She thus warded off many an outburst of passion, and Lulu, like the
others, was able each week to carry home a good report of conduct; of
lessons also, for she was much interested in her studies, very ambitious
to excel, and therefore very industrious and painstaking.
All went well for the five or six weeks between their entrance into the
school and the Christmas holidays.
The older people were careful to make that holiday week a merry time for
the children. Each one received numerous beautiful gifts, and visits were
exchanged with the families of Magnolia Hall and the parsonage.
Scarcely ever a day passed in which there was not more or less
intercourse between the three families, but at this holiday time there
were special invitations and more than ordinary festivity.
Then, the holidays over, it was a little difficult to settle down again
to work and study; the children, and probably the teachers also, found it
so. However that may have been, there was certainly more than usual
friction in the working of the school machinery: the teachers reproached
the scholars with want of attention and lack of industry, and the latter
grumbled to each other that the professor and Miss Diana snubbed them,
and Mrs.
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