"It's Kate Underwood herself," was whispered from seat to seat. "There's no other girl in school that can read as well as she can."

The poem gave a brief description of the kitchen as it appeared on the stage, then a more lengthy one of the old woman, with the contents of the letter she was reading. It was from a niece at a boarding-school, who proposed, in a brief and direct way, to visit this aunt during her coming vacation. The tableau was acted so well, and with such piquancy, that claps and peals of laughter from the audience, and finally calls for "Kate Underwood," who demurely makes her appearance from behind the curtain, drops a stage courtesy, and disappears. The poem had been (this audience constituting the judges) excellent, the very best thing Kate ever wrote; and as for the tableaux, were there ever any before one-half so good?

Now, while to almost all in the hall there had been nothing said or done that could injure the feelings of any one, to Marion Parke it seemed an unkind take-off of her cousin during his recent visit to her.

Something in the tall, gaunt girl, in her rough, coarse dress, in the grotesque awkwardness of her movements, reminded Marion of Cousin Abijah; and while she had laughed with the others, and had refused to allow her feelings to be hurt, she left the hall uncomfortable and unhappy, wishing he had never come, or that all the school had shown the kind consideration of Miss Ashton; nor was she helped in the least when she heard Susan telling in great glee how the whole plan had come to them after the visit of that uncouth old cousin of Marion Parke.



CHAPTER XIII.

GLADYS LEAVES THE CLUB.

Dorothy was the first to see Marion at the door of their room after the tableaux. She hoped she had not heard what Sue had said, but that she had she could not doubt when she saw the pained expression on Marion's face. In the after discussion of the entertainment, Marion took no part, but went quietly to her bed, with only a brief "good-night."

"They have hurt her feelings, and they ought to have been ashamed of themselves," said kind Dorothy to the two members of the club sitting beside her. "Girls, if that is what you mean to do in your Demosthenic Club, I am most thankful I never joined it, and the sooner you both leave it the better."

"Grandmarm!" said Sue, her hot temper flashing into her face, "when we want your advice, we will ask it."

"What's up, Dody? Whose feelings are hurt, and who ought to be ashamed of themselves?" asked Gladys. "I don't know what you are talking about."

"About Marion and the Demosthenic Club!" answered Dorothy briefly.

"What for? What has Marion to do with the club?"

Dorothy looked straight into Gladys's face for a moment. Whatever other faults Gladys had, she had never, even in trifles, been otherwise than honest and straightforward. There was nothing in her face now but surprise; so Dorothy, much relieved that she was not a partaker in the unkindness, explained to her that, as Susan had just told them, the club had taken Marion's country cousin for a butt, and had made him, with the old aunt,—the knowledge of whom must have come to them from some one in their room,—the characters in the farce; and that Marion, coming into the room just as Susan was telling of it, had heard her; and it had hurt her feelings.

Now, strange as it may seem, it was nevertheless true that the club, knowing Gladys well, and how impossible it would be for her to do anything that might injure another, had carefully kept from her any direct participation in it. She knew in a general way what was to be done, but was ignorant of particulars.

No sooner had the whole been made known to her, than without a word, though it was after the time when the girls were allowed to leave their rooms, without the slightest effort to move softly, she passed the doors of several teachers, up into another corridor, not stopping until she tapped at Jenny Barton's room.

The tap was followed by the muffled sound of scurrying feet, of a table pulled hastily away, of whispers intended to be soft, but in the hurry having a strangely sibilant tone, that made them almost words spoken aloud, to the impatient Gladys.

She rapped a second time, a little louder than the first, and the door was opened by Jenny, in her nightdress. The gas in the room was out, and there was no one to be seen.

"Why, Gladys Philbrick!" she exclaimed crossly, pulling Gladys hastily in; "you frightened us almost out of our wits. Girls! it's only Gladys!"

Out from under the beds and from the closets in the two bedrooms crept one after another the girls of the club. All were there but Susan and Gladys; and they would have been invited, but it was well known that if Gladys broke a rule of the school, she never rested until she had made full confession to one of the teachers. She was not to be trusted in the least; and, of course, Susan could not be invited without her, so the knowledge of the spread which was to succeed the tableaux had been carefully kept from them. No wonder at Jenny's reception of her!

Somewhat staggered by this, and by the appearance of the hidden, laughing girls, Gladys stood for a moment staring blankly around her, then she asked, singling Kate Underwood out from among the others,—

"Kate! did you write that poem to make fun of Marion Parke's country cousin?"

"Why do you ask?" answered Kate, turning brusquely upon Gladys.

"Because, if you did, and if, as Sue says, you got up those tableaux to make fun of him, I think you are the meanest girl in the school; and as for the club—a club that would do such a thing, I wouldn't be a member of a moment longer, not if you would give me a million dollars!"

"Well, as we have no million to give you, and wouldn't part with even a copper to have you stay, you can have your name taken off the roll any time," said the president majestically.

"All right, it's done then; but my question is not answered. Kate Underwood, did, or did you not, intend to make fun of Marion Parke's cousin?"

"When I know by what right you ask me, I will answer you; until then, Gladys Philbrick, will you be kind enough to speak in a lower voice, unless you wish to bring some of the teachers down upon us, or perhaps you will report us to Miss Ashton; I think she has just come in the late train, I heard a carriage stop at the door."

"You want to know my right?" answered Gladys, without taking any notice of Kate's taunts. "It's the right of being ashamed to hold a girl up to ridicule for what she couldn't help, and a girl like Marion Parke. I hoped you could say you didn't mean to; but I see you can't." Then Gladys, without another word, left the room, leaving behind her a set of girls who, to say the least, were not in a mood to congratulate themselves on the events of the evening.

The spread was hastily put on the table again, but it was eaten by them with sober faces and troubled hearts.

"Well," said Sue, as Gladys came noisily into their room, "now I suppose you've made all the girls so mad they will never speak to me again."

"I have told them what I think of them," and Gladys looked at Sue askance over her shoulder as she spoke, "and I advise you to quit a club that can be as unkind as this has been to-night."

"When I want your advice I will ask it; I advise you to keep it until then. Whom did you see?"

"All of them, hiding under beds and in closets."

"That means a spread without leave, and we not invited. You're a tell-tale Gladys; they are afraid of you."

"Good!" said Gladys with a scornful laugh.

"Girls," said a gentle voice from the bedroom door, "don't mind; it's foolish in me I dare say, and—and the tableaux were real funny," and an odd attempt at a laugh ended in a burst of tears.

In a moment both of Gladys's arms were around Marion's neck.

"You dear, darling old Marion," she said, whimpering herself.

"Too much noise in this room!" said Miss Palmer's voice at their door. "I did not expect this, Marion! Dorothy, what does it mean?"

"We are going to bed, Miss Palmer," said Dorothy, opening the door immediately. "It was about the tableaux we were talking."

"You should have been in bed half an hour ago; I am sorry to be obliged to report you. Let this never happen again. Your room has been in most respects a model room until now."

Not a girl spoke, and if Miss Palmer had come again fifteen minutes later, she would have found the gas out and the girls in bed.



CHAPTER XIV.

KATE UNDERWOOD'S APOLOGIES.

The scholars noticed that when Miss Ashton came into the hall a few nights after the Friday evening tableaux she looked very grave.

"What's gone wrong? Who has been making trouble? Look at the girls that belong to the Demosthenic Club! I'm glad I am not a member!"

These, and various other remarks, passed from one to the other, as Miss Ashton walked through the hall to her seat on the platform.

It was the hour for evening prayers. Usually she read a short psalm, but to-night she chose the twelfth chapter of Romans, stopping at the tenth verse, and looking slowly around the school as she repeated,—

"'Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another.'" Then she closed her Bible and repeated these verses:—

"'These things I command you, That you love one another. Let love be without dissimulation. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. By love serve one another. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith. And I pray that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and in all judgment. Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be like minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than himself. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.

"'But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you; for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.

"'Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love.'

"I hesitate," said Miss Ashton, after a moment's pause, "to add anything to these expressive and solemn Bible words. They convey in the most forcible way what seems to me the highest good for which we can aim in this life,—the perfection of Christian character.

"I presume you all realize in some degree the world we make here by ourselves. Set apart in a great measure from what is going on around us, closely connected in all our interests, we depend upon each other for our happiness, our growth, our well-being. We are helped, or we are hindered, by what in a large sphere might pass us by. Nothing is too small to be of vital importance to us; the aggregate of our influences is made up of trifles. I have said this same thing to you time and time again, and yet I am sorry to find how soon it can be forgotten. If I could impress upon you these tender, beautiful gospel truths I have repeated, I should have had no occasion to detain you to-night. You would all of you have been bearing one another's burdens, instead of laying one upon delicate shoulders.

