Sarahs School Friend

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Sarah's School Friend, by May Baldwin,

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Title: Sarah's School Friend
Author: May Baldwin

Release Date: December 9, 2006 [eBook #20068]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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SARAH'S SCHOOL FRIEND
by
MAY BALDWIN Author of 'Two Schoolgirls of Florence,' 'Barbara Bellamy,' &c.
With Six Illustrations by Percy Tarrant

[Illustration: He took Sarah by the hand and pulled her up on to the bank. Front. PAGE 179.]

London: 38 Soho Square, W. W. & R. Chambers, Limited Edinburgh: 339 High Street Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company

TO MY KIND FRIENDS OF 'ALDAMS'

CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. A MILL-HAND'S MANSION 1 II. A DREARY BANQUET 11 III. STALLED OXEN 20 IV. AN UNANSWERED QUESTION 31 V. A RELUCTANT INVITATION 41 VI. AN EXTRAORDINARY LETTER 51 VII. HORATIA'S ARRIVAL 61 VIII. HORATIA 71 IX. A YORKSHIRE MIXTURE 81 X. PLAIN SPEAKING CLEARS THE AIR 90 XI. HORATIA SPEAKS OUT 100 XII. A RINKING-PARTY 109 XIII. HORATIA'S INFLUENCE 119 XIV. A MILLIONAIRE FOR FIVE MINUTES 129 XV. A VISIT TO CLAY'S MILLS 139 XVI. THE MILLIONAIRE'S PICNIC 148 XVII. A DISASTROUS BONFIRE 158 XVIII. NANCY PACKS UP 167 XIX. AN UNPLEASANT MOMENT 176 XX. SARAH'S FIRST STEP TO CONQUEST 185 XXI. CLAY'S MILLS PLAYING 194 XXII. 'FURRINERS' IN OUSEBANK! 204 XXIII. OUTWITTED 214 XXIV. GOOD-BYE TO BALMORAL 224 XXV. 'A BAD BUSINESS' 234 XXVI. TRUE YORKSHIRE GRIT 244 XXVII. SARAH IS MUCH IMPROVED 254 XXVIII. SARAH BECOMES A BUSINESS WOMAN 264 XXIX. 'A MIRACLE' 274 XXX. LAST 283

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
He took Sarah by the hand and pulled her up on to the bank Frontispiece.
He took his young niece's arm and followed his sister-in-law into the drawing-room 21
'I'm so glad you've called me "lass"! I was so hoping some one would' 69
'Ask the band to play "La Rinka," Sarah,' cried Horatia 105
'We've come to say there's two men been turned off because they've been ill, and boys put on in their place' 132
As the two stood and watched the air-ship something dropped from it 220

Sarah's School Friend.
CHAPTER I.
A MILL-HAND'S MANSION.
'It's a dreadful thing to have a father you don't respect,' said Sarah Clay, as she walked into the gilded and beautifully painted drawing-room of the aforesaid father's mansion in Yorkshire.
Her mother gave a little, sharp scream, and let fall the book she was holding in her hand.
Sarah came forward swiftly, picked it up, and turned it over to look at the title, at sight of which she said, with a little laugh, 'What a humbug you are, mother! You know you've never read a single word of this book.'
Mrs Clay's face flushed crimson. ''Ow dare you talk similar to that, Sarah?' Only she pronounced it fairly with a true cockney accent, and left out all her h's. 'I don't know w'at women are comin' to nowadays, w'at wi' one thing an' another, w'en it comes to a chit o' sixteen talkin' like that about 'er mother bein' an 'umbug, let alone sayin' she doesn't respect 'er father; an' w'at 'e'd say if 'e 'eard 'er I couldn't say, I'm sure,' she said, flustered.
'Then don't say it,' observed Sarah lightly, as she threw herself lazily into one of the luxurious armchairs opposite her mother, and only then became aware that buried in the depths of another easy-chair was another figure--that of a man. For a moment she was taken aback, and started in fright, thinking that it was her father, of whom she might speak disrespectfully behind his back, but whom she did not dare to abuse to his face, fearless though she was by nature. However, to her relief, she saw it was not her father's big, burly form that filled the gold-brocaded chair, but her brother's tall, slight figure.
'Awfully bad form, Sarah,' he murmured in an effeminate voice, after which he laid his head back in an attitude of exhaustion against the chair, and gazed up at the ceiling.
'Yes; I think it must be that 'igh-class, fashionable school that's taught 'er to speak so of 'er parents, an' not respect any one,' agreed her mother in querulous accents.
'I didn't mean to speak disrespectfully to you, dear old mother,' said the girl with a kind of patronising affection.
'I don't know w'at you call it, then, callin' me an 'umbug,' objected Mrs Clay.
'I was in fun, and you know