“I know it,” said Merry. “You are altogether taken up with Aneta.”
“Oh, and with school generally,” said Cicely, “it is all so splendid. But come, we are alone in the room, and losing some of our delightful leisure hours.”
The Maggie-girls had meanwhile retired into the sitting-room, where they stood together in groups, talking about the excitement which was to take place on the following Saturday (it was now Thursday), and paying very little heed to Maggie’s injunctions to put the accounts in order.
“Don’t bother about accounts,” said Kitty; “there’s heaps of money left in the bag. Wasn’t it scrumptious of old Mags to put a whole sovereign in? And I know she is not rich, the dear old precious!”
“She is exactly the sort of girl who would do a generous thing,” said Clara Roache, “and of course, as queen, she felt that she must put a little more money into the bag than the rest of us.”
“Well, she needn’t,” said Kathleen. “I’d have loved her just as much if she hadn’t put a penny in. She is a duck, though! I can’t think why I care so much about her, for she’s not beautiful.”
“Strictly speaking, she is plain,” said Janet Burns; “but in a case like Maggie’s plain face doesn’t matter in the least.”
“She has got something inside,” said Matty, “which makes up for her plain features. It’s her soul shining out of her eyes.”
“Yes, of course,” said Kathleen O’Donnell; “and it fills her voice too. She has got power and—what you call charm. She is meant to rule people.”
“I admire her myself more than Aneta Lysle,” said Janet Burns, “although of course all the world would call Aneta beautiful.”