"Oh, I don't do it. Mattice does it for us—for Cécile and me—Cécile's my sister. She's in the third grade."
"Why, I have a sister in the third grade too!" exclaimed Sylvia, much struck by this second propitious coincidence. "Her name is Judith and she's a darling. Wouldn't it be nice if she and Cécile should be good friends too!" She put her arm about her new comrade's waist, convinced that they were now intimates of long standing. They ran together to take their places at the sound of the bell; all during the rest of the morning session she smiled radiantly at the new-comer whenever their eyes met.
She planned to walk part way home with her at noon, but she was detained for a moment by the teacher, and when she reached the front gate, where Judith was waiting for her, Camilla was nowhere in sight. Judith explained with some disfavor that a surrey had been waiting for the Fingál girls and they had been driven away.
Sylvia fell into a rhapsody over her new acquaintance and found to her surprise (it was always a surprise to Sylvia that Judith's tastes and judgments so frequently differed from hers) that Judith by no means shared her enthusiasm. She admitted, but as if it were a matter of no importance, that both Camilla and Cécile were pretty enough, but she declared roundly that Cécile was a little sneak who had set out from the first to be "Teacher's pet." This title, in the sturdy democracy of the public schools, means about what "sycophantic lickspittle" means in the vocabulary of adults, and carries with it a crushing weight of odium which can hardly ever be lived down.
"Judith, what makes you think so?" cried Sylvia, horrified at the epithet.
"The way she looks at Teacher—she never takes her eyes off her, and just jumps to do whatever Teacher says. And then she looks at everybody so kind o' scared—'s'if she thought she was goin' to be hit over the head every minute and was so thankful to everybody for not doing it. Makes me feel just like doin' it!" declared Judith, the Anglo-Saxon.
Sylvia recognized a scornful version of the appealing expression which she had found so touching in Camilla.
"Why, I think it's sweet of them to look so! When they're so awfully pretty, and have such good clothes—and a carriage—and everything! They might be as stuck-up as anything! I think it's just nice for them to be so sweet!" persisted Sylvia.
"I don't call it bein' sweet," said Judith, "to watch Teacher every minute and smile all over your face if she looks at you and hold on to her hand when she's talkin' to you! It's silly!"
They argued all the way home, and the lunch hour was filled with appeals to their parents to take sides. Professor and Mrs. Marshall, always ready, although occasionally somewhat absent, listeners to school news, professed themselves really interested in these new scholars and quite perplexed by the phenomenon of two beautiful dark-eyed children, called Camilla and Cécile Fingál. Judith refused to twist her tongue to pronounce the last syllable accented, and her version of the name made it sound Celtic. "Perhaps their father is Irish and the mother Italian or Spanish," suggested Professor Marshall.