"Not at first,—not until he had earned it here. But I—I was born and brought up here, and I have been always Miss Marr here. Why should I now suddenly change to Mademoiselle?"
"Because it would be of benefit to your school. Americans are attracted by anything foreign, and Mademoiselle Marr's school would sound so much more distinguished than Miss Marr's school."
"Oh!" and Miss Marr flung up her hands impatiently; "I am a better American than these foolish people who like foreign titles so much. But they shall come to me, they shall send their children to Miss Marr's school. I am not going to begin with any little tricks,—to throw out any little bait to catch silly folk, for it is not such folk's patronage that I want. I am going to keep an honest school, and I shall start as I mean to go on."
The acquaintance sighed, and shook her head, and told all her friends how obstinate Miss Marr was, how she had been advised and how she had gone against the advice, and that the school wouldn't come to anything, would get no start as Miss Marr's school, whereas as Mademoiselle Marr's it would at once impress everybody.
But Miss Marr went on in her own way, and at the end of five years there was no school in all New York that had the kind of high reputation that hers had. It was, in a certain sense, the fashion, and yet it was not fashionable.
"It's that French way of hers, after all," said the acquaintance whose advice had not been taken; "it's that French way that she inherited from the General. Nobody had finer manners than General Marr, and he had the qualities of a leader, too, in some ways,—though he never could keep any money; and these qualities also his daughter inherits."
Miss Marr laughed at this explanation when she was told of it,—laughed, and declared that the only secret of her success lay in the fact that she liked her work, and put her whole heart into it. And I'm inclined to think she was right. If she got a start at first because she was General Marr's daughter, she held it and made much of it because she had character and purpose. She put her heart into her work, and that meant that she put the magic of her lively sympathy and interest into it; and if she had not possessed this character and purpose, she couldn't have done what she did, even if she had been the daughter of an even more distinguished man than General Marr. She had said in the beginning: "I am not going to model my school after any fashionable pattern, for I don't care to have what is called a fashionable school, and I don't solicit fashionable patronage. There are plenty of quiet, cultivated people in New York and elsewhere who, I am sure, want just such a school as I mean to have,—a sensible, honest school, that shall give a sensible, honest, all-round education." And she was right, as events proved. The quiet, cultivated people came forth at once to her support; and then the queerest thing happened,—the fashionable folk began to come forward too, and in such numbers that she couldn't accommodate half of them, and they, instead of accepting the situation, and going elsewhere at this crisis, patiently bided their time, waiting until a vacancy occurred. It will readily be understood that when things had come to this pass, it was considered a most decided distinction to be a pupil at Miss Marr's school.
It was just at the climax of this popularity, just before the beginning of a new year, that a certain young lady said to her younger sister,—
"Now, Dorothy"—
"Dorothea! Dorothea! I'm going to have my whole name, every syllable of it, to start off in New York with."