Aunt Judith | Page 8

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?"
[Illustration: "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