"Oh, Miss Hartill—I can't!"
"Why not?"
"No one ever does——"
Clare waited.
Agatha protested redly, her fear of ridicule outweighing her fear of Clare.
"Miss Hartill, I simply couldn't. Before everybody—all this tosh—I mean all this stuff I wrote. It's a written essay. I couldn't make it sound right aloud."
Clare waited.
"It's not good enough, Miss Hartill. Honestly! And we never have. You've never made us. I couldn't."
Clare waited.
Agatha twisted her hands uneasily. The schoolgirl shyness that is physical misery was upon her.