200CHAPTER XXIX.WOMEN’S WORK.
The Christmas holidays being over, the young ladies returned slowly, and many of them reluctantly, to the school.
A few left for good; some of them on their own account, some at the request of the principal. New pupils took their places, and almost at once the regular routine of work began.
Miss Ashton in one of her short morning talks told them, while the past term had been in many respects a satisfactory one, there had been several occurrences which she should be sorry to see repeated. It would not be necessary for her to enumerate them; they were well known to the old pupils, and for the new ones, she sincerely hoped there would be no occasion for them ever to hear of them.
There were now some important things, upon strict attendance to which she should insist during the remainder of the year.
One was, a more honest observance of the study hours; another, less gossip: perhaps she should be better understood if she said a higher tone of social intercourse. A thing never to be forgotten was,201that the school-life was a preparation for the longer one beyond, and that, a preparation for the one that never ends.
“Sometimes,” she said, dropping into that hushed tone which every girl in the remotest seat from her desk heard so easily, “I think our lives are but the school in which we all have set lessons to learn, set tasks to perform; and our wise Teacher, so patient, so gentle, so loving with us, when the great examination day comes, will hold us strictly accountable for every slighted lesson, for every neglected duty.
“If I could only impress upon you to-day how vitally important here and hereafter the faithful discharge of even your smallest duties may be to you, I should know that when our year together is over, and I part from many of you for the last time, I should meet you again as ‘crowns of my rejoicing.’
“I need hardly say, certainly not to the more intelligent, who would naturally gather information of this kind, how varied and important a woman’s work in life has grown to be. You are all more or less familiar with the fact that we have now entrance into the best colleges, both here and abroad. You know how we are educated for every profession, and to what eminence many of us have climbed. You understand fully, that there is not a position in the literary, business, mechanical, or art world in which to-day a woman may not be found working successfully.
“You know, too, that where prizes have been offered202in academical institutions, no matter for what object, it is by no means an uncommon thing for it to be awarded to a girl. Last week a class of fourteen women were graduated from the law department of the University of the City of New York. It is said to be the first law class exclusively of women that has ever been graduated.
“Two female medical graduates have been appointed house surgeons at two English hospitals. A society has been incorporated in New York entitled the ‘Colonial Dames of America,’ and to be located in New York City.
“Its objects are set forth to be, to collect manuscripts, traditions, relics, and mementoes of by-gone days for preservation; to commemorate the history and success of the American Revolution and consequent birth of the republic of the United States; to diffuse healthful and intelligent information with regard to American history, and tending to create a popular interest therein, and to inspire patriotism and love of country; to promote social interest and fellowship among its members, and to inculcate among the young the obligations of patriotism and reverence for the founders of American constitutional liberty.
“A number of prominent ladies are included in the list of officers.
“In this connection I will read you a short article I found in my morning paper; and here, let me say, there is not a girl in the school who should not in203some way manage to spend a half-hour every day in looking over a newspaper.
“I have heard intelligent gentlemen complain of the ignorance of women about the ordinary public life.
“‘They will talk to you,’ they say, ‘about housekeeping and servants: they grow eloquent over their children, and sometimes their husbands; but take them out of the region of home, and they are dull company.’
“The exceptions of those who are up in the literary, political, scientific, and socialistic world is infinitely small, and all—all because they will not take the trouble to make themselves intelligent on the great questions of the day, by reading newspapers.”
To go on, however, with what women are doing.
“The New Women’s Propylæum, in Indianapolis, Indiana, is now completed, and was dedicated January 27.
