"You refuse, then, to let me go?" she returned.

"I positively refuse."

"But I cannot stay here, Miss Stearne," she protested.

"You must. I have always treated you kindly--I treat all my girls well
if they deserve it--but you are developing a bad disposition, Mary
Louise--a most reprehensible disposition, I regret to say--and the
tendency must be corrected at once. Not another word! Go to your room."

Mary Louise went to her room, greatly depressed by the interview. She
looked at her trunk, made a mental inventory of its highly prized
contents, and sighed. But as soon as she rejoined Gran'pa, Jim, she
reflected, he would send an order to have the trunk forwarded and Miss
Stearne would not dare refuse. For a time she must do without her pretty
gowns.

Instead of studying her text books she studied the railway time-card.
She had intended asking Miss Stearne to permit her to take the five-
thirty train from Beverly Junction the next morning and since the recent
interview she had firmly decided to board that very train. This was not
entirely due to stubbornness, for she reflected that if she stayed at
the school her unhappy condition would become aggravated, instead of
improving, especially since Miss Stearne had developed unexpected
sharpness of temper. She would endure no longer the malicious taunts of
her school fellows or the scoldings of the principal, and these could be
avoided in no other way than by escaping as she had planned.

At ten o'clock she lay down upon her bed, fully dressed, and put out her