My heart began to thump, and without knowing what I was doing I stopped dead short, while Mildred went on a pace or two ahead of me.
Then I noticed that Alma had stopped too, and that her great searching eyes were looking down at me. In my nervousness, I tried to smile, but Alma continued to stare, and at length, in the tone of one who had accidentally turned up something with her toe that was little and ridiculous, she said:
"Goodness, girls, what's this?"
Then she burst into a fit of laughter, in which the other girls joined, and looking me up and down they all laughed together.
I knew what they were laughing at—the clothes my mother had made for me and I had felt so proud of. That burnt me like iron, and I think my lip must have dropped, but Alma showed no mercy.
"Dare say the little doll thinks herself pretty, though," she said. And then she passed on, and the girls with her, and as they went off they looked back over their shoulders and laughed again.
Never since has any human creature—not even Alma herself—made me suffer more than I suffered at that moment. My throat felt tight, tears leapt to my eyes, disappointment, humiliation, and shame swept over me like a flood, and I stood squeezing my little handkerchief in my hand and feeling as if I could have died.
At the next moment Mildred stepped back to me, and putting her arm about my waist she said:
"Never mind, Mary. She's a heartless thing. Don't have anything to do with her."
But all the sunshine had gone out of the day for me now and I cried for hours. I was still crying, silently but bitterly, when, at eight o'clock, we were saying the night prayers, and I saw Alma, who was in the opposite benches, whispering to one of the girls who sat next to her and then looking straight across at me.
And at nine o'clock when we went to bed I was crying more than ever, so that after the good-night-bell had been rung and the lights had been put down, Sister Angela, not knowing the cause of my sorrow, stepped up to my bed before going down stairs for her own studies, and whispered:
"You mustn't fret for home, Mary. You will soon get used to it."
But hardly had I been left alone, with the dull pain I could find no ease for, when somebody touched me on the shoulder, and, looking up, I saw a girl in her nightdress standing beside me. It was Alma and she said:
"Say, little girl, is your name O'Neill?"
Trembling with nervousness I answered that it was.
"Do you belong to the O'Neills of Ellan?"
Still trembling I told her that I did.
"My!" she said in quite another tone, and then I saw that by some means I had begun to look different in her eyes.
After a moment she sat on the side of my bed and asked questions about my home—if it was not large and very old, with big stone staircases, and great open fireplaces, and broad terraces, and beautiful walks going down to the sea.
I was so filled with the joy of finding myself looking grand in Alma's eyes that I answered "yes" and "yes" without thinking too closely about her questions, and my tears were all brushed away when she said:
"I knew somebody who lived in your house once, and I'll tell her all about you."
She stayed a few moments longer, and when going off she whispered:
"Hope you don't feel badly about my laughing in the garden to-day. I didn't mean a thing. But if any of the girls laugh again just say you're Alma Lier's friend and she's going to take care of you."
I could hardly believe my ears. Some great new splendour had suddenly dawned upon me and I was very happy.
I did not know then that the house which Alma had been talking of was not my father's house, but Castle Raa. I did not know then that the person who had lived there was her mother, and that in her comely and reckless youth she had been something to the bad Lord Raa who had lashed my father and sworn at my grandmother.
I did not know anything that was dead and buried in the past, or shrouded and veiled in the future. I only knew that Alma had called herself my friend and promised to take care of me. So with a glad heart I went to sleep.
FOURTEENTH CHAPTER
Alma kept her word, though perhaps her method of protection was such as would have commended itself only to the heart of a child.
It consisted in calling me Margaret Mary after our patron saint of the Sacred Heart, in taking me round the garden during recreation as if I had been a pet poodle, and, above all, in making my bed the scene of the conversaziones which some of the girls held at night when they were supposed to be asleep.
The secrecy of these gatherings flattered me, and when the unclouded moon, in the depths of the deep blue Italian sky, looked in on my group of girls in their nightdresses, bunched together on my bed, with my own little body between, I had a feeling of dignity as well as solemnity and awe.
Of course Alma was the chief spokeswoman at these whispered conferences. Sometimes she told us of her drives into the Borghese Gardens, where she saw the King and Queen, or to the Hunt on the Campagna, where she met the flower of the aristocracy, or to the Pincio, where the Municipal band played in the pavilion, while ladies sat in their carriages in the sunshine, and officers in blue cloaks saluted them and smiled.
Sometimes she indicated her intentions for the future, which was certainly not to be devoted to retreats and novenas, or to witness another black dress as long as she lived, and if she married (which was uncertain) it was not to be to an American, but to a Frenchman, because Frenchmen had "family" and "blood," or perhaps to an Englishman, if he was a member of the House of Lords, in which case she would attend all the race-meetings and Coronations, and take tea at the Carlton, where she would eat méringues glacés every day and have as many éclairs as she liked.
And sometimes she would tell us the stories of the novels which she bribed one of the washing-women to smuggle into the convent—stories of ladies and their lovers, and of intoxicating dreams of kissing and fondling, at which the bigger girls, with far-off suggestions of sexual mysteries still unexplored, would laugh and shudder, and then Alma would say:
"But hush, girls! Margaret Mary will be shocked."
Occasionally these conferences would be interrupted by Mildred's voice from the other end of the dormitory, where she would raise her head from her pillow and say:
"Alma Lier, you ought to be ashamed of yourself—keeping that child up when she ought to be asleep, instead of listening to your wicked stories."
"Helloa, Mother Mildred, is that you?" Alma would answer, and then the girls would laugh, and Mildred was supposed to be covered with confusion.
One night Sister Angela's footsteps were heard on the stairs, and then the girls flew back to their beds, where, with the furtive instinct of their age and sex, they pretended to be sleeping soundly when the Sister entered the room. But the Sister was not deceived, and walking up the aisle between the beds she said in an angry tone:
"Alma Lier, if this ever occurs again I'll step down to the Reverend Mother and tell her all about you."
Little as I was, I saw that between Alma and Sister Angela there was a secret feud, which must soon break into open rupture, but for my own part I was entirely happy, being still proud of Alma's protection and only feeling any misgivings when Mildred's melancholy eyes were looking at me.
Thus week followed week until we were close upon Christmas, and the girls, who were