I
t was Saturday afternoon, and Eva Nelson and Alice King were sitting in their little study parlor at the Hill House Seminary poring over their lesson chapter for the next day. It was the tenth chapter of St. Luke, with the story of the good Samaritan. At last Eva flung herself back and exclaimed, "We can't be good as they were in those Bible days, no matter what anybody says; things are different."

"Of course they are," responded Alice. "Who said they weren't?"

Eva turned to the volume before her, and read aloud about the man who had fallen among thieves, and the good Samaritan who came along and bound up his wounds and took care of him.

"Now how can we do things like that?" she said.

"Oh, Eva, I should think you were about five or six years old instead of a girl of thirteen. Nobody means that you are to do just those particular things. What they do mean now is that you are to be good to people who are in trouble,—people who need things done for them."

"Well, I'd be good to them if I had a chance; but what chance do I have now with all my lessons? When I grow up, I shall belong to charitable societies, as mamma does, and give things to poor folks, and go to see them. I can't now; girls of our age can't, of course."

"We can do some things in vacations,—get up fairs and things of that kind, and give the money to the poor."

"Oh, I've done that. I helped in a fair last summer, and we gave the money to the children's hospital. But Miss Vincent said last week that all of us could find ways of doing good every day if we would keep our eyes and ears and hearts open; and I've felt ever since that she was keeping her eyes open on the watch for something she expected me to do."

"Nonsense! She knows as well as we do that we haven't time to do any more now. She means when we grow older. But look at the clock,—five minutes to supper-time, and I've got to 'do' my hair all over, the braid is so frowzely."

"What makes you braid it? Why don't you let it hang in a curl, as you used to?"

"I told you why yesterday,—because that Burr girl has made me sick of curls, with that great black flop of hers stringing down her back. She'd make me sick of anything. I haven't worn my red blouse since she came out with that fiery thing of hers. Isn't it horrid?"

"Yes, horrid!"

A few minutes after, as Eva and Alice were stirring their cocoa at the supper-table, the girl they had been criticising came hastily into the dining-room and took her place. She was a tall girl for her age, with a heavy ungainly figure, a swarthy skin, and black hair which was tied back in a long curl. She wore a dark plaid skirt, with a blouse of fiery red cashmere, and a hair ribbon of a deep violet shade. Nothing could have been more ill-matched or more unbecoming. The girl who sat beside her, pretty Janey Miller, was a great contrast, with her blond curls, her rosy cheeks, and simple well-fitting dress of blue serge. Her every movement, too, was as full of grace as Cordelia Burr's was exactly the reverse. Everything seemed to go well with Janey; everything seemed to go ill with Cordelia. She spilled her cocoa, she dropped her knife, she crumbled her gingerbread, and she clattered her cup and saucer. Certainly she was not a very pleasant person to sit near. But Janey tried to conceal her annoyance, and succeeded very well, until at the end of the meal Cordelia, in her headlong haste in leaving her seat, tipped over a glass of water upon her neighbor's pretty blue dress. This was too much, for Janey, and it was little wonder that she jumped up with an impatient exclamation, nor that she declared to Eva and Alice a little later that Cordelia ought to be ashamed of herself for being so careless, and that she did wish she didn't have to sit next to her.

"I suppose, though, I shall have to sit there until the end of this term; but there's one thing I'm not going to do any more,—I'm not going to dance with her. She doesn't keep step, and she does dress so!" concluded Janey.

"Yes, she does dress dreadfully; and to think it's her own fault. She chooses her things herself," said Eva.

"No!" exclaimed Janey.

"Yes, she does; her mother is 'way off somewhere, and Cordelia gets what she likes."

"And she doesn't know any better than to like such horrid things! Sometimes she looks as if she'd lived with wild Indians!"

"That's it; that's it, I forgot!" shouted Eva. "She has lived 'way off out in a Territory on an Indian reservation. Her father is an army officer of some kind."

"Young ladies, young ladies, look at your clocks!" suddenly called a voice outside the door.

"Why, goodness, it's bedtime!" whispered Janey. "Good-night, good-night."

