"She must have looked very pretty," said Bessie.
"Bessie! you really are enough to distract any one. Don't you see the impropriety of it? Don't you see that this will get all over the place? People will say that a Middleton girl dressed so unsuitably, so loudly, that—Oh, don't you see it?"
"I don't see anything in it except a silly, foolish, girlish act, uncommonly like Kitty Malone," said Bessie. "You are determined to make mountains out of molehills, Alice."
"No, I am not," said Alice. "Anyhow," she added in a tone of triumph, "Miss Sherrard thinks it disgraceful, and so does Miss Worrick. I suppose you will not go against the opinions of your own mistresses, will you, Bessie?"
"No, no; only I am sorry," said Bessie.
At that moment the two girls reached the school. Gwin Harley was just driving up in her pony-chaise, and Elma, as usual, was hovering near.
"Come here, Elma," said Bessie. "We have something to tell you."
"What is it?" asked Elma eagerly.
"It is this," cried Alice. "Kitty Malone has got into the most awful scrape. She went out last night with Fred in her red blouse—you know that silk blouse she is so fond of wearing?"
"I know; it is sweetly pretty," said Elma.