ocracy, their
families, not so intimately known to each other, of course, as the
children themselves, but still by no means unknown in their general
characteristics; four hundred American families who were, on the
whole, industrious, law-abiding, who loved their children, who were
quite tasteless in matters of art, and quite sound though narrow in
matters of morals, utterly mediocre in intelligence and information,
with no breadth of outlook in any direction; but who somehow lived
their lives and faced and conquered all the incredible vicissitudes of
that Great Adventure, with an unconscious, cheerful fortitude which
many an acuter mind might have envied them.

It is possible that the personal knowledge of these four hundred
enduring family lives was, perhaps, the most important mental ballast
taken on by the children of the community during their eight years'
cruise at school. Certainly it was the most important for the
sensitive, complicated, impressionable little Sylvia Marshall, with
her latent distaste for whatever lacked distinction and external
grace, and her passion for sophistication and elegance, which was to
spring into such fierce life with the beginning of her adolescence.
She might renounce, as utterly as she pleased, the associates of her
early youth, but the knowledge of their existence, the acquaintance
with their deep humanity, the knowledge that they found life sweet and
worth living, all this was to be a part of the tissue of her brain
forever, and was to add one to the conflicting elements which battled
within her for the mastery during all the clouded, stormy radiance of
her youth.

The families which supplied the Washington Street School being quite
stationary in their self-owned houses, few new pupils entered during
the school-year. There was, consequently, quite a sensation on the day
in the middle of March when the two Fingal girls entered, Camilla in
the "Fifth A" grade, where Sylvia was, and Cecile in the third grade,
in the next seat to Judith's. The girls themselves were so different
from other children in school that their arrival would have excited
interest even at the beginning of the school-year. Coming, as they
did, at a time when everybody knew by heart every detail of every
one else's appearance from hair-ribbon to shoes, these two beautiful
exotics, in their rich, plain, mourning dresses were vastly stared at.
Sylvia's impressionable eyes were especially struck by the air of race