Indeed, to see another, and a much older lady, read letters written to one by a lieutenant at Aldershot, whom one has known for years, and who is just like one’s brother, is a trial to any girl.
Then Miss Marlett betook herself to her own correspondence, which, as Janey had noticed, included two telegraphic despatches in orange-colored envelopes.
That she had not rushed at these, and opened them first, proves the admirable rigidity of her discipline. Any other woman would have done so, but it was Miss Marietta rule to dispose of the pupils’ correspondence before attending to her own. “Business first, pleasure afterward,” was the motto of this admirable woman.
Breakfast ended, as the girls were leaving the room for the tasks of the day, Miss Marlett beckoned Margaret aside.
“Come to me, dear, in the boudoir, after Janey Harman,” said the schoolmistress in English, and in a tone to which Margaret was so unaccustomed that she felt painfully uneasy and anxious—unwonted moods for this careless maiden.
“Janey, something must have happened,” she whispered to her friend, who was hardening her own heart for the dreadful interview.
“Something’s going to happen, I’m sure,” said poor Janey, apprehensively, and then she entered the august presence, alone.
Margaret remained at the further end of the passage, leading to what Miss Marlett, when she spoke French, called her “boudoir.” The girl felt colder than even the weather warranted. She looked alternately at Miss Marietta door and out of the window, across the dead blank flats to the low white hills far away. Just under the window one of the little girls was standing, throwing crumbs, remains of the tartines, to robins and sparrows, which chattered and fought over the spoil. One or two blackbirds, with their yellow bills, fluttered shyly on the outside of the ring of more familiar birds. Up from the south a miserable blue-gray haze was drifting and shuddering, ominous of a thaw. From the eaves and the branches of the trees heavy drops kept falling, making round black holes in the snow, and mixing and melting here and there in a yellowish plash.
Margaret shivered. Then she heard the boudoir door open, and Janey came out, making a plucky attempt not to cry.
“What is it?” whispered Margaret, forgetting the dread interview before her, and her own unformed misgivings.