Chapter Two.
A Great Disappointment.
Miss Margaret’s room was on the third floor, and did service both as a bedroom and as a sanctum to which its owner could retire in rare moments of leisure. The bed stood in a corner, curtained off from the rest of the room; pictures hung on the walls; little bookcases fitted into the angles; while before the window was an upholstered seat, so long and wide, and luxuriously cushioned, as to make an ideal sofa. In the girls’ estimation Mardie’s room was a paradise, and it seemed almost worth while having a headache, when one could be tucked up warm and cosy on that delightful seat, shaded from the sun by the linen blind outside the window, yet catching delicious peeps at the garden beneath its shelter.
Mildred made straight for the coveted position and leant back against the cushions, her hands clasped round her knees in an attitude rather comfortable than elegant. For once, however, Miss Margaret had no reproof to offer. She had nothing to say about the awful consequences of curving the back and contracting the chest; she did not even inquire, with a lifting of the eyebrows, “My dear Mildred, is that the way in which a young lady ought to sit?” She only gazed at the girl’s face and wrinkled her brows, as if puzzled how to open the conversation.
“Go on, Mardie, dear?” said her pupil, encouragingly. “What is it—have I done anything wrong? I don’t know what it is, but I’m awfully sorry, and I’ll never do it any more. Don’t scold me on the last day! I’ll promise faithfully—”
“Don’t, dear! It isn’t anything like that.” Miss Margaret straightened herself with an expression of resolution and went boldly forward. “Mildred, are you brave? Can you bear a great disappointment?”
Mildred raised her eyes with a start of apprehension. There was a moment’s silence, during which a curious change came over the girlish face. The colour faded from the cheeks, the eyes hardened, the lips set themselves in a thin, straight line.
“No,” she said sharply, “I can’t!” and Miss Margaret looked at her with gentle remonstrance.