“This building bears the distinction of being the first one erected by women not associated as a club or society. Primarily, its use is for purely business purposes, and secondly, with an educational object in view. Six or seven women, with Mrs. May Wright Sewall at the head, have raised the money and carried out the project. It seemed at first to the public generally like a wild scheme, but the women who had the matter in hand knew just what they wanted, and made every effort to carry out their plans successfully. The board of managers is made up of fifteen women.204
“Mrs. Sewall says, ‘The building of the Propylæum has been to all of us a valuable experience. We have been obliged to meet business men, and to familiarize ourselves with business methods, and have thus acquired an education unusual to women. The lot has a frontage of seventy-five feet, and a depth of sixty-seven feet. The building contains twenty-one rooms, there being two stories above an English basement. The lot cost $5,500, and the building complete $22,500, making a total of $28,000; and $2,000 has been put into furniture. The front of the Propylæum is of ashlar and rock-face work, and it is pronounced a very beautiful structure. The women take special pride in the kitchen, which is complete in every respect. In the front basement are two sets of doctors’ offices, both of which were rented long ago; one set to Dr. Maria Gates, and the other to Dr. Mary Smith. Dr. Gates is a graduate of the Chicago Medical College, and Dr. Smith of the Michigan University. The latter is physician at the female prison and reformatory.
“‘The east parlor is rented by the Woman’s Club, the Matinée Musicale, the Indianapolis Art Association, and the Contemporary Club, each of which has arranged to meet on such occasions that they will not interfere with each other. The west parlor is rented for physical culture classes, and to the Christian scientists for their Sunday meetings. The assembly hall will be for rent for entertainments.’205
“This is interesting, as showing what an active, intelligent set of women have done.
“Perhaps some day I shall be receiving newspaper notices of even more important and successful work accomplished by some of my pupils. Here is an interesting notice of women as inventors: ‘Within the last century, women have entered for the first time in the history of the world as competitors with men in the field of original contrivances. In the last two years and a half they have secured from the government exclusive rights in five hundred machines and other devices. In the line of machinery, pure and simple, the patent-office reports show they have exhibited great inventive capacity. Among remarkable patents of theirs, are patents for electrical lighting, noiseless elevated roads, apparatus for raising sunken vessels, sewing-machine motors, screw propellers, agricultural tools, spinning-machines, locomotive wheels, burglar alarms.
“‘Quite a sensation has been caused among the clerks in the New York post-office by the entrance of seven young women into the money-order department as clerks during the last month. The girls obtained their positions by surpassing their male competitors at the civil-service examination, and will receive the same pay as male clerks.’
“Here is another that will interest the ambitiously literary among you:—
“‘Miss Kingsley, daughter of Charles Kingsley, has been awarded the decoration of the French206academic palms, with the grade of “officer of the academy,” for her valuable writings upon French art.’
“There seems, as you will notice from what I have read you, no bounds to what we women not only can do, but in which our success is generously allowed and honorably mentioned; but there are several things to which I may as well call your attention here.
“There is not now, there never has been, an honorable achievement, but it has been gained by steady, persevering effort. I think I could pick out from among the young ladies before me, those who in the future will be able to hold positions of trust and usefulness, perhaps renown; they are the girls who are true, honest workers, day in and day out, week in and week out. This honest work never has been, never will be, done where time is frittered away, where rules are broken, where those numberless little deceits which I am grieved to say many a girl who should be far above them sometimes practises; it requires a noble character to do noble work.
“I am desirous, particularly so, to impress upon you all to-day, as it is the beginning of our longest, hardest, and most important term of the year, the necessity for every one of you individually doing her best as a scholar, as a lady, and, let me add, what I wish I could feel sure you would strive for beyond all other claims, as a Christian. A true Christian is as good a scholar as her natural abilities allow, a lady she must be everywhere, and at every time.207
“In closing, I have one request to make of you; you will see, while it does not seem to bear immediately upon what I have been saying, there is a close connection.
“I want to turn your attention specially to women’s work in this nineteenth century. When you learn in a more extended manner than I have been able to give you this morning, what they have done, what they are doing, and what they expect to do, you will realize more fully your share in the life before you.
“In order that you may do this, at some not distant time, we will all meet in the parlor, and I shall expect every one of you to bring to me some account of this work. From two hundred of you, we ought to gather enough to make us not only proud of being women, but ambitious to be among the leaders of our sex.”
Then she dismissed the school.
208CHAPTER XXX.DECEIT.
Miss Ashton’s talk had an excellent influence upon the school. Even the wealthy girls felt there was something worth living for but society and fashion. A large proportion of the pupils were from families in moderate circumstances; to them avenues of access to power and influence were opened. To the poor, of whom there were not a few, help in its best sense was offered in ways that faithful diligence would make their own.
