"Darling Laura! sweetest Laura!—tell me I have not hurt you! Just Heaven! how could I strike you?—I, who am so strong! Indeed, I might have killed you! ... Pray for me, my little angel! It will need a miracle to cure my temper, as Mother Veronica constantly says. Cannot you get up? Do try, to please me! Tell me where you feel most injured? Quick, or I know I shall be angry again! ... Show me the bruise! Pouf! that is a mere nothing! I will kiss it and make it well, and you shall have the blue bead Rosary."
The mention of the blue beads palpably restored vitality. The sufferer was understood to intimate that a chocolate elephant would absolutely complete the cure.
"The elephant to-morrow when the Great Class return from the promenade. The Rosary before Benediction. Away with you!"
Laura scuttled. Juliette blew her a parting kiss, and said, with a comprehensive glance of scorn at the faces of her classmates:
"It was not she who deserved the—— I have not the expression! ... It is one of your English words that mean many things together ... a kiss ... a blow ... the boat of a sailor who catches fishes and crabs.... I have seen such boats at Havre and Weymouth, and they are very pretty.... Ah! Now I remember. You call them fishing-spanks!"
The Class shrieked. Juliette stood calmly while the tumult of laughter and exclamations raged about her. Her long upper lip shut down upon its scarlet neighbor, her brows frowned a little; her slender arms, lost in their loose sleeves, hung straightly by her narrow sides. Millais would, seeing her, have painted a maiden martyr. Watts might have limned her as Persephone new-loosed from the dark embrace of Dis, her wooer, taking her first timid steps upon the glowing floor of Hell.
"When you have finished making so much noise—peu importe—but I have a piece of news to tell you. You are none of you inquisitive—that goes without saying!—or you would not have dispatched that poor infant to play the spy outside the parlor door. Bridget-Mary and Alethea Bawne, I do not mean you—you are souls of honor—incapable of curiosity! ... Also, Monica Breagh, c'est là son moindre defaut! But there are others—yet my friends—who are not so delicate,—and to these I address myself. You do not deserve to hear—and yet I cannot be unkind to you; I, who have such joy of the heart in the knowledge that I am to return to my dear father!—such grief—ah! but such grief of the soul in bidding adieu to the School!"
"Not for good?"
"You are going to leave the School?"
"Dear, darling Juliette, say you're only joking!"