Wild Kitty by L.T. Meade

Middleton School, which consisted of from six to seven hundred girls, was kept in a state of discipline not so much by punishments as by a very strict code of honor. There were certain things which no Middleton girl who respected herself would ever dream of doing. There were other things which she would do as a matter of course. For instance, she would uphold her school through thick and thin, allowing no outsider to run it down. To be a member of Middleton School insured her friendship with all the other girls in the school. The _esprit de corps_ of this celebrated day school was exceptionally strong. Even in after-life its members met as friends, never forgetting that they were at one time schoolfellows in one of the best and most thorough colleges of learning in the whole of England.

As the fees for instruction were necessarily low, and as the school was therefore open to all classes of girls, from the very rich to those who had but limited means, a rule, and a very strong one, was that all money and class distinctions were to be absolutely abolished. The girls, so long as they belonged to the school, were absolutely on the same footing, notwithstanding the fact that their home-lives might be very far removed the one from the other. Among the most emphatic rules of the school -- a rule which, if it were disobeyed, would cause ostracism on the part of the girls and the gravest reprimand, not to say a chance of expulsion, on the part of the teachers -- was the borrowing of money. Money was supposed not to be mentioned between the girls; and as to a poor girl borrowing from a rich, it was considered about the blackest crime which could take place in Middleton School. Now, Elma, knew this fact perfectly well, and when she took the eight pounds from Kitty Malone she was aware of the grave risk which she ran. More depended on her keeping up a good character in the school than her companions were at all aware of. She was sent to Middleton School by an aunt who to a certain extent had adopted her -- her mother could not possibly afford to pay the fees, small as they were.