“I say beneath my notice. A foolish young man thinks proper to stare at me and raises his hat probably at the whole school.”
“At you, Miss Helen Perowne—at you!” exclaimed Miss Twettenham.
“Possibly,” said the girl, carelessly, as the flash died out of her eyes, her lids drooped, and she let her gaze wander to the window.
“I can scarcely tell you how grieved—how hurt we feel,” continued Miss Twettenham, “to find that a young lady who has for so many years enjoyed the—the care, the instruction, the direction of our establishment, should have set so terrible an example to her fellow-pupils.”
The girl shrugged her shoulders again slightly, and her face assumed a more indifferent air.
“The time that you have to stay here, Miss Perowne, is very short,” continued the speaker; “but while you do stay it will be under rigid supervision. You may now retire to your room.”
The girl turned away, and was walking straight out of the room, but years of lessons in deportment asserted themselves, and from sheer habit she turned by the door to make a stately courtesy, frowning and biting her lip directly after as if from annoyance, and passing out with the grace and proud carriage of an Eastern queen.
“Stop, Miss Stuart,” said Miss Twettenham, as Helen Perowne’s companion was about to follow. “I wish to say a few words to you before you go—not words of anger, my dear child, for the only pain we have suffered through you is in hearing the news that you are so soon to go.”
“Oh, Miss Twettenham,” exclaimed the girl, hurrying to take the extended hands of the schoolmistress, but to find herself pressed to the old lady’s heart, an embrace which she received in turn from Miss Julia and Miss Maria.
“We have long felt that it must soon come, my dear,” chirped Miss Maria.