“Yes, Miss Bunn,” replied Ann, having a bright thought. “Don’t you think that it really would be better for me to wait for Marta, so we can go across the campus together?”
“Perhaps it would,” said Miss Bunn, somewhat doubtfully. “But if Marta should be detained some time, do not wait,—not more than a very few minutes, Miss Sterling. Otherwise I shall have to report you as out of your room in study hours.”
“Very well, Miss Bunn,” respectfully said Ann, for the first time feeling like being impertinent to a teacher. She remained standing while Miss Bunn, still with the attitude of disapproval, slowly walked down the steps and around the walk.
“Fussy old thing,” thought impatient Ann. “She just wanted to show her authority!” But Ann did not realize how Miss Tudor had impressed all her staff with the importance of looking after these girls, many of them accustomed to very little restraint at home, much less than would have been good for them. The trouble with poor, conscientious Miss Bunn was that her manner with the girls prejudiced them against her, with the result that even the obedient ones resented her authority.
Time went slowly, especially since Ann felt out of place. She thought that at least fifteen minutes must have gone by when she looked at her watch, barely to be seen in the fading light, to find that only five minutes had passed since she last consulted it. And here came Marta.
“Well!” exclaimed the surprised Marta, “that you, Ann? She didn’t keep me long, did she?”
“It seemed ages. I was worried for fear she would say something that you would not understand about what I thought, and then, with the girls in the suite, perhaps there would not be a good chance to tell you all about everything. Bunny came by and reminded me that it was study hours; but this was too important, so I stayed.”
“Come on over to my practice room. It may not be my room, of course, for our practice hours may be changed; but it will be a good place to talk. Nobody will mind. I think that Bunny was ahead of time about study hours. We’ll not be supposed to keep them tonight,—oh, of course, to stay off the campus. But there go some girls now. There will have to be a lot of going back and forth. Come on.”
The girls went to the building in which both had practiced on their respective instruments the previous year. It was dark, and when they tried the doors they were locked. “I might have known!” exclaimed Marta, in disgust. “Idiot!—I am referring to myself, Miss Sterling!”
“Your explanation is accepted,” laughed Ann, “but I might have had a brain or two about me! We’ll just sit down a few minutes on these steps to unburden our souls.”