The enormity of such a punishment did not for the moment impress Barbara much. What she did notice was that her passage of words with the head girl had broken the ice of her introduction to the junior playroom, especially with the aid of Angela's highly coloured account of it.
'You never saw such a thing!' she was exclaiming rapidly to the circle that formed round her. 'There was Margaret, looking like a dozen thunder-clouds rolled into one, and there was the new girl, grinning from ear to ear, not caring a bit what anybody thought of her and just standing up to the head girl as if she was in the First herself.'
The new girl barely recognised this description of herself; but as it made her an object of curiosity, if not of sympathy, in the junior playroom, she did not feel inclined to correct the picture that the red-haired, freckled little chatterbox was painting of her. Anything was better than being left out in the cold again. It struck her too that the girls in the junior room were far less inclined to laugh at her than the elder ones had seemed; and it raised her fallen spirits a little to find that the children who were now strolling up to her, with inquisitive glances at her hair, her clothes, and everything else about her, seemed disposed, in spite of their calm curiosity, to show her a kind of rough friendliness. They were more like boys, these smaller people in the junior playroom; and Barbara, though still failing to realise her child's ideal of girls, felt a faint kinship with their straightforward method of addressing her.
'No nickname?' they asked, when she had again admitted her name and her age.
'Oh, yes,' answered Barbara, unsuspiciously, 'the boys always call me the Babe, or----'
The peals of laughter that interrupted her puzzled her a good deal. It was very queer that, wherever she went, people always laughed at her. It was some moments before their glee over the nickname, that so exactly suited the childish impression she produced, began to subside.
'Have you got a nurse?' asked Angela, who had laughed louder than any one.
'No,' said Barbara, simply, not seeing that this too was meant to be a joke. 'She left, two years ago.'
'Well, you ought to have one,' retorted Jean, brusquely. 'She might teach you how to comb your hair.'