Breakfast had been gone through almost in silence, and the accustomed rush to the bedrooms afterwards had taken place quite quietly and tamely. The tidying of the bookshelves, which could generally be made to linger so pleasantly over the whole morning, was accomplished for once in an hour or so; and the girls found themselves, at eleven o’clock, with nothing further to do until Miss Tomlinson should send for them to pack their things. On any other packing-day the playroom would have been cleared of chairs and tables in a few minutes, and somebody would have been dragged to the piano to play a valse, and there would have been plenty of amusement for every one until dinner-time. But to-day nobody wanted to dance, and hardly any one talked.
Jean Murray sat motionless on one of the window-seats in the senior playroom. On packing-day all ordinary restrictions were suspended, and the younger children wandered in and out of the two rooms as they pleased. Jean had taken advantage of this privilege to escape from her usual play-fellows, who were remaining behind from force of habit in their own domain. The way Angela persisted in crying was enough to drive any one away; she had cried all through prayers, and had begun again directly after breakfast. Mary Wells, forgetting how much she had endured on former occasions from the triumvirate, sat with her arm round Angela’s neck, calling her ‘Poor darling!’ at intervals, with an occasional sob of her own to keep her company. Some of the others cried a little too,–at least, they did when they came near Angela,–and Charlotte Bigley was in such a temper that no one dared speak to her. All together, the juniors’ room was more than Jean could bear just then. Jean was not crying herself: she had not cried a drop since she saw the streak of scarlet twist round in the air and drop with a thud that still sounded in her ears.
It was not a bit like the last day of the term. ‘Tommy’ did not once come to the door and call out the name of the next girl who was to go upstairs and pack. Nobody in the room was exchanging addresses with any one else, or promising to write weekly letters during the holidays. Margaret was as cross as Charlotte Bigley, it seemed, for she allowed no one but Ruth Oliver to come near her; and the other big girls were scattered about the room in idle, listless groups, conversing a little, now and then, in hushed tones. None of them noticed Jean; and Jean never saw them. She just sat rigidly on the window-seat, and looked straight in front of her, with the odd, hard expression on her face that had been there since the night before.
Margaret was sitting at the table tracing interminable circles on the back of an old envelope with a pair of compasses. The presence of Ruth at her elbow, as she absorbed herself in this pursuit, was very comforting. Ruth was a slow old thing, as every one knew, but in time of need she was invaluable.
After a while, the head girl dug the point of the compass into the table, and cleared her throat nervously.
‘She’s such an awfully nice little kid,’ she said. She spoke hurriedly, and her face had turned rather red.
‘Yes,’ answered Ruth, staring down at the maze of circles on the back of the envelope.
Margaret went on, with an effort: ‘She has such a queer way of getting at you,’ she said. ‘I never knew how much I cared about the child, till–till now.’
‘No,’ answered Ruth, softly.
‘Supposing––’ began Margaret, and stopped abruptly. ‘Do you think––?’ she began again, and again hesitated.