Cecily — Isabelle Holland

Little Girl Lost

Elizabeth was a good teacher and she knew it. The little girls knew it too. They liked her with the instinctive liking of the young for someone they can't bully. She was a good disciplinarian and they learned from her. All except Cecily. She sat like an island that would not be absorbed, giving out gusts of emotion-injury, outrage, wild giggles, spasms of embarrassing, uncontrolled affection. Secretly, unwillingly, Elizabeth thought her hopeless. Only one person truly believed in Cecily and that was the young American Elizabeth so desperately loved.