Miss Lucilla left the sentence in the air and meditatively ate another bunch of grapes.
"Did her father come up with her?" Belinda asked.
"No; he sent her with friends who happened to be coming—a highly respectable couple, but breezy, very breezy. They told me that Bonita could ride any bronco on the ranch and could shoot a Jack-rabbit on the run. They seemed to think she would be a great addition to our school circle on that account. Personally I'm much relieved to find her so tractable and quiet, but I've noticed something—well—er—unusual about her."
As Belinda went up to bed she met a slim little figure in a barbaric red and yellow dressing-gown crossing the hall. There was a shy challenge in the serious child face, although the little feet, clad in soft, beaded moccasins, quickened their steps; and Belinda answered the furtive friendliness by slipping an arm around the girl's waist and drawing her into the tiny hall bedroom.
"You haven't been to see me. It's one of the rules of the school that every girl shall have a cup of cocoa with me before she has been here three evenings," she said laughingly.
The Queer Little Thing accepted the overture soberly, and, curled up in the one big chair, watched the Youngest Teacher in silence.
The cocoa was soon under way. Then the hostess turned and smiled frankly at her guest. Belinda's smile is a reassuring thing.
"Homesick business, isn't it?" she said abruptly, with a warm note of comradeship in her voice.
The tense little figure in the big chair leaned forward with sudden, swift confidence.
"I'm going home," announced Bonita in a tone that made no reservations.