The Friendly Five: A Story

There were neither examinations nor graduation exercises at the Coventry Institute. The only ceremony peculiar to the last day of school, except the farewells, was a little serm...

The number of boarding scholars at Coventry school was limited to twenty, and it was necessary to make an application a year or two in advance, and girls had been known to wait...

The poor girl had followed Lily at a word from Mrs. Abbott, who felt, perhaps, that the ordeal of meeting some more of her fellow-scholars had better be over at once. Unnoticed,...

Perhaps it was a little bit of diplomacy on Mrs. Abbott’s part that provided an occupation out of the house for Miss Stubbs, while she talked of her very seriously to some of th...

“It is very lovely,” said Mrs. Abbott, as the girls were petting and fondling her, “very lovely in you to care so much for my deliverance from peril. I have not been able to tel...

It always takes nearly a week to get a boarding-school into good working order, so, although Mrs. Abbott appointed Wednesday for arriving, she never really expected much would b...

Six of the girls were spending the Saturday mending-hour in Lily’s room. All the girls in the school were required to spend that one hour in sewing, and as rents and holes were...

“I wouldn’t quarrel with the weather,” said Lily, gloomily, “if it had the propriety to do the right thing Saturday; but when our only holiday is spoiled it seems a little exasp...

Generally keeping a diary is very much a matter of sentiment, but with Katie Ashley it was done only in fulfillment of a promise, and not at all from any desire to record either...

The names of the writers were not given, so there was no embarrassment of that kind. Mrs. Abbott would simply take one from the pile and hand it to one of the girls to read aloud.

The average school-girl loves mystery, and when Edna Tryon, who had become so intimate with the Friendly Five as almost to be their sixth, proposed to teach them a cipher by mea...

Even if girls are as tall as their mothers they have a deep, if unconfessed, interest in dolls; so Mrs. Abbott’s girls responded very willingly to an appeal from a mission schoo...

Miss Blake and the committee went up to the village milliner’s the next afternoon to select the ribbons which were to give the last touch of elegance to the dolls’ toilets.

The ribbons were criticised, approved, or condemned, according to the various tastes of the girls. Those who were familiar with the difficulties attending country shopping were...

One of the old-fashioned snow-storms came two weeks before the Christmas holidays scattered the girls far and wide to spend the happy fortnight at home. It was not a quiet, deco...

Marion went directly to Mrs. Abbott’s room when school was over and told her of the man’s appearance. She longed to tell her, too, that the same man had seen and talked with two...

“Not so very. ’Cause why? the machinery’s got to begin again in a fortnight, and it’s hard to ‘pick up the shovel and de hoe-o-o’ after you’ve left them lie idle while you’ve ‘s...

Marion felt a little desolate as the last of the light-hearted homeward-bound crowd left the front door with faces bright with the happy prospects before them. In their own deli...

The next day was one of the happiest Marion had ever spent. Mr. Eaton took her for a long drive to a lovely distant village that looked sleepy enough in the winter, but was a ga...

The mail-bag came in as usual just after breakfast the next morning, but the number of letters was greatly reduced, of course, and there was no animated, chattering crowd standi...

“Five o’clock, girls,” said Katie, pressing an electric button that she could reach without leaving her seat. “Jennie will bring in the tea; she knows what that bell means at th...

The habits of even a short life-time are not easily changed; so before a single servant was astir in that luxurious household Marion had risen and dressed herself. Lily had no e...

“There’s not a word of truth in that lament, Mrs. Abbott, my dear,” said Lily, as she folded her teacher in a fervent hug, “for I’m awfully, awful glad to get back.”

Late that night Marion, lying awake to worry over the letter she had read, heard the heavy rumble of the circus vans on their way out of town to the distant place where their ne...

The morning after the circus had left the town, as the older girls were going into one of the smaller recitation-rooms to the English literature class, Edna whispered to Addie i...

“I don’t understand it at all,” said Miss Blake. “No one has asked to be excused, and irregularity at meals has never been a fault of any of our household.”

The brakeman on the express-train stood at the door of the last car looking through the glass at the scenery which constant travel had made so familiar to him that he was hardly...

“Well, my name is Hannah Amandy Manning, and I’m first cousin to Minister Jones’s wife, an’ I teach a class in Sunday-school, an’ I’ve had the deestrict school for three summers...

Marion sprang off, and, waving a good-bye to the new friend, she really felt wonderfully sorry to leave, mingled with the crowd of idlers on the platform, apparently absorbed li...

There was an unpretending restaurant opposite the Secor House, where, just as Marion reached it, a middle-aged man with a delightfully good-natured look upon his rather plain fa...

Some one had brought in a pitcher of water and had lit her gas, so she sat down and tried to keep herself composed by crocheting on her wool lace.

Late though it was, Elfie was still sleepy and looked in the bright daylight so worn and hollow-eyed that Marion longed to wake her, the sleep seemed so death-like. She was very...

“There must be some antidote for it,” said Marion, whose white lips trembled so with fear that she could hardly speak. “I will have a doctor if you will tell me whom to have. Su...

A whole year had passed since Mr. Bellamy had made the memorable address to the Coventry school in which he offered a prize of three hundred dollars to the most deserving.