"Which is the nicest teacher of all?" asked Jean.
"I think most of us like Miss Latimer best, the games mistress. She's very popular with everybody. You see, we always have such fun at gymnastics, and of course we love hockey and cricket. She teaches us swimming too, but that's only during the summer term. There's the bell! We must go in to supper. Do you know your way to the refectory? We all settle places on the first evening, so it's rather exciting. Perhaps you'd like to come with me?"
Patty would have replied in the affirmative, but at that moment she happened to notice Muriel crossing the quadrangle, as she thought, in search of her, and saying she had better wait, she allowed Jean and Avis to go indoors without her. She was perfectly certain that Muriel must have seen her, but, greatly to her surprise, her cousin turned aside and claimed acquaintance with a chestnut-haired girl, with whom she hastened into the house without bestowing a look in Patty's direction. The great clanging bell was still ringing in the tower over the gymnasium, and groups of girls came hurrying towards the refectory from all parts of the building.
"Be quick, my dear," said a teacher, passing Patty, and noticing her hesitation. "Everyone is going to supper. Come with me, and I will find a place for you."
Patty followed, rather nervous, but thankful that somebody would show her where she must sit. The refectory was almost full when they entered. It was a large room, with a groined roof like a church, and stained-glass windows at either side. A long table occupied the entire length, and at one end was a raised dais, with another table for the mistresses. It resembled in this respect the hall of a college, and was a subject of great pride to Miss Lincoln, who liked to think that the school had its meals in the same place where the old monks had dined six hundred years ago. Muriel was seated towards the centre of the table, chatting to several friends in whose company she seemed entirely absorbed. There was evidently no room in her vicinity, and the teacher moved farther along and found a place for Patty nearer the end. She was between two girls rather older than herself, neither of whom spoke to her. One appeared to be in an uncommunicative frame of mind, and answered abruptly when a neighbour asked her a question, and the other was occupied with a conversation with two schoolmates at the opposite side of the table. Patty ate her supper, therefore, in silence, feeling exceedingly shy, and very much hurt that her cousin should have treated her so unkindly. On her first evening common politeness would have suggested that Muriel might have sought her out and introduced her to a few other girls, instead of leaving her thus friendless and forlorn. Even Jean and Avis were too far away to speak to, and she was yet an absolute outsider to everyone else. There is nothing more solitary than to feel oneself alone in a crowd, and the tears rose to poor Patty's eyes at the remembrance of the nursery at home, where the little ones would just have gone to bed, and Milly and Robin would be learning their lessons for the next day.
When the meal was over, the whole school adjourned to the lecture-room to listen to an opening speech from Miss Lincoln, who usually began the term with an address to her pupils. The singing class sang a few glees, and there was a recitation by one of the prefects; after that came prayers, and then it was bedtime. Patty was escorted to No. 7 by the same teacher who had taken her to the refectory, and who, she learnt, was Miss Rowe, the second mistress of the fourth class. The curtains of the other cubicles were closely drawn, so she did not catch a glimpse of her companions, and as all conversation was strictly forbidden, the room was in silence. Patty went to bed in the very lowest of spirits. It had not seemed a favourable beginning to her school life, and unless things improved a little she was sure she could never be happy.
"I suppose I must try and make the best of it," she thought; "and one thing I'm determined about, however wretched I feel, I'm not going to write miserable letters home and upset Mother. She wanted me so much to like The Priory, so I won't let her know, even if nobody ever does talk to me or be nice. There are eighty-nine days before I can go back, and this is one off, at any rate. I expect they'll go by somehow, though I wish I could skip them all, and this were the last day of the term instead of only the first."
CHAPTER IV
A Maiden all Forlorn
Patty awoke next morning with a vague, drowsy, comfortable impression that she was in her own room at home, with Milly in the other bed, and she was just going to turn over and fall happily asleep again, when she suddenly remembered where she was, and felt as if her heart, instead of being light and cheerful as usual, had changed into lead or some substance of an equally weighty description. She realized that it was the sound of voices that had disturbed her. Two girls in the opposite cubicles were talking together, in low tones, certainly, but loud enough to be most distinctly audible.