Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/343

household, which was like all boarding-school households, straitened at times, and forced to keep up show at expense of comfort. If Susan had not been of a singularly sweet nature, this abnormal freedom and independence, at the age of sixteen, would have hurt her sadly. As it was, the chief fault developed in her by her situation was an imperiousness of will, or impatience, if obstacles of any sort hindered her in carrying out a project. But as her projects were usually of a magnanimous and generous kind, this impatience did not seem unlovely; and the imperious manner was often charming. Her schemes could not be said to be unselfish, because they usually were for pleasures or profits which she desired for herself; but on the other hand they could not be said to be selfish, because she made them so wide in their scope, including everybody she could easily reach. If she wanted to go to an entertainment of any sort, she took her whole class, sometimes the whole school; when she went to drive in her pretty, blue-lined carriage, somebody else always went too,—Madame Delancy herself, or some teacher, or some friend. When she wanted strawberries, she ordered them into the house by the dozen boxes, and had them given to everybody at breakfast. And she did not do this with the least air of patronage or condescension; she did not think about its being any favor to people, or that she laid them under an obligation; she simply liked to do it; it was her way; there was