Chapter 3

WILL YOU HAVE ME FOR A FRIEND?

"Late again! Winnifred Blake, I am ashamed of you; come, run as fast as you can;" and scolding herself vigorously, Winnie changed her leisurely step to a brisk trot which brought her to the schoolhouse door exactly fifteen minutes after the hour. "Punishment exercise yesterday, and fine to-day--how horrible!" she broke out again, entering the empty dressing-room and surveying the array of hats on the various pegs, all of which seemed to rebuke her tardiness. "Miss Smith will purse up her lips, and utter some cutting sarcasm of course, but I don't care," and Winnie, kicking off her boots, pitched them--well, I don't think she herself knew where. The jacket being next unfastened, she proceeded to divest herself of her hat, and pulled with such violence that the elastic snapped and struck her face severely. Winnie's temper (so Dick declared) resembled nothing so much as a pop-gun, going off, as it were, with a great bang on the least provocation. Flinging the offending article to the other side of the room, and addressing it in anything but complimentary terms, she picked up her books, shook her shaggy mane over her face, and marched straight to the large class-room, where the girls were already busy over their Bible lesson.

"Half-an-hour late, Miss Blake. You really are improving. Allow me to remind you of the fine, also of Mrs. Elder's instructions to take the lowest seat;" and Miss Smith, the senior governess, uttered the words with withering scorn.

"Good-morning," replied the culprit, hiding an angry little heart under a smiling exterior, and slipping her penny into the box on the teacher's desk; "my sleep was slightly broken last night, and that made me late."

Here the girls tittered, and Miss Smith frowned. "Indeed," she commented haughtily; "pray, does your constitution require a stated interval of so many hours for sleep _every_ night?" and the governess laid special stress on the word "every."

"Well, perhaps not," replied Winnie, coolly sitting down and proceeding to unfasten her books; "but I always indulge in an extra half hour if I am disturbed in my slumbers. Broken rest tells sorely on my nervous system, and renders both myself and others miserable."

At this point some of the pupils laughed outright, and Miss Smith's anger rose.

"Silence!" she said, rising and tapping rapidly on the desk. "Miss Blake, you are a disgrace to the school. Attend to your lesson, and let me hear no more rude, impertinent language, or I shall punish you severely," and the governess treated Winnie to one glance of supreme contempt as she spoke.

The child ground her little white teeth together as she gazed on the teacher's sour-faced visage and listened to the tones of her high-pitched voice. "Regular crab-apple, and as cross as two sticks," she muttered, knitting her brow in an angry frown, but smoothing it hastily and calling up the necessary look of attention as Miss Smith cast a swift glance in her direction; "how I should like to tell her every horrid thought in my heart concerning herself. She would be edified," and at the bare idea Winnie shook so much with suppressed merriment that the girl next her opened a pair of bright, hazel eyes and stared in amazement at the audacious child.

The little mischief caught the look, and returning it with interest found she was seated beside the new pupil whose advent had occasioned yesterday's quarrel. There was something very engaging in the frank, open countenance, and Winnie smiled pleasantly as she met the astonished gaze.

"Am I very rude and disobedient?" she asked, or rather whispered roguishly; "you look so shocked and amazed. Please, don't judge by first impressions; my bark is worse than my bite, and I can be a very good girl when I choose. Self-praise is no honour, of course, and I ought to be silent with regard to my various perfections and imperfections; but if you wait patiently you will find out that Winnifred Blake is a most eccentric character, and says and does what no other person would say or do."

Nellie Latimer's astonishment increased as she gazed on this (to her) new specimen of humanity. What a dainty, fairy-like creature she seemed, and what a mischievous gleam was lurking in the depths of those great, shining eyes! Nellie felt quite awkward and commonplace in her presence; however, she managed to say shyly, "I am afraid it is I who have been rude staring at you so; but I did not mean any harm, only you are so different from the other girls."

Winnie gave her an admonishing touch.

"Hush!" she whispered, "the raven is watching us. I mean Miss Smith," as Nellie looked bewildered. "We call her that because she is everlastingly croaking;" and here Winnie, leaning back on her seat, assumed an expression of childlike innocence and solemnity, and appeared to be thoroughly interested in the teacher's explanations.

The lesson proceeded; slowly but surely the hands of the clock moved steadily forward, and at last pointed to the hour, on which Miss Smith, rising, closed her book and dismissed the class with evident feelings of relief.

