“PROCEEDED TO CROSS-QUESTION HER VICTIM.”“PROCEEDED TO CROSS-QUESTION HER VICTIM.”Dorothy at Oak Knowe.
“It’s the cast-iron rule of our set to find out everything about anybody we receive into it. Begin at the date of your birth and proceed in a seemly manner until you come up to date. Where were you born? What sort of baby were you—good, bad, or indifferent? Begin!”
Entering into the spirit of the thing Dorothy gave her simple life history in a few sentences. But when the questions came as to the events of the last few days her face grew serious and her voice faltered.
“Why did I come to Oak Knowe alone? Because there was nobody to come with me. That is, Dinah or Ephraim, who might have come, couldn’t be trusted to go back alone. My dearest girl friend, Molly Breckenridge, had been enrolled here and we expected to come together, but the Judge’s health suddenly broke down and he was ordered to California and couldn’t part with her. Uncle Seth wasn’t well. He’s my guardian and Aunt Betty’s friend. She’s my great aunt who takes care of me but she wouldn’t leave Uncle Seth, even if he’s not our kin at all, though we call him so. Jim Barlow is tutoring in a boys’ school and; well, Aunt Betty said I could perfectly well and safely travel alone. I was put into the conductor’s care when I started from Baltimore and he passed me along to the next one, and they’ve allbeen splendid to me. There’d have been no mistakes if I hadn’t been careless myself. But I was. I missed a train I should have taken and didn’t send the telegram I ought at the right time and there was nobody at the station to meet me and—and—”
“The idea! A girl like you, traveling all the way from Baltimore to Toronto without a maid or any grown-up to take care of her! That’s the strangest thing I ever heard. Weren’t you just awfully scared all the time?” asked Florita Sheraton, amazed. “An English girl would have been in a blue funk every minute of the time.”
“I don’t know anything about a blue or other colored funk, but every well-bred American girl can take care of herself if she chooses. If she ‘loses her head’ she gets into trouble right away. I lost mine last night and went riding off at dark with a strange old man, who said he’d bring me here, instead of stepping into the telegraph office and wiring the Lady Principal. Then all I’d have had to do would be to wait for her to send for me, and after all it wasn’t the old man who brought me, it was Dr. Winston in his motor. He called here this morning and asked me to ride back with him and see Robin, but Miss Tross-Kingdon wouldn’t let me.”
“Course she wouldn’t. She never lets anybodydo anything she wants to, if she can help it. Hateful old thing!” remarked Bessie Walters; at which the others laughed and Annie Dow inquired, “Who is Robin?”
Dorothy told the story of last night, her new acquaintances listening intently, and Winifred commenting:
“If you aren’t the very luckiest girl in the world! Why I never had an adventure in my life, yet I’m ages older than you.”
At this a shout of derision rose, and Fannie Dimock exclaimed:
“Don’t believe that, Queen Baltimore. There’s scarcely a day passes that she isn’t in some scrape or other. Why, last term, she was in disgrace so often I really believed she wouldn’t be allowed to come back.”
“Oh! little things like that don’t count. But—” she stopped speaking so abruptly and such an earnest expression settled on her face that a mate remarked:
“Look! There’s something brewing this minute! Look out, Win, what you do! Don’t mix any of us up in your schemes. I don’t want any more extras so soon again;” then explained to Dorothy that “extras” were some difficult lessons any culprit was obliged to learn.
Just then came the bell for mid-day luncheon,and all the Commons except Winifred answered the summons promptly. But she lingered behind, detaining Dorothy till the others were out of hearing, and then suggested something to her which made her clap her hands in delight. For the secret thus imparted seemed the simplest thing possible and one in which, to Dolly’s ignorance of Oak Knowe rules, was entirely right.
Arm in arm, the new friends entered the dining-room and Winifred marched Dorothy steadily forward to a seat at her own table, just opposite that occupied by some of the other “set,” with the Honorable Gwendolyn among them. Dolly glanced across and nodded, but that titled young person returned the nod with a stare so intent and contemptuous that the color flashed to the stranger’s face and her eyes fell as if she were in guilt. Yet she couldn’t guess why, nor why she should be relieved when there arose a sudden diversion outside the doorway toward which everybody turned their eyes.
The young ladies of Oak Knowe went out for their afternoon exercise for the half hour before supper. Those who had been long at the school were allowed to roam about the spacious grounds without a teacher, but newcomers, or those who wished to go further afield, were always attended by one.
Most of Winifred’s motherless life had been passed at Oak Knowe, even few of her vacations elsewhere. Her father was a very wealthy man, of large affairs which carried him often from the Province, to England or countries further away, so that his home was seldom opened. But to compensate his daughter for this state of things he had arranged with the authorities that her school life should be made as homelike as possible. She had her own private room with a tiny parlor and private bath adjoining. She was allowed to entertain her schoolmates there as she would have done in her father’s house; always, of course, within the limits set by the faculty.
But Winifred cared little for all this unusual luxury. She rarely asked for any money “banked” with the Lady Principal beyond the twenty-five cents a week which any pupil might spend; and she liked the common parlor far better than her own richly furnished one. Nothing hurt her feelings more than to have her mates refer to her wealth or to treat her differently from the poorest pupil.
But there were times when she enjoyed her privileges to the utmost, and that first day of Dorothy’s life at Oak Knowe was one such. Not having been “in disgrace” for a week at least she confidently asked permission to entertain the newcomer in her rooms, “Just we two by ourselves. She’s lonely and I like her. Please, Miss Tross-Kingdon.”
“You’ll be quiet, Winifred, and keep out of mischief?” asked the Lady Principal, with more gentleness than ordinary. It was natural that she should feel great interest in the girl she had almost reared and whose own power for good or ill Winifred herself could not yet comprehend.
“Ah, now, Miss Muriel, you know I will! Why, surely, I’ve been as good for a whole week as if I were a kindergarten Minim. You should trust me more. I read the other day that people are just what you think they are. So, whatever youwant me to be, please just think Iamand I’ll be it!” and the audacious creature actually dabbed a kiss on the Lady Principal’s own cheek.
“Wheedler! Well, I’ll try to fancy you’re a saint, but I’m not so fanciful about this Dorothy Calvert. She’s a pretty little thing and my Grace made friends with her at once and the Bishop says she is of good blood. That counts, of course, but she seems to me a little headstrong and very stupid. I don’t yet understand how Miss Hexam came to put her into so high a Form. However, I know that she is very homesick, as all new pupils are, so you may entertain her if you wish. A maid shall send you in a tray and you are excused from school supper; but see to it, Winifred, that you use your influence aright. The more favored a person is in this world the more that individual should watch her own actions.”
