put
it in last of all; but of course none of us dared to tell her so. I have
it in my book still, signed E.J.H.; it's got the most impertinent snout,
and large peaked ears. I'm sure she must have been practising drawing
pigs before she did it."

"Ghost signatures were nearly as much fun," said Enid.

"What are those?" enquired Patty, to whom all these schoolgirl pastimes
were unknown.

"You have a special autograph book for them," explained Enid. "You
double a page in half, and write your name inside exactly on the crease
of the paper; then you fold the two halves together again without
blotting it and press hard. It smudges your signature into such a queer
shape. Everybody's comes out differently. One looks like a caterpillar,
and another like a butterfly, or perhaps a fish's backbone. Ella
Johnson's was the exact image of an oak tree."

"And Maud Greening's was like a pressed fern," said Winnie. "Do you
remember the fad we had for pressed flowers and skeleton leaves? We used
to keep them inside all our books."

"Yes, we soaked the leaves in water till they turned into skeletons. We
pressed the flowers in blotting paper, and they were often lovely."

"Some of the girls were quite sentimental over them. Cissie Gardiner had
a pansy picked from Wordsworth's garden at Grasmere, and a sprig of
rosemary that she said came from the grave of Keats. Her aunt brought it
to her from Rome, where he's buried. She pasted it on to a piece of
paper, and wrote underneath: 'Here's rosemary, that's for remembrance. I
pray you, love, remember.' She said Keats was her favourite poet. She
thought it was so romantic for him to die so young of a broken heart,
and she admired his portrait at the beginning of his poems, and if only
she could have lived a hundred years earlier, then perhaps she might
have known him."

"It was all Cissie's fault that we lost our collections," said Avis.

"What happened?" asked Patty, who found the reminiscences interesting.

"Well, we used to keep the leaves and flowers inside our books, and look
at them during class whenever we had an opportunity. One day, during
grammar, Cissie was sitting gazing at her piece of rosemary, and, I
suppose, thinking of Keats, for she didn't hear when she was asked a
question. Miss Rowe repeated it, and Cissie gave such a start that all
her treasures fell from her book on to the floor. Miss Rowe looked very
grim, and told her to pick them up, and ordered each girl to tak