CHAPTER IV.
SETTLING DOWN TO WORK.
“If I were to ask, which I am too wise to do,”—here a smile broke out over the faces of her audience—“those among you who are homesick to rise, how many do you suppose I should see upon their feet?”
A laugh now, and a good deal of elbow-nudging among the girls.
“In the twenty years I have been principal of this academy, I have seen a great deal of this sickness, and I have sympathy with, and pity for it. It has been often told us that the Swiss, away from their Alpine homes, often die of it, but I have never yet found a case that was in the least danger of becoming fatal; so far from it, I might say, that when, since the Comforter sent to us in all our troubles has taken the sickness under his healing care, my most homesick pupils have become my happiest and most contented; so, if I do not seem to suffer with you, my suffering pupils, it is because I have no fear of the result.
“I have a prescription to offer you this morning. Love your home—the more the better; but keep a 23 great place in your hearts for your studies. Give us good recitations in the place of tears. Study—study cheerfully, earnestly, faithfully, and if this fails to cure you, come and tell me. I shall see I have made a wrong diagnosis of your condition.”
Another laugh over the room, in which some of the unhappy ones were seen to join.
“A few words more. I take it for granted that when a young girl comes to join my school, she comes as a lady. There are qualifications needed to establish one’s claim to the title. I shall state them briefly:—