"Ten minutes' respite, then heigh-ho for a long spell of grammar, etc.," cried Winnie, addressing Nellie as they passed into the hall. "You don't know your lessons to-day of course, and I am so well up in mine that I shall not be able to answer a single word; so come away with me to this quiet nook at the end of the passage and let us enjoy a cosy talk."

The "quiet nook" referred to was a recess at the hall window, partitioned off by a drapery of tapestried curtains. It was a favourite resort of Winnie's, and here the wonderful thoughts, the outbursts of passion, the mischievous plots and schemes, all found free course, and many a childish secret could those heavy folds of curtain have told had they been gifted with tongues wherewith to speak.

Dismissing the other school-fellows who were gathering round, and shooting a triumphant glance at Ada Irvine's haughty face, she half dragged her amused but by no means unwilling companion to the sacred spot; and when both were comfortably perched on the window niche, she began eagerly, "Won't you tell me your name and where you live? I am called Winnifred Mary Blake. I have three big brothers, and a little one; two sisters older than myself; a cross papa and proud step-mamma. We live about a mile from here--No. 3 Victoria Square--and I go home to dinner every day during recess." Having delivered this wonderful announcement in one breath, Winnie paused and waited for her companion to speak.

Nellie smiled as she replied,--

"My name is Helen Latimer, and my home is far away in a country village. I am staying, however, in town with my aunts at present, they live in a small cottage in Broomhill Road."

"Broomhill Road!" echoed Winnie doubtfully; "that is not west, I fancy."

"Oh no, east; I have to take the 'bus, as it is too great a distance to walk daily."

"Not an aristocratic locality," Winnie decided mentally, "and Ada Irvine getting hold of that little fact would use it as a means of exquisite torture to this new girl's sensitive heart. Poor thing! she looks so happy and blithe too." Thinking such thoughts, the mischievous child turned to her companion with a soft, pitying light in her eyes, and holding out a small flake of a hand, said gently,--

"We have not much time at our disposal just now, and I cannot say all I would wish; but you won't find it all plain sailing at school, Nellie, and you will be none the worse of having some one to stand by you, so will you have me for a friend?"

The quaint gipsy face with its framework of wavy hair; the bright, sunny countenance and laughing lips; above all, the soft, childish voice, charmed simple-hearted Nellie, who willingly grasped the hand extended, with these words, "I shall be only too pleased indeed." So the compact was sealed--a compact which remained unbroken through the long months and years that followed. Time and adversity only served to strengthen the bond, and the gray twilight of life found the friends of childhood's days friends still.

"Hark to the bell! are you ready?" asked Winnie, stretching her lazy little form and rising reluctantly from the cosy corner; "now for a long, long lecture on subject and predicate, ugh! How I do hate lessons, to be sure;" and Miss Blake, parting the tapestried curtains, stepped along the hall with a very mutinous face.

Nellie having come to school with the fixed determination to make the most of her time, prepared to listen to the master's instructions with all due attention; but Winnie's incessant fidgeting and yawning baffled every attempt, and the ludicrous answers, given with tantalizing readiness, almost upset her gravity, despite Mr. King's unconcealed vexation.

"This is one of her provoking days," whispered a girl, noting Nellie's puzzled face; "she will tease and annoy each teacher as much as possible all this afternoon---she always does so when in these moods. Do not think her stupid, Miss Latimer; as the French master often says, 'It is not lack of ability, but lack of application.' She won't learn," and Agnes Drummond, one of Winnie's stanchest allies, shook her head admonishingly at the little dunce as she spoke; but a defiant pout of the rosy lips was the only answer vouchsafed to the friendly warning, and the next moment an absurdly glaring error brought down on Winnie the righteous indignation of her irritated teacher, and resulted in solitary confinement during recess.

Sitting alone in the large empty class-room, the poor child burst into a flood of passionate tears. "It's too bad," she cried rebelliously, wiping her wet eyes and flinging her book aside with contemptuous touch. "There, I can't go home now, and we are to have jam pudding to dinner. Dick will chuckle--horrid boy! and eat my share as well as his own. I know he will, and I do so love those kind of puddings, especially when they are made with strawberry jam. Oh dear, how I envy Alexander Selkirk on his desert island! I am sure he never had any nasty old lessons to learn, and I think he was very stupid to grumble over his solitude when he could do every day simply what he pleased. Well, if I must study, I must; so, here goes," and, drawing the despised grammar towards her once more, Winnie set herself steadily to master part of the contents.

