Gretta turned her eyes towards a far corner of the room, and there, in the centre of a laughing group of girls, stood her little sister, flushed, excited, and evidently enjoying herself hugely.
“I’ve never had brown stockings before, but auntie said——” The words, uttered in Sybil’s shrill treble, floated above the babel.
“Oh, how can she?” said Gretta, aghast. “Sybil!” She took an ineffectual step forward.
“It’s no good, she wouldn’t hear you in this racket,” said Josy, who was evidently exceedingly amused; “and, if she did, she doesn’t look as though she’d take much notice. Not bad for a new kid, is it? But she’ll shake down. Now, do you like scrambled eggs?”
Gretta turned from the vision of Sybil, who was still supplying a fund of amusement to a delighted group, and faced the question for its second time of asking.
“What a funny thing to say,” she remarked shyly. “It’s like ‘Alice in Wonderland’ somehow, isn’t it? Yes, I think so”—here visions of Ann’s inferior cookery rose before her—“that is, if they’re not burnt or cooked all wrong, or cold, or something.”
Her new friend gave a shout of merriment. “There, didn’t I say you were clever! Excuse me laughing, and I’ll tell you why. We always have scrambled eggs for tea on the first night of term, so we always ask new boarders that question. It makes a kind of beginning to conversation, and somehow or other you can find out by the way they answer what kind of girls they’ll be. It’s really rather fun, but I’ve never heard anyone answer like you! How do you know when they’re cooked wrong? You must be clever; I said so, remember, to begin with, and I always knew I was good at character reading!”
Gretta blushed to the roots of her hair. She had hoped so much that she wouldn’t be different from other girls, and here she was on the very first evening at school—yes, even in the very first hour!—convicted of being old-fashioned, and of knowing things that other girls didn’t know. Her discomfiture would have been complete had not a look of contrition in Josy’s face served to reassure her.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said her new friend. “You didn’t mind, did you?”
Gretta made an effort, and tried to smile. “Have you asked Sybil?” she said.