“Oh Alexia, you worry the life out of her almost,” said Sally.
“Can't help it if I do,” said Alexia sweetly. “I'm very fond of her. And as for Mademoiselle, she's a dear. Oh, I love Mademoiselle, too.”
“Well, she doesn't love you,” cried Clem viciously. “Dear me! fancy one of the teachers being fond of Alexia!”
“Oh, you needn't laugh,” said Alexia composedly as the girls giggled; “every single one of those teachers would feel dreadfully if I left that school. They would really, and cry their eyes out.”
“And tear their hair, I suppose,” said Clem scornfully.
“Yes, and tear their—why, what in this world are we stopping for?” cried Alexia in one breath.
So everybody else wondered, as the train gradually slackened speed and came to a standstill. Everybody who was going in to town to the theatre or opera, began to look impatient at once.
“Oh dear!” cried the girls who were going to sit up to study, “now isn't this just as hateful as it can be?”
“I don't care,” said Alexia, settling comfortably back, “because I can't study much anyway, so I'd just as soon sit on this old train an hour.”
“Oh Alexia!” exclaimed Polly in dismay, with her heart full at the thought of Mamsie's distress, and that of dear Grandpapa and Jasper. Phronsie would be abed anyway by the time the early train was in, so she couldn't worry. But all the others—“Oh dear me!” she gasped.