Then she burst out, her face fairly purple: "Oh, I _wish_ you could change places with me for just five minutes! Then you'd know how it feels to always put your worst foot first and make a mess of everything!" Madam Chartley had welcomed many types of girls to her school and was familiar with every shade of embarrassment, but she had never been greeted with quite such an outburst as this.

Desperate to make herself understood, Mary began in the middle of her carefully planned speech and breathlessly explained backward, as to why she had arrived at this inopportune time.

The explanation was so characteristic of her, so heart-felt and utterly honest, that it revealed far more than she intended and opened a wide door into Madam's sympathies.

As she stood looking down at the girl with grave kind eyes, Mary suddenly became aware of a strangely comforting thing.

This was not an awesome personage, but a dear adorable being who could _understand_.