THE school to which Alice Saunders was sent was different in almost every respect from the fashionable establishment of Mrs. Lerow. In regard to the studies, Miss Salsbury labored far more to discipline the mind, and lay a thorough foundation upon which a good education might be reared up, than to have her young pupils pointed at as ladylike and accomplished.
In her thirty years of experience in teaching, she had seen many young misses sacrificed to their own or their parents' love of what was merely superficial in learning,—preferring a smattering of French, ability to sing a few Italian operas, and to dance gracefully, to those acquirements which would fit them for the real duties and responsibilities of life. She had an old-fashioned opinion, that when a young lady left school, her education was by no means complete,—that only a substructure was formed upon which a beautiful temple might be raised.
If Alice had been under her influence at an earlier age, the seeds of vanity and deceit which had early taken root in her young mind might have been eradicated; but half a year in such a hot-house as Mrs. Lerow's school had brought these shoots to a fearful state of maturity.
With Miss Salsbury's discernment, it did not require many hours' acquaintance with her new pupil to give her an insight into the purposes and motives which governed the young lady. Beautiful in person, bewitching in manner, but wholly destitute of moral rectitude, could the preceptress have consulted her own wishes, she would have sent Alice directly back to her father, so much did she shrink from the responsibility involved in the moral training of such a girl. Then she doubted her own wisdom in introducing so artful a character among her other pupils.
"Certainly," was her mental exclamation, "with such an influence to oppose, I must be doubly vigilant."
As the house was too full to allow the new scholar a room by herself, and as the preceptress was far too conscientious to expose those committed to her care to such intimate companionship as would be unavoidable in roommates, she turned with a sigh from the parlor, where she had been talking with Alice, to make hasty arrangements for giving her a room with one of the under teachers, who was her own niece, a young lady of Christian courtesy and great integrity of character.
In half an hour, Miss Saunders was introduced to a pleasant chamber on the third flight, where she found Miss Farley, her new room-mate, awaiting her.
Emma Farley was an agreeable young lady of twenty years, wholly unacquainted with her aunt's motives in putting Miss Saunders under her care, and very favorably impressed in regard to the new-comer.
On the other hand, Alice was deeply chagrined at the idea of being under the constant surveillance of a teacher; but she was quite too much a woman of the world, and had profited too well by Aunt Clarissa's example to betray such a feeling. Indeed, the first words she spoke expressed exactly the opposite sentiment.
"What a pleasant room!" she said in her sweet, languid voice. "I am very happy to share it with you. I think we shall have delightful times together."