"I am quite sure that the Stanleys have feelings as keen as any of us," remarked a shy quiet-looking girl. "You know how sensitive poor Mabel is, and I do hope that if she comes back we shall all be kind to her and not let her know that we have ever heard about her father's misfortunes."
"That may be your opinion, Nora Ellis," said Julia, "but for my part I do not choose to associate with a bankrupt's daughter. If she should return here, of course no one would speak to her; but I do not suppose that there is any fear of it. Miss Elgin would be making a great mistake if she were to receive Mabel Stanley, and would be ruining her school and acting against her own interests."
"I daresay Miss Elgin will do as she thinks best," retorted Ethel Thompson, sorry to have raised a storm which it was not easy to subdue.
Julia and Ruth did not reach school the following morning until nearly ten o'clock, the hour at which Miss Elgin's pupils assembled for their morning classes.
They had scarcely entered the cloak-room before they became aware that something unusual had occurred, something which was evidently connected with the young girl standing apart from the rest, at the end of the room, and looking tearful and timid. In a moment Ruth guessed, from the scornful expression of her cousin's face, that the new-comer was Mabel Stanley who had been so freely discussed the previous day, and that the poor child had met with a very cool reception on her return to school.
Pity for the unfortunate girl, indignation at the freezing glances bestowed upon her, mingled perhaps with a vague idea of vexing Julia, caused Ruth to make a sudden resolution to befriend her; and when upon entering the schoolroom she found that their desks were side by side, she did not delay to take advantage of the fact and endeavour to set Mabel at ease by referring to her occasionally for help in little matters of school routine with which she (Ruth) was unacquainted. The questions were politely answered, but her sensitive neighbour seemed either too proud or too shy to respond to her friendly advances.
"Ruth Arnold," exclaimed Julia in the cloak-room at the close of the day, when Mabel Stanley had dressed quickly in silence and taken her departure with only a half-whispered "Good-afternoon" to Ruth, "did you know that the girl you have been sitting next all day is the very one we were talking about yesterday?"
"Yes, I imagined so," was the quiet reply.
"But I thought you knew that we had all determined to cut her if she came back, and not to say one word more to her than we were really obliged," continued Julia.
"Why?" asked Ruth sharply.