She shook me a little.
"If you knew, you would not ask me,"—I said in great displeasure. But a delighted shout from all my room-mates answered this unlucky speech, which I had been too excited to make logical.
"Capital!" cried St. Clair. "That's just it—we don't know; and we only want to find out whether she does. Make her tell, Lansing—prick a little pin into her—that will bring it out."
I was struggling between anger and sorrow, feeling very hurt, and at the same time determined not to cry. I kept absolutely still, fighting the fight of silence with myself. Then Lansing, in a fit of thoughtless mischief, finding her shakes and questions vain, actually put in practice St. Clair's suggestion, and attacked me with a pin from the dressing table. The first prick of it overthrew the last remnant of my patience.
"Miss Lansing!"—I exclaimed, rousing up in bed and confronting her. They all shouted again.
"Now we'll have it!" cried St. Clair. "Keep cool, Blackeyes; let's hear—we'll have an exposition now. Theme, Christian grace."
Ah, there rushed through my heart with her words a remembrance of other words—a fluttering vision of something "gentle and easy to be entreated"—"first pure, then peaceable"—"gentleness, goodness, meekness."—But the grip of passion held them all down or kept them all back. After St. Clair's first burst, the girls were still and waited for what I would say. I was facing Miss Lansing, who had taken her hand from my shoulder.
"Are you not ashamed of yourself?" I said; and I remember I thought how my mother would have spoken to them. "Miss Lansing's good nature"—I went on slowly,—"Miss Macy's kindness—Miss Bentley's independence—and Miss St. Clair's good breeding!"—
"And Miss Randolph's religion!" echoed the last-named, with a quiet distinctness which went into my heart.