Time passed on; and the invariable kindness with which Emma treated her classmates finally gained her several warm friends; and some of them even apologized for their past unkindness.  Miss Carlton still regarded her with a feeling of enmity and dislike; but as Emma seemed not to notice the many annoyances she experienced she was at length forced to desist, although the same resentful feeling remained in her heart.

When Emma left the seminary, after attending it for four years, her departure was deeply regretted by both teachers and pupils.  As she had pursued her studies in a very systematic manner, she had acquired, before leaving school, a thoroughly good education, which she intended turning to account by teaching.  Miss Carlton also left school at the same time to return to her elegant home in the city of H. It was fortunate for her that she was not obliged, as was Emma, to teach as a means of support; for, notwithstanding the unwearied pains of her teachers, her education, when she left school, was very superficial.  Emma soon obtained a situation as teacher in a small village some twenty miles from Rockford, where she remained for two years.  During her absence, her mother, to avoid being left alone, received as boarders two or three young ladies who attended school in the village.  Emma’s success as a teacher become so well known that she was at length offered a high salary to accept of the position of assistant teacher in an academy in the city of H., the same city where Miss Carlton resided.  As the salary offered was very liberal, she decided to accept of the position, and as the situation was likely to prove a permanent one she was very anxious that her mother should accompany her; and after some deliberation upon the subject, Mrs. Ashton consented, thinking they would both be much happier together than otherwise.  Emma proved quite as successful in thus her second situation as in the first; and owing to her position as teacher she soon formed acquaintance with several families of cultivated tastes and high respectability.  She often received invitations to parties; but her tastes were quiet, and she usually preferred spending her evenings with her mother in the quiet of their own home, to mingling in scenes of mirth and gaiety; and it was only upon a few occasions that she attended parties, that her friends might not think her unsocial.  At one of these parties she chanced to meet her former school mate, Miss Carlton, whose only sign of recognition was a very formal bow.  This gave her no uneasiness; she cherished no malice towards Miss Carlton; but her ideas and tastes so widely differed from her own that she did not covet her friendship even had she been inclined to grant it her.