It needed no "cutting-up" of Sarah's room-mates to send her again to Miss Ellingwood's room. She had just settled fearfully to study the next evening, when there was a rap at the door, and Miss Ellingwood appeared. She was amused at herself because her room had seemed strangely lonely without the little figure bending over the table at her side.

"Don't you want to bring your books over to my room?" she asked; and Sarah responded with delighted alacrity.

When Ellen and Mabel came in and found that she had gone, they were not at all pleased. They knew that Sarah had finished her Geography lesson and they had hoped to have some help. When they discovered the neatly drawn maps in Sarah's drawer in the table, they decided that they would do as well.

"We'll get even with her for tattling," laughed Mabel, as she prepared to copy them with tissue paper and black impression paper.

As the days passed, it seemed to Sarah that she was living in a new world. When she was not in class or in the gymnasium, she was in Miss Ellingwood's room, or walking with Miss Ellingwood. Miss Ellingwood helped her over the hard places in her work, she laughed at her mistakes in English, and corrected them, she let Sarah help to serve the tea when the boys and girls came in in the afternoons.

The Juniors came oftenest; they were in Miss Ellingwood's class, and as the time for the giving of the "Christmas Carol" approached, they were there constantly. Sarah had read the story; she knew how old Scrooge's sordid heart, devoted to money-getting, was filled with the Christmas spirit by the appearance of his dead partner, Jacob Marley, and by the three ghosts of Christmas Present, Christmas Past, and Christmas Future. Ethel Davis and Gertrude Manley were to be Mrs. Cratchit and Fred's wife,—they were the leading women's parts. To Sarah's thinking, there were no rÔles so interesting as those of the ghosts, which were taken by boys. Their costumes were so wonderful, they moved about so mysteriously, they were able to introduce so many original devices. Perhaps next year, if she were promoted to the Junior class, and if there were a ghost in the play, Miss Ellingwood might give the part to her, and then she would be completely happy.

During the practicing, she took her books into Miss Ellingwood's bedroom, and sitting there at her work, she could hear the Juniors laughing merrily. When it was time for the tableaux, in which Scrooge was to see his past and future, and all the harm he had done in the present, they opened the door into the bedroom, so that they might have a double stage.

It was then that Edward Ellis, Dr. Ellis's son, who was a Junior and represented Jacob Marley, came and stood near Sarah's table and recited his sepulchral part.

"'Expect the second spirit on the next night at the same hour!'" he would say, while his chains clanked and rattled, and the blood of one hearer, at least, congealed in her veins. "'The third upon the next night when the last stroke of twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us.'"

And then, "the apparition walked backward, and at every step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open."

Sarah had heard Miss Ellingwood read the directions, and Edward obeyed them with many ghostly variations. Once Sarah had been called upon to lift the window by jerks and starts.

In the midst of all the delightful excitement of school life, Sarah often scolded herself for not feeling perfectly happy and contented. She was learning more than she ever dreamed of learning, she had the constant association of Miss Ellingwood, she practically lived in Miss Ellingwood's luxurious rooms. But she had no life outside them, and it was that which troubled her. She realized that there was a great deal of fun in the school in which she had no share. There were parades which appeared simultaneously with the stroke of ten, beginning at the upper corner of the woman's side of the great building, and winding in and out the halls, and down the stairways, like a long snake, to the lower corner and back again. There were feasts by day and night; there was dancing in the gymnasium after the classes were over. Sarah was not invited to the feasts, and she looked on silently at the dancing. It was true that she did not know how to dance, but if stout Mabel Thorn could learn, she could also, she was sure. She tried the steps sometimes when she was alone in Miss Ellingwood's room.

Mabel and Ellen ignored her completely. They did not always speak to her when she came into the room. Once they allowed her to search for her maps, which Ellen had been tracing, and which she had hastily covered with her papers. Gradually, the whole school became aware that her room-mates avoided her, and no one was clear-sighted enough to see that it was a compliment to Sarah. When Ellen and Mabel were called to the office and reproved for making unnecessary noise, they complained loudly that Sarah had reported them, forgetting the many times that Miss Jones had come upstairs in the middle of the night to remonstrate with them. The other students, even Ethel Davis and Gertrude Manley, who thought they were just, began to look a little askance at Sarah. No fault is more hated by students than tale-bearing, and no suspicion flies more quickly.