Winifred thanked the teacher and backed out of the room as if in the presence of royalty itself. This action in itself was offensive to the teacher but was one she could hardly criticise; nor did she guess that, once out of sight, the “wheedler” should first stamp her foot and exclaim:
“I’m sick to death of hearing about my ‘influence’ and being an ‘individual.’ Makes me feel like a spider, that time the German count came to visit Father and called his attention to ‘that individualcrawling down the wall.’ He meant ‘one, a solitary thing.’ But I’m no ‘solitary’ just because Father has a little money. I often wish he hadn’t a pound, especially when some of the ‘Peers’ try to make me believe he is at least a ‘Sir’.”
Then hurrying to Dorothy she danced about in delight at her success.
“Yes, she says you may come, and she’s sure to send us in a fine supper. Miss Muriel Tross-Kingdon never does a thing by halves, not even a lecture on ‘individual influence.’ Queen Baltimore, aren’t you glad you’re poor?”
“Neither glad nor sorry, Winifred, because I’m neither rich nor poor. Anyway neither of us can help being just as we are, I reckon.”
“Come on, though, and hurry up. ‘If it were done, when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly,’” quoted Winifred, whose class reading just then was “Macbeth”; and seizing the smaller girl whirled merrily down the hall.
Five minutes later, with hats and jackets on, they joined the other pupils out of doors. To Dorothy it seemed the beautiful grounds were alive with all sorts and conditions of girls, pacing rapidly up and down, “sprinting” to warm themselves against the chill of the coming evening, playing tennis for the brief half-hour, or racing one another from point to point. There were girls so many and sovarious, from Seventh Form young ladies to the wee little Minims, that Dolly wondered if she would ever know them all or feel herself a member of the great company.
But Winifred gave her little time to gaze about her.
“Oh! don’t bother with them now. Our way is that lower gate, and it’s a good bit of a distance, I hope you’re a good walker.”
“Pretty good, I reckon,” answered Dolly falling into step with the taller girl and hurrying forward at even a swifter pace.
“But, begging your pardon, that’s no way. We Canadians learn pedestrianism—whew! what a long word!—just as we learn our letters. Begin very slowly at first. Then when your muscles are limbered, walk faster—and faster—and faster! Till it seems as if your legs swing up and down of their own accord, just like machines. It’s wonderful then how little you tire and how far you can go. Slack up a bit and I’ll show you.”
Absorbed in this new lesson Dorothy scarcely noticed when they left Oak Knowe limits and struck out along a country lane, with hedgerows at either side; nor when having climbed a stile they set out across a plowed field, till her feet grew heavy with the soil they gathered.
“Oh! dear! What mud! Why do you walk in it, Winifred?”
“It’s the shortest road. Here’s a stone. Stop a bit and scrape it off—as I do. See?” answered the other, calmly illustrating her advice.
“But I don’t like it. My shoes will be ruined!” wailed Dolly who was always finical about “dirt.”
“Humph! Haven’t you another pair? But they ought to be—such flimsy-wimpsy affairs! Look at mine. A bit of mud more or less can’t hurt them and it’s the boot-boy’s business to clean them.”
The English girl held forth a good sized foot clad in a still larger shoe of calfskin, which though soiled with the clay had not absorbed much of its moisture: while the finer affairs of Dorothy’s were already wet through, making her uncomfortable.
“I couldn’t walk in such heavy boots. And it’s raining again. It rained last night. Does it rain every day in Canada? We ought to go back. Do let’s, and try this some other time. I reckon this will finish my new suit, entirely.”
Winifred put her arms akimbo and stared at her new friend. Then burst into a hearty laugh over Dorothy’s disgusted face.
“Ha, ha, ha! And ‘I reckon,’ little southerner, that you’ll be a more sensible girl after you’ve lived up here a while. The idea of turning backbecause it rains! absurd! Why, it’s fine, just fine! The Lady Principal will overhaul your fair-weather-clothes and see that you get some fit to stand anything. This homespun suit of mine couldn’t get wet through if it tried! But I shan’t stand here, in the middle of a plowed field, and let it try. Come on. Its the States against the Province! Who’ll win?”
“I will! For old Maryland and the President!” cried Dorothy, and valiantly strode forward again.
“For our Province and the King!” shouted the Canadian; and after that neither spoke, till the long walk ended before the cottage door of old John Gilpin and his dame. There Winifred gave a smart tap to the panel and holding her hand toward Dorothy, cried:
“Quits, Queen Baltimore! We’ll call it even and I’ll never doubt your pluck again. But you certainly must get some decent clothes—if I have to buy them myself!”
Then the door opened and there stood old John, peering from the lamp-lighted room into the twilight without. After a second he recognized Dorothy and drew her in, exclaiming joyfully:
“Why, Dame, ’tis our little lass herself! Her of the night last spent and the helping hand! Step ben, step ben, and t’other miss with ye. You’re surely welcome as the flowers in spring.”
Mrs. Gilpin came ponderously forward, a smile on her big but comely face, and silently greeted both visitors, while her more nimble husband promptly “step-an’-fetched” the best chairs in the room and placed them before the fire.
“Dry yourselves, lassies, whilst I tell the Robin you’ve come to see him. He’ll be that proud, poor laddie, to have Oak Knowe young ladies pay him that honor! and he’s mending fine, mending fine, doctor says. The mother—”
He disappeared within that inner chamber still talking and as happy now as he had seemed sorrowful when Dorothy parted from him on the night before. Then he had anticipated nothing less than death for the boy he loved, despite the doctor’s assurance to the contrary. He came back leading a woman by the hand, as protectingly as if she had been a child, and introduced her as:
“The bit mother hersel’! Look at her well. Isn’t she the very sight and image of Robin, the lad? And mind how she’s pickin’ up already. Just one day of good victuals and Dame’s cossetting and the pink’s streamin’ back to her cheeks. Please the good Lord they’ll never get that thin again whilst I have my ox-team to haul with and the Dame’s good land to till. I’ll just step-an’-fetch the rocker out—”
At that point in his remarks the Dame laid a hand on his shoulder, saying:
“That’ll do, John Gilpin. Just brew a cup of tea. I’ll tell the lad.”
Winifred was amused at this wifely reprimand, but no offense seemed meant nor taken. The farmer stopped talking and deftly made the tea from the boiling kettle, added a couple of plates to the waiting supper table, and drew from the oven a mighty dish of baked beans that might have been cooked in Yankee-land, and flanked this by a Yorkshire pudding.
“Oh! how nice that smells!” cried Dorothy, springing up to add the knives and forks from the dresser; while Winifred clapped her hands in a pretended ecstasy and sniffed the savory odors, admitting: “I’m as hungry as hungry! And this beats any supper I asked for at Oak Knowe. I hope they’ll want us to stay!”
Her frankness made timid little Mrs. Locke smile as she had not been able to do since she had known of Robin’s accident, and smiling was good for her. Indeed, the whole atmosphere of this simple, comfortable home was good for her, and the high spirits of these three young people delightful to her care-burdened heart.
