"Rather a large order, if they do it literally!" laughed Aunt Barbara. "Metaphorically, of course. But really, Auntie, you've no idea how nasty they are. Hope has taken the tone that she's much above everyone else--I don't mean because she's Warden, but socially. You see, while her father has been Mayor they've entertained numbers of distinguished people, and Hope's never tired of talking about them. Then she comes to school wearing heaps of bangles and rings and things, and she makes one feel she doesn't consider one's clothes anything to hers. She saw my blue skirt had been lengthened, for she nudged Irene and laughed, and said very pointedly that braid had gone out of fashion. Then she asked me where I bought my boots. I wasn't going to tell her, so I didn't answer; but Blanche Hall piped out: 'The Market Stores', and they both screamed with laughter, and Hope said she always bought hers at Forster's." "I should simply take no notice, if I were you." "I try not to, but all the same it's annoying. Yesterday we had a squabble about giving out the French books, and I said I should ask Miss Pitman; then Hope said Miss Pitman would be sure to take her part, because she often dines at their house. And the worst of it is, it's true. Miss Pitman isn't quite fair. Hope and Blanche and Irene make the most tremendous fuss of her, and she always favours them--she does really. She gives them better marks for their exercises, and easier questions in class, and waits much longer for their answers than for anybody else's. She doesn't like me." "Dorothy!" "She doesn't--honestly, Auntie. Even Alison notices how down she is on me. If I do the least little thing I'm snapped up in a second." "Then the obvious moral is, don't do the least little thing." Dorothy pulled a long face. "Auntie! You were brought up by a private governess, and you don't know what it is to go to a huge school. One can't always be absolutely immaculate; if one could, one would be a saint, not an ordinary girl. I can't resist talking sometimes, or shuffling my feet, or fidgeting with my pencil, or--no, no; if you're going to lecture, I shall fly! It's ten past eight, and it's too wet to take the short cut across the field." Dorothy certainly considered she had a grievance at present. She had unfortunately not made a very good impression upon her new teacher. She could not bear to curry favour, and, seeing that Hope and some of the others were trying by every means in their power to pay special court to Miss Pitman, she went to the opposite extreme, and became so abrupt as to be almost uncivil in her manners. "I'm not going to bring her flowers every morning, and offer her walnut creams in the interval," she thought. "It seems like bribery, and I should think much better of her if she wouldn't accept them. Miss Hardy never did."