, where Miss Ashton took in the erring, and after one or more
years sent them out perfect in every good work and way.

While Miss Ashton made all inquiries in her power to prevent any
undesirable girls from joining her school, she was often imposed upon,
sometimes by concealments, and not unseldom by positive falsehoods,
but oftener by the parental fondness which could see nothing but good
in a spoilt, darling child.

It often happened that with just such characters Miss Ashton was very
successful, not seldom receiving a girl of a really fine nature which
had been distorted by home influences, and sending her away, after
years of patient work, with this nature so fully developed and
improved that her whole family rose to her standard.

Instances of this kind made Miss Ashton careful in her discipline. She
well understood that a girl once expelled from a school, no matter how
lightly her friends might appear to regard the occurrence, was under a
ban, which time and circumstances might remove, but might not.

In the case of this sleigh-ride, the disobedience to known and
strictly enforced rules made her more anxiety than any case of a
similar kind had given her for years.

She knew now the names of the girls concerned: they had given her
trouble before. Mamie Smythe she had often been on the point of
sending home, but she was one of those characters with fine traits,
capable of being very good or very bad in her life's work. The mother
was a wealthy widow, Mamie her only child. Spoiled by weak and foolish
fondness she had been; but her brightness, her lovableness, her
cheery, witty, sunshiny ways remained.

Evidently, here she was the accountable one; she should be expelled as
a lesson to the school, but to expel her meant, _what_?

She had wealth, she had position, she would in a few years be able to
wield an influence that, in the right direction, would outweigh that
of almost any other girl in school.

To be sent home, back to that weak mother, with a life of frivolous
pleasures before her, what, under these circumstances, was it the
wisest and best thing to do?

Favoritism for the rich or the poor was not one of Miss Ashton's
faults. By this time the whole school knew of the ride, of its
discovery, and was holding its breath over the probable consequences.

The girls said, "Miss Ashton grew thin and pale from the worry." The
feeling of the school, most of whom were tenderly attached to her, was
decidedly a