s if my cheeks had tingled under the assault but to-day, I recall the
exclamation of a girl of fifteen who sat next to me while the
examination in history was held. Her father was a distinguished citizen
of Richmond, and her mother a leader in fashionable society.

"Lord, child! how smart you think yourself, to be sure!" she said aloud,
turning squarely about to look into my face.

I had answered as quietly and briefly as I could, the questions put to
me, and tried politely not to look scandalized at her flippant
failures.

"I'm sure I don't know!" "Never heard of him!" "If I ever knew, I've
forgotten all about it!"--were, to my notion, a disgrace, and her cool
effrontery would have been severely rebuked by our governess, and have
met with still sterner judgment from my mother.

At recess this offensive young person headed a coterie that surrounded
us, criticised our clothes, and catechised us as to our home, our
family, and our mode of home living. Among other choice _bon mots_ from
the Honorable Member's daughter was the inquiry--"if we got the pattern
of our wagon-cover hoods from Mrs. Noah?"

I told Cousin Molly Belle that night, that "the whole pack were
ill-bred, rude, and unbearable."

She agreed heartily with two of my epithets, and took me up on the
third:--

"Nothing is 'unbearable,' Namesake, except the thought of our own folly
or sin. Still, this is a part of the discipline of life I would spare
you, if I could. Endure hardness as a good soldier, and shame their want
of breeding by the perfection of yours. An unmannerly schoolgirl is the
cruellest of tormentors, and"--with a ring of her voice and a snap of
her eyes that were refreshing and characteristic--"I should like to have
the handling of that crew for an hour or two!"

I snuggled up close to her, already measurably consoled, and ready as
usual, with one of the speeches that stamped me as "old-fashioned."

"We are like two wild pigeons, tied by the foot, in a yard full of
peacocks. I would rather be a pigeon than a peacock. But pecks and
struts and screamings are not agreeable, for all that."

Nor was it agreeable to be the only girls in our class-room who were not
invited to a party given the middle of November, by one of the nicest of
our new acquaintances. She had been quite friendly with us, and the very
day the invitations were sent out, laid a sprig of citronaloes silently
on my lap, during a French lesson. The smile that went with the