"What is the matter?" said Star. "How strange you look! Why do you laugh?"
"I am only thinking of Miss Christian and me, and the face of the woman who looked in at the window. Oh, weren't Miss Christian brave!"
One or two of the other girls had come up, and they were now looking intently at Rose. Star, whose first impulse it was to prevent Rose from saying anything, to keep her silent at any cost, changed her mind.
"One moment," she said.
She sprang to her feet. Rose immediately sprang to hers and dropped a courtesy.
"Thank you, young ladies," said Rose, "but maybe I ought to be going up to my great-aunt, Mrs. Peach. She says I'm never to forget my manners. I'm never to forget that I'm only a poor little girl, and that you are grand young ladies."
"I am sure you are a very nice little girl," said Angela; "and a very interesting little girl, too. Star, is she to go? What do you think?"
"I want to see Miss Peacock," said Star. "Stay here, Rose, till I come back. And, Rose, don't tell any of that interesting, lovely story until I return."
Star ran along the corridor. She stood for a moment as she approached Miss Peacock's door.
"They wouldn't tell what they knew, and they wouldn't let Christian tell, and perhaps Rose is going to put everything right," she thought. "And she could give us a really unvarnished statement. She could tell us the very, very truth."