to
enlighten her. Happily, before the revelation was made she was beyond
further chicanery.

CHAPTER III

"A FEELING OF SADNESS AND LONGING"

The half year was nearly ended, and most of the girls were looking eagerly
forward to the Christmas vacation, which would release them from a
cordially detested surveillance. But Toinette had no release to look
forward to; vacation or term time were much the same to her. She had spent
some of her holidays with her schoolmates, but the greater part of them
had been passed in the school, and dull enough they were, too.

The past week had been a particularly stormy one, and the outcome had
reflected anything but credit upon the school. Consequently, the girls
were out of sorts and miserable, and the world looked decidedly blue, with
only a faint rosy tint far down in the horizon, where vacation peeped.

As in most schools, Saturday was a holiday. The day was wonderfully soft
and mild for December, and shortly after breakfast Toinette threw her
golf-cape about her shoulders and stepped out upon the piazza to see if
the fresh air would blow away the mental vapors hovering about her, for
she felt not unlike a ship at sea without a compass. Poor little lassie,
although what might be called a rich girl, in one respect she was a very
poor one indeed, for she had scarcely known the influence of a happy home,
or the tender mother love which we all need, whether we be big daughters
or little ones. True, she had never known what it meant to want those
things which girls often wish to have, but which limited means place
beyond their reach. But often amidst the luxuries of her surroundings, for
her father provided most liberally for her, she would be seized with a
restless longing for something, she hardly knew what, which made her feel
out of sorts with herself and everybody else.

"What ails you, this morning?" asked her chum, Cicely Powell, joining her
upon the piazza. "You look as solemn as an oyster, and I should think
you'd feel jolly because it's Saturday, and that horrid Grace Thatcher
won't be here to poke her inquisitive nose into all our plans," referring
to the prime mischief-maker of the school, already departed for her
vacation, with the admonition to think twice before returning.

"I don't know _what's_ the matter with me: I wish I did. Somehow, I don't
feel satisfied with myself or anyone else, and I half believe I _hate_
everybody," was Toinette's petulant reply.