I shall never forget that day, the start in the early sunshine, the stiff ruffled apron that I wore, and my mother leading me along the street by the hand. She was just as much excited as I was, and when we came to the door of a large white house, with a brass plate saying, "Mrs. Garfield's Select School for Girls and Young Ladies," she stopped a moment before she rang the bell to rearrange my hair, and give me a private hug.
"Don't forget your seven times!" she whispered, warningly.
I was too far gone for reply, but I nodded, blindly, at her through a mist of tears, unexpected tears, for somehow or other I suddenly seemed to be leaving my old life behind me, and to be going into a strange country.
It was very quiet in the white house. There were a great many rooms, and a subdued hum of recitation. A clock in the hall ticked loudly. My mother and I sat on two lonely chairs in the reception room and waited. I remember that there was a large piece of white coral on the floor in front of the pierglass. It had exactly thirty-seven points. And there was a motto neatly framed on the wall. "The Good Child Makes the Careful Mother." By and by there was a rustle of silk in the doorway, and Mrs. Garfield was shaking hands with us. She was a fair, pleasant-looking lady. She shook hands with my mother first, and then with me. She gazed at me, very closely and attentively, much as a doctor might gaze, but she had kind eyes and once in awhile her dignity would break into a smile.
"I want to enter my little girl," my mother said, falteringly. "She—she doesn't know a great deal."
"Then there's all the more to learn," Mrs. Garfield encouraged us, brightly.
It seemed to me that she liked to know that I didn't know anything. It seemed to me that she liked to think that I was to be built up after her own plan.
She was busy in a moment asking my age, and getting my school books together. There was a brief farewell with my mother in the hall, during which I clung to her, wildly, then the door had shut and I was alone in the world. It was a dreadful feeling to be alone! And it was still more dreadful when I had followed Mrs. Garfield into a large room filled with pupils seated at their desks, and had been introduced to Miss Lucy, the teacher in charge.
"A little new friend of ours, Miss Lucy," Mrs. Garfield said, in the hush that followed our arrival.