For, presently, it was the three—not least ofthese her idol, her Robin! Dorothy had followed the Dame into the boy’s room and Winifred had promptly followed her; and because he was the sunny-hearted lad which the farmer had claimed him to be, he put all thought of his own pain or trouble out of mind, and laughed with the two girls at their awkward attempts at feeding him from the tray on the stand beside the bed. Having to lie flat upon his back he could still use one arm and could have fed himself fairly well. But this his visitors would not allow; and he was obliged to submit when Winifred, playfully struggling with Dolly for “My time now!” thrust a spoon into his ear instead of his mouth.
The truth was that under the girl’s assumed indifference to the fact that she was breaking rules by “visiting without permission” lay a feeling of guilt. “Double guilt” she knew, because she had imposed upon Dorothy’s ignorance by stating that during “exercise hour” any long resident pupil was free to go where she chose. This was true, but only in a measure. What was not true was that so distant a point as John Gilpin’s cottage should be chosen, much less entered without permission.
But curiosity had been too strong for her and she had resented, on Dorothy’s account, the refusal of Dr. Winston’s invitation in the morning.Besides, she argued with her own conscience:
“We’re excused from school supper and free to entertain each other in my room till chapel. What difference does it make, and who will know? To-morrow, I’ll go and ’fess to Miss Muriel and if she is displeased I’ll take my punishment, whatever it is, without a word. Anyhow, Dolly can’t be punished for what she doesn’t know is wrong.”
So, feeling that she “was in for it, anyway” Winifred’s mood grew reckless and she “let herself go” to a positive hilarity.
Dorothy watched and listened in surprise but soon caught her schoolmate’s spirit, and jested and laughed as merrily as she. Even Robin tried to match their funny remarks with odd stories of his own and after a little time, when he had eaten as much as they could make him, began to sing a long rigmarole, of innumerable verses, that began with the same words and ended midway each verse, only to resume. It was all something about the king and the queen and the “hull r’yal famblely” which Dorothy promptly capped with an improved version of Yankee Doodle.
Whereupon, the absurd jumble and discord of the two contrasting tunes proved too much for old John’s gravity. Springing up from his chair in the outer room he seized his fiddle from its shelf and scraped away on a tune of his own. For hisfiddle was his great delight and his one resort at times when his wife silenced his voluble tongue.
The old fiddle was sadly out of tune and Dorothy couldn’t endure that. Running to him she begged him:
“Oh! do stop that, please, please! Here, let me take and get it into shape. You make me cringe, you squawk so!”
“You fix it? you, lassie! Well, if that don’t beat the Dutch! What else do they l’arn children over in the States? Leave ’em to go sky-larkin’ round the country in railway carriages all by themsel’s, and how to help doctors set broken bones, and how to fiddle a tune—Stars an’ Garters! What next? Here, child, take her and make her hum!”
Presently, the preliminary squeaks and discords, incident to “tuning up,” were over and Dorothy began a simple melody that made all her hearers quietly listen. One after another the familiar things which Aunt Betty and her guardian loved best came into her mind; and remembering the beloved scenes where she had last played them, her feeling of homesickness and longing made her render them so movingly that soon the little widow was crying and Robin’s sensitive face showed signs of his own tears following hers.
The tempting supper had remained untouchedthus far. But now the sight of his guests’ emotion, and a warning huskiness in his own throat, brought John Gilpin to his feet.
“This isn’t no mournin’ party, little miss, and you quit, you quit that right square off. Understand? Something lively’s more to this occasion than all that solemcholy ‘Old Lang Synin’,’ or ‘Wearin’ Awa’’ business. Touch us off a ‘Highland Fling,’ and if that t’other girl, was gigglin’ so a few minutes gone, ’ll do me the honor”—here the old fellow bowed low to Winifred—“I’ll show you how the figger should be danced. I can cut a pigeon-wing yet, with the supplest.”
Away rolled the table into the further corner of the room: even the Dame merely moving her own chair aside. For she had watched the widow’s face and grieved to see it growing sad again, where a little while before it had been cheerful.
Dorothy understood, and swiftly changed from the “Land O’ the Leal” to the gay dance melody demanded. Then laughter came back, for it was so funny to see the farmer’s exaggerated flourish as he bowed again to Winifred and gallantly led her to the middle of the kitchen floor, now cleared for action.
Then followed the merriest jig that ever was danced in that old cottage, or many another. The cuts and the capers, the flings and pigeon-wingsthat bald-headed John Gilpin displayed were little short of marvelous. Forgotten was the dragging foot that now soared as high as the other, while perspiration streamed from his wrinkled face, flushed to an apoplectic crimson by this violent exercise.
Winifred was no whit behind. Away flung her jacket and then her hat. Off flew the farmer’s smock, always worn for a coat and to protect the homespun suit beneath. The pace grew mad and madder, following the movement of the old fiddle which Dorothy played to its swiftest. Robin’s blue eyes grew big with wonder and he whistled his liveliest, to keep up with the wild antics he could see in the outer room.
Nobody heard a knock upon the door, repeated until patience ceased, and then it softly opened. A full moment the visitor waited there, gazing upon this orgy of motion; then with an ultra flourish of her skirts Winifred faced about and beheld—the Lady Principal!
For another moment there was utter silence in the cottage. Even the Dame’s calmness forsook her, the absurd performance of her bald-headed husband making her ashamed of him. She had seen the Lady Principal passing along the road beyond the lane but had never met her so closely, and she felt that the mistress of Oak Knowe was high above common mortals.
However, as the flush died out of Miss Tross-Kingdon’s face Mrs. Gilpin’s ordinary manner returned and she advanced in welcome.
“You do us proud, madam, by this call. Pray come in and be seated.”
“Yes, yes, do!” cried John, interrupting. “I’ll just step-an’-fetch the arm-chair out o’ Robin’s room. ’Twas carried there for his mother to rest in. She—”
The mortified old fellow was vainly trying to put back the smock he had so recklessly discarded and without which he never felt fully dressed. He hated a coat and wore one only on Sundays, at church. But his frantic efforts to don this garmentbut added to his own discomfiture, for he slipped it on backwards, the buttons behind, grimacing fiercely at his failure to fasten them.
One glance toward him set all the young folks laughing, he looked so comical, and even the dignified caller was forced to smile.
“Don’t see what’s so terrible funny as to send ye all into a tee-hee’s-nest! but if so beyoudo, why giggle away and get shut of it!” testily cried the poor old man. To have been caught “making a fool of himself” was a “bitter pill” for him to swallow; having always prided himself upon his correct deportment.
It was, as usual, the portly Dame who came to his relief, reminding:
“There, husband, that will do.”
Then she quietly drew the smock over his head and slipped it back in proper guise. With this upon him his composure returned, and he apologized to Miss Tross-Kingdon as any gentleman might have done.
