hope you will be better to-morrow. I
am sure, at least, that you will like the school very much."

"Thank you," said the girl again.

The girls parted at the next corner. When Ruth found herself alone she
paused and looked behind her. Tears rose to her eyes; she took out her
handkerchief to wipe them away. She paused as if troubled by some
thought; then her face grew bright, and she stepped along more briskly.

"I am a coward, and I ought to be ashamed of myself," she thought. "Now,
when I go in and grandfather sees me, he will think he has done quite
wrong to let me go to the Shirley School. I must not let him think that.
And granny will be still more vexed. I have had my heart's desire, and
because things are not quite so pleasant as I hoped they would have
been, it is no reason why I should be discontented."

The next moment she had lifted the latch at a small cottage and entered.
It was a little better than a workman's house, but not much; there were
two rooms downstairs and two rooms upstairs, and that was all. To the
front of the little house was the tiny parlour, at the back an equally
tiny kitchen. Upstairs was a bedroom for Ruth and a bedroom for her
grandparents. Mr. and Mrs. Craven did not keep any servants. The moment
Ruth entered now her grandmother put her head out of the kitchen door.

"Ruthie," she said, "the butcher has disappointed us to-day. Here is a
shilling; go to the shop and bring in some sausages. Be as quick as you
can, child, or your grandfather won't have his supper in time."

Ruth took the money without a word. She went down a small lane, turned
to her right, and found herself in a mean little street full of small
shops. She entered one that she knew, and asked for a pound and a half
of pork sausages. As the woman was wrapping them up in a piece of torn
newspaper, she looked at Ruth and said:

"Is it true, Miss Craven, that you are a scholar at the Great Shirley
School?"

"I am," replied Ruth. "I went there for the first time to-day."

"So your grandparents are going to educate you, miss, as if you were a
lady."

"I am a lady, Mrs. Plowden. My grandparents cannot make me anything but
what I am."

Mrs. Plowden smiled. She handed Ruth her sausages without a word, and
the young girl left the shop. Her grandmother was waiting for her in the
porch.

"What a time you have been, child!" she said. "I do hope this new school
and the scholars and all this fuss and excitement of your new