aspirations, for was she not working with the
same object in view? Did she not desire to help _her_ father and mother
by teaching the younger children?

Thus their friendship grew and strengthened during Julia's absence,
which lasted quite a week.

She, poor child, was quite unstrung, and for two or three days the very
mention of school brought on a fit of hysterical crying, and she begged
that she might be allowed to go to some boarding-school at a distance,
anywhere--away from Busyborough. Mrs. Woburn was inclined to yield to
her wish; but her father would not hear of such a thing, and declared
that she had brought all the trouble upon herself by her own folly, and
she must bear the consequences of it. He was, in fact, excessively angry
with his spoilt child, and believed that her return to school would be a
severe punishment which she richly deserved.

When Mr. Woburn spoke in that decided way there was nothing to be done
but to obey. His wife, however, called upon Miss Elgin, and explained
the reason of Julia's absence, begging that she would ask the girls to
receive her kindly, without referring to the cause of the quarrel, as
she had already suffered a good deal.

Miss Elgin was astonished to hear of the affair, which had perplexed and
puzzled her not a little; for, as her pupils had all felt themselves
more or less to blame in the matter, they had all kept it from her
knowledge, and she had only guessed from their reticence, and the air of
mystery with which they received every allusion to their absent
school-fellow, that something was wrong. Before morning school she
called the girls together, told them how pained and grieved she had
been, and gave them a little lecture upon the duty of ruling the tongue,
and the folly of valuing people only for their wealth or position
instead of their goodness and virtue. The girls listened in silence, and
when Julia returned, looking very much ashamed and humbled after her
vain boasting, they made no allusion to her fiery outburst, and in a few
days she had regained her old place in the school and everything went on
as usual.

Lessons, classes, exercises, and lectures were crowded into each day.
Ruth had plenty to do, and found that she must work very hard if she
wished to succeed, and to take a good place in the school. She was
astonished to see how indolent some of the girls were; to find that many
of them did not care for knowledge for its own sake, but regarded their