"'Taught of God to love one another.' Do those learn the lesson God teaches who, without, we will say, bearing any ill-will, injure the feelings of others? It may be by unkind words; it may be by an intentional rudeness; it may be by neglect; it may be by a criticism spoken secretly, slyly, circulated wittily, laughed at, but not forgotten. 'The ways that are unlovely;' how numerous they are, and how directly they tend to make hearts ache, and lives unhappy, no words can tell!

"Young ladies, if your lives with us sent you out into the world, first in accomplishments, thoroughly grounded in the elements of an education, that after all has only its beginning here, leaders in society, and yet you wanted the nobility of that love which the Bible claims is the fruit of the spirit, we should have to say, we have 'labored in vain, and spent our strength for naught.' I wish I could see among you that tenderness of spirit that would shrink as sensitively from hurting another, as it does from being hurt yourselves. I am looking anxiously for it in this new year. I am looking hopefully for it; you will not disappoint me I am sure."

Then she asked them to sing the hymn "Blest be the tie that binds," made a short prayer, and waited before leaving the room for the hall to be cleared. It was well she did; for no sooner had the last girl left the corridor, before Kate Underwood came rushing back to the platform, and catching hold of Miss Ashton's hand said,—

"I didn't do it, I didn't do it, Miss Ashton, to hurt Marion Parke's feelings! I like her so much; I think she is—is, why is about the best girl in the whole school. I only meant—why I meant he was such an old codger it was real funny; I thought it would make a nice tableau, and I never thought Marion would recognize it: I wouldn't have done it for the world!"

Then she stopped, looked earnestly in Miss Ashton's face, and asked,—

"Do you believe me, Miss Ashton?"

Now, Miss Ashton knew Kate to be a very impulsive girl, doing many foolish, and often wrong things, only sometimes sorry for them, so she did not receive her excited apologies with the consideration which they really deserved.

She said, perhaps a little coldly,—

"I am glad you have come to see the matter both more kindly and reasonably, Kate. Yes! I do believe you: I do not doubt you feel all you say; but, Kate, you are so easily tempted by what seems to you fun. I can't make you see, fun that becomes personal in a way to injure the feelings of any one ceases to be fun, becomes cruelty. There is a great deal of that in this school this term. Hardly a day passes but some of the girls come to me crying because their feelings have been wounded, and I am truly grieved to say, you are oftener the cause of it than any other girl. To be both witty and wise is a great gift; to be witty without being wise is a great misfortune; sometimes I think it has been your misfortune. You are not a cruel girl. You are at bottom a kind girl; yet see how you wound! You didn't mean to hurt Marion Parke; you like her, yet you did: you made fun of an old country cousin, whose visit must have been a trial to her. You are two Kates, one thinks only of the fun and the eclat of a witty tableau; the other would have done and said the kindest and the prettiest things to make Marion Parke happy. Which of these Kates do you like best?" Miss Ashton now laid her hand lovingly over the hands of the excited girl, who answered her with her eyes swimming in tears, "Your kind, Miss Ashton." Then she put up her lips for the never-failing kiss, and went quietly away, but not to her own room.

There was something truly noble in the girl, after all. She went to Marion's door and, knocking gently, asked if Marion would walk with her to the grove.

Much surprised, but pleased, Marion readily consented, and the two went out in the early darkness of an October night alone, the girls whom they met in the corridors staring at them as they passed.



"Marion!" said Kate, "I ask your pardon a thousand, million times! I never, never meant to hurt your feelings! I forgot everything but the fun I saw in the old farm-scenes, and the new fashionable school-girl out for a vacation; I did truly. I—I don't say it would ever have occurred to me if that cousin of yours hadn't come here, because that wouldn't be true, and I'm as bad as George Washington" (with a little laugh now), "I can't tell a lie; but can say that I never would have written one word of that miserable farce if I had ever dreamed it would have hurt your feelings: will you forgive me?"

Marion had listened to this long speech with varying emotions. As we know, she had been wounded by the tableaux, but her feelings had been exaggerated by her room-mates, and if the matter had been dropped at once she would probably soon have forgotten it. Kate's apology filled her with astonishment. How could it ever have come to her knowledge that she had been wounded, and how came she to think it of enough importance to make an apology now.

Instead of answering, Marion turned, threw both arms around Kate's neck, kissing her over and over again.

Kate, surprised in her turn, returned the kisses with much ardor.

It was a girl's forgiveness, and its recognition, without another word.

Then they walked down into the grove, their arms around each other's waists, and the belated birds, scurrying to their nests, sang evening songs to them.

On the side of the little lake that nestles in the midst of the grove, two petted frogs, grown large and lazy on the sweet things with which their visitors so freely regaled them, heard their steps, hopped up a little nearer to the well-worn path, and saluted them with an unusually loud bass.

Whether it was the influence of Miss Ashton's words, or the generous act of apology,—the noblest showing of a noble mind that has erred,—it would be hard to tell; but, certain it is, Kate Underwood had learned a lesson this time which, let us hope, she will never forget.

When Marion went back to her room it was quite time for study hours to begin; but her room-mates had so many questions to ask about Kate's object in inviting her out to walk, that a good half-hour passed before they began their lessons.

Marion did not feel at liberty to repeat what Kate had said, and so she frankly told them.



CHAPTER XV.

MISS ASHTON'S FRIDAY NIGHT.

Miss Ashton, a little timid from the use made of the liberty she had given for the Friday night entertainments, decided for a time to take the control of them into her own hands, and as something novel, that might be entertaining, she proposed that the school should prepare original papers, to be read aloud, the reading to be followed by "a spread" given by the Faculty. She made no suggestion with regard to the character of the papers to be sent in, other than to say that she knew very well there were some good writers in the school, and she should expect every one to do her best.

This proposal was gladly accepted. The girls clapped when she had finished, and some began to stamp noisily, but this a motion of the principal's hand checked.

There began at once to be conjectures as to whose piece would be the best. Nine-tenths of the girls agreed it would be Kate Underwood, the other tenth were for Delia Williams, who, when she tried for an honor, seldom failed to secure it; and hadn't she once written a piece on Robert Browning, of which not a scholar could understand a word, but which, it was reported, Miss Ashton said "was excellent, showing rare appreciation of the merits of a great poet"?

One thing was certain, there was hardly a girl in school who had not, before going to bed that night, wandered around in her dazed thoughts for some subject upon which she could write in a way that would surprise every one.

Lilly White, the dunce of the school, had hers written by the beginning of study hours. It covered three pages of foolscap paper, and had at least the merit of being written on only one side.

Among the few books Marion Parke had brought from her Western home, was an old magazine, printed by a Yale College club, and edited by her father when he was a member of the college.

This had in it one short story suggested by the West Rock at New Haven. In this rock was a rough cave, and here, tradition said, the regicides Goff and Whalley hid themselves from pursuit, after the murder of Charles I. The story was well told, not holding too rigorously to facts, but at the same time faithful enough to real incidents to make it not only interesting but valuable.

These were tender and touching scenes of a wife and a betrothed, who, through dangers of discovery and arrest, carried food and papers to the fugitives.

The story had always been a great favorite of Marion's. One day when she felt homesick she had taken it out, read it, and left it on the top of her table, under her Bible. Being very busy afterwards, and consequently the homesickness gone, she did not think of it again; she did not even notice that it had been abstracted from the table and another magazine, similar in appearance, put in its place.

If Miss Ashton had foreseen the deep interest the school were taking in the proposed entertainment, she might have hesitated to propose it. The truth was, it took the first place; studies became of secondary importance. "What subjects had been chosen for the pieces? how they were to be treated? how they progressed? how they would be received?" These were the questions asked and answered, often under promise of secrecy, sometimes with an open bravado amusing to see.

It was a relief to all the teachers when the Friday night came. The girls in gala dress crowded early into the hall; Miss Ashton and the teachers, also in full dress, followed them soon; and five minutes before the time appointed for the opening of the evening entertainment the hush of expectation made the room almost painfully still.

Miss Ashton had requested that the pieces should be sent in to her the previous day. She had been surprised more at their number than their excellence, indeed, there was but one that did not, on the whole, disappoint her; that one delighted her.

She intended to read, not the best only, but the poorest, thinking, perhaps, as good a lesson as could come to the careless or the incapable would come from that sure touchstone of the value of any writing,—its public reception.

The names were to be concealed; that had been understood from the beginning, yet, with the exception of Kate Underwood, who was more used to the public of their small world than any of the others, there was not a girl there who had not a touch of stage fright, either on her own account, or on that of her "dearest friend."

There were essays on friendship, love, generosity, jealousy, integrity, laziness, hope, charity, punctuality, scholarship, meanness. On youth, old age, marriage, courtship, engagement, housekeeping, housework, the happiness of childhood, the sorrows of childhood, truth, falsehood, religion, missionary work, the poor, the duties of the rich, houses of charity, the tariff, the Republican party, the Democratic party, woman's suffrage, which profession was best adapted to a woman, servants, trades' unions, strikes, sewing-women, shop-girls, newspaper boys, street gamins, the blind, the deaf and dumb, idiots, Queen Victoria and the coming Republican party into the government of England, the bloated aristocracy, American girls as European brides, the cruelty of the Russian government, Catholic religion, Stanley as a hero, Kane's Arctic adventures.