Ellen's and Mabel's rudeness did not trouble Sarah. That did not seem worth worrying about. It was her failure to make friends with Ethel and Gertrude, and the other Juniors whom she so admired, that troubled her. Once she had called Ethel by her first name, and Ethel had responded with a quick, "What did you say, Miss Wenner?" She had grown accustomed to having her teachers call her Miss Wenner. But these boys and girls,—that was different.

"At home," she said sorrowfully to herself, "I was always common" (friendly); "and here I am just the same. But these people do not like it, they are too high up."

It could not be because she was a newcomer, because they were gracious to other newcomers. They called even the careless girl who spilled her ink, Mary. They had teas in their room to which only newcomers were invited, but Sarah was not among them. Sarah was convinced that it was some grave fault in herself which made them avoid her.

Fortunately her work occupied most of her thoughts, and when that was over there were always her letters home to be written. She gave vivid, illustrated accounts of those same feasts and parades at which she looked longingly, and the home people never guessed that it was a lonely outsider who described them, sometimes in prose, sometimes in much-admired jingle. She even described Ellen dressed to represent William, as though it were all a great joke, which she had enjoyed immensely. She told about Edward Ellis's wonderful "Bobs," a collie, who could spring up to the low branches of the apple trees in the fields at the back of the campus, and who could perform many wonderful tricks. She drew pictures of him, and of Professor Minturn, who strode about the room while he lectured, and of the Geography teacher, who always folded his hands so precisely, and sat so still.

"Sarah's so dumb,
It makes him numb,"

she wrote brilliantly.

Laura and the twins wrote to her regularly, the twins with wild, childish scrawls, which hinted surprises at Christmas, and Laura with funny accounts of her own difficulties.

"You should have seen my waffles last evening," she would say. "They were black on one side and a delicate buff on the other."

"Laura made waffles," the twins would write. "William ate seven and we four."

Occasionally there would come a note in William's clear hand.

"Enclosed find a little spending-money. We hear that you are doing well. Be a good girl."

It would have been a very ungrateful girl who could have been very unhappy after that.

There were Christmas surprises in her cupboard, also. William's gifts of money had been well spent. On the shelf above the secretary at home, there had stood the battered school-books and a worn copy of "Thaddeus of Warsaw." Poor Thaddeus was to be overshadowed henceforth by several well-bound companions. There was "Westward Ho" for William, and "Lorna Doone" for Laura, and "Alice in Wonderland" for the twins, and a fairy-book for Albert. Rarely does the approach of Christmas find a person so entirely satisfied with her gifts as Sarah was. But Miss Ellingwood had selected them, and Miss Ellingwood was infallible.

There was another present which she was taking home. She had read halfway through the upper shelf of Miss Ellingwood's story-books, and she meant to remember them all, and then during the vacation, she would sit down before the fire after she had washed the supper dishes, and she would take Albert in her arms, and a twin would perch on each side of her on the old settle, and they should hear some stories that were stories.

She had become well acquainted with several of the professors who came in to call on Miss Ellingwood in the evenings. One was Professor Minturn, for whom she had read the paragraph of history on the first day of school. He seemed to grow more nervous each day, and more certain that his pupils might do more work if they would.

"That sub-Junior and Junior History might just as well be combined," he would say irritably to Miss Ellingwood. "Then they would finish the American History in the sub-Junior year, and a thorough course of General History could be divided between the Junior and the Middle years. The present arrangement is senseless."

One day he asked Sarah to remain after class. The sub-Juniors looked at one another and laughed. By this time, suspicion had spread through the whole school.

"He probably wants to ask her whether you and Ellen study your lessons," whispered Mabel's neighbor.

Sarah was startled by the first question which Professor Minturn addressed to her.

"Are you well?"

"Yes, sir."

"Have you ever been sick?"

"I had the measles and the mumps." This sounded like the questions of the gymnasium director. "And the whooping cough I had, too."

"Do you take regular exercise?"

"Yes, sir."

"You like to study, don't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"I thought so. How should you like to do a little extra work for me?"

All Sarah's life she had been doing extra physical work. She had taken her mother's duties gradually upon her shoulders as she became ill; she had then taken a large part of her father's work. But hitherto no one had ever complimented her by asking her to do extra study. Her cheeks glowed.

