French was a serious trouble to Sylvia also. She had learnt very little with her governess at home, and found it most difficult to keep up with Marian, who had rather a pretty accent, and was good at translation. To encourage her pupils, Mademoiselle had offered a prize to whichever could write the best letter home in the French language. Each was to be the unaided work of the competitor, though grammars and dictionaries might be freely consulted. It was a difficult task to all the girls, and to some an almost impossible one, but Mademoiselle insisted upon everybody at least making an attempt, and laughed in private over the funny efforts which followed.
If the prize had been given for the queerest instead of the best letter Connie Camden would have gained it. She grew so tired of looking up words that she wrote anything she thought sounded like French, and the result would have puzzled a native to decipher. It ran thus:—
"Heathercliffe Maison.
"Novembre la onzième.
"Mon cher mère
"Mamzelle a toldé moi que je mustai writer une lettre en français. Je le findai très difficile et je ne likai pas du tout. Mamzelle a offré une prize mais je suis sûre que je ne shallai pas le getter. Je begge que vous excusez moi parce que je ne canne pas thinker de rien encore à sayer.
"Votre aimant fille,
"Connie."
This, however, was the worst of the set, some of the others having managed to express themselves quite nicely. Rather to everybody's astonishment Hazel Prestbury won the prize. She was not industrious enough to gain the highest marks in class, but on this occasion she had set her best energies to work, and her letter, both as regards composition and grammar, was far in advance of all competitors. She felt a thrill of triumph as Mademoiselle presented her with a charming Parisian basket full of choice chocolates, accompanied by a speech in French, which nobody understood in the least. She handed it round amongst the girls with a sense that she had at last somewhat regained her lost standing, and when the basket was empty had the satisfaction of overhearing Marian remark that she was generous with her sweets, and Gwennie wish that she knew French only half as well.
Nina Forster returned to class after a week's absence, looking pale and thin, and with a white knitted shawl wrapped ostentatiously round her shoulders. She was a girl who thoroughly enjoyed being delicate, and liked the importance of having a fuss made over her. There was always a large bottle of tonic on the sideboard, which Nina gloried in being obliged to swallow, and she was rather pleased than otherwise if Miss Kaye decided that it was too damp a day for her to venture out.
"I can't stand much, you know," she would explain complacently to the others in languid tones. "Every winter I have been laid up, with the doctor listening at my bronchial tube and taking my temperature night and morning. It makes Mother most unhappy, and I'm sure Miss Kaye's quite worried about me too."
As most of the girls did not know the exact meaning of either a bronchial tube or a temperature, they were a good deal impressed, and allowed Nina to take the warmest seat and the biggest piece of toffee "for the sake of her throat", a state of affairs which was just what she wanted, and of which she did not fail to take advantage to the uttermost.
With the colder weather eider-down quilts had made their appearance in the bedrooms, and now supplied the places of the pretty pink coverlets which were only used in summer. It felt very warm and comfortable to snuggle down under them at night, when the wind was howling outside and the rain beating fast against the windows, and very hard to throw them back and get up in the dark, chilly mornings, when the dressing bell was ringing in the passage outside.
Sylvia's eider-down quilt once caused her an experience which gave her a greater fright than she had ever had in her life before. She had been to sleep for what seemed to her several hours, and woke suddenly with a curious sense that someone besides herself and Linda was in the room. It seemed to her as if her quilt were being very gently but surely pulled from her bed. Wideawake in an instant, she pulled it back and lay listening with strained ears. There was nothing to be heard but Linda's placid breathing and the drip of the rain from the spout outside the window. Again the quilt slowly began to move, and this time she was certain she caught a slight sound. Could it be possible that a burglar was concealed under her bed? The idea was too dreadful, and a cold shiver ran through her. What was she to do? She did not dare to call to Linda; she felt as if her tongue would refuse to utter a cry, and perhaps if she did the man would at once crawl out. The room was not quite dark, as a fitful moon shone in through the blind between the storm clouds, and to poor Sylvia it made the horror almost worse to know that she would be able to see somebody rise up suddenly by her bedside.
"I'd give him anything and everything he wants to steal," she thought, "if only he wouldn't frighten me so. Oh, I wonder whether he's really there or not!"