Christine: Or Woman's Trials and Triumphs

5. School-Life

51 ch a p ter fi v e School-Life It was the morning on which the term commenced. For several days past, one or two pupils, from a long distance, had arrived at the seminary and now a whole bevy of girls, from sixteen to eighteen years of age, assembled at Mrs. Frothingham’s. With what stately grace she welcomed them; it was more like the reception of a queen than an interview between teacher and pupil. Many a fair girl envied her the graceful inclination of the head, and the quiet elegance of her manners, and not even the haughtiest scion of a haughty family ventured to assume any airs in her presence. All was decorous and quiet in the house, for noise of any kind was as sedulously guarded against as if it had been a crime. Mrs. Rogers was, in her way, as good a manager as Mrs. Frothingham herself, whose manners she aped so far as a naturally high and fierce temper could allow her to do so. She ruled with a rod of iron over the domestics, and in this department Mrs. Frothingham never interfered, satisfied, so that all went well, she never checked the exercise of her authority. Mrs. Frothingham, herself, taught nothing.   Christine 52 She had a full corps of teachers, whom, as well as her pupils, it was her province to oversee—and she discharged her duties admirably. Nothing escaped her eye, and nothing could prevent her setting right whatever was amiss. She was never severe , yet nothing was dreaded more than a summons to her private parlor. What transpired in that room was never made public, and the mystery that shrouded it made it more dreaded than any publicity could have done. Mrs. Frothingham’s soirées, which occurred once a fortnight, were also a peculiar feature of her establishment. They were attended by all the élite in the town, and by them alone, so that a card of invitation was as eagerly sought by a lady of doubtful position, who was making that desperate struggle to get into “the first society,” as is a raft by a drowning man. The girls of the higher classes were always present on these occasions, unless some misdemeanor had caused them to forfeit their right of appearing there and no one knew better than did Mrs. Frothingham how to make a party pass off well. Her pupils were allowed to mingle freely with the opposite sex on these occasions, but her Argus eye was upon them, and as assiduously as their own mothers could have done, did she watch the progress of a flirtation, ready to check it at any time, did it degenerate into regular love-making, or did it seem not just an eligible match.11 Matches were not frequent at Mrs. Frothingham’s, and the few which had been kindled there had been entirely satisfactory to the friends on both sides, and though it of course increased her cares, she preferred keeping up her soirées as they were one great secret of her popularity. “Any one can tell Mrs. Frothingham’s graduates,” said the mothers, “their manners are so perfect when they enter society . They do not appear like novices, but as if they had been accustomed to it their whole lives.” Christine 53 And why should they not? For society they were fitted. To shine in the circles of fashion was the end and aim of their education and ambition. For that end, they jabbered French, sang Italian, played the piano, harp, or guitar, and danced every imaginable figure. By degrees, Christine began to be accustomed to the novel ways of her aunt’s household. She had actually arrived at the point of acquitting herself with credit at the table, where, at first, she had betrayed utter ignorance of the use of finger-bowls and nut-pickers, and had also been quite forgetful that napkins were intended for use, not ornament. In these matters, she had been drilled before the arrival of the pupils, and had now only to be glanced at by her aunt’s vigilant eye, to remember and put in practice all that was required of her. In school, too, there was the most rigorous attention paid to propriety of manner. A careless or awkward attitude was more severely reprimanded than a failure in a lesson, and here poor Christine found herself most...