Helen Grant's Schooldays Part 26

Helen ran down the steps out to the sidewalk, looking happy and merry.

"You poor child, you are not yet resolved into a demi-semi-quaver or any other shaky thing. But you should have been with us! I was awfully afraid of snakes, and one had to sit down and help to pick out the beggar ticks, though I long to give them the old-fas.h.i.+oned, appropriate country name. Why such things were allowed to grow I can't see. We discovered a new rivulet meandering down the mountain side, and a royal bed of ferns, and one of two new specimens of bloom. As for you--I observe the jabberwock has not slain you, so I suppose you conquered him!"

Helen laughed as she took Roxy's outstretched hand, which she could not very well help, and said, "I have the answer of a good conscience."

"And we have the answer of sights and sounds and a wonderful sunset."

"Yes, I saw that."

The girls were talking across each other and showing flowers. Becky, the general factotum, brought a jardiniere and put in all but the golden-rod, which was reserved for a tall j.a.panese vase, and they were set on each side of the hall door. Then the crowd went to fix up a little for dinner.

Helen stole a furtive glance over at Miss Craven. She was simply stolid, indifferent, and went to her room while the others paced up and down the piazza in twos and threes, exchanging confidences, or someone sang a song in the long parlor. Miss Lane, down in one corner of the veranda, was telling Greek legends to half a dozen girls. It was a picture of friendly content and enjoyment.

"I wonder if Miss Craven is crying in her room?" and Helen really longed to go to her. She was so overflowing with happiness.

CHAPTER XII

THE COURAGE OF CONVICTIONS

The last mail came up just after dinner. It was in the Aldred House mail-bag, and Mrs. Aldred handed out the letters. One she laid on the table. But the recipient had no idea of it and was not among the applicants.

When they were all gone she took that up. It was in a modern business hand with a good deal of strength in it, not the kind of hand usual for country farmers. The post mark was North Hope.

"Will you ask Miss Grant to come to me, Becky?"

Helen flew with eager blitheness through the hall and glanced with happy inquiring eyes.

"Was there a letter for me? I did not expect one so soon."

"Is this from your uncle?" she held it up.

"Oh, no. That is from Mr. Warfield. I could tell that hand among a hundred. Isn't it strong and quite as if he knew his own mind?"

She was positively eager with delight as she reached out her hand.

"He is no relative?"

"Oh, the Princ.i.p.al of the school where I went. You know I told you of the interest he took in me."

"Of course you have read the school regulations in your room?"

Helen's bright face was suddenly shadowed.

"Oh, I do believe--I _did_ forget all about it. I wrote to Mrs. Van Dorn and then to my uncle, and there seemed so many things I wanted to say to him, and I just hurried them down. You see he asked me to write to him----"

Helen paused embarra.s.sed. She knew just where the little card was tacked beside the door. Various rules and regulations and hours and a notice that no correspondence would be allowed without permission, to any gentleman except father and brothers or guardians. And she had never thought of it at that moment.

"It must have been because he seemed to me like a guardian," she explained. "That does not excuse my inattention, but please believe me, Mrs. Aldred, that I didn't willfully break the rule. And you may read the letter."

"You have the right of the first reading of it. Sit here, will you?"

Helen cut the end of the envelope, and was soon lost in it. Smiles pa.s.sed over her face, then she drew her brows in a little crease and the lips were pressed together with a touch of annoyance. Then the smiles again.

Mrs. Van Dorn had asked that Helen Grant should not be allowed to correspond with Mr. Warfield. She did not approve of his influence over Helen. It was too purely masculine. And Helen was too young to have a man friend. It might divide her school interest, and she had selected Aldred House because she wanted Helen to have the best feminine training.

Mrs. Aldred had smiled over this when she read Mrs. Van Dorn's letter.

Strange that the fear should so soon have materialized.

"Will you please read it," asked Helen in a low tone. "I think he doesn't quite like a girls' school. And he is all for study. He would push anyone right straight along, and he believes my music would be wasted time. I dare say I confessed I was not very bright at it."

The letter was certainly un.o.bjectionable, a little severe perhaps, betraying the school princ.i.p.al, but still showing the high esteem in which he held Helen's capabilities. Such a correspondence would not be likely to do any student harm.

"You see, Helen," she began in a tone of sweet friendliness, "I am answerable for the girls committed to my charge. Some of the older ones have young men friends who would be very glad to keep up a correspondence, and no doubt two or three years hence the girls would feel mortified at knowing letters of theirs were in the man's possession. I have known young lads to read letters aloud to their college or club friends. It is a demoralizing and indiscreet thing, and no high-minded mother would consent to her daughter doing it without her knowledge or inspection. One rule, therefore, must apply to all such correspondences without the mother's consent. A letter like this would do a girl no harm, indeed, I think your Mr. Warfield rather severe."

"I don't quite understand how I could have done it so carelessly," Helen said in her frank, honest way. "And I am very, very sorry. But I should like to write and explain to him why it is"--she cast about for a word--"inadmissable."

"Of course it is best to do that."

Helen glanced up in such a straightforward fas.h.i.+on. There was nothing concealed. And to make her renunciation still more earnest and the obedience more cheerful, she said:

"I don't mean that I shouldn't care for the letters, for I understand what Mr. Warfield means by every line, and sometimes it would be a pleasure to write to so good a friend, for after all I owe him the best fortune of my life. I am doing it without any demur because it is one of the rules of the school and I do honestly and truly wish to keep them."

"Thank you for your ready acquiescence," and Mrs. Aldred's smile told Helen the thoughtlessness had been condoned.

"I will bring it to you to decide upon----"

"No," the lady replied, "I can trust you to say just what is right and proper."

Helen's eyes were in a soft mist as she raised them, and picking up her letter she made a graceful obeisance as she left the room.

Yes, there was the notice. How could she have let it slip from her mind.

She had a vague idea that it really couldn't apply to a man like Mr.

Warfield, but it was the rule and it must be kept. It did take a certain something out of her life that she could not have described, but she felt it. He was so interested in her progress. For had he not roused her and made a scholar out of her? She might never have known what the hunger meant but for him, and accepted the husks even if under protest.

How much richer and finer all her life would be. She said frankly that she was sorry, and that she had counted on the letters.

He was annoyed at the foolishness as he termed it. If she were sixteen instead of fourteen it would have been different.

The days were so full and pa.s.sed so rapidly to Helen. The autumn came on in all its glory and splendor. The hills, they were almost mountains, about Westchester were wonderful in their changing colors, but she thought nothing could describe those over the river until she began to read Ruskin, and that brought her nearer Mrs. Van Dorn again.

She and Daisy Bell slipped into a pleasant girl friends.h.i.+p. Helen was the stronger, more energetic, more ambitious. But then Daisy had only to be educated, to go home to her parents and take a place in society and marry. The girls _did_ talk of the kind of husbands they would like and the wedding journeys they would take. Two of the seniors were really engaged.

"And you can't tell how many have lovers," Miss Mays said one evening when several were sitting, curled up on one bed. "Of course you can't write to _him_ unless you are regularly engaged and your mother consents. But if I wanted to correspond with anyone, I'd find a way."

"And disobey the rule," declared Helen.