In just so far as Miss Ashton had made these two things, faithfulness and diligence, the ground-work of all success, she had given the true character to her school; and as the work of the term began with this demand upon the attention of the pupils, there was a fair prospect of its being the best of the year. The holidays had come and gone. Not a room in the large building but bore evidence of its wealth in Christmas gifts.
New books covered many of the girls’ tables, new pictures hung on their walls; chairs, old and faded, blossomed into new life with their head-rests, their pretty pillows and elaborate scarfs; ribbons of all colors decked lounges, tables, curtains; pen-wipers,209lay gracefully by the side of elegant ink-stands, perfume bottles stood onétagères, while the numbers of hand-painted toilet articles, articles to be used in spreads, bric-a-brac of all kinds and descriptions, it would have been hard to number.
Pretty, tasteful surroundings are as much a part of a girl’s true education as the severer curriculum that is offered to her in her studies, and Miss Ashton gave the influences of these Christmas gifts their full value when she weighed the harder work for the teachers which the vacation always brought.
To be sure, there came a time at the beginning of the term when the unwise parents were responsible for much bad work. Those of their children who had come back with boxes filled with Christmas luxuries—candies, pies, cakes, boxes of preserved fruits, nuts, raisins, and whatever would tempt them to eat out of time and place—had little chance to do well in the recitation-room until these were disposed of.
In truth, even more difficult, more of a hindrance in her school discipline, Miss Ashton often found the parents than their children.
She was sometimes obliged to say, “I could have done something with that girl if her mother had let her alone.” One fact had established itself in her experience, that almost every girl committed to her care had, in the home estimation of her character, traits which demanded in their treatment different discipline from that given to any of the others.210
She could have employed a secretary with profit, simply to answer letters relating to these prodigies, and nine out of ten proved to be only girls of the most common stamp, both for intellect and character.
Marion had spent her vacation time in a profitable manner. As mathematics was her most difficult study, so she had given her attention almost entirely to it; and even Miss Palmer, who was never good-natured when a pupil was advanced into one of her classes, and by so doing made her extra work, was obliged to confess she was now among her best scholars.
Thus encouraged, Marion received an impetus in all her other studies; and, of course, as good scholarship always will, this added to the influence which her sterling moral worth and kindly ways had already given her.
There was one dunce in her mathematical class who gave her great annoyance; it was Carrie Smyth, a Southern girl, into whose dull head no figures ever penetrated.
There was something really pitiable as she sat, book in hand, trying to puzzle out the simplest problem, and Marion often helped her, until Miss Palmer prohibited it.
“I will not allow it,” she said decidedly. “If Carrie cannot get her own lessons we ought to know it, and to treat her accordingly. Whatever assistance she needs, I prefer to give her myself.”211
Marion obeyed, and Carrie cried, but the consequences followed at once.
Carrie soon learned to copy from Marion’s slate whatever she needed, and, as Marion sat next her in the class, this was an easy thing to do; and as Miss Palmer, wisely, seldom asked Carrie any but the simplest questions, well knowing how useless any others would be, she escaped detection until, one day, grown bolder by her escapes, she copied from Marion more openly, Marion seeing her. That this might have happened once, but never would again, Marion felt quite sure; but what was her dismay, when she saw it continue day after day. She was ashamed to let Carrie know of her discovery, as many another noble girl has been under similar circumstances, but she knew well that it could not be allowed, and that to pretend ignorance of the fact was wrong.
She moved her seat, but, after staring at her blankly out of her dull eyes, Carrie moved hers to her side, and the class all laughed at this demonstration of affection; but Miss Palmer, who had taught long enough to know that it might mean something but affection, watched them. She had not long to do so before she discovered Carrie’s trick, Marion’s knowledge of it, and her embarrassment.
After recitation, she told them to remain, and when they were alone together she said,—
“Marion Parke! how long have you known that Carrie Smyth copied her sums off your slate?”212
Poor Marion! She looked at Miss Palmer, then at Carrie; the color came into her face, and the tears into her eyes, but she did not answer a word.
Miss Palmer repeated her question with much asperity. Still no answer, but two large tears on Marion’s cheeks.
