“I have a year before me in which to get established here in my proper place. I can be helpful to many of these girls. I must be helpful. And I must be helpful for money. There are things I can do, and that they need done, and for which they will willingly pay me. I am not ashamed of any decent means to earn money—why should I be?
“Such time as I have aside from the study and recitation hours and such physical exercises as I need, must be devoted to earning money. Why! there are thousands and thousands of girls situated just as I am, who are making their way through school and college. Just because I happen to be in a school for wealthy girls, should make no difference. What will be the odds, whether they like me or not, a hundred years from now?
“Nor will I sport the willow,” declared Beth, “nor wear the martyr’s crown!
“That Maude Grimshaw is half right on another point, too. I must do anything—anything that is decent—for money. I can’t be too particular.
“I won’t dawdle around here like an abused chicken, looking for sympathy. I don’t need sympathy. What did I come to Rivercliff School for, anyway?
“Why! I came to work—in two ways. I’ve taken hold of my lessons all right, I flatter myself,” went on Beth, answering her own question, “and now I must think of taking up my other branches. I am to take a special course of training—learning to make money. I’ll begin to-morrow.”
And with this resolve she finally went to sleep, and slept soundly. Beth Baldwin was blessed with a strain of practical, common sense.
She could be hurt as easily as most naturally refined girls. She was by no means thick-skinned. Only, she could grit her teeth and go at a thing that had to be done, and without weeping over it.
In the morning, almost before Beth had her bath and was dressed, Molly burst in—but in no jolly mood, as was plain.
“Oh, my dear! Oh, my dear!” she wailed, seizing Beth about the neck. “I haven’t slept half the night for thinking of you. That nasty, mean, horrid Maude Grimshaw——”