There were others who belonged in the category of Decayed Families, as exclusive as they were shabby. There were parvenus, which included myself. When I entered the school it was divided into clans, each with its spites, jealousies, and emulations. Its _esprit de corps_, however, was developed by my arrival; the girls united against me, and though I perceived, when I compared myself with them, that they were partly right in their opinions, their ridicule stupefied and crushed me. They were trained, intelligent, and adroit; I uncouth, ignorant, and without tact. It was impossible for Miss Black not to be affected by the general feeling in regard to me. Her pupils knew sooner than I that she sympathized with them. She embarrassed me, when I should have despised her. At first her regimen surprised, then filled me with a dumb, clouded anger, which made me appear apathetic. Miss Emily Black was a young woman, and, I thought, a handsome one. She had crenelated black hair, large black eyes, a Roman nose, and long white teeth. She bit her nails when annoyed, and when her superiority made her perceive the mental darkness of others she often laughed. Being pious, she conducted her school after the theologic pattern of the Nipswich Seminary, at which she had been educated. She opened the school each day with a religious exercise, reading something from the Bible, and commenting upon it, or questioning us regarding our ideas of what she read. She often selected the character of David, and was persistent in her efforts to explain and reconcile the discrepancies in the history of the royal Son of Israel. "Miss _C._ Morgeson, we will call you," she said, in our first interview; "the name of Cassandra is too peculiar." "My Grandfather Locke liked the name; my sister's is Veronica; do you like that better?" "It is of no consequence in the premises what your sister may be named," she replied, running her eyes over me. "What will she study, Miss Warren?" Aunt Mercy's recollections of my studies were dim, and her knowledge of my school days was not calculated to prepossess a teacher in my favor; but after a moment's delay, she said: "What you think best." "Very well," she answered; "I will endeavor to fulfill my Christian duty toward her. We will return to the school-room."