"When my eldest sister was here there were the Courtenays and the Derringtons and the Vernons and quite a number of girls of really good family.

Miss Bowes would never have dreamt then of taking a girl she knew nothing about; she was so particular whom she received." "The poor old Cuckoo has her points," volunteered Addie.

"I'm afraid most of us aren't 'county'!" "All schools are more mixed than they used to be," admitted Stephanie candidly; "but I'd draw the line at specimens straight from the backwoods." Few of the girls really liked Stephanie, nevertheless her opinions carried weight.

A school-mate who dresses well, talks continually of highborn friends, and "gives herself airs" can nearly always command a certain following among the more unthinking of her comrades, and such girls as Beth Broadway, Alice and Merle Denham, and Mary Acton were easily impressed by Stephanie's attitude of superiority, and ready to follow her lead on a question of caste.

It gave them a kind of reflected credit to belong to Stephanie's circle, and they liked to pride themselves upon their exclusiveness.
Though Rona was many thousand miles away from her home, she evidently did not forget her New Zealand friends, and looked out anxiously for the thin foreign letters which arrived from time to time.