The result of this week of very judicious slavery was, as far as externals went, highly beneficial.
Biddy had a gorgeous taste in the matter of dress. She wore her splendid garments with truly barbarian recklessness, overdressing herself on one occasion, being untidy and almost slovenly on another. A few suggestions, however, from Janet, altered all this, and the most fastidious person could now see nothing to object to in the clothes which adorned her beautifully proportioned figure, and the hats under which that charming and lovely face looked out.
To-night, Biddy's pale blue muslin, made simply, but with a lavish disregard to expense in the matter of lace and ribbons, was all that was appropriate; her crisp chestnut curls surrounded her fair face like a halo. There was a queer mixture of the woman and the child about her; she was by many degrees the most striking-looking girl in the school.
It took Biddy but a very few minutes to conquer the difficulties of "The Ancient Mariner." She had a great aptitude for committing poetry to memory, and after repeating the stanzas two or three times under her breath, she slipped the book inside her desk and ran out.
To do this she had to go through the schoolroom where the little girls, Violet and Alice, were sitting mournfully in front of their unlearned lessons.
"Oh, you poor tots!" she said, struck by the expression on their wistful faces, "haven't you done yet? The feast is almost ready. I've ordered clothes baskets of strawberries, my dears, and quarts and quarts of cream."
"Silence, mademoiselle!" screamed the French teacher.
Bridget put her rosy fingers to her lips in mock solemnity, blew a kiss to all the children, and banged the door somewhat noisily behind her.
Violet's blue eyes sought Alice's; there was a world of entreaty in their meaning. Alice began, with feverish, forced energy, to mutter to herself:
"A chieftain's daughter seemed the maid."