Grace Harlowes Junior Year at High School | Page 3

pride into the places
reserved for the first class, while the freshmen looked visibly relieved
at having any place at all to call their own. Immediately after this the
classes were dismissed, and a general rush was made to the end of the
great room, where the bulletins were posted.
Grace, Nora, Anne and Jessica wished to recite in the same classes as
far as could be arranged, and a lively confab ensued as to what would
be best to take. They all decided on solid geometry and English reading,
as they could be together for these classes, but the rest was not so easy,
for Nora, who loathed history, was obliged to take ancient history to
complete her history group, the other girls having wisely completed
theirs the previous year. Jessica wanted to take physical geography,
Anne rhetoric, and Grace boldly announced a hankering for zoölogy.

"How horrible," shuddered Jessica. "How can you bear to think of
cutting up live cats and dogs and angleworms and things."
"Oh, you silly," laughed Grace. "You're thinking of vivisection. I
wouldn't cut up anything alive for all the world. The girls did dissect
crabs and lobsters, and even rabbits, last year, but they were dead long
before they ever reached the zoölogy class."
"Oh," said Jessica, somewhat reassured, "I'm glad to hear that, at any
rate."
"That makes three subjects," said Nora. "Now we want one more. Are
any of you going to be over ambitious and take five?"
"Not I," responded Grace and Jessica in chorus.
"I shall," said Anne quietly. "I'm going to learn just as much as I can
while I have the chance."
"Well," said Jessica, "you're different. Five studies aren't any harder for
you than four for us."
"Thank the lady prettily for her high opinion of your ability, Anne,"
said Grace, laughing. "She really seems to be sincere."
"She's too sincere for comfort," murmured Anne, who hated
compliments.
"We haven't settled on that fourth subject yet," interposed Nora.
"Why don't you all take French, it is such a beautiful language," said a
soft voice behind them. "I'm sure you'd like it."
The four girls turned simultaneously at the sound of the strange, soft
voice, to face a girl whose beauty was almost startling. She was a trifle
taller than Grace and beautifully straight and slender. Her hair was jet
black and lay on her forehead in little silky rings, while she had the
bluest eyes the girls had ever seen. Her features were small and regular,
and her skin as creamy as the petal of a magnolia. She stood regarding

the astonished girls with a fascinating little smile that was irresistible.
"Please excuse me for breaking in upon you, but I saw you from afar,
and you looked awfully good to me." Her clear enunciation made the
slang phrase sound like the purest English. "I have just been with your
principal in her office. She told me to come here and look over the list
of subjects. Do you think me unpardonably rude?" She looked
appealingly at the four chums.
"Why, of course not," said Grace promptly, recovering in a measure
from her first surprise. "I suppose you are going to enter our school, are
you not? Let me introduce you to my friends." She named her three
chums in turn, who bowed cordially to the attractive stranger.
"My name is Grace Harlowe. Will you tell me yours?"
"My name is Eleanor Savell," replied the new-comer, "and I have just
come to Oakdale with my aunt. We have leased a quaint old house in
the suburbs called 'Heartsease.' My aunt fell quite in love with it, so
perhaps we shall stay awhile. We travel most of the time, and I get very
tired of it," she concluded with a little pout.
"'Heartsease'?" cried the girls in chorus. "Do you live at 'Heartsease'?"
"Yes," said the stranger curiously. "Is there anything peculiar about it?"
"Oh, no," Grace hastened to reply. "The reason we are interested is
because we know the owner of the property, Mrs. Gray, very well."
"Oh, do you know her?" replied Eleanor lightly. "Isn't she a dainty,
little, old creature? She looks like a Dresden shepherdess grown old.
For an elderly woman, she really is interesting."
"We call her our fairy godmother," said Anne, "and love her so dearly
that we never think of her as being old." There had been something
about the careless words that jarred upon Anne.
"Oh, I am sure she is all that is delightful," responded Miss Savell,

quickly divining that Anne was not pleased at her remark. "I hope to
know her better."
"You are lucky to get 'Heartsease,'" said Grace. "Mrs. Gray has refused
over and over again to rent it. It belonged to her favorite brother, who
willed it