t a hundred times; but she declares she never
had a dress like it, and we were quarrelling about it. I wish you
would show it to her close up, and see if she don't have to give in."

"I will; come to my room, Myra!" and she led the way there, Myra
following with a frightened, sullen face.

Then she found the piece, and laid it on the table.

"Myra," she said, after looking at the girl kindly for a moment, "is
this like your dress? Tell me truly; it is much the best thing for you
to do."

Myra gazed at the cloth for a moment, then burst into a flood of
tears.

"So you were one of the sleighing-party?" said Miss Ashton quietly.
"Will you tell me who were with you?"

If Myra had not been taken so entirely by surprise, she might,
probably would, have refused to answer, for honor is as dear to girls
as to boys; but she sobbed out one name after another, until the six
stood confessed.

"Thank you," was all Miss Ashton said, then she handed Myra the
tell-tale cloth, and added, "You had better put it neatly in the place
from which it was torn."

She opened her door, and Myra, wiping her eyes, went quickly out and
back to her room.

Hardly conscious what she was doing, with an impatient desire to get
away, she began to pack her trunk.

"I will go home, home, home!" she kept repeating to herself. "I never
will see one of those girls again. Oh, dear, dear! If I only hadn't
gone on that sleigh-ride; that abominable Mamie Smythe is always
getting the girls in trouble: I perfectly detest her. What will my
father say?"

CHAPTER XX.

REPENTANCE.

It is a common error that to send a girl into a boarding-school to
finish her education is to bring her out a model, not only in
learning, but in accomplishments and character.

Here were two hundred girls, coming from nearly two hundred different
families, each one brought up, until she was in her teens, in
different ways. Looking over the population of a small village, the
most careless observer must see how unlike the homes are; how every
grade of morals and manners is represented, and with what telling
effect they show themselves in the characters of the young trained
under their roofs.

It happened often that Montrose Academy was looked upon by anxious
parents--who were just discovering, in wilfulness, disobedience,
perhaps in matters more serious even than these, the mistakes they had
made in the education of their daughters--as a sort of reformatory
school