To her, natural disposition and practice made the task easy; for her pupil, it was arduous beyond her worst expectation. Her reputation was established; the wall she had erected between herself and her associates, was not to be undermined or scaled in a day. Her overtures of familiarity and service was unskilfully made; her very timidity construed into labored condescension. "It is a hopeless endeavor--they will never care for me!" said she, despondingly--once and again, and Carry still predicted--"Love will win love. Persevere!" The birth and growth of their attachment was remarkable. Dissimilar in mind; made more so in manner, by education and circumstances, there existed from the earliest stage of their friendship, perfect confidence in each other's affection. Carry had an infallible perception of genuine worth, hidden though it might be; and Ida clung drowningly to this last anchor--the sole tie that connected her with her race. Like most deep feelings, its current was noiseless. They were much together;--that was not strange, since their studies were the same. They had separate compartments of one desk; and none marked how often one book was conned by both; brown and fair curls mingling; and hands clasped in mute tenderness. Still less did they dream of the miraculous confluence of the sun-bright stream with the turbid torrent, and the wondrous music of their flow. They were sitting thus one forenoon, when an assistant teacher drew near, and inquired if there were a vacant seat in their vicinity. "A new scholar!" buzzed from fifty tongues; and the eyes of our two students strayed with the rest, to the door. "Miss Pratt, young ladies!" introduced Mr. Purcell. The girls arose, in conformance with their custom of reception, and bowed to the figure that followed him into the room. She was short and fat--"dumpy," in vulgar parlance; and so homely, as to countenance Ellen Morris' report to another department--"that the farmers in the neighborhood where she was 'riz,' had forwarded a petition, beseeching her to return, their corn having suffered greatly from the depredations of the crows since her departure; a thing unheard of, previously, in that part of the country." Her eyes were small and grey; her nose a ruddy "snub;" her lips curiously puckered up; and her skin might have owed its dappled red to the drippings of the carroty frizette overshadowing it. Her dress was showy and outre; a rainbow silk trebly-flounced; an embroidered lace cape; white kid gloves; a gold cable of startling dimensions; two bracelets of corresponding size, and different patterns; a brooch that matched neither, and out-glittered both; while blue, green, and red stones, with heavy settings, loaded the thick fingers to the knuckles.