“She is underhand; she is not quite open. Now, Elfreda is a dull girl; I never could get anything amusing out of her; but she is quite different from Riki. Riki is supposed to be pretty, and will probably be much admired when she leaves school; but it is her want of openness that I cannot stand.”
“The whole system is wrong,” I said with some vigour. “I cannot imagine how any German girl grows up really nice.”
“But heaps of them do, and you won’t be long at the school before you find that there are as nice German girls as English. You must not take Riki von Kronenfel as a specimen.”
I said nothing more, and after a time Hermione continued, “Now let us turn to something else. I had a letter from my father to-day; I am not to go home for Easter.”
“Oh dear! Easter will be here in a fortnight now,” I said. “I do not suppose for a single moment that I shall have a chance of getting back.”
“But have you heard definitely?”
“No.”
At this moment there was a tap at our door, and Justine entered with some letters. Of course, we both fell upon them as girls will all over the world, and the next minute we were eagerly sorting our different letters from a pile which Justine, with her most gracious French manner, had laid on the table—two for Hermione, one for me, and one for Augusta.
“From my step-mother,” I said, and I sank into a chair and opened it.
Far away from home Mrs Grant seemed like a very beneficent and kind presence; her letters were charming, as they told me every single thing I wanted to know; nothing was forgotten, nothing left out. I opened the letter now. To my surprise, I saw that it was quite short.