"She's awfully pretty!" agreed Irene readily.
"She'd be the beauty of the school if she'd any idea how to use her advantages," sighed Peachy. "Give me her complexion and that classical nose and—well, I guess I'd blaze out into a cinema star before I'd done with life. I hope she won't be all day raking a few girls together. She's not what you'd call quick. I've misjudged her. Here she comes with half a dozen at least—and, oh, no, Sheila! You don't mean to say you've brought candy? Well, you are a sport! Let's squat under the mimosa tree and hand it round."
The little group of Peachy's favorite friends who settled themselves under the yellow mimosa bush to suck taffy and watch the flaming sunset were all afterwards intimately bound up with Irene's school career. Each was such a distinct personality that she sorted them out fairly accurately on that first evening, and decided the particular order in which they would rank in her affections.
There was Jess Cameron, a jolly Scottish lassie. She rolled her r's when she spoke, and was a trifle matter-of-fact and practical, but was evidently the dependable anchor of the rest of the scatter-brained crew, the one who made the most sensible suggestions, and to whom—though they teased her a little and called her "Grannie"—they all turned in the end for help and advice. Jess was slightly out of her element in a southern setting. Her appropriate background was moorland and heather and gray loch, and driving clouds and a breeze with fine mist in it, that would make you want to wrap a plaid round your shoulders and turn to the luxury of a peat fire. Quite unconsciously she suggested all these things. Peachy once described her as a living incarnation of one of Scott's novels, for she was steeped in old traditions and legends and superstitions, and could tell tales in the gloaming that sent eerie shivers down the spines of her listeners, or would recite ballads with a swing that took one back to the days of wandering minstrels. She was not a girl to make a fuss over anybody, and she did not greet Irene with the least effusion, but her plain "If you're a friend of Peachy's I'm glad to see you," was genuine, and better than any amount of gush. Jess undoubtedly had her faults; she was what her chums called "too cock-sure," and she was apt to be severe in her judgments, flashing into the righteous wrath of one whose standards are high, but her very imperfections were "virtues gane a-gley," and she was a considerable force in the molding of public opinion at the Villa Camellia.
If Jess, calm, canny, and reliable, stood for the spirit of the North, attractive, persuasive, fascinating little Delia Watts represented the South. She came from California, and was as quick and bright as a humming-bird, constantly in harmless mischief, but seldom getting into any serious trouble. Her highly strung temperament found school restrictions irksome, and she was apt to blaze out into odd pranks which in other girls might have met with sterner punishment. But Miss Morley had a soft corner for Delia, and, though she did not exactly favor her, she certainly made allowances for her excitability and her strongly emotional disposition.
"Delia's like a marionette—always dancing to some hidden string," the teacher remarked once to Miss Rodgers. "She mayn't be strong-minded but she's immensely warm-hearted, and if we can only pull the love-string she'll act the part we want. You can't force her into prim behavior; she's as much a child of nature as the birds, and if you clip her wings altogether you take away from her the very gift that perhaps God meant her to use. Let me have the handling of the little sky-rocket, and I'll do my best to keep her within bounds, but she's not the disposition to 'be made an example of' or to be set on the 'stool of repentance.' Five minutes with Delia in private is worth more than a long public admonition. You've only to look at her face to know her type."
And Miss Rodgers, who stood no nonsense from really naughty and turbulent girls, yielded in this case, and left the exclusive management of Delia in the hands of her partner.
Of the seven damsels who sat under the yellow feathery flowers of the mimosa bush, three of them—Peachy, Jess, and Delia—talked so hard and continuously that none of the others had a chance to chip in with anything more than an occasional yes or no. Irene realized in a vague way that Esther Cartmel was plain and stodgy looking, but that every now and then a world of light suddenly flashed into her eyes, and transfigured her for the brief moment; that Sheila Yonge giggled at all Peachy's remarks, and that Mary Fergusson was a pale and weak copy of Jess, and slavishly followed her lead in everything. It was the seventh member of the little party, however, who particularly attracted her attention. Lorna Carson was quiet, probably from sheer lack of opportunity to speak, but her pale face was interesting and her dark eyes met Irene's with a curious questioning glance. It was almost as if she were asking "Have we known each other before?" Irene could not help looking at her, and ransacking the side cupboards of her memory to try to light upon some forgotten clew as to why the face should seem half familiar.
"Have I seen her in London? Or is she like some one else? No, I can't fix her at all. Surely I must have dreamed about her," mused Irene, while aloud she said, almost as if compelled to speak:
"Have you been long at school here? Are you English, or American, or colonial, or what?"