Miss Melody's eye was at once penetrating and melancholy, as she fixed it upon her pupil.
"Now, childie dear, if you know what that weakness of yours is, fight against it. Fight against it, dearie, and pray. Don't forget what prayer can do for us all. The very weakest can be made strong, you know...."
Lily listened with a sense of disquiet. She felt vaguely that Miss Melody, so kind and wise and helpful, had somehow evolved a preconceived idea that did not altogether fit the reality.
"I don't know whether it is exactly that I'm afraid of responsibility," Lily began, feeling that the help Miss Melody was so willing to impart must rest upon a basis of fact, if it was to be of value to her.
The schoolmistress laughed softly.
"Lily, Lily, haven't you learnt not to make excuses for yourself yet? I hoped all my girls were taught that in the lowest form in the school!"
Lily looked as thoroughly disconcerted as she felt. Was it making excuses for herself to try and explain what she felt to be the truth, even though it happened to run contrary to Miss Melody's judgment?
"No, no, child," Miss Melody was grave again now. "Never be ashamed to own up to your weaknesses. I want you to think about backbone, dearie. It's what you need. I know, childie—perhaps more than you think. All sorts of girls have passed through my care, and I'm very, very proud to think that I've known something about each one of them—perhaps been able to give each one a little help. And there are no two alike, Lily, and each one has to be studied individually."
"And do you—have you really——?" Lily wanted to ask whether Miss Melody had really penetrated to the true self of every one of her pupils. It seemed so incredible, that girls like Dorothy Hardinge, for instance, should really have an inward life, even as Lily herself, and that Miss Melody should enter therein, and understand it all.
"Do I really study each one individually? Indeed I do, Lily, although it may seem to you girls that you see very little of the headmistress except in school, and on state occasions. Oh, I know," and Miss Melody laughed again.