The North Avenue Archingtons.

BY ANNA J. M'KEAG.

When Mary Anne Smith returned for her second year at Mrs. Hosmer's Seminary, both teachers and pupils were astonished at the change in her appearance and manners which a summer at the seashore had produced.

The previous year she had been plain Mary Anne Smith, an energetic, impulsive girl, whose most serious fault was a tendency to soiled collars and buttonless shoes, but who was, on the whole, very good-hearted and sincere.

She had returned to school as Marie Antoinette Smythe, a fashionable young lady. She discontinued her old, romping, laughing ways and became as sedate as the gravest Senior.

Even her old love for midnight "spreads" seemed to have departed. She became fastidious about her personal appearance and exclusive in her friendships.

At first Mrs. Hosmer considered it a good thing that Marie was "toning down," but before long she felt that it was really not a change for the better.

The schoolgirls were not slow in commenting about it. At the October meeting of the Browning Circle—an association of a dozen girls, originally instituted for purposes of literary improvement, but which had lately degenerated into a "fancy-work society"—Marie was discussed until her ears must have burned, if there is any truth in the old saying.

"Do you know, girls, that Marie Smith scarcely deigns to speak to me any more," said Stella Gard.

"Oh, that's nothing, Stella. I was her room-mate last year, and she has conversed with me on just two occasions since she came back," supplemented Anna Fergus.

"What is the matter with her?" asked a "new girl."

"Is it possible, my dear young friend," rejoined Anna, with mock gravity, "that you don't know we have been sacrificed to the North Avenue Archingtons?"

The new girl looked bewildered, and Anna went on to explain:

"It seems that last summer certain blue-blooded Archingtons, with malice aforethought, left their patrician heights on North Avenue, on which they had hitherto dwelt in solitary grandeur, and went to Cape May. There they boarded at the same hotel with the Smith family, and deigned to bestow a few smiles upon them. This so lifted up the heart of Marie Smythe, formerly Mary Smith, that she no longer regards her humble class-mates as fit associates for her. Hinc illae lacrymae, which means, all you who don't know Latin, 'that's why I'm using my handkerchief.'"

"She told me," said little Zoe Binnex, interrupting Anna's nonsense, "that Mrs. Archington had invited her mother to visit her."

"I wish some of you were doomed to sit at the same table with her, as I am," Anna went on, "and then you would wish the Archingtons at the bottom of the sea. The way poor, patient Miss Sedgwick has to suffer! Marie sits next her, you know, and while Miss Sedgwick ladles out the soup, Marie ladles out the Archingtons. We have Papa North Avenue, with his four millions, at breakfast; Mamma Archington, with her diamonds, at dinner, and all the young Archingtons for supper."

The ringing of the study-bell dispersed the members of the Browning Circle. As Anna and Zoe passed Marie's door, they overheard a servant requesting that young lady to go down to Mrs. Hosmer's study.

"Perhaps Mrs. Hosmer thinks it is time to choke off some of those Archingtons," whispered Anna.

But Mrs. Hosmer had sent for Marie for a different purpose.

A new pupil was coming, and, as Marie had no room-mate, was to be put with her.

"Oh, Mrs. Hosmer," protested Marie, "I'd much rather room alone."

"I should be glad to gratify you," said her preceptress, "but it is impossible. Yours is the only vacancy on the second floor, and, as she is a delicate girl, I do not want to send her to the third."

"Who is she?" Marie asked, seeing that she must yield to the inevitable.

"Her name is Esther Jones. She is a very quiet little girl, inclined to be nervous. I hope you will do all you can to make her happy and to keep her from being homesick. She will come to-night."

Marie was much vexed at the intrusion, as she chose to consider it. It was so much nicer to room alone.

How provoking that just as she was "getting into" a better circle, and had succeeded in dropping her commonplace room-mate of last year, she should have this nervous little Esther Jones forced upon her.

The new girl was as plain as her name. She wore a woolen dress, heavy shoes and an ordinary sailor hat.

"Very countrified," was Marie's mental verdict, as she watched her unpacking her trunk.

She did not offer to assist the little stranger, who seemed much in awe of her.

A new girl who enters a boarding-school a month after the term has begun is always to be pitied.

The other girls all have their homesickness over by that time, and are not apt to be so sympathetic with the newcomer as they would have been earlier. They have formed their little coteries, and the new girl feels herself "outside."

