Even the governesses noticed the change in her.
Three of them sat one evening round the fire in Mrs. Gurley's sitting-room, with their feet on the fender. The girls had gone to bed; it was Mrs. Gurley's night off, and as Miss Day was also on leave, the three who were left could draw in more closely than usual. Miss Snodgrass had made the bread into toast—in spite of Miss Chapman's quakings lest Mrs. Gurley should notice the smell when she came in—and, as they munched, Miss Snodgrass related how she had just confiscated a book Laura Rambotham was trying to smuggle upstairs, and how it had turned out that it belonged, not to Laura herself, but to Lilith Gordon.
"She was like a little spitfire about it all the same. A most objectionable child, I call her. It was only yesterday I wanted to look at some embroidery on her apron—a rather pretty new stitch—and do you think she'd let me see it? She jerked it away and glared at me as if she would have liked to eat me. I could have boxed her ears."
"I never have any trouble with Laura. I don't think you know how to manage her," said Miss Chapman, and executed a little manoeuvre. She had poor teeth; and, having awaited a moment when Miss Snodgrass's sharp eyes were elsewhere engaged, she surreptitiously dropped the crusts of the toast into her handkerchief.
"I'd be sorry to treat her as you do," said Miss Snodgrass, and yawned. "Girls need to be made to sit up nowadays."
She yawned again, and gazing round the room for fresh food for talk, caught Miss Zielinski with her eye. "Hullo, Ziely, what are you deep in?" She put her arm round the other's neck, and unceremoniously laid hold of her book. "You naughty girl, you're at Ouida again! Always got your nose stuck in some trashy novel."
"DO let me alone," said Miss Zielinski pettishly, holding fast to the book; but she did not raise her eyes, for they were wet.
"You know you'll count the washing all wrong again to-morrow, your head'll be so full of that stuff."
"Yes, it's time to go, girls; to-morrow's Saturday." And Miss Chapman sighed; for, on a Saturday morning between six and eight o'clock, fifty-five lots of washing had to be sorted out and arranged in piles.
"Holy Moses, what a life!" ejaculated Miss Snodgrass, and yawned again, in a kind of furious desperation. "I swear I'll marry the first man that asks me, to get away from it.—As long as he has money enough to keep me decently."