“Frederica comes to school on Monday,” she said, in rather a strained voice.
“How were they, Miss Florence?” asked Edith.
“Oh, I don’t know. Mrs Crichton is very well. They are hardly settled.”
“I was telling signorina,” said Miss Robertson.
Flossy looked at Violante.
“Why, you have frightened her!” she said, “with our sad story.”
Violante could not speak; but something in Flossy’s trembling lips spoke to her heart. She pressed up close to her and hid her face on her shoulder.
“Why, my dear child, how you tremble!” cried Flossy, touched by the action and by the sympathy, as she thought it. “Hush, we have almost left off crying for her!”
“I never thought it would make you hysterical,” said Miss Robertson, rather severely.
“Let her alone,” said Florence, for all her tenderest strings were still quivering with the renewal of old associations, and somehow this girl, who cried for her dear Mysie, spoke to her heart as no one had done since Mysie’s star had set. Violante clung closer and closer, conscious of nothing but a sense of help and fellowship in the stormy sea that, had suddenly burst in on her. She had lost all sense of concealment, she forgot that Flossy did not know her secret; she was only silent because no words adequate to her bewildered horror suggested themselves. At last she half sobbed out: