“I—I really do not know. Except that all of the girls think, or have been told, that she is one of your charity pupils.”
Then, indeed, did Madame Mearsom laugh and heartily:
“My dear, that is the most absurd blunder your young heads ever made. Jessica Trent is what is called ‘A Copper Princess.’ She is the richest pupil I have ever had.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
A TELLING VALEDICTORY.
The Adelphi was transformed.
Upholsterers, florists, caterers had been so busy in all the main rooms that when Jessica stepped into them, on her return from hospital, she scarcely believed she had come to the right place.
Yet she could not be mistaken, for a bevy of happy girls, headed by Helen Rhinelander herself, had been watching from the upper windows for the arrival of the carriage that brought her; and these now swooped down upon her with all the extravagance of greeting natural to warm-hearted maidens.
“Jessie, you darling! So they did let you come in time for Commencement, after all! Only last night Madame bade us be prepared for disappointment, for one of the hospital surgeons said he feared the effect upon you of so much excitement. So you mustn’t get excited. Not the least bit in the world!” And as a soothing measure, Aubrey Huntington caught her recovered friend around the waist and gave her a wild whirl.
Jessica laughed, caught her breath, began to declare that she wasn’t—she wouldn’t be “excited,” and had her sentence finished, or smothered, by a frantic hug from somebody else.