This poor child, though her father was rich, and held an honorable station in society, yet on account of her mother’s sorrows, and subsequent insanity, her poor child, Lilias, who was allowed to remain with her mother, was brought up in an atmosphere of sadness, and it was no wonder that she became melancholy and reserved.

After the death of her mother, her father understood too little of the character of his only child to be able to afford her much solace, and he therefore determined to send her to a boarding-school.

If there be a trial which exceeds a child’s powers of endurance, it is a first entrance into a boarding-school.  Little Lilias felt at once this painful situation in all its bitterness.

Shy and sensitive at all times, she had never felt so utterly forlorn, as when she first found herself in the play-ground belonging to Mrs. Bellamy’s school.

Not only was she timid and shy, but the necessity of being always with her mother to soothe the paroxysms of distress, had deprived Lilias of many opportunities of education, and she was therefore far less advanced in knowledge than most of her companions.  Numberless were the mortifications to which she was obliged to submit on account of her ignorance, while her timidity and shyness increased in proportion to the reproofs of her teachers, and the ridicule of her schoolfellows.  She at length came to be regarded as one of those hopelessly dull pupils who are to be found cumbering the benches of every large school, and but for her father’s wealth and honorable station in society, she would, probably, have been sent away in disgrace.

Fortunately, Providence raised up for poor Lilias, at this juncture, a kind friend and patient teacher in a schoolfellow, by the name of Victorine Horton.  This amiable young lady, seeing the trials and mortifications of this sensitive child, begged Mrs. Bellamy to allow Lilias to become her room-mate, and she would assist her in her lessons.  Some few weeks after this arrangement took place, Victorine was accosted thus—­

“How can you waste so much time on that stupid child, Miss Horton?” said one of the teachers.  “She does not seem to improve any, with all your pains; she will never repay your trouble.”

“I do not despair,” said Victorine, smiling.  “She is an affectionate little creature, and if continual dropping will wear away a stone, surely, repeated kindness will melt the icy mantle of reserve which now conceals her better qualities.”

A happy child was little Lilias, thus to become the companion and bedfellow of such a kind-hearted friend as she found in Victorine.  Stimulated by affection, she applied herself to her studies, and as “perfect love casteth out fear,” she was enabled to get her lessons, and to recite them without that nervous timidity which had usually deprived her of all power.

A few months after Victorine had thus undertaken the charge of Lilias, a prize was offered, in each class, for the most elegantly written French exercise.  Lilias observed the eagerness of the pupils to compete for the medals, but she never dreamed of becoming a candidate till Victorine suggested it.