Milly Roseveldt was her exact contrast--a milky-complexioned little blonde, shy and sweet; she was also a trifle dull. Adelaide translated her Latin, and worked out her problems, and I wrote her compositions, while Milly rewarded us with largesses of love and confectionery, for she was the most generous as well as the most affectionate of girls. Her father, a wealthy New York banker, placed large sums of money at her disposal, and Milly deluged her friends with gifts of flowers and bonbons. It seemed very natural to me that Adelaide and Milly should be sworn friends; but my admittance into the sacred circle was a mystery to me, and to a number of aspiring girls who asserted that I was nobody in particular, and who envied me my place in my friends' affection. My presence in the school itself was almost as great a wonder. My father was a Long Island farmer. We opened our house to city boarders during the summer, and one season Miss Sartoris, the teacher in Art at Madame's, boarded with us. I had taken drawing lessons at the Academy, and Miss Sartoris took me out sketching with her. I worked like a beaver, and was never so happy in my life. I delighted Miss Sartoris, who wakened mother's ambition by telling her that I was the most talented pupil she had ever had. More than this: we three induced good, easy-going, generous father to let me go back to the city with Miss Sartoris as a pupil at Madame's. My wardrobe was meagre, but not countrified, for I possessed a natural sense of color and a quick faculty for imitation. I had seen plenty of city people at Scup Haven, and my few dresses, I fancied, would pass muster anywhere. I was a fair scholar, and took the lead in the studio. I was not brilliant and stylish like Adelaide, or rich and pretty like Milly, but they liked me, and I liked myself the better for the consciousness that there must be something nice about me which attracted them. I believe now that it was an absence of self-consciousness and selfishness on my part, and my hearty admiration and devotion to them. Adelaide called me, playfully, "the great American Appreciator."
It was just before the theatricals given by our literary society that an incident occurred which showed me how much they really thought of me. We three were arranging the stage; I was touching up the scenery, and Milly holding the tacks for Adelaide, who was looping the drapery, when we overheard the conversation of a group of girls on the other side of the curtain.