ER VIII

The "Stunt"

The general verdict on Rona, when she arrived back at The Woodlands, was
that she was wonderfully improved.

"It isn't only her dresses," said Gertrude Oliver, "though she looks a
different girl in her new clothes; her whole style's altered. She used
to be so fearfully loud. She's really toned down in the most amazing
fashion. I couldn't have believed it possible."

"I'm afraid it's only a veneer," declared Stephanie, with a slighting
little laugh. "You'll find plenty of raw backwoods underneath, ready to
crop up when she's off her guard. You should have heard her this
morning."

"And she broke an ink-bottle," added Beth Broadway.

"Well, she's not perfect yet, of course, but I stick to it that she's
improved."

"Oh, I dare say! But Ulyth's welcome to keep her cub. She'll always be
more or less of a trial. What else can you expect? 'What's bred in the
bone will come out!'"

"Yes, I'm a great believer in heredity," urged Beth, taking up the
cudgels for her chum. "If you have ancestors it gives you a decided
pull."

"Everybody has ancestors, you goose," corrected Gertrude.

"Well, of course I mean aristocratic ones. The others don't count. It
must make a difference whether your grandfather was a gentleman or a
farm-boy. Rona says herself she's a democrat. I'm sure she looked the
part when she arrived."

"I don't know that she exactly looks it now, though," said Gertrude,
championing Rona for once.

Everyone at the school realized that the Cuckoo was trying to behave
herself. The struggles towards perfection were sometimes almost
pathetic, though the girls mostly viewed them from the humorous side.
She would sit up suddenly, bolt upright, at the tea table, if Miss
Bowes' eye suggested that she was lolling; she apologized for accidents
at which she had laughed before, and she corrected herself if a
backwoods expression escaped her.

"Am I really any shakes smarter--I mean, more toned up--than I was?" she
asked Ulyth anxiously.

"You're far better than you were last term. Do go on trying, that's
all!"

"Will they take me as a candidate in the Camp-fire League?"

"I expect so, but we shall have to ask Mrs. Arnold about that."

Since the great reunion by the stream in September there had been no
meetings of the Camp-fire League. Mrs. Arnold had been ill, and then
had gone away to recruit her health, and no one was able to take her
place as "Guardian of the Fire". She was recovere