Ida had unluckily employed the oft-quoted words, "the common herd of mankind," in a written composition; and this was not the first time it had been used as an offensive missile.
"One must stoop low indeed, Miss Morris," was the instant rejoinder, "to see harmless pleasantry in a plot for the disgrace of an unoffending school-mate."
"Ida! Ellen!" exclaimed Carry, laying her hand upon Ellen's mouth, and stifling her reply. "For my sake, girls—if not for your own—say no more! Ida! what have you to do with this miserable affair?"
"I have done!" said Ida, bitterly; "Defence of right and truth is better left unattempted here!"
The girls fell back as she crossed to her seat. The sentence sank into every mind; and the expression of each one showed that she appropriated it. Carry's head dropped upon Ellen's shoulder; and sullenly vindictive as was the latter, she was not unmoved by the quiver of the slender frame. Mr. Purcell's entrance put an end to the scene. That was a wretched day to more than one heart. Ida's was well-nigh bursting. It mattered not that her prospects of popularity were, for the present, shipwrecked; that her resolutions of patience and gentleness had broken, like dry straws, at the breeze of passion;—Carry was wounded—perhaps offended—perhaps estranged! "Still, what have I done?" whispered pride, "spoken truth, and defended the absent!" But conscience answered—"Anger, not justice was the prompter," and again, every feeling merged in one—"What will Carry think?" She did not offer her book as usual—did not meet her eye. She would have read no resentment there; the pale, sad face told of suffering, with no admixture of baser motives. The intermission was dull. Miss Celestia's extravagant description of "the party," and "the gentlemen" she "was interduced to," hardly excited a smile. A nameless depression was upon all. Ellen, their ringleader in mischief, and Carry, the willing participant in their innocent pleasures, were wanting from their band. They remained at their desks, seemingly engaged in study, until almost school-time, when Carry went around to the other, whispered a word; and they left the apartment together. They returned arm in arm, as Ida, who had gone home in recess, more to be quieted and refreshed by the cool air, than for luncheon,—entered from the street. She remarked their affectionate air, and happier faces with goading envy. "Ellen is worth conciliating. It would be dangerous to break with her. There can be no hesitancy, with the fair words of the crowd in one scale—and Ida Ross, unknown and unbeloved, in the other. Be it so!" But awakened affection had had a taste of its proper nutriment, and was not to be famished into silence. The afternoon wore heavily away in the unspoken anguish of love and pride and suspicion. Careless of remarks or conjectures, she declined dinner, and retired at once to her chamber, when she reached home. It might have been one hour;—it might have been three, that she had knelt or laid upon the floor, her head upon a stool, before the mourner for the dead bird;—weeping and thinking, and seeming to grow a year older with each flood of grief; when there came a tap at the door. "Josephine!" was the first thought—to spring to the mirror, brush the tumbled hair, and dash rosewater over the discolored cheeks, the work of the next minute; then she said sleepily—"Who is there?"
"It is I—Carry!"
The bolt was withdrawn, and the intruder lay, sobbing upon her breast.
"Oh, Ida! how could you be angry with me?"
Ida struggled with the answering drops, but they would come.
"I thought you had thrown me off, Carry!"