A girl, whose bed was at the inner end of the room, sighed under the heavy heat of the night—and said, in peremptory tones, “Is that Cecilia?”
“Yes.”
“What do you want?”
“I’m getting hungry, Emily. Is the new girl asleep?”
The new girl answered promptly and spitefully, “No, she isn’t.”
Having a private object of their own in view, the five wise virgins of Miss Ladd’s first class had waited an hour, in wakeful anticipation of the falling asleep of the stranger—and it had ended in this way! A ripple of laughter ran round the room. The new girl, mortified and offended, entered her protest in plain words.
“You are treating me shamefully! You all distrust me, because I am a stranger.”
“Say we don’t understand you,” Emily answered, speaking for her schoolfellows; “and you will be nearer the truth.”
“Who expected you to understand me, when I only came here to-day? I have told you already my name is Francine de Sor. If want to know more, I’m nineteen years old, and I come from the West Indies.”
Emily still took the lead. “Why do you come here?” she asked. “Who ever heard of a girl joining a new school just before the holidays? You are nineteen years old, are you? I’m a year younger than you—and I have finished my education. The next big girl in the room is a year younger than me—and she has finished her education. What can you possibly have left to learn at your age?”
“Everything!” cried the stranger from the West Indies, with an outburst of tears. “I’m a poor ignorant creature. Your education ought to have taught you to pity me instead of making fun of me. I hate you all. For shame, for shame!”
Some of the girls laughed. One of them—the hungry girl who had counted the strokes of the clock—took Francine’s part.
“Never mind their laughing, Miss de Sor. You are quite right, you have good reason to complain of us.”
Miss de Sor dried her eyes.
Prev.
Back
Top