appear to be in the least conscious of her wonderful beauty. She had
walked to the window, and stood leaning carelessly against the frame,
one beautiful arm thrown above her head, as though she were weary, and
would fain rest--an attitude that could not have been surpassed had she
studied it for years.

"You are not at all what I expected to see," said Miss Hastings, at
last. "You are, indeed, so different that I am taken by surprise."

"Am I better or worse than you had imagined me?" she asked, with
careless scorn.

"You are different--better, perhaps, in some things. You are taller.
You are so tall that it will be difficult to remember you are a pupil."

"The Darrells are a tall race," she said, quietly. "Miss Hastings, what
have you come here to teach me?"

The elder lady rose from her seat and looked lovingly into the face of
the girl; she placed her hand caressingly on the slender shoulders.

"I know what I should like to teach you, Miss Darrell, if you will let
me. I should like to teach you your duty to Heaven, your
fellow-creatures, and yourself."

"That would be dry learning, I fear," she returned. "What does my uncle
wish me to learn?"

"To be in all respects a perfectly refined, graceful lady."

Her face flushed with a great crimson wave that rose to the white brow
and the delicate shell-like ears.

"I shall never be that," she cried, passionately. "I may just as well
give up all hopes of Darrell Court. I have seen some ladies since I have
been here. I could not be like them. They seem to speak by rule; they
all say the same kind of things, with the same smiles, in the same tone
of voice; they follow each other like sheep; they seem frightened to
advance an opinion of their own, or even give utterance to an original
thought. They look upon me as something horrible, because I dare to say
what I think, and have read every book I could find."

"It is not always best to put our thoughts in speech; and the chances
are, Miss Darrell, that, if you have read every book you could find,
you have read many that would have been better left alone. You are
giving a very one-sided, prejudiced view after all."

She raised her beautiful head with a gesture of superb disdain.

"There is the same difference between them and myself as between a
mechanical singing bird made to sing three tunes and a wild, sweet bird
of the woods. I like my own self best."

"There is not the least doubt of that," observed Miss Hast