SCHOOL-GIRL GOSSIP.
Studies will be resumed on Tuesday, 25th inst. Such was the intimation
sent out by Miss Elgin, the principal of the ladies' college which the
girls were to attend.
Accordingly on Tuesday morning Ruth accompanied her cousin to Addison
College, where she was kindly received by Miss Elgin, and introduced to
several of the girls, who seemed friendly and agreeable.
The lofty spacious schoolroom, with its comfortable seats and desks, its
splendid maps and numerous modern appliances and convenient
arrangements, the school library, with its rows of standard authors in
uniform binding, the music-room, the pianos--in fact, the whole
establishment exceeded Ruth's brightest dreams of school; and her desire
for knowledge, which had somewhat lessened during her sojourn at the
sea-side, seemed at once to be kindled afresh.
She answered readily the questions given to test her previously acquired
knowledge, and it soon became evident that what she professed to know
had been thoroughly learnt. In English studies she was pronounced fairly
proficient for her age; but in French, music, and other accomplishments
she was very backward, and she found that she would have to work very
hard in order to obtain a good place in her class.
The work of the morning was so novel and interesting to Ruth, that she
was quite astonished when the bell rang for recess, and the girls
trooped off to an anteroom, where their tongues were unloosed and the
pleasures and events of the holidays were discussed, with many other
topics.
"Have you heard the news about Mr. Stanley?" asked a bright lively girl,
Ethel Thompson by name, the gossip and news-monger of the school.
"No; what is it?" cried several voices.
"Well, you must keep it to yourselves, you know," she said in a
confidential tone, "but he has failed, he is a bankrupt."
"Are you sure it is true?" asked one and another.
"How do you know?"
"I am sure it is quite true, for my father was talking about it last
night, and of course I understood how it was that Mabel's place was
vacant this morning," continued Ethel.
"Vacant! I should think it was! You don't suppose she would show her
face here, do you?" exclaimed Julia Woburn. "Of course no one would take
any notice of her. Only fancy the idea of being seen with a bankrupt's
daughter!" she added scornfully.
"Well, it is not _her_ fault." "I suppose she could not help it," said
one or two of the girls.
"If it is not her fault it is her father's, and of course it is a great
disgrace to the family. I shouldn't think they would ever hold up their
heads again," remarked Julia proudly.
"It is very sad." "I always thought them rich." "Mabel was never proud,"
began a chorus of voices, but the luncheon bell ringing at that moment
put an end to the conversation.
The subject was not forgotten, however, and was referred to again in the
afternoon, when the girls were preparing to return home.
"What do you think the Stanleys will do?" asked a girl of Ethel
Thompson, who having brought the news was expected to know everything
relating to her unfortunate school-fellow's family affairs.
"I don't know," replied Ethel. "Perhaps Mr. Stanley will begin business
again, men do sometimes, you know; or he may go away from the town and
start elsewhere."
"The best thing he can do, I consider," cried Julia. "I can't conceive
how people can show themselves in a place where every one knows they
have failed. I am sure I could not do it. But some persons have coarse
natures and do not feel things as much as others."
"I am quite sure that the Stanleys have feelings as keen as any of us,"
remarked a shy quiet-looking girl. "You know how sensitive poor Mabel
is, and I do hope that if she comes back we shall all be kind to her and
not let her know that we have ever heard about her father's
misfortunes."
"That may be your opinion, Nora Ellis," said Julia, "but for my part I
do not choose to associate with a bankrupt's daughter. If she should
return here, of course no one would speak to her; but I do not suppose
that there is any fear of it. Miss Elgin would be making a great mistake
if she were to receive Mabel Stanley, and would be ruining her school
and acting against her own interests."
"I daresay Miss Elgin will do as she thinks best," retorted Ethel
Thompson, sorry to have raised a storm which it was not easy to subdue.
Julia and Ruth did not reach school the following morning until nearly
ten o'clock, the hour at which Miss Elgin's pupils assembled for their
morning classes.
They had scarcely entered the cloak-room before they became aware that
something unusual had occurred, something which was evidently connected
with the young girl standing apart from the rest, at the end of the
room, and looking tearful and timid. In a moment Ruth guessed, from the
scornful expression of her cousin's face, that the new-comer was Mabel
Stanley who had been so freely discussed the previous day, and that the
poor child had met with a very cool reception on her return to school.
Pity for the unfortunate girl, indignation at the freezing glances
bestowed upon her, mingled perhaps with a vague idea of vexing Julia,
caused Ruth to make a sudden resolution to befriend her; and when upon
entering the schoolroom she found that their desks were side by side,
she did not delay to take advantage of the fact and endeavour to set
Mabel at ease by referring to her occasionally for help in little
matters of school routine with which she (Ruth) was unacquainted. The
questions were politely answered, but her sensitive neighbour seemed
either too proud or too shy to respond to her friendly advances.
"Ruth Arnold," exclaimed Julia in the cloak-room at the close of the
day, when Mabel Stanley had dressed quickly in silence and taken her
departure with only a half-whispered "Good-afternoon" to Ruth, "did you
know that the girl you have been sitting next all day is the very one we
were talking about yesterday?"
"Yes, I imagined so," was the quiet reply.
"But I thought you knew that we had all determined to cut her if she
came back, and not to say one word more to her than we were really
obliged," continued Julia.
"Why?" asked Ruth sharply.
"Because she has no business here, because she degrades the school. A
bankrupt's daughter ought not to come here," said Julia haughtily, "and
I hope you will not associate with her."
Ruth's eyes were flashing and her cheeks crimson as she retorted
angrily, "That is no reason why I should not be friendly with her; and
indeed, Julia, I do not intend to ask you whom I am to choose for my
friends."
"Do as you like, and go your own way," said Julia with a scornful laugh.
"Mabel must be destitute of all fine feeling, but perhaps you have a
fancy for people of that sort. If any one belonging to me had ever been
a bankrupt, I should never show my face in the town again."
She left the house a moment later with one or two of her chosen friends,
and Ruth was slowly walking home alone, trying to swallow her
indignation, and letting the cool breeze fan her hot cheeks, when Ethel
Thompson overtook her.
"I really think," she began, "that Julia has been terribly down on
Mabel, and I am glad that you took her part and would not give in. Our
coolness to her to-day was all Julia's doing, and I know that she is
wild with you, for she cannot bear to be crossed. But Mabel has not done
anything; and after all, I don't see why we should cut her to please
Julia, who wants to dictate to every one."
Ruth made an indifferent reply, and hastened to change the subject, for
she did not care to discuss her cousin's shortcomings with one whom she
knew but slightly.
Very few words passed between the cousins upon their return home that
evening; but on their way to school the next morning Julia asked
scornfully, "Do you still intend to cultivate your aristocratic
acquaintance, Ruth?"
"I shall do as I please," said the other shortly.
The girls at Miss Elgin's were mostly the children of wealthy parents,
but unhappily many of them, though rich and fashionable, were sadly
lacking in refinement of heart and mind. Money was the god revered and
worshipped in most of their homes, the one thing talked of and held in
honour, and it was not surprising that the girls, from constantly
hearing their neighbours' worth reckoned solely by the amount of money
they possessed, had come to regard it as the chief good, and to consider
the want of it as something like a crime. Julia had been reared in a
somewhat different atmosphere, but she had adopted the tone of her
school-fellows, and even surpassed them in scorn and disdain for those
who were poor or unfortunate.
But she was about to meet with a terrible humiliation.