Brenda started for school a little later than usual the morning after Julia's arrival. As she walked up Beacon Street she saw Edith and Nora ahead of her, half-way up the slope on the sidewalk next the Common.

"Oh, dear, they might look back," she said to herself. But they neither looked back nor paused on their way, and Brenda was prevented from hurrying by a line of wagons and street cars which blocked Charles Street. She was kept standing for two or three minutes at the street crossing, and when she continued her way Edith and Nora had turned into the side street leading to the school. When Brenda reached the school door, Belle was the centre of a group of girls seated on the steps.

"Why didn't you call for me, Belle?" cried Brenda petulantly.

"Oh, I had to do some errands on the way, and I thought, too, that you would stay home with your cousin."

"Well! I should say not. I shall see enough of her."

"Tell us about her, Brenda," cried Nora who came out from the house for a moment. "Belle says she has come. What _is_ she like?"

"Like? Why, like any girl. There's nothing special about her. She wears black and I think she feels kind of superior. It's going to be awfully hard for me."

"Yes, Brenda," said a thin-faced girl in the group back by Belle. "You don't think any one could be superior to you, do you?"

Brenda, with her back to the sidewalk, was ready with a sharp reply, when a warning look from one of the girls closed her lips.

"Why, girls," said a cheerful voice behind her, "ought you not to go inside now? You should be in your seats by twenty minutes past nine. I have said many times that you were not to wait for me."

The girls all respected Miss Crawdon, and they were just a little afraid of her. Her authority was not always agreeable, when she chose to make them feel it. Miss Crawdon was tall and blonde, with eyes some one said "that saw everything." These were the right kind of eyes for the princ.i.p.al of a girls' school. She had a pleasant voice with a tone of decision in it that no one dared dispute. At her words the girls seated on the steps slowly arose, and in a very short time they were at their desks, getting out books and preparing for the day's work.

Brenda and Belle occupied adjacent seats. Edith and Nora were in the same room, though a little nearer the window. They with about ten other girls formed what might be called the middle cla.s.s of a school of forty.

There were about fifteen older girls who would stay in school one or two years longer, while Brenda and her friends had three years before them.

At least they would not "come out" for three years.

The older girls naturally kept much to themselves. They "did up" their hair, wore skirts almost touching the ground, and were in every way envied by their juniors. The youngest girls of all concerned themselves very slightly about the oldest of all. But the girls of Brenda's age imitated in many ways the doings of these older girls, and when, as occasionally happened, one of the graduating cla.s.s invited a younger girl to walk with her at recess, the latter for a day or two after was treated with great deference by her companions.

These oldest girls were not ahead of their schoolmates in all their studies. In Latin and mathematics some of them recited with the younger girls, or it might be fairer to say that some of the brighter young girls were in the cla.s.ses with the elder. Edith, for example, was ahead of Brenda in mathematics, and her cla.s.s almost through geometry, was planning to go into trigonometry.

The discipline of the school was not unduly strict, yet after the opening, girls were not expected to speak to one another without special permission. In this matter they were put rather on their honor, for no special punishment was inflicted for disobedience. A word of disapprobation was usually the most severe reproof, although, in rare cases, girls had been kept after school. Nora, whose intentions were always good, was, of the four friends whom we have been observing, the most likely to break some of the unwritten laws of the school. She always saw the funny side of things, and it was very hard for her to keep still when she wished to share her fun with somebody else. Belle was no more scrupulous than Nora about observing rules, but she could whisper to her neighbor in a quiet way without attracting attention.

Edith was really a conscientious, painstaking girl. On this account some of those who did not know her well called her a "bore." Brenda was good or bad by fits and starts. Sometimes for a week she devoted herself to her lessons. She would then put her finger to her lips when Nora, in pa.s.sing her desk, bent over her to tell her some bit of news. She would pretend not to understand when Belle laid a small piece of folded paper on her desk, and she would keep her eyes fixed on her books when any other girl tried to distract her attention. To-day, however, it was different. In the first place she did not know her lesson very well and did not feel like studying. In the half-hour in which she was supposed to be doing her Latin exercise her mind constantly wandered, and she could not help seeing that Belle was anxious to tell her something. At length the little wad of paper fell on her desk.

"The tableaux were perfectly splendid! You ought to have been there."

Brenda nodded sadly. Surely this was not kind of Belle, who knew that only stern necessity had kept her at home.

"I suppose the tableaux will be as good to-night," and a second note fell on Brenda's desk, "but there won't be half as many people you know.

Everybody was there last night. Shall you take Julia?"

