She wore glasses, too. Not spectacles, but a dainty pair of eye glasses, set in gold, that sat astride of her nose in a very dignified fashion and crowned the everlasting smile that was spread out below them. In fact Miss Stone was so superior a person that one wondered how it ever happened that she should condescend to teach school at all.
But this was only a general view of the case.
When viewed in detail the fact appeared that although Elvira was proud she was also poor!
This accounted for her being in the schoolroom.
But she had made the most of herself in her profession, as she had in other directions. Her motto was to aim high, even if her arrow should light in the mud at last, and she always shot by that rule. When she decided to be a teacher rather than a clerk in a store, she began to look about for the best opportunities in the direction of her choice. It should be remarked that the alternative of store or schoolroom came to her only after several unsuccessful seasons in society, in which the moulded form, the wavy hair, and the constant smile had been used to their best possible advantage, but all in vain. The hook on which her bait was hung was so rigid and cold that no gudgeon, even, ever thought of biting at it; though the angler thought it a clever and tempting bit to bite at.
How apt we all are to be deceived—by ourselves.
So Elvira resolved to make a school teacher out of herself.
Being somewhat dull intellectually, and detesting severe study, she abjured all paths that would lead her to teach the higher branches of learning, and bent her rather spare and somewhat stale energies to fitting herself for primary work. This, too, in the face of the fact that she naturally despised children, except sweet little girls in their best clothes, with long curls, freshly made up, and hanging like a golden flood over neck and shoulders; or bright little boys, also well dressed and duly curled, for about a minute, when they came into the parlor where Miss Stone used to sit with her smile. For these she had a fancy merely, it could not be called an affection. Miss Stone was not affectionate.
She went to St. Louis and associated herself with the Kindergarten of that far-famed city.
Far be it from this record to intimate that this is not a good thing to do, on occasion. With this point I have naught to do. But history is history, and facts must be duly recorded; and the fact is, Miss Stone went to St. Louis, as before stated, and let out the job of being fashioned into a Kindergarten, to certain persons who dwelt in that city, and whose business it was to do just this sort of thing.