"But I will. I will pick and choose those whom I honour with my friendship. And I can assure you of one thing; _my_ family would be very much ashamed of such a one belonging to it, as the one you want me to court. I court nobody. And I will expose a lie wherever I find it, if it's my business." I think Rotha forgot at the moment that Mrs. Busby belonged to "her family." However, Miss Savage was not wrong in supposing that her interference with Miss Dunstable would come back upon her own head. She was made to feel that a large number of the girls looked down upon her and that they refused all community with her. Even from people one does not care for, this sort of treatment is more or less painful; and it certainly made Rotha's school days less joyous in some respects than they might otherwise have been. From one reason and another, the greater proportion of her companions turned her the cold shoulder. Some for partisanship, some for subserviency, some to be in the fashion, and others again for pure envy. For Rotha sprang forward in her learning and surpassed all who were associated with her, in their mutual studies. Her partial isolation contributed, no doubt, to this end; having little social distraction, no home outside her school walls, and no delight in the things which occupied most of the minds within them, she bent to her books; drank, and drank deep, of the "Castalian spring," and with ever increasing enjoyment. She studied, not to get and keep a high position, or to gain distinction, or to earn praise or prizes, but for pure pleasure in study and eagerness to increase knowledge and to satisfy Mrs. Mowbray. So her progress was not only rapid but thorough; what she gained she kept; and her mental growth was equal to her physical.