Meg pulls the forbidden flowers.—Page 94.
Meg went indoors without a murmur, and zealously devoted herself to the task set her as expiation of her offense. She took pleasure in its difficulty. She was glad the day was so beautiful, that the room was full of sunshine, and the wandering puffs of wind brought in messages from the odorous sweetness of the day. She was proud of being punished for Ursula's sake. It seemed to put her on a more equal footing, as if repaying her for past kindness.
Another incident that followed shortly after the wall-climbing episode proved that Meg's sense of loyalty survived amid the withering influence of loveless criticisms around her.
Miss Gwendoline Lister, because of her beauty, was a personality in the school. She suffered the penalties of celebrity. Stories were current concerning her. One averred that she had been found dissolved in tears on the discovery of a freckle upon her nose. Another rumor was current that the Beauty spent the afternoon of wet half-holidays locked up in the room she and Miss Pinkett shared in common arranging and dressing her hair in various fashions, enhancing her charms with rouge and powder, and trying on her ball dress.
Perhaps this report arose from the fact of a rouge pot having been found in the school. Some averred it was the property of Miss Lister, others declared its contents had been used by the young ladies who had taken part in a theatrical entertainment given on the occasion of breaking up for the holidays.
Meg, in her isolation, took no interest in the "rouge pot controversy." One afternoon, to her surprise, she was beckoned by Miss Pinkett into the room shared by her and Gwendoline.
The Beauty was standing near the dressing-table, a radiant vision clothed in white, with hair unbound, wreathed with roses, and with roses in the bodice of her dress.
For a moment Meg remained struck dumb with admiration, then came a sudden revolution. In her wide experience of life in the boarding-house she had known an obscure member of the theatrical profession. This little slip of the foot lights, who spent her life in alternate squalor and fairy-like splendor, had on one or two occasions dressed herself up for Meg's benefit. The child had grown to know cheeks bedabbled with paint and eyes outlined with bismuth. The face of Miss Lister brought back this acquaintance of bygone times.
"Well, what do I look like?" said Gwendoline, with her head cocked on one side and her finger-tips caressing the roses in her bodice. "You know, little monkey, you are not to tell."
Miss Pinkett watched the effect on Meg with cold curiosity.