The Rainbow

"Oh, it doesn't matter," said Ursula.

"Oh, yes--I can send easily," cried Miss Harby.

Ursula's heart sank. Everybody seemed so cocksure and so

bossy. How was she going to get on with such jolty, jerky, bossy

people? And Miss Harby had not spoken a word to the man at the

table. She simply ignored him. Ursula felt the callous crude

rudeness between the two teachers.

The two girls went out into the passage. A few children were

already clattering in the porch.

"Jim Richards," called Miss Harby, hard and authoritative. A

boy came sheepishly forward.

"Shall you go down to our house for me, eh?" said Miss Harby,

in a commanding, condescending, coaxing voice. She did not wait

for an answer. "Go down and ask mamma to send me one of my

school pinas, for Miss Brangwen--shall you?"

The boy muttered a sheepish "Yes, miss," and was moving

away.

"Hey," called Miss Harby. "Come here--now what are you

going for? What shall you say to mamma?"

"A school pina----" muttered the boy.

"'Please, Mrs. Harby, Miss Harby says will you send her

another school pinafore for Miss Brangwen, because she's come

without one.'"

"Yes, miss," muttered the boy, head ducked, and was moving

off. Miss Harby caught him back, holding him by the

shoulder.

"What are you going to say?"

"Please, Mrs. Harby, Miss Harby wants a pinny for Miss

Brangwin," muttered the boy very sheepishly.

"Miss Brangwen!" laughed Miss Harby, pushing him away. "Here,

you'd better have my umbrella--wait a minute."

The unwilling boy was rigged up with Miss Harby's umbrella,

and set off.

"Don't take long over it," called Miss Harby, after him. Then

she turned to Ursula, and said brightly: "Oh, he's a caution, that lad--but not bad, you

know."

"No," Ursula agreed, weakly.

The latch of the door clicked, and they entered the big room.

Ursula glanced down the place. Its rigid, long silence was

official and chilling. Half-way down was a glass partition, the

doors of which were open. A clock ticked re-echoing, and Miss

Harby's voice sounded double as she said: "This is the big room--Standard

Five-Six-and-Seven.--Here's your

place--Five----"

She stood in the near end of the great room. There was a

small high teacher's desk facing a squadron of long benches, two

high windows in the wall opposite.

It was fascinating and horrible to Ursula. The curious,

unliving light in the room changed her character. She thought it

was the rainy morning. Then she looked up again, because of the

horrid feeling of being shut in a rigid, inflexible air, away

from all feeling of the ordinary day; and she noticed that the

windows were of ribbed, suffused glass.

The prison was round her now! She looked at the walls, colour

washed, pale green and chocolate, at the large windows with

frowsy geraniums against the pale glass, at the long rows of

desks, arranged in a squadron, and dread filled her. This was a

new world, a new life, with which she was threatened. But still

excited, she climbed into her chair at her teacher's desk. It

was high, and her feet could not reach the ground, but must rest

on the step. Lifted up there, off the ground, she was in office.

How queer, how queer it all was! How different it was from the

mist of rain blowing over Cossethay. As she thought of her own

village, a spasm of yearning crossed her, it seemed so far off,

so lost to her.