Miss Ashton had made a list of these subjects as she looked over the essays, and when she read them aloud, the school burst into a peal of laughter.

She said, "I cannot, in our limited time, read all of these to you. I will give you your choice, but first, let me tell you what remains. There are six poems of four and five pages length. The subjects are:—

"The Lost Naiad; Bertram's Lament; Cowper at the Grave of His Mother; A New Thanatopsis; Ode to Silence; Love's Farewell.

"I promise you," she said, "you shall have these, if nothing more."

A slight approbatory clapping, and she went on:—

"If I am to read you the titles of the stories I have on my desk, it will go far into the alloted time for these exercises; but, as some of you may think they would be the most interesting part, I will give you your choice. Those in favor, please hold up their hands."

Almost every girl's hand in school was raised, so Miss Ashton went on:—

"Bob Allen's Resolve; The Old Moss Gatherer; Lady Jane Grey's Adventure; The Brave Engineer; How We didn't Ascend Mt. Blanc; Nancy Todd's Revenge; Little Lady Gabrielle; Sam the Boot-black; Christmas Eve; Thanksgiving at Dunmoore; New Year at Whitty Lodge; Poor Loo Grant; Jenkins, the Mill Owner; Studyhard School; Storied West Rock; Phil, the Hero; How Phebe Won Her Place; Norman McGreggor on his Native Heath; Our Parsonage; How Ben Fought a Prairie Fire; The Sorrows of Mrs. McCarthy.

"These are all," and Miss Ashton laughed a merry laugh as she turned over the pile. "I am much obliged to you for your ready and full answer to my proposal. If I am a little disappointed at the literary character of some of the work, I am, as I have said, pleased by your ready response. If I should attempt to read them all, we should be here at a late hour, and lose our spread, so I will give you the poems, as I promised, and as many of the essays and stories as I can crowd into the time previous to nine o'clock."

Miss Bent, who was the teacher of elocution, now stepped forward, and out of a pile separated from the larger one of manuscripts took up and read the six poems; then followed, in rapid succession, essays and stories, until at ten minutes before nine, the school having evidently heard all they wished with the spread in prospect, Miss Ashton said,—

"I have reserved the best—by far the best—of all these contributions for the last. Miss Bent will now read to you 'Storied West Rock!'"

Miss Bent began immediately, and though the hands of the clock crept on to fifteen minutes past nine, not a girl there watched them; all were intent on the absorbing interest of the story.

When it was finished, Miss Bent said, "This is so excellent that I feel fully justified in departing from the promise Miss Ashton made you, that your pieces should not have the name of the writer given; with her leave, it gives me great pleasure to say, this touching and excellently written story was composed by one of our own seniors, Susan Downer."

"Three cheers for Susan Downer!" cried Kate Underwood, springing from her seat; and if ever boys in any finishing school gave cheers with greater gusto, they would have been well worth hearing. Even Susan found herself cheering as noisily as the rest, and would not have known it, if Dorothy, her face radiant with delight, had not stopped her.

Then followed the spread, "the pleasantest and the best one that was ever given in Montrose Academy," the girls all said.



CHAPTER XVI.

STORIED WEST ROCK.

When Marion Parke went back to her room the night after Miss Ashton's entertainment, she was in a great deal of perturbation. The title of Susan Downer's story, on its announcement, had filled her with surprise, for since her coming to the school she had never before heard West Rock mentioned. When she had asked about it, no one seemed even to have known of it, and that Susan should not only have heard, but been so interested as to choose it for the subject of her story, was a puzzle! But when the story was read, and she found it, in all its details, so exactly like her father's, her surprise changed to a miserable suspicion, of which she was heartily ashamed, but from which she could not escape. Sentence after sentence, event after event, were so familiar to her, nothing was changed but the names of the women who figured in the story.

The first thing she did after coming to her room was to take the magazine from under the Bible, and open to the story. There was an ink-blot on the first page, which some one had evidently been trying to remove with the edge of a knife. It must have been done hastily, for the leaf was jagged, and most of the ink left on.

This Marion was sure was not there the last time she had opened the magazine; some one had dropped it recently. Who was it?

She hastily re-read the story. Yes, she had not been mistaken, Susan Downer's story was the same!

Was it possible that two people, her father and Susan, who had never been in New Haven, but might have known about Goff and Whalley from her study of English history, though not about West Rock as her father had seen and described it, could have happened upon the same story? How very, very strange!

Marion dropped the magazine as if it was accountable for her perplexity; then she sat and stared at it, until she heard the door opening, when she snatched it up, and hid it away at the bottom of her trunk.

It was Dorothy who came into the room; and Marion's first impulse was to go to her and tell her all about it, ask her what she should do, for do something she felt sure she must.

Dorothy saw her, and called,—

"Marion! isn't it splendid that Sue wrote such a fine piece? I feel that she is a real honor to our class and to Rock Cove! Her brother Jerry will be so happy when he hears of it."

"Why, Marion!" catching sight of Marion's pale face, "what is the matter with you? You look as pale as a ghost. Are you sick?"

"No-o," said Marion slowly. "O Dody! Dody!"

"Marion! there is something the matter with you. Sit down in this chair. No, lie down on the lounge. No, on your bed. You'd better undress while I go for the matron. I'll be very quick."

"Don't go, Dody! Don't go," and Marion caught tight hold of Dorothy's arm, holding her fast. "I'm not sick; I'm frightened."

But in spite of her words, indeed more alarmed by them, Dorothy broke away and rushed down to the matron's room, who, fortunately, was out. Then she went for Miss Ashton, but she also had not returned. So Dorothy, unwilling to leave Marion alone any longer, went back to her.

While she was gone, Marion had time to resolve what she would do, at least for the present; she would leave Susan in her own time and way to make a full confession, which she tried to persuade herself after a little that she would certainly do. So when Dorothy came back she met her with a smile, told her not to be troubled, that it was the first time in her life such a thing had ever happened, and she hoped it never would again.

"But you said you were frightened," insisted Dorothy, "and you looked so pale; what frightened you?"

Marion hesitated; to tell any one, even Dorothy, would be to accuse Susan of such a mean deception. No; her resolve so suddenly made was the proper one: she would keep her knowledge of the thing until Susan herself confessed, or assurance was made doubly sure; for suppose, after all, Susan had written the story, how could she have known about it in that magazine? She had never lent it to her; she had never read it to any of her room-mates, or to any one in the school, proud of it as she was. Indeed, the more she thought of it, the more sure she was that she ought to be ashamed of herself for such a suspicion, and, strange as it may seem, the more sure she also was, that almost word by word Susan had stolen the story.

"I was frightened at a thought I had, a dreadful thought; I wouldn't have any one know it. Don't ask me, Dody, please don't; let us talk about something else," she said.

Then she began to talk rapidly over the events of the evening, not, as Dorothy noticed, mentioning Susan or her success. Dorothy wondered over it, and an unpleasant thought came into her mind.

"Can it be that Marion is jealous of Sue, and disappointed and vexed that her piece wasn't taken any more notice of? I'm sure it was an excellent story, 'How Ben Fought a Prairie Fire.'" Marion had read it to her before handing it in, and she had been much interested in it, but it didn't compare with Susan's, and it wasn't like Marion to feel so. She never had shown such a spirit before.

Neither Susan nor Gladys came to their room until the last moment allowed for remaining away. Susan was overwhelmed with congratulations on her success. The teacher of rhetoric told her she felt repaid for all the hours she had spent in teaching her, by the skill she had shown in this composition, and if she continued to improve, she saw nothing to prevent her taking her place, by and by, among the best writers in the land. Kate Underwood pretended to be vexed, "having her laurels taken away from her," she said "was not to be borne;" and Delia Williams, the rival of Kate in the estimation of the school, made even more fun than Kate over her own disappointment. Some of the girls made a crown of bright papers and would have put it on Susan's head, but she testily pushed it away.

Susan's love of prominence was well known in the school, and even this small rejection of popular applause they wondered over.

And when the girls began to cluster around her, and to ask if she had ever been to that West Rock, if there was really such a place, and if all those things she wrote of so beautifully had ever happened? she was silent and sulky; and in the end, crowned with her new honors, at the point in her life she had always longed for, and never before reached, she looked more like a girl who was ashamed of herself, than like one whose vanity and love of praise had for the first time been fully gratified.

She dreaded going to her room; she was afraid something to mar her success was waiting for her there. She wished Marion Parke had never come from the West, that Gladys had never been weak enough to take her in for a room-mate. In short, Susan was more unhappy than she had ever been before. Gladys, full of frolic with a large clique of girls in another part of the room, had not given her a thought.

