Miss Devigny turned to Miss Sparke, and said, under her breath:
“I really never saw such well-behaved little girls; they do you great credit, Miss Sparke.”
“They are naturally amiable,” replied Miss Sparke; “and I only trust things will continue in as great harmony as at present after Robina Starling arrives.”
“Do you know anything about the child?” asked Miss Devigny, dropping her voice and coming closer to the other teacher.
“Not much, except that she is too troublesome at home to remain there any longer. Her mother is very far from well, and little Robina has never learned obedience. Dear Mrs Burton is not afraid of her on that account, however, and she believes that there will be no finer discipline for her than making her over, as it were, to the third form.”
“Perhaps so,” said Miss Devigny, a little doubtfully; “but I am not so sure on that point,” she added.
The girls were now playing hide-and-seek in the wood, and while the two governesses were talking, quite unperceived by them a little head peeped out from amongst a great mass of underwood, and two bright, mischievous black eyes looked keenly for a minute at Miss Devigny, and then the head popped back again before anyone could see. The governesses were quite unaware that one of the most troublesome children in the third form had overheard them. This child was no less a person than Jane Bush.
Jane was a little girl who had never known a mother’s care. She had been sent to this nice school when she was ten years of age. She had been at Abbeyfield now for nearly two years. She was a small girl for her age, somewhat stoutly built. She had very black eyes, and short black hair, which she always wore like a mop sticking up all over her funny round head. She was a perfect contrast to her own special friend and ally, Harriet Lane. Harriet was a tall, lanky, pale child. She had exceedingly light blue eyes, a large mouth, somewhat prominent teeth, and thin, hay-coloured hair. She was not at all pretty. Harriet had made up her mind on the subject of her own looks long ago.
“I must be something,” she thought. “If I am not pretty, I must at least be out of the common. I will make people see that I am awfully clever. It’s just as nice to be clever as to be pretty.”
Perhaps Harriet was more clever than her companions. She certainly did manage to impress the others with her power of learning French and German, with the excellent way in which she studied her “pieces” for the pianoforte, and with her really pretty little drawings, which, in her opinion, were almost works of art.
Harriet, in her heart of hearts, voted the Chetwolds dull and the three Amberleys molly-coddles.
“They are always fussing about their throats or having damp feet or getting a little bit of a chill,” she remarked on one occasion in a very superior tone to Jane. “I have no patience with girls who are always thinking of themselves; they just do it to be petted. As to that Vivian, she knows quite well that if she manages to cry a little and put her hand to her throat, she won’t have any more lessons for the rest of the day.”
“I call Vivian a horrid little cheat, although she is thought such a model,” said Jane.
“Oh, I hate models,” said Harriet. “Give me a naughty girl, by preference.”
“There are no naughty girls in this school,” said Jane; “they are every one of them as good as good. It’s awfully dull,” she added. “Even you and I can’t be naughty, Harriet; for there’s no one to be naughty with.”
These were the sentiments of these two really troublesome young people when they started on their picnic. In the course of that same evening, when the sun was about to set, and the slight summer breeze had dropped away, and there was a perfect calm all over nature and a serene pale blue sky overhead, then Jane Bush met Harriet Lane and, clutching her by the arm, said:
“Oh, Harry, Harry! What do you think?”
“I am sure I don’t know,” said Harriet, who looked taller and more lanky than ever. “I wish you wouldn’t get so frightfully excited, Jane. You quite take my breath away.”
“I have got news for you,” said Jane, making her mouth into a round “O,” and forming a trumpet for it with her hand. “News!” she repeated. “Wonderful grand news!” and now she managed to shout the words into Harriet’s ear.
“Don’t deafen me,” said Harriet. “I can’t help it if you have news. I don’t suppose there is anything in your new’s,” she continued.
“You are as cross as two sticks, Harry,” said Jane; “but you won’t be when you hear what I have got to say. Come along; I must tell you before we start for home, and they are putting the horses to the waggonettes already. Let’s run down this glade. Let’s be very quick, or they’ll stop us. I see old Sparke coming back as fast as she can, and she’ll begin to call us all to the top of that little mound. It is there we are to wait for the waggonettes. Come – quick!”
Harriet, although she liked Jane, had a secret sort of contempt for her. She could be naughty, of course, but she was not clever. Harriet admired nothing but talent. She believed herself to be a sort of genius.
“I don’t suppose you have anything to tell me,” she repeated; “but I’ll come if you want me to. See, I’ll race you – one, two, three! I’ll get first to that tall tree at the end of the glade.”
In a race with Harriet, Jane was nowhere, for Harriet’s legs were so long and she was so light that she flew almost like the wind over the ground. She easily reached the meeting-place first, and Jane followed her, panting, red in the face, and a little cross.
“You did take the wind out of me,” she said. “Oh, oh, oh!”
She pressed her hand to her side.
“I cannot speak at all for a minute – I – I – can’t – tell you my news. Oh, you have winded me – you have!”
“Don’t talk, then,” said Harriet, who was leaning comfortably with her back against a tree; while Jane, round as a ball and crimson in the face, panted a little way off. By-and-by, however, Jane got back her voice.
“I’ve found out something about the new ’un,” she said, “that bird thing, who will be here to-night. I was hiding down in the brushwood, just by the big oak, and you were all looking for me; but I buried myself under a holly tree, and no one could see even a squint of me, however hard one looked. They– didn’t know I was there.”
“Who do you mean by ‘they’?” interrupted Harriet.
“Sparke and Devigny,” said Jane. “Oh, of course I am fond of Miss Devigny, but I can’t be bothered to ‘Miss’ her when I’m in no end of a hurry. Well, they talked, and it was all about the new ’un. She is not a model; that’s one comfort. She is so desperately naughty she has been sent from home – sort of expelled, you know – sort of disgraced for life; a nice sort of creature to come here! And we’re to mould her. What is to ‘mould’ a body, Harriet?”
“To make them like ourselves, I suppose,” said Harriet, whose eyes sparkled over this intelligence.
“That is what Sparke said; she hopes everything for the bird from our influence. Isn’t it fun? Isn’t it great? I am quite excited! See here now: think what larks we’ll have with a squint-eyed, hunchbacked, very naughty girl. Oh, won’t it be larks!”
“She may be a nuisance, there is no saying,” remarked Harriet.
“Why, aren’t you delighted, Harriet? I am.”
“Can’t say,” answered Harriet. “I only hope,” she added, “that whatever else she is, she is stupid. I don’t want any clever girls in the same form with me. Now, let’s go back, Jane.”
“You don’t seem at all obliged to me for telling you such a wonderful piece of news,” said Jane.
“I