CHAPTER III.

OLD FRIENDS AND NEW.

Several days passed, and nothing occurred to mar the harmony of the occupants of No. 40.

Carrie, Susan and Sallie were one evening studying their Arithmetic together. The lesson was in Miscellaneous Questions, and they found it uncommonly hard. One problem in particular troubled them all exceedingly. At last Susan turned to Florence, who was reading a book which one of the girls had loaned her.

“Flora,” said she, “I wish you would be so kind as to show us how to do this twenty-seventh sum.”

Florence looked up pleasantly.

“I would if I could,” she replied; “but I don’t know any more about it than the man in the moon.”

“Now, Flora,” said Susan, “of course you do. It’s just like the fourteenth that we had yesterday, that so many of us missed; and you know you did them all.”

“I beg your pardon: I don’t know any such thing.”

“You told Miss Forester you had done them all, at any rate.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Why, Florence!” exclaimed Sallie.

“If you didn’t, I’m very much mistaken,” said Susan.

“Then you are very much mistaken. I will tell you just how it was. Miss Forester asked me if I had correct answers to all the questions. I said I had; and I told the truth; for I had got a key and copied every answer as correctly as possible.”

The girls said not a word, but were astonished at the coolness of their companion’s explanation of her answer.

Florence was the first to break the silence.

“You needn’t look a whole volume of sermons at me, Miss Susan,” said she. “Pray, what would you have had me do under the circumstances?”

“I would have had you speak the truth.”

“I should like to know if I didn’t speak the truth! As nearly as I can understand, your advice would have been, when Miss Forester asked me if I had correct answers, to have said, ‘No.’ Very singular advice, I must say, from a person possessing your remarkable virtues! No, my dear young woman: that would have been a lie; and I’m altogether too conscientious to be guilty of such a thing!”

“How can you talk so, Florence? You know it was very wrong. In the first place----”

Florence put her hands over her ears.

“Bless me!” she exclaimed. “We are actually going to have a sermon! You must be used to preaching, for you begin in regular ministerial fashion:--‘In the first place!’ Excuse me: I don’t care about hearing the other seventy-seven heads of the discourse.” And she rose and left the room abruptly.

She left the door open behind her, so that the girls heard her say to several of her companions who were sitting in the hall, round a favourite study-table,--

“I am going to ask Mr. Worcester to have my room changed. The fact is, it’s altogether too much for one sinner to monopolize the benefits arising from such saintly room-mates. Besides, saints are dreadfully tedious, I find. I did suppose there would be some advantages from having such room-mates,--for instance, that I could have the looking-glass all to myself; but, to my surprise, I find that the saints make as much use of it as I do. The only thing to be gained is a very large number of moral lectures. I left Saint Susan holding forth as I came out; and she was quite horrified and disgusted at my wickedness in not staying to hear her discourse to the end. If any of you feel the need of a sermon, walk into No. 40. Seats free; and she hasn’t got more than half through yet.”

The girls laughed,--some of them heartily.

“I declare, it is shameful!” exclaimed Carrie, angrily. Susan said nothing. Her lip quivered as she bent over her slate; but she controlled herself, and at last, declaring that she had solved the difficult problem, she proceeded to explain the proper process to her fellow-students.

“Is the sermon ended?” called out Florence, popping her head in at the door.

“Yes,” said Susan, pleasantly, as she came in, followed by several of the girls.

Carrie would not speak: she felt too indignant. Florence saw this, and mischievously attempted to draw her into conversation. It was in vain. At last she exclaimed,--

“Girls, I verily believe Saint Caroline is mad with me! I shouldn’t wonder if there was the material for a very good sinner in her, after all.”

This was too much for Carrie’s gravity. She laughed outright.

“Florence Anderson, you are the most provoking girl I ever saw!” she said. “You are enough to make a saint angry.”

“So I perceive,” said Florence, gravely.

