School life was a great happiness to her—the regular hours, the beautifully ordered house, the neat table, the daily constitutional, the morning and evening prayer-time, and the hour in the drawing-room at night, everything that made life from Monday till Friday.
It was Friday till Monday that was the cross, Friday till Monday, the days when the cloven foot would not be draped, when the elegancies of life were left behind in the city, when the twins and the babies were everywhere, when the meals were often but suddenly thought of snatches of food.
Sometimes the thought of the looming future—the time when all the days would be as Friday till Monday, when there would no longer be any school days to be lived by her—would quite break down her placidity, and make her feel she could put down her head anywhere and cry.
Yet away they were marching, one by one, all the beautiful school-days, all the days of discipline and pleasant duty, and the ugly slack days, when there would be nothing but home with house-work to do, were drawing near.
And at last she could bear the thought of it by herself no longer.
It was early evening, and she was on the schoolroom verandah, watching the young moon rise over a distant chimney. Every moment she expected the prayer-bell to ring, and meanwhile, as it was not ringing, she filled up the time by counting how many more evening prayer-bells would ring before the end of term.
She counted on her fingers, out aloud, and found there were just twenty-nine—twenty-nine without Fridays, Saturdays, or Sundays. Twenty-nine days, and then came the end of term, and the end of her school-days.
It would then be Betty's turn—larrikin Betty's! The moon sailed over the chimney, and Dot put her head down on the verandah railing and began to cry. She did not cry in the vigorous whole-hearted way in which Betty cried, but she sighed heavily, and sobbed gently, and allowed two or three tears to run down her cheek before she brought out her dainty handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes.
And at that precise moment Mona was crossing the schoolroom floor, and she saw her darling Thea in tears! She was not given to light impulsive movements at all, but this time she really did spring forward and kneel at Dot's side.
"Dear, darling Thea!" she whispered, "what is the matter? Miss Cowdell has been bullying you for the silly old French? That's it, isn't it dear?"