en are only too anxious to cast off their
responsibilities."

Even Miss Edith, kind as ever though she was, seemed to take a gloomy
view of the case.

"I'm sorry, dear--very sorry!" she said, as she introduced Gipsy to her
attic bedroom. "I don't like to have to turn you out of your
dormitory--and I'm sure Miss Poppleton doesn't either! But, you see,
we're obliged to put Leonora there--and there's no other place but this.
If your father hadn't behaved so queerly, of course it would have been
different. I'm very sorry, Gipsy--it's hard on a girl to be left like
this. I wonder he could have the heart to do it. And it's hard on my
sister too. She has to think of ways and means. Dear, dear! what an
amount of trouble there is in the world! And you're young to have to
begin to feel it. There! I've made you as comfortable as I can here,
child. After all, you'll be downstairs most of your time."

When Miss Edith had gone away, Gipsy sat down on the one chair in her
room, with a blank, wretched feeling that was beyond the relief of
tears. It was not that she minded a camp bed in the least, and she had
often slept in far rougher places than her new attic; but the change
seemed the outward and visible sign of her forlorn circumstances. Both
Miss Poppleton's uncompromising remarks and Miss Edith's well-meant
sympathy hurt her equally, for both expressed the same doubt of her
father's honour. Not until that afternoon had Gipsy thoroughly realized
how utterly alone she was in the world. Every other girl in the school
had home and parents and relations, while she had nobody at all except a
father who had--no, not forgotten her! that she would never allow; but
for some strange, mysterious reason had been kept from communicating
with her.

Gipsy had too generous a nature to bear Leonora any grudge for having
taken her place in the dormitory. She even volunteered to give some
valuable hints to the newcomer, knowing by experience the thorns that
were likely to beset her path. Leonora, however, did not seem at all
afflicted by many things which would have been most trying to Gipsy. She
went her own way stolidly, without reference to her schoolfellows'
comments, good or bad. This attitude did not satisfy Briarcroft
standards, and by the time she had been there a week she had been
weighed in the balance of public opinion and found decidedly wanting.
She was the exact opposite of what the boarders had expected. Far from
being liberally d