“I can’t do rough things like that. I’m delicate.”
Isabelle heard shouts of laughter, and hurried to the window. Down below in the twilight a crowd of laughing girls was burying a prostrate victim under the leaves. They shrieked and cavorted about her. A yellow moon hung low over the hills. All at once, clear and high, a bugle call arose, and echoed far and near. It was a scene and impression she was never to forget.
“What is that?” she demanded of Peggy.
“Time to dress. Mr. Benjamin bugles whenever we have to do anything,” complained Peggy.
There was a rush on the stairs, more laughter, questions called and answered, doors slammed. A poignant sense of loneliness, of homesickness, swept over Isabelle. She turned to Peggy, who sat by.
“I hate it!” she said fiercely.
“So do I. Going to change?”—languidly. “You needn’t. Girls don’t have to, their first night. Just wash and come on.”
Isabelle followed her suggestion and presently the two girls went downstairs together. Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin sat together on a high backed settle by the fire. They were enjoying each other’s conversation. Mrs. Benjamin’s face shone as she listened to her husband. It was rather a plain face, surmounted by hair parted smoothly in the middle and drawn low into a diminutive knot at the back. She wore a queer dress, Isabelle thought, and a fine white kerchief was folded across her breast. This was her costume always, save on Sunday, when the dress was of silk.
“I hope thee found thy room pleasant, Isabelle,” she said as the girls entered.