or
conversation. Everybody seemed working as hard as possible. Some sat
with elbows on desks, and their fingers in their ears, evidently
committing rules to memory; some were biting their pens in the agonies
of composition, and others counting on their fingers as they added up
sums. I think Patty will not be blamed very much if she did not pay
great attention to the passage which Miss Graveson told her to analyse
and parse. She was growing so terribly homesick and dispirited, that she
longed to put her head down on the desk and indulge in a good fit of
crying, and only her habit of self-control saved her from showing her
feelings before her companions. After supper all the members of the
lower school were expected to bring their work-bags to the recreation
room, and to sit sewing while one of the mistresses read aloud. Patty
retired quietly to the sofa, and opening the piece of linen embroidery
which she had brought with her, began to stitch in a rather
unenthusiastic manner. She felt too shy and dejected to offer any
advances to the other girls, and nobody came and sat by her, or made any
attempt at friendship. She noticed Muriel enter, and for one second
their eyes met, but Muriel deliberately looked the other way, and with
heightened colour crossed to the opposite side of the room, cutting her
so coolly and decidedly that Patty could not possibly mistake her
intention. Jean Bannerman was seated not very far off, talking to Avis,
but as their backs were turned to Patty they did not see her, though
Jean looked round the room once or twice as if in quest of somebody. I
think Patty might perhaps have summoned up sufficient courage to go and
speak to them had not Miss Rowe entered, and after an enquiry as to
whether all the girls were provided with work, took the armchair which
had been reserved for her, and commenced to read aloud. The book was
Dickens's _Great Expectations_, and ever afterwards Patty associated the
first chapters with an indescribable feeling of misery and wretchedness.
Pip's distresses seemed quite in harmony with her state of mind, and she
thought she would almost have preferred his adventure with the escaped
convict to her own present unhappiness. Troubles always seem at their
worst at bedtime, and the memory of home rose up so strongly, that she
began to come to the conclusion it would be an absolute impossibility
ever to like The Priory in the least. A new difficulty which Patty
mastered that evenin