“What was her name?”
“Her name; why it was June. I’ll never forget her face; I can see it now, and his, too.”
“His; whose?”
“I don’t know his name, but he was so kind to me.”
CHAPTER V.
ZULA’S FRIEND.
Neither Mr. Platts nor his wife had the remotest idea of giving Zula a permanent home, but there seemed nothing else to do but to let her remain, and as the days wore on, she seemed to be almost necessary to their household. She was ready to help in numerous ways and never expressed the least dissatisfaction when called upon to perform any duty, and to Mary’s comfort she seemed quite indispensable. Mr. Platts had remarked to his wife that it seemed a pity that Zula was growing up without at least a common education, and so after talking the matter over they decided to send her to school. She possessed a very strange nature; a strong will and a somewhat passionate temper, that had been tortured beyond the limits of saintly endurance; and though she was deeply affectionate, she was as strong to hate. The treatment which she had received had served to augment the fire of an already hasty temperament, and, never having received a kind word, it is not surprising that she hardly knew what love meant until she became an inmate of Mr. Platts’ home. As she looked each day on the still handsome faces of her kind 36 friends, she thought that, were it asked of her, she could give her life for their happiness. She was delighted when the plan of sending her to school was made known to her for, to use her own expression, “she could be like other girls,” and she really longed to know what school life was. She could forget neither a favor nor an injury, and it was not surprising that the children with whom she came in contact should often say that she was “a spunky little thing.”
“Don’t you think,” said one of her schoolmates to another, “that Zula is a mean little thing?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” answered the other. “What makes you think so?”