by fear of punishment, or promise of
reward. So strong at last had the friction grown that Miss Perkins had
herself resigned her post, and recommended that Aldred should be packed
off to school.

"I have done my utmost," she said to Miss Laurence, "but I feel that I
am a complete failure. I have no influence over Aldred, and she is not
making the slightest progress. In the circumstances I cannot honestly
continue to teach her. In my opinion a little strict discipline is what
she requires, and the sooner she experiences it the better."

The decision to send her away (long held over her head as a threat),
instead of daunting Aldred, had delighted her. Aunt Bertha was much
relieved. She had dreaded a storm when the question was raised, and
though she considered it a bad characteristic in a girl to be glad to
leave home, she felt it removed a difficulty when her niece accepted the
situation so readily.

To Aldred the idea of forming herself on the prim pattern of her aunt
was intolerable. She was ready to copy anybody whom she loved and
admired, but to be obliged to repress her enthusiasms, and reduce her
ideals to the level of the commonplace, seemed like being forced into a
box too small to contain her.

"Aunt Bertha never understands," she thought. "She says I must try to
grow up now, and be sensible. If growing up means getting cold and calm
and stupid, and taking everything as a matter of course, I'd rather not.
I'll just stop a child always, however hard they may try to make me
different!"

Such was Aldred at the time our story begins,--a mass of contradictions,
so wayward and yet so winning, a mixture of good impulses and weak
points, equally ready to join a crusade or to follow the multitude to do
evil; waiting, like a gaily painted but rudderless vessel, to be
launched on to the stormy ocean of school life.

CHAPTER II

Mabel Farrington

Birkwood Grange was a rambling, roomy stone house, built at the edge of
a breezy common, within sight and sound of the sea. It was a pleasant
spot for a school; beyond stretched the broad downs, covered with short,
fine grass, through which the dazzling white road wound like a ribbon to
the distant horizon. There was a sense of air and space as one looked
over the green upland, where for miles the view was interrupted only by
the sails of a windmill, or an occasional storm-swept tree, the slanting
branches of which showed the direction of the prevailing gale. In