"I wonder what excuse she made to get off as she did?"

"Excuse? You don't suppose she made any excuse? Not she. She just skipped out, in the rest hour, when Miss Marr and the other teachers were off duty; and she managed to come back at the right time. Oh, it makes me more and more indignant the longer I think of it, for it's a bigger shame because Miss Marr is so nice about our school parties and our receptions, and treats us like ladies, and trusts us to _be_ ladies, and not to deceive her. But hark! it's striking six, and I must get ready for dinner."

CHAPTER XVIII.

"Yes, I suppose that is the best thing for me to do; but oh, Hope! you don't know, you can't think how I dread it."

"Yes, I can _think_;" and Hope laughed a little.

"She'll be so angry she'll say horrid things to me."

"Yes, you may count on that."

"_When_ would you tell her?"

"I'd go now and tell her this very minute, it ought to be done at once."

"Oh, dear! well, I'll take your advice, and you'll wait for me here, won't you?"

"Yes, I'll wait for you here and study up my history lesson."

"All right; and wish me courage and success." Then, with a little nod and a rueful smile, Kate Van der Berg went on her mission to Dorothea; for it had finally, after much consultation between the three friends, been thought best for Kate to go straight to Dorothea and appeal to her.

Dorothea was at the desk in her room writing a note as Kate entered,--a note she hastily turned over blank side up as she saw her visitor. There was a rather flurried look on her face, as Kate said, "Am I interrupting you?" though she answered readily enough, "Oh, no; I thought it was one of the servants when you knocked, that's all." Then, not very cordially, "Won't you sit down?"

This was not a very promising beginning, and Kate's heart began to fail her. At this point, however, she caught sight of a photograph. It was the photograph of Raymond Armitage, and her courage returned.

Dorothea had seen her glance of recognition, and remarked coolly: "Isn't it like him? He's very handsome, I think, don't you?"

"I--I don't know," stammered Kate; then, throwing all hesitation to the winds, she began to speak, and this she did at the start in the kindest, gentlest way in the world, telling of what she had seen and heard, as she had told Hope and Myra, and winding up with: "I felt that I ought to speak to you--to tell you what you might not know--how much all this would affect Miss Marr and injure yourself; that if--if she heard--if she knew--she might--might write to your parents, and ask them--to--to take you home."

"Oh, I see--expel me, that's what you mean. The old cat, she won't do any such thing! I never saw anything like the way you all go on over that woman. I like her well enough. I was tremendously taken with her and her tailor gowns when I first came, but I didn't bow down before her as the rest of you did, and I have never believed she was of so much consequence as she was set up to be; and as for her throwing away a lot of money by sending a girl off for being a little independent and having a little fun in her own way, she's too smart to do any such thing. My gracious! I should think I had tried to set the house on fire by the fuss you make! And what have I done? Just had a little sociable time with an acquaintance without asking leave of her High-and-Mightiness."

Kate had hard work to control herself. At the phrase "old cat," her very soul had risen up in revolt. To speak in such terms of Miss Marr!--Miss Marr, who was so fine and sweet, so considerate and sympathetic, who was indeed like an older girl friend to them all. And then, "What have I done? Just had a little sociable time with an acquaintance, without asking leave of her High-and-Mightiness." Kate lifted up her chin suddenly, as she recalled these words, and as coolly as she could, said,--

"I suppose you know that if you _had_ asked for leave to write notes to Raymond Armitage, and to receive them from him, and to make appointments with him to go down town, and all that, it would have done no good,--that, of course, Miss Marr, or any head of a school, would not have given you permission."

"No, of course they wouldn't; but that's only one of the stiff little bars that boarding-schools set up."

"And you wouldn't want to do such things half as much if there were no bars against them."

"But what harm is there in 'such things,' as you call them? Suppose my cousin Jimmy was at boarding-school, and took a notion to write a note to a girl, and to meet her down town and drink ice-cream soda with her, would any teacher think he had done such a dreadful thing,--a thing for which he deserved to be expelled?"

"They'd think he had done wrong in going against the laws of the school, but it _wouldn't_ do him the harm that it would a girl, because a girl is supposed to be a little differently situated from a boy. If she has been brought up like a lady, she isn't expected to be planning meetings with young men on the sly. She is supposed to have a little dignity; and as everybody knows that no boy would think of proposing such silly out-of-the-way things to a girl unless he had been encouraged by her to dare them, so the girl who is found to have gone on in such silly ways is talked about as bold and unladylike, and that is an injury that may leave a black and blue spot on her forever; and you must see, if you will stop to think about it a minute, that such a girl would injure the school she happened to be in,--would leave a black and blue spot on that."

