“Do you like living here and having a lot of people tramp all over your house and stare at you and say things about you and poke at your father’s things?”
It was plain magic the way this stranger put her finger directly upon the sore spot.
“No, I don’t!” vehemently.
“I’d hate it, too. And I suppose you always have to act like a poet’s daughter, don’t you? Do you have to write poetry yourself?”
“No, I loathe poetry!”
“But I’ll bet you don’t dare say so when that Dame in there can hear you! I have to be careful talking about candy. My father makes the Betty Sweets. Don’t you know them? They’re sold all over the world. We have an immense factory. And there isn’t any other kind of candy that I don’t like better. But I don’t dare tell anybody that. Funny, I’m telling you! Our spirits must be drawn together by some invisible bond.”
Sidney’s ears fairly ached with the beauty of the other’s words. She stiffened her slender little body to control its trembling. She tried to say something but found her throat choked. The other girl rattled on:
“I didn’t take any notes. I’ll copy my roommate’s. You see we have to write a theme about our visit. Miss Byers prides herself on the girls of Grace being so well-informed. I know. I’ll put you into it. That’ll be fun. Only you’ll have to tell me something about yourself. How old are you? Do you go to a regular school and play with other girls like any ordinary girl?”
Sidney flushed at the other’s manner and found her tongue in an instinctive desire to defend her lot.
“Of course I go to school. It’s sort of a boarding school, only all the girls go home nights. And I do everything the others do. And I am fifteen.”