Down at the bottom of the letter Barby said, "I have written all this to Miss Crewes, that she may have another Sir Gareth to add to her list of knightly souls who do their deed and ask no guerdon."
CHAPTER X
AT HARRINGTON HALL
The other day Miss Everett, the English teacher, took a book away from Jessica Archibald. She said it wasn't suitable for a girl in her teens. It was too sentimental and romantic. Jess didn't mind it very much, for she is one of the worshippers at Miss Everett's shrine. When a bunch of girls are so devoted to a person that they'll go to her room and take the hairs out of her comb to put in their lockets or their memory books, that is the limit. I don't see how any novel ever written could beat that for being sentimental.
But Babe Nolan doesn't agree with me. She never does. She said, "Look at the old Romans. Didn't I remember in Anthony over Caesar's dead body:
"Yea, beg a hair of him for memory, and dying, mention it within their wills, bequeathing it as a rich legacy."
But Babe admits that Jessica is disgustingly sentimental. They are room-mates. And Babe says how any grown person can be the blind bat that Jess's mother is, is a mystery to her. Mrs. Archibald told Miss Everett that her little daughter is "an unawakened child as yet, just a shy, budding, white violet," and she wants to keep her so till she's through school. She says Jessica has always been totally indifferent to boys, never gives them a thought, and she doesn't want her to until she is grown and Prince Charming arrives on the scene. She's just fifteen now.