"A new scholar!" buzzed from fifty tongues; and the eyes of our two students strayed with the rest, to the door.
"Miss Pratt, young ladies!" introduced Mr. Purcell.
The girls arose, in conformance with their custom of reception, and bowed to the figure that followed him into the room. She was short and fat—"dumpy," in vulgar parlance; and so homely, as to countenance Ellen Morris' report to another department—"that the farmers in the neighborhood where she was 'riz,' had forwarded a petition, beseeching her to return, their corn having suffered greatly from the depredations of the crows since her departure; a thing unheard of, previously, in that part of the country." Her eyes were small and grey; her nose a ruddy "snub;" her lips curiously puckered up; and her skin might have owed its dappled red to the drippings of the carroty frizette overshadowing it. Her dress was showy and outré; a rainbow silk trebly-flounced; an embroidered lace cape; white kid gloves; a gold cable of startling dimensions; two bracelets of corresponding size, and different patterns; a brooch that matched neither, and out-glittered both; while blue, green, and red stones, with heavy settings, loaded the thick fingers to the knuckles.
Awe of their preceptor in some, good breeding in others, prevented any audible outbreak of amusement; but what school girl on the qui vive for diversion could keep from smiling? Mr. Purcell frowned as his eye travelled from one mirthful face to another, but a twinkle from Ellen Morris' dancing orbs neutralized the effort; and there was a perceptible twitch of his risible muscle as he rapped for "order." Ida and Carry had not escaped the contagion, an indulgence for which they reproached themselves.
"Poor girl!" whispered Carry. "She knows no better. She is to be pitied instead of laughed at." And Ida thought of her loneliness, upon her induction into these strange scenes. "I can lessen her discomfort, and, uninfluenced by prejudice, she will be thankful, perhaps will become fond of me."
Carry read her resolve in her thoughtful survey of the stranger; but while she loved and honoured her for it, her heart misgave her as she looked more attentively at the object of the purposed charity. Her physiognomy was not more irregular than unpleasant in its expression. She had opened a book, to be in the fashion in this as in every thing else, but her regards were wandering around the room in scared yet unblushing curiosity, flustered at being in a crowd, without a doubt as to her ability to cope with the best of them. Before the exercises of the forenoon were concluded, she was summoned to see a visitor, and did not reappear before intermission. Then Ida, having occasion to go into a small room, where bonnets and cloaks were hung, found her standing at the window, crying. She wheeled about sharply on hearing a step; her eyes swelled almost out of sight, and her whole appearance frightful in its disorder.
"What do you want?" she asked, querulously.
"I did not know you were here," said Ida. "What is the matter? Are you sick? Can I help you?"
"No. My pa's gone away!" A fresh burst.
"Gone! where?"