"My dears," said Mrs. Freeman, answering the looks on all faces, "your young companion's extraordinary conduct can only be explained by the fact that she has never been at school before. I am going out to the garden to speak to her. You girls will now go as usual to your separate schoolrooms and commence study."
"Come, my dears," said Miss Patience to the girls near her, "let us lose no more valuable time. Please don't scrape your chair in that atrocious way, Alice. Rose, what a poke! Susie, hold back your shoulders. Now, young ladies, come to the schoolroom quietly; quietly, if you please."
Miss Patience had a thin voice, and her words fell like tiny drops of ice on the girl's excited hearts. They followed their teachers with a certain sense of flatness, and with very little desire to attend to French verbs and German exercises.
Dorothy Collingwood ran after Mrs. Freeman.
"Please remember——" she began.
"What is it, my dear?" The head mistress drew herself slightly up, and looked in some surprise at her pupil.
"I ought not to speak," said Dorothy, turning very red, "but if you are going to be hard on Bridget——"
"Am I ever hard to my pupils, my love?"
"No, no—do forgive me!"
"I think I understand you, Dorothy," said Mrs. Freeman. "Kiss me!"