boldly into the group. The little dots were all as busy as bees, were not the least lonely, or the least shy, and very plainly gave the intruder to understand that they would prefer her room to her company. Hester was not proud with little children – she loved them dearly. Some of the smaller ones in question were beautiful little creatures, and her heart warmed to them for Nan’s sake. She could not stoop to conciliate the older girls, but she could make an effort with the babies. She knelt on the floor and took up a headless doll.
“I know a little girl who had a doll like that,” she said.
Here she paused and several pairs of eyes were fixed on her.
“Poor dolly’s b’oke,” said the owner of the headless one in a tone of deep commiseration.
“You are such a breaker, you know, Annie,” said Annie’s little five-year-old sister.
“Please tell us about the little girl what had the doll wifout the head,” she proceeded, glancing at Hester.
“Oh, it was taken to a hospital, and got back its head,” said Hester quite cheerfully; “it became quite well again, and was a more beautiful doll than ever.”
This announcement caused intense wonder and was certainly carrying the interest of all the little ones. Hester was deciding that the child who possessed the headless doll had a look of Nan about her dark brown eyes, when suddenly there was a diversion – the play-room door was opened noisily, banged-to with a very loud report, and a gay voice sang out —
“The fairy queen has just paid me a visit. Who wants sweeties from the fairy queen?”
Instantly all the little feet had scrambled to the perpendicular, each pair of hands was clapped noisily, each little throat shouted a joyful —
“Here comes Annie!”
Annie Forest was surrounded, and Hester knelt alone on the hearth-rug.
She felt herself colouring painfully – she did not fail to observe that two laughing eyes had fixed themselves with a momentary triumph on her face; then, snatching up a book, which happened to lie close, she seated herself with her back to all the girls, and her head bent over the page. It is quite doubtful whether she saw any of the words, but she was at least determined not to cry.
The half-hour so wearisome to poor Hester came to an end, and the girls, conducted by Miss Danesbury, filed into the school-room and took their places in the different classes.
Work had now begun in serious earnest. The school-room presented an animated and busy scene. The young faces with their varying expressions betokened on the whole the preponderance of an earnest spirit. Discipline, not too severe, reigned triumphant.
Hester was not yet appointed to any place among these busy workers, but while she stood wondering, a little confused, and half intending to drop into an empty seat which happened to be close, Miss Danesbury came up to her.
“Follow me, Miss Thornton,” she said, and she conducted the young girl up the whole length of the great school-room, and pushed aside some baize curtains which concealed a second smaller room, where Mrs Willis sat before a desk.
The head-mistress was no longer dressed in soft pearl-grey and Mechlin lace. She wore a black silk dress, and her white cap seemed to Hester to add a severe tone to her features. She neither shook hands with the new pupil nor kissed her, but said instantly in a bright though authoritative tone —
“I must now find out as quickly as possible what you know, Hester, in order to place you in the most suitable class.” Hester was a clever girl, and passed through the ordeal of a rather stiff examination with considerable ability. Mrs Willis pronounced her English and general information quite up to the usual standard for girls of her age – her French was deficient, but she showed some talent for German.
“On the whole I am pleased with your general intelligence, and I think you have good capacities, Hester,” she said in conclusion. “I shall ask Miss Good, our very accomplished English teacher, to place you in the third-class. You will have to work very hard, however, at your French, to maintain your place there. But Mdlle. Perier is kind and painstaking, and it rests with yourself to quickly acquire a conversational acquaintance with the language. You are aware that, except during recreation, you are never allowed to speak in any other tongue. Now, go back to the school-room, my dear.”
As Mrs Willis spoke she laid her finger on a little silver gong which stood by her side.
“One moment, please,” said Hester, colouring crimson, “I want to ask you a question, please.”
“Is it about your lessons?”
“No – oh, no; it is – ”
“Then pardon me, my dear,” uttered the governess, “I sit in my room every evening from eight to half-past, and I am then at liberty to see a pupil on any subject which is not trifling. Nothing but lessons are spoken of in lesson hours, Hester. Ah, here comes Miss Good. Miss Good, I should wish you to place Hester Thornton in the third-class. Her English is up to the average. I will see Mdlle. Perier about her at twelve o’clock.”
Hester followed the English teacher into the great school-room, took her place in the third-class, at the desk which was pointed out to her, was given a pile of new books, and was asked to attend to the history lesson which was then going on.
Notwithstanding her confusion, a certain sense of soreness, and some indignation at what she considered Mrs Willis’s altered manner, she acquitted herself with considerable spirit, and was pleased to see that her class companions regarded her with some respect.
An English literature lecture followed the history, and here again Hester acquitted herself with éclat. The subject to-day was “Julius Caesar,” and Hester had read Shakespeare’s play over many times with her mother.
But when the hour came for foreign languages, her brief triumph ceased. Lower and lower did she fall in her school-fellows’ estimation, as she stumbled through her truly English-French. Mdlle. Perier, who was a very fiery little woman, almost screamed at her – the girls coloured and nearly tittered. Hester hoped to recover her lost laurels in German, but by this time her head ached, and she did very little better in the German which she loved than in the French which she detested. At twelve o’clock she was relieved to find that school was over for the present, and she heard the English teacher’s voice desiring the girls to go quickly to their rooms, and to assemble in five minutes’ time in the great stone hall, equipped for their walk.
The walk lasted for a little over an hour, and was a very dreary penance to poor Hester, as she was neither allowed to run, race, nor talk a word of English. She sighed heavily once or twice, and several of the girls who looked at her curiously agreed with Annie Forest that she was decidedly sulky. The walk was followed by dinner; then came half an hour of recreation in the delightful play-room, and eager chattering in the English tongue.
At three o’clock the school assembled once more; but now the studies were of a less severe character, and Hester spent one of her first happy half-hours over a drawing lesson. She had a great love for drawing, and felt some pride in the really beautiful copy which she was making of the stump of an old gnarled oak-tree. Her dismay, however, was proportionately great when the drawing-master drew his pencil right across her copy.
“I particularly requested you not to sketch in any of the shadows, Miss Thornton. Did you not hear me say that my lesson to-day was in outline? I gave you a shaded piece to copy in outline – did you not understand?”
“This is my first day at school,” whispered back poor Hester, speaking in English in her distress. Whereupon the master smiled, and even forgot to report her for her transgression of the French tongue.
Hester spent the rest of that afternoon over her music lesson. The music-master was an irascible little German, but Hester played with some taste, and was therefore not too severely rapped over the knuckles.
Then came tea and another half-hour of recreation, which was followed by two silent hours in the school-room, each girl bent busily over her books in preparation for the next day’s work. Hester studied hard, for she had made up her mind to be the intellectual prodigy