The Ranch Girls at Boarding School by Margaret Vandercook: The Ranch Girls at Boarding School by Margaret Vandercook
Margaret Vandercook, Roger Frank
Paperback
(CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, Dec. 19, 2017)
Would the long night never pass? A figure on a bed in a big bare room stirred and then sighed. Ages ago a clock in the great house known as Primrose Hall, not far from the famous region of “Sleepy Hollow,” had struck three, then four, and now one, two, three, four, five solemn strokes boomed forth and yet not a glimmer of light nor a sound to announce the coming of morning. “In the Lord put I my trust; how say ye then to my soul, that she should flee as a bird unto the hill? For lo, the ungodly bend their bow and make ready their arrow within the quiver, that they may privily shoot at them which are true of heart,” a tired voice murmured, and then after a short pause: “Oh, girls, are you awake yet? Aren’t you ever, ever going to wake up? Dear me, this night already seems to me to have lasted forever and ever!” For no answer had followed the question, although a door stood wide open between this and an adjoining room and the bed in the other room was occupied by two persons. Five minutes crawled by and then another five. Tired of reciting the “Psalms of David” to induce repose, the wakeful figure slipped suddenly from its own bed and a slim ghost stole across the floor—a ghost that even in the darkness revealed two shadowy lengths of jet-black hair. In the farther room it knelt beside another bed, pressing its cheek against another cheek that felt both plump and peaceful, while its hand reached forth to find another hand that lay outside the coverlet.