Wondering for what particular transgression she was to be called to account, Marjorie obeyed, and presented herself at the study. The Principal was seated at her desk writing. She allowed her pupil to stand and wait while she finished making her list for the housekeeper and blotted it. Then, taking an envelope from one of her pigeonholes, she turned to the expectant girl.
"Marjorie Anderson," she began sternly, "this letter, addressed to you, arrived this morning. Miss Norton very properly brought it to me, and I have opened and read it. Will you kindly explain its contents?"
The rule at Brackenfield, as at most schools, was that pupils might only receive letters addressed by their parents or guardians, and that any other correspondence directed to them was opened and perused by the head mistress. Letters from brothers, sisters, cousins, or friends were of course allowed if forwarded under cover by a parent, but must not be sent separately to the school by the writer.
Marjorie, in some amazement, opened the letter which Mrs. Morrison gave her. It was written on Y.M.C.A. paper in an ill-educated hand, and ran thus:—
"Dear Miss,
"This comes hoping you are as well as it leaves me at present. I was very glad to get your letter, and hear you are thinking about me. I like your photo, and when I get back to blighty should like to keep company with you if you are agreeable to same. Before I joined up I was in the engine-room at my works, and getting my £2 a week. I am very glad to have some one to write to me. Well, no more at present from
"Yours truly
"Jim Hargreaves."
Marjorie flushed scarlet. Without doubt the letter was a reply from the lonely soldier. It came as a tremendous shock. Somehow it had never occurred to her that he would write back. To herself and the other members of the S.S.O.P. he had been a mere picturesque abstraction, a romantic figure, as remote as fiction, whose loneliness had appealed to their sentimental instincts. They had judged all soldiers by the experience of their own brothers and cousins, and had a vague idea that the army consisted mostly of public-school boys. To find that her protégé was an uneducated working man, who had entirely misconstrued the nature of her interest in him, and evidently imagined that she had written him a love-letter, made poor Marjorie turn hot and cold. She was essentially a thorough little lady, and was horror-stricken at the false position in which her impulsive act had placed her.
Mrs. Morrison watched her face narrowly, and drew her own conclusion from the tell-tale blushes.
"Do I understand that this letter is in reply to one written by you?" she asked.