“You do not choose to answer me” (a little more gently now): “I shall report your behavior to Miss Ashton. Carrie Smyth, how long have you been copying Marion’s sums, instead of doing your own?”
“I’ve—I’ve never copied them, Miss Palmer,” said Carrie, looking Miss Palmer boldly in the face.
“Carrie Smyth, I saw you do so!”
“I—I never did, never, Miss Palmer.Never!”
“Go to your room, Carrie Smyth. I am not surprised at your readiness to tell a falsehood; you have been acting one for weeks, and they are all the same, the acted and the spoken, in God’s sight. Go to your room and pray; ask God to forgive you.”
Then she opened a Bible which lay on a table near her, and in very solemn tones read these words, “‘But the fearful and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers’” (glancing off now in a threatening manner at Carrie), “‘and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.’”
Carrie turned very pale. If Miss Palmer had asked her for the truth again, she would have told it, but213she did not; she only motioned the girls from the room, and went herself to see Miss Ashton.
Incidents similar to this were not unusual in the school, and Miss Ashton always considered them the most painful and troublesome to deal with. She waited a day or two before taking any notice of it, then she sent for Marion, who went to her room with fear and trembling.
“Marion,” said Miss Ashton, beckoning to her to come and sit on the sofa beside her, “I am very sorry on your account that this has happened. It would have been better if you had told Miss Palmer as soon as you knew what Carrie was doing; better for her, for of course she was deceiving, and we know what that means; better for Miss Palmer, for she could form no just estimate of Carrie’s scholarship, for which she is responsible; and better for you, because, in a certain way, it made you a partaker in the deception.”
“O Miss Ashton! I could not tell on her; I could not,I could not!” exclaimed Marion.
“I understand you perfectly,” said wise Miss Ashton; “I only want you to see the situation as it is. If you had thought of it, you might have come to me. Everything of that kind I should know, then your responsibility would have ceased, and, without making a class matter of it, I could have influenced Carrie to do right.
“Now, if you fully understand me, run back to your lessons, only remember, in whatever perplexity214for the future you find yourself, I am the house mother, and you are all my children; you would not have hesitated to tell your mother if you had found any of your brothers or sisters doing wrong, should you?”
“No, ma’am; I should have gone to her at once.”
“And not felt that you were a tell-tale?”
“Not for a moment.”
“Just so, then, it is here; we are all one family, and there is nothing mean in reporting to me, more than to a mother. It’s the motive that prompts the telling that gives it its moral character. It is the noblest that can act wisely, and escape the odium of tell-tales; and, my dear Marion, I feel quite sure that for the future I can trust you.”
Marion went away with a light heart. “Trust me? of course she can,” she said to herself; “but I am so sorry for Carrie Smyth.”
Carrie, in truth, even after listening to the terrible denunciations Miss Palmer had read to her, was to be pitied for her moral as well as mental dulness. She went through the ordeal of her talk with Miss Ashton with far less feeling than Marion had shown; and the only punishment she minded was being put back into the class of beginners, and being told that the next time she was found doing anything of the kind, and told a falsehood about it, she would be expelled from school.
This, on the whole, she would have liked, for study was detestable to her, and there was nothing but the215ambition of her mother that made it seem necessary in her home surroundings.
Both Miss Palmer and Marion were delighted to have her leave the class. Marion kindly kept the reason for her having done so to herself, though many inquiries were made of her by the other scholars.
216CHAPTER XXXI.MARION’S LETTER FROM HOME.
Soon after the first of January, Marion received the following letter from her mother:—
“We have all been made so happy to-day, my dear child, by a letter from Miss Ashton. She writes us how well you have been doing, and how much attached to you she has become. All this we expected as a matter of course, but what delights and satisfies us most, is what she says of your religious influence in the school. We knew we were sending you into an untried life, that would be full of anxieties and temptations. With all the confidence we felt in you, we should hardly, no matter how great the literary advantages offered, have liked to put you where the character of your surroundings would have been less helpful; and to know that you, in your turn, are proving helpful to others, is indeed a great gratification. God bless, strengthen, and keep you, my darling, through this new year, is your loving mother’s prayer.
