"And mamma thought it was very kind in you to take up Miss Craven. She is curiously interested in her, wondering how she will develop. Papa says the Craven mines are remarkable, the new one with all that hematite is a fortune by itself. I hope she comes back." That evening they made acquaintance with a few of the new girls. And the next day came a crowd, new and old, Miss Craven among them. Juliet Craven had changed wonderfully under the influence of a woman who had always longed for a daughter and had three sons instead. There was a brightness about her, a kind of new interest that shone in her eyes and brought a tint to her cheeks. A little contrast would have made her quite a pretty girl, for her features were fairly good, but she was too much of a nondescript. For the first time she had known personal interest and affection from a woman who might have been her mother, and who certainly had no ulterior object. She had outgrown some of her timidity, she stood up straighter, as if she was more conscious of her own power, and she dared to meet the eyes of the other girls, to answer their smiles. She was to go in most of the classes this year, though the girls would be much younger, but Mrs. Aldred judged that the companionship would prove beneficial. There were several changes in the teaching corps. A Mrs. Wiley, middle-aged and experienced, who had been employed in a girls' college in the West, shared with Miss Grace the duties of the senior classes. Her daughter, Miss Esther, taught in the younger day-school classes and was a pupil in several studies. After a month matters ran along smoothly. Not that the girls fell into the traces without any friction. Some were pert and self-sufficient, others consequential, and several not remarkable for anything, taking mental culture along objective lines, and a few ambitious, intellectual, loving study for the sake of the sweet kernel knowledge when you had cracked the rough outer shell. There were the bright and sweet, who had no aims above the average, and who would get trained into nice, wholesome girls and make good wives and mothers. Helen enjoyed her studies immensely. The botany rambles were one of her great pleasures, and when she went at the wonders of astronomy she was enraptured. "Such a student is worth having; she inspires the rest," Mrs. Wiley said to Mrs. Aldred. "There is a girl who should go to college." "Yes, she ought," but in her secret soul Mrs. Aldred feared that was not Mrs. Van Dorn's design. She was beginning to understand and love Latin, and doing very well at French. She did not display much aptitude for drawing, though she had a certain artistic taste in arrangement. "But I really do not see any use of hammering away at music," she protested. "I never shall make a fine player." "You will make a fine singer and you want some thorough knowledge for that," said Madame Meran.