“That is precisely the point. I met her flying along like a wild creature on her bicycle, eyes staring, hair streaming in the wind. At least, some locks were streaming. She gave the impression of a being utterly lawless. Then I thought——See here, Miss Leigh, are you interested in my thoughts?”
“Yes’m,” I answered meekly.
“Then drop that pen and pay attention. Even the girls who are to belong to the second class in manners know how to do that. Well, I thought that she hardly ever accepts an invitation, and she looks as she didn’t expect anybody to like her, and she minds her own business and does exactly as she pleases generally. My next important thought was that sometimes she cuts me in the hall, and sometimes she doesn’t, just as she happens to feel. That led to the philosophic reflection that politeness is a question of law.”
“Ah, pardon me, Miss Abbott, but I remember from a story which was read by my teacher about forty years ago when I was in the fourth reader that
| “‘Politeness is to do or say The kindest thing in the kindest way.’” |
“That’s what I meant. The law of kindness—that’s what politeness is. Listen to the logic. Mary Winchester is lawless, hence she breaks the law of kindness, hence she has no manners, hence it will be fun to divide everybody here into various classes according to their manners.”
So that is the way our classes began.
It was awfully, awfully interesting. Robbie Belle said she didn’t want to; but Berta and Lila and I talked and talked and talked. We sat in the windows and talked instead of dancing between dinner and chapel. We talked after chapel, and on our way to classes or to meals. And of course we talked while we were skating or walking or doing anything similar that did not demand intellectual application. Lila even talked about the classes in her sleep. We discussed everybody who happened to attract our attention.
Finally we had sifted out all the candidates for the highest class except three. One was the senior president, pink and white and slender and gentle and she never thumped when she walked or laughed with her mouth open or was careless about spots on her clothes or forgot the faces of new girls who had been introduced to her. The second was a professor who was shy and sweet and went off lecturing every week. The third was a teacher who looked like a piece of porcelain and always wore silk-lined skirts and never changed the shape of her sleeves year after year. Not one of the three ever hurt anybody’s feelings.
Miss Anglin was obliged to go into the second class because she had moods. No, I don’t mean because she had them,—for sometimes you cannot help having moods, you know—but because she showed them. She let the moods influence her manner. Some mornings she would come down to breakfast as blue as my dyed brilliantine—(how I hated that frock!)—and would sit through the meal without opening her mouth except to put something into it; though on such occasions we noticed that she rarely put into it very much besides toast and hot water. On other days she made jokes and sparkled and laughed with her head bent down, and was so absolutely and utterly charming that the girls at the other tables wished they sat at ours, I can tell you. We three were exceedingly fond of her, but we agreed at last after arguing for seven days that true courtesy makes a person act cheerfully and considerately, no matter how she may feel inside.