“I don’t believe in rules,” said Margot, turning and speaking emphatically from the top stair, “about silly things like that, I mean. I’m going for a post card, and I’ve simply got to have it.” She turned again, and resumed her upward journey.
“But you don’t mean to say you won’t let me write to mother!” she exclaimed three minutes later—standing with flaming cheeks, a post card clutched in her hand—to Miss Read, who had followed her upstairs, and now gazed at the independent twelve-year-old with a face of undisguised surprise; “because, if so——”
“The school rule is that letters are written home on Sundays,” said the house-mistress. “You have come here to obey the rules, haven’t you? But, unfortunately, you have broken several of them already—mostly without knowing it, of course—and now you want to break this one.”
“I don’t want to break rules,” said Margot passionately, “but I want to keep my promise.”
“And that was——?” asked Miss Read slowly.
“I said to mother as the train was starting, ‘I’m going to write to-night,’ so I must do it. What’s the sense of making a rule like this one of yours; there doesn’t seem any reason!”
“I can quite see that you don’t understand the reason,” said Miss Read, speaking very quietly, “but I’ll try to explain things if you will listen. There are twenty-four boarders here, and if I gave leave to one of them to write a letter, I must naturally give leave to all, which means that twenty-four girls would need writing material from boxes that are not yet unpacked. Writing materials are very often at the bottom of people’s trunks, of course, and if twenty-four girls were allowed upstairs to turn over their boxes, and then to leave their trunks again and go down to write letters, what would be the state of the dormitories, and when would the rest of the unpacking and arranging get done?”
“I suppose things would be in a muddle,” said Margot frankly; “but,” with her chin still held high, “mother will expect——”
“I don’t think so,” remarked Miss Read, forestalling her; “because Miss Slater understands very well indeed how the girls’ mothers feel, and she has made arrangements that they should not be anxious. A post card has been sent already to your mother—as to the parents of every one of the girls—to say that you have arrived safely, and that you will all write yourselves on Sunday.”
“Then she will understand!” broke in Margot. “Oh, that’s all right then, but I’d have liked to have written myself.”