"I've got an apron like that. I think they're so pretty," she said
cordially, pointing to the one Mrs. Gurley wore.

The latter abruptly stopped her work, and, resting her hands on the
sides of the box, gave Laura one of the dreaded looks over her glasses,
looked at her from top to toe, and as though she were only now beginning
to see her. There was a pause, a momentary suspension of the breath,
which Laura soon learned to expect before a rebuke.

"Little gels," said Mrs. Gurley--and even in the midst of her confusion
Laura could not but be struck by the pronunciation of this word. "Little
gels--are required--to wear white aprons when they come here!"
--a break after each few words, as well as an emphatic head-shake,
accentuated their severity. "And I should like to know, if your mother,
has never taught you, that it is very rude, to point, and also to
remark, on what people wear."

Laura went scarlet: if there was one thing she, Mother all of them
prided themselves on, it was the good manners that had been instilled
into them since their infancy.--The rough reproof seemed to scorch her.

She went to and fro more timidly than before. Then, however, something
happened which held a ray of hope.

"Why, what is this?" asked Mrs. Gurley freezingly, and held up to view--
with the tips of her fingers, Laura thought--a small, black Prayer
Book. "Pray, are you not a dissenter?"--For the College was
nonconformist.

"Well . . . no, I'm not," said Laura, in a tone of intense apology.