d'you say to this?"

The big room into which Nora ushered her companion was lighted from the
top, and the walls, distempered in buff, had been decorated with
stencils of Egyptian designs, the bright barbaric colors of which gave a
very striking effect. There was a platform at the far end, where were
placed rows of chairs for the distinguished visitors, and also pots of
palms and ferns and geraniums to add an air of festivity to the opening
ceremony. The long lines of benches in the body of the hall were already
beginning to fill with girls, their bright hair-ribbons looking almost
like a further array of flowers. Mistresses here and there were ushering
them to their places, the Kindergarten children to the front seats,
Juniors to the middle, and Seniors to the rear. Ingred and Nora,
motioned by Miss Giles to a bench about three-quarters down the room,
took their seats and talked quietly with their nearest neighbors. A
general buzz of conversation, constantly restrained by mistresses, kept
rising and then falling again to subdued whispers. In a short time the
hall was full, Miss Perry had opened the piano, and the choir leaders
had ranged themselves round her. In dead silence all the girls, big and
little, turned their eyes towards the platform. The door behind the row
of palms and ferns was opening, and Miss Burd, in scholastic cap and
gown, was ushering in the Mayor, the Mayoress, several Town Councilors
and their wives, a few clergy, the head-master of the School of Art,
and, to the place of honor in the middle, Sir James Hilton, the Member
of Parliament for Grovebury, who was to conduct the ceremony of the
afternoon. He was a pleasant, genial-looking man, and though, as he
assured his audience, he had never before had the opportunity of
addressing a room full of girls, he seemed to be able to rise to the
occasion, and made quite a capital speech.