“It almost seems to me that we miss you more and more as time goes. Phil counts the weeks now until you come home, and I found the little ones busy doing a long sum on their slates, which, when they brought to me to see if it was right, I saw was to ascertain first, how many days before you came, and then, how many hours. Bennie told me that to-morrow they were to calculate the minutes, and then the seconds. I suppose they have, for I see them studying the clock very often, particularly the minute hand.
“So you see how we miss and long for you at home.
“Your father is busier than ever. He is truly a workman of whom his Master need not to be ashamed. He keeps well and happy. Deacon Simonds came in last night to ask him to have some extra meetings, as the Methodists were going to have an evangelist here, and217might draw away people from his church; but your father said in his gentle way, ‘The parish was not too large as yet for him to do all the work required, and if any of his people could be benefited by the evangelist, and should wish to unite with that church, he should wish them Godspeed.’ Then the deacon said something about the difficulty of raising the salary, which I minded more than your father. What a good, trusting man he is! Mrs. Hoppen ran in this noon with a large tin pan full of delicious doughnuts she had fried for us, and Hetty Sprague put two pumpkin-pies into my pantry window. Not a day passes but we are cared for in some way. I laugh, for it looks as if they thought now you are gone there was no one left to prepare goodies for the home. Tim Knowles dumped a load of coal into our cellar when your father was away, then came to the kitchen door and said,—
“‘Mis’ Parke, you tell the parson if he’ll keep up the fire of religion in the church, I’ll keep it up in his study stove, and it sha’n’t cost him a copper cent. We all d’ought to have ways of sarving the Lord, and this ‘ere is mine.’ Then he hurried away, without giving me a chance to even say ‘Thank you.’
“Sometimes it seems to me as if our whole parish felt as if you belonged to them, and they had sent you away to school, and were to pay your expenses, they are so wonderfully kind and thoughtful of us. Your sabbath-school class sent you their New Year’s gift yesterday; I know you will value it. Old Aunt Cutts is knitting you a pair of blue stockings; the dear old lady is taking so much comfort out of the work, that she has made them large enough for you to put both of your little feet into one; and Kate Sanders brought me her white feather to ask me if, now you had to dress stylish, I didn’t think you could make use of it. I thanked her, and told her that you were wearing a hat so small I was sure the feather was too large for it. I think it was quite a relief to her, for that soiled and bedraggled feather is to her still, ‘the apple of her eye.’
“So, my dear parish child, you have a great burden of responsibility to carry; but your mother knows how easily and how honorably it will be borne.”
Marion read this letter with a variety of feelings. It had never been the home way to make her religious218character a separate and distinct thing. It dominated the whole home-life. Do right,do right! She had almost never been told, do not do wrong, but always do right, and this meant simply and only, be a Christian. It was such a noble way to step upward from the beginning; not easy, oh, no, far from that, so often doing wrong in spite of precept and example, so often hesitating, until the delay weakened the power of doing right; yet so often, with hope and prayer to aid her, planting her foot firmly on the upper rung, singing as she went.
Since she had been in school her life had been so changed, such different temptations to do wrong, such different helps to do right, that she had thought little of her influence upon her companions. The letter of her mother was almost a shock, as, for the first time, it brought up to her what she felt had been her neglect.
All these months here, and what had she ever done or said that would tell for Jesus? Three room-mates; had she ever tried, from the first of her coming among them, to help them into a Christian life? To be sure they had their set times for private devotions, time required by the rules, when every pupil was expected to read her Bible, if nothing more. That they had all done, and Dorothy had “entered into her closet, and shut her door.” There could be no doubt that she had prayed to her Father which is in secret, and her Father which seeth in secret had rewarded her openly; for, often, when she came219back among them, her face had been so full of sweet peacefulness. “Dorothy’s influence has been the one for good, not mine,” Marion thought, with that true humility which is a Christian grace. As for Gladys, why she was Gladys, and there was no one like her. So generous and noble, so true and faithful; I must learn of her surely, not she of me; but Susan! It must be confessed, that in the busy days Marion had almost forgotten Susan’s dishonesty. She did not like her, often she found it hard to be even patient, much less kind, to her, and Susan was sometimes very trying. She could, and did, say many unkind words, “spites me,” Marion said to herself; but generally bore the ill-humor pityingly, feeling sorry for a girl who could do as Susan had done. The fact was, that while Marion did not have Susan’s guilt often in her mind, Susan never forgot it when she saw Marion.Nevermay be too strong a word to use; but Susan was constantly uneasy in Marion’s company, often positively unhappy, wishing over and over again she had never heard of “Storied West Rock,” especially never, never been tempted to steal that story, and palm it off for her own.