Meanwhile, Nellie, deprived of the companionship of her new friend, was being sharply catechised by Ada Irvine as to her antecedents and general history. The girl at first innocently replied to each question; but after a time she resented the queries, and thereby incurred that young lady's haughty displeasure, and brought down on herself the sharp edge of Ada's sarcastic tongue.

"Not much of a pedigree to boast about, girls," was the final verdict, given with a slight curl of the lip, signifying unbounded contempt,--"the grandfather on the one side a farmer, on the other a draper; the father a poor country doctor; three old maiden aunts living in one of our commonest localities, keeping no servant, doing their own work, and dressing like Quakers. It's a wonder to hear Miss Latimer speak without dropping her h's, or otherwise murdering the Queen's English, ha, ha!" and Miss Irvine shrugged her elegant shoulders scornfully.

"Oh, come, Ada, that is going too far," protested some of the girls, shocked at the rude words and the cool deliberate manner in which they were said; but their insolent school-fellow silenced them with an impatient gesture, as she surveyed the flushed face of her victim and awaited a reply.

Nellie felt both hurt and indignant. She had grown up in her quiet, country home, totally ignorant of the arrogancy and pride so much abroad in the busy world; and coming to school with the expectancy of finding pleasant companions and friends, the words struck home to her heart with a chill.

"How unkind you are!" she murmured, struggling to suppress the angry tears; "you have no right to speak so to me. My aunts are not rich, it is true, and cannot afford to dress so extravagantly as many; but that does not prevent them from being perfect gentlewomen, does it? Your own mother cannot be a more thorough lady than my Aunt Judith, I am sure."

"Is that so?" said Ada with mocking sarcasm, and the contempt in her voice was indescribable. "What presumption! the lower classes are beginning to look up, sure enough."

"Shame!" cried some of the girls standing near; "you are cruel, Ada." But at that moment a slim hand touched Nellie's arm, and a merry voice said soothingly, "Never mind her, Nellie; we all know she is not responsible for her statements at times. Her brain is a little defective on one point," and Winnie's great eyes shot a mischievous glance at Miss Irvine's haughty face.

"May I ask the reason of your special interference just now?" inquired Ada, an angry flush deepening the rose-tint on her cheek; "possibly you wish yesterday's scene to be repeated over again."

"Oh dear, no," answered Winnie brightly, "home-truths seldom need repetition; they are not so easily forgotten. But Nellie is my friend, and I intend to fight her battles as well as my own. Please understand that once for all, and remember at the same time with what metal you have to deal.--Come, Nellie, I am free at last," and the spirited little creature led her weeping school-mate from the room.

"Didn't I warn you not to expect plain sailing?" she continued with a knowing look; "and Ada Irvine is a perfect hurricane. She will swoop down on you at every opportunity, and bluster and blow; but let her alone and never mind."

"I wish I had never left home," replied Nellie, dashing her hand across her eyes and winking away the tear-drops vigorously. "How can girls say such dreadful things? I can't bear them;" and a fresh burst of grief followed.

"Phew!" cried Winnie, giving her an energetic shake, and knitting her brow in a childish frown, "that's babyish. You'll strike on every rock and bend before each gale if you talk in such a fashion. Don't be a fool, Nellie; pluck up some spirit, and show Ada Irvine you're above her contempt." Winnie spoke as if possessed with all the wisdom of the ancients, and gave due emphasis to every word. "She and I are always at what Dick calls 'loggerheads,' and I enjoy an occasional passage of arms amazingly; only, sometimes I come off second on the field, and that is not so pleasant. Now," with a pretty coaxing air, "dry your tears; the hour is almost up, and the bell will be ringing shortly. I hate to see people crying, I do indeed, so please stop;" and Winnie eyed the tear-stained countenance of her friend with mingled sympathy and impatience.

"I daresay I am very silly," replied Nellie, wiping her eyes and scrubbing her wet cheeks with startling vehemence; "anyhow I'll stop now. And thank you for taking my part, Winnie; you'll be a friend worth having, I am sure of that."

"Yes," answered the young girl, a strange dreamy smile playing on her lips, and a soft look gleaming in the mischievous eyes, "I shall be true as steel;" and Nellie never forgot the earnest light on the childish face as Winnie made her simple vow.