Her new home and new
classmates in a short time entirely changed the character of her
environment. Before long the girl herself began to show the result of
the change. She had always been too much interested in her studies to
waste time or disobey the school rules. Following the leadership of some
of the newly made friends she entered into all the little conspiracies
of a group of girls and boys who made things hard for the teacher, a
rather weak disciplinarian. One day, the girl hitherto perfectly honest,
told a lie to get out of the trouble into which the following of the new
leaders had brought her. It troubled her conscience and she cried on the
way home from school, but her companions laughed at her, told her she
was "all right," and had stood by them splendidly. They made her feel
heroic and she dried her eyes and stifled her desire to tell her mother.
Before the year was over the child had entirely changed. Her studies
suffered, she seemed to lose her ambition, her naturalness and
spontaneity vanished. Her mother began to discover increasing
untruthfulness. One day, toward the close of the school year, the child
asked to wear her best dress to school, saying there was to be an
entertainment. There was no entertainment. Instead there was a party at
the home of one of the girls of whom her mother disapproved.
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