The next afternoon, when the Sunday classes were in session in the great hall, Janey, who was not in the same class with Eva and Alice, wondered as she looked across at them what they could be talking about that seemed so interesting. This is what they were talking about: Alice, in her clever exact way, had told Miss Vincent the whole of that little Saturday-night talk concerning the good Samaritan. Miss Vincent smiled when Alice told of Eva's odd simplicity of application; but as Alice went on and presented Eva's perplexity and her plea for girls of her age,—their lack of time and all that, and her own assurance to Eva that Miss Vincent did not mean what Eva fancied that she did,—Miss Vincent, in a quick, decided, almost eager way, started forward and cried,—

"Oh, but I did! I did mean it. Girls of your age can do—oh, so much! You are thinking of only one way of doing,—helping the poor, visiting people in need. I don't think you can do much of that. I think that is mostly for older people; but you live in a little world of your own,—a girls' world, where you can help or hurt one another every day and hour by what you do or say. Oh, I know, I know, for I went through such suffering once,—was so hurt when I might have been helped. But let me tell you about it, and then you'll see what I mean. It was when I was between twelve and thirteen. We had just come to Boston, and I was sent to a strange school. I was very shy, but ashamed to show that I was. So when the girls stared at me, as girls will, and giggled amongst themselves about anything, I thought they were staring in an unfriendly way and laughing at me, and I immediately straightened up and put on a stiff and what I tried to make an indifferent manner. This only prejudiced them against me, and the unfriendliness I had fancied became very soon a reality, and I was snubbed or avoided in the most decided way. I tried to bear this silently, to act as if I didn't care for a while, but I became so lonely at length I thought I would try to conciliate them. I dare say, however, my shy manner was still misunderstood, for I was not encouraged to go on. What I suffered at this time I have never forgotten. The girls were no worse than other girls, but they had started out on a wrong track, and gradually the whole flock of them, one led on by what another would say or do, were down upon me. It was a sort of contagious excitement, and they didn't stop to think it might be unjust or cruel. Things went on from bad to worse, until at last I gave up trying to conciliate, and turned on them like a little wild-cat. I forgot my timidity,—forgot everything but my desire to be even with them, as I expressed it. But it wasn't an even conflict,—thirty girls against one; and at length I did something dreadful. I was going from the school-room to a recitation room with my ink-bottle; that I had been to have filled, when I met in the hall three of 'my enemies,' as I called them. In trying to avoid them I ran against them. They thought I did it purposely, and at once accused me of that, and other sins I happened to be innocent of, in a way that exasperated me. I tried to go on, but they barred my progress; and then it was that I lost all control of myself, and in a sort of frantic fury flung the ink-bottle that I held straight before me. I could never recall the details of anything after that. I only remember the screams, the opening of doors, the teachers hastening up, a voice saying, 'No; only the dresses are injured; but she might have killed somebody!' In the answers to their questions the teachers got at something of the truth, not all of it. They were very much shocked at a state of things they had not even suspected; but my violence prejudiced them against me, as was natural, and they had little sympathy for me. Of course I couldn't remain at the school after that. I was not expelled. My father took me away, yet I always felt that I went in disgrace."

"They were horrid girls,—horrid!" cried Alice, vehemently.

"No; they were like any ordinary girls who don't think. But you see how different everything might have been if only one of them had thought to say a kind word to me; had seen that I might have been suffering, and"—smiling down upon Eva—"been a good Samaritan to me."

"They were horrid, or they would have thought," insisted Alice. "I'm sure I don't know any girls who would have been so stupid."

"Nor I, nor I," chimed in two or three other voices. But Eva Nelson was silent.

CHAPTER II.

"You are the most ridiculous girl for getting fancies into your head, Eva; and you never get things right,—never!"

"I think you are very unkind."

"Well, you can think so. I think—"

"Hush!" in a warning voice; "there's some one knocking at the door;" then, louder, "Come in;" and responsive to this invitation, Janey Miller entered.

"What were you and Eva squabbling about?" she asked, looking at Alice.

"Cordelia Burr!" replied Alice, disdainfully.

"Cordelia Burr?"

"Yes. What do you think? Eva wants to take her up and be intimate with her."

"Now, Alice, I don't," cried Eva. "I only wanted to be kinder to her. When Miss Vincent told us that story yesterday, I couldn't help thinking of Cordelia, and that we might be on the wrong track with her, as those horrid girls were with Miss Vincent."

"'Those horrid girls'! What does she mean, Alice?" asked Janey.

Alice repeated Miss Vincent's story. "And Eva," she went on, "has got it into her head that Cordelia is like what Miss Vincent was, and that we are like those horrid girls."

"Not like them; not as bad as they were, yet; but we might be if we kept on, maybe."

"But it isn't the same thing at all, Eva," struck in Janey. "That sweet, pretty Miss Vincent could never have been anything like Cordelia; and we—I'm sure none of us have been like those horrid girls. I don't like Cordelia, but I don't say anything hateful to her, and none of us girls do."

"But you—we don't want her 'round with us, and we show it. We won't dance with her if we can help it, and we've managed to keep her out of things that we were in, a good many times."

"Well, nobody wants a person 'round with them who makes herself so disagreeable as Cordelia does; and as for dancing with her, she's never in step, and is always treading upon you and bumping against you; and in everything else it's just the same."

