The days and weeks passed quickly at school, once the new term's work was well begun, and the half-term holiday was drawing near.
Monica had never forgotten Lily Howell's trick to get her into trouble, but she felt above paying her out, so she left her severely alone. As it happened, that was perhaps the most trying punishment she could have devised for a girl of Lily's disposition, who ardently longed to be "taken up" by people such as the Beauchamps, whom her father called "The Quality"; and Monica's absolute indifference to her piqued her terribly.
Lily was telling her mother about it one day, and complaining of being sent to Coventry by "that Monica Beauchamp, who gives herself such airs, just for all the world as if she was a duchess!"
Mrs. Howell, a kindly creature of ample proportions, who always felt impelled to address her magnificent housekeeper as "ma'am," and who never ceased to wish for the happy olden days when first she had married Bob Howell, and kept house on little less than a pound a week, sighed feebly as she looked helplessly at her young daughter, who tyrannised frightfully over her "Ma," as she called her.
"Well, I'm sure, my dear," she ventured, "you might be content with havin' such nice young ladies as the Miss Masters to make friends of, without 'ankerin' after the gentry."
"I do wish you wouldn't leave out all your 'g's,' ma," cried Lily, pettishly; "it's dreadful the way you talk. And as for the Masters, they're only butchers, and I detest being mixed up with shop people." And the girl stamped her foot in disgust.
Mrs. Howell, who was shedding a quiet tear or two over her child's unkindness, sniffed loudly, and said: "I'm sure shop people is plenty good enough for girls as behaves to their poor ma like you do, and I don't wonder as this Miss Beauchamp don't take up with you. I wish to goodness your pa had never made a fortune, that I do; for it's a worry from mornin' to night, a-mindin' my manners here, and a-shuttin' up my mouth there!" And the poor, lonely woman, surrounded with every luxury and elegance that money could buy, but who felt less free than a canary in its cage, wept silently.
For a minute, Lily regarded her with some sort of compunction, but she was afraid of giving way to her better nature, so merely saying: "Well, I'm sure, ma, there's nothing to cry about," turned on her heel, and left the room.
And the poor mother, who had strained every nerve, in her younger days, to make her only child's life one of cloudless happiness, realised that she and her husband had made a bitter mistake in educating Lily "as a lady," for it was only too evident that she now considered herself immensely superior to her parents; and as for affection for them she had little or none.
There was little talked of at the High School that second week in June but the approaching half-term holiday, and various ways of spending it. Some of the girls, whose homes were at a distance, but who either lived or boarded with friends in Osmington, so as to attend the High School, were looking forward to a week-end at home; while others were going to stay from the Friday to Monday night with relations.