"I tell you what I will do if you like, Miss Clifford," Beth said upon reflection. "I will form a family of my own."
Miss Clifford smiled. "Ah! I see you are ambitious," she said, "but, my dear child, a sixth girl can't expect to have that kind of influence."
"It is not ambition," Beth answered, "for I shall feel it no distinction, only a great bother. Nevertheless, I will do it to show you that I am not shunned; and to please you, as you do not like me to wander alone."
A week or two later Beth appeared in the garden with six of the worst girls in the school clinging to her, fascinated by her marvellous talk.
Miss Clifford sent for her again. "I am sorry to see you in such company," she said. "Those girls are all older than you are, and they will lead you into mischief."
"On the contrary, Miss Clifford," Beth replied, "I shall keep them out of mischief. Not one of them has had a bad mark this week."
Then Miss Clifford sent for Miss Smallwood, the mistress of the sixth. "What do you make of Beth Caldwell?" she asked.
"I can't make anything of her," Miss Smallwood answered. "I think she tries, but she does not seem able to keep up with the other girls at all. She seldom knows a lesson or does a sum correctly. I sometimes think she ought to be in the eighth. But then occasionally she shows a knowledge far beyond her years; not a knowledge of school work, but of books and life."
"How about her themes?"
"I don't know what to think of them; they are too good. But she declares emphatically that she does them all out of her own head."