‘Poor child! Esprit de famille!’
‘Will it not be very bad for Valetta to be petted and pitied?’
‘I don’t know. At any rate, we cannot separate them at night, so it is only beginning it a little sooner; and whatever I say only exasperates Gillian the more. Poor little Val, she had not a formed character enough to be turned loose into a High School without Mysie to keep her in order.’
‘Or Gillian.’
‘I am not so sure of Gillian. There’s something amiss, though I can’t make out whether it is merely that I rub her down the wrong way. I wonder whether this holiday time will do us good or harm! At any rate, I know how Lily felt about Dolores.’
‘It must have been that class-mistress’s fault.’
‘To a great degree; but Miss Leverett has just discovered that her cleverness does not compensate for a general lack of sense and discipline. Poor little Val—perhaps it is her turning-point!’
Gillian, rushing up in a boiling state of indignation against everybody, felt the family shame most acutely of all; and though, as a Merrifield, she defended her sister below stairs, on the other hand she was much more personally shocked and angered at the disgrace than were her aunts, and far less willing to perceive any excuse for the culprit.
There was certainly no petting or pitying in her tone as she stood over the little iron bed, where the victim was hiding her head on her pillow.
‘Oh, Valetta, how could you do such a thing? The Merrifields have never been so disgraced before!’