The girls of Rivercliff School; or, Beth Baldwin's resolve

by Amy Bell Marlowe

“Point of order!” drawled one girl. “Has Miss Granger been called to the chair, pro tem?”

Beth began heartily to wish that Molly was chairman at these disorderly meetings—or somebody besides herself. When the opposition could not gain its point, very often the quarrelsome girls were so noisy that the session adjourned without having accomplished the object for which it had been called.

Of course, her inability to control the meetings counted against Beth. Reports of them circulated through the school and quickly reached the ears of the teachers. Miss Hammersly would be the last to know about the friction in the senior class; but she must know in time, and she would then call the class president to account.

Long as the time seemed to June, the days passed only too swiftly. The senior class of Rivercliff considered itself, of course, quite a wonderful body of young ladies. And Miss Hammersly did all in her power to inspire them with the belief that the whole world lay open before them to be conquered.

Beth kept busily at work with both her books and her needle. She was piling up quite a little sum of money—there was a new object in view.

Mr. Baldwin was doing very well with one of his inventions, and a second one promised to make both him and Larry Haven moderately wealthy. The family was not likely to need her financial aid after all. When she began to teach, her salary would be her own.

And now that she had so much money saved, Beth wished to try to recover Great-grandmother Lomis’ corals. She had learned from her mother who had the heirloom; she was sure Mrs. Haven never wore the corals; she desired very much to buy them back from Larry’s mother.

For, after all, Beth was a real girl and loved jewelry and the like just as much as any other girl.

This hope, however, was not the first thought in her mind. She neglected none of her senior class tasks for the sake of earning more money. She had even passed a good deal of her work over to another girl in a lower class, who needed to help herself through school. The doctrine of independence was beginning to be established at Rivercliff School in spite of such girls as Laura Hedden.

Social affairs were always of more importance to the senior class than to any of the other girls. The members of the senior class being really the hostesses at the monthly “hop,” considerable time and thought had to be given by the social committee to these occasions.