“I have overheard you,” said Miss Weldon calmly.  “I presume you are alluding to Miss Craven?”

“We are talking about Ruth Craven,” said Kate Rourke; “and you will excuse me, Cassie, but I never saw a girl more chock-full of pride.  She is so conceited that she is intolerable.”

“I heard of her yesterday, but have not had an opportunity to form any estimate of her character,” continued Cassandra.  “I should prefer that you did not call me Cassie, if you please, Kate.  I will watch her and find out if I agree with you.  I only noticed yesterday that she is remarkably pretty.  I will ask her to walk home with me to-day and have tea.  I should like to introduce her to mother.”

“Well, I never!” said Hannah.  “And you really mean that you would introduce that girl to Mrs. Weldon?”

“I think so.  Yes, I am almost certain.  Here she comes.  I like her face.  Don’t let her hear you giggling, please, Kate; it is very unkind to make a new girl feel uncomfortable.”

Kate smothered a laugh and turned away.  The doors of the school were now thrown open, and the girls disappeared by their special entrances.

It was just at that moment that Ruth in her shabby dress, but with her sweet and most beautiful face, joined the group of girls who were going into the school.  She was without a companion.  The other girls went in by twos, each clinging to her special crony.  Cassandra now changed her position, and found herself within a yard or two of Ruth Craven.  She was examining Ruth with great care, but not at all from the unkind point of view; hers was a sympathetic aspect.  That little old serge dress made something come up in Cassandra’s throat, and she longed beyond words to give her a better dress.  Ruth’s hat, too, left much to be desired.  It was an old black sailor-hat, which had been burnt to a dull brown.  But, notwithstanding the hat and the dress, there was the face.  The face was most lovely, and the back of the shabby frock was covered by hair as black as jet, and curling and rippling in the sunshine.

“What wouldn’t every other girl in the school give to have such a face as that, and such hair as that?” thought Cassandra.  “I must speak to her.”

She was just bending forward, meaning to touch Ruth on her shoulder, when there came a commotion near the entrance, and the excited face of Alice Tennant came into view.  Alice was accompanied by a tall, showily dressed girl.  The girl had a very vivid color in her cheeks, intensely bright and roguish dark-blue eyes, light chestnut hair touched with gold—­hair which was a mass of waves and tendrils and fluffiness, and on which a little dark-blue velvet cap was placed.

“I am not going to be shy,” cried the new-comer in a hearty, clear, loud voice with a considerable amount of brogue in it.  “Leave off clutching me by the arm, Alice, my honey, for see my new companions I will.  Ah, what a crowd of girls!—­colleens we call them in Ireland.  Oh, glory! how am I ever to get the names of half of them round my tongue?  Ah, and isn’t that one a beauty?”