“Sorry to have kep’ you standing so long, lady, but I’ll step-an’-fetch—”
However he was spared that necessity. Dorothy had heard and understood that the best chair in the house must be placed at the caller’s service and had as promptly brought it. For a moment Miss Tross-Kingdon still stood as if she would decline,till, seeing the disappointment on her host’s face, she accepted it with:
“Thank you. My errand could easily have been done without so troubling you. I came to see if you have any more of that variety of apples that you sent us last time. Thechefdeclares they are the finest yet. Have you?”
“Yes, lady, I’ve got a few bar’ls left. Leastwise, my Dame has. She can speak for hersel’, if so be she wants to part with ’em. I heard her say she meant to keep ’em for our own winter use. But—”
“That will do, John. Bring a pan from the further bin and show Miss Tross-Kingdon. Maybe she’ll like them just as well.”
“All right, wife. I’ll step-an’-fetch ’em to oncet.”
So this obedient husband went out, his lame foot once more dragging heavily behind him, and he managing as he departed to pass by Dorothy and firmly clutch her sleeve, as he hoarsely whispered:
“Did you ever see the beat! In your mortal ’arthly life, did ye? Well, I’m ashamed to the marrer of my bones to be caught cavortin’ round like the donkey I was. Come on down suller with me and I’ll get the apples. But carry ’em back—I shan’t. Not this night. That woman—lady, I mean—has got eyes like gimlets and the less she bores ’em into old John Gilpin the better he’ll likeit. Worst is, what’ll dame think? She won’t say much. She’s a rare silent woman, dame is, but she can do a power of thinking. Oh! hum!”
So it happened that Dorothy returned to the kitchen, fairly staggering under the weight of the biggest pan of apples that the farmer could find. Mrs. Gilpin took them from her and showed them to the Lady Principal, who was inwardly disappointed at the failure of her visit. But the business was speedily concluded and, rising, she bade Mrs. Gilpin good evening. The only notice she bestowed upon her runaway pupils was to offer:
“If your visit is ended, young ladies, you may return to Oak Knowe in my carriage.”
Dorothy did not yet know how serious an offense she had committed and merely thought that the Lady Principal was “stiffer” even than usual; not once speaking again until the school was reached. Then, as she moved away ignoring Winifred entirely, she bade Dorothy:
“Go to your dormitory, take a warm bath, and dress yourself freshly all through. Your luggage has been unpacked and arranged in your wardrobe. Put on one of your wool gowns for the evening, and come to Assembly Hall. We are to have a lecture and concert, beginning at eight. Punctual attendance required.”
“She acts and looks as if we had done somethingdreadful, but I can’t guess what,” said Dorothy, perplexed.
“Lucky for you that you can’t! Your ignorance of school rules may save you this time, but it can’t save me. One of the hardest things about it is, that you and I will be prohibited each other’s ‘society’ for nobody knows how long. I’m a wild black sheep, who’s led a little lamb—that’s you—astray. It was fun—wasfun, mind you, but—but it’s all over for Winifred!”
“Win, you darling, what do you mean?” demanded Dolly, throwing her arms about her new friend’s neck in great distress.
“I mean exactly what I say. I’m an old offender, I’ve been there before and ought to know better. I did like you so! Well, never mind! The milk is spilled and no use crying about it!”
Dorothy was surprised to see tears suddenly fill Winifred’s eyes and to feel her clinging arms gently loosened. Under all her affected indifference, the girl was evidently suffering, but as evidently resented having sympathy shown her; so the new pupil made no further comment, but asked:
“Do we have supper before that lecture? and should I dress before the supper?”
“Huh! There’ll be no supper for you nor me this night! And I’m just ravenous hungry! Why was I such a fool as to dance that jig instead ofeating that pudding and beans? Yorkshire pudding’s just delicious, if it’s made right, and the Dame’s looked better even than ourchef’s. If one could only look ahead in this world, how wise one would be, ’specially in the matter of suppers! Well, good-by, Queenie, with aching heart from you I part; when shall we meet again? Ah! me! When?”
With a gesture of despair, half-comical, half-serious, the older girl dashed down the corridor and Dorothy turned slowly toward her own little room. There she found her luggage unpacked, her frocks and shoes neatly arranged in the wardrobe, underclothing in the small bureau, her toilet things on the tiny dressing table, and the fresh suit she had been asked to put on spread out upon the bed.
It was all very cosy and comfortable, or would have been if she hadn’t been so hungry. However, she had hardly begun undressing before Dawkins appeared with a small tray of sandwiches and milk, explaining:
“Supper’s long past, Miss Dorothy, but the Principal bade me bring this. Also, if there’s time before lecture, you are to go to her private parlor to speak with her. I’ll help you and ’twill make the time seem shorter.”
“Thank you, Dawkins, that’s sweet and kind of you; but—but I don’t feel any great hurry aboutdressing. Maybe Miss Tross-Kingdon’ll be better-natured—I mean not so cross—Oh! dear, you know what I mean, don’t you, dear Dawkins?”
“Sure, lassie, I know you have a deal more fear of the Lady Principal ’an you need. She’s that just kind of a person one can always trust.”
“I reckon I don’t like ‘just’ people. I like ’em real plainkind. I—I don’t like to be found fault with.”
“Few folks do so like; especially them as deserves it. But you will love Miss Muriel better ’an anybody at Oak Knowe afore the year’s out. Only them that has lived with her knows her. I do know. A better woman never trod shoe leather, and so you’ll find. Now, you’ve no time to waste.”
Nor was any wasted, though Dorothy would gladly have postponed the Principal’s further acquaintance till another day. She found the lady waiting and herself welcomed by a gracious word and smile. Motioning to a low seat beside her own chair, Miss Muriel began:
“You are looking vastly improved, Dorothy, since you’ve taken off your rain-soaked clothes. I hope you haven’t taken cold. Have you felt any chill?”
“Thank you, Miss Tross-Kingdon, none at all. Winifred says I will soon get used to rain, and she doesn’t mind it in the least. She says she likes it.”
The Lady Principal’s expression altered to one of sadness rather than anger, at the mention of the other girl, but she did not criticise her in words.
“My dear little Dorothy, I sent for you to explain some things about Oak Knowe which you do not understand. We try to make our rules as few and lenient as possible, but such as do exist we rigidly enforce. Where there are three hundred resident and day pupils gathered under one roof, there is need for regular discipline, and, in general, we have little trouble. What we do have sometimes comes from ignorance, as in your case to-night. Your taking so long a walk without a chaperon, and paying a social visit without permission, was a direct trespass upon our authority. So, to prevent any future mistakes, I have prepared you a list of what you may and may not do. Keep this little notebook by you until you have grown familiar with Oak Knowe life. Also, you will find copies of our regulations posted in several places upon the walls.
“And now that we have finished ‘business’ for the present, let us talk of something pleasanter. Tell me about that ‘Aunt Betty’ of yours, whom our good Bishop lauds so highly.”