To have Susan write so good a story had been the same surprise to her that it was to every one; but the reading was no sooner over, than she had forgotten it, and if the teacher had not told her it was time she went to her room, she would also have forgotten there was any room to go to.

When she saw Susan she said, "Come on if you don't want to get reported. I say, Sue, haven't we had a real jolly time?" but much to Susan's relief not a word about "Storied West Rock."

Dorothy had been waiting for Susan, and when the gas was out and they were all in bed, she whispered to her,—

"O Sue! I'm so glad for you." Dorothy thought a moment after she heard a sound like a smothered sob, but Susan not answering or moving, she concluded she had fallen quickly asleep, and that was a half snore; so she went to sleep herself, but not without some troubled thoughts about Marion and her unusual behavior.

When Marion and Susan met the next morning, Marion noticed that Susan avoided her, never even looked at her; and when Dorothy and Gladys went away to a recitation, leaving them alone, Susan hastily gathered up her books, and going into her bedroom, shut the door.

Marion thought this over. To her it looked as if Susan felt guilty and was afraid; but she had determined not to watch her, not even to seem to suspect her. "How should she know that I remember the story?" she thought, "or, indeed, that I have ever so much as read it? I will put it off my mind; I will! I will!"

But, in spite of her resolutions, Marion could not; and as days went on she took to wondering whether by thus concealing what she knew, she was not making herself a partner in the deception.

Susan, not being at once accused by Marion, came slowly but comfortably to the conclusion that she had not even the vaguest suspicion that anything was wrong; still, she sedulously avoided her, and when Dorothy noticed and asked her about it, answered crossly, "She never had liked that girl, and she never should to the longest day of her life."

"And Marion certainly does not approve of Susan. How unfortunate!" thought this kind Dorothy.



CHAPTER XVII.

NOVEMBER SNOWSTORM.

When November had fairly begun, the grove was leafless; the boats taken out of the little lake and stored carefully away, to await the return of birds and leaves; the days grown short, dark, and cold; the "constitutionals" matters of dire necessity, but not in the least of pleasure; study assumed new interest, and the worried teachers, relieved for a time of their anxieties over half-learned lessons, began to enjoy their arduous work, finding it really pleasant to teach such bright girls.

The girl who made the best recitation was the heroine of the hour, rules were observed more faithfully, a tender spirit went with them into the morning and evening devotions, Faculty meetings became cheerful. This seemed to Miss Ashton one of the most prosperous and successful fall terms she had ever known; she congratulated herself constantly on its benign influences, and often said, "I have fewer black sheep in my flock than I have ever gathered together before."

There was one reason for this prosperity which she fully realized. Thanksgiving was not far distant, and on that happy New England festival, the school had a holiday of three or four days.

It was a practice to send then to the parents or guardians of the pupils an account of their progress in their studies. The system of marking had not been abandoned in the school; and many a lazy scholar, whom neither intreaties nor scolding seemed to touch, was alarmed at the record which she was to carry home. Such a thing had been known as girls refusing to leave the academy even for Thanksgiving, rather than to face what they knew awaited them with their disappointed parents.

But from whatever cause the change had come, it was destined to have a severe shock before the festival day came.

Montrose Academy had been purposely built within a few miles of the old and famous school for boys in Atherton. The reasons for this were, the ease with which the best lecturers could be obtained from there in many departments (a competent man finding plenty of time to lecture in both academies), and the general literary atmosphere which a social acquaintance engendered.

Of course this social acquaintance was not without its drawbacks, and it had been found necessary for both principals to require written permits for the visits which the boys were inclined to make upon the girls at Montrose.

So far, during this term, the boys had been fully occupied by their athletic games; but as the ground became one series of frozen humps, hands grew numb, and feet cold, the interest in them subsided; and yet the love of misrule, so much stronger in a boys' than in a girls' school, grew more active and troublesome.

Jerry Downer, a brother of Susan Downer, was a member of this famous school; and it soon became known among a class of boys who studied the Montrose catalogue more faithfully than they did their Livy, that he had a sister there, that she was a lively girl, not too strict in obeying rules, fond of fun, "up to everything," as they described her; so it not infrequently happened that Jerry was invited by a set, with whom at other times he had little to do, to ride over with them to Montrose, he calling on his sister and cousins, while they apparently were waiting for him.

In this way Jerry had been quite frequently there, no objection being made by Miss Ashton, as a note from her to the principal of Atherton Academy brought back a flattering account of Jerry as a scholar, and as a boy to be fully trusted.

Jerry had improved in every respect since he went to Atherton. He was now a tall, broad-shouldered, active, well-dressed young man, who rang the doorbell of the majestic porch at the Montrose Academy with that unconsciousness which is the perfection of good manners, and which came to him from his simplicity, and went in among the crowd of girls, neither seeing nor thinking of any but those he had come to visit.

Susan, in her own selfish way, was proud of him, so he was always sure of a reception that sent him back to his studies ambitiously happy.

On the fifteenth of November there fell upon Massachusetts such a snowstorm as the rugged old State never had known before. It piled itself a foot deep on the level ground, heaped up on fence and wall, covered the trees with ermine, until even the tenderest twig had its soft garment; bent telegraph poles as ruthlessly as if communication was the last thing to be cared for, blotted telephoning out of existence, delayed trains all over the north, turned electric and horse cars into nuisances, filled the streets and the railroad stations with impatient grumblers, had only one single redeeming thing, the beauty of its scenery, and a certain weird, uncanny feeling it brought of being suddenly taken out of a familiar world and dropped into one the like of which was never even imagined before.

There was one part of the community, however, that looked upon it with great favor.

"Now for the jolliest of sleigh-rides!" said a clique of Atherton boys. "Hurra for old Jerry Downer! We'll make him turn out this time!"

The roads between the two places were soon well worn, and not two days after the astonished world had waked to its surprise, Samuel Ray's best sleigh was hired, four extra sets of bells promised for the four horses, and a thoroughly organized "spree" was decided upon.

It was no use to ask Jerry to help them in any thing contrary to the rules; but through him they might convey to certain girls there the knowledge of their coming, and their plans for the evening. They would give Jerry a note to his sister; she would hand it to Mamie Smythe; and, once in her possession, the whole thing would take care of itself.

The bells were taken off from the horses and put carefully away in the bottom of the sleigh before it left the stable; the boys did not have it driven to the dormitories, as it did when they had a licensed ride, but met it at Wilbur's Corner.

They had a ready reason for this, and for the absence of the bells when Jerry noticed and inquired about them. It would not do to give him the least occasion to suspect them.

It was a beautiful night, with a bright moon making the cold landscape clearer and colder. There wasn't a young heart in either of these two educational towns that would not have leaped with joy over the pleasure of a sleigh-ride then and there.

A very merry ride the boys had as soon as they had cleared the thickly settled part of the town, breaking out into college songs, glees, snatches of wild music that the buoyant air caught up and carried on over the long reaches of the ghost-like road before them.

Jerry had a fine baritone voice, and he loved music. How he led tune after tune was a marvel and a delight. As they passed solitary farmhouses, where only a light shone from a back kitchen window, the quiet people there would drop their work and listen as the sleigh dashed by.

When the party reached Montrose, Jerry was told that "while he was making his visit they would drive on, and if they were not back in time he had better go home by the train, as they knew he would not like to be out late."

"And by the way," said Tom Lucas, taking a ticket out of his pocket, "here is a railroad ticket I bought the other day; you'd better use it, old fellow. I shall never want it—that is, if we are not back in time for you."

The boys knew Jerry worked hard for every cent he had, and Tom would have felt mean if he had let a ride to which he had invited him be an expense.

The first thing he did when Susan came into the room was to give her the note intrusted to him; and Susan, understanding only too well what it meant, delivered it without any delay to Mamie Smythe.

Jerry's call was always a treat to his friends; and to-night, Marion coming with them, he had an evening the pleasure of which, in spite of what followed, he did not soon forget.

When it came time for him to leave, he saw with surprise that he could only by running catch his train, and, as the boys had not come back for him, he hurried away.

He found when he reached Atherton that the study hour had already passed, and, going to his room, he was met with,—

"I say, Jerry; Uncle John don't expect you to go stealing off on sleigh-rides without leave. Give an account of yourself."

"The party had leave, and when that is given, Uncle John don't trouble himself to single out every boy, and call him up to ask if he had his permission to go. It's all right."

But, in spite of this assertion, Jerry began to have suspicions that, as the boys had failed to come for him to return with them, it might, after all, be not quite in order; and with these doubts he did not find committing his lesson an easy task.



CHAPTER XVIII.

THE SLEIGH-RIDE.

