Directly after this Miss Stiefbach entered, and all were quiet as she read the morning prayers, and they joined in the responses.
By ten o'clock the girls, with the exception of Julia Thayer, whose throat was still troubling her, and Grace Minton, who was suffering from a sick headache, were on their way to church. They did not walk in a regular procession like so many convicts on their way to prison, but each chose her own companion, and the walk was enlivened with pleasant conversation. It so chanced that Marion and Georgie Graham were together, not by choice of either party, but because they both happened to come downstairs a little late, and the others had already got into the street as they came out the front door. Florence Stevenson, Miss Christine, and Rachel Drayton were all walking together, and Georgie, observing this, thought it would be an excellent opportunity for making Marion thoroughly uncomfortable.
"It seems to me," she began, "you and Florence are not quite so fond of each other as you used to be; or is it that she is not so fond of you?"
"I don't think there is any difference on either side," quietly replied Marion, determined not to lose her temper, or be led into saying cutting things of which she would have to repent.
"Oh, if you think so, I suppose it is all right; but I don't believe there's a girl in the school who hasn't noticed how Florence has left you to run after Rachel Drayton."
Marion resolutely kept silence, and Georgie, thinking that her shots had not taken effect, continued: "I don't see what there is about that girl, I'm sure, to make Flo fancy her so much; she certainly isn't pretty, and she's awfully lackadaisical."
"I think she is very pretty," replied Marion; "and the reason she seems lackadaisical is because she is not strong."
"I thought you did not like her," said Georgie, "you certainly have not troubled yourself much to entertain her."
"I do not see as that is any reason why I should not think her pretty, or why I should not see that she is quiet, because she is not only weak, but very homesick and sad."
"Why, really, Marion, I had not any idea you had taken enough notice of her to see all that. What a farce you must have been acting all this time, to seem so indifferent when you were _really_ so deeply interested!"