Not a day of her life but she expected to be found out, to be disgraced before the school, perhaps to be expelled. Poor Susan! she is reaping now the result of her selfish lifetime ambition to be among the noted ones, to be thought of first, and treated like a heroine! Ambition is a very laudable thing; we should all try to do our best, but never should it lead us into doing220selfish, mean, dishonorable things; then it becomes a sin and not a virtue.
It was the weakness, nay, something worse, in Susan’s character, as we all know, always leading her into trouble, because it was so wholly selfish.
If Marion could have reasoned all this out as we can, she would have had fewer compunctions of conscience as she sat holding her mother’s letter in her hand, thinking over its contents.
It was some time before she could fully enjoy all the items of family news it contained. Then they drew her pleasantly back to the dear home, the small parish, and the life-long friends she had left there.
Gladys had been watching her as she read the letter, amused and interested by the different phases of feeling her face showed; when she saw her fold it up, she asked,—
“What’s happened, Marion? You’ve looked as if you had been at a funeral, and then at a wedding, while you were reading it.”
“I have—almost,” and Marion could laugh now. “Let me read you the last part of it; it is so like home.”
Then Marion read them about the children’s sum, and the parishioners’ kindness; and Gladys, as she listened, planned how she could help Marion without her ever suspecting from whence the help came, and Dorothy thought what a different home it must be from that she had left at Rock Cove.
Marion, instead of studying her next lesson, as it221was obviously her duty to do, sat with her book open before her, wondering how she could immediately enter upon a course of conduct that would give her a more enlarged and prominent religious influence. Never once suspecting that this was a way the tempter was taking to lead her from the true self-abnegation which is so vital to a growing Christian character. Single-eyed to God’s glory!
Miss Ashton in the recitation looked at her inquiringly several times. What could have happened, she wondered, to make Marion blunder so? She was generally prompt, and, considering how much she had to do to keep up with her class, correct; but to-day she seemed distraught, as if her mind were anywhere but upon her recitation. She stopped her after the lesson was finished, and asked her if she were sick; but Marion was well, nor was she, in her preoccupation, aware that Miss Ashton was not pleased.
She answered her carelessly, which increased the teacher’s uneasiness, and made her ask a little sharply, “What is it, Marion? You did badly in your recitation to-day.”
“Ma’am!” said Marion, looking at her in surprise.
“I said you made a bad recitation,” repeated Miss Ashton. “What has happened?”
Then the color grew deeper and deeper in Marion’s face. “My letter from my mother,” she said, “O Miss Ashton, I am so sorry!”
“Sorry for what? Is any one sick?”222
“No, Miss Ashton; but—but—there was so much to think of in it. I am so sorry I did badly.”
Now Miss Ashton smiled. “If that is all,” she said, “I will try to forgive you. Can’t you tell me something about your home letter? I like to hear of them.”
Then Marion poured out her whole heart, thanking her kind teacher simply and winningly for her own kind letter to the Western home, but giving no hint of the seed of evil the letter may have sown.
223CHAPTER XXXII.PENITENT.
Marion’s first plan in order to extend her religious influence was to get up a small prayer-meeting in her room.
To be sure, the room was shared by three others, and she had never quite gotten over the uncomfortable feeling that she was an intruder, particularly as Susan so often showed hostility to her; but a prayer-meeting surely was a thing no right-minded girl ought to object to. Of Dorothy’s approval she had no doubt. Gladys, if she did not wish to stay, would go away without the least hesitation. Susan! What Susan would do, who could tell? Knowing the need she had of a vital change in character, in order to be a Christian, Marion made no attempt to conceal from herself that her conversion alone was an object worth earnest and constant prayer; really the reward for the conquering of any diffidence she might have to overcome in instituting the meeting. It was not an hour after she had decided upon the twelve girls she would invite, before the tempter had her in his power again. She was planning the order of exercises for the meeting, which was as it should be; but224it was not as right that she was leaping forward in her thoughts to the criticisms which the girls would make upon the part she should take, the hope that they would admire her fluency and spirituality, and say to her when they were leaving the room,—
“O Marion! how much good you have done us! We shall be grateful to you as long as we live.”