When Susan hurried away from her brother to find Mamie Smythe and give her the note, she knew full well what it probably contained. Jerry had told her he had come over with a party of boys, and had the very best sleigh-ride he had ever had in his life; and when she asked the names of his companions, she recognized some, who, for reasons best known to herself, Miss Ashton had forbidden to be received as visitors to the academy. Mamie Smythe read the note with a heightening color. This was it,—

"Sleigh waiting corner of Bond and Centre Streets. Supper at Bascoms' Hall engaged for a dance. Bring six lively girls! 8 P.M. sharp.

SUB ROSA."

For a moment Mamie looked doubtingly into Susan's face. She would not have chosen her for one of the "lively girls;" but, now, as Susan knew something was going on, perhaps it would be best to ask her, if—Mamie had conscience enough to dally with this if for a moment; perhaps she might have longer, if there had been time, but as it was now half-past seven, and the time was "eight sharp," and the girls were to be chosen and notified, there was not a moment for parleying, even with so respectable a thing as her conscience, so she showed Susan the note.

"Oh, dear! that's too bad!" said Susan, as she finished reading it. "Jerry is here, and he won't go away before eight. What can I do? it would be just splendid!" And the tears actually came into her eyes.

"That's a pity!" and Mamie, more relieved than sorry, tried to look regretful. "But don't you tell. Promise me, Susan Downer, let come what may, you won't tell."

"I'm no tell-tale, Mamie Smythe, and I'll thank you not even to hint at such a thing. You'll all get expelled, as like as not, and, come to think of it, I'm real glad I'm not to go with you."

Before her sentence was finished, Mamie had flown out of the room, and wild with delight over the "fun" before her, she rapidly made her choice among the girls, not giving them time for consideration, but hurrying them with all speed into their best clothes. They crept out, one by one, through different ways. Myra Peters jumped from a window when she heard Miss Palmer's door open, sure that otherwise she would be found.

That her dress caught, that for a moment she hung between the moonlit sky and a deep snow-bank, seemed to her of no consequence, so she could escape. She left a bit of her best dress hanging on a hook, but this she did not know until afterwards.

The girls met in the street, near the large front gate, where a tall Norway spruce hid them entirely from the front windows of the academy. Certainly they were not a merry group when they came together. All they had to say to each other was in hushed and frightened tones the peril of their escape.

When they reached the corner of Bond and Centre Streets there stood the sleigh! How tempting it looked with its warm fur robes, its four gayly caparisoned horses, its driver, slapping his hands together to keep them warm, and the boys coming to meet them with such a merry welcome!

Did they forget there was such a thing as consequences? Who can tell?

We would not if we could describe any further the occurrences of the evening. It was past twelve when the six girls, tired, frightened, locked out of the house by every door, found themselves—sleigh, horses, bells, boys, all gone—shivering under the back balcony, as forlorn a set of beings as the calm moon shone upon.

It was not for some time that Myra Peters remembered the window out of which she had clambered. If that were unlocked here might be an entrance that at this time of night would be wholly unobserved.

"But if it is?" asked the most frightened of the girls.

"Julia Abbey, you are always croaking," scolded shaking Mamie Smythe. "The next time I ask you to go anywhere, I shall know it!"

"I—I hope you never will; it—it don't pay," sobbed Julia.

One of the girls had tried the window, found it still unlocked, and had partly raised it. Now the question was, who would be the first one to go in? It was Mamie Smythe who felt the responsibility of the ride, and therefore the necessity of putting on a brave face, and taking whatever consequences followed.

"I'll go, girls," she said. "Some of you lift me."

Mamie was small and light; it was not a difficult thing to do, as she clung to the window-sill, and in a moment she had disappeared. Then her head came out of the window.

"All right, girls," she said in a whisper. "Come quickly, and as soon as you are in go softly right to your rooms. It's still as a mouse here."

Now there was a pushing among the girls, not who should venture as before, but who might go. They were too cold and alarmed not to be selfish, and their struggle for precedence delayed them, until Mamie impatiently called the one to come by name.

In this way, one after another safely entered, crept to their rooms unheard and unseen, leaving the tell-tale bit of dress hanging on the hook, and forgetting to fasten the window behind them.

If they had been all together in one corridor, their pale faces and poor recitations might, at least, have excited the teachers' suspicion that something was wrong; but, as it was, it only seemed to be an event of not very uncommon occurrence that some one should come into the class poorly prepared.

It now wanted ten days of Thanksgiving. Only a few of the pupils,—those who had come from Mexico, Texas, Oregon, San Francisco, and other distant places,—but had all their plans made for spending the festival at home; and these, with one exception, were invited away. The school was on the tiptoe of expectation, when, one morning after prayers, Miss Ashton sent for Susan Downer to come to her room.

This was the first time such a thing had happened to Susan, and if she had been an innocent girl she would have been elated by it; but, alas, we well know that she was not, so it was with much trepidation that she answered the summons.

"Susan," said Miss Ashton kindly, "I am in a good deal of trouble; I thought you might help me. How long is it since your brother came to see you?"

What a relief to Susan! Miss Ashton had often inquired about Jerry, and once came into the room to see him, so she answered glibly,—

"Week before last, on Wednesday."

"He came in the evening, I believe."

"Yes, ma'am: it was a beautiful moonlight night, and a party of boys that were taking a sleigh-ride brought him over."

"Did he go back with them?"

"I suppose so," said Susan unhesitatingly. Jerry had not told her of his possible return in the cars.

"Does your brother know many of the young ladies here?"

"He knows his cousins, of course, and Marion Parke, and some of the girls that happened to come into the parlor when he was here, to whom I introduced him."

"Can you tell me the names of the girls?"

Susan hesitated a moment. What could Miss Ashton want to know for? What could Jerry have done to make her suspect him?

All at once the thought of the sleigh-ride flashed upon her, and she colored violently. He had brought the note for Mamie Smythe. The girls had gone on the sleigh-ride. She had heard the whole story from them on their return.

Miss Ashton watched the color come and go; then she said quietly,—

"The names of the girls to whom you have introduced him, please."

Now, it so happened that these girls were not among the sleighing-party, and after a moment's hesitation Susan named them.

"Thank you," Miss Ashton said pleasantly. "That is all now."

"All now, now," repeated Susan to herself, as she went back to her room. "Is there anything more to come by and by I wonder?"

Miss Drake, Susan's teacher in logic, found her a very absent-minded pupil during the next recitation, and gave her the lowest mark for the poorest lesson of the term.

In truth, the more Susan thought the matter over, the more troubled she became. Miss Ashton never would have asked those questions without a particular purpose. That she had no suspicions about "Storied West Rock" was plain, for not a question tended that way, but all toward the sleigh-ride; for the first time since it had taken place Susan felt glad that she had not gone.

She attached little importance to the giving of the note to Mamie Smythe. How was she to know its contents? She was not in the habit of opening other people's notes. To be sure, her conscience told her, she did know them, and, besides, that troublesome old adage would keep coming back to her, "The partaker is as bad as the thief."

Should Miss Ashton put the question point-blank to her, "Susan Downer, did, or did you not, know of the sleigh-ride?" What should she answer? To say she did, would be to bring not only herself, but all the other girls into trouble, perhaps to be the means of their being expelled.

To say she knew nothing about it would be to tell a lie. Susan dealt plainly enough with herself now, not even to cover it with the more respectable name of falsehood, and it was so hard to escape Miss Ashton if she were once on the track; she would find out, and if she did not expel her too, she would never respect her again.

It must be acknowledged, Susan's was a hard place; but she is not the first, and will by no means be the last, to learn that the way of the transgressor is often very, very hard.

"I don't care," was Susan's conclusion, after some hours of painful thought. "Thanksgiving is most here, and she'll forget it before we come back."



CHAPTER XIX.

DETECTIVES AT WORK.

Miss Ashton's forgetfulness was not of a kind to be depended upon. Mr. Stanton, the janitor, had come to her a few days after the sleigh-ride to tell her that he had found a back window unlocked; that he was sure he had locked it carefully before going to bed, and that under the window was the print of footsteps.

He "kind o' hated," he said, "to be a-telling on the gals, but then, agin, he hadn't been there nigh eighteen years without learning that gals were gals, as well as boys were boys, and weren't allers—not zactly allers—doin' jist right; perhaps it was best to let Miss Ashton know, and then—there now—he hated to do it awfully. If the gals found it out it might set 'em agin him."

"Mr. Stanton," said Miss Ashton gravely, "if you had made this discovery and kept it to yourself, you would have lost your place in twenty-four hours. Please show me the window."

The snow, for a wonder, remained as it was on the night of the ride, and looking from the window Miss Ashton saw the distinct marks of a number of feet around the bank into which Myra Peters had fallen. She also saw, and took off, the piece torn from her dress. This would surely give her a clew to one of the girls; but, before using it, she would make herself acquainted as far as possible with the time and circumstances when it had occurred.