Again Brenda nodded, but by this time she was growing impatient. Leaning forward toward Belle's desk, "Keep still, can't you, Belle," she exclaimed in a voice intended to be a whisper. Unfortunately her voice was louder than she thought, and she was recalled to herself by Miss Crawdon's voice, "Be careful, Brenda," and Brenda applied herself to her books until the hour arrived for the Latin lesson.

At recess Belle, pretending not to see Brenda, joined two of the older girls and walked with them for the half hour, while Brenda and Nora and Edith sat on the steps.

"Why didn't you know your Latin lesson?" asked Brenda of Edith. "I never knew you to stumble so, and you couldn't give a single rule."

"Well, you know I didn't study yesterday afternoon. I meant to, but it was too lovely to go in the house, and then last evening I went to the tableaux. It seemed hard to have to stay home to study though I suppose I should have. You didn't know your own lesson very well, Brenda, although you stayed home all the evening."

"But, you see, I had company----"

"You'll find it hard to do your lessons if you make company of Julia.

Isn't she coming to school too?"

"Oh, I guess so. Won't it be hateful to have her in the cla.s.s above us?"

"Perhaps she won't be. Didn't you say she hadn't been at school much?"

"Oh, girls who have studied at home always think they know more than any one else. Oh, there, there!" and Brenda paused in her speech as a little child playing on the opposite sidewalk ran out into the street in front of the very wheels of a pa.s.sing wagon. For a moment all held their breath, then Nora with a leap and a run was down the steps and in the street. Before the child realized its own danger she had s.n.a.t.c.hed it from in front of the horses, and had dragged it to the sidewalk. The teamster, a rather stupid-looking man, had dismounted from his place.

"Waal, now, the child ain't hurt, I guess," he said to the girl, "I pulled up as soon as I heard you holler, but it was such a little mite of a thing that I couldn't hardly see it."

"Oh, it wasn't your fault," Brenda and Edith exclaimed. "It ran out so quickly, but if you hadn't stopped your horses, it might have been killed."

After a.s.suring himself that the child was not really hurt, the teamster went on, the child himself, surrounded by a group of curious girls, clung closely to Nora's hand--a forlorn little thing--with bare feet and a torn pinafore. The mud spattered over his face did not show very distinctly on his dark skin. One small hand he had thrust into his eye, and behind it the tears were slowly trickling down. Nora held the other hand, and the child clung to her as if never intending to let go.

"What's your name, little boy?" cried one of the girls.

The child only sobbed.

"Here, Amy, give him a piece of your banana. He looks like an Italian fruit-seller's child. He'll eat a banana."

But the little boy was not to be tempted.

Just then the noon bell sounded from the schoolroom.

"There, Nora, let him go, he'll find his way home," suggested one of the girls.

"Oh, no, I'm sure he's hurt. Where do you live, little boy?"

Still no reply. The other girls went back into school, while Nora walked irresolutely toward the door, holding the child's hand. As she stood at the foot of the steps wondering what to do, Miss Crawdon appeared at the door with Brenda and Edith who had hurried to tell her about the child.

"Is the little fellow hurt?" she asked with interest.

"Not really hurt, perhaps, but awfully frightened, and I'm sure he doesn't live anywhere around here. I don't want to leave him when I go into school, what _shall_ I do?"

"Don't look so distressed, Nora," said Miss Crawdon smiling. "I'm not sure myself what is best." Then, after a moment's reflection, "You may send him down to the bas.e.m.e.nt with the janitor, and later I will see what can be done."

So Nora, saying all the rea.s.suring things that she could to the child, left him with the janitor, Mr. Brown, although this separation was accompanied with loud cries and shrieks on the part of the little boy.

It was very hard for Nora and the others to remain perfectly quiet during the hour and a half that remained of school. They were anxious to exchange questions about the child, to speculate about his home, and I am sure that the little boy was more in the thoughts of Brenda, Edith, and Nora than their lessons.

Belle had missed the excitement of the morning, for at the moment of the accident she and the two older girls whom she had joined, were out of sight of the school walking in another street.

She had returned to the schoolroom hardly half a minute before the end of recess, when there was really no time to ask a question. She did not dare to ask a question of Brenda, who still wore an unamiable expression.

When half-past one came, however, Brenda and Belle forgot their little disagreement, and hastened after Nora to learn what she was going to do with her protege.

"Now, I'll tell you girls, just what I'm going to do. Miss Crawdon says it will be all right. Brenda and I are going with Mrs. Brown to see where Manuel lives--we have found out that his name is Manuel. We can get some luncheon here, and please, please, stop at my house, Belle, and tell my mother, and you, Edith, at Brenda's."