CHAPTER I.

I

t was Saturday afternoon, and Eva Nelson and Alice King were sitting in their little study parlor at the Hill House Seminary poring over their lesson chapter for the next day. It was the tenth chapter of St. Luke, with the story of the good Samaritan. At last Eva flung herself back and exclaimed, "We can't be good as they were in those Bible days, no matter what anybody says; things are different."

"Of course they are," responded Alice. "Who said they weren't?"

Eva turned to the volume before her, and read aloud about the man who had fallen among thieves, and the good Samaritan who came along and bound up his wounds and took care of him.

"Now how can we do things like that?" she said.

"Oh, Eva, I should think you were about five or six years old instead of a girl of thirteen. Nobody means that you are to do just those particular things. What they do mean now is that you are to be good to people who are in trouble,—people who need things done for them."

"Well, I'd be good to them if I had a chance; but what chance do I have now with all my lessons? When I grow up, I shall belong to charitable societies, as mamma does, and give things to poor folks, and go to see them. I can't now; girls of our age can't, of course."

"We can do some things in vacations,—get up fairs and things of that kind, and give the money to the poor."

"Oh, I've done that. I helped in a fair last summer, and we gave the money to the children's hospital. But Miss Vincent said last week that all of us could find ways of doing good every day if we would keep our eyes and ears and hearts open; and I've felt ever since that she was keeping her eyes open on the watch for something she expected me to do."

"Nonsense! She knows as well as we do that we haven't time to do any more now. She means when we grow older. But look at the clock,—five minutes to supper-time, and I've got to 'do' my hair all over, the braid is so frowzely."

"What makes you braid it? Why don't you let it hang in a curl, as you used to?"

"I told you why yesterday,—because that Burr girl has made me sick of curls, with that great black flop of hers stringing down her back. She'd make me sick of anything. I haven't worn my red blouse since she came out with that fiery thing of hers. Isn't it horrid?"

"Yes, horrid!"

A few minutes after, as Eva and Alice were stirring their cocoa at the supper-table, the girl they had been criticising came hastily into the dining-room and took her place. She was a tall girl for her age, with a heavy ungainly figure, a swarthy skin, and black hair which was tied back in a long curl. She wore a dark plaid skirt, with a blouse of fiery red cashmere, and a hair ribbon of a deep violet shade. Nothing could have been more ill-matched or more unbecoming. The girl who sat beside her, pretty Janey Miller, was a great contrast, with her blond curls, her rosy cheeks, and simple well-fitting dress of blue serge. Her every movement, too, was as full of grace as Cordelia Burr's was exactly the reverse. Everything seemed to go well with Janey; everything seemed to go ill with Cordelia. She spilled her cocoa, she dropped her knife, she crumbled her gingerbread, and she clattered her cup and saucer. Certainly she was not a very pleasant person to sit near. But Janey tried to conceal her annoyance, and succeeded very well, until at the end of the meal Cordelia, in her headlong haste in leaving her seat, tipped over a glass of water upon her neighbor's pretty blue dress. This was too much, for Janey, and it was little wonder that she jumped up with an impatient exclamation, nor that she declared to Eva and Alice a little later that Cordelia ought to be ashamed of herself for being so careless, and that she did wish she didn't have to sit next to her.

"I suppose, though, I shall have to sit there until the end of this term; but there's one thing I'm not going to do any more,—I'm not going to dance with her. She doesn't keep step, and she does dress so!" concluded Janey.

"Yes, she does dress dreadfully; and to think it's her own fault. She chooses her things herself," said Eva.

"No!" exclaimed Janey.

"Yes, she does; her mother is 'way off somewhere, and Cordelia gets what she likes."

"And she doesn't know any better than to like such horrid things! Sometimes she looks as if she'd lived with wild Indians!"

"That's it; that's it, I forgot!" shouted Eva. "She has lived 'way off out in a Territory on an Indian reservation. Her father is an army officer of some kind."

