CHAPTER II.

"You are the most ridiculous girl for getting fancies into your head, Eva; and you never get things right,—never!"

"I think you are very unkind."

"Well, you can think so. I think—"

"Hush!" in a warning voice; "there's some one knocking at the door;" then, louder, "Come in;" and responsive to this invitation, Janey Miller entered.

"What were you and Eva squabbling about?" she asked, looking at Alice.

"Cordelia Burr!" replied Alice, disdainfully.

"Cordelia Burr?"

"Yes. What do you think? Eva wants to take her up and be intimate with her."

"Now, Alice, I don't," cried Eva. "I only wanted to be kinder to her. When Miss Vincent told us that story yesterday, I couldn't help thinking of Cordelia, and that we might be on the wrong track with her , as those horrid girls were with Miss Vincent."

"'Those horrid girls'! What does she mean, Alice?" asked Janey.

Alice repeated Miss Vincent's story. "And Eva," she went on, "has got it into her head that Cordelia is like what Miss Vincent was, and that we are like those horrid girls."

"Not like them; not as bad as they were, yet ; but we might be if we kept on, maybe."

"But it isn't the same thing at all, Eva," struck in Janey. "That sweet, pretty Miss Vincent could never have been anything like Cordelia; and we—I'm sure none of us have been like those horrid girls. I don't like Cordelia, but I don't say anything hateful to her, and none of us girls do."

"But you—we don't want her 'round with us, and we show it. We won't dance with her if we can help it, and we've managed to keep her out of things that we were in, a good many times."

"Well, nobody wants a person 'round with them who makes herself so disagreeable as Cordelia does; and as for dancing with her, she's never in step, and is always treading upon you and bumping against you; and in everything else it's just the same."

"Maybe she's shy, as Miss Vincent was."

"Shy! Cordelia Burr shy!" shouted Alice, in derision.

"No; she's anything but shy," said Janey; "she's as uppish and independent as she can be."

"But maybe she puts that on. Maybe—"

"Maybe she's a princess in disguise!" cried Alice, scornfully.

"Well, I don't care. I think we ought to try and see if perhaps we are not on the wrong track with her; and I—"

"Now, Eva," and Alice looked up very determinedly, "if you begin to take notice of Cordelia, there'll be no getting away from her; she'll be pushing herself in where she isn't wanted, constantly. And there's just one thing more: I'll say, if you do begin this, you'll have to do it alone. I won't have anything to do with it; and, you'll see, the rest of the girls won't; and you'll be left to yourself with Miss Cordelia, and a nice time you'll have of it."

Eva made no answer. Indeed, she would have found it hard to speak, for she was choking with tears,—tears that presently found vent in "a good cry," as Alice and Janey left the room.

What should she do? What could she do with all the girls against her? If she could only tell Miss Vincent, she could advise her. But Miss Vincent had been summoned home by illness that very morning.

Poor Eva! the way before her looked extremely difficult. She was very sensitive, and Miss Vincent's story had made an impression upon her that could not be got rid of. She was astonished to find it had not made the same impression upon Alice,—that Alice had not seen in it, as she had, a clear direction what to do, or what to try to do; and now here was Janey, as entirely out of sympathy, and Alice had said that all the rest of the girls would be the same. If Alice was right, it might—it might make a bad matter worse; it might make the girls dislike Cordelia more, to—to interfere. For a moment Eva felt that this view of the matter would solve her difficulty, by exonerating her from undertaking her task. The next moment there flashed into her mind these words of Miss Vincent's: "If only one of them had thought to say a kind word to me."

About half an hour later Alice and Janey, with three or four of the other girls, were practising in the gymnasium together.

"I wonder where Eva is?" whispered Alice. "She's always here at this time; she is so fond of the gym."

"She didn't like what we said, so perhaps she won't come to-day," whispered Janey.

"Well, I had to say what I did; if I hadn't, Eva would have—But there she is now," as the door opened. Then aloud, "Eva, Eva, come over here and try the bars with us."

Eva 's heart gave a little jump of gladness as she accepted this pleasantly spoken invitation. She hated to be on ill terms with anybody, and especially with Alice, of whom she was fond; and as she went forward and swung herself lightly up beside her, she forgot for the moment everything that was unpleasant.

There was a pretty little running exercise up and down a gently inclined plane that was in great favor at the school; and when the three swung down from the bars, Alice proposed that they should try the race-track, as they called it.

They were just starting off when the door opened, and Cordelia Burr came in. She stared about her in her odd frowning way, and then hurried forward to join the runners. Eva gave a little start of recoil. Alice gave more than a start. She seized Eva and Janey by the wrists, and, pushing them before her, sent a nod and backward to several others who had left the bars to come over to the race-track. She did not say even to herself that she meant to crowd Cordelia out; but the fact was accomplished, nevertheless, for by the time Cordelia reached the track there was no room for her. Eva had seen this same kind of stratagem enacted before, and thought it "fun." Now, with her eyes and ears and heart open, through Miss Vincent's influence, the fun took on a different aspect. But what—what ought she to do? What could she do then? She might slip out and offer her place to Cordelia. But the girls, and Alice—Alice specially—would be so angry. Oh, no, no, she couldn't; it wouldn't do to brave them like that! Looking up as she came to this conclusion, she saw Cordelia standing all alone, her face flushed with anger or mortification, perhaps both.

"If only one of them had thought to say a kind word to me!" flashed again through Eva's mind.

"Go on, go on; what are you lagging for?" whispered Alice, as Eva's pace faltered here.

Eva's eyes were fixed upon Cordelia, who had crossed the room and was going towards the door.

"Go on, go on; you are stopping us all!" exclaimed Alice, impatiently.

