“Let’s come out!” exclaimed Susie Rushworth. “The girls will follow us.”
This, however, turned out not to be the case. Susie, the Bertrams, Margaret Grant, Olive Repton, waited for the Vivians in every imaginable spot where they it likely the newcomers would be.
As a matter of fact, the very instant the young Vivians had left the sitting-room, Betty whispered in an eager tone, first to one sister and then to the other, “We surely needn’t stay any longer with Fanny and those other horrid girls. Never mind your hats and gloves. Did we ever wear hats and gloves when we were out on the moors at Craigie Muir? There’s an open door. Let’s get away quite by ourselves.”
The Vivians managed this quite easily. They raced down a side-walk until they came to an overhanging oak tree of enormous dimensions. Into this tree they climbed, getting up higher and higher until they were lost to view in the topmost branches. Here they contrived to make a cozy nest for themselves, where they sat very close together, not talking much, although Betty now and then said calmly, “I like Mrs. Haddo; she is the only one in the whole school I can tolerate.”
“Fan’s worse than ever!” exclaimed Sylvia.
“Oh, don’t let’s talk of her!” said Betty.
“It will be rather fun going to London to-morrow,” said Hester.
“Fun!” exclaimed Betty. “I suppose we shall be put into odious fashionable dresses, like those stuck-up dolls the other girls. But I don’t think, try as they will, they’ll ever turn me into a fashionable lady. How I do hate that sort!”
“Yes, and so do I,” said Sylvia; while Hetty, who always echoed her sisters’ sentiments, said ditto.
“Mrs. Haddo was kind about Dickie,” said Betty after a thoughtful pause.