hinking, "wherever it was, she had
better go back to it as fast as she can--the little fright!"

Fortunately Adelle did not understand the glances that the elegant young
women who were chattering in the Hall drawing-room before dinner cast
upon her when she was introduced to her schoolmates. Nor did she
immediately comprehend the intention of the insults and tortures to
which she was submitted during the ensuing year. She felt lonely: she
missed her aunt and even the "roomers" more than she had expected to.
But gradually even into her dumb mind there penetrated a sense of
undeserved ignominy, not clearly localized, because she did not possess
a sufficient knowledge of sophisticated manners to realize the refined
nature of her torture. She had merely an accumulating sense of pain and
outrage. She was not happy in Herndon Hall: she did not know it until
afterwards, but that was the plain truth. Nobody wanted her there, and
she knew enough to understand it. Even a cat or a dog has sufficient
social sense for that!

* * * * *

Externally Herndon Hall was all that was charming and gracious--a much
more beautiful and refined home than Adelle had ever seen. It occupied
one of those spacious old manorial houses above the Hudson, where the
river swept in a gracious curve at the foot of the long lawn. An avenue
of old trees led up to the large stone house from the high road half a
mile away. There were all sorts of dependencies,--stables, greenhouses,
and ornamental gardens of the old-fashioned kind,--which were carefully
kept up so that the Hall resembled a large private estate, such as it
was meant to be, rather than a school. It was popularly supposed that
Herndon Hall had once been the country-place of Miss Thompson's people,
which was not true; but that shrewd woman of the world, recognizing all
the advantages of an aristocratic background, kept up the place on a
generous footing, with gardeners, stablemen, and many inside servants,
for which, of course, the pupils paid liberally. The Hall was run less
as a school than as a private estate. Many of the girls had their own
horses in the stable, and rode every pleasant afternoon under the care
of an old English riding-master, who was supposed to have been "Somebody
in England" once. (Later on, when the motor became popular the girls had
their own machines, but that was after Adelle's time.) There was lawn
tennis on the ample lawns, and this with