childhood, when there was cause for smiles
only. The mother's finger seemed to rest there, all invisible to others,
and curve the corners upward, as though in apology for the hardened
expression gradually creeping over the rest of the face.

It is difficult to understand how a parent can leave a child wholly to the
care of strangers for so long a period as Mr. Reeve left Toinette, but one
thing after another led him further and further from home, first to
Southern Europe, then across the Mediterranean into wilder, newer scenes,
where nations were striving mightily. Then, just as he began to think that
ere long his own land would welcome him, news reached him of trouble in a
land still nearer the rising sun, and his firm needed their interests in
that far land carefully guarded. So thither he journeyed. But at last all
was adjusted, and, with a heart beating high with hope, he started for his
own dear land and dearer daughter.

It must be confessed that he had many conflicting emotions as the great
ship plowed its way across the broad Pacific, and ample time in which to
indulge them. Many were the mental pictures he drew of the girl there
awaiting him, and would have felt no little surprise, as well as
indignation, could he have known that she was left in ignorance of the
date of his arrival. But Miss Carter had reasons of her own for concealing
it, and had merely told Toinette that her father was contemplating a
return to the States during the coming year. It seemed rather a cold
message to the girl whose _all_ he was, for she had written to him
repeatedly, and poured out in her letters all the suppressed warmth of her
nature, yet never had his replies touched upon the subject of her
loneliness and intense desire to see him, but had always assured her that
he was delighted to know that she was happy and fond of her teachers. And
Toinette had not _quite_ reached the age of wisdom which caused her to
suspect _why_ he gave so little heed to such information, although it
would not have required a much longer residence at the Misses Carter's to
enlighten her. Happily, before the revelation was made she was beyond
further chicanery.




CHAPTER III

"A FEELING OF SADNESS AND LONGING"


The half year was nearly ended, and most of the girls were looking eagerly
forward to the Christmas vacation, which would release them from a
cordially detested surveillance. But Toinette had no release to look
forward to; vacation or term time were much the same to her. She had spent
some of her holidays with her schoolmates, but the greater part of them
had been passed in the school, and dull enough they were, too.

The past week had been a particularly stormy one, and the outcome had
reflected anything but credit upon the school. Consequently, the girls
were out of sorts and miserable, and the world looked decidedly blue, with
only a faint rosy tint far down in the horizon, where vacation peeped.

As in most schools, Saturday was a holiday. The day was wonderfully soft
and mild for December, and shortly after breakfast Toinette threw her
golf-cape about her shoulders and stepped out upon the piazza to see if
the fresh air would blow away the mental vapors hovering about her, for
she felt not unlike a ship at sea without a compass. Poor little lassie,
although what might be called a rich girl, in one respect she was a very
poor one indeed, for she had scarcely known the influence of a happy home,
or the tender mother love which we all need, whether we be big daughters
or little ones. True, she had never known what it meant to want those
things which girls often wish to have, but which limited means place
beyond their reach. But often amidst the luxuries of her surroundings, for