“If you are hurt—bear it! If you are teased—look pleasant! If you are blamed—do better next time! If you feel blue—perk up, and don’t be a baby!” Such were the Spartan rules of the new life, and an unaccustomed shame rose up in her mind at the realisation of the selfishness and weak betrayal of that first home letter. Was it not possible to represent the truth from the bright side as well as the dark, to dwell on the kindnesses she had received, and leave disagreeables untold? Yes, it was possible; she would do so, and save her dear ones the pain of grieving for her unhappiness. So the thick sheets were torn across with a wrench, which made Thomasina look up from her desk.
As a head girl, “Tom” possessed a study of her own, to which she had prepared to depart earlier in the afternoon, but had been persuaded to stay by the entreaties of her companions.
“Tom, don’t go! Don’t leave us! It’s a wet day, and so dull—do stay with us till tea-time. You might! You might!” urged the suppliant voices, and so Tom sat down to her desk in the house-parlour which was the property of the elder Blues, and indited letters on blue-lined, manly paper, with a manly quill pen.
As her eyes rested on the torn letter and on the clean sheet of paper drawn up for a fresh start, she smiled, a quiet understand-all-about-it smile, which Rhoda chose to consider an impertinent liberty. Then down went her head again, and the scrape, scrape of pens continued until four o’clock, by which time the girls were thankful to fold the sheets in their envelopes and make them ready for post. Rhoda read over her second effort in a glow of virtue, and found it a model of excellence. No complaints this time, no weak self-pity; but a plain statement of facts without any personal bias. Her father and mother would believe that she was entirely contented; but Harold, having been through the same experiences, would read between the lines and understand the reserve. He would say to himself that he had not expected it of Rhoda, and that she had behaved “like a brick,” and Harold’s praise was worth receiving.
Altogether it was in a happier frame of mind that Rhoda left her desk and took her place in one of the easy chairs with which the room was supplied. From four to five was a free hour on Sundays, and the girls were allowed to spend it as they liked, without the presence of a teacher.
This afternoon talk was the order of the day, each girl in turn relating the doings of the holidays, and having her adventures capped by the next speaker. Thomasina, however, showed a sleepy tendency, and kept dozing off for a short nap, and then nodding her head so violently that she awoke with a gasp of surprise. In one of these intervals she met Dorothy’s eyes fixed upon her with a wondering scrutiny, which seemed to afford her acute satisfaction.
“Ah!” she cried, sitting up and looking in a trice quite spry and wide-awake. “I know what you are doing! You are admiring me, and wondering what work of nature I most resemble. I can see it in your face. And you came to the conclusion that it was a codfish! No quibbles, please! Tell me the truth. That was just exactly it, wasn’t it?”
“No!” cried Dorothy emphatically, but the emphasis expressed rather contrition for a lost opportunity than for a wrongful suspicion. “No, I did not!” it seemed to say, “How stupid not to have thought of it. You—really—are—extraordinarily like!”
“Humph!” said Thomasina. “Then you are the exception, that’s all. All the new-comers say so, and therein they err. It’s not a cod at all, it’s a pike. I am the staring image of a pike!”
She screwed up her little eyes as she spoke, and pulled back her chin in a wonderful, fish-like grin which awoke a shriek of merriment from the beholders. Even Rhoda laughed with the rest, and reflected that if one were born ugly it was a capital plan to accept the fact, and make it a joke rather than a reproach. Thomasina was the plainest girl she had ever seen, yet she exercised a wonderful attraction, and was infinitely more popular among her companions than Irene Grey, with her big eyes and well-cut features.