With Esther this was especially true. Marie neglected her utterly, and she had not confidence in herself to try to make other friends. She went about with a dejected, homesick look that moved Mrs. Hosmer's heart.

"I must make some other arrangement after Christmas," she thought. "Esther doesn't seem happy where she is."

If she had known how much of Esther's unhappiness was due to Marie's unkindness, her indignation would have made itself felt. Marie meantime poured forth her heart on cream note-paper to her friend Marguerite Archington, bewailing the cruel fate which separated them, and doomed her to the companionship of Esther Jones.

Esther's natural timidity was increased by Marie's treatment. At first she made feeble efforts to converse, but finding herself continually repressed, gradually ceased from her endeavors to make friends with Marie.

Not only her timidity, but her nervousness, as well, grew on her. She began to be startled at every sudden sound.

Now Marie was a girl without "nerves," in the ordinary sense of the word, and could not understand or sympathize with those who are constituted differently. She really believed poor Esther's nervousness to be affectation, and had no patience with it.

"She's been coddled all her life, evidently," she reflected, "until now she expects every one to pet her on account of her foolish nervous tricks. She needs a process of hardening."

If Marie had not really believed this, I do not think she would have put into execution a plan which suggested itself to her the week before Thanksgiving.

It was a cruel scheme, and even though she assured herself that it was really for Esther's good and that it would cure the nervousness, I think she was at heart a little ashamed of herself all the time.

At the western end of the third floor there was a stairway leading up to a room at the top of the building, which was occasionally used as an observatory. A telescope was mounted there, but, as it was not very powerful, the astronomy classes generally used one at the private residence of their professor instead.

The room, being so seldom used, had become a receptacle for old lumber of all sorts. Girls are so fond of exercising their imagination that it is not strange that they gradually invested the garret-like room at the top of the house with the reputation of being "haunted."

The ghost, who was said to walk up and down the old stairway and over the creaking floor of the observatory, was thought to be that of a certain Madame Leverrier, who had been teacher of French and astronomy many years before, and had died in the school.

It was said that at midnight the tall, white figure of the Frenchwoman might be seen, peering through the telescope at the stars she had loved so well.

To-be-sure, no girl ever said she herself, had seen this sight, but she had "heard about it from a last year's girl."

So the girls got in the habit of walking very rapidly when they had occasion to go past the stairway, which led up from a region occupied by "trunk-rooms," and of avoiding that part of the house altogether after night.

Marie told Esther the story of the ghost, with many embellishments. She did not confine herself to one telling, but continually referred to it, with the desire of keeping the matter ever present in Esther's mind.

She noticed that her quiet little room-mate, although she avowed her non-belief in ghosts, looked frightened whenever the subject was mentioned.

One evening, toward the end of November, the two were seated by their study-table, preparing the next day's lessons, when Marie suddenly exclaimed that she had mislaid her astronomy.

"Won't you go after it for me, Esther?" she said, in a kinder tone than usual.

"Certainly, Marie," replied Esther, glad to be called on for a service. "Where do you think you left it?"

"I know now exactly where it is. It's up in the observatory on the table at the farther end of the room. I left it there last night when Professor Gaskell took us up in study-hour. It was dreadfully stupid in me."

"I'd better take the lamp, hadn't I?" queried Esther, inwardly dismayed at the prospect of ascending alone to those awful regions, and yet unwilling to refuse so small a service.

"Yes, take the lamp. You know there's no light in that end of the hall. You're not afraid, are you?"

"N-no, not really. I can't help thinking of those foolish stories the girls tell, though I know there's nothing in them."

Esther took up the lamp and started. She did not wish to appear cowardly before her room-mate, though she really dreaded the short journey.

As she walked past the dark trunk-rooms and up the uncarpeted stairs, her heart beat fast at the "swish" of her own skirts on the boards.

When she opened the observatory door, she couldn't help noticing how very dark the room was, and how feebly the rays from her lamp illuminated it.

Instinctively she glanced toward the telescope to see that there was no white figure behind it, and breathed a little more freely when she saw that there was not.

She searched a long time for the book, standing with her back to the door. At last she found it under a pile of others.

Glad to have accomplished her task, and inwardly peopling all the shadowy corners of the room with ghostly visitants, she turned round to begin her return journey, when—

What was that by the telescope? A white, tall figure stood by the instrument.

