A Dear Little Girl at School. Blanchard Amy Ella

very happy about having to be in the class with such little girls. Mrs. MacDonald is talking of getting a governess for her till she can catch up a little, but we shall be sorry to have her not come here.”

      “Do you know Clara Adams?” Dorothy asked. “I mean did you know her before you came to school?”

      “Yes, I know her. She is in my Sunday-school class,” returned Jennie, but she said nothing more, yet both the other two felt quite sure that there was no likelihood of Jennie’s going over to the other faction. Then the bell rang and they all took their seats.

      “Don’t you like her?” whispered Edna before Miss Ashurst had taken her place.

      Dorothy nodded yes, and glanced across at Clara who curled her lip scornfully.

      When school was dismissed Jennie and Dorothy walked home together. Agnes and Dorothy remained in the city during the week just as the two Conway sisters had begun to do. Edna sought her sister Celia after dinner when the two had their study hour. “Isn’t it nice,” said Edna, “Jennie Ramsey has come to school, and she is such a nice little girl. I heard Uncle Justus say once that Mrs. Ramsey was much wealthier than Mrs. Adams but that one never saw her making any pretence because of her money. What is pretence, sister?”

      “It is pretending, I suppose. I think he meant she didn’t put on airs because of having money.”

      Edna nodded. She quite understood. “Wasn’t it lovely for Jennie to want to be friends? She said her mother told her to be sure to speak to me, and, oh, sister, we saw one of the other girls go over and try to get her to join Clara’s set and she didn’t stay but came over to us. She said she knew Clara but I don’t believe she likes her. Did you and Agnes talk about, you know what?”

      “Yes, and we’ll tell you but you mustn’t ask me any questions now for I shall not answer. Now let us get to work or Aunt Elizabeth will be down on us for talking in study hour.”

      Edna turned her attention to her books and in a moment was not thinking of anything but her geography.

      She could scarcely wait till the next day, however, when she and Dorothy should learn what Agnes had planned, but alas, she was not allowed this pleasure for Aunt Elizabeth called her from the school-room just at recess and took her down to see Miss Martin, the daughter of the rector of the church. Of course Edna was very glad to see Miss Martin, for she was very fond of her, but she did wish she had chosen some other day to call, and not only was Edna required to remain down in the parlor during the whole of recess but she was again summoned before she had a chance to speak a word to anyone at the close of school. This time it was to run an errand to the shop where an order had been forgotten and Edna was despatched to bring home the required article, Ellen being too busy to be spared.

      She felt rather out of sorts at having both of her opportunities taken from her. “I don’t see why they couldn’t have sent sister,” she said to herself, “or why they couldn’t do without rice for just this once. I should think something else would be better, anyway, for dessert than rice and sugar.” But there was no arranging Aunt Elizabeth’s affairs for her and when the dish of rice appeared Edna was obliged to eat it in place of any other dessert. Her ill humor passed away, however, when Uncle Justus looked at her from under his shaggy brows and asked her if she didn’t want to go to Captain Doane’s with him. This was a place which always delighted her, for Captain Doane had been all over the world and had brought back with him all sorts of curiosities. Moreover, there was always a supply of preserved ginger taken from a queer jar with twisted handles, and there was also an especially toothsome cake which the captain’s housekeeper served, so Edna felt that the feast in store for her, quite made up for the poverty of a dessert of boiled rice and sugar.

      She wondered that Celia was not also asked to go, but she remembered that Celia did not know Captain Doane, and that probably she would think it very stupid to play with shells and other queer things while two old gentlemen talked on politics or some such dry subject. Therefore she went off very happily, rather glad that after all there was a pleasure for this day and one in prospect for the morrow.

      CHAPTER III

A SATURDAY AFTERNOON

      By Friday, Jennie, Dorothy and Edna had become quite intimate. Margaret was still kept at home by a bad cold, so these three little girls played at recess together joined by one or two others who had not been invited, or had not chosen, to belong to what the rest called “Clara Adams’s set.” There had been a most interesting talk with Agnes and Celia and a plan was proposed which was to be started on Saturday afternoon. Jennie had been invited to come, and was to go home with Dorothy after school to be sent for later.

      Edna was full of the new scheme when she reached home on Friday, and she was no sooner in the house than she rushed up stairs to her mother. “Oh, mother,” she cried, “I am so glad to see you, and I have so much to tell you.”

      “Then come right in and tell it,” said her mother kissing her. “You don’t look as if you had starved on bread and molasses.”

      Edna laughed. “Nor on rice. I hope you will never have rice on Saturdays, mother.”

      “Rice is a most wholesome and excellent dish,” returned her mother. “See how the Chinese thrive on it. I am thinking it would be the very best thing I could give my family, for it is both nourishing and cheap. Suppose you go down and tell Maria to have a large dishful for supper instead of what I have ordered.”

      Edna knew her mother was teasing, so she cuddled up to her and asked: “What did you order, mother?”

      “What should you say to waffles and chicken?”

      “Oh, delicious!”

      “But where is that great thing you were going to tell me?”

      “Oh, I forgot. Well, when we got to school last Monday, there was Clara Adams and all the girls she could get together and they were whispering in a corner. They looked over at me and I knew they were talking about me, but I didn’t care. Then I went over to Dorothy and we just stayed by ourselves all the time, for those other girls didn’t seem to want to have anything to do with us. We hadn’t done one single thing to make them act so, but Clara Adams is so hateful and jealous and all that, she couldn’t bear to have us be liked by anybody. Dorothy told me she heard her say I was a pet and that was the reason I got along with my lessons. You know I study real hard, mother, and it isn’t that at all. Clara said it was just because Uncle Justus favored me, and told Miss Ashurst too. Wasn’t that mean?”

      “I think it was rather mean, but you must not mind what a spoiled child like Clara says, as long as you know it isn’t so.”

      “That’s what Agnes says. We told Agnes and Celia how the girls were doing and how they had a secret and didn’t want us to be in it, so Agnes said we could have a secret, too, and she has planned a beautiful one, she and Celia. I will tell you about it presently. Well, then Jennie Ramsey came.”

      “Jennie Ramsey? I don’t think I ever heard you speak of her.”

      “No, of course you didn’t, for I only just became acquainted with her. Mother, don’t you remember the lovely Mrs. Ramsey that did so much about getting Margaret into the Home of the Friendless?”

      “I remember, now.”

      “Well, she is Jennie’s mother, and she told Jennie to be sure to speak to me, because she knows Aunt Elizabeth, I suppose, but anyhow, she did. But first the Clara Adams set tried to get Jennie to go with them, but she just wouldn’t, and so she’s on our side. I know Clara is furious because the Ramseys are richer than the Adamses.”

      “Oh dear, oh dear,” Mrs. Conway interrupted, “this doesn’t sound a bit like my little girl talking about one person being richer than another and about one little girl’s being furious about another’s making friends with whom she chooses.”

      Edna was silent for a moment. “Mother,” she said presently, “it is all Clara Adams’s doings. If she wouldn’t speak to us nor let the other girls play with us, why, what could we do?”

      “I really don’t know, my darling, we’ll talk of that directly. Go