her orderly school. After a minute’s pause she got up, and, going to her little pupil, took her hand.
“I want you to help me, Robina,” she said. The wild eyes darted a quick glance into her face.
“How?” asked Robina. “I am not much good at that sort of thing.”
“I won’t tell you how to-night, my dear; but perhaps to-morrow we will have a talk. There is one rule in the school which has never been broken yet; and that is, that a new pupil – quite a new pupil – has tea with me all by herself on the day after her arrival. So you, Robina, will have the privilege of having tea alone with me to-morrow evening. You must come to me here at five o’clock – sharp at five o’clock, remember – and then you and I will have a little talk and I hope a nice time together. It is considered an honour, my love.”
“That depends on who is considering, doesn’t it?” said Robina very calmly.
“I am sure you will think it an honour,” said Mrs Burton in as calm a voice. Then she took her pupil’s hand, and led her into the school parlour. “You will find books here,” she said, “and every single thing you want until the other girls come back. I expect them at eight o’clock, when you will all have supper, and then you will go to bed.”
Robina said nothing, and the headmistress went away.
There were three special parlours in the school. They were called by the old-fashioned name of parlour, but they were in reality ordinary sitting-rooms. One was devoted to the sixth form girls, and this was a large and truly elegant apartment, furnished well, with a grand piano, and easels, and beautiful pictures on the walls. The sixth form girls had all sorts of comfortable chairs and everything to conduce to that feeling of being grown-up which is so much liked by girls of from sixteen to eighteen years of age.
The little ones had also a parlour which was more like a play-room than anything else; and the third form parlour, in which Robina now found herself, was a large, square room with a round table in the middle, a book-shelf full of story-books, another book-shelf full of histories and works of travel, a pair of globes, and several bird-cages. A bird-cage hung down before each of the four windows, and in the cages were canaries, bullfinches, and other tame birds. There was also a parrot in a large cage in one corner of the room.
Robina, whose eyes had been quite dull, and who had felt an indescribable and most painful weight at her heart, quite brightened up when she saw the birds. She amused herself taking her chair from one window to another and examining the feathered creatures, who had now curled themselves up into round fluffy balls, and were sound asleep. Not for the world would she awaken them; but a new, tender sort of light came into her eyes as she watched them.
“Pretty darlings!” she said softly, under her breath. Her whole queer little face became happier in expression after she had examined the pet birds of the third form. She then crossed the room to look at the parrot. The parrot was an old grey bird with a solemn, wise face. He was not asleep: no one ever seemed to catch him nodding. He turned his head to one side and looked full at the new-comer.
“Mind what you’re about!” he said sharply, and then he turned his back to her as though she were not of the slightest consequence.
Robina burst out laughing. The parrot laughed too, but still kept his back to her.
“Mind what you’re about yourself,” said Robina. Whereupon the parrot answered, “Ha, ha!” and the next minute began to “miaow” in the most distracted manner, as though he were an angry cat.
Robina, now in fits of mirth, stood and regarded him. She was so employed when all the girls of the third form burst into the room. They came in in great excitement, each pair of eyes fixed upon Robina, and all the seven pairs of lips eager to say something to the girl who had so strongly excited their curiosity.
“I am so glad to see you. How do you do?” said Frederica, who was slightly the oldest girl in the form, and therefore the one to take the lead. “You are Robina, are you not?”
“Yes,” said Robina. She spoke with extreme calm. “You must be very tired.”
“I am not a bit tired,” said Robina.
“Well, I am glad you are not. I am sorry we were not at home to welcome you. We have had a lovely picnic!”
“Bother picnics!” said Robina.
This was a little disconcerting. Harriet Lane began to laugh. The parrot said instantly “Mind what you’re about! Ha, ha!” and everyone laughed now. The ice was broken: it was impossible to be formal after Polly had declared himself. Robina found that she was surrounded by a lot of eager, good-looking, pleasant girls. Each seemed more eager than the other to give her a hearty welcome. The soreness round her heart was soothed for the time being. She sank down on a chair and looked them all over.
“You’re not a bad lot for school-girls,” she said; “but I don’t know one from the other. Who is each? Please don’t speak so fast – one at a time. You are Frederica? What a queer name! Now, who are you? And who are you? I will tell you very soon which of you I mean to be friends with. I always do what I like everywhere.”
“Mind what you’re about! Ha, ha!” said the parrot.
Book One – Chapter Three
Developments
In a very few days Robina Starling was settled at school. She was as completely settled there as though she had lived at Abbeyfield all her life. She was the sort of girl who quickly fitted herself into a new niche. She wasted no time in selecting her friends. She was not a scrap afraid. She looked calmly, not only at the girls in the third form, but at those superior beings – the sixth form girls. What she thought she always said. Those girls who admired her said that Robina was very straightforward, that it would be impossible for her to tell a lie, and that they admired her for this trait in her character extremely. The girls who did not admire her, on the contrary, said that she was rude and ill-bred; but that fact – for she knew quite well that they said it – seemed rather to please Robina than otherwise.
She was quick, too, about her lessons. Although she knew nothing in the school way of knowing things, she had in reality a mass of varied information in her little head. She had a startling way of announcing her knowledge in and out of school. Miss Sparke used to find herself sometimes put quite in the wrong by this extraordinary pupil.
“No, Miss Sparke,” Robina said very calmly one morning during class, when she had been a week in the school, “that was the old-fashioned view, but if you look in the latest volumes on the subject, you will see for yourself that things are changed now. Shall I look for you, Miss Sparke, or will you do it yourself? It is a pity that you should teach the wrong thing, isn’t it?”
Miss Sparke said, “Hold your tongue, Robina; you are not to correct me in school.”
But she had coloured high when her naughty pupil spoke; and Robina, who did not colour at all, nor show the slightest triumph, but who sat down again in her seat with the utmost calm, made a deep impression on her school-fellows. She, with several of the girls, examined the latest authorities that afternoon, and as Robina was proved absolutely correct, and Miss Sparke wrong, the poor teacher took a lower place in her pupils’ estimation from that moment.
“You see,” said Robina, “although I am young in years, I have always read grown-up sort of things. Father’s frightfully clever, and so is Mother, and as there are no other children at home, I just read what I like. Besides that, I hear Father talking with other learned men. Father’s a great scientist, and
