A Struggle for a Ring — page 189: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

<i ‘* AT SCHOOL. 185 Madame was interested. Most of her pupils she read easily, as she would have done the pages of a book; this gentle, thoughtful girl was rather beyond her ordinary powers of observation. Mrs. Howard liked her exceed- ingly, and many little hints that were of greatest use to her came to her through the kindness of the head-mistress. She made many friends, too. At first madame’s pupils had stood aloof from the quiet, gentle girl, who never boasted of either rank or wealth. At first they called her an upstart, and looked down upon her, but gradually that idea died away; she was so gentle, so kind, so consid- erate, always willing to help every one in their little diffi- culties, always willing to listen to a lover's story and to sympathize. Many and various were the love-stories afloat at Madame Roubart’s. Constance Erningham, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy marquis, had a grand love story—a tragedy, in which her cousin, a handsome young captain, with nothing but his pay, played a considerable part; there was pretty, coquettish Laura Leamington, who had been sent out of the way of a hopelessly handsome midshipman, about whom she talked incessantly; Louise La Villiere, who had been through the agonies of a hopeless attach- ment to a grand seigneur of the old school. It was only natural that among all these girls, whose experience in the courts of Cupid was of so various a¢_ nature, Alice should hear an immense deal that was at ~ © once painful and pleasant. She heard stories that filled her with envy of how these lovers loved—how one rose every morning at six, so that he might gather with his own hands flowers for his lady- love—how another had thought nothing of a gallop of fifteen miles for the sake of one minute spent with the girl — ‘va YY iw -Ecomichoo