Emma, the most experienced of the three, shook her head.
"I'm afraid," she was beginning, when the door opened, and Miss Broom's face appeared.
"Young ladies," she said, "I cannot have this. No talking after the last bell has rung. My dear Miss Smith, you are not usually so forgetful. If it is you, Miss Marchant, it is a very bad beginning, disobedience the very first evening."
"She didn't know," said both the girls. "It isn't her fault." "And if she had known," Harriet went on, "she couldn't have helped it. Miss Broom, somebody's took such lots of her things. Tell her, Gerry."
Under her protection I repeated the list of missing articles, but before I had got to the end the governess interrupted me.
"You are a most impertinent child," she said, "to say such a thing. There are no thieves at Green Bank—what a mind you must have! Your things are safely packed away. Such as you really need you shall have from time to time as I or Miss Aspinall think fit. The frock you have on must be kept as your best one, and you must wear the brown check every day. You have far too many clothes—absurd extravagance—no wonder——" but here she had the sense to stop short.
I did not care so much about my clothes.
"It's the other things I mind," I began, but Miss Broom, who was already at the door, again interrupted.
"Nonsense," she said. "We cannot have the rooms littered with rubbish. Miss Aspinall left it to me. You may have your Biblical dissected maps on Sundays, and perhaps some of the other puzzles during the Christmas holidays, but young ladies do not come to school to amuse themselves, but to work hard at their lessons."
I dared not say anything more. There may have been some reason in putting away a certain number of my treasures, for dear mamma, in her wish to do all she possibly could for my happiness, had very probably sent more things with me than was advisable. But I was not a silly spoilt child; I had always been taught to be reasonable, and I would have given in quite cheerfully if Miss Broom had put it before me in any kindly way.