If any one had told her that here, by this same desire for self-aggrandizement, or, to call it by its more common name of popularity, Susan had fallen, she would have been astonished indeed.
Prayer-meetings were by no means uncommon in this academy; but they were under the care of a teacher, and it was not long before the necessity of asking leave for the one in her room occurred to Marion; but here was a difficulty! Would not Miss Ashton ask her questions about this, which she would find difficult to answer; such as, “What made her propose it? What did she expect to accomplish?” If she did ask these, what could she say?
There followed another day of poor recitations, and Marion, for almost the first time since she joined the school, was undeniably cross. By night she was sitting on the penitential stool, ashamed, tired, and full of wonder as to what had happened to her. As is not unusual in such cases, she was inclined to blame every one but herself. Miss Palmer had lost her patience with her because she hesitated over a difficult place in her mathematical lesson, and had snapped her up before the class; Anna Dawson225had laughed at her blunder, and the whole class had most unkindly smiled. Dorothy had put her arm around her and asked her if she was sick, when she knew there was nothing the matter with her. Even Gladys had stopped scratching with her slate-pencil, looking at her in a way that said as plainly as words could, “What a nervous thing you are, not to bear the scratching of a pencil without wincing;” and as for Susan, tormenting as she had been on other days, she had been angelic in comparison with this. After all, she had too much good common-sense and true religious feeling to sit upon her stool long without beneficial results. It was nearly time for the lights to be put out before she began to see the first thing to be done was the right one; that is always sure. Do the duty nearest to you, then those more distant fall readily into line and are easily met. This was, to see Miss Ashton, no matter how awkward it would be to tell her that the thought of the prayer-meeting was first put into her head by Miss Ashton’s letter home; that before, her religious influence had not been a thing of which she had for a moment thought, but that now she wished to make it tell.
“I’ll go at once,” she said to herself. “I won’t give it up because I’m a coward. I shall not sleep a wink unless it’s settled. Life is short; death may come at any unexpected moment. I should not like to have my Judge ask why I had not done my duty, when, perchance, I, even I, might have been a poor,226weak instrument, but still an instrument, in saving a soul.”
In this spirit Marion went to Miss Ashton’s room, quite forgetting the lateness of the hour, and knocked timidly at the door.
Miss Ashton, wearied by her day’s anxieties, did not approve of these late calls, and only answered them for fear of sickness, so it was some time before she said, “Come in.”
She was not surprised to see Marion, for Miss Palmer had already reported her failure in the mathematical class; but she said kindly,
“What is wrong now, Marion? Have you had another letter from home?”
“No, Miss Ashton; it is—it was—I mean, I wanted to ask you if you had any objection to my having a prayer-meeting in my room?”
“A prayer-meeting in your room?” repeated Miss Ashton. “Why do you ask it?”
This was the question Marion had expected; but now, with Miss Ashton looking straight in her eyes, she hesitated to answer it.
“I thought—I hoped,” she blundered at last, “that I might do more good,—might, perhaps, save Susan.”
“I see,” and Miss Ashton looked very grave now. “Your mother has told you what I wrote her of your religious influence here, and you wish to increase it; but why Susan particularly?”
Now Marion found herself unexpectedly in deep waters. If she attempted to answer this question,227what disclosures she would have to make! A tell-tale! A mischief-maker! A character of all others she despised, and so did, she well knew, the whole school. She hung her head, the color coming into her face, and the tears into her eyes.
“There is something wrong here,” Miss Ashton thought, but she only said,—
“I know Dorothy is a good girl; I am very fond of Gladys; but why do you select Susan as the one in the whole school to be prayed for, or with?”
