Irma flung her hat on to her bed and her coat after it.
"That doesn't concern us," she remarked contemptuously.
"Doesn't it? Oh, no, of course—not in the least!" Laura's voice was sarcastic. "It wouldn't have been any concern of ours—only, as it happens, they've all come on here."
Irma turned round, the very picture of dismay.
"What? Not here, surely! Great Minerva, you don't mean it! Hold me up! I feel rocky."
Laura looked at her, and shook her head in commiseration.
"Yes, that's how it took us all when we heard," she remarked. "You'd better sit down on your bed till you get the first shock over. It's enough to make a camel weep. I couldn't believe it myself for a few minutes, but it's only too true, unfortunately for us."
"The Hawthorns! Those girls whom we never spoke to—wouldn't have touched with a pair of tongs!" gasped Irma.
"You may well marvel," sympathized Janet.
"But what's Miss Thompson thinking of? Why, she always looked down so on the Hawthorns! Wouldn't let us arrange matches with their teams, and kept us away from them at that bazaar as if they'd been infectious. It's been the tradition of the school to have nothing to do with them."