"I don't want your chocolates!" said Dorothy scornfully. "I've told you already that I don't break my promises. You're safe enough as regards me."

"Silence!" called the mistress; and the two girls fell into line again as they marched with their drawing boards down the corridor.

In the dressing-room the rest of the Form had plenty to say about the occurrence.

"You've done for yourself, Dorothy," declared Ruth Harmon. "You'll be in Miss Tempest's bad books for evermore."

"I can't see that I was any worse than the others," snapped Dorothy; "not so bad, indeed, because I wasn't caught, and yet I owned up. Miss Tempest might have taken that into account."

"She would have, I dare say, if you hadn't answered her back," said Noelle Kennedy.

"I only told her I didn't know we mightn't go."

"But you said it so cheekily, and Miss Tempest hates cheek above everything. I shouldn't care to be in your shoes now. What a good thing you weren't chosen Warden!"

Dorothy tugged at her boot lace till it snapped, then had to tie the two ends together in a knot. How hard it was to keep her unwelcome secret!

She felt as if in common justice the girls ought to be made aware of the moral cowardice of their leader.

"I'd have made a better one than some--yourself not excepted," she growled.

"My lady's in her tantrums to-day," chirped Ruth.

"I'm not! What a hateful set you all are! I wish to goodness you'd leave me alone!"

Dorothy seized her books and stalked away without a good-bye to anybody.

How thankful she was that Avondale was a day school, and that she could shake the dust of it from her feet until nine o'clock to-morrow morning!

"If I weren't going home to Aunt Barbara now, I should run away," she thought. "It would be dreadful to have to endure this all the evening.

Oh dear, I hate the place, and I hate Miss Tempest, and I hate the girls, and everything, and everybody!"

Poor Dorothy carried a very sore heart back to Holly Cottage that evening, but she cheered up when she entered the pretty little sitting-room, with its bright fire and a cosy tea laid ready on the oak table. After the storms and whirlwinds of school, home seemed such a haven of refuge, and Aunt Barbara--who always understood--so utterly different a personality from Miss Tempest.

"I'm cross and horrid and disagreeable and altogether fractious, Auntie!" she said, squatting on the hearthrug after tea, with one of the dear hands squeezed in hers, while she poured out her acc.u.mulation of troubles. "I've got to keep that promise, but I can't do it with any good grace, and I still feel that Miss Tempest was unjust, because n.o.body had ever said we mightn't leave the Coll. in dinner-time. And I'm barred the gym. It's too disgusting, because it puts me out of all rehearsals, and I shall have to give up my part in the act."

"Poor old sweetheart, you've certainly been in the wars to-day! But honestly, don't you think it is just the least little sc.r.a.p your own fault? I fancy at the bottom you knew that dinner girls aren't expected to run out into the town whenever they like, even to look at weddings--and it wasn't justifiable to speak rudely to Miss Tempest, was it?"

Dorothy stared hard at the fire.

"No; I suppose I was cheeky. Auntie, when I'm at school and things are horrid, I just flare up and explode--I can't help it. I'm quite different at home. I wish I had lessons with you again, like I did when I was a little girl. I'd be far nicer."

"A soldier isn't good for very much until he's tried, is he? School is your battlefield at present, and the temper is the enemy. Won't you be a Red Cross Knight, and ride out to do full and fair fight with it? It's as ugly a dragon as ever attacked St. George."

"And a great deal harder to conquer, because every time I kill it, it comes to life again, ready for another go at me. There, Auntie! yes, I'll make a try; but I know I shall do lots more hateful things--I always do!"

CHAPTER VII

Alison's Home

Dorothy was ready enough at making good resolutions--the difficulty always lay in keeping them when they were made. At night in bed it would seem fairly simple to practise patience, forbearance, charity, humility, and many kindred virtues, yet the very next morning she would come down to breakfast with a frown that caused Aunt Barbara to sigh. Full of high ideals, she would dream over stories of courage and fort.i.tude till she could believe herself ready to accomplish the most superhuman tasks and overcome innumerable difficulties. She always hoped that when she was grown up she might have a chance of emulating some of her book heroines, and doing a golden deed which the world should remember. In the meantime many little ordinary, commonplace, everyday duties were left undone. She was not thoughtful for others, and was content to let Aunt Barbara do everything for her, without troubling herself to consider what she might offer in return.

