stigma that attached to his granddaughter, a pupil at her eminently
respectable school. She realized perfectly that the girl was blameless,
whatever her grandsire might have done, and she deeply deplored the
scornful attitude assumed by the other pupils toward poor Mary Louise;
nevertheless a certain bitter resentment of the unwholesome scandal that
had smirched her dignified establishment had taken possession of the
woman, perhaps unconsciously, and while she might be a little ashamed of
the ungenerous feeling, Miss Stearne fervently wished she had never
accepted the girl as a pupil.

She HAD accepted her, however. She had received the money for Mary
Louise's tuition and expenses and had promptly applied the entire sum to
reducing her grocery bills and other pressing obligations; therefore she
felt it her duty to give value received. If Mary Louise was to be driven
from the school by the jeers and sneers of the other girls, Miss Stearne
would feel like a thief. Moreover, it would be a distinct reproach to
her should she allow a fifteen-year-old girl to wander into a cruel
world because her school--her sole home and refuge--had been rendered so
unbearable that she could not remain there. The principal was really
unable to repay the money that had been advanced to her, even if that
would relieve her of obligation to shelter the girl, and therefore she
decided that Mary Louise must not be permitted, under any circumstances,
to leave her establishment without the authority of her natural
guardians.

This argument ran hurriedly through her mind as the girl stood calmly
waiting.

"Is this action approved by your mother, or--or--by your grandfather?"
she asked, somewhat more harshly than was her wont in addressing her