Mr. Stanton could fix the morning when he found the window unlocked, and Miss Ashton remembered that on the previous evening Susan Downer's brother had been there to call.

This put a really serious aspect upon the matter. She immediately connected it with the boys from the Atherton Academy. She called a Faculty meeting, hoping some of the teachers had heard the girls go and come, or the sleigh, if indeed it had been a sleigh-ride that tempted them.

But none of them had heard the least noise after bedtime, nor even unusual sleigh-bells. If it had not been for the open window, the footprints, and the torn bit of dress, Miss Palmer, who prided herself upon, and made herself unpopular by, her vigilance, would have said it could not have happened; as it was, there was no denying it, and no question that something must be done.

Susan Downer's examination had proved so far satisfactory to Miss Ashton, that it had shown her there had been a sleigh-ride given by the Atherton boys; and she said reluctantly to herself, "I am afraid the reliable-looking young man, Jerry Downer, had a hand in it. How strange it is that we can trust young people so little!"

Then Miss Ashton felt ashamed of this feeling; for in her long experience she had known a great many true as gold, who had gone out from her training to be burning and shining lights in the world.

The quickest way to get at the bottom of the whole, she thought after much deliberation, would be to take the bit of torn dress into the hall, and ask to which young lady it belonged.

Accordingly, after morning prayers, she asked the school to stop a few moments, held the piece of cloth up in her hand, and simply said,—

"The owner of it might need it for repairing her dress, and if she would remain after the others left, it would be at her disposal."

The majority of the school laughed and chatted merrily about it. Some few came up to see if it could have by any luck belonged to the torn dresses of which not a few hung in their closets.

But no one claimed it! Here, then, was a dilemma! It would not be possible to go to every room, and examine the wardrobe of every scholar; besides, now it was known that the bit had been found, and might easily be made to lead to a discovery of the guilty ones, what more natural than that the dress should be hidden away, or sent from the academy building to prevent the possibility of detection!

Miss Ashton was disappointed over this failure. She was not much of a detective, and had less reason for being so than falls to the lot of many teachers.

She wrote to the principal of the Atherton Academy, inquiring whether he had given leave to a party of his boys to take a sleigh-ride on the night of the twentieth of November. She knew Jerry Downer had been one of them, as he had called on his sister, who was one of her pupils, on that night.

She received an immediate answer, saying, "He had not given leave for any sleigh-ride on that night, and was both surprised and sorry that a boy he had always considered so reliable as Jerry Downer should have been among them. He would inquire into the matter at once."

And he lost no time; sending for Jerry, he put the question point-blank, his usual straightforward way of dealing with his boys,—

"Did you go on a sleigh-ride the evening of the twentieth of November?"

"Yes, sir," said Jerry unhesitatingly.

"Did I give you leave to go?"

"No, sir; but I supposed the party had asked you, or they would not have gone."

"Your supposition was entirely erroneous. My leave had never been asked. Who besides yourself made up the party?"

Now Jerry hesitated: he could take the blame of his own going, but it would be mean in him to tell the names of his companions.

"Mr.—Uncle John (the principal smiled grimly as he heard this familiar name), I mean Dr. Arkwright," said Jerry, the color browning, instead of reddening his sea-tanned face, "I am very sorry, sir; I thought they had leave; I would not have gone."

"Don't think again; know, Jerry Downer: that is the only way for a boy that wants to do right. You will tell me, if you please, the names of your companions."

"Would that be honorable in me, sir?" asked Jerry, now looking the doctor straight in the eye.

A look of doubt passed over the principal's face before he answered, then he said with less austerity,—

"I must find out in some way who among my boys have broken my rules; you can help me more directly than any one else."

"Would it be honorable in me?" repeated Jerry.

"You are not here to ask questions, but to answer them. Are you going to refuse to help me by giving me the names of the boys?"

"I cannot, indeed I cannot; it would be so mean in me. You must punish me any way I deserve, sir; I am willing to bear it; but I cannot tell on the boys."

"Very well, Jerry Downer; you are dismissed," and he waved Jerry out of the room.

But after Jerry had gone, he went to the window and stood watching him.

"That is a generous boy!" he said; "but he has made a mistake. He will see it when he is older and wiser. He will learn that true manhood helps law and order, not even the idea of honor coming before it, noble as it is."

Still the difficulty of unravelling the matter remained with him in as much doubt as it did with Miss Ashton; but with both of these excellent principals there was no question but that it must be sifted to the bottom, the delinquents discovered and punished.

The time for doing this was short; and should it be necessary to expel a pupil, the coming vacation offered a suitable occasion.

Soon after, Miss Ashton, going through the corridor one evening, found two girls in close and excited conversation,—Myra Peters and Julia Dorr.

They did not see her at first, so she was quite near enough to them to catch a few words.

"You may say what you please," said Julia Dorr. "I'm as sure of it as sure can be; I've sat close by you time and again when you had it on, and if I had been you I would have owned it."

"Owned it!" snarled Myra Peters, "will you be kind enough to mind your own business, and let other people's alone, Miss Interferer?"

"Well, interferer or not, I've half a mind to go and tell Miss Ashton."

"Tell Miss Ashton what?" asked a voice close beside them.

The girls turned, to find Miss Ashton there.

"Tell Miss Ashton what?" she asked again pleasantly; "I always like to hear good news. What is this about?"

Now, nothing had really been farther from Julia's intention than to tell on Myra. She was one of those who had gone up to the desk when Miss Ashton showed the piece of cloth, and had recognized it as like a dress she had seen Myra wear. That there was anything of more importance attached to it than the ability to mend the dress neatly, she did not think, so she answered readily,—

"Why, Miss Ashton, that piece of cloth you showed us was exactly like Myra's dress. I've seen it a hundred times; but she declares she never had a dress like it, and we were quarrelling about it. I wish you would show it to her close up, and see if she don't have to give in."

"I will; come to my room, Myra!" and she led the way there, Myra following with a frightened, sullen face.

Then she found the piece, and laid it on the table.

"Myra," she said, after looking at the girl kindly for a moment, "is this like your dress? Tell me truly; it is much the best thing for you to do."

Myra gazed at the cloth for a moment, then burst into a flood of tears.

"So you were one of the sleighing-party?" said Miss Ashton quietly. "Will you tell me who were with you?"

If Myra had not been taken so entirely by surprise, she might, probably would, have refused to answer, for honor is as dear to girls as to boys; but she sobbed out one name after another, until the six stood confessed.

"Thank you," was all Miss Ashton said, then she handed Myra the tell-tale cloth, and added, "You had better put it neatly in the place from which it was torn."

She opened her door, and Myra, wiping her eyes, went quickly out and back to her room.

Hardly conscious what she was doing, with an impatient desire to get away, she began to pack her trunk.

"I will go home, home, home!" she kept repeating to herself. "I never will see one of those girls again. Oh, dear, dear! If I only hadn't gone on that sleigh-ride; that abominable Mamie Smythe is always getting the girls in trouble: I perfectly detest her. What will my father say?"



CHAPTER XX.

REPENTANCE.

It is a common error that to send a girl into a boarding-school to finish her education is to bring her out a model, not only in learning, but in accomplishments and character.

Here were two hundred girls, coming from nearly two hundred different families, each one brought up, until she was in her teens, in different ways. Looking over the population of a small village, the most careless observer must see how unlike the homes are; how every grade of morals and manners is represented, and with what telling effect they show themselves in the characters of the young trained under their roofs.

It happened often that Montrose Academy was looked upon by anxious parents—who were just discovering, in wilfulness, disobedience, perhaps in matters more serious even than these, the mistakes they had made in the education of their daughters—as a sort of reformatory school, where Miss Ashton took in the erring, and after one or more years sent them out perfect in every good work and way.

While Miss Ashton made all inquiries in her power to prevent any undesirable girls from joining her school, she was often imposed upon, sometimes by concealments, and not unseldom by positive falsehoods, but oftener by the parental fondness which could see nothing but good in a spoilt, darling child.

It often happened that with just such characters Miss Ashton was very successful, not seldom receiving a girl of a really fine nature which had been distorted by home influences, and sending her away, after years of patient work, with this nature so fully developed and improved that her whole family rose to her standard.

Instances of this kind made Miss Ashton careful in her discipline. She well understood that a girl once expelled from a school, no matter how lightly her friends might appear to regard the occurrence, was under a ban, which time and circumstances might remove, but might not.

In the case of this sleigh-ride, the disobedience to known and strictly enforced rules made her more anxiety than any case of a similar kind had given her for years.

She knew now the names of the girls concerned: they had given her trouble before. Mamie Smythe she had often been on the point of sending home, but she was one of those characters with fine traits, capable of being very good or very bad in her life's work. The mother was a wealthy widow, Mamie her only child. Spoiled by weak and foolish fondness she had been; but her brightness, her lovableness, her cheery, witty, sunshiny ways remained.

