Helen Grant's Schooldays

by Amanda M. Douglas

Mrs. Van Dorn was doing just what Miss Craven longed to do. No, not just. If Helen had been unpromising she realized keenly that she might have gone back to Uncle Jason, or worked her way through the High School as she best might. She knew now, most girls of sixteen do, that an attractive face and manner was an excellent capital. She sometimes gave herself a little mental hug at the thought of having just the right share of good looks, enough to please, and not enough to be vain of, and not the sort of fascination Roxy Mays had possessed. There were several beautiful girls in school. Daisy Bell had many charms, a lovely, subtle, easily-flushing complexion that was like pink and pearl, beautiful even teeth, tender and loving eyes.

"My face is just like me," she comforted herself, looking in the glass. "It is strong, earnest, and capable. And I do mean to do something with life before I die. I hope God will put me in the way of it."

Toward spring there was an episode that now and then happens in a girls' school in spite of the closest supervision. Mrs. Aldred tried to train the girls to a high sense of honor, and allowed them a certain liberty, though no one girl ever went out alone. Among the new scholars was a pretty, saucy little thing, bright with her lessons and full of fun, seemingly innocent enough. But she had adroitly managed a flirtation with the brother of one of the day scholars. Letters had passed between them, and she had eluded supervision and taken several strolls with him by climbing over the fence at the back of the grounds, with the assistance of her admirer. The daring went a little too far, and one evening Miss Wiley saw the return of the culprit, who begged and pleaded a little at first, and then became defiant.

"I don't care," she said angrily. "We are engaged. I knew I wouldn't be allowed to see him alone if he called, and I had a right to his visits."

Mrs. Aldred was surprised and had a rather stormy time with the girl, who was sent home at once.

"Now that Roxy Mays will never come back," said Daisy gravely, "I will say to you that she did go as far as the letters once. It was with the clerk in Adams' drug store. He gave a note to me and said it was a prescription, and she laughed about it, saying she only did it to prove how easily a girl could write letters and get answers, but that she was not going to follow it up, and she knew I would not betray her. It was the very week before school closed, and though it wasn't just right I let it pass. She still corresponds with him, but now her mother must know it. It doesn't seem real fun to me to break rules that way. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if she had returned to school!"

Helen smiled, thinking of her innocent letter to Mr. Warfield. And now Mrs. Dayton quoted him so often she wondered if that was quite right.

But she did enjoy writing to Mrs. Van Dorn. Often there was only a few lines from her, the rest finished by Miss Gage, who had a very methodical manner of going over their doings.

In April an announcement was made that surprised and troubled many of the scholars. Mrs. Aldred had decided to go to Europe, taking her daughter Grace and chaperoning several other young ladies. Gertrude, who had been studying hard in Paris, would join them, and they would spend the ensuing winter in Rome. Mrs. Wiley and her daughter would take the school, keeping it on the same lines.

"I wish you could remain another year and graduate," she said to Helen. "I shall write to Mrs. Van Dorn about it. Then you would be fitted for whatever might happen afterward."