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"What?" said Bridget, coloring high. "Do you mean seriously to tell me that I—I am not to pick flowers? I think I must have heard you wrong! Please say it again!""Janet," said Mrs. Freeman, "come here for a [Pg 47]moment. I want you to use your young eyes. Do you see any carriage coming down the hill?"

"How can I possibly tell you, Miss O'Hara?" she replied. "You are a tall girl. Perhaps you are seventeen, although you look more."

"Let me go," said the head mistress.

"No, no—do forgive me!"Janet did not say any more. She bent forward, ostensibly to renew her studies, in reality to hide a jealous feeling which surged up in her heart.Mrs. Freeman took her unwilling hand, led her into Miss Patience's dull little sitting room, which only[Pg 63] looked out upon the back yard, and, shutting the door behind her, left her to her own meditations.

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"O Bridget!" exclaimed the little girls, starting back in affright."Don't do that, Bridget," said Miss Patience; "you are disturbing me.""He'll be sorry he sent me; he'll be sorry he listened to Aunt Kathleen," she said to herself.

Olive Moore belonged to the toadying faction in the school. Toadies, however, can be useful, and Janet was by no means above making use of Olive in case of need.A flash of self-pity filled her eyes, but there was some consolation in reflecting on the fact that no one could force her to eat against her will."Oh, goodness—no, I mustn't—mercy! nor that either; oh, I—I say, Mrs. Freeman, don't let the new dresses be frumpy, or I'll break my heart. I do so adore looking at myself in a lovely dress."

The ages of these fifty girls ranged from seventeen to five, but from seventeen down to five on this special hot summer's evening one topic of conversation might have been heard on every tongue.

Mrs. Freeman could scarcely restrain her impatience.

"Are you coming, Dorothy?" called Janet May from the end of the passage.