"Maybe she's shy, as Miss Vincent was."

"Shy! Cordelia Burr shy!" shouted Alice, in derision.

"No; she's anything but shy," said Janey; "she's as uppish and independent as she can be."

"But maybe she puts that on. Maybe—"

"Maybe she's a princess in disguise!" cried Alice, scornfully.

"Well, I don't care. I think we ought to try and see if perhaps we are not on the wrong track with her; and I—"

"Now, Eva," and Alice looked up very determinedly, "if you begin to take notice of Cordelia, there'll be no getting away from her; she'll be pushing herself in where she isn't wanted, constantly. And there's just one thing more: I'll say, if you do begin this, you'll have to do it alone. I won't have anything to do with it; and, you'll see, the rest of the girls won't; and you'll be left to yourself with Miss Cordelia, and a nice time you'll have of it."

Eva made no answer. Indeed, she would have found it hard to speak, for she was choking with tears,—tears that presently found vent in "a good cry," as Alice and Janey left the room.

What should she do? What could she do with all the girls against her? If she could only tell Miss Vincent, she could advise her. But Miss Vincent had been summoned home by illness that very morning.

Poor Eva! the way before her looked extremely difficult. She was very sensitive, and Miss Vincent's story had made an impression upon her that could not be got rid of. She was astonished to find it had not made the same impression upon Alice,—that Alice had not seen in it, as she had, a clear direction what to do, or what to try to do; and now here was Janey, as entirely out of sympathy, and Alice had said that all the rest of the girls would be the same. If Alice was right, it might—it might make a bad matter worse; it might make the girls dislike Cordelia more, to—to interfere. For a moment Eva felt that this view of the matter would solve her difficulty, by exonerating her from undertaking her task. The next moment there flashed into her mind these words of Miss Vincent's: "If only one of them had thought to say a kind word to me."

About half an hour later Alice and Janey, with three or four of the other girls, were practising in the gymnasium together.

"I wonder where Eva is?" whispered Alice. "She's always here at this time; she is so fond of the gym."

"She didn't like what we said, so perhaps she won't come to-day," whispered Janey.

"Well, I had to say what I did; if I hadn't, Eva would have—But there she is now," as the door opened. Then aloud, "Eva, Eva, come over here and try the bars with us."

Eva 's heart gave a little jump of gladness as she accepted this pleasantly spoken invitation. She hated to be on ill terms with anybody, and especially with Alice, of whom she was fond; and as she went forward and swung herself lightly up beside her, she forgot for the moment everything that was unpleasant.

There was a pretty little running exercise up and down a gently inclined plane that was in great favor at the school; and when the three swung down from the bars, Alice proposed that they should try the race-track, as they called it.

They were just starting off when the door opened, and Cordelia Burr came in. She stared about her in her odd frowning way, and then hurried forward to join the runners. Eva gave a little start of recoil. Alice gave more than a start. She seized Eva and Janey by the wrists, and, pushing them before her, sent a nod and backward to several others who had left the bars to come over to the race-track. She did not say even to herself that she meant to crowd Cordelia out; but the fact was accomplished, nevertheless, for by the time Cordelia reached the track there was no room for her. Eva had seen this same kind of stratagem enacted before, and thought it "fun." Now, with her eyes and ears and heart open, through Miss Vincent's influence, the fun took on a different aspect. But what—what ought she to do? What could she do then? She might slip out and offer her place to Cordelia. But the girls, and Alice—Alice specially—would be so angry. Oh, no, no, she couldn't; it wouldn't do to brave them like that! Looking up as she came to this conclusion, she saw Cordelia standing all alone, her face flushed with anger or mortification, perhaps both.

"If only one of them had thought to say a kind word to me!" flashed again through Eva's mind.

"Go on, go on; what are you lagging for?" whispered Alice, as Eva's pace faltered here.

Eva's eyes were fixed upon Cordelia, who had crossed the room and was going towards the door.

"Go on, go on; you are stopping us all!" exclaimed Alice, impatiently.

But with a sudden supreme effort Eva flung away her cowardice, and dashed off the track, crying, "Cordelia! Cordelia!"

Cordelia turned her head a moment, yet without staying her steps.

Eva sprang forward and put out her hand, crying again, "Cordelia! Cordelia!"

