A girl, whose bed was at the inner end of the room, sighed under
the heavy heat of the night--and said, in peremptory tones, "Is
that Cecilia?"

"Yes."

"What do you want?"

"I'm getting hungry, Emily. Is the new girl asleep?"

The new girl answered promptly and spitefully, "No, she isn't."

Having a private object of their own in view, the five wise
virgins of Miss Ladd's first class had waited an hour, in wakeful
anticipation of the falling asleep of the stranger--and it had
ended in this way! A ripple of laughter ran round the room. The
new girl, mortified and offended, entered her protest in plain
words.

"You are treating me shamefully! You all distrust me, because I
am a stranger."

"Say we don't understand you," Emily answered, speaking for her
schoolfellows; "and you will be nearer the truth."

"Who expected you to understand me, when I only came here to-day?
I have told you already my name is Francine de Sor. If want to
know more, I'm nineteen years old, and I come from the West
Indies."