“I didn’t mean to, Miss Calvert,” Crullers had said, helplessly.
“That is the only excuse you ever make for anything you do, Jane,” returned Miss Calvert with dignity. “You are totally irresponsible. I shall have to put you on parole for a week, and you are not to leave the grounds under any pretext whatever. Miss Murray will report to me nightly on your good behavior.”
After that it had seemed to Crullers as though she had a prison guard mounted over her. She was in disgrace. All the girls knew of it. It was tacitly understood at the Hall that no pupil was to associate with another pupil on parole. They were sent to Coventry and lived a life apart. The girls dreaded it more than any other form of punishment, and Crullers had dared to break her parole. That was the worst of it. Dearly did Crullers love pickled limes and doughnuts as a combination lunch, and there was one little cozy shop in Queen’s Landing where the best of both were found. So Crullers had slipped out the side gate of the kitchen garden, and had tried to get to the shop and back at noon. And she had been caught red-handed, with the warm doughnuts in one bag, and the pickled limes leaking out of another.
Polly heard all about it now. She followed Miss Murray out of the dormitory, and up to the third floor of the old square mansion. On each side of it, a wing stretched out. The west wing that overlooked the river, was the prettier, and the large room on its third floor had been given up to the young teacher from the West. Compared with the spacious rooms below, the ceiling seemed rather low, and the windows opened outward, lattice like. As they came in, the breeze from the river was blowing back the short, frilly muslin curtains.
“Here we are, Polly,” said Miss Murray, happily, laying aside her hat, and smiling at her guest. “This is the nearest approach to home that I have here. Sit down while I change my dress for dinner, and we will talk about poor, careless Jane Daphne. This room used to be Diantha Calvert’s nursery when she was a little girl—did you know that? She used to tell me all about it, and I always hoped that some day I might see it, but I never thought I should live in it myself.”
Polly turned quickly from the window, where she had been admiring the wide-spread view.
“Why, Miss Murray, I didn’t know that you knew Miss Diantha,” she cried, “I didn’t even know that she was still alive. You know Miss Calvert never talks to us girls about her at all. We always wondered if there was a mystery about her. Do you know?”
CHAPTER IV
JEAN MURRAY, RANCHER
For a minute or two there was silence in the quiet old room. Jean Murray drew the shell pins from her hair deliberately, and shook out its thick, curly waves. Then she went to the wardrobe, and took out her dinner dress before she answered. And Polly noticed that this was the simplest dinner gown she had ever seen. In fact, to Polly’s practiced eye, it was made of cream cotton voile, with a yoke of baby Irish crochet lace, and the same around the short sleeves. That was all. Yet when Jean slipped it on, and puffed up her hair, with a wide bank of black velvet tied about its reddish gold waves, and a narrow band of black about her girlish throat, Polly thought that she looked every inch a thoroughbred as the Admiral had declared.