Now the spirit of rivalry was awake. I think it
began to stir at my Paris dresses and things; Karnak and Mme.
Ricard finished the mischief.
On my first coming to school I had been tempted, in my horror
at the utter want of privacy, to go to bed without prayer;
waiting till the rest were all laid down and asleep and the
lights out, and then slipping out of bed with great care not
to make a noise, and watching that no whisper of my lips
should be loud enough to disturb anybody's slumbers. But I was
sure, after a while, that this was a cowardly way of doing;
and I could not bear the words, "Whosoever shall be ashamed of
Me, and of My words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed,
when He cometh in the glory of His Father." I determined in
the vacation that I would do so no more, cost what it might
the contrary. It cost a tremendous struggle. I think, in all
my life I have done few harder things, than it was to me then
to kneel down by the side of my bed in full blaze of the
gaslights and with four curious pairs of eyes around to look
on; to say nothing of the four busy tongues wagging about
nothing all the time.
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