"You remain here, Bridget," she repeated, "until you have promised to obey the rules of the school. No longer and no shorter will be your term of punishment. It remains altogether with yourself how soon you are liberated."
The door was closed then, and Bridget O'Hara found herself alone.
The summer sounds came in to her, for the window of her dull room was open, the birds were twittering in the trees, innumerable doves were cooing; there was the gentle, soft whisper of the breeze, the cackling of motherly hens, the lowing of cows, and, far away beyond and over them, the insistent, ceaseless whisper of the gentle waves on the shore.
Bridget stood by the window, but she heard none of these soothing sounds. Her spoilt, childish heart was in the most open state of rebellion and revolt.
She was in every sense of the word an untamed creature; she was like a wild bird who had just been caught and put into a cage.
By and by doubtless the poor bird would be taught to develop his notes into something richer and rarer than nature had made them, but the process would be painful. Bridget was like the bird, and she was beating her poor little wings now against her cage.
Her first impulse was to open the door of her prison and go boldly out.
She had not passed a pleasant morning, however, and this plan scarcely commended itself to her.
For some reason her companions, both old and young in the school, had taken upon themselves to cut her.