“I’ve found out something about the new ’un,” she said, “that bird thing, who will be here to-night. I was hiding down in the brushwood, just by the big oak, and you were all looking for me; but I buried myself under a holly tree, and no one could see even a squint of me, however hard one looked. They—didn’t know I was there.”
“Who do you mean by ‘they’?” interrupted Harriet.
“Sparke and Devigny,” said Jane. “Oh, of course I am fond of Miss Devigny, but I can’t be bothered to ‘Miss’ her when I’m in no end of a hurry. Well, they talked, and it was all about the new ’un. She is not a model; that’s one comfort. She is so desperately naughty she has been sent from home—sort of expelled, you know—sort of disgraced for life; a nice sort of creature to come here! And we’re to mould her. What is to ‘mould’ a body, Harriet?”
“To make them like ourselves, I suppose,” said Harriet, whose eyes sparkled over this intelligence.
“That is what Sparke said; she hopes everything for the bird from our influence. Isn’t it fun? Isn’t it great? I am quite excited! See here now: think what larks we’ll have with a squint-eyed, hunchbacked, very naughty girl. Oh, won’t it be larks!”
“She may be a nuisance, there is no saying,” remarked Harriet.
“Why, aren’t you delighted, Harriet? I am.”
“Can’t say,” answered Harriet. “I only hope,” she added, “that whatever else she is, she is stupid. I don’t want any clever girls in the same form with me. Now, let’s go back, Jane.”
“You don’t seem at all obliged to me for telling you such a wonderful piece of news,” said Jane.
“I am not. We’d have found it all out for ourselves in no time, and you should never listen—you know you shouldn’t.”