In vain reason told her it was a fanciful delusion. Her nervous organization was no longer under the control of reason. Esther gave a quick scream, and fell to the floor, fainting.

In an instant a white sheet was thrown from the shoulders of the figure by the telescope.

"Esther, Esther! It's only I—Marie!" she cried. "I followed you up stairs just to frighten you for fun. Do speak to me. Tell me I haven't scared you to death!"

After a little Esther regained consciousness, shuddering as she opened her eyes and remembered where she was.

"Take me away—take me away!" she begged, recognizing Marie.

"I will have to bring help."

"No, no; don't leave me alone a minute. I can walk if you will help me. And bring the lamp. I can't go down those stairs in the dark. Don't go away or that dreadful thing may come back."

She shivered as she glanced toward the telescope. Marie was weeping penitently.

"Dear Esther," she said, "don't you see that it was only I. There is the sheet on the floor. I didn't know it would make you faint. Only say you forgive me, and I'll take any punishment Mrs. Hosmer chooses to give me."

"Oh, Marie, I know you didn't mean it, but I can never forget that awful feeling when I felt myself falling. But help me away from this ghostly place."

Marie, frightened at the result of her heartless trick and really deeply touched by Esther's distress, helped her to their room.

Then, notwithstanding Esther's magnanimous offer to keep the whole matter a secret, to Marie's credit be it said that she sent for Mrs. Hosmer and confessed the whole thing.

"Give me the hardest punishment you can, short of expulsion," said she.

"You have done a great wrong," replied Mrs. Hosmer. "You deserve severe punishment, but I shall not decide about that now. For the next few days you may show your penitence by doing all you can to make up to this dear child for your past great unkindness. She must stay in bed for a day or two, and I shall have the doctor in shortly."

Esther was ill for a week, during which time Marie nursed her devotedly. She saw now her past conduct in its true light—her petty vanity, her thoughtlessness and heartlessness.

She fairly hated her old self, when, as the girls came in from time to time, Esther uttered no word of complaint against her, nor alluded to the cause of her illness in any way.

But in some way or other a part of the story leaked out, and Marie was the recipient of many an indignant glance, but she felt it was only what she deserved.

Mrs. Hosmer never said anything further about a punishment; probably she saw that the girl was already sufficiently punished. Nevertheless a most humiliating punishment did come, in a way most unexpected.

The third evening after her fright, Esther was sitting up for the first time since her illness. It was the night before Thanksgiving, and she was feeling a little homesick in spite of Marie's efforts to entertain her.

"What will you give me for a piece of good news, my little girl?" said Mrs. Hosmer, entering the room, and looking at Esther's pale cheeks disapprovingly.

"Oh, Mrs. Hosmer, is it anybody from home?" asked Esther, longingly.

"Here, Marie, read her the name on this card, and see if she says she is at home to visitors," replied Mrs. Hosmer, playfully.

Marie took the card, and a moment after dropped it as though it had been red-hot.

This was what met her eyes:

"Mrs. James Archington, "44 North Avenue."

"Grandma—it's grandma," cried Esther, delightedly.

At the December meeting of the Browning Circle the girls discussed Marie Smythe once more.

"It was the queerest thing," reported Anna Fergus, who knew the whole story. "You see this Mrs. Archington is Esther's grandmother, and Marie never knew it. She said so little to the poor girl that Esther had never chanced to tell her. Talk about retributive justice, this is the most direct piece of retribution I ever heard of. And the queerest part of it is that Esther's grandmother is the real North Avenue Archingtons, while Marie's Cape May friends are a newly-rich family, who happen to live on the same street with the others, but are not related to them at all."

"But, girls," said Zoe Binnix, "it's been a splendid thing for Marie, even if it has been humiliating. I never saw a more completely changed girl. She's quite dropped her fine-lady airs and subsided into a sensible being. She's so good now that Esther doesn't want to change her room, though Mrs. Hosmer told her she might."

The girls were right in their opinion of Marie's change of character. She grew up to be a sensible woman, singularly devoid of pretense or affectation.

In after years she used to say that the one thing which had kept her from growing up silly and affected was her experience with the North Avenue Archingtons.

[This story began in No. 42]

PRIDE AND POVERTY:

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