"Do without," was the laconic rejoinder.
All the girls were talking at once.
"What a racket!" Beth exclaimed.
"It'll be quiet enough to-morrow," Rosa replied. "The first class talks at table in Miss Clifford's room, but we are not allowed to speak a word here, except to the teachers, nor in the bedrooms either, once work begins. Do you see that great fat old thing at the mistress's table? That's Old Tom, the head music-mistress. She is a greedy old cat! She likes eating! You can see it by the way she gloats over things, and she's quite put out if she doesn't get exactly what she wants. Fancy caring! It's just like a man; and that's why she's called Old Tom."
"Not that she's fastidious!" said Agnes Stewart, a tall slender girl with short crisp black hair and grey-green eyes, who was sitting opposite to Beth. "I believe she likes mutton."
"Oh, she's horrid enough for anything!" the girl next her exclaimed with an expression of disgust.
Some of the girls ate their thick bread and butter unconcernedly, others were choked with tears, and could not touch it. Most of the tearful ones were new girls, and the old ones were kind to them; the teachers, too, were sympathetic, and did their best to cheer them.
After tea they all returned to their class-rooms. Beth went and stood in one of the great windows looking out on to the grounds, the river, the old arched bridge, and the grey houses of the town climbing up the hill among the autumn-tinted trees. All the windows were shut, and she began to feel suffocated for want of fresh air, and bewildered by the clatter of voices. If only she could get out into the garden! The door at the end of the room, which led into the first and second, was open. She went through. But before she was half across the room, one of the elder girls exclaimed roughly, "Hello! what are you doing here?"
"It's a new girl, Inkie," another put in.
"Well, the sooner she learns she has no business here the better," Inkie rejoined.