“I know it isn’t, Bridget; but you can’t imagine what we have been suffering from that girl. Since her arrival, at the very beginning of the holidays, we haven’t had one minute’s peace or comfort. Since she came to live with us I can’t tell you what it’s been like!”
“Well, I have a lot of things to talk over,” said Bridget. “I want to call a private council. Please may I, Alison?”
“Of course you may, Biddy, my dear,” replied Alison, looking with some surprise at Bridget as she spoke.
Bridget suddenly darted about the hall, collecting her several friends, and a few minutes later ten girls were assembled in a sort of circle in the lovely sitting-room. How cosy and bright it looked! How homelike, with its ten compartments each filled with the treasures of the girl to whom the said compartment belonged! How brilliantly the fire burnt in the grate! The easy-chairs were drawn up, the circle widened, the doors were shut. Lights, except the light of the fire, were extinguished. Then Bridget suddenly sprang to her feet. “Now I have got something to say,” was her remark.
“Well, whenever you have anything to say, Biddy, I will acknowledge this—it’s worth listening to,” was Alison’s answer.
“It’s about The Imp,” said Bridget.
They all looked very grave when she said this; a dead silence fell over the room. The girls, including Marcia and Angela Welsh, pressed a little nearer, and some quick, hurried breaths were drawn from more than one pair of lips.
“The fact is this,” said Bridget, “I have been having my eyes on The Imp for a long time. I haven’t pried on her, because it isn’t in my nature to pry; but I know what I suffered from her even for the half-year that I remained in the Lower School, and I don’t know that it is at all right to have her spreading an evil influence over nine young girls, which is what she is doing. She trades upon our good nature, upon that old proverb which says that no one should tell tales out of school; but she may trade a trifle too far, particularly now that she has got those Dodds to uphold her—to be, in short, her satellites. I think that we ought to speak about The Imp to Mrs. Fleming.”
“Oh but I don’t think we could,” said Alison, “you know what it would mean, don’t you, Bridget?”
“Yes,” said Bridget. “I know quite well what it would mean. I have been thinking it over at night during the holidays, when I have lain awake. I have been thinking it over also in the daytime, when I ought to have been enjoying myself, and I tell you, girls, it downright hurts me. It isn’t right, that’s what it isn’t, and nothing will ever make me think it’s right! When I got home to-day—for you know I call this darling old place home—one of the first things I noticed was the wicked way that Imp looked at poor little——What’s the name of your friend, Molly?”