cure insignificance, only momentarily displaced by the
death of Aunt Fanny. But the other two lived on in Carminia House like
skeletons of an outraged morality.

Something must be done about this dancing craze. Something must be done
to check the first signs of a prophecy fulfilled. She thought of
Barnsbury; but Mrs. Purkiss had now two pasty-faced boys of her own, and
was no longer willing to act as deputy-mother to the children of her
sister. Something must certainly be done about Jenny's wilfulness.

"How dare you go making such an exhibition of yourself?" she demanded,
when Jenny came home. "How dare you, you naughty girl?"

Jenny made no reply but an obstinate frown.

"You dare sulk and I'll give you a good whipping."

The teacher was written to; was warned of Jenny's wild inclinations. The
teacher, a fish-like woman in a plaid skirt, remonstrated with her
pupil.

"Nice little girls," she asserted "don't kick their legs up in the
air."

The class was forbidden to encourage the dancer; a mountain was made of
a molehill; Jenny was raised to the giddy pinnacle of heroism. She wore
about her the blazing glories of a martyr; she began to be conscious of
possessing an exceptional personality, for there had never been such a
fuss over any other girl's misdemeanor. She began to feel more acutely
the injustice of grown-up repression. She tried defiance and danced
again in the playground, but learned that humanity's prime
characteristic is cowardice; perceived, with Aristotle, that man is a
political animal, a hunter in packs. She thought the school would
support her justifiable rebellion, but, alas, the school deserted her.
Heroine she might be in corner conferences. Heroine she might be in
linked promenades; but when her feelings were crystallized in action,
the other girls thought of themselves. They applauded her intentions,
but shrank from the prominence of the visible result. Jenny abandoned
society. The germ of cynicism was planted in her soul. She came to
despise her fellows. In scarlet cloak she traveled solitary to school,
and hated everybody.

The immediate and obvious result of this self-imposed isolation was her
heightened importance in the eyes of boys. One by one they approached
her with offers of escort, with tribute from sticky pockets. Little by
little she became attached to their top-spinning, marble-flicking
journeys to and from school; gradually she was admitted to the more
intimate fellowship