“Oh, she is like no one else!” said one girl after another.
The girls soon dispersed; but as Fanny was going to her room Martha West joined her. “Fanny,” she said, “I, as the youngest member of the Specialities, would like to ask you a question. Why is it that your cousin dislikes you so much?”
“I can’t tell,” replied Fanny. “I have always tried to be kind to her.”
“But you don’t cordially like her yourself!”
“That is quite true,” said Fanny; “but then I have seen her at home, when you have not. She has great gifts of fascination; but I know her for what she really is.”
“When you speak like that, Fanny Crawford, I no longer like you,” remarked Martha; and she walked away in the direction of her room.
All the Speciality girls, including Betty, were present at prayers in the chapel that evening. Betty sat a little apart from her companions, she stood apart from them, she prayed apart from them. She seemed like one isolated and alone. Her face was very white, her eyes large and dark and anxious. From time to time the girls who loved her looked at her with intense compassion. But Fanny gave her very different glances. Fanny rejoiced in her discomfort, and heartily hoped that she would now lose her prestige in the school.
Until the advent of Betty Vivian, Fanny was rather a favorite at Haddo Court. She was certainly not the least bit original. She was prim and smug and self-satisfied to the last degree, but she always did the right thing in the right way. She always looked pretty, and no one ever detected any fault in her. Her mistresses trusted her, and some of the girls thought it worth their while to become chums with her.
Fanny, however, now saw at a glance that she was in the black looks of the other Specialities. This fact angered her uncontrollably, and she made up her mind to bring Betty to further shame. It was not sufficient that she should be expelled from the Speciality Club; the usual formula must be gone through. All the girls knew of this formula; and they all, with the exception of Fanny, wished it not to be observed in the case of Betty Vivian. But Fanny knew her power, and was resolved to use it. The Speciality Club exercised too great an influence in the school for its existence to be lightly regarded. A member of the club, as has been said, enjoyed many privileges besides being accorded certain exemptions from various irksome duties. It was long, long years since any member had been dismissed in disgrace; it was certainly not within the memory of any girl now in the school. But Fanny had searched the old annals, and had come across the fact that about thirty years ago a Speciality had done something which brought discredit on herself and the club, and had therefore been expelled; she had also discovered that the fact of her expulsion had been put up in large letters on a blackboard. This board hung in the central hall, and generally contained notices of entertainments or class-work of a special order for the day’s programme. Miss Symes wrote out this programme day by day.