"Young ladies, young ladies, look at your clocks!" suddenly called a voice outside the door.

"Why, goodness, it's bedtime!" whispered Janey. "Good-night, good-night."

The next afternoon, when the Sunday classes were in session in the great hall, Janey, who was not in the same class with Eva and Alice, wondered as she looked across at them what they could be talking about that seemed so interesting. This is what they were talking about: Alice, in her clever exact way, had told Miss Vincent the whole of that little Saturday-night talk concerning the good Samaritan. Miss Vincent smiled when Alice told of Eva's odd simplicity of application; but as Alice went on and presented Eva's perplexity and her plea for girls of her age,—their lack of time and all that, and her own assurance to Eva that Miss Vincent did not mean what Eva fancied that she did,—Miss Vincent, in a quick, decided, almost eager way, started forward and cried,—

"Oh, but I did! I did mean it. Girls of your age can do—oh, so much! You are thinking of only one way of doing,—helping the poor, visiting people in need. I don't think you can do much of that. I think that is mostly for older people; but you live in a little world of your own,—a girls' world, where you can help or hurt one another every day and hour by what you do or say. Oh, I know, I know, for I went through such suffering once,—was so hurt when I might have been helped. But let me tell you about it, and then you'll see what I mean. It was when I was between twelve and thirteen. We had just come to Boston, and I was sent to a strange school. I was very shy, but ashamed to show that I was. So when the girls stared at me, as girls will, and giggled amongst themselves about anything, I thought they were staring in an unfriendly way and laughing at me , and I immediately straightened up and put on a stiff and what I tried to make an indifferent manner. This only prejudiced them against me, and the unfriendliness I had fancied became very soon a reality, and I was snubbed or avoided in the most decided way. I tried to bear this silently, to act as if I didn't care for a while, but I became so lonely at length I thought I would try to conciliate them. I dare say, however, my shy manner was still misunderstood, for I was not encouraged to go on. What I suffered at this time I have never forgotten. The girls were no worse than other girls, but they had started out on a wrong track, and gradually the whole flock of them, one led on by what another would say or do, were down upon me. It was a sort of contagious excitement, and they didn't stop to think it might be unjust or cruel. Things went on from bad to worse, until at last I gave up trying to conciliate, and turned on them like a little wild-cat. I forgot my timidity,—forgot everything but my desire to be even with them, as I expressed it. But it wasn't an even conflict,—thirty girls against one; and at length I did something dreadful. I was going from the school-room to a recitation room with my ink-bottle; that I had been to have filled, when I met in the hall three of 'my enemies,' as I called them. In trying to avoid them I ran against them. They thought I did it purposely, and at once accused me of that, and other sins I happened to be innocent of, in a way that exasperated me. I tried to go on, but they barred my progress; and then it was that I lost all control of myself, and in a sort of frantic fury flung the ink-bottle that I held straight before me. I could never recall the details of anything after that. I only remember the screams, the opening of doors, the teachers hastening up, a voice saying, 'No; only the dresses are injured; but she might have killed somebody!' In the answers to their questions the teachers got at something of the truth, not all of it. They were very much shocked at a state of things they had not even suspected; but my violence prejudiced them against me, as was natural, and they had little sympathy for me. Of course I couldn't remain at the school after that. I was not expelled. My father took me away, yet I always felt that I went in disgrace."

"They were horrid girls,—horrid!" cried Alice, vehemently.

"No; they were like any ordinary girls who don't think . But you see how different everything might have been if only one of them had thought to say a kind word to me; had seen that I might have been suffering, and"—smiling down upon Eva—"been a good Samaritan to me."

"They were horrid, or they would have thought," insisted Alice. "I'm sure I don't know any girls who would have been so stupid."

"Nor I, nor I," chimed in two or three other voices. But Eva Nelson was silent. LyFL8GHC8T2rhwGaOS7srspZolgnO1MgcBeFdtcAJhgcYO2AUl8p0B8LI2uHPK1k