The Great Shirley School, well as it was managed, had perhaps a larger
share than many schools of those temptations which make school a
world--a world for the training either for good or evil of those who go
to it. There were the girls who attended the school in the ordinary way,
and there were the girls who were drafted on to the foundation from
lower schools. These latter were looked down upon by the least noble and
the meanest of their fellow-scholars.

There was a slight rain falling, and two or three girls standing in a
group raised their umbrellas, but they still stood beside the gates.

"She's quite the very prettiest girl I ever saw," cried Alice Tennant;
"but of course we can have nothing to do with her. She entered a week
ago. She doesn't pay any of the fees; she has no pretence to being a
lady. Oh, here she comes! Did you ever see such a face?"

A slight, shabbily dressed little girl, with her satchel of books slung
on her arm, now appeared. She looked to right and left of her as though
she were slightly alarmed. Her face was beautiful in the truest sense of
the world; it did not at all match with the shabby, faded clothes which
she wore. She had large deep-violet eyes, jet-black hair, and a sweet,
fresh complexion. Her expression was bewitching, and when she smiled a
dimple came in her cheek.

"Look--look!" cried Mary Denny. "Isn't she all that I have said?"

"Yes, and more. What a pity we can't know her!" said Alice Tennant.

"But can't we? I really don't see why we should make the poor child
miserable," said Mary Denny.