When Mr. Benjamin drove up to the door in the wide surrey behind the fat, dappled horses, she kissed the girls smilingly, she clung to Mrs. Benjamin for a long second, then she took her seat beside her friend. She looked up at them, in the doorway, waving their good-byes.
“If I didn’t know that I was coming back in two years to stay, I couldn’t bear it, mother Benjamin,” she called back. Then the fat horses started off briskly, down the road.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Miss Vantine’s School for Girls was probably no better and no worse than schools of its kind. It bestowed a superficial training upon its pupils, with an accent upon the social graces. Its graduates were always easily identified by their English a’s, their good diction, their charming manners, and their intensely conventional point of view. Any departure from the Vantine “norm” in the way of investigation or conclusion was discouraged as not nice.
Miss Vantine truly believed in herself as an educator and since her school had held its prestige for thirty years, she had reason to think that other people agreed with her. Her mark on a girl was absolutely guaranteed.
Into this conventional atmosphere Isabelle came from the simple, friendly life of Hill Top; and she found it hateful. It was the spirit rather than the letter which had prevailed in the Benjamin school, but here only the letter counted. The outward forms, correct manners, were emphasized every day; but in the process, the courteous heart was neglected and left out.