She is learning not to care. If those loathsome creatures choose to amuse themselves with snide remarks at her expense, what does it matter?In the letter that she’s writing to Mary, she tells her friend what’s just happened.She can’t write to Anne — it hurts too much to think of home and her sister and what they would be doing if she were there right now. And she doesn’t want Anne to worry about her. But Mary knows what it’s like here — she’s endured it herself — and it helps to share things with her, such as all the spiteful comments the other girls make about her, jeering at her clothes, her hair, her mannerisms, and in particular her silence, which seems to goad them more than anything.I keep hoping that if I don’t react they’ll eventually grow tired of the game. They haven’t yet. But I can bear it …She tells Mary about other tiresome things, sure that Mary would have found them tiresome too.Like the rules …You were right to warn me about them, but it’s no good.
