stone. She missed the petting, the niceties, and the excuses to which she had been hitherto accustomed. Too much was expected from her at first, she grew discouraged, and persuaded of her own inability, soon obtained the character of equal sullenness and stupidity. She was so often in disgrace that she lost all hope of avoiding it.
Children are too often unkind to one another, and deny the allowance they so much need in their own case. Emmeline Beaumont was not a pretty child, she was little for her age, thin and awkward, her dark complexion, unrelieved by any shade of colour, gave a heaviness to her countenance, which was not improved by a profusion of black hair never in very good order. Fanny Beaumont had been absent from school for half a year, and on her return, her quick and kind feelings were at once enlisted on the behalf of the poor pale little thing whom she saw constantly moping about, or crying in some corner or other. In spite of all that was said of her dulness and her obstinacy, she took her under her especial charge, and was
