Miss Ashton's New Pupil Part 26

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 cla.s.s; 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, what 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 you _are_ always 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.

Fraulein 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 astonis.h.!.+ I am regret! You am very onright.

You am to be gone to Fraulein Ashton next day and say you 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. You _schlecht Fraulein_! What you for done?"

"Nothing, Fraulein. At least," correcting herself as she remembered Susan, "I hope nothing _schlecht_."

"You do not say right, Marione; I shame you German speak so _schlecht_." Then the Fraulein 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, she had 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 s.h.i.+vered with nervous dread from head to foot, then she crept back to her room, and tossed restlessly through a weary night.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

SPRING VACATION.

The bright light of a sunny day has a wonderful influence in quieting fears, and the next morning when Susan waked and found her room cheerful, everything looking natural and pleasant, her first feeling was one of shame for all she had suffered the night before. Nothing was easier now than to make herself believe she had been foolish in her suspicion of Marion; indeed, it was not long before she had made herself almost sure that Marion knew nothing about the stolen story, that she had wronged her in suspecting, even if she did, that she would be mean enough to betray her. For the first time since she copied it, she treated Marion not only kindly but affectionately, much to Marion's surprise, for she knew how near she had come to betraying Susan, and remembered Miss Ashton's saying, "If you do not choose to tell me what is the matter with Susan, I must be all the more observant of her myself." Would she watch her? Could she ever in any way find out about "Storied West Rock"? "At any rate," Marion comforted herself by thinking, "it will not be through me; but I wish I had not said even what I did."

She wondered over Susan's advances, and met them coldly, shamefacedly.

"If you only knew," she said to herself, "how different you would act!"

Very important as these events seem to those particularly engaged, they make little apparent difference in the life of a large school.

Marion again made faulty recitations, and again her teachers were troubled by them; but Susan, having in a measure, she could hardly understand how, been thrown off her fears, was unusually brilliant in her cla.s.ses, winning what she valued so much, words of approbation from her teachers.

The school work went on now with much success. The holiday break-up was fairly over. Was.h.i.+ngton's Birthday was not celebrated other than with an abundance of little hatchets of all designs and colors. Easter was too far away, and the _animus_ of the school was for quiet study.

Even the club held meetings less often. The two girls who had been the chief planners of whatever mischief originated from it, Mamie Smythe and Annie Ormond, were on their best behavior, knowing full well that another misdeed, no matter of what character, meant expulsion.

Upon these weeks preceding the Easter vacation, Miss Ashton had learned to rely for the best part of the year's work; so uneventfully, with the exception of now and then some slight escapade on the part of the pupils, the term rolled on to its spring rest.

Easter came in the early part of April this year, but the season was backward, even snowstorms coming now and then; and fierce winds, more like March than April, forbade any hunting for early flowers, or looking, as so many longing eyes did, for the swelling of the bare branches of the trees, or the first shadowing of the green ta.s.sels that waited to show themselves to warm sunbeams.

There were no examinations in this school, or marking the grade of scholars.h.i.+p; but for all that, there was never a doubt who were the best scholars, or who would have taken the prizes if any had been given.

A week before Easter, Marion received a letter from her Aunt Betty, inviting her to spend the coming recess with her; but she declined it, asking that the visit might be deferred until the long summer vacation, when, as she was probably not to return home, she should be very glad to come. Evidently Aunt Betty had forgotten whatever was unpleasant in the Thanksgiving visit, and to be among the mountains through some of the hot summer weeks seemed to Marion would be pleasant indeed. But when the vacation came, and she found herself with only a few other girls almost alone in the great desolated building, she more than once regretted her decision.

A pleasant young teacher of gymnastics, Miss Orne, was left in charge, but she was tired, and more anxious to rest than to amuse the girls, so they were left pretty much to themselves, and pa.s.sed the ten days of vacation in the best way they could.

"Girls will be girls," that was what Miss Ashton said when the pupils who had been at home came back with their summer outfits, and she found the whole attention of the school given for a few days to their examination and comparison.

"If I could hear you talk half as much about any branch of study, or your art lessons, as I hear you talk about your new clothes," she said with a pleasant laugh, "I should be delighted; but I suppose nothing seems more important to you now than the fas.h.i.+ons, and, on the whole, I don't know but I am glad of it."