She was more than usually nervous and fidgety in her manner, but she said nothing; and whether she greatly dreaded the ordeal, or was quite calmly indifferent about it, no one could tell.
But the feelings of the three as they walked to the school that first morning were curiously alike, yet unlike.

All three were very nervous.
Kitty felt a longing, such as she could hardly resist, to rush away to Wenmere Woods and never be heard of again.

Betty was so determined that no one should guess the state of tremor she was in, lest they should take advantage of it and tease her, that she quite overdid her air of calm indifference, and appeared almost rudely contemptuous.

Anna, though outwardly by far the most nervous of the three, had her plans ready and her mind made up.

She was not going to be put upon, and she was not going to let any one get the better of her; at the same time she was going to be popular; though how she was going to manage it all she could not decide until she saw her fellow-pupils and had gathered something of what they were like.