Straight forward; or, walking in the light

by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

After vainly endeavoring to convince Delia of the folly and impropriety of her conduct, and receiving no answer but tears and hysterics, he informed her at last that the comforts of the household should no longer be sacrificed to her caprices, and bade her prepare to go to a boarding school at the end of a week.

Though Delia liked nothing better, in her heart, she pretended to be greatly grieved by this sentence of banishment, as she chose to call it, and spent the intervening time in lamenting to one and another, of the circle of her mother's relatives, that she should be driven from her own father's house by the influence of a stranger, adding pathetically that her father had changed entirely toward her since he had married that artful woman. The relatives of a first wife are not apt to be too indulgent towards a second, and Delia's insinuations had their intended effect upon the minds of her aunts who were not, at best, remarkable for sense or discernment; so that she had the satisfaction of knowing, before she left, that she had added another drop to the cup of discomfort and vexation, she had prepared for a person whose whole course to her had been one of uniform kindness.

The school to which she was first sent was, unfortunately, not one in which she was likely to gain much improvement in those moral qualities wherein she was most deficient. The Classical Gymnasium, for such was its high-sounding title, was conducted upon what somebody calls the high-pressure system. With a great array of names of officers and professors, the whole care of watching over the conduct and manners of some seventy or eighty girls was left to two or three overworked and under-paid female teachers, of the sort to be obtained "cheap for cash," who were only too glad to gain a little rest for themselves, by conniving at many irregularities, to call them by no worse name, and by winking pretty hard, or shutting their eyes altogether, when the young ladies contrived to meet their friends and admirers in the Saturday afternoon shopping excursions, which formed almost their only authorized recreation.

It may be imagined that, in such an establishment, Delia was not likely greatly to improve. At the end of two years, her father became thoroughly dissatisfied, and certain correspondences of Miss Delia's coming to light, which revealed anything but a desirable set of acquaintances for a young lady, she was removed from the Classical Gymnasium, and placed in the institution of Mrs. Pomeroy, which, during the twenty-five years of its existence, had never aspired beyond the simple title of a Female Seminary, and where the old-fashioned branches of reading, writing and arithmetic still continued to be reckoned among the necessary studies.

The mental and moral atmosphere of Mrs. Pomeroy's house, was as different as possible from that of the Classical Gymnasium. No one was crowded with studies; plenty of time was allowed for recreation; the play-room being abundantly furnished with incentives to cheerful and active exercise, and the work of instruction was fairly shared among a large body of efficient and well paid teachers. There was no scrimping about the establishment. Healthy, though plain food, well-warmed rooms, and plenty of playtime, conduced to the health of the inmates, and Delia could not help drawing a very favorable contrast between the troop of alert, rosy, and wide-awake girls, who came pouring into the school-room at the hour of evening study, fresh from an hour of active and merry exercise, and the pale waxen-faced, languid looking young ladies, who assembled at the same hour in the Classical Gymnasium aforesaid, nervous and spiritless, and ready to cry at the least provocation, from sheer exhaustion.

Of course, Emily felt a good deal of curiosity about her new room-mate, and during the evening she took every opportunity of looking at her when she could do so unobserved. Delia was, as we have said, a handsome and graceful girl. Her dress, thanks to the care of her despised step-mother, was in good taste and in the latest fashion, and Emily felt rather painfully the contrast between them in this respect. Miss Arlington, her aunt, had latterly lived very much out of the world; she cared little for dress, and seldom noticed what other people wore, and consequently Emily's clothes, though good enough in quality, were two or three years behind the fashion. On the whole she was pretty well satisfied with the result of her scrutiny.

Delia on her part was no less anxious. She had her own plans and purposes to carry out. She knew that her success in some of these must depend not a little upon the character of her room-mate, and her attention was upon the alert to discover any little circumstance which might give her some insight in Emily's mind and habits.

She was not left long in the dark.

Emily had been religiously brought up, and she had been accustomed never to omit her prayers and Bible reading night and morning. The continuance of these most excellent habits had been easy enough, so long as she roomed alone, but now that she had a companion it was different. She was nervously afraid of being laughed at, and the mere suspicion that she had exposed herself to ridicule, was enough to make her miserable for a whole day. She had already made the discovery that Delia was inclined to be sarcastic, and she could not help doubting, as she caught several glimpses of her countenance during prayers, whether she had any special respect for the ordinances of religion.

The right way, of course, would have been for her to take a simple, straight-forward course, reading her Bible and saying her prayers just as usual, whereby not only would she have satisfied her own conscience, but she would also have gained the respect of her companion, for consistency is always respectable. She did no such thing, however. She could not make up her mind to face either the covert sneer or open ridicule of her room-mate, and almost for the first time in all her life, she went prayerless to bed. She tried, indeed, to snatch an opportunity of reading a few verses in her Bible when Delia was looking another way, but she shut the book hastily as she turned round, and restored it to its place, as though she had only taken it up by accident.