Cecilia's School, a select institution where
American girls continued their studies in English and had lessons in
French and music. Mrs. Patterson herself went to enter Anne as a pupil.
St. Cecilia's School faced a little park on a quiet street. It was a
red-brick building, with balconies set in recesses between white
stuccoed pillars. Everything about the place was formal and dignified.
The lower floor was occupied by parlors, offices, class-rooms, and
dining-rooms. Through wide-open doors at the end of the hall, Mrs.
Patterson and Anne had a pleasant view of the long piazza at the back of
the house. It opened on a grass-plot edged with flowerbeds. The neat
gravel paths ended in short flights of steps, under rose-covered
archways, that led down a terrace to the playground.
While they waited in a handsome, formal parlor for Mademoiselle Duroc,
Mrs. Patterson chatted pleasantly to Anne about the swings and arbors
and pear-trees on the playground. But Anne sat silent, with a lump in
her throat, and clutched her friend's hand tighter and tighter, while
she watched for the principal's entrance as she would have watched for
an ogre in whose den she had been trapped.
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