Miss Sherbourne was not blind, and saw only too clearly that the girl was pa.s.sing through a selfish phase.

"I've seen it often enough in others of her age," she thought. "They are so sweet while they are little children, and then suddenly they lose all their pretty, childish ways, and become brusque and pert and uncompromising. I suppose they are struggling after their own individualities and independence, but it makes them ruthless to others.

At present Dorothy is rather inclined to rebel against authority, and to a.s.sert herself in many directions. She needs most careful leading and management. She's affectionate, at any rate, and that's something to go upon."

Aunt Barbara could not guess all the trouble that was in Dorothy's mind.

Though the latter had never referred again to the story of her adoption, the fact that she was a foundling continually rankled. She was so sensitive on the point that she imagined many allusions or slights which were not intended. It was extremely silly, but when the girls at school talked about their brothers and sisters, she often believed they did so purposely to make her feel her lack of relations. If two friends whispered together, she would think they were speaking of her; and any small discourtesy, however unintentional, she put down as an indication that the others considered her inferior to themselves. She contrived to make herself thoroughly miserable with these ideas, and they had the unfortunate effect of causing her to be even more abrupt and brusque than before. Sometimes one traitor thought would even steal in, and she would question whether Aunt Barbara really loved her as truly as if she had been her own flesh and blood; but this was such a monstrous and unjust suspicion that Dorothy would thrust it from her in horror at having ever entertained it.

One pleasure that she had at Avondale was her friendship with Alison Clarke. Owing to their daily companionship in the train, she had managed to keep Alison pretty much to herself, and she watched over her with jealous eyes, unwilling to share her with anybody else. Alison had been away from school on the day that the truants went to the wedding, and it was nearly a week before she returned. Each morning Dorothy had looked out for her at Latchworth, and every time she had been disappointed. At last, however, the familiar little figure appeared again on the platform, and the round, rosy face smiled a greeting.

"No, I've not been very ill--only a bad cold. It's almost gone now. Oh, yes, I'm delighted to go back to the Coll. It's so dull staying in the house with nothing to do except read, and one gets sick to death of chicken broth and jelly! I want somebody to tell me school news. It seems more like a year than a week since I stopped at home."

Dorothy was accommodating in the matter of news, and the two chattered hard all the way to Coleminster.

"It's a fearful nuisance you're out of rehearsals," said Alison. "Can't we all come up to the cla.s.sroom and have them there instead?"

"No; Miss Pitman won't let us. We six sinners are on penance; we mayn't do anything but read. Oh, it's disgusting! I shall be out of the Christmas performance altogether."

"No, you shan't," declared Alison; "not if I can compa.s.s it in any way."

She said no more just then, but when they were returning in the train that afternoon she mentioned the subject again.

"I was talking to the girls at dinner-time," she began. "We were planning out the programme. Really, the scene from _Vanity Fair_ is very short. Hope says it won't take as much time as the play you had last year, so I suggested that we should have some tableaux as well. You could do characters in those without any rehearsing. What do you think of my idea?"

"Ripping!" said Dorothy. "We haven't had tableaux at the Coll. for ages.

But we must manage to get hold of some decent costumes."

"I've heaps and heaps in a box at home," announced Alison complacently.

"I can lend them all. We'll get up something worth looking at. Tell me what you'd like to be, and you shall have first choice of everything."

"It depends on what there is."

"There's a lovely mediaeval dress that would do for Berengaria of Navarre."

"She had golden hair, and mine's brown!"

"Bother! so she had. Then that's off. Never mind, there are heaps of others. There's a Cavalier's, if it will only fit. I wonder if it's big enough? You'd look nice with the crimson cloak and huge hat and feather.

Or there's a Norwegian peasant's--I think the skirt would be long enough--and a Robin Hood jerkin and tall leather boots. I believe you could wear them. Oh dear! you ought to try all the things on. I wish I could show them to you. They're kept in an oak chest on the landing."

"I should like to see them," said Dorothy pensively.

"Then look here! Get out with me at Latchworth and come to our house.

Mother has gone to Bardsley this afternoon and won't be home till seven, so I shall be quite alone. You'd have heaps of time to come, and catch the next train on to Hurford."