"Well, look here! What are we to do?" asked Mavis. "We can't turn up as we are? Shall we run home and change into 'war paint'?"
"I don't know. You'd better ask Miss Pollard. Oh, here she is! Miss Pollard, please! Mavis and Merle didn't know it was dancing afternoon."
"How very annoying! I told Opal to remind you," said the mistress, turning to the aggrieved pair almost as if it were their own fault. "Go home to change? Oh no! There isn't time now. You must all come along at once or we shall be late. It's a tiresome mistake but it can't be helped and you mustn't miss the lesson. You'll know better next week."
"Might we tear home and change, and run on to the public hall?" begged Mavis desperately.
"No, no! You must all come together. Never mind. I'll explain to Miss Crompton, and it will be quite all right."
It was all very well for Miss Pollard to say "Never mind" in so easy a fashion. Mavis and Merle were furious. They possessed dainty dresses, thin stockings, and dancing slippers in their wardrobe at Bridge House, and when the whole school was arrayed en fête it was most humiliating to be marched off in their brown knitted jerseys, ribbed stockings, and ordinary serviceable shoes. They both looked daggers at Opal, who just then put in an appearance very prettily got up in a white crêpe de Chine dress and a big, pale-pink hair-ribbon. She started guiltily when she saw them.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you two about the dancing. It simply went out of my head," she exclaimed.
"Then your head's as empty as a brass nob," exploded Merle. "It was just criminal of you to forget. I believe you did it on purpose."
Even Mavis did not attempt to palliate Merle's home truths, for she was bubbling over with injury, and sharper words still might have followed had not Miss Fanny arrived and swept her whole flock from the house for a "crocodile" walk to the public hall. The big room here, engaged by Miss Crompton, was certainly a very good one for the purpose, with a polished floor and nice decorations, so that it looked quite festive and "Christmasy", as the girls, having left their coats and hats and over-shoes in the cloakroom, marched in and took their places. The class was not confined to the pupils at The Moorings; girls from various country houses in the neighbourhood, and a sprinkling of little boys were also there. The array of light dresses and thin shoes made the Ramsays more indignant than ever. And there would have been plenty of time to go home and change. Miss Crompton and her assistants were so long in getting the children arranged, that Mavis and Merle might easily have been back from Bridge House, robed in their best, before the first dance began.
Miss Crompton ascertained that her two new pupils were no novices, then placed them in the senior class. In revolt against what some parents termed "stage posturing" she had revived some of the old Victorian square dances, and was teaching the first figures of the quadrille. Merle happened to be vis-à-vis with a girl of about her own age, a tall athletic girl with fair hair, who looked as if she would be more at home on horseback than in a ballroom, but who, nevertheless, gaped at the Ramsays' morning costumes with unconcealed scorn, and arranged the skirt of her own pretty dress rather ostentatiously, as if calling attention to the difference. When she met Merle in "the ladies' chain", instead of joining hands as the figure required, she deliberately refused the outstretched fingers and swept past without touching them.