Evidently, here she was the accountable one; she should be expelled as a lesson to the school, but to expel her meant, what?

She had wealth, she had position, she would in a few years be able to wield an influence that, in the right direction, would outweigh that of almost any other girl in school.

To be sent home, back to that weak mother, with a life of frivolous pleasures before her, what, under these circumstances, was it the wisest and best thing to do?

Favoritism for the rich or the poor was not one of Miss Ashton's faults. By this time the whole school knew of the ride, of its discovery, and was holding its breath over the probable consequences.

The girls said, "Miss Ashton grew thin and pale from the worry." The feeling of the school, most of whom were tenderly attached to her, was decidedly against those who had troubled her; and if she could have known the true state of the case, when she was neither eating nor sleeping, in her anxiety to do what was right, she would have found that the good for order, discipline, and propriety, which was growing from this evil done, was to exceed any influence she could hope to exert, even from the severest act of just discipline.

She was to be helped in a most unexpected way.

Two days after her interview with Myra Peters, there was a soft tap on her door, and opening it, there stood Mamie Smythe!

Her face, usually covered with smiles, was grave and even sad.

"Miss Ashton," she said, without waiting to close the door, "please don't be hard on the other girls. It was all my fault; I was the Eve that tempted them. I know it was wrong; I know it was dreadful wrong! I was worse than Eve; I was the serpent that tempted Eve! They wouldn't a single one of them have gone if it hadn't been for me! Do, please, Miss Ashton, punish me, and not them! They never, never, never would have gone if I hadn't tempted them. Please, please, Miss Ashton! I'll do anything; I'll get extra lessons for a year! I won't have a single spread; I'll be good; you won't know me, Miss Ashton, I'll be so good; and I'll bear any punishment. You may ferule me, as they do in district schools," and she held out a little diamond-ringed hand toward Miss Ashton; "I'll be shut up for a week in a dark closet, and live on bread and water. You may do anything you please with me, only spare them," and she looked so earnestly and imploringly up in Miss Ashton's face, that her heart, in spite of her better judgment, was touched; all she said was,—

"Tell me about it, Mamie."

"When Susan gave me the note," began Mamie. Miss Ashton started. "Susan who?" she asked, for Susan Downer had not confessed to any note; indeed, had virtually denied connection with the ride.

"Susan Downer, of course; she gave me the note. Her brother brought it to her, and I was wild with joy to have a sleigh-ride. It was such a bright moon, and the sleighing looked so fine, I wanted all day to ask you to let me have a big sleigh, and take the girls out, but I knew you wouldn't."

"Yes, I should have," interrupted Miss Ashton.

"That's just awful," said Mamie, after a moment's reflection; "and if I'd been brave enough to ask you, nothing of this would have happened.

"I hadn't time to think only of the girls—you know them all, Miss Ashton!"

"And who were the boys?" asked Miss Ashton, thinking perhaps she might aid the other troubled principal.

"The boys! oh, the boys!" and Mamie's face looked truly distressed now. "Please don't ask me, Miss Ashton. I'd cut my tongue out before I'd tell you!"

"Very well, go on with your ride."

Then Mamie repeated fully and truly all that a girl in the flush of excitement caused by a stolen sleigh-ride could be expected to remember, not palliating one thing, from the supper to the dance, and the clamber in at midnight through the open window.

If at some points a little laugh gurgled up from her fun-loving soul, as she told her tale, Miss Ashton understood, and forgave it.

"I thank you, Mamie," said she at last; and she stroked the little hand given to her so loyally for the sacrificial feruling, but she turned her eyes away. What Mamie might have read there, she dared not trust to the girl's quick sight; indeed, she hardly dared to trust the feeling that prompted it in herself.

There was no use to have another Faculty meeting, and depend upon it for help; she must settle the trouble alone.

It was Susan Downer who was next called to the principal's room.

She went tremblingly. What was to happen to her now? Miss Ashton knew the girls' names who went on the sleigh-ride, and as yet no one had been punished. Could it be about "Storied West Rock"? How Susan by this time hated its very name, and how much she would have given if she had never known it, she could best have told.

"Susan," said Miss Ashton, as with a pale face and downcast eyes the girl stood before her, "when I asked you about your brother's visit to you on the night of the sleigh-ride, you did not tell me of the note he gave you, and you gave to Mamie Smythe. If you had, you would have saved me many troubled hours."

"You did not ask me," said Susan promptly.

"True. Did you know the contents of the note?"

"Mamie asked me to go with them, but I refused. I was afraid you wouldn't like it, and I'd much rather lose a ride any time than displease you;" and Susan, as she said this, looked bravely in Miss Ashton's face.

"That's all," the principal said gravely, and Susan, with a lighter heart than that with which she had entered, left the room; but Miss Ashton thought, as she watched the forced smile on the girl's face, "There's one that can't be trusted; what a pity, for she is not without ability!" Then she remembered the story she had read and praised, and wondered over it.

Two days before the time for the term to close, Miss Ashton received this note:—

OUR DEAR MISS ASHTON,—We, the undersigned, do regret in sackcloth and ashes our serious misconduct in going away at an improper time, and in an improper manner, on a sleigh-ride, without your consent and approval.

We promise, if you will forgive us, and restore us to your trust and affection, that we will never, NEVER be guilty of such a misdemeanor again. That we will try our best faithfully to observe the rules of the school, and endeavor to be good and faithful scholars.

Pray forgive and test us!

MAMIE SMYTHE, HELEN NORRIS, JANE SOMERS, JULIA ABBEY, MYRA PETERS, ETTA SPRING.

Miss Ashton smiled as she read the note. Repentance by the wholesale she had never found very reliable; and in this instance she would have had much more confidence if the girls had come to her, and made a full confession, without waiting to be found out.

It was not until after two sleepless nights that she came to the conclusion to give them further trial; and when she called them to her room, one by one, and had a long and faithful talk with them, sending them from her tenderly penitent, she felt sure her course had been a right one.

Then she made a short speech to the school, went over briefly what had happened, not in the least sparing the impropriety of the stolen ride, but, on account of the repentance and promises from the girls concerned, she had decided not to expel them now, but to give them a chance to redeem the character they had lost. The school clapped her enthusiastically as she closed.



CHAPTER XXI.

ACCEPTING A THANKSGIVING INVITATION.

A week before Thanksgiving, Marion Parke received this note from her Aunt Betty:—

DEAR NIECE,—If you haven't anywhere else to go, and have money to come with, you can take the cars from Boston up here and spend Thanksgiving Day with us at Belden. Your pa used to think a lot of coming here when he went to college—the great pity he ever went. He might have been well-to-do if he had stuck to farming, but he always hankered after an eddication, and he got it, and nothin' else. Your Cousin Abijah will drive over in his cutter and bring you here. Don't have nothing to do with Isaac Bumps; he'll charge you twenty-five cents, and tell you it's a mile and a half from the station to my house, but it's only a mile, and don't you hear to him, for your Cousin Abijah can't come until after the milking, and if the cows are fractious, it may make him belated.

I am your great-aunt, BETSY PARKE.

Marion had previously received a letter from her father, saying,—

"If you have an invitation from your Aunt Betty to spend Thanksgiving with her in Belden, by all means accept it. I want you to see the town in which I was born; there is not a mountain or a valley there that does not often cover these flat prairie-lands with their remembered beauty. As they were a part of my boyish life, so are they a part of my man's; and when you come home we can talk of them together. I was not born in the old farmhouse where your aunt now lives, but my father was, and his father, and his father's father, and your Aunt Betty was a kind, loving sister to your grandfather long years ago.

"Go, and write me all about the old home, all about the old aunt, and make her forget, if you can, that I would not be a farmer."

Before the coming of this letter, Marion had many invitations from her schoolmates to spend Thanksgiving with them at their homes. Her room-mates were very urgent that she should go to Rock Cove; and besides her longing to see that wonderful mysterious thing, the ocean, she had learned so much of their homes during the weeks they had been together, that she almost felt as if she knew all the friends there, and would be sure of a welcome.

But her father's letter left her no choice, and a few cordial lines of acceptance went from her to her Aunt Betty by the next mail. Of this decision Miss Ashton heartily approved.

And now began in the school the pleasant bustle which precedes this holiday vacation. Recitations were gone through by the hardest. Meals were eaten in indigestible haste; devotional exercises were filled with "wandering thoughts and worldly affections."

All through the long corridors and out from the open doors came crowded, eager words of inquiry and consultation. One would have thought who heard them, that these girls had been close prisoners, breaking away from a hard, dull life, instead of what most of them really were, happy girls bound for a frolic.

Miss Ashton heard it all without the least injury to her feelings. She had heard it for years, and, in truth, was as glad of her vacation as any of her girls.