Vastly relieved that the dreaded “scolding” had been so mild and Miss Tross-Kingdon so really kind, Dorothy eagerly obeyed, and was delighted tosee a real interest in this wonderful aunt showing in the teacher’s face.
But her enthusiastic description of Mrs. Calvert was rudely interrupted by a childish scream and little Millikins-Pillikins flying wildly into the room, to spring into Miss Muriel’s lap and hide her face on the lady’s shoulder, begging:
“Don’t you let him! Don’t you let him! Oh! Auntie, don’t you!”
“Why, darling, what is this? What sent you out of bed, just in your nightgown? What has frightened you?”
“The debbil!”
“Grace! What wicked word is that you speak?”
“It was,it was!I seen him! He come—set on my feet—an’—an’—Oh! Auntie Prin, you hold me close. ’Cause he was a talkin’ debbil. He come to cotch me—he said it, yes he did.”
Miss Tross-Kingdon was as perplexed as horrified. That little Grace, her orphan niece and the dearest thing in life to her, should speak like this and be in such a state was most amazing.
For a few seconds she did hold the little one “close” and in silence, tenderly stroking the small body and folding her own light shawl about it, and gradually its trembling ceased, the shuddering sobs grew fainter and fewer and the exhausted little maid fell fast asleep. Just then the clock on the mantelchimed for eight and Miss Muriel’s place was in assembly, on the platform with the famous lecturer who had come to do her great school honor. She must go and at once.
Dorothy, watching, saw the struggle in the aunt’s mind depicted on her face. With a tender clasp of the little one she put her own desire aside and turned to duty; and the girl’s own heart warmed to the stately woman as she had not believed it ever could.
Dawkins had prophesied: “You’ll love Miss Muriel, once you know her,” but Dorothy had not believed her. Yet here it was coming true already!
“Dorothy, will you please ring for a maid to look after Grace? Wake up, darling, Auntie Prin must go.”
The child roused as her aunt spoke, but when she attempted to put her down and rise, the frantic screams broke out afresh, nor would she submit to be lifted by the maid who promptly came. Miss Muriel’s bell was not one to be neglected!
“No, no, no! I shan’t—I won’t—the deb—”
“Not that word, sweetheart, never again!” warned the Lady Principal, laying her finger on Grace’s lips. “Go nicely now with Dora, and make no trouble.”
“No, no, no!” still screamed Grace: her flushed face and feverish appearance sending fresh alarm to her aunt’s heart.
“Why, look here, Millikins! I’m Dorothy. The ‘sleepy-head’ you came to wake up this morning. Won’t you go withme, dear? If Auntie Prin says ‘yes,’ I’ll take you back to bed, and if you’ll show me where.”
Millikins looked long and steadily at Dolly’s appealing arms, then slowly crept into them.
“Pretty! Millikins’ll go with pretty Dorothy!”
So they went away, indeed a “pretty” sight to the anxious aunt. Dorothy’s white gown and scarlet ribbons transformed her from the rain-and-mud-bespattered girl of a few hours before, while her loving interest in the frightened child banished all fear and homesickness from her own mobile face.
Little Grace’s room was a small one opening off from Miss Muriel’s, and as soon as the lecture was over and she was free, she took Dr. Winston with her to see the child. Her dark little face was still very flushed, but she was asleep, Dorothy also. The girl had drawn a chair close to the child’s cot and sat there with an arm protectingly thrown over her charge: and now a fresh anxiety rose in the Lady Principal’s heart.
“Oh! Doctor, what if it should be something contagious? I don’t see why I didn’t think of that before. Besides, I sacrificed Miss Calvert’s opportunity to hear the lecture for Grace’s sake. How could I have been so thoughtless!”
“Well, Madam, I suppose because you are human as well as a schoolma’am, and love for your niece stronger than training. But don’t distress yourself. I doubt if this is anything more than a fit of indigestion. That would account, also, for the imaginary visit of a goblin, which terrified the little one. However, it might be well to isolate Miss Dorothy for a day or so, in case anything serious develops.”
By that time Dorothy was awake and sat up listening to this conversation; and when the doctor explained to her that this isolation meant that she must live quite apart from the schoolmates she so desired to know, she was bitterly disappointed.
“I haven’t been here more than twenty-four hours, yet it seems as if more unpleasant things have happened than could anywhere else in a lifetime,” she complained to Dawkins, who had come to arrange another cot for her to use and to bring the needed articles from her own little cubicle.
“Ah, lassie! When you’ve lived as long as me you’ll learn ’t a ‘lifetime’ is a goodish long spell: and if so be you can’t mix with your mates for a little few days, more’s the blessing that’s yours, alongside as you’ll be of the Lady Principal. Now, say your prayers and hop into this fine bed I’ve fixed for you, and off to Noddle Island quick as wink. Good night and sleep well.”
Surely our Dorothy had the gift of winning hearts, and other Oak Knowe girls with whom Dawkins exchanged scant speech would have been astonished by the kindly gossip with this newcomer. Also, the maid’s belief that Dorothy’s intercourse with the Lady Principal would be delightful was well founded. Miss Muriel was grateful to her pupil for her patience with troublesome Grace, and regretful that her isolation from her mates had come about in just this wise.
However, Dr. Winston had been right. Millikins-Pillikins had been allowed the run of the house and, like most children, found its kitchen its most attractive place. There her sharp tongue and amusing capers furnished amusement for the servants, who rewarded her with all sorts of “treats” and sweetmeats. The result was natural, but what was not so natural was her persistent declaration that she had been visited by an evil spirit.
“I did so see him, Auntie Princie! He had big whitey eyes, and his head was all red—”
“No more, darling. Say no more. Just play with your blocks. See what sort of house you can build, or—”
“Auntie Prin, I dohateblocks! And you don’t believe me. Did Millikins ever tell you a wrong story in her whole life?”
“No, darling, not to my knowledge. I’m proudto know you are a very truthful little girl. But even such candreamqueer things. Ask Dorothy to play for you and me. You know this is the last day she’ll be shut up here and I’d like to hear some music.”
Dorothy laid down her book and went to fetch her violin, but the self-willed Grace would have none of that. Stamping her foot, she imperiously cried:
“No, no, no! She shall come with me and seek that old debbil. She shall so. He had hornses and his face—”
“Grace Adelaide Tross-Kingdon! if you disobey me again by mentioning that subject, I shall send for the Bishop and brother Hugh and see what they can do with you. Do you want to be disgraced before them?”
The little girl pondered that question seriously. She could not understand why telling the truth should disgrace anybody. She loved the Bishop and fairly idolized her big brother Hugh. Her Aunt Muriel was more angry with the child than ever before in her short life and Millikins fully realized this fact.