But with a sudden supreme effort Eva flung away her cowardice, and dashed off the track, crying, "Cordelia! Cordelia!"

Cordelia turned her head a moment, yet without staying her steps.

Eva sprang forward and put out her hand, crying again, "Cordelia! Cordelia!"

The runners had all stopped with one accord, as Eva sprang forward. What was it, what was she going to do, to say, to Cordelia? Even Alice and Janey, who knew more than the others what was in Eva's mind,—even they wondered what she was going to do, to say. And when in the next instant she cried breathlessly, "We—I—didn't mean to crowd you out; it—it wasn't fair; and—and you'll come back and take my place, Cordelia, won't you?" they, even Alice and Janey, forgot to be angry; forgot everything at the moment in their astonishment and an involuntary admiration for Eva's courage in daring to do as she did— against them all ! What Alice might have said or done when that moment had gone, and her mortification at Eva's disregard of her opinion had had chance to start afresh, it is impossible to tell, for before that could take place something very unexpected happened, and this was a most unlooked-for action on Cordelia's part. They all looked to see her turn with one of her haughty, or what Alice and Janey called her uppish, independent glances upon Eva, and reject at once her appeal and offer. Instead of that—instead of coldness and haughty independence—they saw her, they heard her, suddenly give a shuddering, sobbing sigh, and then, dropping her face into her hands, break down utterly in a paroxysm of tears,—not tears of anger, of violence of any kind, but tears that, like the shuddering, sobbing sigh, seemed to come from a sore heart after long repression.

"Oh, Cordelia! Cordelia!" burst out Eva, putting her arm about Cordelia, "don't, don't cry."

Cordelia could not respond to this appeal, could not stop her tears; but as Eva bent over her in tender pity, she leaned forward and rested her head against the arm that encircled her. As the girls who stood watching saw this, as they saw Eva with her own pocket-handkerchief try to wipe away those tears, as they heard her say again, "Oh, Cordelia! Cordelia! don't, don't cry!" they looked at one another in a confused, questioning sort of way; and then, as they heard Eva speak again and with a breaking voice, as they saw the bright drops of sympathy and pity and regret gather in her eyes and roll down her cheeks, they started uneasily, and one and then another moved forward in a half-frightened, embarrassed fashion towards the door. Eva glanced up at them reproachfully as they passed. Were they not going to say a word, not a single word, to Cordelia? Hadn't they any pity for her; hadn't they any shame for what they had done? Goaded by these thoughts, she burst out passionately, "Oh, girls, I should think—" and then broke down completely, and bowed her head against Cordelia's, unable to say another word. But somebody else took up her words,—the very words she had used a second ago,—somebody else whispered,—

"Don't cry, don't cry." At the same moment a hand touched her shoulder, and she looked up to see—Alice King standing beside her. And then it seemed as if all the others were anxious to press forward; and one of them, the youngest of all, little Mary Leslie, a girl of ten, suddenly piped out,—

"We—we didn't know as you'd care, like this, Cordelia."

And then Cordelia lifted up her swollen tear-stained face, and faltered out: "Care? How—how could I hel—help caring?"

"But we thought—we thought you didn't like us," said another, hesitatingly.

"And I—I thought you hated and despised me, and I thought you'd despise me more if—if I showed that I cared!" and Cordelia gave another little sob, and covered her poor disfigured face again.

"Oh, Cordelia, Cordelia!" cried one and then another, pityingly; and then a voice, it sounded like Alice's, said, "We've been on the wrong track."

Just here a bell in the hall—the signal to those in the gymnasium that their half-hour was up—rang sharply out, and ashamed and sorry and repentant the girls hurried away to their rooms to change their dresses and prepare for dinner.

"Oh, Alice, Alice, you were so good!" cried Eva, flinging her arms around Alice's neck the moment they were alone together.

"Good? Don't—don't say that," exclaimed Alice, starting back.

"But you were . I—I was so afraid you'd be angry with me. I—"

Alice now flung her arms around her friend, and gave her a little hug, as she cried: "Oh, Eva, it's you who've been good. I—I've been—a little fiend, I suppose, and I was horridly angry at first; but when I—I saw how—that Cordelia really was—that she really felt what she did, I—oh, Eva!" laughing a little hysterically, "when you stood mopping up Cordelia's tears, all I could think was, there's a little Samaritan."

"Oh, Alice!"

"I did truly, and you'll go on as good as you've begun, and end by liking and loving Cordelia because you pity her, I dare say. But though I'm going to behave myself, and bear with her, I shall never come up to that, for she is so queer and so clumsy, and she does dress so! I'm going to behave myself, though, I am,—I am; but I hope she won't expect too much, that she won't push forward too fast now."

"Oh, Alice, I don't believe Cordelia's that kind of a girl at all; she's too proud. I think she's awkward and queer, and don't know about dress and things, because she's lived 'way out there on the plains, but she'll improve when she finds we mean to be friendly to her; you see if she doesn't."

And Eva was right. By the end of the term Cordelia had improved so much in the friendlier atmosphere that surrounded her that she was quite like another girl. No longer uneasy and suspicious, she lost her self-consciousness, and with it a good deal of her awkwardness and apparent ill temper, and began to blossom out happily and cheerily as a girl should. Even her face brightened and bloomed in this atmosphere, and by and by she took Eva and Alice and Janey into her confidence so far that she shyly asked their advice about her dress, and profited by it to such an extent that Alice could no longer say, "She does dress so!" Y43Ucrzw2Wi5FR1wpYha71Du0KkVQYaGBA5aagYHgczTS4zb4shk4K8Vlq9cBPe6

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