"No, thanks! I want it to be entirely my own work."

Merle was not so clever at drawing as Mavis, but she contrived to turn
out a very pretty cover all the same. She illuminated 'The Moorings' in
large letters upon it, and painted a picture of a boat moored to a jetty
below, as being an appropriate design. She stitched the typed sheets,
fastened the whole together, and tied it with a piece of saxe-blue ribbon
(saxe was emphatically Miss Mitchell's pet colour), then she printed upon
the back of it, 'With much love from your affectionate pupil Merle
Ramsay.' She sat up over it long after Mavis and Aunt Nellie had gone to
bed, and, indeed, finished it hurriedly under the eyes of Jessop, who was
waiting to turn out the gas.

"Can't I just look over my Latin?" implored Merle.

"Not a word!" declared the old servant. "Put those books away, Miss
Merle, and go upstairs. We'll be having you with brain-fever at this
rate! I don't approve of all these home lessons. Why can't they teach you
what they want to in school, I should like to know? That's what teachers
are paid for, isn't it? I've no patience with this continual writing in
the evenings. A nice bit of sewing would be more to my mind. You've not
done more than an inch of that crochet pattern I taught you. Being
monitress is all very well, I daresay, but I'm not going to let you sit
up till midnight, my dearie, over your books. Not if I have to go myself
to Miss Pollard, and tell her my mind about it."

Merle had meant to wake up a little earlier and run through her
preparation, but she was sleepier than usual next morning, and had to be
roused by Mavis. She opened her eyes most unwillingly.