st have some mind if she attempts to think for
herself at all; and mind is material to work upon."

"I'm afraid _I_ haven't much mind," Beth said, sighing, "or manner
either."

Miss Blackburne smiled again, and looked at Miss Bey; but Miss Bey
supported Beth in her self-depreciation by preserving an ominous
silence.

"This is one of your new school-fellows," Miss Blackburne said to
Beth; "let me introduce you to each other. Clara Herring, Beth
Caldwell."

When Miss Bey took her leave, Miss Blackburne left the room with her,
and immediately afterwards another girl came in, clapping her hands.

"Oh, I say!" she exclaimed, "Signor Caponi _is_ a dear! He has the
nicest chocolate eyes, and he says my Italian is wonderful! Now I've
done all my work for to-day."

"Have you?" said Beth. "Why, it isn't five o'clock yet!"

"Miss Blackburne won't let us work long hours," the girl rejoined.
"She says it destroys our freshness. But let us know each other's
names. I am Geraldine Tressillion. Good name for a novel, isn't it?"
and she clapped her little white hands and laughed again.

"That's just what you're made to be--the heroine of a novel," Clara
Herring observed, looking at her admiringly. "I always think of you
when I come across a gay one, with golden hair and blue eyes."

"I have my good points, I know," Geraldine rejoined. "But how about my
hips? Too high, alas!"

"Oh, that won't show much while you're slight," said Clara, looking at
her critically.

"Well, I'll make haste and marry me before I'm afflicted with flesh,
as I'm sure to become. For I deny myself nothing--I live to eat,"
Geraldine rattled on cheerfully. "One can't get very fat before one
comes out; and I hate a thin dowager. I'm engaged already, you know,
but I don't like the man much--don't like him at all, in fact; and my
sister says I can do better. She's been married a year, and has a
baby. She told me all about it. Mamma imagines we're all innocent. A
lady implored her to tell my sister things before she married, but she
said she really could not speak to an innocent girl on such a subject.
I don't believe she was ever so innocent herself. A grown girl can't
be innocent unless she's a fool; but anyway, it's the right pose to
pretend. You've got to play the silly fool to please a man; then he
feels superior."

"But it's hypocritical," said Beth.

"Yes, my dear. But you must be hypocritical if you want to be a man's
ideal of a woman. You must