Kate had tried to be very forbearing at the start; but as she was confronted by Dorothea's density, as she saw how vain and foolish, not to say ignorant, were her estimates, her patience gave way, and she spoke the whole of her mind then and there, without reserve and without softening her words. It is needless to say that Dorothea was furious to be called by implication bold and unladylike, and a possible injury to the school. Out of this fury she burst forth,--

"I never, never in all my life heard of such impudence! _You_ to talk of being brought up like a lady! You are the most conceited, meddling, _un_ladylike girl I ever met! What business is it of yours, anyway? Who set you up to manage this school? You think you can manage everybody, and that you know more about society and propriety than anybody else.

You're nothing but a Dutch girl, anyway; and as for being expelled from this school, I'll expel myself if this kind of interference is to be allowed. I'm about tired, anyhow, of such a peeking, prying, puss-puss-in-the-corner place. Miss Marr is making you into a little lot of primmy old maids just as fast as she can; and I for one--"

But Kate did not wait to hear any more of this outburst. She did not dare, in fact, to trust herself to reply. Hope, who was sitting curled up in the library waiting, as she had promised, heard the quick, flying footsteps, as they came along, and said to herself, "She's had a horrid time, I know." But _how_ horrid she had not imagined until poor Kate poured forth the story. It was a very honestly told story,--not a word of her own part in it omitted in the whole detail. But as she thus honestly, and with just her own peculiar lift of the head and emphatic way, repeated all she had said, Hope's lips began to twitch, and at last she began to laugh.

"How mean of you!" cried Kate. Then she joined in the laugh, as she realized how little adapted her words had been to soften Dorothea, and how fully adapted to rousing her resentment and rebellion.

"But I began beautifully, Hope. I was as mild and persuasive as possible; but when she called Miss Marr 'an old cat,' I _couldn't_ keep on being mild and persuasive. How could I?"

"I think it must have been hard work, and I don't wonder you said just what you did; and perhaps, after all, the plain truth, though it makes her so angry now, will have the most effect in the end."

"Yes, in the end; but--but, Hope, what I've been afraid of is that she'll do something right away,--something reckless and daring, just to show she isn't afraid of anything and doesn't care."

"Oh, I didn't think of that; but I don't believe she will. She'll remember what you said about Miss Marr's writing to her parents, and that will stop her."

"I don't know," responded Kate, doubtfully. "She looked to me as if she would brave anything, she was so angry."

For a day or two the three--Hope and Myra and Kate--were on the _qui vive_, expecting some catastrophe; but as at the close of the second day everything seemed to go on as usual, and Dorothea, with the exception of holding aloof from them, was the same as ever, they relaxed a little of their apprehension.

Once or twice in these days they had noticed that Bessie Armitage had regarded Dorothea with a queer, quizzical sort of look,--"Just as if she knew something was or had been going on," Myra declared.

Hope laughed at this declaration. What could Bessie know? She was not a boarding-pupil, only "an outsider," as they called the girls who were the day pupils; and the outsiders never knew what was going on in the house unless some one of the boarding-girls told them, and there was certainly no one to tell Bessie about this affair.

"Perhaps Raymond may have told his sister," suggested Myra.

"Raymond Armitage!" exclaimed Kate. "Not he; there are brothers and brothers. Raymond Armitage is not one of the brothers who are confidential with their sisters. It would be much more his way to tell a boy friend,--to tell him and brag about it to him. That's just the kind of boy Raymond Armitage is, in my opinion. I like Bessie, but I never liked that brother of hers. I never like boys who have such awfully flattering ways with girls. Raymond Armitage is always paying compliments to girls, always agreeing with everything they say, or pretending to. He--he's--I don't know just how to put it--but he's too conscious all the time. Now, there's Peter Van Loon and Victor Graham and that nice Jimmy Dering, they're polite enough for anybody; but they treat me as if I was a human being like themselves, and agree with me or disagree with me as they do with each other. They're honest, and that's the kind I like and trust, and I don't trust the other kind. I always feel as if these smiling, smirking, constantly agreeing kind were making fun of me."

"So do I," "And so do I," exclaimed Hope and Myra, in a breath.

CHAPTER XIX.

The next day was Sat.u.r.day, and directly after a very early twelve-o'clock luncheon the girls were all going to the Park to skate.

Miss Marr had a cold, and was not able to accompany them, as she usually did on these outings. She sent, in her stead, two of the under teachers,--Miss Stephens and Miss Thompson.

"And if we _can't_ have Miss Marr, Stevey and Tommy are not bad," Kate Van der Berg declared, rather irreverently, as she ran up to her room to make herself ready. Several girls were following in her wake; amongst them was Dorothea, who suddenly retorted to Kate's words,--

"Perhaps _some_ of us had quite as lief have Stevey and Tommy as Miss Marr."

It was the first time that Dorothea had responded even indirectly to any remarks of Kate's since their stormy interview; and though there was a sharp flavor in what was said, Kate held herself in, and did not reply to it. But one of the younger girls called out in protest,--

"Oh, how can you say that! There's n.o.body like Miss Marr. I never skate half so well with any one else as I do with her."

"Yes, but you are contented to skate _her way_, I suppose," flung back Dorothea, with a little disagreeable laugh.