“I’m sorry, Auntie Prin. I’m sorrier than ever was. I hate them two should think I was bad and I wish—I wish you wouldn’t not for to tell ’em. I isn’t bad, you only think so. ’Cause it’s the truthiest truth, Ididsee him. He had—”
Miss Tross-Kingdon held up a warning hand and her face was sterner than any pupil had ever seen it. Such would have quailed before it, but Millikins-Pillikins quailed not at all. Rising from the carpet, where she had been sitting, she planted her sturdy legs apart, folded her arms behind her and unflinchingly regarded her aunt. The midget’s defiant attitude made Dorothy turn her head to hide a smile, while the little girl reiterated:
“I did see him. I have to tell the truth all times. You said so and I have to mind. I did see that debbil. He lives in this house. When my brother Hugh comes, he shall go with me to hunt which room he lives in, and the Bishop shall preach at him the goodest and hardest he can. This isn’t no badness, dear, angry Auntie Prin; it is the truthiest truth and when you see him, too, you’ll believe it. If Hugh would come—”
Miss Tross-Kingdon leaned back in her chair and threw out her hand in a gesture of despair. What made her darling so incorrigible?
“Oh! I wish he would come, I certainly wish he would! This thing is beyond me or anything in my experience. I almost begin to believe that Bible days have returned and you are possessed of the evil spirit.”
Millikins-Pillikins returned to her play in supreme indifference. She knew what she knew. Couldn’ta body believe one’s own eyes? Didn’t thechefoften say that “Seeing is believing,” when the scullery maid stole the raisins and he found them in her pocket? She couldn’t help Auntie Prin being stupid; and—
“Oh, oh, oh! Hughie’s come! Hughie’s come! Oh! you darling brother boy, let’s go and seek that debbil!”
The youth who entered and into whose arms his little sister had sprung, held her away from him and gasped. Then answered merrily:
“That gentleman doesn’t belong in good society, kiddie. It’s not good form even to mention him. I’d rather go the other way.”
Then he set her gently down and turned to acknowledge his aunt’s introduction to Dorothy. He was well used to meeting the Oak Knowe girls, but wondered a little at finding one at this hour in the Lady Principal’s private parlor. As he opened his lips to address some courteous remark to her, a shriek of utter terror rang through the house and a housemaid burst unceremoniously in, white and almost breathless, yet managing to say:
“Oh! Ma’am, I’m leavin’—I’m leavin’ the now! Sure, ’tis a haunted house and Satan hisself dwells in it!”
There had, indeed, been strange happenings at Oak Knowe. Beginning on that first day of Dorothy’s life there, with the crash outside the dining-room door. That had been caused by the tripping and falling with a loaded tray of one of the best waitresses employed. Afterward it was discovered that a wire had been stretched across the doorway, low down near to the floor, and not easily noticeable in the dim passage. Who had done this thing?
Miss Tross-Kingdon paid scant attention to the incident, apparently, although she caused a very thorough investigation to be secretly made. Nothing came of it.
Matters went so wrong in the servants’ quarters that they became demoralized and several threatened to leave. Thefts from one and another were frequent; yet as often the missing article was found in some unusual place where, as Dawkins declared:
“Nobody but a crazy person would ha’ puttin’ it.”
One morning thechef’sspotless marble molding-boardwas found decorated by a death’s-head and bones, done in red paint, and his angry accusations of his fellow-workers brought the Lady Principal to the kitchen to restore peace. But peace did not last long. The head laundress, who personally “did up” the finest pieces in “the wash,” found her pile of them deluged with blueing, so that her work had to be done all over again. These were but samples of the strange happenings; and though most of the servants had been so long at Oak Knowe that they considered it their real home, some of the most loyal to its interests felt they couldn’t endure this state of things much longer.
Then had come the fright of little Grace, followed by that of the housemaid, whom no arguments could calm, and who rushed out of Miss Muriel’s parlor as she rushed into it, departing that hour for good and all and to spread far and near ill reports of the great school.
However, after that day nothing further happened. At a secret meeting of the faculty it was decided to take no outward notice of these disturbances, but to keep silent watch until such a time as the culprit, or culprits, should betray themselves.
“He or she is bound to do so, after a time. There’s always a hitch somewhere in such mischievous schemes and nothing worse than mortal hands has performed this ‘witch work,’” said theBishop calmly, though vexed that such foolishness could be found at his beloved Oak Knowe.
Then for many days the disturbances ceased.
Dorothy fell into the daily life of the school with all her heart, making friends with her mates in her own Form and even with some of the older girls. Best of all, she had lost all fear of the Lady Principal, whose heart she had won by her devotion to little Millikins. She even begged forgiveness for Winifred, against whom the teacher still felt some resentment; saying to Dolly:
“It isn’t what she did—in itself—so much as her broken trust. She has been with me so long, she has been taught so constantly, that I feel indignant at her deception. Anything but deception, Dorothy. Remember that a treacherous person is more to be feared than an openly wicked one.”
“But, dear Miss Muriel, Winifred will never cheat again. Never, I know. She won’t go off bounds a step now, even though her ‘restriction’s’ taken off. And she keeps away from me till she makes me feel dreadfully. Says she doesn’t want to ‘contaminate’ and get me into trouble again. Please let her go nutting this afternoon with Miss Aldrich’s class.”
“Very well. She may go.”
“One thing more, Miss Tross-Kingdon. When may I, may we, go to see Robin?”
The lady smiled. A sudden memory of the scene upon which she had entered that rainy evening of her first visit to the cottage amused her, and she answered graciously:
“Probably on Saturday, if you wish. Though I am still doubtful whether your guardians would approve.”
“I can answer for them, dear Miss Muriel. They are just the kind that would like me to go. Some of Aunt Betty’s dearest friends are very poor. She finds them honester and more generous than the rich ones. As for darling Uncle Seth, he learned to be a regular blacksmith, just so he could live among them on ‘even terms,’ he said. Yet he’s the wisest, best man in all the world.”
In the Lady Principal’s private opinion he was also the most eccentric; but she did not dash Dorothy’s enthusiasm further than to say:
“To me it seems wisest to content one’s self with the station in which one has been born. To step aside from the normal path in life—”
Foreseeing a “lecture,” Dorothy interrupted:
“Beg pardon, Miss Muriel, but there’s Win yonder this minute, walking with her head down as if she were worrying. She thought her father was coming home next week and he isn’t, and she’s so disappointed. She’s reading his letter over again. She said, when I asked her why she was so blue,that it didn’t seem like home here any longer with you offended, and he wasn’t coming, and she had no real home anywhere. Oh! you needn’t be afraid of darling Win doing anything crooked again. Do love her and take her back into your trust, and may I go now to tell her she can go nutting and about Saturday, and may I hurry up?”
Without waiting an instant longer, Dorothy took permission for granted and ran out of the house. In reality, she had grieved far more over Winifred’s punishment, by being kept on bounds and denied some other privileges, than that lively young person had herself.
