'I suppose a girl must be telling some one,' said Lance; 'and if it was to be done, Felix was the right one.'
'So I made sure,' said poor Robin; 'but Miss Fulmort and Miss Fennimore seemed to think it no better than if I had told you. They say I am forgiven, but I hate their forgiveness. I've done nothing wrong, and yet they don't like or trust me; and they seem to grudge me all my marks and prizes. "For proficiency, not for conduct," they say, in that hard cold voice. And then the girls nod and whisper. Angel and all, think me a nasty spiteful marplot. Alice set half of them against me before she went!'
'Poor Bob. And you can't have a good set to, and punch their heads all round! That's the way to have it out, and get comfortable and friendly.'
'For choir boys? O Lance!'
'Choir boys aint girls, I thank my stars.'
'Well,' continued Robina, glad to pour out her troubles, even for such counsel as this, 'when I came home last week, I did think it would be made up.'
'Well,' said Lance, as Robin grew rather choky, and drew the back of a woolly glove across her eyes, not much to their benefit.
'Clem looks black, because he says his sisters were meant to raise the tone of the school.'
'Confound the tone of the school! I know what that is! But who cares for Tina?'
'Then Wilmet says I ought to have asked leave to write to her, and she could have managed it quietly, and kept everybody out of a scrape.'