I do not remember any more of the conversation. I only know that the sun rose on my difficulties, and the shadows melted away. I had a happy evening with my dear old friend, and went home quite heart-whole.
CHAPTER XIII.
GREY COATS.
I WENT back to school comforted. I had got strength to face all that might be coming in the future. And life has been a different thing to me ever since. Paul's words, "I can do all things through Christ,"—I have learned are not his words any more than mine.
From that time I grew more and more popular in the school. I cannot tell why; but popularity is a thing that grows upon its own growth. It was only a little while before my companions almost all made a pet of me. It is humbling to know that this effect was hastened by some of the French dresses my mother had sent me, and which convenience obliged me to wear. They were extremely pretty; the girls came round me to know where I got them, and talked about who I was; and "Daisy Randolph," was the name most favoured by their lips from that time until school closed. With the exception, I must add, of my four room-mates. Miss St. Clair held herself entirely aloof from me, and the others chose her party rather than mine. St. Clair
never lost, I think, any good chance or omitted any fair scheme to provoke me; but all she could do had lost its power. I tried to soften her; but Faustina was a rock to my advances. I knew I had done irreparable wrong that evening; the thought of it was almost the only trouble I had during those months.
An old trouble was brought suddenly home to me one day. I was told a person wanted to speak to me in the lower hall. I ran down, and found Margaret. She was in the cloak and dress I had bought for her; looking at first very gleeful, and then very business-like, as she brought out from under her cloak a bit of paper folded with something in it.
"What is this?" I said, finding a roll of bills.