rth they jutted, these
remarkable structures, from cul-de-lampes above the lady's ears, and
thence they descended, three toward the right shoulder, three toward
the left. But their most astonishing quality was their buoyancy, their
resiliency, which made them vital and active things, and not mere
soulless parts of an ordered design.

At all events the two little newcomers, cowering somewhat under the
glittering gaze of their preceptress, drew for protection close to one
another, small hand found small hand, and a friendship was cemented
which the swirling years had proved unable to break.

Their later experiences at this fountain of learning served only to
draw them closer still. Many a time, in later years, would they smile
together, remembering incidents that had happened in the square old red
brick house with the green blinds, and the orderly terrible courtyard
with the straight narrow seats set bolt upright against a speechless
wall, and the little green pump that only grown-up persons were
permitted to touch; remembering, too, the long low-backed benches in
the schoolroom, row after row to the end of the low-ceiled room, and
the tiny gray blackboard, and the painful corner behind the stove where
recalcitrant pupils were stood, awaiting the approach of tardy
contrition or increased mental attainments; remembering, above all, the
grave, kind face of the teacher herself, Miss Dorcas Kingsbury--of
_the_ Kingsburys--reduced in her middle age to conducting a "cultural
institute," but as undeviating and inflexible in her idea of duty as
was the very line of her uncompromising brow. Not bad training for
small girls, that of Miss Dorcas; Helen and Isabel would not have
changed it, in their memories at least, for the fairest lane of
learning in the world.

Time went on and gradually carried them beyond the pale of Miss
Dorcas's influence and over the horizon beyond the sight of her curious
curls. But the school-girl lovers had become friends--which was of
much more consequence. They stayed together as they grew, although in
intellectual concerns Helen soon left Isabel behind. A year the elder,
she was also the more dominant, and had always taken the lead in their
mutual affairs. Isabel, who had a will of her own, did not always
follow; but there was never any struggle for precedence, and Helen's
unselfishness prevented her from ever assuming an unpleasant autocracy.

It would have been difficult, at any rate, to a