iece Dorinda. You are a Page and I am proud of you.
Tell your mother that many things in this life are lost through not
asking for them. I don't think you are in need of the information for
yourself."

Her Own People

The Taunton School had closed for the summer holidays. Constance
Foster and Miss Channing went down the long, elm-shaded street
together, as they generally did, because they happened to board on the
same block downtown.

Constance was the youngest teacher on the staff, and had charge of the
Primary Department. She had taught in Taunton school a year, and at
its close she was as much of a stranger in the little corps of
teachers as she had been at the beginning. The others thought her
stiff and unapproachable; she was unpopular in a negative way with all
except Miss Channing, who made it a profession to like everybody, the
more so if other people disliked them. Miss Channing was the oldest
teacher on the staff, and taught the fifth grade. She was short and
stout and jolly; nothing, not even the iciest reserve, ever daunted
Miss Channing.

"Isn't it good to think of two whole blessed months of freedom?" she
said jubilantly. "Two months to dream, to be lazy, to go where one
pleases, no exercises to correct, no reports to make, no pupils to
keep in order. To be sure, I love them every one, but I'll love them
all the more for a bit of a rest from them. Isn't it good?"

A little satirical smile crossed Constance Foster's dark, discontented
face, looking just then all the more discontented in contrast to Miss
Channing's rosy, beaming countenance.

"It's very good, if you have anywhere to go, or anybody who cares
where you go," she said bitterly. "For my own part, I'm sorry school
is closed. I'd rather go on teaching all summer."

"Heresy!" said Miss Channing. "Rank heresy! What are your vacation
plans?"

"I haven't any," said Constance wearily. "I've put off thinking about
vacation as long as I possibly could. You'll call that heresy, too,
Miss Channing."

"It's worse than heresy," said Miss Channing briskly. "It's a crying
necessity for blue pills, that's what it is. Your whole mental and
moral and physical and spiritual system must be out of kilter, my
child. No vacation plans! You _must_ have vacation plans. You must be
going _somewhere_."

"Oh, I suppose I'll hunt up a boarding place somewhere in the country,
and go there and mope until September."

"Have you no friends, Constance?"