Her voice hadn't risen at all, had only grown more and more vibrant with passionate rebellion. The sharp little face was drawn and pale, but there were no tears in the big tragic eyes.
Belinda had consoled many homesick little girls, but this was a different problem.
"I'm sorry," she said softly. "Don't you think It will be easier after a while?"
The small girl with the old face shook her head.
"No, it won't. It isn't in me to like all this. I'm so sorry, because Daddy wants me to be a lady. He said it was as hard for him to send me as it was for me to come, but that I couldn't learn to be a lady with lots of money to spend down there with only boys and him. There wasn't any lady there on the ranch at all, except Mammy Lou, the cook, and she didn't have lots of money to spend, so she wasn't the kind he meant. I thought I'd come and try, but I didn't know it would be like this. I don't want to be a lady, Miss Carewe. I don't believe they can be very happy. I've seen them in carriages and they don't look very happy. You're nice. I like you, and I'm most sure Daddy and Dick and the boys would like you, but then you haven't got lots of money, have you? And you were born up here and you don't know any better anyway. I'm going home."
The burst of confidence ended where it had begun. She was going home, and she was so firm in the faith that Belinda, listening, believed her.
"But if your father says no?"
The dark little face was quiet again, all but the great eyes.
"I'll have to go," the Queer Little Thing slowly said.
Four days later Miss Lucilla Ryder called the Youngest Teacher into the study.