Winifred was ashamed, but she wasn’t unhappy. Only now this letter of her father’s, and the longing to see him, had sobered her greatly. Yet she was ready enough for the next amusement that might offer and looked up eagerly as Dorothy ran towards her across the lawn, crying:
“Don’t look so forlorn, Win! We can go—you can go—”
“They can go!” finished the other, her mood quickly changing at sight of Dorothy’s beaming face. “Where can they go, how can they go, when can they go, Teacher?”
“Nutting, with Miss Aldrich’s class. On their feet. With baskets and bags and the boot-boy with poles to thresh the trees and carry the nuts! and onSaturday to old John’s cottage to hear the Robin sing!”
“Oh! do you mean it? Do you? Then I know I’m all right with Miss Muriel again and I must go and thank her.”
Away hurried the impulsive girl and in the Lady Principal’s room was presently an interview that was delightful to both. For in her heart, beneath a cold manner, Miss Tross-Kingdon kept a warm love for this wild pupil of hers; and was as ready to believe in Winifred’s promises as the girl was to make them.
The late autumn day was uncommonly fine. Not only Miss Aldrich, but most of the other teachers, were to take their classes to a distant forest on their annual nutting excursion, from which, this year, Winifred had felt she would be excluded. Miss Aldrich was not her own class director, but the girls in it were her especial friends and belonged to her gymnasium class. They were all “Commons,” except Marjorie Lancaster, a gentle little “Peer,” whom haughty Gwendolyn kept well reminded of her rank.
“I don’t like your being so chummy with those girls, and, worst of all, with that Dorothy Calvert. She’s a pert sort of girl, with no manner at all. Why, Marjorie, I’ve seen her leaning against the Bishop just as if he were a post!The Bishop, mind you!”
“Well, if he wanted her to, what harm, Gwen? Somebody said he knew her people over in the States and that’s why she was sent away up here to his school. I like her ever so much. She’s so full of fun and so willing to help a girl, any girl, with her lessons. She learns so easy and I’m so stupid!” protested Marjorie, who was, indeed, more noted for her failures than her successes at recitations.
“But I don’t like it. If you must have an intimate, why not choose her from ‘our set’?”
“The ‘Commons’ are lots jollier. They’re not all the time thinking about their clothes, or who’s higher ranked than another. I’m thankful I belong with the Aldrich ten. We have splendid times.”
Gwendolyn sighed. She found it very difficult to keep many of her “set” up to their duty as peers of the realm. “Class distinction” fell from her nimble tongue a dozen times a day in reprimands to other “Peers” who would hobnob with untitled schoolmates despite all she could do; and now to preserve Marjorie from mingling too much with the “Commons,” she declared:
“Well, if you won’t come with us, I shall go with you. My director will let me. She always does let me do about as I like. She’s lots more agreeable than the Lady Principal, who ought to appreciate what I try to do for the good of the school. WhenI told her how Florita Sheraton had complained she just couldn’t get enough to eat here, she was cross as two sticks and said: ‘Gwendolyn, if you are a real Honorable, you’ll not descend to tale-bearing!’ Hateful thing. And she comes of a titled family, too, somebody said. Yes, I’m sure my teacher will let me.”
“Even a worm will turn,” and mild little Marjorie murmured under her breath:
“I wish she wouldn’t! But, of course, she will, ’cause it’s the easiest way to get along. Yet you’ll spoil sport—sure!”
But the Honorable Gwendolyn Borst-Kennard was already moving away to announce her intention to her greatly relieved director. For it was usually the case, that wherever this young aristocrat went, trouble followed; for, like the ‘twelfth juryman,’ she never could understand why the ‘eleven contrary ones’ didn’t agree withhim.
Nobody stayed at Oak Knowe, that day, who was able to join this outing: and when nearly three hundred girls take the road, they are a goodly sight worth seeing. Each had been provided with her own little parcel of lunch packed in the small basket that was to be carried home full of nuts, and each carried a stout alpenstock, such as the experienced teachers had found a help on their pupils’ long walks.
“A walk that is less than five miles long is no walk at all for healthy girls,” had been Dr. Winston’s remark; adding, for the Lady Principal’s ear alone: “That’ll take the kinks out of them and they’ll give you less trouble, skylarking. Teach them the art of walking and let them go!”
To escape Gwendolyn, Marjorie had hurried to the fore of her “Ten” and slipped her arm into Winifred’s, who had expected Dorothy instead. But she couldn’t refuse Marjorie’s pleading:
“Don’t look like you didn’t want me, Winnie dear. Gwen is bound so to take care of me and I don’t need her care. I don’t see any difference between you ‘Commons’ and we ‘Peers’ except that you’re nicer.”
“Why, of course, I want you, Marjorie. Can you see Dorothy Calvert anywhere behind? It’s so narrow here and the hedge so thick I can’t look back.”
From her outer place and lower height Marjorie could stoop and peer around the curve, and gleefully cried:
“Of all things! The girls have paired off so as to leave Gwen and Dolly together at the very end! Another class is so close behind they can’t change very well and I wonder what Gwendolyn will do!”
“I’m sorry for Dolly, but she’ll get on. Gwen has pretended not to see her so many times thatDorothy can hardly put up with it. Under all her good nature she has a hot temper. You’d ought to have seen her pitch into one of the scullery boys for tormenting a cat. And she said once that she’d make Gwendolyn like her yet or know the reason why. Now’s her chance to try it! It’s all that silly imagination of Gwen’s that makes her act so. Made up her mind that Dolly is a ‘charity’ girl, when anybody with common sense would know better. There are some at Oak Knowe, course: we all know that, for it’s one of the Bishop’s notions he must give any girl an education who wants it and can’t pay for it. But I don’t know which ones are; do you?”
“No, indeed! And if I did, I’d never let them know I knew.”
“Of course you wouldn’t. No gentlewoman would, except that stuck-up Gwen. Her mother, Lady Jane’s so different. She’s almost as jolly and simple as her brother, Dr. Winston. But her Honorable young daughter just makes me tired! Peek again. What are they doing now?”
“The ‘Peer’ is walking like a soldier on parade, stiff as can be, thumping her alpenstock up and down plumpety-plump, hard as nails. But Dorothy seems to be chattering away like a good one!”
Winifred stooped and peered between the bobbing rows of girls and branches of trees and caught Dorothy’seye, to whom she beckoned: “Forward!” But Dorothy smilingly signaled “No!”
“Well,oneof that pair is happy, but it isn’t Lady Jane’s daughter! I fancy we’d best leave them to ‘fight it out on that line,’” decided Winifred, facing about again. “I know Queen Baltimore will down Honorable England at the end.”
Despite her own stiffness, Dorothy’s continued chatter at last began to interest Gwendolyn, and the perfect good nature with which she accepted the marked coldness of the haughty girl to make her ashamed. Also, she was surprised to see how the girl from the States enjoyed the novelty of everything Canadian. The wild flowers especially interested her, and Gwendolyn was compelled to admire the stranger’s love and knowledge of growing things.
