"Did you want to go, Miss Ellen?"
"That is of no consequence," said Ellen, "for if I wanted to go ever so much I could not."
"Oh yes—but you could," said the kind-hearted girls; "now do go, and we'll get our lessons just the same, and say them all to you to-morrow."
"That may suit you just as well, but your father would hardly be willing to pay his money if you were left to get your lessons by yourselves."
"Oh, I'm sure my papa wouldn't mind about it."
Ellen impatiently pushed the child nearest to her into the room, saying, "I do wish you would go to your lessons, and hush talking about what does not concern you!"
It will readily be believed that Mary had to help Ellen and the children through many a "snarl," to borrow Mrs. Maclean's significant, though not very elegant expression, on this day. But the evil did not stop there. Three of the girls were sent home weeping and indignant, to complain that Ellen Leslie had called them by some unkind or disgraceful epithet. These girls brought back the next morning messages from their parents, intimating that they were sent to school to Mary Leslie, and that it was hoped she would teach them herself. Poor Mary! she scarce knew how to meet this difficulty. To comply with the request would grievously wound and displease Ellen, who had really, till this unlucky day, given no just cause of complaint; not to comply with it would as certainly displease several of those on whose support her school depended. But better lose their support—better lose any thing, Mary said to herself, than create unkind feelings between Ellen and myself. So she tried to pacify the children and satisfy the parents without making any change in the arrangements of the school.—Perhaps, had Ellen seconded her efforts, she would have succeeded, but Ellen could not forget the mortification she had received from this affair, and scarce a day passed that she did not by some petulant word or action increase the dissatisfaction of her pupils or their parents, till one by one they were withdrawn. With them went the most certain profits of the sisters; yet it was with real satisfaction that Mary saw the door close upon the last scholar who left them, for she hoped now to see Ellen again cheerful and pleased as when they first came to Mrs. Maclean's. She turned smilingly towards her from the window at which she was standing, to express her satisfaction, and was surprised to find her weeping bitterly.
"Ellen, my own dear little sister, what is the matter? Surely you are not sorry that those children are gone who have plagued you so."
"No, Mary, I am not sorry they are gone, but I am sorry that I made them go. I know they all hate me, Mary, and their fathers and mothers hate me."
"Ellen—my dear Ellen—people don't hate each other for such little things."