She sincerely regretted the step she must take, and to which she would not have felt herself driven by any ill-placed prudery of her own.

On Monday morning it must be stated to the girls that Ida Starr had left.
In the meantime, it only remained to write to Mrs.Starr, and make known this determination.

Miss Rutherford thought for a little while of going to see Ida's mother, but felt that this would be both painful and useless.

It was difficult even to write, desirous as she was of somehow mitigating the harshness of this sentence of expulsion.

After half-an-hour spent in efforts to pen a suitable note, she gave up the attempt to write as she would have wished, and announced the necessity she was under in the fewest possible words..