As she thought these thoughts, Patty and Josephine, arm-in-arm and talking in low tones, crossed her path. They did not see her at first, and their words reached Pauline’s ears.
“I know she’d rather have pink than blue,” said Patty’s voice.
“Well, mine will be trimmed with blue,” was Josephine’s answer.
Just then the girls caught sight of Pauline, uttered shrieks, and disappeared down a shady walk.
“Something with pink and something with blue,” thought Pauline. “The excitement is almost past bearing. Of course, they’re talking about my birthday presents. I do wish my birthday was to-morrow. I don’t know how I shall exist for a whole week.”
At that moment Miss Tredgold’s sharp voice fell on her ears:
“You are late, Pauline. I must give you a bad mark for want of punctuality, Go at once into the schoolroom.”
To hear these incisive, sharp tones in the midst of her own delightful reflections was anything but agreeable to Pauline. She felt, as she expressed it, like a cat rubbed the wrong way. She gave Miss Tredgold one of her most ungracious scowls and went slowly into the house. There she lingered purposely before she condescended to tidy her hair and put on her house-shoes. In consequence she was quite a quarter of an hour late when she appeared in the schoolroom. Miss Tredgold had just finished morning prayers.
“You have missed prayers this morning, Pauline,” she said. “There was no reason for this inattention. I shall be obliged to punish you. You cannot have your usual hour of recreation before dinner. You will have to write out the first page of Scott’s Lay of the Last Minstrel; and you must do it without making any mistake either in spelling or punctuation. On this occasion you can copy from the book. Now, no words, my dear—no words. Sit down immediately to your work.”
Pauline did sit down. She felt almost choking with anger. Was she, an important person who was soon to be queen of a birthday, one about whom her sisters talked and whispered and made presents for, to be treated in this scant and ungracious fashion? She would not put up with it. Accordingly she was very inattentive at her lessons, failed to listen when she should, played atrociously on the piano, could not manage her sums, and, in short, got more and more each moment into Miss Tredgold’s black books.