Straight forward; or, walking in the light

by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

Delia noticed the action, and understood it perfectly.

"Pshaw!" said she to herself. "I shall have little trouble in managing her."

This might be said to be Emily's first false step in school, and she could not well have made a worse. Her situation was, at best, one of peculiar temptation and trials, coming as she did from such entire seclusion, into the midst of this busy and bustling little world, where all sorts of passions had their representatives, and thrown almost entirely upon her hitherto untried resources.

Her only safety would have been in the closest and most constant recourse to the Fountain of all strength and wisdom—strength and wisdom liberally imparted by Him who giveth and upbraideth not. From this Fountain of living waters, however, she had deliberately turned aside. She had broken her own staff, and thrown aside her only shield, and she had nothing left to protect her from the assaults of him who goeth about like a roaring lion.

In the course of a week, Emily was completely under the influence of her room-mate, with scarcely a pretense of having a mind of her own about anything. Nor was she the only one who felt the influence of the new comer. In a family of some forty girls, it may be conceived that not all were wise or well principled, and as birds of a feather proverbially flock together, Delia soon collected around her a circle of society nearly as much to her taste as that which she had left at the Classical Gymnasium. It was the height of her ambition to form a clique or party attached to her interest and governed by her influence, and in this she succeeded beyond her hopes.

These young ladies formed themselves into a secret society, as they were pleased to call it, and held their meetings with a great affectation of secrecy in each other's rooms. There the talk was mostly of beaux and dances, of successful evasions of rules, and the acquirement of forbidden indulgences, while teachers and masters, and even Mrs. Pomeroy herself, were the subject of unsparing ridicule. Emily could not help noticing, that though Delia rather encouraged this sort of talk in others, she seldom took an active part in it herself, and had once or twice put an end to it rather sharply, when it seemed to be going beyond the bounds of all propriety or decency. Indeed, she treated her constituents in all respects as subjects, and Emily often wondered at their bearing with it so patiently.

All this could hardly have escaped the vigilant eye and ear of Mrs. Pomeroy, had not her time been very much occupied by the illness of a favorite little scholar, an orphan and dependent, who, after a long time of delicate health, seemed now threatened with settled consumption.

If Kitty Mastick had never known a mother's care, she had never missed it, for Mrs. Pomeroy had been father and mother, teacher and friend to her, ever since she could remember. Her mother had been one of Mrs. Pomeroy's early pupils. She had married contrary to the wishes of her father, who had cast her off during his life, and finally died, refusing to the last to see his offending child, and positively forbidding her sister to see or hold any communication with her. Her husband was killed by an accident soon after, and the young widow was left without friends or refuge. Hearing of her desolate condition, Mrs. Pomeroy sent for her and offered her an asylum, which Mrs. Mastick thankfully accepted, hoping that she might after a while be able to be useful to her benefactress, in the capacity of a teacher of music. After the birth of little Kitty, she did indeed rally a little, but soon sunk, and died, leaving her daughter no inheritance except a remarkable talent for music, and great delicacy of constitution.

At the time our story commences, Kitty was twelve years old, but very small and slender for her age, and seemed likely soon to follow her mother to the grave. Mrs. Pomeroy, however, could not help hoping that by care and attention the predisposition to disease might be overcome, and she devoted to Kitty every moment of her spare time.

It is not to be supposed that the teachers were blind to the influence that Delia was exerting, but they saw no way of interfering with advantage, and could not help hoping that the evil would, in time, cure itself. Delia was a good scholar, she was remarkably neat and very systematic in her habits for a girl of her age, and took a certain pride in maintaining a good place in the school, so that she was in this respect rather an advantage to Emily than otherwise.