A Modern Tomboy: A Story for Girls

by L. T. Meade

"Well, my dear, I did want to speak to you. I wanted to say just what I have said. You will attend to my instructions. You understand?"

"I understand, father," said Lucy; and she left the study with her fair head slightly bent.

There was a puzzled expression on her face. What was the meaning of it all? Never in her life, which would soon extend to sixteen years, had Lucy Merriman consciously done a wrong action. She had always been obedient to her parents; she had always been careful and prim, and, as she considered, thoughtful for others. She adored her father and mother. She herself had been willing to sacrifice her position as a happy only girl to become a member of the school, just to help her father out of his difficulties, and to enable his health to be restored, and now she was reprimanded because she could not see that wrong was right. What was the matter with Rosamund? Who could consider her conduct in any other but the one way? And yet here was Mr. Singleton inducing her father to overlook her fault.

"I felt dissatisfied when father expelled her," thought the girl. "But now he has taken her back again; and that awful ogre, that terror, has come here. What does it all mean? It's enough to turn a good girl naughty; that's all I've got to say."

There was a pretty sort of winter parlor where the girls always waited until the meals were served. Lucy re-entered it now, and found most of her companions waiting for her. She was scarcely there a moment before the gong sounded, and at the same instant Rosamund, followed by Irene, who was holding little Agnes's hand, entered the room.

Now, report had said a great deal in disfavor of Irene Ashleigh. She was the queer girl who wore the unkempt red dress, who did the strangest, wildest, maddest things, who terrified her governesses, who was cruel to the servants, who made her mother's life one long misery. But report had never mentioned that there was a charm in her wild face, in those speaking eyes; and that the same little figure clothed in the simplest, prettiest white could look almost angelic. No, angelic was hardly the word. Perhaps charming suited her better. Beyond doubt she was beautiful, with a willowy, wild grace which could not but arrest attention, and all the other girls immediately owned to a sense of inferiority in her presence. But Irene was so endowed with nature's grace that she could not do an awkward thing; and then the child who accompanied her, the small unimportant child, was as beautiful in her way as Irene was in hers. So charming a pair did they make, those two, each of them dressed in the purest white, that Rosamund, who was considered quite the handsomest girl in the school, seemed to sink into commonplace in comparison. But no one had time to make any remark.

Irene said lightly, "Oh, so you are the others!" and then nodded to one and all; and turning to Agnes, she said in a low tone, "These are the rest of the girls, Aggie; and I'm ever so hungry. Aren't you, Aggie?"

Mrs. Merriman came in and conducted her young group to the room where supper was laid out, and here the first cross occurred to disturb Irene's good temper; for Agnes was placed at the other side of the table, between Phyllis Flower and Agnes Sparkes. Agnes Sparkes was bending toward her and talking in her lively way. She was remarking on the similarity of their names, and little Agnes was looking up at her older companion and smiling back, not at all frightened; for, as she said to herself, people were so kind to her.

Miss Frost, anxious, pale, and miserable, was watching her treasure as she gave a little bit of her heart, at least, first to one girl and then to another, and poor Miss Frost's face looked anything but inviting. Her nose was red, her cheeks pinched and hollow, her eyes somewhat dim. She felt inclined to cry.

Rosamund, however, boldly asked Laura Everett to change places with her, and sat next to Irene.