The Manor School by L.T. Meade

Susan Marsh was thoroughly upset. She was not repentant. It is not the nature of a girl like Susan easily to repent. She was not at all sorry for what she had done, but she was terribly afraid of the consequences. She also feared that she had gone too far. At the school at Margate she had lived through an ugly time. There had been a theft, and she had been concerned in it. She had, in fact, been expelled from the school. Her wrong-doing at the time had by no means terrified her, but she disliked the ceremony which had meant her expulsion from Mrs. Anderson's school. She had to pass through a group of her schoolfellows, and the eyes of the girls seemed to burn her. They were by no means extraordinary girls in any sense of the word; they were girls quite moderately good, and with heaps of faults, but they all gazed with the utmost contempt at Susan as she shuffled down the long line which they formed, and so got out of the school.

Now, Miss Peacock would certainly not expel any girl, however wicked, in so cruel a manner; but Susan did not know that. She was certain that if Miss Peacock sent her back to her father at Easter with such a report as she threatened to give, and with announcement that she would not be received in the school again, something fearful would happen. Mr. Marsh was a merchant, a very rich man, and Susan was his only child. He was a big, red-headed, stout man, with a harsh voice and a harsh laugh; but he was quite upright. He had strong ideas with regard to honor and rectitude; and if Susan came back to him so disgraced, she did not know all he would do. He would send her away; he would banish her from all other girls. He would put her under the care of the very strictest disciplinarian he could possibly find. She must not run such a risk. Beyond doubt she had got herself into a scrape. It was not only that silly affair with regard to Christian Mitford. Christian had been fairly useful to Susan as long as she could obtain her money and press her into her service, but she had no time to give a thought to her now. She had got all Christian's money; there was nothing of it left, and Susan made up her mind to leave her alone, to announce to her friends that she thought Christian Mitford a fairly good girl, and, in short, if she could manage it with a few clever words, to undo the mischief she had hitherto done. Christian would recover and take her place in the school; Star Lestrange would be her friend, and her brief time of friendship with Susan and her set would be forgotten.