From that evening Florence always spoke of Susan as “Saint Sue,” until at last it became quite the general custom to address her in that manner, greatly to Caroline’s annoyance; but if she ventured to expostulate she was in danger of being dubbed “Saint” also. But, in spite of her odd ways, Carrie could not help liking her room-mate exceedingly; for Florence had taken a fancy “to be friends with her,” and when she tried to make herself agreeable she was sure to succeed. Glaring as were her faults, she had qualities which made her a general favourite. She was, when she chose to apply herself, a very fine scholar. She was full of life and spirits and was always the leader in all sports and pastimes. She was universally cheerful and good-humoured, and never at a loss for something new in the way of amusements: in short, in whatever was going on, right or wrong, she was the leading spirit. It was quite flattering to Carrie to be singled out as a chosen companion by one who was such an acknowledged leader in the school; and perhaps this appeal to her vanity blinded her eyes to many of her new friend’s faults. Susan was in danger of no such blindness, for Florence disliked her quite as much as she liked her cousin; and, if Carrie regretted her friend’s prejudice against Sue, the latter regretted her fancy for Carrie with equal sincerity.

To show how thoroughly she disapproved of this intimacy, Susan would have nothing whatever to do with Florence, except to treat her with the most distant politeness and chilling formality. If she proposed a walk or any scheme of amusement, Susan would invariably make some excuse for not joining the party, and, not content with this, she would exert all her influence to prevent her cousin’s making one of the number. She felt that Florence was a dangerous associate; and again and again she would advise Carrie to have nothing to do with her. But her advice met the usual fate of such unwelcome counsel: it was listened to with ill-disguised impatience and at last disregarded altogether.

When Susie talked of Florence’s want of principle and steadiness, her cousin would retort that she was unreasonably prejudiced against her.

Carrie’s position was by no means a pleasant one. She was sincerely attached to both her friends, while they not only disliked each other cordially, but were jealous of each other’s influence. She was like a shuttle-cock kept flying between two skilful players.

“I wish you liked Susie better!” she said one day to her friend.

“You had better wish that Susan liked me,” was Florence’s reply. “How can I like her, when she treats me as if I were such a wretch that she hardly dared speak to me for fear of pollution? You know she warns you against me and thinks I am the most awful creature that ever lived.”

“Well, Florence, you know, too, that you show your very worst side to her. You always sneer at every thing good when you are with her. She thinks you have no respect for religious things at all; and sometimes I almost think so too.”

“But I have a great respect for Christian people.”

“Then why do you laugh at Susie and call her ‘Saint’?”

“Oh, because she is so solemn and so dismal and so easily shocked, and seems to set herself up for something so good.”

“Now, Florence, you are unjust. I am sure Susie is as full of fun, in her quiet way, as any of the girls.”

“Well, it’s of no use for us to talk about it. Saint Sue don’t like me, and I don’t like her; and we shall probably always remain of the same opinion. There is no love lost between us. If she could have her way, she would never let you speak to me again.”

Not long after this conversation, Susan said to her cousin,--

“I really think you ought not to make such a constant companion of Florence.”

“That is just what Florence said you would tell me,” replied Carrie; “and she said, too, she thought it was a strange idea of your’s that saints should not associate with anybody but other saints, leaving the poor sinners to their own destruction without the benefit of any good influences.”

“That sounds just like Florence; but I’m afraid she has more influence over you than you have over her. Carrie, I don’t like to say it, but I am really afraid you are not so constant in the performance of your Christian duties as you ought to be and as you used to be. Aunt Stanley said we should have temptations and trials, and warned us not to yield to them.”

“She said, too, that she did not think we need to have long faces and be always talking of religious things.”

“Very true. But there’s a great deal more danger of being too indifferent than too earnest; and, Carrie, I really think it my duty to tell you that----”

The blood rushed to Caroline’s face.

“Susie,” she exclaimed, “I wish you didn’t lecture me every time you get me alone. Lately it seems to be all you talk to me about, whenever we are together, that I’m doing very wrong. I actually almost dread to be left with you.”

Susan began to cry.

“Don’t cry,” said her cousin, kissing her tenderly. “I know you mean it all for the best and because you love me; and perhaps I deserve it all. But it a’n’t pleasant, you know, to be lectured, even if you do deserve it. Don’t cry. You make me very unhappy!”

Susie brushed away her tears and kissed Carrie, and so the subject dropped,--for the time, at least.