The runners had all stopped with one accord, as Eva sprang forward. What was it, what was she going to do, to say, to Cordelia? Even Alice and Janey, who knew more than the others what was in Eva's mind,—even they wondered what she was going to do, to say. And when in the next instant she cried breathlessly, "We—I—didn't mean to crowd you out; it—it wasn't fair; and—and you'll come back and take my place, Cordelia, won't you?" they, even Alice and Janey, forgot to be angry; forgot everything at the moment in their astonishment and an involuntary admiration for Eva's courage in daring to do as she did—against them all! What Alice might have said or done when that moment had gone, and her mortification at Eva's disregard of her opinion had had chance to start afresh, it is impossible to tell, for before that could take place something very unexpected happened, and this was a most unlooked-for action on Cordelia's part. They all looked to see her turn with one of her haughty, or what Alice and Janey called her uppish, independent glances upon Eva, and reject at once her appeal and offer. Instead of that—instead of coldness and haughty independence—they saw her, they heard her, suddenly give a shuddering, sobbing sigh, and then, dropping her face into her hands, break down utterly in a paroxysm of tears,—not tears of anger, of violence of any kind, but tears that, like the shuddering, sobbing sigh, seemed to come from a sore heart after long repression.

"Oh, Cordelia! Cordelia!" burst out Eva, putting her arm about Cordelia, "don't, don't cry."

Cordelia could not respond to this appeal, could not stop her tears; but as Eva bent over her in tender pity, she leaned forward and rested her head against the arm that encircled her. As the girls who stood watching saw this, as they saw Eva with her own pocket-handkerchief try to wipe away those tears, as they heard her say again, "Oh, Cordelia! Cordelia! don't, don't cry!" they looked at one another in a confused, questioning sort of way; and then, as they heard Eva speak again and with a breaking voice, as they saw the bright drops of sympathy and pity and regret gather in her eyes and roll down her cheeks, they started uneasily, and one and then another moved forward in a half-frightened, embarrassed fashion towards the door. Eva glanced up at them reproachfully as they passed. Were they not going to say a word, not a single word, to Cordelia? Hadn't they any pity for her; hadn't they any shame for what they had done? Goaded by these thoughts, she burst out passionately, "Oh, girls, I should think—" and then broke down completely, and bowed her head against Cordelia's, unable to say another word. But somebody else took up her words,—the very words she had used a second ago,—somebody else whispered,—

"Don't cry, don't cry." At the same moment a hand touched her shoulder, and she looked up to see—Alice King standing beside her. And then it seemed as if all the others were anxious to press forward; and one of them, the youngest of all, little Mary Leslie, a girl of ten, suddenly piped out,—

"We—we didn't know as you'd care, like this, Cordelia."

And then Cordelia lifted up her swollen tear-stained face, and faltered out: "Care? How—how could I hel—help caring?"

"But we thought—we thought you didn't like us," said another, hesitatingly.

"And I—I thought you hated and despised me, and I thought you'd despise me more if—if I showed that I cared!" and Cordelia gave another little sob, and covered her poor disfigured face again.

"Oh, Cordelia, Cordelia!" cried one and then another, pityingly; and then a voice, it sounded like Alice's, said, "We've been on the wrong track."

Just here a bell in the hall—the signal to those in the gymnasium that their half-hour was up—rang sharply out, and ashamed and sorry and repentant the girls hurried away to their rooms to change their dresses and prepare for dinner.

"Oh, Alice, Alice, you were so good!" cried Eva, flinging her arms around Alice's neck the moment they were alone together.

"Good? Don't—don't say that," exclaimed Alice, starting back.

"But you were. I—I was so afraid you'd be angry with me. I—"

Alice now flung her arms around her friend, and gave her a little hug, as she cried: "Oh, Eva, it's you who've been good. I—I've been—a little fiend, I suppose, and I was horridly angry at first; but when I—I saw how—that Cordelia really was—that she really felt what she did, I—oh, Eva!" laughing a little hysterically, "when you stood mopping up Cordelia's tears, all I could think was, there's a little Samaritan."

"Oh, Alice!"

"I did truly, and you'll go on as good as you've begun, and end by liking and loving Cordelia because you pity her, I dare say. But though I'm going to behave myself, and bear with her, I shall never come up to that, for she is so queer and so clumsy, and she does dress so! I'm going to behave myself, though, I am,—I am; but I hope she won't expect too much, that she won't push forward too fast now."

"Oh, Alice, I don't believe Cordelia's that kind of a girl at all; she's too proud. I think she's awkward and queer, and don't know about dress and things, because she's lived 'way out there on the plains, but she'll improve when she finds we mean to be friendly to her; you see if she doesn't."

And Eva was right. By the end of the term Cordelia had improved so much in the friendlier atmosphere that surrounded her that she was quite like another girl. No longer uneasy and suspicious, she lost her self-consciousness, and with it a good deal of her awkwardness and apparent ill temper, and began to blossom out happily and cheerily as a girl should. Even her face brightened and bloomed in this atmosphere, and by and by she took Eva and Alice and Janey into her confidence so far that she shyly asked their advice about her dress, and profited by it to such an extent that Alice could no longer say, "She does dress so!"