"Mrs. Carson said she used to know your mother, and always thought her a very nice woman," remarked Emily.
"Mrs. Carson is a step-mother herself, and of course she is bound to stand up for the whole tribe," returned Delia. "But, now tell me, who has come back, and whether there are any new scholars? I have not seen any as yet. And how is Kitty? I have brought her some beautiful preserved strawberries from home. Mrs. Mason is an excellent housekeeper. I will say that much for her. I don't know but I might get to like her after all, if it were not for the pride of the thing."
Emily answered these questions and a batch of others, such as always come up at such times, and the tea bell rang before any further allusion was made to Mr. Hugo.
Delia might have been excused from evening study, it being the custom of the house to require no duties from new comers on the first day, but she asked particularly about the lessons, and was soon apparently busily engaged in writing her exercise. Not far off sat Annette, working with grammar, dictionary, and phrase book, as laboriously as though her daily bread depended upon it. The outward actions of the two girls were very much alike, and even an acute observer might have seen nothing to choose between them, but how different did they appear in the eyes of Him who seeth the mind and the heart!
Emily did not feel at all satisfied with herself. After all her resolutions she had failed in the very first effort to keep them, and that being the case, what encouragement had she to proceed? She did not, however, give up at once, but when the nine o'clock bell rang, sending all to their rooms, she sat down resolutely to the table, and took up her Bible.
"What in the world are you doing?" asked Delia. "You are not studying your Sunday lesson so early in the week?"
"No," replied Emily, coloring, and resisting a strong impulse to tell a falsehood, "but think it is a good plan to read a little every night, don't you?"
"I don't see any particular use in it, I must say," returned Delia, "but of course there's no harm in it if you like to do it, but don't be late, that's all."
"I won't," said Emily, going on with her reading, but very much annoyed and distracted by the consciousness that Delia was smiling as she curled her hair, and dreading more and more the ordeal of kneeling down to say her prayer. She read on, and on, almost without taking the sense of a single word, until Delia exclaimed,—
"You will certainly be late, Emily. The bed bell will ring directly, and you have not even begun to undress."