"Well, I wouldn't be surprised at anything you might do," said Theodore, "and I know it would be done exhaustively. But what's the matter with school? I thought you liked it."
"Oh, it's not school, altogether. It's everything. It's life,—civilised life,—with all its little petty trials and meannesses. Now here is Miss Peabody's school that we have to pass,—the hall of the select and the home of the cultured,—an Eden from which I have been driven, to judge from the manner of some of the girls when I go by. Of course, I could go round the other way, but I just won't! I march past with my head up and my colours flying,—they give me the iciest bows,—I return them a mere sweep of my eyelashes,—and the thing is over for the day. But it rankles and hurts, and makes me miserable in spite of myself."
"I have been enduring that sort of thing for two months," said Theodore. "I am becoming cheerfully resigned to it. Whenever I meet those girls in a crowd together, they have an interesting letter to bend their heads over, or something of that kind, and at the very last moment one or two will look up and give me a half-frightened bow, and I raise my hat with dignity to Miss Peabody's cupola, or some other equally lofty object, and walk on. Of course, I understand Myrtle Blanchard is at the bottom of it all. She's paying back an old score."
Miss Peabody's Select Seminary for Young Ladies, which they were approaching, was a handsome building in grey stone, with an imposing iron fence, and a square of well-kept lawn strewn with garden seats, on which "the select" were even now gathered. Miss Myrtle Blanchard was there, and as she saw Miss Billy and Theodore coming, she rose, in company with two other of the most popular girls, and advanced to the gate.
"You don't suppose they are meaning to speak to us," gasped Miss Billy in amazement. "Why, those three girls have been the ringleaders of the whole thing!"
Evidently the young ladies did mean to speak to them. They advanced with outstretched hands, and Miss Myrtle hooked on to Miss Billy's arm, while the other two engaged Theodore.
"Why in the world don't you ever come to see me," said Miss Myrtle, with an expostulatory little shake. "But there,—I know the reason. You are so carried away with Cherry Street that you haven't a thought for old friends! Oh, I know all about it, Miss Billy.—You needn't deny it! I've heard all about your Improvement Club, and the social you gave, and everything. Maude and Blanche wrote in their last London letter that slumming was more fashionable than ever, there."
"Yes?" said Miss Billy, looking meaningly at Theodore,—but Miss Myrtle was not to be so lightly shaken off.
"Margaret Van Courtland tells me she is a member of your Club,—and that elegant young college man, Mr. Lindsay, too, that the girls are raving over. Why didn't you let me know about it this summer? I've been just aching to help somebody. I want you to put my name down right away for membership. Maude and Blanche will want to join when they come, I know. They'll love to belong to anything Margaret Van Courtland is connected with. They just adore her,—and they'll enjoy slumming."
"It isn't slumming," said Miss Billy, with repressed indignation. "It's just a little neighbourhood affair, and we are all on perfectly equal terms."