e showed me to the
door. He saw, too, I fancy, that I was not the least bit conscious of
my shabby dress; and I am sure he did not smile at my appearance, even
when my back was turned.

A new life began for me when I entered the Latin School in September.
Until then I had gone to school with my equals, and as a matter of
course. Now it was distinctly a feat for me to keep in school, and my
schoolmates were socially so far superior to me that my poverty became
conspicuous. The pupils of the Latin School, from the nature of the
institution, are an aristocratic set. They come from refined homes,
dress well, and spend the recess hour talking about parties, beaux,
and the matinee. As students they are either very quick or very
hard-working; for the course of study, in the lingo of the school
world, is considered "stiff." The girl with half her brain asleep, or
with too many beaux, drops out by the end of the first year; or a one
and only beau may be the fatal element. At the end of the course the
weeding process has reduced the once numerous tribe of academic
candidates to a cosey little family.

By all these tokens I should have had serious business on my hands as
a pupil in the Latin School, but I did not find it hard. To make
myself letter-perfect in my lessons required long hours of study, but
that was my delight. To make myself at home in an alien world was also
within my talents; I had been practising it day and night for the past
four years. To remain unconscious of my shabby and ill-fitting clothes
when the rustle of silk petticoats in the schoolroom protested against
them was a matter still within my moral reach. Half a dress a year had
been my allowance for many seasons; even less, for as I did not grow
much I could wear my dresses as long as they lasted. And I had stood
before editors, and exchanged polite calls with school-teachers,
untroubled by the detestable colors and archaic design of my garments.
To stand up and recite Latin declensions without trembling from hunger
was something more of a feat, because I sometimes went to school with
little or no breakfast; but even that required no special heroism,--at
most it was a matter of self-control. I had the advantage of a poor
appetite, too; I really did not need much breakfast. Or if I was
hungry it would hardly show; I coughed so much that my unsteadiness
was self-explained.

Everything helped, you see. My schoolmates helped. Aristocrats though
they were, t