“Again, if you please.”
It was done again, and if possible worse than before.
“You may return to your seat.”
Which Bridget did with swift ungainly strides, feeling covered with disgrace, and as she passed, an unfortunate whisper from one of the visitors reached her ear:
“What a windmill of a child to be sure!”
She plunged into her seat, her eyes wet with tears of mortification, but no one saw them except Bobbie, who sat next her. He did not understand the full extent of her distress, but he looked up in her face and put his small hand in hers. It was a sympathetic but sticky clasp, for Bobbie always carried sweets in his pockets for solace at odd moments, yet it comforted Bridget a little, and she gave it a silent squeeze in return.
But, hurt and sore and angry as she felt, the cup was not quite full until that evening, when Mrs Watson came into the school-room while the children were having tea. After her usual little chat with them she said just before going away:
“I am sorry to hear from Miss Tasker that Bridget does not seem to think it worth while to take pains with her dancing, though she knows how anxious I am about it.”
She looked at Bridget, who blushed hotly, but made no answer; and, indeed, she could not, for she felt as though Bobbie’s largest ball were sticking in her throat.
“I know,” continued her mother, “that you cannot all do the same things equally well, but you can at least try to do your best, however much you may dislike any particular lesson. I should be more pleased to know that Bridget tried to hold herself upright and took pains with her dancing, than to hear that she had said all her lessons quite perfectly, because I know one is a difficulty to her and the other none.”