“What does he say, dear?” I whispered.
“Wants me to meet him to-night,” she wrote on her slate, and rubbed it out directly. For we actually used common slates—noughts-and-crosses slates—just like charity-school children. But I had my revenge, for I dropped and cracked no less than ten of the nasty things, though I am afraid papa had to pay.
And then again she wrote, “What does he say, dear?”
“I have not had a chance to see yet,” I dolefully replied. “There’s the raging Furnace watching me, so pray don’t look up. She suspects something, and I can’t move without being spied.”
“Poor old darling!” wrote Clara on her slate.
“I’m going to trust you, my dear,” I said. “When I push my Nugent’s Dictionary over to you, take it quietly, for my note will be inside. And I want you to take it, and go away somewhere and read it, and then come and tell me what he says; for the old thing is so suspicious, and keeps looking in my direction—and I dare not attempt it myself.”
So I managed to pass the note to Clara, who left the room; and then I wrote down the aliquot parts of a pound, and folded it ready so as to pull out next time. I saw Miss Furness watching me; and there I sat, with my cheeks burning, and wondering what was in my note, and whether, after all, I had done foolishly. For was Clara to be trusted?
“But she is so mixed up with it herself,” I thought, “she dare not play me false.”
So there I sat on and on, pretending to be studious, and wondering what kept Clara so long, would have gone after her, only I knew that Miss Furness was keeping an eye upon me; and sometimes I half thought that she must know something about the night when I went down to the elms; but directly after I felt that she did not, or she would have told my Lady Blunt directly. But the fact of the matter was, she felt suspicious about the note, and all because I was so clumsy in trying to throw dust in her eyes.
Five minutes—ten minutes—a quarter of an hour had passed, and still no Clara. Then another quarter of an hour, and still she did not come. “Whatever shall I do?” I thought to myself—“surely she is not deceiving me?” And then, just as my spirits were regularly boiling over, heated as they were by impatience and vexation, in she came, with the note in her hand; and I saw her laugh maliciously, and cross over to Patty Smith.