the first opportunity I have
had to look after her, though I knew I could trust Mrs. Howard."

"Miss Craven is in excellent hands here. Of course I am among the
Seniors and graduate in June, and am very busy, so I see but little of
the Juniors."

"Why, it is quite college-like." Mrs. Davis had taken in a fresh supply
of breath. Her voice was soft and well trained, though she rather swept
along as she talked.

"Girls are prepared for college, or for any position in life," Miss
Bigelow replied with a smile.

"That is what Mrs. Howard said. I can't understand how the grandfather
could become such a queer old hermit when the family was an excellent
one. It might have been the loss of his son, this girl's father. Mr.
Davis thinks he was a man of education and shrewd about business. He had
to go over all the papers, you know, and there were marriage
certificates, his parents and his own, and various family affairs. I was
glad for her sake that everything was right. A family stigma always
keeps cropping up."

Mrs. Aldred entered at this juncture, and Miss Bigelow left the two
ladies to their conference. Mrs. Davis went over the ground again, more
at length, and stated her wishes definitely. She wanted Miss Craven
trained to make a good impression on society, accomplished if she could
be.

"She has a great talent for music and will make a fine player. It is a
pity she could not have begun her general education sooner," replied
Mrs. Aldred. "It will take time to reach any standard."

"Oh, a thousand pities. But it doesn't seem really necessary for her to
go into the abstruse subjects, for every year counts. It is an excellent
thing that girls do not marry as young as they used to. I was married
before I was quite eighteen, but I had been three years at a first-class
boarding school. She will be twenty in the summer. She certainly can
finish in another year?" tentatively.

"She can do a good deal, but hardly that. This year it will be
principally ground-work. She has had private lessons, and she does love
study, is eager to learn. Next year she will go into regular classes
and get accustomed to girls. She is painfully shy."

"I hope you can give her some style. After all, money _does_ make amends
for a great deal, and I have known some really ignorant girls to marry
well, but now everyone who makes a bow to society is expected to have
some training, and get the air of _nouveaux riches_ rubbed off. That is
detestable.