All the way back from the school she was eagerly telling Agnes exactly
the point where she left each child in her class, and begging her to
say the kind things which she meant to have said to Grace Knight, the
mistress.

Agnes laughed and said, "I hope she will take my word for it all. Why
could you not speak to her? At least I thought you were not afraid of
her."

"I don't know," said Marian. "I thought I could, but it is very odd. You
see, Agnes, how it is; the more I care, the more I can't speak, and I
can't help it."

"Well, don't be unhappy about it," said Agnes. "I know what you mean,
and am ready to take you as you are, and if other people don't, it is
their own fault."

Agnes was rather too fond of Marian to be exactly right here, for it was
not at all a good thing that she should be encouraged in a reserve which
led her not always to do as she would be done by.

The two girls came in, lingered in each other's rooms while they
dressed, and at last were called down stairs by Mrs. Wortley, who was
ready to finish with them the last chapter of the book they had been
reading aloud together. Gerald sat in the window, his friend Jemmy
hanging over him, and the two together composing a marvellous
battlepiece, in which Gerald drew horses, men, cannon, and arrows, and
Jemmy, like a small Homer, suggested the various frightful wounds they
should be receiving, and the attitudes in which they should fall. The
general, with a tremendous Turkish sabre, an immense cocked hat, and