A journey alone in a new country, with the beauty of the autumn all gone, and the rigors of a New England winter already beginning to show themselves, made Marion, self-reliant as she usually was, not a little timid as she saw the tall academy building lost behind the hills, between which the cars were bearing her on to New Hampshire. A homesick feeling took possession of her, and a dread that she might find Kate Underwood's tableaux a reality when she should reach her old aunt in the mountain-girded farmhouse.

Three hours' ride through a bare and uninteresting country brought her to Belden.

The day was extremely cold here. The snow, which had seemed to her very deep at Montrose, lay piled up in huge drifts, not a fence nor a shrub to be seen. All around were spurs of the White Mountains, white, literally, as she looked up to them, from their base to their summit. There were great brown trees clinging stiff and frozen to their steep sides; sharp-pointed rocks, raising their great heads here and there from among the trees.

Majestic, awful, solemn they looked to this prairie child, as she stood on the cold platform of the little station gazing up at them.

A voice said behind her, startling her,—

"You'd better come in, marm. It's what we call a terrible cold day for Thanksgiving week. Come in, and warm you."

Marion turned, to see a man in a buffalo overcoat, with whiskers the same color as the fur, eyes that looked the same, a big red nose, a buffalo fur cap pulled well down over his ears, with mittens to match.

He stood in an open door, to which he gave a little push, as if to emphasize his invitation.

Inside the ladies' room of the station a red-hot stove sent out a cheerful welcome. To this the man added stick after stick of dry pine wood, much to Marion's amusement and comfort, as she watched him.

"Come from down South?" he asked, after he had convinced himself of the impossibility of crowding in another.

"From the West," said Marion pleasantly.

"You don't say so. You ain't Aunt Betty Parke's niece, now, be ye?"

"I am Marion Parke. Did you know my father?"

"Let me see. Was your father Philip Parke? Phil, we used to call him when he was a boy, the one that would have an eddication, and went a home-missionarying after he got chock-full of books. Aunt Betty, she took it hard. Be he your father?"

"Yes," said Marion, laughing; "he is my father."

"You don't say so, wull, naow, I'm beat. You don't favor him not a mite; you sarten don't. An' you're here to get an eddication too, be ye?"

"Yes; that's what I hope to do. I'm sorry it's so cold here; I should like to walk to my aunt's if it were not."

The man gave a chuckle, which Marion did not at all understand, jammed the stove full of wood again, and remarked as he crowded in the last knot,—

"There's your Cousin Abijah; I know his old cowbells a mile off! Better get warm!"

Marion was hovering close over the stove when the door opened and Cousin Abijah entered.

"There you be," he called out hilariously as he saw her. "Not froze nuther! You're clear grit! I told your Aunt Betty so, and she said 'seein' was believin'.' As soon as I've thawed my hands a mite, we'll be joggin'. Dan, that's the hoss, isn't the safest to drive in the dark."

The early twilight was already dropping down over the hills before "the mite of thawing" was done, and then wrapped up in an old blanket shawl Aunt Betty had sent, and covered by two well-worn buffaloes, they started.

What a ride it was! Marion will never forget how Dan crawled along up a mountain road, where the path ran between huge snow-drifts, under beetling rocks that looked as if an avalanche might at any moment fall from them and crush horse and riders in the sleigh. Sometimes going under arches of old pine-trees, the arms of which had met and interlocked, long, long years ago; up steep declivities, where the horse seemed almost over their heads, down steep declivities, where they seemed over the horse's head, never meeting any one, only hearing the dull moaning of the wind among the forest trees, and the louder moaning of old Dan, as he toiled painfully along.

At last there came an opening that widened until they crossed the mountain spur, and the little village of Belden lay before them.

Marion saw a church steeple, a few houses, a sawmill, and great spaces covered with snow. To one of these houses, on the outskirts of the village, Cousin Abijah drove. The house was a two-storied old farmhouse, innocent of paint or blind. There was not a fence round, or a tree near it. On one side was a wooden well-top, with a long arm holding an iron-bound bucket above it, the arm swinging from a huge beam, from which, in its turn, swung two large stones, suspended from the well-sweep by an iron chain. A well-worn foot-path came from a back door to it, and on this path stood a yellow dog, nose in air, and tail beating time on a snow-bank.

It was the only living thing to be seen, and Marion's heart sank within her. She was cold, tired, and homesick; and she saw at once that around the small front door, before which Cousin Abijah in his gallantry had stopped, no footstep had left a mark. The snow-bank reached to the handle, clung to it, and as absolutely refused entrance, as did a shrill voice which at once made itself heard, but from whence Marion could not conjecture. It said, however, "Go round to the back door! What's good enough for me, is good enough for them that come to see me!"



CHAPTER XXII.

AUNT BETTY'S RECEPTION OF HER GUEST.

When the sleigh stopped before the back door, it was slowly opened, and Marion saw a tall, lank old woman with thin gray hair, small, faded blue eyes, a long, sharp nose, and thin lips, standing in it.

"I hope I see you well," said a not unkindly voice, and something like a smile played over the hard old face. A knotty hand was held out toward her, and when she put hers timidly within it, it drew her into a large kitchen, where a cooking-stove, that shone like a mirror, sent out rays of heat even to the open door.

It was like Kate Underwood's "Tableau kitchen," yet how different! It had such an air of cleanliness and comfort, that everything, even to the old chairs and tables, the long rows of bright pewter that adorned a swinging shelf, the hams clothed in spotless bags, hanging from the old crane in the big chimney, all had a certain air of refinement which went at once to Marion's heart.

Aunt Betty took off one of the lids of the stove, jammed in all the wood it could be made to hold, then moved a straw-bottomed chair, laced and interlaced with twine to keep the broken straw in place, close to the stove, and motioned Marion to sit down in it.

Then she stood at a little distance looking at her curiously. "You don't favor the Parkes," she said, after a slow examination. "You look more like your Aunt Jerushy; she was on my mother's side. Your brown hair is hern, and your gray eyes; you feature her too. When you're warm through, you can go up-stairs and lay off your things. I don't have folks staying with me often, but I'm glad to see you."

This she said with a certain heartiness that went straight to Marion's heart. She held up her face for a welcoming kiss, and, blushing like a young girl, Aunt Betty, after a quick look around the room, as if to be sure no one saw her, bent down, and kissed for the first time in twenty years.

Then Marion followed her up some steep stairs, leading from the kitchen to an unfinished room under the rafters. Here everything again was as neat as wax, but how desolate! An unpainted bedstead of pine wood, holding a round feather-bed covered with a blue-and-white homespun bed-quilt; a strip of rag carpet on a floor grown beautiful from the care bestowed upon it; a small table covered with a homespun linen towel, a Bible in exactly the middle of it; two old yellow chairs, and not another thing.

It was lighted by a three-cornered window, which Marion learned afterward, being over the front door, was considered the one choice ornament of the house.

In spite of its desolation, its neatness was still a charm to her. It was, as she knew, the family homestead, and that subtile influence, so strong yet so indescribable, seemed to her to brood over the room. Here generation after generation of those whose blood was running now so blithely through her veins had lived, died, and gone out from it. Gently reverent she stood on its threshold. Aunt Betty, looking at her curiously, wondered at her.

It had never been warmed excepting from the heat that had come up from the kitchen stove. For the first time in her long life, Aunt Betty found herself wishing there was a chimney and a large air-tight stove in it; it would be fitter for a young girl like this visitor.

But Marion had been by no means accustomed to luxuries. She made herself at home at once. She hung her hat upon a nail which was carefully covered with white cloth to prevent its rusting anything, and put her valise, not upon the table with the Bible, or on the clean, blue bed-quilt, but up in a corner by itself.

Aunt Betty watched all these movements, every now and then nodding her gray head in silent approval.

Then they went back to the kitchen, Marion taking a Greek play with her to read,—one of Euripides. She had promised herself much pleasure during this short vacation in finishing the play which her class were studying at the end of the term.

Aunt Betty, walking back and forth around the kitchen, stopped now and then at her elbow, and peeped curiously inside the open leaves.

An object of Marion's in taking the book had been to relieve her aunt of any feeling that she must entertain her; if she had been older and wiser she would have seen her mistake.

She was trying to puzzle out a line of the chorus, when a voice said close to her ear,—

"Be that a Bible you are readin'?"

Marion gave a little start, certainly there was nothing very Scriptural in the play.

"No-o-o," she stammered; "it's a Greek play, a—a tragedy."

"A tragedy! you don't read none of them wicked things!" severely.

"Why, yes, auntie, when they come in the course of my study. It's in Greek!"

"Greek! and you're a gal! Your father allers was cracked about it, but this beats all!"

Marion failed to see it in just that light, but she said pleasantly, "I'll put it away if it troubles you."

A long arm pointed up-stairs, and Marion followed its direction.

When she came down, it seemed to Aunt Betty, in spite of her displeasure, that the rays of sunlight that were glimmering so faintly at the head of the stairs came down with her and lighted up the dingy old kitchen.