"She believes in me, she believes in me," and the girl poured the fragrant balm on her wounded heart. But there seemed an awful undefined fear. CHAPTER VII A SUPREME MOMENT The girls in the study were looking furtively at one another. Was this a sort of surprise to be sprung upon them? "Oh, Miss Marsh, do you know what this means? I can't make beginning or middle out of it. Why doesn't Miss Boyd come?" "Yes, where is airy fairy Lilian? I think some other life she must have been a soundless ghost. You look up and she is there. Then she disappears." "I'm glad some of the girls will have to stay through vacation," said Alice Nevins. "It will be awful poky, I wish I could go to New York and the theatre every night." "Every other night would do for me," said Phillipa, "and here I've two French exercises to go over. One has five errors--blunders, and the other three. Madame Eustice wants to go at twelve tomorrow. Miss Vincent do take pity on me when you go to Paris. I've heard it said you can't talk it until you've studied it all over again. Oh, what's the use of so much weariness of heart and brain!" No one came. Then in girl fashion they stirred up a sort of gale, saying funny things and making droll misquotations, or putting the wrong name to others and wondering what would be in the Christmas stockings. "I must leave a pack behind to be darned up. I hope I'll get two boxes of new ones. Girls, you wouldn't dare offer your old ones to Miss Boyd, would you? I have some pretty ones and those plaited silk. They wear better than real silk. Mother thinks they're good enough for school." "I don't suppose Miss Boyd has any relatives. It would be rather tough not to have _any_ gifts. Girls, oughtn't we chip in--" "No, we ought not," replied Phil, decisively. "The maid and the laundress are the only ones I remember at Christmas. Mrs. Barrington has sensibly forbidden the giving of tips, and since we don't pretend to be friends it would be a bad precedent." "Miss Boyd is an excellent scholar," said Miss Vincent. "If she couldn't learn something higher she might as well stay on the lower rounds," sneered some one. "They relegate these things better in England. A housemaid's daughter is generally a housemaid." "I think I have heard of people coming up from the ranks in favored England," was the dry rejoinder. "Oh, let's let her alone. She'll make her way with that high head of hers. Perhaps she will be President of some college yet." Then they went back to fun. At nine Miss Arran came in and dismissed them.