Peggy made a gesture as of one heaping dust and ashes on her head. “I never did,” she said, “not for a single moment! And I thought I was so clever! I am covered with confusion!” (_To be continued._) * * * * * [Illustration: WILD ROBIN AND OAK-LEAF.] * * * * * LINNÆA; THE STORY OF A FRIENDSHIP. CHAPTER I. “What a thing friendship is, world without end!”--_Browning._ Yes, Linnæa March was the dunce of the school. She was neither pretty nor attractive, nor did she seem to wish to be either. Nobody understood Linnæa. She made friends with no one, and no one made friends with her. Even the teachers said she was a girl nothing could be done with, and concluded to leave her alone. One new governess, Miss Golding, had brought a look of interest to the girl’s face over a story of Indian life, and had determined to follow up her advantage and make friends with this solitary pupil; but her next advance had been met with such decided coldness that Miss Golding went over to the opinion of the other teachers, that “it was best to leave Linnæa March alone.” The truth of the matter was that Linnæa had overheard a remark from the lips of the wit of the school--“Golding is trying to cultivate the March hare. Don’t you wish she may succeed?” This name had been given her by the same girl, Marion Edwards, very soon after she came to school. Marion was not a girl who actually meant to be unkind, but she had a ready tongue, and, when she saw a chance to make a witty remark, did not trouble herself to consider anyone’s feelings. How cruel schoolgirls are to each other without knowing it! And these were not hard-hearted girls--some of them developed into the very sweetest and best of women. Had they known or thought what a lonely life Linnæa had had, they might have taken more trouble to approach her; but it was the fashion of the school to shun her, and she certainly gave no one any encouragement to do otherwise. No one came into Linnæa’s cubicle to discuss some little bit of gossip before going to bed; no one gave a playful tap on the wooden partition, which divided her room from the next, as was done to everyone else now and then. Friends kissed each other when they met in the morning; no one dreamed of kissing Linnæa, unless it was the governesses, who did it to all as a matter of form. Did she miss it, do you ask? She said vehemently to herself over and over again that she did not--she loved none of them, and wanted nobody’s love. Nobody knew it, nobody suspected it, but--ah, what a wealth of love lay dormant in that lonely heart!--what a hungering after affection that seemed doomed to be for ever denied!