Girls are either sent to boarding-school or go to a day-school; in the
latter case, always accompanied by one of their parents or a trusty
servant. But the parents, if their means will not permit them to send
their boys to schools that support a one-horse omnibus, or if they have
not a servant to go with them, perform that task themselves. In the
schools for the poorer classes, when teaching is over, the children
file out, two by two, the older children being appointed monitors, and
the little processions disappear in different directions; the teachers
standing at the gate until they are lost from sight, for they have not
far to go, as there is a free school in each quarter.
[Illustration: THE ENEMY.]
But I pity the charity-school girls. Although always neatly and cleanly
dressed, they are all alike, with white caps, and dresses which might
have been cut from the same piece. They file through the streets or
public gardens, under the charge of the "good sisters," and perhaps
they stop to play or rest sometimes, but I never saw them do so.
Perhaps there is no real reason to pity these charity-children, boys or
girls; but I remember my own free and happy school-days in America, and
so I pity them.
[Illustration]
THE PETERKINS ARE OBLIGED TO MOVE.
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