Let us turn from this hateful creature (I can't help hating her, Nelly) to some more agreeable subject. I will not tire you with descriptions of Miss Smiffel, the butcher's daughter, or Miss Embden, the baker's daughter, except to tell you that they have a sad time of it, and are called rare ugly names, because their papas happen to be butchers and bakers, just as if they could help it. I need not tell you, either, about Lizzy Spree, a little, merry, fidgety, laughing thing, with black eyes, who is the romp--the "bad girl" of the school. She is always playing tricks, making apple-pie beds, or sewing up the tops of our stockings, or hiding the dancing-master's shoes, or tying the cat's tail to the parrot's leg, or filling Miss Blight's bed with bread-crumbs and cockchafers, or breaking a window, or tearing her dress every day. The consequence is, she is always in punishment; but she cares no more for it than a duck cares for an umbrella. She spends all her pocket-money on crackers and detonating balls and valentines, and is always going to be expelled; only Mrs. Rodwell relents, and gives her "one chance more." The maid fell down stairs with the soup-tureen yesterday, from the fact of her strewing the kitchen-steps with marbles and orange-peel. It was too bad. We had to go without soup in consequence.
But, Nelly, you would quite love little Jessie Joy; she is the wee'st little thing you ever saw. You might hang her to your _châtelaine_. You would declare that she was not more than ten, and yet she was sixteen last birthday. She has a rosy round face, and little flaxen curls, exactly like a pretty doll, if you could only keep her still for a moment to look at her. She plays about the room like the sun on a looking-glass, and her whole body seems to quiver with light. I defy you to catch her, unless, perhaps, it was in the dark. We call her "pet" and "tiny."
I don't know how it is Jessie cannot be taught; and yet she is far from being an idiot, for the little thing understands; nor is she stupid, for she is quick enough to outwit us all. Still, they have never been able to teach her anything. Her eyes (I don't know what color they are) fly away like butterflies directly you attempt to catch them, and settle on all places but on her book. We think she can read, but no one is sure of it. If told to learn, she pouts her lips like cherries, until you feel inclined to bite them; and her little head swings to and fro, Nelly, like the bells on a fuchsia when set a dancing by the wind. The lady principal cannot scold her. The utmost she can do is to call her to her in an angry tone, when she takes up her little head in her two hands as if it were a bowl of milk, and kisses her gently on the forehead. This is all her punishment; and the little culprit runs back into her place as quick as a rabbit.