"I have been horrid to you," she repeated. "I wish I had never been born."
The school-mistress said nothing at all, but kept stroking the girl's beautiful head. Surreptitiously Miss Marlett wiped away a frosty tear.
"Don't mind me," at last Miss Marlett said. "I never thought hardly of you; I understood. Now you must go and get ready for your journey; you can have any of the girls you like to help you to pack."
Miss Marlett carried generosity so far that she did not even ask which of the girls was to be chosen for this service. Perhaps she guessed that it was the other culprit.
Then Margaret rose and dried her eyes, and Miss Marlett took her in her arms and kissed her and went off to order a travelling luncheon and to select the warmest railway rug she could find; for the teacher, though she was not a very learned nor judicious school-mistress, had a heart and affections of her own. She had once, it is true, taken the word _legibus_ (dative plural of lex, a law) for an adjective of the third declension, legibus, legiba, legibum; and Margaret had criticised this grammatical subtlety with an unsparing philological acumen, as if she had been Professor Moritz Haupt and Miss Marlett, Orelli. And this had led to the end of Latin lessons at the Dovecot, wherefore Margaret was honored as a goddess by girls averse to studying the classic languages. But now Miss Marlett forgot these things, and all the other skirmishes of the past.
Margaret went wearily to her room, where she bathed her face with cold water; it could not be too cold for her, A certain numb forgetfulness seemed to steep her mind while she was thus deadening her eyes again and again. She felt as if she never wished to raise her eyes from this chilling consolation. Then, when she thought she had got lid of all the traces of her trouble, she went cautiously to the back music-room. Janey was there, moping alone, drumming on the window-pane with her fingers.
"Come to my room, Janey," she said, beckoning.
Now, to consort together in their bedrooms during school-hours was forbidden to the girls.
"Why, well only get into another scrape," said Janey, ruefully.
"No, come away; I've got leave for you. You're to help me to pack"