“Billy doesn’t appear just as he used to.  Seems as though something troubled him; and what is very strange, he never speaks of you, unless I do first.  You’ve no idea how handsome he is.  To be sure, he hasn’t the air of George Moreland, and doesn’t dress as elegantly, but I think he’s finer looking.  Ever so many girls at Ida’s party asked who he was, and said ’twas a pity he wasn’t rich, but that wouldn’t make any difference with me,—­I’d have him just as soon as though he was wealthy.

“How mother would go on if she should see this!  But I don’t care,—­I like Billy Bender, and I can’t help it, and entre nous, I believe he likes me better than he did!  But I must stop now, for Lizzie Upton has called for me to go with her and see a poor blind woman in one of the back alleys.”

From this extract it will be seen that Jenny, though seventeen years of age, was the same open-hearted, childlike creature as ever.  She loved Billy Bender, and she didn’t care who knew it.  She loved, too, to seek out and befriend the poor, with which Boston, like all other large cities, abounded.  Almost daily her mother lectured her upon her bad taste in the choice of her associates, but Jenny was incorrigible, and the very next hour might perhaps be seen either walking with Billy Bender, or mounting the rickety stairs of some crazy old building, where a palsied old woman or decrepit old man watched for her coming, and blessed her when she came.

Early in the spring Mr. Lincoln went up to Chicopee to make some changes in his house, preparatory to his family’s removal thither.  When he called at Mrs. Campbell’s to see Rose, he was greatly shocked at her altered and languid appearance.  The cough, which her mother had not observed fell ominously on his ear; for he thought of a young sister who many years before in the bloom of girlhood had passed away from his side.  A physician was immediately called and after an examination Rose’s lungs were pronounced diseased, though not as yet beyond cure.  She was of course taken from school; and with the utmost care, and skilful nursing, she gradually grew better.

Jenny, who had never been guilty of any great love for books, was also told that her school days were over, and congratulated herself upon being a “full grown young lady,” which fact no one would dispute, who saw her somewhat large dimensions.

When Ella learned that Jenny as well as Rose was emancipated from the school-room, she immediately petitioned her mother for a similar privilege, saying that she knew all that was necessary for her to know.  Miss Hinton, too, being weary of one pupil, and desiring a change for herself, threw her influence in Ella’s favor, so that at last Mrs. Campbell yielded; and Ella, piling up her books, carried them away, never again referring to them on any occasion, but spending her time in anticipating the happiness she should enjoy the following winter; when she was to be first introduced to Boston society.