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time. Some girls might have found it no easy task to arrive at a
true view of the character of Alban Morris. Francine's essentially
superficial observation set him down as "a little mad," and left him
there, judged and dismissed to her own entire satisfaction.

Arriving at the lawn, she discovered Emily pacing backward and forward,
with her head down and her hands behind her, deep in thought. Francine's
high opinion of herself would have carried her past any of the other
girls, unless they had made special advances to her. She stopped and
looked at Emily.

It is the sad fate of little women in general to grow too fat and to be
born with short legs. Emily's slim finely-strung figure spoke for itself
as to the first of these misfortunes, and asserted its happy freedom
from the second, if she only walked across a room. Nature had built her,
from head to foot, on a skeleton-scaffolding in perfect proportion. Tall
or short matters little to the result, in women who possess the first
and foremost advantage of beginning well in their bones. When they live
to old age, they often astonish thoughtless men, who walk behind them in
the street. "I give you my honor, she was as easy and upright as a
young girl; and when you got in front of her and looked--white hair, and
seventy years of age."

Francine approached Emily, moved by a rare impulse in her nature--the
impulse to be sociable. "You look out of spirits," she began. "Surely
you don't regret leaving school?"

In her present mood, Emily took the opportunity (in the popular phrase)
of snubbing Francine. "You have guessed wrong; I do regret," she
answered. "I have found in Cecilia my dearest friend at school. And
school brought with it the change in my life which has helped me to bear
the loss of my father. If you must know what I was thinking of just now,
I was thinking or my aunt. She has not answered my last letter--and I'm
beginning to be afraid she is ill."

"I'm very sorry," said Francine.

"Why? You don't know my aunt; and you have only known me since yesterday
afternoon. Why are you sorry?"

Francine remained silent. Without realizing it, she was beginning to
feel the dominant influence that Emily exercised over the weaker natures
that came in contact with her. To find herself irresistibly attracted
by a stranger at a new school--an unfortunate little creature, whose
destiny was to earn her own living--filled the narrow mind of Miss de
Sor with perplexity. Havi