A Struggle for a Ring — page 183: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

MADAME ROUBART’S PUPIL. 179 ing over that important question—what should she do? Slowly enough the plan revealed itself to her which was to lead to such strange situations. She weuld go to school, and educate herself so that when he did return he should be proud of her, and not ashamed—that he should admire her. Alice, to use a busimess phrase, ‘‘took stock of herself ;”’ she tried to estimate her own personal appearance, her powers of cap- tivation. Could any degree of training, she wcendered, ever make her as graceful and elegant as the ladies who be- longed to his world? She would try; and after long days of thought and study, she settled upon a way out of her — difficulties. The first thing was to swear Hettie to secrecy; if she proved true, there were but few obstacles in her way; for Alice’s plan was to go first to some first-class’ finishing- school, then to find a situation in some aristocratic family, either as governess. or companion, where she would be able to study the habits and manners, the customs and training of a class which differed so greatly from her own, Then, when he came home, she would be ready for him ; she would have improved and altered so greatly that he would fall in love with her all over again. So, in her simple, straightforward way, she set to work at once. She sought information in the proper channel, and she was told that the best finishing-school in England was that of Madame Roubart, a French lady, who resided in Hyde Park Gardens, and who consented to receive a few young | ladies on the condition that they paid her two hundred _per annum each, with extras. The extras were the chief resource of Madame Roubart, and they brought her in a - very handsome income. Parents opened the eyes of wonder as they perused that list of extras. It was man- (Ee) comicbooks