“No, indeed. I’ll have to—conquer it now,” replied Gloria bravely.
“I wish I could feel as you do,” remarked Mary. She was the gloomiest of all.
“How do you feel?” demanded Pat.
“Like running away,” admitted Mary, her lips drawn tight.
“But you wouldn’t! Mary, have you had a sorrow?” asked Trixy impulsively in an undertone.
A quivering lip left words unnecessary.
Trixy linked her arm into Mary’s and the long delayed confidence was under way.
“She’ll cut you out, first thing you know,” warned Pat in Gloria’s nearest ear.
“For Trixy’s sake I hope she does,” declared the sullen girl who even turned aside from Pat’s good-natured arm.
This was the stage of boarding school life usually classified as “the reaction,” and upon just what course the girls would now take depended much of the year’s pleasures or disappointments.