No, that could never be; there was the bell for the children's early dinner. Well, she would go down and act as if nothing had happened. But could she with this uncertainty of how much or how little mamma knew?
But there was mamma's step, and now Mrs. Howard entered the room. One half glance at her face and Gracie's eyes fell. It was enough to show her that her mother knew all.
"Mean old thing!" she said to herself, meaning Miss Ashton. "She's gone and told, and now I s'pose I'll be punished."
"Gracie," said her mother, "I suppose you scarcely need to be told what is in this note which Miss Ashton has sent me."
Gracie stood with head erect, pouting lip, and defiant eyes, idly tossing back and forth the tassel of the window curtain with as much indifference as she could assume.
"Has it come to this, my child," continued Mrs. Howard sorrowfully, "that you have allowed conceit and self-will to gain such a hold upon you, that you could wilfully and deliberately insult your teacher? I have been sure that you would fall into trouble, Gracie, for I knew that such foolish pride must sooner or later have a fall, but I could not have believed that you would be guilty of this. What did you say to Miss Ashton?"
"I don't care," said Gracie passionately, without directly answering her mother's question. "It was all true, every word of it. She's as hateful as she can be, and unjust and mean;" and Gracie went on, pouring forth a torrent of invective and reproach against Miss Ashton and Nellie Ransom, without paying the slightest heed to her mother's commands to be silent. It was the long pent-up feeling of jealousy and ill-will and pride, that she had been nourishing for months past, and which now burst all bounds and swept every thing before it.
Respect, and even obedience towards her mother, reason, justice, and truth itself were totally lost sight of, as she poured forth accusation after accusation against the offenders, and upheld her own conduct in all she had done and said.
"And you have said all this to Miss Ashton, perhaps?" said her mother sternly, when the angry child at last came to a pause.
"It is true enough if I did," muttered Gracie again, though her passion was by this time beginning to cool down in a measure. "I'm sure I wish I never went to her hateful old school."