“She has looked miserable enough until now. Why not give her the benefit of the doubt, and believe that, whether she is guilty or not, she is generous enough to be glad that the whole school is not to be punished?” asked Margaret gently. “Whatever Pixie has done, she is too warm-hearted to be called ‘hardened,’ and I think some of you girls make a great mistake in treating her as you do. You will never do any good by bullying, for she is so terrified at anything like unkindness that it makes it still more difficult to speak. You would have more influence if you were kinder to her.”
“Oh, Margaret, you are so absurdly good-natured! It’s always the same cry with you. You would forgive everybody, if you had your way!” cried Evelyn impatiently, and promptly flounced across the room, leaving Margaret and Lottie alone by the fire. They looked at each other in silence, and then Margaret summoned up courage to make an appeal which she had been meditating for some days past.
“They won’t listen to me, Lottie, but they would if you asked them. It is really cruel to be always gibing and jeering as they are, and the older girls ought to set a better example. You are fond of Pixie too, and want to do the best for her. Can’t you persuade your friends to treat her better for the rest of the term?”
Lottie shrugged her shoulders impatiently, and frowned in worried, discontented fashion.
“It is only three days longer. What is the use of making a fuss? It is idiotic of Pixie not to tell what she was doing in Mademoiselle’s room, and I can’t go about lecturing the whole school because she chooses to be obstinate! I am going to invite her to stay with me in the holidays, and will give her a good time to make up for all this. What’s the good of worrying? The girls will be too busy packing and preparing for the party to think of her any more now.”
This was true enough, so true that Margaret could say no more, though she could not suppress the reflection that Lottie might have given the clue weeks before, if she had been so disposed. “But, as she says, the worst is over. Nothing much can happen in three days,” she told herself consolingly; wherein she was for something very exciting indeed was fated to happen before half that time had elapsed!