If Irene, who had found her niche in a congenial set at the Villa Camellia, was capable of feeling the pangs of homesickness, that unpleasant malady exhibited itself with far more serious symptoms in the case of another new girl who had entered the school upon the same day. Désirée Legrand could not settle down among the juniors. She was used to the society of grown-up people, and did not take kindly to young companions. In the excitement of her own affairs Irene had hardly given the child a thought since her arrival, but one afternoon, when enjoying a solitary ramble round the garden, she suddenly came face to face with Little Flaxen. She was shocked at the change in her; the once pink cheeks were white and pasty, and her eyelids were red and swollen as if with perpetual crying.
"Hello! Whatever have you been doing to yourself?" exclaimed Irene. "You look rather a bunch of misery, don't you? What's the matter?"
Désirée, squatting forlornly on the steps that led to the upper tennis courts, produced a lace-bordered pocket-handkerchief and mopped her eyes.
"Nobody loves me here!" she blurted out dramatically. "I'm just wr-r-r-etched! They all laugh and call me Frenchie! I'm not French, and I w-w-ant to be l-l-oved!"
Irene looked at her and shook her head.
"That's not the way to go about it I'm afraid. I'm sorry, but you know you'll just invite teasing if you carry on like this. Can't you brace up and be sporty? Pretend you don't mind anything they say and they'll soon stop."
"But I do mind!" sobbed the tragic little figure on the steps. "I mind d-d-dreadfully! Why are they all so horrid to me? People have always been so nice till I came here!"
"That's exactly the reason," said Irene, grasping the situation and explaining it truthfully. "You've been accustomed to be petted by everybody, and after all why should the other girls in your form pet you? You don't pet them, do you?"
"N-n-o!"
Désirée's eyes were round with amazement.