"Jocelyn—Noreen and the others didn't mean anything, truly," Gabrielle panted. "They didn't think you would really go and do the Lab, you know."
Joey returned no answer; for one thing she had no breath to speak; for the second, she looked forward to a settlement, a little later on, with Noreen and Co., when the interview with Miss Conyngham and the hateful apology to the Professor were well over.
Gabrielle said nothing more either, and the two arrived in silence at Miss Conyngham's door. Miss Conyngham herself opened it, shepherding out three girls who looked new and rather frightened.
"Ah, Gabrielle, that's right," Miss Conyngham said. "Kathleen Ronaldshay has no elder sisters here; will you take care of her and show her round? And here is Jocelyn. I will introduce all you new girls to each other, and then I want a little talk with Jocelyn alone."
Joey shook hands with Bernadine Elton, Kathleen Ronaldshay, and Ella Marne; then the three were sent off in Gabrielle's care—they were all of them much bigger than she was—and Miss Conyngham drew Jocelyn into her pretty room.
Miss Conyngham matched her room; she was dainty and fair and fragile-looking, and, as Joey mentioned afterwards to Mums, "looked as if a light were burning inside her which made her all lit up as soon as she began to talk."
She did not look as though she could keep six hundred girls in order; but Joey found out very soon that appearances were deceitful in this case. Just now, however, Miss Conyngham was not out to keep anyone in order.
"I was so sorry that you and Miss Craigie couldn't come down together; but I have had a wire, she is better, and the temperature very much down this morning. So I hope we may get her back in a fortnight. And by that time I expect you will have made hosts of friends, and have a tremendous amount to tell her."
Joey assented cautiously. Privately she doubted the friends, and it certainly wouldn't be possible to tell Miss Craigie that she hated Redlands for fear it should go back to Mums via the minister. But an assent of some kind seemed the proper thing.
"You will be placed in Remove II. B; that is the head form of the Lower School," Miss Conyngham went on. "Gabrielle, who brought you here, is in that form, only she is A: she is Head of the Lower School, you know, and only thirteen; we are all proud of Gabrielle at Redlands."