Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer — Part 21

“Oh—I,” Nathalie hesitated with rising color, “I did not go to high school. Yes, I know they are very fine, but I attended a private school kept by Madame Chemidlin.”

An “oh!” escaped Helen involuntarily, as her eyes gloomed a little, but her companion plunged recklessly on.

“It is considered one of the finest schools in the city, because, well, for one thing, Madame is adorable, her father was one of the nobility, a political refugee from France, and then because the girls who attend come from the best families in New York. They were just dears—” with a sigh of regret—“Nellie Blinton, she was my chummiest chum, she’s the one I told you Miss Tyson reminded me of, she has the same kind of a face as Nell, with big, dark eyes and the same gentle, ladylike way about her that my friend has.

“Then there was Puss Davidson, she’s awfully clever. She writes stories, and last year won a gold medal from St. Nicholas. She was Valedictorian of our class last Spring. You know I graduated then, but took a post-graduate course last winter and expected to enter college this fall, but now, of course, things are different.” She spoke a little sadly.

Helen could not help feeling somewhat disappointed as she heard about these rich schoolmates of Nathalie’s; she had taken a great liking to this girl with the daintily colored face with its rounding curves, lighted by eyes that held you captive with their frank, direct gaze. Although bright and clever-looking, this Girl Pioneer possessed no claim to beauty, for, as she ruefully commented at times, she had a nose with a knob on it. For that reason, perhaps, being free from that enviousness that characterizes so many girls, she was a beauty-lover. Too often she had made friends with girls just because they appealed to her love for the beautiful, only to realize when it was too late that good looks do not always mean pleasing traits of character. In fact, Helen was somewhat tired of being disappointed, and had vowed to her mother that she was never again going to care for a pretty girl. She was not sure that Nathalie was a real beauty, but surely, with her lovely brown eyes and the gracious little way she had, not at all self-conscious, but just real “self,” she was in a fair way to become very popular with the girls.