"I would like it very much."

"Very well," answered Professor Minturn, beaming with satisfaction. "I wish you to prepare eight pages of history instead of four. Each day I shall ask you some questions after class." Professor Minturn smiled. He thought that he had discovered a way of trying a long-planned experiment.

The Geography teacher had long since noticed that Sarah always knew her lessons. One day he asked her in his precise way whether she had been over the book before.

"No, sir. But I studied Geography with my father, and it is not so hard for me like it is for some people. I know what is in this book."

The Geography teacher gave her a little examination.

"Why, I believe you are ready for State Board now. There isn't any reason why you should waste your time with this class. How would you like to come into the Physical Geography class with the Juniors?"

Sarah gasped. That would bring her into constant association with Ethel and Gertrude, the objects of her devotion.

"I—I am afraid I am too—too dumb, ach, stupid, I mean."

The teacher laughed. All Sarah's teachers laughed at her more or less. It was only yesterday that the gymnasium teacher had laughed at her because she talked about "planting the smallpox" when she meant vaccinating.

"You aren't too stupid at all," the teacher of Geography assured her. "To-morrow I'll speak to Dr. Ellis about it. In the mean time, you report with the Juniors."

Sarah's room-mates were not at all pleased by her promotion. Hereafter there would be no maps lying in her desk ready to be copied, and their marks would be materially lowered. They felt that her change of classes was a personal grievance.

"No wonder that you get along," said Ellen rudely. "You are what we call a teacher's pet. The other evening I went to Miss Ellingwood's room to get permission to go downstairs, and the Latin teacher was helping you. I don't think it is fair."

Sarah opened her mouth to speak, then closed it, flushing scarlet. The Latin teacher did help her, but not with her regular lessons. His helping her was a joke between him and Miss Ellingwood. They had a great many jokes together, many of which Sarah did not understand. He said that he should have to have some excuse for coming to see Miss Ellingwood so often; he would pretend that Sarah was his pupil. And so he used to give her simple sight translations to read. It was not part of her daily lesson; with that of course he never helped her at all. It was true that she studied her Latin grammar very hard, so that she should be able to read at sight for Mr. Sattarlee without very much stumbling, and she paid all the more attention to her daily lessons. But he did not help her with them.

Ellen's remark seemed like an accusation of dishonesty. But she did not explain, she could not. It seemed like disloyalty to talk about the Latin teacher and his coming to Miss Ellingwood's room. He seemed to belong to Miss Ellingwood, and if she were kind enough to allow Sarah to be there when he came,—and he never came unless Sarah was there,—it would be all the more contemptible to talk to Ellen Ritter about it. Sarah hunted through her drawer for a fresh pencil and went back to Miss Ellingwood's room. Her books had not been in her own room for a month, nor had she slept there.

By this time Sarah had begun to think that the curriculum was very carelessly planned. She was even with the Juniors in History and Physical Geography and Latin, which were the three most difficult subjects of the six which the Juniors had to pass.

She did not realize that she was growing a little tired. She could scarcely keep her eyes open until bedtime; it seemed to her that the Juniors, busily practicing for their play, or Mr. Sattarlee, calling upon Miss Ellingwood, would never go. Gymnasium had become more of a bore than ever. She disliked it before because it was monotonous; now her step lagged in the marches and her arms fell heavily in the drills because she was tired.

She went walking less often with Miss Ellingwood; Miss Ellingwood went with Mr. Sattarlee. Miss Ellingwood had begun to be a little absent-minded. Perhaps that was the reason that she did not notice that Sarah's cheeks had lost their ruddy color, and that she no longer ran briskly down the hall when she came from class.

Sometimes, when Miss Ellingwood was away, Sarah opened the door and peered out into the hall. Down in Gertrude's room there was the sound of merry laughter. She and Ethel were constantly inventing some new entertainment. Once, when they had put up a sign at the corner of the hall, notifying the public that they meant that evening to gratify a plebeian fondness for Bermuda onions and bread and butter, Sarah almost went to the feast. The notice begged all those who liked onions to come, and warned all others to spend the evening with their friends in distant parts of the building. Sarah would cheerfully have eaten crow in such company. But she did not dare to go.