'We have come with a request,' said Lady Leucha.
'And what is that, my child?' asked Mrs Macintyre.
'Mrs Macintyre,' said Lady Leucha, 'you have in your school far more English than Scotch girls.'
'That is true, my dear--at least, it is true up to the present. But I have heard to-day from my dear friend Mrs Maclure that fifteen new Edinburgh lassies will arrive on Saturday. You'll welcome them; won't you, Leucha?'
'I like English girls best,' said Lady Leucha.
'That's natural enough, dear child. Well, you have a goodly number of friends and relatives at the school.'
'I have,' said Leucha; 'but I have come in the name of my cousins, Dorothy and Barbara Fraser, and my great friend Daisy Watson, to say that we do not approve of the manners of the new pupil.'
'What new pupil, Leucha? There are a good many in the school.'
'I know that. But I allude to that wild-looking child with black eyes and hair, who talks the absurdest nonsense. Would you believe it, dear Mrs Macintyre, she talks of coming here on moonlight nights and wiping the hair of a ghost? Could you imagine anything so silly?'
'It is a very foolish thing to say,' remarked Mrs Macintyre--'so silly and impossible that if I were you, Leucha, I would not give it a second thought. The child must have said it in pure fun. You are doubtless alluding to Hollyhock, a splendid little girl.'
'Well,' said Leucha, tossing her head, 'I don't care for girls who tell untruths; and it is not only for that reason that I dislike her, it is also because she has been so terribly rude to my cousins the Frasers, and to my dear friend Daisy Watson. I can see that she intends to rule the school, or at least to take a very leading position in it. Now this I, for one, do not wish, and I do not intend to put up with it. I think that I, as Earl Crossways' daughter, and the Frasers, who are daughters of the Marquis of Killin'----
'And therefore Scots of the Scots,' interrupted Mrs Macintyre.
'Well, at least their mother is English of the English, and they have been brought up in English ways. They are _my_ relatives, and I do not choose them to be treated rudely. There is also my very great friend Daisy Watson. We are most anxious, dear Mrs Macintyre, for you to allow us English girls, who at present are in a majority in the school, the entire use of the Summer Parlour, giving it out as your desire that no Scotch girl is to come into the parlour without our express permission.'