With more decency than she had hitherto shown, she finally asked:
“However did you come to know so much botany, Miss Calvert?”
“Why, my Uncle Seth, the Blacksmith, taught me; he lived in the woods and loved them to that degree—my heart! he would no sooner hurt a plant than a person! He was that way. Some people are, who make friends of little things. And he was so happy, always, in his smithy under the Great Tree, which people from all the countryside came to see, it was so monstrous big. Oh! I wish youcould see dear Uncle Seth, sitting at the smithy door, reading or talking to the blacksmith inside at the anvil, a man who worked for him and adored him.”
The Honorable Gwendolyn stiffened again, and walked along in freezing silence. She would have joined some other girl ahead, but none invited her, and she was too proud to beg for a place beside those who should have felt it an honor to have her. Besides, pride kept her to her place in the rear.
“Huh! I’ll show this Yankee farrier’s niece that I am above caring who is near me. But it’s horrid to be forced into such a position and I wish I hadn’t come. Goodness! how her tongue runs! And now what freak sets her ‘Oh-ing!’ and ‘Ah-ing!’ that style?” ran Gwendolyn’s thoughts, and she showed her annoyance by asking:
“Miss Calvert, will you oblige me by not screaming quite so loud? It’s wretched form and gets on my nerves, for I’m not used to that sort of thing.”
“Neither am I!” laughed Dorothy; “but you see, I never saw anything so lovely as that glimpse before. I couldn’t help crying out—we came upon it so suddenly. Do see yonder!”
Her finger pointed westward, then was promptly drawn back, as she admitted:
“Pointing is ‘bad form,’ too, I’ve been taught. But do look—do look! It’s just like fairyland!”
Gwendolyn did look, though rather against her will, and paused, as charmed as Dorothy, but in a quieter fashion. She was a considerable artist and her gift in painting her one great talent. Oddly enough, too, she cared less for the praise of others than for the delight of handling her brush.
Beyond, a sudden break in the thick wood revealed a tumbling waterfall, descending from a cliff by almost regular steps into a sunlit pool below. Bordering it on both sides were trees of gorgeous coloring and mountain ashes laden with their brilliant berries; while a shimmering vapor rose from the pool beneath, half veiling the little cascade, foaming white upon the rocks.
For a moment Gwendolyn regarded the scene in silence but with shining eyes and parted lips. Then she exclaimed:
“The very spot we’ve searched for so often and never found! ‘The Maiden’s Bath,’ it’s called. I’ve heard about it so much. The story is that there was an Indian girl so lovely and pure that it was thought a mortal sin for mortal eyes to look upon her. She had devoted herself to the service of the Great Spirit and, to reward her, He formed this beautiful Bath for her use alone, hid it so deep in the heart of the forest that no one could find it but she. There was but one trail which led to it and—we’ve found it, we’ve found it! Hurry up! Come.”
Dorothy stared. Here seemed a new Gwendolyn, whose tongue ran quite as rapidly as her own had ever done, and whose haughty face was now transformed by eager delight. As the young artist ran forward toward the spot, Dolly noticed that no other girl was in sight. They two had turned a little aside from the smoother path which the rest had taken, Dorothy following the lure of some new wild flower and Gwendolyn stiffly following her. Only a minute before the chatter and laughter of many girls had filled the air; now, save for their own footsteps on the fallen leaves, there was no sound.
“I wonder where the rest are! Did you see which way they went, Gwendolyn?”
“No. I didn’t notice. But they’re just around the next turn, I fancy. Oh! to think I’ve found the Bath at last. I must make a little sketch of it and come back as soon as I can with my color box. How the studio girls will envy me! Every time we’ve been in these woods we’ve searched for it and now to come upon it all at once, never dreaming, makes me proud! But—don’t you tell. I’d begun something else for next exhibition, but I shall drop that and do this. I’ll get leave to do it in my recreation hours in some empty class room, and bring it out as a surprise. I wish I’d found it alone. I wish nobody knew it but me. It must be kept a secret—so don’t you dare to tell. Come on.”
“Huh! I reckon if you’ll stick to facts, it was I—not you—who found it. I don’t see why I should keep it secret. It doesn’t belong to either of us, it belongs to the whole world. I wish everybody who loves beauty could enjoy it,” answered Dorothy, warmly.
“Well, go tell then, tattle-tale! You might know a common girl like you would be hateful to her betters, if she got a chance!” retorted Gwendolyn, angrily.
It rose to Dorothy’s lips to respond: “Tattle-tale and mischief-maker is what all the girls knowyouare!” but she kept the hard words back, “counting ten” vigorously, and also listening for some sound of her now invisible schoolmates. She wasn’t a timid girl, but the silence of this deep forest startled her, nor looking around could she discover by what path they had come to this place.
Then Gwendolyn was hurrying forward, carrying the pocket-pad and pencil without which she went nowhere, and careless of everything but to get her sketch. So Dorothy followed, forgetting her resentment in watching her companion. To see Gwen’s head turning this way, then that, squinting her eyes and holding her pencil before them, measuring distance thus and seeking the “right light,” interested the watcher for the time.
Finally, the artist had secured a point whichsuited her and, seating herself, rapidly drew a picture of one view. She worked so deftly and confidently, that Dorothy’s only feeling now was one of admiration.
Then a new position was sought and another sketch made, but Gwen permitted no talk between them.
“I can’t work and talk, too; please be still, can’t you?” she asked, looking up from her work.
And again the real earnestness of the girl she disliked made Dorothy obedient, again rising to follow while Gwen chose another view still, high up near the top of the wonderful cascade. Her face had grown pink and animated and her eyes glowed with enthusiasm.
“I shall paint that misty-veil with a glaze of ultramarine. There should be an underwash of madder, and maybe terre verte. Oh! if I can only make it look one atom as I see it! We must come here again and again, you and I, Miss Calvert, and you must—you simplymustkeep the secret of our finding till after I’ve exhibited my picture.”
“All right. How long will it be before we can go find the others? you know we can’t gather any nuts right here. I don’t see a single nut tree.”
“I don’t know how long I shall be, and why care about nuts while we can have—this?” returned Gwen, indifferently.
“Very well, I guess I’ll take a nap. Seems terrible close in this shut-in nook and my walk has made me sleepy. I reckon I’ll take a nap. Wake me up when you get through.”
So saying, Dorothy curled down upon a mass of mighty ferns, laid her head on her arm and went to sleep. For how long she never knew, but her awakening was sudden and startling. She had been roused from a dream of Bellevieu, her Baltimore home, and of dear Aunt Betty feeding her pets, the Great Danes.
Brushing the slumber from her eyes, she gazed about her, wondering for an instant, where she was. Then—that frantic shriek again: