EVA MAE rose, like a harvest moon, above the Ryder school horizon late in November. Large bodies being proverbially slow of motion, she had occupied the first two months of the school year in acquiring enough momentum to carry her from Laurelton, Mississippi, to New York and install her in the Misses Ryder's most desirable room—providentially left vacant by a defection in the school ranks.
The price of the room was high, but money meant nothing to Eva May. Creature comfort meant much. The new pupil clamoured for a private bath, but finally resigned herself to the least Spartan variety of school simplicity, bought a large supply of novels, made an arrangement by which, for a consideration, the second-floor maid agreed to smuggle fresh chocolates into the house three times a week, unpacked six wrappers, and settled down to the arduous process of being "finished" by a winter in New York.
Miss Lucilla Ryder, conscientious to a fault in educational matters, made an effort to plant Eva May's feet upon the higher paths of learning, and enrolled the girl in various classes; but the passive resistance of one hundred and ninety pounds of inert flesh and a flabby mind were too much for the worthy principal.
"We must do what we can with her," Miss Lucilla said helplessly to the Youngest Teacher. "She may acquire something by association; and, at least, she seems harmless."
Belinda agreed with due solemnity.
"Yes, unless she falls upon someone, she'll do no active damage."
"But her laziness and lack of ambition set such bad standards for the other girls," sighed Miss Lucilla.
Belinda shook her head in protest.
"Not at all. She's valuable as an awful example."
So Eva May, whose baptismal name was Evangeline Marie, and whose father, John Jenkins, a worthy brewer, had wandered from Ohio to the South, married a French creole, and accidentally made a colossal fortune out of a patent spigot, rocked her ponderous way through school routine, wept over the trials of book heroines, munched sweets, filled the greater part of the front bench in certain classes where she never, by any chance, recited, furnished considerable amusement to her schoolmates, and grew steadily fatter.