"What do you mean?" inquired Miss Harrowgate before Marjorie could speak.
"I mean," she began, laying a bunch of white grapes in Marjorie's
fingers, "that her name is _Holmes_."
"Doesn't that belong to the royal line?" asked Pauline, lightly.
"It belongs to the line of _thieves_."
Marjorie's fingers dropped the grapes.
"Her father spent years in state-prison when he should have spent a
lifetime there at hard labor! Ask my father. Jerome Holmes! He is famous
in this city! How dared he send his little girl here to hear all about
it!"
"Perhaps he thought he sent her among Christians and among ladies,"
returned Miss Harrowgate. "I should think you would be ashamed to bring
that old story up, Clarissa."
Marjorie was paralyzed; she could not move or utter a sound.
"Father has all the papers with the account in; father lost enough, he
ought to know about it."
"That child can't help it," said Emma Downs. "She has a face as sweet and
innocent as an apple blossom."
"I hope she will never come here to school to revive the old scandal,"
said Miss Denyse. "Mother told me all about it as soon as she knew who
the child was."
"Somebody else had the hardest of it," said Miss Parks; "_that's_ a story
for us girls. Mother says she was one of the brightest and sweetest girls
in all the city; she used to drive around with her father, and her
wedding day was set, the cards were out, and then it came out that he had
to go to state-prison instead.
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