, likewise. Some of these
young ladies came from other cities,--New York and Philadelphia and
elsewhere,--and their fathers and mothers were usually people to be
mentioned as a matter of course--were, indeed, frequently so mentioned by
Miss Sadler, especially when a visitor called at the school.

"Isabel, I saw that your mother sailed for Europe yesterday," or, "Sally,
your father tells me he is building a gallery for his collection." Then
to the visitor, "You know the Broke house in Washington Square, of
course."

Of course the visitor did. But Sally or Isabel would often imitate Miss
Sadler behind her back, showing how well they understood her
snobbishness.

Miss Sadler was by no means the type which we have come to recognize in
the cartoons as the Boston school ma'am. She was a little, round person
with thin lips and a sharp nose all out of character with her roundness,
and bright eyes like a bird's. To do her justice, so far as instruction
went, her scholars were equally well cared for, whether they hailed from
Washington Square or Washington Court House. There were, indeed, none
from such rural sorts of places--except Cynthia. But Miss Sadler did not
take her hand on the opening day--or afterward--and ask her about Uncle
Jethro. Oh, no. Miss Sadler had no interest for great men who did not
sail for Europe or add picture galleries on to their houses. Cynthia
laughed, a little bitterly, perhaps, at the thought of a picture gallery
being added to the tannery house. And she told herself stoutly that Uncle
Jethro was a greater man than any of the others, even if Miss Sadler did
not see fit to mention him. So she had her first taste of a kind of
wormwood that is very common in the world though it did not grow in
Coniston.

For a while after Cynthia's introduction to the school she was calmly
ignored by many of the young ladies there, and once openly--snubbed, to
use the word in its most disagreeable sense. Not that she gave any of
them any real cause to snub her. She did not intrude her own affairs upon
them, but she was used to conversing kindly with the people about her as
equals, and for this offence; on the third day, Miss Sally Broke snubbed
her. It is hard not to make a heroine of Cynthia, not to be able to
relate that she instantly put Miss Sally's nose out of joint. Susan
Merrill tried to do that, and failed signally, for Miss Sally's nose was
not easily dislodged. Susan fought more than one of Cynthia's batt