“Dear me, Lettie, do come in,” said Eileen. “We have not seen you for quite a long time—nearly twenty-four hours.”
She kissed her cousin as she spoke.
“How are you getting on?”
“Capitally,” said Lettie. “I went to your rooms in North Hall and heard that you were here. You did not visit me, so I thought Belle might be engrossing your society. How are you, Belle?”
“Well, thank you,” replied Belle, in an absent voice. “By the way, are you?—oh, yes! I remember now; you are—the girl who ought never to have come to St. Wode’s.”
“You are quite mistaken,” replied Letitia with spirit. “I am a girl who will be very much benefited by the pleasant life which I see opening before me. By the way, Eileen and Marjory, I am going to the Broad now. There are a lot of things I require for my room. I thought perhaps you would like to come too. You will want shelves for your books and a few knick-knacks and——”
“If you go with that young person——” said Belle, making a step forward. She approached Eileen and almost glared into her face.
Eileen laughed.
“Dear Belle, do finish your sentence,” she said. “What is to happen to me if I dare to go to the Broad with poor Lettie?”
“You make my soul sink in despair,” said Belle. “I scarcely know what I feel; my heart is wrung. Oh! how you disappoint me!”