“Oh!”
“She’s altogether lovely,” Molly said. “That cannot be said of all the instructors—no, indeed! Good-night, Miss Small,” she added, in a louder key to the under housekeeper. “Come along, Bethesda! We’ll go up and say ‘how-do’ to our rooms. Have our bags been sent up, Miss Small?”
“Jonas has them on the lift, Miss,” the housekeeper said.
“We’ll walk,” said Molly to Beth. “I don’t like that elevator, anyway—just because they call it a ‘lift.’ That’s too awfully ‘Henglish’ for me, you know. I am a true-blue American girl—a regular ‘jingoess.’ I shout for the Stars and Stripes, and scream with the eagle——”
“Or at a mouse?” suggested Beth, wickedly.
“Ugh! Yes! Who doesn’t?”
“I wonder if Cynthia Fogg was hired by Madam Hammersly?” Beth said aloud, as they mounted the main stairway.
“I’d really like to know, too,” agreed Molly.
“You don’t suppose that Cynthia was turned out? Put right out of doors, I mean, if the madam did not like her looks?”
“Sh!” whispered Molly. “That’s why I sprang Cynthia on the madam the way I did. She’s really the most tender-hearted thing you ever saw or heard of. She only appears stern. And when she understands that that girl has no home and friends——”