Bashful Fifteen by L.T. Meade — Read

The girls of the lower school were all busy with their preparation. Violet and Rose sat side by side. They had been chums for nearly a year now, and the fact was so fully recognized in the school that even their desks were placed close together. Violet was puzzling her little brains over a very difficult piece of French translation, Rose endeavoring to learn four or five long stanzas from Scott's "Lady of the Lake. " They were both clever little girls, and, as a rule, their preparation was quickly over, and their tasks speedily conquered; but to-night there was a holiday feeling in the air; a sense of idleness pervaded everyone. Lessons seemed cruel, and the children rebelled against their tasks. They looked at one another, laughed, yawned, struggled with the listlessness which seized them, shot envious glances at their more studious companions, and absolutely refused to overcome the difficulties of the French translation and the English poetry.

The door between the lower schoolroom and the room occupied by the girls of the middle school had been thrown open, and from where the children sat they could see the pretty flounce of a pale blue muslin dress, and the provoking and exasperating peep of a little, pointed, blue Morocco shoe. The shoe evidently belonged to a restless foot, for it often appeared beneath the flounce, to vanish as quickly, and then to poke itself into notice again.