The sixth girls were sitting at a round table, with their little desks before them, writing letters. One of them pulled out a chair for Beth. They had just returned from the holidays, and were in various stages of home-sickness--some of them crying, and the rest depressed; but they welcomed Beth kindly, as one of themselves, and inspected her with interest. "You can write a private letter to-day, you know," Rosa Bird said to Beth. "What is a private letter?" Beth asked. "One to your mother, you know, that isn't read. You seal it up yourself. Public letters have to be sent in open to Miss Clifford. One week you write a public letter, and the next a private one. Hello! here's Amy Wynne!" A dark girl of about eighteen had entered by a door at the farther end of the room, and was received with acclamation, being evidently popular. Beth, who was still in her mask of calm indifference, looked coldly on, but in herself she determined to be received like that some day. Most of the girls in the room jumped up, and Amy Wynne kissed one after the other, and then shook hands with Beth. "Are all my children back?" she asked. "I don't know," Rosa Bird rejoined, glancing round. "They are not all here." "That's one of the mothers," Rosa explained to Beth when Amy Wynne had gone again. "The first-class girls are mothers to us. You walk with your mother in the garden, and sit with her on half-holidays, and she's awfully good to you. I advise you to be one of Amy Wynne's children if you can." She was interrupted by the loud ringing of a bell in the hall. "That's for tea," Rosa added. "Come, and I'll show you the way."