“Are you—are you going away?”
“Me? No.” And with that she dropped her slate and pencil on the step, dropped her face into her two hands, and wept.
Hildegarde thought she had misheard—it must be that Bella was crying because she was expelled. After all Hildegarde had expected she would be expelled. What she had not expected was that she, one of the big girls, would be so sorry to hear that this was the last she should see of little Bella Wayne. Hildegarde picked up the broken slate, and tried to think of something comforting.
“I was sure they’d send me home,” Bella sobbed. “But they w-won’t! Not even if I d-don’t beg her p-par-don.”
“And you want to be sent home!”
“Of course!” Bella got out a handkerchief three inches square and dabbed her eyes.
“Was that why you did it?”
“No. It would have been if I’d thought she’d come and catch me. But—no—I did it because—oh, because there wasn’t any other earthly thing to do in that room!” she said, with a burst. Then, more collectively: “Were you ever in Miss MacIver’s room?”
“No. I’ve always been rather afraid of Miss MacIver.”
“Well, wait till you’ve seen her room—and her family! You’ll be ’fraider than ever. The only pictures she has in there are photographs of a lot of nightmarey people all just like her. Oh, it was dreadful being shut up there with millions of MacIvers! I did everything I could think of to forget ’em. I looked at all her dull books. Then I smelt all her bottles—they aren’t so dull. Do you know she’s got seventeen on her wash-stand?”