'Chilling! that's lovely! You've come to the wrong place if you expect any warmth at Newnham, or sympathy either. It would be nothing better than a big girls' school if we were always "How-d'ye-doing" and shaking hands with each other—we should get to kissing soon! Thank goodness there is no spooning here! We are barely civil to each other; and we make a point of ignoring everybody if we meet 'em out-of-doors. I hope you won't, on the strength of this tea, nod to me if you happen to run against me in the street, because I shan't notice you.'
'No,' said Lucy, 'I certainly won't nod to you.' She didn't say it at all humbly, but she drank Miss Stubbs' tea. It was very good tea for Newnham.
PAMELA GWATKIN.
Lucy saw the Principal, as Miss Stubbs had said, at dinner. She came into the hall rather late, and took her seat at the High table.
It is necessary to spell it with a capital H, as it is distinctly a proper noun, and in Newnham parlance, like the tables in men's colleges where the Dons eat their dinners, it is known as the 'High.'
Miss Wrayburne came in rather late, after the rest were seated, and took her place at the head of the 'High,' and then followed a moment's interval for grace, and then the murmur of tongues began—a low, distinctly female murmur, and occasionally a laugh—a little low laugh. There was a good deal of talk to-day, as everybody had come up fresh, and the atmosphere of the vacation was still about them, and nobody had begun work yet. They would unpack their books by-and-by, and then everything would be changed.
Lucy did not know a soul in the place, except Maria Stubbs, and she sat at another table. She sat quite at the other end of the room, and never once looked Lucy's way, and brushed by her in the corridor as if she had never seen her before.