“If she had only let me go to my room alone! Just for a little time till I got used to it!” she thought. Then felt something soft and dainty touch her cheek, got a whiff of delicate perfume, and heard a voice whispering:
“Don’t look ’round. Stare right out the window, hard as ever. In a minute Helen and her clique’ll be going out—It’s exercise hour; and, lucky for us, I’ve a cold in my head and am excused. I always do get a cold in my head, whenever I have a chance. It lets you off so many things. There! They’re going. Madam won’t insist upon you, not this first day. You’re a ‘new-er.’ ‘New-ers’ get scot of heaps of things. Now, they’ve gone; every one except Natalie, and she doesn’t count. She generally is in disgrace, Nat is. Come here, Natalie Graham. This is Jessica Trent. She’s cried my hanky full, give me yours. Hold on. You better keep it and sop her cheeks yourself while I go bring that box of choccies I hid in my bed. I had to take them out the box ’cause that would have showed, but I left ’em in the paper. Whew! Jessica Trent! I never saw a girl cry so much nor such awful great tears in all my life. Nattie’s hanky’ll be soaked, too, in a minute, if you don’t let up. See if you can’t stop before I get back. I cried, too, the day I was a ‘new-er’ but not that way. Stick to her, Nat, and make her know it’s not so bad when you get used to it. You can get used to anything, you know, even the ‘corrective medicine’ Madame has given to us, now and then, for our complexions.”
By this time the “sopping” process had been thoroughly accomplished, Jessica had ceased to weep from sheer astonishment, and the lively, whispering comforter had betaken herself in search of prohibited “Choccies,” otherwise a rich chocolate dainty. The proprietor of these had never known a grief that a pound of “Huyler’s” could not cure.
Jessica looked after the plump, retreating figure, with its starched and sadly berumpled white frock, its extravagantly large bows that stood out from a brilliant red head at absurd angles, and its odd air of being made up of bits, rudely flung together in great haste. The effect was amusing enough to bring a smile even to her lips, sad though she was, and she demanded of the “sopper” who remained:
“Who is that? Is she a pupil here?”
“That’s Aubrey Huntington. Yes, she’s a pupil, that is, she’s here; but she doesn’t pupil very much. She’s in so many scrapes she doesn’t have time. Anyway, she doesn’t need. She’s so awful rich. Her father is, I mean, and he gives Aubrey heaps and heaps of spending-money, even though Madame doesn’t approve. Why, he’s richer even than Helen Rhinelander’s mother, and that family think they own the earth. Helen’s father is dead, and she’s an heiress. She’s awful smart. Stands head in all her classes and plays the piano to beat the band. Oh! I ought not to have said that. It’s slang, and Madame is very particular about our using slang. There isn’t much of anything that Madame isn’t particular about. But I love her. I certainly do. She’s just like a mother to us if we’re in trouble, or ill, or anything; except, well, except when we get into scrapes and then she’s more like a—a father. My name is Natalie Graham. Oh! I forgot, Aubrey told you. She and I are sort of cousins and Madame used to let us room together. This year she won’t. She says Aubrey does me a great deal of harm and I’m not the restriction on Aubrey that I should be, being six months older, so. Some of the girls room alone. I guess you will, ’cause all the double rooms are full. I guess you’ll be in our form, too. Aubrey can draw lovely. I mean she can draw funny; but her folks have forbidden her drawing any more because they want her to study the piano. Her father says he must have somebody in the family that can make a little music and soothe an idle hour and Aubrey’s the only child there is, so she’s shut off on drawing and pinned down to practising. She won’t be long, though. She can coax her father to let her do ’most anything. She says it’s a great deal easier to buy a pianola and let the music play itself on that, and she’s in for a pianola. She says she’s going to be a comic illustrator and make pictures for the funny papers. She could do it, too.
“Seems as if she were gone a long time. I—I bet something’s happened! Ah! Here she comes now. Have you got done crying? Choccies won’t taste half as nice, if you haven’t, with tears on them. Heigho! Aub! What kept you?”
“The ‘Snooper.’ She’s in with a headache, or a fit of the ‘snoops’ more like. She’s got it into her long head that I’ve been doing something forbidden again, and just casually strayed into my room to find out. First thing she did she sat right down on my bed, kerflump! And there, in that very spot, between the sheets were these precious sweeties. Look at them, will you? Isn’t that enough to try the soul of a saint? Which I’m not. Poor choccies! To be smashed by the ‘Snooper.’
“So I sat down in the chair and she sat on the bed; and I said just as politely deportment-y as I could: ‘Beg pardon, Miss Stewart, but I’m excused from exercise, to-day, on account of my bad cold, and I’ve retired to my room for a little privacy and—and meditation.’ That’s where I made a mistake. Saying ‘meditation.’ ‘Snooper’s’ a faddist on meditation. Says it so improves our souls and a lot more bosh. So she decided she’d stay and meditate with me. And she did. But I ousted her at last. I sang! As soon as I began she put up her hand to make me stop, but the higher she held it the more I warbled, and in time she fled. But not till after she’d squashed these dear choccies all flat. Never mind. They were in the waxed paper and we can lick ’em off. Try some, Jessica. There’s nothing so good for a broken heart as a fresh cream drop.”
Nobody could withstand this nonsensical, merry girl. Certainly not Jessica Trent, even though she did wince at that reference to “broken hearts;” and in another moment the trio were deep in the enjoyment of the sweets which two of them knew were prohibited “between meals” though the “new-er” did not. Also, each was frankly imparting all the facts of her personal history, and the stranger was swiftly learning that there was still a good deal of happiness left in life. Here were “girls,” that race of which she knew so little; here was no grave talk of “duty” and “trusts” and the serious matters which interested grown folks; and here, once more, Jessica began to feel as she had used in the old home at Sobrante before any troubles came to it, to make her thoughtful beyond her years.