Mademoiselle departed, and came back to give the required signal, when the girls filed slowly across the hall, casting curious glances at Lottie as she came downstairs. She was wrapped up in a long white cloak, and had a fleecy shawl thrown over her head, almost covering her face from view. She looked very dainty, and when the door opened and they beheld her step into the cab, they felt a rising of envy which could not be entirely removed, even by the sight of the luxurious tea spread out on the dining-room table. "Lottie is a lucky creature!" sighed Clara discontentedly. "She is always going out. I wish my people lived near, instead of at the other end of England. I am glad I am North Country, though; I don't like Southerners! I agree with Tennyson-- "`True, and firm, and tender is the North; False, and fair, and smiling is the South.'" "It isn't false; it's sweet!" "It _is_ false, I tell you! False, and fair, and--" "Sweet, and fair, and--" "Ask Miss Phipps, then, if you won't believe me. Oh, I say, look at the icing on the cake! We didn't have icing last time. Doesn't the table look nice? I do think it is sweet of Miss Phipps to take so much trouble. Sit by me, and we will get hold of Pixie, and make her tell us stories. It makes me laugh just to hear that child talk. Her brogue doesn't get a bit better." "I hope it never may. Pixie, here! Sit by us. We've kept a place!" But Pixie shook her head, for she had been engaged to Flora ever since breakfast, and was already seating herself at the other end of the table. She did not speak much, however, during the meal, for experience had taught what it had been difficult to express in words--that it was not respectful to her teachers to chatter in their presence, as she would do with her companions. She applied herself instead to the good things that had been provided, and ate away steadily until she had sampled the contents of every plate upon the table, and could superintend the choice of her companions with the wisdom of experience.