“That’s a pretty name too,” said Camilla, smiling.  She spoke less timidly now, but her fawn-like eyes still kept their curious expression, half apprehension, half hope.

“How old are you?” asked Sylvia.

“Eleven, last November.”

“Why, my birthday is in November, and I was eleven too!” cried Sylvia.  “I thought you must be older—­you’re so tall.”

Camilla looked down and said nothing.

Sylvia went on:  “I’m crazy about the way you do your hair, in those twists over your ears.  When I was studying my spelling lesson, I was trying to figure out how you do it.”

“Oh, I don’t do it.  Mattice does it for us—­for Cecile and me—­Cecile’s my sister.  She’s in the third grade.”

“Why, I have a sister in the third grade too!” exclaimed Sylvia, much struck by this second propitious coincidence.  “Her name is Judith and she’s a darling.  Wouldn’t it be nice if she and Cecile should be good friends too!” She put her arm about her new comrade’s waist, convinced that they were now intimates of long standing.  They ran together to take their places at the sound of the bell; all during the rest of the morning session she smiled radiantly at the new-comer whenever their eyes met.

She planned to walk part way home with her at noon, but she was detained for a moment by the teacher, and when she reached the front gate, where Judith was waiting for her, Camilla was nowhere in sight.  Judith explained with some disfavor that a surrey had been waiting for the Fingal girls and they had been driven away.

Sylvia fell into a rhapsody over her new acquaintance and found to her surprise (it was always a surprise to Sylvia that Judith’s tastes and judgments so frequently differed from hers) that Judith by no means shared her enthusiasm.  She admitted, but as if it were a matter of no importance, that both Camilla and Cecile were pretty enough, but she declared roundly that Cecile was a little sneak who had set out from the first to be “Teacher’s pet.”  This title, in the sturdy democracy of the public schools, means about what “sycophantic lickspittle” means in the vocabulary of adults, and carries with it a crushing weight of odium which can hardly ever be lived down.

“Judith, what makes you think so?” cried Sylvia, horrified at the epithet.

“The way she looks at Teacher—­she never takes her eyes off her, and just jumps to do whatever Teacher says.  And then she looks at everybody so kind o’ scared—­’s’if she thought she was goin’ to be hit over the head every minute and was so thankful to everybody for not doing it.  Makes me feel just like doin’ it!” declared Judith, the Anglo-Saxon.

Sylvia recognized a scornful version of the appealing expression which she had found so touching in Camilla.

“Why, I think it’s sweet of them to look so!  When they’re so awfully pretty, and have such good clothes—­and a carriage—­and everything!  They might be as stuck-up as anything!  I think it’s just nice for them to be so sweet!” persisted Sylvia.