"They'd think he had done wrong in going against the laws of the school, but it wouldn't do him the harm that it would a girl, because a girl is supposed to be a little differently situated from a boy. If she has been brought up like a lady, she isn't expected to be planning meetings with young men on the sly. She is supposed to have a little dignity; and as everybody knows that no boy would think of proposing such silly out-of-the-way things to a girl unless he had been encouraged by her to dare them, so the girl who is found to have gone on in such silly ways is talked about as bold and unladylike, and that is an injury that may leave a black and blue spot on her forever; and you must see, if you will stop to think about it a minute, that such a girl would injure the school she happened to be in,—would leave a black and blue spot on that."
Kate had tried to be very forbearing at the start; but as she was confronted by Dorothea's density, as she saw how vain and foolish, not to say ignorant, were her estimates, her patience gave way, and she spoke the whole of her mind then and there, without reserve and without softening her words. It is needless to say that Dorothea was furious to be called by implication bold and unladylike, and a possible injury to the school. Out of this fury she burst forth,—
"I never, never in all my life heard of such impudence! You to talk of being brought up like a lady! You are the most conceited, meddling, unladylike girl I ever met! What business is it of yours, anyway? Who set you up to manage this school? You think you can manage everybody, and that you know more about society and propriety than anybody else. You're nothing but a Dutch girl, anyway; and as for being expelled from this school, I'll expel myself if this kind of interference is to be allowed. I'm about tired, anyhow, of such a peeking, prying, puss-puss-in-the-corner place. Miss Marr is making you into a little lot of primmy old maids just as fast as she can; and I for one—"
But Kate did not wait to hear any more of this outburst. She did not dare, in fact, to trust herself to reply. Hope, who was sitting curled up in the library waiting, as she had promised, heard the quick, flying footsteps, as they came along, and said to herself, "She's had a horrid time, I know." But how horrid she had not imagined until poor Kate poured forth the story. It was a very honestly told story,—not a word of her own part in it omitted in the whole detail. But as she thus honestly, and with just her own peculiar lift of the head and emphatic way, repeated all she had said, Hope's lips began to twitch, and at last she began to laugh.
"How mean of you!" cried Kate. Then she joined in the laugh, as she realized how little adapted her words had been to soften Dorothea, and how fully adapted to rousing her resentment and rebellion.
"But I began beautifully, Hope. I was as mild and persuasive as possible; but when she called Miss Marr 'an old cat,' I couldn't keep on being mild and persuasive. How could I?"
"I think it must have been hard work, and I don't wonder you said just what you did; and perhaps, after all, the plain truth, though it makes her so angry now, will have the most effect in the end."
"Yes, in the end; but—but, Hope, what I've been afraid of is that she'll do something right away,—something reckless and daring, just to show she isn't afraid of anything and doesn't care."
"Oh, I didn't think of that; but I don't believe she will. She'll remember what you said about Miss Marr's writing to her parents, and that will stop her."
"I don't know," responded Kate, doubtfully. "She looked to me as if she would brave anything, she was so angry."