"It has been no sudden resolution with me," remarked Miss Hardy. "I have been thinking of it ever since you came here, and observing you closely." "I am glad I did not know it," said Rhoda. "Miss Hardy, I don't know how to thank you." "You may thank me by going down town and finding some fresh lemons," said Miss Hardy, smiling. "To-morrow we will have a little examination, to see where it will be best for you to begin." A more thankful heart was not under the sun than Rhoda's that day. She would not even go out for her walk till she had shut herself into her little room, and there poured out her heart to her heavenly Father and dedicated her life and talents anew to him and his service. "It's all right—just as it ought to be," was Aunt Sarah's comment. "I always knowed you was meant for a young lady the first minute you came into the house,—you had such polite, genteel ways of speaking, and eating, and all; and when you was fixed for Sunday, there wasn't one in the school looked any nicer than you—not a bit like that loose-ended Hetty, with her great greasy braids of false hair, and her dress hitched up and stuck out forty different ways, and her hair frizzled up like my old feather brush that Tony stuck in the fire. You couldn't make a lady of her, not if you was to work at her for ever." "You know what a lady is, don't you, Aunt Sarah?" "Well, I ought to, honey. I've always lived in the first families in Cumberland county, and my mother before me. Yes, indeed, I know, and I am just as glad as if you was my own." The next day but one Rhoda brought a letter from the post-office which she felt sure was directed in Mrs. Ferrand's hand, and she lingered in the room while Miss Hardy opened and read it. "Mr. and Mrs. Ferrand and Isa are coming here day after to-morrow," said Miss Hardy; "we must have everything in order, Rhoda." "Are they going to stay here?" asked Rhoda, divided between joy at the prospect of seeing Isa once more and a certain dread of meeting Mr. Ferrand. "No. My sister says that, considering the state of the case, Mr. Ferrand thinks they had better take rooms at the hotel, and perhaps it will be as well." "I shall be so glad to see Isa again," said Rhoda. "I never was so fond of any girl as of her. How I do wish she could come here to school! I should be perfectly happy if she could." "And I wish so too," said Miss Hardy. "However, I think you will find plenty of friends among our scholars." "I was not thinking of myself so much as of Isa," said Rhoda. "It doesn't seem right to say so, but, Miss Hardy, Isa isn't one bit happy at home." "So I have feared."