If an equivocation had been natural or easy to Marion, she might have been ready with several now, which perhaps would have satisfied Miss Ashton; but she was a straightforward, honest girl, who never in her whole life had been placed before where she hesitated what to answer; if she had been a culprit to-night, she would hardly have looked more utterly discomfited than standing there trying to look Miss Ashton in the face.
“You do not choose to answer me,” Miss Ashton said after waiting a moment. “Very well, then, we will go back to the prayer-meetings; I think it would be unwise for you to attempt any such thing. You might at first find a few girls who would be willing to come, but they would soon tire of it, and you would find yourself alone, unless Dorothy’s kind heart made her willing to remain. Let me tell you, my dear Marion, the best, in fact the only way for a pupil to exert a strong and lasting religious influence is by living a consistent Christian life. What youare228always tells, never what you may appear. If you are truly desirous to exert this influence, you will let your companions see it in your daily walk and conversation. All the prayer-meetings you could have would be useless, if you yourself failed in a Christian grace.
“To be kind, loving, gentle, true, faithful in all your duties, great and small, that is what your parents and I hope for in you. I had almost said, and I am sure you will not misunderstand me, I would rather have the influence of good recitations, strict observance of rules, lady-like behavior in all places and at all times, than a prayer-meeting in your room every night in the week. Now it is late; go back, and if you do not wish to tell me what is wrong with Susan, I must be all the more observant of her myself. Good-night.”
Marion said “Good-night” faintly; certainly this was a very different reception from what she had expected. “She wants me to be perfect,” she said to herself fretfully, “and she knows that I never can be; then Susan! What have I done? Oh, dear! dear! I wish I had never thought about a prayer-meeting.”
So far she had only dimly seen where her motives had been wrong, but she felt their check.
Fräulein Sausmann met her on her way to her room.
“Why, Marione!” she said, drawing her little self erect, and trying to look very dignified, “I am astonish! I am regret! You am very onright. You am to be gone to Fräulein Ashton next day and say229you regret; I determine on it! Marione, you stand-under?”
“I have just come from Miss Ashton,” said Marion gravely.
“You has just come! Very bad. Youschlecht Fräulein! What you for done?”
“Nothing, Fräulein. At least,” correcting herself as she remembered Susan, “I hope nothingschlecht.”
“You do not say right, Marione; I shame you German speak soschlecht.” Then the Fräulein laughed merrily, and standing on the tips of her little toes she kissed Marion on both cheeks.
The kisses went right to Marion’s heart, cheered and comforted her so her face had a less troubled look as she entered her room.
Susan was sitting at the table studying, and the searching glance she gave her made the color rush into Marion’s face.
“She’s gone and told of me, the ugly, mean, old thing,” thought Susan. “I knew she would sooner or later. Now I’m in for it!”
In vain she tried to fasten her attention on her book again. Over and over the consequences of the disclosure she went with beating heart. “Oh, if I had never, never, never done it!” she said to herself in the helpless, hopeless way that attends a wrong action. The short-lived celebrity the story had given her had all died away, nothing remained but this dreadful regret, and fear of what was to come.
When she saw Marion go into her bedroom, she230had almost a mind to follow her and confess the truth. Then she thought Marion knew it already, had perhaps told Miss Ashton, and a better thing to do would be to go to Miss Ashton and make the confession; to go at once, this very night, before she had a chance to tell the whole school: perhaps if she did, Miss Ashton would be merciful, would scold and forgive her. She looked at the clock; if she made haste there would be five minutes before they must put their lights out! Once done, what a relief it would be!
She darted from the room, not daring to trust a moment’s delay; but when she reached the corridor the lights were already turned out. All would soon be darkness, and then none were allowed to leave their rooms.
But Susan was desperate now; she knew her way down the long flights of stairs so well that she had no fear: her only thought was to reach Miss Ashton, to confess, to know her punishment, if punishment there were to be.
She flitted softly, like a ghost, through the long corridors, down the long stairs; but when she came to Miss Ashton’s door her gas was turned out, and that meant she would not open her door again that night.
“I’ll knock! Perhaps, just perhaps, she will let me in;” but there was no response to Susan’s knock. She stood waiting until she shivered with nervous dread from head to foot, then she crept back to her room, and tossed restlessly through a weary night.