"It is true, I am not a teacher," replied Janet, "but since Miss Bronson has been sick, I have helped Miss Gilbert to make up her books, and I know the standing of every scholar in school. Your marks are not what I should like to have mine, and though I am not at liberty to say any more, I certainly advise you to take care how you make them any worse. Even you would not like to be sent home in disgrace."
"Dear me, no!" said Almira, in alarm. "I should never dare to show my face there, if I was expelled. But are they so very bad, Janet? I did not think they would be."
"I don't know how you can think so, when hardly a week passes that your name is not at the very bottom of the bill, both for lessons and deportment. You have only been in the perfect list once this term."
"But just tell me how many marks I have, Janet, or let me guess—Is it fifty?"
"Did I not tell you that I was bound in honor not to say any more?" said the Queen of Sheba, much disgusted. "If you had any sense of propriety, you would never ask me another question, after that."
"Dear me! What is the use of being so grand?" asked Almira. "Of course, I should not tell Miss Gilbert, and what harm would it do, so long as she did not know it?"
Her majesty deigned no reply, but walked away, leaving Almira to her reflections, if she could be supposed to have any.
"After all," said Lucy, when Janet related this conversation to her afterward. "Perhaps we are all too hard upon poor Almira. She has had no home advantages. Her mother is just as great a gossip as herself, and I dare say, Almira has heard all the affairs of the neighborhood, public and private, beside a good many that never existed at all, talked over in her presence over since she can remember. I don't believe Mrs. Crosby ever read through a book of any sort in her life. I could not help laughing the last time I was at home, to hear her tell mother, with such an appearance of self-satisfaction, that she had no time for reading or study—she had to attend to her domestic concerns, which she considered as woman's proper sphere."
"But one would think Almira might have improved," said Janet. "Mrs. Pomeroy has taken so much pains with her, that it seems as if she might have formed a different sort of character."
"Her character was pretty much formed before Mrs. Pomeroy had any thing to do with her, I imagine," replied Lucy. "Remember that she was almost sixteen when she came here. I do hope, however, that she will not be sent home, for neither her father nor mother would have any forbearance with her, under such circumstances."