"Well, but do see her, shaking her long curls, and simpering at that little slip from the Academy. And there is Sue Dayton, waving her handkerchief. What a fool she is!"
"Hush, hush, don't call such hard names!" said Lucy Spencer, while Delia and Emily laughed at Belle's vehement indignation. "Sue is very steady sometimes—when she is with steady people. I must allow that she is something of a chameleon, and takes her color a good deal from her surroundings. If she were always with good girls, she would be a good girl herself."
The girls laughed, but Emily had an uneasy feeling that Lucy's remarks might apply to herself, as well as to Susan.
"I wish Mrs. Pomeroy would make Almira cut off those curls," pursued Belle, who was apt, when excited, to give more than a sufficient license to her tongue. "I am sure she would have more in the inside of her head, if there were less on the outside. It runs to ringlets, instead of to brains."
"Thank you," said Emily, laughing, as she thought of her own heavy braids. "I suppose that is partly meant for me."
"Oh, your hair is of a more solid character," returned Belle. "It is not of the wavy and willowy kind. But see, girls, there is Mrs. Pomeroy looking out of the library window. She will be out here in a moment, and then for an explosion. I would not be in Sue Dayton's shoes for something."
Even as she had prophesied, Mrs. Pomeroy no sooner caught sight of the group of girls which had so roused Belle's indignation, than her cap disappeared from the window, and in a moment, more appeared at the door, while in imperative tones she called—"Almira Crosby, Anne Prior, Susan Dayton, come into the house!"
Horror-struck, they obeyed, and were seen no more that evening, nor did they again "take their walks abroad," in the front of the house, for a long time afterward.
For two or three days every thing went on quietly, and Emily began to hope that Delia had given up her whims. She still persisted in saying her prayers at night, though they were often sadly hurried and formal, and she took great pains with all her daily duties, so that she seemed in a fair way to recover her original standing in school.
Lucy rejoiced in this apparent amendment, for she had been attached to Emily from the first, and even Belle, who had less confidence in her stability, began to think she had done her injustice.